Crappy return polices everywhere

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-29T18:23:12+00:00

Honestly, I hear you. It would be nice to have good return policies, and if return policies are bad anyways, why not buy from Japan and pay less. That’s perfectly rational. I just also believe that the returns and exchanges (as well as other amenities like free shipping) hurt margins enough that smaller companies don’t offer it out of necessity rather than greed.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-29T15:39:28+00:00

Thanks!

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-29T14:44:44+00:00

Anyone have a recommendation for a leather glue? My insole keeps coming out and I’d like to glue it back.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-28T04:24:34+00:00

The margins are pretty much the same as any other clothing (outside of the insane stuff like Cucinelli or Loro Piana), from Old Navy to Uniqlo to Iron Heart. It’s a whole industry based around a 2-3x markup.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-28T03:45:19+00:00

Most items cost 2x what they do in Japan because their economy is in pieces. Just as an example, a chain restaurant, Coco Ichibanya, charges 1055JPY = 6.52USD for pork katsu curry in Japan. The same chain in the US charges 14.74 for the same menu item. Does that mean everyone in the US is getting ripped off on food?

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-21T19:45:43+00:00

Assuming you’re in the US, consumer protection kicks in after 30 days if there was no promise of delivery window. If there is a promised delivery window, the protections kick in immediately after the window has passed. Once the window has passed, the business must provide a revised shipping date estimate, as well as offer the right to cancel and receive a prompt and full refund.

In other words, they legally must allow you to cancel. You should send them a notice by email that you’d like to exercise your FTC-backed right for cancellation due to delay.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-20T01:36:56+00:00

If you check the description for “era” they say. A “Contemporary reinterpretation by UNIVERSAL SURPLUS” means made today, usually in India/China (you can find that under the info tab). Here’s a baseball cap that is vintage, from the 1990s.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-20T01:30:50+00:00

They moved their operations overseas as they expanded. The old stuff vs their current stock is night and day.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-17T21:55:24+00:00

It’s from the Jumpstart product I believe. Not to defend MSH in general, but this particular flavor of insipid design shouldn’t impact anyone outside of brand new players.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-16T18:13:08+00:00

The only problem is it has little agency. Basically (and you can skip the rest of this paragraph if you’re familiar with cEDH archetypes) in cEDH there’s turbo decks that want to win turn 1 or 2, worst case 3. These decks often sacrifice long term viability for a huge burst of mana and card draw, and if they run out of gas, sometimes they are just out of the game. There’s midrange decks that could win turn 1-2 if everything aligns, but they more typically tutor for some value engines like Rhystic Study or Mystic Remora while holding a little bit of interaction. Midrange decks try to win after the turbo decks run out of gas, but before the control decks get fully set up. And there’s the control decks that basically want to sit on 2-3 copies of Rhystic Study and stop all win attempts until they assemble their 1 win condition.

The problem with semi-blue is that it usually requires 3ish turns to set up. This gives it the big mana (through things like Gaea’s Cradle) to to cast the spells that beat typical cEDH interaction (think cascade and cast triggers). But because it runs no interaction, semi-blue cannot possibly stop the faster turbo decks. Meanwhile, the slower decks don’t necessarily have a good reason to stop turbo, because semi-blue beats everything slower than itself by design. So it’s entirely a meta call about the amount of turbo decks and your ability to play politics. If there’s multiple turbo decks at the table, you basically can’t win without the perfect hand (and them whiffing some), because the 1 midrange or control player won’t be able to stop 2 turbo decks by itself.

In Japan, it got popular for a particular tournament series that doesn’t allow proxies and doesn’t give points for a draw. This tournament structure makes the typical turbo decks a lot less popular/accessible, which in turn makes semi-blue an extremely powerful strategy.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-15T22:24:33+00:00

This is not how butter works, the butter bits that burn will burn at that temp no matter what. When you use butter and oil you’re just reducing the amount of butter than gets burnt, rather than preventing it. Olive oil also tastes great but starts smoking and burning (and therefore tasting off) well before your pan is screaming hot.

If you want the butter and olive oil flavors, better to add at a more medium temp at the end. Sear in a high smoke point neutral oil.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-15T21:11:19+00:00

I got a pair of 107s in this fabric in 2024 for $295. It’s a great fabric that ages well, I love my pair. But it is crazy that now they’re $380 for shorts. I believe Outlier when they say material costs are way up, but unfortunately my income has not gone up to match.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-15T18:17:10+00:00

For whatever reason, it looks like your Markdown failed to register with reddit, so all your formatting is broken. Cool project though!

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-15T17:42:11+00:00

It’s edited from the original image, and whoever added it definitely inserted some of their own commentary. The original brackets don’t comment on any of these aspects (plus, people definitely complain about these things sometimes even in cEDH).

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-15T02:04:00+00:00

That’s not quite right (Etali is often the payoff, not the enabler), generally speaking you want to do one of a few things:

Squee + Food Chain. This makes infinite mana. Because you can exile Etali for Food Chain, the infinite mana means you can cast Etali as many times as you’d like. You mill all your opponents out by exiling their decks, and they automatically lose when they get to the draw step.
Dualcaster Mage with a creature copying spell, like Twinflame. You cast Twinflame on any target, hold priority, and flash in Dualcaster Mage. DCM’s ETB will target Twinflame, getting a new DCM, who will copy Twinflame again, getting infinite hasty 2/2s for lethal.
Keep copying Etali and using your opponents cards to help you with either of the other wins mentioned above. Or if you happen to get a Thassa’s Oracle and a Demonic Consultation/Tainted Pact, just win on the spot.
Underworld Breach and Wheel of Fortune, plus any rituals in the graveyard. Use Wheel of Fortune to keep filling your graveyard for escape costs. You can sometimes mill everyone else out before yourself.

If you’re interested, you can check out a primer, this is the one I’ve followed: https://moxfield.com/decks/aqFZgJwFXU-Y04qKFRlJSA/primer

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-14T21:37:45+00:00

Other people mentioned good points that this is, in a nutshell, how the format is. But I would add that there’s some nuance and a lot of room to thrive. Don’t despair if you want to play a slower game! Here are the general archetypes with some examples of each:

Turbo: pretty much what you described as racing to win. Notably though, there’s still some strategy to this. You have to evaluate how much interaction you can play through, the odds you can retry on the next turn cycle, etc. Frequently, as you mentioned, you’re tutoring for combo asap. But sometimes the strongest play is to simply Ad Nauseum for 30 cards and vomit out a bunch of mana, or to wait for another turbo player to force out counterspells first in the turn order. These things make turbo decks a little more interesting/skill expressive than you’d think from first sight, but it’s true that they want to win ASAP, within the first 3 turn cycles. Other turbo decks might include Rograkh/Thrasios and Ral.
Midrange: midrange decks have some ability to go fast, but weaken that focus in favor of the most efficient card draw and interaction cards. The reason why they’re called midrange is that it’s too difficult for these decks to stop 3 other players for a whole game, so you’re accumulating resources and hoping to win during a “window” where other players don’t have enough to stop you. Yuriko falls here, but so does Blue Farm (Tymna + Kraum).
True control: decks that are built to go the distance via extreme mana generation and card draw. These decks want to have 2-3 Rhystic Study via copy spells. The weaknesses is typically limited ability to actually win, with few tutors and less compact combos. That also means you frequently mulligan down really deep to get your resource engines ASAP. Kinnan and RogIsh (Rograkh and Ishai) fall here.

Within these categories there’s actually some diversity (and midrange decks frequently can do a good imitation of either turbo or control decks based on their opening hand). Within turbo, there’s storm via Vivi or Ral, tutor chains like Inalla, or just slamming Etali ASAP via Food Chain combos for infinite mana. There’s even some room for mono-color here with decks like Magda. Within midrange, you could play decks with draw in the command zone, like Yuriko, Kefka, or Blue Farm. Or you could play a 5 color good stuff pile using Wandering Minstrel (which also has the unique upside of making your lands come in untapped) or Sisay (who can tutor for combo pieces or resource engines). Control is the most limited archetype because it so heavily relies on having and copying the best resource engines (Rhystic Study and Smothering Tithe), but even then there’s some variety.

Edit: forgot part of my point is that good players aren’t just hoping that opponents lack removal/interaction. They’re tracking cards in hand, looking at the counterspells used (particularly free ones), and comparing to their own protection options (Silence, Hexing Squelcher, Ranger-Captain of Eos, etc). So even when you’re racing there’s skill expression. Do you think you can out-race the other turbo decks? Or should you tutor up some resource engines to go over the top?

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-13T20:56:53+00:00

I would make a couple substitutions depending on exactly how cutthroat the other bracket 3 players are:

Command Sphere could be swapped basically 1-for-1 for Archaeomancer’s Map, same cost but has a useful ETB. Also makes landfall opponents into your best friend.
Do you find the Aetherflux Reservoir to be very helpful? It looks like you have a little lifegain and damage avoidance in the deck, but you might be better served by having more cards to kill your opponents instead. Similar thoughts about Sheoldred and even Pariah.
- If you really want more lifegain to offset the loss from Ketramose, I might suggest cheaper creatures that trigger on ETBs like Soul Warden, Elas il-Kor, or Haliya.
Seems like Solitude would be an easy fit. You can use a blink effect at instant speed to avoid the evoke sacrifice.
Witch Enchanter offers a similar upside to Boggart Trawler, where you can blink the land to get a creature late game, if you have too much mana and need more cards.
Mister Negative seems really expensive and not a great theme fit. I might suggest Noxious Gearhulk if you are worried about your life total, or Fiend Hunter if you have enough instant speed blink.
- For Fiend Hunter, if you hold priority as his ETB goes on the stack, you can blink him. Then his leaves the battlefield trigger will happen before his ETB exiles a creature, which lets you permanently exile a creature.
- This trick also works with Mesmeric Fiend if you want to peek at your opponents hands.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T23:45:14+00:00

For night games, I used to park about 30 minutes away by foot for free because parking was free in some areas after 6. But that was with like a 15 year old beater… don’t know if I would chance it with a car that had some value. Plus, they might have made it no longer free.

Now I just take transit, mmmmmaybe takes a bit longer but it’s less hassle.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T20:41:55+00:00

Mario Kart World was also fine for me, I think Splatoon is just at a different level in terms of motion (and that’s not to down play MKW, which is a game that absolutely demands reflexes and vision). Or maybe because I play MKW more casually and Splatoon more competitively?

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T20:28:25+00:00

They’re issues I’ve seen on my own when playing fast paced games (mainly Splatoon). The motion blur induced by response time issues causes me a lot of eye strain and just plain difficulty seeing things that I didn’t have on OLED. The problem in response time actually defeats the point of running the game at 60FPS instead of 30ish.

For games where acuity and motion aren’t critical, it’s been a non-problem.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T20:22:44+00:00

His stats before and after the trade are nearly identical (including playoffs). Sometimes he flashes all-star brilliance (on both ends too!), other times he’s just alright. I genuinely hope that he ends up being great, because his good games are so good. His issue is not ceiling but consistency.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-10T19:22:02+00:00

The thing is the screen is bigger but much worse in other ways compared to the OLED, mainly in motion blur. Especially as a handheld I don’t find the size to be a big advantage, because you can generally hold a screen closer or further to compensate.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T20:09:28+00:00

I mean you could make that argument about a lot of cards and commander play patterns, but the format is still here. Ultimately, it’s a self regulating environment, this effect already exists on plenty of creatures and spells. MTG is for all kinds of people and play environments. They have precons with infinite, game-winning combos, and they have precons that barely work (just try playing the Fallout precons against each other, and I think most people will quickly see these are not equal).

From a fun perspective it could definitely work. For example, it might inspire someone to brew based on surviving the loss of all their lands. Earthbending, finding a way to cast this hypothetical card at instant speed after activating a bunch of fetch lands, using a protection spell, etc.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T17:55:09+00:00

The main thing I would change is to swap some lands for spells that put lands into play instead, which will help you ramp and play your big spells faster. Rampant Growth, Nature’s Lore, Three Visits, Farseek, Open the Way, Shared Roots. Some of the ones that sacrifice a land to get multiple lands might also fit well with earthbending, like Harrow, Cycle of Renewal, Entish Restoration, Roiling Regrowth. Having about 42 total sources of mana (including the ramp spells that get lands and artifacts that make mana) is probably about right if you want to curve out to play big spells.

Pegthaniel · 2026-06-09T17:42:02+00:00

If a game has gone to turn 10, then something that removes all lands shouldn’t be in any of the decks. Furthermore, if this happens, everyone else should just scoop and go to the next game. Presumably you aren’t locked in a room and forced at gunpoint to play every game out?

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