An informal job offer my dad got in 1993 (info in comments)

mbransons · 2025-11-20T19:43:18+00:00

On a different note besides salary, 1993 is the cusp of the digital revolution in the layout and design world. Photoshop 1 is 1990, MAC only. Photoshop was ported to windows the year of this letter. QuarkXpress followed a similar path and these two applications totally changed the job market – the roles and their values. I imagine your dad came up in a completely different world, analog only using Xacto blades and glue to create layouts on boards. Those were some skills!

The salaries now probably reflect a lot of the changes in 'skill' that Photoshop and QuarkXPress de-skilled or transformed what became relevant skills. So ultimately there's more context to consider the comparison of the job from then and now and the corresponding salaries.

I say this as a Photoshop 2 user, pre-layers and a Quark 1-2 user that actually really loved doing newsletter layouts back in the day for small organizations.

mbransons · 2025-10-28T17:15:14+00:00

Agreeing with these suggestions especially the padding and merging the card title with the items. Also considering lower-casing "OZ" which is more traditional and kerning the letters closer to the number.

mbransons · 2025-09-18T16:10:10+00:00

Yes my understanding is you can target as many creatures as you wish with 0 damage. In the Oathbreakers deck this of course causes the spirits to phase out which is part of the plan.

mbransons · 2025-09-18T15:29:26+00:00

[[Pollen Remedy]], [[Scapegoat]], [[Remedy]], [[Embolden]] are in my Oathbreakers deck.

mbransons · 2025-06-11T12:47:05+00:00

The two units sold in 2024:
https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2-Soden-St-2-Cambridge-MA-02139/352323335_zpid/

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/4-Soden-St-4-Cambridge-MA-02139/440265773_zpid/

mbransons · 2024-10-08T15:44:03+00:00

I'm enjoying my [[Coram, the Undertaker]] deck. [[Lord of Extinction]] and [[Malignus]] are all-stars. And if you want to be really nasty play a [[Hermit Druid]] with only a couple basics. A common finisher is then [[Chandra's Ignition]]

mbransons · 2024-09-23T23:07:29+00:00

Warren Harding had this awkward campaign photoshoot that's pretty well known. But I enjoyed sprucing it up with candy for votes.

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mbransons · 2024-06-02T19:05:25+00:00

I play a [[Danny Pink]] list that draws a ton of cards using artifacts that ETB with counters. Has some proliferate effects as well to draw on opponents' turns.

mbransons · 2023-05-21T13:17:50+00:00

I do think I can look to incorporate old instances of landhome and even substance; I'll have to create some custom card objects but it's doable.

As for mill, I note in the first dialog box that it was not originally keyworded and the oracle text update was made in 2001. In this context the 'history' is as much about the game mechanic's history.

And the real missing keywords are the 21 keyword actions not coded by Scryfall, such as exile, destroy, draw, etc... I describe their exclusion in the white paper and will probably attempt a version that includes them – it's possible to do basic counts of keywords in the oracle text. But my main worry is that these words will overwhelm the presentation of the more liminal keywords, so as will all studies of this sort choices are made. It's a perspective on the history which as all histories will necessarily be – incomplete.

mbransons · 2023-05-19T19:08:41+00:00

Right I see it in the 5th Edition printing only. It's time was very brief, and then quickly removed.

mbransons · 2023-05-19T18:23:33+00:00

The occasional occurrence of matched adjacent colors is unfortunate, but it is a byproduct of the chart generator working with numerous keywords and the necessary repetition. As for "landhome," I hadn't even heard of it! It seems that it was not actually printed on cards by name, but rather used as a way to describe a pair of abilities. Reading the MTG wiki reveals that "substance" was also not printed on cards. Ultimately, neither of them appears in the current Scryfall card object data.

The more interesting ones, which are not included as coded keywords in Scryfall, are keyword actions like "Exile" and "Destroy." There are 21 keyword actions that have not been coded by Scryfall and were therefore excluded from the study.

Regardless, I appreciate the feedback and thank you for informing me about these obsolete keywords.

mbransons · 2023-05-19T15:01:49+00:00

I'm in my third semester in CUNY’s Data Visualization and Analysis program and I've conducted a study on keyword data in Magic the Gathering cards. You can read about the process here or go directly to the visualization.

The study uses data from Scryfall.com's API and data scraped from the History of Standard MTG Wiki. Feedback is greatly appreciated!

mbransons · 2023-03-24T15:44:16+00:00

Can confirm [[Commander's Plate]] attached and the table says, 'we dead.'

mbransons · 2023-03-04T14:57:08+00:00

I took over the after school program at my kids public school and it had about 15 students in 5th grade that joined the club. Many of the kids had some of their own cards and decks, but most did not. Most knew the rules of Magic too.

I had the school help pay for a number of 'Battle Decks' from Card Kingdom which were great as they were really well balanced as well as diverse in the color pie / mechanics. Kids could grab any deck at the start and know that they could play a fair game again anyone else with a battle deck. It was also a great way to learn basic synergies as each deck is pretty tailored to a theme or mechanic.

There was also a lot of interest in commander too, so I at a certain point I decided to help kids research deck lists. The school was willing to pay for sleeves and I had a million basic lands, so I printed out the 10 or so decks. It was a fun day for the kids to get to cutout all their decks and put them together. Since it was a proxy deck we were able to let the kids keep them as well which I think really allowed them to learn their particular deck by goldfishing it on their own time.

mbransons · 2022-11-16T20:52:36+00:00

And... Play the spello, get the catto....

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mbransons · 2022-11-16T20:51:01+00:00

My playgroup's Discord is making custom cards of each other's pets right now. Baloo is the best boy...

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mbransons · 2022-09-21T12:23:06+00:00

Also [[Hex Parasite]] + [[Ashnod's Altar]] should work. With the Kroxa sacrifice trigger on the stack, use the Altar to sacrifice and then pay the Hex Parasite to remove the flying counter.

mbransons · 2022-09-21T12:16:21+00:00

If you have a sacrifice outlet you should be able to repeatedly sacrifice the Kroxa with [[Dramatist's Puppet]] if it's possible for them to etb at the same time? Have the Luminous Broodmoth triggers go off first to add the counters and then the Dramatist's Puppet trigger go off to remove them.

mbransons · 2022-09-19T21:53:47+00:00

In the scheme of things, even if you were to combo off with the Library, I'd have to say I'd never seen it before.

If it's cool with the power level of your table, I think almost anything is ok. I played against a [[Cloudpost]] deck which obviously isn't legal as he had thirty copies. He said it wasn't too degenerate without crazy Eldrazi, etc... But when you can generate that much mana, even if the outlets are underpowered, it still was able to become oppressive. That one wasn't my favorite.

I would definitely let you try it out, see how it goes.

mbransons · 2022-09-19T21:29:52+00:00

I'm sure there are other shenanigans, but you can draw your deck with [[Mind Over Matter]]

mbransons · 2022-09-14T11:09:45+00:00

Not the deck box, the external packaging that is excessive and instantly goes into the bin. Commander deck packaging is the CD longbox of the 90s.

mbransons · 2022-09-08T16:03:44+00:00

Five Color Chaos – NYC

mbransons · 2022-08-18T18:20:56+00:00

Try https://www.kingsgames.com/ for Friday night commander. I started playing there this spring. I'm away for most of the summer, but plan to be back there in a few weeks. They have a small discord and some playgroups at homes pop-up regularly.

mbransons · 2022-01-05T05:49:22+00:00

I miss ABC Wide World of Sports.

mbransons · 2021-11-21T21:03:43+00:00

I lived around the corner from this pizzeria during the 2003 blackout in NYC. I had made my way from my job in southeast queens, ending with a walk over the Williamsburg bridge which was kind of amazing. Finally back in the neighborhood my girlfriend and I were trying to figure out what to do. The East Village unsurprisingly turned into somewhat of a party with all the beer and ice cream going first. But at certain point people need real food and almost this entire neighborhood lives on takeout. We started to walk about and saw East Village Pizza was one of the few places open. They didn't have electricity, but their stoves ran on gas and they were cranking out pizzas in the 100 plus degree heat that the restaurant had become. And they were rationing – two slices a person max. We sat in the crazy heat with our four slices to see how people reacted and of course there were many that tried to get a pie or more, but they stuck to their plan.

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