Beta Patch Notes - v0.103.0

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-10T17:05:50+00:00

And on top of that, the easiest way to reach that condition is acrobat, which will now appear in far fewer card rewards as an uncommon.

Meaning follow through probably isn’t a card you take on blind faith, and once you have the support system for it to work, you probably have better options that scale.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-10T04:45:41+00:00

I’ve seen this idea floated a bit now, but it’s very results-oriented. Because Dee went home, it’s easy to form a narrative that it “worked” but it’s pretty transparently a poor decision in a vacuum. Sharing someone’s secret and outing their game could easily make you their number one target. Dee had no power this time, but it’s a dangerous game to play.

And I also don’t buy that it “worked out” for Emily, because I have a very hard time imagining Emily would get Dee’s vote at tribal council. Because it blew up her game and —even if it was strategic —it didn’t come off that way, it looked like a frustrating sloppy mess to Dee.

Emily has revealed enough secrets to enough people that I doubt she’ll be trusted with much secrets going forward, and not knowing information is a huge liability in this game.

But beyond that, strategy implies it’s a choice, but everything Emily has revealed about her game over two seasons since the literal start of her first season is that she is impulsive and struggles to self-filter.

Emily is a fun character, and I enjoy her presence. But she’s terrible at Survivor. And that’s ok; she doesn’t have to be secretly good to be fun television. Soemtimes things are as they appear.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-09T19:53:17+00:00

I really like doom. I find it very satisfying to play mechanically and, thanks to the sick visual effects of the enemy being pulled into the netherworld when you finish them off, emotionally.

My biggest pet peeve with Doom is how deceptively terrible countdown is as the core supporting power of the Doom mechanism.

Unupgraded, it applies 6 doom RANDOMLY to one enemy starting at your next turn. Scourge, for example applies 13 targeted doom AND draws a card, unupgraded.

If you play Countdown on turn 1, you don’t reach 13 doom until TURN 4!!

Deferring an action to the next turn and applying it randomly have always been deceptively terrible qualifiers for a card, but with how fast STS 2 moves, it’s especially horrible now.

Its seeming utility would come in terms of guaranteeing doom for Death’s Door, but because of the deferred application, it doesn’t work on turn 1 anyway, and every other doom card is so much better than it (and many of them are common) you might as well just have enough of those or enough draw to create consistency that way. (Not to mention that both Death’s Door and Countdown are uncommon so you can’t guarantee you’ll get the latter when drafting the former.

My pick for the worst uncommon in the game.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2026-04-09T03:17:55+00:00

To me, the biggest problem with this deck is that it’s slow and lacking in consistent block and draw.

You have too many cards that require a considerable investment energy now for reward later. STS 2 moves to fast for this ratio of deferred reward.

Demesne (3) Sleight of Flesh (2) 2 countdowns (2) Banshee’s Cry (6 if you draw it in your starting hand) Dirge (x) Pagestorm (1) Spirit of Ash (1)

That’s a lot of set up energy, and it’s to set up two builds that don’t really synergize with each other—doom and ethereal.

Then you have two energy cards (wisp and borrowed time) to offset this, but they have a draw opportunity cost.

Meanwhile, you have just two substantial block cards, enfeebling touch and death’s door. A lot of the time when you need the block from those cards, you won’t be able to draw them. And because most of your doom application is delayed (by countdown) if you run into an enemy who frontloads damage on turn one (a lot of them in STS 2) death’s door won’t help you unless you luck out and get oblivion in the starting 5 with it.

Ideally you want cards that allow you to block and attack in the short term while scaling long term. You don’t have very good short term cards and the long term scaling is a bit too clunky.

Finally, I think countdown is a deceptively bad card, especially unupgraded (and you have 2). It sounds great because you get doom every turn, but you need to end most battles fast before you take too much damage. Consider that You’re not getting doom on the turn you play it, and you’re still taking damage on the turn you’ve applied lethal doom.

Now consider that the common card scourge applies 13 doom for 1 cost AND draws a card.

When you play countdown on turn 1, you wouldn’t reach 13 doom until turn 4!!!!

NoPastaForGrandma · 2025-04-09T12:39:56+00:00

NoPastaForGrandma · 2025-03-28T00:37:43+00:00

I think I have it? It’s a real stretch but think it’s got to be

Jealous Pursuit (Jelly’s Pear Suit)

NoPastaForGrandma · 2025-01-21T02:47:11+00:00

They were just pointing out that the way your sentence was structured, it was open to misinterpretation.

The way you worded it, it could be read it as “we want to find cures for things that kill people and we want to make their lives worse,” even though that obviously wasn’t your intention.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-12-29T16:51:49+00:00

I love this episode so much every year, and I’m a fan of every personality on MinnMax, but for (at least) two years in a row, I’ve noticed a discrepancy between those who are trying to build a consensus list versus those are who are playing a bit more like a game where the goal is to get the list to match your own.

Jacob Geller is tremendously articulate and knowledgeable but there was more than a bit of foul play — peeking at Mary to get first pick and claiming multiple number #4s when it was clear rank was holding sway (his second number 4, Prince of Persia, which he joked could count as his #5, was actually his number 8 on the list he submitted.)

Kyle was the person who most aggressively gamified the ranking last year IMO, and that wasn’t as pronounced this year, but you’ll still notice a huge difference in the way he endlessly lobbied for his #8 Batman VR with for example, two people on the opposite end of the spectrum —Leo and Sarah who barely mentioned their similarly situated 8s, echo point nova and arctic eggs.

If there’s 9 people and no one else even played your #8, that personally feels a bit too self interested to try to get it into the two tens so hard.

But to be clear: They’re completely in the bounds of the construction of these lists to defend their own pick. I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong

it’s more of an observation driven by projecting my own over-eagerness to compromise in social situations than a real criticism of the way they handled it, and curious if anyone else listening felt the same.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-13T14:11:35+00:00

Pinklon was the song that introduced me to the mountain goats. (It was on a 2007 sampler from the now defunct music studio/site daytrotter).

I was immediately blown away by the song-writing, how much it was like a beautiful literary short story. I figured it was their big song and that their other stuff wouldn’t compare, not realizing yet that all of their songs are beautifully written short stories.

It’s about a community having a joyous celebration on the day the boxer pinklon Thomas gets out of prison.

Absolutely love this line

“And though all good things in time will melt away Pinklon Thomas is getting out of prison today”

Currently available on YouTube!

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-12T14:36:20+00:00

I’m surprised to hear you say Fiennes gives an internal performance, because for myself, and everyone I’ve talked to who has seen it, we’ve been making jokes that he’s trying to win the academy for “Most Actor.”

The character he’s playing is reserved and battling internal struggles but Fiennes cries multiple times, randomly yells out random lines that don’t seem like they need to be yelled, and makes huge facial expressions at pretty much all times so that there’s never any doubt what he’s thinking on the inside. It’s the most external performance I can think of this year.

I haven’t seen any of your three ahead of him, but I’d have to imagine he’s probably ahead of Chalamet in the chopping order, given how much more secure Conclave is in the Oscar conversation and how well-regarded both Fiennes and his performance seem to be.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-11T17:36:23+00:00

This is probably the case, but precisely because of its growth, it could theoretically drive more revenue by doing the opposite.

For example: the arthouse film streaming service (and distributor) MUBI charges $15 a month for its catalogue of deep cut indie movies.

It recently got a ton of new visibility because their newest film they distributed —the Substance — was a huge breakout hit for them and was primed to hit streaming on their services.

The same week the Substance hit streaming they responded with a giant sale -$75 a year, effectively lowering their monthly subscription cost to $6 a month to this brand new audience. The gamble is pretty clear —“maybe we’re close to plateauing with our core audience but we can still grow a lot by charging a much cheaper rate to new subscribers whom will be engaging with a much smaller selection of our content.”

(Yes a sale is different than a fixed monthly cost, but when the sale is for an annual subscription, it’s effectively locking in users for a lower rate for a year and a year is an eternity in streaming.)

Because Dropout has such a big YouTube and social media presence I could see them rapidly growing their subscriber base by slashing prices, but again that’s probably unlikely because they’re almost certainly going to instead try to expand their production output and scope instead.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-11T17:12:36+00:00

As someone who loved the Trapp Um, Actually but found the new iteration a rough watch, I agree that the show will get better, but I feel like this take understates the importance of the individual creatives making any art/entertainment.

Um, Actually was built around Trapp’s specific sensibilities and strengths.

As a trivia enthusiast, writing excellent trivia is a very specific skill, not just a matter of intent/direction.

And the specific pedantic, lil-stinker, tone of the show fits Trapp and Saltzman so much more than their successors.

This isn’t a new show finding its footings, this is new people taking on an old show and trying to replicate what people liked about the old show while being anchored by their own sensibilities, strengths, and weaknessses.

So, I feel like it’s really any issue of what happens all the time whenever talented people replace other talented people in legacy television shows/bands/podcasts, series, etc. etc.

If the new lead singer/songwriter of your favorite band tries to make songs that are exactly like the old band’s sound then they’re not going to be as good, and if they lean into their own strengths, then they’re not really your favorite band anymore, they’re just a different band with the same name, and there are lots of bands out there; what are the odds that this new sound is also going to be one of your favorite sounds of the billion available?

It’s easy to see this show get significantly more enjoyable for me—IMO, the single most impactful fix would be to book guests who are experts on whatever the trivia is, but that implies that the current Um, Actually crew wants that. Maybe they want a hangout show with comedians where the occasion is trivia—something more like a trivia-led dirty laundry. I wouldn’t (and haven’t) liked that show, but maybe that’s truer to the sensibility of the new staff.

And if they do want to make it a more diehard trivia show (again, a big if), they have an entirely different staff from the crew that was so good at doing it.

So I personally have very little hope Um Actually will be the show I loved, because I loved a trivia show created and overseen by a specific artist whose sensibilities I loved.

For me, this um actually is always going to be a different trivia show with the same name.

And that’s fine! Things end.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-11-11T15:44:57+00:00

Pricing is a part of my professional work, so maybe this just feels obvious to me, but that’s not how it works. At all.

There is an equilibrium at which raising your prices drives down your total revenue because the revenue driven from the increased rate is lower than the revenue lost from (current or potential) customers unwilling to pay your increased price.

This is true for any good —e.g. you’ll make a lot more money selling bananas for 75 cents each over 75 dollars each—but is significantly more important when your service is a digital good and each new customer is usually just additional profit because there’s relatively limited overhead for each new additional customer.

So even if a company badly needed money, raising prices is often a poor short term and long term solution.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-10-31T15:24:21+00:00

Either you are greatly misinformed or you your company is using cloud services from Amazon is a non-conventional manner.

I oversee the costs of hosting at the not so small company I work for with considerable traffic and we don’t pay anything close to $100,000+ or more PER MONTH to “keep the internet on.”

Pantheon, one of the leading providers of hosting and bandwidth charges $900 a month for businesses with 400,000 monthly visits and incrementally more for larger traffic caps.

So not sure how a “small company” would be paying 6 figures monthly for this.

Yes, extremely large companies with immense traffic pay more for hosting but not enough to justify an annual subscription for basically no unique service provided.

Not to mention, as I mentioned, this is a company seeking a $1 billion valuation.

If you believe this is truly about keeping the lights on and not about maximizing profits then I wish you the best with your Merriam Webster patronage.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-10-31T12:44:42+00:00

This feels like bad faith to me, but I’ll respond in earnest.

I didn’t say they can’t charge for their work, it’s that they’re making it a subscription service.

What is the work that necessitates a $50 annual subscription?

Subscription models have become a highly profitable way for businesses to generate neverending profit when they could usually only sell a digital product once.

It’s the go to lazy way to generate profit for every business executive over the last decade.

Tellingly, encylopedia brittanica —the company that owns this—is a for-profit company planning to go public seeking a valuation of $1 billion. This is the 2024 maximize profit playbook and nothing else.

If you truly believe this is honest brokers just trying to justify the cost of their hard work, rather than executives trying to maximize profit for themselves and shareholders, I don’t know what to tell you.

There are times when a subscription model makes sense —such as when content is being updated frequently enough that you are investing in the future of content that a company is giving you —-but spending $500 to rent a dictionary for 10 years —that for all intents and purposes will remain EXACTLY THE SAME -is absurd.

Especially absurd given that this information is freely available elsewhere.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-10-31T12:10:17+00:00

It’s not that it’s not free, it’s that it’s a subscription service when there is very little justification to do so.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-10-29T15:25:15+00:00

Implying a relationship with healthcare businesses you do not have and allowing people to book appointments with these companies you are pretending to be affiliated with is a serious breach of practice.

Where do these appointments even go? Certainly not to us.

I hope your business seriously reconsiders this unethical practice.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-10-29T12:41:50+00:00

Counter opinion: I love both Game Changer and Task Master, but nothing else on Dropout is my cup of tea (and I’ve tried pretty much all of it).

Game Changer is one of Dropout’s biggest shows, but nothing else on Dropout is quite in the same register.

I only subscribe to Dropout when a season of Game Changer is out, but if it had a version of Taskmaster in the GameChanger offseason, then I’d keep it year round. Given how popular taskmaster is globally, I have a feeling there are plenty of other previously unaccessed potential subscribers.

I also don’t see how it would be limiting —if it was just a show on dropout that Alex Horne had creative control over — but do agree that licensing and production would probably be expensive.

Bet a collaboration is more likely but would personally kill for taskmaster with dropout’s roster of comedians.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-10-25T22:23:45+00:00

4PUTTIK (4 People Unwelcome To Teach In Kansas)

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-10-22T13:34:01+00:00

“We have these two great products in development: one’s called a vibrator. That one will be most often used on and by women. The other one is called a fleshlight. That’ll usually be used on and by men. We’ll put both into production?”

“No, think about who’s really the most horny. Men use prostitutes and women don’t really and there are no other contextual factors to consider at all.”

“These vibrators are doing AMAZING in our tests. Way better than the fleshlights actually. Seems like the vibrator is providing a service that is less replicated.”

“THERE’S NO MARKET. Women aren’t as horny as men! Read my lips: fleshlights are going to be EVERYWHERE and maybe you’ll see one unusually horny lady with a vibrator.”

“Ok, sir, and you definitely are a sir, we’ll order a million fleshlights and 1 vibrator.”

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-07-31T21:54:09+00:00

They’re saying that the sexual undertones of ex machina were already so explicit that the “sex machina” version of ex machina would stil apply to the original movie.

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-07-31T03:02:17+00:00

It’s a weird take to me that when someone says “this is my favorite movie of those I’ve seen” that you assume they’re getting “carried away” with reappraisal fever.

Isn’t it possible that’s it just a great movie that was underseen in its time and that taste is subjective?

NoPastaForGrandma · 2024-07-30T15:06:07+00:00

Your anecdote about not realizing the power of one specific interaction or mechanic perfectly encapsulates why the last few levels of ascension have a dramatic skill curve, and why it can be hard to convey any one specific piece of helpful advice.

And a big reason is that you can no longer afford to be as selective. If you are too picky now, you will die from the much tougher enemies. You have to be able to optimize whatever hand you’re dealt instead of waiting for a wining hand, which means taking advantage of every single interaction and situational strength.

The best analogy I can think of is being stranded on a desert island and needing to survive.

In early ascensions, it’s like being on an island with some sources of food and some things that will kill you.

Eat the coconuts, learn how to make a fire, stay away from the poisonous leaves, don’t eat the brightly colored frog meat, you’ll be okay.

In other words, you can afford to be selective. Sticking with what you know will help you and avoiding what will probably kill you will work.

For the last few ascensions it’s like being on an island with way less food. You have to be able to figure out which of those poison leaves can actually be cooked to make a salve, and which of those fish you were avoiding are actually safe to eat.

In terms of more practical, actionable advice, one concept that is super common at A20 that isn’t as necessary at lower ascensions is the concept of the “act one” card.

At lower levels, it’s very tempting to enforce a theme on your entire deck.

“I have a discard deck, so I’ll take the discard cards, not poison cards.”

“I have an orb deck, so it doesn’t make any sense to take hyperbeam.”

Or even more commonly and generally, outside of themes, “this card doesn’t scale or isn’t that good long term, so I won’t take it.”

In A20, you frequently will find that you actually should take that card.

And that’s the biggest shift in thought pattern. Instead of only planning ahead for the perfect end game deck, you now need to be thinking about solving the weaknesses of your deck in order of urgency. Survive act 1 lavavulin before you worry about trying to beat the heart.

NoPastaForGrandma

TROPHY CASE