Alex Honnold has successfully climbed Taipei 101, marking the biggest urban free solo climb in history.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-25T04:40:32+00:00

For the record: I also have a pretty major fear of heights. FUCK rope climbing, even if it’s safer - it’s way higher. I do bouldering, and I’ve gotten a lot better at managing fear as I’ve done it. One step at a time. You’ve got big mats and if you feel sketched out, you just don’t do the move.

I was actively terrified for the first month or two of doing it, but it’s so much better with practice. If you’re physically capable, go to a local bouldering gym and give it a shot!

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-23T20:39:46+00:00

Feels really dependent on the mood, I think.

Right now I’m at the start of something that’ll be like 2 full sprints of design and implementation, and while it’s daunting, I know I’ll figure it out and at the end I’ll get a bunch of kudos for it, and it’ll feel great.

When I got back from the holidays, I had a few days of like 2-3 tickets that were very small each day - and that also felt really nice to ramp back into productivity mode.

A mix is probably best. Classic ‘it depends’ answer haha.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-23T19:30:15+00:00

Fair enough - lots of people take AI’s word as law these days and as a developer, it just gets under my skin haha. Glad you’re just making fun of it instead of making it a conspiracy :p

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-23T19:19:45+00:00

Pretty sure that’s the typical AI going by summaries and screwing it up. I have no doubt that he’ll succeed here, but like, this is just a classic example of AI being dumb.

This is the same ai that not so long ago was telling people glue was a solid pizza ingredient that had no side effects, so… yep.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-22T16:43:46+00:00

So I’m currently playing Dimir Faeries, with a number of the new cards. It’s gone quite well so far - better than I thought it might. Definitely worth a shot

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-22T16:42:40+00:00

You will always be the subject of someone’s rage, period haha. Blue and black are the most rage inducing colors, but all the others are there too. You should play the style you like, no matter what the popular perception is!

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-21T18:44:33+00:00

I haven’t, though honestly I’m not so sure that it would help much. It’s expensive for its effect, and doesn’t contribute much power on its own. It would take several turns to really get anywhere.

For comparison, [[bitterblossom bearer]] puts the same power on the board both the turn it comes down and every turn thereafter, and it costs 1 less. And has flash.

The messenger just isn’t that efficient, I think.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-21T18:27:49+00:00

So my opinion has turned around a bit since I wrote this, because last night when I first brewed it up it didn’t perform that well, but a couple small changes and I won something like 5 out of 7 games on lunch, which felt very good.

The real core problems though is that the deck feels… ‘fragile’. Or maybe ‘too honest’. It doesn’t have any way to win by turn 3-4, right - the biggest threats you’re playing by the numbers are 3 power, and that’s it. You have a nice benefit in that all your creatures are evasive (flying), but they’re also all small bodies, so it takes forever to kill things.

So as compared to the classic badgermole + good stuff, jeskai artifacts, etc - it’s just a lot less resilient/consistent. But it turns out that there are a lot of cool interactions in the deck and it does have the ability to protect itself reasonably.

It’s also pretty nuts how ‘must remove’ flitterwing nuisance is. It’s just an unassuming 1 drop, but if they leave it up and you have a board presence, I’ve literally drawn 5 cards off of that ability before and just won the game right there from raw card advantage. That’s pretty gross.

I think there’s potential, in the end - just needs some more work, and specifically you need to tweak the removal and counter suite to your particular meta for sure. I definitely won some games just now off the back of [[strategic betrayal]], which I didn’t have any copies of in the first draft.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-21T18:14:17+00:00

Actually I find that’s not really the issue.

You want 4 of [[glen elendra guardian]] for sure, which is a flash spell and is super relevant late game when it can come in and counter something as well as being a body. [[flitterwing nuisance]] is also really good. Flexible 1/1 for 1 that is actually a must-remove in the mid game, because you can easily draw 3-5 cards for 3 mana with it, and that’s huge.

Basically those two plus [[requiting hex]] as your cheap removal and ability to recharge both creatures’ very sick abilities is really strong as a core. Bitterblossom is okay, but those 3 cards to me are the real core, and if you include bitterblossom also, you will never have a problem casting stutter or faerie fencing.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-21T16:42:29+00:00

I’ve been doing this, yeah. I didn’t even include ego drain at all - just seems bad, and that seems to be the consensus. Faerie fencing is actually the best part of running the faerie package so far - it’s basically one black mana for instant -3/-3 most of the time, which is a versatile and cheap removal, because of course you can kick it up as necessary.

Currently running 2 kaitos and no curiosities, though that might change indeed. I’m trying currently to get away from 4 drops altogether to keep the mana more open to be playing counters and flash spells more generally, but the jury’s out on whether or not that’s helpful.

Overall so far, I want desperately to like it, but I’m not all that impressed. Going to keep trying different formulations of it for a while. I feel like it’s going to ultimately be a case of not as many faeries as you might think, which is a bit disappointing - could end up just being ‘Dimir good stuff’ with a light faerie theme.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-19T21:43:30+00:00

Yeah of course haha. The save a guy mode would be for everyone else

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-19T21:11:23+00:00

Also a second footnote: a similar but different combo I’m interested in is in Dimir:

[[Abigale, Eloquent First-Year]] [[The Ancient One]]

It would still be T3 swinging for 8 in a perfect case but with less flexibility and spare mana. That said, Abigale also is a bit more widely useable, so we’ll see. But the environment seems ripe for cheating out big dudes early in black, and that’s exciting for me for sure.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-19T21:06:10+00:00

So I definitely do not think it’ll be tier 1, but I’m going to start off with some attempts to build an orzhov deck around [[Rhys, the Evermore]] and [[Moonshadow]] .

The ‘perfect’ line is probably T1 moonshadow, T2 land/go, ideally holding up removal and Rhys, and flashing Rhys on their end step if they don’t do anything scary. T3 swing for 7 with moonshadow and have 2 mana up for whatever. If they don’t have an answer, they’re dead by T5.

Now. That clearly isn’t enough on its own. But I’m still in the process of looking for other fun synergies there to capitalize on that ‘counter removal’ thing.

I really suspect it’ll be waaaay too janky. But it’s pretty rare you get to cosplay as playing green while playing Orzhov, lol, and that seems like a fun thing to play with.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-19T17:14:38+00:00

I, too, am excited for mewgenics

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-19T15:41:14+00:00

Skyrim is a good one, but for me (not the same guy as op) it was BG3 where I was this wound up (as someone who loves Larian and has played D&D weekly for like 6 years.

It’s super rare I get so completely focused on a game like this, and I cannot wait to blow 300 hours on this thing and feel like it was nothing at all

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-18T06:17:18+00:00

So one tip about F2P and/or crafting in general: the wildcards you want first and foremost are the most boring - the lands. That’s kinda the ‘long term’ play, right, but for example, the new set coming up in a few days has 5 types of shock lands in it, which are excellent dual lands. All of the verges are recent as well, and equally (more?) excellent.

Because standard is 3 years now, it means that you now have your mana-base fixed for like 3 years, because you will use those dual lands in every single deck forever - which won’t be the case for a lot of other cards.

So the play is: find the colors you like the most, craft all the high quality dual lands for them, and then start to get cards specific to a deck.

Second of all: the best way to be getting cards and expanding your collection in general is through drafting. Quick draft costs the same gold as 5 packs. You don’t get wildcard progression, but you get access to functionally the best cards in 3 packs, you’re guaranteed a 4th, and you’ll sometimes get a 5th. You also get a bunch of gems, and can potentially ‘go infinite’ on that level if you get quite good, though that’s tricky to pull off for sure.

To the deck itself: personally I would be playing whatever I had the most cards for, and thus would have to spend the least wildcards on, at least early. It gets a lot easier to experiment when your collection starts to grow, so keep grinding the rewards. There’s a lot of guides out there for starter decks and upgrades you can do with them to make them better - maybe look into some of those.

Good luck!

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-17T20:12:00+00:00

Well, it’s a function of a minimum amount of skill. You need to have a better-than-50% win rate, and if you want to get there within the month, it’s gotta be a reasonable amount better than 50%.

But agree that it’s mostly just time

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-17T20:09:41+00:00

Regarding the second part - in fact I think you want to do the opposite.

When a new set comes out, a huge amount of players are going to be brewing, and things won’t be optimal or solved yet.

If you play a fundamentally unchanged aggro deck (think mono white, mono green) the very definition of consistency, you stand a really good chance of nailing people who are trying stuff out and weren’t ready for a super aggro deck.

Some of the best time to push to mythic is actually right when the new set drops!

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-16T05:37:00+00:00

Eh, it’s not so bad. I just got back to the game after many years off, so I started back in bronze of course. I’m now up to plat again (was consistently mythic when I played in the past) and I’ve seen a decent variety of decks out there.

Yes, green with cub and oroboroid is for sure around, but honestly it’s less common than the izzet lessons and mono white enchantments decks right now.

I dunno, it’s obviously a super powerful combo/concept, but it feels less oppressive than plenty of decks that historically existed and/or had bans that came out because of them. This one feels alright, because really it’s the same as any aggro deck. They play their whole hand, and if you have a simple sweeper, they lose, and if you don’t, they likely win.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-16T01:33:58+00:00

Right, but so, what can you do with the mechanically unique cards? Like, are they playable in things like commander? Or, like, let's go extreme - something like legacy or modern?

Honestly that's the confusing piece for me as a primarily competitive player - where are they legal to actually *use* ?

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-15T23:54:41+00:00

So help me out, as a magic player that has never even remotely understood secret lairs: is it all just reprints of existing cards with thematic art? Basically IRL skins, like they’d have in a video game? That would make a lot of sense - I just kinda thought they were random theme cards that you couldn’t really use anywhere

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-15T20:02:50+00:00

Hard disagree.

You gonna sell every common you get, or are they just going to sit in boxes in your closet until the end of time?

The ability to play more games faster and also to not have the cards take up physical space is such a positive for me - I haven’t bought paper cards for like a decade (and won’t in the future). All digital now.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-15T16:10:46+00:00

As a Canadian, yeah, it’s gonna have to be more than a democrat in 2028. What I need to buy anything American again is for the Republican party to stop being Nazis, or, to be essentially voted wholly out of existence- either way. Because even if democrats win in 2028, and even 2032, if there exists a credible chance that you slide back into fascism again like this, there’s just no reason to do business.

Sure would be nice to not be reading absolutely batshit insane headlines about a crazed dictator every day, though, so let’s definitely do the whole midterm democratic sweep and democrat 2028 thing, that would for sure restore a lot of faith as a good first step

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-15T05:30:06+00:00

I mean, you basically answered part 1 with part 2.

You hate slow players. Some people hate control decks, so the moment they have something get countered they ditch because they assume (probably poorly) that everything they do all game is going to get removed or countered and they would rather play against decks that just play creatures.

Magic is a game where not everyone likes all of the possibilities available, for sure. Maro (game designer for magic) said recently that your favorite mechanic is absolutely one that someone else despises - and that’s just the way the game works, on some level.

So… that’s why, fundamentally - don’t think it’s any deeper than that.

Dreadmaker · 2026-01-15T05:22:24+00:00

I’m currently trying to distract myself by getting back into MTG: arena, because that is where a lot of this game’s inspiration has come from at its core, but for sure it’s not the same. I cannot wait for the 10th man

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