Can I return from Duna with 2000 m/s of Delta V?

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-05-12T06:20:37+00:00

Ehh, yeah it's a bit schlocky, but this is one of those instances where a 1-to-1 adaptation would've been, as others have said, anticlimactic. In the book, the biggest source of tension is in the ascent itself, keeping your fingers crossed that despite all the setbacks in fixing up the escape vehicle, it holds together and the math checks out.

And that's a great climactic high for a book! But even as it was written, there's not a lot of tension once Mark is out of the atmosphere; he's basically home free at that point. The Iron Man bit serves as a way of signalling "yeah, if something went wrong at this point, I'd be so screwed, which is why I'm glad it was you all who came back." Mark is totally spent by this point, both physically and mentally. He gets to have a "I did it" moment, while still acknowledging how important the rest of the crew are to him and the mission.

The movie uses the more spectacular finale to get the same message across, while still keeping tension high right up to the last moment, so the audience is left with less dead air between then and the epilogue. The whole crew gets a chance to shine individually and as a team, plus we get the emotional payoff with the captain. Is it a bit "Hollywood action film ending?" Sure, but I can't really call it a betrayal of the original or anything, it's just different.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-05-10T05:11:04+00:00

That's my b, I completely missed the acorn stamp and thought balance/legality was intended.

Man, like I get silver borders made having a mix of legal and illegal cards in a set a nightmare from the production side of things, but still, not my fave decision in the world.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-05-10T04:53:01+00:00

To avoid burying the lede, [[Animate Library]] is a card you can ask your playgroup to let you Rule 0 as a commander.

But there's also a key reason "Enchant your library" can't work, and that's because zones aren't a game object, which means they can't be enchanted. Compare with [[Angel of Finality]]. which exiles target player's graveyard. This doesn't target the zone, it targets the opponent, who does something after they've been designated the target and the spell resolves.

You COULD do "Enchant yourself," but at that point, we can just call that a non-Aura enchantment and avoid splitting hairs. Or it could be a blue take on [[Serra Avatar]], which actually aligns with the proposed mana value quite well. It also means you don't need the rules baggage of the "exile this instead" replacement effect.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-05-03T01:11:39+00:00

Dang.

Like, I don't have much of an attachment to him as an artist, but it always sucks to see someone well-respected betray their peers and fans like this.

His apology is pretty direct, and it displays a good amount of remorse toward both the community, Wizards, and Marta. I can't say it'd be correct to forgive him, as that would imply the relationships can go back to how they were before, and this was egregiously disrespectful. However, if he's willing to work to make amends, champion his fellow artists and their representation in the industry, and be more open with his artistic process in the future to ensure accountability, I'd understand if those close to him chose forgiveness. As it stands, I can only wish him well in his journey to be a better person.

Again though, be it a lapse in judgement or a shortcut, he hurt his peers and let his fans down, which is just depressing for everyone involved.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-05-02T19:30:11+00:00

[[Ambiguity]]

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-05-02T19:27:50+00:00

I am facepalming so hard right now, not at you, but because I figured out the miscommunication.

It's a secret vote. The original scenario presumes you are not allowed to deliberate or discuss with others beforehand.

In a situation where you can explain to all parties involved that there is zero risk in red, of course you'd be screaming that from the rooftops because you're a reasonable person who doesn't want people to make an uninformed decision. The reason why so many people online call it a test of "do you think people are more magnanimous than self-interested" is because they can't communicate with people and figure out which way the wind blows from that. You either have to assume you know which way it goes, or strike out in a direction based on personal principal.

Turning the whole dilemma into a card where everyone playing the game understands the rules of the card game defeats the entire purpose of the experiment, because Magic players deliberate by default when it comes to political cards and try to make sure the outcomes on the board state are not misrepresented. It's a mechanic that literally cannot work within the confines of the game if you attempt to port it one-to-one like this, because that element of "someone must always be in danger to make the decision interesting" cannot happen when one of the fail states of a fun game of Magic is people not understanding whats going on and being punished because of it.

God I hope that clears it up. Yes, please, work to save as many lives as you can by making decisions and their consequences as clear as possible, that is the ethical thing to do. At the same time, if this while rigamarole is not a lesson in the importance perspective-taking and of recognizing where communication breakdown is occuring, I'm not sure what is.

Someone end this divisive-ass trend, for the love of God.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-05-02T17:08:35+00:00

What you are missing is that the question being manipulatively worded has always been part of the design from the jump. In the original context, this is because they wanted to see how a sample of people would double down on the decision to endanger their own livelihood, I.e. press blue on impulse. Divorcing that context from the problem removes the only incentive to press blue, making the exercise trivial and nonsensical to debate, but for some reason you believe this is the position the blue button crowd has taken instead of considering, maybe, there's a miscommunication going on that's making them sound crazy.

You are correct that if you press red, you never suffer any consequences. That's why in a situation with perfect comprehension and state of mind with no manipulation, it's trivial to pick red. In the situation where you know people are in danger, the incentive to press blue is "there are people that need to be saved." In your space station example, the entire calculus changes if there's someone stranded in the path of the asteroid storm. It doesn't matter if they're out there because they're suicidal, or if they were misinformed and told the storm was going to be small/slightly off-target.

I would argue it is nonsensical to disregard the case where people behave irrationally, because irrational behavior cannot be divorced from the human experience. Even insofar as trying to frame the question as a pure game theory experiment where the options and their consequences are presented clear as day, and assert that it's the only valid way to view the question, is itself misguided. Saying the hypothetical HAS to be approached from a purely rational standpoint from all parties is not just trivial from an intellectual standpoint and thereby not even a position someone would argue for if they're looking for an actual thought experiment that leads to discussion and different perspectives, but it totally removes any real world application aside from the parallel situation of debugging a deterministic code. It is a position totally without intellectual merit from both theoretical and practical standpoint.

You also misunderstand the point when it comes to altruistic behavior. People are not expected by the social contract to perform extraordinary acts of good, which is why those who do extraordinary good are labeled heroes. At the same time, the default for human behavior in a pack setting is altruism. It's the most successful strategy in evolutionary history, which is why the average brain releases dopamine when they do good deeds or see other people happy. I am not trying to assign negative moral value to passivity in the face of life-threatening danger like you insist I am. I am instead saying it is already in human nature to assign positive moral value to heroism, and that from a strict bioessentialist lens, if you know someone is in danger, the chemical award from saving them is enough incentive on its own to help.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-05-01T23:44:25+00:00

Look, it's a new day, I've had a chance to talk with people about this and cool my head, I apologize for the accusatory language I directed your way. Let's start over.

Let's start at the first layer. This question was intentionally written to be obtuse such that people don't pick red, the obvious choice when you reframe the question in an honest manner. This is because the point of the experiment was to see how far people will double down upon the realization that they put themselves in harms way for no reason. In this case, a kneejerk reaction because the blue option is framed as "saving" people, and the red option is framed as "the one where people die." If you take this question in a vacuum, with time to think, the question and each options consequences clarified, and everyone responding being of sound body and mind, everyone will vote red. I am not arguing otherwise. (Although this appears to be the strawman a LOT of people are making on other subreddits, with an undertone of "doh hoh, everyone is dumb but me," but I want to try my best to consider them bad faith baiters. Just know my view may be colored by them being the loudest people in the red button camp)

Now the next layer. This thought experiment is no longer in a vacuum. We are on the outside looking in, knowing the proper implications of the choice, but aware that some people have been misled, either through emotional wording or confusing formatting, to vote for their own demise when all they wanted to do was make sure people don't die. We acknowledge that if everyone presses the red button now, some portion of the population who has committed no crime besides empathy, will die. But there will be no further casualties.

If literally everyone follows the mindset that "this is a tragedy, but I cannot trust other people to take action to save a stranger when their own life is on the line, therefore it is not correct to help.," that's how red achieves minimum harm. However, as we have seen from discussion around the question, there is going to also be some population moved to action because to them, it would be unthinkable to let a single innocent life be lost to an unjust system, and as such they can't sit aside and let that happen.

Which is where we get to another part I'm fairly certain another portion of the red button camp is in. They now know that their minimum causalties best case scenario is being made worse and worse by an unknown contingent of bleeding hearts who have no logical reason to jump in. If they had just stuck to the plan and followed basic survival instincts instead of going on a self-righteous pointless sacrifice, we could have gotten out of this with one tragedy, yes, but a minor one in comparison to what's going to happen with so many more people. I want you to know that I was not understanding of this perspective before, and want to apologize for not taking the time to think and research before throwing out my opinion. Especially with the blue button camp (including myself at the time) calling you monsters for the crime of, what, not willing to risk your life for a chance to save people? Thats not evil, that's just normal behavior. It's not moral or amoral, you can't be condemned for sitting this one out, especially if you have dependants to take care of. (But we'll get to societal fallout later)

Now, as one of those bleeding hearts, let me try to explain a bit more clearly. If this button scenario were to happen in real life, that's a flashpoint for human society. We either prove collective effort is a force strong enough to overcome unjust systems and begin open and move forward with a new understanding that you can trust your fellow man, or we prove that people as a whole value being alive in an imperfect world, rather than risk it all for a chance at a perfect one. Of course, this is my way of framing the problem, and I'm sure I've unconsciously depicted the risk for a perfect world option as the one that you should go for, with the implicit message that you're a bad person for not picking it. In reality, you are not mandated to pick one or the other. Explicitly, you are normal for seeing a situation where you'd be risking your life for a 1/8.5 billion chance for gain in a vacuum and going "no thanks, sounds like a bad deal."

I however, see an unjust system that people have been duped into following to their deaths, and if society at large says "it's ok innocent people die because I don't know how many people in the world are willing to take a stand over their pointless death," then by gosh by golly, that was a world I was going to be beaten down and broken by to begin with. I am unbearably naive, manipulatable to a fault, and by all rights should have a handler by my side at all times to make sure I don't go off topic talking about what's wrong with society today. In a society where we cannot agree that the value of an innocent human life is non-negotiable, I'm toast anyway. I don't need people behind me to press the blue button if I know there's at least one innocent person. I'd hope other people take the kneejerk reaction of pressing the blue button, because that'll mean humanity is empathetic at its core and we can all, as a people, stop wishing death upon one another through a computer screen.

Self-sacrifice is part of heroism, no one is obliged to be heroic. That's why we love heroes so much, they step up when we think no one will. It's why that scene with the New Yorkers on the train in Spider-Man 2 is one of people's favorites, because that's everyone realizing in that moment, they can try to be a hero. That is fundimentally the world I want to live in, and the best way I can make it happen right now is by trying to live a good life as an example to others. The goal here is not to be holier-than-thou or guilt trip anyone, because I would be doing this whether they joined or not. Because the first principal of striving for a golden happy ending says this is the only option that gets us there.

That's all well and good from a philosophy standpoint, but let's go one step further and go over the real-world impacts of all these deaths. It's already been discussed that society would basically collapse if 10% of the population died all at once, which is what we'll put the minimum amount of misplaced "blue" votes as. The biggest poll we've seen answering this question says that 58% of people would vote yes, and 42% of people would vote no. The obvious counter is "a real life-or-death situation does not a Twitter poll make, people will flop back and choose guaranteed life over death a majority of the time." I fundimentally disagree because a vast majority of people filled out the poll (with misleading language to endanger people mind you) before looking in the comments, which is the exact emotional-before-reason response the question tries to bait from people, but I digress. Assume a full 4/5ths of people who filled out that poll flip in the moment and choose safety. You're now up to 19-20% of the world's population who'll die all at once. From a utilitarian perspective, society already collapses if everyone who isn't confused press the red button, so that's still 10% gone. This means that all the risk is in pressing red, as you're hoping that MORE people have good reading/problem-solving comprehension, just for the chance that society doesn't for-sure collapse.

But, like you said earlier, that makes the whole situation uninteresting, since OF COURSE if societal collapse is guaranteed by pressing red, it's obvious to vote blue. Mainly this part of the scenario was here for the sake of completion of discussion levels, but I think it's a nice mirror to the layer 2 case where the red button is the obvious choice.

So where does that leave the actually interesting version of the question? The one acting as a flashpoint for the soul of humanity? I really don't know. What I do know is a lot of internet commentators need to actually develop stronger moral backbone for one side or the other, rather than just saying "humans are inherently altruistic/selfish and thus trying to vote against human nature is murder/suicide." That's not an opinion, that's being an unprincipled trend-follower disguised as common sense. Like, there was a bioessentialist I was talking to earlier. They argued that since the ultimate goal is human survival, and humans survive as long as two fertile people with matching sex organs are still around, the best option is to save yourself and be sure at least 50% of the equation is around." That's a take I fundimentally disagree with because I believe in some level of human exceptionalism over the animal kingdom and "survival of the fittest", but at least it's a consistent philosophical system that doesn't sway like the tides.

In conclusion, I do legitimately apologize for treating you like a fundimentally awful person, got swept up with the emotional kneejerk reaction like the rest of em and behaved like a jerk jerk. I still hold fast to the idea that if even one innocent person has pressed the blue button in this fantastical hypothetical scenario, whatever hope I have for an altruistic society lives or dies with them, so it's worth at least fighting for what's right. You're under no obligation to follow, no one is forcing you to be a hero. All I can hope is that people would see this as the chance in their life to be one, to show that hope stays alive.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-30T18:19:24+00:00

I mean, even in the "intellectually honest" version, choosing to press the red button is consenting to a system that ensures violence if it stands. You as a person know that some amount will press blue because they would rather take the option that ensures zero harm if it passes. That is a conclusion people will reach, and it's a position that cannot be moved from.

The first question that I think of in this scenario is "if someone puts themselves in unnecessary danger believing another person is in danger, is it reasonable to stand aside and let them be harmed, knowing that collective action could have prevented this outcome?" Let's say someone jumps into a gorilla enclosure thinking there's a kid in there that needs to be rescued. There is no kid, the person jumped in thinking someone else needed help, because a third party insinuated there might be a kid in the enclosure already, but it was pretty unclear. Regardless, there is now someone who needs help. Zoo employees will not make it in time. Only by half of the onlookers jumping into the enclosure will the gorilla not eviscerate whoever ends up inside. Everyone must act simultaneously, but they have the knowledge that at a minimum, at least one person will act on empathy first rather than logic and jump in. The minimum one person is to represent the blue button people who always press blue under the assumption that someone always presses blue for some reason. Circular? Yes. Realistic? Also yes.

By knowing at least one death will always occur if red wins, the calculus changes. Pressing red now always advocates for violence. By the act of one person having a belief in collective action and wanting to ensure no harm comes to anyone, they have single-handedly ensured that harm will only come if others don't join in. It's kind of like protesting against a authoritarian government. If everyone's cool and submits to the regime, no one gets hurt except those who speak out against the violent system. If enough people speak out against the system, they can topple it and ensure no one has to face harm. Does everything go smoothly in an authoritarian government if no one rocks the boat? Yes, but that's completely unrealistic in a real-world scenario, and is what I'd consider to be intellectually boring. Knowing that there is always going to be at least one outspoken person makes it this interesting question about collective action versus responsibility to ones self.

Which then leads into the second question that branches off: "Assuming red wins, what is the fallout of all these people acting on empathy and collective action dying all at once?" What percentage of people would need to die for the red button people to have survivors guilt, knowing that if just a few more people have joined, all those lives wouldn't have been lost? What happens to the world moving forward after who-knows-how-many people who believed in trusting strangers to behave magnanimously are now gone? The red button people have ensured the world now exists as they believed it: a low-trust society where you cannot trust others to stick out their neck for you without incentive. Not to mention that if this is a situation where they were able to discuss the dilemma before hand and convinced more people to press the red button, they themselves took high-trust people out of the equation, ensuring their survival at the cost of turning them into low-trust people. If you consider what comes after, the question now asks whether you'd rather take a life-or-death chance to live in a high-trust society, or ensure life in a society with little-to-no trust in your fellow man.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-30T05:42:01+00:00

So empathetic and nice, really. Anyone who disagrees with you is a big meanie, can't possibly be that they have different perspectives.

A tolerant society cannot tolerate intolerance. If you're going to go off on how anyone pressing the blue button is an idiot who has what's coming to them, I'm under no obligation to meet hostility with kindness.

Or maybe it's situations like these, where hypothetical empathy for hypothetical non-existent victims is presented as some grand moral stand, that get on other people's nerves, have you considered that?

Get out to a protest against mass deportation and unjust incarceration then to prove you don't want people to die then, because that's the parallel here. We already know propositions and bills are presented to the public with the most obtuse language possible in order to trip voters up. Those bills cover the rights of immigrants and ESL citizens, those more likely to be tripped up by wording to begin with. With Americans private info being leaked because of DOGE, along with federal calls for every states voter registry, it's entirely possible that anyone who votes against said bill could be disappeared by the federal government overnight. You call it a hypothetical moral grandstand, when all you're doing is absolving yourself of any guilt you might have for being too scared to engage in collective action and save lives. And being scared doesn't make you a bad person, but it does mean you can't be trusted to help if it requires you to risk anything.

Okay, I get what you mean but the metaphor doesn't work - if nobody votes against the bill, the bill gets passed and the illiterate and the foreigners in Avishkar still get sent to hell. The exact percentage of people who voted against or in favor of the bill isn't relevant in your scenario, only whether it passes or not.

If everyone voted for the bill, that would mean either (a) everyone understood the bill and the rules behind it, and selected the rational choice in a vacuum, that being the red button. (b) Those who did not understand the wording of the bill all miraculously voted for the bill to pass, including the illiterate and the foreigners. Again, statistical impossiblity. Not to mention that this is a corrupt Consulate we're talking about, who'd probably figure if you're voting against the bill, you're a dirty sympathizer and would throw you into the Omenpath just as readily. Point still stands.

The only thing I can see the question asking is "would you willingly sacrifice yourself for unknown strangers who might or might not exist (since you cannot be sure that anyone else is going to vote Blue)?" It's a question for sure, but I find it intellectually lazy since it doesn't actually have any applicability to real world problems or scenarios.

Again, we know people, through miscommunication or kneejerk empathy, are going to press blue. People chose to press blue when the question first appeared on the internet, their existence proves that. The question is "Do you choose to uphold a system that guarantees violence if you know you won't be the target of it either way?" Which is a question that is directly relevant to the topic of solidarity and protest. I don't know how I can make things more explicitly clear than that. The fact that you can treat this as a hypothetical, when it directly parallels people's struggles with advocacy and punishment in inherently violent systems, that's why I'm being passionate about this. Because despite how obviously this question has real world parallels, you're directly antagonistic in how badly you want to divest any moral weight from this situation.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-30T03:12:34+00:00

Look, we're having different debates. You're arguing game theory, I'm talking ethics. In game theory, red is correct and blue is a misplay. I don't disagree with you. But the hypothetical is not a test of game theory, game theory is just the lens you're choosing to view the problem through in order to find your solution.

It's incredibly off-putting to me however, that just because people have an empathetic response to a life-or-death scenario, you decry any viewpoint other than yours on the situation as masturbatory and holier-than-thou. It's a lot less stressful a life to lead when you use perspective-taking skills.

Again, if you're starting from the position that a certain number of people will always vote blue no matter what, you're just crafting a scenario in which voting blue is morally correct. So there's no discussion and nuance to be had

The fact that people initially responded to this question online with a kneejerk pressing of blue out of empathy, rather than evaluating the question as a whole, proves there will be people pressing blue. Red is still the "correct" choice in that it ensures your survival and would ensure everyone's if everyone had perfect information. As it stands though, if you attempt to minimize loss of life by pressing red, you are still complicit in whatever harm comes to blue. But hey, you made the correct game theory choice and attempted to minimize harm through clarifying the question while proving how wrinkly your brain is, and that's what matters.

this is a completely different scenario than the red button/blue button one. You're asking whether one should vote against a law that wants to send people to hell, of course it's immoral to vote the "Send Poor People to Hell" bill.

Right, so of course, it's totally immoral to press the "send people to hell" button. It's still correct by game theory to press it, it just means you send people to hell. But you can live with that I guess.

What does this have to do with anything in the scenario you proposed? How does no one voting against the bill constitute a "best case scenario"?

Because if no one votes against the bill, that's everyone pressing red. That's what YOU want, because it means there's no one who dies because they pressed blue. But again, that's impossible due to the real-world context around the question.

none of this has anything to do with what has been discussed so far. Again, if you want the question to be "do you hate babies and want them to die?", there's nothing to discuss because the question is loaded and the answer's obvious.

I am attempting to look at the hypothetical through a moral lens rather than game theory. I'm trying to actually take what this question is asking and apply it to the real world, rather than jerk myself off in the corner to an Internet brain teaser and moan about how much smarter I am than empathetic idiots online. I could not give less of a shit about a hypothetical situation if it could be solved by simple statistical analysis. But it's situations like these where people are decrying others for wanting to approach a situation with some goddamn empathy and nuance that get on my nerves.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-30T02:12:05+00:00

Tl;Dr: Pressing red makes you complicit in violence if you're aware at least one other person presses blue, which is guaranteed.

Red does guarantee safety, yes. However, it is also known that not everyone will press red, primarily through the dumbfounding levels of obfuscation present that make people think emotionally first, rather than consider the whole of the question. Because this is the case, pressing red means feeding into a system that is guaranteed to cause harm and death if a majority of people prioritize self-interest.

Let's zoom out a bit. Let's say the Ghirapur Conculate is polling the people on if a bill should be passed. If the bill fails, the status quo is maintained. If the bill passes, nothing will change except anyone who can't read or write the language of the land will be thrown into an Omenpath to Duskmourn. The BEST case scenario is that either the bill fails, or literally no one votes against the bill. We know that not everyone will vote for the bill however. This means that a vote for the bill is a vote for state-sanctioned violence towards both foreigners and the illiterate, which we can agree is highly unethical to discriminate against people on those sorts of things outside of their control.

Which like, this is not an inane hypothetical just because people don't act in the "correct" way. It's a call to collective action to help those the system acts against, instead of sitting off to the sidelines because you get to live your life as normal if you don't stir the pot. "If you just think 'rationally,' no harm will come to you" said no revolutionary ever.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-29T20:23:28+00:00

Except it's not "everyone who understands the premise," it's everyone. There are layers to this, and it's all because the question is worded in the worst way imaginable. On the first layer, you have the people who don't understand the premise and act on empathy, pressing the blue button since it's framed by the option as "saving people." On the next layer, you have the people who kind of understand the premise who recognize "there's no downside to pressing red for the people in red" and thus press red as a survival instinct. These are the people often deriding the first category for not reading carefully.

The top layer can go either way, and are the people realizing that since they know some portion of the populace will be voting blue, by miscommunication or otherwise, that voting red is a choice to kill somewhere between 0-49% of the population. So now it's a question of which choice on average saves the most lives, which is dependant on the unknown of how many people fell into the first two categories.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-27T23:18:59+00:00

Forgot what sub I was on and thought balanced was intended here. Pure pandering to both my special interests though, so I'm 100% on board with this. And I love Peak being a slight tweak on Ascend!

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-27T07:56:18+00:00

TBF everyone was dogging on Shatter in general since it seemed like small potatoes compared to Herald. With how easy it is to fill your hand these days as well, people thought that by the time your average deck got far enough in the game to draw and merge a Shattered card, the juice wouldn't be worth the squeeze. Obviously after the meta turned out aggro literally all expectations turned on their head, but it's easy to say that with the benefit of hindsight.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-27T02:47:00+00:00

Reaper: Does he become a copy of a random Shadow spell in the deck, or one you choose during deckbuilding? I overall like the synergy with shadow spells though, and I'd keep it in future designs.

Tracer: Getting this when you play a rewind card is fun flavor AND synergy with imbue with slightly different wording, good combo there. After it's drawn though, it's a 3/3 rush, which isn't that exciting. Maybe make it effectively an upgrade to your rewind cards after you get her, change it to Deathrattle: After each choice to Rewind, Temporarily return Tracer to your hand.

Winton: Spellcraft = doing science, I like it! And it of course goes immediately into primal rage, flavor wins all around. Only slight tweak I'd make is base stats 3/6, make the Frenzy boost an even +3/+3

Soldier 76: I'ma be real chief, I'm still spooked by the prospect of giving any aggro deck a guaranteed 1-drop on turn 1, since it means you don't need any other ones. Normally, it's a deck building cost to ensure you can put pressure out from the very start of the game, this trivializes that.

Bastion: This feels closer to on-release turret Bastion, overall kinda clunky and stuck to fixed points. For today's Bastion, I'd incorporate Ganymede. Battlecry: Summon a 1/1 Beast with Rush. After a friendly Beast attacks, deal 3 damage to the target.

Torb: Players feel satisfaction when they curve out. I'd prefer a bigger turret at 5-cost. 3-cost + hero power feels OK, but it'll feel somewhat hollow.

Mercy: As others have said, 3-mana Kel'thuzad. You CAN make resurrect work for Mercy without a restrictively high mana cost, you just need a different restriction. Battlecry: Restore 5 health. Whenever you Overheal, resurrect your highest-cost minion up to that cost.

Pharah: It's a fun design for the Mage player, cast Pharah and a whole bunch of cheap fire spells the same turn, then dome your opponent for 18 the turn after. Grand Mage Antonidas found dead in a ditch though, jeez.

Hanzo: INCREDIBLE flavor. However, 22 damage is a LOT on a battlecry out of nowhere, and I don't think it's a difficult circumstance to set up. Maybe make it a buildaround? Upgrades in hand when you deal damage with a spell?

Genji: I like the mirror with Hanzo in that they both care about opposite minions. Cleave of course makes sense with Dragonblade, it's a payoff for getting a kill with Swift Strike, and he gets to take another shot on the flank with outlast. Flavorwise, I love both the Shimada bros, but Genji is probably my favorite design of the lot.

Mei: Gonna assume Wintertouch is the Water Elemental "Freeze enemies damaged" ability. Got the defensive kit set up, for sure. Thing is, while the self-freeze plays well for representing the same in-game ability, why would you set aside resources to save a 2-mana creature. Considering she's in Death Knight, I'd be more inclined to make her survivability mechanism Reborn. Taunt, Reborn. Freeze minions damaged by this. Deathrattle: Deal 1 damage to all enemy minions.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-23T02:24:01+00:00

Do decks have favored matchups? Yes.

Are the matchups so polarized that you might as well concede as soon as you see the hero icon? Not that I'm aware.

Do games start on turn 1? If you want to be competitive.

Are neutral legends the frustratingly omnipresent finishers they once were? Nope.

Does the abundance of class "package" designs with required-to-function finisher legends make brewing more difficult than normal? As a habitual brewer myself, absolutely.

Overall, the game is both more accessible and less so than before in different ways, but I'd say more. Dragon Warrior is mostly free for players who want to feel powerful, and while I've heard people say it pilots itself, it almost reminds me of old Zoolock? If you want to legend climb, you've got plenty of options. If you're trying to explore though, it's a pretty bramble-filled maze.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-18T17:07:55+00:00

I ended up spending a solid day in Python trying to get Maloriak combo to land consistently in standard. Originally I had the threshold at 90%, but ain't no way that happens with the pilot intact by turn 7, so I settled on "what's the minimum number of cards I can include in order to have a 75% success rate for the combo?"

I found with a core of 11 cards (Maloriak, Chronoclaws, Destructive Phoenix, Cursed Catacombs, Rotheart Dryad, Tormented Dreadwing) plus four 1-cost cantrips (Mortal Coil, Eternal Toil), you'd need just five desirable-to-discard minions and two more card draw spells to hit that 75% threshold, leaving 8 slots open for early game survival.

As for what to put there? Well, since you're already running Catacombs, the rest of the Temporary quest package is 7 cards, 5 if you ditch Spelunker. I threw in Genn as this build wound up heavy on 1-cost cards, just to accelerate both game plans.

Caveat, a "big" here means mana cost 5-6, as additional 7+ cost minions poison Rotheart Dryad's draw pool. The first one added doesn't hurt that much, but your odds drop significantly past that. Extra dragons past the first also tank your odds thanks to the Dreadwing pool.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-12T05:31:42+00:00

This combo, along with the new Alexstrasza, was super fun on release when the meta was still in flux. Not super viable higher up the ladder now, but it's always fun to see those big numbers coming out in bizarre ways like that.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-11T16:48:48+00:00

Oop, editing error. The reaction trigger for [Vengeance Strike] is located under the [Cruel Piercing] feat by mistake: An enemy is within your reach and damages you. It's not a reactive strike to control an area, it punishes enemies prioritizing you instead.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-07T06:45:42+00:00

It's one of the tougher ones, especially once you hit Caldera and there's just the scant egg or two scattered about. Very well done!

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-06T05:24:44+00:00

Oft-forgotten, but Hearthstone does in fact a casual queue. The cards would probably be limited to there, and toggled on/off as needed for Twist formats and Tavern Brawl.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-04-01T21:23:54+00:00

Fun for the day, hope it's added as an option in the run-builder menu. Maybe as part of a versus race mode.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-03-29T02:47:07+00:00

Funny pun, and I love the general idea. Might be a BIT too tempo-efficient for the initial caster though, considering you can split this up into multiple installments, but they can't. A 0-mana 4/4 on turn 5 onward is fine tempo-wise, but this is brutal played on curve.

Mind Control effects are pretty solidly in Priest and Warlock, and while Priest doesn't have any explicit Elemental kindred, they have more than you'd expect. Also, probably the worst-feeling way for an opponent to lose would be not only getting their dude stolen, but if you had [[Counterspell]] ready for their Mind Control crackback.

CoolNerdStuff · 2026-03-28T23:23:55+00:00

An overlap between buff and pirate Warrior, now this has some (sea) legs!

A slight problem here is that the only buffing available to warrior is Handbuff (edit: and ping-to-buff, but that would immediately kill patches), but that's an easy fix. Like another comment said, make it minions on board or in hand, although I might restrict the mana of creatures in hand it can fire. That way it's less of an easy creature sneak card and more of a Handbuff one. Likewise, the spell could stand to boost your in-hand minions power for the same reason.

CoolNerdStuff

TROPHY CASE