#metagaming is on something of a season 2 break

[comehereduck]

If I think about staple fic recs for SV, these come to mind:

- I Wish You Were My Husband by Feynite

- The Grand Unified Theory of Shen Qingqiu by 00janeblonde

- Metagaming by Esama

Also, a personal fave of mine (if you like ballet AUs):

- Songs of a Wayfarer by foxflowering

this is literally my first day on tumblr and honestly kind of my first time interacting with the fandom at large so if anyone would be so kind as to recommend some of the 'fandom staple' svsss fics id be much appreciative

[adrianfridge]

The intrinsic problem with season 5A is that it introduces the literary device of Dramatic Irony and breaks the show’s own formula. All other seasons have an overarching question for the season. But in 5A they answer “Who is Theo?” in episode 2

The result is a season where Theo never actually does anything untrustworthy around the good guys. In fact, he helps save the lives of multiple pack members. He’s functionally a good guy too EXCEPT it was prematurely revealed to the audience that he’s unequivocally a bad guy playing pretend

Imagine how much stronger the season would have been if Stiles's paranoia about Theo wasn't immediately answered. Imagine going down the emotional rabbit hole with him. The doubt. The second-guessing

But now YOU know Theo is fishy, and you want Stiles proven right at any cost

With that sort of mentality, many fans conclude that by introducing an outsider character (eg Derek or Jackson) they would ALSO see through Theo and help support Stiles's case. But, no, that is your audience brain using audience information and tricking you into a false sense of security

You’d need to metagame the narrative to get anyone else on board with Stiles’s paranoia because the more in-universe probable outcomes are:

Outsider agrees with Scott that Theo hasn't done anything wrong yet and has to adjust their wariness to Theo's known actions, which involves giving Theo the benefit of the doubt since Stiles has been wrong in the past about Derek, Kira, and Liam

Outsider agrees to entertain Stiles's paranoia and gets dragged out for three hours to watch Theo play video games and then has to reconcile why Theo feels grief at the site of his sister's death and maybe Stiles is trying just a little too hard to prove Theo is an imposter

Outsider reminds Stiles that Stiles used to hate and distrust them too so why is Theo so different

Outsider becomes petty/spiteful towards Stiles for being obsessed with Theo

Like, there's just something really sad about assuming an outside character like Derek or Jackson will just trust Stiles's judgement based on no evidence when Stiles's gut feeling is always to distrust people no matter what

[drtyydiana]

#ONLYGRL        an independent and selective roleplay blog for  DIANA TEJADA   from POWER BOOK TWO: GHOST

───── depicted themes and warnings. organized crime, depictions of abuse, drug trafficking, murder, gun violence, racketeering, loyalty, misogyny, prison industrial complex, fallen legacies, manipulation, gangs, law enforcement corruption, racial tension, and discrimination, the complication of mother and daughter relationships. heavily plot-based and with significant periods of low to medium activity; she/her, 25+, black, central standard time. alias, venus. iconless. AFFILIATED WITH GYATABORN

                             ¹DOSSIER, ²PINTEREST, & ³PLAYLIST RULES BELOW

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ONE. my name is venus. my pronouns are she/her. i’m of legal age / 31. central standard time. mun=/=muse, that typical statement.

TWO. (FOLLOWING) mutuals only. 18+. PERSONALS DO NOT REBLOG MY HEADCANONS OR CONTENT.

― this muse is quite plot-heavily and this blog will reflect that. i personally prefer character development and my level of selectivity will reflect that. i will mostly follow those who post role-play content, head-canons, etc. i’m here to write. i’m opened to following canons and ocs. i will love on them all. i love ocs so much.

― i would love to write with everyone immediately, but that’s also not very logical. i’m a professor and administrator in university (oh that’s so weird to say). i will probably be slow at time, but i will WRITE with you. shoot me a message and we can cook something up. mains get priority as far as replies and edits go. guilt-trips don’t work on me. i really don’t care about your drama or other people’s drama if i don’t like something, i unfollow or block. if its something completely horrifying, i’ll probably report it to tumblr if it violates their terms of services. i participate in block culture. simple as that. and that goes both ways. if you don’t like what i post, unfollow please. make yourself comfortable.

THREE. (ETIQUETTE) follow all the basic rules of roleplaying: no godmodding, metagaming, etc. my asks are always opened. if you think my characterization or portrayal is inaccurate, then that’s you

TL;DR FOR BIO: power is some black ass media. so i know most of ya'll don't even know what it is. yall don't even be rping with black chars like that in general. but she's easily transferable to a multitude of medias, mcu -- esp luke cage, daredevil, punisher, as her char is based in nyc, breaking bad, etc.

she's the youngest tejada child in power book 2 ghost and the only girl, hence my url. her family is deep in the drug dealing business. her father was released from prison after doing a long stint. her family is currently, season 3, under surveillance by NYPD and the feds. she actively participates and utilizes her cover as a college student to help the family business. her mother is a terrible person, verbally and mentally abusive/controlling. and very very manipulative. manipulated diana into getting a cop murdered for looking too close into their crimes. her brothers collectively have a host of bodies and too many enemies. she wants out from everything and her father was willing to let her step away. however, her mother orchestrated the murder of her father for two reasons, 1) so she can take over. 2) revenge for her father accidentally killing her mother's secret son.

her family has a series of beefs and ongoing war disputes with the russians. in her main verse, she's unaware that her mother killed her father. but this will be updated if she canonically figures out as the season progress. i will update this info accordingly.

she's of african american and puerto rican descent.

[homophobicpunz]

why I don't think punz is still the spy

ive been seeing a lot of people talk about this theory and i understand why. dream did say he was going to do something that made everyone hate him and then leave- on the surface it makes sense that dream going to prison is just the long con and that punz is still working for him. if that turns out to be true i won't be surprised. however personally i see a few narrative and a few meta reason why i dont think punz still being a spy makes sense

under the cut in 3 parts: lore reasons, meta reasons, & what i think is actually happening

lore/story reasons

1. how would dream have known that tommy would suspect punz and pay him off? if this was the long con, dream would have need to plan this out when he paid sam to make the prison and before he asked punz to be the spy. while he could have predicted that people would suspect punz, the original plan involved a staged falling out between punz and dream with the fake bumpkin. dream couldn't have accounted for tommy paying punz off

2. punz' character is specifically in it for the money. he said it multiple times: hes a mercenary, he does what the money tells him to do. he had his internal conflict about keeping his deal with dream or following the money and its pretty clear he followed the money. and why wouldn't he? dream paid him 10 diamond blocks to be the spy, tommy paid him 36 diamond block, 36 gold block, 2 netherite ingots, and 6 pieces of tnt. which side do you think he's picking? even if he was supposed to still be on dreams side, i think hes not sticking around. dream can't pay him from prison

3. dream doesn't care about punz, so he should cut his losses. did we already forget dreams long ass villain monologue about how attachments are how he has power so he cut his own? dream does not consider punz a friend, just a tool and ally. there was a spot for punzo shulker in the trophy hall. having seen that now, i doubt punz wants to stick around- which is a big flaw in dreams plan. if dream wanted punz to still be on his side, there's no way he would have let punz know he doesn't care about him

meta reasons

1. c!punz being a spy/c!dream planning to go to prison undermines literally everything that happened. if that was a victory planned by c!dream then the closure of the disc war and the beginning of season three is meaningless, its not a new era of the dream smp, just a drawn out version of the same conflicts. fans are already upset the disc was went on this long, do you think they'd really keep it going? a badlass line on the level of "it was never meant to be" would be meaningless. sure thats an exciting twist, but i really think they want to move the story forward

2. c!dream knowing c!tommy would pay off c!punz would require dream to metagame his own story. they may have messy storylines, but they wouldn't actually metagame and have their characters do things based on information only the cc's know

3. i think c!punz spy falling out plot might just be a lose end. as unsatisfying as it is, because we didn't get the fake bumpkin staged c!punz and c!dream falling out, its likely that those plot threads ended up abandoned because the story was moving too fast. punz hasn't been super active on the smp and hes not big on lore an acting, so theres a good chance spy c!punz arc just wasn't quite what dream and punz originally wanted.

4. there are a ton of other story arcs to do. the main one being the bloodvines, which punz is involved in, but there is still: niki and jack, snowchester nukes, ggghostbur/alivebur/schaltt, and the syndicate. many of the people involved in this have been considered "side characters" and s3 is the time for them to shine. s3 is about moving from c!tommy with c!tubbo as the side kick to c!tubbo with c!tommy as the side kick, and c!dream was c!tommy's villain.

what i do think is happening

1. dream building the prison for himself makes sense. dream could have even planned that punz would stick by his side, but punz choosing the money tommy paid him wasn't part of it. the big event that drwam thought would make everyone hate him could have been him killing tubbo- almost everyone likes tubbo, even if they dont like tommy- so dreams ultimate plan was thwarted

2. dreams definitely getting out of prison. there are four ways i think this could happen: a) someone who put dream in prison is a spy or he convinces a someone to break him out, possibly by reveling the location of something valuable b) someone else breaks him out for their own personal gain (techno??) c) dream is let out because his help is needed (defeating the bloodvines?) d) dream brings schlatt back to life and schlatt breaks dream out of prison somehow

3. again. let me emphasise: BLOODVINES ARC. the crimson egg is literally taking over the server right now. bbh and ant are agents of it. punz is an active ally. puffy is a reluctant ally. they want to get eret on the eggs side next. punz bad and ant are trying to get sam under the eggs influence. THEY DONT KNOW HOW TO STOP IT. i think having to break dream out- maybe even tommy or tubbo having to do it- bc dreams the last hope to save everyone from evilboyhalo and the egg would be cool as fuck

[etheshadowlord]

An unasked for and completely impromptu review of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Pt. 1

It’s March and I’ve been in a nostalgic mood as of late. So I decided to start binge watching Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. However I thought about it and you know what, I’m going to give each episode a basic non professional from the perspective of fun and possibly critiquing the villains dastardly plan as I go. Note if I can make it through the first three seasons well I’ll keep going with all the others I can get a hold of. So let’s begin.  NOTE: SPOILERS AHEAD!

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 1: Day of the Dumpster.

Let’s begin with the first episode. Look, there’s enough people who can point to you the continuity errors and flaws in the stock footage used. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here to ask the important questions such as.....how does a space dumpster work? (I mean obviously magic.) Or how is there a puddle on the moon? These are the important questions that must be asked......but I don’t think Rita will answer me.

So Rita and her motley crew escape the cosmic magic trash bin and begin their plans of world domination.Starting with Angel Grove in California?

Stuff happens, she gets beat. End episode.

Fun factor: * * * * -

Cheese Factor: * * * * *

Evil Plans brilliance: * * * - -

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 2: High Five.

I had this episode in the past on VHS when I was younger. Basics: Yellow ranger is afraid of heights, this is important for plot as Rita attempts to trap the rangers in a time warp like she did Zordon while Finster prepares a Skeleton boi to fight the rangers in the time warp. This Skeleton boi later gets replaced with a knight.

This knight is then promptly munched by Rex Zord and the day is saved. Also Trini solved her fear of heights to save Billy earlier in the episode.

Fun: 3/5

Minion Incomepetence: Max

Bones: RIP

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 3: Teamwork.

This is the first episode that features both the Mega Weapon thing that becomes a staple for the rest of the series. So the girls Kimberly and Trini are doing a petition to have the industrial waste place clean up their act. Okay I’m not sure what the laws are here but to sign a Petition you need to be at least 18 or older last I checked. Anyway they go to the dump place where there is no one there it looks like it’s been abandoned for quite some time while also being recently in use. Turns out it’s a trap to try and squash the girls and the guys separately. An almost ingenious plan. Honestly the only jarring thing is the Minotaur got super charged and was fighting the Megazord but ended up getting taken down by the team up canon of the season? 

Fun:3 out of 5

Teamwork: 4 out of 5

Confusing: 4 out of 5

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 4: A Pressing Engagement.

So this episode begins with Jason working on breaking the bench press record at the youth center. The record being 1009. So all he needs to do is 1010. He misses at the beginning, don’t worry he’ll get it eventually. So while the kids are being well kids and we wonder where the script writers got the slang they gave the kids in the show Rita comes up with a brand new plan to destroy those goody goody 10 shoes. That is to separate Jason from his friends and then squash him. For this they make a buff sphinx. (U Got That begins playing.)

This is also the episode where they introduce the Megazords need of the power crystals. Why they didn’t need that in the first place is beyond me. What bugs me even more is the fact that Jason knew what they were in the first place and how to use them. Anyway, buff cat team looses and the rangers win and like I said earlier, Jason breaks the record.

Fun: 4/5

Record: Broken

Metagaming: So much.

P.S: Now I sort of wonder if there are Tabletop games inspired by Super Sentai/Power rangers?

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers Season 1 Episode 5: Different Drum.

If you didn’t start noticing the human element stories adopting the life lessons motif of the early to mid 90′s yet you’ll notice now as we are introduced to the one episode character (As far as I remember.) Melissa. Melissa is deaf. A fact that we are shown and reminded of a few times but seems to get forgotten a few times by the other characters that are supposed to be her friends.Kimberly didn’t forget and that means Kimberly gets a shadow gold star for being a good character and a good friend.

Anyway the evil plan involves a Gnarly Gnome, a magic hypnotic accordion, and hostages. The plan falls apart as Melissa can’t be hypnotized by the rather grating music. Dear lord my ears! So she goes get help. Does she go to the police because her friends were kidnapped by a monster? Nope, she goes to the juice bar to get the five others who actually can do something. I swear, the more I write this the more I’ve come to the conclusion that this is just an elaborate Tabletop game that we’re watching. Anyway rangers saves the hostages and put an end to that terrible accordion.

Final Notes: How much clay does Finster have? Infinite? Okay.

Fun: 4/5

Accordion: Grating

Police: Nowhere to be found.

Thus ends Pt. 1 of this series of review of each episode of the Power Rangers and even the movies when I get to them. Look forward to Pt. 2 which will be episodes 6-10. Until then!

[crystalelemental]

Powercreep in Heroes is a big topic lately, and with good reason.  Gen 4 BST came early, and the fallout of this has been...less than stellar, including dancers that are actual combat threats instead of just support, flying and cav units being pushed further and further up, and infantry now essentially mirroring early Gen armor units with their disgusting 173BST totals.  Honestly, it is a lot, and for people who spent to make early game favorites work, they're probably falling off the meta pretty hard.

Here's the thing, though.  It's really not all bad.  Armor units dominated the metagame, and a huge part of that was simply the BST they carried.  180 is obscene when the next best thing is around 158, maybe 163 if you're really lucky.  It's a massive improvement over every other unit in the game.  Now, I do think that a defensive unit should have higher stats than an offensive one.  A defensive unit naturally requires more stats to be good to function; you can't exactly wall out without great defenses, but offense has to be able to potentially muscle past so you need the offensive presence to threaten back, and if you're too slow then the damage output is eternally stacked against you.  Offensive units really only need attack and speed.

To a degree, I kinda like the current meta better than when I started.  Maybe that's because I have units that can compete, but I feel like it's very rare now that I run into a situation where I absolutely cannot break past a defensive wall, and hyper-offensive teams just need debuffs and speed control, which is what I tend to emphasize anyway.  Things feel like they've shifted from "Everyone runs armor all the time, and all you do is turtle up and never take damage while DC/Bold or Wary Fighter and Aether do the work for you."  It's still a good strategy, but it's breakable now, and other strategies are just as effective.  Legendary Alm is all over Arena every time it's Earth season, but as scary as he is and as carefully as you have to play around him, he's beatable with all the dance support that exists.  Units like Sothis are terrifying and some of my least favorite to face, but she's super weak to Chill Speed, which is now a sacred seal.  And with the significant increases to flying and cavalry units' BST, I expect they're going to start making a serious comeback as well.  Which is good!  Variety is important in games, and I feel like Arena has gotten more and more interesting as time goes on.  Sure, L!Azura dominates every form of play because they forgot one extra movement space for flying and infantry units is obscene, and that giving a potential +7 to all stats was the stupidest thing they could do, but hey, something has to dominate the game. The biggest complaint against powercreep, and the argument with the most legitimacy, is simply that early game units are falling completely out of favor.  We all know a solid 60-70% of all Gen 1 5* units should've demoted.  Their stats aren't well aligned, they have absolutely terrible skillsets, and some of them are completely irredeemable even with their refines (Luke).  This poses a problem.  Those units can still be good, but only if you get them fully merged, and even then they're not as effective as newer units who could do the same thing.  A +10 Lucina still wouldn't perform as well as a +0 Brave Alm, for instance.  And that's a problem.  That's a big, stinky problem, and the solution is...half-assed, to say the least.

The attempt was Dragonflowers.  When introduced, they were given to all units, but infantry units only could get up to +10 dragonflower uses.  Which is okay.  It's a flat boost to all stats, which isn't terrible, but isn't the same as keeping pace with the heavily min-maxed meta we know today.  Really, all it did was let BST keep pace, without accounting for combat performance, allocation of those stats, and the fact that weapon effects went from a sentence or two to a paragraph to a novella.  Flat boosts just don't quite cut it, and weapon refines are helpful, but not to those who got early refines that just aren't good (ie, Takumi).  Worse, Dragonflowers were introduced with Gen 3 BST, which made the quantity of dragonflowers units could have sensible.  Infantry units got the highest buff, so old infantry units get the most dragonflower uses.  But, other movement types also got the BST increase, so they were outdated immediately (Thea has 5 more points than Clair, and yet they receive the same number of dragonflowers), and now with Gen 4 they're even further behind.

Essentially, the problem isn't that powercreep exists, it's that older units are not being given the tools to compete.  I think what the game needs is a major update whose sole focus is on early game units being given across the board buffs.  5 extra points, allocated intelligently, to all Gen 1 units could even be sufficient.  Some of the early refines getting a boost would help the 5* locked units continue to be worth existing in that pool.  And perhaps most importantly, Dragonflowers need to be a lot easier to obtain.  If those are going to be your balancing mechanic, you can't demand players excel at Aether Raids for 6 months just to make one (1) unit keep up.  Dragonflowers aren't orbs, they're not something we pay real money to obtain, so there is absolutely no reason to treat them as such a rare commodity (same with Grails, frankly).  Also, if you really want to go in a good direction with this, let players decide where Dragonflowers go.  Sure, you can have 5 uses of dragonflowers, each stat increasing up to 4 points.  Players get to customize their unit how they'd like.  Instead of a flat +2 across the board for, say, Karla, maybe you allocate her 10 by putting 4 in speed, 4 in defense, and 2 in HP so she can be a better duelist.  Maybe you like Desperation builds and go 4 speed, 4 attack, and 2 defense.  Maybe you did that weird wall Karla build with Pavise and Shield Pulse, so you allocate 4 defense, 4 Res, and 2 HP.  That...honestly feels like a much better use of these resources than a flat boost that doesn't really help combat potential, gives players more control over how to build their units, and offers greater variety because two players using the same unit are unlikely to build the exact same way.

There are plenty of ways to fix the actual issues inherent within the constant powercreep.  The problem is, IS likely won't do them.  Overhauling early refines means focusing on units they already consider complete, and because the profits are in the new units advancing the whale meta, they're unlikely to care if older units the rest of the playerbase use can compete.  Hell, it's almost better if they don't.  And overhauling dragonflowers would be a massive cluster at this point, having to create a way for players to essentially "redo" all the allocations u to this point.  Not to mention, their bizarre miser status when it comes to every form of basic resource in this game, even ones that have exactly no attachment to their profits.  You'd have to completely shift their focus to be more generous, which honestly is going to be like pulling teeth.

But at the end of the day, I don't worry about it too much.  Because the only PvP that exists are Arena and Aether Raids, neither of which are particularly scary.  Arena's frustrating until you have finished merge projects, but once your core is done, it's really not so bad.  Aether Raids sucks until you hit Tier 21, but then it's really not too difficult to maintain in that tier, especially if you have a Mythic that prevents some Lift loss.  A single perfect win with the doubler active is enough to cover an entire week in some cases.  And in-game content?  The recent Abyssals like Julia and Roy haven't been any harder than older Abyssals like Grima and Tiki.  Hell, Tiki's was harder in my mind.  So yes, powercreep sucks, and its constant advancement as time goes on can definitely feel like your well-trained and cared for Delcatty has to keep going against an Action Replayed Mega Salamence that can hold Choice Band.  But the good news is that AI doesn't change, and once you get use to that, yeah it looks scary, but for some reason they hacked Mega Salamence to know Bulk Up and locked themselves into only using that move, so really, it's not that bad.

Except for the +10 L!Azura/+10 L!Alm combos.  That's like walking into NU with a Mega Rayquaza.

[diamond-song42]

Card Shark 64: Chicken Costume

Happy Hump Day, everycreature! Welcome back to Card Shark! Apologies that today’s entry is a day late - I’ve been doing a lot of home renovations and had to go to work and the dentist yesterday and today. But I do have a new Canterlot Nights Card Shark ready for you! This is a Resource that is no Staff of Sacanas, but... you’ll see. Let’s take a look at “Chicken Costume!”

Bawk bawk, it’s almost spoopy season! This is a rather cheap Resource, costing only 1 AT and 2 Pink req to play on a Friend. Strategically, this is probably not something you’d play on one of your own Friends, as when the Friend wearing the Chicken Costume is exhausted, it is subsequently dismissed! At first glance, this is not a good Resource. It’s obviously not something you’d play on one of your own Friends. In today’s metagame, however? It may just have a little weight. Let’s say you play a Chicken Costume on your opponent’s Applejack, Factory Organizer or Starlight Glimmer, Guidance Counselor. When your opponent goes to exhaust them to get that extra AT, they’re getting the money but their Friend is going bye-bye. This effectively shuts down a bunch of Friends one would exhaust to activate their effects. That’s also not to mention the amount of cards in recent sets that exhaust opposing characters. One Bale Out or Sponge Cake Break can suddenly start looking like a Rolling Tones or Belly Flop while this card is on the field! And that’s far from sucky... especially if you have something like Magical Misfire or Somnambula’s Blindfold to block your opponent from getting those cards back. Never underestimate the power of an ornery avian accessory.

There’s gotta be a reason Pinkie switched from this costume to her roller derby costume the next Nightmare Night, right? Other than costume variety, let’s see: Like practically every Resource in the CCG, this Resource is a moving target for Resource removal cards like Brian, One Swell Guy, Bewitched Beavers, or Hyper Beam. If you stick this thing on a Friend that your opponent really wants to keep, chances are they’ll quickly be searching for either a way to vanquish the Chicken Costume or a second copy of the Friend in preparation for the dismissal. That’s pretty much the biggest issue at play. Getting rid of the Resource stops anything and everything tricksy you could do with this card. And... that’s it. In all seriousness, guys, I started writing this Shark thinking this would be another of those Premiere block Resources that doesn’t compare to Core Resources like the Staff of Sacanas. And this is in no way another Staff of Sacanas. But I actually really like the novelty of this Resource! Besides the Resource removal, this is an easy card to play and manage. It’s nothing to build a deck around, but if you have room in that (at least) partially-Pink Harmony deck for a couple of these, I highly recommend giving it a try.

Besides cards previously discussed, here’s a few other cards that give Nightmare Night quite the fright:

*Apple Bloom, Cutie Mark Crusader. While there’s a fair share of Manes that exhaust themselves to activate effects, there’s not too many that exhaust opposing characters. While I considered Grubber, Royal Announcer, I ended up choosing this one since you don’t have to pay anything to exhaust characters. You can also use her consistently turn after turn without the need to flip her back to her Start Side. Now that Applejack, Ambassador of Honesty has been banned, perhaps this is another Orange Mane that can rise to the top?

*Sweetie Belle, Cutie Mark Crusader. On the flip side, maybe you have enough exhaustion methods but want to milk the most out of your Chicken Costumes. Sweetie Belle here can freely retrieve any of your used Chicken Costumes should they end up being dismissed. Just keep in mind that Sweetie can’t save Resources from banishment, so if your opponent sicks a Hyper Beam or Special Beam Cannon on that thing, you’re out of luck.

*Grubber, Baked Bads. This Friend is one of the banes of my MLP:CCG existence. This one can also repeatedly and consistently exhaust opposing characters, both when it enters play and at the start of your turn. The really scary thing about this is that it isn’t Unique, meaning that hypothetically you could exhaust three characters at once without spending anything. Yeah... if you’re building an exhaustion deck, this should NOT be a card you pass up.

*Fume, Breathtaking. This suggestion is less about its ability to exhaust and more about how it can only ready one exhausted character at a time. Yes, as long as this thing is in play, opponents can’t ready more than one exhausted character during their Ready Step. So now your opponent not only has to deal with an exhausted Friend getting dismissed, but should other characters of theirs get exhausted, they have to plan around you incapacitating them all! Fume also exhausts a character for every Dragon you have in play when you play it, but TBH there aren’t too many Dragon cards you could really use well alongside a Chicken Costume, so I’d focus more on the first ability.

*Popping Corn. Jut when your opponent thinks they’ve evaded all your exhaustion methods, PSYCH you throw popcorn at them. This exhausts every character at a Problem with 2 or less power if your opponent’s Mane is on their Start Side and every character with 3 or less power if your opponent’s Mane is Boosted. This is also handy right before a Faceoff and can be sicked at the start of either player’s Score Phase. Considering the deck is already Harmony format if you’re using the Chicken Costume, this one can whip up a nice homemade meal if you use these two cards together.

Thanks for reading another installment of Card Shark! Next week I’m returning to the Crystal Games to look at a weird little Troublemaker! Hope you’ll return then to see which Troublemaker it is! Diamond out!

[omgcpausandstuff]

I've been picturing them as mostly playing MOBAs (like League of Legends or DoTA, if I wrote this AU I'd probably invent a made up game for them to play) for a couple of reasons:

1. It's team based with well defined roles 2. Within the team, there are players that have to work particularly closely. (ie: Jack and Bitty are in a lane together, its like being on the same line) 3. Enough different options for individual players to have a particular style and be able to express their personality through their choices (what character they play as can say something about who they are, this isn't necessarily as true in the real competitive scene where picks are mostly defined by the metagame but for a story...)

I see Bitty as being a support player. These kinds of players generally have a couple of different responsibilities (depending on which character they pick) including protecting allies by healing/shielding/buffing them, crowd controlling the enemy and sometimes being the one to aggressively initiate combat.

I see Bitty as being good at everything except the last one. He largely plays defensive characters and is very good at making sure no one dies, but he's too risk averse to really play initiators to their full extent; a pretty glaring weakness. Playing with Jack helps him break past that block and become a truly world class support player.

Jack, on the other hand, plays the carry role. The character who is expected to eventually become the strongest in the game, to the point where a lot of the strategy is devoted to making sure they get strong and can win in the late game. I think Jack is known as being one of the best western players but also for being, at best, awkward and standoffish with his teammates but sometimes being outright hostile and rude. He's coming off a less than successful season where the narrative about why they underperformed is because of a personality clash between the teammates. He gets signed to Bitty's team in the off season and his arc is pretty similar to canon - learning to open up to his teammates and being more of a team player instead of chasing personal glory. I think Bitty streams some of their practice sessions, and it also turns around the narrative about his personality a little bit.

Gamer AU

Seriously, Bittle. You've got great map awareness, good shotcalling and your mechanics are clean... you've just got this stupid mental block about going for kills. If that's the only thing holding you back, we're going to practice kill lanes until you're a true bloodthirsty support. Just trust me, okay?

[undauntedtcg]

My Favorite Deck of All Time: ZoroPod

Before I begin, I apologize for the amount of time this post took. I hope the content makes up for the deviation from my normal schedule.

 I was playing some 2017-2018 format games on TCG ONE with my ZoroPod and I realized a few things. The first? This is still my favorite deck. The second? I’ve played it in both standard formats since the deck’s creation. 

So start off, I have to rewind things a bit! Welcome back to 2017.

Gardevoir just won the world championships and rightfully so, it was the most powerful card ever printed at the time. (230 HP after a rare candy...good times) A couple regionals passed by and stories began to emerge about something terrifying: The “Optimal” Gardevoir list. It was basically a two shot deck that, if it got bored, could ramp up to 210 damage without breaking a sweat. If it weren’t a stage two deck, it would’ve been unbeatable. 

A couple funny little sets came out, Shining Legends and Crimson Invasion. The cards were...divisive to say the least. Zoroark GX was at the forefront of these discussions. Most people just thought it was a worse Octillery that gave up two prizes, others thought it was a fantasatic secondary attacker. Worthy of a 2-2 line at most. Around this time, I had just picked up Ninetales GX/Zoroark, liking the synergy between Trade and Aqua Patch. Others picked up Lycanroc GX, Decidueye GX and Golisopod GX. But never with more than a 2-2 Zoroark line. )You can check out my favorite example of the community having it all backwards here: Pablo Meza’s ZoroPod) Then, the Vikings came.

Tord Reklev and a great many European players came to the European International Championships playing a list that revolutionized the game for years to come. The first true Zoroark deck was born, as was the first ZoroPod list I’d ever pick up.

The List

Pokemon (20) 4 Zoroark GX 4 Zorua 1 Zoroark 3 Wimpod 2 Golisopod GX 1 Tapu Koko 1 Mewtwo 1 Mr. Mime 3 Tapu Lele GX

Trainers (33) 4 N 4 Guzma 3 Brigette 3 Acerola 2 Professor Sycamore 1 Mallow

4 Puzzle of Time 4 Ultra Ball 4 Field Blower 2 Enhanced Hammer 2 Choice Band

Energy (7) 3 Grass Energy 4 Double Colorless Energy

The first thing you’ll notice is that there are far more than two Zoroarks. Actually, there are five. But that’s not the only thing about Tord’s list that was revolutionary.

Puzzle of time hadn’t been seen in a while, but it was perfect for Zoroark. You draw so many cards that you’re nearly guaranteed to be able to find the puzzles when you need them, and you can reuse effects like Acerola up to 7 times in a game! This truly is the two shot deck of the century.

Many people still liked Drampa Garb going into EUIC. For obvious reasons, Zoroark decks are heavily ability reliant. So why not just play four blower and four puzzle to make sure they can’t turn off your abilities? As it turns out, you really don’t need 4 field blower to beat Garbodor, as your Guzmas can do a lot of that work instead. But I’d take overkill to under-preparation any day.

Lastly, Brigette was only a 1-2-of in most evolution decks at the time. However, with Zoroark’s trade to get rid of the extra ones, 3 copies doesn’t clog up the deck and it makes hitting it turn one way more likely. Most games, if you got turn one Brigette, you won. If you missed it, things didn’t go too well.

After EUIC, people were very afraid of ZoroPod. It seemed pretty much unbeatable. Tord Reklev had completely broken the Pokemon TCG.

But what about Gardevoir? The list was optimal! Broken even! Well, it was good against the old decks. But playing a stage 2 deck means that more often than not, you collapse after a Zoroark spends three turns picking off Ralts while you struggle to draw rare candy.

Fast forward to Leipzig regionals, just a while after EUIC and people had found the counter: Mill. Turns out, Quad Sylveon autowins Zoroark match-ups when you only play seven energy and four Puzzle of time.  

The rise of mill gave Tord the idea of a new deck using his Zoroark engine: Zoroark Gardevoir. He won his third international championship in a row with that deck, but we only care about ZoroPod today, so we have to skip ahead to after Ultra Prism became legal. To Prague we go!

Tord won the Prague SPE with ZoroPod, but the list changed significantly. 

The New List

Pokemon (19) 4 Zoroark GX 4 Zorua 3 Wimpod 2 Golisopod GX 1 Tapu Koko 1 Mew EX 1 Oranguru 3 Tapu Lele GX

Trainers (34) 4 Guzma 3 N 3 Brigette 2 Acerola 2 Cynthia 1 Mallow

4 Puzzle of Time 4 Ultra Ball 2 Field Blower 2 Evosoda 1 Enhanced Hammer 1 Max Potion 2 Choice Band 1 Float Stone

2 Parallel City

Energy (7) 3 Grass Energy 4 Double Colorless Energy

Ultra Prism gifted us with a couple cards that helped ZoroPod a ton.

Remember how Mill was this deck’s worst matchup? Not anymore. Resource management can put back puzzles, energy, really anything you need...infinitely. Now, you decked Sylveon out instead of the other way around. The card was also pretty insane in the mirror match, letting you get more value out of your cards than your opponent.

Cynthia proved to be far better than Professor Sycamore in Zoroark decks. You can get a new hand without discarding cards or refreshing your opponent’s hand.

Aside from new cards, there are other additions to the list to help deal with a Zoroark heavy metagame, or just improve consistency.

On the added consistency side of things, Evosoda is such an obvious inclusion to the deck. It’s like playing extra copies of your stage ones, and, unlike Ultra Ball, you didn’t have to discard cards to get to those evolutions.

Don’t get me wrong, Acerola is still the best healing card in the deck. But it is a supporter and you sometimes find yourself needing to heal and get another supporter effect. Max potion let’s you do exactly that.

The last new addition is Parallel City! For some reason unknown to myself, after winning EUIC and OCIC, Zoroark decks were getting pretty popular. With Parallel City, you could limit the damage output of all those other peasants playing the exact same archetype as you. That’ll show ‘em. The card could also be used to clear inconveniences like Tapu Lele GX off of your bench to deny prizes.

ZoroPod continued, barely changing for months to come, until we get to the final list from this format, Brian Miller’s World’s Top 8 deck.

The ultimate ZoroPod list!

Pokemon (18) 4 Zoroark GX 4 Zorua 3 Wimpod 2 Golisopod GX 1 Mew EX 1 Oranguru 3 Tapu Lele GX

Trainers (34) 4 Brigette 3 Guzma 3 N 1 Acerola 1 Cynthia 1 Professor Sycamore

4 Puzzle of Time 4 Ultra Ball 3 Field Blower 3 Evosoda 1 Enhanced Hammer 1 Max Potion 1 Counter Catcher 1 Choice Band 2 Float Stone

3 Parallel City

Energy (7) 3 Grass Energy 4 Double Colorless Energy

Most of what’s different about this list is what it leaves out. 

No new additions to the Standard Format made it into this list. In fact, there’s only one new card!

Somewhere between the Prague SPE and NAIC, Counter Catcher became a standard inclusion. With all the hyper-aggressive decks in the format, ZoroPod fell behind in prize cards all the time. Instead of matching that aggression, which this deck cannot do, it just takes advantage of being behind. You could N your opponent low and play a pre-errata Pokemon Catcher to deal with one of their major threats. Or more commonly, kill their draw support Pokemon.

Now, one last card that didn’t make it into any of these three lists but did become a standard somewhere in between. An honorable mention, if you will.

Delinquent allowed for so many insane plays. Counter catcher to kill their draw support Pokemon, Parallel city to force them to discard a couple other benched Pokemon, and then you simply delete the opponent’s hand. Seems pretty balanced, right? A weird T1 Delinquent Zoroark deck actually got the card banned in expanded, so take that information however you may.

And then rotation hit.

Zoroark lost pretty much every card that made the deck good in the previous format. Brigette, Puzzle of Time, Evosoda and Parallel City no name a few. 

Basically, everything that drew me to the archetype was gone. But the first cup of the season was upon me, so we ran it.

The List

Pokemon (21) 4 Zoroark GX 4 Zorua 4 Wimpod 2 Golisopod GX 2 Tapu Koko 1 Deoxys 1 Dedenne 1 Oranguru 3 Tapu Lele GX

Trainers (32) 4 Lillie 4 Guzma 2 Professor Kukui 2 Acerola 1 Judge 1 Cynthia

4 Ultra Ball 4 Nest Ball 3 Choice Band 2 Enhanced Hammer 1 Rescue Stretcher 1 Pal Pad

2 Devoured Field

Energy (7) 3 Grass Energy 4 Double Colorless Energy

This deck, to put it gently, is garbage. With no consistent way to find evolutions and no guarantee of a good set up, there is almost no reason to play this deck if you weren’t already a Zoroark player from the previous season. But, let’s have a look at some of the things that changed.

Some people that, arguably, had worse ideas than the Zoroark players tried to make BuzzRoc work in the new format. While imperfect, Deoxys established a favorable prize trade. Dedenne can one-shot the new top tier threat, Rayquaza GX with a choice band, DCE and Tapu Koko on the bench. The deck’s match-up spread would just be terrible without this.

Now that Brigette is gone, we have two supporter options for the first turn of the game: Lillie or Pokemon Fan Club? Fan Club only grabs two basics. Yes, that’s only one less than Brigette, but it’s a huge difference. Nest Ball in combination with Lillie was usually enough to get basics down. But that ended up not being the deck’s main problem anyway.

You’ll notice that Ultra Ball is the deck’s only method of finding its evolutions. Well, as it turns out, in Bo1 cups, you can get screwed over by that very easily. Every one of my losses in the cup were not because I couldn’t find my basics, but rather because on the second turn the Zoroark’s didn’t show up. 

I loved all of the previous year’s Zoroark decks, so I’ll be the first to admit that this hurt. Between that and the dominance of Shrine of Punishment, I was fairly disillusioned with the game after that tournament. I attended a couple tournaments after this, most notably getting 2nd at an ARG State Championships with ZoroGarb, but for the most part I stopped playing for a full Quarter. 

I only played ZoroPod one more time in the Standard format, sometime after Team Up was released.

The List

Pokemon (20) 4 Zoroark GX 4 Zorua 3 Wimpod 2 Golisopod GX 1 Ditto* 2 Tapu Koko 1 Oranguru 3 Tapu Lele GX

Trainers (33) 4 Professor Elm's Lecture 4 Guzma 4 Cynthia 2 Acerola 1 Judge

4 Ultra Ball 4 Pokemon Communication 2 Enhanced Hammer 2 Choice Band 1 Max Potion 1 Rescue Stretcher 1 Pal Pad

3 Devoured Field

Energy (7) 3 Grass Energy 4 Double Colorless Energy

Lost thunder gave us a couple cards to help our consistency. Sadly, a once powerful deck had almost been entirely power creep’d out of the format. I had a couple decent results with this list in spite of that though, so let’s take a look at what changed.

Elm’s lecture almost replaces Brigette in this deck. Wimpod has 70 hp, rendering it unsearchable with this card. However, Ditto* nearly filled the void. The deck regained much of it’s consistency with this card and I’m thankful for that.

Pokemon Communication had amazing synergy with Elm’s lecture. The number of outs you had to turn one Elm and turn 2 Zoroark increased a lot. This card is what made Zoroark playable again, change my mind.

Apart from that, the list hasn’t really changed, Just some engine adjustments.

Now, the only thing we haven’t covered is ZoroPod in the Expanded format. On average, I attend one expanded  tournament per season, and I didn’t play ZoroPod at any of them. However, I can direct you to Dean Nezam’s 1st place list from Dallas Regionals.

So that’s my history with the deck! I know it sounds silly, but I’ve become very attached to this deck. I attribute the majority of my success and my entrance to the competitive scene to this deck. 

The thing that I loved most was ZoroPod’s incredible consistency. At it’s best in 2017, it just felt like the deck let you play Pokemon every game. Something that many, less consistent archetypes didn’t do. (Looking at you, Buzzroc)

It’s best not to dwell on the past, but sometimes, when I’m disallusioned by the current state of the Pokemon TCG, I think back to my first tournament with this deck and think “What I wouldn’t give for just one more tournament.”

In the present, many people play old formats at regionals after being knocked out of contention for day 2. Usually it’s 2006 and 2010 formats that get all the love. But in a decade or so, once the 2018 Worlds format is but a distant memory, I’ll be playing my Zoropod.

[mmf-cash]

a brief history of chaos control

in the early Revival era, back when everyone played with Exarion Universe and most deckbuilding efforts were coming out of the Nostalgia Duelist Facebook group, there were two decks at the forefront of the metagame: traditional Goat Control, which had remained more or less the same since US Nationals all the way back in 2005, and Chaos Turbo, an almost entirely new deck featuring Thunder Dragon, Card Destruction, Dekoichi, Night Assailant, and multiple Chaos monsters (typically BLS and three Chaos Sorcerer). none of these cards were unheard of in 2005, but they were not streamlined into this kind of shell until the Revival.

[10:28 AM] 🐸: a fundamental of goat used to be taht thunder dragon was a -1

[10:28 AM] 🐸: nice fundamental

while Chaos Turbo was popular, it was not actually very good. it played a lot like a more linear Goat deck, maximizing the use of Tsukuyomi + Flip effect locks and the infamous pieces of the Trinity, and cutting clunky stuff like Airknight Parshath entirely, but it had a much lower ceiling than Goat Control itself. If you were bad at playing Goat Control, you could increase your winrate by playing Chaos Turbo, but if you were good at playing Goat Control, the deck did not offer many theoretical matchup advantages.

so, when the first DGz Goat format war league took place, the final matches were, predictably, all Goat Control mirrors, and from there, the rest is history: from the dust emerged Kris Perovic’s list, which became the golden standard for years to come.

in 2017, the second generation of DGz Goat warring breathed new life into this deck, and the efforts of a few duelists brought it up to speed with the new pre-Exarion landscape. gone was the linear reliance on cards like Card Destruction and Phoenix Wing Wind Blast. the new lists, dubbed Chaos Control, had adapted by adding Scapegoats and Metamorphoses of their own, but the new developments did not stop there. videos from the previous year of Kris showing off his spiffy Recruiter Chaos deck in casual duels with Allen Pennington led many to adapt to the new prevalence of Dekoichi with their own Shining Angels and Mystic Tomatos. Chaos Control lists branched off into two directions: one retaining the Thunder Dragons of old (colloquially named Thunder Dragon Chaos), and one replacing them with the new hotness in Shining Angel (called Angel Chaos).

[6:56 PM] kperovic: This is more of a guide than a rule because it's possible to construct a deck on the edges of these definitions but in general IMO re Sorc:

If you have Sorc and Meta, it's Chaos Control whether or not you have Recruiters. If you have Sorc and Recruiters without Meta, it's Chaos Recruiter. If either deck runs more Return than Meta, I'd probably call it Chaos Return.

If you have Sorc, Thunder Dragon, and no Meta then it's Turbo Chaos. If you have Sorc and Meta then it's most likely Chaos Control whether you have Thunder Dragon or not.

If you have just a tech Sorc in an otherwise standard Goat deck with multiple Goats and Meta then I'd probably call it Goat Control still. Bump that to 2 Sorc and I'd probably call it Chaos Control.

when two of the top three players in the league were on some version of Recruiter or Angel Chaos at the end of the season, it was clear that something had changed in the format. Recruiters, and particularly Shining Angel, were now legitimate metagame threats that demanded to be answered by the other decks, whereas previously they would have been seen simply as food for Thousand-Eyes Restrict. Thunder Dragon Chaos had tanked in popularity while maintaining respectable results in the hands of the few competent players that stuck to it, but Shining Angel was undoubtedly the main character and star of the show in season 1 of the new DGz Goat format war league.

[3:48 PM] Ynusgridorh: Turbo's goal is to recycle Graceful and Card Destruction with Faith and recycle Faith with Night Assailant. It also maxes on Raigeki Break or PWWB to make good use of Night Assailant and Thunder Dragon. Control plays like a regular Goat Control deck by tributing Sinister or tokens for TER and using Tsuk to set up soft locks.

each of the new Chaos branches came with a unique set of pros and cons. With Shining Angel, the name of the game was versatility, while for Thunder Dragon, it was raw power. Shining Angel can become a pseudo-Pot of Greed in almost any situation if used correctly, either by gaining advantage through battle then forcing an answer or simply baiting the opponent into doing something bad, but winning a game off of a single Graceful Charity activation while blanking opposing Duos until said Charity activation is a privilege unique in the format to Thunder Dragon and Thunder Dragon alone.

[2:15 PM] ACP: the reason why angel chaos is so good is because its early game options are the most numerous in the format

[4:54 PM] ACP: shining angel attacks well, defends well, can be a meta target for TER, trades very well with dekoichi and other recruiters, fills up your grave, has insane combos and mind games with tsuku/book

[4:54 PM] ACP: the card does actual everything

[10:57 AM] Ynusgridorh: Advantages of TD: 1) nerfs Duo 2) combo with Graceful 3) combo with Tribe 4) can tribute a snatched monster 5) can tribute TER 6) more reliable light fodder

[1:43 AM] MMF: angel rewards good reads and as allen would put it, "mindgames"

[1:44 AM] MMF: thunder dragon doesn't make you do any of that shit

[1:44 AM] MMF: to get your benefits from tdrag, you just draw it and discard it from your hand, done

[1:44 AM] Jazz: right

[1:44 AM] MMF: you sit on it forever, or you dump it for the charity you already have

[1:44 AM] MMF: no reads required, no effort required

[1:44 AM] MMF: allen sees this as a bug while i see it as a feature

the original hyperaggressive style of Recruiter lists initially showcased by Kris is, ironically enough, used exclusively by members of ALL THE OUTS today, first Morphing Jar, and then Chevalier de Fromage. these lists are completely distinct from both variants of Chaos Control, and are outside the scope of this post, but are still worth mentioning as further proof that Chaos Sorcerer is the new face of Goat format. some standard Goat lists are even playing a single copy at this point. if you aren't playing Chaos Sorcerer, what exactly are you doing with your life?

[neingel]

Should’ve or Shouldn’t?

Welcome back everybody. It has been a busy week for me due to my exams and for many others as well. But currently, it’s my short study break and that means time for me to start picking up on the blog again. Well, with that out of the way lets jump right in!

Today’s article would be none other than the recent ban announcements, while they were no changes to any format in Wizard’s focus, I would like to highlight and do a small review on each format’s state as of now, and what Wizards should’ve or shouldn’t ban.

STANDARD

I’ll jump right to the topic which everyone on the internet is buzzing about right now-Standard. Now Standard has not been very well received for quite a few months now, starting from the release of Aether Revolt, through the Pro Tour and now after a somewhat redundant ban announcement. I believe the main problem started with the spoiler season during Aether Revolt, where people actually realized an incarnation of Splinter Twin was already in the format:

The combo/deck is still legal due to the “no-changes” ban announcement(admit it, most of you are already used to it). But what seems to frustrate the playerbase/community the most is the fact that this archetype is clearly not very healthy for the metagame or for new players to go up against. The aftermentioned 2 points is what I and probably many Standard players believe is bad for Standard as a whole.

The next point I would like to emphasize would be Vehicles, or more specifically-the current reigning deck in Standard. Pre PT Aether Revolt, many thought that vehicles would never make the cut to the top tier in the upcoming Pro Tour, this was mainly due to the banning of Smuggler’s Copter which was a major backbone for the deck and the introduction of rather “unexciting” and mainly underwhelmed new Vehicle cards. However, many of the others, who were well ahead of their competitive scene decided to work on Vehicles’s unpopularity and somehow turned it to be the top deck that would go down winning the entire competition.

As you can see, the winning deck/archetype ran a interesting selection of cards, cheap threats such as Toolcraft Exemplar/Inventor’s Apprentice as well as “value” creatures Thalia/Scrounger/Inspector. What really pushed it’s power level was the 2 new vehicles-Heart of Kiran and Aethersphere Harvester. Both somewhat seemed to be the better versions of the previously banned Copter.

Vehicles have been ever rampant in the meta and competitive scene after the Pro Tour. Which led to many players speculating a 2nd consecutive Standard banning in a very short period of time. To me, it’s quite obvious that the power level of these 2 cards are indeed quite strong when played around the right shell, but it didn’t bring the same amount of “disgusting value” Smuggler’s Copter had when it was still legal. Furthermore, Copy-Cat was the more likely target of getting banned anyways.

Other individuals bans many have predicted included these:

Modern

Modern Masters 2017 is just right around the corner for release, and what a surprise/shocker it would be if they banned a certain card that was already in MM17? It’s actually no suprise though, where they banned Twin a few months after the release of MM2015 2 years ago. Many have started speculating a few cards being banned the next announcement, but would Wizards actually have a smiliar Splinter Twin scenario again. Chances are, quite possibly.

And here is my top pick.

Now before a horde of angry Suicide Zoo players came destroying my room. I feel that Death’s Shadow is quite the speedy unfair deck, somewhat reminiscent of the old days of Modern where there would be fast decks that would define the format as “the Turn 4 format”. Death’s Shadow however, unlike Goyf is a card that scales from a simple creature to a gamechanger, by using the player’s life total as a tool, it doesn’t hurt to have a low life total when Death’s Shadow is most probably going to swing for lethal possibly on turn 3. Put Death’s Shadow into a good shell consisting easy access to life loss, Goyf shenanigans as well as cards that cycle effectively to find pieces. Suicide Zoo does effectively hold itself as a fast combo deck given the right situations as well as a strong, consistent aggro deck in some grindier matchups.

My 2nd pick

No I’m not insane, I know my picks are getting crazy or retarded, but Mox Opal recently has been creeping up on a lot of people’s radar nowadays. The powerful 0 cmc artifact has seen play for as long as Modern’s inception, but recently has been showing up in Cheerios. Where many have seen a portion of it’s raw power and efficiency. Mox Opal might deserve a ban, but doing so will immensely lower down the power level of many decks, but particularly Affinity-where many players have a long love-hate relationship with the deck for a very long time. This could overall help slightly with a shift of the metagame enabling a small change of taste in Modern.

My 3rd pick

If Death’s Shadow wasn’t banned yet, I think the next card to go will be this important piece of the puzzle running the whole deck. Bauble at 0 cmc does offer a lot of card advantage as early as Turn 1. Being able to gain information off the top of an opponent’s library, combined with the free card draw the next upkeep as well as the fact it can be activated at instant speed is just additional icing on the cake. Bauble does seem to give too much card advantage at 0 cmc, something Wizards have paid particular attention to especially when they have banned Gitaxian Probe.

EDH

EDH is mainly a format full of variety, volatility and a crazy blend of cards you would often find in your shoebox of unwanted cards. Bannings for EDH in the past have been quite sensible and have kept the format in balance(Let’s be honest, there’s a long list of cards/combos/generals you hate a lot :/). Thus, I’ll try to be fair/reasonable in my pickings for cards that should’ve been banned in this section.

The Main Course

Paradox Engine is the new, awesome, must-have Christmas toy every EDH player is buzzing about. Released recently in Aether Revolt, Paradox Engine spells disaster for the whole board. Being able to play mana rocks/dorks, Phenax shenanigans or sinking yourself in a vast amount of card advantage…

This card basically can fit into any shell/deck, but make it much better as a whole overall. I could see this getting banned soon if the need arises.

The Potato side

Let’s be honest here, Mana Drain has lurked around in EDH for far too long, many have asked for a ban, but none has come by for quite a few years now. Having the same cmc as a regular Counterspell, Mana Drain has the ability to provide maximum tempo at any given rate. One good example is to counter an opponent’s Eldrazi Titan and then casting your own Eldrazi Titan next turn.

The new thing

There has been quite the influx of opinions from the playerbase, where Atraxa deserves to be banned due to the sheer power of her strategy in multiple decks(Superfriends,Infect,any counter strategy,etc). Though I see it being very unlikely as she just got released in Commander 2016, and the fact there are many other stronger generals out there.

Conclusion

That’s it for today’s article, the announcement was probably a letdown for most players, but majority of the playerbase agreed that Wizards really needed to fix some formats fast. However, from this example, it is sure to see the next set of cards that could probably be banned. As for now, players can hope to grab on to their precious formats and hope for the best. I hope you have enjoyed today’s articles and please do follow up with any upcoming articles. See you soon!

[housebeleren]

Throne of Eldraine Preview Highlights

Oh, it’s the most wonderful time of the year. And if you read that in tune, sorry not sorry, but that’s where my head’s at right now. But it really is. It’s preview time! And not only that, but it’s preview time for one of the most flavorful and gorgeously illustrated sets in recent memory. I’m beyond stoked with what I’ve seen so far in Throne of Eldraine. So today, I’m going to run through some of the highlights from the preview season, focusing on Standard and the normal set, since I’ll go over Brawl cards when I review the set for Commander.

Starting with this guy:

Oko, Thief of Crowns, Purveyor of Thirst, Lord of Abs, and Champion of Queers, is here to say, “EAT THIS, BITCHES!” Seriously, Oko is the hotness, and the gay nerddom collectively gasped and dropped their drawers when this art came out. On top of that, as per the first few pages of the book (SPOILER if that matters), Oko very quickly dominates Garruk into submission, decides to call him “Dog,” and insists that he be called “Master.” So, um, yeah. Oko is officially admitted into the queer canon. Praise GAWD.

As a card, I’m liking it on first blush. Has some immediate utility potential in EDH, as it can blank basically any hard-to-answer threat in colors that don’t always get pure removal, but it’s going to be hard to get more than one use out of him, so I doubt he’ll be a format staple. For eternal 60 card formats, there’s a shot that a Modern deck could make use of him, probably dependent on how many other good uses there are for Food that come out. As for Standard, I’m sure there’s tons of potential, especially enabled by the next card powering him out on turn 2:

I’m starting high on Gilded Goose for Standard. This is as close as we’ve gotten to a Birds of Paradise in years, and that shouldn’t be underestimated. Remember, people were unsure at first if Aether Hub would be able to fix mana more than once, and turns out, it totally can. I think there’s definitely a Food deck somewhere in here, using this, Oko, and some other payoffs that may not have been enabled yet. But yeah, Llanowar Elves is rotating out, but 1-mana ramp isn’t dead.

Okay, I know I said I’d focus on Commander cards separately, but this card is so exciting. First, the flavor is just insane. I love the Monkey’s Paw theme here, and they did such a good job conveying it. Second, it is not hard at all to break parity on this, and I’ll have tons of thoughts when I get to the Commander post. For Standard, I could imagine it being possible for a Control deck to make it happen.

Loving this twist on The Abyss. In some ways, it’s actually better, since it can punish other control decks that try to hide behind Planeswalkers. It also makes it so token decks are punished appropriately by it, and the owner can’t hide behind tokens to keep it in play indefinitely. And if they have no nonland permanents at all, then you immediately get its sacrifice trigger. It’s a beautifully designed card, and I expect it to see Standard play, particularly in variants of Esper Control as a sideboard card for control mirrors and against certain other decks.

Of all the cards in the set so far, this one is the most immediately an obvious staple. Non-Rakdos decks have been missing a Hero’s Downfall effect, especially with Vraska’s Contempt rotating out, and I immediately see this card slotting into Monoblack decks, all forms of Control decks, W/B lifegain decks, Rakdos decks, and the likely upcoming Knights deck that Eldraine is promising. In other words, I think most Black decks will be interested in this, and that’s to say nothing of the homes it may find in Commander.

Wow, okay. First of all, I am BEYOND stoked that this card has quickly become the subject of Monty Python memes galore. If by some tragedy, you aren’t familiar, please educate yourself here: https://youtu.be/ZtYU87QNjPw

Aside from gorgeous artwork depicting a strange woman in a pond distributing swords, this card seems busted in Commander, and may find itself homes in other formats as well. I’m unsure about Standard, but there might be something. But it’s such a great card I had to highlight it.

Sea Monster! I love me some Sea Monster realness, and Nessie here is beyond cute and deserves all the hugs. Beyond that, I can potentially see him as a Control finisher, particularly against decks like Simic Flash, where casting this in response to them tapping out at the end of your turn is a much more viable option than trying to land a 6-drop Planeswalker. Maybe it’s a sideboard only card, but I’m definitely going to keep it in mind for my Dimir Control deck post-rotation.

Love this design. First of all, the flavor is off the charts, with the “Can’t be blocked except by creatures with haste” being one of the best lines I’ve seen on a Magic card in a while. Second, I actually think there’s Standard potential here, in the Red Cavalcade of Calamity deck that’s currently my second most hated deck of the Standard 2020 format (after Simic Flash, which is a deck designed for and by sociopaths). But yeah, there’s a home for this guy somewhere. My only quibble is that 1/1 doesn’t seem particularly ... brutish. Gingerbrat seems much more apt.

Hallelujah praise Kefnet! Opt is the glue that makes Blue decks in Standard work consistently, and I’m very happy to see this is sticking around. Sure, it’ll keep Simic Flash good, but it will also serve Blue-based control decks, and ensure that Izzet decks have a chance of finding a place in the meta. (Seriously, Izzet decks were basically doomed without Opt). It’s not an exciting preview for a lot of people, but it’s a sign to me that Play Design is doing a great job at making sure this format stays fun.

Oh, and the Monty Python references keep on coming. Again, here’s what they’re getting at: https://youtu.be/ZmInkxbvlCs

I don’t know if this card will be playable, but damn if it isn’t funny.

Control decks are going to jam this into their sideboards, make no mistake. Even a one or two of in the mainboard could make sense in decks without access to Thought Erasure, but it’s a little risky to jam if the metagame moves away from Black too much.

I can’t imagine Red decks won’t be interested in this. It seems incredibly versatile, as a well-costed threat or as reasonable removal. Or, y’know... both, because Adventures are totally cool like that. And the Rare cards with the mechanic generally have potential to be straight 2 for 1s. I’d even consider this against Control decks with lots of Planeswalkers, as this can take out a minused Teferi, Narset, Liliana, or Ugin with no trouble.

Hot damn, literally. This seems like it’s either going to be a major card in an archetype that doesn’t exist yet, or it’s going to be a big pile of nothing and end up in the bulk bin. I mean, it can ramp you super quickly to Drakuseth or Boss Chandra, and those are pretty reasonable options. Beyond Standard, I absolutely see this having a home in EDH, for decks that also run Mana Geyser and the like.

I’m loving Grumgully, mostly for his potential in non-Standard formats. He has enormous combo potential (mainly around Persist), and I really want to see an Against the Odds episode built around this for Modern. That’s all.

I saved Questing Beast for last, not because of any particular reason, but just because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to talk about it at all. But I think I have to. This card is beyond pushed. It will be a nightmare bomb in Limited, and it’s sure to see tons of play in Standard as a very direct Planeswalker punisher. Oh, you tapped out for Liliana for 6? Cute Zombies, I’ll just blaze past them, hit you for 4, and take Lili down far enough she can’t use her removal ability, all at once. Ugin, same problem. Narset? One hit & done. Dovin? Good luck with that damage prevention ability.

And on top of everything, it stays untapped so you can’t even retaliate effectively. Basically what I’m saying is there’s no way this card isn’t going to be a powerhouse for Standard for the next 2 years, but especially as long as War of the Spark is still legal. Planeswalkers have a new worst enemy.

Anyhoo, that’s it for today. My picks for most interesting and impactful cards previewed thus far. Excited to get my hands on some packs and start playing with them!

[gamerzcourt]

The Prices Of Pokemon Cards Are Making It Difficult To PlayThe Prices Of Pokemon Cards Are Making It Difficult To Playvideo games

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The Prices Of Pokemon Cards Are Making It Difficult To PlayThe Prices Of Pokemon Cards Are Making It Difficult To Playvideo games

I lay restlessly in bed a few nights ago thinking about something I presume many people who have just turned 30 think about: Pokemon cards. I wasn’t counting Mareep to lull myself into a slumber, nor was I dreaming of sliding down the freakishly long neck of an Alolan Exeggutor (not tonight, at least). No, I was thinking about how bloody expensive the Pokemon Trading Card Game is, and this made me unreasonably upset at roughly 1 in the morning.

For a lot of people, the Pokemon Trading Card Game is something they remember fondly from school. Opening booster packs of 10 randomised cards, comparing shinies with mates, and making ill-advised trading decisions based on the playground economics of each card’s perceived worth. But for many, including myself, it’s so much more than that. It’s one of the best online and offline card games on the market, with the added bonus of fuzzy nostalgia in pocket-sized monster form.

A few years ago I got back into Pokemon cards. It was oddly fulfilling about being able to spend adult money on something I could rarely afford as a scruffy 11-year-old in secondary school. I quickly started playing and competing, thanks to the support of my local Pokemon League and the friendly bunch of players who turned up each Saturday morning. Building decks and taking my best Pokemon cards into an intense one-on-one battle was far more exciting than anything I had experienced in the video games. I was hooked.

Something you learn about very quickly in the world of Pokemon cards is the meta. Certain decks of 60 cards are just better than others, so if you want to be competitive you need to have one of those decks. It seems simple, but herein lies the inherent problem with The Pokemon Trading Card Game: the best decks have the best cards, and the best cards are often rare (or even ultra rare), which makes pulling them randomly from booster packs extremely unlikely and uneconomical. So unless you’re funded by Team Rocket or you can convince someone to trade their very good cards for your not-so-good ones, the next logical step is to find someone selling the cards you need on eBay or through a collectible card seller online. But of course the rare, powerful cards are in high demand and have a premium price tag attached to them.

What I’m describing will of course sound familiar to anyone who has played any trading or collectible card game. To a certain extent it’s just the nature of the beast, but other card games offer alternatives to you hemorrhaging cash just to keep up with the meta. Magic the Gathering, for example, widely supports multiple formats for veterans and newcomers on any budget, with limited formats like Draft and Sealed levelling the playing field, and a much larger player base to support this. Hearthstone, the popular online collectible card game from Blizzard, lets you break down unwanted cards so you can craft those you need. Pokemon, on the other hand, is effectively pay or lose.

In 2012 a card called Darkrai-EX came along, at the height of my love and obsession for Pokemon cards. The deck winning all the local tournaments had four of these cards, and it was available as part of the Dark Explorers expansion, so obviously I needed it. I decided to take the plunge and drop £80 on a box of 36 Dark Explorers booster packs. After feverishly unwrapping them in what was, to be fair, a pretty cathartic pack-cracking binge, I couldn’t believe what had happened: after all that money spent, I hadn’t pulled a single Darkrai-EX, and I needed four. The card was selling for £40 a pop on eBay, so that was it. I packed it all in and I headed for the greener pastures of the “Living Card Games” by Fantasy Flight Games, which did away with randomised boosters and offered a more constructed experience with games like Android: Netrunner and A Game of Thrones: The Card Game.

This brings us back to me, years later, an adult, laying in bed thinking about Pokemon cards. The 2018 Pokemon World Championships have just taken place in Nashville, Tennessee. There, the best TCG players in the world get together and put their decks to the ultimate test. First place takes home a massive $ 25,000, so the pressure is on to pick the right deck and pilot it to victory. Of course, I’m playing Pokemon cards again. Nothing has since matched the gameplay experience for me so I couldn’t stay away for long, but this time I’m determined to do it on a budget. I jump out of bed, switch on my computer, and begin to pore over the winning deck lists fresh from Nashville to see if I could afford any of them.

In the Masters Division a Zoroark / Garbodor deck carved a path to a first place victory. I looked up how much it would cost to buy these cards online and, at the time of writing, this deck would cost a whopping £237.40 ($ 305) to build. Second place went to a Malamar deck, another staple in the format, which carries a price tag of £145.52 ($ 187). In at third was a Zygarde / Lycanroc deck to the tune of £168.70 ($ 217), and finishing in fourth we have a deck using the recently released Rayquaza-GX from the Celestial Storm expansion. This one would cost £213.40 ($ 274) to build with cards purchased from online sellers, and as it happens similar Rayquaza decks also filled in three more spots in the top 10 at 5th, 7th and 10th.

You can see the picture I’m painting here, but at this point I want to stress that merely owning an expensive meta deck doesn’t guarantee victory. It takes a lot of skill, and hundreds if not thousands of hours of practice to play at the level seen at the Pokemon World Championships. To reduce the game simply to the cost of a deck would be a discredit to the incredibly talented, passionate, dedicated, kind, and friendly people who make up the TCG community.

The problem I’m facing, though, is that decks like Zoroark make up a huge percentage of what is currently played not just on the world stage but in local tournaments too. Zoroark decks alone made up nearly 30% of competitive play in the last season, so it’s hard to ignore the fact that expensive decks do win games, whether that’s at the highest level in tournaments, or friendly local games. Nearly every competitive deck includes multiple copies of the meta staple Tapu Lele-GX, which currently costs about £30 ($ 38) for one copy.

It’s no surprise, then, that pack-opening videos are so popular on YouTube, with people (likely a lot of young children) living vicariously through those who can afford to buy endless booster packs and share the treasures within for the viewer at home. There’s even an eight hour long video where an eye-watering $ 24,000 worth of Pokemon Sun & Moon boosters are opened up for over one million viewers.

At this point it seems to be widely accepted that this is just the cost of playing Pokemon cards. If you don’t have the cash to front for the best cards, then you won’t have the best chance when it comes to competing. Apply this to video games and the equivalent might be having to pay for better weapons in Call of Duty or Overwatch putting character abilities in loot boxes. There is already a lot of controversy surrounding loot boxes and “pay to win” content in video games as it is, but trading card game manufacturers aren’t held to the same level of scrutiny.

So what’s the solution? Am I doomed to weak budget decks or playing with printed proxies? Surely there is a way to lower the entry price for a competitive deck below £200, and below £100 or even £50 while we’re at it. After all, one deck won’t last you long, with new expansions releasing every few months and an ever-changing meta that sees new cards and strategies appearing like wild Zubat in a dark cave.

Booster packs will never go away, they have been a part of the Pokemon Trading Card Game since the beginning, and to be fair a lot of people do love them. But for the competitive scene, I want competitive cards to be more accessible with cheaper reprints for those not able to fork out hundreds. Granted there have been some already, and the must-have Tapu Lele-GX will be included in an upcoming boxset–but at $ 50 and well after the card initially hit the metagame in May 2017, it’s too little too late. Theme Decks are often a starting point for new players, so it’s good to see recent releases include a handful of staple uncommon cards to help kickstart a competitive collection, but there’s room for improvement. I would like to see The Pokemon Company make these cards easier to get ahold of and make powerful GX cards more frequent in booster packs, rather than the measly four or five you might be lucky enough to get in a full box of 36 boosters at the moment.

This will surely lead to a healthier meta, happier players, and more of them at that. I love the Pokemon Trading Card Game, but the thought of not being able to play because of my budget is literally keeping me up at night. I have a full time job and I can’t keep up with the cost of Pokemon cards.

In my mind Richard Garfield, creator of Magic: The Gathering has the best mentality when it comes to cards, their availability, and their pricing structure: “I wanted to see the cards collectible in the sense of stamps, where you go to the post office and buy some stamps you don’t expect them to be immediately worth $ 10 when you spent $ 2, but over time, they can be special.”

Right, I’m going back to bed.

[Editor’s note: Card prices were found using Chaos Cards and deck lists on LimitlessTCG.]

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