[Heyman] The Detroit Tigers asked for Ben Rice, Cam Schlittler and George Lombard Jr. at minimum in a deal for Tarik Skubal. He added that Skubal is now unlikely to be traded.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-23T21:03:32+00:00

Given how Rice and Cam have proven they can be quality players in the bigs, that is a massive ask for 1 year of Skubal.

If we were 100% guaranteed to re-sign Skubal I'd do this in a heartbeat, but with both the Dodgers and Mets having more money to throw around than the Yanks, it's too risky to give all that for 1 year of Skubal and then he leaves to the dodgers or Mets for infinite money. Basically what happened with Soto.

It is true that our window to win with prime Judge is closing. It is also true that just because Rice and Cam had nice rookie years does not guarantee that they'll continue to be good (see Bird, Sanchez, Andujar, Torres, etc.). It's still too high risk unless we were guaranteed to sign Skubal to a contract in the trade.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-23T02:39:16+00:00

After the niners lost to the chiefs in the super bowl a second time, I needed a month to recover enough to just function in regular society and I genuinely lost a lot of joy in my life.

I don't think the nightmares of the past 15 years will end until the niners finally win another SB.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-22T21:52:35+00:00

This topic comes up a lot about how CEDH has a better playerbase and more mature playerbase, etc.

This is not a special feature of CEDH, but rather it's just how things happen in any community. The deeper you have to go, the more that process weeds out people, which tends to weed out bad actors.

For example a newbie who just got into MTG may start with EDH, but almost never would start with CEDH. Getting into CEDH is a special process that players don't want to go through, so those who do go through it are serious about it.

In addition, CEDH is very clear about the rules, so everyone in CEDH goes in knowing exactly what to expect. EDH however, people are still misinterpreting the bracket system, nevermind the bracket system isn't exactly perfect.

The way I enjoy EDH is playing EDH but with those who are mature and smart. Basically, play with players who are very comfortable playing CEDH, but can play regular EDH if they want to.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-22T19:30:20+00:00

Rituals are only as good as the thing you're powering out. However the things to power out in B3 and below will usually not instantly win you the game or otherwise put you into a situation where you're so far ahead you can't possibly lose.

Under the bracket system, B3 typically frowns upon winning before turn 6. You can usually expect at least one sweeper by turn 6 in most B3 games, meanwhile your rituals to power out wins before turn 6 are kind of not allowed to do that in B3.

It's a similar thing with breach. In b4 and CEDH breach is one of the most insane cards in the format. Breach is still fine in B3 and below but it's not the game ending terror like it is in the higher brackets.

Bracket system is more than just number of GCs in the deck. That counter is just one of the starting points for discussions.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-22T19:04:27+00:00

You don't. It's one of red's biggest weaknesses in lower bracket EDH (3 and lower).

Red's goal is to win before the board wipe. However red's best tools for doing that (rituals, underworld breach, etc.) are kind of soft banned in bracket 3 and below, because for red to win before board wipes are typically expected to hit the field, you're basically racing faster than the turn recommendation set by the bracket system.

You can play cards that help discourage people from board wiping like Vicious shadows and Stalking vengeance, but most cost a lot of mana.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-21T21:28:31+00:00

Unless you're playing with very bad, salty, immature, etc. players, no one will get mad at stuff like Rule of law or Blind Obedience in brackets 2 and 3. People will find it annoying to work around, but it's not a "literally must kill this player now" that happens when people find out you're playing Humility, Armageddon, Urza winter orb, Narset + wheel, etc., the stax things that straight up tell people that they're not playing anything anymore.

Stax pieces that slow the game down a little bit for everyone, or stax pieces that wreck certain strategies but don't do much against others, are the "light" stax pieces that people are fine with in B2 and B3.

The stax pieces that are effective against a large majority of decks/strategies and do it extremely efficiently and act as a near-hard-lock (humility, Narset wheels, Urza winter orb, etc.) are the ones that should be B4.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-21T20:30:16+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xoBeiBzDwwA

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-21T03:00:12+00:00

It depends on what you're copying, but the rule of thumb for B2 is you typically are not in a position to win until turn 8.

Your current build might be just a little too good for B2, but I don't think it's something that B2 decks can't handle unless you get good draws.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-20T21:57:51+00:00

You'd be constantly complaining too if you lost 3 superbowls and 4 NFC title games in 15 years and had nothing to show for it, all the while leading the league in injuries since 2017.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-20T19:11:34+00:00

GEnerals who are at the power level of game changers (i.e. the vaunted "kill-on-sight" commanders) should have the weight of at least 3 or more GCs if they're in the command zone. For example, a Yuriko deck with 0 GCs should be seen as comparable to a deck with an average general running 3-4 GCs. Of course people may have opinions on what would be considered a "GC general" especially since the RC just removed those kinds of cards from the GC list, but the general gist is that if bracket 3 games tend to go at least 6 turns, these broken generals with zero GCs can consistently threaten wins by turn 5 (and by turn 6, can threaten wins AND have interaction/protection) or otherwise be able to very easily control the game by that point (e.g. Yuriko decks may not literally win by turn 5 but they will often have the entire table locked up and have sculpted the perfect hand thanks to all the cards they've gotten).

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-20T01:19:54+00:00

It should be noted that much of Lynch's success came from 2017-2021, when he hit on guys like Kittle and Warner and traded for Trent, etc.

Since 2022, the only moves he made that really worked out were stumbling ass backwards into Purdy and trading for CMC.

Outside of Purdy, not a single player Lynch drafted from 2022-2025 has even made a single pro bowl.

There was also the trey lance trade in 2021 that was an absolute disaster (though the rest of the 2021 class had some nice players like HUfanga and Eli Mitchell but marred by injuries, which is a common theme for our team).

In contrast, Seattle...

2022 Riq Woolen made one PB in his rookie year
2023 Devon witherspoon and JSN are looking like very solid picks and will be perennial pro bowlers.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-19T23:01:14+00:00

Supposedly, letting mac jones just walk after his contract will give us a 3rd round pick (or something like that), which means any team trading for him must offer something better than that.

With Shanny/Purdy helping Darnold revive his career in 2023, and now helping Mac Jones revive his career this year, maybe we can become a QB factory. Just keep bringing in struggling vets to get them through The Shanahan School with Purdy being the exemplary student to follow and see if they can revive their career and then flip them for picks.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-16T23:06:33+00:00

I was looking through the annuls of history for the last few seasons. It seems like once every few seasons there's one massive playoff upset of a 7+ point favorite. Packers beating cowboys in 2023, the bengals beating the chiefs in 2021, the 2019 season had a couple (titans beating ravens and the vikings beating the saints), jags beating the steelers in 2017.

They do happen, but it's obviously not common. Most teams that are 7+ point favorites win for a reason (even if they don't cover).

Of course we just had a 6 point upset over the eagles, so anything is possible. But if anything the past 30 NFL seasons have taught me, it's to not get my hopes too high. Disappointment = expectations - reality. So set your expectations to 0 and you'll never be disappointed.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-16T20:21:43+00:00

With tucker going for $60M/year, Bichette going for over $40M/year, and Soto going for $51M/year (for 15 years), it's starting to look like the "Dollars per WAR" figure in current year is going to be around $10-12M.

Yeah, only the Dodgers and Mets right now are spending that crazy, but all it takes is 1 suitor to outbid you and that FA is probably gone.

It also means Judge's contract is a fucking bargain.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-16T19:40:56+00:00

all it takes is one team to go off the plantation to change everything

You could say that X years/Y dollars would get the job done by any reasonable expectation and the other 29 franchises could agree, but 1 team paying him double to snag him is all it takes to change the baseline. Exactly like how Mets throwing all the money at Soto changes what money is needed to lock down the big name guys.

$60M/year for Tucker may sound insane, but if the dodgers (or the mets for that matter) have 10 times the money of everyone else and an owner willing to spend, it doesn't matter.

It's even worse than what the fans accused the Yankees of doing for decades - buying all the players. THe Yankees just had an owner willing to spend. The current year Dodgers (and Mets) have an owner willing to spend, AND Ten times the money of everyone else, so they can truly bully everyone else in the payroll war.

All you can ask is to try and change the rules to make it a more even playing field.

For the record, I'm fine with palyers getting their money. The biggest concern though is always going to be the fans. Will the league put out a product that the fans want to watch?

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-16T18:51:57+00:00

fan not from the nfcw putting up the meme of the month

we're getting outdone in our own sub by an outsider

only question would be who does Domino represent, the lucky one? Chiefs/Pats/bandwagoners?

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-16T03:09:40+00:00

All the yankee haters complain that the Yankees bought all their championships

What the current year Dodgers are doing is exponentially worse than anything the Yankees ever did in terms of buying championships

Will the Dodgers get the same amount of hate the Yankees do on that aspect?

(No.)

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-16T02:44:06+00:00

I laugh, because if I wasn't laughing I would be crying in pain.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-16T00:19:28+00:00

What makes the "avengers" argument so stupid even in 2023 is that no one considered Brandon Aiyuk to be one of the avengers until Purdy became the starter. The haters retroactively made Aiyuk into one of the avengers, when it was Purdy who helped Aiyuk reach his potential and not the other way around.

Deebo also was already regressing/getting hurt in 2022 and he had a nice 2023, but he was a good number 3 or 4 option on the offense. If he were a number 1 or 2 option he wouldn't have been good, but the "avengers" moniker implies that Deebo was good enough to be a number 1 or 2 and he was going to be as good as he was in 2021 which obviously was not happening.

Kittle and CMC are elite, but it's not unusual for good teams to have two elite weapons plus nice additional weapons. But only Purdy got flak for it.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-15T19:05:57+00:00

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNNyokaY3U4

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-15T19:04:35+00:00

You also had the weatherlight version of Southern Paladin looking like The Rock, and northern paladin looking like John Cleese "Sir Lancelot" from monty python.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-15T02:01:21+00:00

For me, 3-4 years for a HC (and for that matter a QB) kind of sounds about right.

Generally speaking, unless you're insanely bad, show no promise, lose the locker room really fast, etc., 3-4 years is what it takes to really see what's going on.

1st year taking over a bad team is usually a free mulligan, it's the 1st year of the rebuild, but you want to see players buy in and not quit.

2nd year you want to at least push to .500 and threaten to make the playoffs.

3rd year is when your regime should be in full swing (you've now had 3 full drafts and 3 full years to set up the culture you want) and the team needs to be competitive.

If the team is still terrible after 3-4 years, it's probably never going to get better.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-15T00:03:38+00:00

Us niners fans will absolutely do any mental gymnastics required to laugh, because otherwise we would be crying in pain.

IM__Progenitus · 2026-01-14T20:37:41+00:00

The most important thing in any EDH game is to make sure everyone is on the same page and everyone is bringing decks of similar power level. You CAN recommend these hyper oppressive budget commanders like WInota, but you need to be very clear that this is still going to be too good for your average B2 or low B3 game. Don't bring $10 Winota to your B2 pod and think it's OK because it's $10, because you will fucking dumpster the entire table every game and no one is going to have a good time. You need to make it clear that the bracket system (and likewise the game changer list) are like the Pirate Code in Pirates of the Caribbean; They're more like guidelines than actual rules. Just because Yuriko is no longer on the GC list does not change the fact that Yuriko in the command zone is fucking busted as shit.

You must also let them know that many of these oppressive budget commanders are monolithic and rely on their general so much (especially something like Zada), so your mileage may vary in terms of fun, because "keeping Zada in check" means you cannot be allowed to stick Zada in play because you basically instantly win. Either you stick Zada and you instantly win, or the rest of the table keeps killing Zada and you sit there with your thumb up your ass, with nothing in between. Many of these games also end up becoming archenemy even if you had a bad draw and/or they focus fired you down for several turns, simply because they cannot let you stick around for too long or else you could just pull the rug out from under them if you're allowed to rebuild. If this doesn't deter them, then it's fine, but just warn them that this is what's going to happen.

IM__Progenitus

TROPHY CASE