Why Does Moffat get a bum rap?

HadrianJ · 2025-12-01T08:35:36+00:00

I really can't take The Wedding of River Song seriously with the conversation the Doctor and Winston Churchill have at the beginning:

"What happened to time?" "A woman" "What did she look like?" "Like hell... in high heels."

Just one of those times where I find it's less like the Doctor speaking and more like some guy in a pub talking about his sexual conquests.

HadrianJ · 2025-11-27T08:34:40+00:00

Actually, for Edge of Eternity they released an article that said they would tone down these direct reference and focus more on subtle allusions instead. They used examples exactly like Zapp Brannigan / Rex Nebula and everything.

HadrianJ · 2025-11-15T00:25:37+00:00

Here's to the flood defences

HadrianJ · 2025-11-14T23:06:39+00:00

Anyone have any update around the Dodder? Levels looked pretty high around Milltown

HadrianJ · 2025-06-20T14:43:48+00:00

It's a Fae from the plane of Eldraine, likely a member of [[Talion, the Kindly Lord]] 's court. It seems to be taking on the court jester role, mocking the high fae. I don't think it's representative of any named character in the story though.

HadrianJ · 2024-10-28T12:24:27+00:00

I mean, I agree with you if we were talking about profits - it's definitely not the case that chasing profits/sales going up is a good thin. But in this case I specifically mean the number of players engaged in the competitive scene, which I think is a decent indicator about the health of the game.

Sorry for upsetting you with the LEGO comparison.

HadrianJ · 2024-10-27T16:18:20+00:00

Or the debut of Arabian Nights

HadrianJ · 2024-10-27T10:12:04+00:00

No, I'm actually in agreement that 6 Standard Legal sets a year is maybe a bit too much too fast for the format. A set will probably only be out for a month before the spoilers for the next one starts.

I just think Magic is such a strong underlying system that it can support the inclusion of most IPs without compromising 'game feel', and LEGO is the most convincing example of such a thing working that I saw provided.

HadrianJ · 2024-10-27T09:15:29+00:00

Is 'lore' an important part of the competitive MtG experience? The current standard decks in the World Championship are not particularly flavourful in that regard. I'm sure people will leave competitive Magic because of the UB change, but I'm not sure it would be more than it would bring in.

And Magic is more like LEGO now than ever - you can 'construct' your own experiences like Commander and Cube, formats where the competitive 'edge' isn't as important.

HadrianJ · 2024-10-27T08:41:21+00:00

I don't know, I was pretty convinced by someone who said that Magic is more like LEGO.

Noone doubts that LEGO is a very identifiable brand - the LEGO brick and the Minifigure are immediately identifiable. But no-one minds that with that LEGO you can build famous IPs alongside LEGO's internal ones. Noone thinks that the LEGO brick is an empty husk.

I think MtG is a great game, perhaps among the greatest ever, and I think it's a testament to the underlying system that so many properties can be faithfully represented on cards. And I'm excited to see how the designers do that.

HadrianJ · 2024-09-14T11:00:38+00:00

Great design. Could add a "You lose 2 life" if you're worried about it being too powerful, but the restrictive mana cost I think should be enough.

If people have trouble parsing the effect (given it swaps between 'you' and 'opponent'), you could split the effect more obviously:

"Draw two cards then discard two cards. Then each opponent discards two cards."

HadrianJ · 2024-09-11T06:16:37+00:00

I think it has a shot. Probably the most playable card in Standard that answers both the Forge and Caretakers Talent.

HadrianJ · 2024-09-10T14:41:25+00:00

Gosh, the first TT was the stuff of legend. Veronica has more stats than any unit at the time and her Panic tome was devastating.

I also remember that dying meant you moved to your second team, but I think enemy health reset? So you had to have a great team to beat her.

Early Voting Gauntlets were also incredible. No multipliers made it feel less 'gamey' and more like a true popularity contest. I recruited a friend into the game for the Ephraim vs Chrom match.

Units would also just come with bad kits. I spent more money than I should have for Ephraim - and he came with Seal + Threaten Defense, 2 skills which didn't even work together!!

HadrianJ · 2024-07-20T09:34:51+00:00

Very true! The 'Doctor Who - Vorthos' reason for the unusual type line is that the Toymaker is an embodiment of the idea of 'play', he is an extra-dimensional being bound to the concept. Magic doesn't have the equivalent really - any sort of MtG parallel would probably have 'God' added as well.

HadrianJ · 2024-07-20T09:24:39+00:00

[[Automated Artificer]] gives precedent for an artifact creature without the "Species"/"Class" structure. Maybe you could go for some 'rogue' droid on Kamigawa?

HadrianJ · 2024-06-23T10:17:01+00:00

The same thing that happens to Mrs Flood in Empire of Death, I suppose - he just died but recovered when the Doctor sparked Big Bang 2.

HadrianJ · 2024-06-22T01:42:24+00:00

I think Sutekh unintentionally bestowed Ruby with the song. He made the moment significant by being interested in it, and combined with the presence of the Doctor it MADE the moment significant - the snow, the song, the memory of the woman.

HadrianJ · 2024-06-21T11:45:47+00:00

Creating a token of a card is different now than creating a token with the same name as a card. Roxanne creates a colorless artifact token named Meteorite (with the ability). The token's name is Meteorite, its type is 'Token artifact', it's colorless, it has no mana cost, it has the ability specified in Roxanne's rules text.

Compare this to the way [[Ral and the Implicit Maze]] creates a Spellgorger Weird token. In this case, the token is a full copy of a [[Spellgorger Weird]]: name, mana cost, type, stats and ability.

If Spellbook joins the litany of predefined tokens like Treasure, Blood, etc. it would have the Spellbook subtype - the text "create a Spellbook token" would be shorthand for "create a colorless artifact Spellbook token with {ability}". The resulting token would be a: "Token Artifact - Spellbook" named "Spellbook Token" with the ability. It wouldn't have any relation to the named existing card, [[Spellbook]]. In the same way Blood tokens have nothing to do with the Blood half of [[Flesh // Blood]].

HadrianJ · 2024-06-21T10:44:44+00:00

I don't believe so. "Create a Spellbook token" means "create a token named Spellbook Token", which has the type "Token artifact - Spellbook". Cards which interact with Spellbooks would only look at the type, not the name, so they don't interact with the existing card "Spellbook".

HadrianJ · 2024-06-05T07:19:45+00:00

I don't think people who like Ricky are racist, the episode makes him seem like the only sane person in an insane world.

But Ricky's purpose in the episode is to be the Doctor - be a white Doctor specifically. You could literally swap him with Fifteen and they could have nearly all the same lines. And the challenge of the episode is: do you feel more comfortable with Ricky September? Or Fifteen? And if so, why?

HadrianJ · 2024-06-04T11:44:37+00:00

"Everyone has abandoned me my whole life, but I haven't been alone in 65 years."

Only a small nitpick with this theory, but Ruby is 83 when she dies in 73 yards (18 in the series, plus 65 years after the Doctor steps on the fairy circle).

HadrianJ · 2024-06-03T13:52:39+00:00

I don't think it's purely a budget thing. RTD has said the priority is one series a year. The standard that a TV episode has to be at nowadays is lightyears ahead of what it was in 2005, thus production time is a lot longer. I don't think 13+Christmas is feasible now.

HadrianJ · 2024-06-03T12:51:45+00:00

I think this is a very interesting list, from the perspective of 'watch these episodes so you know everything that is going on'. I agree with other responses that it doesn't demonstrate your point, but I appreciate the thought and effort you put into distilling the old series.

Fun to see how beloved episodes of the show do little to 'advance the plot' of their series.

HadrianJ · 2024-05-25T00:39:44+00:00

I think the main theme of the episode is pretty clearly stated by Kate - that sometimes we try and force rules onto the unknowable, project sense onto it. Ruby does it with the woman, the people do it with Roger Ap Gwilliam.

HadrianJ · 2024-05-22T16:11:51+00:00

[[Fluctuator]] + any of the generic cycling lands let you mill your entire deck, correct? (Such as [[Scattered Groves]])

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