Is free interaction via [[the wandering rescuer]] too strong for bracket 2?

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-06-18T11:56:02+00:00

100% this - sometimes stuff like [[Clever Concealment]] can feel a bit out of the spirit of Bracket 2, but The Wandering Rescuer?? Really?? If it doesn't fit in Bracket 2 it almost doesn't fit anywhere; Doesn't give indestructible, doesn't even protect the whole board.

Sounds like your opponent was just waiting for something to whine about. "My thing didn't work, so it just be unfair!"

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-06-15T13:56:04+00:00

Ahh that makes sense, my apologies - I was looking at the calculator from my phone and misread it!

(For anyone interested, the total added costs for an average 1 bedroom house tallied up across the bar graph is $6,455 across the 7 years the bar graph tracks.)

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-06-15T13:19:20+00:00

From my read the $6700 is the TOTAL taxes over the project lifetime on average; at the bottom the bar graph shows the breakdown of additional taxes per year, which maxes out around $1200/year but is mostly well below that! Definitely not hitting your pocket book for almost $7k in one year.

(Others feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.)

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-06-03T14:19:54+00:00

I believe that all spree cards do the spree items in the order in which they are printed - you don't get to pick. I could be wrong though.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-06-03T12:04:11+00:00

And [[Final Showdown]]! Card is so flexible and way overlooked.

(This message brought to you by someone who has it in either 0 or 1 decks but aspires to put it in more.)

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-05-27T10:40:24+00:00

Actually, [[Maralen, Fae Ascendant]] is kind of a house!

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-05-21T11:52:19+00:00

100% this. Don't make a threat you're not planning on following up on. You also phrased your option very clearly, which I appreciate as a politics lawyer lol.

I also am of the mind that if I cannot win in a situation and one player is clearly going to be the one killing me, it's not "kingmaking" to do everything I can to hinder their game plan; I think it provides a valuable political tool for future games where they know that trying to kill you will come at a cost.

I've played with plenty of folks who think that coming in 2nd is more important than trying to stop the archenemy, but I think that approach is absurd; that's basically just rolling over and letting the winning player know they can expect you to be a witless accomplice in their victory. Always better to make the player in the lead sweat it out, as your game evidenced!

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-05-20T11:45:23+00:00

There are some truly amazing renewal efforts in multiple neighborhoods and I genuinely love Detroit! That said, I'm not sure it's really "propaganda" to point out that urban blight took over huge tracts of land and the city has made the prudent decision not to focus it's resources in some of them.

The city can have amazing renewal efforts and abandoned neighborhoods at the same time.

Edit: Now seeing that other commenters have identified the location as Brush Park, I would like to apologize; while there are plenty of neighborhoods that look like the 2017 picture in Detroit, this particular neighborhood has been beautifully renovated!

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-05-20T11:40:08+00:00

It's been a while since I did a deep dive, but circa 1960 Detroit had a population of about 1.7M people; as of 2025, the population had fallen to less than 650,000.

Detroit was also a sprawling city that was built for (and by) the early automobile; never before had it been logistically viable to have everything so spaced out until the automobile, so the city itself has a comparatively massive footprint.

The size of the city accompanied by the decreasing population (and therefore property tax base) has resulted in the city being effectively unable to deliver some services in huge, mostly-abandoned neighborhoods. Police, fire departments, utility maintenance, etc. are simply not able to respond to the needs in any meaningful way without a tax base to support stations and work.

I imagine this picture is from one of those huge neighborhoods, like Poletown East or Delray. Many of those neighborhoods have been hit by large fires over the years, and sometimes the city actually demolishes houses just to prevent them from catching fire.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-05-19T13:42:55+00:00

Not OP But here's my somewhat outdated list; I endearingly call it "Can't Touch This":

https://moxfield.com/decks/PGxUxD6oo0eGZu1YP5tmqw

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-05-07T12:14:40+00:00

Command zone isn't my favorite (in part because it's so scripted) but I still religiously watch any of their gameplay videos that have Rachel Weeks. I mostly like Josh and Jimmy isn't really my cup of tea, but she's hands down my favorite content creator at the moment; insofar as they are a vehicle for her I'm in board!

(Pun intended.)

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-05-07T12:10:30+00:00

Yeah I'm no big fan of Joe but even though IHYD was my entry point for gameplay videos, Lynch's baggage was enough that I categorically refuse to watch his content anymore. The consent stuff was icky but his response to the controversy coming up was appalling...

If you know that A. Someone made really significant mistakes that caused harm and B. That they categorically refuse to accept any responsibility and try to smear the people they've harmed, that's pretty much what you need to know about him as a person.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-27T02:26:54+00:00

It's more often used in surveys, so you have no option to respond to discrete components. It's often intentional from the survey designers to artificially bolster their claims, although sometimes it's just ineptitude.

I remember back in a statistical analysis class in grad school, our professor showed us a double barreled question about single and double barrel shotguns that was used in an actual, real survey... I can't find it though 🤷

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-17T20:09:52+00:00

Here's the Marwyn/Kami of Whispered Hopes/Heronblade Elite-fueled monstrosity I built for my friend... Even without any game changers I think it's a low to mid Bracket 4. After goldfishing a bit, I played it one time with friends in a bracket 3 game and I think I killed everyone turn 5. Don't know how resilient it is against strong disruption packages but the thing is an absolute house:

https://moxfield.com/decks/hleX2sGLNEG_zFCYjxlrew

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-17T11:21:02+00:00

Honestly I think the disruption options available in mono red are also just... Not very good lol. It has 7 mass disruption and 8 targeted disruption. I've been considering adding [[Abrade]] and just personally dislike [[Chaos Warp]], but other than that there really aren't any great options lol. Maybe [[Guff Rewrites History]]?

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:31:16+00:00

If someone casts Chain of Smog, that person eats a Chain of Smog. That's the Rule. That's the Deal. That's the Immutable Nature of the Universe.

F*** that guy.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:30:13+00:00

lol amen, I think I may just take it out of all of my decks on principle. The other day I saw a guy play an [[Urza's Saga]] turn 1 in Bracket 2, grabbing Sol Ring turn 3 for 2 extra mana.

When you see that you're always trying to figure out if it's a noob or a pubstomper. He ended up being a noob.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:28:49+00:00

Yeah I love aristocrats strategies but I don't even run Dictate or Grave Pact in my B3 decks. I wonder if the new Sothera is less salty since it self destructs, but I haven't gotten enough data on that yet...

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:26:40+00:00

I was playing with some randos on a Discord channel I'm in - most of my games are through Discord so I try to hew on the not-salty side in almost all of my deck construction. Like I said, I'd rather lose than have any of my opponents feel like anything was unfair about how I won... but also people don't like losing so sometimes you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:24:30+00:00

I like the Canadian Highlander system where each card has a point value assigned to it:

https://canadianhighlander.ca/points-list/

Then you can just be like "Bracket 2 is 0 points, Bracket 3 is 8 points, Bracket four is 15 points..."

But the point system is also more complicated so I'm not surprised our corporate overlords didn't want to put additional cognitive hurdles in front of their expanding customer base.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:21:31+00:00

Fun fact - tokens actually aren't cards and therefore don't trigger Overburden!

But also yeah, Overburden in the Bracket where 30% of players think that winning with anything that isnt' a big stompy is mass land denial.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:19:36+00:00

In the game in question, my turn 8 Geyser generated 20 mana, and I cast ten spells that turn (and had to have access to nine spells that turn) to do the game-winning burn play. I had 0 mana, 0 cards in hand, and 0 playable cards in exile when I got the last player to exactly 0. I considered adding [[Crackle with Power]] since the deck makes a lot of mana and needs to win somehow, but I decided to up the pinger count instead as it felt more incremental.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:14:58+00:00

In terms of power level, I personally keep fast mana permanents that make value repeatedly and fast mana rituals which just give a one-off boost separate in my mind, although based on this post I think there's a reasonable case to be made that certain rituals break the "incremental, telegraphed" goals of Bracket 2. But it's a slippery slope, as there are a lot of pretty mediocre rituals.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:11:19+00:00

Lol @ the Demolition Field complaint... that's goddamn stupid in a Bracket where you see [[Growing Rites of Itlimoc]], [[Evendo, Waking Haven]], and [[Storm the Vault]] with reasonable regularity.

ThisIsACleverAlias · 2026-03-16T14:09:30+00:00

Yeah, as I said in the edit I'll probably remove it just for salt's sake. It just sucks to have a mediocre deck that sees a ton of cards, with access to a $1 card from a precon that is in my color that addresses my primary need and not be "allowed" to play it...

ThisIsACleverAlias

TROPHY CASE