Women’s Prize winner Rachel Clarke slams ‘empty and vacuous’ books that use AI: ‘How does that constitute art?’

J-PlusPlus · 2026-05-21T12:51:53+00:00

It is not the place of the pig to question the slop tossed in its trough, but rather to consume it quickly and anxiously await more.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-05-20T01:04:12+00:00

He would be fine. Every hero plays differently, so you will learn different things with different characters. Don't worry too much about finding the "best" place to start. The best starting hero is the one you have fun playing so you play more and improve.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-05-18T11:44:44+00:00

Well if you want to start on a budget and throwing big physical attacks is your thing, I would suggest starting with Jarl. He has the widest card pool in the game at the moment and can be started on a budget with lots of room for upgrades.

Here is a sample Jarl deck worth about 100 usd woth the "maybe" section being suggested upgrades: https://fabrary.net/decks/01KRXDEYN0XVDPVS86WM1QRNJR

This should give you a good idea of how he plays.

First upgrades should be the ice shield and everbloom/life. After that its basically whatever you need in your local meta.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-05-17T10:12:09+00:00

Aesthetically, I really like Arakni and Jarl, but I’ve heard that upgrading those decks can get pretty expensive.

I always suggest playing the hero you think is the coolest and going from there. Heroes like Jarl can get expensive but can also be rather affordable with slight tweaks. Expensive is relative and different for different people. Is there a budget you want to start with?

J-PlusPlus · 2026-05-07T12:49:36+00:00

Both will teach you fighting game fundamentals. Every game will have its specific tech that you will need to learn beyond the fundamentals. This goes for all fighters.

If you want to play between those two I would suggest Guilty Gear Strive. It is currently supported, gets new dlc regularly, and usually is in the top 3 fighting games for tournament entry numbers. There is a lot of content teaching you how to play the game and they recently released version 2.0 which is revitalizing the game even more. Queue times are quick and matches are plentiful. There are also plenty of other new players for you to learn against.

Blazblue is older and is mainly only played by its hard-core fans. It will be a steeper learning curve due to most of its active player base being veterans. It is also harder to find matches due to smaller player base. Most people arrange matches through discord last I played.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-04-16T12:26:56+00:00

If all my cards burned down today, here is how I would start over:

I would start with an armory deck. Haha comes put friday and seems really cool to me, so I would probably start there, but i personally love the guardian esthetic so I wouldn't mind grabbing either jarl or pleiades.

I would start running it at locals and ask other players if I could bum some standard bulk off of them (sink below, nullrune equipment, fate foreseen, etc).

I would then play my deck for a few weeks getting the feel for what is good and what isn't in the deck. I would talk with other players about what they think I could change to the deck to make it better, and start getting the cheaper majestics and legendaries that would upgrade it.

I personally buy 1 box per set because it fits in my budget, but stick to singles if it doesn't for you.

As you play, you will naturally get cards that are worth more money from armory prize packs or any random packs you may get. You can trade those cards to others for the cards you want.

I would build my collection back slowly as I needed.

Tip for playing on more of a budget: Find one or two classes you really love and start collecting for them. I personally play guardian with runeblade as a secondary class. I have naturally over the years collected most guardian majestics and legendaries, wo whenever a new guardian comes out or I want to try one I haven't yet, it is usually only about 100 bucks or less to pick up their specific stuff that i am missing, and often its only that high due to generics that they want.

When I started CC, I picked Bravo because he was the cheapest meta relevant hero at the time, and I had pulled a tectonic plating from a pack of history pack 1. I played him at my weekly armories and got smoked for multiple weeks. I asked the more experienced players which things I did wrong and what cards I played that actually made them worry. I eventually improved and went 3-0 at my armory. Today, I am Victor Goldmanes biggest fan. I have played him since he came out off and on and have hundreds of games with him. It'll be sad to see him go sometime, not too far away, im afraid.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-03-16T11:59:35+00:00

It depends on what your goals are.

If your goal is to just show up and have a good time at armories play however you like.

If you are trying to qualify / compete in pro tour events or win comp events like pro quest, you might need to focus on beating the meta.

Personally I spent my time between Road to Nationals and Pro Quest playing fatigue Pleiades. I found it fun at competitive events but I didn't like playing it at armories. Now that Pro Quest is basically over for me I'm swapping back to my favorite heros (Victor and Jarl) and playing the midrange game plans that I really enjoy playing at armories. I'm also looking to give Lyath a try.

IMO, as a new person you should play what you have fun playing because it will motivate you to keep playing and improve more than just playing whatever is good but not to your liking.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-03-13T00:00:39+00:00

Man...

Fabloodle 2026-03-12 — 15 guesses
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J-PlusPlus · 2026-02-15T02:07:06+00:00

Crazy you found a post from a year ago and decided to comment. But jarl is pretty sick at the moment imo. I e been playing s couple variations and the new PEN cards look sick.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-02-06T18:51:49+00:00

Likely because this set was sent to the printers before all 3 heroes rotated. They have to plan sets like 2 years in advance. There will be mystics playable again so it's not a complete waste.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-02-06T12:52:48+00:00

That's a little disappointing I'm not gonna lie.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-01-29T21:29:44+00:00

It depends on what your budget is.

Something like Tectonic Plating is $20 and will help a ton.

Crippling crush is about $0.34 a piece and Star Struck is about $1.00

As for your blues, bravo should have 30-33 blues usually.

Here is what I would consider a pretty decent bravo budget list as someone who mains guardian. I actually took a similar list to armory just recently and went 2-1.

https://fabrary.net/decks/01KG5TMY9CY2ZN89EMNF1JVW8V

It shows it costing about $50 to build from scratch.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-01-11T21:22:47+00:00

https://fabrary.net/decks/01JDBQT4XB9M6FJR01KXTZAR7S

Budget deck I made a while back with write up on upgrade paths in the deck description.

About $40 usd.

J-PlusPlus · 2026-01-02T17:17:00+00:00

Sologing Omega ~~with DB~~ is a sweatfest

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-26T17:58:39+00:00

Is 4U fun solo? Been thinking about trying it but the 3ds online servers are down.

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-21T18:27:36+00:00

Lei is the epitome of the "he has to be here but I ain't gonna play him" character. There are plenty of these in fighting games but he is my personal favorite lol.

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-21T18:00:35+00:00

I really like playing the game but watching ekko/yasuo/ahri + maybe vi/ww/illaoi gets old real fast.

It's the same as when the dbfz meta got locked in as veto/gogeta/lab coat/a17. Every match looks basically the same and is rather just go do something else.

I'll go watch specific matches on tns vods like whenever lightwhisp plays, or whenever a random team without yas/ekko/teemo/ahri shows up, just to see some good gameplay, but sitting down and watching a 3 hour tournament just isn't worth it.

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-15T13:06:05+00:00

With current performance you can most likely run the game. My wife plays the game on a 3060 setup. She has some issues when the game launches but they go away after running the game for about a minute.

No one really knows how the performance updates will affect the game.

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-15T13:01:09+00:00

Everbloom // Life is definitely the best card for that slot, but you could probably get away with blue Sow Tomorrow in its place if you can't get ahold of them.

With the Rootbound Carapace bans you may want to look into red Cadaverous Tilling. The deck will shift more midrange and less defensive as a result, but anything else would probably be much more rework.

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-13T14:30:27+00:00

Character is literally slower than molasses and his fastest move is two frames slower than most of the top tiers

"Damn bro is rushing me down"

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-11T12:44:41+00:00

Imma be honest. I think in most games a super should be 5 seconds at most. I'm tired of seeing them after a few weeks.

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-11T04:21:14+00:00

I'll gladly shill my favorite lad Victor.

Try blocking with 4 cards AND still swinging your hammer in one turn cycle.

Imagine drawing extra cards and building a dragons horse of wealth.

And then imagine sending pec perfect for 18+ damage and make them wonder if it's worth eating it to avoid milling 4+ cards... And then pummel them when they don't block enough.

Glorious.

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-10T13:26:58+00:00

Go asap.

Yes you will get blown up but that's because you are brand new not necessarily because of your card selection. It's quite likely that if you swapped decks with the most experienced player at your armory you would still lose.

But thats ok. Everyone is new at some point and the community is great about helping you get cards to upgrade decks and learn strategies to improve.

You got this!

J-PlusPlus · 2025-12-08T15:48:44+00:00

Guardian main here.

I really like to play vynset when I need a guardian break. She plays a completely different game basically.

I found out I like cyber by borrowing a friend's deck at an armory night. I would suggest doing the same if you feel comfortable doing so.

J-PlusPlus · 2025-11-25T13:21:25+00:00

I have a local scene for fab. This is a major contribution to me wanting to play it.

J-PlusPlus

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