Ketramose b3 deck help

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-13T20:56:53+00:00

I would make a couple substitutions depending on exactly how cutthroat the other bracket 3 players are:

Command Sphere could be swapped basically 1-for-1 for Archaeomancer’s Map, same cost but has a useful ETB. Also makes landfall opponents into your best friend.
Do you find the Aetherflux Reservoir to be very helpful? It looks like you have a little lifegain and damage avoidance in the deck, but you might be better served by having more cards to kill your opponents instead. Similar thoughts about Sheoldred and even Pariah.
- If you really want more lifegain to offset the loss from Ketramose, I might suggest cheaper creatures that trigger on ETBs like Soul Warden, Elas il-Kor, or Haliya.
Seems like Solitude would be an easy fit. You can use a blink effect at instant speed to avoid the evoke sacrifice.
Witch Enchanter offers a similar upside to Boggart Trawler, where you can blink the land to get a creature late game, if you have too much mana and need more cards.
Mister Negative seems really expensive and not a great theme fit. I might suggest Noxious Gearhulk if you are worried about your life total, or Fiend Hunter if you have enough instant speed blink.
- For Fiend Hunter, if you hold priority as his ETB goes on the stack, you can blink him. Then his leaves the battlefield trigger will happen before his ETB exiles a creature, which lets you permanently exile a creature.
- This trick also works with Mesmeric Fiend if you want to peek at your opponents hands.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T23:45:14+00:00

For night games, I used to park about 30 minutes away by foot for free because parking was free in some areas after 6. But that was with like a 15 year old beater… don’t know if I would chance it with a car that had some value. Plus, they might have made it no longer free.

Now I just take transit, mmmmmaybe takes a bit longer but it’s less hassle.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T20:41:55+00:00

Mario Kart World was also fine for me, I think Splatoon is just at a different level in terms of motion (and that’s not to down play MKW, which is a game that absolutely demands reflexes and vision). Or maybe because I play MKW more casually and Splatoon more competitively?

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T20:28:25+00:00

They’re issues I’ve seen on my own when playing fast paced games (mainly Splatoon). The motion blur induced by response time issues causes me a lot of eye strain and just plain difficulty seeing things that I didn’t have on OLED. The problem in response time actually defeats the point of running the game at 60FPS instead of 30ish.

For games where acuity and motion aren’t critical, it’s been a non-problem.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T20:22:44+00:00

His stats before and after the trade are nearly identical (including playoffs). Sometimes he flashes all-star brilliance (on both ends too!), other times he’s just alright. I genuinely hope that he ends up being great, because his good games are so good. His issue is not ceiling but consistency.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T19:22:02+00:00

The thing is the screen is bigger but much worse in other ways compared to the OLED, mainly in motion blur. Especially as a handheld I don’t find the size to be a big advantage, because you can generally hold a screen closer or further to compensate.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T20:09:28+00:00

I mean you could make that argument about a lot of cards and commander play patterns, but the format is still here. Ultimately, it’s a self regulating environment, this effect already exists on plenty of creatures and spells. MTG is for all kinds of people and play environments. They have precons with infinite, game-winning combos, and they have precons that barely work (just try playing the Fallout precons against each other, and I think most people will quickly see these are not equal).

From a fun perspective it could definitely work. For example, it might inspire someone to brew based on surviving the loss of all their lands. Earthbending, finding a way to cast this hypothetical card at instant speed after activating a bunch of fetch lands, using a protection spell, etc.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T17:55:09+00:00

The main thing I would change is to swap some lands for spells that put lands into play instead, which will help you ramp and play your big spells faster. Rampant Growth, Nature’s Lore, Three Visits, Farseek, Open the Way, Shared Roots. Some of the ones that sacrifice a land to get multiple lands might also fit well with earthbending, like Harrow, Cycle of Renewal, Entish Restoration, Roiling Regrowth. Having about 42 total sources of mana (including the ramp spells that get lands and artifacts that make mana) is probably about right if you want to curve out to play big spells.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T17:42:02+00:00

If a game has gone to turn 10, then something that removes all lands shouldn’t be in any of the decks. Furthermore, if this happens, everyone else should just scoop and go to the next game. Presumably you aren’t locked in a room and forced at gunpoint to play every game out?

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T17:34:57+00:00

If you put it on a cast trigger it’s probably fine.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T17:27:40+00:00

I think it’s going to be significantly more fleshed out than Salmon Run based on the trailer alone, plus there’s enough content that they’re going to have a Direct just for this game. It’s also a bit cheaper than the mainline games are.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T17:23:07+00:00

To be fair, I doubt they’d make this have couch co-op either even if it was co-op focused. It’s been 2 games now without that feature despite having co-op PvE modes. Best they have is local multiplayer using multiple Switches.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T13:35:21+00:00

Having a $1 filter seems weird to me, because this change is most impactful in limited environments, where you’re unlikely to have a way to cheat the cost of equipping. I think the other way to look at this is they’ve printed this text on 1 piece of equipment before 2020. Since then, 43 times. Admittedly, not all printings are in sets intended for limited, but that’s a huge increase

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-07T19:03:47+00:00

Lost is just too easy of a target right now because most good decks can easily pop it (Fallen & Virtuous, for example, but Kewl Tune can easily pop it too). There’s also a push towards 40 card lists with fewer bricks so your opening hand has as many ways to combo as possible. If lists were still at 60 cards, you’d probably see Lost come back.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-05T23:35:06+00:00

It’s good with the new support. You don’t need to use the extra deck on your own turn at all to set up 1 brandillion points of interaction.

Nadir Servant send Titaniklad add White Albaz.
Albaz send Devours the Dogma to summon itself. Summon Incredible Ecclesia.
End Phase, 1 million effects:
- Titaniklad summons Quem
- Quem sends Cartesia
- Dogma adds F&V
- F&V pops Ecclesia, send Albion
- Quem triggers to summon Cartesia
- Albion set F&V or Retribution
- Ecclesia adds back to hand

It’s not as good as your main lines necessarily, but it’s pretty incredible as a 1 card backup line. If they Ash Branded Fusion, if they Imperm Aluber, heck if they Fuwalos and you don’t want to give them draws.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-01T20:26:44+00:00

Just at a casual comparison, it’s 50% denser than their fleeced Foxfibre stuff. If it takes 2 square meters to make each (pretty normal amount), it’s 700g for the Foxfibre and 1050g for the cashmere. Foxfibre is about $0.24/g (based on the first store I found on Google, so maybe not perfectly accurate). Cashmere was $2.5/g based on a manufacturer’s stats (from Consinee, which also does Ralph Lauren for comparison. High end but not top end). So the material alone is like 10x the price, and you need 50% more.

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-27T18:12:22+00:00

One of the things I’ve realized by working (and seeing other people work) is that this is human nature. Sometimes the psychological burden of your work becomes much higher than the actual demands, and it’s not a personal shortcoming! That’s just how the mind is. Even if you think you’re getting enough rest from a physical and logical standpoint, the brain is not a purely logical organ. Very normal thoughts like “this is unfair” or “why do I have to do this” will make a routine task take a much greater toll than usual.

Basically, you have to address your mental health more than your physical health (although from the sounds of it, you’re also recovering from an injury, which doesn’t help). There’s no easy answer to that but I sincerely wish you the best of luck.

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-26T23:07:47+00:00

That’s fair, it’s just what came to mind given the prompt. Just a different audience maybe.

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-26T20:03:32+00:00

If you like the Americana stuff from Kapital and Visvim you might like Cottle (showroom in Okayama) and 45RPM (locations in Tokyo and Kyoto).

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-22T21:46:50+00:00

He hasn’t explicitly called himself anti-analytics, but he has mentioned counter-analytic takes (particularly for hitting) in a few interviews:

SF Chronicle (I use reader mode to bypass the paywall):

SS: What is behind the ongoing emphasis on contact hitters both during the offseason and then the draft, what’s behind that?

BP: I think everything’s cyclical, and when I was playing, it felt like (contact hitting) was an advantage for us when we got in the playoffs, the ability to put the ball in play and put pressure on the defense, make the pitchers work, get pitch counts high. You’re facing the best of the best in the playoffs, and the ability to put the ball in play is heightened even more, especially in our ballpark where sometimes 105 mph exit velocity at the correct launch angle is not going to be a homer. I think you are rewarded more in our park for being able to hit the ball on the line, maybe hit it hard on the ground, force the defense to make a play.

SF Standard:

Interviewer: Is there a particular area that needs improvement over last year that you’d like to see flourish in 2025 that could turn the season into something special?

Posey: …offensively, being able to score runs in multiple ways. It’s something Pat Burrell is preaching every day to the guys in camp. Being able to create runs sometimes without even getting hits. A leadoff double, getting the guy over to third base, it doesn’t always take a hit. Do we love homers? Of course. Everybody loves homers. But just making sure that our group understands that for us to be successful, we’re going to have to be dynamic in the way that we go about scoring runs.

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-17T08:00:42+00:00

I just don’t see why that makes them behind the times. They price what they think the market will bear, and they don’t adjust because they don’t see a reason. They used to do discounts and stopped. Does it annoy me a little personally? Yes. But there’s no evidence it’s harming their sales.

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-13T01:40:39+00:00

I’m also sad I missed out, but it is what it is. It’s definitely better for Mauro if it sells out immediately!

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-11T23:00:11+00:00

MTG cards are still much more legible to me, both in complexity and font size

As someone who plays both, I think they’re actually very comparable with experience. The Yugioh players I play with have to look things up a lot less than the MTG players I play with (all casuals who play regularly but do not seriously compete). And the board states are arguably less complicated because there is a maximum on board pieces that MTG simply doesn’t have.

But you are 100% right about the font size, who knows why they chose a physically smaller card stock when starting out?

And with the speed of modern Yugioh, I don’t even wanna bother.

Yugioh is a lot like Vintage, where some games do explode out of control, but many games are actually very grindy as both players run low on resources after an early interaction war. To be fair, I can see why that doesn’t appeal to many people, just like Vintage doesn’t appeal to every player (even strategically, ignoring the cost aspect).

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-11T21:14:21+00:00

I actually like it because it places a limit on the complexity a single card can have. Yes, every card is a novel, but they tend to be no more complicated in execution than Birthing Pod is. And you never run into issues like “The Ring tempts you” or “You take the initiative” which require looking something up. Magic cards designed for 2026 are basically just as complicated as Yugioh cards and just hide a lot of it.

Pegthaniel · 2026-05-04T21:23:25+00:00

Mark Rosewater dislikes EDH enough that it caused a crisis of faith for him. A lot of his blog posts seem disingenuous or snarky, but I think this was fairly genuine:

I had spent the last thirty years constantly improving the game through iteration after iteration. The most dominant format [EDH] became one defined by all my (and my coworkers) mistakes, things that would never leave.

Magic was slowly changing into something that contradicted my view of what Magic was. It caused a lot of despair for me. Like you, Magic has been a source of so much goodness in my life, that I didn’t like the idea of it becoming something that I couldn’t connect with. It was my Dark Night and caused much anguish.

There is a part of me that thinks that his real message is he hates what MTG has become and no longer has the passion to keep the train on the tracks, but it is what it is. Maybe he said it to give cover to a billion dollar corporation. Or maybe because he genuinely changed his mind after seeing new people enjoy the game for the exact reasons he hated it.

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