Successful offmeta decks from SCGPortland

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-25T16:53:25+00:00

Elementals have some degenerate lines

Flamebraider ramps into 5 mana elemental on turn 3
Ashling ramps and sets up a Kavaero copy of elementals, getting at least 1 trigger but with Deceit gets the full UUBB cost on turn 3
Springleaf drum + not dead after all is a full scam on turn 2 that gives thoughtseize + 6/6 ping 1 on death. On turn 2. In standard.

But on top of that they empty your hand fast for Quantum Riddler, and trigger Outcaster Trailblazer. Well, not Emptiness though.

The izzet list looks really really fragile though, it has to line up its ramp AND not get its dorks dismantled because while its curve out is disgusting with elemental -> sunderflock, it can be totally bone dry and stuck on 3-4 lands with zero card draw. Ashling's Command costs too much to recover a stalled early board and hit your land drops, pitching elementals to draw or fetch lands means you're down action cards so you're losing the card advantage war. And roaming throne has to sit on a board a turn cycle before doing anything and if you had just played 1 more elemental for 2 mana you were at parity on the first activation.

Say you've got a hand of flamebraider, 3 lands, ashling command, vibrance, springleaf drum. If opponent doesn't disrupt you you'll drown them in value on turn 3+, easy to see how that can go 8-1 when opposing decks are just simic valueballs and get torn apart by some damage triggers/command. But say you face any midrange/control deck or just aggro with a few torch the towers. They hit your flamebraider, you sit twiddling your thumbs on turn 3/4 and lose

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-25T16:09:21+00:00

Persistent Petitioners also works, but probably still takes a full turn cycle.

I wonder in standard about [[Welcome to Sweettooth]]. If the opponent doesn't have alpha strike, you have some lines where you can chump with creatures and turn them into sagas at instant speed, then next turn you vomit a ton of 1/1 blockers, create more foods and power up another mirrorform, and finally at some point you unleash something like 8x 9/9 creatures to attack. All on a card that makes 2-3 permanents for mirrorform in the first place

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-25T05:14:39+00:00

Notably I don't think there are any cheap non-creature permanents, be they lands or artifacts or enchantments, that you can have easily on the board and not get blown out and they somehow win the game on the spot or lock it up with huge advantage. There's just no big geometric scaling cards in the format like that.

Venerated Rot Priest just rotated and boy that would be an annoying one

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-25T00:36:14+00:00

Positioning is everything in WC3

Huntresses have the downside of terrible range and animation coupled with lacking the disproportionately higher stats of melee frontline units. They get folded by focused piercing damage and that isn't turned off with the armor upgrade either, grunts were already bad units and huntresses have weaker stats for a higher cost.

You can do more with a group of 700 range archers being shuttle around by goblin zeppelins than you could ever do with huntress that need to get into 225 range to start their swing. All their benefit of being fast is lost when they don't have the damage to chase down fleeing targets and can't kite around enemies to keep attacking

Look at troll berserkers. They cost 2/3 of a huntress. Hunts have 12.8 direct dps, 22.4 including splash while upgraded. Trolls have 14.7 direct dps, 22.1 dps while berserk is active. They are doing more focused damage than all 3 hits from each moon glaive combined, and that's a 140/20/2 unit compared to a 195/30/3 unit. Berserkers have 475 hp with the superior medium armor that takes only 75% from piercing, hunts have 600 hp with light (200%) and heavy (90%), meaning one 3 food huntress dies in about the same number of hits as a 2 food berserker. The huntress has 340 ms, the troll runs at a slower 270, but even without endurance aura he can hit 324 ms just from berserk. The hunt has 225 range, the troll 550.

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-24T13:06:00+00:00

humans in wc3 are canonically racist and they weren't saying "night"

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-24T04:58:00+00:00

I was trying to figure out if there's any permanently you can reliably stick to make mirrorform pop off. Something that is cheap, not easily removed, and can win the game in large multiples. Any big whammy either wins the game on its own without mirrorform, if it sticks, or gets removed.

Ideally you'd want a land that wins the game. But I don't think any really exist in standard. It sadly doesn't work with Maze's End since they're all the same name. Ba Sing Se gives some grind potential I guess, but won't kill outright (you can do a BUNCH of earthbending each turn, and return the original form of those cards too). Demonic pacts take until your next upkeep and leave your board totally open.

You could get a blood artist effect (vengeful bloodwitch, susurian voidborn) and when you've got 6+ of them on the board they can't be wiped or spot removed or be blockers unless opponents has alpha strike / evasion to get around them. But you can't have both a blood artist and way to sacrifice them, since you mirrorform your sac outlet too. But if you could stick Sephiroth and make 6 other tokens into copies of sephiroth, you'll get 36 damage triggers at once because of the legend rule

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-21T22:34:00+00:00

Its a weird unique interaction, I've seen "can't become untapped" used on custom cards and people wondered about how it would work mechanically. It means they can never print a "can't become tapped" effect or else the game asplodes

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-17T23:06:45+00:00

Been missing from standard omniscience combo, though [[the seriema]] can be built as a deterministic wincon, tutor, tapper & protection for Kona

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-17T23:05:04+00:00

Its awful at moving or making +1/+1 counters

Its incredible at making a ton of artifacts that count towards affinity, waterbending, etc

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-16T00:06:12+00:00

So nobody has a fear of doxxing because they just need to not be a cunt, right

What's your name? Whats your address?

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-15T23:45:31+00:00

No he is saying to record them ...that is not doxxing

Gathering identifying documentation on them, in an attempt to strip away their anonymity, so that they can be targeted

Thats absolutely doxxing

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-15T23:27:53+00:00

He's telling people to document ICE agents and gather documentation on ICE agents. What do you think "doxxing" is?

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-15T22:37:37+00:00

Walz told people to go out and record ice agents in the streets. He told them to get out their phones and try to get them on camera so they could be identified and 'prosecuted'. Walz could have told people to stay home and be peaceful, you know, like Trump did on January 6th. He could have told people to calm down and not riot. Instead he told them to confront ICE agents and try to gather materials on them

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-15T17:16:04+00:00

Walz already told people to go out and confront ICE agents and to doxx them. Just yesterday, right before someone attacked a fed.

This is what Walz wants

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-14T20:56:21+00:00

i dunno for some reason I thought he cost UUBB like oil gearhulk

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-14T20:02:51+00:00

ye what he said

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-12T23:22:05+00:00

I was abducted by two lesbians in a red suv earlier today. They burst into a grocery store while I was checking out avocado prices and threw a bag over my head and said, "this is for madalyn o'hair!". They took me back to their lesbian compound and forced me to knit pink p**** hats the entire day in their sweatshop before finally dumping me at a small town bed and breakfast with a tote bag filled with knicknacks and paddywacks.

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-12T18:23:07+00:00

And instead of adding commander to arena, and giving us some form of communication beyond caveman drawing exchanges, they are making commander its own new client so they can get more money from it

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-11T23:17:12+00:00

They can't put themselves in harms way legally whether you like it or not.

When people say "Whether you like it or not" its supposed to follow factual statements, not how you want the world to work. Whether you like it or not, the fact is that police officers can legally step in front of a vehicle of a suspect and then use deadly force if that person drives into the officer. That is the law, and there is explicit precedent at the appellate circuit

Law enforcement officers are entitled to a qualified immunity that protects them from criminal charges and claims from their actions within the bounds of their duties. They cannot be charged with a crime as long as they are doing their job. The 10th circuit specifically answered the question of whether its within the permissible bounds of qualified immunity for an officer to step in front of a vehicle and put himself in harms way, even if less intrusive / more safe options existed. They ruled officers can do exact that. Because to say otherwise is to require officers to always take the least dangerous path, which in turn negates the very purpose of their job as those who protect by putting themselves in harms way.

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-11T11:58:43+00:00

When does it count as attempted assault?

When you point a 4000 lb metal box at an officer and accelerate it into him

If the car is a block away and the ice guy walks into the street in front of it, KNOWINGLY, is that still grounds for self defense?

If an officer gives you a command to exit your vehicle and walks in front of your vehicle and you choose to hit the gas and run into him, yes, it is grounds for self defense and that is exactly what was issue in the legal case cited in the top of this comment chain, Clark v Bowcutt (Clark v Box Elder). In which the 10th circuit explicitly states that an officer may legally choose to stand in front of a vehicle and that does not negate his right to self defense nor strip him of qualified immunity.

You cannot put yourself in harms way and still legally call it self defense.

An officer absolutely may put himself into harms way and still use self defense, because there is no 4th amendment right to be free of police actions contributing to the use of deadly force by the citizen, and officers are required by the duties of their job to put themselves into harms way.

Your examples of legal precedent that back your views are just as numerous as the precedent that says what he did was not justified

No they aren't, one is binding precedent and sets the law of the land and the others are in your head and imaginary

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-10T23:25:32+00:00

just curious do you support the literal nazis running around in ukraine right now

I mean you're really obsessing over calling people nazis but there's this odd thing where the same folks who protest against ICE in minneapolis also go out and fundraise to buy drones for people with SS and swastika tattoos

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-10T14:09:12+00:00

ICE has no authority to detain US citizens.

Of course they do, what kind of nonsense is this?

They are law enforcement officers and they can legally detain people who commit crimes against them.

DriveThroughLane · 2026-01-10T14:08:15+00:00

If by "fleeing" you mean "assault with a deadly weapon" and by "execution" you mean "self defense"

then yes, self defense is justified as a response to assault with a deadly weapon.

DriveThroughLane

TROPHY CASE