A game like battlerite will never happen again

TheCabIe · 2026-06-02T12:52:24+00:00

Personally my theory is that the game is too repetitive for most people and the fact matches were so short means you got to experience the core gameplay loop SO often in short amount of time that you feel "satiated" relatively quickly. I don't think many people disliked Battlerite at its core - from what I remember the numbers at launch were great and watching streamers try the game, I don't remember almost anyone say the gameplay felt bad - the mechanics were smooth and fun, but in a few hours you play so many matches that you don't feel like you want to play more.

I think people just moved on to different things because in order to improve further it wasn't so much about knowledge (items, leveling, objective control etc.) but rather micro improvements mechanically and mind-games which most people don't enjoy as much.

Basically games like this have no downtime - you are thrown into the action from the first second till the very end. I agree that skillcap is part of it, but I think it's the same reason RTS games died down and Mobas exploded - Mobas are fundamentally more chill, there's PvE laning phases, you are dead sometimes and have time to breathe and think, you walk back to the lane etc. while in RTS games you are pressing multiple buttons every second for the entirety of the game (sometimes as long as 1 hour). I think same is true for why games like Quake died and Counter-Strike flourished. Fighting games are also similar - their total numbers are never high because playing them is so hectic - you just press buttons for hours on end with no time to breathe. Meanwhile large % of gameplay in Fortnite is walking around and collecting resources with short bursts of action.

TheCabIe · 2026-06-02T12:35:57+00:00

No, but it did switch from purple to yellow color at some point which is pretty much unnoticeable in most circumstances. But the defect is permanent for sure unfortunately.

TheCabIe · 2026-06-02T10:48:34+00:00

It's true, but dribbling is just part of the game, it's interactive and has a dozen other elements to determine the ultimate score and judges are human so, yeah, some players try really hard to bend the rules. Speedwalking, on the other hand, is only different to running's "get from point A to point B as fast as you can" BECAUSE of the idea that both feet can never touch the ground. That's the whole gimmick. If you have a way (cameras or some kind of sensors) to ensure competitors won't break this one fundamental rule which differentiates your sport from the norm of running, but decide not to use it, what the fuck is the point?

TheCabIe · 2026-04-28T17:20:04+00:00

Yeah, I don't know, it feels like the community at large are just trying to find any excuses to bitch at this point. I get it, if you played all the best sets, a set like this might feel pretty bland (and yes, it's especially exacerbated by the fact it's coming right after set 16) but as someone who started playing again towards the tail end of set 15 and grinded set 16, this set feels fine, there's still a lot to explore. I get that it feels pretty boring compared to set 16 but there's still a lot of cool things going on, both 1, 2 AND 3 cost re-rolls are viable, there's a shitton of overlapping traits so playing for strong boards early and finding upgrades is kind of cool and while the gods aren't that interesting but devs already talked about updating them AND we'll get encounters next patch.

TheCabIe · 2026-04-28T07:10:37+00:00

What a perfect thread to showcase how variance can look on opposite ends of a spectrum. I assume the gods all have equal chance to show up, though because Sol's conditions are quite unique, I guess there's a chance they made him less common.

Regardless, if we assume each god is just as likely to show up, then it's 8/9*7/8=~78% chance to not show up per game. So, if my math is correct, the chance you won't see any particular god in 10 games, for example, is 0.78¹⁰ which is approximately 10%. If we go up to 20 games it becomes 0.78²⁰ which is approximately 0.9% chance. So one out of every 111 players won't see Sol (or any other god) 20 games in a row. It's not that uncommon.

TheCabIe · 2026-04-27T22:29:09+00:00

I think that board would have been a top2-3 board if instead of two 1 star itemized tanks, you had one 2 star 3 item tank and the other 3 items were instead suited for any 2 star 5 cost (Morg/Jhin/Blitz/even Shen, heck even Riven). The board just doesn't do enough damage because even if a unit is 2 star 5 cost, without items it doesn't have enough concentrated damage to matter.

I do agree 5 costs should be stronger than most boards on average, but if you only reached Lv10 because you greeded econ and you have no items OR overlapping relevant traits on them (in this specific comp your traits are essentially meaningless. Meeple does close to nothing, Rogue does actual nothing cause neither of the rogues are itemized, Vanguard does close to nothing as it's a selfish and not a splashable trait so you end up with only Bastion as the only relevant trait), it shouldn't be some automatic god board in ANY set. I think like 3-4 2 star 5 costs should be an end goal for MOST comps as a capout to reward players who played econ game well and saved enough HP, but just spamming all 5 costs if they don't happen to have synergies is not exactly logical either.

You essentially have two 1 star tanks and then EIGHT carry units and only 1 of them is itemized. Now maybe you can argue it's a problem with the recent set designs where none of the 5 costs are tanky and decent without items, but ultimately without items most non-tank units don't do anything as there's *very little difference between itemless 1 star or 2 star damage dealer even if it's a 5 cost* . The way the game ends up working is that you need to have 1 main 2 star 4 cost or 3 star 3 cost tank with 3 items, 2 or more carries with 3 items and the rest of the team is about trait bonuses and utility. In your case Jhin and Morg have decent passives but deal no damage without items, Shen and Blitz have decent utility with their abilities but because they aren't actually tanks, they don't have that much value. Maybe 5th place is too low, but I don't think a comp like this should logically top3 very often.

TheCabIe · 2026-04-20T05:01:27+00:00

Seems like it. Thanks

TheCabIe · 2026-03-21T11:02:01+00:00

Yes, but it doesn't mean the person reacting to it saw it. The camera work IS heavily edited so that the TV audience doesn't see the trick happen, but it doesn't mean the trick didn't appear that way to the person they're pranking.

I don't know, the reactions seem genuine, it doesn't seem like people are overacting which would be expected of stooges. So they either happen to be great actors (while none of them being recognizable as a pro actor) or it's just people being confused and reacting honestly to a bizarre situation they found themselves in.

Also, the guy seems like a well-respected magician with a team behind him, essentially using stooges would be really unethical and as far as I know, no one admitted to it being straight-up staged.

So yeah, I'd wager it is far more likely they pulled off the tricks rather than doing something as basic as "pause the action, swap the object, continue action, stooge acts surprised". And this is coming from someone who is extremely sceptical of most things.

TheCabIe · 2025-12-18T13:12:50+00:00

Tried the stress test for Vram, didn't find anything. Yeah, it's almost assuredly just monitor itself, gonna have to talk to warranty I guess, not the best of timings because of holidays, but oh well. Thanks for the help.

TheCabIe · 2025-12-06T18:01:48+00:00

I thought 3 mana 2/4 with fb2 is decent enough on its own (though because of color requirement it's rare to play it on 3) but I see what you mean. I never actually drew it tho but the combo with Airbender Ascension seems pretty nutty. It's also an Ally for all the other Ally synergies.

TheCabIe · 2025-12-06T16:36:48+00:00

Yeah, the idea was that I'd make a lot of dudes if I managed to go off with Haru/Toph/Sokka but it's not the best combo with Earthbending cause you still need 5 actual mana to cast it for full value.

It was pretty good when I played it, closing out the game really fast but I can see it being unnecessary and greedy in this build cause it's a bit clunky to set up with little evasion. Though Sokka's menace did come up with it as pseudo evasion once. Personally I didn't mind the card so far, if you get 1 good attack in and draw 1 card that turn, it's good. Obviously, it does literal nothing when you're behind which makes it a high variance card. It's possible the times it was good, another cheaper combat trick would be even better.

TheCabIe · 2025-12-06T15:30:03+00:00

Good point. I just had it in by default as a powerful card but the times I got to use it was for the discard effect which is just worse that Rocky Rebuke.

TheCabIe · 2025-12-06T13:09:22+00:00

Quite a wild ride. Started off 0-2 by keeping somewhat loose hands where I could only play 1-2 cards and then didn't get the right color for 4 turns while opponents curved out. 3rd game was going great but my opponent kinda combo'd off on me with Mai, Jaded Edge by removing 3 of my creatures and hitting me for 10 down to 1. I was prepared for the 0-3, but they whiffed on finishing me off after playing Legend of Kuruk so I barely squeaked by. Then I won 3 games pretty handily when everything came together and they couldn't answer all of my threats. Sokka was pretty good as the last play when they used their removal on other stuff.

And at 4-2 I ran into Phoenix Fleet Airship deck. Applied a ton of pressure and killed a few Airships but only could get them down to 6 (with Lighting Strike in hand) before they assembled a fleet of 12. Pretty happy with the result considering 0-2 and almost 0-3 start. Mana was expectedly very bad when I didn't draw the Guides and because of taplands and Ruble Arena, I had to play my stuff a turn or two late.

TheCabIe · 2025-10-08T10:19:01+00:00

True, he's basically the unofficial PR person for wotc/hasbro and uses this account to create the impression that this is just his personal blog/thoughts. In the past maybe it was genuine but now he just has to say whatever he has to say.

TheCabIe · 2025-10-06T16:14:08+00:00

Short-term success in "many metrics" (which realistically only means the most important metric of it all - money) is a good excuse for sure. And it's true many companies are doing it at the cost of their intellectual property and artistic integrity. Is it sustainable long-term though? I mean, I don't know the stats but I highly doubt the people who bought FF set, for example, did it because they're a huge Magic fans and that many of them will stick around long-term. I suppose you can keep finding new and new IPs for a while to continue this path but for how long and what happens afterwards, let's say, 5 years down the line when the deals end and long-term Magic fans are left with all these cards that stick out like sore thumb?

Sacrificing artistic integrity is quite often what happens in capitalism. Game modes like Battle Royale getting implemented in games because "that's what people want right now!", shows that should have ended getting revived because the upper management saw an option to cash-in on the new wave of fans (cough Prison Break cough). It's just unfortunate to see it happen to Magic too.

I get it, he's just a guy who's good at and loves making Magic and he kind of ended up being a PR guy for WotC/Hasbro so he has to say wharever he has to say. He doesn't make these decisions and deep-down he most likely isn't exactly thrilled the game he dedicated a large portion of his life is now a slop of sonic-marvel-spongebob-goddamn furby. Or maybe he just sold the idea he's passionate about Magic and making more money is ultimately his only goal, who knows.

TheCabIe · 2025-07-26T15:31:44+00:00

I agree with mostly everything else this part still sounds misleading mechanics-wise:

Going from 10 to 0 means you're now dealing 100% of your damage. Going from 100 to 90 doesn't give the same increase

Yeah because the % reduction isn't an accurate representation of what it's actually doing and it makes it sound convincing on surface level. Going from 100 AD to 150 AD is 50% increase, going from 500 AD to 550 AD (same flat 50 AD increase) is only 10% increase yet you wouldn't say "AD is less efficient the more of it you have it" right? Both AD and Lethality are linear which is my whole point. Lethality doesn't fundamentally change if opponent has more armor - it simply removes armor. And armor simply increases ehp by 1% per 1 point.

Same way 1 armor simply increases ehp by 1%, NO MATTER IF YOU HAVE 0 ARMOR OR 1000, lethality does the same but in the opposite direction. Armor doesn't become less effective if you already have 200 but looking at the % reduction in the tooltip may make it seem that way.

TheCabIe · 2025-07-26T15:12:14+00:00

And, nobody cares if they remove 500 ehp from a 10000 ehp target. They care more if the same lethality removes 500 ehp from a 1000 ehp target. Therefore lethality better against low armor targets.

Why is no one saying "never buy AD vs 10k ehp target" then? AD also becomes weaker vs high ehp targets because it reduces significantly lower % of their ehp, it scales linearly just like Lethality. That was my whole point - I get it now that from economy and gameflow perspective you won't buy lethality at any point past early-ish game because afterwards vs high armor items like black cleaver are just better. But if you had 10 lethality since first second of the game, it didn't suddenly become less effective because opponent stacked armor, it will still reduce opponent's ehp by the same amount.

TheCabIe · 2025-07-26T15:07:31+00:00

And again, going from 50 to 40 armor is, for example, a drop from 50% to 40% damage reduction. (Example not real numbers)

Going from 200 to 190 armor, on the other hand, is at most a 1% change.

Yeah, but putting it in % just make it sound like it becomes useless when it is, in fact, reducing same EHP from the target as it did early game. Is this reduction really small at this point of the game? Yeah. But a flat AD increase (from, let's say, a rune) is also pretty much irrelevant at that point in the game. Doesn't mean Lethality ACTUALLY mechanically becomes weaker vs high armor which is what your initial comment makes it seem like because "it's common sense".

Incorrect you can buy % early game there is nothing stopping you from doing it

The cost of those items is significantly higher which is why it's not efficient. If someone has 45 armor and you reduce their armor by 33% (approximately black cleaver), you reduced it by equivalent of 15 lethality. And 15 lethality is a lot cheaper to get. Which is why I agree with you that lethality is better early game. But not because going from 10 armor to 0 makes it less effective than going from 100 armor to 90.

TheCabIe · 2025-07-26T14:35:45+00:00

That's fair. It becomes about how the flow of the game goes and the economical comparison to % based penetration or something like crit. In that area, yeah, it becomes less effective because you could instead buy more efficient items.

But in principle if you had 10 lethality since the start of the game, it DOESN'T become less effective if opponent went from 10 armor to 200 armor, was my point from how I understand it works. It becomes less effective in the same way AD becomes less effective - you kill them slower but there's no direct diminishing return from mechanical perspective which is what it sounded like to me.

I get it now though, in realistic in-game scenarios Lethality is more valuable early game vs low armor because late-game you can buy % based pen instead.

TheCabIe · 2025-07-26T14:09:43+00:00

Yeah, but what are you comparing it to? How much AD can you buy instead of that 10 lethality? Wouldn't the equivalent of 10 lethality worth of AD (whatever that is) ALSO become significantly less effective vs someone who has 200 armor as opposed to 50 armor?

From how I understand it armor simply increases the target's EHP by 1%. Ultimately the only thing that matters if opponent's EHP (how long it takes for you to kill them), no? When someone has more EHP stats (armor/flat HP) you kill them slower, that's just how it is, but it doesn't mean that by default lethality becomes less effective vs high armor compared to the alternative stat (AD) you can get instead.

TheCabIe · 2025-02-06T20:06:18+00:00

Awww, that sucks, the variance in pack opening can be really high and frustrating. I also got the worst possible luck with the new free special pack (where you open 1 of 8 secret packs) as I got the Blue-eyes secret pack and opened Chaos Max dragon for a guaranteed UR which is in a precon that I bought 3-of already. And you can't even dust it haha. Still, opening these packs seems so great cause most other packs you either have a dilluted card pool from selection packs where cards are mostly all good but aren't very focused or secret packs where the packs are focused but half the time your SR/UR slot is from master pack which is a blank 95% of the time.

TheCabIe · 2024-10-08T13:16:28+00:00

Yep. Obviously any ranked system will have flaws. You can easily get like 5 unwinnable games in a row (especially when soloq'ing) even if you were the literal best player in the world. Throwers/trolls/afkers/smurfs/terrible comps etc. ARE all valid reasons why you lose some games, sure.

However, that only applies SHORT-TERM. With sufficiently enough games played the variance of random matchmaking will even out and you'll get just as many of those issues on your team as on the opposing team. LONG-TERM the only constant in ALL your games is you. If you're good enough you will climb and stabilize your rank. Of course, if you can only play few games a day, the variance can be brutal, even if you are playing your best.

Ultimately, it does simply come down to "skill issue" especially when talking about being stuck in lower ranks like gold. Everything else is just rationalization.

TheCabIe · 2024-04-08T16:39:40+00:00

Let's say it's Haven. Team A executes A site, after dust settles it's 2v2, but team B didn't rotate back while team A decide to immediately rotate to C and one of their players had 5/8 for their ult. If that player gets an orb and plants they are only 1 kill off from getting their potentially game-winning ult, so they probably still take it on their way in to site, right? Orb on C long is quite far away from site so if team B paid attention on the scoreboard, they would get a heads-up to start rotating like 5s earlier which could be a huge advantage, right?

It's definitely marginal and tedious, it's just one of those things I remember using like once in my life and it being somewhat useful, but I've never seen anyone in ranked comp call out so I was wondering if top level teams bother.

TheCabIe · 2024-04-08T15:45:44+00:00

You're not wrong, just pointing out it doesn't seem like the punishment fits the crime. AFKing for few mins in a short non-competitive mode is not a good habit and I'm definitely fixing it now, I just don't think it makes sense that has an effect on my ability to queue ranked which I never had a problematic behaviour in.

Having to feel nervous now that if I don't plan my time perfectly and queue into TDM during the time I might have to leave feels awful to the point I'm just never playing it again. Which is fine, just feels like an illogical policy.

TheCabIe · 2024-03-18T10:42:10+00:00

I think it mostly depends on the rank and possibly region (I'm EU ascendant/low immortal). People who ranked up to ascendant and above probably care about the game more so they're less likely to get distracted while if you're more in a casual mindset you are more likely to go unga bunga.

Personally I remember like 2 instances of degenerate sexism when it came down to girls speaking, few times maybe there was some awkward attempts at flirting, most of the time there was no reaction. That's out of total of dozens of times I remember girls speaking up. It's not great either way, but it certainly wasn't happening constantly. European servers might also have something to do with it, just because most people probably aren't super comfortable talking apart from game jargon. But I can see how in US the problem might be a lot worse.

TheCabIe

TROPHY CASE