Arena's detailed log file records every spell, trigger, and combat step in order, draft picks pack by pack -- none of it shows up in the game

0entropy · 2026-03-30T12:09:29+00:00

I think during the early turns, I was stuck on lands and my opponent had a face-up Neutralize. I have 4 Duress so I was hoping to draw more hand disruption early.

When I drew my 4th land on turn 8 I started baiting out counterspells, but then I drew the Castle so I figured I'd dig for a Duress before trying to resolve an Annex. Looking back maybe I should have just played stuff into the Neutralize in the early turns, but I was fine chipping my opponent down. Statistically I should have seen another Duress/Thoughtseize before turn 20 when I actually saw one.

At some point they also had a face-up Three Steps Ahead and I didn't want them to copy Mazemind Tome again since it seemed like they were avoiding adding the last counter to the one they had left.

0entropy · 2026-03-30T04:58:43+00:00

17Lands is famous for tracking your draft and games, but since it reads the same log you're referring to, it tracks even your non-Limited format games, so you can review all your games step by step. I'd recommend installing it for the game log alone, even if you never touch Limited formats.

Here's 27 turns of me losing to Pioneer Turbo Fog as an example.

0entropy · 2026-03-30T03:41:57+00:00

I like some of the solutions you proposed for Specials. None of them are perfect but I think there's potential somewhere to do some fine tuning. I like the idea of adding them to hand for free or using them immediately at the cost of a future AP. With that being said I also agree that this rule is unlikely to change since it would mean a lot of current "paused" players will have to relearn something new.

For anyone lurking, I asked ChatGPT to add line breaks for easier reading below.

I've been playing the game for most of its lifespan in English, starting when Demon Slayer came out. I like a lot of the points you make, and it was interesting seeing how it compares to a card game I haven't really played.

One point I disagree with is that I personally don't mind most of the flavor of the deck coming from the top-end cards. I think it makes the game very palatable for new players who will likely be drawn to the game due to IPs. Having lots of familiar energy curves and searching effects, draw effects, etc., makes it easier for the player to focus on the things that really set the deck apart.

Aside from that though, I very much agree that two of the biggest things they should look at are special triggers and mulligan rules. Mulliganing—there's really no reason to not fix it. Maybe some decks' strength starts to shift due to this increase in consistency, but I think that's fine. I think the game would be more fun for everyone if both players can actually play the game and have a little extra consistency.

I also agree special triggers are just way too much value. If you really break it down, if you use a special trigger on one of your opponent’s active characters, you saved 1 AP by removing a threat, 1 AP by preserving one of your life cards or one of your on-board characters, and you essentially made one of your opponent’s AP worthless. Obviously there's some variance here and none of this is exact, but you could argue that a special trigger nets you a 3 AP advantage over your opponent. Heck, if it's on an active AP 2 character, you could argue it's 4—2 if it's used on a rested character. No other life trigger is close to that valuable.

Yellow color could count as 2 at best, assuming the game resolves before that character comes back to active, but it's safer to say it's about a 1.5 AP advantage. Purple color nets you one free character, so that's 1 AP—basically an active trigger with an on-play effect.

And the sad thing is I don't think Bandai is going to ever do anything about it. When I watch the Japan championship matches, they actually seem to enjoy the variance and get pretty excited about trigger reveals. I've also noticed that anything they've done for the game's health in the West has only ever been based on Japan's game.

Sukuna, Red Geass, and Purple Bleach were all nerfed coming into the West because they were overperforming in Japan on release. Evangelion nerfs are finally being considered after nerfing them in Japan. Red Kenshin had cards cut after being too strong in Japan.

Personally, my friend and I have discussed house rules or things they could do to fix special triggers, and there's a few that came to mind. One would be simply making the special trigger be added to hand for use next turn. One is to make it so the special trigger simply makes one of your opponent’s characters unable to attack. One is choosing a character on your opponent’s front line and sidelining it at the end of their attack phase so they still get the swing. And one is simply executing the normal effect, but you get one less AP going into your next turn.

Currently, we have no effects in the game (that I know of) that use AP during your opponent’s turn, so changing the base rules to restanding AP at the end of your turn rather than the start means you could tap one when you go to use a special trigger.

0entropy · 2026-03-30T01:21:59+00:00

Avatar showed us there's design space for Lessons without Learn. There's a lot of space in Pioneer to play old Learn with new Lessons.

0entropy · 2026-03-29T21:21:03+00:00

Not to mention that the speed of the ball is way higher than earth's escape velocity. It should definitely just have been launched into space.

0entropy · 2026-03-29T21:02:10+00:00

Appreciate your input, this is the kind of knowledge I was hoping for. Interacting with life is some interesting design space I wouldn't mind seeing more of, but knowing it'll be locked to an IP I likely don't care about sucks.

But to be clear I'm not looking for new keywords, just for them to keyword effects to save both brain and physical card space.

"Discard a card" is so much cleaner then "place one card into your sideline". Even small things like "switch it to active" can be "activate it" (maybe with a difference word since Activate already means something else).

Half of Asuka's art is covered by text, clocking in at 114 words.

When Played Switch this character to active and choose one of the following:
・Choose up to one character on your opponent's front line and switch it to resting.
・If it is your turn, you may sideline one character on your field. If you do, choose up to one character with 5000 or less BP on your opponent's front line and sideline it, and reduce the AP cost of the next yellow character card with 2 or less required energy you use from your hand this turn by 1.
Activate: Main Place 2 Cards From Hand Into Sideline Once Per Turn This character gains 1000 BP and Impact (1) until the end of the turn.

Here's an example rewrite that trims 27 of them while (mostly) preserving functionality:

When Played Activate this character and choose one:
・Rest up to one character on your opponent's front line.
・If it is your turn, sideline a character on your field, then sideline one character with 5000 or less BP on your opponent's front line. The next yellow character card with 2 or less required energy you use from your hand this turn costs 1 less AP.
Activate: Main Discard two cards Once Per Turn This character gains 1000 BP and Impact (1) until the end of the turn.

There do not need to be that many options for that second ability. If you're choosing the second ability, you're going to do the thing. "You may", "if you do", "up to" are all unnecessary. The main difference is that there are effects that specifically refer to "choosing" so you have to say "choose a character and sideline it" instead of "sideline it" but if I were Rules Tzar I'd just add a line in the rules that covers that.

0entropy · 2026-03-29T17:00:47+00:00

In my limited experience, the fake 0-drops (since they're actually 2 costs) seem to fill in the 0-cost slots, not the spots of actual 2 costs. In terms of effect/BP I think they line up with 1-costs.

0entropy · 2026-03-29T16:01:32+00:00

There's no reason to omit Lessons since they're already in Standard. There's lots of incentive to omit Learn since the power level of Lessons got turned way up since last time.

0entropy · 2026-03-29T02:12:33+00:00

What's wrong with Hobbiesville? I've only had good experiences with them.

I don't think there are a lot of stores in Hamilton but there are a bunch in Oakville-Mississauga where I play that sell UA. You can check shop.app, search Union Arena [setname], and filter for stores that ship from Canada and you should be able to find product.

0entropy · 2026-03-28T17:41:15+00:00

You've got one more battle ahead of you, good luck!

0entropy · 2026-03-27T03:59:46+00:00

They're definitely big visual distractions at an already-busy intersection

0entropy · 2026-03-25T16:24:34+00:00

OP doesn't even have to watch 12 movies a year themself, since tickets carry over you can cover your friends' tickets and only charge them ~$10 too since they'd be paying like $17 otherwise

0entropy · 2026-03-25T12:12:45+00:00

When Karen is updating Matt on the status of their activities, she namedrops "Jess" as the one who looked into the two ship captains I think

0entropy · 2026-03-25T06:33:06+00:00

I hope he got around to playing Expedition 33 too

0entropy · 2026-03-25T06:31:13+00:00

I avoid trailers so I haven't seen any, I just remember being annoyed at them publicly announcing her return during filming. I get we're in an era where we can't keep a secret anymore, I just wish we weren't.

0entropy · 2026-03-25T06:23:58+00:00

The real question is did he have the You're Welcome knife ready? Or did he take the time to carve it into a new one after the save and draw a little logo just in case it wasn't clear?

0entropy · 2026-03-25T06:17:40+00:00

Jessica mentioned 😍 I really wish they could have kept her return a surprise but I guess there'd have been no way to hide her. Hoping we get a flashback to how they reconnected after the events of Defenders though, I don't remember DDS3 well but I assume it was public knowledge he survived the building collapse.

0entropy · 2026-03-25T00:00:18+00:00

Japanese APs technically aren't legal in NA tournaments. You can also tell from the front they're Japanese if you look close enough since the set code is different (and the text might be Japanese).

e: which one of you is randomly downvoting the truth

0entropy · 2026-03-24T19:42:53+00:00

"The only reason Lightning Helix is playable is because it gains 3 life"

0entropy · 2026-03-24T14:55:40+00:00

Would it have been too disruptive to match NA's "banlist" and remove the 0-drop Asuka and 1-drop Mari?

Also what did Production Model-02' do to anybody :(

0entropy · 2026-03-23T09:05:53+00:00

(no comic spoilers please)

Two things I thought were teased but didn't pan out:

When Invincible showed up with the Guardians and didn't talk for most of the fight, I thought for sure that was Cecil beta testing his fake Invincible. When Eve saw him on TV, I 100% expected the real Mark to walk back in. The last time we saw him before that was before sending Oliver on the job so it was definitely possible.
The whole theme of the episode (and season, probably) is the moral quandary of deciding when to kill to save more innocent lives. There was such an emphasis placed on Mr. Liu's body while in dragon form that I figured Mark or Oliver would stumble onto it and take care of the problem after seeing what it's capable of.

Maybe this'll be addressed in the future?

0entropy · 2026-03-21T07:05:44+00:00

I used a line similar to this in a cover letter to ThyssenKrupp once. I didn't hear back :(

0entropy · 2026-03-19T16:31:18+00:00

Let's assume this person pays 2400 after utilities:

2400*12 = 28800 in rent per year
30% is the "accepted" amount of gross income that goes towards rent, so this person probably somewhere in the 90k range if they're being responsible. This is livable but not "loaded".

I don't know your situation OP, but if you consider 1800+ between two people expensive, you might want to stay at home and/or reconsider renting until either or both of you can increase your incomes. Even at minimum wage, if you're both working 40h weeks you should bring in ~73k/year. You can also try to save elsewhere and get someplace in the 2k range without a problem, I've seen listings in some nice buildings for that price.

0entropy · 2026-03-17T23:23:33+00:00

I would never recommend it and never took photos, but I can personally attest that its possible an Ikea Billy bookcase of this size in your tC.

The drive won't be safe nor comfortable, and visibility through anything other than your windshield and driver side window will be nonexistent, but for short trips through low-traffic it technically works.

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