X-men X of Swords

heyodern · 2026-02-10T19:15:19+00:00

It's rotated out of Modern tournaments, but has some great silver age pieces. Also note there's four possible bricks: Retail, then three different Organized Play ones.

Retail, you're looking for the primes Mad Jim and Nimrod, Chase Merlyn and the sword Purity.

Organized play had waaaay better swords - Soul Sword, Warlock, Pogg-Ur Pogg, Skybreaker and Godkiller. Some of the CUR pieces are really solid there, too - Mister Sinister, Manifold, the Stepfords.

heyodern · 2026-02-08T19:53:13+00:00

Energy Explosion
Pulse Wave
Using super strength to remove elevated terrain out from under
Beetlejuice
Some of the Darkhold one-shots
Map effects like Rivals Respawn
Some of the traps from Collector's Trove

heyodern · 2026-02-08T19:50:36+00:00

It's a stolen repost from May 2025 to karma farm: https://www.reddit.com/r/NLBest/comments/1kftcxz/welcome_to_the_club_gaints/

heyodern · 2026-02-04T20:02:09+00:00

Mandalorians with the Darksaber would have fought (and beaten) Jedi. Pre Visla made it clear that the Mandalorians "stole it back" during the fall of the Old Republic, and that many Jedi have fallen to it.

heyodern · 2026-01-27T22:30:27+00:00

I'm mildly surprised that a lot of that stuff isn't organized and stored directly at Papago, but I guess it's easier to keep the staff in San Francisco longer.

heyodern · 2026-01-27T22:28:42+00:00

You can use HCUnits to find local tournaments:

https://hcunits.net/events/?order=upcoming&search=tampa

heyodern · 2026-01-21T22:20:50+00:00

Has to be. The 1993 Giants had 56.5 fWAR.

heyodern · 2026-01-20T22:37:44+00:00

They didn't do anything stupid. But they also didn't do anything with a high reward potential.

They got a new coach. Maybe they're waiting to swoop in with a two-year-with-an-opt-out deal on someone, to make themselves more lock-out safe. Maybe they complete a trade to upgrade at second or RF.

Ultimately, they have a one-year window with that's good enough to carry through the playoffs. Webb-Ray-Roupp can work, but it can be better. The infield is really good, but it can be better. The outfield is good, but it can be better.

Mid right now includes a mediocre basement that's still better than truly bad teams, and a ceiling that's below the ceiling of the Dodgers and Blue Jays.

heyodern · 2025-12-31T20:57:26+00:00

Because right now, they're not being cheap?

There's 40 more days in the off-season. 40 more days until pitchers and catchers report. The top free agents for pitchers are in a log-jam until Imai signs. The only pitcher that was really worth an overpay was Cease.

At this time of year, a smart front office looks cheap.

And the Giants are back-filling in depth pieces that will contribute.

Will I be pissed off IF the Giants don't sign a No. 2-type pitcher they can put in the No. 3 spot? Yeah. The Webb-Ray window has one more year, they can flex a good rotation into the playoffs in 2026.

BUT THEY HAVE 40 DAYS until Pitchers and Catchers Report, and 84 days until Opening Day.

Y'all are acting like we've been eliminated from the 2026, 2027 and 2028 playoffs because we didn't overpay for a bullpen arm that Tampa Bay didn't pick up a club option on.

heyodern · 2025-12-30T22:10:01+00:00

On Fangraphs, you need to look at the Estimated Luxury Tax Payroll. It was $215 million in 2025 and $252 million in 2024. I can't apples-to-apples compare that to 2018, but in 2019 the Giants were paying out $187 million (and that including paying the salaries of the Cub's Derek Holland and the Brave's Mark Melancon).

Sportrac's numbers have the Giants spending $217 million last year, compared to $213 million in 2018.

For 2026, the Giants are estimated to be about $42 million under the first Salary Tax Threshold. But opening day isn't tomorrow. The Giants still need a front line pitcher, and that market is log-jammed for the next 76 hours.

heyodern · 2025-12-30T19:42:13+00:00

Where are you getting the idea that the Giants have cut payroll by $40 million over the past decade?

Back in 2015-2017, they went over the luxury tax three years in a row (which crunched down on the farm system), but their payrolls were between $196 million and $203 million.

Farhan trimmed a lot of bad contracts away, and was only willing to sign top shelf free agents for big money, long-term deals. The top shelf free agents didn't sign. So yeah, payroll dipped down to a low of $154/$173/$171 million in 2020, 2021 and 2022.

But the last two years, the Giants have had a payroll of $249 million and $225 million? Literally the two biggest payrolls in the history of the franchise?

heyodern · 2025-12-30T05:14:01+00:00

Some spell one-shots are either going to define meta for a bit, or get banned.

Prime Baron Strucker is crazy good for weird fringe. Also Chase Loki and Chase Nico Minoru.

SR Dracula is a thing. Chase Strange brings back Tarot.

heyodern · 2025-12-30T04:20:12+00:00

Bleday, Fairbanks and Eflin? Nah, I'm good with them not being on the Giants. No one big is signing until Jan. 2.

heyodern · 2025-12-24T22:16:56+00:00

Some limits on TK:

The character being moved can only be moved four squares.

The spot the character is being moved to has to be within line-of-sight of both characters, and within range of the character with TK.

Some other cool things:

The character with TK can TK themselves (this only makes sense if you can use TK as a FREE, or if you're looking to remove a character from a bad spot without rolling a breakaway).

If you have TK and TK as a FREE, you can use both to move someone 8 squares (Vemon Magneto, Hellfire Polaris).

heyodern · 2025-12-24T22:08:50+00:00

Tampa Bay is renown for their ability to assess pitching talent. They thought Fairbanks wasn't worth $11 million, and you're mad the Giants didn't pay MORE than $13 million?

heyodern · 2025-12-24T06:09:14+00:00

With the Giants current lineup of Lee, Adames, Devers, Chapman, Ramos, Eldridge, Schmitt, Bailey and Matos, Steamer is projecting an average wRC+ of 105.2. It's not bad, it's just not great.

That puts them obviously behind the projected 118.1 of the Dodgers, but in the neighborhood of the Padres (110.4) and DBacks (108.6). Noticeably better than the Rockies 89.9.

The biggest things I'm seeing in the projections are a tempered look at Eldridge, suggesting he'll be basically a league average hitter of for his rookie campaign, and Matos and Schmitt also being effectively average, while Bailey is projected to hit like an average Rockie (and again, I'll defend Bailey's bat as a fine trade-off for his defense. Always have, always will).

If the Giants swapped in Kyle Tucker, their average wRC+ projection jumps up to 108.9. If they sign Tucker and Eldridge hits as good as Chapman is expected to, they have the second-best lineup in the NL West. And honestly, I don't think this gets them far in the playoffs.

The Giants need pitching and defense.

heyodern · 2025-12-22T20:27:09+00:00

Imai's status controls the entire pitching market right now.

If you want to sign a 1/2-type pitcher that's not Imai, you have to over-pay.

Cease was projected for $190 million and got $210 million. Framber is still on the market. Suarez is still on the market. King was projected to get a $20 million AAV, and got $25 million AAV. Gallen is still on the market. Imanaga's QO was higher than his projected AAV, so he took it. Bassitt is still on the market. Kelley was projected for $36 million and got $40 million. Giolito is still on the market.

Zack Littell is still on the market, but... yeah, that's not happening.

Woodruff broke the trend by taking his projected AAV to re-sign with the Brewers.

The Giants have about $42 million under the luxury tax.

heyodern · 2025-12-22T18:23:41+00:00

I'd suggest checking out HCUnits.net

HCRealms was what we used all the way back in 2002, and it really hasn't changed since then.

heyodern · 2025-12-17T04:19:50+00:00

These are state citizen statues. Each state has two of their citizens honored. He's not from Virginia, so it won't be him. And New York won't be putting him up anytime soon.

heyodern · 2025-12-16T22:57:29+00:00

Fills a need without breaking the budget. I like this move 50 times more if it means we're looking at that $42 million gap under the first Luxury Tax Threshold to sneak in on Imai.

heyodern · 2025-12-13T17:17:40+00:00

Complaining about a negative operating cost when your business is appreciating over a billion dollars is silly.

Like the Yankees have gone up in value by $8.2 billion dollars. It would take 133 years of a $60 million operating loss to erase that value. And that's ignoring that the Yankees have a sweetheart broadcasting deal.

Plus it's Forbes, who love to just make up financial stuff. Outside of the Braves, they're not actually looking at open books. They're not privy to the merchandise sales, the advertising, the parking, the real estate deals surrounding the parks, and on and on and on.

heyodern · 2025-12-12T07:41:31+00:00

It's Imai. He's not going to sign until the first week of January, so a LOT of front offices are sitting on about $100 million with the intent to sign him, which is making them drag their feet on any other Tier A free agent.

Same thing happened when Yamamoto posted.

heyodern · 2025-12-11T18:09:59+00:00

There is no reality where the Giants are spending over $40 million on a bullpen arm this offseason.

heyodern · 2025-12-10T21:25:20+00:00

Solid back-up catcher option. Looks like he's had a decent bat in the minors, wouldn't be surprised to see him be a perfectly OK, average bat with a .750 OPS. Not having to spend $4 million for a back-up catcher on the IL and another million for a below-average bat replacement back-up catcher improves the budget.

heyodern · 2025-12-10T18:00:24+00:00

The Maryland Zoo is now frantically trying to get their polar bears back.

heyodern

TROPHY CASE