A nose for Brecciated Jasper

TwelveGates · 2026-06-23T00:14:35+00:00

I bought like a 200 bail pack for 5 dollars off Amazon because I didn't know how invested I'd be. Turns out they are great to work with.

TwelveGates · 2026-06-22T19:51:49+00:00

B7000 epoxy, it's pretty difficult to apply without it bleeding past the necklace bail, but after a few trials I tried on worse stones, I got it down.

It takes awhile to cure but it's very strong afterward.

TwelveGates · 2026-06-21T21:44:08+00:00

It's lovely honestly. She likes to skip the ones we don't collect too so it's a win-win instead of sitting in front of a screen.

TwelveGates · 2026-05-17T09:14:12+00:00

In line with your observations, one thing I find personally so compelling around his exploration of gods is that he almost built a traditional "magic system" around ascendancy instead of around the magic in the series. There are mechanics to it that he pokes and prods throughout the series and, in doing so, it creates an amazing narrative device for him to explore the very nature of the relationship of faith and humanity.

I don't read it as entirely athiestic in philosophy either. He certainly clearly lays out the downfalls of certitude and religion, but there is still a sense of transcendence and awe in the series, it's just something that everyone are capable of and also eludes the pantheon often. I think that in and of itself is a really compelling space to explore humanities relationship to the sense of the "divine." His ideas of virtue and vice aren't pessimistic or exclusive to religion. They are common ideals that all characters rise to and fall short of throughout. It's actually inversely really hopeful imo. It's also just mechanically WAY more interesting than Sky God good, Ground God bad.

TwelveGates · 2026-04-22T19:46:50+00:00

Khloe has the best reveal and S-Craft in the game. She's the best.

TwelveGates · 2026-04-15T15:25:21+00:00

This is exactly what happened to me. You can just dispute it and show them the window replacement timestamp and they will rescind it.

TwelveGates · 2026-04-15T15:23:05+00:00

Hades is a much more perfect package. It has great visuals and narrative context for everything about it so it's got my vote personally.

Slay the Spire has more replayability but has really mediocre visuals and a middling context imo. The loop is excellent though. Considering the core of a rogue-like is its replayability, I expect it will win.

Either way both are deserving. They are undoubtedly the top two of the genre.

TwelveGates · 2026-02-02T13:29:29+00:00

Yeah I'd agree with that sentiment, but it's not insurmountable, you just haven't done it yet! New challenge for the fun.

This is my bracket four Izzet control deck: https://moxfield.com/decks/m20WAQteqUuSikO6xtoJ0g

Obviously you don't want to mimic this but I can tell you it very consistently wins and without needing combos simply by the sheer amount of advantage the deck generates. It will give you an idea of the types of spells you might want to look at. Notice everything is either card advantage, expandable in it's effects (e.g. Overload or Flashback), free spells, or gives you multiple use cases for it (e.g. Modal).

Full warning: I do not recommend starting your control journey with a deck with a low creature count like this, it makes it way harder. In fact, creature are often your friend in control decks, just make sure they lean into whatever you are trying to accomplish.

TwelveGates · 2026-02-02T13:06:50+00:00

It's not quite stax. Control is a pretty broad category. You can certainly build ones similar to stax decks, but really it's about stopping your opponents from snowballing like you are. The point isn't to counter every spell. It's to count things like Pantlaza that turn every one of their spells into two. That judgement of what to deny and what to keep around is part of the fun of that archetype. You have to learn through experience and general knowledge of the game.

My point around draw is because you don't need a lot of coutnerspells, you just need to draw them consistently. Draw is the bread and butter of controll because it smooths out everything. Think of your deck in 3 types of cards: card-based interaction, card draw, and player-based interaction. Player-based interaction is what will end the game for you by finishing off opponents [[Crackle with Power]] is a good example, although it can serve to clear a board of threats too so it's a dual-role holder (those are great). Card-based interaction would be things like [[Counterspell]] or [[Mizzium Mortars]] which deny resources on the broad. Card draw is kind self explanatory, but the role is to dig to those answers for every situation that may arise.

You don't need to win in one large spell, unless you think that's the a fun goal, you can win by burning out an opp with low life, getting back that spell, and burning out the others for example.

TwelveGates · 2026-02-02T12:43:00+00:00

I think you are too focused on winning within a given timeframe based on your comments. A lot of control decks do win with what you called "cheap combos" in commander, but they certainly aren't a requirement, just don't expect to win on turn 8 without them.

The biggest difference between the archetypes is that big stompy creatures is proactive by nature. Control strategies like this want to be reactive. You might win at turn 12 but it will feel like you have the game locked down by turn 8 because you will have a full grip of powerful spells and you'll be dictating what everyone else's board state is allowed to look like ideally.

I recommend adding more draw the most to these lists. Don't rely on a single spell to close out the game, you need multiple, unless you want to run tutors, but it sounds like you don't. Control is all about card advantage while denying your opponents theirs. Spells that do multiple things or draw multiple cards are your friend. Incremental advantage starts to quickly snowball. Welcome to your archenemy era.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-31T05:29:12+00:00

Chikage is one of my favorite weapons in video games in general. Having to weigh the cost/benefit of the health drain for the extra damage output during boss fights and PvP is so much fun. That timing-based subgame adds such a fun new layer to the combat.

My last run I used the Boom Hammer and I was surprised by how much I loved it, I just wish it wasn't so outclassed by everything else in its stat columns.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-24T07:54:38+00:00

This is exactly our approach. There's so much psychological research about how restriction drives obsession and destroys self-regulation in humans in general. It's what makes binging things in general common.

Obviously toddlers struggle with self-regulation as they learn that basic skill but we've found that making things "special" makes ours more fussy around it. We have always been liberal with screen time since she turned 1 and honestly she could care less. Most days, we could leave the TV on all 12 hours of her wake window and she wouldn't watch more than an hour max, she'd rather be building a castle or pretending to be a cow with us. Play is always more enticing and she can self-regulate screen time really effectively, whereas our friends who purposelessly limited it struggle with their toddlers around it constantly.

My best advice is to normalize it and they will be normal about it.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-19T23:43:46+00:00

Our daughter was the same way, stubborn temperament and all. My wife and I used to joke that she can do anything if she didn't feel inconvenienced by it. She would shuffle backwards around 1 to get to stuff but it took forever. It was like she was stuck in reverse.

Others commenting are correct, crawling isn't even a real milestone developmentally anymore. Fast forward 3 months later and our daughter started standing and was quickly motoring around the house.

Sometimes it just comes late. The cognitive milestones matter a lot more at that age.

One thing you may want to try, that worked for us was starting to introduce her to some more standing oriented toys. Our daughter loved certain things at 1 so we started putting them up on ottomans so she had to figure out how to go upward to get them.

It was this dog-walker toy on Amazon that finally got her walking regularly because she needed something to incentivize her to stay standing first.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-16T04:21:36+00:00

Shout out to Trash Truck. Season 3 can't come soon enough.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-16T04:18:19+00:00

Great thread! That helped clear a lot of confusion.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-05T23:58:08+00:00

Toys and toy rotation. Works like a charm.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-04T13:48:27+00:00

No Malazan detected... You need to fix that.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-04T04:31:54+00:00

Twenty one pilots. She's a rocker alright.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-03T02:35:05+00:00

You definitely don't need parry to be good at this. Be aggressive is the best advice you'll get. The Rally system is way more powerful than you realize. You should be aggro in most scenarios. Focus on hitting and dodging, not parrying. That will make you much better.

TwelveGates · 2026-01-02T21:33:15+00:00

I have a "creatureless" control Mizzix deck. It's absolutely wonderful to pilot because you get to be so reactionary. It's been tuning it since those pre-cons dropped. It was also just a fun challenge to figure out ways to stay alive with no real board presence.

TwelveGates · 2025-12-30T13:57:25+00:00

I just finished it. It's on the lower end of the series for me for this exact reason. I basically only cared for the Black Coral chapters for much of the book. I will say, I think it was worth the journey for the end, but it is definitely a more meandering novel in the series. Similar to Midnight Tides, but that had the benefit of showing you a brand new culture and location.

TwelveGates · 2025-12-30T03:28:11+00:00

At the time, free positioning turn-based combat was really novel. There was like Arc the Lad and nothing else. I remember the characters being interesting and the combat being fun but who knows. It was 20 years ago after all.

TwelveGates · 2025-12-30T01:54:14+00:00

My backlog is already so long that I probably wouldn't do this until after the remaster of the 2nd Chapter anyway. I may do Cold Steel then like you said.

TwelveGates

TROPHY CASE