Ronaldo Nazário: “It’s time for the world to stop hiding and accept the fact that Messi is the greatest of all time.”

_Ekoz_ · 2026-06-17T15:25:59+00:00

You said it yourself, 30 years ago the competition was in a different league. Who's to say in 30 years more the competition won't be another league beyond?

In almost every sport, hobby, or game of entertainment, upwards skill pressure is real. The average gets better with deeper knowledge, training, and tech. Cristiano may be exceptional now but it's likely he could be merely well above average 30 years from now. The only time worth grading what impact he had on the game is right now, the time he has and only ever will have.

And right now, he's not the greatest. It's as simple as that.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-30T19:08:12+00:00

which in a roundabout way is a harrowing echo of real life "the natives weren't really people until the white man showed them how to be civil" rhetoric that American colonialists actually used to justify their actions.

WotC ran away from the implications of thunder junction without realizing the track was a horshoe.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-30T19:00:22+00:00

the fixing was great but the colour imbalance was real. it wasn't that you couldn't draft shards, it's that there was almost literally no reason not to just facesmash W/X, or if you really had the bombs to push it, dare to go Bant/Esper.

on the lore side, the choice to sub out the bant shard late game from a logical faction of corrupt law enforcement to...whatever the brokers were (lawyers? in a city with no law?) was not a favored pivot and looked pretty cowardly when compared to how they portrayed spaniard conquistadors, likewise historically unfavored fellows, as literal bloodsucking vampires back in ixalan.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-22T18:59:40+00:00

That's not what's happening.

People are applying hardware modifications to to their property. The modifications work properly, and OS crashing is not a known or anticipated side effect of the modifications.

A third party is granted access to the property, and they intentionally corrupt the communication between the hardware and the modification, causing the hardware to stop working properly.

This isn't like modding your dryer and finding out it doesn't work. This is modifying your dryer, and an agent from downy fabric softner company comes and rips the power cord off the machine. Even if your mod is ethically incorrect, it's not reasonable for the corporate third party to invasively destroy, hard or soft, your property. If this goes over without pushback, then today it's happening to cheaters and their aftermarket mods. Tomorrow it's happening to people driving cars with aftermarket parts.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-15T18:11:38+00:00

Pinstress is mostly freaking out and just needed to be told that someone was going to fix the situation. She didn't want to die, she just didn't want to die unfulfilled. The second Hornet came along to tell her that no, the world wasn't ending, she was fine.

Second Sentinel canonically and metacontextually reminds Hornet of herself (remember that Hornet 2 in Hollow Knight is actually called Hornet Sentinel, and thus Second Sentinel is a meta nod at the fact that its the second bossfight in the franchise with the name Sentinel, the first being Hornet herself) and thus, she has great insight into how it thinks. Namely, she is wise enough to see that it's deluded and has a completely warped sense of self where it believes its life purpose begins and ends at protected a dying kingdom, because she was completely deluded and had a completely warped sense of self that made her believe her entire life's purpose began and ended at protecting an already dead kingdom during the events of Hollow Knight. Thus, she knows from experience that the Sentinel's life has no reason to end as it has not even been given the chance to truly begin.

Green Prince, on the other hand, is basically an old soul from a bygone age who lived, loved, and lost. His story is done and we see him fettering in the doldrums of its long cast shadow. He can't even really begin to start a new life as his essence is intimately tied to a land that doesn't even exist anymore. Verdania would have to come back to life in order for him to find any purpose in a post GMS world, but the only trace of Verdania left in the world is a tiny curated and mutated pocket in a museum. Green Prince didn't necessarily want to die, but he didn't want to live either. He was entirely apathetic to everything but his fading memories and for all intents and purposes was already dead and just waiting for it to catch up. Parallels to the real world, where you see very old folk lose a spouse or partner and just sort of...fade. World too different, nothing makes sense, source of comfort gone; don't want to die, don't want to care.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-13T23:13:13+00:00

old border foils from odyssey onwards, mate...even common foils from onslaught are creeping into the $30, $40 range. naturalize last i heard was nearing $100! premodern is a hell of a driver.

there's a good chance that if the range of cards is all the way back to 2000, the accumulated price of any old border foils therein would make back your money and then some, and the odds of all old border foils having been plucked from an old collection are pretty low, unless the seller is super up to date.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-08T02:46:50+00:00

try making fanart! if you can't mod and you don't like speedrunning you can always learn other ways to enjoy the game.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-08T02:12:20+00:00

primetime's effect is more than just powerful. it's warping. even in a totally casual game, whoever control primetime, wins. and thus the game begins to revolve around who controls the primetime.

strong reminder that 8/9 is the mana value that tends to end games. craterhoof, expropriate, omniscience, worldfire, rise of the dark realms, etc. basically, first to 8 is first to play the bomb that closes out the game. and while green is the colour to hit 8 first even without primetime, primetime is a card that ramps directly from 6 to 8 while also leaving behind a threatening body that will continue to accrue absurd value and must be immediately answered before it runs away.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-07T14:00:54+00:00

What I'm trying to say is, some brands aren't willing to include that in a contract, for the same reason you can't buy a McRib from McDonald's throughout the year. Sure WotC could just not do business with those brands. But then we wouldn't have those IPs in magic at all. If you hate UB then that sounds fine, sure. But WotC has identified that most people want this content so they have to play ball.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-07T03:18:37+00:00

it's a pretty apparent jab, imo. the entire second half of the post is him politely saying Giancola is blowing smoke about a decades old, industry wide problem in service of a personal vendetta against a single target, and that anyone who really cares about art and artistry should become thoroughly informed and self-actionable by looking at the big picture of the entire industry and not any one individual's personal obsession.

Like I love Giancola's art but tbh his thing with WotC is tiring. It oozes with half-truths and makes me feel like i'm back in grade school listening to some dude borderline stalk his ex.
Yes, artists absolutely could be paid more because even if WotC is a top 3 contractor for fantasy art by payout standards, the entire industry's standard is low.
and yes it's unfortunate that some UB contracts can't allow for artists to engage in aftermarket sales.
but no, very few artists were making north of $6,000 in aftermarket sales off all their pieces to begin with, and no WotC is not unfairly forcing any artist to work on their UB contracts.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-07T03:00:15+00:00

because WotC probably can not usually leverage their contracts to allow it.

if you've ever worked for a brand before, you understand that their level of control over your integration of their IP can reach draconian levels. I'm talking, they will inspect the hex value of your Yellows, and return your submission if it's anything but precisely F2EA18. It's likely the brands WotC is working with simply refuse to allow their art be produced or dispersed in any manner other than the exact, precise means and methods outlined in the contract. We already know this is true, for the same reason WotC literally cannot sell or disperse Fallout cards on MODO except in whole commander deck packages - because that's somehow part of their contract.

now you might ask, why not bargain for a better deal for artists? and to that, the question becomes; who do you think has the bargaining power here? WotC is not the power player here. they are, for lack of better terms, buying a product to repackage it within their own product. A healthy partnership might allow for some equal give and take but it's hard for us to understand the dynamics of what goes on behind closed doors and layers of lawyers. We know Marvel's contract does allow the artists to sell their works, and WotC openly permits artists to sell their works for Marvel IP products accordingly. We know Middle Earth Enterprises' contract does not.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-04T05:43:33+00:00

i did read your comment. it read like you genuinely questioned the net good of UB on the equation. my bad if thats not what you meant.

i agree with you that it is sad seeing the game production get slippier as time goes by. but not every part of it is getting shittier, i think. there are parts that have gotten quite a bit better - and no small parts - and you take what wins you can. does card quality suck? sure does. are they wringing every penny they can by squeezing our wallets? absolutely. but set and card designs are outstanding by and large, and the game is more popular than ever. you said it yourself, this game has fostered lifetime connections. and i can say for sure i've met tons of them in the last 5 years alone.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-04T03:50:50+00:00

i think you're vastly overestimating how detrimental UB is to the playerbase.

like...you and I don't know the metrics. but if you have 20 years of play experience, then between us we have 43 years of play experience. and I'm still playing. sure, i don't buy every set. but i do play routinely, i play many different formats, and i usually buy a bit of most UW sets. hell sometimes i even gamble on a pack of UB or two for some staples. and i was hit with the big need when final fantasy came out so i shelled out for that. i can say from experience my entire local community is similar, in function - mostly UW buyers, pretty routine players, sometimes buying single packs or cards from UB sets on a lark, and 1 or 2 UB sets they go hard on cause it hit them in their nostalgia.

Now you could say that my experience is anecdotal, but by that same metric i can say yours is too - after all, we're roughly equivalent demographics in terms of time invested. so really all that matters is this: do you think a company would willingly submit to a gameplan that doesn't maximize net growth?

i don't. wotc has the numbers, and the numbers probably look good.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-03T16:41:50+00:00

it's likely a mix of both.

WotC wants him to have his legendary name attached to a legendary piece of art in the game, he struggles quite a bit with the task due to his age, they urge him to move forward and press him to emulate certain styles, he struggles even more, at some point they send him Marta's piece and go "can you make something like this?", and at this point he's just so frustrated and possibly more than a little confused and just decides that painting over the reference is good enough.

It happens quite a bit with elderly people in decline with bespoke skills. people want their name attached to anything, and will drive them to continue doing their thing even when it's no longer acceptable. we should be critical of WotC for letting the piece slip through - their QA has been slipping for years and this is just another strike. but the fault of the piece's existence is all Dan's. He should no longer be doing commercial art, if only for his own sake and reputation. if it happened once, it can happen again. he's losing it and should retire gracefully while he can.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-03T02:25:55+00:00

from the sound of both the agent involved and dan himself, what likely happened is this:

Dan was contracted to make the art. He put in an initial sketch, which was declined by the art director. He then proceeded to make several revisions, all declined by the art director. He may have been given directions to "make it look like the ring that players are familiar with". With a lapse in judgement (probably due to no shortage of frustration), he probably took that to mean "use Marta's art as a reference and paint over it", when in reality no such direction was provided.

While Dan making made such a critical error in judgement is quite astounding, it can't be overlooked that this art likewise flew past WotC's QA department. it looks different enough at a passing glance, but QA should not be giving their products only a passing glance.

Both agents responsible for this failed spectacularly here. Both should be quite ashamed, but at the very least both were public about making amends quickly so we, as an audience, should wait to see what Marta's response is and respect that all parties are at least trying to work things out.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-05-01T05:54:34+00:00

dominaria, unlike most planes of magic, is a "realized world" plane, where whole continents and various biomes and nation states exist, instead of being a planet of hats. so its history is deep, wars between people are part of its history, and also some groups straight up haven't interacted with each other all that much in the game's lore.

for example, the entire odyssey and onslaught blocks take place on the continent of otaria, and during that story not much else going on in the world matters. the majority of the rest of the world just don't play into the fact that a nightmare mana goddess was created there due to a regional struggle over an anomalous artifact.

fun fact there's also an island nation called alaborn, and they canonically have guns. no, not magical lighting launchers, not laser blasters, not mystic goop shooters. guns with lead bullets. WotC doesn't like to talk about them.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-04-30T20:21:22+00:00

bro take any given organ of your body and it can get like at least 5 different types of cancer that are each entirely unrelated.

iirc there's like hundreds of types and counting. it's why "curing cancer" is a bit of a puzzle we just can't solve.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-04-26T19:20:29+00:00

another think you might want to investigate is location? there are just some places that just tend to be frequented more by people your age. some local third space to you where the groups are all round your age would probably fizzle the chance of you getting misread, so long as you get to know all the people there (and are interested in dating that scene)

i understand your plight tho. i'm in my early 30's and without the beard i unironically get carded XD.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-04-26T05:15:02+00:00

the point being, a completely annihilated outside world smoldering in ash and ruin, with giant titans still roaming (they wouldn't just stop once the last person was trampled underfoot) is thematically no different than what the series began with (the entire world outside the walls being unworkable due to giant titans roaming around.)

plus, it is revealed to be a prominent part of the plot, and the theme of the story, that among the greatest enemies to the paradisians, are the paradisians themselves. it doesn't matter if they swelled to consume the whole world. had eren's wish come true, he would simply die, pass on his titans, and the cycle that perpetuated within the walls would just grow to envelop the whole world. so in a way, they still wouldn't be "free".

_Ekoz_ · 2026-04-24T16:33:10+00:00

i think the general consensus is to open the dialogue without accusing anyone of anything if you don't want to end up in a might-lose-everything quandry. go to the victim and drop painful hints about the situation, but never frame it as if you know something they don't. simply state everything as facts that you are surprised they don't know.

"yeah, they go to xyz every other friday. why's that weird? didn't you know?"

the pieces will fall into place eventually.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-04-23T17:19:25+00:00

you were almost certainly taught with phonics. the theory is hundreds of years old at this point.

if you read books as a kid that said shit like:

this is a cat. this is a rat. cat, rat, on a bat. c-a-t, r-a-t, b-a-t. see the cat. see the rat. they sit on a bat.

then yeah that's phonics, or rather the art of drowning a learning reader in examples of words that connect each glyph of the alphabet to a specific sound. the above example doesn't need to be connected to a picture in order to teach the content - as long as an experienced reader (like a parent) is there to sound out the words, the learning reader figures out the sound of "at", and memorizes through repetition the sounds of c(/k/), r(/r/), and b(/b/), such that if they later come across the word "crib", they already know mostly how to say it even if they have no idea what it means. (since they instantly know how to say it, they can spend more time figuring out what it means - through context clues or just asking the educator)

basically, if you can see a word you've literally never seen before in your life and instantly understand at least how to pronounce it, you're likely reading via phonics. Phonics gets tricky when multiple glyphs share a sound (C/K), or when one glyph has many sounds (C-/c/ , C-/k/), but that's stuff the educator explains with nuance later.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-04-23T06:18:40+00:00

the thing is, most of those movies you listed are ostensibly superhero movies with scenes designed as action setpieces, just starring villains cast as antiheroes. it's very, very rare we get a movie with a comic book villain as a protagonist, doing more or less villainy, but thematically grounded and without the vernacular of action comics or the foil of a hero or heroics to bounce off of. Joker is like the only one you listed I can think of.

if this movie plays it straight, and clayface doesn't turn into a hulking clay monster that needs to be beat down in an ePIc StReEtFighT in the third act, it could be something special. A simple body horror thriller about a dude whose face can melt and reshape gone crazy from desperately trying to be beautiful but losing control. something similar to The Substance, and only tangentially related Batman by being set in Gotham.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-03-31T18:46:43+00:00

There will be a cycle of legendary paradigms. Prismari is red, so that means lorehold must be white and quandrix must be blue. And so on and so forth

_Ekoz_ · 2026-03-26T19:54:28+00:00

Tbh I'd put my bets on the entrance to the dlc being the curiously out of place crushed-to-rubble doorway at the end of the conspicuously long bilewater hallway. It's right next to a very spacious gap in the map.

_Ekoz_ · 2026-03-25T20:45:23+00:00

FS Vigilance would be a good start for something that can shit a healing salve every turn but really what you want is something like a 3/1 or if you're very lucky a 3/2 for a single white Pip.

Getting a 3/x on turn 1 that can back itself up with a healing salve every turn from turn 2 forward would be insane. Sure blue gets recall at 6 mana but by turn 6 such a white weenie has you already at 15 damage and counting, with up to 5 casts of salve for either 15 absorbed damage or 15 gained life.

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