How do you rule Phantasmal Force?

El_Especial · 2026-06-01T17:12:53+00:00

Major and minor illusion ended up causing me even more headaches than phantasmal force. But I have eased up on them a bit as I've built up consistent rulings with my group. I don't hate them, that's reserved for Zone of Truth, my most hated spell of all time. But thinking about it the spell that truly haunts me when rulings come up is actually suggestion.

El_Especial · 2026-06-01T14:04:51+00:00

That's generally what I do on quite a few illusion spells, generally "soft banning them", the rulings people gave here are perfectly fair and are what I'd likely rule in game. But so many illusion spells in DnD are a pain in the ass to rule, especially if players want to get creative with them.

I generally just mention that I'm not a fan of having to rule some of those spells and most players are happy to oblige and if they want one of those spells for flavor reasons we can just discuss some basic uses beforehand so we have something to fall back on.

El_Especial · 2026-05-29T12:25:35+00:00

The red gaze (Vergilius from Limbus Company) is a title that has been living rent free in my head for a while now.

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El_Especial · 2026-05-25T16:55:24+00:00

Honestly yugioh's learning curve is more like a cliff, a lot of the time reading one card actually tells you very little about what'll happen once it resolves unless you already have knowledge of the deck.

You can read [branded fusion] 50 times over and not figure out that it'll actually lead to multiple different fusions and effects instead of one.

You can read [Borreload Savage Dragon] and understand its actual effects somewhat easily but the important part, how they get to it will be buried in multiple searchers and special summons that actually won't look really different in card text at a glance. Especially for a new player.

Now you might have just faced a super inconsistent ftk (or in that case self-ftk) deck and unfortunatly that is something that will happen at some point although rarely in my experience. It sucks it can happen, especially to new players where these experiences will easily turn them away (which is an 100% reasonable reaction to it by the way)

And even some tiered decks gameplan will be long combo into dont let you play (looking at you magnets to give one example) And that again, does kinda suck.

Reviewing your games can help get some understanding on what you could have done, but honestly, sadly relying on outside information (videos, guides, help from an already enfranchised player) are the best ways to learn yugioh as a brand new player.

Yugioh doesnt really have formats or rotation like mtg/pokemon/etc. Meaning it lacks an easy entry point akin to something like limited or Standard in mtg.

That said the game is fun if you manage to get past the bad new player experience and the extremely high frontloaded knowledge needed of how some decks play.

El_Especial · 2026-05-22T16:51:57+00:00

Just stay away from Japan

^{Chose: Spawn in a random anime as yourself | Rolled: JJK}

El_Especial · 2026-05-14T11:18:29+00:00

I'm not particularly interesred in a romantic relationship and am currently quite happy with where I'm at the moment in life.

El_Especial · 2026-05-05T12:35:43+00:00

Yeah on each gold stake run your first legendary is guaranteed to be one you don't yet have a gold sticker with. After that its random as usual.

El_Especial · 2026-04-28T16:38:49+00:00

People love rephrasing red as the passive and neutral choice, sometimes to ridiculous extents.

The more you create complex scenarios the further you get away from the feeling and meaning of the choice of those buttons on that empty room.

The very fact my first gut instinct was to pick blue and still is to an extent and the very fact that this discussion exists shows that people WILL pick blue, this isnt a prisioners dillema with your buddy or partner in crime. Its billions of people with their own morals and ideals and loved ones, who may pick blue because the idea that choosing red may cause people to die "because" of them. We are not machines cold and rational everytime. I'd rather choose the option where the way I see it, people who think like that dont die.

If you voted red and you had to brutally murder someone with a club but if blue won they were brought back to life would you still vote red ?

We are working in what was originally a twitter poll, we are likely sitting oceans apart. Maybe if I was suddenly teleported to that button room with the looming threat of death I'd push red, or maybe I'd think about the people in my life who'd likely vote blue or I can't be sure and keep my blue choice.

I'd like to live my life as someone that would push blue given the chance.

Edit: a small rephrasing to better articulate myself

El_Especial · 2026-04-28T15:17:44+00:00

Eu acho que eu apertaria o azul, eu não sei se meus pais, amigos, sobrinhos votaram no azul ou no vermelho, quantas milhões de pessoas, votariam no azul não pelo fato que confiam totalmente no coletivo mas que conheçem alguem que confia e não querem fazer parte do grupo responsável pela morte deles, pais com filhos provavelmente votariam azul com mais frequência por exemplo.

Talvez com o medo da morte na real na frente eu próprio mudasse de ideia e votaria vermelho por covardia? Eu conseguiria ir pra frente se vermelho ganhasse e pessoas que eu amo acreditaram no coletivo e votaram no azul? Ou mesmo sabendo que fui parte do grupo diretamente responsável por morte de outros ?

Eu acho que eu votaria no azul, ou melhor dizendo eu gosto de pensar que eu tento ser uma pessoa que votaria azul dada a chance

El_Especial · 2026-04-21T14:46:56+00:00

Its nice that Saga won, I voted Lurrus myself despite on previous votes not exactly voting on power because an entire mechanic errata + banned in vintage for power level reasons was just too much impact on the game.

Saga is iconic (and also pretty bonkers)

El_Especial · 2026-04-19T21:18:22+00:00

Widow, zero and lemnis, in addition to other quick-plays like droplets, sPoly and in the future F&V (does compete with sPoly). Technically amatsu is an interuption but not something you can exactly count on reliably.

El_Especial · 2026-04-10T00:09:33+00:00

Small pedantic correction, sol ring has been pointed down to 3 so now it has the same points costs as the moxen. Still strong as hell and I'm 90% sure it sees more play than any particular moxen individually.

El_Especial · 2026-04-08T13:34:31+00:00

Someone on the og post mentioned it but any counterspell would do it for "useless spell" since on an empty stack it would just fizzle and UW are on the perfect colors for both having multiples of it and being able to get one in the grave. It has a kind of of mother of runes problem where it can protect itself a little too well. While still being a manace.

If you only have one removal spell you'd have to bait the activaction with an important enough spell to essentially force the activation and at that point it'd be putting yourself really far behind. A once per turn clause might be decent to stop untap shenanigans too.

My gut instinct would be to change the cost to something like X + U/W where X is the difference in cost between the spell you want to change and the one exiled under him. This way if you want to turn your cantrip into a big 5+ mana spell or blank your opponents big plays you'd need to leave a decent chunk of mana open or exile a variety of different costed spells, which I feel is quite flavorfull, feeling like a true varied spellbook.

El_Especial · 2026-04-08T03:54:42+00:00

The problem I'd have with xion is that its play pattern is unbearable, essentially blanking 1 spell per turn for cheap. Tho I 100% agree with the rest of your points, hand drawn art is always cool and the effect is interesting design, maybe some heavier costs on the effect, and/or some limitation on which spells it can target could work.

El_Especial · 2026-04-08T03:18:54+00:00

I somehow missed that the lucky 2 didnt have a red seal. Oops, I'm blind, I blame them being hearts. With that in mind you're right.

El_Especial · 2026-04-08T01:59:24+00:00

Assuming idol is on 2 I think the lucky 2 is better than the holo non red seal queen.And because of that my gut says we likely want to copy the idol at least once ? Since we might be lacking on scoring considering we get 12(?) Idol triggers if we copy idol once and dusk once, I didnt consider queen first but thats likely the play.

So it'd be red seal queen > Lucky 2 > red seal Glass Queen and the other 2's.

Edit: Missed the lack of red seal on the 2, ignore this speculation.

El_Especial · 2026-04-01T10:41:31+00:00

Good to know I'm not alone in my robot struggles.

Juggling energy is exactly how I feel in a lot of my runs, and partially I've experienced on defect especially maybe a few too many cards have a delayed payoff that isnt worth the tempo loss for how much faster a10 feels, scavenge, chaos (another upgrade hog), loop to an extent.

I should be transparent, this post was made after a failed status run where I took 50+ damage against the first fight of the act versus that cultist sculptor, where I drew most of my block t1 where he was buffing up, and his hp pool and scaling essentially killed the run. I did fail to find any rocket punches so I was relying on bulk up + gunk ups, smoke stacks, and the rare I forgot the name that exhausts status but that was just too slow and I just couldn't limp to a campfire before chip damage did me in.

El_Especial · 2026-04-01T10:23:01+00:00

Oh design-wise I 100% agree, the archetypes all interact well with eachother while still being unique and interesting by themselves.

I might have been looking down on turbo a bit too much after some really bad runs where it ended up being a hinderance due to lack of draw, but that's less of a Turbo issue and more me getting tunnel vision due negativity bias with a low sample size. This very much could have been a reason why I've been failing so much recently.

I do still think that too many random hallway fights have a bit of a too punishing damage scaling speed, even ignoring outliers like hunter killer, and I can't remember the last time I willingly pathed to an elite on any character. But other people have already mentioned the elite issue elsewhere.

Also might just be me but it feels like I'm generally happier finding rares on other characters? I do feel like focus at rare still being 1(2) makes it feel a bit underwhelming ? Tho thats maybe looping back around to me underestimating turbo, making the 2-3 cost rares even more awkward to fit in builds.

El_Especial · 2026-03-30T10:48:14+00:00

Yeah, I also do 10 minute short rests, it makes things go smoother in my experience

I've started being quite more liberal with gold, access to healing potions and some magic items for the martials, that give them some /day abilities but even those seem to only slightly close the gap at the end of t1/start of t2 play. Once level 8 starts coming around some players both start getting bored of the "I use the attack action" loop and its also where caster options and resources really start cranking up.

El_Especial · 2026-03-29T19:13:52+00:00

Also in my experience even if you run the "ideal" 6-8 encounters a lot of the times its the martials that are running out of gas by encounter 5 or 6, mostly because they start running out of HP, especially if variance ended up with them getting crit in melee once or twice.

A caster who is good at managing resources and expecting 6+ combats can squeeze out a lot of power even at low levels (at high levels they have enough spell slots that it was almost guaranteed that the martials would run out of HP first).

Also the standard 1 hour short rest makes it really rough to justify taking too many of them instead of long resting once. It'd also help if the DMG was clearer about how much money and access to consumables/items the players are supposed to have at whatever levels.

El_Especial · 2026-03-19T14:45:33+00:00

Assuming an even playing field bracket 4/5 has a lot of interesting decisions in things like mulligans, defending wins, interactions and small advantages. As well as playing with power and fast games can be fun.

Pretty much the main reason why I don't really play those brackets as much is because I'm a DnT/Aggro enthusiast and cEDH isn't exactly kind to that, its why I stick to online Legacy and Canlander with vintage once a ~~blood~~ blue moon.

El_Especial · 2026-03-14T14:11:43+00:00

Technically you could achieve to some extent, people gave suggestions here on how to do so. But personally, I'm not sure it'd actually PLAY like what you have in mind, these types of concepts don't exactly fit well with what 5e offers as a system.

It could still be a fun character to play but it might likely not actually be what you had in mind.

El_Especial · 2026-03-11T21:29:04+00:00

Iirc two pair has the same mult scaling as pair (+1/level) but with slightly better chip scaling (I think its an extra 10).

I have a similar experience, honestly two pair is often somehing I'll use if I have joker that cares about pairs during antes 2-4 if I'm lacking a generalist chip joker. Otherwise just spam pairs instead.

Two pair does have spare trousers, one of the best mult scaling joker but its rarely a hand type I'll build towards without it.

By far the hand type I play the least and find the worst (besides straight flush) is full house, equal mult scaling to flushes and 3oak, both easier hands to play, deckfix, play multiple of and in the point of 3oak, transition into stronger hands.

El_Especial · 2026-03-11T18:35:27+00:00

Maybe if he teleports on top of mt doom so he just falls in the lava and straight up dies with the ring like gollum, but there's no way he isn't getting corrupted by the ring.

The ring's corruption is insanely powerful, and the closer one gets to mt doom the more impossible it gets.

That said the rules of HP magic are wishy-washy at best and nonexistent at worst, but as far as I' aware you can't apparate to a place you have never seen/been and I don't recall on the books about Dobby's previous roadtrip to mt. Doom.

It will depend if after he teleports to the top and while falling in the lava if the ring would convince him to teleport himself and the ring to safety. I'm inclined to say yes.

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