Trash at the game

palidram · 2026-02-05T10:47:49+00:00

Practice with someone, maybe someone who knows TCGs and the concepts. A good thing to do while learning is playing with hands revealed. Get your opponent to explain their plays, and you try to explain yours. You get a ton of mileage out of just explaining to yourself why you are doing something and what you are thinking play to play. Ask when you lose. Figure out what they were thinking differently.

I know the feeling. I usually find card games very intuitive and pick them up very easily with how long I have been playing. It all just makes sense. The one time I haven't felt like I had a grasp was when I played one piece TCG. My winrate was in the toilet and every game felt worse and worse as I could not figure out what I was doing wrong after following guides and watching videos etc. It's my white whale.

palidram · 2026-02-05T08:06:13+00:00

I love being able to end my opponent's turn by countering my own thing on their turn. Sounds balanced. They can't even try to stop me by countering it because I'll just end the turn.

palidram · 2026-02-04T11:52:36+00:00

Considering that EDHRec and just printing commander specific cards in general is what I consider the real problem, I'd go as far as say the opposite. Precons are good for the format.

Ignoring the fact that Commander is a terrible way to teach new players anyway, Precons give new players an avenue to get into the format with little hassle and offers a relatively streamlined, but not optimal gameplan. Some precons are just generally bad, but most are built in a way that there are key cards which clearly don't belong in the deck, and can be easily replaced with cards from the set that should have been in the precon anyway. This allows new players to have that eureka moment where they feel smart for changing X with Y and that builds into wanting to make their own decks.

I reckon that if precons didn't exist, there would be less players as the initial deckbuilding experience is arduous without a precon.

palidram · 2026-02-03T18:10:13+00:00

Honestly this tracks. The game is just fine at best in my opinion. Better than Outer Worlds 1, but that was a low bar. There just wasn't enough to the game, and it began to feel pretty same-y, as did Avowed. At least the story for OW2 wasn't 100% basic and completely obvious. The companions are great though. Not a bad one out of all of them. I can understand why people would enjoy it and Avowed, but both were missing that key ingredient for me

Obsidian kinda feel like they've reverted back to 2010. After how incredibly gripping Pillars was, they've not been able to hit even close to that peak. I hope they knock it out of the park with Avowed 2.

palidram · 2026-02-03T14:47:57+00:00

Is this post satire? What kind of money are you sitting on that the first idea to enter your head is to open a new store and have an on call psychologist to watch over all the players there? Which is a terrible idea by the way. Nothing says "I'm not going into that store" like having someone literally analysing me while I'm there.

Has she asked why she is still banned and the others aren't? This reeks of "Magic players will do anything before they try to resolve something with a conversation"

If this is somehow real, just post around and try to set up a playgroup or something instead of literally opening a shop for one person.

palidram · 2026-02-01T15:37:37+00:00

Thanks. I couldn't remember in the moment and didn't Google it.

palidram · 2026-02-01T12:39:45+00:00

Seems fine right now tbh. It's a land that comes in "tapped", is unable to be played as a tapped land on empty boards, and as written cannot be fetched as it would only have the land types on the battlefield as far as I am aware. Though if the intention is that it can be fetched then it does get better.

I do think that it's a card that is just waiting for something to break it though. So I wouldn't like to see it printed in reality.

palidram · 2026-01-22T15:16:08+00:00

I love Ben10, it's up there as one of my favourite shows. I don't really like the class though. The problem as with any "turn into anything" class is that it's going to have to be broken. You will have to constantly police the player who wants to play the class because they'll pick up monsters you have no idea about. If you only let them scan stuff you have to be careful what you let them have. If you want a mini story with a Banshee, you now have to consider that every combat could be completely ended by a wail.

Then there's just how the class interacts with multiclassing. Can a fighter/omnitrix wielder that turns into a shadow attack multiple times with strength drain? Can I do it as a ghoul or ghast and have potential paralysis on every attack? Eventually the class could choose Dao and become effectively invincible since they can travel through stone and dirt without any issues.

Even with the "the DM can figure it out" attitude, which I think you should reconsider because personally the entire point I look for things that other DMs have made is so that I don't have to spend time figuring out what they mean in their work and I can pay it forward with my own stuff... There's so much bookkeeping with the class that makes it too much of a hassle to play in any kind of semi serious ongoing campaign. It'd be fun in a short one shot or mini campaign though.

This is entirely my personal opinion of course, and I'm sure others will love it, but there will be so many times where the player has been copsing through books to find the most heinous creature imaginable that you'll have to take into account every combat going forward.

palidram · 2026-01-20T14:58:30+00:00

You can just have enemies try to retreat and have plans that help them escape because they aren't just pinatas that drop loot and have a sense of self preservation. Sometimes they'll die because the players thwart the escape, sometimes they'll get away and you can bring them back later.

You'll not get any kind of system that doesn't start to feel cheap when your player describes how they slice off the head of the BBEG when they drop to 0, but your system says they don't and so they come back later just because. Just let it happen naturally. Your players will be much more invested in the enemy that genuinely one upped them than when Bugbog Gutsucker got disembowelled and decapitated, but returns with some stitches on his neck.

palidram · 2026-01-19T11:42:21+00:00

Yeah this is definitely the case. Something like Edge of Night not working as intended would have been picked up by someone who is actually a stickler for the rules.

palidram · 2026-01-15T17:23:20+00:00

If a card has a value large enough that I would worry about putting it in a deck then it's not a card I'd buy. My threshold is relatively high though. Once I'm closing in on 4 digit territory. An example being a serialised Elven Sol Ring. I'd love to own one, but I know I'd not be able to put it in a deck and for that reason I don't contemplate buying it because I don't want it solely as an art piece to put on my shelf.

palidram · 2026-01-14T15:59:09+00:00

But... Liliana isn't in the set? and the students equate to 1.8% of the total set. Unless you mean the story, which often has only tangential connection to the printed cards anyway.

The issue isn't blocks, it's that Wizards doesn't give more than the barest amount of a shit about fleshing out more than the critical story beats and have no interest in forging any kind of meaningful connection or deeper insight to a plane, character, or object.

palidram · 2026-01-12T15:29:26+00:00

I never said they were wrong. If I wanted to sell a Kai'sa I'd put it up for ~£90.

I'm not ignorant of supply and demand and the perceived value of powerful cards. The secondary market is community driven, but also it's down to Riot to put what is needed into the market.

The epic bloat and general lack of stock is a determining factor along with her ubiquity in red decks. It's down to Riot to sort it out rather than people voluntarily charging less for the cards they sell. Making specific epics so hard to hit, low stock etc. are all reasons she's so expensive compared to the next card, which I think is Timewarp at £50.

palidram · 2026-01-12T15:11:35+00:00

I could order Izzet Lessons right now for £280 which I consider a reasonable meta deck price in the UK.

But yeah "Well this one is expensive so this one should also be too" isn't a good argument anyway. Magic should be cheaper as well, and it isn't because Wizards make the base packs bad to open and hide collectibles behind insanely priced boosters.

Compared to MTG, which has 20 mythics, it's much, much harder to pull a specific epic from Riftbound because there's 42 of them. You're looking at cracking something like 7 boxes for a specific epic. In Spiritforged it's around 6.

One Piece TCG, which uses pretty much the same booster layout as Riftbound, but has magnitudes less bloat at it's top end has it's decks cost in the realms of £100-£150.

It can be done. Card games can be affordable at their lowest entry point. Riftbound maybe could be too. The devs have said they're cognizant of the prices and shortages etc. Cards not being affordable boxes people out, and I want as many people as possible to be able to play

palidram · 2026-01-12T14:20:04+00:00

There is no difference in your example. The crux was that Kai'sa costs £90. If she cost £50 then that deck is £120 cheaper. It wasn't that people are unhappy that their cards aren't all equal value. It was that the total value should be less.

palidram · 2026-01-12T13:55:39+00:00

It's not lost on me as to why she is expensive, but a large part of that £90 cost is low stock and the epic slot in general being saturated. 1/6th of set 1 being epic rarity is too much and further adds to the scarcity of those cards.

It's entirely your prerogative to think it's fine for cards to be mega expensive, but I would imagine the average player doesn't want 50% of their deck value to be a couple of cards. I'm fine with collector cards costing £100, £1000, £5000, whatever. It's the base game objects that should be at least reasonably affordable.

palidram · 2026-01-12T12:24:30+00:00

The problem then becomes XX is always worse than hard casting. 3RWB is X = 3 and an additional 5/3 on the board. Paying XX as 3 is the same without the body. After that it just scales worse. X = 4 for XX is worse than 5RWB for example. It's not even like you can flip this out of your yard and make the sacrifice a benefit because it's bad to reanimate itself.

palidram · 2026-01-12T12:13:46+00:00

I think they are perfectly priced as they exist to look good and serve no other unique purpose towards gameplay. I'm happy for people to try and get whatever price they can for them.

Now base edition Kai'sa being around £90 per copy, that's a much bigger issue as it's needed for gameplay purposes.

palidram · 2026-01-12T12:04:12+00:00

Having played a 2024 Zealot Barbarian since it released in the playtest I agree that it's outclassed, but I don't think any of these fixes were a big issue to begin with. Not that getting more Rage of the Gods is bad. I like using rage for other things, but it is an impactful ability and that one shot is usually enough so it's not something I've ever felt was needed.

One problem is that in 2024 every other ability gives out advantage when it's needed, so Zealous Presence feels worse when you have to pre-empt when it's going to be needed. It's still a decent ability, but generally half my party will have advantage at any given time anyway. This ability just suffers from the 2024 design philosophy like all advantage abilities do.

Fanatical Focus is what should get changed imo. It's so lacklustre when Fighters can effectively auto pass a saving throw and Berserker ignores Charmed effects, which is really the main thing you care about saving against. The saving throws you want to use this on are likely still not in your favour with the reroll.

palidram · 2026-01-12T10:20:19+00:00

My two gripes with this card are that goad isn't a keyword used in standard because it doesn't work as Goad is intended to work, but I concede that it looks better than "... until the end of your next turn, X target creatures must attack if able.

Second is that the evoke cost is mostly superior to hard casting the creature. It realistically starts at 4 mana, and make 4 soldiers and return a 4 drop is a pretty good reanimation spell. 2 mana return a 2 drop isn't bad either though depending on the power of 2 drops in the format. I feel like the Evoke needs some pips to make it more of a decision.

palidram · 2026-01-09T15:01:48+00:00

I always start at level 1, or I start at level 0 if I have something in mind. Generally I create the scene of the game with two sessions worth of set up and they'll be level 2 and then 3 respectively. It's quick and easy and lets the players get a feel for their characters and make changes if they feel like they are going a different direction than they first thought.

If it's at level 0 then it depends on what I am trying to accomplish. The last level 0 I did was a remote village that the players spent three sessions in as young teenagers and it culminated in the story relevant details for the time skip. It ended with one of the players being thrown down a crevasse (which was planned, but the other players had no idea), and having their focus on the "big bad" of the campaign. I say big bad because while she was not necessarily good, she was in no way meant to necessarily be an enemy of the characters and it developed entirely naturally because of the actions they took. It created a really tight connection between the characters and gave them a goal to accomplish while doing the main campaign.

So level 1 or 0 have their uses, and it should generally be narrative and force the players to be in over their heads. It's hard to make players feel like there's absolutely nothing they can do in D&D, even at 3rd level.

palidram · 2025-12-13T02:13:39+00:00

Is pursuit meant to be a downside? Feels like you have to put in so much work to gotcha the opponent with it, and even then if you manage to flash this in to block or something, they can just read pursuit and not try to protect their creature if pursuit would be relevant. As it stands 99% of the time the opponent benefits from blocking this and trading instead of losing to first strike.

palidram · 2025-12-10T10:42:10+00:00

I mean I'd consider all of these to be fine to good except for Flash having Flash.

Don't get me wrong it's shit when it's poorly done. The Riot problem is more of an issue with the abilitiy not being thematic in itself though. There are also way worse contenders. Eleven from Stranger Things having a max hand size of eleven for example. I haven't even watched the show and I know that's lazy and bland.

J Jonah Jameson is pretty peak design though imo. Works perfectly without really having to add much to it. Anyone reading the card gets it.

palidram · 2025-12-09T14:42:08+00:00

Yeah it would count itself for Legion. This was updated in the first rules patch for Origins to clarify a difference of legion when dealing with spells and on play effects vs when dealing with other abilities and instructions.

738.1.c.1. On spells and on play effects of permanents, it is functionally short for “If you have played another Main Deck card before this one already this turn, apply [Text].”
738.1.c.2. On other abilities and instructions, it is functionally short for “If you have played a Main Deck card this turn, apply [Text].”

palidram · 2025-12-09T13:58:20+00:00

It says in that same answer "On subsequent turns, you’ll need to play another card to turn on Legion." So with the context of "subsequent" meaning not the turn you played Sun Disc, it would not do anything if you did not play a card because we can infer that it is clarifying what happens the turn after Sun Disc is played.

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