#she can do pretty good damage if youre willing to get her buffs set up but she rly starts to shine once she gets access to equipment that

[arolesbianism]

Why would I draw or further flesh out the other members of Chou's party when I can instead think abt how all of them play in game and spiral out into making up a shit ton of other game mechanics that do not matter to the actual story

[c-is-for-circinate]

do you have a favorite god to get boons from in hades? (mines is dionysus, he always manages to give me good boons like the bestie he is)

Dionysus is a super chill bro and I support you :)  He is a ton of fun to run into, and status effects are always clutch.  Some of his higher-level boons are awesome, too.  (Looking at you, Dionysus/Zeus duo boon that can just wipe out whole swathes of the field with a Festive Fog lightning storm.)  Also, he recently proposed we prank Orpheus together, and I died laughing.  (My friend​, who is not playing the game but is hearing me ramble about it A LOT on discord, looked up Zagreus on Wikipedia where I dare not yet tread for fear of spoilers several days ago, and they mentioned the whole “sometimes mythical Zagreus is conflated with Dionysus!  Have you met Dionysus yet?  Are you SURE you’re not also Dionysus?” a few times before that happened.  I am so proud of my booze bro for making that happen.)

Honorable mention also goes to Aphrodite, who comes with some really great status effects (I think she might have my favorite Aid, and that Aphrodite/Zeus duo boon that charges it up super fast makes it incredibly useful, just a constant spam of charm spells) and really fun interactions.  She was never my favorite Olympian as a kid (yes, of course I was a Greek myth kid, what do you take me for), but I appreciate how much she is exactly what she appears to be in this game, you know?  She’s a little shallow but she’s not ashamed of herself for it.  She’s free with affection and happy to share.  We all know she’s the kind of lady who loves watching some drama go down, and she is not above starting some shit, but she’s not actually making any pretenses about that and I appreciate that on her.  I legit believe she’s trying to help me get out of Hades because she thinks it’s just awful that anybody who counts as a real person should be stuck down there in that dark awful place (mortals don’t count as real people but, y’know, it’s the Greek gods, that’s sort of a given).  And, ok, maybe I have a little extra affection for any version of Aphrodite who’s not just “ooh, she’s a slutty mean shallow girl who likes to manipulate everybody to stroke her own ego, we’re so ~edgy~ for thinking she’s awful”.  They did a good job making an Aphrodite I can support, and I am glad for that.

Poseidon probably has the boons with my favorite effects (tidal dash is great and I love it), and Zeus, Athena, and Ares all have specific boons that I really enjoy in certain circumstances.  Favorite character, though, hands down, is ABSOLUTELY Artemis.

Some of this is definitely pre-existing bias--I was always somewhere between Artemis and Athena for favorite deity back during my time as a Greek myth kid, although I like her way more than Athena here.  Most of it is just that the way she’s written is so great.  She’s awkward!  She leaves me awkward voicemails because she doesn’t know what to say!  She’s not super comfortable around all of her loud, competitive, extroverted relatives with all their enormous personalities and equally enormous egos.  She is so obviously the sort of person who doesn’t entirely know what to do with herself when she doesn’t have a job to do, and, really, the world just makes so much more sense when she’s out in the woods on a hunt by herself taking things seriously and getting her work done.  She is explicitly hanging out with her family right now for the express purpose of working together to save me, and you can hear in her voice how it’s making her a little tense having them around all the time but she’s doing it anyway because this is important.  Her duo boon dialogue with Zeus!  Dad acting all indulgent about his odd daughter who won’t do the sensible thing and take a husband or at least a lover, for Olympus’s sake, and Artemis who is like, ‘really, you really don’t get why I would rather be out in the woods than committing myself to dealing with the sort of guys we have around our family’.  (The mention of preferring to be alone or with her nymph friends has big ace/lesbian crossover energy, and as a vaguely-aceish vaguely-lesbianish queer lady I am all about it.)  And yet she still invites us to come hunt with her once we get out of the Underworld up to Olympus.  Her safe alone space, away from her overwhelming family, and she’s willing to welcome Zagreus into it after she helps him get away from his family. 

The tricky thing about Artemis is that nearly all of her boons are crit-related, which officially makes them the boon set I am usually least interested in.  Part of this is absolutely math fallacies because math brain works very very hard at my actual job and does not want to come out and play during video game time, so it rebels against actually sitting down and calculating what percentage crit rate might do more good with my particular playstyle with various weapons than simply a flat damage increase from another boon.  Part of it’s the fact that I can see the impact of other boons, but not the increased critrate (because everything is always going much too fast to notice a single individual crit when it happens).  Part of it’s just how I tend to react to buffs and builds: law of large numbers aside, a flat bonus/effect applied to every single hit is always going to be more consistent and reliable than the crapshoot of a crit chance, and coming from a turn-based combat background, consistent and reliable is still a (possibly undeserving) priority to my game-strategy brain.

On the other hand, Artemis also has one of my favorite boons in the entire game in Support Fire--you know, the boon that fires off a bonus target-seeking arrow every single time you hit an enemy with your weapon in any way, or cast, even if you don’t hit anything.  It’s pretty good with sword/shield/spear.  It’s great with the fists, where you’re going to be multi-hitting anyway, and absolutely essential with the railgun if you’re me and can barely use the railgun.  Exit Wounds, where enemies take damage when they drop the cast, is also really great.  Both of those are boons with prereqs, so I’ll often hope for an Artemis boon early in the game (usually her cast boon or that boon that gives you a low crit chance on all damage, because that one doesn’t preclude putting other specific strike/flourish/dash boons on) to try and set myself up to get them later.  It tends to work pretty well, plus then I get to hang out with Artemis more, and that is always a winner.

(Yep, I sure did write a six-paragraph response to a two-line ask.  For everyone who’s followed me in the past couple of weeks--you MUST be aware by now that this is how I do.  You MUST have figured out what you signed up for.  I am not sorry.  (I’m a little sorry.))

[bluexiao]

okay so for those who wants to hear about my analyzation of gorou’s kit (do take note that these are based on the current leaks, which may even change)

this is quite long lmao

i’m not going to explain each and every detail of his kit these are just my observations that are needed to understand if you are still willing to wish for him even if his kit only benefits a few number of characters.

so to make things easier to understand, he is like Kujou Sara in a way that he is good with his own element as his party members, and that is basically because his skill is kind of like how Lithic Spear is with Liyue characters.

so this is how his skill goes:

1. geo character = will receive buff in def

2. geo characters = will receive interruption resistance

3. geo characters = will receive buff in “shatter”

you can benefit a lot with his skill if you have a geo element character in your team. based on his skill, Albedo benefits more with this. i know Noelle does scale in def, but with her shield on, you won’t even need interruption resistance, as well as Zhongli. Ningguang is good with the 2nd buff but then she doesn’t scale off of DEF. Itto, apparently doesn’t need it as well.

(yep, i think gorou in albedo banner is probable)

anyway, with that said, if you have both Gorou and Albedo; you basically have Gorou support Albedo while Albedo supports your other team mates (especially if you are running elemental damage dealers,,,, example: Ayaka, Xiangling, Hu Tao, etc)

adding to that, if you don’t have Albedo, it’s good as well, but you will not be able to maximize Gorou’s kit at c0.

as for Gorou’s burst, it’s basically almost like his skill but you can run around with a pet beside you and will provide the same buffing effects as his skill. there are a couple of other buffs but the point is… THEY ONLY BUFF YOUR GEO CHARACTERS.

conclusion: you can never run Gorou without any other Geo Characters without missing more damage. it’s possible, but you aren’t maximizing his kit.

i’m not ranting or anything those are just my observations and i want to point them out. i think it’s a pretty unique kit.

ok now that i’ve covered his talents, let’s go to his constellations. basically target c4 and c6. c4 can heal your active character while c6 can increase CDMG of Geo characters in the party.

what is good about gorou, though is that you can basically build him def-def-def on artifacts and he’ll be good to go. however, this only proves that the effective bows available for him as a support are:

1. Elegy of the End

2. Favonius Warbow

3. Sacrificial Bow (kind of)

4. Stringless

5. Windblume Ode

6. Raven Bow

7. Alley Hunter (passive is kind of good)

er bows are the best for him because the energy needed for his burst is 80, which is like Diona and Sara (take note, Xiao needs 70 while Albedo only needs 40) which means in order to always have his burst up, you need to have 180%+ er on him.

i think Emblem set is kind of good for him but it’s rumored that DEF scaling artifacts will be released soon. time to save condensed i think.

i’ll probably try to make him a dps but it still depends. overall, i personally think he’s basically useless unless you use a Geo Character as well, but those are just my opinions and take note that the leaks may change as well! i will make another post if he gets reworked hehehe. this is a long one omg.

[tigerkirby215]

5e Ahri, the Nine-Tailed Fox build (League of Legends)

(Artwork by Katie “TeaTime” De Sousa and Pan Chengwei. Made for Riot Games.)

Happy new year! For the start of 2021 we’ll be making a build that I spent all of the later half of 2020 thinking up. Yeah of all the characters I couldn’t figure out Ahri was the one who truly stumped me. Regardless we’re finally going to be rounding out the K/DA crew with yet another character that pushes that T for Teen rating.

GOALS

Find me; find yourself - Along with traditional damaging abilities we need to be able to put on a pretty face and lead out prey in. And Evelynn calls you a skank?

They've exhausted their use - Ahri’s lore has changed like 16 times but her abilities have remained constant: drain the life from your foes for some lane sustain.

Spirits follow wherever I go - Of course the most important part of playing Ahri is her Spirit Rush. Three dashes to use in a teamfight... or are they blinks? Gah translating LoL abilities to D&D is hard; can you believe there was a point that I was originally going to make this a Rogue build?

RACE

This is the part where I call a Vastayan a furry! You’re a Shifter because that’s the “half beast” race in 5e. All Shifters get Darkvision and their Shifting ability that lasts a minute and grants some Temporary Hitpoints along with an additional feature based on their subrace. Speaking of subrace we’ll be going for Swiftstride for some foxy agility!

NOTE: Wildhunt works too if you want more utility, and are willing to swap starting ASIs around with Tasha’s rules.

You get a +2 to Dexterity and a +1 to Charisma, and are Graceful to get proficiency in the Acrobatics skill. Finally your Shifting Feature gives you an additional 10 feet of movement when you activate it and the ability to move 10 feet away from an enemy that ends their turn near you as a reaction, just to make sure you don’t get caught by any melee-range stuns.

ABILITY SCORES

15; CHARISMA - Ahri’s main ability is to charm people so much that they fall right into her murderous arms. She was essentially the founder of K/DA as well.

14; DEXTERITY - Ahri’s other main trait is her swiftness which means I can properly justify some DEX for her, especially with the +2 from our race.

13; CONSTITUTION - Sapping the life out of people means that you are pretty sturdy yourself.

12; WISDOM - Call it Vastayan magic or common sense but you need to know your way around both animals and people.

10; INTELLIGENCE - Riot finally decided to just give you amnesia, meaning that you don’t remember your math class.

8; STRENGTH - It’s on your bodyguard to do the heavy lifting, as well as any other buff allies you may meet.

BACKGROUND

Ahri’s lore has been through the wringer so many times I don’t even know what it is anymore, especially since they copped out and wrote “amnesia lol” as her lore. But she’s certainly the odd one out so Far Traveler works well enough. You get proficiency in Insight and Perception along with a Musical Instrument or Gaming Set (Music Instrument makes more sense but you can pick whatever you like.) You also get proficiency in a language of your choice: Sylvan seems natural for a lost girl on the Ionian countryside.

Your background feature All Eyes on You will make sure that everyone watches the fox. Basically: people are interested in the Vastaya, and if you chat with them you might be able to get somewhere special, seeing how special you are~

(Artwork by Alvin Lee, Pan Chengwei, and Bo “chenbowow” Chen. Made for Riot Games.)

THE BUILD

LEVEL 1 - SORCERER 1

Starting off as a Sorcerer because your magic is innate, after all. Also because Constitution saving throws are nice! Regardless you get proficiency in two skills from the Sorcerer list: how about the Charisma classics? Persuasion and Deception to be a master of honied words.

Sorcerers get to choose their subclass at level 1 and hey: wouldn’t it be funny if they made a Sorcerer that’s heavily based on Enchantment magic? Well the Aberrant Mind is exactly that, having Psionic Spells that can be from the Divination or Enchantment schools. Spells like Mind Sliver to get around heavily armored foes, and Dissonant Whispers which is good to freak out your foes. But we’ll be replacing Arms of Hadar with Charm Person because... hey! It’s a Charm!

You’re also capable of Telepathic Speech to coordinate ganks in team chat, or to tell Seraphine that her dress zipper is undone. You can make a telepathic bond as a Bonus Action with a creature within 30 feet of you. You can speak telepathically with the creature up to a number of miles equal to your Charisma modifier, though you must both share a language for this to work. The telepathic connection lasts for a number of minutes equal to your sorcerer level but it ends early if you are incapacitated or die, or if you use this ability on a different creature.

Oh but of course if you’re a Sorcerer that means you have Spellcasting! You can learn 4 cantrips as a first level Sorcerer:

For some harmless Fox-Fire take Dancing Lights to light up the night. For some more potent Fox-Fire Control Flames will let you make the fire grow!

If you need a quick charm and don’t care about the aftermath Friends will get you what you need.

To keep both traveling clothes and dancing clothes looking prim and proper take Mending. Those outfits are expensive you know!

You can also learn two spells of first level: full disclosure pretty much 95% of the reason this build has Sorcerer levels is so we can take Magic Missile to recreate Fox-Fire and Chromatic Orb for Orb of Deception. That’s pretty much three out of four (*five if we include her passive) of Ahri’s abilities at level 1!

LEVEL 2 - SORCERER 2

Second level Sorcerers have a Font of Magic, giving them Sorcery Points that for now don’t serve much purpose other than being able to convert 2 of them into a 1st level spell slot. Basically you have an extra spell slot for now. But you can also convert spell slots into Sorcery points at a 1:1 ration (3rd level slot = 3 Sorcery points, as an example), which will be important later.

You do get another spell though: basically I just wanted Mage Armor because a +3 to AC would be nice.

LEVEL 3 - WARLOCK 1

Hey what if we multiclassed after 2 levels because we got 95% of what we wanted from those 2 levels? Hey guys it’s time for good ol’ Warlock! Warlocks get to choose their subclass at level 1 and Pact of the Fiend Warlocks get Dark One’s Blessing for Temporary Hitpoints equal to your Charisma plus your Warlock level when you knock an enemy to zero.

You also get Pact Magic which is like regular spellcasting except instead of actual spell slots you just get Pact Slots that come back on a Short Rest. You do get two cantrips though so I’m going to recommend Eldritch Blast because it’s Eldritch Blast as well as Prestidigitation for all the special effects you want and MORE.

You can also pick up some first level spells like Command from the Fiend list for some more enchantment, but there isn’t really much else I want from the first level of Warlock. I dunno grab Hex maybe? But we’re going to swap it out come level 3.

(Artwork by Kienan “Knockwurst” Lafferty. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 4 - WARLOCK 2

But firstly it’s time for Eldritch Invocations to keep 닿을 수 없는 level. Agonizing Blast lets you agonize your Eldritch Blast, and Eldritch Mind from good ol’ TCoE is great to keep the magic flowing thanks to advantage on Concentration checks.

Oh and something something can learn another spell but like I said I want to wait for MORE spells from second level.

LEVEL 5 - WARLOCK 3

Third level Warlocks get to choose their Pact Boon and you know: I don’t think we have enough cantrips! Pact of the Tome gives you three sparkly new cantrips to play with, and they can be from any class’ spell list! So you can take cantrips like Guidance for some help with your dances, Sacred Flame for some more Fox-Fire, and Thaumaturgy to be a spooky magic soul-sucking fox.

Honestly there isn’t much I want from Pact of the Tome but it’s the most in-flavor for Ahri. If you want to be a Star Guardian take Pact of the Chain and grab Keiko!

But you can also learn second level spells at this level like Enthrall and Suggestion for more charms, and Misty Step! For good ol’ Flash.

LEVEL 6 - WARLOCK 4

4th level Warlocks get another Ability Score Improvement and what if we got roleplay abilities before combat abilities? Well the Skilled Expert Feat will give you +1 to any stat (hey look at that our Constitution is uneven!), proficiency in a skill of your choice (which will obviously be Performance), and Expertise in a skill that you already have proficiency in. (Choose between Persuasion or Deception depending on if you want to be the good fox or the bad fox.)

You can also learn another spell along with another cantrip! For your cantrip Mage Hand will let you dash something small from the high shelf into your hand, and for your leveled spell Mirror Image will make it all the harder to hit you instead of missing a skill shot where you just were.

LEVEL 7 - WARLOCK 5

5th level means more Eldritch Invocations! In case of emergency be sure to bring Zhonya's, or rather Tomb of Levistus to negate burst.

And it’s third level spells time! You’re a Fiend Warlock so you know what that means? Cast Fireball and nothing but Fireball! Throw a Spirit Bomb like it’s Teamfight Tactics to level the playing field!

(Artwork by Kienan “Knockwurst” Lafferty. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 8 - WARLOCK 6

6th level Fiend Warlocks get 9 tails for 9 lives. Dark One’s Own Luck lets you add a d10 to an ability check or saving throw once per Short or Long Rest, so you can push your spirit for a bit more confidence in your plays.

You can also learn another spell but truthfully there isn’t much else I want from third level. There’s some that I like at second level but I’d recommend waiting for...

LEVEL 9 - WARLOCK 7

More Eldritch Invocations? Don’t mind if I do! Ahri has a lot of skins so Mask of Many Faces is great to play dress up. Are there better invocations? Yeah probably.

But you can also pick up 4th level spells like Charm Monster for a Charm+, or Dimension Door to pop your Teleport summoner spell.

LEVEL 10 - WARLOCK 8

Level 8 means more Ability Score Increases: we haven’t increased Charisma yet so we should probably do that.

You can also learn another spell, and while there are plenty of nice ones at this level if we wait just a little bit we can get...

LEVEL 11 - WARLOCK 9

9th level Warlocks get our last Eldritch Invocation: Ahri is shown floating in a lot of her promotional artwork and stuff so Ascendant Step is good to let you fly up with some fox magic! I mean, you could take Otherworldly Leap instead, I guess?

But you can finally learn 5th level spells, which means we can grab your ultimate! Far Step lets you teleport 60 feet, and spend your Bonus Action on subsequent turns to do it again! Definitely a step up from a regular old dash! But if you want a bit more damage along with some more essence theft then Enervation will let you do necrotic damage and also heal yourself by hurting others.

LEVEL 12 - WARLOCK 10

10th level Fiend Warlocks can get some Magic Resistance thanks to Fiendish Resilience. You can pick a damage type to resist, though this won’t work against magic or silvered weapons which most people probably have by level 12. So you won’t be able to resist swords and clubs but if a fire mage is trying to burn your tails just resist that! You can swap your resistance during a short (or long) rest if you need to deal with a different enemy.

Oh and did you expect to get another spell known? Nah screw you. You do get another cantrip though: I mean I dunno Toll the Dead can be good to kill secure?

(Artwork by Ryan Ribot. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 13 - SORCERER 3

Finally done with Warlock. That’s good: I could use some coffee. Third level Sorcerers get Metamagic to alter their spells with Sorcery points. Quickened Spell lets you turn a spell with an action casting time to a bonus action, so you can have a cup of coffee and still cast Eldritch Blast. Or, you know: cast two Eldritch Blasts in a turn? If you’re sick of enemies dodging your skill shots Heightened Spell will give them disadvantage on their first saving throw, which is good to combo with spells like Enervation.

Oh and speaking of spells you can learn second level Sorcerer spells! Psionic Spells gives you Detect Thoughts which is pretty good but I’d suggest taking Tasha’s Mind Whip as your other Psionic Spell for some Hextech in your step.

Additionally Flaming Sphere was added to the Sorcerer list thanks to Tasha, and it’s a good spell to take for a little more control over your Orb of Deception.

LEVEL 14 - SORCERER 4

Level 4 means another Ability Score! Time to finally cap off that Charisma for the best casting we can get.

You can also learn another spell along with another cantrip, because we definitely don’t have enough cantrips. Sword Burst will give you some much-needed melee defense to cut through minions if you’re surrounded. As for leveled spells there honestly isn’t much I want from second level. We got most of what we needed from Warlock.

LEVEL 15 - SORCERER 5

Tasha decided that Sorcerers were weak so she gave them a 5th level feature called Magical Guidance. If you fail a skill check you can spend a sorcery point to reroll the d20. You must use the new roll, but along with Dark One’s Own Luck this gives you quite a bit of reliability when it comes to ability checks.

You can also now learn third level spells. Psionic Spells grants you Sending which is nice to communicate in team chat, but I’d replace Hunger of Hadar with  Incite Greed from good ol’ Acquisitions Incorporated to charm a whole group and make them slowly approach you with lovey-eyes like they do in LoL.

You can also learn spells like Melf's Minute Meteors for some less accurate but more deadly Fox-Fire, and Haste for some nine-tailed agility.

LEVEL 16 - SORCERER 6

6th level Psionic Soul Sorcerers get Psychic Defenses for resistance to Psychic damage and advantage against being Charmed or Frightened. You’ve seen it all and they’re not going to stop us! (They’ll try but they won’t.) But more importantly you get Psionic Sorcery: when you cast a spell (that isn’t a cantrip) from your Psionic Spells list, you can cast it with a number of sorcery points equal to the spell’s level. If you cast the spell using sorcery points, it requires no verbal or somatic components, and it requires no material components unless they are consumed by the spell.

How does this interact with Incite Greed which requires a 50 gp gem? My bet is that they just focus on you instead. But yeah this is obviously incredibly useful as you can cast spells like Detect Thoughts, Tasha’s Mind Whip, Dissonant Whispers, and Charm Person without any signal that you’re doing it. And there’s only more to come! To top it off: RAW if you don’t show any signs of casting you can’t be counterspelled!

Speaking of more spells as well as Counterspell I took Counterspell as a Sorcerer spell, because Banshee’s Veil is never not useful.

(Artwork by Jeremy Anninos. Made for Riot Games.)

LEVEL 17 - SORCERER 7

Eyyy 4th level spells! Both the spells you would’ve gotten from Psionic Spells kinda... don’t make sense? So grab Confusion to make a mess in a teamfight and I’m actually going to suggest Arcane Eye as your other Psionic Spell for some wards.

You can also learn 4th level spells like Polymorph to turn into a fox in the spirit realm. Just in time for the Spirit Blossom festival!

LEVEL 18 - SORCERER 8

8th level Sorcerers get another Ability Score Improvement and honestly there are a lot of options now that your Charisma is maxed out: plenty of good feats like Tough, Lucky, Inspiring Leader, Mobile, Metamagic Adept, Warcaster, Spell Sniper, Elemental Adept, or an increase to Dexterity. (Those were listed in no particular order.) Honestly if you’ve reached level 18 you should be more than capable of making your own choices by now. Make your own character and be your own person.

Though I suppose I can still recommend spells: for a more potent and deadly Orb of Deception Storm Sphere will hit your foes with harsh winds and lightning!

LEVEL 19 - SORCERER 9

9th level? That means you can get your 5th level Psionic Spells! Honestly there’s a lot I like from both the Enchantment and Divination schools but both  Rary’s Telepathic Bond and Telekinesis are great in their own right, and I’m fine with keeping them.

That doesn’t mean I’m not going to take Synaptic Static because... well it’s Synaptic Static! I love this spell and you can’t stop me from taking it. It’s got all the power of a Fireball along with a great negative effective that makes it harder for the enemy to kill you.

LEVEL 20 - SORCERER 10

At long last our capstone is... another metamagic option. By this point your spells pack plenty a punch so if you want to make sure not to hit your allies Careful Spell will disable friendly fire... Though alternatively if they’re keeping their distance Empowered Spell will let you make sure you get the maximum kick out of your spirit.

You can also learn one more spell, and one more cantrip to round out the absolute slew of cantrips you have. After a long match you can make a Teleportation Circle to go back to base, and for your cantrip? Wouldn’t it be funny if I suggested True Strike? Okay but memes aside take something else other than True Strike the world is your oyster and True Strike is bad just attack twice.

FINAL BUILD

PROS

Indulge me - Ahri is arguably the most flexible caster I’ve made so far. A pure 50 / 50 split between Sorcerer and Warlock means that you’ve got a huge variety of spells, and two big spell slots that come back on a Short Rest which you can melt down into Sorcery points. Not to mention that Psionic Spells gives you an absolutely insane amount of spells known and the ability to cast several of them using Sorcery points instead of Spell Slots. And to top it off you have an absolutely ridiculous amount of cantrips, capping off at a whopping fourteen cantrips!

They're mine now - It also turns out that the coffeelock is really potent in its own right. Sorcery gives you a lot of options to make your spells even stronger, notably Quickened Spell letting you shoot out some Agonizing Eldritch Blasts after casting a regular spell.

Run faster! Ehehe! - You’re also no pushover for survival either. You have good health for a spellcaster, damn good mobility, and plenty of abilities to bolster yourself against danger... as long as you don’t mind a bit of Essence Theft.

CONS

Lingering spirits lose themselves - Even if your health is strong your defensive stats aren’t great. Poor saving throws (minus Charisma and Constitution) and bad AC (Shield is a good spell you should probably get it) means that while you can take a hit and lifesteal it back you’re still pretty easy to hit.

Don't you trust me? - You may be the queen of charms but you’re not that great outside of Charisma. Almost all your proficiencies are in Charisma skills which means you won’t be able to do anything like find hidden treasure or spot incoming danger.

Mortals have two choices; follow me, or don't - Ever heard of the concept of choice paralysis? Well with your absolutely bloated spell list it can be hard to choose what to do with your spell slots, and even harder to choose what spell to Concentrate on. Both your best moves and simplest tricks take your Concentration.

But with all your strengths what girl could want MORE? You’re a swift and dangerous mid lane mage with enough Vastayan magic to do whatever you desire. Dash in and show them what you’re made of! And be sure to be back at the studio in time to show the newbie the ropes. Don’t want that drum going dumb.

(Artwork by Horace Hsu and Esben Lash Rasmussen. Made for Riot Games.)

[technicallydeliciouspainter]

How we got duped into cooking with gas

Gas stove actually unleash indoor air pollutants like soot, formaldehyde, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen dioxide. Beyond that, greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels like natural gas drive climate change. That’s why there’s a push now to electrify homes; electric stoves can run on clean energy.

The history of how “cooking with gas” campaigns have made a source of fossil fuel combustion in our homes seem completely innocuous gets pretty ridiculous. Leber dug up a rap video from 1988 that spends an entire four minutes hyping up gas stoves in rhyme. “Gas is so hot, it’s not on when it’s off / it’s the only way to cook, that’s what I was taught,” the rap starts off.

Fast forward to about two minutes into the video, however, and there’s a disclaimer in the lyrics that my colleague Sean O’Kane noticed: “Safe cooking begins with range location / avoid main traffic paths and also isolation.”

Today, gas groups pay social media influencers to advertise the supposed benefits of cooking with the fossil fuel, Leber reports. A public relations representative even posed as a resident in a neighborhood to stir up backlash against building codes that would discourage natural gas hookups in new construction, she writes.

You have to read the truly bizarre and alarming history of gas that Leber traces in her article. With many of us spending more time working and hanging out at home during the pandemic, it’s more important than ever to be aware of what we’re exposed to inside the place that’s supposed to be our refuge.

How to Deep Clean Your Gas Stove Burners Using Natural Cleaners

No library of kitchen cleaning tips would be complete without an article on deep cleaning gas and electric burners! Dirty, greasy gas burner grates and drip pans not only age the appliance, but they also can affect your cooking and present a fire hazard. Cleaning stove burners is simple when you use these tips from the pros. Read on to see how you can get your stove sparkling clean with gas stove cleaner made from natural ingredients.

How Often To Clean Gas Stove Burners

Tempered glass gas stove is easy to maintain. However, when the flow of gas gets blocked, the burner heads can’t burn efficiently. Check the gas burners for irregular flame patterns and yellow flames. These are the best indicators that it’s time to grab your gas stove cleaner and get to work. Other than that, cleaning your gas stove monthly should keep it working at its best.

Here’s what you’ll need to get your gas burners clean:

Dishwashing detergent

Baking soda

Non-abrasive scrub pad

Cleaning cloths

Old toothbrush

Paper clip

Cleaning Gas Stove Burners and Caps

If you have a cooktop with a pilot light, you’ll need to shut off the gas valve first. Gas burners have a removable ceramic cap that diffuses the flames. Beneath the caps, the burner head sits atop the gas tube. Remove the caps and the burner heads by carefully lifting them straight up. Avoid damaging the ignition electrode if you have one.

Soak the burner heads and caps in soap and warm water for 30 minutes. Scrub buildup from the burner heads and caps using a non-abrasive scrub pad and an old toothbrush. If the port openings are clogged, use a paper clip to clear them. Be careful not to damage the metal.

How To Clean Electric Stove Burners

Here’s what you’ll need to get your burner stand clean:

Dishwashing detergent

Baking soda

Non-abrasive scrub pad

Microfiber towel

Cleaning cloths

If your coils and drip pans have caked-on grime, turn the burners on for a few minutes to burn off residue. After they cool, wash the drip pans with warm soapy water and cover them completely with a mixture of 2 parts baking soda and 1 part water. Let the drip pans sit for 15 minutes.

While the drip pans are soaking, wipe down the stove coils with a damp cloth to remove stains and residue. Scrub the drip pans and rinse the baking soda mixture. Use fresh soapy water to wash off the residue, then rinse and dry. Buff them to a nice shiny finish with a microfiber towel. Now, on to your stovetop.

How to Clean Your Stovetop

For gas stovetops, use caution and avoid getting the electric starter wet. Degrease the stovetop by wiping it down with a damp cloth to loosen up the top layer of residue. Use a sponge and soapy water to cut through the grease and wipe down your stovetop with a damp cloth to remove the cleaning solution.

For tough buildup, turn to your homemade baking soda mixture. Spread your cleaning paste over the entire stovetop and let it sit for at least 15 minutes. Scrub the stovetop and wipe off the baking soda cleaner with a clean, damp cloth.

If you are intimidated by cleaning your gas or electric stove, or any other place in your kitchen, don’t fret. Call The Maids for a free estimate and get that good-as-new, clean home feeling you love.

Gas stove tops offer quick temperature control and are more affordable to use than electric stove tops.

The best material for a gas stove is one that can conduct and distribute heat evenly, and respond quickly to temperature changes.

For the best cookware for gas stoves, look for ones that are made of stainless steel with aluminum or copper layers.

The average household gas stove looks like it can handle quite a bit. Its sizable build, durable fabrication, rugged cast iron grates, all signify a hard-wearing kitchen appliance.

Still, as with any appliance, especially one used practically every day to prepare food, it’s important to handle gas stoves with care. This means making sure the stove is well-maintained, properly cleaned, and used with the right cookware.

While technically any pot or pan can be used on a gas stove, there are certain materials that are better suited for its open-flame style of cooking. We recommend our own stainless steel cookware for gas stoves. In this article, we’ll share what those materials are, explain why they work so well, and round up some of the best cookware for gas stoves available today.

The Features of a Gas Stove

Iron gas stove may be older than electric stoves, but they’re still the preferred option for a number of reasons.

First and most important is how easy it is to adjust the heat of a gas stove. A burner can be turned on and off in an instant. And every twist of the control knob creates an immediate corresponding change in the burner’s flame level — a lightning quick heat response that’s crucial in cooking.

Many cooks also like how the flames provide a convenient visual cue about the stove’s current heat setting. This can be a bit trickier to gauge with the dark glass tops of electric or induction cooktops.

An added bonus of the open flame is that it lends itself well to quickly roasting a few small items, like corn tortillas, bell peppers, or marshmallows.

Cooking with gas is also comparatively cheaper than cooking with electricity. Gas stoves generally run on propane, butane, petroleum, or natural gas, all of which are quite affordable. This gives gas stoves an advantage, not only for the cost-conscious home cook, but for anyone who finds themselves in the middle of a power outage.

As for cookware, gas stovetops easily accommodate a wide range. They can be used with just about any type of cookware material and shape — from small skillets to tall stockpots. Woks in particular were designed to be used over an open flame.

Flames, however, don't naturally distribute heat in a uniform manner. Some parts of a pan will have more contact with stronger flames than other parts, and the heat can be very concentrated, especially on a low setting.

Add this to a gas stove’s ability to change temperatures in an instant, and it's easy to see why it's so important to use cookware that can ably withstand these variations.

Choosing the Best Portable Gas Stove

Portable gas stoves are crucial gear for the gourmet on the go. These stoves usually come with a burner and a cooking surface, and they let you boil, simmer, sauté, and fry. If you can do it on a stovetop at home, you can do it on a portable stove.

Folding gas stove is different than a portable gas grills. Portable grills are similar to the grills you use at home. If you want to grill up hot dogs, chicken, or vegetables, you’re good to go with a portable grill. But sometimes you want more than your standard backyard barbecue menu, and that’s where a portable gas stove comes in. These have burners more like a traditional stove. They often come with containers to cook in, but many can also be used with other types of pots, pans, and skillets like a regular stovetop.

What Kind of Portable Gas Stove Do You Need?

The adventures you have on the trail aren’t like anyone else’s. Your needs and your priorities are unique. That’s why there are stoves for every type of outdoor explorer, from long-distance backpackers to car campers.

As you think about your needs, there are some specific features you may want to think about:

Size – If you’re hiking, you’ll want to save as much space and weight in your pack as possible. If you’re getting to base camp and setting up quickly, you might be more willing to haul a little more gear in the name of having the perfect home away from home.

Fuel type – There are three main liquid fuels. Each have their own considerations and limitations. Then there’s our Jetpower fuel, which combines the benefits of both.

Propane is the most common camp stove fuel. It’s high-performance, and you can find it just about everywhere. Propane is what powers the Genesis base camp system, and Jetlink technology lets you build a high-efficiency network of burners from one propane tank.

Isobutane has a lower boiling point, and it’s lighter. That means it’s easier to carry, and it’s more efficient in colder environments. However, it’s also more expensive.

Butane is the cheapest fuel for a portable gas stove, but it’s also the least efficient and reliable. It has the highest boiling point and the lowest vapor pressure of the three gases.

Jetpower is Jetboil’s engineered blend of propane and isobutane. It’s a unique mix that combines the best aspects of both, and it’s what we trust to power most of our stoves. Jetpower delivers high vapor pressure in all four seasons.

Cost – Cost is certainly a factor in choosing a portable gas stove, and there are options at every price point. However, it’s worth noting that sometimes paying more up front can save money in the long run. A high-efficiency stove means you’ll spend less on fuel over time, and durable equipment means you won’t have to buy a replacement for a long time.

Durability – Most people want a stove that holds up outdoors as well as they do. Knowing that you’ve got a well-engineered stove means knowing you’ve got a reliable one.

Number of burners – How big is the group that you’re feeding? If you’re solo, or just out with a partner, you can probably get away with one. But if you’re feeding a group, you may want a setup like the Genesis, which starts with two burners and can expand as your group dose.

Utility – What are you cooking? Are you boiling soup? Are you making a three-course meal? The meals you plan to cook may be the biggest factor of all in choosing the stove that suits your needs.

[boog-shitposting-edition]

So I been playing a ton of Kenshi and watched all of the Mandalorian in a single day shortly before and it’s got me thinking about what makes what I consider a good action hero, because there was definitely a time where I thought the phrase “good action hero” was an oxymoron.

I grew up around some angry, unstable dudes who had that bad habit of watching horror movies and opining that in the same situation they would simply shoot the monster with the gun the character was holding. I got some views on the model of masculinity that sees the male ideal as functionally a tool for performing violence, condescension and occasional reddit-approved banter with all other emotional responses pared away or suppressed. This seems like a good way to manufacture a product for performing labor rather than developing a whole functional human being. So I generally veer away from that sort of thing pretty hard.

So I’m resistant to the Mandalorian at first, right? All the ads are basically star wars apocryphica and a power armored fighty gun boy. The last star wars thing I’d seen was The Rise Of Skywalker and my faith in the franchise is low. But it’s been a hot minute, the hype dies down, and my girlfriend is a better and more patient fan than I’ll ever be so we give it a go. And the first thing that really nails it for me is what a DORK the mando is. I’m delighted, his life is violence interdispersed with being an absolute buttfumble disaster. He slips and falls over things he could never have predicted, he burns his life down for a baby he finds in the desert. Pedro Pascal references Boba Fetts stiff menace and plays it off as someone who has no social skills other than stiff menace and it’s FASCINATING. Him explaining to the village woman who is obviously into him that he hasn’t taken the armor off since he was thirteen isn’t a badass declaration of martial devotion, it is the single saddest and most awkward interaction I have ever seen filmed and it hits all the harder for the fact that this is a character I’ve mostly ever seen as an action figure with a spring loaded missile backpack. Instead of being a faceless emotionless action-cudgel, Pedro amps up the body language in his acting to really sell you this heavily psychologically damaged, desperate, viking-space-catholic mess with no life skills other than violence and a devotion to his people’s creed that borders on obsession. Rather than paring himself down making him a psychological fortress, the Mando is an incredibly obvious walking raw nerve (”I’m not sad-” “Yes you are.”) So, Kenshi.

I’ve heard about this game on and off a few years and finally got it a few days ago. It’s been in early access since 2012, appears to be mostly getting finished by its modding community, and glitches like absolute woah. There’s no core storyline, just a post-apocalyptic setting with some surprisingly detailed autogenerated NPC interactions with some options for starting conditions and the sole goal of surviving. It’s essentially a rapid sequence of story prompts hidden underneath a closely interlocked system of XP grinding, survival mechanics and dismemberment algorithms, and is appallingly my shit.

My first run at the game got pretty far, went from a lone confused desert wanderer to a 13 man village running a tidy copper-mining operation to trade with the ant people. In the early game, fight mechanics are basically a death sentence; my first character immediately got her leg torn off by a goat and I had to restart. All skills grow only by excersizing them; you have to fight to get better at fighting, you have to LOSE fights to gain toughness, and when you lose a fight the consequences can range from “these bandits are stealing all your food” to “this monster is eating your leg/heart/head” to “these slavers are taking your character away and your game experience is Different now.” And while I was proud of myself for finding a way to survive, grow and thrive with a low-combat squad, once I tried the basebuilding mechanics that basically just meant my town was a source of free food and money for local bandits while my squad starved to death, unable to abandon our locale. So I got fed up and restarted.

As mentioned the game gives you different start positions; wanderer gives you 1 character, some money and pants. Guy and his dog gives you a dog, which is fun. Exiled officer starts you with good skills and the hatred of your former commander, which complicates things. Cannibal Hunters starts you already in a fistfight with 30 cannibals. It’s exciting times. But I figure this time I’d like to start my squad a LITTLE more capable of defending themselves, so I look at the Holy Sword start; you’re a bandit who starts with a stolen holy weapon, minuses in most skills, no money and a 20,000 bounty on your head from both major factions.

So I proceed to character creation and notice I can pick whatever I want for player species/subspecies with this start. There’s robot people and warriors made of stone and baseline humans and all sorts of fun options, but you remember those ant people I mentioned before? In game they’re called the Hivers, you find ‘em in 3 recruitable varieties (prince, worker drone and soldier) and they have an interesting in-universe quirk; ones that grow up in the hive are pheramone-addicted, chemically wired into the needs and wants of all of their fellows, but if you’re away from your kin for over a fortnight this addiction dries out incredibly fast and cannot be reinstated. Hivers who ever spend any time away from the hive are declared “lost ones,” and are often taken advantage of in the outside world as they long for a new community.

In survival sims I dont often play dedicated fighters, I always feel like being a brutal fight-beast isn’t really in the spirit of finding a niche to exploit and growing from a fumbling plebian to a major power. But I was already starting this game with my ONLY advantage being a nice sword. And the soldier hivers gain a buff to experience gained for melee attack and toughness, and a debuff to literally all else.

Manual labor. Science. Engineering. Farming. Cooking. First aide. In a setting that heavily prioritized your ability to survive using multiple vital skill sets, my character would start with negatives in his skills for putting on band-aids and FEEDING himself. So I gave it a go.

Getting more wild here, it turns out the Holy Sword opening also takes place in a time in the setting with more recent warfare, so a bunch of the starting villages are destroyed and it appears that more of the nearby cities are controlled by the factions that have a bounty on me. So my character CAN’T rely on other people or meet anyone to recruit at first. He can run, he can scrounge and scavenge, and as mentioned above starting characters can take lethal damage from GOATS so he can’t even hunt for food; the only way I was getting a meal was if I robbed someone or ran into merchants on the road I could hawk my salvage to for a scrap of bread.

He eventually finds someone willing to join him on his travels in spite of being flat broke, a shek named Ruka running from a dishonerable loss on the battlefield, and comparing their skills he’s so useless for everything besides combat that I assign him to bodyguard her. And again, this game’s appeal is that the survival mechanics make good story prompts, so imagine that in character.

“Fine, I need a change. I’ll join you.” “Thank god. Lead the way boss.” “What?”

Things regarding my characters bounty are starting to heat up in town, so we head north into hiver territory. We get attacked by bandits and heavily injured, my soldier gets knocked out, so Ruka picks him up and carries him until we find a hive town. I saw these guys all the time in my last playthrough, I survived by selling to them, they’re super friendly, should be fine. Ruka walks into the local shop and before I can have her ask for directions and a medikit the shopkeeper is already shouting- “SKREEE! LOST ONE! GET OUT! LOST ONES BRING MADNESS”

Apparently, my protagonist being a hiveless hiver means there’s a THIRD faction that’s hostile to him; his own goddamn people. Ruka has to leave him under a tree not just outside but like 50 feet from the edge of town, and just has  to hope none of the local wild megafauna eats him while she rushes back in to buy things from the now abruptly friendlier shopkeep.

I’m finally sitting there, having Ruka watch my soldier hiver sleep while she cooks scavanged meat and waits for him to finish healing, that I realize what the story being generated here is and it’s a good one; a Hive soldier whose only skills are violence, frantically scavenging and stealing to survive until he can find the one circumstance where he’s comfortable, sacrificing himself to protect others. He steals a sword that’s obviously important to two major governments, just because he knows it’s powerful and thinks that power will justify his continued existence as a hiveless soldier drone, essentially buying his way back into his people’s good graces by performing his function. Literally wandering the world until he found a single person who was willing to boss him around again and devoting himself to their defense to a state of pathological damage just to feel like he has a hive again. It’s sad. It’s badass. It’s deeply, unsettlingly pathetic.

But I also think it’s what makes a really really good gruff action hero!

Hypercompetence in violence is really interesting when you acknowledge the damage it can do to your humanity in the storytelling! The Mandalorian is unsuccessful in repressing his empathy response so he just tries to tough through the pain it causes him as best he can, until he meets The Child and it snaps. The Hiver is essentially playing pretend at being still valued as a product for committing violence, even in the face of being openly rejected for his previously esteemed role. This stuff is INTERESTING.

TL;DR version, a lot of these “supersoldier raised by the military/fight wizards/karate” characters are super boring and obnoxious when they’re put forward as power fantasies, and really interesting when you realize that being raised by Fight Wizards is why they’ve never had a girlfriend and called their handgun “mom” once.

[gamesception]

Ok, so, back on track, we infiltrate Castle Redcliffe, kill the undead there, meet Jowan who tells us about everything that happened, and beat up the brainwashed knights and guards until they come to their senses, after which the possessed child runs off to hide in their room.

At this point it seems like we have to kill the kid, but Jowan offers an alternative, he can send Obidiah to the fade to confront the demon directly. Normally that sort of ritual takes many mages, but Jowan can use blood magic, with the catch that he'll need to literally kill someone to power the spell. Lady Isolde volunteers, feeling partially responsible for everything that happened and willing to die to save her son.

Which is a neat dilemma, undercut by there being a third option of going to the mage's circle to get a bunch of mages to do the fade ritual normally with nobody dying.

But that's really a bullshit solution that shouldn't be there. Leaving the kid possessed for the days it would take to go get the mages would just let the horrors at Redcliffe continue and probably kill the entire town. Not only that, but informing the mages would mean informing the templars, and if the templars hear there's an abomination at Redcliffe they'd storm in and kill the kid with no question of risky rituals to spare him. So this freebie, everyone lives third solution is fake and dumb and I'm not going to entertain it as a real possibility.

And the fact that it would mean completing the entire overly long mage circle quest before coming back to finally unlock my specialization has *nothing* to do with my decision.

So Jowan performs the ritual, and Lady Isolde dies, and main character enters the fade. We kill a few demons and find the main possessing demon, who is so intimidated by the ease with which Obidiah wiped out her minions (three different stunning spells will do that), not to mention his maxed out coersion skill, that she not only relinquishes her hold on the child, she also teaches me the basics of Blood Magic for my trouble.

Obidiah's always been interested in unorthodox magical traditions, and seeing the sorts of feats Jowan, an otherwise honestly pretty unremarkable mage, has been able to pull off with Blood Magic has him very interested in the forbidden school's potential.

Mechanically blood magic is crazy good. In DAO there are two main categories of spells - regular spells that take a set amount if mp to cast, which then slowly regenerates, and sustained spells, which are ongoing effects - mostly personal buffs but also some aura effects - that reduce your maximum mp while they're active. Blood magic lets you use hp instead of mp to power your active spells, which in turn lets you invest your entire mp pool into powerful sustained spells while still casting as many big active spells as you like by tapping hp instead of mp. It's a strategy that can leave you pretty vulnerable, but that also makes you an absolutely overwhelming force of arcane power and completely justifies the reputation blood magic has within the game's narrative.

On top of that, the school contains the most overtly broken individual spell in the game, an instant cast, large aoe, party friendly, long duration stun that also deals significant damage over time. It's basically an "I win" button and the game is markedly worse for its existence, but I will absolutely be spamming it once I have it anyway.

[housebeleren]

Throne of Eldraine New Commander Cards

Alright, now that we’ve gone through all the Legendary creatures from Throne of Eldraine, time for all the other cards that might make a splash in Commander. I love this part.

This may seem like a weird pick, but there are honestly a bunch of Voltron commanders that might be interested in this. I can definitely see it in Sram, Tuvasa, and Bruna builds as ways to go really big really fast. You need some form of evasion, but there are plenty of ways to do that in those decks. But that’s a lot more action than most draft Uncommons get.

Charming Prince, aside from looking like he’s about to drop dead from Cholera or something (seriously dude, that ghostly pallor is not a good look), is a surprising amount of utility for a 2 drop. Early in the game, the Scry 2 ability is going to smooth out your draws, and later on, he’s all about the flicker to reuse ETBs. I could see him in more casual Brago, Roon, or Chulane builds. But are there casual Brago or Chulane builds anymore? Unlikely.

More restrictive Oblivion Ring effects aren’t usually something I’m in the market for, but decks that care about Artifacts may be into it. The first one that comes to mind is something like Sharuum the Hegemon or something, and there could be others. Probably not powerful enough for Breya, and Alela has access to better options that are Enchantments.

Hushwing Gryff variants see a fair amount of play, and this one also shuts off death triggers, which is a significant upgrade, because it hoses two strategies instead of just one. It doesn’t have the Flash to surprise your opponents, but the added utility is probably worth it for decks that want to hate.

Board WIpes are always welcome, and this one has the added utility of coming attached to a large creature after the fact. The best place for this will be in decks that have lots of ways to return the creature to hand so you can set up loops clearing the board, or in decks with lots of Giants so you can break parity. Kalemne comes to mind as a great home for this.

True Love’s Kiss has a lot of competition, most notably Crush Contraband and Return to Dust at the same CMC. I think which one you want depends a lot on your metagame. If you face lots of decks that are heavy on the Artifacts & Enchantments, you may want the ones that can hit multiple targets. If you just need the occasional spot removal, getting the card draw might be better. I also like this a lot for Taigam, Ojutai Master decks, since cantrips are extra useful there.

The Magic Mirror is is a rework of Mind Unbound, a card I’ve never played and probably never will. However, in a deck with lots of Instants & Sorceries, you can get this down for as little as 3 mana, which is way more palatable. If you can back this up with counterspells to keep it alive a few turns, it’ll become pretty potent pretty fast. I can picture it, is what I’m saying.

Honestly, I’m pretty big on Midnight Clock. I think a lot of people forget that this is a mana rock, and it doesn’t even come into play tapped, so the floor is pretty high right off the bat for heavy Blue decks. Plus, the counters get put on this on EVERY upkeep, not just your own, so it only needs to survive a couple turns before you get a personal Timetwister out of it. I’m not saying it’s an autoinclude or new format staple or anything, but I would definitely be willing to try it out.

Efficient, flexible removal at its best. Epic Downfall will hit just about anything you want it to hit, other than a Gaddoc Teeg or something. I expect lots of decks to be looking to throw this into the mix of spot removal.

Foulmire Knight isn’t going to go into every deck, but it’s certainly a contender for Zombie tribal, since he comes with card draw attached. Plus, lots of such decks have tons of ways to retrieve him from the graveyard, so you can get extra utility. I’m putting him directly in my Gisa & Geralf deck, because a fun quirk of their ability is that you can cast the Profane Insight half from your graveyard, even though only on your turn, so you lose the Instant-speed fun. Other decks that could be interested are Varina and The Scarab God.

Literally everything I said about Foulmire Knight above applies to Murderous Rider as well, except more so. Having a Zombie stapled to a Hero’s Downfall is incredible, and generally a clear upgrade, since the life loss is so negligible. The one kink (well, I shouldn’t presume he only has one) of this guy is that he tucks himself on death, which is a bit unfortunate but probably necessary to avoid him being ridiculous. HOWever, there are some fun things there. First, his death trigger goes on the stack, and can be responded to. So, that means the following:

If it’s your turn when the Rider dies, you can cast Swift End from your graveyard with Gisa & Geralf.

You can exile the Rider and one other card from your ‘yard to Varina in response, and get a Zombie token, which is kinda her thing.

You can get him back to your hand by activating Phyrexian Reclamation or similar with his trigger on the stack.

So yeah, there’s some fun to be had here.

Revenge of Ravens bears a lot of similarity to other cards we’ve seen before, like Blood Reckoning and Marchesa’s Decree, most of which see very little play. But this one has one important upgrade, and that’s the fact that it gains you a life. As a result, it has extra utility in decks that care about lifegain triggers such as Oloro and Karlov builds, both of which love their pillow-forting. I doubt it’ll see much play, but could be a niche inclusion in decks like those.

Tutors are great, and this is one of the most unique tutor effects we’ve seen in a long time. They key to this card revolves around breaking parity so your opponents don’t get to take advantage of it. The first way that came to mind for me was to include this in Aminatou, the Fateshifter builds, since she can just flicker it back to your side of the board after activating it. Which seems... gross and awesome at the same time. (I totally put it in my Aminatou build immediately.) Other possible options are Breya, who can sacrifice it in response to its ability, or in decks with cards like Ashiok, Dream Render or Stranglehold, so they just can’t use it. On a really jank note, if you have an Ob Nixilis, Unshackled deck, this is a funny inclusion that punishes whoever you give it to. 

Voltron decks with Red will be interested in Embercleave. So... Zurgo Helmsmasher comes to mind, assuming you’re not going full-on Worldslayer combo. I could also see it in decks like Saskia and things like that. Probably not a major player, but potential for decks that want to go aggressive.

The clause that you can only cast one more spell after this is unfortunate, but it could still be a reasonable inclusion in mono Red decks like either version of Neheb (the Eternal or Dreadhorde Champion) that want to go big burn. Also, if you have a 7 CMC mono Red general like, Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, this seems like an auto-include. I mean, you need all the help you can get if you built a Drakuseth deck, so...

Now, hear me out. Looters/Rummagers are great in certain builds, and Merchant of the Vale is unique in two ways. First, he’s got a one shot effect tacked on as an Adventure, which is some added flexibility. But second, he’s actually the only Rummaging creature in mono Red that doesn’t require tapping. Seriously. That means in some big Red Mana decks (like the aforementioned Nehebs), you can rummage to your heart’s content with all the mana you generate to dump into this. Not saying he’s great, but saying he’s worth consideration if you’re in the market for mana sinks in mono Red.

Obviously, the dream is to cast this off Irencrag Feat, but even if you don’t, this could be a reasonable inclusion for mono Red big Mana decks. (I’m sensing a theme with these last few cards.) Dealing 21 damage is no joke, and I could even see this in some versions of Vial Smasher that focus on big mana production. Again, most decks probably won’t want it, but the ones that do will make good use of it.

There’s no shortage of ramp spells, and for 3 mana we’re accustomed to fetching 2 lands (see: Kodama’s Reach & Cultivate). That said, this one has some advantages. First, the land it fetches comes into play untapped, which is a nice little bit of utility, especially if you can follow it up with a one drop mana dork immediately after. But it also has a Rubblehulk tacked on for the late game, which is a totally viable win condition in some decks. Would I trade Rubblehulk’s Bloodrush ability for Beanstalk Giant’s ramp? For most decks, abso-fucking-lutely. And this one is mono-Green, so it can go into way more decks. I’d consider it for certain builds of Kynaios & Tiro, Chulane, Azusa, and a variety of other big-mana decks that thrive on versatility.

The Great Henge is expensive, but will be amazing once it resolves. It adds mana, it draws cards, and it buffs up every creature you land, which is a ton of action. And if you can reliably get this down to 5 mana, you’re in great shape. Big Green Stompy decks like Ghalta will be super into this, and I can also see if for +1/+1 counter decks like Ezuri, Claw of Progress, since those often get big/big with ease.

While the Transformation doesn’t have the target flexibility of Song of the Dryads, it’s a pretty effective way to deal with annoying Commanders or problematic creatures, and the card draw on ETB is a nice touch. It’s a fun little pairing with Estrid’s Invocation, so keep that in mind if you’re playing Bantchantress or some such nonsense.

I don’t know what deck wants this, and I honestly don’t really want to know, because it seems ridiculous. But returning stuff straight from the graveyard to play is always a strong move, and buying back a pile of Artifacts in something like Sharuum or Breya is probably a game ending play. The non-Aura line of text makes it a little less appealing for Enchantment builds, since most of the best one are heavy in Auras. Still, I’m sure it will find some homes and be a lot of fun (for at least one person) when it resolves.

Also, somewhere on Twitter (don’t remember where, unfortunately), someone said that this card should be called “Manse Dance Revolution,” and that is absolutely correct.

Drown in the Loch is versatile removal at a very reasonable cost. All it asks is that your opponents have cards in their graveyards, which is super easy in EDH. The funny part is, this honestly gets stronger the more competitive your metagame, since competitive builds will have Fetchlands and early interaction, plus their average CMC is much lower, so you’ll more frequently have targets. In mill decks like Mirko Vosk or Phenax, you are always running this, and I’d consider it in just about any Blue/Black based deck.

Green has some better engines to draw cards, but as a quick burst, 5 for 5 is a pretty awesome rate. Plus, I like that the card has some protection against flipping a few lands by at least letting you play an extra one, so worst case it’s an Explosive Vegetation. I’d definitely run this in Wort, the Raidmother decks, because conspiring this to flip 10 cards, then immediately dropping two more lands seems like a solid way to set up a game-ending turn. And if you’re building Gruul in general, it seems like something to consider.

I couldn’t not mention Nessie here. 6 mana is a lot, but he has a pile of abilities for that 6 mana, and Flash lets him come down at end of turn, so he’s more likely to resolve. In a way, it reminds me of Pearl Lake Ancient, another card I occasionally run as a WTF element in my decks to catch people off guard. They’re both giant serpents, they both have Flash, and they’re both resilient recursive threats. You definitely don’t want to use Nessie’s sacrifice abilities too much, but they’ll be handy if you’re flooded. Plus, he’s got incidental Graveyard hate tacked on, which is actually my favorite little secret of his, so I especially like him in decks with lots of Wheels (Nekusar says “HI!”), as something you can discard for value, then activate to remove problematic cards your opponents may want to recover from their ‘yards.

3-cost Mana Rocks are never the competitive option, especially when they only produce one color at a time. But 3-cost Mana Rocks with a team-wide pump attached is worth a second look. Mono-color go-wide decks will be interested in this for sure, as well as 2 color decks that consistently produce tokens of a single color, like Alela or Kykar.

Okay, before I start on this card, I’d just like to say that a lot of the lands in this set are highly playable. Basically all of the Castle cycle are playable, especially Castles Vantress, Locthwain, and Garenbrig. Also, Fabled Passage is phenomenal tech for multicolored decks, and is such an obvious staple, it’s not worth writing about. 

Of the Common Land cycle, however, there is one that stands above all the rest. Yes, Witch’s Cottage is basically a better Mortuary Mire in heavy Black decks, so some places will run it. But the big news is Mystic Sanctuary. This card is such the hotness for mono Blue decks and a few others of note. First of all, the potential to combo this with Time Warps is off the charts. I literally cannot imagine not running this in God-Eternal Kefnet decks, because the synergy is so strong setting up your next draw. And lastly, I’m putting it in my Aminatou the Fateshifter build (which runs both the aforementioned cards), because putting expensive spells back on top of your deck is kinda what that whole deck is about. Plus, she can flicker it, which is some stupid-level combo right there.

Brawl Deck Cards for Commander

Okay, that’s it for the main set. Now we get to the cards from the four Brawl decks that have potential for the big time.

Mace of the Valiant is an interesting one. It’s a Voltron card that wants lots of little creatures to enter the battlefield. That makes it a little paradoxical, but I think there are probably homes for it. Two of the obvious ones are the decks it came in, Alela and Syr Gwyn, but there are certainly others. There’s potential in several generals who have fallen out of favor, such as Rafiq of the Many and basically any of the mono-White cats, like Kemba, Kha Regent, who seems preemptively designed specifically for this card. (Seriously, if any of y’all run Kemba decks and haven’t put this in yet, what are you even doing?)

Shimmer Dragon is too obvious, but therefore I have to mention it. This will be a format staple for years to come, since Blue-based Artifact decks have always been popular. Yes, it’s expensive, but once it comes out, drawing your deck in short order will be absolutely trivial. Urza decks will love this. Oops, all my mana rocks and constructs are also card draw! Seems good.

Chittering Witch seems fun, if a little on the casual side. But she doesn’t cost much, and her ability is a pretty reasonable way to snipe down problematic threats as you need. In decks with tons of sac fodder, you could definitely do worse. Endrek Sahr comes to mind as a fun combo piece with this.

This is definitely more on the casual side, but Red needs more options, and Embereth Skyblazer has some potential. Pumping up your entire team for +3/+0 on each attack can be brutal, and it gets especially interesting in decks that involve multiple combats, like Aurelia the Warleader, or that increase damage dealt, like Gisela, Blade of Goldnight. In short, this is actually a Boros card.

Steelbane Hydra seems really good, especially in big mana decks (Azusa, Gitrog, Kruphix, Nikya, I could go on...) or in decks that can add +1/+1 counters to him (Atraxa, Marath, Vorel, Ezuri, Ghave, I could go on...). In other words, there are all kinds of homes for this guy, plus: TURTLE HYDRA!

He’s so cute.

Now, I’ll readily admit that my opinion of Thorn Mammoth may be skewed by the fact that it is absolutely stupid good in 1v1 Brawl. It obviously gets worse in multiplayer and in bigger card pools. But, that said, there are times when this card could absolutely own the board. My particular dream would be to cast an Avenger of Zendikar and Heroic Intervention with this guy out, and just build my own Plague Wind. Because that sounds fun, if a little jank. But seriously, Green can find ways to make this good, and can certainly find ways to cast it.

Obviously, Knight’s Charge belongs in one type of deck, and that deck is Knights tribal. And in that deck, this will be the best card in your deck. So whether you’re running Syr Gwyn or Aryel, Knight of Windgrace or motherfucking Morophon Knights for some reason, then you’ll run this and you’ll like it.

Okay, Tome of Legends is a card that nobody asked for, but here it is and if your commander is all about coming down quickly and going sideways, then here’s a card for them. So... I guess... Captain Lannery Storm, we found a card for you?

Aaaaaand last but definitely first, we have this gem. Arcane Signet. The card that made Commander players everywhere lose their collective shit and buy out every copy of every Brawl deck, jacking prices up to the sky. Way to go us! (Seriously though, I’m totally part of this problem and I fully admit it.)

Well, after many sobering hours of reflection pondering our addiction and the general meaninglessness of the pieces of cardboard we spend literal thousands of dollars on, and hence, the meaninglessness of life itself, we started slotting these babies into decks and forgot all about that nonsense. Because yes, truly, this card is great, and you should always run it.

And if they don’t reprint this in literally every Commander and Brawl product ever printed going forward, so help me... 

I’m fine. I swear.

So yeah. That’s it. All the cards from Throne of Eldraine for Commander. There... sure are a lot of them, aren’t there? It’s like Wizards is thinking about majorly pushing this format or something... :)

[monstersdownthepath]

Spiritual Spotlight: Nivi Rhombodazzle, the Grey Polychrome

True Neutral Demigoddess of Gems, Stealth, and Gambling

Domains: Community, Earth, Luck, Trickery Subdomains: Caves, Deception, Fate, Thievery

Faiths of Golarion, pg. 47~51

Obedience: Engage in a game of chance in which gems, money, or objects of value equaling or exceeding 10gp are at stake. Offer a prayer to Nivi Rhombodazzle out loud just before the wager begins (before the dice are thrown, the cards are drawn, the wheel is spun, etc). If there is no one else to wager against, make a bet against yourself on Nivi’s behalf, setting aside the winnings as an offering to her should she ‘win.’ In either case, afterwords, spend the remaining time in private reveling in the thrill of chance and steeling yourself for the moment when fate will turn against you. Benefit: Gain a +4 sacred or profane bonus to Bluff and Sleight of Hand checks. The type of bonus depends on your alignment; if you are neither good nor evil, you must choose whether it is a sacred or profane bonus when you first perform this Obedience and cannot be changed after.

Much like Cayden Cailean, keeping Nivi’s faith on the down-low is more or less impossible. Thankfully, her faith is accepted (or at least tolerated) in more or less any settlement, aside perhaps in those where gambling is viewed with scorn.

This Obedience may at first seem like it’s difficult to do consistently because after all, you stand to lose 10gp every day! But note that it says that 10gp must be at stake, not that you, personally, must have contributed to the prize. If ten other people each donate 1gp and you toss in a single copper (or a button that looks like a copper in the right light and when not examined too closely), the thing still counts for your Obedience. You don’t have to spend a silver, you just have to be part of the wager.

Also note that this Obedience can very well apply to things like a party deciding who gets to carry the Cursed Artifact Of Horrible Death (certainly worth more than 10gp) for the day, though you CAN’T use it if someone’s spinning a chore wheel. Your labor may certainly be worth more than 10gp, but her Obedience demands that material goods be at stake.

Also, there’s nothing saying that you can’t simply give items back once you’ve ‘won’ them, or that other winners can’t give their ill-gotten gains back to their rightful owners. The alternative Obedience requiring you to bet against yourself also doesn’t say you need to donate or otherwise lose Nivi’s winnings, so you can just pocket them once more at the end. Nivi might look down on that, though--despite her penchant for gambling, she does not tolerate actual cheating--so do that carefully.

That benefit is pretty good, though. Bluff is a very valuable skill for moments where Diplomacy can’t be used, and though Sleight of Hand is much rarer, the moments where you NEED to use it will make you thankful you have the bonus.

Boons are gathered slowly, typically obtained when a given character has 12, 16, and 20 hit dice. Unlike fiend-worshipers, servants of the Eldest, and devoted of the Empyreal Lords, characters worshiping Neutral gods do not seem to have catch-all classes (though I could very well have just missed it)… but Neutral-aligned characters can enter the Evangelist, Sentinel, and Exalted Prestige Classes earlier than Evil characters, classing in as early as level 6 (they need +5 BAB, 5 ranks in a single skill, or the ability to cast lvl 3 spells); entered ASAP, one can gain the Boons at levels 8, 11, and 14.

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EVANGELIST

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Boon 1: Gambler’s Essentials. Gain True Strike 3/day, Augury 2/day, or Haste 1/day.

I love this ability’s name. Not above steering luck in her own favor (NOT cheating!), Nivi grants her followers the same blessing. 3/day True Strike is fairly decent, though as your levels climb, you may find it more and more difficult to justify giving up a round of actions in order to assure your next attack strikes. Augury I’ll usually never take even as a spell-like; it takes too long to cast, and knowing the future may cause it to change.

Besides, those two options are stacked up against Haste. They never really had a chance. Unless you desperately need a fortune told, Haste is always, ALWAYS the way to go every time it appears as a potential Boon.

Boon 2: Gambler’s Egress. 3/day as a swift action, you may cast Litany of Escape as a spell-like ability targeting yourself or an ally.

I had no idea Litany of Escape existed until doing this article. For those not in the know, it’s a Close-range (25ft + 5ft/level) spell that can be used on a willing creature (and yourself, which is a Gambler’s Egress-only blessing) to instantaneously pop them out of a grapple or a pin, and teleport them 10ft in any direction while getting them to their feet.

I know a lot of times I’ll say that an ability is invaluable or that it will save your life, but it goes without saying that instantly breaking a grapple regardless of how skilled the grappler is while also giving your friend 10ft of breathing room can stop an encounter from immediately ending. Even if you’re not in direct combat, this spell renders the old “knife to the throat” hostage situations a non-issue and keeps you from being kidnapped by some stealthy, grabby enemy. Normally, the litany is limited by its need for verbal and somatic components (difficult to use while grappled), but as a spell-like, it uses no components.

AND it’s a swift action! So not only can you squeeze out of a Purple Worm’s mouth, but you can then blast it/slash it/run screaming in the same round! I also appreciate the fact Nivi is generous enough to let her followers use this power three times a day.

Boon 3: Gambler’s Prayer. 3/day as a standard action, you may make a wager against Nivi Rhombodazzle. This wager manifests as a Wondrous Effect generated by a Rod of Wonder, which can be aimed towards a target up to 60ft away provided the effect does not affect the wielder. If the 88-90 result is rolled, the gemstones fired are blessed by Nivi and each successful strike deals additional damage equal to your Charisma modifier (min +0). 

It’s important that you know what a Rod of Wonder is so I’m linking it twice. These weird and wacky items can do everything from provide cover via a cloud of butterflies to instantly turning the victim to stone, to reducing the wielder by two entire size categories, to simply blasting someone with a Fireball. This is one ability that actually gets endlessly weirder to use depending on if your DM uses variant Wondrous Effect tables, which I highly encourage when using this power.

I adore this ability! Though how useful it actually as obviously depends heavily on how lucky you’re feeling. Fitting for someone worshiping a goddess who embodies the rush of a wager! But less practical for an adventurer who wants a situation handled, especially once you realize that the save DCs for the Wondrous Effects are pitifully low by the time you get this power (a blessing in disguise, as it reduces the chance of you getting screwed over). If nothing else, it makes for a great distraction, a good party trick, and a good trick to pull out when you just want to make things more interesting.

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EXALTED

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Boon 1: Faithful’s Fortune. Gain Bless 3/day, Misdirection 2/day, or Heroism 1/day.

Ehhh, not a lot here, really. Bless and Heroism are nice, though I’d lean more towards Bless; giving everyone a weak boost is usually better than giving one person a better buff, Heroism is obviously better if you have someone on you side who’s consistently making full-attacks, or someone you expect to be in the thick of it, so it’s a tossup about whether it or Bless is better to take each day.

Misdirection is a cute spell, but unlikely to come in handy unless you really need to hide information about yourself or another. It’s the niche spell in this lineup, one you’re unlikely to need, but will be happy to have when you do.

Boon 2: Gemstone Guardian. 1/day as a standard action, you can summon a Huge Earth Elemental. You gain 100ft of telepathy to commune with the Elemental, and it follows your commands perfectly for 1 minute/Hit Dice before vanishing back into the Plane of Earth. This called Elemental will never obey a command that would make it cause direct harm to a gnome or svirfneblin, though it can be commanded to grapple or otherwise restrain such a creature.

A Huge Earth Elemental is a CR 7 beatstick, undecorated and plain in stats but resilient and obedient. They possess a 15ft reach and two slam attacks which deal 2d8+9 damage. Nothing particularly special, another body on the field, but they do ALSO have the very interesting Earth Glide.

Earth Glide allows the Elemental to pass through anything short of solid metal while burrowing, making it an amazing scout despite its immense size. Earth Glide technically allows it to pass through even worked stone, allowing it to weave easily through stone fortifications protecting an enemy camp, a dungeon, or a castle, so long as it’s not reinforced with metal or wood. With 100ft of telepathy between the two of you, an Earth Elemental can easily report everything it sees to you, and even crossing out of that distance doesn’t mean they instantly die. They can come back and report on what they saw.

Note that the first time you use this to your advantage, it’s likely the DM didn’t forsee it. The second and beyond? Awfully weird how enemy vaults and bedchambers are so often lined with lead nowadays, eh?

That being said, having a bruiser big enough for you to hide behind is still decent, even though it becomes less useful as your level climbs.

Boon 3: Seven-Pipped Gem. As an immediate action, you can gain a luck bonus on any single d20 roll equal to half your total HD. You may use this ability after you’ve rolled, but you must use it before the result of the roll is declared. If you use this ability on a Sleight of Hand roll, or a roll pertaining to a game of chance, the luck bonus is equal to your total HD instead. You can safely use this ability a number of times per day equal to your Charisma modifier (min 1), but if you have no daily uses of this ability left, you may still invoke it. Doing so results in a 50% chance that your luck bonus becomes a penalty instead.

Any d20 roll. Any. Skill check, ability check, attack roll, saving throw, weapon damage roll with a ridiculous weapon, random chance rolls on specific weird abilities, death rolls... It’s really astounding how many d20 rolls a single player character makes in one session, isn’t it? And you, servant of Nivi, can get a preposterously huge luck bonus to any of them. Getting +4 to any roll is an amazing ability, and getting +6 is astonishing. You, at minimum, get +7 (fittingly enough), which rises all the way to +10 at level 20.

And if you’re doing some cute Sleight of Hand trick or dealing cards? +20.

Even at 1/day, the ability to get +7 and up to any single d20 roll is... Not particularly incredible compared to most final Boons, I’ll admit, but as your Charisma modifier rises, this ability goes from ‘useful’ to ‘outrageous.’ 2/day? 3/day? 4/day if you’re a Swashbuckler or Charisma-based caster? You basically become untouchable.

And, of course, if you’re feeling daring, there’s the chance of using this ability as often as you feel like in order to try and succeed. At a certain point, like with attack rolls and saving throws, there’s very little reason not to, because if you fail you’ve already failed and things can’t get any worse. But if that +7 would let you just squeak by? Go for it! If you’re going to die, you might as well try, right?

Just note that, because it’s an immediate action, you can only use it 1/round... And that a DM may take abuse of this ability as a signal they need to be harsher on your failures. Maybe you take a swing at a monster with 20 AC and roll a 13. You’ve already missed, right? So might as well try and use the Seven-Pipped Gem to succe--oh you got a penalty instead. Oh well, not like you lost anything! Unless the DM decides that your foul luck caused your weapon to slip from your hands, opening you up to an Attack of Opportunity...

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SENTINEL

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Boon 1: Communal Combatant. Divine Favor 3/day, Shield Other 2/day, or Prayer 1/day.

Back in Milani’s article, I discussed both Divine Favor (Exalted) and Shield Other (Sentinel), so just pop over there and give them a look if you need a refresher! Favor is a lot more useful for the traditionally-martial Sentinel than it was for the typically-caster Exalted, so it’s a pleasure to see here! Its power rises with your level, up to +3 to attack and damage rolls, and while its spell form quickly falls off in usefulness, its spell-like form is much more flexible. Its 1 minute duration will last likely an entire combat with some time left over (meaning you should slap it on the moment you detect trouble), and it’s always nice to have.

Shield Other is typically nicer to have, though. Granting your allies expanded durability is always good, and your own (presumably) fat HP bar buffering your fragile but more blaster-y friends will keep them from being downed the moment they’re focused.

Prayer is... Actually really good? It’s a very small bonus, but it applies to everyone in a 40ft burst, works on more or less every roll they make, and penalizes enemies at the same time. That’s a +2 swing in your favor, and it offers no saving throw. It won’t change the course of an entire combat, but it’ll certainly make everything run a little more smoothly. All three of these options are actually really good! It just depends on what your party needs, really.

Boon 2: Stone Strikes. 1/round as a free action when successfully striking an enemy with any weapon in the hammer weapons group, or any weapon with “gnome” in its name, you may attempt a sunder combat maneuver check against any one weapon or piece of armor your target is wielding/wearing. You get a +2 competence bonus to this check for each size category above yours your enemy is.

First thing’s first: Note that there’s no daily limit to how many times you can use this power. There’s really, really no reason NOT to use this ability, beyond wanting to steal your enemy’s equipment for yourself, because even failing your check doesn’t cost you anything but a bit of extra time from rolling the dice. Going for a sunder build can see enemies peeled right out of their armor or robbed of their weapons in short order, though it should be noted that this ability doesn’t state that your sunder attempt doesn’t provoke an Attack of Opportunity. Easy enough to overcome with a single feat (Improved Sunder), and building your character with this ability in mind can make for a very, very fun but very, very frustrating (for the DM) character.

Note that sunder attempts take the object’s hardness into account, though. Without powerful magic weapons, you’ll likely only be hitting for 2 or 3 damage at a time. For enemies with unenchanted gear, this is often enough (a typical weapon has around 5 HP), but enchanting them boosts both their hardness and their HP, making actually shattering them extremely difficult to do. You can, at least, give them the broken condition relatively easily.

And, again, since you can do this for free on any successful attack, there’s really nothing stopping you from just tacking it on every single round until your enemy’s breastplate or longsword lays in a thousand pieces. I do like the touch that you’re better at breaking things that are bigger than you, though, which means you’re actually encouraged to get into a giant’s threat radius for once.

Boon 3: Strength of the Earth. As a free action, you may enter a specialized defensive stance. In this stance, you gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC, a +4 morale bonus to Strength and Constitution (which causes you to gain +2 HP per HD you possess), and a +2 morale bonus to Will saves. In this stance, you cannot willingly move from your current position, or the stance ends (it is NOT ended if you are forcibly moved by an enemy). You cannot enter this stance while raging. You may maintain this stance for a number of rounds per day equal to 4 + your Constitution modifier, plus an additional 2 rounds per day for each Sentinel level you possess. Breaking or being broken from your stance fatigues you for 2 rounds for ever 1 round you maintained it (min 2), and while fatigued from this ability, you may use your Stone Strike ability 1/round against an enemy that strikes you in melee.

Hmmm... You know, on paper this looks good, but against any enemy that doesn’t actually want to fight you, this ability is defeated simply by walking away. Not a fan of that, unless you’re wielding a compound bow (or any ranged weapon, but a compound bow lets you use the extra +4 Str), in which case you’ve just become a shielded artillery platform.

I’m just really not impressed with this power, despite that. I am aware that most combats in Pathfinder tend to devolve into “standing next to the enemy and pushing the Attack Button,” but against enemies that DON’T want to stand next to you and attack away, like, say, around 60% of the classes in the game, this power translates to turning yourself into a Do Not Cross barrier. There’s a LOT of interesting things you could do with this ability, especially if you had a reach or ranged weapon, but, again, all an enemy has to do against you is walk away. If you break out of the stance to reposition, you get fatigued, and any enemy worth their salt will attack you at that point. They’ll probably lose their weapons for doing so, but being fatigued is painful nonetheless.

... All that being said, though, there’s a great many enemies who simply won’t recognize the fact you’ve just taken on your defensive stance, and will continue to stand next to you and attack without realizing why their strikes are being deflected more and more often, and without realizing that you’ve just gained +2 HP per HD and that you’re suddenly hitting much harder and much more often.

You can read more about Nivi here.

[clonerightsagenda]

Gill and I may not live together anymore but we can still Do Damage

Kat: me, working on the alpha kid portion of my AU and also watching she-ra: Dirk.... Entrapta.... (does he still have prehensile hair? You Decide) Gill: Anime spikes are now real spikes I'm also happy to give him Doctor Octagonapus arms Hedgehog man Kat: someone: so it's the princess alliance right actually we had to change the name because we THOUGHT it was the princess alliance but uh Gill: Junior Royalty Alliance Princex Alliance? The Gay Agenda Kat: lmao addendum: Jake is sea hawk Gill: Who's Glimmer, telling him to set his boat on fire Also: Dirk stop experimenting on the planet Kat: Jane Jane is glimmer trying to be responsible and controlling people Gill: That is perfect and I love her Kat: Is Roxy bow? I'm not sure Gill: Also she'd be adorable as a blue sparkly glitter fairy Who's Adora and Catra Also autocorrect I understand correcting Adora to Adorable but Why did you change Catra to "Avatar" Kat: I mean Adora and Catra do have some pretty strong Vrisrezi vibes Also that way if Adora is Terezi you can have Janerezi if you want it Gill: I am resistant to Vriskerly Actions and yet I cannot deny that it works Also Glimmerdora is a rly cute ship... Kat: Catra is like Vriska done well Gill: And now Vriska has a friend who is a scorpion lady It's fitting Kat: god who's scorpia omg NEPETA cat scorpion switch Gill: And DIRK WHY ARE YOU HANGING OUT WITH VRISKA TO HACK THE PLANET, I DONT APPROVE OF HER SHES A BAD INFLUENCE Mr Strider go to your room Kat: I was going to say how long could dirk possibly tolerate Vriska Doc Scratch is prob shadoweaver Gill: Instead of getting a mask knocked off it's just His whole head Kat: ok I fixed it Dirk makes Hal and Hal gets left behind and Hal is much more bitter about shit and so more willing to join up plus Hal would take Vriska-Catra in stride just like lmao check this DSMIV entry out Gill: Have both, Dirk is acting like an Actual Captive while Hal is having a good time with the girls Kat: Hal: I know why you're in the Horde. You've got a complicated relationship with your pseudo parental figure and feel abandoned or treated as less than by your former friend. Vriska: And why are YOU here smart guy Hal: Absolutely none of those reasons. Gill: Hal: you know I can ask them to let you out Dirk: I will not stoop to the level of a traitor Hal: w/e Nepeta and I are gonna go watch anime Kat: Hal: Hey Dirk if you hadn't cut your hair you could use it to pick the locks on those shackles. Dirk, who chopped his hair off years ago bc #dysphoria: Eat shit Gill: Dirk: I replaced it with robot arms for a reason Hal: yeah thanks for the extra arms by the way Is Dirk's hair bubblegum pink naturally, does he dye it Kat: oh god Dirk has anime hair Gill: I feel like he'd either Constantly be trying to act like the main character he thinks he is, bc he knows what pink hair means Gill Or trying to AVOID his calling as a Main Character bc he will not be pigeonholed into your limiting archetypes He is a main character of his own narrative conventions Kat: Can Entrapta's hair feel pain?Would cutting or bleaching it hurt it the real questions Gill: He dyes it red and It comes out orange and it's a fair enough compromise because bleaching it doesn't feel Pleasant Most AUs: Nepeta, tiny fluffy cat girl She-Ra AU: Nepeta, enormous buff scorpion cat girl who is the tallest character in the cast Some day if and when I need background Nepetas for the Dreambubbles I'm adding Scorpeta to the Nepeta Squad Kat: I always imagine Terezi as shortish so Terezi suddenly becoming 8 feet tall is hilarious to me Gill: Giant... dragon woman... Oh no it's everything I ever really wanted Kat: so Jade's probably perfuma Rose is Frosta. She's still 12 years old and angry Gill: Can Jade's Kingdom be full of furries I politely but firmly request furries Kat: god i guess???? so is this trolls = horde humans = alliance where are john and dave Gill: Terezi: I have a sword. It's sharp. Dirk, probably: ...I want a sword Oh man we're out of male characters already Kat: i mean there's dudes in the horde Gill: Unless John is Bow... but Bow is the Power Of Heart dude... Yeah that was my other thought Kat: John and Dave WERE the patronees of Terezi and Vriska Gill: They're Background Horde Dudes, the one guy who immediately latches onto Bow when he's taken prisoner is Very Dave What was his name Steve Kat: get wrecked I thought it was Kyle? Gill: KYLE Kat: it's funnier if Bow is Roxy latches onto his mom Gill: It was very much an Inherently Funny Plain Dude Name If and when I draw this I'm giving Jake (Sea Jake... Jake Hawk...) a terrible pubescent mustache A pubestache, one might call it Kat: ew Gill: Jake Hawk sounds like a Generic Action Dude name, like what you'd call Solid Snake if you were writing a novelization of Metal Gear and knew nothing about Metal Gear Kat: i'm formatting this for an initial tumblr post Gill: Excellent We Have Done It Again, My Dudes Kat: our trail of devastation knows no bounds Gill: The Crossover Gremlin's reign of terror has yet to be stopped

[fehelp]

New Years Camilla

Overview

New Years Camilla is a flying sword unit with good offenses (33/35) and good defenses (31/23). Like her original counterpart, she has relatively balanced stats with nothing that stands out too much. She does come with Spd/Def Bond which is probably one of the least useful bond skills in my opinion, and a relatively uninteresting weapon, giving +2 to def/res to units within 2 spaces during combat. She’s a good red unit for flying teams, especially if you don’t have Elincia and are relying on someone like Palla.

Pros/Cons

+ Pretty good stats across the board, definitely respectable spd

+ Can be run as a decent support unit with her base kit

- Resistance at 23 (or worse with a bane) makes her struggle against dragons

- Limited availability

Similar Units

If you’re a summoner on a budget and all you have is a Palla, she cannot live up to Camilla too well because her stats are lower pretty much all over. Palla has a stat spread of 31/31/28/26 with nothing standing out or being even really great. She also pretty much require a weapon change because Ruby Sword just isn’t going to cut it in most cases. However, if she’s all you have and you’re willing to put the work into her, Palla can be run pretty similarly to NY Camilla and be merged to +10 a lot easier.

NY Camilla competes with Elincia who has a much better base kit for offense but similar atk/spd at 34/36. Elincia will pretty much always do a lot better as an offensive unit, but her defenses (24/27) leave her relatively fragile, especially as a lot of people run her with LnD. Camilla can suffer a little more damage with her higher defense, and if running Amiti, Elincia does have -2 to spd which puts her on even footing. Really, it comes down to preference and what you’re willing to put into either unit. Without much spent, Elincia will generally be a better choice, but if you’re willing to invest, Camilla can definitely replace her in a lot of teams.

Team Options

Camilla Emblem! Just saying. Or Flier Emblem without the added Camillas.

She’ll need people to protect her from blues, specifically mages or dragons who can shred through her meager resistance. And, like most fliers, she’ll be afraid of bow units so she’ll appreciate someone tanky to deal with those for her. An armored unit like Hector/LAHector, who can take care of archers and blue units for her would be appreciated.

IVS

+Atk or +Spd, as with most units. She’ll reach 36 atk or 38 spd which just helps her offensively.

Def is best to be kept neutral, because 31 helps her duel other physical units who can counter attack her. If you really want to keep that physical bulk, you can keep HP neutral as well.

If you don’t care too much about bulk, HP can be dropped. Other than that, -Res is a solid option because she won’t miss 3 points of res.

Builds

Bamboo(b)

Weapon: Kadomatsu+ (Spd ref)

Assist: Reposition

Special: Moonbow, Draconic Aura

A: Spd/Def Bond 3, Fury 3

B: Desperation 3

C: Ward Fliers isn’t bad, but up to you

Seal: Your choice

Cheap set using her base weapon and still making her as offensive as we can get her on a budget. Kadomatsu really doesn’t do her any favors, but she can at least get that sweet sweet speed refinement to boost her (at neutral spd) to 38 spd without other buffs. Moonbow is generally a better choice because of it’s shorter cooldown, but Draconic Aura is fine on a budget. Spd/Def bond just isn’t my favorite because of how you need to position her for that +5 spd boost and she only has one space of range so it can be difficult or dangerous to put someone adjacent to her. If you think you can manage it, it’s a good choice, just a little annoying in my opinion. If you want to swap it, Fury is great. 

Wo Girl!

Weapon: Wo Dao+ (Spd ref) // Slaying Edge+ (Spd ref)

Assist: Reposition

Special: Moonbow // Bonfire

A: Fury 3, Swift Sparrow 2

B: Desperation 3

C: Up to you

Seal: Again, up to you

Let me explain the // really quick: You’d want to pair Wo Dao with Moonbow, and Slaying Edge with Bonfire for the best damage on either weapon. Otherwise, everything else is the same for the sets. 

Wo Dao is great on a +Spd Camilla, but if you got a -Spd Camilla or you got a +def Camilla and you really want to capitalize on that def, you can go with Slaying Edge. It really is up to preference because the difference in kills isn’t that huge. Fury is good for getting that Def up as well as her Atk/Spd, and synergizes well with Desperation. Swift Sparrow, on the other hand, boosts Atk/Spd a point more but ignores Def/Res and you don’t suffer a -6 hp hit every battle. It’s up to you what you prefer and how much you want to spend on her.

Get skills from...

Wo Dao+: 5* Athena, Karel

Slaying Edge+: 5* Saber, Lon’qu, Fir

Reposition: 3* Selena, Barst

Moonbow: 4* Odin, Palla, Athena

Bonfire: 4* MRobin, ATiki

Fury 3: 4* Hinata

Swift Sparrow 2: 5* Ayra, Katarina, Spring Lucina, Ishtar, SM Eikira, WT Olwen, SF Nino, Brave Lyn

Desperation 3: 4* Shanna

[mynameisntburgerpants]

Underswap

send me an au and i’ll give you 5+ headcanons about it || accepting

I actually have a whole-ass text document about my own personal version of Underswap, making it more of a roleswap along the lines of my own personal swap AU (PLEASE ASK ME ABOUT THAT IF YOU’RE INTERESTED IN ME MAKING THAT A REALITY) than a personality swap. This is gonna be a long one, so I’m putting it under the cut.

First of all, instead of Chara swapping with Frisk and Asriel swapping with Monster Kid for some reason (WHICH DOESN'T EVEN MAKE SENSE CONSIDERING ASRIEL IS STILL ASGORE AND TORIEL'S SON), Asriel and Chara swap and Frisk stays where they are. I dunno what happens to Monster Kid, I guess they stay put too. Wouldn't make sense to swap 'em with Frisk. Maybe not even every single character would switch.

Toriel/Asgore swap:

Asgore was so ashamed of how Toriel received his idea for collecting the human souls necessary to break the barrier (that is, poorly) that he exiled himself to the Ruins, never to be seen again by monsterkind. Toriel finds herself, regrettably, taking Asgore's mantle on his promise, but she doesn't have it in her to do it and ends up just taking all the humans in under her wing--or would if any of them other than Frisk survived to get to her.

Asgore basically serves as the Goat Dad of the ruins, much like canon Toriel, but given his lack of self worth, he doesn't try to stop Frisk from leaving by sheer nature of the fact he thinks he couldn't if he tried. An optional sidequest before you leave the ruins allows you to engange in battle with him and subsequently spare/betray him (he is too strong to even hurt with your starting equipment and LV unless you betrayal kill him), which is required on the True Pacifist route--alternately, he stands in your way regardless in the No Mercy route, because no one else is left to stand in your way and he doesn't want the fact that he let you murder everyone outside weighing on his conscience.

Napstablook/Mettaton swap:

Napstablook owns a multimedia empire and a robot body thanks to Mettaton's help and encouragement. They're the underground's premier DJ and star, though they're genuinely kind and humble--not nearly as narcissistic as their cousin. Actually, Blooky ends up being one hell of a pushover even despite their confidence boost. Mettaton, still being a ghost, handles the PR side of things, but takes frequent breaks in the ruins.

Dr. Undyne designed Napstablook's robot body to be as shonen as possible--like, Kenshiro from Hokuto no Ken levels of ripped, which humorously juxtaposes their placid demeanor. Their battles are mainly rhythm game segments, given their affinity with music, but Undyne's Human Eradicatin' Weapons Systems frequently accidentally kick in to make things dangerous. Even when they just want to talk ;~;There could be a sidequest in which you help convince Undyne to build them a body that maybe isn't loaded with deadly weapons (good luck with that part) and an appearance more befitting their tastes and personality.

Sans/Papyrus swap:

Papyrus finds out through overhearing a conversation that he's just "too sweet/gentle" to be in the Royal Guard, but not being one to give up on his dreams so easily, he instead pushes for Sans to join the Guard, so Papyrus can live vicariously through him. Sans doesn't really care for it, but as long as his brother's happy, he is too. In trademark Sans style, despite him successfully making the cut for the royal guard, he doesn't really try. His puzzles are all extremely easy (if you can even call some of them puzzles) and his fighting ability is laughable at best, so he hires Papyrus to "help out." This serves a double purpose: so Sans doesn't have to do much, and Papyrus still gets to do what he loves, even if it isn't officially sanctioned by the highers-up.

If you try to kill Sans during your "fights" with him, he just conveniently avoids each attack and makes a snide remark--you have to betrayal kill him after having not tried to attack him for a few turns before you're able to spare him. Papyrus has some new tricks up his sleeve if you fight him as the judge of your sins, and he's a total damage sponge along the lines of Undyne the Undying.

Nice Cream Guy/Burgerpants swap:

Burgerpants runs a burger stand in Snowdin, but boy, he is not happy about it. But it pays rent, and nobody is hiring for the skill set he has, so he just begrudgingly does what he has to do to survive. Over the course of a Pacifist run, you help him get over himself depending on how well his burgers sell. The burger wrappers initially contain morbid observations about the world around him the first time you meet him, but he ditches the idea altogether because it's too much extra work, and just sells them plainly wrapped from then on.

Nice Cream Guy, meanwhile, works at the Nice Cream Parlor in Napstablook's resort. Mettaton gives him a hard time sometimes, but he genuinely seems to be happy, doing what he loves working for someone he looks up to. Napstablook actually treats him with respect compared to canon Mettaton with Burgerpants, and the place ends up being surprisingly successful. He hints at Burgerpants being immensely awkward around him but trying to make an approach nonetheless, and he finds it simply adorable.

Grillby/Muffet swap:

Grillby lives with his niece/daughter/other-younger-female-relative, Fuku Fire, in Hotland. He runs a moderately successful bar/nightclub where you would normally encounter Muffet in canon Undertale. He's trying to raise money to put Fuku through college. You have to pass through, but he mistakenly believes you're trying to get into the club despite obviously being underage and has a bouncer fight you off. Once the bouncer is talked down, Grillby realizes his mistake and opens up a limited shopfront for you, where you can buy non-alcoholic beverages that provide different buffs. If you kill the bouncer, he'll give you the alcoholic menu selection out of fear, with stronger buffs but debilitating side effects that affect your soul's movement in the Bullet Board. Frisk, being a child, is quite the lightweight. You don't encounter Grillby OR the bouncer on a No Mercy run, allowing you to loot the place for free, like the Snowdin shopkeeper.

Muffet's bakery in Snowdin is closed for business until after the Sans and Papyrus boss battle. During the hangout scene with Papyrus where he takes you there for the opening ceremony, Muffet is welcoming at first, but Papyrus tries to order something without having the money to pay the exorbitant price, and skele-daddles on outta there, leaving you to deal with Muffet's wrath. After calming her down, you get to see her friendlier side, convince her to charge more reasonable prices for her menu items, buy various Spider Pastries/Beverages, and talk to her about the situation of her kind. I said I don't like Underswap much at all, but I seriously dig the rollerskate café aesthetic that Muffet has going on in that AU, so that'll probably stay the same.

Undyne/Alphys swap:

Alphys built a mech suit that could change the face of the war against humanity, but unfortunately, operating it is such a complex measure that only she can figure out how to use it. Rather than letting her invention go to waste, Undyne promotes her to a high ranking position in the guard and, unable to find anyone else with Alphys's talents, offers to work as Royal Scientist in her stead, with her advice. You encounter her in a similar fashion to Undyne--she tries her hardest to block out her conscience in her attempts to kill you, but in a True Pacifist route, you manage to appeal to her conscience and eventually befriend her. The mech conveniently runs out of power during the final encounter, which is the only time you're able to kill/spare her. Else, it's impervious to all attacks. In the No Mercy Run, the mech switches to reserve power. The boss becomes straight up bullet hell, but as it expends more energy, it becomes more vulnerable to attack. Avoiding damage causes it to burn through energy faster than if you get hit, so you better Git Gud, as they say.

Undyne's favorite part of the scientific process? Blowing shit up, of course. Regardless, she turns out to actually be pretty good at the other parts, too. The lab is a complete mess when you first find it. Undyne was watching you on the screen, like canon Alphys, and came to root for you over time. She'd intermittently pipe in to taunt (or eventually cheer you on) over the cameras (with speakers attached) hidden throughout the Underground. In a True Pacifist route, you go down to the True Lab with her to find out about Alphys's DT experiments from before she was a member of the Royal Guard. She confronts Alphys about it, but ultimately she can't stay mad at her and they end up getting engaged anyway, because Undyne is more willing to look past Alphys's flaws than most of the fandom who assumes she created the Amalgamates deliberately out of malice, incompetence, or both.

Asriel/Chara swap:

Chara is Flowey instead of Asriel. Their soul ended up being bound to the being of a flower, and, given that they HAVE a soul, they still have the ability to feel emotions. This doesn't make them less mischievous, as they ARE detached from the consequences of their actions since they could previously just reset at any time. Initially, in a neutral route and most of a pacifist route, they decide they've had enough and try to kill you so they can go back to having their "fun" with the inhabitants of the underground (complete with an Omega Flowey sequence as per usual--if a lot more difficult because of the seventh human soul, but you can persevere through it). At the end of the pacifist route, they unlock the combined potential of seven human souls AND all the underground's monsters. You are physically incapable of hurting them as they can just load state back to before you hurt them. The only way to beat them is to bore them. Survive until they get bored of trying to kill you, and at that point you can try talking them into reforming, sacrificing their ultimate power to break the barrier and restore everyone back to their previous places. Unlike canon Undertale, since they still have their soul, they don't face the threat of turning back into a flower, but they do fear what might happen if anybody else saw them literally returning from the dead. You can choose to either humor them and let them stay behind with their thoughts, or talk them into coming with you to the surface, which affects how the Pacifist Ending turns out. They have a great deal trouble readjusting back to human society given their troubled past, but you managed to convince them to bear with you. Even after learning a valuable lesson about other sentient beings, they're a little uncomfortable with letting their guard down for fear of getting hurt again. Recovery doesn't happen overnight, after all.

Asriel's essence lived on in Chara's favorite bed of golden flowers, too. Frisk's sweater managed to pick it up, and, mistakenly thinking they were Chara, Asriel's consciousness latched on. Asriel serves as the game's narrator, much like the fan theory that Chara serves that end in the actual game. Whatever route you pick through the game shapes Asriel's character--he may not remember most of his life, but again, he has his personality. On a No Mercy route he initially pleads you to stop, questioning why you would hurt people like this, before eventually losing his childlike innocence and only narrating the bare essentials. He shows up at the end of the No Mercy route in his Hypergod form, as a being made of pure unfiltered LV, to directly call you out on your actions as the player, like Chara. Unlike Chara, you can't bargain to sell your soul to play the game again. He just locks you out of the game entirely, not wanting to watch those events unfold again. The only way to replay the game after a No Mercy route is to tamper with the game files yourself.Likewise, narrating a pacifist route, he's as chipper as ever--if having picked up a bit of snark from his time with Chara. He'll remark on situations that seem familiar for some reason you just can't place, and will try to reach out to Chara during the final Pacifist boss, before realizing they can't hear him. At the end of the pacifist route, you can choose to give up Frisk's soul to allow Asriel a second chance at life--again, affecting how the pacifist ending plays out. There would be some moral fuckery about whether it was the right thing to do, since that was Frisk's soul, not technically yours to give. It'd create an interesting parallel to the "you can't save everyone" narrative Toby had in mind, but on the other hand I also want it to be clear that Frisk is less a blank slate for the player to project onto, and more their own character that acts as an extension of the player's will--and giving the player that choice might run against that.

[downtroddendeity]

SHARE WITH ME the thoughts and predictions on gameplay improvements...... I am Interested

ALL RIGHT SO. This is… really long, so, cutting it.

Things we know for sure about remake changes based on released info:

There are three difficulty settings

They’re adding a feature (I think only in easy mode?) where if you knock out enemies with Strike you can insta-kill them and get the XP and cash reward without fighting them

They’re willing to mess with order of events enough to change available party composition for at least one boss fight (there’s a Mist Spider screenshot with Marco in the party)

Enemy turn panels now have icons indicating what enemy they are, as well as where they are on the grid(THANK GOD)

Sound/music/voice volume sliders

Minimap

Possibly more if I spoke a word of Japanese and didn’t have to rely on incomplete translations

Things I’m pretty sure about, based on stuff that’s been released:

This was screenshotted from a status menu: icons for all the status effects, plus what looks like fire/ice/lightning. My bet is these are resistances, which implies that enemy attacks are going to have elemental attributes now- before, the game just treated it as magic damage or physical damage.

I couldn’t tell during the stream, but it looks like they’ve effectively switched the screens in the combat interface. The turn order now appears on the bottom screen, which hopefully means that when you’re changing turns/using Turn Break you can select them with the stylus.

The “condition” button here might just be the same old “Help”/skill description button we’re used to, but I’m hoping it means we can get a list of buff/debuff/status information for enemies and allies.

Stuff I think is likely:

The reason Rosch is always underleveled is because for some ungodly reason people you can’t add to your party get no XP. This is a really easy fix which would markedly increase Rosch, Gafka, and Eruca’s usefulness at various points.

Strike- that is, the ability to knock out enemies on the field- had a really wonky hitbox in the original, making it so you’d often juggle enemies four or five times before they got knocked out. I’d bet that one way or another, that’s not going to happen as much, though I suspect there will be different tweaks at different difficulties.

Giving enemy attacks elements and adding elemental defense is going to require a massive equipment rework and rebalance. I’m actually all for this- RH’s equipment balance is all over the place, and by about midgame a lot of equipment seems to be distributed completely at random, resulting in a lot of stuff being useless. Aht’s equipment is particularly bad: upgrades for both her weapons and armor (at least, ones that give her the magic and defense boosts she needs, rather than relatively useless ATK and MDEF) are thin on the ground until SH Ch. 6, when you get access to the ridiculously powerful Promised Knife and like five better pieces of armor shortly after each other. You can go to a lot of work grabbing a rare, unique steal from a boss and then find it’s worse in every way than the thing you picked up in a treasure chest five minutes ago (*glares at bear*). You can easily get Stocke’s second-best armor in SH Ch. 4, resulting in him taking a fraction of the damage everyone else takes for the entire rest of SH, and the best armor is only available as a rare drop from a random enemy in the final dungeon, so you’re probably going to keep the other one on him for the entire rest of the game. I think odds are excellent they’re going to straighten the mess out, in part by putting elemental and status resistances on more equipment.

Building off that last bit, I think we’re probably going to see a huge jump in enemies using debuffs and status effects, and the success rates of both in general. In the original, you could go through the whole game and never see a successful Fear, Curse, or Petrify. Debuffs had such a low success rate that you could often ignore them entirely from the enemy side, and you never wanted to use them on your side because that was a turn you could be having Eruca cast G-Frost again instead of doing a crap-damage phys hit that might make her next spell do more damage. I suspect we’ll see enemies weak to more status ailments than just poison and sleep, and maybe some skill set changes so there are ways to inflict the other ailments other than items.

I will not be surprised if enemies now have elemental resistances as well as weaknesses, somewhat reducing the efficacy of my favorite tactic, Will o’ Wisp spam.

More enemy manipulation of the grid. I expect we’ll see more formation attacks and effects, and probably either the ability for enemies to move and act in the same turn or a bunch of abilities that move the user on the grid when they’re used.

Speed buffs and debuffs get a boost, possibly directly rewriting the turn order the way enemy summons do. They’re essentially a waste of a turn in the original- you might get a single bonus turn for your efforts before the fight ends, but the odds of getting two before everything’s dead (which would actually make it worth it) are pretty much nil.

My personal wish list:

Ability to scroll through lists quickly with the left/right buttons.The lack of this is a grade-A pain in the ass in the original, especially when trying to select skills or use items.

Better scene skip function. The current one a) is never indicated anywhere in the game, b) will only skip one scene at a time, and some nodes have three or four EVERY TIME you visit them, and c) can occasionally cause you to miss scenes, because changes to events are registered as part of an old scene instead of a separate one. So, e.g., you can accidentally permanently miss the scene where Stocke scares the crap out of Hedge because you tried to skip the conversation with Garland before it. (I’d probably do a button you push that toggles skipping all scenes you’ve already watched but doesn’t affect new ones.)

Reevaluation of some skill sets. All the ladies have physical skills which you will probably never use because they don’t have the stats to make them worthwhile. Seriously, there is no point when you ever want Raynie to use Rush.

Reevaluation of some damage numbers. There are two separate bosses you can kill in two turns before they can even move by pushing them into a Volt Star Trap, and a third you can kill in four turns if you lead with Dancing Death/Heat Blade on the cannons in front of it, then push it into a Volt Star Trap. You can beat every one of Gafka’s skill boss fights in one round by popping Sky Hammer. Eruca gets G-Frost at level 32 and it’s her highest single-target damage all game.

Shuffling some nodes around, whether by promoting random events to nodes or strategically adding additional choices with bad ends. There are some points in the game where it’s annoyingly difficult to reach things because if you jump back in time, you have to go through several dungeons and/or boss fights to get back to where you were and it’s a pain.

Reevaluation of when you get some skills. Aht only picks up Frost Star Trap at the bottom of the Imperial Ruins… and there are no enemies after that that are weak to ice and can be moved, rendering it effectively pointless. On the flip side, Burst Light murders absolutely everything and negates all need for strategy while Eruca is in the party once you get it, and the pact for that is available before you even meet Master Vainqueur.

Final dungeon rework, so you get Eruca back halfway through instead of at the end. Seriously, it’s stupid to have one of your party members gone for the entire last three dungeons, and you really don’t need an extended “save the princess” thing to want to get on with the plot at that point. If anything, plot tension would be heightened by getting her back and then continuing along with her. 

Improve Raynie’s bonus skills. The only remotely good one is Sleep Break, and even that’s not exactly something you spam in every fight. Resist Boost in particular is pretty much a waste of a skill.

Improve Raynie’s MP. She’s a black mage, why does she have worse MP than Marco?

Eruca’s Mana Bursts get changed from physical damage to non-elemental magic damage to use her stats better. Preferably Aht’s Imperion too.

More variety in Mana Burst effects. Most of them are just “heavy damage to one/all targets,” so there’s often not a lot of reason to use them over anything else (especially when Turn Break is a unique effect). The only interesting ones are Marco’s (multiple buffs, target all), Aht’s Lucky Breath (fill someone else’s MB), and Rosch’s Seyfried (launch everything into the air).

Eruca gets Frost. I think Mana Shot is supposed to do the same damage as a basic elemental spell, but in practice it doesn’t seem to, and it can’t hit weaknesses. And there’s a pretty good chance that if you’ve been skipping monsters, she might not have G-Frost yet when you get her, so her DPS is kind of crap.

Better armor for Gafka. For a character who’s clearly supposed to be tough and tanky, his armor sucks, especially early on- I usually end up giving him defense accessories just so he doesn’t die the first time some goblin mages sneeze in his general direction.

For that matter, Aht and Eruca also have armor problems- it’s often best to use armor that’s allegedly “worse” because their armor upgrades prioritize MDEF over DEF, but they have naturally high MDEF and terrible DEF.

In-game display of enemy steals (and possibly item drops). I’m not asking for a full-scale Etrian Odyssey bestiary here, but it’d be nice to not have to keep a running list of which enemies I’ve robbed just in case one of them has good loot.

One-on-one boss fights rebalanced, so there’s more to the strategy than “change turns and heal until you’ve got a bunch of turns in a row, then nuke them, taking off all their health in one round.”

Press B to walk/Press B to run toggle. Someone who can read Japanese might be able to tell me if this was in the config menu in the stream, but it’d be really nice to be able to turn off auto-run in the sewers.

A decent magic bonus on Historica. It’s kind of ridiculous that there’s an Endgame Sword of Plot Importance restricted to the main character with a special superboss fight to upgrade it… and the magic bonus is less than the Sorcery Epee you bought from a shop thirty levels ago. Like, no, screw that, I’m not taking a 27-point hit to Stocke’s magic stat when he doesn’t have any physical skills that even begin to compete with G-Fire/Heat Blade/Will o’ Wisp for DPS.

[murasaki-murasame]

I’ve got a whole bunch of thoughts about Gala Laxi and all the new summer units, and even though I should just wait until they actually come out and we get exact numbers for everything, I still wanna make a whole post about it, lol.

Anyway this will go under a cut.

Firstly, Gala Laxi is a flame dagger, as I expected, so that’s cool. I did think there was a chance of her being a water blade, but honestly her being a flame dagger unit just made more sense. I feel bad for everyone who invested in Ezelith, if Gala Laxi ends up being better, but I never invested in her so I’m fine with this, lol.

She does look really good on paper, though, and I need more good flame units so I want to get her. Like with all units, her overall damage output will depend on what her exact damage mods and whatnot are, so it’s impossible to tell for sure how good she’ll be, but on paper she looks really good. One of the first things that stands out to me, which makes me even more interested in getting her, is the fact that she has the same standard attack damage co-ability that Tiki does. Which I REALLY want, since I skipped Tiki’s banner when it came out.

Other than that, her kit seems pretty straightforward, and actually doesn’t have as many downsides as I thought it would. The whole concept of Eden Mode seemed like it’d be a real risk-reward type of thing, similar to how her original version works, but the only real downside to it is that her unique gauges don’t increase when she’s in Eden Mode, and they reset afterward. But those just give her extra buffs, so it’s not like she’d be notably handicapped after Eden Mode ends.

Going by how her gauges work, it sounds like the general idea is for you to use your standard attacks and your S1 to max them out before using Eden Mode, to make the most out of them before they reset once that ends. I get the feeling that the alternate versions of her skills that happen during Eden Mode are gonna be really strong, to give her that burst damage vibe.

It also looks like when Eden Mode’s activated she basically summons a robot companion that shoots additional projectiles, which is an extremely interesting idea. It makes me wonder if they might be experimenting with adding some kind of companion system, maybe based around the puppy from April Fools. Either way, I get the feeling it might give her a lot of additional DPS during Eden Mode, so that’ll be neat. It might also help her get combos going faster, which ties into her third ability, where if she can maintain a combo she can basically stack up to 12% crit rate and 40% crit damage, which resets when her combo ends. Which also kinda reminds me of Ezelith, lol.

I don’t really care that much for Laxi as a character, but as a unit she’s really tempting and I hope I can get her. I actually don’t have that many good flame units built up at the moment, so she’d really help flesh out my flame team.

Next we have Summer Sinoa, who’s a 5-star wind wand. I won’t mind much if I don’t manage to get her from the gala, but her kit does interest me a bit. I like that they kept the RNG team buffs idea from her original version and fleshed it out into something that works for a 5-star unit. Usually RNG buffs aren’t very good, but it’s nice that if you can max your Overload stacks, you can give the entire team all three buffs at once.

Going by how her Overload stacks make her S1 charge more and more slowly, I think you’ll have to choose between either 1: holding off on your S2 until you have max Overload stacks for the full team buff, at the cost of dealing with the slower S1 charging, or 2: using your S2 as much as you can to get rid of your Overload stacks so your S1 charges faster, at the cost of getting a random buff from it that only affects yourself. So it’s a choice between focusing on team support vs her own personal DPS. We’ll see how her damage mods go, but she has a 30% skill damage passive, and her first ability means that she gets an extra 20%, 25%, or 30% skill damage buff for her S1 based on her Overload stacks, so she might actually do enough damage that you could opt to use her more selfishly.

Then there’s Summer Norwin, who I obviously care the most about, lol. I’m kinda iffy about him being a wind dagger, but I don’t use any of the other ones I have so he won’t really interfere that much with my wind team set-up, so that’s nice. Basically everyone on this banner has a complicated kit, but his feels especially strange. It feels kinda impossible to make any predictions about how good he’ll be before we get more info on him.

But going by what we know from the preview, his main gimmicks are his self-inflicted debuff, and his unique version of skill shift. If I’m reading it right, both of his skills are skill-shift skills with four stages each, but using either skill moves BOTH skills to their next stage, so in practice he’ll get through them really fast. The first three stages of each skill are pretty basic, since they just do increasing amounts of damage, but the weird stuff is with how phase 4 of his two skills work. Phase 4 of his S2 does more damage and inflicts poison, but it also gives him one stack of his unique debuff, and makes him take damage relative to how many stacks of it he has, while phase 4 of his S1 removes all of his debuff stacks, and energizes the team. Which is all kinda hard to wrap my head around, lol. The whole order of operations involved is kinda hard to interpret. Like, does he take damage from his phase 4 S2 the very first time he uses it, or does it only happen if he uses it when he already has at least one stack of it beforehand? He’s also unable to get energy stacks while he has his debuff stacks, so I’m hoping that the cleanse effect on his phase 4 S1 triggers first, so he also gets to receive the energy buff.

His first ability is energy = skill haste, so I imagine that he must be able to give himself his own energy buff, since there’s basically no other sources of energy in wind for him to make use of. This whole ability in and of itself is kinda strange to me, though, and I’m not sure how much it’ll help him, since he’d lose his energy stacks when he uses a skill anyway, so there wouldn’t be much uptime on the skill haste. But it’s still a 25% skill haste buff when he’s energized, which isn’t exactly bad.

I think he’ll actually have pretty good uptime on the team energy buff, though. It feels like it’d be pretty slow since it’s the phase 4 effect of a skill shift, but if I’m right about how it works for him, it’d effectively only take two uses of his S1 for it to trigger.

If you want to maximize how often you do the team energy buff, I think his skill rotation would basically be S2 phase 1 -> S1 phase 2 -> S2 phase 3 -> S1 phase 4, though unless they have the same SP cost you probably won’t be able to just alternate between them like that. But still, he’d probably be able to get the buff off with every second or third use of his S1, if you focus on that.

But one weird consequence of how his skill shift seems to work is that in each skill shift rotation, you have to choose one skill to use at each stage, which means that if you use your phase 4 S1 all the time, you’ll be skipping your phase 4 S2. Which honestly seems like a good thing, since it means you’ll never actually inflict that debuff on yourself. But on the other hand, his phase 4 S1 doesn’t do damage and only does the team energy buff, while his phase 4 S2 does damage and inflicts poison in addition to the self-inflicted debuff, so depending on his damage mods you might want to focus on his S2 instead and just deal with the debuff if you want to maximize his personal DPS, and are willing to deal with the side-effects of the debuff.

Additionally, he also has a 30% poison punisher passive, which is nice, even if he’d probably have to rely on having someone else to inflict it most of the time. He also has a 10 his = hp regen chain co-ab, which I think is the first time we’ve seen something like that, and it seems really interesting. It might not be a very strong heal, but it means that if he works with people with good combo uptime, he’d effectively be a substitute healer, which might be really useful for stuff like eCiella.

In general he and Summer Sinoa actually feel pretty similar, in terms of how it seems like they can basically choose if they want to focus on team support or personal DPS, while each having different stack mechanics that have negative effects to juggle. Which makes me wonder exactly how good they’ll actually end up being in practice, and how well the AI will handle them.

Finally we have Summer Konohana Sakuya, who honestly seems kinda disappointing, lol. Basically she seems based around long fights where you’ll have time to actually build up her stacks, but I just don’t know if the effects they provide are worth the time. Wind also doesn’t really have any characters other than DY-Xainfried who can shapeshift a lot to make use of how she can apply an additional buff stack with her dragon skill.

I could see her being useful in eCiella, and probably mCiella when that comes out, if it’s an even longer fight. But at least for me, I already have a whole lot of good wind dragons, so she’s not super tempting. Which is good, since I want to focus my resources on future gala dragons instead, lol.

Basically everyone on this banner feels kinda weird and complicated, but hopefully they’ll all be worth getting. Gala Laxi seems like she’ll be the winner, but the summer units have potential to be really good too.

[fooboo24]

info about my (current) ryders under the cut, basically just for my own reference

format comes from the ryder tag going around before the game came out (i was never tagged but still using it lmao)

Name: Rue Ryder

Gender: cis female

Ethnicity: Egyptian-Mexican (via her mother), Portuguese-Canadian (via father)

Eye Color: deep brown

Hair Color/Description: Naturally, her hair is a dark brown and straight. However, back in the milky way, she frequently balayaged her hair blonde and got some kind of hair treatment to make it wavy/curly.

Skin (Color, blemishes, tattoos, ect): MOLES ALL OVER. Dark-skinned, a few scars, only one major, noticeable one that stretches from her left ear, under and across her jaw, finishing at her chin.

Misc physical attributes: Short (5′2″), Buff(tm)

Preferred romance option: Reyes, but maaaaaybe Jaal?

Relationship with Alec & Sibling (Do they get along? ect.): She loves her family a lot, even if they don’t always get along. Her father was always hard on her and her brother to succeed and be the best of the best, and while she resented him in her earlier years for it, she inwardly forgave him a lot when she realized he just wanted the best for them.

Her brother and her are besties. She plays the “I’m the older one” card a lot on him, and they have the typical sibling love-hate relationship, but ultimately they love each other and will always be there for each other, if only because they know that in some ways, they’re all the other has.

Projected BFF (The squad mate who isn’t bae but you always take): Drack or Peebee.

Dreams/Hobbies/Likes: To just explore Andromeda freely with her friends, without Pathfinder responsibilities lording over her. She just wants to chill and do her thing in space, basically.

She likes to work out a lot, draw, absentmindedly study, collect atrocious yet oddly perfect accessories, and socializing. Never not down for movie night or spending time with people, especially if she has work-related things she can put off.

She loves clothing and accessories (ranging from haute couture to tacky af), learning languages and pondering over Mysterious Shit, and blueberries.

Fears/Dislikes: Dying, finality, losing someone important, infinite space (she is fascinated by space, but is also scared of it?)

Squishy textures (they gross her out), bugs of literally any variety (she’s kind of ‘blech’ about them), oranges (rue: smells good, ain’t gonna eat it tho)

Other (What else should we know about your Ryder):

She’s a linguist/anthropologist with a linguistic specialization. She has ADHD and actively takes medication for it. Bisexual/Pansexual and openly flirty, but has a difficult time with the ~deeper~ aspects of a romantic relationship. Doesn’t like being told what to do or how to do something (by a teacher/expert it’s fine, by a know-it-all, no), and becomes resistant and reluctant if forced to do something. Had to significantly downsize her personal Tacky Sunglasses collection and book collection upon coming to Andromeda, legitimately distraught upon doing so. Likes to sing, but she can’t do it well (her brother, alternately, can, but hates singing, easily embarrassed). Very confident, probably dangerously so.

---

Name: Caroline Ryder

Gender: cis female

Ethnicity: Korean (via mother), French-Japanese (via father)

Eye Color: dark brown (black at typical glance)

Hair Color/Description: Full, thick, long, glossy, and black. Doesn’t wear hair down often (kind of shy about if for some reason), but won’t cut it off because she enjoys messing with it with different styles. Usually wears her hair back in a braided bun.

Skin (Color, blemishes, tattoos, ect): Several moles. Pale-skinned

Misc physical attributes: Tall (5′11″), slim of body, monolid eyes, thick brows

Preferred romance option: In my headcanon-verse, she gets together with Cora. Actually in game, probably Peebee or Suvi (I feel like Peebee would lighten her up, but Suvi would suit her better overall so???).

Relationship with Alec & Sibling (Do they get along? ect.): Her father was not often around when Caroline and her brother (and, once again in my headcanon-verse, their younger sister, June), were growing up, so her initial perceptions of him were distant, but she thought him a strong and important figure in the scope of things due to the urgency of his job and the gravity of the tasks he was given. When she was older and her father was around more, there was an attempt to become closer facilitated by her mother and herself, but it never caught on and Caroline learned just what kind of a man her father was - gruff, distant, and largely emotionally reluctant. After one too many times being ignored, she gave up and grew to distrust and dislike her father, but there was still a cold, impersonal respect of his position and skills there. Her father’s best relationship with any of his children was with June, whom he seemed to be more open, warm, and supportive with, leading Caroline, much to her dismay, to become somewhat jealous of her younger sister.

She had a closer relationship with her mother, whom was the parent most often seen by her and her siblings. She wanted to be a scientist when she grew up due to her closeness with her mother, and in due time when to school to study genetics. Her mother’s death caused her great grief.

Her relationship with her brother was originally poor due to the fact that they were often pitted against each other in terms of success by their father and others around them. They were usually compared and contrasted when it came to most aspects of themselves, and as such they competed harshly and a competitiveness far beyond simple rivalry formed. While both were brilliant students, her brother usually “beat” her in terms of grades by only the slightest margins. Caroline, in an effort to differentiate herself from her brother and achieve great feats for recognition elsewhere, took to becoming a martial and weapons expert, a field she excelled in whereas her brother did not. Caroline did not gloat, but took great pride in this accomplishment of hers. Her relationship with her brother still is not stellar when they set out for Andromeda, but it improves slowly after he stabilizes.

(jesus i just blabbered a lot there, didn’t i....)

Projected BFF (The squad mate who isn’t bae but you always take):

Jaal probably. He’s respectful and polite and considerate, so I think she’d appreciate him a lot.

Dreams/Hobbies/Likes:

Caroline wants her efforts and accomplishments to be acknowledged, respected, and remembered. She is fully dedicated to the Andromeda Initiative, and wants to see it succeed and thrive. She wants to do as much as she can to achieve this.

She’s pretty lonesome in her hobbies. She doesn’t like to go out of her way to socialize, and prefers to be alone. She likes to work on guns and weapons, personalizing and enhancing them in damage output and aesthetic. She also enjoys researching with Lexi (primarily Kett and Angara genetics) and writing and reading papers in her spare time. Occasionally, she gardens and plants, but feels mildly guilty in doing so because she thinks the activity indulgent and non-beneficial to others as a whole.

She likes all variety of meats and does not drink.

Fears/Dislikes: Failure, becoming like her father, becoming close to others, forgetting her mother.

Underperforming, excessive attention, the colour green, and sugary foods.

Other (What else should we know about your Ryder):

Lesbian. The most like her father out of all her siblings, something she refuses to realize/acknowledge. Not very social, emotionally distant and lonely, incredibly intelligent, a deadly shot, comes off as cold, actually just awkward in many a social situation. Probably depressed, to a degree. Not artistically inclined at all. Secretly names her personalized guns. Spends probably way too much time working on them. Enjoys fighting and weapon work more than she’s willing to admit, more so than her scientific work, and feels guilty in this, like she’s letting her mother’s memory down.

---

DAMN THAT TOOK A WHILE OKAYYYY THAT’S ITTT

might change some stuff about them later/expand on some things but this works for now~!!

[housebeleren]

War of the Spark Limited - Bomb Rares

Alright, it’s that time! Time to check out the Rares and Mythics from War of the Spark, and get a sense of just what we’re looking for in our Prerelease pools. These are the cards you really want to see, because they’re going to give you that extra leg up whenever you play.

All ratings out of 5. Let’s begin.

White

I mean, could I start anywhere else? Let’s just look at the stats to begin with. He’s a three mana 4/4 with Indestructible that can’t be dealt any damage during your turn. I mean... I’m already sold. Sure, they can then just attack him back down, if you don’t have other creatures to block for him, but yeah. You’re going to cause some hurt when he comes down. If you have other creatures out, he’s a toolbox of abilities for them, and eventually, you can start cashing him in for removal. For a three-mana card, that’s a lot of action, and there’s no way you’re passing him if you open him up. 4.0

Finale of Glory just seems like a really, really good card. You only need to cast this for 4 to be on-curve, and anything above that is gravy. Most of the time, you’re only going to get X between 3-5, but those are all totally worth playing. The 10 or more isn’t happening in limited, I’m sorry to say, but if it does, they might as well just print “you win the game” on the card. 4.0

Honestly though, Oketra is the best White card in the set. She’s a motherfucking tank, and she literally just barfs out Eternals every time you cast any creature. Any creature! The fact that she comes back a few turns after you kill her is just mean. The God cycle is always pretty busted for limited, but they outdid themselves this time with Oketra. 5.0

Blue

I’ll be honest. I think this is a fairly optimistic take on this card. Jace doesn’t protect himself at all, but if you’re able to keep him safe, he’s advantage that will quite literally win you the game. You’ll bury your opponent in card advantage after only a few turns of this. Again, that’s all contingent on how well you’re able to keep him safe, but I’m willing to give it a try. 3.0

There’s obviously a tension here, which is that you probably won’t have tons of cards in your hand when you go to cast this, but if you can get X=4 out of it, which shouldn’t be too difficult, then this is a pretty solid play. The fact that it’s an Instant goes a long way in making this viable, since you can use the creature it creates (or buffs) to ambush an enemy attack, and then refill your hand for your next turn. I’m not saying it’s a slam dunk, but I can definitely see this doing some work. 3.5

Once again, though, it’s the god that’s the powerhouse for the color. Kefnet is huge for 4 mana, and will dominate anything else in the air. The ability is excellent, but pairs better with some colors than others, so I’d consider trying for Black or Red as my second color if I first picked this. In a perfect world, you want to be able to double up on your removal with this, which will be harder with White & Green. I can see Kefnet being no more than a big flier (which is still excellent!) in some builds, which is why I don’t think he’s quite the bomb Oketra is. 4.5

Black

Wooo baby. That is spicy for sure. She helps if you’re ahead, helps if you’re behind, and is fierce as hell while doing it. Seriously, there’s no way she’s not impacting the board in some way, and if she lasts more than one turn, I don’t see how you’re losing. She’ll be even more bonkers in constructed than limited, but that’s not saying much. 4.5

Bontu is huge, hard to kill, and hard to block effectively. That, plus a decent ETB, makes me really happy to see what she can do. I don’t think there will often be more than 1-2 cards drawn off this when she enters, so it’s not bonkers the way it will be in Commander and some other formats. 4.5

This one’s a little more tentative, but it churns out 1/1 of stats every turn, at the cost of 1 life. However, unlike Bitterblossom, this one helps you get out of the whole you dug by giving lifelink to your creature once it’s big enough. All told, it’s probably better for limited than Bitterblossom was, but worse for constructed. I’ll be optimistic and grade it accordingly. 4.0

Most of the time, you’ll cast this for X somewhere between 2-4, and that’s perfectly reasonable. You’ll clean up the board quickly with this, and assuming you have the targets, it’s a built-in 3 for 1. I’m sold. 4.0

Wow, Black really got a lot of powerful Rares this time around, didn’t it? I love Massacre girl. It’s not going to be unusual for there to be at least one X/1 on the battlefield, and if so, the likelihood that she just cleans up everything is pretty good. Even with no other creatures, she’s a 4/4 menace, which is a pretty high floor. I’d play that card without any ETB. But the fact that she’s a potential boardwipe that leaves you with a hefty body is great. 4.0

Red

You may be wondering why I didn’t pick Chandra for this spot, when she’s really very similar to Jace? Well, Blue honestly didn’t get many good limited Rares, but Red did, and Sarkhan is going to be a tough one to beat. First of all, he’s always going to come down and pump out a 4/4 dragon, which is worth 5 mana in and of itself. So right away, you have reached value. Then, the dragon protects him even better than usual, because anything that’s an X/1 just simply cannot attack you while either Sarkahn or the dragon are out. That’s huge, since one of the most common lines of play will be to try to swarm Planeswalkers with little guys, and you just can’t do that here. If Sarkhan lasts multiple turns, he’s going to continue churning out value, threatens 8 damage in the air every combat (more if you have additional Walkers), and if you ever get multiple dragons out at a time with him, I can’t imagine losing from that spot. He’s pretty much a bomb at regular Rare. 4.5

Ilharg continues the trend of the god cycle being good. Surprise surprise. 6/6 Trample for 5 is massive, and there will be pretty much nothing else on the board that can contest this. His ability is less useful in limited than in constructed, but if you have any other big monsters or creatures with good ETBs, he just gets better. Since the floor on him is so high, I’m giving him a high score. 4.5

The big risk with Krenko is that the opponent will blank him with a 3/3 the turn you land him, which would be unfortunate, because he’s really only good if you can get at least one swing in. However, if you can manage one attack uncontested, you’re in good shape. He keeps getting bigger, plus you can find ways to proliferate him, and leaves behind goblin tokens to keep your opponent occupied. If you happen to be in Red/Blue, he’s a really good target for Stealth Mission. Just saying. 4.0

Like many of the Rare creatures, I’m starting by evaluating Neheb on his base stats. 5/4 Trample for 4? I’m sold. Later in the game, he can help you replenish your hand by discarding excess lands, and that is a lot of utility for a 4 drop. Sold. 4.0

Green

When I look at Vivien’s textbox, my immediate thought is to be underwhelmed. But then I remember that she’s a 3 drop that comes in with effectively 5 loyalty, and that she’s more likely than several to get value. You’re not always going to hit with her -2 ability, which is unfortunate, but I do think she’ll typically produce enough advantage to be worth her very low casting cost. Also, granting flash to all your creatures is fantastic, so you can operate almost entirely at Instant speed to keep your opponent guessing. Altogether, I think she’ll generally play pretty well. 3.5

This is 9/9 of stats for 5 mana with Flash. Technically, it’s really basically a 6 drop, if you want to be able to ambush something with it, or swing with it right out of the gate. But even so, 6/6 Haste for 9 mana is ridiculous. My guess is the correct time to cast this will almost always be either on defense in combat or at end of your opponent’s turn, so you can always get one swing out of it. Yes, if they kill your creature at that point you’re down a land, but chances are you’re not going to try to curve too much higher than this. I’d always run this. 4.0

I know I just said that your curve probably ended at 6, but that was assuming you didn’t also have this card in your deck. The sheer flexibility of this is staggering, and well worth trying to ramp into. A lot of the time, you’re going to use this to get back a couple of permanents from your graveyard, then create a couple of Citizens to help defend while you wait to untap. But sometimes, you’ll have a board state with multiple Planeswalkers and creatures with counters and you just want to Proliferate 4 times. Either way, this is a card advantage swing I wouldn’t underestimate. 4.0

And yes, the final god. The ETB on this is quite strong, and will sometimes be enough to close out the game on its own. If not, it will force your opponent to make a bunch of trades with your early drops, and then you’re still left with your giant 5/5 Deathtouch to protect you . Either way, it’s going to have a massive impact on the board. 4.5

Multicolor & Colorless

Assuming you’re in a base-Black deck, I honestly don’t think it will be too hard to come up with the amount of color fixing needed to cast Bolas. And if you do, you’re in great shape. Most of the time, just continuing to pump him up will be more than enough to push your card advantage to the extreme, and his -3 is there to take out any particularly problematic threat. But just the fact that his uptick is a 2 card advantage swing every time is bonkers, and if he lasts more than a couple of turns, I think you have the game locked up. I’m going to go and flat out call this a bomb. 5.0

Ajani is good. Really good. Assuming you have a couple of early drops, he’s going to immediately come down and make your field massive. If not, he starts at 6 loyalty and keeps your life total healthy. In fact, people are going to be so distracted trying to take him down, he’s likely to buy you way more than just 3 life before he dies. And he semi protects himself by granting your creatures Vigilance, so you can continue your assault without staying open. I like. 4.0

Poooor Domri. He just got mixed up in the wrong crowd. Well, most of the time, you’re going to want to cast him when he has a creature to protect him right off the bat, since his +1 effect doesn’t do much immediately. But once you untap, he ramps you from 3 to 5 mana, and threatens a lot of damage with his static ability. He’s not as flashy as some, but I think he’s going to be a workhorse. 3.5

The last Planeswalker I’ll mention here is Sorin, who interestingly does not have any removal attached. Instead, he can reanimate things if you need blockers, or you can just start him off at 6 loyalty and pick away at other Planeswalkers while you’re at it. But if you can get multiple reanimations out of him, you’re doing great. Either way, I suspect he will just generally be good. 3.5

If you don’t have any Planeswalkers in your deck, this is going to be underwhelming. If you do have Planeswalkers in your deck, this can be bonkers. With one Walker out, he can easily enter with 3-5 extra counters on him, at which point he’s a ridiculous threat that will only keep getting bigger the longer your Walkers stay out. He’s not a windmill slam, but he’s definitely worth trying to build around if you can. 3.5

Feather, aside from being everyone’s favorite character they had never heard of before, seems pretty great. She makes it on stats alone, though her mana cost is pretty restrictive for turn 3. You won’t have tons of cards that specifically target your creatures, but if you do, that is a value train that I want to be on. I think the floor is high enough on her that you should basically always run her in your colors, but definitely prioritize some good Instants & Sorceries that target once you know she’ll be in your deck. 4.0

There’s an awful lot of text on here, but at its core it’s basically a merged together Flametongue Kavu & Lone Missionary. Funny how a Red creature and a White creature splice themselves together and get a Blue/Black card. But whatever, it works. So yeah, you’re going to get a 4/4 creature out, it’s going to take out a creature with 4 or less toughness, and you’ll gain a bit of life. All told, not bad at all. 3.5

Again, this is a tricky mana cost for turn 3, and I’m surprised that it’s so defensive for a Red/Green creature. Still, this is one of the best mana sinks in the format, quite literally, as it can chuck extra lands at your opponent or their creatures in the late game. I think people will underestimate it at first because they don’t like giving up lands, but unless your deck needs ridiculous access to mana, one of the best things you can do with your lands beyond 6 or 7 is chuck them at the face. 3.5

Roalesk seems absolutely nuts. Assuming you have another creature in play when you cast him, he’s 6/5 of stats right off the bat for 5 mana, and 2/2 of that stats have Haste while the other 4/5 have Flample. Then when he dies, he leaves you with a bonus +2/+2. As a minimum!

There’s no way this isn’t bonkers. 4.0

I love reanimation. It’s my very favorite thing to do in these colors, and Storrev gets to do it for free. All he asks is that you swing with him. Well, my 5/4 Trampler? That sounds fine to me. I will happily swing with this, and even if he trades, he leaves you with a buddy he brought back. My only gripe is he’s a little easy to kill before you get your value out of him, but there will be games he just runs away with. 3.5

Board wipes are good. Board wipes where you get to save your best creature are better. It’s not Duneblast, but it’s much more playable. So I’m happy. 3.5

Last, but not least, it’s Ugin himself. His static ability is mostly decorative, so he’ll have to make use between his two loyalty abilities. Fortunately, he pretty much does. I love his +1, which is basically a fun callback to the Manifest mechanic, except it’s even better. Pumping out 2/2s that turn into cards when they die is phenomenal, and when a problem comes out, he can take a turn off to just destroy it. You probably want 2 or more activations out of him before he feels worth the 6 mana, but given that he’s probably your curve topper, you’re fairly likely to have a board to protect him. I’m all in for Ugin. 4.0

And finally, here’s all the rest of the cards.

Ignite the Beacon - Tutors are generally best left to constructed. Especially expensive tutors like this. If you draft the all-planeswalker deck, I suppose you can run it, but you’d need at least 6 before I’d even consider it. 1.0

Parhelion II - The problem is not that Parhelion II is a bad card. It’s just that many decks will try to run it that really shouldn’t. Unless you have access to copious amounts of ramp, I wouldn’t run an 8 drop, no matter how powerful it can be. That said, the ceiling on this card is very high, so I’ll give it a potential pass. 2.0

Ravnica at War - The first of many, many boardwipes at Rare. This one is so conditional that I doubt you’ll find an occasion to use it. Leave it for constructed. 0.5

Single Combat - This one, on the other hand, I’m pretty fond of. If you have the best creature on the board, this really does work, since they can’t even build up again before you do on your next turn. I would definitely run this in most builds. 3.0 

EDIT - I misread the card and didn’t realize it said “Until END of your next turn.” Not getting the first chance to rebuild makes this significantly worse, so I’m downgrading to a 2.0

Tomik, Distinguished Advokist - He’s got an awful lot of text for a 2/3 flier. The mana cost is tricky to hit on turn 2 unless you have 9-10 White sources, and you really want to hit him on turn 2. Don’t be fooled by his rarity & all the text. He’s a Legacy plant, and only ok for limited. 2.0

Fblthp, the Lost - As much as I love this little guy, he’s an Elvish Visionary, and that’s about it. You’re not casting him out of your library in limited, so treat him as a cantrip, and not much else. 2.0

Finale of Revelation - X is never hitting 10 for this, so it’s really just a flexible draw spell. You really want to get to 3 before this is any better than Divination, however, so keep that in mind. 2.5

Narset’s Reversal - The prospects for this in constructed formats are more exciting than here, where a lot of the time, you may not have a good target come up all game. I’d leave this for the sideboard. 1.0

Silent Submersible  - The fact that this card doesn’t have any evasion is most frustrating. Like Tomik, you really want to land this on turn 2 so you can enable a turn 3 swing and hopefully draw a card, because it’s going to be outclassed very quickly after that. There’s potential here, but it’s not going to be an auto-include in every deck. 2.0

Spark Double - Clone effects are usually decent, and this one even comes in a little bigger & better than what you copied. I’d run this most of the time I have good targets for it. 2.5

Bolas’s Citadel - This is probably the hardest card to evaluate for limited, but my gut tells me it’s a trap. Yes, you’ll dump a bunch of spells on the battlefield really quickly, but your CMC is much higher in limited than in constructed, so the likelihood of getting more than one or two cards off this before you have to stop seems iffy. Maybe you have a super powerful White/Black lifegain engine, but I’m not counting on it. Again, my gut is telling me to leave this for constructed. It’s like the Thousand-Year Storm of this set. People will try to run it, and they’ll be wrong most of the time. 1.0

Command the Dreadhorde - I think this effect is probably playable, but I’d much rather run Bond of Revival in my limited decks. Again, your average CMC is going to be much higher than in constructed, so pulling back more than one or two things is going to be very painful. 1.5

Deliver Unto Evil - I don’t like that my opponent gets to choose how good this is. Because chances are, in limited, the worst stuff in your graveyard will be pretty bad. That said, it only costs 3 mana, and you can get any type of card back, so it might work out. 2.0

The Elderspell - Everyone is so hyped about this card, but it’s so damn narrow. Sideboard this in if you go against Superfriends. Leave it put away otherwise. 1.0

Chandra, Fire Artisan - Chandra plays a lot like Jace in this set. They cost the same, and both are basically just card draw engines in their respective colors. Chandra even punishes people who try to take her down, and I like that. 3.0

Dreadhorde Arcanist - Nope. Leave it for constructed. 1.5

Finale of Promise - NOPE. Leave it for constructed. 1.5

Mizzium Tank - I like this much better than the submarine, because it’s super easy to crew, and has Prowess, so in the right deck, it’ll be a potent threat. It’s not for every deck, but there will be places it has its time to shine. 2.5

Finale of Devastation - I’ve said it before, tutors are for constructed. Don’t do it. 1.0

Nissa, Who Shakes the World - Nissa is back and she’s animating lands left and right. It’s a pretty powerful effect, though it does leave your lands open to creature removal. She can’t protect herself until you have 6 lands out, so do be aware of that. 3.0

Vivien’s Arkbow - The floor is high enough on this one that I’d be willing to try it. It’s cheap to bring out, and it’s a decent thing to do with excess mana in the late game. You just don’t want to be activating this for X = 1 or 2 at any point, so be cautious. 2.0

Teferi, Time Raveler - Teferi is going to ruin peoples’ days in all kinds of constructed formats. In limited, he’s going to be decent, and cause a lot of minor headaches. His only issue is he’s a little flimsy, but fine for a three drop. 3.0

Soul Diviner - In the right deck, this will be an engine unto itself. In the wrong deck, it’s a mediocre creature. Let’s assume you’re putting it in the right deck. 3.0

Dreadhorde Butcher - You really want to cast this on turn two, and not a moment later, as his value just plummets the later in the game it goes. But if you can come out the gate swinging with this, it can run away with the game. 2.5

Widespread Brutality - My only fear with this is that your opponent will have any Army too. That said, a 2/2 that comes in and deals 2 damage to (almost) all other creatures is worth running, so I’ll try it. 3.0

Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves - I really should have highlighted Tolsimir up above, because he packs a lot of heat for 5 mana. Let’s just say if you can run him, you absolutely should, and he’s worth trying to splash White for. 3.5

Oath of Kaya - I’m not really sold. If you have 5 or more Planeswalkers in your deck, mayyyybe? 1.0

EDIT: Once again, I need to learn to RTFC. Given that this hits any target, and not just players, I’m suddenly way more interested. The second ability is still mostly flavor text, but I could see it happening occasionally and perking you up. But the base ability is enough to play it that it’s worth majorly bumping up in my evaluation. Given it’s still not cheap for its mana cost (compared with something like Ob Nixilis’s Cruelty), I’ll give it a revised 3.0

Ral, Storm Conduit - Pass. Go break him in constructed. Though if someone does manage to assemble the infinite combo with him & two copies of Narset’s Reversal in limited, they win at life. But mostly I’d pass on Ral outside of constructed combos. 1.0

Role Reversal - Switcheroo has always been playable to some extent, and I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be here. 2.5

Casualties of War - My initial thought is that this is too expensive for a lot of modes that won’t come up often, but we played Conisgn to the Pit in Ravnica Allegiance, so it’s really not outside the realm of possibility. Don’t try to splash for this, and don’t run it if you have better removal, since most of the time it’ll be killing one creature and one land. But if you’re in these colors, it can do some work in a pinch. 2.5

Solar Blaze - Sure, cus what we needed was another conditional board wipe? Leave this for the Commander players. 1.0

Tamiyo, Collector of Tales - I... I keep trying to find ways to make this work. But at the end of the day, I keep coming back to that she’s mostly a 4 mana Raise Dead with some flavor text attached. Maybe sideboard her in against Black decks? Maybe don’t? I like her for certain other formats, but I’m not seeing it come together here. 1.0

Niv-Mizzet Reborn - If you have access to all 5 colors, knock your socks off. Someone’s going to try to run this, and good luck to them. But this strikes me as a 2 color format with an occasional splash, not a reliable 5 color one. And he’s not going to reliably draw you lots of cards like he would in constructed. 2.0

Karn, the Great Creator - Oof, this has no business in limited. Don’t do it. 0.0

Blast Zone - Save it for constructed. 0.5

Karn’s Bastion - In the proliferate deck, I think this gets there. It’s a powerful effect to have on demand. 2.5

Mobilized District - I like creature lands, and this one is pretty reasonably priced. I’d generally run it unless my deck was super color heavy. 2.5

So there it is! All the cards from War of the Spark! I can say I’m super excited about this format, and I think it’s going to be a blast. I’ll return to these ratings down the line, and see what I was right about, and what cards I misjudged (because there will be some of them). Until then, happy prerelease!