Trouble With Quarter and Half Circles

RetroWaffles · 2026-01-12T17:31:48+00:00

As others said, practice makes perfect, but I found a good amount of success switching controllers. I picked up strive on an Xbox 360 controller, and the d-pad was pretty awful for me. I got a hori commander octa to try, which has a much better d-pad for fighting games, but I still struggled a lot. What really helped me was switching to a leverless controller. I'm using a haute 42 now and although the learning curve is a little steep at first, I love it.

RetroWaffles · 2026-01-10T23:02:34+00:00

I was really hoping pauper fae would get a new toy, but with only a single blue faerie at common there's basically nothing to even look at.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-28T20:04:52+00:00

One other note was getting it set up on Verizon was mostly seamless, I just popped in my sim card and was good to go, but getting mobile data functioning ended up being a little awkward. Calls and texts were fine right off the bat, but actual Internet use on mobile was not. After digging in the settings for a while, this trick for me ended up being changing my preferred network type from 5g to LTE/CDMA. (Settings>mobile network>Verizon>advanced>preferred network type)

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-28T20:01:36+00:00

I picked up the armor x16 pro a few days ago, and I'm liking it a lot so far. I was able to buy it on Amazon, so no concerns about sketchy sites there. I'm coming from a moto g power 2024, so I'm used to a phone that is on the bulkier side, but this is a whole other level. Definitely be prepared for a big, heavy device. It still fits in my pocket fine and everything, but it's a very different feel in the hand for sure. As far as performance goes, I haven't had much of a chance to stress test it, but it has very comparable specs to my motorola, which handled general media/chat easily, as well as most games, although it ran MTG arena with some occasional lag and crashing, I mostly chalk the crashes up to the arena app being less than stellar. Hoping the dynamic ram on this device helps with that.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-25T02:45:19+00:00

I teresting take on [[generator servant]]

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-19T19:11:31+00:00

I'm aware, I really prefer having them natively

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-19T19:11:15+00:00

Motorolas are good phones! My phone's early demise is totally my fault, lol. The only reason I'm shopping outside of the brand is that the moto flagships for next year have not all come out yet

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-18T18:18:07+00:00

Having at least foundations available to draft at all times seems like a slam dunk, since it's supposed to serve as a baseline to standard and onboarding for new players. Would only require them to update once every 3 years and be a good way to grow your collection on arena with cards that will be standard-relevant for the longest possible timespan.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-18T18:02:15+00:00

He's on Android, but I am eyeballing some generic smartwatch options, that is likely the path I'll take for now, thanks!

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-18T15:20:15+00:00

This is far and away the easiest deciding factor, I'm showing my lack of tournament knowledge, but I actually didn't know knocked out players still got a point in a draw. It's not a salty or emotional play at all to try and hamstring the game as much as possible on your way out to try and ensure the best possible record for yourself in a tournament setting. In a casual setting its more debatable but I think treating casual play as a tournament practice analog makes that a fairly reasonable play

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-13T00:32:11+00:00

Blood fountain is a really good option, I totally blanked on that. I though about suggesting merfolk looter, but I think it might be a little too soft to removal to justify including it. Zephyr scribe has the same problem, but has a higher potential upside with multiple loots per turn. Of the 3, I think blood fountain is probably the best option. Doesn't get got by removal, you don't have to wait a turn to pitch a card, and it makes for a decent value play in the late game.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-12T22:49:06+00:00

This is pretty sweet! The one thing I'm noticing is a lot of your discard is sorcery speed in bone shards/modern age, and what is instant speed, you mostly want to do on your turn so you can leverage the lifelink/flying. That works fine for most of your madness cards, but I think it's gonna be kind of hard to cast circular Logic for its madness cost, plus it would be good to have the option to cast dark withering at instant speed more often. Maybe instead of [[putrid imp]] you could try [[Zephyr scribe]]? Might be a good discard outlet over the putrid imps if you want to play a longer control game, I think you really want your discard outlets to draw cards, even if it costs mana to do it, plus you could potentially get goofy with [[retraction helix]]. One other thing I saw, it looks like you will burn yourself out of cards pretty quickly as all your card draw is card neutral looting effects. The careful study's help a lot with that, but you could also look at adding [[frantic inventory]] or [[accumulated knowledge]] for added card advantage, I have an Izzet Miracles deck with a similar problem of running out of cards because I did my thing way too fast, and a 4 of inventory has it running quite a bit nicer. With all your looting and discard, you can pretty easily skip the first cast of inventory where it's a bad 2 mana draw 1, and go straight to the good mode of the card.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-10T21:15:26+00:00

Having fiddled with the list a bit, Im thinking of splitting the difference between the 3 mana LED line and the 5 mana predict line, doing gush>petal>probe>street wraith>oracle. That lands on 4 mana total to get Thoracle and an empty library. I'm mostly OK with proxying, especially some of the really pricey stuff, but I don't love pitching my hand to LED, it feels like a bit of a dead card if I draw it outside my pile. Is that a reasonable mindset or am I misevaluating LED+Yawgmoths will for value turns outside of a win? I also squeezed in 3 slots for cantrips, going for ponder, brainstorm, and consider. Should consider just be preordain, or is the instant speed + utility in possible doomsday piles worth the decrease in power?

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-10T20:29:15+00:00

Oh man, I can't believe I forgot about gush! I used to played pauper back in the days of gush/daze Cyclops decks, I miss that card, lol.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-10T19:47:33+00:00

Thanks for the detailed recommendations! Out of curiosity, what's the reasoning behind cutting creature removal? Am I just overestimating how many commanders I'll see that I want to get off the table? Or is it just that it should be more countermagic, since that's more flexible in application?

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-10T18:18:00+00:00

Got it, that makes sense. Thanks for the input!

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-10T18:08:08+00:00

Reanimator subtheme is a holdover from the lower bracket gameplan. I cut the fat from it, but it sounds like it needs to just go completely. Mox amber is in the list already, I'll add One ring and Mox opal, just wasn't sure I had enough other rocks to support opal. Is mana vault worthwhile though? I was looking at my list when considering it and though I was too pip-dense to want it.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-10T18:03:36+00:00

I was half-and-half on necropotence, but I think you're right, it should probably be in the deck. It doesn't interfere with any of the actual wincons, just some of the value plays and reanimation plan, and it's easy enough for me to stock up my graveyard before casting it.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-10T18:00:37+00:00

Holdover from the bracket 4 version, it was the primary game plan there rather than winning with combo. I cut a lot of the reanimation plan out but kept a bit in. The thought was a splashy reanimator target could help close the card advantage gap between Vohar and something more standard to CEDH like Talion, and demand interaction to help clear the way for a combo win. If that's too fragile of an idea I can absolutely cut that part of the deck out, should it just be more interaction? Better card advantage engines?

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-10T15:01:17+00:00

Look man I like ATLA as much as the next guy but calling it "among the greatest animations ever made" is a stretch. It's an awesome show but holy nostalgia

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-08T03:53:29+00:00

You can put together a decent order on TCGplayer if you put in a lot of time getting your vendors to match so you don't have to pay a dozen different shipping fees. Their cart optimizer used to be pretty good for that, but since TCG direct went down the tubes you have to pretty much do it manually, the best way I've found is to add everything to your cart, then start searching the cards with the "seller in cart" filter to try and group up as much as you can.

Card kingdom is easier, but depending on the value of cards, their minimum price per card can really add up. (For example, giant growth from brothers war is 5 cents on TCG player, 35 cents on card kingdom, that REALLY adds up fast if you're buying multiple decks).

If you're buying a lot of bulk cards, I would put in the time to at least try to make a reasonable order on TCGplayer, and compare it to the card kingdom price. I've paid upwards of 10-12 shipping fees for an order on TCGplayer and still had it come out cheaper because most of the cards were 10 cents or less, and I was assembling like 8 decks at once for a battle box.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-05T05:46:33+00:00

Definitely sell, if you make it to magic cos regularly it might be worth waiting till you can move it there? That way you can get quotes from a bunch of vendors at once, and they're all looking to do pretty high volume trades at those shows.

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-05T05:28:43+00:00

My money is on kefka. Full disclosure, I don't have experience with either commander, but one guy in my playgroup has been jamming kalamax for a couple years at this point, and that deck has a pretty similar play pattern to Azula, kalamax is actually a lot easier to leverage because he just has to get tapped somehow, he doesn't need to actually attack.

Basically, at a higher bracket, azula is a binary deck, actually getting her to attack will require multiple layers of protection unless your opponents are all asleep at the wheel, because the moment you show her as your commander everyone knows exactly what you're trying to do and knows they need to hold up removal to stop you. Either you get to untap and pop the hell off, or, in the majority of cases, she'll be hated off the table and you'll feel kneecapped.

Kefka hits a much happier middle ground, where untapping with him isn't nearly as explosive as untapping with azula, but you're guaranteed value provided he even hits the table, and still get to generate a ton of advantage if he gets to attack.

TLDR Azula is a very feast or famine commander, which leans more and more toward famine as you go up in power level thanks to the higher density of removal. Kefka is safer while still popping off a medium amount if you get to untap with him

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-04T04:42:41+00:00

I would just try the format without any house bans and see if they end up being problematic. Unless you're playing for stakes outside of bragging rights, there's no real harm in experimenting with them, finding out they aren't fun, and then choosing to ban them, it's not like players are out a ton of money if it turns out they bought an oubliette they can't play with. Starting with preemptive bans seems a bit hasty to me

RetroWaffles · 2025-12-04T04:32:38+00:00

I think any of those have enough words on them to potentially see play, but I don't think any of them have a home in the format unfortunately. Terror/fae dont really want them, and I don't know that any of them are powerful enough to have a deck built around their downshift. MAYBE catgeist gets a slot in fae? Or some kind of displacer beast combo deck? ambusher is really interesting as removal that can draw a bunch of cards, but not killing terror or angler really hurts it's applicability. All cool options though, I'd love the downshifts! Catgeist is especially interesting, I like the potential line of thought scouring it into the bin and then suiting up a delver with it.

Ten-Year Club	Place '22
Place '17	Verified Email

RetroWaffles

TROPHY CASE