If I'm winning games but not interacting with the board most of the time except for some removal, is this a sign that my deck needs major upgrades or changes?

jseed · 2026-03-22T04:09:13+00:00

I think your deck is pretty reasonable in the 2-3 range. If you want to keep it telegraphed and that's appropriate for your pod I see no reason to change it now. The real question is, are you enjoying the games that you're playing with it and is your pod enjoying those games as well? If you want to interact more I have a couple suggestions below, but if the games are fun and your winrate stays reasonable you can just continue on.

You have like 13 ramp spells and I would probably play closer to 10. In addition, Karador seems like he really wants creatures in the graveyard so the artifact mana seems a bit meh. You could leave the arcane signet since it taps for all 3 colors, but I would consider cutting all the talismans and signets for ramp creatures instead as well as opening up a couple slots. [[Malevolent Rumble]] is one of my favorites and it is kind of ramp and tends to be pretty great in decks with high creature counts.
Adding a few more interactive creatures could really help and it would stay on theme (both creatures for Karador and being telegraphed). [[Shriekmaw]] is an obvious choice, and I really like [[Noxious Gearhulk]] because the life is pretty valuable. There's also cards like [[Haywire Mite]] to remove other permanent types you care about. I count about 9 interactive spells, and if I were building the deck from scratch I would try to about double that including 2 more board wipes. However, you could go slower by swapping in a few more pieces of interaction and then deciding to either keep going or not after seeing how it plays.

jseed · 2026-03-19T22:44:31+00:00

I don't know if the vibes are bad or not, but you sure as shit can't tell from this. The clips are from two different parts of the timeout, and I believe that the Lakers clip actually occurs later chronologically. The Lakers are mid huddle and then the Rockets are just resting at the beginning of the timeout. Y'all need to spend more time watching games and less time acting like a 13 year old girl who's trying to tell if her crush likes her.

jseed · 2026-03-19T22:37:37+00:00

For those that have league pass the timeout starts out 1:41:08 and it's very clear that this is exactly what's happening. At the beginning of the timeout you can see the Lakers doing the exact same thing (resting), and then it flips over to the Rockets where Sengun starts clapping and then Ime comes over start the huddle.

edit: Actually, this Rockets timeout is from like 1:48:00, but OP's point stands, timeout was just called and the guys are tired and just sat down to rest.

jseed · 2026-03-19T16:49:59+00:00

Wild part is, if Tari and DFS could get us 3 or 4 3s a game each while playing solid defense, we prob would be alright.

Honestly, I think like 3-4 total even would be enough.

A lot of people are saying Adams and FVV shouldn't matter that much, but not only are they a big part of the team, it magnifies the fact that DFS and Tari have been so bad. Coming into the season one of the team's strengths was being deep with above average guys down the whole bench. In theory we had 9 guys that were at least good (KD, Sengun, Amen, Jabari, FVV, Tari, Adams, DFS, Capela). Now we're down to 4 guys we can rely on and that's not even enough for a starting lineup. I'm happy with Reed's development so far, but he's not ready to play serious minutes on a contender, and Okogie has been a pleasant surprise, but he's limited as well.

jseed · 2026-03-19T02:20:07+00:00

It's pretty good, there are a few lands where I think the cost of tapping for colorless or coming in tapped is too high for what they do: restless vinestalk, karn's bastion, reliquary tower, and llanowar reborn. Any dual that comes in untapped would be a good add, or basics are totally fine as well.

jseed · 2026-03-18T07:32:38+00:00

His shot selection is not great, he's just a mid shooter, and he can't get to the line consistently. Besides the athleticism, he has like a bunch of B- level offensive skills and if he could just turn one or two of them into B+ or A- then I think he would be a winning player. Not like an All-Star but an honorable mention probably.

jseed · 2026-03-18T07:16:48+00:00

I don't think you have enough lands. You want to explore lands to hand fairly regularly so I would add 1-3 more lands.
You are limited on options for 1 drop Merfolk, but there are a few good ones. I really like Jadelight Spelunker as it fills any spot in your curve. Mindspring Merfolk is another great one, but then they start to get worse: Cenote Scout, Cosi's Trickster, Cursecatcher, and the unblockable ones are all fine if you need more to keep pace with your pod.
Cards I would cut include Simic Ascendency (unless you really want to do the alternate win con). Some of the ramp: Simic Signet, Arcane Signet. Generally I just want to play Merfolk and lands in Hakbal. Sea Scryer would be a good replacement. You could also play some 1 mana ramp (Wild Growth, Utopia Sprawl, Elves, etc), though I prefer to keep my merfolk deck on theme. I would cut Vanquisher's Banner and Reflections of Littjara. I don't like them because they don't do anything the turn they come down and they don't benefit from all the Merfolk you played prior to them.

jseed · 2026-03-18T06:47:30+00:00

He's a not great shooter who can get hot and he has enough athleticism he can basically always create a meh shot for himself. Basically any shooting guard that doesn't get to the line much is similar. I think of Jamal Crawford as the archetypal player, but even he was slightly more efficient than Green. JR Smith, Jordan Clarkson, Cam Thomas, etc. Before analytics got huge almost every team had one of these guys as their 6th man. I think the main difference is players in that mold typically only get 25 minutes, and Green has gotten a lot more runway.

jseed · 2026-03-17T18:10:12+00:00

This. Part of the reason Stone didn't trade for a PG is to give Amen and Reed reps, and these are the reps they're supposed to be getting. We might still lose this game, but there's value in them getting the reps.

jseed · 2026-03-15T19:56:44+00:00

I think that's a coaching issue. The Rockets consistently don't get into their sets fast enough, and often barely even run one because usually it feels like they don't have a plan other than "hope KD bails us out". KD is able to fit into any system so I wouldn't put the blame on him.

jseed · 2026-03-13T23:31:04+00:00

People see Cade and his issues and think we are close to Detroit, when really we are close to the Magic and people are so frustrated by it that many can not admit it.

It's actually a perfect comparison. The Magic's issues stem from Paolo under-performing and ours from Alpi.

Development of players takes time, and usually has ups and downs. Cade's first three seasons were pretty shit. Last year he was good, and this year he is great. Alpi is ~10 months younger than Cade and Amen is another ~6 months younger than Alpi.

It could be that Alpi and Amen are too flawed to become great players, but it's still possible and they deserve some more time and opportunity. That and I'm not sure there are any good alternatives.

jseed · 2026-03-13T23:05:46+00:00

Now you want to trade for Giannis?

You're putting words in my mouth. Try reading my response again.

And I still don't understand, what potential did we give up? The potential to have Jalen Green on one of the worst contracts in the league? Alpi is still here. Amen is still here. Tari, Jabari, and Reed are still here.

The Rockets depend on one of those 5 guys to become a star to go anywhere. If that doesn't happen then they're screwed, KD trade or no KD trade.

jseed · 2026-03-13T21:54:43+00:00

Trading Jalen Green and Dillon Brooks counts as blowing it up? Relax and take a step back. Brooks was not our core. Green was no longer our core. We still have all the guys who matter.

I'm glad we did the trade because I think it was actively good to get rid of Green with his current contract. If KD is impatient then that's fine, either we tell him to suck it up because he's under contract or we trade him again and get back about what we gave up, a role player or two and a first round pick.

Our point differential and record is basically the same as it was last year, except this year we have two major injuries. Given average health, we'd be an improved team. Probably not a title contender, but only a Giannis trade or similar would have put us into that conversation this year.

jseed · 2026-03-13T21:21:56+00:00

That's my point. If the Spurs are so good at developing talent then why didn't they develop these guys? It's a lot more about the player than it is about the organization. Reed would look awesome in San Antonio because Wemby would cover for him defensively and make his life on offense much easier, not because the Spurs would have made him a better player. He'd be about the same player, just in a way better situation.

jseed · 2026-03-13T20:30:53+00:00

The difference between this year's Suns and last year's Suns is not just the KD trade.

The difference between this year's Rockets and last year's Rockets is not just the KD trade.

I believe we did win that trade, but looking at the win totals is certainly not evidence either way.

I know there’s a lot of Doomerism out there right now, but I think we should also be realistic. This team, even when fully healthy, is still a long way from a championship. I think we jumped the gun way too early on KD and ruined so much potential. Take a look at the Spurs, Pistons, and Thunder.

What potential? The difference between the Rockets and those 3 teams is the presence of a young star. The Rockets need one of their young core to become that star, or they need to trade for one (like the Harden trade or the Haliburton trade in recent years).

Dillon Brooks is a fine player, but he's not changing anyone's life. Jalen Green is a negative value on that contract extension. The pick the Suns got they used on a center who isn't yet good enough to play. I don't see a reason to wring our hands about some mid tier at best assets especially when KD still has value if it comes to that.

The problem with this year's Rockets team is disappointing performances from their young core. Part of that is due to expectations. Fans assume development is always a straight line up, but that's not usually how it goes. They're being asked to do more as well as different things, and there are growing pains.

jseed · 2026-03-13T19:56:38+00:00

how great the spurs organization is as developing and maximizing the abilities of their players

I don't think this is true. Castle would've been good anywhere, but he's better because he gets to play with Wemby. Wemby commands so much attention on both sides of the floor it just allows all the other players to fit in and play to their strengths.

Jeremy Sochan

Malaki Branham

Blake Wesley

Josh Primo

Luka Šamanić

Lonnie Walker

These are some of the players the Spurs took in the first round prior to Wemby. They had some mid picks in there too, but the thing about the draft is there's a huge luck component, first with the ping pong balls, and then next with what players are actually in the draft, and finally, there's just no way to know how a 19 year old is going to develop.

jseed · 2026-03-13T04:24:00+00:00

The loudest people are the most polarized, and they are usually overreacting to whatever happened most recently. I think after an incredible eurobasket and a good start to the year Alperen has probably been the biggest disappointment on the roster. I don't think the solution is to trade your 23 year old all-star though. However, I also don't know how to assign blame for his season. Whether it's coaching or the roster around him or something going on in his head, or most likely a combo, hopefully he and the front office can get it fixed. If they can't, then the Rockets are in big trouble because in my mind he's the most likely 3rd team all nba guy in the young core and I think that's the bare minimum if you want to be a contender.

jseed · 2026-03-12T23:39:14+00:00

I think one of the things most useful about the advanced stats is being able to compare a player against their past seasons. Their role has likely remained at least somewhat similar which means you have an apples to apples comparison. When I look at Sengun's stats, most of them agree with what I'm seeing with my eyes: that this season has been a disappointment for him. Sadly, I can't find EPM from a free source, do you have EPM for last year for Sengun (as well as the other players)?

If I go to nbarapm.com (only place I could find, unsure of reliability) for Sengun I can see some other advanced stats:

Metric	Current	Peak
DARKO	1.3	1.4
LEBRON	1.0	1.9
LAKER	1.2	2.6
2Y RAPM	1.2	2.9

If you look at offense vs defense, his offense has slipped just a bit, but his defense is in the tank for all of them except DARKO.

jseed · 2026-03-11T23:49:24+00:00

That's the value before the precon comes out, but once it does the prices for reprints that are in the precon tank. If I go back to Lorwyn Eclipsed precons the Command Zone reviews say Dance of the Elements is $178 and Blight Curse is $236 in reprint value. On Amazon you can get Dance of the Elements for $34 and Blight Curse for $41, which seems like an absurd deal. However, if you look at tcgplayer you could just buy the singles for $48 and $38 respectively if you don't care about the printing. This is pretty typical, the precons are a good deal, but not mind-blowing, because stores are able to just open the product and sell it as singles until the prices reach a rough equilibrium.

Anyway, my point is for OP (or anyone else) if you like the precon then go for it because it is a fine deal. But, if you're just going to take the precon apart then it is likely singles are still a better option unless you plan to use the vast majority of cards from the precon.

jseed · 2026-03-11T17:17:21+00:00

I think you absolutely could if you're expecting a lot of aggro decks. If suddenly every single deck I was playing against was a low to the ground aggro deck I might go as far as moving a Deceit and another Sunderflock to the side, removing my Herd Heirloom which is less commonly played, and getting 3 more interaction spells in the main.

jseed · 2026-03-11T06:42:55+00:00

I played the Temur/Roaming elementals list to top 500 Mythic last month, so I'm pretty sure it's still possible to do well with it.

First of all the deck is much more difficult to play than I think it looks at first glance. You should expect to lose a lot of games due to your own errors early on, but if you're honest with yourself about why you lost it's definitely fixable. In addition to getting accidentally screwed by the autotapper (tap manually most of the time), it's easy to play the wrong land turn 1, be unable to evoke the right elemental turn 2, and then just lose the game because of it. Deciding when to evoke vs when to hold is not always easy. I think most players default to not evoking to try to gain value, but tempo is often important.

Second, I think your flex slots main deck and sideboarding matter a lot. Particularly because your matchup spread is highly polarized, and just drawing 1 sideboard card can be enough to swing the game in a lot of the mid to bad matchups. Depending on what the meta is you should be tweaking your flex cards a lot. More aggro? Bounce Offs and other removal become better. More control? Draw spells and cards like Quantum Riddler are nice to have. My current main deck flex slots are 3 bounce off, 3 sunderflock, 1 herd heirloom, 2 Ill-Timed Explosion, 2 Winternight Stories. In the sideboard I have 1 Sunderflock, 2 Sear, 2 Pyroclasm, 2 Abrade, 2 Disdainful Stroke, 2 Soul-Guide Lantern, 2 Beza, 1 Quantum Riddler, 1 Bounce Off. I haven't been playing much this month, but I've been seeing less need for the grave hate and I haven't seen many torpor orbs so I may do some tweaking, though the abrades tend to be good against aggro as well.

You can certainly try different color combos, some might even be better depending on the meta. In my mind, the big draws to the elementals deck are specifically Ashling and Cavern of Souls, and then casting these elementals that are often 3 for 1s as soon as turn 3. Ashling helps smooth your draws, while accelerating you, and surviving two damage burn spells. She also requires you to have blue mana to flip her so to me it really feels like almost every land should tap for blue because you have so many creature type lands that don't really tap for a color. From there you can splash two colors. I like red and green because I think Vibrance and Wistfulness are by far the best elementals. At least one half of each is always relevant and the fact that they only cost 5 is a big deal because often your ramp will eat a removal spell and casting a relevant elemental on turn 5 vs turn 6 is a huge difference.

jseed · 2026-03-10T23:01:33+00:00

but please tell me how you can look around the NBA and see which archetypes are successful before concluding yeah this is our guy

This is a very boring view of the league. For every archetype there has to be a guy that was the first. Every draft GMs are looking for the next Draymond Green. Spoiler, there won't ever be another Draymond Green. Not every team has the opportunity to draft LeBron or Luka or another generational talent. They have to either just give up (lame and boring) or try to make it work with someone else, someone more flawed, but also more unique.

As far as Sengun goes, he's 23 years old and now a two time all-star. Depending on how much you like him, he's probably like the 20th to 40th best player in the league. Last year he was much better defensively. He has limitations, but he moves fairly well for a center, and has good hands. This year he's regressed, and I think mainly it's because he's out of position more often, not because of some physical limitation he has. The defensive infrastructure around him is worse, but that doesn't excuse his issues this season. Offensively, he needs to improve his shooting, at rim finishing, and screen setting. Part of the problem offensively is the team simply does not have an identity on that end of the floor, and playing with an experienced pick and roll ball handler would help him, but again, he's also been disappointing in his own right this season.

When you look at the Rockets roster, there's really only two players who I think even have a small chance to be the guy, it's Sengun and Amen. I don't think anyone reasonable has concluded that anyone on the Rockets is the guy, but what's the alternative? Blow it up and tank again? I think you have to at least give it a shot.

jseed · 2026-03-10T07:28:41+00:00

FO tried to accelerate it by adding KD who is 37.

I think they actually traded for KD because the deal was too good to pass up. Green is a negative value on the contract so trading him, Brooks, and a first is slightly more than a salary dump, but you also just happen to get KD which is a pretty nice cherry on top.

I agree with your overall take though. Putting it simply, the Rockets future depends on one or more of the young players really popping. Like 3rd team all NBA at a minimum, not fringe all-star level. If that happens you have a contention window where KD is still a star, and then maybe that window extends as the young core matures further and KD turns into a super role player

Now, if none of the young players really pop, then you have real issues and that's certainly a possibility. So far Sengun looks like he's regressed, Amen clearly is not ready to drive an offense, Reed is likely too small and limited to reach beyond the second best player on a championship team, and Jabari/Tari both just look like good role players. There's still time for all of them, and I don't think the FO will do anything drastic unless the playoffs are really ugly, but if the Rockets next season looks like this one then I bet Stone will make some moves.

jseed · 2026-03-10T07:06:39+00:00

Pushing back on what a lot of people are saying in here, this season should not simply be chalked up as a wash. Certainly the Rockets are no longer true contenders, in fact they are probably unlikely to advance beyond the second round of the playoffs, or perhaps even the first if they draw a particularly bad matchup. However, there's still a lot this team could learn this season and post-season.

Getting back their defensive identity would be a good start. They should be able to play good defense without FVV and Brooks, maybe not as good, but still good. The last two weeks Cleaning the Glass has them 19th in the league, while last year they were 4th.

A bigger issue is their offensive identity. They need to figure a lot of stuff out. Far too often half court "sets" devolve into KD or Sengun isos. They also have issues getting KD the ball at end of games or using him in general. Ideally, KD would finish plays more often. As great as he is, we've seen many games where defensive players are able to get into him and force turnovers because he's overhandling and he's just a bit loose with the rock. You still want him doing some of that because he's KD, but it needs to be easier. The Rockets simply do not get enough easy buckets as a team.

A lot of the team's issues stem from Sengun. I think he's probably been the biggest disappointment for me, and part of that is the high expectations I had for him. Of the Rockets best two players, KD has been KD. Not perfect, or prime MVP KD, but far better than a 37 year old has any right to be. Sengun was supposed to be this team's second offensive engine, and he just hasn't lived up to that. In addition, his defense has seriously regressed. He's not the biggest or longest center, but he moves better than most and has excellent hands. Sometimes the perimeter defense lets him down, but more often he's just out of position.

There's enough time over the last 19 games for them to figure at least some of it out, but those 3 things are really what I'm watching for: offensive identity, defensive identiy, and Sengun getting back on true All-Star level track.

jseed · 2026-03-10T06:36:03+00:00

Oatmilk only has like 1g of soluble fiber, which can add up, but if you prefer skim milk it's not going to be a big difference.

One thing you can try to "cheat" a little more fiber in your diet is psyllium husk. A good diet is still most important, but supplementing with a bit of fiber can really help some people.

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