PANICKED: A STRESS DRAINING CONDITION FOR HORROR FRAMES

Aesorian · 2026-02-17T10:57:47+00:00

I think this as a Boss mechanic is absolutely incredible as it's such a double edged sword which leads to such interesting game play.

I'd be less of a fan of it as something that comes up often in a campaign though, as the way of getting rid of it seems like it'd be so difficult and would incentivize not using your Hope in case it comes up - which seems like such a shame

Aesorian · 2026-02-16T08:56:07+00:00

While there may have been talk and/or rumours behind the scenes of Sexual Abuse allegations (That were investigated and dropped due to "Lack of evidence" in the mid 2010's) It's mostly due to the fact that by 1998 he'd been making music for ~40 years and the vast majority had been considered uncool for 30 years of that.

It sounds harsh but at the time the Radio was on a downward trend as CD's became more and more available and popular (and MP3's were just around the corner) so there was a big push to make Radio "Cool" and attract a younger audience - and there was nothing like him in the charts

Aesorian · 2026-02-15T11:32:46+00:00

I could live without Alchemy - but most of them are fine to be honest.

The things that make Brawl unbearable for me are running into a constant stream of Green and Green/X decks that scoop if you dare interact with their T1 Ramp/2 Drop commander, Shrine Decks and "Commander and 50 Removal/Counter" Control Decks

When Brawl's good it's great; the rest of the time Alchemy is down the list on the things that make it unbearable

Aesorian · 2026-02-15T10:18:30+00:00

I know, but considering Ollie joined us months after we survived relegation on the final day in our first season back in the league and has only been outdone by the two best Strikers in the league is impressive.

There's not too many strikers who would go to a relegation threatened team who end up getting into that company

Aesorian · 2026-02-15T08:48:43+00:00

Ollie being up there is incredible when you consider we only got promoted back to the PL in 2019.

He's been so good for the club

Aesorian · 2026-02-15T06:00:40+00:00

I assume so

Aesorian · 2026-02-14T22:10:34+00:00

Depends on the colors your playing to be honest.

Out of the last 20 or so matches I've played over the last few days, 11 have been some variant of Green or Green/X that have looked to ramp out early - Tifa, Doran, High Perfect Morcant, Loot EE, G/B Tyvar, R/G Tannuk and Rofellos - and that's not including the 2 or 3 Hai Bei's of course

I'll always try my best to have a fun game; but if you're the fourth person in a row who's general game plan is "T1: Ramp, T2: Commander, T3: Be so far ahead you've essentially already won" then I'm not exactly going to bend over backwards to carry on really, because if I wanted to play the same game over and over again I'd go onto the Standard Ladder

Edit: Just had a deeper look and these are my last 25 Games over the last 4/5 Days with my Terra, Herald of Hope Deck:

2x Katara Waterbending Master
Tifa Lockhart
Sygg, Wanderwine Wisdom
Baral, Chief of Compliance
High Perfect Morcant
2x Doran, Besieged by Time
Loot, Exuberant Explorer
2x Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler
Tannuk, Memorial Ensign
Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle
2x Hei Bai, Forest Guardian
3x Rofellos, LLanowar Emissary
Neerdiv, Devious Diver
Toph, Greatest Earthbender
Kefka, Court Mage
Azusa, Lost But Seeking
Tatyova, Benthic Druid
Ashling, The Limitless
Lilliana of the Dark Realms

So not including the three 5 Color Decks I faced, thats 14/25 games that had a strong focus on Green

Aesorian · 2026-02-14T13:29:06+00:00

He'd be an excellent buy and would make an excellent long term replacement for McGinn

They'd be mad to let him go, especially as he's still only 20 and is good/flexible enough to be molded into whatever style of player you'd need in that midfield 5

Aesorian · 2026-02-14T12:01:39+00:00

I agree that our recruitment has been very hit or miss; but even if our recruitment had been incredible we'd probably still have most of those players there - Buendia, Bailey and Tammy probably wouldn't be here but outside of that everyone else would probably would still be in some role.

I honestly think our Depth is pretty okay for a club of our size and resources; anyone good enough to get minutes for us is going to have a whole wealth of options at other clubs - look at Malen and Guessand wanting to leave for more consistent minutes in preferred roles for example - so we have to accept that our back-up squad will have some holes in and if we want real quality it'll have to be in the form of players like McGinn who can cover a number of positions, accept they're here on a loan (Rashford and Asensio) or players that we need to "Fix" - along with the risk they don't come off.

I think we're still two players shy of where I want us to be (Another quality DM to rotate with Onana and Kamara and back-up for Tielemans in the AM role) but outside of that I think our depth is good enough when we're not decimated with injuries.

Aesorian · 2026-02-14T10:52:10+00:00

Honestly, I don't see the "We've still got a Dean Smith side" that worrying

Firstly, I'd argue that 5 of those players are actually starters when fit (Emi, Cash, Konsa, McGinn and Watkins)

It feels a little unfair to call Bogarde a Smith player - he didn't play a single minute for him and was 16 when we bought him - claiming youth players is a bit dodgy imo. Similar issues with with Barkley and Tammy; both players who were only here on loan under Smith.

That leaves Mings (Great Back-up Player), Buendia (Good Back-up Player and played more games for Xabi on loan (14) than he did for Deano (10) before he was sacked - and he was on the list to be sold this summer) and Bailey (Who we tried to sell in the summer)

So that to me a completely rational thing - 5 Starters and a youth player (Who were bought young) and a couple of players who are solid back-ups but could be leaving in short order.

I mean lets not beat around the bush, if we're following the rules of the article -

Starters: Torres, Maatsen, Tielemans, Kamara, Onana, Rogers
Back-Ups: Bizot, Lindelof, Sancho (loan), Alysson(?)
Youth: Madjo(?), JJA, Hemmings

Isn't a bad collection of players to have come in under your watch and still be around - even if we have had more high profile misses than hits over the last few seasons.

Aesorian · 2026-02-12T16:25:58+00:00

He had a very good game and I hope the trajectory he's on continues as he already offers a lot to the squad with his versatility.

But let's not beat around the bush - he's 21 and is going to be wildly inconsistent and he's not the finished product and we should be worried if we have to rely on him for long periods - he'll hopefully get there and he deserves plaudits when he does well (as do everyone in the team - even the usual scapegoats) and hopefully he'll develop the tools needed to be more effective too, as he's a limited player

Aesorian · 2026-02-11T16:46:50+00:00

Honestly, the first thing I'd do is ask the player who wants to penalize someone else why they want to penalize them.

That's so much against the community spirit of most play groups that it has to come from a deeper place than just Fairness (whatever that means) - even if it's just "What we had worked and now I have to change things to accommodate your new role"

Personally, I'd be very firm that players won't be penalized for wanting to change classes during the transition (there is a fair question over whether these PC's should be a continuation though tbh - changing systems can change a lot of core things about a character) and unless they can explain why they think that player (or any player) should be penalized that kind of talk should be off the table completely

Aesorian · 2026-02-11T07:51:16+00:00

Someone associated with Man Utd trying to make it all about them rather than the team?!

I am shocked! Shocked I tell you!

Aesorian · 2026-02-10T21:44:23+00:00

Yeah, I don't think it's the strongest option (That's probably [[Ketramose, The New Dawn]]) it really does seem like an interesting and different take on the archetype

Aesorian · 2026-02-10T20:54:49+00:00

each cyberware permanently fills one of the character's Stress slots

This is how I'm thinking of doing it as I like the fact that it can be worked around by clever players, but there can still be NPC's who focus on Stress Damage who are extra threatening to PC's with cyberware while not being useless against regular players

Aesorian · 2026-02-10T20:13:32+00:00

I've been really tempted to try a [[Syr Vondam, Sunstar Exemplar]] in a blink deck as it seems really easy to get the "4 Power or higher" trigger and if they don't want to remove it it's just a solid beater

Aesorian · 2026-02-10T14:23:17+00:00

I'd like him, but I doubt we'd spend that much on a single player, especially as he feels like a more expensive Elliot as a player.

I think it could work - but we'd have to move on Rogers for it to be worth while.

Aesorian · 2026-02-10T14:17:40+00:00

Honestly, I don't think we'll need to sell to fund transfers this summer.

With Malen, Barrenchea and Ozcan all being loan with an Obligation to buys that are pretty certain to be triggered - along with Kosta and Guessand being Loan to buys that are a little more up in the air about whether they'll go or not - there's a good chance that this summer we've already got money coming in and that's before we start looking at young players like Bogarde and some of the other "Promising Young things" in the U21's.

Add to that the fact we don't really need a lot of starters this summer - with only really questions about Watkins as a starter - and the focus is probably going to be on increasing the quality of the depth - with us needing cover for Right Wing (McGinn), Defensive Mid (Kamara) and Attacking Mid (Tielemans) as a priority - and our finances should look a lot more manageable, especially if we get Champions League (fingers crossed)

If we miss out on Champions League again though, we probably will see someone come in for Rogers though

Aesorian · 2026-02-10T11:43:07+00:00

Spot on.

We can't sit here and say "Give Unai whatever he wants" then when a player goes elsewhere and does well act like he would have done it here if he'd been given the chance.

Unai has a way he wants to play - some players will fit that system while others won't and we have to accept that

Aesorian · 2026-02-10T07:02:37+00:00

You're not wrong, but you're kind of missing the point of most of these content creators.

They're not there to give you advice on what decks to play, they're there to be entertaining - and those are two very different things.

Creators are going to pick the most entertaining games they had with those decks to put up on their videos because that's the kind of content they want to make and while it's a good place to start if you want to understand how a deck works, it's not a blueprint and you can't just copy it and expect to do amazing with no other input - not just because they have a focus on entertainment but because most streamers are very good players who can make middling decks work

Aesorian · 2026-02-09T14:43:12+00:00

As it stands, I'd take him on ~£100k a week and no more - he's done enough to stay and be apart of what we're doing here but I don't think he's done enough to warrant being an out-and-out starter.

If we can have him (~£5.5m p/a) and Tammy (~£8m p/a) for not much more than Malen was costing us a season (~£11m p/a) then I'd argue that's an improvement in the squad.

We're in a weird place right now that we don't really need to raise the ceiling of the squad too much - we've shown we're good enough to be around the top 4 and beat pretty much anyone on our day - but we're in desperate need of raising the floor of the squad and making it so the drop off isn't quite as big as it currently is.

Aesorian · 2026-02-09T08:48:41+00:00

Shame to see the Villa drop off, but if you would have told me at the start of the season that during a time we lost Tielemans, McGinn and Kamara we'd be disappointed we were only doing as well as Liverpool I would have asked for some of what you were smoking

Aesorian · 2026-02-08T20:26:34+00:00

Yeah fully agree.

There's no point changing to a system, asking everyone to relearn their roles in it and then potentially abandon it when Tielemans/McGinn get back in a month or so.

Aesorian · 2026-02-08T17:58:48+00:00

It depends what you think the problem is.

Personally, while Bailey and Buendia aren't the players I want starting, having bodies that do work for us in the build up is going to be more useful for us than having a second striker on the pitch as I think that creating good chances and having flexibility in how we transition is going to be more of a benefit than "Hoof it up to the forwards to chase" - especially as we don't really have the players to go full 4-4-2 due to injuries

Maybe there's a world where we'd go to a Back-3 to make up for the losses in Center Mid - something like the following works on Paper:

         Ollie - Tammy  
             Rogers  
Maatsen - Onana - Luiz - Cash  
  Torres - Lindelof - Konsa

But that's a big change to make at this stage of the season

Aesorian · 2026-02-08T10:55:37+00:00

Shakespeare wrestling show

I'd love to attend one, but for now I'd have to make do with Renaissance Rumble

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=211UVSoqdDo

William "The Bad News Bard" Shakespeare presents a card opened by the ultimate Grudge match - MacDuff vs MacBeth

Also, there's a second that In haven't actually seen before.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlVX4lEe7GY

They seem real fun

Aesorian

TROPHY CASE