#but this card legit looks unplayable

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than getting paid

Made magic cards for this week's Inventor's Fair contest! Also a card that was intended for a previous contest, but I didn't submit it

Also, I saw a thumbnail a bit ago that made me angry, as it featured a yugioh card turned into a magic card. I'd paste an image of the card, but the text would be illegible anyway, so I'll just paste the text

"Cannot be destroyed by battle. Once per turn (Quick Effect): You can target 1 Attack Position monster; change it to Defense Position, also, this card can make a second attack during each Battle Phase this turn. Your opponent cannot activate cards or effects in response to this effect's activation. Once per turn, when this card declares an attack on a face-up monster: You can activate this effect; until the end of this turn, this card gains ATK equal to half that monster's current ATK, and if it does, that monster's current ATK is halved."

There is so much about this that aggravates me, it was so clearly made by a yugioh player who barely understands anything about magic.

First of all: "Choose target attacking creature, make that creature block this card." None of this works. First of all, this can't be an activated ability because there's no colon, and it can't can't be a triggered ability because there's no "at", "when", or "whenever". So this ability can't exist. In yugioh, starting an activated ability by saying "target a monster" is perfectly allowed, so that's the first clue that this was made by a yugioh player. The second is the card calling itself "this card". In yugioh, this is how that's written, but in magic, not only do cards refer to themselves by name 90% of the time, but the word "card" refers to cards that aren't on the battlefield, so this is DEFINITELY incorrect.

But enough about petty templating concerns, the real problem is that this ability somehow forces an attacking creature to block. Anyone who has Played A Game Of Magic knows that that's not how anything works. The original card's effect changes an attack position monster to defense position, and attacking and blocking are basically the same thing right? Probably? Maybe? No fucking of course not, this ability makes NO sense.

Also, is this ability free? There's no cost to it, so can you just activate this on as many attacking creatures as you want to get that many additional combat phases? Also, "conduct" is another yugioh-ism, though it's normally used for stuff like "you cannot conduct your battle phase this turn". It's been awkwardly spliced together with magic's rules allowing for additional phases. It's supposed to allow Borrelsword to make an additional attack, which is definitely not the same thing as giving you an entire extra combat phase.

ALSO, are you able to activate this on your opponent's turn? You can do that in yugioh, but it's fine because it only allows an additional attack, which you can't use. But here it gives a whole extra combat phase! Does it let the opponent attack again? Because that'd be stupid, which would fit right in. ALSO, why the FUCK does Borrelsword gain trample?! Trample is a direct equivalent to yugioh's piercing battle damage, but Borrelsword DOESN'T HAVE PIERCING BATTLE DAMAGE. Indestructible is okay because it can't be destroyed by battle, flying at least makes sense with the art, and split second is a neat (if inaccurate) reference to its ability not allowing responses, but trample? Why? Wtf?

All of this is both a horrible magic card and a horrible conversion, so I made my own.

First off, Borrelsword can't be destroyed by battle, but, very importantly, it CAN be destroyed by card effects. The obvious equivalent would be "prevent all combat damage" ability, but that takes too much text, and I think that adding First Strike would plenty of battle protection while still keeping it vulnerable to removal effects.

Next, split second is not at all accurate; Borrelsword's summon CAN be negated (yugioh-ism for "countered"), and effects can be activated in response to its summon. Meanwhile, split second completely fails to prevent responses to its ability. However, I think split second is actually a good representation. In yugioh, responding to abilities is FAR more common that responding to summons, and the goal of the "can't respond" effect can be described as "avoiding negates". There's very few negates for abilities in magic, but plenty of negates for summons, so letting Borrelsword avoid negates in a different way still feels true to the intention of the card.

No flying because Borrelsword has no evasion, regardless of its art.

Then there's an ability that was completely forgotten on this conversion, Borrelsword's ability to steal ATK from monsters it attacks. This would be an easy conversion, but I think using Bushido would be very nice, getting across the spirit of "good at fighting other monsters" while cutting down on text. "Bushido N" means "When this creature blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +N/+N." Not perfect, but good enough, and certainly better than nothing at all.

Finally, there's its activated ability. Tapping could be an equivalent for changing battle position, but. not really. In fact, nothing about this ability translates well. However, there's a cute synergy between the Borrel monsters and another group of monsters, "Rokkets". They have effects that activate when you target them with a Link Monster's effect (Borrelsword is a link monster), so making Borrelsword target and tap your own creatures is a neat reference and adds a smooth cost to the ability. And the extra attack? I think giving menace and double strike is a good translation; either the opponent gets hit twice, or they lose two creatures.

All together, here's what I came up with

Is it balanced? Probably not, but it's 6 mana and dies to removal, so it's basically unplayable.

[i-am-nickelbolt]

I shouldn't, but I'm gonna.

The low-hanging fruit here is that this question disingenuous at best and asinine at worst. "Why do you hate Magic so much? Why do you feel like you have to whine and complain about every little thing that you don't agree with constantly? You clearly don't care about the people who work on this game at all." This is the inverse statement. Please stop with this hyperbolic nonsense.

Okay, now that that's out of the way.

Fact: Magic is unreasonably expensive. As of writing this, Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines is $40 market price on TCGPlayer. This is unreasonable.

Fact: This is not new. In 1994, a pack of Revised was $2.49. The local shop sold Revised Shivan Dragon, arguably the chase rare of the set, for $20. This was unreasonable. Adjusted for inflation, this would be $5.09 for a pack today, and $40.72 for a Shivan Dragon today, which is approximately the price of packs and chase rares today. Everyone's favorite Standard, original Ravnica Standard in 2006, had $20 shock lands that everyone needed twelve of for their 3 color decks. This was unreasonable. We were in the middle of the goddamn Great Recession, and Jace, The Mindsculptor was pushing $100. This was unreasonable. That MH2 has how many mythic rare staples is unreasonable. But ultimately we're talking about cardboard with a picture of a dragon on it and rules text, if you tell any "normies" that this card is $20, or $10, or even $5, they're gonna look at you like you're nuts! It's absurd to explain the value of cards to people! This game is, always has, and always will be unreasonable.

So yes, there are special treatments. But go back to 1998, and look at what Urza's Destiny foils were selling for. The prices for foil Ring of Gix make everything that's not Neon Ink or Numbered look cheap in comparison. And Ring of Gix was unplayable. Again, *this is not new.*

Why is it *now* all of a sudden, that the game is *truly* unreasonable?

Insider baseball. People are paying way, way too much attention to stock prices, conference calls, earnings, profits, and other corporate boardroom nonsense. Magic made a billion dollars last year, *clearly* the price gouging has begun.

Look, I'm as damaged by late-stage capitalism as anyone. (Wait, that's totally not true, being that I'm a cis-het white male with a comfortable salary and a wife that makes way more than I do, basically everyone else has got it way worse than me. But the point is...) I hear the words "monetization" and I fly into a blinding, white-hot rage. Magic is already unreasonably expensive.

it's unreasonable to think that Hasbro… … we're talking about Hasbro, y'all… get real. Hasbro is not going to be altruistic with pricing, especially not with their crown jewel. Anyone who thinks that other companies, especially publicly-traded companies, are any friendlier are fooling themselves. But are we really talking about overthrowing capitalism here?? We're not gonna start a revolution on MaRo's Tumblr.

Supply, demand, and markets exist outside of capitalism. If the supply isn't commensurate with demand, then shortages are unavoidable as scalpers will swoop in and buy all the product. Socialism and Communism don't necessarily change market forces because Socialism and Communism are about workers controlling the means of production, not making everything free. Luxury goods and collectibles will continue to exist under Socialism, some people will be able to afford them and others will not.

Yes, WotC can set their prices. We tried this experiment in 1995 where cards were getting unreasonably expensive, so lets make a reprint set to get more cards out there. I was around at that time. And the player base revolted when their $50 Ehrnam Djinns value evaporated, we got the Reserve List because the game almost legit died, and not in the internet hyperbole "Hasbro is killing Magic," nonsense. If you want to print cheap cards, you have to account for the fact that everyone who already owns cards are going to take a bath. This is why Masters sets are expensive, it's a nod to the fact that these cards have value, they're going to go down in value, but hopefully not too much.

Magic is, if you insist on buying cards, ultimately a luxury game for people who, on a global scale, are wealthy. You can tweak the knobs a bit, but this fact will always be true.

So the real conversation should be: What is the price that is reasonable, how did you come about this price, and what does WotC need to do to hit this price and ensure that it doesn't ever change? Nobody is having that conversation, because it's largely about what I *personally* can afford. There's no absolute line of what is affordable. People will be priced out of this game regardless. These arguments aren't tethered to anything. People are mad that cards are expensive? What that signals to people is that it's okay to sink money into this thing and you can expect to keep your value, and that's okay. We shouldn't have to stress out every time that a set gets printed that we're going to take a bath on what we've collected.

Give me an argument, in concrete terms, what a pack should cost. What should a chase mythic be worth? What should WotC do to hit that number, and never deviate from that number? There is no answer! It's arbitrary! "Just make the game cheaper" doesn't mean anything! It's just a complaint being shouted into the Void. It's all relative to what *you* find affordable.

If your sense of what is fun about Magic is only about being able to own and play all the expensive cards, then you probably have unreasonable expectations. If you feel like you have to pay attention to every release and buy every release and own every card, you have unreasonable expectations. If you feel like you need the most tuned version of a deck to have fun, you have unreasonable expectations. Pauper is a thing, you can build cheap and fun decks, you can play Penny Dreadful on Magic Online, you can proxy things when you play with your friends. You can build a cube to play infinitely with your friends. You can build your own custom set and print your own cards. You don't have to buy anything to play Magic.

Magic is absurdly expensive. Magic should be cheaper. There's reasonably nothing that can be done to make it categorically affordable, and unless you're playing specifically tournament Magic where you need to own legitimate cards and can't borrow them from friends or whatever, none of this matters in the least.

That's it, don't @ me, I'm out.

Why does Wizards hate the players of their game? Why do they feel the need to constantly milk as much money as possible out of its playerbase while trying to offer as little as they can get away with, constantly?

If you don’t think a Magic product has enough value for you, don’t get it. Our goal is to make products that players actively want.

[unpopularly-opinionated]

Alright, now that I’ve had sex I will give my two cents on Cyberpunk 2077. I’ll try to remain as spoiler-free as possible, but to be courteous I will still hide it. I won’t discuss story details, just gameplay and my overall thoughts.

First off, the game is fun as fuck. In my honest opinion, it definitely meets the hype it garnered throughout development. It really meets my expectation of an open-world Deus Ex-type experience.

Personally, I haven’t encountered too many bugs, and the ones I have haven’t been remotely frustrating. I am aware that is purely anecdotal however, as it seems a lot of other folks are getting bugs galore. Sometimes an item won’t load in, whether it’s in-world or sometimes it’s the clothing I equip (one time I equipped a pair of pants and it weirdly hid my dick but nothing else so I looked like a fucking Ken doll from the waist down, it was funny, a quick unequip and reequip fixed it). One time an NPC walked through a wall. And occasionally, when standing on an edge (like a curb or a barrier or something) if I move I’ll accelerate to a really quick speed. Again, nothing has impacted me negatively, it’s all just been sort of odd duck bugs.

The game sounds incredible. Honestly one of things I was most excited for was how good the game would sound, and yeah it sounds excellent. Completely fits the theme it’s going for. Sometimes the music is obnoxiously loud which I know could be a turn off for many people, but I actually think it fits the world to have EDM blaring through your speakers while you’re skulking about or in a big shootout.

I can’t really attest to the graphics since my card isn’t that great (GTX 970 for those who are curious if it’ll run on that) so I’m playing on Medium graphics. It doesn’t look too bad at Medium, but it’s definitely a noticeable downgrade from the marketing. Cars tend to pull up as weird metal blobs before their rigid bodies pop into existence. Food looks under-detailed. People and the overall world still look fantastic.

Combat is very similar to the Deus Ex games. You usually have an option of stealth or open combat. Sometimes a gig will request that you don’t raise an alarm or don’t drop any bodies, though so far those have all been optional. I will say that sometimes it feels like stealth isn’t really an option even though technically it is. I ran into a few areas where there’s a guard posted at every entrance, and often multiple making it difficult to sneak behind one to knock them out. Also, and this might classify as a bug I honestly don’t know if it’s just user error or what, but sometimes the game will tell me guards have spotted a body I K/O’d even when I have every guard highlighted and can see that they’re nowhere near where I hid the bodies. I don’t know if it’s like a camera I’m missing or what though.

If I had to point at some aspects I didn’t like, in the interest of fairness, I would say the driving is horrendous. I find it almost completely unplayable to be honest. You constantly have to tap the brakes, never hold the gas for longer than a nanosecond, and turning is an absolute nightmare. I could very well just suck at it, but for me at least, I stick to walking.

There is a crafting system which...if I had to be honest, I would say it’s sort of unnecessary and possibly there just to pad the skill trees. I haven’t used it at all in my 12-14 hours of play, maybe it will become more useful as time goes on, but genuinely I don’t imagine so except perhaps for upgrading your gear since some gear is unique and you’re meant to upgrade it to get better versions of that one piece.

Character progression works very similar to how it works in Skyrim. You have five skills: Body (Strength, HP, Stamina), Reflexes (Speed, Evasion, Weapons Handling), Technical Ability (Tech Weapons, Technology), Intelligence (Hacking), and Cool (Stealth, Persuasiveness(?)). From there, each skill has sub-skills which are too many to list. Every time you use a sub-skill (for example, killing an enemy from stealth or hacking a person) you will gain EXP for that sub-skill and eventually level it up which will unlock perks and perk points to unlock those perks. I put a (?) around Persuasiveness because to be honest, I’m not sure that that’s a good word for what Cool seems to impact. Occasionally during dialog you will see the Cool symbol next to an option, similar to a skill check in like Fallout New Vegas, and so far none have been me “persuading” anyone, but they provide an alternative dialog option which could potentially lead to more information.

As soon as I was able to, I went and paid for sex. Gotta say, 2/10 experience IMO. Like it’s hilarious to talk about this because it’s kinda cringe but like we’re all thinking about it so fuck it, why not. There are legit dick jiggle physics in the game, I.E. your dick literally jiggles as you move, but you never see it, even during sex. I was actually a little surprised (and mildly disappointed because like come on). Obviously I’m not playing this game just for the in-game sex, but I have to say I was expecting more. Also there appears to be only two options for people to fuck, a girl and a guy. So yeah, 2/10 experience. Not worth the 100 Eurodollars.

[sigurdjarlson]

Pokémon opinions coming in

Here’s the thing I do like what I’ve seen so far in terms of content and such. It has some neat new mechanics and content. It would be great if not for some serious problems overshadowing the good

The problem is it’s at best annoying to play and at it’s worst borderline unplayable at times because of the enormous amount of technical issues.

I’m legit going to wait till they (hopefully) patch the game to play any more of it because I got that annoyed with the frame rate and general glitchy, buggy gameplay.

I’m just gonna go play some of the older Pokémon (on switch) games. Fresh start baby, starting with Let’s Go Pikachu! :)

But seriously it’s inexcusable to release a game in this state. I genuinely think they need to let go of their release a game every year model.

I get that they want to keep content for all Pokémon media (the card games, anime, other games spin-offs etc) flowing but it’s just not working anymore.

They need more time or they need a bigger team (or both). It’s irritating because people would be willing to wait longer for a polished game that works rather than getting a game that doesn’t more quickly.

They’re a billion dollar company. There’s no excuse.

I don’t think it’s necessarily the Switch’s fault. I agree the Switch needs an upgrade in general but I don’t think that’s why it’s struggling to handle Pokémon Scarlet and Violet. It handles games that are a lot bigger and more detailed fairly well all the time.

It’s just poorly optimized, rushed and unfinished because of time constraints.

That’s not most of the team that’s working on the game’s fault of course. It’s whoever sets the damn deadlines and makes it into one Big Crunch fest.

The pure potential Pokémon has now that it’s on something that can handle so much more than a 3DS can…they’re wasting it.

I loved Sword personally. Unpopular opinion I know. It had its issues but I genuinely found it fun and really liked the characters. I was able to mostly ignore the bad because I enjoyed the good so much.

I can’t do that with Scarlet at this point in time.

I could also talk about the graphical fidelity and animations in Scarlet which is a lesser issue but one that’s noticeable. It just doesn’t..look great in a lot of places. Pokémon games have never been games you constantly fawn over the graphics in but I would enjoy a visually pleasing game nonetheless

I don’t mean hyper realism or anything obviously. I just mean a rich, detailed world that looks good.

Some of it is so low quality I’m like how can you put this out without being ashamed, Gamefreak? (The Sandwich eating animation haunts me)

There are games that look gorgeous on the Switch, so again there’s no excuse. Pokémon Snap is so goddamn gorgeous and I get it’s a spin-off game and they don’t have to focus on as many mechanics, the gameplay, etc as main series games…but they /could/ look like that if they put the damn time and effort in.

Imagine a rich beautiful world with Pokémon running around and interacting with the environment, with each other, with you like in Snap in the main series game.

Also I know I know people are tired of hearing about the National Dex but personally I think they should have all Pokémon in there (I thought this with Sword and Shield too) I don’t care if it takes longer because they have to animate and create more models. I’m willing to wait.

(I don’t mind if some pokemon come in later expansions either as long as they do make it into the game. That’s actually probably the best way to do it so it isn’t overwhelming)

I admit I’m not a big fan of the crystallizing gimmick this time around or whatever it’s called. I think it’s kinda underwhelming? They should have kept dynamaxing imo. The different forms were neat and who doesn’t like giant Pokémon?

People complain about the gimmicks but they’re usually pretty neat it’s just annoying how they’re thrown out never to be seen again next generation? I mean obviously we can’t have them all in one game that would be convoluted, overwhelming and overpowered but still. Maybe some should stick around.

Also In the list of issues this is pretty low but I think it’s time to introduce voice acting too. It’s starting to look weird lmao. (Flashbacks to Piers in Sword visibly singing with no sound coming out of his mouth) Again this would lengthen production time and be expensive but it would also be a nice improvement. (Billion dollar company they could definitely afford it)

There’s lots of other features and improvements I’d love to see but more than anything I just want a game that’s playable.

They really did take a good step in terms of content and gameplay but it’s overshadowed by the technical issues

[thegloober]

Thoughts following the end of the 2018 regular season

Yankeemetrics: Final countdown, hello October (Sept. 28-30)

(Presswire)

The 2018 regular season is over. Well, no. Not technically. The Brewers and Cubs, and Dodgers and Rockies, are playing a pair of Game 163 tiebreakers today. That’s fun. The regular season is over for the Yankees though. They went 100-62 with a +182 run differential. Pretty great. Their biggest mistake was not being the Red Sox. Anyway, I have some thought on things, so let’s get to ’em.

1. The Yankees won 100 games and hit an MLB record 267 home runs despite getting so little from Gary Sanchez and missing Aaron Judge for nearly two months. Also, Giancarlo Stanton had a very good season but not an all-world season. Prior to 2018, five teams in history hit at least 250 home runs in a season, and all five had at least one 40-homer hitter plus another 30-homer hitter. Three of those five teams had a 50-homer hitter. The Yankees had none of those things. Stanton led the team with 38 homers. No one else had more than 27 homers. But you know what? The Yankees had five players with at least 27 homers (Judge, Stanton, Miguel Andujar, Didi Gregorius, Aaron Hicks) and an MLB record 12 players with at least ten homers. They have power up and down the lineup. Power in every lineup spot and power at every position now that Andrew McCutchen is the starting left fielder. I guess this is my long way of saying that I find it crazy impressive the Yankees won 100 games and hit a record number of home runs while not staying completely healthy and not getting that monster career season from anyone. The Yankees had ten +1 WAR position players this year, the most in baseball. Pretty awesome.

2. One of those ten +1 WAR players: Luke Voit. Where would the Yankees be without him? Not playing the Wild Card Game in Yankee Stadium, I don’t think. Yesterday’s home run put him at .333/.405/.689 (194 wRC+) in 148 plate appearances with the Yankees. Yeah, it’s only 148 plate appearances, but they were 148 high impact plate appearances. They happened. They won games. August 24th was the day Voit took ownership of the first base job. That’s the day he hit two home runs in Baltimore. Prior to that day the Yankees received a .207/.282/.375 (76 wRC+) line from their first basemen. Only the Royals (74 wRC+), Angels (73 wRC+), and Orioles (55 wRC+) were worse. That is unplayable. First base is an offense position and the Yankees weren’t getting much. Since that (admitted cherry-picked) date, the Yankees have received a .331/.403/.729 (202 wRC+) line from their first basemen. Only the Dodgers (211 wRC+) have been better. That is quite the turnaround. Voit’s power is legit. He doesn’t hit the ball on the ground (34.4% grounders) and he ranks among the league leaders in average exit velocity (92.9 mph) and hard contact rate (47.8%). The power’s not a fluke. Will the league find a hole in his swing and exploit it going forward? Maybe! Voit might be Shane Spencer 2.0. But you know what? Spencer had some pretty big moments in the 1998 postseason. I get the feeling Voit’s going to do something memorable in October.

3. I think the lineup we saw Friday night is the lineup we’ll see in the Wild Card Game on Wednesday. Said lineup:

LF Andrew McCutchen

RF Aaron Judge

CF Aaron Hicks

DH Giancarlo Stanton

1B Luke Voit

SS Didi Gregorius

3B Miguel Andujar

C Gary Sanchez

SS Gleyber Torres

That was against a left-handed pitcher, so maybe Voit and Gregorius switch places, but I don’t that’ll be the case. That lineup spreads the lefties out a little bit and that seems to be a thing the Yankees value. Point is, wow does that lineup look awfully impressive. The weak spot is Sanchez, who hit a ball a mile Friday night and can do it again in any given at-bat. Tons of power, tons of patient hitters who work the count, and also contact guys in McCutchen, Hicks, Gregorius, Andujar, and Torres. The days of Shane Robinson and Neil Walker in right field feel like a lifetime ago.

4. This is the sorta thing that’s easy to overlook, but Aaron Boone had several delicate clubhouse matters to deal with this year, particularly in the second half. Greg Bird and Brett Gardner have been moved to the bench. That’s not nothing, especially in Gardner’s case given who he is and how important he’s been to the team over the years. Bird absolutely stunk and deserved to be benched. That doesn’t mean he should’ve been happy about it. These guys are competitors and they want to play. We didn’t hear any complaints or anything like that. In fact, it’s been the opposite. Bird and Gardner have said they want to play and will be ready to play, but understand why their roles were reduced, and will do whatever they have to do to help the Yankees win. (Gardner’s been productive in the fourth outfielder role.) Andujar getting pulled for defense regularly falls into this category too. It wouldn’t take much for a rookie to get discouraged when his most glaring flaw is called out like that. If Andujar is unhappy about it or feeling down on himself, it’s impossible to tell. He raked started to finish. His on-field performance didn’t suffer at all. We see the lineups and bullpen moves every single day. Those are the most visible parts of a manager’s job. This in-house stuff though, like Gardner and Bird being benched and massaging egos? That’s where a manager really makes his money.

5. I have to think Luis Severino is starting the Wild Card Game. Skipping his start completely yesterday was pretty telling. If the Yankees were penciling him in as a bullpen option for the Wild Card Game, I think Severino would’ve thrown a tune-up inning or two yesterday. Instead, nothing. He’ll go into the Wild Card Game with seven days of rest. That’s a lot. I also don’t think it’ll be a huge deal. Adrenaline will kick in early and Severino’s made several starts this season on extended rest as the Yankees controlled his workload. Three times he started on seven days rest this year. Seventeen times he started with extra rest. He’ll be fine. I thought not pitching him at all yesterday was a indication he’ll get the ball against the Athletics. I think the Yankees wanted to start Severino in the Wild Card Game all along because he’s been their best starter the last two years and he’s most capable of providing dominance. Severino’s last two starts were his best starts of the second half, and that makes it easier for the Yankees to give him the ball. And you know what? No matter who starts Wednesday, the leash is going to be very short. The bullpen is going to fire up at the first real sign of trouble. The Yankees have to get 27 outs in the Wild Card Game. I’ll be surprised if the starter gets 15 of them.

Yankeemetrics: Final countdown, hello October (Sept. 28-30)

Source: https://bloghyped.com/thoughts-following-the-end-of-the-2018-regular-season/