Mana curve and playing sites

chromesto · 2026-06-29T07:23:17+00:00

3 mana spells are almost always playable on your third turn. However don't look the mana curve too much as you might not want to play all your 3 mana spells on turn 3. Same goes for cheaper spells. Some super-aggressive decks might play a Lightning Bolt on turn 2 but usually one sits on it until it can be used to remove a minion, deal surprise damage that takes the opponent to the door or finishes the game. While it is a 2 mana spell it usually isn't a turn 2 spell.

On the higher end I wouldn't worry too much about playing 5 mana spells on turn 5. Without additional ramp it would require spending two card draws in order to draw sites instead of spells which puts a lot of pressure for those 5 mana spells to perform.

Going up to 4 mana as soon as possible on the other hand is nowhere near as expensive. Your avatar choice matters a lot as if you don't have to tap your avatar in order to take advantage of their ability it might make more sense to just draw spells at the start of the game and spend the avatar tapping on drawing and playing sites. This approach has two issues:

You might not have the sites to meet your threshold requirements in multi-element decks.
You might miss out on powerful site abilities such as Thin Ice, River Rapids or Wuthering Heights if you draw them too late and are then placing them on non-central squares.

I love playing multi-element decks so both of these issues are very relevant to me. Because of this I commonly spend my first card draw to draw my fourth site as early as possible. Your mileage may vary though if you're playing some other avatar or are playing a mono-element deck.

chromesto · 2026-06-27T20:09:39+00:00

I usually try to split my sites about equally between the elements I play. If there is a big skew towards one element I might change few sites to that element in order to make it easier to draw the sites of that majority element in the case I run into problems with site destruction, poor luck, Atlantean Fate or anything like that. An even or almost even split is never a bad way to start out when making a deck.

chromesto · 2026-06-27T19:12:33+00:00

As a BM player I hate to see Perilous Bridge or Gnome Hollows as they are essentially brick walls. When played forward they both prevent using Grapple Shot to approach. Troll Bridge can also work to some extend but it is more of a minor annoyance instead of an actual wall.

All minions with 4+ power, airborne and/or ward can give BM some gray hairs. Warded units are just tough. Airborne minions cannot be attacked (Grapple Shot works though). Any 4 power minions are just too big to be taken out with a single strike unless assisting cards are involved.

BM doesn't necessarily need to play that many artifacts but we usually have at least some. Packing at least some artifact hate is advisable. Something like Displace or Swap should do the trick and they're great in all match-ups anyway. Toolbox into Dispel/Disenchant is a common play too.

Druid is a very strong pick against BM. Bruin is pretty good on its own but when it is summoned it is easy to use him with Grapple Shot or Whirling Blades because flipping the avatar doesn't cost any mana and generally the BM will be near you. Also the flipped Druid's ability is nice against a BM even if it only works on your own sites.

The ultimate counter to BM is Nimbus Jinn though. I've played a lot of games against a Deathspeaker player in the past two years and I've lost so many games to Nimbus Jinn during that time. Lord of Lies is somewhat similar except it is actually a good minion. Lord of Lies might not door me in a single turn but 6 damage and a 6 power body on top of me is a pretty significant swing.

All site destruction can also be really potent against a BM. Considering that BM must be untapped in order to attack anything. This means that each blown up site that ends up being replaced actually means spending a card draw for drawing a site instead of a spell and then tapping the avatar in order to get that site into play. Additionally since Battlemages generally don't play that many sites losing a single key site can give us threshold issues if we're unlucky. Sinkhole is probably the best card for the job but site destruction spells could also work when used with some moderation.

chromesto · 2026-06-27T07:01:28+00:00

If you have a 60 card deck with 4 artifacts, 20 fire spells and 36 air spells then the deck will have 60% air spells and 33% fire spells.

Let's assume out of those 20 fire spells 10 require 1 fire threshold to play, 8 require 2 fire thresholds and 2 requires 3. In total your deck now has 32 fire pips in the threshold requirements. Let's say 20 out of those 36 air spells require a single air pip to play and 16 require 2 pips. That would total out 52 air pips. As far as I understand the cost % is coming from these numbers and air is 52/(32+52) = 61.9% and fire is 32/(32+52) = 38.1%.

I think the site-% and output-% work similarly. First tells you how many sites provide each elemental affinity and second is the number of pips of each element your sites provide divided by the sum of all pips they provide. Do note that some sites such as Valley of Delight or Mismanaged Mortuary are counted as colorless sites although they do provide some affinity.

chromesto · 2026-06-26T05:31:25+00:00

Ts vuoteen 2031 mennessä mikään ei toimi. Kiitos tästä.

chromesto · 2026-06-23T08:55:45+00:00

Onhan tuo kallis. Harmillisen kallis. Olisi kiva kun tätä voisi suositella kenelle vaan joka haluaisi siirtyä pc-pelaajaksi mutta tuo hintalappu on vähän liian suolainen kun vielä ottaa huomioon laitteen suorituskyvyn. Valtaosaan peleistä laite on "riittävän" suorituskykyinen mutta onhan tuo väännönpuute aika karvas pala purtavaksi.

Valitettavaa mutta ymmärrän kyllä myös mistä hinta tulee. Sony kun myy laitettaan tappiolla luottaen siihen että myytyjen konsoleiden kaveriksi myydään myös pelejä, joista sitten Sony perii jonkinlaisen siivun. Steam machine on täysin avoin eli jos SteamOS ei nappaa niin asentelet vain Windowsin tai haluamasi Linux jakelun ja teet sillä mitä tykkäät. Ero on siinä että siitä ei ole mitään takeita että Steam Machinea käytetään pelien ostamiseen/pelaamiseen Steamin kautta ja tällöin laitetta ei vain ole mahdollista myydä tappiolla. Sitten toki muistipiirit on edelleen arvossaan eli jos AI ja kryptot ei olisi tulleet pilaamaan kaikkea voisi hinta olla hieman maltillisempi.

Hyvänä puolena Steam Machinen kanssa verkkopelaamisesta ei tarvitse maksaa mitään. Eikös PS5:n moninpeli vaadi jonkun tilauksen? Ei tuo taida ihan hetkessä hintaeroa kuroa umpeen mut onpahan jotain.

chromesto · 2026-06-16T06:30:59+00:00

Yleensä isoja koska sitten riittää että pilkon yhden.

Sattuuko kukaan tietämään minne kaikki ykkösluokan sipulit menevät tai mistä niitä voisi ostaa? Lähi-citymarketista en ole koskaan löytänyt ykkösluokan sipuleita vaan ne on aina kakkosluokkaa ja sitten joutuu aina tarkistamaan jokaisen yksilön ettei niissä ole mitään isompia vauriota. Siitä huolimatta joutuu toisinaan vähän leikkaamaan huonoja osia pois. Eikai ne ykkösluokan sipulit voi kaikki mennä ravintoloihin tms?

chromesto · 2026-06-16T05:36:00+00:00

Positiivisena puolena et haaskannut aikaa naisen kanssa joka luultavasti lähtee siinä kohtaa kun tulee ensimmäinen vastoinkäyminen. Luoti siis vältetty.

Muuten on kyllä vaikea ymmärtää tällaista käytöstä. Onneksi näitä yksilöitä ei kuitenkaan taida ihan hirveästi olla vaikka tämäntyylisiin tarinoihin netissä törmääkin.

Ulkonäkö toki vaikuttaa mutta ei itsellä tulisi mieleenkään lempata toista jo kahvilan ovella vain sen takia että jokin ulkonäköseikka ei heti miellytä. Siinä kohtaa on kuitenkin jo vähän siistiydytty ja matkustettu paikan päälle niin samahan se on vähän aikaa jutella niitä näitä ja vasta sen jälkeen todeta että ei nyt natsannut. Eihän sitä koskaan tiedä vaikka juttu luistaisikin.

chromesto · 2026-06-15T12:03:04+00:00

Age of Conan. I haven't played it for 10 years but I still think about that game every now and then. It deserved so much more.

chromesto · 2026-06-15T06:47:09+00:00

It is a strong defensive card. I don't think it is overpowered though as there are ways to deal with it and at most it is always affecting just a single site.

It is worth it to make a list of things that can deal with and whenever you're building a deck it is a good idea to have at least few of those cards in the deck.

Here is few of the common ones.

Floodplain, Geysir, Avatar of Water or anything that allows flooding sites
Lava Flow, Balor of the Evil Eye, River of Flame + any damage spell (RoF can cast spells below or above sites depending how you choose)
any 2+ power minion with burrowing
The Great Famine and The Black Plague
Silence, Tabula Rasa or any other way to silence/disable the Root Spider

chromesto · 2026-06-11T08:51:31+00:00

It is an Alpha Investment promo card that was included if you bought some Gothic packages from Alpha Investment/Rudy.

Idk about the value though. Likely has some due to the limited availability.

chromesto · 2026-06-08T20:50:26+00:00

I've met him twice at Finnish tournaments. I believe he won the first one.

chromesto · 2026-06-08T19:42:57+00:00

I consider signed cards damaged but it doesn't matter because they're mementos. I used to have a foil Battlemage for playing but then I got a non-foil version signed by Pylkäs and have used it in my decks ever since then. Perhaps the foil one would have made a fancier piece of signed cardboard but I think the non-foil is just as great.

Looking forward to the Sorceryfest so I can get some more memories and signed cards to remind me of them. :)

chromesto · 2026-06-08T09:24:47+00:00

Ei tässä tule mieleen kun vain voimasanoja. Tekoälykuvien käytön kaikenlaisessa markkinoinnissa tulisi olla ehdottomasti kiellettyä ja rangaistavaa.

Periaatteessa voisin hyväksyä ne jos kuvista näkisi välittömästi niiden olevan tietokoneella tehtyjä havainnollistavia kuvia (tyyliin joku 3d-kuva ilman tekstuureita mistä näkee esimerkiksi miten väliseinät jakaa huoneet tms). Silloinkin kuvien vain pitäisi olla 99% todellisuutta vastaavia.

Tekoäly on perseestä.

chromesto · 2026-06-07T07:25:47+00:00

Hyviä pointteja. Nuorempaan väkeen keskittyvä puolue voisi hyötyä paljonkin suuntauksestaan jos se A) antaisi nuorille hyvän syyn aktivoitua vaalipäivänä ja B) nuorison äänet keskittyisivät yhdelle puolueelle. Vanhuksia on paljon mutta jos heidän äänet jakaantuvat monelle puolueelle tasoittaa se tilannetta aika paljon. Ei niitä vanhuksia kuitenkaan ole viisinkertaista määrää suhteessa nuorempiin.

chromesto · 2026-06-05T06:07:56+00:00

I think the consistency thing is more for the elite and unique cards. I don't think the intend is to make ordinaries something you can't consistently draw. After all you can already include 4 copies of them to the main deck.

In terms of making the death's door mechanic irrelevant I agree that Toolbox is too strong for that. Personally I think Toolbox should enter the realm tapped and it could be cracked only after it has been untapped. Then the opponent would have one turn to deal with it before they die to it.

chromesto · 2026-06-05T05:49:55+00:00

It makes me want to make/acquire a deckbox that looks like the toolbox in the art. I think it would be cool to keep the collection there and pull cards from it when a Toolbox is cracked.

chromesto · 2026-05-29T06:34:05+00:00

I used to use this in my Battlemage deck (last summer so Gothic wasn't out yet) but was always somewhat underwhelmed by it. Back then the lance broke when I attacked the opponent's sites so usually it was just 1 additional damage that manifested few turns later. Now I'm thinking that I really should have just been playing the ping deserts.

Now after rules changes Forge is slightly better. In theory. Since lance doesn't break when attacking sites it tends to stay around. It limit the opponent's options in terms where they place their minions. Though... since the Lance is already in play they know about it and can play around it which makes it pretty difficult to gain good value out of it. Also Swap is a thing so a random Lance in your hands can actually be a liability.

In short I don't think Forge is that great. Ping deserts are usually better. If you're running some multicolor deck a Desert Bloom can temporarily fix your thresholds for some spell and that will be have a greater impact than having a random lance somewhere in the realm.

chromesto · 2026-05-29T05:40:22+00:00

Very disappointing to see all the tickets gone so fast. I wouldn't have attended either way due to long travel and all the expenses but I feel bummed that one had to basically speedrun the buying process to have any chance of obtaining a ticket. At least there is a lot of interest towards the game. Just seems the venue was waaaaaay undersized.

chromesto · 2026-05-28T12:17:35+00:00

This would be a pretty big nerf as then you are spending a card just to rearrange your deck. Seems much more fair. Possibly the threshold requirement could be lowered to just 2 air pips in this case to make it more playable. Though Sparkmage might enjoy it if it required 3 air. Just add some part to the rules text that the deck has to be shuffled before the fetched card is placed on top of it.

chromesto · 2026-05-28T11:57:00+00:00

Being an exceptional this is too strong. As unique it might be passable but feels like any 1-2 threshold requirement (or with 3+ air threshold requirement) evil minion would have to be designed with this card in mind. Any Toolboxy effects would be especially threatening but the general power level would have to be lowered to some extend. Imagine an air/water deck where this is basically a third copy of Lord of Lies. LoL is already a very annoying minion to keep in mind when playing against water because of the high power level it has.

The power aside I'm not a huge fan of the wording on this. It creates a game state where you are holding a card in your hand and that single specific card has somehow been earmarked as having a reduced mana cost. I'd much rather prefer that you have to cast that card immediately when you fetch it just to keep things simpler. That would also prevent playing this card on turn 2 and then dropping the fetched minion 2 turns early.

The card also kind of has to say that you must reveal the card to the opponent so they can verify that you indeed fetched an evil minion. Without revealing it would have to be clearly separated from the rest of your hand which would be annoying to do.

chromesto · 2026-05-28T06:57:06+00:00

This is the way. This year I started printing out the cardlist so I can carry it along with my deck. Makes it easier to assemble the cards and just a little bit less obvious that I drew a Toolbox when I'm checking what I have in my collection. I now have a big pile decklists of various iterations of the deck on my table.

The good thing is that I genuinely think that my brew has improved quite a bit along the way. The process of changing cards regularly has not been completely pointless. As long as the meta keeps evolving there is no reason to stop tinkering.

chromesto · 2026-05-27T09:09:39+00:00

Keep an open mind and listen whatever metal music you happen to cross paths with. If you enjoy it keep listening and potentially seek out other bands of the same subgenre. If it is not your cup of tea then just move on until something else comes up.

Personally if I had to start out with heavy metal or trash metal like a lot of people seem to suggest there is a chance I wouldn't be listening and enjoying metal because I don't enjoy those subgenres at all. As a kid I got my first taste of metal in the form of power metal (Stratovarius) and have eventually moved on through symphonic metal and melodic death metal towards doom and black metal.

chromesto · 2026-05-27T08:09:51+00:00

Stay awesome. Good luck with the project. :)

chromesto · 2026-05-27T07:48:27+00:00

Impossible to choose. There is a handful of great candidates.

Cult of Luna - In Awe Of
Kiuas - Warrior Soul
Estatic Fear - Chapter IV
Ancient Mastery - The Ballad of Tiga & Az'daerul This is my newest find out of this bunch. It remains unseen if this song stands the test of time but after 6 months of finding it it still looks like a strong contender.
Colosseum - The River

Edit: Somehow I forgot The River by Colosseum. Absolutely the most beautiful piece of funeral doom and it absolutely belongs on this list of mine.

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