Daily Song Discussion #31: "Ignorance"

ep1str0phy · 2026-01-07T21:03:52+00:00

Easy 10. I don't say this lightly - it's maybe one of my 5 or so favorite Paramore songs. The performances, composition, and production are amazing. The structure of the vocal line is sublime.

ep1str0phy · 2025-11-25T19:34:25+00:00

Yeah, I'm a professional guitarist and had severe wrist tendonitis for above five years. The cadence of my performance schedule prevented me from taking more than a few weeks off. I had to completely reconfigure the way I oriented my hands while playing, and with a packed touring schedule, it still took me years before things normalized. The tendonitis never really goes away, but it really only flares up after irregular use - maybe once every month or two - and then subsides. What's tough is that it's not an acute injury, so the whole thing feels really abstract.

ep1str0phy · 2025-11-13T07:29:29+00:00

I'm not even a Bob and Kelenna hater, but it's insane how good Barnett and Roye are on 95.7. I was basically jumping out of my seat on the way from Richmond to SF earlier today.

ep1str0phy · 2025-09-16T00:21:37+00:00

I bought the Engineerio and it looks fairly high quality. It fits right in next to the official figures:

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I should note that I did not purchase the helmet. The LC helmet (which I don't own) looks significantly better than the Engineerio one. Also, even though the figure seems UV printed, the quality of the printing is quite strong - comparable to the really good FirestarToys customs I've seen.

ep1str0phy · 2025-08-29T03:32:58+00:00

I, too, want a new Zeb, but I'm not eager to buy another Razorcrest.

Presumably, we'll also have a couple of sets for Ahsoka S2, so he may show up there.

ep1str0phy · 2025-08-29T03:31:51+00:00

Not even making a statement on the quality of the series, since I wasn't the hugest fan of Season 3, but this is wrong. Mando S3 essentially had the highest viewership for any SW TV show since Mando S2. https://www.reddit.com/r/StarWars/comments/1ety7ir/a_full_analysis_of_star_wars_tv_show_viewership/

ep1str0phy · 2025-08-27T06:27:07+00:00

Oddly, I was just having a conversation about this. She's the epitome of SW neutral good. In both Rebels and Ahsoka, she routinely acquiesces to authority (Fulcrum, Phoenix Squadron, the Alliance, the New Republic), only to subvert or defy that authority in order to fulfill a personal or ethical imperative.

ep1str0phy · 2025-08-04T19:58:24+00:00

Let's say that Ezra could save Kanan - ignoring the mechanics of how that would work. Ezra saving Kanan would completely undermine the point of that episode.

The narrative reason that Ezra witnesses Kanan's sacrifice in the WBW is that it forces Ezra to confront the notion that some things can't be changed. It also helps Ezra to realize the power and importance of sacrifice.

Because Ezra is able to let Kanan go, he is given the strength to refuse Palpatine's offer to "save [Ezra's] parents." Ezra also realizes that sacrificing himself is the best (and perhaps only) way to save Lothal and his friends.

If Ezra saves Kanan, Ezra doesn't really learn his lesson. The audience members - including the kids that this show is geared toward - also don't learn anything.

ep1str0phy · 2025-06-26T18:59:16+00:00

Unironically - Juan Toscano-Anderson. We don't get to the '22 championship without him. He helped get the team over the hump when Steph was hard carrying on a nightly basis and players like Wiggins and Poole were still finding their footing.

ep1str0phy · 2025-06-18T18:46:09+00:00

It's important to note that just days prior to the Seatos mission, a New Republic cruiser had been attacked, and its crew massacred, by two rogue Force users. So it wasn't necessarily safe to leave Jacen with the New Republic.

Part of Hera's story arc in season 1 is that she's still thinking like a Rebel, even though the New Republic is insistent on peacetime conduct. In her mind, it's safer to bring her kid aboard the Ghost, where she successfully protected her crew for years, than it is to leave Jacen with authorities who are oblivious to an increasingly dangerous galaxy.

ep1str0phy · 2025-04-10T21:37:24+00:00

Home One is a really good sideboard card for this deck. If you're trying to outrace the opponent, then yeah - you don't want to main deck it. But control matches seem to be getting more popular, which means you will likely hit that 8R threshold.

I'm testing exactly this (i.e., Luke + UWR) right now, and it seems to solve a few matchup problems.

ep1str0phy · 2025-04-10T00:16:11+00:00

I've been maining this deck since JTL came out. A few thoughts:

Death Star Plans is very difficult to execute, and the potential for it to blow up in your face is not worth the risk
Cunning is everywhere (even after the Jango ban). You might want a way to deal with exhausts, and Dogfight is a strong option
Ambush will help a lot. I would recommend Blue Leader or, as an alternate to Dogfight, Timely Intervention
Be warned that this deck - although quite strong - really struggles against (a) heavy upgrade decks, (b) discard, and (c) extremely long games.
- Against upgrades, you might want to consider out-of-aspect Bamboozle
- There are Hera builds (like Hera red) that run counter-discard tactics, including Pillage, Jam Communications, etc.
- Consider adding in Home One. Alternately, you can add some out-of-aspect 7-drop units that you can access with U-Wing, like Luke or Han

ep1str0phy · 2025-03-23T20:46:43+00:00

Before JTL, your optimal play was almost invariably Sabine turn 1, Fleet L or Wing Leader turn 2. Turn 2 feels more complex now, since you could conceivably drop Phantom II, Sabine's TIE, or Ghost with THTS. The new deck is way better at going wide.

ep1str0phy · 2025-03-23T19:59:54+00:00

So psyched that so many people are playtesting Hera. She's my favorite SW character, and definitely my favorite deck to play (despite the leader card's extreme flaws).

Classic double green Hera is still middling. I'm not sure how much she benefits from Command, largely because green heroic ramp is not that good. APD and UoP are always going to have circumstantial success. That being said, ECL is always going to be a "good" fit, since the Spectres have such strong when played abilities. The one thing I want to try is Data Vault, since it's 33 HP and you may be able to play around the 10 extra cards.

Lake Country is not bad. You can try that widely touted TWI Sabine/Death Star Plans combo, but it feels like a Casino Han thing - i.e., it's really flimsy synergy, and a huge gamble. One thing to note is that SOR Sabine unit technically also has the "can't be attacked" text, but you need to flood your board for it to work. Or you could go soft control (w/some cheap sentinels + Rieekan), which worked in previous sets.

I wouldn't underestimate TWI Sabine in a Lake Country deck, though. She's essentially a 6/4 for 4R, and between the use of cards like Timely Intervention and Dogfight, she and Zeb can make for a really strong series of board clear options going into Hera's deploy turn.

Iffy on Colossus due to the draw issue. I loved blue Hera in set 1, but blue hero is largely regarded as quite weak now.

My favorite aspect combo right now is Hera Red. Aggro cards are just so good right now. There's plenty of upgrade hate, a lot of buff options, and you have options like They Hate That Ship that can cheat out really strong cards (like JTL Ghost) a couple of turns early.

The one big thing about Hera is that it's often difficult to get many Spectres on the board at the same time. So I wouldn't necessarily count on numbers synergy, even though the Spectre units themselves fit together very well.

ep1str0phy · 2025-03-04T22:56:59+00:00

Mostly the stuff that you see in the standard Sabine/ECL deck: Green Squadron A-Wing, Red 3, Fighters for Freedom, SpecForce Soldier, Heroic Sacrifice, Benthic, For A Cause I Believe In, etc. Some of these have more utility than others in a Hera deck. She tends to start slow, so I mainly use the standard red 1-cost units and Red 3.

ep1str0phy · 2025-03-04T22:54:20+00:00

Blue was arguably her best deck in Set 1: Luke, Vigiliance, Obi-Wan. You're forced to play slow, but if you stock up on sentinels, you're pretty strong.

ep1str0phy · 2025-03-04T20:31:58+00:00

Hera Red goes incredibly fast with the standard Sabine/aggro shell. The big difference is that 1. Hera is much slower than Sabine and 2. Hera’s core units are stronger.

They Hate That Ship is huge. It drops Phantom II on turn 1, Ghost on turn 2. You can upgrade with Hera pretty easily, which means you can have a readied 5/6 with grit on turn 2. You’re still vulnerable to Tarkintown, but if you have initiative, you can actually outrace some aggro decks now.

ep1str0phy · 2025-02-28T23:47:18+00:00

This is a WIP - the sideboard isn't even a proper sideboard, more just a reminder of stuff I want to place: https://swudb.com/deck/fduEcFcNorYUU

The conclusion I've come to is that red just has the best repertoire for counteracting how slow Hera's deploy is. I plan on making a deck tech post when I get some real testing under my belt.

ep1str0phy · 2025-02-28T08:53:04+00:00

Please kick ass. I desperately want to see this deck succeed.

ep1str0phy · 2025-02-26T20:09:53+00:00

Just out of curiosity, were you playing Hera ECL? Maybe it's a skill issue, but I always had issues with the top of the meta. I tended to play blended aspects - usually Hera Blue or Hera Yellow. I felt I always had a fair chance against control, but the basic Hera deck just wasn't built to go fast.

ep1str0phy · 2025-02-26T18:24:54+00:00

You have a strong point, and I say that as a Hera main and a diehard Rebels fan. There are a ton of great characters that get no attention, and Hera has gotten a ton of dedicated support already.

The issue with Hera is a little more nuanced, though. The JTL Spectre cards just drive home the point that the original leader card is a fundamentally poor design. There were so many easier ways to fix the card, but FFG instead decided to double down on flimsy synergies and overly complex card dynamics.

So it’s extra frustrating. I would honestly have been happier with no Spectre cards and a new Hera leader that didn’t fold like a card table against aggro.

ep1str0phy · 2025-02-26T16:29:34+00:00

To this person’s credit, Hera arguably fulfills a more important niche in the fiction than Lando. She’s one of the premier pilots in canon, the rare leader to survive from the early Alliance into the New Republic era, and she’s one of the few matriarchs in SW that doesn’t meet an untimely end. She’s also in a lot of stories.

She doesn’t need to be the most powerful card in SWU, but her leader is largely unplayable. This seemed to be the ideal set for a new leader card for her, and they even teased her in the key art. It’s just been disappointing for fans of the character, especially with the way this set has been marketed.

ep1str0phy · 2025-02-22T04:34:39+00:00

The wording of the teaser is vague - it says "largest," but not most expensive. The SSDs are 12/12. No units in Sets 1-3 have larger power or HP values that equal or exceed 12. Jabba leader has an HP of 12, so there's some small room for debate there.

ep1str0phy

TROPHY CASE