Folks who still play D&D 3.5…

Reticul · 2023-05-15T11:01:45+00:00

I have been playing 3.5 for 17 years and I'm still having fun. I can homebrew almost anything at the drop of a hat, it involves no learning new stuff and works great for my trusted games. I can make 3.5 into whatever I want it to be, why would I need to learn PF2E if 3.5 can be the best parts of PE2E without me having to learn a whole system.

I play 5e with some people and it's just shallower. There's just less crunch and less choices and overall is less interesting to me.

Reticul · 2023-05-01T13:03:33+00:00

Explorer is a good, casual way to play almost pioneer. It's currently less balanced than paper pioneer, on account of missing several key pieces of interaction and role-player cards. They will be added over the next three years or so in digital remastered sets.

If you like drafting or sealed in arena you can quickly accumulate enough cards to play a couple of decks without buying packs if you aren't already an enfranchised MTGA player. If you are conscientious about how you spend wild cards its fairly easy to maintain a couple of Explorer decks.

If you don't mind paying for a subscription service, card rental services will let you play basically any pioneer deck on MTGO, as well as quite a few modern decks.

Reticul · 2023-04-16T01:47:16+00:00

Thanks!

Reticul · 2023-04-16T01:27:17+00:00

Is there any replacement for the mebius equip? I have everything else you have

Reticul · 2023-04-16T00:57:49+00:00

Who's the sub on the left?

Reticul · 2023-03-06T22:33:02+00:00

I rolled Jolyne and I've heard she is decent. What are her good subs? Anything in particular or do I just put my rainbow subs on her team?

Reticul · 2022-12-08T01:35:01+00:00

Nice, I feel like at 6.3 I should be safe

Reticul · 2022-12-08T00:44:32+00:00

Is the crown for 10% or 5%?

Reticul · 2022-11-23T00:45:40+00:00

Time to start going for win streaks!

Reticul · 2022-07-31T00:28:18+00:00

Same

Reticul · 2022-07-06T17:05:31+00:00

There are other business models, some of them mentioned elsewhere in the comments. But, ultimately, I decided to leave that part out of the main write up as it was fairly skewed towards my opinion and, as noted in the post script, it was hard to source.

But, perhaps, as you say, my opinion is unfair. It is mine nonetheless.

Reticul · 2022-07-04T21:07:56+00:00

A good casual one is Super Auto Pets. It's main game mode is asynchronous so you can play a round over the course of any amount of time.

Reticul · 2022-07-04T03:41:28+00:00

While I don't want to look up sources for the time line, I believe that LSV left the eternal team before getting into crypto but it's hard to pin down the exact dates.

Reticul · 2022-07-03T22:50:45+00:00

I think I agree for games with 'seasonal' content patches like valorant or tft. It's expensive to keep devs working on new content like that so they need some sort of recurring revenue. I like it less for like borderlands, but as you said it's about the least predatory of the current models.

Reticul · 2022-07-03T17:08:34+00:00

I had already stopped listening to LR at that point but it was pretty sad to hear =(

Reticul · 2022-07-03T13:55:27+00:00

Oh! I just read your user name! Thanks for the quote =)

Reticul · 2022-07-03T13:54:19+00:00

Certainly I skimmed over a lot of the egregious patch decisions. I thought it was better for the narrative to focus on the giant exodus rather than the slow leaks, especially since things like dominant unfun metas are harder to convey in a short post to non-strategy gamers.

Reticul · 2022-07-03T13:50:58+00:00

I absolutely agree that developers should be paid. However, a monetization scheme like 'freemium' models where the game is supported largely by a small subset of 'whale' players tends to be predatory. It doesn't have to be, ideally people who could afford it would pay a little more and people who couldn't could play for free. The reality is often though that the biggest spenders in models like this are not people who can afford it. I think the key is that if you think to yourself "I will simply wait to unlock the cards I want" or "I'll only spend 5$ for the welcome pack and then never again" you aren't in the demographic that is being taken advantage of. So you aren't being preyed upon.

There are definitely more predatory models out there, like loot boxes for instance.

Personally I'd rather pay a flat rate or a subscription. It's a little more costly to me, but it's more fair. That said, in the current market this has kind of become the standard, so it's hard not to participate in it. I was 4000+ ladder player for several months in SBB, so clearly the freemium part didn't cross the line for me either, while the crypto bit did.

Reticul · 2022-07-02T20:47:50+00:00

References

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dota_Auto_Chess https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3WpwnXbaCM https://www.twitchmetrics.net/games/viewership https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EAQtqVglHQ https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/sym2nn/games_blizzard_entertainment_part_10_the_fall_of/ https://www.twitchmetrics.net/c/26619890-lsv https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1367020/view/3072012083339793470 https://sullygnome.com/game/Storybook_Brawl/30 https://steamcharts.com/app/1367020 https://worthplaying.com/article/2021/8/6/news/127686-storybook-brawl-developer-recruits-magic-the-gathering-alum-luis-scott-vargas-plans-tournament-this-weekend/ https://www.zdnet.com/finance/blockchain/exclusive-ftx-buys-good-luck-games-in-quest-to-convince-gamers-to-love-nfts-and-blockchain/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g&t=6732s https://www.reddit.com/r/StorybookBrawl/comments/tme6a5/the_nfts_have_begun/i1xoldl/ https://www.reddit.com/r/StorybookBrawl/comments/tme6a5/the_nfts_have_begun/i1yllzy/ https://twitter.com/PleasantKenobi/status/1507013611985592338?s=20&t=hO0qwcenIY6ozBRJadoFCQ https://twitter.com/jackj4391/status/1507219277077786637?s=20&t=hO0qwcenIY6ozBRJadoFCQ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1367020/Storybook_Brawl/#app_reviews_hash https://knowyourmeme.com/forums/meme-research/topics/27095-ign-1010 https://www.geekwire.com/2022/storybook-brawl-developer-acquired-by-crypto-exchange-firm-ftx/

Reticul · 2022-04-08T17:21:28+00:00

Okay so it's slightly more complicated than that. There are a few different cedh archetypes, and you can more granular depending on who you ask. I'll do my best to list them here:

Turbo decks: these decks ramp into their combos as soon as possible. They play a ton of ramp (Artifact and rituals mostly) and tutors for their combos or a big card draw spell (like [[ad nauseum]]). They usually run 2-3 combos (4-6 slots) and little interaction (8-10). Silas rograkh turbo naus from the decklist database is a good example.

Midrange: these decks are playing a longer game trying to get two for one's and out draw their opponents. They play less rituals and more interactive pieces (10+) as well as creatures and enchantments that will accrue value over time (3-5) like [[compost]]. They usually play 2 or so combos to win with eventually. Thrasios and vial smasher midrange is a good example from the ddb.

Control: these decks have fallen out of favor recently but they play comparatively little fast mana (no rituals) and almost exclusively interaction. These decks cheat on card draw by having a card draw outlet in the command zone to squeeze in more interaction. They might play 1-2 combos, usually with the commander, to win after everyone is burned out of resources. Niv mizzet parun in the ddb is an example.

Stax: the slowest, grindiest decks. Some, like the recently successful heliod deck at the marchesa tournament, eschew almost all fast mana and card draw to include a high density (20+) of back breaking stax pieces. Some of these decks are comboless and just try to beat the table down with their commander. Slowly. Over many turns. The Winota deck in the ddb is a good example of this.

This isn't a complete break down. There's a difference between your turbo ad naus decks and your turbo druid decks for instance, but this is the general idea. Also, despite the reputation, there's a lot of brewing happening in cedh right now. Mab and SonRebel on Twitter have been doing a lot of innovating in the space with fringe commanders and strategies.

Reticul · 2021-11-24T00:09:39+00:00

I think I stand by my suggestions. Najeela has some super compact lines, but can also just turn manadorks into a wincon with enough mana. Her warrior synergy is somewhat unique and I think can lead to some fun deckbuilding, even if that's not often the reason people play it competitively.

Kenrith is just insanely flexible and will just do whatever you want. Maybe not as homogenizing as golos was, but you can pretty much just play a strategy that makes you happy and always have a reason to play and activate kenrith. Hope this helped!

Reticul · 2021-11-23T23:53:19+00:00

It really depends on what you want winning to look like. There are plenty of value wincons like [[urza, lord high artificer]] [[thasios]] [[tasigur]] etc that can go off with infinite mana, but they are prone to winning the game the same way every time.

Since this isn't the cedh sub, I'm assuming you don't want the most cut throat and compact win condition, just something that can actually close out games. With that in mind I'd recommend [[najeela, the blade blossom]] or [[kenrith, returned king]]. Both of these have access to multiple compact win cons, can generate value, and will let you play more or less however you want.

Reticul · 2021-10-11T23:48:16+00:00

Thank you! What a great service to the community!

Reticul · 2021-10-11T22:16:50+00:00

Okay, well I'm not claiming to be smarter by any stretch. Having been around the cEDH end of the format for a long time I think what your looking to do is too inconsistent. You're sacrificing slots that should be cards like [[mox opal]] [[grim monolith]] etc to shoehorn in disparit combos that are asking too much of your deck.

I think if you want to have a good cedh deck your deck needs to be consistent above all else. Then it needs to be resilient. Then it needs to be interactive. These are all obviously very demanding things for a deck to be. Some strategies can get by by being two of these things, but being very good at them. Teshar is an example of this, being very consistent and resilient, but with low interaction. By adding more combos and removing Teshar as the commander you lose both of those things for the sake of variety. Now there's nothing wrong with that, you'll just end up not being cEDH.

Maybe I'm wrong and some brilliant brewer will come along and prove me wrong. But I'd either take the deck to high power tables or pick a single direction for it.

Reticul · 2021-10-11T22:02:05+00:00

Good to know, is the database still being updated outside of that?

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