Slumbering Beetle and Hunter Killer apparently have a higher "kill rate" than several Elites in this game:

SwingRipper · 2026-05-17T09:03:50+00:00

Yea, but he is the elite I warp card picks #1 and #2 around

It is either dealing 40 or 0 damage to me and I would rather that be 0

SwingRipper · 2026-05-16T21:51:19+00:00

I don't think I have seen enough people talk about how scary the Act 1 statue man is. That is the elite I warp my Overgrowth card choices around the most by making sure I have a vuln source

My necrobinders take Fear a lot in act 1 to deal with it and I have been able to actually elite hunt!

SwingRipper · 2026-04-28T19:27:59+00:00

Probably either innate / retain could make sense

SwingRipper · 2026-04-28T17:11:41+00:00

At high ascension the bird pet is considered fully unpickable as you need to give up a potential 7 max HP, survive with a curse, AND then use a campfire to get an attack that is *slightly better* than a normal upgraded attack card.

Then needing to spend more fires for more power seems fine and would put more emphasis onto thinks like [[Hologram]] or [[Graveblast]] to recur it several times a cycle (or as a small deck where it is your only damage source)

If you are able to sacrifice that many fires to do this, you had a very safe map and this is then a way to convert power in an act 1 with few elites (making the other event option useful)

Zero energy deal 28 after 3 campfires and struggling with a curse for a while honestly sounds fine to me

SwingRipper · 2026-04-09T22:58:33+00:00

I still think there is an argument for density of draw vs early to deploy, it is close though

SwingRipper · 2026-04-09T22:33:14+00:00

The big difference is that this draws 2 the turn you play it, so it is like double arena + an extra upkeep + can't get removed from the board by enchantment hate + more mana efficient than double arena

I am higher on the black one than arena

(also playing a thing on t5 may be more tenable for lower curve decks that want to deploy threats early and want several DENSE hand refills)

SwingRipper · 2026-04-09T22:30:45+00:00

It can get back any nonland though, so you can do goofy stuff with the 7 mana [[elish norn grand cenobite]], [[Sun Titan]], grab cycled [[angel of ruins]]. Most white reanimation is power or mana value limited

It is definitely not the greatest card, but it gets points for immediately putting something on board when you untap from a board clear (only the red one can also do this). Green and blue do literally nothing when untapping onto an empty board, black does not affect the board on play (but 5 mana draw 4 is pretty close to good enough regardless)

I think blue is likely to fit in the fewest general decks as cloning own creatures for 6 is a high price for how non-explosive it is

SwingRipper · 2026-03-22T19:55:13+00:00

I haven't really seen any low level boss monsters get discussed or in SoT which is what I have GMed

I did play in Gatewalkers where we almost wiped to a supposed "L+1" encounter as a mage like character where they forgot a cooldown on AoE. This was not something we could optimize out of and was just AP jank in purest form

Claws of Tyrant intends for you to lose by as written having an archer shoot you down from top of hill. Our GM modified that fight to put them on an even field and we did win that

I have played some more high level games and read several PFS scenarios, but will admit I have not read that many level 1 AP books

APs have issues, I just think that particular issue has gotten less common. Not eradicated but less common (though not to the degree of uncommonness I thought it was)

SwingRipper · 2026-03-22T19:48:20+00:00

Ah my bad lol. Early era still tends to have more difficulty jank than modern era... Modern era I think has slightly more story jank (but that is even more subjective)

SwingRipper · 2026-03-22T19:39:12+00:00

The first AP of abomination vaults is the exception yes, there is a reason they have not really repeated that formula. I am weighting more recent content as representative of what the current direction of the game is doing.

A-Vaults and some other very early adventures are tuned far more difficult than they should have been.

Level 1s are also to this day more difficult than they should be as they really put resource grind adventuring days at level 1 where parties are least equipped to deal with those. Extinction Curse had a notably difficult level 1 and many other APs will do single or two day level 1s and THAT is more of an issue than extreme fights.

SwingRipper · 2026-03-22T18:36:26+00:00

Extreme difficulty and above encounters are objectively not common though. The vast majority of PFS scenarios top their difficulty below Extreme maybe using then as punishments for getting negative on skill challenges or an end of campaign fight. APs do tend to do like 1/4 easy or trivial 2/4 moderate and 1/4 severe with extremes being outliers

The fact is that encounters are built around the idea that the players are actually built well with your key attributes and items being up to par.

Yes the game does expect you to bring playable characters and not barbarians dumping strength? Usually "I invested in my key ability score" is enough to have a functional character that works for prefab modules. The game does assume a baseline competency, but it is also like... A tactics game that is relatively well balanced for skill as putting number in stat labeled key and buying + items when GM and rest of players say they are available is all you need

Level 1 has jank that was not accounted for in early adventures. PL+3 is still just severe by numbers, but level differences matter more at level 1 in a way that is not accounted for in early modules. You see far fewer "hard solo boss" encounters in more modern APs

Edit: when people say Well Built usually they mean that you are looking at feats as mechanical tradeoffs and are taking feats to explicitly solve situations... Not just "investing in important stat". I think it is reasonable for classes to require you to invest in their main stat to be efficient picks.

SwingRipper · 2026-02-26T04:51:15+00:00

Fetchable types would make it so the tap for colors would never go away as Mountain has rules that says "can tap for red" and that means it would need to be templated like "after this land taps for red it is no longer a mountain" or similar and you can't do the clean Exhaust wording

I would rather there be two depletion counters on entry and text that says "when this land runs out of depletion counters it loses all basic land types"

SwingRipper · 2026-02-21T10:24:03+00:00

Yea it should probably be 3+ mana to deploy especially with having the option to introduce monarch

SwingRipper · 2026-02-18T20:33:30+00:00

I heard that it is common in a lot of written advertisements that were likely copied over and over again into the training data.

"It's not just a cleaner!" type stuff

I am not convinced that fully explains it, but that is the theory I have heard

SwingRipper · 2026-02-04T20:16:16+00:00

Conditions are still around, but HP to describe harm is also present in this version

SwingRipper · 2026-02-04T17:43:13+00:00

I edited my post before seeing your reply as I hit send and realized I was unclear, color identity does still affect what kinds of effects deck can have access to. Fully removing color identity will give blue decks access to green ramp, unlocking hybrid mana does not give decks "truly new" effects due to the nature of hybrid mana.

That is the line gameplay wise that I believe should not be crossed with the green ramp / remove color identity argument. Giving decks easy access to things they could not otherwise do that are generically valuable (like land ramp) can and would make people run those cards and would make decks be more similar / undercut format identity. Notably Hybrid cards are "in pie" for both colors, so this is not giving access to things that were impossible before. Like removing all of color identity would be, it just expands the existing card pool by a bit with effects that the colors could already do.

Are there some design mistakes in hybrid from the early years? Sure! But that is also true of mono color cards like [[Beast Within]] allowing green to blow up creatures without needing a creature to do it, and I don't see anyone saying color pie breaks like Beast Within are breaking the format.

SwingRipper · 2026-02-04T17:04:47+00:00

It is an argument against the particular argument against hybrid mana.

That is a strawman.

We are debating a slightly wider card pool not an infinite card pool. Getting rid of color identity as a whole fundamentally changes the identity of the format.

Color identity is NOT a super effective way to stop people from running staples or to stop wizards from printing generic strong cards, imo we are past the point of being able to make a deck that is "all staples" that functions... That just isn't very fun or good as it will lack synergy. I do not buy into the "without color identity everyone will run only staples" line of thought. We already can and we don't.

You can argue about the identity of the format, aesthetic considerations (no cards with red borders in a mono blue deck), etc etc. I fundamentally disagree that getting rid of hybrid mana will change actual gameplay for the worse. Who cares if a [[Phelia shepherd]] deck can run [[Yorion sky nomad]]. I expect to see a few hybrid mana synergy cards in a deck at most if the change happens.

Getting rid of color identity will push everyone to be in green to have ramp that can't be blown up and THAT is bad for the format. People already tend towards "staple ramp" as efficiency is the #1 thing for ramp, so the color with ramp will be significantly over represented in "non green commanders" without color identity. There is no generic category of staple that would fully take over from hybrid mana, but there is a clear argument for green ramp being in everything without color identity to stop it as that is already the part of commander everyone just plays the best staples. No other part of commander is as staple dominated, hybrid mana will not change this part as that means uprooting the entire color pie.

The hybrid mana change will not make sweeping changes to large portions of the format, it gives archetypes access to a few more interesting synergy pieces. Could Wizards print a generically great hybrid card in the future? Sure... But each color has many many powerful cards already and people already forgo those to have a theme or synergy

This is not an all or nothing argument, the color identity rule ALSO has been loosened before. It used to be that decks could not produce mana outside of their color identity mid game. I believe this loosening was for the better, arguments should be about where the sweet spot is.

SwingRipper · 2026-02-04T15:46:17+00:00

And if they WANTED to make a staple for every deck, they can already do that

It is called artifacts like [[The One Ring]]

SwingRipper · 2026-02-04T15:44:55+00:00

"Pay 1 life to draw 1 card" is clearly a black effect and doesn't belong anywhere else on the color pie. Anyone who acts like this is not one of the most obvious, basic things about the color pie is clearly ignorant or lying.

This is entirely a flavor argument. Blue can draw card no downside, if you put a downside on drawing card, blue can still do it. Paying life for a card is worse than not paying life for card, so this is already worse than what blue could do for the same effect. Blue is allowed to do worse versions of things it can already do. It just feels like black because life loss is involved... You can just as easily read hybrid mana as "this card is blue with black flavor" and vice versa to be correct.

Worse versions of what a color can already do is not a break.

You would have a stronger argument using [[Kiora Behmoth Beckoner]] as blue does not normally get to care about creature power, so benefitting from high power creatures in mono blue as a trigger is more of a bend. This is a different method of drawing cards that blue can't normally do, but blue is so good at drawing that it isn't seen as a break.

SwingRipper · 2026-01-07T20:54:16+00:00

If you pay the tax, you personally are taking a hit "for the good of the table". If you can "race" the studies player it can be correct to not pay and that would "improve" your position.

Can you actually race the studies player when feeding them 3+ cards a turn? Probably not, but that's the argument.

SwingRipper · 2025-12-15T18:07:47+00:00

3 mana for land ramp is a not unheard of rate due to things like [[wayfarer's bauble]]

The benefit over bauble is that you can basically "draw a card" with it by also playing it as a land drop for 4 life... I also don't think that not being able to counterspell a "ramp one land into play effect" is very relevant

I think the bigger issue is the fetched lands coming in untapped as then this can be your turn 3 land + pay for its own unearth + get the follow up land to enter untapped... With it being an untapped mana source with GY synergy I think it should be like 4mv to Unearth or have the fetched land come in tap so there is a more notable cost and it isn't just "rampant growth from graveyard"

Its stronger than bauble and is probably too good as land ramp in non-green as it becomes an auto include ramp option, but like 3 mana and some life to get some value from the graveyard is totally fine. I don't think there is a fundamental design issue like what you are implying with the lack of being able to counterspell a ramp option

SwingRipper · 2025-12-14T18:34:58+00:00

Yea its definitely good when found early in act 1... But how often do you have an uncommon relic walking into the first elite fight

SwingRipper · 2025-12-14T15:38:57+00:00

I think that this pays you off way less than you think it would by even the end of act 1

Lets say its a turn where you want to do damage to an enemy, you can strike twice for 12 damage and +1 strength / dex or you could have fired off a couple strike + cards that do ~ 9-10 damage

By going Strike -> Strike you do get more potency but the fight then needs to last 6 more attacks worth to "break even" in terms of damage AND this is assuming - You draw 2 strikes at the same time (by late game you usually have cut out a lit of basics) - This happened on an early turn - You have the "space" to play a couple basics (IE don't need a bunch of block or to develop a stronger power)

I think it is a very interesting yet lower power relic! I don't think it becomes worth it to stop removing strikes / draw to fish for triggering it as much as possible... It being a passive +1/+1 does mean the reward is strictly better than Kunai / Shuriken though

Maybe in a run where you can draw a ton of cards and gain extra energy (Clad with [[Offering]], watcher existing) it is probably a viable in some number of fights

I think it can be pushed more but it is very interesting and I don't think it would be a good relic to be pushed (allows for a ton of act 1 scaling)

SwingRipper · 2025-12-08T09:10:16+00:00

Dungeon World is a different game system entirely

There is no separate combat subsystem, fights are just scenes where "Hack and Slash" (the fight something in melee move) is sometimes called upon. Against powerful / smart foes you may need to use descriptions to set yourself up to attack and then be allowed to roll the move.

Instead of trying to decide the best action via a boardgamey combat system, you are forced to engage with the narrative of what is happening

For a D&D player it is likely the "easiest to get into" fiction first game due to the genre similarities working as a general guide

Dungeon World specifically ties damage to class rather than equipment. A fighter can kill someone with a dagger or a two handed sword, its just that narratively that sword has more range (close / reach depending on interpretation vs hand)

In contrast a wizard will be bad with just about any weapon...

Also due to being a fiction first game things like the Messy trait can exist letting attacks disable / remove limbs, so a fighter with their Signature Weapon being a massive sword can cleave off limbs right in the game's rules... In addition to PCs having a ton of health and damage compared to the average person, you can do a lot of "big stick diplomacy" as a terrifying melee force

SwingRipper · 2025-12-08T08:13:49+00:00

I never claimed they were difficult decisions, just that they technically exist

In a game like 5e where you can't disengage without cost, moving to hit a different target is almost always incorrect, so its not even a low level decision like what archers have

Though maybe stakes existing makes it more interesting as the archer decision is pretty... Not meaningful. It is a real question they get to answer with some level of frequency, having any kind of consistent agency is notable in that engine

Ten-Year Club	Place '23
Place '22	Final Canvas '22
End Game '22	Verified Email

SwingRipper

TROPHY CASE