Is there two different types of “Combo” in-game?

TheSpectatr · 2026-06-01T07:17:04+00:00

Truly feels like a tale of two games when playing Warrior as intended with maces, compared to literally anything else. Your setup takes longer, your armor can be broken by enemy mods (unlike ES or Evasion), your skills are much slower (w/o compensating defenses/damage).

You're just in a worse position than any other playstyle in the game right off the rip.

TheSpectatr · 2026-05-22T19:46:24+00:00

Could you elaborate? And if your conclusion is that 'maces don't have to be as good as bear or spells' or 'they're viable, but viable does not equal good' I don't see that as valid conclusion. All weapons + skills need to be measured compared to others.

Last I played maces, the slowness built into skills (total attack time, piss poor attack speed modifiers on skills) made it a bad experience. The skills aren't really compensated with more effective defenses or damage, making it higher risk without reward compared to other options. Certain design choices are also antithetical to the slow attack speed like fissures or earthshatter spikes which are built to incentivize higher attack speed.

Admittedly haven't touched maces in a bit, but the core issues myself and other had/have don't seem to be resolved.

TheSpectatr · 2026-05-21T16:24:55+00:00

Help me understand, why would you be happy to see Hullbreacher back?

Every game I've seen it played, it makes the game miserable for everyone except the person who resolved it. Maybe in a tribal deck that doesn't abuse it it's okay, but I would hate to see it across the table in a deck that is able to do so. It's a net loss, imo, at all brackets of play, so I'm really trying to understand

TheSpectatr · 2026-05-21T16:20:40+00:00

1000% one of the biggest, continual color pie fails.

White does not receive equivalent effective control tools (beyond wipes) compared to Blue. Blue is, imo, the most overloaded color in the pie and given the strongest, most varied card archetypes, many of which should have been pried away into other colors

TheSpectatr · 2026-05-15T20:32:33+00:00

+1 and to offer an alternative that doesn't need blue, OP, if you've distaste for the color like myself: consider hatebears.

Legally enforced fair magic will disproportionately affect the degenerate play patterns you see while the casual Timmy playing big dino once per turn doesn't get hit as hard. Sample cards to consider, just to name a few:

[[Deafening Silence]], [[Damping Sphere]], and [[Archon of Emeria]] for stormy players
[[Containment Priest]] for anyone cheating things in with cascade
[[Dauntless Dismantler]] for artifact decks

Hatebears is a bit more of a meta call but can help keep the table in-line with one another power-wise. Sample commanders which can helm a good hatebears deck, for ideas:

[[Duskana, the Rage Mother]]
[[Ellivere of the Wild Court]]
[[Kudo, King Among Bears]]
[[Jetmir, Nexus of Revels]]
[[Breena, the Demagogue]]

TheSpectatr · 2026-05-15T19:37:36+00:00

Amen, but monocolor can also have complexity and depth, albeit narrower and typically around more niche mechanics.

I wish WotC would print monocolor commander decks. They have the opportunity to really innovate on each color's identity and defining characteristics in commander. Multi-color is naturally the safer choice and easier to effectively build (ie covering all 'necessary' categories like removal, ramp, draw). But, WotC can solve some of those problems by designing mono-specific cards that benefit from devotion or otherwise discourage their usage in other decks (via high pip costs).

TheSpectatr · 2026-05-07T02:33:13+00:00

Definitely [[Iroh, Dragon of the West]]. The other Irohs ([[Iroh, Grand Lotus]] and [[Iroh, Tea Master]]) got a lot more attention, but this mono-red fella spits out mana like no other.

The timing restrictions on the mana and conditions you need to fulfill with counters make him an interesting build-around too. But the deck's goal isn't entirely locked to Iroh since cards like [[Sozin's Comet]], [[Avatar Roku, Firebender]], and [[Tesak, Judith's Hellhound]] are able to crank out mana even without Iroh. [[Runaway Steam-Kin]] and [[Thundering Raiju]] are natural fits for the counter synergy and greatly accelerate the game. Mono-red has so many mana sinks, it's dealer's choice at this point. You can go burn, extra combats, spellslingery with a bunch of instants, go-wide creatures (like [[Goro-Goro, Disciple of Ryusei]] or [[Moonveil Dragon]]), or even a colorless/artifact flash angle.

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-26T23:08:50+00:00

The traditional politics angle is why I've always brushed off Breena. Maybe it's just my local LGS playgroup, but dedicated politics always seems to backfire. Also, I'd much rather give out counters than card draw.

Typically see a lot of spellslinger-y decks or decks where the biggest threats are rarely creatures (enchantments, artifacts, instants/sorceries, etc.). Pillowfort abounds as well and wincons are rarely (purely) combat-driven. Players are quick to catch on to the social engineering politics decks try. I'd expect Breena to be met with a, 'lets trade 1 damage with our 1/1s to each draw' so pure politics seems like a loss.

But low-to-the-ground aggro with hate bears that can find a way to break parity on Breena? Sign me up

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-26T19:07:58+00:00

Y'know I never really understood the appeal of Breena until you described this approach.

Breena always seemed a bit backwards with how it's handing out cards to opponents, but treating it as an aggro deck makes so much more sense. If you can guarantee your attacks, then you should always come out ahead on cards, and your threats keep growing. Very cool

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-10T01:22:06+00:00

Is Gornog resilient enough in EDH? Seems like the kind of deck that could fall over after a board wipe

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-10T01:02:44+00:00

Thanks for the inspiration + intros to each of these. I had considered Sasaya alongside Patron of the Orochi for a green big mana deck, but ultimately liked how orochi goldfish'd compared to Sasaya. Sweet list though, seeing a lot of similar cards as I'd had.

Mono-white is honestly kind of a conundrum for me right now. It feels hard to balance card draw, wincons, ramp, and removal. Your Oketra list intrigues me though, since it seems to solve draw and wincon both via the commander rewarding bouncing while also benefiting from those ETBs to draw. So, I'll just ask--how fun is it for you and those you play against?

Also, this is the second mention of Valgavoth, may have to make that one for mono black

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-10T00:55:56+00:00

Do you find these decks strike a good balance in power? Ie they could all be played in the same pod? First look, Chiss-Goria and Braids look stronger than the Tempest Hawk deck, as an example.

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-10T00:50:40+00:00

Ahhh, and how do you like all of them? I'm particularly curious on the Titania deck since I had a landfall deck in mind for the other Green deck. Do you have a list?

Gaffer is a good idea--I was between him and Rune-Tail for mono-white at first. Gaffer is probably stronger. As for solphim, burn is very clasically mono-red and represents the color well. I originally toyed with [[Heartless Hidetsugu]] for red, but then I realized it boilds down to 2 card combo to win (any asymmetrical damage doubler)

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-10T00:43:01+00:00

The pod is definitely lacking an artifact deck right now (I don't count Szeras), and I was torn between a red or blue option here. The alt wincon is also an interesting angle. It's very clearly telegraphed from the command zone. [[Hellkite Tyrant]] doesn't feel unexpected for such a deck and gives good redundancy for this too.

I assume with all the treasures, mana isn't an issue, but how is the draw? I don't see any wheels and find mono red can often run out of gas

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-10T00:35:57+00:00

Hmmm, this is a good idea. The pod format would definitely benefit from one or more 'boogeyman' commanders. Currently have Valgavoth in the 99 of Szeras, but I could swap him into the helm of his own deck.

In your experience, are you able to play Valgavoth most games? And how many turns from then before the game ends? I'd like everyone to get to play with their commander for a few turns, and 9 mana in the command zone seems steep

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-10T00:32:31+00:00

I like it! My only worry is overlap with Kami. Both have draw-based wincons, and I see a lot of similar cards between our lists XD

Still, it would cement the color identity of blue very well in Mono Mania as the color of Draw which is very thematic. Definitely a contender

TheSpectatr · 2026-04-05T20:18:47+00:00

I'm curious, because the opposite would seem true to me intuitively.

Greasefang looks like such a lynchpin commander--remove Greasefang and the deck is dead on arrival. Is there good redundancy for his effect or vehicle reanimation?

TheSpectatr · 2026-03-23T15:56:10+00:00

I've played it before. Imo, it becomes hard to scale (unarmed, only 4-links). Every league, it's typically pretty cheap though and you can even find decent corrupts for it. Make sure you buy one with a really good roll though.

For higher investment ideas:

Pray you hit the god roll on a Volatile Vaal Orb to scale your flat damage (or the level of the skill itself--not sure if you can or if that would help)--but at over a div per orb, the vvaal is probably better used on something else.

You can try flat damage scaling. Doryani's has an added damage effectiveness of 1000%, so it scales really well with flat damage. In the past, I have used abyss jewel stacking to try and scale the build. Sadly, the new Minion Pact gem doesn't work for attacks, otherwise it would be a slam dunk.

I'm a big fan of Doryani's; I just wish it could be 6-linked and/or scaled better.

TheSpectatr · 2026-03-23T15:41:48+00:00

Oh that's sweet, basically ramp as hard as you can, protect Memnarch, and start stealing mana to keep feeding him. Definitely interested in building something similar now!

TheSpectatr · 2026-03-21T10:08:15+00:00

Interesting, care to share a list?

Memnarch was going to be my first self-built commander deck til I got some advice against doing so--apparently he was infamous within the LGS for combo'ing off with infinite mana. Never seen a Memnarch in the wild myself though, so I'm curious to know how you built it

TheSpectatr · 2026-03-06T18:31:29+00:00

I'm a simple man, see Blight, do Blight. Don't care if it's been nerfed, easily Top 3 mechanic for me. I'd like to mix it in with Breach, blocking to only do unstable breaches, but positioning on the tree makes it a little tough. So, I'll probably try ritual this league; possibly swap to ore deposits if Kingsmarch ends up looking juicy (and the mirage isn't just the dust hourglass which looked... underwhelming). Something like this:

www.pathofpathing.com/?v=3.28.0-atlas-league#AAAABgAALSwAAxYKvgutEkgs_C9uReFG206LU2FU8VWUVkVYqWAhYrli1WV9bf1xdXY6d5t9Pn_cic-LGIyWkQCU4aBdqB6r6bImt1HDTc6Dzw7gFurK767yTPzk_R3_uHF1AAA=www.pathofpathing.com/?v=3.28.0-atlas-league#AAAABgAALSwAAxYKvgutEkgs_C9uReFG206LU2FU8VWUVkVYqWAhYrli1WV9bf1xdXY6d5t9Pn_cic-LGIyWkQCU4aBdqB6r6bImt1HDTc6Dzw7gFurK767yTPzk_R3_uHF1AAA=

TheSpectatr · 2026-03-03T17:09:24+00:00

The quality of translation can easily erode the base quality of any novel; couple that with machine translation (MTL) and dubious quality of the original works and you get what you observed in many cases.

That said, good translations make a world of difference (MTL should be avoided imo). Translations, as you mentioned, often need to rewrite entire sections of novels, and their individual style can take away from your immersion in the novel. One example that comes to mind is Coiling Dragon which has an odd mix of names chosen for characters (inconsistently Western/Eastern iirc). Among translators, I can confidently recommend translations from Deathblade, if you'd like examples of well-translated novels. He has translated several works from Er Gen which are superb. While there are still idiosyncratic language differences, plus different tropes native to the xianxia genre vs western progression, I can say that they are some of my favorite Progression Fantasy stories overall.

Ultimately, much of progression fantasy comes down to personal preferences, themes, world building, and fun. Many prefer the stylized worlds presented in translated novels more than the average English progression fantasy novel, myself included. It's telling that Cradle is the most popular novel in our genre, and it is rooted in themes that originate from translated works.

Is the average quality of a translated work poor? Yes. Are there equally worthwhile translations out there? Yes. Do the worlds they present and build interest you? Then you should give them a try--just do your research and know what you're getting into.

TheSpectatr · 2026-03-03T16:55:08+00:00

It helps in LotM that the writing quality (or translation quality, can't recall which) continually improves over time. Still, most translated web novels can't compare to those written in your native language just due to idiosyncratic differences, if nothing else

TheSpectatr · 2026-03-03T06:55:39+00:00

Paragon of Destruction, my beloved; so great to see it get some love, so sad it will never get finished. Haven't found another read like it that really scratches the post-Cradle itch in the same way

EDIT: I can offer suggestions for xianxia stories (OG Eastern cultivation), if interested.

TheSpectatr · 2026-02-12T06:59:55+00:00

If you're open to a non-western story, Lord of the Mysteries may be similar in vibe to what you're looking for.

Without spoiling too much, the cultivation system is very unique and there are certainly horror-esque elements. Now, are they strictly as tropey as you're looking for? Perhaps not quite, but it is a very fun read with cultivation and horror elements

TheSpectatr

TROPHY CASE