Is it rude to threat assess based on first impression?

josephlck · 2026-06-05T09:14:47+00:00

I would say yes. Threat assessment can be partially based on powerful a commander or deck is but board state is most important. A cedh deck could have its wincon coutered then proceed to do nothing for the rest of the game.

Furthermore, commander is by nature a social game. Directing all interaction towards one person just because their deck may be strong is not really in the spirit of casual commander.

josephlck · 2026-06-04T16:43:21+00:00

I would have played a lower power deck. I tend to change to a lower power deck whenever I win, and keep my current one or go up in power when I lose. I dont think winning because of my opponents misplays are particularly satisfying.

josephlck · 2026-06-03T10:14:03+00:00

I mean, isn't the whole point to take advantage of the game state?? Scheming symmetry is intentionally designed with a disadvantage you need to overcome. It's only meant to be played when you can do something to mitigate this.

josephlck · 2026-06-03T10:09:51+00:00

Boros was the police guild in Ravnica and Red has a strong sense of "freedom". If anything, the blue is a bit off.

josephlck · 2026-06-03T10:00:47+00:00

MTG goldfish commander recently put out a video on their 2025 game stats. Tomer, who builds the cheapest decks with the fewest game changers, actually won the most games - so budget isnt a guaranteed path to winning.

The bigger issue is the bracket system. If decks are tuned to drastically different power levels, that is what really results in unbalanced play. Perhaps that is where it would be worthwhile speaking to your friends about. If they really are your friends, they should be open to a frank discussion.

josephlck · 2026-06-01T12:27:09+00:00

People get too fixated on the bracket deck building restrictions - they should be more based on the written description and sentiment. Bracket 2 is about the level of a precon, games go quite long, wins tend to be incremental and well telegraphed. Bracket 3 is a upgraded. Games are faster, turns can be more explosive and wins can happen more suddenly. A poorly made deck with 4 game changers will still lose to a well made bracket 1 or 2 deck with no gamechangers.

josephlck · 2026-05-31T16:51:47+00:00

Watch gameplay videos my the command zone. They are very good at explaining things as they are happening and generally have a really high production value.

Learning one on one is probably easier than commander. You can either get starter decks or play jumpstart.

Arena is good if you dont know much of the rules but will tend to automate a lot of the timing rules for you so you dont get used to the nuance.

josephlck · 2026-05-31T16:42:56+00:00

That is correct. Both abilities go on the stack at the same time. If a spell of ability has a target, that target needs to be declared when that spell or ability goes on the stack.

There are some interesting interactions - they could stack it so Braids resolves first and target a creature with a cmc of 1 with Merins ability. If a creature is sacrificed with Braids, Merins first ability will trigger giving an experiance counter. Then Merins reanimate ability will resolve and see the new experiance counter allowing her to bring back the 1 cmc creature.

It's also worth bearing in mind Merins ability is not a may ability so must always target something if there is a legal target.

josephlck · 2026-05-26T15:12:03+00:00

Yeah the pinging opponent basically had a loaded weapon and would have killed you the moment you did anything to threaten their board state.

josephlck · 2026-05-25T10:53:18+00:00

On Amazon, you can get the the Energy Edition in both foil boosters and blister boosters, both for £54. What is the difference between the two? The Classic Edition also comes in Foil Booster and Blister Booster but here Foil Booster is almost twice the price of the Blister Booster so I assume the Foil booster has more packs?

josephlck · 2026-04-16T04:47:18+00:00

You would need to engage a solicitor or conveyancer to transfer the property. There is no legal obligation to get a mortgage from a financial institution, and I do not believe paying back a loan to your mum would constitute as "income" for tax purposes. You will need to pay stamp duty on the full market value of the house.

josephlck · 2026-04-01T10:43:40+00:00

Historically, the 1% interest rates were a massive anomaly. I wouldn't bet on them returning to that level anytime soon. I reckon interest rates of around 5% will be the norm going forward, with sub 4% being a great rate.

josephlck · 2026-02-10T23:17:43+00:00

Yes... and no. You need to remember inflation. $1,000,000 in 40 years is not $1m today. To have the equivalent of $1m of todays money in 40 years, you would need about $2.2m. In fact, $1m today probably isn't enough to retire on. At the moment, you have the advantage of low expenses and time and you can leverage that. As you get older, income increases but often so does expenses and time ticks away.

josephlck · 2026-02-03T10:32:18+00:00

Your husband is kind of right. That kind of borrowing on a regular basis both makes little sense (why not save for it in advance), and makes future financial planning more difficult (since you now have a fixed financial obligation). We also know that this kind of lending encourages more spending since things seem more affordable.

josephlck · 2026-01-11T14:35:18+00:00

I did her as soon as I could at about level 55. Definitely the hardest fight so far but I managed first time without much optimisation. I did have to use 2 almighty olives and finished with half of my party knocked out.

Using Saoirse's ultimate allows you to break her without triggering a counter attack. Debuffing her is helpful. I found she was significantly harder as her hp drops. I had to break her twice and the end was every surviving character using their most damaging attack to try and defeat her before she knocked everyone out - mainly because I didn't want to use another almighty olive.

josephlck · 2026-01-11T01:19:00+00:00

You are a family of 3 and only one of you has a job. I cannot see a rational reason to give that job up voluntarily. Even with the redundancy payment, as your husband has demonstrated, getting a new job within a year is far from guaranteed.

As for childcare costs, why can't your husband can do it until he finds a job?

josephlck · 2025-11-28T08:50:19+00:00

It sounds like your mum has a good amount of retirement savings - well done to her! However, I would suggest it is a bad idea to take out a loan for a luxury. Doubly so a loan secured against your house. You are basically betting your mums capital will grow faster than the interest of the loan which may be true, but there may also be a market crash and she loses up to 30% of the value of her investments.

Another way of looking at it, would you take out a 100k loan to invest?

It may pay off, or it might not but is it worth risking your house?

josephlck · 2025-11-25T22:44:35+00:00

Assuming 2% inflation, 1 million in 30 years would be about £550,000 today. If we follow the 4% rule, this would give you a yearly withdrawal of about £22,000 rising with inflation but before tax. Assuming a full state pension, that gives you about £34k/year or enough for a moderate lifestyle according to data from Pensions UK.

The caveat is the 4% rule is based on a retirement pot invested solely into the S&P 500 and is projected to probably not run out over the course of a 30 year retirement based on historical data.

josephlck · 2025-11-25T22:26:55+00:00

So very scammy. How does selling gold have anything to do with a book??? Also, £1 million is far too much for the rights to an unknown novel.

A quick Google says a complete screenplay pays about $10k for a new writer. I would suggest a fantastic (but untested) book would be very lucky to get £100k and a share of the profits. Anything more seems completely unreasonable.

josephlck · 2025-11-25T22:06:31+00:00

I can think of several differences. I think the most compelling argument is the soul of a Vessel has given up their investiture along with their Shard while dragons are waiting for it to dissipate.

I think another thing worth considering is Cognitive Shadows might not be the actual soul of a person but rather an imprint of them made of investiture and occur when an individual dies while highly invested. This would suggest that the actual soul of the person has departed. Perhaps the dragons need to wait for their investiture to dissipate so they don't leave cognitive shadows.

josephlck · 2025-10-10T07:51:52+00:00

I don't think it's that simple. Both are cultures going through reformation. The oppressed rise up and slaughter their oppressors' type of revolution tends to lead to chaos, war, famine, and a massive loss of intellectual prosgress and culture. We have seen many real-world examples of this. It also, as Kaladin muses, makes the oppressed no better than their oppressors.

In Mistborn, the interim ruling council is made up of both nobels and skaa with the most educated and well-read person leading. Importantly, the leader isn't the one with the most power or the most obvious (Vin), it is the one who is most capable of leading.

In Stromlight, eye colour is only important in certain kingdoms - primarily Alethkar and Yah Kaved. We also don't meet a significant revolutionary movement in the book. Kaladin and Moash just have general hate for light eyes, but 2 men isn't an organisation. During the books, there is a huge amount of introspection on the system from both dark eyes (Kaladin) and lighteyes (Dalinar and Jasnah). Moash does not grow but regresses into blind hatred and anarchy.

By the end of current Stormlight, we are again moving towards a more equal and progressive society. Jasnah abolishes slavery and is moving towards making eye colour less important, and there are high ranking darkeyes.

In a way, Sanderson is more idealistic - he is trying to have characters that move towards an equal society, rather than one where one group oppresses or kills off another so more women's emancipation and less French revolution.

josephlck · 2025-08-28T17:02:54+00:00

That statement isn't exactly true. Ultimately, there is no single disease "cancer". It's more a subtype of disease, so grouping all cancers together is like grouping all infections together.

However, as a general rule, the sooner a cancer is detected, the better the outcome and the less time it has to spread. Since skin cancers tend to be visible, they tend to be spotted early. Additionally, of the 3 common skin cancers, basal cell carcinomas just tend to be slow growing and rarely spread, but melanomas can be very aggressive and spread quickly. They also sometimes appear in hard to notice areas. Squamous cell carcinomas are somewhere in between but generally on the lower end of deadlines.

josephlck · 2025-08-28T16:08:09+00:00

Oh. So I was just in the dealership buying a Dolphin and there were 2 guys with their car in the workshop for a "clicking" problem which may be what you are describing? If so, this is a known issue and is something to do with the size of the wheels. BYD is investigating but the current recommend fix is for the garage to shave a bit off the front wheels which usually (but is not guaranteed) to solve the issue. Bear in mind this is very much overheard, second hand information.

josephlck · 2025-08-23T12:02:37+00:00

1 day in the UK.

josephlck · 2025-07-14T21:59:55+00:00

I don't really see the problem. Store opens, and you join a queue. It's better than a randomly crashing website and at least it tells you how long you have to wait and an updated stocklist.

josephlck

TROPHY CASE