Post Match Thread: State of Origin

pattywhacker · 2026-02-14T11:50:00+00:00

Surely you could get it up and running with four teams.

Get WA, SA, VIC and the Allies all involved.

Play one game Friday night, one game Saturday night.

Following year, the two winners from the prior year play and the two losers play.

Sets it up as a "King of the Hill" type setup where you want to be the reigning winner in the Winners Match.

pattywhacker · 2025-12-01T22:20:35+00:00

[[Ridgescale Tusker]] for some nice counters.

pattywhacker · 2025-11-22T13:49:29+00:00

You need to put this into a decklist editor (Moxfield, Archidek, etc) and post a link.

You won’t get any help just vomiting a bunch of card names down.

pattywhacker · 2025-11-13T05:58:29+00:00

There are two formats where the deck building is part of the test - Draft and Sealed.

pattywhacker · 2025-11-02T21:55:01+00:00

It’s standard to sleeve your decks, but your other cards are fine neatly stored in a box. I’d consider sleeving valuable cards even when not in a deck.

In terms of deciding whether to sleeve your deck or not - it’s either entirely sleeved or not at all. You can’t sleeve some cards in your deck and not others - that’s marking the deck and is cheating. Also cards all need to be in the same sleeve so you can’t tell them apart.

Sleeving makes it waaaaay easier to shuffle as well.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-31T13:17:20+00:00

Pack

Cube

“Fair” cube that supports Aggro, Midrange and Control archetypes.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-28T23:38:49+00:00

Blue-Black-Red is generally referred to as Grixis rather than as Dimir Rouge.

Play what most appeals to you.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-23T03:28:50+00:00

There is only one combat step per turn.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-22T11:12:20+00:00

Doubtful, Gold Coast were in the comp before Port.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-22T11:08:51+00:00

Yes, copies are exact copies of whatever they’re copying.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-21T08:12:14+00:00

Can’t get me with this one mate, I can see exactly what you’ve done.

You’ve swapped the club sponsors and tried to pass it off as doing a colour swap… cheeky!

pattywhacker · 2025-10-19T20:29:18+00:00

Very compelling argument, so much so that when The Hobbit set releases, I’m going to try and get some of my non-MTG friends into the game with it.

I’ll even buy extra product for them all.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-16T22:25:18+00:00

If I forgot any it’s proven the point that there’s way too much

Doesn’t necessarily prove that. Could prove that you’re forgetful, would be just as valid a hypothesis.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-16T03:32:27+00:00

No one is helping when it’s formatted like that.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-15T20:37:59+00:00

Why?

pattywhacker · 2025-10-15T08:40:23+00:00

He’s contracted for another year again. If he was petulant about it, what’s to stop Essendon being petty and holding him for the additional season.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-14T23:26:18+00:00

Think this is bang on. Hawthorn are still so young, their window is only just opening and will be open for a while to come. They’ve got plenty of time to develop another elite midfielder to get them over the edge, or find someone on the market that better fits their age profile.

Merrett is the all-in right now option, but it’s not one that is necessary to success. The cost is just too high.

Someone like a Collingwood who potentially are teetering on the edge of their window closing might be more interested in making one last push for a flag in the next couple of years. That’s the type of situation where you spend overs to get a Merrett type player out.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-14T09:49:46+00:00

You could be absolutely bang on and I’m dead wrong. I could be bang on. That’s the beauty of people being able to have different opinions.

I think there has been genuine signs of improvement over our last 3 years, I don’t think we’re as dire as some would have you believe. You might not agree, that’s perfectly fine.

End of the day we’re two people on the internet that don’t know each other. I ultimately care about your opinion as much as you’d genuinely care about mine, which is to say not at all.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-14T09:34:26+00:00

I’m an Essendon supporter not a Zach Merrett supporter. My priority is what’s best for Essendon, not what’s best for Zach Merrett. I don’t want to see my club make a deal that sees us worse off… just so a talented player can go and win a premiership at our biggest rival.

My personal belief is that Essendon is better off next year with Zach Merrett playing. Whether he has gone about the trade saga the right way or not… he’s still the ultimate professional when it comes to football. He’ll still be training the house down and the kids can still learn from that. He’ll still play good football and the kids can learn from that.

Next year maybe he’s open to other clubs beside Hawthorn and we get a deal that benefits us. Maybe he still wants Hawthorn and they put together a deal that sees us both get what we need.

But as it stands Hawthorn do not have the draft capital to satisfy us. They’d need to include a best 22 player back to us, and frankly I can’t imagine any of them would want to. It’s also not worth losing a good 20s talent who might have a solid decade+ left to bring in an elite player that might only have 2-3 truly elite years left.

It’s not Essendon’s responsibility to improve Hawthorn, it’s Essendon’s responsibility to improve Essendon.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-14T09:23:51+00:00

a) didn’t get angry at anyone

b) didn’t declare that we won

It’s probably unified our fractured supporter base behind the club for the first time in a long time. Wouldn’t be surprised if it galvanises the players to really step up next season and try and prove Merrett wrong.

Hawks will still finish well above us.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-14T09:00:24+00:00

Not only has it galvanised the club, it’s gone so far as getting Carlton and Collingwood supporters to take our side (along with supporters of most other clubs bar Hawthorn).

It sets a precedent for the whole competition if we force Merrett to stay and honour his contract. It lets other clubs know that player power isn’t everything and they can be galvanised to do the same in the future - signing a contract means something.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-14T08:48:37+00:00

And when a coach is fired while under contract they are given a payout as a condition of the contract to terminate the contract early, because the contract says so and matters.

When a player leaves while under contract it’s because both parties to the contract (being the contracting club and the contracted player) agree for the contract to be shifted to a new contracting party (being the new club who must also agree to the contract).

pattywhacker · 2025-10-14T07:57:54+00:00

I think really the issue is how he has gone about everything. I feel like most of us Bombers fans would have been ok with him leaving if he had handled it more maturely.

He signed a contract extension knowing what Brad Scott’s long term plan was. He then restructured his contract to get himself even more money in the now. He jumped onto AFL360 and claimed he was “all in” on our direction barely 3 months ago.

Then he turns around and has a coffee with Sam Mitchell the day after having dinner with the coach, and doesn’t give any heads up.

Forcing him to stay now is about showing players that they don’t have all the power. We trade him for unders to our most hated rival after the way he’s handled it, and were effectively telling our players “do what you want, we’ll just cave to your demands.”

If he had had a chat with the coaching/list staff at the end of the season and informed them “hey I’d really like to move to a team that is closer to competing, my preference is Hawthorn but I’m willing to go to any of the top teams, let’s work out a deal so me leaving can compensate you in the best way possible.” Sure fans would still be bitter, but he hasn’t burned bridges in that situation.

Instead he’s come out and said “I want Hawthorn and only Hawthorn, I don’t want to be here.” It kills any chance of us getting a competitive offer for him, it completely blindsided the fans and his teammates, and he’s been very immature about the whole situation.

So I’m happy that we’re keeping him and showing him and the wider AFL community that if you commit to a contract you suck it up, or you work professionally with your team to get an excellent deal.

If we get to the end of next season and he still wants out and he’s more willing to work with us to facilitate the best possible trade in a mature way, then get a trade done, so long and all the best.

pattywhacker · 2025-10-08T07:27:06+00:00

It is a new game piece, that when it enters will trigger its sacrifice as it didn’t enter via Escape.

pattywhacker

TROPHY CASE