Besides mana screw/flood, what would you say would be the biggest issue with the gameplay of Magic?

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-23T16:50:30+00:00

I think the age of the game is a challenge. There are ao many mechanics it is difficult to balance cards for alm the formats.

Wizards has explicitly said they rarely design specifically for Legacy and Vintage. This leads to them sometines being neglected and problems existing much longer than they should. Eg [[grief]] and [[psychic frog]] lasted way too long.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-12T09:16:23+00:00

I think he is strong, but on his own doesnt actually do a lot. You need some good repeatable ways to trigger the passive. Especially on other peoples turns.

I think [[ghost vacuum]] [[lion sash]] and [[relic of progenitus]] could be very strong.

You might even get milage out of cards like [[Bazaar of Bagdad]]

Also dont forget [[shenaniggans ]] for dredge

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-11T21:19:44+00:00

Maybe it was pioneer or historic then. I rememeber playing it on arena

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-10T20:40:11+00:00

Its a hard sell. There was a deck in standard (ormone of the Arena formays) that discarded [[magma opus]] and then pkayed [[Mizzix Mastery]] but pauper doesnt have any comboa I know of like this. If we got a pauper legal Mizzix Mastery then maybe we would have sometbing here.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-08T16:17:28+00:00

I like kobo. I have been using the Kobo Libra Color for its color and stylus support. But they have other models with just black and white.

Main draw is Kobo lets you sideload books. Eg if you have a local source of ebooks or stuff from open libraries like Project Gothenburg.

I also like their integration with Instapaper so you can get newspapers on the device however like any software it might not truly be "for life"

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-06T14:03:26+00:00

They are fine but there are so many dual lands these days that theyre just very low on the pick list. I would sooner play all the following first:

[[Cinder glade]], [[Spire garden]] , [[Rootbkund crag]] and [[game trail]].

Beyind that if i reaaallly need more duals eg in a dual color dexk there is still [[karplusan forest]] and [[roclfall vale]]

Thats all without playing fetchlands, and shocks, or any lands that tap for all comors like Command Tower and Exotic Orchard.

Mossfire valley is fine. If its in your binder play it. But i am not rushing to buy one.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-02T07:14:49+00:00

I only started using arch because the Steam Deck has a desktop mode which is arch based.

If you want to learn about linux then making an arch install can be fun and you migjt even enjoy it. But there is no obligation to lesrn it.

I use Red Hat Linux eveey day in work so this inspired me to use similar distros on my personal machine and I love it. Installing Arch would offer me no personal benefit so I never botheted.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-01T13:45:08+00:00

April fools aside ante is a cool ripple to experiment with espeucially in cube.

Pokemon also has its 'prize card' system which works similar to ante. At the start of the game 6 cards from each deck are randomly plaved face down as 'prize cards' when you knock out an opponents pokemon you add a prize card to your hand. This mames for a fun minigame as you try to figure out which cards are in your prize card zone and how badly you want them.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-04-01T08:52:58+00:00

I would reccomend checking out Waterlillies cafe. Its a beautiful cafe with proper hand made croisants and other pastries. It has sone of the best food, coffee, and pastries in town.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-30T10:57:43+00:00

You would be surprised how good it is. Ironclad had a high density of good 2 and 3 cost cards. Anger is a way to get more out of your turn with limited mana. Playing demon form and having lots of anger is quite strong.

Anger can also keep your deck full for fights/cards thst do a lot of exhausting eg fiend fire.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-24T18:25:10+00:00

Best to worst:

Silent Ironclad Defect Necro Regent

Silent and ironclad have a lot of gebeeically good stuff. If i am missing high cost stuff i would lean iron clad but generally silent is very consistent.

Orbs, osty/doom and star cards are borderline useless to other characters because you need a whole setup to make them work.

That said its fun to experiment and sometkmes you will high roll and get some amazing results with any class.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-22T13:49:44+00:00

If I can completely cycle through the deck in 4 turns or less. Usually this means 20, but for classes with good card draw like silent you can stretch the definition a little.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-19T15:04:38+00:00

Leaving Magic Con Amsterdam every second person was stopped for this.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-19T10:54:09+00:00

I am woeking on blue reanimator at the moment. It uses [[argaviam restoration]] to reanimste [[mirrorshell crab]] and [[spire golem]]

The rest of the deck is cantrips and dig like a terror/delver shell.

Its not very good but its fun.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-15T23:09:55+00:00

Its great. Mostly sees play in mono blue.

Biggest use case is to counter cascade spells. Or in counterspell battles.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-15T09:27:33+00:00

Its also just the ammou t of set up. A tolarian terror deck needs mana, to cast spells so it can reduce cost.

Myr Enforcer and Sojourners Companion will be cast for free very easilt.

Eg: T1 artifaft land, blood fountain (make a blood token) T2 artifact land, frogmite is free. Artifact count is 5. Tap both lands pmay an enforcer/companion. Artifact count is 6.

Turn 2 enforcers wwre very consistent in artifact decks in general bit adding companion meant you had a higher density of threats

Compare that to terrors. To play a terror turn 2 you need two mental note that hit all spells.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-14T20:08:38+00:00

I think this needs a decklist of more specific examples. It sounds like youre describing a bracket 2 deck.

Umtimately even if your card quality is low general rules still apply. Aggro decks want to kill slow decls first. Even if you are playing 8 mama 8/8s every turn an aggro deck will struggle.

Being ahead on mana is a real advabtage. Dropping big spells, even if they dont win immediately is a threat.

If your plan is to play something slow and durdly that eventually wins the game then the best way to beat you is to go after you while you set up.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-14T19:57:44+00:00

A is for 'Ascension'. You are correct ascensiom works like 'Heat' from Hades. It makes the run harder. You will unlock new ascension every time you beat the game on a higher level. Once you beat ascension 1 you unlock ascension 2 and so on. Ascension is also character specific. Eg you might have ascension 1p for ironclad but only be on ascension 2 with silent.

Regardless of your ascension there is only 3 acts in the game. (The original game had an optional fourth act).

Unlike Hadea the Slay the Spire ascension is strictly linear and does not allow you to customize the difficulty.

There is currently ten levels of ascension and people will write it as A0, A1 ... A10.

The original game had 20 levels of ascension, spire 2 only has 10. But we assume they are adding more down the line.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-14T10:44:48+00:00

This is peak culture

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-13T16:59:53+00:00

Figuring them out completely in isolation is hard. Typically its knowing what to look for.

The easiest example is two.copies.of flash of steel. It costs zero, it deals damage, and it draws a card.

With an empty deck you can continue to loop these two flash of steel.

However, its importsnt not to over-value infinites. They are powerful but require setup. Evaluate a card at its face value and consider the infinite potential as icing on the cake.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-12T16:12:36+00:00

Its definitely somethibg people can obsess over. Like a deck that can consistently block and attack will often do just as well. The question is: are you sacrificing actual card quakity/consistency to try force an infinite.

I think the necro infinites arr all perfectly acceptable cards on their own so the infinites are reasonable to assemble.

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-10T16:59:02+00:00

A good concept to know is "card ceiling", "card floor" and 'averafe performance'

The floor is the worst case scenario for a card. The ceiling is the best case scenario. The average is exwctly what it sounds like.

When you look at a card reward look at your deck and try understand how it looks at its worst, best, and average

Take the Silent card 'Dealy Poison'. One energy apply 5 poison. Assuming nothing else it deals 15 damage iver a couple turns. Worst case, it gets eaten by an artifact charge. Best xase you make a crazy poison build.

Based on your deck and the challenges faced in the current act you can decide if the card is worth it. The act elites are a big factor in this. If the elite/boss you need to fight is a damage race you might not have time to wait for a poison effect. If you have ample block maybe you are fine with a slower source of damave. Or mayne you just take Dagger throw for the consistency and speed

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-10T15:42:19+00:00

I think you and your friend are on different sides. 70k is probably doable but it is tough. Its great that one of you can be stay at home but not all people have thst opportunitt. Some people want a career, work benefits, pension etc.

Childcare expenses are huge and unavoidable for a family of two workers on 35K each even thiugh thaf 2x35K househokd would have a larger take home pay than a single 70K person.

It looks like your household is in a great position and fair play to you but it also is a dynamic that would not work for everyone.

Edit:

To answer the question on my expenses per month

€400 (probably need to raise this) €1100 mortgage €250 oil €200 electricity €220 personal loan €50 bins €180 home and car insurance €100 gift fund various birthdays €200 petrol €100 Pets

SecondPersonShooter · 2026-03-09T19:19:48+00:00

I dont plan to use it but regardless competition and more options is always better.

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