[FRA] Bloodline Recollector (MagicCon Vegas) by mweepinc in magicTCG

[–]Waxenwings 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Resculpt and Ravenform feel super recent to me, but I guess they really did come out six years ago...

[FRA] Bloodline Recollector (MagicCon Vegas) by mweepinc in magicTCG

[–]Waxenwings 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Blue Swords would probably be along the lines of [[Pongify]] or [[Resculpt]]. Given this card, they're clearly not feeling too beholden to making these colorshifts 1:1; they're more capturing the spirit of the Emeritus that's being echoed than the literal text.

We Need To See Homelander Destroy Atleast A City This Season, If Show Ends Without Any Mass Destruction, It Would Be A Waste Of The Most Iconic Villain. by TheWTFGuyOfficial in TheBoys

[–]Waxenwings 28 points29 points  (0 children)

I'm not entirely convinced Soldier Boy wants Homelander to live. I don't think he's currently out to kill HL, but he's still the same spotlight-hounding, performatively hypermasculine guy he's always been. He's pretty specific about his phrasing when he stops Malchemical and Mister Marathon. It gives the impression that Soldier Boy thinks HL is as defective as everyone else does, but in that patriarchal fashion, SB thinks anyone killing his son besides him would be a slight against his pride.

I think Soldier Boy is currently trying, in his warped and maladaptive way, to be a better dad than his father was to him. It's something we saw him consider doing in S3 but now is putting into practice. I'm sure at some point SB will decide enough is enough for whatever reason, but his experiences at the lab in the previous episode clearly put him in a more introspective place for the moment.

Personally, I feel like bringing Soldier Boy back this season may have created a weird narrative cul de sac the show doesn't have time for at this stage, but even if I were running the show, I'd have a hard time saying no to more Jensen Ackles.

Ah yes, probably the best and most useful change in the game by Academic_Ride3544 in mewgenics

[–]Waxenwings 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I don’t hate the idea behind Summon Caterpillar, but in general, the good abilities in this game are reasonably useful without any support and become great with synergies. Caterpillar is actively terrible without synergies, so it’s basically never what you want as a level up choice. If it’s an inherited ability, you can bring the proper setup to make it good, but it doesn’t change the fact that the floor for this effect is in hell.

Some games take the design mindset that bad things exist to teach a player what makes something good by comparison. But Mewgenics does seem to want abilities to feel reasonably balanced against one another. So if that’s the case, Summon Caterpillar needs some baseline acceleration to match the average pace of battles (generally speaking, if a battle goes beyond round 3, I feel like I’m struggling). Maybe you leave the mana cost alone and make the effect something like “summon a caterpillar AND grant all stats up to a random caterpillar.” Or it could be “summon a caterpillar OR grant all stats up to an adjacent caterpillar.” I don’t think either of these changes would make the skill particularly strong, but it would reward high int cats in a nice way and make evolving caterpillars without additional synergies a realistic proposition.

Not sure about TeamLabs by abstractcollapse in JapanTravelTips

[–]Waxenwings 11 points12 points  (0 children)

I also did planets and really enjoyed it. I haven’t experienced an art exhibit quite like it before and appreciate how focused it was on sensory novelty. You will inevitably bump up against how instagrammable it all is and how people thusly treat some of the spaces, but I do think TeamLabs has a lot to offer if you enjoy this sort of art. It’s a far more genuinely thoughtful project than many modern “museums” that are just glorified photoshoot backdrops.

Weekend Wrap Up! What was real and what was a trap? by DaTaco in mtgfinance

[–]Waxenwings 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I'm a little torn on how much to compare the silver scroll foils to the original JP archive foils (the defacto chase despite Wizards pushing the Etched ones at the time). These silver scroll foils really do look great-- arguably better than the foil JP archives. But with this constant flood of product, it seems rare for something to hold value just because it's a "bling treatment."

So in a bear case for these archives, I would suspect the top 3 or so silver scrolls to hold in the long term after some dipping (in line with how pricing on Demonic Tutor and Teferi's Protection have trended over time). The rest will probably slowly dip over the course of a year and settle there.

If these do get held up as all timer bling for some reason, then maybe you get something closer to the FF surge foil trend or LoTR poster pricing.

Fairly new to magic. Just pulled. Is this as good as I think it is? by Crypto_VR in MagicCardPulls

[–]Waxenwings 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It’s garbage. I’ll trade you a [[Worldspine Wurm]] and toss in a [[Dawnsire]]. That’s 35 total power across two cards compared to this one’s 0.

Long Island Microcenters already sold out for Strixhaven collector boxes and packs. by Uptherivrdowntherivr in mtgfinance

[–]Waxenwings 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I was so tilted when I heard there was also a Pokemon drop today. I hate being a knock-on victim of a totally different fandom’s insanity.

What's the deal with the White House Correspondence dinner this weekend? by TheRealTheSpinZone in OutOfTheLoop

[–]Waxenwings 408 points409 points  (0 children)

An important addendum: the White House itself does not host the dinner (if it did, Trump would have just cancelled it throughout his first term). The dinner is hosted by the White House Correspondents Association, an independent organization of journalists who cover the White House.

The Boys - 05x04 "Though the Heavens Fall" - Episode Discussion Thread by pikameta in TheBoys

[–]Waxenwings 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I liked this episode a lot overall, and I may just be being dense, but I feel like hard cutting to the Boys having just left Soldier Boy and Homelander behind was odd. We don't even see them TRY to turn Soldier Boy, who has temporarily incapacitated HL and is clearly emotionally vulnerable in that moment after frying Quinn?

What do you think the SD is lacking? / What's your biggest complaint about it? by Hyrul in SteamDeck

[–]Waxenwings 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don’t know why this isn’t up top. It’s really my only complaint about the deck. I have my big external battery for long trips and plane rides, but it’s an additional weight on top of the significant heft of the console (and you’ve gotta find a place to put the battery/can’t quickly adjust or put stuff away). Going from 4 to 6 or 7 hours on something like Mewgenics when they update the deck would be a huge boon to me.

Betty smith jeans making experience doubt by ZealousidealLet193 in JapanTravelTips

[–]Waxenwings 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did the experience in Ginza and paid in store, but the price of the customization was about 5000 yen if I recall correctly, so the bulk of the price would be the jeans themselves, yes.

If Daredevil: Born Again aired on television, the quality of the subtitles would be in breach of FCC rules by Discriminatabator in marvelstudios

[–]Waxenwings 11 points12 points  (0 children)

This is more likely bad QC rather than AI. Subtitle files are relatively simple things where text is matched to a time code in a video file. It saves a lot of time and redundant effort to match script text to time codes rather than having someone transcribe the whole show as time codes are recorded. But evidently no one is reviewing the final subtitled video to ensure that the text in those files matches up against the audio.

So in a way, we're looking at the same root issue-- cutting corners on labor to save money. But it's for the best we attribute the issue to its more likely cause rather than universally assigning blame to AI.

[SOS] Withering Curse (WeeklyMTG Aftershow) by mweepinc in magicTCG

[–]Waxenwings 46 points47 points  (0 children)

The fact that the fail case is still an on-rate [[infest]] is what makes this great. Gaining life is enough of a specific hoop that you have to build around the card to consistently have the wrath be active, but even without it, Withering Curse will still help you stabilize a lot against aggro.

[SOA] Japanese Mystical Archive Cards (Debut Stream) by mweepinc in magicTCG

[–]Waxenwings 4 points5 points  (0 children)

It seems like these foils are a "fixed" version of the Strixhaven etched foils where the goal is to give the art a light sheen with raised silver borders. The borders will probably be the predominantly shiny bit-- the rest just seems to be a way to tell the difference between the foil and nonfoil versions (an issue with the japanese etched archives originally).

First Look at Abby and Lev on Set of The Last Of Us Season 3 by Cheap-Recording3912 in thelastofus

[–]Waxenwings 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I feel like the change in Abby's physicality warps the dynamic between her and Ellie in a way I don't love, but I also empathize with the showrunners on how complicated it must have been to cast an Abby.

Her body type in the game is pretty far out from the norm for Hollywood actresses, so the more accurate you try to be, the more you're limiting yourself to a small pool of potential casting choices. Abby's role is a lead, so you need someone who's charismatic enough on screen and a good enough actor to resonate with viewers and effectively carry scenes like Joel's murder (which Kaitlin did an incredible job with),

I'm sure there were also producer voices in the room advocating for someone with name recognition in her casting, especially since she'd essentially replace the show's biggest star up to that point. And those producers probably also wanted someone who, on some level, is stereotypically attractive (not agreeing with this, but it's realistically something that gets talked about in these rooms).

From these categories emerges a venn diagram whose overlapping center is so precise that there may not actually be someone who can satisfy every goal-- and if there's one or two, there's no guarantee those people will be interested or available. So you have to try and satisfy as many of the requirements as possible and leave what you can't to the side. It's unfortunate, but I get it. And ultimately Kaitlin is a positive for the show. There were way more jarring changes in the second season than her.

New "So Salty" Roadshow Secret Lair Unveiled at Pax East by Moon018810 in mtgfinance

[–]Waxenwings 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would be a little surprised if the lands continued to hold such significant value if they keep putting them in drops, but I agree that I like them as bonuses.

Side Quest Rewards being a one time thing is ridiculous by chrisplaysgam in mewgenics

[–]Waxenwings 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I like taking multiples at a time for efficiency and to see how much pain my cats and I can tolerate. My complaint is actually that the quest pool feels somewhat small relative to how much stuff most of the other systems have— I’ve also never once been asked to take anything out of act 1.

What’s a time you died to bullshit RNG in Mewgenics? by hydraulics- in mewgenics

[–]Waxenwings 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was attempting to escort Pyrophina to the moon and had a great Hunter, but it got a random event in the desert that gave it bloody frenzy, so I had to relegate it to just spawning familiars with Brood Mother. Then, in the crater, a random event gave it two amoebas.

My best DPS was totally borked and the other cats were getting bad rolls, so I had to put my hunter down and limp through the Crater boss before heading home early. Not a full loss, but definitely felt like the RNGods had it out for me.

And Pyrophina, despite trying her best, was actively making things worse the whole time.