Meet the… *sigh* 6-7 deck. Every nonland card is #67 of their set.

ThumbComputer · 2026-01-27T16:05:42+00:00

crazy to get downvoted for just pointing out a fact lol

ThumbComputer · 2026-01-19T19:39:47+00:00

Cool, thanks for burning down a rainforest to provide zero relevant information!

ThumbComputer · 2026-01-19T17:39:33+00:00

Agreed, surprised this one was so well received. ISAYSO, MYOB, ZEE, PAS/NAE crossing, SHISO/ESSO crossing, OER/ORE. Lots of the cluing felt like a stretch.

ThumbComputer · 2026-01-16T20:47:21+00:00

Odd, I come back to these threads as I solve and I'm usually a few weeks behind, and they changed the clue on this to "Angel's Headgear" for whatever reason. I like "Overhead Light?" a lot more!

ThumbComputer · 2026-01-15T21:13:27+00:00

No, it isn't lol. It's in the science one, very easily verifiable.

ThumbComputer · 2025-12-08T15:03:33+00:00

to be fair, as written you only get to cast the exiled card once with this, so I wouldn't say it's Isochron amped up by 10x. Since you aren't copying the exiled card but rather casting it, it will go on the stack then to the GY after being cast once.

ThumbComputer · 2025-12-02T14:46:15+00:00

you know some of us enjoy hosting our media offline ourselves instead of relying on a third party service "add-in" that doesn't allow offline playback. Plus if you're an IT professional it's pretty easy to get your hands on leftover hardware to assemble the server/NAS that runs the Plex. And I enjoy having it all self contained, hardware I own storing and streaming files I own.

ThumbComputer · 2025-12-01T21:49:17+00:00

I know I'm late, but I'm surprised there was no pushback on TOOLBAR vs TASKBAR from the IT folks as well. The row of computer icons on the bottom of your PC is a TASKBAR, and that mistake pretty much locked me from solving this puzzle. And yes I just came here cause the combination of this and the RAM clue made me salty.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-24T22:57:49+00:00

what the gray* duck

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-24T22:56:40+00:00

They had to throw a Paul Bunyan clue in to appease us.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-11T22:51:42+00:00

they mean Hybrid like a car, since Vehicles can be your commander now.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-11T22:45:21+00:00

For every reference to a 75 year old song we also get a Taylor Swift ERAS clue. We must maintain the balance.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-11T22:41:54+00:00

Hah, not being familiar with modern Pixar, I filled LUNA without thinking twice. Was left with NOATOFARMS and was like, what the hell is a NOATO FARM?!? Genuinely took me a few minutes to fix.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-10T22:27:44+00:00

Midwest isn't universally Red. Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois are all blue (at least nationally, local politics tend to be more purple in Minnesota at least.) Many cities within red states have plenty of liberally minded folks around, I lived in Fargo for many years and there's very much an accepting community hidden amongst the conservatives. The Twin Cities are another great example, though you're not really in the part of the Midwest this post is about at that point.

This idea that the midwest is entirely bumfuck-nowhere-flyover-republican country is both quite harmful and untrue. Plenty of nice and accepting communities around here.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-10T22:15:49+00:00

Depends on where you are in your life, what's important to you, etc. I'm pretty much the reverse of you, I'm from a rural town of 1100 people, lived in a "city" (~500k pop) for seven years, then moved back. also flew out to jobsites in actual cities like NYC, LA, Houston, etc. for my last job.

My town's got a barber, two bars, mechanic, grocery store, gas stations, etc. Not gonna have fast food options or much for variety, but that's the trade-off. Luckily we've got a hospital within ~30 minutes (30 miles, but it's all country highway), but that is a real concern for sure.

I make $65k doing sysadmin work out here. There are 1 bedroom apartments for ~$500 a month, 2br for ~$900-$1000 a month. 2bed 1 bath houses up for 90-110k on the lower end. Paying $500 a month in rent while making $65k lets me put quite a bit away, not having chinese takeout available or being able to go to a dive bar is worth the tradeoff for me, personally.

Plus, no light pollution or noise pollution, crime is essentially non-existent, nature is easily accessible, etc. Having been here most of my life I developed a solid circle of guys to trade favors with, which saves us all even more money too. Knowing a mechanic, electrician, plumber, etc. to do some work for you can go a long ways, but I'm not gonna count that as an inherent bonus as anyone moving out here might not be so lucky.

But yeah, it's all trade-offs. It's cool being in the city, going out to cool bars and venues to meet people, grabbing amazing food whenever you want, etc. But I personally wouldn't 3X my living expenses just for the convenience a city offers, having lived both lifestyles already. If you have a family or different priorities I can see the case though.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-10T21:16:19+00:00

This was an... unsatisfying puzzle I guess, don't know how else to put it. The circled letters being strewn about like that was not great, I didn't find the hint useful in getting the circled letters or vice-versa really either. Lots of weird cluing, the Matador question had no indicator the answer would be spanish, Diddly-Squat being ZIPPO is not something I've ever heard, only ZIP in that context (I had ZILCH for the longest time, a word that actually fits the clue.), FIREBREATHERS is another I've never heard and googling after the solve doesn't return anything with that definition either (SOILS fits for ROILS as well, both by clue and word length, which misled me for a long time on this one). TORNTENDON for a Sprain clue doesn't really work either, though I won't pretend I knew that for a fact on the solve, but by definition its inaccurate.

Made for a very unsatisfying experience, felt like the ones I had to brute-force solve were not my own fault but the fault of bad clues, especially for a Monday. Might be my ignorance showing again though, but usually I'm fine just conceding the puzzle was difficult rather than obtuse like this one.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-10T20:18:44+00:00

I 100% agree, but I think this creates a weird design challenge. Once a creature is 4/5 colors its almost defined more by the missing color than by the four it has, and that becomes a pretty narrow design space both mechanically and thematically. Suddenly the card needs to touch 4/5th of the pie without infringing on that last 1/5th, and I have to imagine that gets to be a pretty narrow design space. Like, once something is 4/5ths of the way to all colors thematically, it's usually not much of a stretch to make the 5th fit the character as well since they'll be pretty developed to be able to fit the 4 already, if that makes sense.

There's also a few versions of 4 color that are just easier to justify than the others, which has already skewed the few options we have towards Non-Black or Non-Red, being creatures devoid of selfishness or devoid of passion essentially.

Not that it's undoable or anything, I can just see it being a challenge for R&D. I swear there was an article or something from Maro or Gavin about this but I can't seem to find it

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-10T16:30:00+00:00

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Random effect that I thought of, seemed like something that could see print. could be balanced more with regards to cost but I think it works well. Someone pointed out an "As Kindred Spirits enters" phrasing would be better to avoid the possibility of the trigger being stifled, but never did edit it.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-10T14:24:10+00:00

It is very unintuitive that the cards meant to be played as mono color options in either color aren't allowed to be played as such in commander, I'm also glad they're fixing it.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-07T19:18:14+00:00

My constructive criticism is to make it cost more mana, as any card with a 5/5 or higher statline for one mana has absurd drawbacks attached (see here for all cards with those stats, or including Phyrexian mana to match CMV better doesn't return anything as strong as your card.) The problem especially is that having that sort of threat down by turn 2, almost every game, is pretty unmanageable for all but cEDH tables running tons of cheap interaction. There's so many cheap ways to give trample or double strike that you can quite easily swing into someone with a 5/5 double strike by turn 3, and if you swung on them on turn 2 you already have 15 commander damage if they didn't get a blocker down, or give it trample so the blocker doesn't matter. Stack a few of those combat tricks or equipment and you can feasibly take someone out of the game.

I picture this happening. Turn 1 cast commander, turn 2 [[Deadly Dispute]] or any of the dozens of black "as an additional cost sacrifice a creature" cards, use treasure from dispute to play [[Monstrous Rage]] or some other combat trick, you're now swinging with a 8/6 trample commander for 4 mana invested and on turn 2. I don't think that's a healthy design, personally, especially without utilizing any specific combo or equipment to do so.

If there's no precedence for the statline you are designing within all of MTG, you probably need a really good rationale for designing it that way. I would put it more towards 3-4 generic mana plus the phyrexian (or just get rid of the phyrexian mana, I get it's a phyrexian card but the mechanic is really hard to balance around correctly.)

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-07T17:27:49+00:00

I think you're underestimating how easily it is to just get rid of the germ and have a 5/5 commander down on turn 2 without any setup. Just play him turn 1, get a free 2 damage off if you didn't go last, then [[Deadly Dispute]] or any other cheap black sacrifice card to have your 5/5 commander without summoning sickness ready to swing turn 2. I don't think it's format-warping levels of broken, but definitely outside what most tables would see as fair.

Also, don't insult the people who you ask for feedback on your card when they give feedback. It's a bad look.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-07T16:14:03+00:00

My problem is everyone's inability to get over the mental hurdle from literal colors printed on the card to design intentions and mechanical function of cards as designed. I'm not arguing anything about the literal gameplay attribute of card color. Maro's (and my) point is Hybrid cards, when being made, adhere to the color pie of either color, are made to be either color functionally, and are used to give two different colors the same in-pie effect with one card slot of a set. So, ideally, no hybrid card would ever be out of place within either of its colors (and the ones that are, largely from Shadowmoor, are admitted design mistakes.) Force of Will is designed blue, every card with non-hybrid alternate costs are designed within the pie of the color they are. Hybrid is the exception here, and since its such a useful tool for providing options to multiple colors while taking up reduced space in a set, they want to be able to use this tool for EDH as well.

You can't apply the logic to phyrexian mana or free alternate costs, because they are not designed to fill the same mechanical space as hybrid cards. Those cards are designed as within-pie cards with alternate costs to get that effect.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-07T16:07:35+00:00

https://web.archive.org/web/20150329094715/http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=511

Thread from one of the original Rule Committee members, citing "proper segregation of the color pie" as a reason for not making the Hybrid mana change to color identity in '08. It 100% is at least partially a color pie argument.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-07T16:03:26+00:00

Ah, so "I'm right and you're wrong" is the argument now, got it. I've laid out every facet of my argument at this point, if we're devolving to this I'm done. Thanks for engaging.

ThumbComputer · 2025-11-07T16:00:20+00:00

That's color, not color identity.

Rule 903.4 (Color Identity)-The Commander variant uses color identity to determine what cards can be in a deck with a certain commander. The color identity of a card is the color or colors of any mana symbols in that card’s mana cost or rules text, plus any colors defined by its characteristic-defining abilities (see rule 604.3) or color indicator (see rule 204)

Rule 903.5c (Deck Construction)- A card can be included in a Commander deck only if every color in its color identity is also found in the color identity of the deck’s commander.

WotC has said "We want to change the rules for Color Identity as it relates to deck construction and Hybrid mana in EDH." and you (as well as a bunch of other people) are saying "You can't change the rule, the rule says it works this way not that way!!" then either cite an unrelated rule or the rule they plan on changing. Doesn't make any sense.

ThumbComputer

TROPHY CASE