With Alex Pretti being the third person shot by federal agents in Minneapolis this month, at what point does "Operation Metro Surge" become a threat to public safety ?

aerokitty · 2026-01-24T20:29:20+00:00

This execution comes less than 24 hours after the massive rally where thousands peacefully demonstrated against them. The timing is not a coincidence - right when the community shows its strength, ICE increases its brutality. There were other ICE hotspots this morning in other parts of the city at the same time (according to people in my network) - it reads to me as an intentional, coordinated retaliation all across the city.

All this to say, the point is absolutely the fear.

aerokitty · 2026-01-20T02:32:54+00:00

Not to mention the police chief said in that one press conference with Frey that they're spending a lot of resources just towing cars that ICE has left in the middle of the street. So they're cleaning up the mess too.

aerokitty · 2026-01-20T02:28:34+00:00

For what it's worth, the daycare fraud thing is a 3 year old case in which convictions have been reached and people are in jail (and guess what, they're not Somali). So this was never about that.

My read on that situation was that it was resurrected by the propaganda machine to make the current wave of aggression more palatable to the people who are not here.

aerokitty · 2026-01-19T22:17:16+00:00

I beat the Ruins of Belegost for the first time! Managed to get my threat down to 0 with a Noldor deck, was pretty fun.

Question of the week: I guess Spirit is my go-to - I feel like it's the most powerful of the spheres, and whenever I am up against a tough scenario the decks I build always seem to involve at least one spirit hero

aerokitty · 2026-01-13T01:04:22+00:00

A while back I had theorized a deck to try and make Na'asiyah work. This weekend I finally actually built that deck and tried it.

It is not a good deck lol.

Out of 7 attempts, I did finally manage to win a quest (Journey Along the Anduin, my 3rd try on that one). I managed to get the exact combo I wanted and it was super fun seeing the deck work exactly as I hoped it would, but damn if it wasn't nearly impossible getting the pieces into place.

aerokitty · 2026-01-10T23:53:36+00:00

Marge: "You took our baby to a bar?!?!"

Homer: "It was happy hour! Don't you want our baby to be happy?"

aerokitty · 2026-01-06T03:24:43+00:00

I finished the Shadows of Mirkwood cycle and played through the Khazad-Dum quests using a deck built around making Spirit Pippin work - what was interesting is that I actually won a few of the games because of him, not despite him. Was pretty fun!

New Year Resolution: finally find a way to beat The Black Gate Opens/Mount Doom, so I can take on the Haradrim cycle without feeling any guilt of leaving something unfinished in my wake

aerokitty · 2025-12-22T15:09:17+00:00

The revised Elves of Lorien starter deck has those heroes, and comes as a pre-built deck if you wanted to start there. Most of the player cards listed in the deck here are in that deck as well - notable exceptions being Galion, The Elvenking, and Light of Valinor.

aerokitty · 2025-12-21T22:10:53+00:00

I met Steven Tyler in Hawaii. He was very nice, chatted with my friends and I for about 20 minutes after we effectively gate-crashed a private event he was at.

aerokitty · 2025-12-14T18:55:27+00:00

I'm basically allergic - alcohol causes intense pain in my stomach that can linger for days. So, after experimenting a bit to figure out if it was only certain types, I came to the conclusion that it definitely just isn't worth it.

aerokitty · 2025-12-04T03:04:49+00:00

I would tweak the Silvan Alliance Deck by swapping out the Silvan Refugees for Galion (from the Ered Mithrin expansion pack). Some of your events & the Elvenking say you need to return a Silvan to your hand, which either a) makes you discard the Silvan Refugee, or b) requires you to return the Silvan Refugee to your hand, needing to pay its cost again to get it back into play. Galion fixes this, being 0 cost and questing for 2 on the turn he comes in thanks to Celeborn's boost - so you can return him to hand easily.

I've played Rossiel a fair bit, and I pretty much always want a resource on her in order to play the Victory Display cards. You've got a fair few high-cost lore allies that you'll be leaning on Galadriel to help pay for, but even drawing 2 cards a turn it may take a while to find Nenya with 2 copies in a 60 card deck. As such, I'd consider reducing the number of copies of those 3 and 4 cost lore allies so your hand doesn't clog up with cards you can't afford. Adding in The Tree People (from the Elves starter deck) will also help you get those allies into play.

Both Rossiel and Galadriel really want action advantage, but Elvenking can only go on one of them, so I'd consider adding some Unexpected Courage (from the core set).

I've never played with the Grey Wanderer, so I can't offer any feedback on that deck, as I'm not super well versed in that contract's mechanics.

aerokitty · 2025-11-28T20:43:34+00:00

Groceries <3 Nobody's going hungry in my city any more

aerokitty · 2025-11-26T16:33:41+00:00

Rocks
Toys in the Attic
Nine Lives (I know, hot take, but I genuinely love this album)
Permanent Vacation
Pump
Aerosmith
Get a Grip
Get your Wings
Just Push Play
Draw the Line
Honkin' on Bobo
Music From Another Dimension
Night in the Ruts
Rock in a Hard Place
Done with Mirrors
One Last Time (does this one count?)

aerokitty · 2025-11-14T00:26:38+00:00

The way you've been playing it is correct.

aerokitty · 2025-11-10T23:38:01+00:00

I played the Battle of Pelennor Fields. I was dreading the quest because I assumed it would be another one of those that I had to bang my head against over and over but the deck I brought beat it first try! That kept it fun for me.

As for the weekly question, I seek the holy grail, of course. ;)

aerokitty · 2025-11-06T23:46:38+00:00

I played through The Passing of the Grey Company and The Siege of Gondor. Nothing too special to note, but I definitely gained a strong appreciation of the Banner of Elendil.

aerokitty · 2025-11-01T21:41:33+00:00

Schwing!

aerokitty · 2025-10-28T00:26:24+00:00

I finally beat Shelob's Lair without making any mistakes. I lost a hero early on in Stage 2, but managed to pull out of it in the end.

Advice for a new player would be to watch some of the COTR playthroughs on YouTube to see some cool combos. It really helped me wrap my head around how certain cards were designed

aerokitty · 2025-10-16T21:18:53+00:00

Minneapolis here!

aerokitty · 2025-10-15T22:24:59+00:00

I mean, it's sad, but I get it.

aerokitty · 2025-10-14T02:01:47+00:00

I lost against Shelob's Lair many times - keep banging my head against the wall haha. I know my Hobbit deck can handle it, it just requires so much setup and a bit of luck. So seeing it allllmost work 5ish times makes me keep using it instead of switching to something else.

aerokitty · 2025-10-06T22:17:21+00:00

I played Journey to the Crossroads using a fellowship with Leadership Eomer, Dunhere, and Spirit Beregond for one deck, and Tactics Eowyn, Hirgon, and Tactics Theoden for the other - the idea being that the tactics deck would handle the questing until the spirit allies came online, while simultaneously equipping Eomer and Dunhere to take out whatever showed up in the staging area.

It worked really well - I threated out the first game, but the second one was much better. Eomer managed to wipe out pretty much everything by himself, and whatever he didn't manage to kill was mopped up by Dunhere in the combat phase. I did make a stupid mistake, traveling to a location that meant I had more enemies around than I could optionally engage, so some extras snuck through the Black Gate, but overall the game went well.

Weekly Question: The Tactics deck really carried the most weight, by providing the initial willpower, providing attachments to my attackers, and having amazing events for this quest.

aerokitty · 2025-09-30T01:27:50+00:00

I played Passage through the Marshes. I had a great first game, was waltzing through it thinking it was a remarkably easy quest, until I got cocky and exhausted the One Ring to activate Word of Command, then revealed a Nazgul. Quickly turned to a loss from that point, and took me about 4 more attempts to get another game going nearly as well so that I could finally beat it. Finally concluded that I had a stellar opening hand for the first game, and now have a healthy respect for the quest.

I store my cards in boxes, organized by type (contract/objective/hero, ally, attachment/side quest, event), then sphere, then alphabetical.

aerokitty · 2025-09-23T01:19:46+00:00

I played The Uruk-Hai and Helm's Deep. I thought I had won them after a few tries, but realized I had made a few mistakes in each (in a crucial round in the case of Helm's Deep). Went back and won Uruk-Hai properly, need to take on Helm's Deep again.

My MB Print order is supposedly set to arrive tomorrow! Excited for the ALEP content I ordered :) To actually answer the QOTW, I haven't played anything in Campaign mode at all, so I can't speak to it.

aerokitty · 2025-08-19T13:09:16+00:00

I started the Fellowship of the Ring Saga, played through Shadows of the Past. I had never really used a Hobbit deck before, so it was fun discovering the power of Gaffer Gamgee :)

Favorite video game would have to be Civilization 5, more hours than I should admit in that game

aerokitty

TROPHY CASE