[Off-Topic] Community Chat Thread

[TheGildedGoose]

I just think Magic kinda sucks right now. I'm not ready to leave (I'm playing at my newly renovated LGS on Sunday), but the way Wizards is handling practically everything just rubs me the wrong way. You used to be able to 'digest' a set for a while, really cogitate on it and spend time with it. It's just a firehose of products now, and very few of them feel special. Perpetual hype, constant and confusing changes, excessive art treatments...I mean how long can you redline a car before the engine finally gives out?

I've felt this way for a while, but unfortunately this game is in my DNA. I hate it.

[DirkGently]

Stage 1: I hate this product. I loathe it. I oppose everything it stands for.

Stage 2; I should look at the cards to make sure they're stupid. I bet they're stupid.

Stage 3: you know, if I built it this way, I bet I could make a pretty solid…

Stage 4: self hatred.

[duducrash]

I don't plan on like, going anywhere. I just coulndt justify having several months of house payment sitting on a shelf that I never touch. Downsizing might be good for me + magic imho

Stage 4: self hatred.

I'll hate myself no matter what, might as well sling some cardboard

[ISBPathfinder]

I just think Magic kinda sucks right now. I'm not ready to leave (I'm playing at my newly renovated LGS on Sunday), but the way Wizards is handling practically everything just rubs me the wrong way. You used to be able to 'digest' a set for a while, really cogitate on it and spend time with it. It's just a firehose of products now, and very few of them feel special. Perpetual hype, constant and confusing changes, excessive art treatments...I mean how long can you redline a car before the engine finally gives out?

I totally understand you. I have felt varying versions of this since war of the spark and thats been a few years now. In the end though, I just try to cut back what I spend on this game and if there was ever a time that I would buy things to have it on hand now my priority is to see how little I can spend while maintaining my ability to play the game. I still love commander I just hate what they keep trying to do to it.

It also helps how much of a pain in the ass it is to get out of the game. There was a time where you could get out a lot easier but nobody really wants to deal with bulk stuff anymore and dealing with expensive cards in cash is also getting harder these days. Just ride it out for now as its not a good time to be buying more and its not a good time to sell out either (assuming the game is still a thing in a few years). Given magic's long run survival so far I wouldn't bet against them still being a thing in a few years but its a bad time to cash out right now.

[DirkGently]

Had some sweet games last night and want to talk about it. And by talk I mostly mean brag about it.

Game 1, Slogurk, the Overslime vs Talion, the Kindly Lord, Rivaz of the Claw.

The first game is the only one where I (arguably) broke the power level - I had just constructed the Slogurk deck on the ride down and wanted to give it a try. Despite having sol ring + exploration my hand dried up kinda quickly and the deck felt kinda awkward, but Talion got mana screwed (plus I double strip mined him) (plus I stole his commander) and Rivaz got flooded so, y'know. Still not sure that deck is too strong considering how clunky it felt, but I Talion seemed pretty unhappy so I decided not to play it against those players again.

Game 2, Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor precon vs Aragorn, the Uniter vs Rivaz of the Claw

As penance for arguably breaking the power level, I swapped to the tegwyll precon for game 2. Got a pretty solid early curve, nothing fancy just a bunch of okay faeries with a Glen Elendra Liege on the top. Narrowly managed to kill the Rivaz player just as he was about to go fairly nuclear with a Scourge of Valkas and Molten Echoes. Had just the right answers to keep the pressure on. Aragorn player was starting to get scary but I had just enough to swing in for exact lethal.

Game 3, Sauron, the Dark Lord set-commander vs Jodah, the Unifier vs Eriette of the Charmed Apple vs The Tenth Doctor + Rose Tyler modified precon

I was a bit concerned about the Jodah player being overpowered for the table, but it was the player who I'd locked out of the game with Slogurk so I didn't press (though I do hate it when people will push the power level envelope when they're losing). Funny enough it was the precon that took off to an early lead with some very large hits off Rose. Eriette did basically nothing except slowly drain them. Jodah player I kept killing his commander as long as I had removal because Jodah is %$#%$#%. He was clearly getting a bit grumpy but honestly, you play a KIS commander, don't be surprised when it gets KISed. Anyway, precon keeps wiping the board (turns out the modifications was exclusively adding board wipes), but her life was getting pretty low. I ran out of removal for Jodah, so I had to let him untap - surprise, by the end of the turn he had a wall of unblockable blockers, awesome. At this point, the Eriette player and I are basically allies, so I swing into him for the 3-point life drain which kills the precon and brings Jodah to 8. I play The One Ring and Gríma Wormtongue so he can't gain life (off his Honden of Cleansing Fire, if nothing else). Eriette has no auras in play because Eriette is garbage, he passes doing nothing, he's got no cards in hand and basically nothing going on whatsoever. Jodah develops a monster board but I've got protection so he can't do anything offensive, I'm super dead next turn though. I dig hard off Sauron and the ring and draw into Orcish Bowmasters, but no other direct damage. I hit Eriette to bring Jodah down to 5, but I'm pretty sure I'm dead. Eriette topdecks into freaking Night's Whisper, and I windmill slam the bowmasters, dinging Jodah for 3, plus one from an Aura from Eriette, plus one from Grima for exact lethal. I clean up Eriette easily after that.

Game 4, The Eleventh Doctor + Amy Pond modified precon (borrowed) vs Chatterfang, Squirrel General vs Sliver Gravemother

Having seen Rose get pretty big and scary, and having won every game so far, I decide to play the decidedly less effective 11th + Amy. I end up with a ton of wipes but struggling for decent value. Barely use my commanders except to ping in for unblockable damage - good god the 11th is awful. End up sniping off Chatterfang with 7 attacks from the 11th (last 2 in a double-turn via Regenerations Restored, accelerated with The Ninth Doctor) - to "spite" me, he sacrifices his board with a Bastion of Remembrance in play, which actually helps me massively to get slivers life low. I perma-remove sliver gravemother with The Pandorica, but I'm starting to lose ground - on her last turn, at 2 life with 7 on my board, she taps out for a twice-replicated Lavabelly Sliver to get herself out of range, but I have exactly enough mana to blow up the first one before the other two enter, so she only gains 4 life instead of 6 and I have lethal.

Really satisfying wins - 3/4 with low-powered decks and a lot of exact-lethal victories - but I do feel slightly weird about winning that consistently when the pods are largely the same players. I tried to play low-power decks after the first game and did little verbal politicking, so I feel like I was hamstringing myself about as much as I can without deliberately making bad moves. The Talion/Aragorn/Jodah player left for another pod after the third game and seemed grumpy, but idk that there's much to be done about it.

[Dragonlover]

but I do feel slightly weird about winning that consistently when the pods are largely the same players

Eh, sometimes it happens. One evening isn't really enough of a sample size, and its not like you had a bunch of blowout victories.

Dragonlover

[cheonice]

I just think Magic kinda sucks right now. I'm not ready to leave (I'm playing at my newly renovated LGS on Sunday), but the way Wizards is handling practically everything just rubs me the wrong way. You used to be able to 'digest' a set for a while, really cogitate on it and spend time with it. It's just a firehose of products now, and very few of them feel special. Perpetual hype, constant and confusing changes, excessive art treatments...I mean how long can you redline a car before the engine finally gives out?

I totally understand you. I have felt varying versions of this since war of the spark and thats been a few years now. In the end though, I just try to cut back what I spend on this game and if there was ever a time that I would buy things to have it on hand now my priority is to see how little I can spend while maintaining my ability to play the game. I still love commander I just hate what they keep trying to do to it.

It also helps how much of a pain in the ass it is to get out of the game. There was a time where you could get out a lot easier but nobody really wants to deal with bulk stuff anymore and dealing with expensive cards in cash is also getting harder these days. Just ride it out for now as its not a good time to be buying more and its not a good time to sell out either (assuming the game is still a thing in a few years). Given magic's long run survival so far I wouldn't bet against them still being a thing in a few years but its a bad time to cash out right now.

Downsizing sounds right. I built so many decks I rarely get to play, so it makes sense to fokus on my most beloved ones. A good friend invested in a printer recently, so it's the way of the proxies to test new cards before I purchase everything I "need". I'm looking into the craftier sides of the hobby, too. I made some Command Zones out of wood, created my own tokens and build a treasure/food/clue counter out of Lego.

[materpillar]

On an unrelated note. As of a few minutes ago I'm in the top 1000 players on America's server in Marvel Snap. It's pretty satisfying especially since I basically never jam meta decks.

[Lifeless]

On an unrelated note. As of a few minutes ago I'm in the top 1000 players on America's server in Marvel Snap. It's pretty satisfying especially since I basically never jam meta decks.

Nice. I hover around 4k most months because I like to mess around with nonsense like Nimrod once I make infinite. There's a shocking number of people playing this game by the way, based on the infinite numbers alone.

In unrelated news I did it. I managed to watch a horror movie this month. Barbarian was good - an interesting mix of dread and some dark comedy. Some difficult themes mixed in there that will bother some, but I thought it was good.

[Guardman]

On an unrelated note. As of a few minutes ago I'm in the top 1000 players on America's server in Marvel Snap. It's pretty satisfying especially since I basically never jam meta decks.

Congrats.

I don't play Snap, but I know how hard it can be to break into the top like that. Any month I have the time I try to to get into Mythic for limited on Arena. If I do, I usually end the month in the twelve to thirteen hundred range, but I once ended the month in the top 1,000, which was nice.

[BlackbirdPlaysMTG]

On an unrelated note. As of a few minutes ago I'm in the top 1000 players on America's server in Marvel Snap. It's pretty satisfying especially since I basically never jam meta decks.

Nice, always fun to do well with rogue decks! Top 1000 is usually my goal in Hearthstone too. I should be playing Arena instead though, kinda burned out on Hearthstone. Used to play during Ixalan - played Merfolk both in paper and online - but I quit when it rotated out.

Lots of new players in my favourite LGS lately, so I bought the Virtue and Valor precon today. Now I have Faeries and Auras to jam against newer players. Upgraded both decks to my liking, but without breaking the bank (added like €40 euros of value to both decks). That way I have fun decks to play against newer players, and I can lend them out as well.

[Dunadain]

SNAP was a lot of fun on release, made infinite just about every season. But once I saw the signs that it was going the way of the %$#% mobile game I peaced out.

Glad other people are still enjoying it though.

[materpillar]

Nice. I hover around 4k most months because I like to mess around with nonsense like Nimrod once I make infinite. There's a shocking number of people playing this game by the way, based on the infinite numbers alone.

I'd be surprised if I stay this high the rest of the month. Everyone was just playing Modok-less Hela yesterday and I was playing extremely greedy Modok Hela and murdering them. It was quite fun.

SNAP was a lot of fun on release, made infinite just about every season. But once I saw the signs that it was going the way of the %$#% mobile game I peaced out.

Glad other people are still enjoying it though.

I'm still having a bunch of fun with it. I don't think it's gone the way of predatory monetizing based on power creep like a lot of mobile games. There's some power creep but way less than Magic The Gathering. I buy the battle pass about every other month and usually that's just for cosmetics and to support the game not because getting the newest cards (although the newest one Elsa is turbo broken). I have all but 11 cards and I'd have 5 of those but I spent tokens on 3 ultimate skin cosmetics. So basically I'd have almost every card having spent $60 which feels very non-predatory for me.

I doubt I'll be playing it a year or two out but it's been really fun so far.

I've been slowly variant inking out my favorite deck that I've taken to infinite the past pile of seasons has been immensely enjoyable too despite the fact that The Lizard refuses to ink and the Attuma variant I want refuses to appear.

Snapping on Weird World and watching my opponents struggle to pilot my deck is hilarious.

[ISBPathfinder]

Snap is and was cool. I put it down briefly as I was playing something else heavily and just didn't feel the need to go back. I like tcgs I just think they are a little excessive on their price tags to play and they also tend to force you to play daily to maintain optimal costs to play.

[Lifeless]

Attuma without Armor makes my head hurt.

I do think Snap is pretty predatory tbh. They hide behind most everything being cosmetics but everything is wildly expensive and the card acquisition is designed in a very deliberate way to prevent you from completing your collection. The token system was fine before Spotlight caches but I guess people weren't struggling enough so they had to change it \s.

[Dunadain]

Oh MTG isn't much better, the difference is I didn't realize how predatory MTG was until it was too late, I'm a captive audience now. XD

Anybody else play Elements, the Game back in the day? Now that was tcg! No micro transactions, and minimal power-creep (admittedly, the card pool was small enough that it was possible to keep all the cards in line, I don't hold MTG to that standard as physical cards can't be altered and they develop SO MANY new cards, SNAP, on the other hand, has no excuse). Alas it is now lost to time, another victim of the Flashpocalypse.

Edit: So much nostalgia in this screenshot, lol

[Ruiner]

In unrelated news I did it. I managed to watch a horror movie this month. Barbarian was good - an interesting mix of dread and some dark comedy. Some difficult themes mixed in there that will bother some, but I thought it was good.

Barbarian was a pretty enjoyable movie in my opinion. Kept my attention the whole time and developed a good atmosphere.

[materpillar]

Attuma without Armor makes my head hurt.

I used to run armor but I found that armor plus Attuma just always ate an Enchantress. He can hide behind invisible woman just as well.

[Venedrex]

Oh MTG isn't much better, the difference is I didn't realize how predatory MTG was until it was too late, I'm a captive audience now. XD

Anybody else play Elements, the Game back in the day? Now that was tcg! No micro transactions, and minimal power-creep (admittedly, the card pool was small enough that it was possible to keep all the cards in line, I don't hold MTG to that standard as physical cards can't be altered and they develop SO MANY new cards, SNAP, on the other hand, has no excuse). Alas it is now lost to time, another victim of the Flashpocalypse.

Edit: So much nostalgia in this screenshot, lol

Speaking of nostalgic flash games, did you ever play Hidden Dimensions? That was a neat game.

[DirkGently]

Hopefully this doesn't get too political, but I've been listening to Atlas Shrugged recently. It's more enjoyable than I expected, story-wise. In terms of subtlety, though, it's about one step away from having someone turn to the camera and say "here's what we learned today..."

It sure makes me feel less insecure about the word count of my novel. Holy crap, get an editor. And a weed whacker.

[Hermes_]

Hopefully this doesn't get too political, but I've been listening to Atlas Shrugged recently. It's more enjoyable than I expected, story-wise. In terms of subtlety, though, it's about one step away from having someone turn to the camera and say "here's what we learned today..."

I tried watching the movie and it was sooo boring, also I may have over-simplified it with "I don't like the rules so I'm taking my toys home" Have you gotten to the long John Galt lecturing the entire world, word is that it can take up to 6 hours to read it aloud.

[DirkGently]

I tried watching the movie and it was sooo boring, also I may have over-simplified it with "I don't like the rules so I'm taking my toys home" Have you gotten to the long John Galt lecturing the entire world, word is that it can take up to 6 hours to read it aloud.

Nah, he's not even a character yet. But people keep saying "Who is John Galt?" as a replacement for "Who knows?" and it's ridiculous. There better be a very thorough explanation for how that started and why, because it's so nonsensical.

[TheGildedGoose]

Did somebody say Ayn Rand?

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

[Hermes_]

I tried watching the movie and it was sooo boring, also I may have over-simplified it with "I don't like the rules so I'm taking my toys home" Have you gotten to the long John Galt lecturing the entire world, word is that it can take up to 6 hours to read it aloud.

Nah, he's not even a character yet. But people keep saying "Who is John Galt?" as a replacement for "Who knows?" and it's ridiculous. There better be a very thorough explanation for how that started and why, because it's so nonsensical.

TBH, I haven't read the book so i have no idea I'm sure there is at some point an explanation maybe?

Did somebody say Ayn Rand?

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Fun note: Rogers was the writer of Catwoman (2004) and Transformers (bay)

"I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at "therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.""
— Randall Munroe alttex for

[TheGildedGoose]

Fun note: Rogers was the writer of Catwoman (2004) and Transformers (bay)

Oh, dear.