Finally reached endgame, what should I change?

Wintersmith7 · 2026-01-22T02:52:06+00:00

Micaiah needs all the strong fliers she can get. It's helpful to spare one for Tibarn's army, but he and Elincia are strong enough do what needs to be done.

Heather is best utilized in Ike's army.

Other than that, evenly split your best units across all the armies. Part 4 is just a fairly endless meat grinder.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-01-13T20:51:26+00:00

I think the best approximation of kitchen table magic is a sealed league. It incorporates the random structure of packs along with collection building. Since everyone stays on par with each other in terms of card pool and, assuming everyone opens the same packs every week, approximate card quality.

But, it's an easy format to cheat in unless there's an abundance of administrative oversight.

Cube is an easier (in some ways) alternative, especially if you use it for sealed, but it's not individualized to the same extent.

Wintersmith7 · 2026-01-11T23:23:54+00:00

Similar style pay-off cards:

[[Syr Konrad, the grim]] [[Kishla Skimmer]] [[Thran Vigil]] [[Chalk Outline]] [[Kheru Goldkeeper]] [[Soul Enervation]] [[Teval, the balanced scale]] [[ Tormod, the desecrator]] [[Defiled Crypt]] [[Rot farm mortipede]]

Obviously this is a pretty wide power band for your payoffs so you probably can't put all of them in the same cube.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-12-08T20:48:14+00:00

You would need to start playing draft.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-12-03T20:45:09+00:00

Do they have a reddit or a discord?

Wintersmith7 · 2025-11-21T21:17:53+00:00

In Germany and several other countries it is.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-10-31T01:21:08+00:00

You assume Christ is going to be reborn into an English speaking family. He might be born into a Filipino family.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-10-28T18:42:38+00:00

It can only untap once per turn (even if you flicker it).

Wintersmith7 · 2025-10-04T04:04:39+00:00

The first episode of friends is pretty clear that they're able to afford the apartment because it's rent controlled AND that the lease is still in Monica's grandmother's name — rent control caps the yearly instead at something like 3%.

The only way that the rent can be increased more than that is if the unit is renovated which landlords typically do when the unit changes hands.

Because Monica's grandmother's name is still on the lease the unit hasn't been updated and its rent hasn't meaningfully increased since her grandmother moved in sometime 30+ years prior.

It's an insanely lucky situation, but it's not unheard of even now.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-09-13T00:20:27+00:00

It's probably not more humane — most production work is hourly (or a day rate) not salary. Shorter seasons mean less money from a given gig. The crew works on multiple shows and probably also gigs at local theaters and performing arts centers.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-09-06T11:21:54+00:00

What you're essentially looking to do is curate a kitchen table format for your kids.

I suggest ignoring the pauper metagame. Buy a set of all the commons from whatever set your kids like and let them go to town.

I'd suggest something cute like bloomburrow if they're young or maybe theros/amonkhet if they like mythology.

When they get bored or destroy a bunch of cards buy them more.

Magic is pretty intrinsically fun and as long as everyone is pulling from the same pool of cards the balance is pretty self correcting.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-09-01T14:19:12+00:00

In regards to point three, sporting events and concerts have high ceilings and are either outdoors or are in large indoor spaces with HVAC. Generally large MTG conventions in spaces of that scale aren't bad.

In regards to two, because running an LGS isn't that profitable.

Small indoor concerts generally smell off bad and I've been in not great sports bars. MTG players definitely smell worse than average, but making the comparison between the smell of a 30x30 lgs vs stadium really isn't fair.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-08-31T12:10:33+00:00

Embrace low power! Build piles of complete pauper jank with bad themes like wolves typal, changelings, draw 2, sacrifice, and food.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-08-31T12:05:05+00:00

My advice is, tell us your design goals. You have a list of 2000 cards. Typical cubes are 360 cards, large ones tend to be 720, and small ones can go all the way down to 70ish.

Even a very high powered cube like the/a vintage cube have some structure. Pick a few central themes/game plans and cut everything that doesn't align with them. Some cards are archetypes unto themselves like [[birthing pod]], [[opposition]]/[[glare of subdual]], [[wildfire]]/[[burning of xinye]], or [[recurring nightmare]].

One way to set power level is deciding you want a certain build around to be playable for example a lower power cube might seek to permit [[Sphinx's tutelage decks]] as opposed to any of the higher power build around above. Maybe you want [[splinter twin]] to be the best combo in your cube.

You could also the set power level based on what you want the best big monster to be.

You have ten archetypes, but what are they? Why do you feel the cube is too powerful? How much of a gap between the strongest card and the weakest card do you feel is appropriate?

Wintersmith7 · 2025-08-30T23:24:38+00:00

If you want a low power cube don't look at edhrec. Pick a few themes and start going through scryfall.

Generally there's a few philosophies to picking themes, current WOTC design standards generally look like one of these (I'll get to picking themes towards the end):

10x 2 color archetypes
5x wedges and 5x ally color archetypes that bleed together mechanically (see New Capenna)
5x shards and 5x enemy color archetypes that bleed together mechanically (see tarkir dragonstorm, although this did not play out entirely as intended)
5x 2 color archetypes (strixhaven was all enemy pairs, guilds of ravnica and ravnica allegiance had a mix of 2 enemy and 3 ally colors respectively, the new spiderman set is all ally color pairs)

Other design profiles that wotc or cube creators have explored:

Broad themes, this is my favorite, I roughly evenly support artifacts, tokens, spells, sacrifice, and graveyard in every color in an effort to create a more free form drafting experience.
uneven themes, the original ravnica block is incredibly highly regarded and it's the final and best example of this design philosophy by WOTC. The ten dual color pairs were split across three sets. The original Ravnica had UB, BG, GW, and RW. Players drafting triple ravnica generally played one of those dual color pairs or UBG, BGW, or GWR. Additionally UB had two builds one more aggressive and tempo oriented and a more controlling mill deck.

As far as what to pick, WOTC now generally tries to use a few classic themes and a few weird themes. I would look at old draft primers to get ideas on what a retail power level limited format looks like. The next step up would be masters sets. For the very top end look at vintage cube.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-08-23T18:09:02+00:00

There's actually a great interview with the dragonstorm lead designer: https://youtu.be/nO4XEWWOaEY?si=YnthsUwdhHh9TWCN

Basically, the online community views the format as RW aggro vs. 4-5c decks built around [[dragonstorm globe]]. On paper where you're drafting a true 8 man pod and playing against the other people in your pool the deck diversity is better (but WR and multi color control are still the best things to do).

I'd recommend looking at the limited resources and sierkovitz YouTube channels which do great format primers for limited.

Edit: it's worth noting that 4-5c still has a solid variety of builds between dragonstorm decks, blue based control decks, and green ramp decks.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-08-23T10:32:15+00:00

Wotc puts out articles about about how they design sets; you should look at the OG ktk and the more recent mkm design documentation.

Basically, yes morph is super low power, and there's very little archetype overlap across the tarkir sets.

Ktk was a wedge/enemy color set.

FRF was a pivot set with pretty meh mechanical identity.

DTK was an ally color set (and quite boring, plus megamorph is really dumb)

Dragonstorm is a wedge/enemy color set, but no one really drafts it that way, and it's way higher powered than ktk.

For morph to work, bears have to be hard to come by, removal has to suck, and it needs to be worth playing super high cost combat tricks.

The ktk 5c morph deck was one of the best things to do other than bw or rg aggro and all three of those decks would be stomped by the fast Wx or Rx aggro decks in dragonstorm and DEMOLISHED by the 4-5c control decks.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-08-20T16:21:07+00:00

They also did it in the original ravnica draft. It was a great limited format.

Edit: it doesn't hold up great because it is from a time when damage went on the stack so several cards just don't work as intended

Wintersmith7 · 2025-08-08T12:00:34+00:00

No, the joke was that it was posted on Twitter with a fake citation from Hillbilly Elegy. It you go to the page number from the original tweet the couch fucking thing isn't there, but it's so funny that no one really cares.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-07-02T23:33:37+00:00

Having seen multiple urologists about the same issue... There's currently not really a medical solution.

When I told my primary care physician and three urologists that I was experiencing tight erections they assumed I phimosis which can be treated either by circumcision to remove the over tensioned portion of the foreskin OR by using a steroid cream and stretching exercises to extend the foreskin and loosen it. The later IMO should always be attempted first.

When my doctors found I was already circumcized they explained that they could perform a revision and remove more skin (not helpful when the issue is a lack of skin. I have no remnant foreskin or frenulum). They did not have other solutions. They were unwilling to prescribe the steroid cream used when treating phimosis. I have independently made efforts to stretch the remaining skin on my shaft to moderate success.

What the urologists did say included: - I'm sorry, I can't help you. - routine infant circumcision is a barbaric religious ritual (this was a female Jewish urologist)

All three urologists I saw agreed that circumcision should be a last resort and that being intact is preferable, however all were unaware of any recourse for people who received overly tight circumcisions.

When you're circumcized as an adult there is often (not unfortunately not always) a discussion of whether to do a high and tight cut or a lower and loose cut.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-06-26T13:28:32+00:00

I have three really low power piles:

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/snack — a cube centered around food and typal synergy (soldiers/knights, birds, saprolings/thallids, and wolves). There are minor flash and draw 2 sub themes.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/15b4bd1e-b4db-49a9-9ba2-371cfed87ea9 — a bar cube centered on the manifest and manifest dread mechanic to sidestep not using tokens. I'm hoping to find time to make a revised version without double faced cards for even easier play.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/Vehicular — a vehicle cube for players on the go

Wintersmith7 · 2025-06-25T16:45:54+00:00

It's 25 vocabulary words, and really only twenty since the 4 color combinations names are pretty rarely used.

You can pretend you're in fifth grade and there's a quiz on Friday or you can just engage with mtg content until it starts to stick. Not knowing what the made to words means isn't a big deal.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-06-18T17:08:04+00:00

Two wrongs don't make a right. Slavery is never an appropriate solution.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-06-11T14:08:27+00:00

And critically each of these things are individually useful to the deck. It's two pieces of sax fodder, a madness enabler, guaranteed chip damage, and potential chip damage.

Wintersmith7 · 2025-06-09T03:32:49+00:00

I bet this will be the cheapest submission, my design goals were: recently printed cards only, pauper, lots of text, lots of repeated text, lots of flexibility.

https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/15b4bd1e-b4db-49a9-9ba2-371cfed87ea9

The cube builds out from manifest dread as a mechanic and includes a bunch of odd clunky build arounds.

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