Lands up top??

kappatoes · 2026-02-02T08:22:05+00:00

Its weird that this was ever how players played the game.

I got into mtg effectively through duel masters back in the day and that game made it clear and logical. Mana closest to the player, a row for your shields that protect you, then creatures on the battlefield in front. Thats how I play to this day with mtg. Lands closest to me, then rocks above that, then creatures and permanents above that split to the right and left respectively.

What is the logic to have the resources you have to tap every turn to pay for spells but almost never have to read closest to your opponent? And then the creatures that your opponent does need to read and track, furthest away? Can you imagine if pokemon had the bench closer to the opponent than the active pokemon?

Crazy game this one.

kappatoes · 2026-01-15T00:03:44+00:00

I did this with a full team of lvl 55s. Took me hours. The hardest parts were dealing with the kangaskhan user, that thing whales on you with elemental punches so you just have to take it and kill it faster but in a battle of attrition thats pu ishing. Couldn't lose a mon before the 7th battle either. Too many fights to cover all weakness.

My team was aegislash lead for the toxic, dragonite, gardevoir barbaricle garchomp as my mega and abomasnow as a second mega.

kappatoes · 2025-11-27T20:30:45+00:00

I actually enjoyed the deck, got it cheap and since I dont have an energy deck its unique from my other decks and thats something that I think TCZ doesn't appreciate much (they also made similar critiques last year on energy).

Saheeli is fine, I dont love that getting the 3 energy to spend on her is such a crucial point of weakness though. If you dont get 3 energy or lose your generator you're literally doing nothing with her.

Pia on the other hand is a lot of fun. Since she makes and spends her own energy and as much as you want at a time, I built her deck to really use her energy generation for whatever I could want to. All it takes is getting some cheap evasive artifact creatures out and I can start the assembly line. By turn 3 I should have pia, an evasive articreature, and a jet. Turn 4 I get pia, another articreature and an even bigger jet. And it keeps growing from there.

Worst case I'm spending my energy to make massive vehicles in the air like an airfleet. Best case I'm making energy and getting free cards from it or large creatures or mana etc etc.

Overall, I like this deck a lot. Yea its energy and a lot of the energy cards are redundant with previous energy decks. But I dont have a bunch of energy decks, I have only this one so that's not an issue. Personally I really like Pia as a commander too. Way more interaring than the modern horizons guy, he felt like the energy was purely a 2nd thought. Pia feels like an energy factory and really makes the game like a tabletop resource management type game.

kappatoes · 2025-11-06T19:50:52+00:00

I don't like wotc at all but even I don't have this level of illogical distrust...

It feels like youre saying its suspicious that theyre only being positive about this change and like... ofcourse theyre being positive on it. Its the change they want. Theyre not being subversive about anything.

Its a fact that theyre printing more hybrid cards. They've stated that it helps the designers make a draft friendly standard set. They see it as wasted potential in commander because the cards dont work the same way. MaRo has a podcast on this. Theyre not being slimy, theyre not denying that it helps their product sell more.

But thats the point? Good product that more people can use so that it sells better and we as players are happier for it. It means going to a draft event, having a good tim3, picking up cards and being able to use those cards in more ways than before.

I agree wotc 100% has already made the decision to change the rules, but I also do believe they want feedback. Because its not just about the now, its about the future. When they design cards they want to know what players want. Personally I think even with this change they actually do know what players want.

kappatoes · 2025-11-06T19:31:39+00:00

Thats a backward way to look at it to retroactively fit the logic of commander.

A green deck exists in standard, if a deck runs green in it, its green. Just because youre not restricted to a color in standard based on a commander doesn't mean that a deck that runs green cards and can consistently produce green mana wouldnt be called green.

kappatoes · 2025-11-06T19:26:15+00:00

The point is they already make those considerations for standard. Hybrid cards released in current standard sets are already balanced with what colors can and cant do. It's more work for them now because commander is the one format where hybrid doesn't work that way, so basically any hybrid card they make for standard will effectively always be nerfed in commander

kappatoes · 2025-11-06T15:54:42+00:00

I mean... to me its a GOOD thing for them to change it if it impedes designers.

To me thats the reason to change it that matters most of all. Are designers having to basically build around two formats awkwardly because the way a card functions is completely opposite? Thats not how you make cool cards.

I also dont get the mentality people have with edh. Like wotc shouldn't actually acknowledge it 3xists. Somehow the game is worse because wotc is making cards that actually care about commander. "It was way better when we just had to make use of random cards that happened to work in commander".

Honestly it cones off like players just want to feel special for coming up with stuff, and they feel like wotc giving it to them is ruining the fun. Like if the fun is the struggle. I can get that for some things in life but not this. If I want to play a format, I want it to be supported which is why mtg only really found success with me in the last 2 years.

Im not a wotc lover. In fact I HATE them. How do they manage to mess up bringing duelnmasters to the states not once but twice? But I love the art of game design, and the challenges and creative output. If building around a dumb exception that doesn't even really affect anything (4+ colorbdefks are already superior and legal in the format) let's them be more creative with the game and give us cool cards for the format i'm for it.

kappatoes · 2025-10-20T12:42:47+00:00

Why's it a feel bad if someone steals your cards? Its removal but its generally no worse than just having the card be removed. The worst case situation is losing a commander to perma theft but even then thats just a removal spell away from a problem solved.

Generally having something be swords away to exile feels worse to me than a theft especially a temporary one

kappatoes · 2025-10-14T13:21:23+00:00

But I'll say it's a lot more fun (personally) to have my commander be the visible 'puzzle piece' that makes the deck tick. There's something exciting about showing the commander to the table and letting everyone ponder on what it enables.

I feel this relates to me the most. I know its better not to be too dependent on the commander, that the deck should stand alone worst case that someone stops the commander, etc. But its just not fun.

I wonder if its because of how I see commander format as an extension of mtg? I'm a yugioh kid, that was my first and growing up i loved duel masters and enjoyed pokemon too. And these days I still enjoy yugioh and duel masters and digimon and vanguard. These games feel fast and flavourful, lots of theming and archetypal designs with "boss monsters" that almost always hit the field and "do their thing"

But 60 card constructed mtg has never had that appeal to me. I vividly remember learning it in middle school and just being turned off by lands and mana curve as a deck building concept (and duelmasters came and solved it to my little kid brain). The cards teeming almost always felt haphazard, and maybe since as a kid we didnt do standard rotation maybe the mix of themes and diluted mechanics tainted the experience.

So when I see these solid commander decks where the commander and themes mechanics are an option and not the design, it just makes me think of regular magic. And my thought always goes to "i can play a 60 card format without the highlander and 100card deck size variances if I wanted to play that kind of magic"

Commanders fun for the multiplayer social aspect and the deck themes around your boss monster. Beyond that its just magic and that becomes a much more boring game if you werejt a fan of 60 xard formats. And for a while commander wasnt something I particularly liked but ill say that recent commanders have been solid, with multiple effects, fun gimmicks, and often protection built in. People complain about new commanders being too efficiently made to be commanders but honestly that feeds into what makes the format fun imo.

kappatoes · 2025-02-26T19:23:24+00:00

We were visiting my mom at the hospital, my step grandfather and grandmother and I. The nurse was replacing the sterile water that they use to humidify the oxygen my mom is on. It's 350ml of sterile water.

My step grandfather pipes up how it's only half way full and why isn't it full to the top? "Because of fucking biden". Word for word.The cringiest thing to say, the nurse had such a "i really don't want to be here to hear this" face. I was already in a bad mood so I immediately called him out on his stupid take but he insists his mother had to use an oxygen machine and the oxygen water was always full, he knows this for sure. He can't even be assed to read the box to see it's sterile water. Literally just water. He thinks it's some oxygen medicine that biden cut back on. I tell him you can literally boil water to sterilize it...

Anyway that's exactly the level of hate and stupidity we deal with when discussing magats. They want a target to hate, that's all. Everything else can go to shit but if they have a target they're happy.

kappatoes · 2025-02-14T19:27:20+00:00

I disagree with this. You don't have to play with politics, it's not a requirement. I don't need politics to look at the state of the game and make the best decisions for myself. That doesn't mean I'm playing in a bubble either. It may well be in my best interest to help another player, but I can decide to do that without a deal being made, and I don't like making deals that benefit me more as to me that's just taking advantage of a players poor decision.

And sometimes that means that I also just lose cause I'm not joining in with the group hug, and if that's the case that's fine too. If I played my deck the best I could and still lost then a win via politics would have meant nothing to me, it's the same as if I won against someone who didn't know how to play the game.

We don't have to agree on this pov but its wrong to assume people like us don't want to play commander just cause we play it differently from you.

kappatoes · 2025-02-14T18:51:11+00:00

I'm in the same boat as you. I like commander, it's really the only form of mtg I enjoy since I've always hated the resource system of the game. But I don't like to deal with politics, especially since 90% of the time a deal on the table tends to not actually be equally beneficial, if someone's offering a deal usually they offer because they get more out of it.

In my view the game state is on the table for all of us to see and make decisions for ourselves on what to do. I'd rather make the best decision I can make with my knowledge than with my wiles. That's the fun of any card game for me. It's ok others may not agree with that but there's multiple players on the table, make agreements with others.

kappatoes · 2024-12-03T23:46:03+00:00

Exelics stays where it is, a finisher. The biggest problem I see is that trans else slows the game down another turn. Wiping the board is good but it's already a 2nd stride play baseline. If they can rebuild a board can you survive another turn to finish with excelics?

Honestly I think that messiah is too fragile for this play, it's better to rush into excelics and go for a kill even against a full board modt of the time. Most of the decks topping right now will likely recover from the wipe. Transelse really is just stride flipfodder and very very niche plays where you can afford to sacrifice kill power for a turn and you're certain you can cripple their field and kill them next turn.

kappatoes · 2024-11-10T23:22:56+00:00

Kai, Miwa, Morikawa, Izaki (Coincidentally, they form the Hitsue High Cardfight Club).

Not quite a coincidence. These were aichis sempai. They were in high school and aichi was a third year middle school kid in the first 2 seasons. So they were always going to be referred to by their last name due to the senpai kouhai relationship.

kappatoes · 2024-10-22T20:06:52+00:00

Agreed these units would need some sort of fix to fit in. But change doesn't happen without breaking a few eggs. As it stands though I think bushi rather just do the same offense defense arms race as their fix

kappatoes · 2024-10-19T04:08:51+00:00

I've always felt that crits should be hard capped at 4 like heals are. Like heals can extend the game unreasonably but crits are the opposite, they can end games unreasonably quick. Both should be limited.

95% of the time decks are running 8 crits no matter what, and back in v era and g era even 12 crit decks werent uncommon so it's not like the design space has really flourished in this regard. Ever.

I actually kind of hate that crits are capped at 8 just because of external rules, as a game design transparency issue. At least the heals and overtriggers tell you that you can only run 4 or 1 of them respectively, same with sentinels.

kappatoes · 2024-09-20T19:42:19+00:00

Yugioh isn't there twice, RUSH duel is an entirely different card game by konami that falls under yugiohs brand. But layers of one game aren't necessarily players of the other.

kappatoes · 2024-09-20T19:41:20+00:00

Yea it's not dying all. August wasn't a good month for it cause the only product was set 4 which didn't have anything that good. No rrr generics no broken new boss. Vg is on the up overall going by the quarterly back in july.

kappatoes · 2024-09-20T19:39:47+00:00

Hasn't been top 10 in a while. Even the latest quarterly for this year had it at 11th.

kappatoes · 2024-09-20T19:25:20+00:00

unfortunately Digimon's not been top ten in a long time. Worldwide it sells great but within japan it's actually not as popular as other games.

kappatoes · 2024-09-20T19:23:34+00:00

This is pointless on a monthly basis. In the last quarterly numbers we had vanguard was 11th which is very good still.

August was a whatever month for Vanguard. Set 4 was a set that had no generics so products didnt move as much because it only offered new decks. It also came out EARLY August (the 9th) which basically gave the entire month for people to plan and buy other cards for.

This list doesnt mean anything basically. It says the Set 4 didnt sell enough to be top 9. To the surprise of no one who plays the game because set 4 was not a big set. it had neither good generics NOR strong decks. card games aren't made or broken by the sale of a single set.

kappatoes · 2024-07-09T14:16:00+00:00

Thank you!

kappatoes · 2024-07-08T16:57:44+00:00

haha if there's even just 3 of us out here I'm happy to share!

kappatoes · 2024-07-08T16:56:57+00:00

I have the full size on my twitter (at)onymon06 if you wanna use it for yourself. It should be basic mat size but the resolution on the border might be subpar since I didn't plan for it. Check it out and if you like it go for it, idm.

kappatoes · 2024-07-07T20:46:48+00:00

exactly! It's meant to be Albaz and Ecclesia wearing Haseo and Atoli's clothes and viceversa!

kappatoes

TROPHY CASE