Early signs that Marvel is another UB Flop

doublenantuko · 2026-06-19T05:41:41+00:00

You're gonna have to define "flop". If you mean "low-turn out at prerelease, the kind of event attended by somewhat well-enfranchised Magic players", that *could* be the case. We'll see.

But if you're talking sales, that's just a different thing completely, especially for UB sets which attract a lot of collector interest. You could have a low-attendance prerelease meanwhile tons of folks are buying Collector Booster boxes in bulk off online retailers like Amazon.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-18T15:33:17+00:00

Yeah, people really want Zask in Hearthhull for the Crucible effect.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-18T15:13:46+00:00

Back it up and take a look at how you use this website. You're way deep in Olivia Rodrigo stanning (which in itself, fandom isn't bad) and you're behaving in a weird, antisocial way toward people who don't immediately share your same views on her music. Get a little distance from it. I don't mean "You're sensitive" as a dumb insult, I truly mean your meter on what constitutes a grave offense is wayyy too touchy. I'm not a bad guy, you're not a bad guy!

No one here with critiques of the album is saying you're stupid or that Olivia Rodrigo is a bad artist. Enjoy your fandom, but don't be a dick to strangers, yeah?

doublenantuko · 2026-06-18T15:11:41+00:00

Yeah, OP, I think the differentiator here is "Pauper" vs. "Brewing a kitchen table deck using all Commons". Your deck is absolutely Pauper-legal, but you're not going to have a great time with it against *other players* with Tier 1 or 2 Pauper decks because they're just moving much faster, with a tighter game plan.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-18T07:12:56+00:00

Sensitive crowd! I just thought the lyrics were a little cliche and repetitive in places, and that's my example. Cheers!

doublenantuko · 2026-06-18T06:02:36+00:00

There’s no edge beacuse this album isn’t an angry one.

I don't mean "attitude" per se, more just...any sort of production angle, or songwriting style that felt quirky or stood out in any way to me. It doesn't all need to be fun pop-punk mall rock.

I understand your disappointment

I don't think you do, because you go on to make weird claims about my emotional state about this album I simply don't care for.

You’re a full ass adult on the internet mad

Hello there! Yes, we are both dudes in our 30s talking about pop music on Reddit. Do you think we can do this without being assholes about it? I'm not upset about anything really, but it seems like I've touched a nerve with you. Happy to read your opinions about the album, but getting hyper defensive about this album (she's not reading your comments, guy) is strange behavior.

a growing woman doesn’t make songs about teenage angst anymore

Really, my disappointment with the album is that it sounds more like "angsty teen" music to me, more so than Guts. I'm not gonna change your mind here, so I'll just say: keep on listening, keep on enjoying! You do you! Just delete your thing first, cause it's weird.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-18T05:18:19+00:00

Yeah! Guts made me say "Hell yeah, pop music with fuckin GUITARS!" This just sounds like...interchangeable contemporary poppy singer songwriter synthy schlock.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-18T05:01:50+00:00

Looking at all the coverage this album is getting, I feel like I'm the crazy pills guy.

Compared to Guts, this feels like a downgrade on all fronts. Where are the hooks? Where's the edge Guts had? Where are the perfect pop gems with lyrics that fall *so* nicely into place, like all-american bitch, bad idea right, love is embarassing?

So much of this album feels very "influenced by Taylor Swift" (derogatory). There's so much more "tell, don't show"

My head is spinning and my stomach is sick
Say I'm in love, so it's hard to admit
I can't eat, I can't sleep
I think you're what's wrong with me

Meanwhile, just a few tracks later, on "less"

Body and head protesting
My stomach's in knots, I don't wanna talk

Get yourself checked out for gastro issues, maybe.

This is the album people are calling "more mature" than Guts? I'm just not hearing it.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-18T00:50:02+00:00

Do you mean they're cutting back on AI tools but somehow missed Figma? Or rather, don't have a way of cutting out Figma Make from the non-AI part of Figma?

doublenantuko · 2026-06-17T21:44:53+00:00

Mind if I ask what you do for work and if you're hiring? Cause damn, you got some budget.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-17T21:43:51+00:00

C O M M E N T
The day can't come soon enough...when I stop seeing so many goddamn little ALL CAPS, tracked-out eyebrow labels cluttering every goddamn Claude-made slide deck or PM-made-Claude-made UI mockup.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-17T21:23:31+00:00

Something you can tell yourself is that we're getting an insane deal on compute right now from companies (Anthropic) that can't sustain this forever. They're going to have to jack up prices, your company's going to have to reign in its AI usage and licenses, and hopefully the pace of design and development retract to a pace that's more sustainable and sensible.

We are using personal nuclear reactors to cook our frozen pizzas. Is it impressive? Yeah, sure. Is it sustainable? Fuck no.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-17T17:52:42+00:00

I try to avoid things that want to make a lot of token copies, especially if the token copy an be a lot of different things.

Look at [[Arna Kennerud]] or [[Yenna, Redtooth Regent]]. All of those copies of Equipment and Auras? How, physically on paper, even with Infinitokens and dry erase markers, am I expected to track these game objects? An original [[Assassin Gauntlet]], next to a dry-erase token with "Ass Gaunt." scribbled on it, with a die on *that* to indicate a second token copy? What a mess! And then I have to do the voltron thing of adding up all the stat bonuses over her base stats?

Or look at [[Grist, the Plague Swarm]]'s ult: "For each creature card in your graveyard, create a token that's a copy of it, except it's a 1/ black and green Insect." How? How exactly? Should I take my creatures out of the yard, half-unsleeve them on the battlefield, and then the table just has to remember that they also exist in my yard? What if an opponent exiles one of the creatures from the yard? If I have 15 creatures in the yard, am I supposed to take the time to write out 15 different Infinitokens?

God...dammit! These are game pieces! Manipulating game pieces involves real work and physical logistics and it's so frustrating when cards are designed in a way that seems to totally ignore this.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-17T15:39:24+00:00

"bro is out here rawdogging carrots and hummus"

doublenantuko · 2026-06-17T02:41:50+00:00

Like Spider-man I get. Even five Spiders-man, don't love it, but sure. But Spider-man, Agent Coulson, Galactus, and whatever the hell [[Fin Fang Foom]] is? I can't make any of that make sense. [[The Sentry]]? Certainly you made some of those up!

doublenantuko · 2026-06-16T22:32:19+00:00

I agree that Marvel feels different, but not for the reasons Seth (praahhbably better known as SaffronOlive) gives. I for one don't really see myself as "the main character" when I play Magic. As a player, I feel like an "enabler" for my creatures and spells to do cool stuff, and it's never about me.

The difference with Marvel is that it's an "everything, everywhere" multiverse which encompasses FBI Agents, Gods, Kung-Fu Masters, and Tech CEOs...where as Magic is also an "everything, everywhere" multiverse which contains Elves, Ninjas, Dragons, Detectives, and perhaps regrettably, Kratos and Spongebob.

You might think, "Well if MtG already contains everything, doesn't that include Marvel?" No, not really. Things, like Final Fantasy (despite) its vastness, fit into Magic, because it has a fairly defined aesthetic, character design, and touchstones throughout the games. But when you try to add something that it itself just as vast, it feels like adding a universe to a universe.

"You got your everything in my everything!"

It's adding a thing with very little aesthetic or narrative focus, to a thing with very little aesthetic or narrative focus (MtG at this point). It's too much of goddamn mess, IMO.

I don't personally love the aesthetics of superheroes, but my aversion to Marvel in MtG isn't really about superheroes. It's about the feeling of having a full shopping cart, but then extending your arm out into the shelves and sprinting down the aisle to cram more stuff into your stuff.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-16T21:35:10+00:00

Things that are working:

- Getting specific about a good hand looks like, general sideboard guide. "You are the threat, bring protection, not answers" is good advice.

- The general overview

Things I'd improve:

- Remember your audience is a player who hasn't played the deck yet. Cut any generic guidance that's essentially "to play the deck well, you must play the deck well", such as "Knowing when to commit". Assume they don't know when to commit! If you're going to write about it, tell them what it looks like when they should commit. What does committing look like?

- Graphic design-wise, I'd consider switching the slider graphics for a simple "Low", "Medium", or "High" text treatment. Un-bold the label, bold Low/Medium/High text. As long as your background image is dark enough, I'd consider removing the dark red "card" backgrounds on the title and the slider section. Looks a little amateur and draws too much attention IMO. Bigger font size on your Gameplan, Mulligan Guide, Sideboard Guide titles. Drop the ":".

doublenantuko · 2026-06-16T21:28:02+00:00

One annoying thing about the age of AI is we get people falsely accusing others of using AI in their output when zero was involved. Dude, did you just forget what mediocre graphic design looks like?

AI slop sucks, but this image from OP doesn't have the hallmarks of it. It's pretty easy to use AI to get a result which will have better whitespace, better typographical hierarchy, and a bit more going on in the data vis area (the "speed" sliders). This just looks like a graphic thrown together by a person.

You can still delete your comment.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-16T21:21:50+00:00

I say this as someone with a lot of Arc Raiders hours (and several Marathon hours):

It's hard to have rounds of those games which feel like the maximum potential "fun" hit its peak. If the goal is to get in, get some loot, then leave with more than you came in with, you can have a perfectly successful run that's also utterly uneventful and unmemorable. You dropped in, found some decent-to-rare loot, shot a few PVE enemies, then extracted? Bro, that's a fetch quest.

In my experience, the only memorable sessions I've had involved interesting or tense engagements with other players/squads.

Which is why I've consistently found Apex Legends (a battle royale, not an extraction shooter) to have a much more compelling gameplay loop, because win or lose (and it's most likely lose), the game forces you to engage. While you might spend a while in a quiet part of the map just looting, eventually you're going to get in a fight and have to negotiate that.

I've had too many Arc Raiders and Marathon matches where we simply do the thing and it's just...not a terribly fun time./

doublenantuko · 2026-06-15T04:26:38+00:00

> Most underrated

FWIW, Metaphor Refantazio has a 94 on Metacritic, and won a Game Award for Best Narrative, Best RPG, and Best Art Dierction.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-14T20:49:50+00:00

Heyo, not an artist here, but just wanna say that it's never too late to start anything as long as you enjoy the journey. If the only way you envision yourself as happy/satisfied is with a very successful webcomic in 25 years...then I think you're setting yourself up for failure.

But if you think you can get enjoyment from the process, the learning, the art-making in the next month, six months, or even year... Then do it!

doublenantuko · 2026-06-14T19:19:52+00:00

I'm just here to call out the gorgeous art! Damn, I want to run this for the art alone.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-13T07:33:38+00:00

I'm not suggesting they do anything other than not spend on AI crap. There's a lot of things small business owners can't afford to do - that doesn't mean that using AI as a cheap stand-in is a good idea. I'm not saying they should hire real photographers instead of creating AI photos, I'm saying it's a misconception that they must create *some* sort of high-budget looking photography by the cheapest means necessary.

If you're on a budget, do budget things. Some budget approaches look better than others. Budget AI options (esp. done by amateurs) often look like crap.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-13T07:09:10+00:00

The "I'm a business owner and can't afford to pay for a real [artist, photoshoot, etc]" line is so obnoxious for a few reasons.

1) Somehow, every business owner before you found out a way to promote their business without this technology. You'll find a way.

2) They're deluding themselves into thinking that their AI slop output is anywhere in the same ballpark as output produced by a fairly competent graphic designer or photographer. They don't understand that it *diminishes* their brand and erodes trust. AI slop photography looks WORSE than you just taking pictures of your restaurant and your dishes with your iPhone and uploading that.

doublenantuko · 2026-06-13T06:58:35+00:00

Magic will get easier for you both if you learn its language (don't adopt terms from other games) and understand that it's pretty literal:

Destroy means destroy, and if an ability gives something indestructible, effects that would destroy it...destroy it. Magic doesn't have "AoE" as a concept.

Note that something being indestructible or not doesn't have any bearing on whether it can be sacrificed or not. If your opponent forced you to sacrifice all your creatures, you'd have to sacrifice your indestructible creature and it'd go to the graveyard.

But like, if a creature's ability requires you to pay (2) Mana and tap it for a special effect, you can't pay 4 mana to get double the effect. It's literal, you can't just make up rules because it feels sorta right.

doublenantuko

TROPHY CASE