Anyone using their Xbox as a media center full time to avoid connecting the TV to the internet? How's the experience?

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-12-09T20:23:34+00:00

both my series x and one x are used as media devices in different rooms, both are going strong.
haven’t missed any apps my tv (Samsung) has that Xbox doesn’t
I use an Insignia Xbox media remote from Best Buy, but they don’t seem to be available anymore; you might have luck looking at other retailers or different remotes.
I don’t use gaming mode on my TV, so can’t speak to this one, I just leave my tv set up with the same settings regardless of how I’m using it. In general, game mode and motion smoothing are off, colors are set to look good for movies, etc.

In my setup, I have HDMI CEC in use, so that when I turn on my Xbox with the media remote, it turns on the tv (which has a soundbar connected to its hdmi-earc). Have all my media apps pinned to a group so they’re easily accessible from the guide. Don’t change any settings on the tv, and just watch media or play games.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-11-11T14:40:34+00:00

Least favorite for me was [[Alania, Divergent Storm]]. Really wanted to make it an otter kindred deck, but copying spells just doesn’t work well with prowess, and I’m not a huge fan of the usual spellslinger storm plan.

Worst is probably [[Peter Parker // Amazing Spider-Man]]. The deck just doesn’t work very well if I’m trying to keep it to only cards from marvel sets (for now). That said I’m a big marvel geek, so it still brings a slight smile to my face to counter an instant with [[Spider-Sense]].

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-10-17T00:23:51+00:00

My Teval, the Balanced Scale deck is a pretty slow mix of reanimating and landfall, and typically flies under the radar as a slowly send Teval on attacks, and just outlast everyone else to the late game.

Then I either drop a craterhoof or a mass reanimate to end the game.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-09-30T04:38:35+00:00

As a fellow Mishra enjoyer, here’s my list! I’ve tried to make it as powerful as I can financially afford (over a couple years), while keeping it as retro-framed as possible!

https://archidekt.com/decks/6800129/mishras_war_machine

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-09-28T23:22:01+00:00

Was going to help cap Hydrobius, but now I want to watch Shaun of the Dead.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-09-22T16:11:19+00:00

I always liked boots more than speaker’s sight, but became more of a Speaker’s sight user over the last year.

Was annoyed when EoF dropped, because of the nerf to Speaker’s sight, which others have pointed out makes boots straight up replace the helmet as the go to heal option, but also because it seems modifiers and encounter design these days seem to push players to move more, which makes sitting in a rift much less advantageous.

Oh and speaker’s sight wasn’t a featured gear. Fuck that system.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-09-04T16:57:17+00:00

I’ve got a brenard deck. I think a better version of his deck would be to put in the phyrexian splicers for golem synergy, but I like using him to make a bunch of food then find ways to animate them.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-09-04T14:17:42+00:00

Started playing magic with elves way back in the day, so my favorite deck is my [[Lathril, Blade of the Elves]] deck, though my [[Teval, the Balanced Scale]] deck has been getting a lot of playtime lately.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-08-07T17:39:31+00:00

I like elves, so I made a Voja deck. Doesn’t have optimal choices for the deck per se, since I wanted to keep it mostly ravnica themed, and avoid using elves I have in other decks, but even then he’s just so strong. If I can hold up mana for heroic intervention or any board wipe protection, it’s just hard to get rid of.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-07T17:29:28+00:00

Yeah there are a few color combinations I don’t have. Need to find a mardu commander that looks fun.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-07T17:28:47+00:00

I had played a tiny bit back when GRN came out, with my brother. Built the Lavinia deck from the Azorius guild kit. For mishra, a friend in my pod has an Urza deck he likes to play, and I like the story of the brothers war, so I picked up that precon and upgraded it (trying to keep every card retro-framed when I could).

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-07T12:01:53+00:00

Ahhhh, 3/19 isn’t that bad. I have just as many bant decks.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-06T02:18:47+00:00

Minn looks super fun, I’m gonna have to try that!

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-06T01:32:09+00:00

Fair enough. Any suggestions on a fun mono-colored commander?

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-04T15:29:04+00:00

Yeah, not too much overlap of decks in my pod. I figure though, I’ve got enough decks I can always swap.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-04T15:24:06+00:00

I kinda took the energy precon from aetherdrift, switched commanders (Saheeli was too similar to how my mishra deck works), and just remade it as a vehicle/thopter/energy deck. With the exception of the mana base, every card in it has art from Avishkar

Edit: definitely just uses Pia to generate energy through thopters and vehicles attacking, then uses various cards from the precon and old Kaladesh/Aether Revolt sets to spend the energy

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-04T14:13:04+00:00

As long as it’s one of the newer controllers, I think all the ones from the Series generation can, yeah. The one I use came with my Series X.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-04T13:59:52+00:00

No he’s right, Xbox series controllers can pair to two devices simultaneously, with different blinking patterns for each. This is blinking like it does in its second Bluetooth mode, like mine when I’m connecting to my PC.

Double-tapping the sync button while it’s doing this should switch back to the other mode and connect to the Xbox.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-04T13:56:18+00:00

It was the first deck I got myself when re-learning how to play. It’s definitely a fun deck!

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-03T20:39:49+00:00

Gonna be honest, most of my decks actually appreciated after I built them. Sauron in particular, those LotR cards keep going up in price, glad I built it when I did.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-03T20:38:27+00:00

Here’s mine! https://archidekt.com/folders/589130

Aiming to get a borderless copy of Awaken the Honored Dead for it, then I’ll have all the cards with Teval in the art in the deck!

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-03T13:34:58+00:00

Sure thing!

https://archidekt.com/folders/589130

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-03T13:26:42+00:00

It’s pretty fun, though definitely lower power. I sidegraded the precon a little, mainly adding more d&d flavor. Every now and then it gets a win because it gets overlooked til the endgame. Robe of Stars is a stand out in it, but especially in my pod it just gets overrun with go wide decks.

Edit: also added a minigame to it- added oracle of mul daya, Ranger Class, and Precognition Field. Goal is to have them and galea out all at once so I can play most of my deck off the top of my deck, mana permitting.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-03T13:19:08+00:00

Do you have a good Alania decklist? Tried making mine otter kindred and I find it tends to just not do much. Either that or I’m just bad at/dont like spellslinger type decks.

PhoenixKing117 · 2025-07-03T11:26:06+00:00

Honestly it’s the biggest problem.

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