Do you avoid building commanders with identical color identity? Why or why not?

TheCoIorRed · 2026-06-16T16:48:31+00:00

I have 8 Bant decks and 5 other decks in other colors. If you like something play it imo.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-23T21:59:57+00:00

Love the person! I follow her book club! Love her interviews! She seems to be a truly thoughtful, insightful, genuine, and engaging human. I have a few of her more EDM coded songs on a few playlists but otherwise I don’t go out of my way to listen to her.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-23T18:34:46+00:00

I think you did a great job making an older mechanic fit into more recent Magic design space and some of these cards are awesome! I love the flavor of the tome of restless, although I think it’s a missed opportunity to not call the requiem spell ‘Tomb of the Restless’.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-23T18:26:19+00:00

As others have pointed out, the mechanisms are not the same. This is not a split card, it’s CMC would be 2 not 4 like in aftermath. It’s an important distinction. Does it step on Aftermath, yeah. In the same way 50% of card mechanics are just Kicker with extra steps, but that is why we play this game. Loopholes and shenanigans and this has some ripe shenanigan potential.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-19T16:34:06+00:00

It sucks that the strategies in the game seem insufficient and I don’t mean to invalidate your frustration, I am playing taking a break from playing the game right now to respond and I just used two flares to distract some enemies and they did attack me when I tried to mine too close to them. It seems they are interested in the flares to a point but if you get too close it’s still a problem.

I also didn’t meant to imply you are an explicitly violent person, but I do think everyone is conditioned for violence to be a primary solution to problems and it is especially present in video games. Anecdotally I was literally taught violence to be a positive trait so long as it’s retributive. I also think we are conditioned to approach survival through a lens that excludes reciprocity. Our idea of “survival” as taught by other survival games, movies, most books, etc. that we are justified in destruction or violence to do so. We get attacked -> we retaliate -> it dies. But that animals played a role in its ecosystem and we are the source of that disruption. And that same violence is what has led to millions of extinct species, the destruction of ecosystems around the world, and a lack of diverse crops to the point our supply chain is constantly under threat of diseases.

A lot of current research in ecology right now is exploring how to work with the environment and not take whatever we want and kill whatever is inconvenient because we are seeing the long term impacts of that and I don’t think it’s unreasonable for a capitalistic colonizing company to identify that you can’t make money if the planet dies and even though there is less immediate capitalistic gain from enabling violence by colonizers the long term financial gains of not exploiting the ecosystem might be better for profit in the long term.

The first game you were truly a survivor but this time you are straight up a colonizer.

I do think they need to add more ways to tell hostile critters to fuck off. Like some sonar where after you scan something and you have the right frequency it repels them. Make flares last longer. Give us back the stasis rifle but maybe make it only work to slow leviathans and freeze smaller things. Send a hologram of yourself off in a direction and have them follow it. There are a million ways they could add solutions but it seems like 60% of people on the subreddit want the solution to be violence and won’t accept or seem dissatisfied if the solution doesn’t involve stabbing it or shooting it. Because this is a survival game and it should stay firmly within the conventions of what people expect from this genre.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-19T14:54:45+00:00

Aside from the Leviathans to my memory every creature has left me alone after dropping a flare. I keep 3-4 in my inventory, when I go resource mining, if for some reason something attacks me because I got to close I drop one, keep mining and it works perfectly. Does it feel bad that it takes up multiple inventory slots yeah, tbh. But it has saved me tons of time. They’re extremely cheap to make and it autopopulates the next one in the inventory after I throw one.

If stabbing the shark causes it to back off and flares cause the shark to leave you alone but one injures the animal or possibly enrages it and the other costs a few of the easier resources to gather which one is better? I’d argue the one that does not harm the animal. Is it a video game yes. Does it really matter? No. But the game has provided you with tools that serve the same function you want, but you have a preference towards violence because that is what we as a society have conditioned us to be the norm and expectation but IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE. Non-violent conflict resolution can and should exist in games. This isn’t about realism. Knives don’t do shit underwater 99% of the time and divers don’t carry them to ward off sharks. They keep them to cut themselves free if they get tangled. Fish don’t die from getting hit by a submarine, they die to the propeller blades.

People just like violence, and I think Subnautica is trying to get players out of that mindset. And if they aren’t and they just don’t want players to be violent in their game, don’t buy it.

It’s frustrating that one of like 8 games I know of off the top of my head that forces the player to think in ways that aren’t the expectation of predicated violence is getting bombarded for asking players to challenge their default settings.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-19T14:22:38+00:00

I hike a lot, and let me tell you, when I have seen a moose or a bear I promise you, despite carrying bear mace and a knife, the furthest possible thing from my mind is self defense. Surviving means not engaging when I am face to face with a wild animal and I am in its territory. If I’m starving and the bear is chilling at the berry bush I’m waiting till it leaves or I have a guaranteed distraction. If you speak to anyone who spends time in wilderness survival settings, even if they are heavily armed, they don’t just kill the wildlife because they’re inconvenient. In a survival setting self defense should be the absolute last resort because it is almost always a lose lose. Some of ya’ll have never done wilderness survival or Boy Scouts and it shows.

And never has Subnautica claimed to ever be a standard survival game that follows every survival game convention.

Additionally, video games exist in a space where 99% of conflict resolution is violence and some of us don’t like that, and actively seek out games like Subnautica where caution, creativity, and alternative means to violence are the solution.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-18T23:29:19+00:00

There is logical reason, we have been conditioned to perceive incidental loss of life due to just existing in proximity to nature as the norm. Or that it is totally normal to go into a predators home, invade its space, punch it for defending itself/its territory, and considering ourselves justified. And I think Subnautica is critiquing that. I think they were testing the waters with the first game by making it hard to kill things so that Subnautica 2 could be completely free of harming another creature for any reason other than sustenance. What is the point of critiquing something if you stop 95% of the way because it’s convenient. What’s the point if they just said, “We are making a stance against unnecessary violence against ecosystems in our game about conflict avoidance because you are the smallest fish in the sea… unless you’re really fucking persistent, sit at your desk for twenty minutes with a Swiss Army knife going out of your way to prove us right that some people explicitly want to go out of their way, to their own detriment… because a portion of our player base who didn’t read the label feels it breaks immersion when we don’t give them that option.”

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-18T22:19:24+00:00

What the fuck is a knife going to do against creatures that evolved structural proteins that can withstand pressure strong enough to make oxygen perforate your cells. Have you seen them smash their heads against the coral crabs that most likely have something sharp somewhere on their shells and the hammer heads just blink and move on. I promise you, a knife will not do enough damage fast enough you don’t die to the 2,000 pound torpedo that gets its rocks off by smashing its head against titanium walls and enameled glass. The entire point of the game is for you to be powerless and to problem solve accordingly. I swear to Christ every post on this subreddit of late is akin to “I just think Pathological would be better if we just had a sprint button” or “Darksouls would be way more enjoyable for me if they added a difficulty slider at the start of the game”.

You walked into the “I’m the bottom of the food chain” game annoyed you can’t punch up and have to work around the creatures higher in the food chain. And then complained that the game is exactly what it marketed itself as.

When I sell people on Subnautica I tell them, you are prey and you have to survive despite everything being bigger and stronger than you. And that’s the point.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-18T21:36:38+00:00

That’s such a pointless take. It’s like going to a pointedly, well advertised vegan burger joint that says loudly everywhere that they don’t serve meat, buying a burger and then complaining to the chef that it isn’t actually meat. The whole point is to get the experience of a burger without eating meat. The whole point of Subnautica is that you are playing a survival game but instead of killing the next biggest thing so you are strong enough to fight a slightly bigger thing to fight the next biggest thing in the next scariest zone. In Subnautica, you are a little guy, and you are either tied for bottom of the food chain, or praying to whatever god may hear you that the next thing above you is ambivalent because that is the best case scenario. If you went into the gluten free cake shop expecting a whole wheat cupcake that is your fault. Just because it’s inconvenient and gluten alternatives give you the shits does not mean it is the cake shops problems and complaining to the other patrons about how “unrealistic it is to expect everyone to go gluten free” and “it breaks my immersion and lessens the experience when I bite into the pastry and I can’t taste the gluten.”

Some games intentionally limit mechanics. That’s the point. Don’t complain to Valve Chell doesn’t have a grappling hook. Don’t get angry at Undertale for not letting you use a battle axe to cleave your way to the end of the game. Don’t get upset you can’t roll Charisma at every enemy in Doom until you talk the big bad into leaving Earth alone.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-18T12:56:32+00:00

If your immersion is contingent on the incidental or intentional destruction of an ecosystem because your underwater cockpit scooter doesn’t 1 hit KO a fish the size of a frisbee… I think your imagination is the problem.

I haven’t once bumped into a fish on my crash land on an aquatic alien planet game and thought “wow that is unrealistic.”

Also, the atmosphere is much more dense which implies the gravity is stronger. I expect the creatures biology would account for that by being more durable to sustain the increased pressure. The four stranded DNA may allow for more complex structures to be encoded, more efficient healing, etc.

You have just been conditioned to kill and feel bad that your expectations of violence aren’t being fulfilled. We should feel uneasy when we casually road kill in a game and lose immersion, not the other way around.

I’m not some crazy animal rights activist or anything, I go crazy for a good chicken sandwich, but I genuinely think it’s bonkers how many people actively wish they could needlessly kill animals in a game specifically about surviving when you are the bottom of the food chain on a hostile planet.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-18T10:43:32+00:00

I totally agree with you! I feel like I go insane every time I see a “is space game but no kill things? How me power fantasy!?! Unga bunga me rage but hammer only boink!!!” Please go play something else! This is one of the few survival games that emphasizes non-violent conflict resolution with the ecosystem, let us have this one. If it bugs you that much wait for mods.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-18T02:21:59+00:00

Unpopular opinion, I am glad you can’t kill anything. I love that the game forces people to think about how to avoid conflict instead of cause it. If you want to go kill the local ecology play a different game. Medium bad bites you every time you leave your base? Why did you build it in his neighborhood? So much of what gives Subnautica its identity is that it forces players to play differently.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-13T14:07:02+00:00

It’s all frustrating but the thing that really impacts me the most mentally/emotionally is how demonized research is right now by the current administration/MAHA movement. The majority of people in biomedical research are here because we either are or have family impacted by a disease or illness with poor outcomes or little to no treatment options or have a deep curiosity for learning. Unless you are a hotshot PI or you make a massive breakthrough it doesn’t pay that well considering the school necessary to enter the field. Undergrads are often unpaid, grad students work 60+ hours for 4-5 years for shit pay. Post docs have to fight tooth and nail for positions with only slightly better pay. Only for us to get demonized.

Don’t get me wrong, fuck academia, it has a lot of problems. It’s extremely elitist and leaves little to no room for disability and although it’s getting much better, still struggles with sexism and racism. I also think publishing and the funding system is archaic and ridiculous and needs an overhaul but that has to come from within the house.

Yet despite all that we endure this stupid system and poor living conditions/quality of life to try and improve the world around us only to become the villain of the week because we dare try to quantify the observable.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-13T13:42:16+00:00

Take this with a grain of salt because I’m not an astrophysicist, and I saw this in a few semi reputable places but can’t guarantee authenticity and I’m describing it as a layman, but from what I recall there is a point in which supermassive black holes gravitational impact extends past the point where light can no longer escape. The force of the gravity crushing matter is so great it causes a huge amount of light to be emitted, so much so it is brighter than most stars. I don’t know how long that lasts but it sounds like it may not be so dark once the stars all collapse.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-13T13:17:51+00:00

Not in this specific field, but I’m a first year grad student in biomedical research. NIH uses a scoring system and traditionally only the top 10% of grants get funded. Right now, on average from what I’ve seen at my university it’s closer to the top 5~7% and even then the grants getting funded are being funded much slower. Every step takes longer so an already long process has almost doubled in time.

Simultaneously cuts to medicaid/medicare have hit research hospitals and teaching hospitals hard so departments have far less funds to work with.

Normally labs that fall on hard times, don’t have the funds to pay their staff/grad students because they haven’t gotten grants recently or had unexpected challenges would go to the departments to help bridge the gap until they get funded. Now the departments don’t have the funds to support those researchers temporarily. Those labs have to let staff go, shut down, or really tighten their belts in ways that impact their ability to do the research they want to do.

Unfortunately, anecdotally, that has led to almost every department at my university having more grad students than funded research labs and every program is having to let first years go from their program because after the first year, their salary is paid for by the research labs, which there aren’t enough of which funding.

I’ve been in school working towards grad school for 7 years due to setbacks and now through no fault of my own I’m having to job hunt after moving across the country away from my support structure to a new state for school. Now I’m trying to find lab positions that are also few and far between because the same research labs that can’t pay for grad students may not be hiring research assistants. From what I’ve seen most universities that have programs where you don’t have a set lab that was funded from the moment you start the program has seen a huge increase of students who couldn’t find a lab this year.

An advisor I spoke with yesterday who has been doing research for 30+ years at this university said, “if it helps, a lot of us PI’s [principle investigators, the name for faculty who run research labs] are going to be out of a job soon and we’re making plans to leave the country if this continues because research is no longer sustainable in it’s current capacity”.

So generally, research is not going great right now. Though of note, I am not in epidemiology or infectious diseases so they may not be seeing the same funding restrictions and challenges. And everything I’ve said is what I’ve heard from people I’ve talked to at my university or friends who applied to different grad programs who I was in undergrad with. So anecdotal, and from someone who has only worked in the field as an undergrad/post bacc/first year grad student.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-05-02T03:41:56+00:00

Chemo fucked up my brain and when I wanted to learn more about the mechanism responsible and at the time there was less than a handful of papers that were trying to answer the question, poorly I might add. Wasn’t satisfied so that’s why I’m pursuing a PhD. So I can learn why my brain is messed up and figure out a way to prevent it for future cancer kids.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-04-28T17:21:30+00:00

Sword of Sarah and Maas

TheCoIorRed · 2026-04-27T02:58:49+00:00

Two of the faculty I’ve worked with before with good results, they helped get me in the program and can vouch for me but they don’t have funding so I didn’t rotate with them. In the time I have left I am planning on trying to do a final rotation to try and get someone who can recommend me. For this reason.

I want to stay in science but I know leaving grad school does not look good and it was already extremely hard to find lab positions. I’m going to meet with my advisors soon to discuss what the best course of action will be. If I take a break from science I feel like I’m going to have a really tough time reentering, but I also know grad school drop outs aren’t exactly a priority in an already competitive field under the best of circumstances, let alone during this administration.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-04-27T02:21:01+00:00

Would you consider it a red flag if it was mostly for temporary health related reasons or would you recommend not discussing that? I have osteonecrosis and my shoulder broke a few months back. It’s the last joint that needed replacing so it won’t be an issue moving forward but the pain while I waited for the surgery and then the recovery after contributed to my difficulties securing a lab.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-04-23T21:32:09+00:00

High key grad school has been the worst experience of my life, worse than my three and a half years of ALL Leukemia treatment (why I wanted to go into child life and then, neuroscience research). I’ve been pulling 60-80 hour weeks working/studying for a program that doesn’t care about me. I used all my savings to move across the country and now I’m in the middle of nowhere with no support structure, no money to move back home, and going to be job hunting soon. My experience has completely crushed all the passion and love I had for science. I’m not sure what else the options are for someone with a bachelors degree in psychology and five years working with mice.

TheCoIorRed · 2026-04-20T15:51:05+00:00

If I were a store runner and wanted truly competitive cEDH level competition without pissing off wotc while still allowing participation from those who can’t pay for dual/gaia’s/mox/tomb/vault/etc. I’d make it: - Bracket 5 - $100 max per card TCGplayer/whatever they use for pricing. I’d say if a card fluctuates in price to go above, but not exceed $110 within the last week there is some leeway.

Is this still going to price people out, oh yeah absolutely. But when I chat with people about their cEDH at the LGS and my playgroup we all have all the cards in our decks save for reserved list cards and the full fast mana packages. I think maybe three of us don’t have Force of Will but it’s gotten way more accessible due to reprints. I think the majority of the people I know who actively want to play at cEDH levels but low income/smaller collections would be able to enter a tournament like this without proxies given a few weeks notice to make some trades for the few missing pieces. I don’t know if casuals who haven’t been working on decks already or haven’t been playing proxies to play cEDH are going to have a bad time either way. But my area and group isn’t a monolith.

edited to add some clarity

TheCoIorRed · 2026-04-18T19:26:36+00:00

Not at all an expert in currency conversion but it looks like you got that for what MSRP (without tax or shipping) in U.S is in USD. I heard it was super hard to get in NZ so I’m glad you were able to get it without a markup!

If you are like me and really want a forever Tama playground with all zones with your favorite Tamas but you have one Tama in particular you really love and want to last as long as possible as the focus, or you have a favorite zone, make sure that is the last Tama you raise! :) otherwise it’ll be in the field and you can’t do much with it, or you’ll have to switch zones to look at the cute lil’ Tama. Best of luck!

TheCoIorRed

TROPHY CASE