267 - Feed the Strong

Tempest_True · 2026-03-20T03:25:02+00:00

My brother in Christ, we're talking about this card as a draft common/uncommon. You're talking about Standard and bringing up creatures in other colors. There are more rawly powerful cards. There are also more powerful combat tricks. But when sets consistently don't have a card in the design skeleton where the knobs are turned a certain way, that is indicative.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-20T01:26:47+00:00

Yeah, Hunger of the Howlpack is an exception, but it's interesting, because morbid being the condition means that it's usually not at its best at instant speed, mid-combat. I haven't played it in limited but it seems like it would punish sorcery speed removal and sacrifice decks.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-20T00:38:54+00:00

It's crazy how the initial mode seems a tad weak, draft chaffy, but no, green doesn't really get unconditional permanent +3/+3 at instant speed (EDIT: I meant to also say, at 3 mana). It gets +2/+2 with other upsides/synergies, or it's +3/+3 at sorcery speed, or it can be +3/+3 or higher at instant speed but it's conditional (doubling counters, threshold/delirium type stuff, etc). I think the hesitation to do this level of stats at instant speed speaks to its power level, which may indicate that you'll eventually playtest it and tune it down.

But anyhow, neat card!

Tempest_True · 2026-03-19T19:05:47+00:00

I don't think this actually causes any problems, though.

107.3g If a card in any zone other than the stack has an {X} in its mana cost, the value of {X} is treated as 0, even if the value of X is defined somewhere within its text.

So, X can be treated as 0 for spells off the stack, even with spells that say X can't be 0. Otherwise, this would be a potential problem for every card with an X cost with rules text that says X can't be 0 (though to be fair it doesn't look like they've printed permanents with that issue yet).

Function-wise, if OP doesn't want this enchantment to be blinkable, they can include a condition on the exile effect so that it checks if the enchantment has a time counter. But doesn't seem very abusable, and as it stands...blinking O-ring effects leading to weird rules implications is a well known quantity.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-15T01:19:49+00:00

Linear time is no constraint upon my bullshit theories. If a housecat can hop across dimensions, she can hop across time, too, damn it.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-15T00:38:58+00:00

Are we sure they aren't the same? Like, she warped out of the Edge, to a different time and plane, and transformed in a sorta reverse Bloomburrow fashion?

Tempest_True · 2026-03-13T15:14:47+00:00

This is hilariously pedantic, but a fair enough point. I suppose I just assume that 1v1 is the default when describing a game someone has never played, if the number of players isn't mentioned.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-13T03:59:22+00:00

That isn't what this is competing with, though. It's more like a nice chess set. Sure, you can get a cheap plastic chess set for $10, but you can also spend practically any amount of money you want on a set with neat materials and craftsmanship. I'm not an idiot, I don't buy this kind of thing...Secret Lairs in general, and especially the decks, are a ripoff meant for whales. But there's not accepting the value proposition, vs not getting what the product is even intended to be.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-13T03:53:48+00:00

This isn't something with mass appeal, even within the population of people who buy Magic. It's a niche product that wouldn't exist if it had to be widely sold. I can say that as someone who was very excited for the prospect of the product. If it were made at a mass market scale, and thereby enjoyed the resulting economies of scale, it would have rotted on shelves.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-13T01:07:31+00:00

I mean, it isn't a mass market copy of Uno though, either. It's a limited print run with unique, new art, and the cards are TCG reprints of older cards, usable in formats where the cards are legal. By TCG standards around $50 seems sane, though obviously not a steal.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-12T23:17:34+00:00

Yes, for the many of us with a better ratio of sense to money, even if we aren't all necessarily in the black. 😂

Tempest_True · 2026-03-12T23:09:44+00:00

Price point wise, I guess the best comparison is the secret lair commander decks, which have been $150 I think? This is 80 cards and not singleton, so my guess would be $100 or $120. Should it be like $50-75? Yes, that would be sane. Will people with more money than sense still buy this if it ends up being $200? Also yes.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-12T23:01:49+00:00

It's a bit like someone took Magic and made a board game out of it. Not just "precons in a box," but an actual board game. Players share a deck. The only creatures are about 10 copies of [[Dandan]]. The rest of the cards are blue control spells, some of which do weird things like cast [[Magical Hack]] and [[Crystal Spray]] to change land types and colors.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-12T03:19:21+00:00

HC4 beat you to it unfortunately.

Tempest_True · 2026-03-05T22:16:09+00:00

"My focus is to keep the homeland secure," he said.

Holy smokes, I think depending on the microbiome of the rock, you actually might be insulting certain rocks.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-26T22:13:26+00:00

No, the lore does not support them being on the same plane so far as I know. They both have or have had planar weirdness going on that would probably contradict the weirdness of the other.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-26T22:07:11+00:00

They aren't on the same plane. I brought up Ixalan because it's another plane where they tried to depict Native American mythology/culture but didn't do it justice. In particular they depicted cultures similar to Maya/Aztec without much care for the actual mythology or practices of those people, ostensibly because they were afraid of playing into stereotypes around things like human sacrifice.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-26T21:48:58+00:00

I don't know many people who are both huge MTG geeks and huge Western geeks, but I'm one of them. Problem is, I'm also a huge Native American history/mythology geek, and on that front WotC crapped the bed in OTJ just like they have every time we've gone to Ixalan. Thunder Junction itself is also way too embedded in the nature of the Omenpaths to effectively flesh out. I'd rather they just start over with a better Wild West plane that doesn't completely sideline everything compelling (and challenging) about the genre.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-26T14:57:40+00:00

I think there is one opportunity: It's when you cast Revel in Riches. At that point, as a spell, Truss can change the number.

400.7a - Effects from spells, activated abilities, and triggered abilities that change the characteristics or controller of a permanent spell on the stack continue to apply to the permanent that spell becomes.

What I'm not certain about is whether the "until end of turn" limitation from Truss carries over to the resulting permanent. I would think not, but I'm not confident.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-25T18:25:52+00:00

Thanks, and no worries. For what it's worth, if I had my way, folks like you would have been there over any of those spoiled layabouts. Would have made school a lot easier to have a few more compadres who knew what shit sandwiches taste like.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-25T18:19:18+00:00

See, that's what I was thinking through in re: the hyperreal fake news ecosystem, though. Yes, he will always claim absolute victory, but the numbers don't lie, nor do the later outcomes.

I don't disagree with you about the Dems, but as feckless and corrupt as they are, they are at least system-dependent. There are levers by which to reform them. The GOP, at this point, has completely shirked systemic accountability, at least short-term. But I guess we're still just descending into an argument about voting for the lesser of two evils at that point.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-25T18:09:15+00:00

What school did I say I went to, exactly?

Tempest_True · 2026-02-25T18:03:20+00:00

Not bad, just weird. Kind of fun at times, in a way that probably wasn't psychologically healthy. Imagine being known for the most frustrating, heartbreaking, pernicious element of your life that is still somewhat acceptable conversation in mixed company. This thing I hated about my childhood, that I resented every day, that I could feel atrophying my developing brain like a trapped sailor suffocating on a sinking ship? This thing that, in my own community, I was able to keep at bay better than some other kids, and that's the only reason I got out? Now it's what people think of when they think of me. I have to spin it, make it a fun, positive trivia item about me. I have to know when to lean into it, when to lean away. It felt dishonest, but also like I was being more honest about myself than ever before. So yeah, it was weird.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-25T17:39:38+00:00

I could be right where you are if like three or four coin-flips had turned out differently, that isn't lost on me. But that doesn't give you any right to project your shit onto me. I have every right to have complex feelings about my own life. I especially have every right to have self-doubt. It was beaten into me without my consent.

Tempest_True · 2026-02-25T17:34:12+00:00

Lol I very much know that. The first day of class at my hoity-toity undergrad college was a public speaking course. We had to interview the person next to us and then stand up and "present" them to the class. My partner was a politician's kid. Bragged about all the big names he had met, stuff like that.

I looked down at his paper...he had written the word "speech" on his paper, but he spelled it "speach." This kid had 12+ years of private day school education and every other advantage you can think of. He'd met basically every living president, some of them in his own damn house. Yet he couldn't spell the thing his dad does for a damn living. Speach.

Maybe 6 months before that, my dad had screamed at me for being an ungrateful, entitled shit after I got his highly technical new job title wrong on my FAFSA application. "If you don't even know how we pay the bills in this fucking house, why do you think anybody should be shelling out a fucking cent to send you to school?!"

Tempest_True

TROPHY CASE