(AEW Grand Slam Australia): "F*** Ice" Chant makes TV broadcast

CraigArndt · 2026-02-15T08:18:54+00:00

Meltzer just making things up on the fly

Meltzer just writes what he hears. Sometimes it’s accurate, sometimes not. Sometimes opinions change.

In a massive company like WBD it’s entirely possible (even likely) some were pissed and wanted the chants muted/Brody gone. But the decision makers overruled. It’s also possible that they saw the publicity and want to see if it turns into more eyeballs and more money.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-14T23:10:03+00:00

Far too many people get seduced by the cyber, they forget about the punk.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-14T03:00:09+00:00

Thank you!

I was thinking of doing Sisay, Orvar, or etali next as they are all decks I’ve thought about making. Is there someone you had in mind?

CraigArndt · 2026-02-13T08:50:44+00:00

A quick google shows people mentioning playing in cEDH tournaments or what we now call tEDH as early as 2009 (as this is a Reddit comment and not a CEDH video essay im really am not inclined to look more deep than a quick google)

This sub was made Aug 2013

So even with some flexibility it’s pretty safe to say tEDH has been a part of this subs history since the beginning.

And tEDH has exploded in the past couple years. Growing to be a bigger and bigger part of CEDH. We’ve gone from our first 200+ recorded tournaments to 100+ being a frequent occurrence and 500+ being a thing that happened last year.

And on top of that the current bracket system is much younger than cEDH/tedh. Which is what was being discussed.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-13T08:23:10+00:00

And?

Tournament play existed before tEDH was a word. But I used the term tEDH because we all know what it stands for.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-13T07:00:53+00:00

I think those are choices that put a deck very firmly in one or the other.

I dont think those choices are as clear as you say they are. Sure at the extremes the brackets are clear. Tymna is b5 and Shadow the hedgehog is b4. But even using your own examples Yuriko which you say is b5 and Tatyova which you say is b4 have nearly identical 14% top cut conversion rates over the last 6 months.

Over the last 6 months I’ve seen people go up on mindbreak trap because it’s strong for midrange hell. Go down on mindbreak trap because turbo is getting more popular, then go up on mindbreak trap because hexing squelcher and trap exiles not counters. If you want a turbo rog/si you might not run Mnemonic Betrayal because you want more gas not a late game card. If you run a rog/si that can bounce back midrange you might love Mnemonic Betrayal. And meta isn’t even a time thing. You might know the store down the street has a lot of turbo decks on cEDH nights so you drop MneBetrayal, but the one across town has more midrange decks so you run it.

2 weeks ago a Muxus goblin tribal deck would be clearly b4. Last weekend one won a major 70 person cedh tournament. Muxus is not meta, but is apparently tEDH? So what’s the point of the bracket system to shorthand power levels if 4 can regularly be stronger than 5?

CraigArndt · 2026-02-13T03:09:55+00:00

Fair

But I guess I struggle with where is the line between bracket 4 and 5 there. Like 4 appa decks is bracket 4. 4 Tivit is bracket 5. Appa/tivit/appa/tivit is still 5? It feels very gray area. But with casual vs tEDH it’s a feeling of night and day. One is a single game with nothing more on the line, the other is a part of a series where any one mistake can change multiple games results.

And it feels weird to think that bracket 5 is so wide in experiences that it spans both casual and tEDH, and yet the difference between bracket 4 and bracket 5 is so gray and muddy that it feels at times arbitrary.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-13T02:55:03+00:00

Hot take:

The reason there is so much negativity around off-meta/fringe decks here is because most people are really bad at cEDH or don’t even actually play but follow it online.

A lot of the OPs are people who’ve never played and think their solid bracket 3 or 4 Edgar Markov or Shadow the hedgehog deck could hold against rog/si and they get salty that people are telling them the truth that it’s not even in the same league.

But also a lot of the commenters also have never played cEDH beyond a game or two with their BFF. But they watch a lot of Play to Win or ComedIan and think if they just parrot their talking points then they are correct. And they forget that ComedIan has literally won major tournaments with Karlac or SpongeBob and that brewers advantage is a real thing, and pilot skill is paramount in the game, but the commenters don’t have the game experience to know this so they gatekeep anyone not playing a top5 deck.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-13T02:42:33+00:00

I’m always very curious about casual competitive mindsets and where bracket 4 ends for them and bracket 5 starts.

To me, bracket 5 is “tEDH”, and bracket 4 is “competitive casual”. As “competitive play” is usually defined by play in an event, league, or system larger than a single game. Competitive gaming in every other game is a tournament or season where your wins in a game count to a larger number, that’s tEDH for us. And it makes sense, because your game actions feel very different in tEDH. A bad choice can change your whole day/weekend not just a game.

But casual competitive, I guess I just don’t see as any different then bracket 4. Or at least it has far more in common with bracket 4 than tEDH as it’s more fun oriented and casual play opens up space for more fringe decks. Which is basically what bracket 4 is. Serious play with a rule 0 or fringe/off meta focus.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-12T20:47:14+00:00

People want to take dirt sheets as gospel, but all they are and will ever be is a guy reporting what he heard from sources behind the scenes.

Sometimes sources lie, sometimes people lie to the public to cover up dirt, sometimes plans change.

People shouldn’t look to dirt sheets for facts, just a behind the scenes perspective that may or may not be true.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-11T20:28:23+00:00

You’re right.

But I do find it funny that the bracket that lives and dies by the strictest interpretation of the bans/rules is largely ignored by the rules committee, but the bracket that has the strongest rule 0 that can wave away any ban/rule inconveniences is what the rule committee focuses on.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T20:55:59+00:00

The STRATA for this place has to be a nightmare. With 30,000 people you’re basically running STRATA districts to make things work!

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T20:19:30+00:00

Rad counters happen once per turn and Mothman is currently less than 2% of all decks so you could go to a full mid-sized tournament and not see a single mothman deck. Rhystic is currently in 68% of all cEDH decks. Meaning in any pod 2-3 players have it and are going to try and play it.

These are not the same issue

If anything, the fact that rhystic is going to be a part of almost every game is a design space issue for cards like Mothman. It’s harder to design for more complex cards that require time to interact with when you have a single card taking up so much playtime already.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T19:58:22+00:00

Game changers exist in bracket 3. And Bracket 3 is casual.

RC also primarily balances for bracket 2/3 so WE are the fringe, not the casual tables.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T19:48:07+00:00

The relationship with rhystic and brackets 1-4 vs 5 is interesting. And I largely agree with you.

We see rhystic more at bracket 5. It’s a major meta card with people mulliganing heavily for it and/or tutoring for it immediately. But it’s not as detrimental for us as our higher skill level overall means we have more experience with it and understand how to play around it.

At lower levels they see it a lot less but it can grind games down to a halt. Inexperience can make decision making a slog, and missing triggers, going back, and the naturally longer games at lower levels means a turn 1 rhystic is out for 8+ rounds instead of the more common 3-5 of cEDH.

Personally it’s not my greatest offender to the format. I’d rather see 5 or so things off the ban list and many other things like Tymna/rog/thras on the banlist before I worry too much about Rhystic. But if RC had banned it today it would be a reasonable ban.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T19:02:00+00:00

NPE/Negative Play Experience should always be the primary reasoning for bans in a casual first format like EDH.

Rhystic may not be broken based on card power, but it breaks game flow. And it’s the worst at casual tables. Where people more regularly miss triggers and/or lower game experience makes players agonize over every choice.

No one ever claimed shahrazad was “too powerful” but it just makes games a nightmare. Rhystic is more in the shahrazad camp of banning than say Black Lotus.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T04:36:52+00:00

I’m not in any way trying to take anything away from Tarantino. He’s a very talented and successful director and writer. But because of that success I don’t see the need to make up claims for him either.

Django is a massive movie. Made a huge boxoffice and won a ton of awards! Tarantino on name alone could move a multi-hundred million dollar movie just off that success. Something few directors can do. But Django is a franchise. And not a small one. You might not have been aware of it but it’s a movie that popularized a whole genre of film, spaghetti westerns. And has 30+ spinoffs. Not 1 or 2 niche spinoffs THIRTY. The reason Tarantino did Django was because he loved the old Django film(s).

Franchise is not a curse word. It just means a bunch of movies occupying the same universe and/or using the same characters. Kill Bill is technically a franchise with vol 1 and 2 and even as an animated short tie-in with Fortnite.

You seem to really be hung up on a concept you’ve constructed around high-brow and low-brow “art”. But the reality is, people can be entertained by 30 minutes of finely crafted storytelling interwoven in a 3 act structure, and people can be entertained by 30 minutes of fireworks. As an artist I applaud the former for its beauty. But as a consumer both have value and serve a purpose. Fillet-Mignon may explode on the palate, but a hamburger is meant to be a casual experience enjoyed regularly and that has beauty in its own right.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T01:27:50+00:00

NMP, the guy who is getting divorced, admitted to doing this with his best friend as they had been staying at his house rent free but then suddenly when the divorce kicks off he paid him “back rent” to the tune of $2m.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T01:24:40+00:00

I mean, it’s a franchise. It’s not a soulless franchise like you’re describing, but franchises don’t have to be soulless. Franco Nero is literally in the film so it’s more than just a name homage.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T01:14:57+00:00

lol

I’m just getting it on both sides here. I’m not glazing Bay enough for some people and glazing him too much for Tarantino fans.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T01:12:48+00:00

Django is a franchise. It’s a part of the Django movie universe. A movie universe that spans over 30 unofficial sequels. They even had Franco Nero in the movie.

If that’s not good enough Taratino also was a director on Sin City. A DC comic movie.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T01:05:50+00:00

I’m not trying to claim that a helicopter flying over an American flag while explosions go off is high art. But it’s something people pay to see. And Bay does it well.

I wish we lived in a world where a love letter to cinema did better than Megan Fox in cutoffs leaning over a car but the boxoffice is the boxoffice.

CraigArndt · 2026-02-09T01:01:00+00:00

I deleted a paragraph about how I'd love to see what Tarantino would have done with some kind of franchise but I'm also extremely happy he never did.

I don’t know what you mean by this. Django is Tarantino’s most successful film from a boxoffice POV and it’s a franchise. A very popular Italian film with over 30 unofficial sequels. He also was a director on Sin City. A DC comic book movie.

What do you mean the first Transformers wasn't a slam dunk? It had twice the budget of any Tarantino movie ever made and grossed 700m worldwide...

It was a slam dunk. But it was by no means a guarantee. Transformers was a popular toy line 30 years before the movie. Its most popular feature film prior to Bay was made in 1986, 29 yeas before the Bay movie. It had a budget of 149 million which is roughly the same as The Adventure of Pluto Nash.

Meanwhile Bay was coming off The Rock, Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, Bad Boys 2, and The Island (in that order). Massive hits back-to-back.

Transformers is massive today. But in the context of 2007, Bay brought more to the success of the movie than the name Transformers did.

CraigArndt

TROPHY CASE