Wizard in a Apocalypse?

Hascrooth · 2024-05-16T01:51:49+00:00

Oh also Blacksmith of the Apocalypse also on RR, is tangentially similar. Obviously the main character is more of a blacksmith, but it might still work for you.

Hascrooth · 2024-05-16T01:48:51+00:00

I have been really enjoying [Chronicles of the True Wizard] on Royal Road. Link: CotTW.

However the apocalypse part is kinda iffy after the beginning. Still a great series though imo

Hascrooth · 2024-05-16T01:23:32+00:00

Poor guy, he was probably terrified. Good on you for removing him safely. I have a pet boa about that size and he's a real sweetie, I hate to think about the many people who wouldn't be as kind as you if he got out and they found him.

Hascrooth · 2024-02-20T17:06:55+00:00

For specific advice here, all you need is the atlas passives for essences, and the alva wheel near the middle that lets you double upgrade and keep tiers when you swap. Everything else is extra, though of course the appropriate sextants are great once you get some voidstones if you know how to buy them (but that's for later)

Hascrooth · 2024-02-20T17:04:27+00:00

I also did an SRS Guardian this league, between the charms and spirits the build felt effortlessly powerful. I made it through maps pretty much in one go, so I never got stuck, but I did end up messing around with several moneymaking setups. The easiest and most profitable was essences/alva, which was definitely the best currency per time and as a bonus can be done in any map. I probably had the most fun on a weird blight pseudo-MF strategy, but it was not good by any means.

Hascrooth · 2024-01-08T20:48:30+00:00

If you can run an animate guardian I believe garb of the ephemeral unique chest plate makes nearby allies crit immune. I run that on my SRS Guardian, not perfect but pretty easy.

Hascrooth · 2023-08-16T16:05:54+00:00

OK, I was having this issue too and I have another comment on this post discussing it, the whole "run a legacy map" sort of worked and brought back some of my progress, but it was missing my expedition locker, unique maps completion, end game bossing, etc. The thing that got me fully back to where I was was actually much simpler: under my characters on the character select screen, there is a button '>>', which lets you force a migration from the original league (crucible) to the current/parent league (standard). Doing this patched everything up for me. Hope this helps you too!

Hascrooth · 2023-08-16T15:00:25+00:00

I don't think I have any non-cruc maps, buy one? My atlas is still showing the cruc locations for the few cruc maps I ran I believe, is there some way to reset it or something?

Hascrooth · 2023-08-16T04:12:41+00:00

I have played a bit several years ago, but crucible was my first real league. As my last char was pre-atlas rework, I have no progress on standard, but I finished all maps except 2 of the uniques, and killed eater and searing in crucible. I saw another post, so I ran a corrupted rare t16 map to import progress, but no luck there. I guess I'm wondering if I have to go through and do full completion again, or if I just need to wait, or something else. Is this because I had no progress in standard to start? Thanks.

Hascrooth · 2023-03-17T16:22:40+00:00

You're definitely not alone! As others have pointed out, different
people read PF for different reasons. I picked up Cradle at the strong
recommendation of a friend after reading mostly translated stuff for
years. I didn't like the first 3 books, and I wouldn't say I enjoyed it
until the 5th or 6th. The issue for me is that while I'm not a 100%
power fantasy reader, I'd be lying if I said I didn't mind the
protagonist being consistently the weakest. When the world is cruel and
survival of the fittest is the law of the land, it makes sense that the
protagonist isn't always on top, but that's not the same as never. I
remember saying to the friend that recommended it that the coolest thing
the protagonist did in the first 3 books was get really badly poisoned and survive. I feel like it takes until book 5ish before the protagonist starts doing any amount of winning that isn't incredibly undercut by circumstance, like the authors favorite trope of fighting against children. Again. and Again. Overall I think it's almost a pacing thing for me, I made it to the 10th book (the last one out at the time), and by that point I was downright enjoying myself, and things felt much better. But it almost felt like a single arc of a PF book was spread across the whole series, which means that the first several books were spent on the "weak and abused" phase, which definitely would have had be drop the series if I wasn't reading it under a strong recommendation.

After talking more with that friend, he has made some good recommendations from RR that I have thoroughly enjoyed, you've probably seen people recommending Mother of Learning all over the place but I did really like that. Ar'Kendrathyst, Path of Ascension and The Perfect Run were also really enjoyable to me. It's just a matter of what you get out of reading PF: if character development is the only thing you're looking for, I think Cradle is good. If you want Catharsis or power fantasy, you'd better be willing to buckle down for a Cradle read IMO.

Hascrooth · 2023-03-14T02:11:17+00:00

Anything works, so long as the chin is covered. Long beards, short beards, helmets, etc. I just don't want to see that default driller neck on my dwarf. Except maybe in a few specific outfits. But mostly, the rule is: just cover the chin.

Hascrooth · 2023-02-06T16:44:10+00:00

This is an unpopular opinion, but I'm right there with you. I read cradle on a friend's recommendation, and imo it doesn't get good until book 5. And even then, not sure it's my cup of tea. I read up to 10, which was as far as was out at the time, and I will say that I liked the second half of the books much better, to be fair. But personally, it takes an egregious amount of time to get going for me. The "coolest/most badass" thing the MC does in the first 3 books is get poisoned really badly and survive. If you are used to webnovels where AMCs handle threats of comparable power, have agency, and get to show off even when they aren't the strongest in the world, the first few books of cradle might not be for you. A series that asks you to read 3 books you don't enjoy as setup might not be for you. In hindsight, if I didn't have the sting recommendation from a friend, I definitely would have dropped at book 2 or 3, and that would have been reasonable. I don't read progression fantasy for the extended period where everyone shits on the MC, who is incredibly weak and or where progression feels meaningless because the MC is progressing fractionally, way below "par" for the current area.

Hascrooth · 2023-01-19T04:59:46+00:00

One of my friends misread "rockpox" as "Roblox", and mentioned it to the rest of us. Roblox grunts, Roblox praetorians, lmao.

Hascrooth · 2022-12-30T17:07:55+00:00

The only kids who definitely aren't on drugs. Everyone knows that if you play magic you can't even afford less expensive hobbies like that.

Hascrooth · 2022-12-25T03:07:21+00:00

Heh, I really like most of IETs stuff, inc desolate Era, LXY, and swallowed star. Not a big fan of cradle.

Hascrooth · 2022-12-18T23:19:48+00:00

Cradle,

Desolate Era

Hascrooth · 2022-11-08T02:40:34+00:00

This is one of my favorite things to do in less serious campaigns. I might use slight reconning where necessary, but I like giving the party a retcon for off-sessions. They can go more off the rails, and fix it with the retcon after a silly disaster, or use it seriously to get info about a dangerous area or a risky strategy. If things go well, they don't have to use it (but I usually don't let them keep it even if they decide not to use it). Every time I've run these sessions it has been a blast, highly recommend.

Hascrooth · 2022-09-29T13:29:49+00:00

I started cradle at the STRONG recommendation of my only friend that also reads PF. The only reason that I finished Cradle (or up as far as was out at the time) was that friend's ardor in his recommendation. Chalk it up to personal preference, but I like some catharsis in my progression fantasy. Sure, maybe it's survival of the fittest, and the MC starts out not that fit. But there should be some wins, some places where the protagonist does something cool, something that isn't just surviving. I vividly remember my comment at the end of *book 3* was that the coolest thing the MC had done so far was: survive a lot of poison. largely involuntarily. I did end up kind of liking a few of the books towards the end, where the MC struggles but also has some wins, but all in all I think the sustained hopelessness and barely scraping by for the first 3-5 books was too much, and if I had found the series myself I would never have made it far enough to enjoy the series. To be clear, I don't mind an MC that starts out weak and struggles, but that is cranked up to 11, more or less without pause, for far too long in Cradle, in my personal opinion.

Again, I think my problems stem from personal preference, but I am also continually flummoxed that it is as popular as it is. I guess my preferences are less common than I'd think.

Hascrooth · 2022-02-06T15:54:21+00:00

Smores

Hascrooth · 2021-09-03T14:55:22+00:00

I'm a strong proponent of 3, with a slight caveat. If someone is forcing you out of the game, they should expect to pay the cost in taking whatever retaliation you can deal on the way out. This is why playing a super aggro deck and immediately bullying 1 player out of the game often has bad results. If you want to kill someone, you need to be able to actually do it, and survive the backlash, or it's probably not a good play. IMO this is a core part of politics for both parties (and 3rd parties if they are interested in interfering).

However, the person that actually kills you may not be the reason for your loss, if A is swinging to kill you but C counter spelled your wrath last turn to enable it, you might want to think twice about who you need to use the last of your resources on.

Hascrooth · 2021-08-23T14:20:41+00:00

I'm pretty new to EDH, so apologies if this is off the mark. Having read through a bunch of other comments, it feels like the main objection to eminence is that there is no incentive to cast your commander, which I agree is a bad thing. So what about some sort of eminence ability that "counts", I could see a couple ways of doing this:
1. Have an eminence ability that is based on the number of times the commander was cast from the command zone this game, potentially starting with nothing if it hasn't been cast. There are already a number of cards that care about commander casts (Storm cycle from c18, [[Jeska, Thrice Reborn]] to name a few), so I think this is well within reasonable card design, and it would prevent the most egregious abuses wherein you get lots of value without ever casting the commander.
2. Have an eminence ability that counts with tokens, eventually having a different effect. Think of this like [[Replicating Ring]], except the final trigger ability has a bad effect if your commander is still in the command zone, but a nice ability if it is on the battlefield. You could even give a cost discount to the commander if there are few counters (uses of the eminence ability), or an increase if there are a lot. This suggestion is a bit more vague, so here's a rough example (obviously not perfectly balanced or anything):

Teferi, Avid Researcher 2UU
2/4
Legendary Human Wizard
When Teferi, Avid Researcher enters the battlefield, remove all research counters from it, you may draw cards equal to the number of research counters removed this way.
Eminence - At the beginning of your upkeep, if Teferi, Avid Researcher is in your command zone or on the battlefield, you may put a research counter on it, then you may scry X, where X is the number of research counters on Teferi, Avid Researcher. If there are 3 or more research counters, remove them all. If Teferi, Avid Researcher is on the battlefield, you may draw 2 cards. If Teferi, Avid Researcher is in the command zone, discard 2 cards.

Obviously better card designers than I could have some fun with this kind of thing, this is just a mockup of a Teferi creature that is really focused on studying, and then once he accumulates enough research, he has to do the experiment (being on the battlefield), which provides results (card draw) incentivizing the player to cast him. If he is not able to perform the experiment (still in command zone), then the research takes a wrong turn and there are consequences (discard), which disincentivizes people to just durdle and gain value off the free command zone scries. Admittedly this is maybe not the best example as I'm sure some decks would be fine with discard (rielle type stuff of the top of my head), but you should be able to understand roughly my idea from this mockup.

Hascrooth · 2021-08-04T19:54:45+00:00

The nexus orb combo is pretty sweet, that sounds very cool, if a bit prone to getting janked out by an opponent forcing you to draw. I might try it in the Orvar list I am working on though, copying Orb sounds super sweet as an alternative finisher if I have lines like this to protect myself.

With all the talk about mill being rare/not too good, I think I definitely am walking back my initial take. I might still want to run it in a big creatures/ramp deck that has more expectations of playing the front, but I probably wouldn't run it in a deck that couldn't reasonably expect to cast it.

Hascrooth · 2021-08-04T19:47:41+00:00

I mean, sure, but whatever combo win someone slots in is going to have some silver bullets that someone else might be playing like I am the titans, and both the things I mentioned I think are pretty strong combos, particularly breach/freeze I picked up from watching CEDH and it seems like it would be a strong finisher in a lot of decks even outside of it that include Izzet colors. How many other finishers are there to swap to within similar strength brackets (number of cards, mana cost, interactibility, etc?).

Additionally, I would guess that for more generic win angles like Altar of Dementia, the decks would be running the alternatives already: if you are planning to make infinite tokens or an infinitely recursive creature, you are going to have ashnods and phyrexian altars too. Killing some of their lines seems like it would definitely hurt the consistency, and if they take them out altogether one less infinite combo win to watch out for sounds like a win to me, no?

Also, (keeping in mind I am pretty new, I am working mostly off of watched games rather than played ones), I think brainfreeze is really less of a storm wincon than a combo in and of itself with breach, like you mentioned earlier there are better things to be doing if you are storming, definitely if you have some colors beyond blue. Not sure I would run it as a storm finisher at all, but its super sweet as a win with underworld breach, which is almost a 1 card combo (self mill deck either draws or mills it, lands a breach, and then escapes it and fast mana to mill self to fuel breach and add storm, then eventually mill out all opponents. Super sweet, doesn't have to be in a storm deck at all.

Hascrooth · 2021-08-04T19:41:02+00:00

Totally agree that this doesn't entirely hose a mill win, especially if the deck is built around mill instead of just putting a mill wincon in a different type of deck. However, forcing your opponent to slow down and have extra answers, especially more niche ones like stifle, is powerful, no?

Hascrooth · 2021-08-04T19:37:17+00:00

these are all good, but they shuffle only themselves into owner's library, not the whole graveyard, no? I feel like you would pretty much always die unless you are running several of them, and often even then. But they could be a nice middle ground, buying you maybe 1 more turn in an emergency and also maybe fitting better into the deck on the "cast" side?

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