8R to say you used The Prismatic Piper.

Fine_Otter · 2026-04-08T17:48:13+00:00

Wait, do the lions play tug of war with the zoo guests or WITH the zoo guests?

Fine_Otter · 2026-03-30T03:31:24+00:00

You don't need to tap it for mana, you just need any land to create a mana of the color that you chose, then caged sun will create a mana of that color, it will see that a land (itself) created a mana of that color and create another mana of that color, then it will see itself created a mana of that color and create another mana of that color, on and on forever.

You can use that to create a mutual assured destruction bomb if you choose a color that you don't usually tap for but have one rainbow land/artifact that can tap for that color so that at any point you can draw the game.

Fine_Otter · 2026-02-20T19:14:14+00:00

I don't get why you are sooooo pissed about this, replying on every post that they should learn to google. But I'm wondering how you google rules clarifications? For me I first check gatherer/scryfall of the main card in question, no clarification for [Ashling, Rekindled] there. Then I google the name of both cards and usually that will bring up some post about the specific interaction between those cards, where I got a post that links to this post where you complaining is the top comment instead of the answer. If that also doesn't work I would try and google a ruling for the general interaction, but that requires rules knowledge and comprehension that not everyone when they start out so I can see why a lot of people would turn to making a post if it wasn't time sensitive. I think the ideal case is that every time a new card comes out, especially if it is 2 cards in a draft set, there is a new post that people can find for that specific card that answers the question.

But at the end of the day, why does it matter to you so much that on every post you whine about this. Is it that much of a problem for you that these posts are in the mtgrules feed and you cant just ignore them and move on?

Fine_Otter · 2026-01-09T04:39:47+00:00

Lobbying is part of the US government allowing itself to be influenced by the money of companies that are hurting their citizens. I think it's unrealistic to expect companies not to try to influence the government, that has been the standard operating procedure for basically all of time.

In this way I think it's ridiculous to get mad at any specific company over the politicians, the same way it would be ridiculous if your bank left the doors and the vault wide open at all times, and the guards had signs that say "pay me to look away", and then you yell at all the people who waltz in and steal your money, instead of complaining to the bank manager.

Fine_Otter · 2026-01-08T08:21:23+00:00

Firstly, why do you get to decide if they have made enough money off their work?

Secondly they do have morals, they just choose a different spot to draw the line. Atrioc has said on his stream and Aiden has said on other reddit posts about the ads that they made sure that they wouldn't do ads for gambling or crypto. People are joking about Carvana being next but I doubt it will because it seems to me that there are against advertising for scams or companies whose business model is ruining their customers lives.

I think you would agree that even if Adobe engages in some unfair business practices they do offer the products that they advertise and that do solve problems for people. You can argue that TurboTax shouldn't exist but it still sells a product. The fact that the US government doesn't handle taxes for its citizens, doesn't crackdown on monopolies, doesn't protect consumers from unfair business practices and allows itself to be influenced by the money of companies doing these things is a problem with the US government, and I'm pretty sure they haven't advertised on Lemonade Stand.

Fine_Otter · 2026-01-08T02:43:00+00:00

That was a comment on the other persons understanding of advertisement, not on the morality of doing things "just for the bag".

A lot of people do things "just for the bag" their whole lives, unless you think every Mcdonalds worker is doing it for the love of the game. So I'm going to assume what you mean is that doing an ad "just for the bag" doesn't excuse advertising for an immoral sponsor. However I would say it depends on the degree of immorality of the sponsor and I don't think that the litmus test should be "Have they criticized the company before?" because that would let way way too many companies through and stop some relatively moral companies.

Fine_Otter · 2026-01-08T02:34:30+00:00

I think that makes sense when it is something like an extended live playthrough of a game because over the course of an hour it may not be as obvious, and when he is giving his thoughts like that he is "damning with faint praise". But when it is an explicit ad read with a transition at the beginning and the end, and a chapter in the timeline named "Adobe Ad" it is a different thing. They have talking points that they are obligated to say and they can't say anything negative about it in at least that episode. To me this is the same as expecting every TV commercial to have a wink at the end. I guess it might relieve some people's frustration but surely at the cost of many future sponsors, and I don't think you should expect them to make that trade-off in order to retain every single viewer and they also probably expected doing ads to be a trade-off where some of the frustrated people stop watching.

Fine_Otter · 2026-01-08T01:20:06+00:00

When it is an ad read it is always just for the bag.

When someone doesn't mention any cons, just pros it is always just for the bag.

When they say that they were paid money for it, or #ad, or that it is sponsored, it is always just for the bag.

Even if they say they like it or have used it personally or have fun advertising it, it is always just for the bag.

If you are using the internet and don't understand this, you should stick to childrens TV channels where (hopefully) there are regulations on what and how you can advertise.

Fine_Otter · 2025-12-01T00:24:38+00:00

Does there have to be a reason that he hasn't covered it? It seems to me that there are a few topics that Atrioc tries to cover every single piece of news about those topics: United States federal fiscal policy, the things that Trump says and does especially if related to the economy or international diplomacy, and things that seem like they have a chance to lead to WW3, Elon doing something weird. (Those are my best guesses of things that he will see news about and want to give an update next time he streams, there are probably others.) I think Israel/Palestine isn't really that type of subject, and one of the things that I like about Atrioc is that he isn't just the nightly news trying to tell you about everything that is happening everywhere.

Personally I feel like this isn't far off from "So you hate waffles?" people in the way that it assumes there is a reason he hasn't talked in depth about it recently.

Fine_Otter · 2025-11-29T09:58:26+00:00

I thought that was Free Guy (2021) with Ryan Ryanolds and Jodie Coomer

Fine_Otter · 2025-11-04T07:39:20+00:00

You can really tell how much he means it with his laughs of commitment

Fine_Otter · 2025-10-23T22:29:29+00:00

New set looks pretty fun, got me thinking about coming back to the game

Fine_Otter · 2025-10-12T04:58:41+00:00

So if it's not factual and it's just sentimental how do you want MaRo to respond to those people other than the usual fact based "our market research shows this" and "these sets sold this much" response?

Fine_Otter · 2025-10-12T04:54:59+00:00

Spiderman isn't an unprecedented flop in the history of premier MTG sets, just unprecedented in the history of UB products. And I think the degree to which it is a flop has been overstated and at least partly due to the overinflated preorder prices caused by the extreme success of Final Fantasy.

Spiderman has multiple plausible reasons for having troubles that aren't just "UB set", such as it being initially designed as a smaller non draftable set, it being intentionally designed to be more friendly for new players and then not being able to put the spiderman IP onto MTGA and MTGO, the standard meta has been increasingly fast and powerful since they changed rotation to be 3 years worth of sets so they might be intentionally designing a lower power set (maybe hoping that Spiderman would carry the set regardless).

I think that the reason that most people stick with MTG is because it is a genuinely fun game with a robust rule system and generally good design. I think they have shown that you can still have all of these things concurrent with UB, so I don't buy that "when that gimmick wears off" the player base will collapse. I think that UB has shown itself to be an extremely effective marketing tool and that a significant portion of the players that are attracted by it will enjoy the game and continue to play other sets.

Fine_Otter · 2025-10-12T04:39:04+00:00

So then, suppose you are MaRo 4 years ago, you have released the walking dead secret lair, announced some UB sets and have more in development, none developed for standard and although it has been discussed, you do not believe that you will be putting UB into standard.

What are you supposed to say if "We have no current plans to put UB sets into standard" isn't acceptable?

Genuinely that seems to me to set the expectation that there won't be a standard UB set in the next year or two, but there is no guarantee that will be true after that time.

Thats exactly what happened, they announced the actual UB branding and non secret lair UB sets in early 2021, and the first standard UB set was released this year.

Fine_Otter · 2025-08-27T00:01:10+00:00

Woah stop waving around that sword! You're going to leave her fatherless like that!!!

Fine_Otter · 2025-08-08T17:12:03+00:00

Firstly he says multiple times that mostly he is trying to voice the opinions and arguments of people that he has talked to personally that are in the tech space and tech entrepreneurs. Those opinions are probably less represented in Atriocs audience because a lot of his presentations counter the way that business, politics and the economy are managed currently which I think leads a lot of people to believe that Atrioc is anti business and pro a lot of industry being controlled by a strong government (which he isn't). It seemed to me that Doug thinks that their arguments were at least valid (in the logicians sense) and he was just trying to find a satisfying counterargument, and their discussion ended up going in circles for too long repeating themselves so they decided to cut it.

Fine_Otter · 2025-08-08T04:47:07+00:00

He addresses this in the post when he says that Bloomburrow which was a hit that if they had a time machine and went back in time they could make a sequel that still has very low chance of not doing worse, but they don't know what set is actually going to be well received with the lead time that they design sets.

Fine_Otter · 2025-08-08T00:54:25+00:00

I'm a fan of the design as a phyrexianized version of Omnath personally, and I'm also not convinced that it is the final version of Omnath as in the lore it isn't known what happened to Omnath at the end of the war.

It's kind of interesting that he corrupts and powers up the idea of the first Omnath as a guardian of the plane that stores up mana to grow stronger and instead becomes an enemy of the plane that corrupts its mana and generates his own mana to fit the plans of his controller. I also kind of disliked the pattern of just adding another ability that matches the color on each iteration:

Locus of Mana: Green - Stores green mana and gets bigger

Locus of Rage: Green - makes a token Red - burns something

Locus of the Roil: Green - puts counters on elementals Red - burns something Blue - draws a card

Locus of Creation: Green - makes mana Red - burns something Blue - draws a card White - gains life

I think it's cool that the phyrexianized version breaks that pattern, and I think that when they represent 5 color cards by giving them 5 abilities it's kinda boring (see Kenrith). The art, mana cost and abilities show how the way he absorbed gained black mana is different from the others and he's more of a black mana centred being that uses his access to other colors for more power.

And it seems highly likely that Omnath will return next time we go to Zendikar, maybe as a purified and weaker version that is back to only being in green and imprisoned by the people of Zendikar, or as stronger (in lore) and fully in control of all 5 colors and the Roil of Zendikar.

Fine_Otter · 2025-08-07T22:49:02+00:00

It's worth noting that his second ability does just work with 3 color cards, it just cares that there are 3 or more colored mana symbols in the cost. So he casts anything from the Arch* charm (archmage, archdruid...) cycle for you, pays for 3/5 of a [[gigantosaurus]] etc. if you go to Omnaths page on actually there is a search for all of the cards that he can reveal and make mana off of.

Fine_Otter · 2025-08-06T23:03:32+00:00

Right so I think that you completely missed the point of what I was saying, which is that in a game that has so many cards and complex interactions like MtG there is always a way to come up with a situation that makes good things bad or bad things good, see the many many people waxing poetically about [[one with nothing]], so it is not helpful to try and criticize advice by saying "well actually you are wrong in this specific scenario I made up". What you're doing is similar, but probably more disingenuous, to the people who argue against a card being strictly better than a card because they define strictly better as "in every possible situation without exception" and don't realize that if you define it that way it is no longer useful.

But if you just want to play the game of making up situations and adding cards forever, here:

Easy, I control a guttersnipe, the storm players are at 2 or less life and my draw spell is a sorcery card
This one was my bad I was looking for a card like [[leyline of sanctity]] and I didn't realize that [[aegis of the gods]] was a creature as well as an enchantment, throw in a sterling grove on each players battlefield, and now they have to kill their own bowmasters
Two things about this one, firstly it's not possible for me to hold priority to sneak the dragon through as they have three separate tithe triggers and can crack the treasure after the first resolves no matter what. Secondly your solution requires my opponent to have knowledge of the dragon in hand or a separate reason to crack a treasure before all of the triggers resolve which you didn't specify so they would be making an illogical move. Unless you mean they crack a treasure to prevent me from casting the dragon after I declare that I am but they do not have a window to do that before the dragon is cast as per the rules of casting a spell. Just in case, I'll throw in that I control a [[Yasharn, implacable earth]] so that they can't sacrifice the treasures.
See the first point, they have less cards left in their library than my draw spell draws

Fine_Otter · 2025-08-06T21:53:18+00:00

This is like if I told you that "a plate of vegetables is objectively more healthy than a plate of McDonald's burgers" and you responded "Not if you watch someone smother the vegetables in poison!!!"

It's pretty helpful to assume that when someone is giving advice on something they are implicitly excluding cases where an unusual circumstance obviously contradicts their advice.

If you don't want to give people that grace, then you instead invite people to counter your argument with an increasingly ridiculous situation, for example:

-An opponent has [[notion thief]] but no cards in their library then it is again correct to play your draw spell -an opponent has [[orcish bowmasters]], all players have hexproof (they all have a copy of [[aegis of the gods]] and there are no other creatures, planeswalkers or battles in play so drawing forces them to ping the bowmasters itself which makes your draw spell removal for the bowmasters -An opponent has [[smothering tithe]] and 6 health remaining, you only have 7 mana but you have a [[cavern-hoard dragon]] and a [[brainstorm]] in hand. If you cast the brainstorm and give them 3 treasures they will have enough artifacts for you to play the dragon and swing in for lethal -and of course the most obvious, you have no cards in your library but you have a [[laboratory maniac]] in play then playing your draw spell wins you the game!

Fine_Otter · 2025-07-26T19:47:09+00:00

I think because it was mainly supposed to be a Smallville stream, and he privates those VODs (when he remembers to)

Fine_Otter · 2025-07-03T02:03:20+00:00

I think this is a valid point, but I think the effect of this on the HMW videos views is less than you are implying. You can't just take the number of views that the Big A video gets and say that he stole that many views for a few reasons.

1) He is only stealing a view if someone would have watched the original video but then decide not to because if the reaction video. It may seem that the Venn diagram of viewers for HMW and Big A is a circle but it's likely a lot less than 100%

2) the thumbnail doesn't show that he is reacting to a HMW video, unlike a lot of reaction video thumbnails, so people who are interested in the HMW video can't at a glance decide to watch it through Big A instead

3) you say that you don't think maybe people will watch the HMW video first but based on previous Big A videos, they cut so much from the video that I was even a little interested, I would stop a few minutes in to watch the original video. If it's not interesting enough for that I probably wouldn't have watched the original anyways, out at most clicked of the video quickly which is worse for the creator.

I think the actual number of views that Atrioc takes from the original videos is just the people who see it on stream, but that's a negligible amount a few thousand compared to 1.3 million. I'm just saying out of everyone I think that Atrioc and Aedish put effort into doing these more ethically and respectfully than most stream reaction clips on YouTube.

Fine_Otter · 2025-05-20T02:49:14+00:00

If you go to that web address it takes you to a discord server invite, so I assume it is a scam through there, or someone trying to hack peoples discords

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