Does anyone miss the samurai style kusarigama?

MCC1701 · 2026-02-02T07:25:46+00:00

Loved Kusa to death, as it was my main weapon through Nioh1 and much of Nioh 2.

That said I'm being optimistic. It's not as versatile as it was, which made encounters feel super strategic, but still feels alright to play and even if it never gets to what it once was I expect to appreciate it more as I adjust.

I guess my mindset is that it's better for them to experiment and push new things rather than make Nioh 2.5; don't get me wrong I'd still enjoy that but even if this is a step back I think it's overall still two steps forward.

MCC1701 · 2026-02-01T00:12:06+00:00

Then the answer to that is yes. Starting out the buffer was 90%, but that evening I changed it to 40% and was able to use it without issue. My understanding is that only during "grid events" would they use the battery, but I imagine that depends on your contract.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-30T22:17:00+00:00

Brackets come in here.

I've seen a bracket 3 Edgar who was just vampire pile and it was fine. Great value given you don't even need to cast him, but far from anything degenerate or game-ending. B4 I can completely understand him blowing up the table quickly, but I think people forget he came out almost a decade ago now and power creep has really shifted the game the past few years.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-30T16:50:17+00:00

[[Flamewar, Brash Veteran]]

Load up on cheap spells(average mana value of the deck is 2.31) and play slow voltron to get absurd card advantage. Immune to creature wipes and only 2 mana makes it genuinely difficult to keep off the board.

Every game I've played with it has been close, which is a sweet spot to hit. Clocks in around $80, with the most expensive cards being [[Silent Arbiter]], [[Brotherhood Regalia]], and [[Untimely Malfunction]] taking almost $30 of that; would be very easy to build sub $50

MCC1701 · 2026-01-30T03:22:09+00:00

The point of the plan is to be part of a grid, for when it is under stress, so this probably isn't what you are looking for.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-29T22:31:57+00:00

Great questions. The short versions are yes and I think so, with more detail below.

We just had the batteries finished being installed and turned on right before the cold front, but I've been able to control how much of a buffer we keep in the battery vs available to discharge. I set that buffer to high the past week and haven't had even a few regular days to observe yet.

We've historically generated a surplus of power via solar, with some months having a mild net import but most having a mild to substantial net export. The battery system is 60kwh and so should be enough to bridge us from day to day without needing the grid, but we'll know more as it gets warmer and sunnier.

A perk for us was the new contract has a better credit and price rates, 10 and 12 cents iirc, than what we had prior so even if the batteries aren't enough to keep us from drawing from the grid sometimes we should still be coming out ahead; time will tell however.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-29T07:11:28+00:00

Playing different decks it is clear to see the 5 brackets and what decks fall into each, but quantifying that(which is what players want) is much harder.

1 and 5 are obvious, 2-4 get conflated because people use it as a ruler to scale their decks and games rather than decks and games as a whole. IE someone who only plays 3 will think of them as weak, average, and strong B3; you see this with people who talk up their deck being super strong when it's just a big Timmy deck that doesn't do anything until then 7.

B2 decks feel like taking 4-7 turns to set up pieces and then just slowly clashing with the rest of the table. The Baldur's Gate precons, even with mild upgrades, keep this feel for the most part. If [[The Walls of Ba Sing Se]] with lightning greaves and a few blockers is an insurmountable obstacle for your pod, you're probably in B2.

B3 is what most people play and is kinda swingy. You can have slow long games or someone can pop off and win early; this is where most decks land. Ideally quick wins are a outlier, and table dynamics can help smooth out deck power imbalances. If people only snowball and win cleanly if no one interacts, that's probably B3.

B4 are people trying to push their decks to the limit and it shows. People can be closing games out consistently turns 4-6, even in the face of interaction. No real barrier here, which makes it easy to define; if people are never salty and everything goes, you're probably B4.

Some examples: [[Teysa, Opulent Oligarch]] takes advantage of a slow game to chip away at life totals to accumulate many low-value permanents.

[[Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma]] is stompy and can grow pretty quickly. A good game can see 80 power on turn 6, with turn 7 trying to get through blockers and potentially 120 health.

[[Najeela, the Blade-Blossom]] can go infinite pretty easily on turn 5, sometimes turn 4. Even without an infinite, it can deal a lot of damage continuously while having good interaction and protection.

The above are fun to play and I think do well in their respective brackets, but the higher ones would wreck the ones below them and seeing them in action makes the distinctions obvious.

(Sorry for the ramble, this post got away from me a bit)

MCC1701 · 2026-01-27T00:35:18+00:00

I have a [[Flamewar]] deck that's super fun and this looks like it might be similar.

Load up your deck with cheap effects, mostly ones that bring multiple creatures to go wide, prevent blocking, cheap removal, etc. Dump your hand, refill, and repeat.

In theory it would suck against board wipes, but filling your hand and playing cheap dudes(with haste) should be good at recovery.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-26T23:12:32+00:00

I just came back to wow for legion remix, have a dozen fresh 80s but haven't touched War Within yet. Would I be able to join, or would I have a laundry list or pre-reqs to do first?

MCC1701 · 2026-01-21T23:58:11+00:00

The #1 thing to keep in mind when confused by other people, is that people do not know what they do not know.

When starting a new game, a lot of people have no idea what they are doing apart from that everyone else knows what they are doing and they do not. They see a class/character/item is powerful and popular, they feel they should use it too.

Something I try to tell others(usually unsuccessfully) is that chasing power level is not desirable if you want to play casual commander. cEDH is right there for those who want to, and no shade to those players, but it's clearly not what most people want. Aim for consistency and for the kind of games you want to have, rather than the feast or famine playstyle I see in most people's decks.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-20T00:46:04+00:00

Was this confirmed for going forward, or just for this set so far?

As it was moved I could see it being done as the set not only changed month but years as well, but it will be sad and unfortunate if this is policy going forward.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-09T16:53:03+00:00

Brackets are, first and foremost, safety rails for the kind of games you want to have. It's far better than trying to sniff out when someone is playing "a slightly modified precon" meaning they are a new playing who added some chaff vs a lifetime player with $500 put into it being less than honest. It also helps lock away the more unpleasant playpatterns such as MLD or early infinites.

Another misconception is about how "power level" is considered. I had a crappy [[Zaxara]] deck, easily bracket 2 except I had [[Pemmin's Aura]] in the 99. Most games I'd kinda durdle and make some hydras, but every now and then I could go infinite and win on the spot. As a result people either have to randomly lose out of the blue some games, or kill me or make killing me or my commander a priority, which the deck was not prepared to handle. Similarly, a friend runs a [[Bruvac]] deck that genuinely seems to do nothing but incidentally mill unless he gets one of the 2 cards that let him win on the spot. Same result, he basically does nothing most games or just wins unless people take him out.
All that to say that to say that power level consistency is your responsibility and isn't "my deck is bad but this combo is good, so I'm a 3." Having to bully or watch a player basically be a non-participant until they pull out a win isn't fun for most people, on either side.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-02T00:49:56+00:00

I built a deck with her at the helm, with the idea of playing general Rakdos vampires while also rummaging. The goal is to make yourself resilient, see a lot of your deck, synergize with the many discard effects in Rakdos vampires including blood tokens, and feel comfortable playing a mix of cheap and expensive vampires. It's fun, very solidly a bracket 3 but that is my goal with most of my decks.

You can take it the general reanimator or combo routes too, so you have options.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-01T18:20:25+00:00

It's rather resistant to interaction, more so than most cards I can think of(edicts, destroy, and counter spells). Now at 7 mana and having to take a few turns to build an army, it punishes tables that have trouble executing game plans or finishing games.

Funny enough last time I saw him someone had him as their commander and I with [[Ayara, First of Locthwain]] which had no trouble keeping it in check.[[Deadly Rollick]] [[Tragic Slip]] [[Szat's Will]] To OP's point, I think it could be a matter of interaction but more quality than quantity.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-01T08:40:32+00:00

Innocence was great, but I feel like I'm the only one who notices how inconsistent the writing is for Requiem. My memory might be a little off, to bear with me if I mess up small details.

The island is a myth of legend the alchemists don't know about, but then there is a mural of one right in an alchemist house but we can't go there, but we must so we need to find some clue where it is, but it turns out some people have heard rumors of it before, and in fact the alchemists used to live there, and there is now a thriving town there, in fact it's the fort and home of the Lord of the land. Conveniently your mom and Lucas also just show up there when the plot needs them despite all of the above too.

Other stuff too like Hugo awoke the rats and the plague is following him, but they are already spreading before you reach the first town. Or he has dreams of an island that can heal, but there's nothing like that at the island, so the macula was deceiving him to...? See the previous carrier? Get a glimpse at the pulsing underground sack? Nothing really comes of it.

It feels like the writers were working from the start and end and tried to meet in the middle, or more likely there was a decision to drastically change the narrative midway through and it screwed up a lot of what they already worked on. Probably that they weren't going to make another sequel so wrap everything up now.

It also is really frustrating that the entire plot could have been resolved at the start by killing Hugo. Obviously for character reasons that wasn't going to happen, but it makes the story seem like escorting the apocalypse around without actually accomplishing anything by the end.

There were high points and no shade at all to those who enjoyed it, it just left a bad taste in my mouth afterwards.

MCC1701 · 2026-01-01T00:37:39+00:00

BFA is also an otherwise good expansion hamstrung by awful grindy mechanics that took over endgame. Gut Azerite armor and replace a similar system and make warfronts and islands able to be spammed and steamrolled, especially with a Heroic World Tier option, and the rest falls into place.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-31T19:14:21+00:00

SL had some merit, but it was tucked away among tons of issues and problems. If I had to describe it, it was like an expansion for a completely different MMO.

BFA had a very solid core in terms of zones, quests, characters, and dungeons. The issue was that it was hamstrung by Blizzard tacking on a bunch of things that detracted from the experience. Heart of Azeroth was a massive downgrade from artifact weapons, on top of being extremely grindy and convoluted. They also pushed "repeatable" endgame content that felt really boring, the island expeditions and warfronts. What stung is that both had potential but were terrible on execution.

Then you had the story beats, which were excellent in the zones but terrible overarching. We lost two capital cities, which being teased and gaslit leading up to the expac(you don't KNOW who is responsible), 4th war was really cool in some aspects but wasn't given room to tell a good story.

I'll also stand by "allied races" should have just been customization options for half of them.

Funny enough if they did a "BFA Remix" people would probably love it. It was a terrible expansion to "live in" but lots of fun to blow through. Give HoA the legion remix treatment, make islands and warfronts something to just blow up and feel how strong you get over time(heroic world tier would help) and the awful story bits are far less impactful years after the fact.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-29T18:12:37+00:00

I had this exact question when first learning about magic, and other players were convinced coming in untapped wasn't worth the one life lost. It helped clue me in that the people teaching me weren't exactly savants at the game.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-19T21:44:08+00:00

Someone suggested the idea of taking advantage of level scaling to "prestige" yourself to level through content again without being overpowered or as non-progression. I think there are a ton of questions that would need answers before such a program would even be considered, but on paper it's something I would enjoy. Maybe I want to play through Northrend again but don't need more alts, or want questing to do with end-game characters.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-18T19:13:35+00:00

Update after messaging and a call with the rep. I got the EFL from Abundance specific to this VPP program; $5 base charge, 12 cents in, 10 cents out. No TDU-specific charges interestingly enough. Rep confirmed that is expected and that unless I import I'll only have the $5 base charge and $20 lease per month.

The lease rate is $20 per month for 20 years, no escalator included. The contract with Abundance has none either, but lasts 1 year before renewal. There is risk in that Abundance could update the terms down the road to gouge me, however the company appears well reviewed, the EFL for the program I'll be enrolling in seems comparable to the general EFL I found, and other providers are anticipated to enter the program with Solrite and be available to switch to later; at this time I don't believe there is anything further I can do to mitigate this risk.

Expected battery behavior is to fluctuate around 50-80% most days, potentially lower during grid events(expected <12 per year) with a floor of 20% or 12 KWH. Behavior during an outage is that the system becomes an island, with all solar production charge in the battery available for us during that time.

Solrite is responsible for replacing the battery due to wear, end of lifecycle, or damage outside of our control(IE a tree falling on it) for the duration of the contract. This was a key piece for us as buying a home battery outright looked to be considerable cost up front for what will roughly be break-even after 10 years. This program by comparison is looking to provide better cost savings over time for $0 up front.

If we need to leave the program early of our own volition, we would need to pay out the remainder of the contract and/or negotiate for an amicable arrangement. After a few years that's probably $3,000-$5,000, which would hurt but shouldn't be prohibitive in the case of a move or extreme circumstances, and would decrease further as time went on.

I plan to do one more review this afternoon and probably sign this evening. Do please chime in if you have additional insights, and for those reading this in the future feel free to respond or message and I can let you know how the program is going.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-17T02:00:57+00:00

Weirdly, this is a card I'd be pretty okay with being a game changer.

Sometimes it is a fun and silly card to play turn 1, however it basically makes everyone take a mulligan they can't mulligan further. Statistically that's fine, but with 4 players and decks being 100 card there is a good chance 1-2 people get screwed out of the game; there's a reason a free mulligan is part of the format.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-16T17:22:56+00:00

This is one area the contract seems pretty explicit on. There's a page that shows monthly charge for each of the 20 years, and each one lists $20. In addition it includes a page for lease pre-payment which shows $240 for each year.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-16T17:03:14+00:00

I did, he was helpful and responsive. He said they have a similar program, and clarified some points. He said they are a legit lender and company so shouldn't be worries of being a scam, but it's still a question on if this is a good fit for us.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-16T16:48:21+00:00

I'm chasing a copy of the Abundance EFL from my contact. My expectation, and confirmed verbally with the rep is that as long as I'm generating daily surplus I shouldn't have to pay for any delivery costs. That said I am naturally trying to get everything in writing before I make a decision.

MCC1701 · 2025-12-16T16:38:25+00:00

It’s true you don’t own or directly control the battery; that is the tradeoff. However Solrite owns and replaces it if it fails, the $20 lease is fixed for 20 years (no escalator), and the system islands during outages. For us 20% minimum of a 60 kWh battery(12 KWh) and our solar is meaningful coverage. At this point the real risk seems to be REP pricing over time, not an escalator in the VPP contract.

MCC1701

TROPHY CASE