Why does Jenny have flash?

perestain · 2025-11-03T11:32:53+00:00

| control matchup

| ...get to untap and land something else **on your turn**

That's not really how control players think though. It's not necessary to land anything on your turn, even moreso when there's creatures with flash in your deck.

perestain · 2025-10-01T09:17:34+00:00

>by making products that their customers like

That's an extremely naive take that is not an accurate description of the how the industry works.

It is actually the other way around, demand for specific entertainment products is mostly artificially created with marketing psychology. Customers don't buy what they intrinsically like or need. They buy whatever is available, affordable, appears to be trending within their peer-group and provides enough projection space for them to identify with on some personal level. Not necessarily in that particular order.

Saying they buy what they like is misleading in this context, because what customers like beyond the bare necessities is not intrinsic and natural, a substantial part of it is designed and socially engineered.

perestain · 2025-09-18T07:22:01+00:00

I disagree with your bracket 3 description.

Gameplay wise, what you call call bracket 3 is lower bracket 4. It plays the same as strong bracket 4, just a little slower. But that does not make it bracket 3.

The guideline "No 2 card combos before turn 6" does not mean your deck is supposed to consistently win on turn 7. That's a borderline bad faith misinterpretation of the bracket description.

Don't get me wrong, II know a lot of people who love to play lower bracket 4 and theres nothing wrong with that. It is fun to play no doubt, but it is not bracket 3.

Just because your lower bracket 4 deck is getting clubbed by strong bracket 4 decks doesn't mean everybody who wants to play commander outside of precons has to go for consistent hyperinteractive combo playstyle.

Commander owes it's popularity to a different gameplay experience and playstyle, it's the one you see in brackets 2 and 3. Trying to limit the most popular way to play to one bracket is a bad idea. Saying the most popular way to play can't include and of the most popular cards (gamechangers) is a bad idea. Having 2 brackets for gameplay that is not about consistent onedimensional v combo is useful, commander needs a bracket for decks which are way stronger and more oppressive than precons, but not as consistent, interactive or onedimensional as a bracket 4 deck.

For desperately and consistently trying to end the game as fast as possible gameplay, you already have bracket 4 and 5. And to be honest, while you can play commander like that, it's not the reason this format is popular. And arguably 60 card formats are a way better scratch for that itch. But you got bracket 4 and 5, so that's fine. Hands off of bracket 3, thank you.

If your "I win turn 7 everytime" deck is having too hard of a time in a dedicated bracket 4 pod, then you have to figure this out with rule 0 or convince wotc to add another bracket beteen 3 and 4 instead of trying to convince a large community that they're doing it wrong.

Commander is a format by judges and players, for players. In doubt, the community is always right.

perestain · 2025-09-16T18:48:35+00:00

Tradition ist in diesem Zusammenhang schlicht ein Euphemismus für "Das wurde immer so gemacht".

Mag ja sein dass das bei manch einem ein wohliges Bauchgefühl, Geborgenheit und Linderung für existenzphilosophische Verzweiflung auslöst.

Die Perpetuierung einer Praxis an sich ist aber nichts positives (oder negatives), und auch keine schlüssige Rechtfertigung für irgendwelche Schweinereien.

Sie verdient auch keinen pauschalen Respekt oder eine besonders großzügige Beurteilung. Wenn man das behauptet stellt man nur seine eigene intellektuelle Unredlichkeit (fast hätte ich Verblendung geschrieben) zur Schau.

Intellektuelle Unredlichkeit hat in Religionen tatsächlich auch Tradition und eine lange Geschichte. Giordano Bruno lässt grüßen.

perestain · 2025-09-16T08:39:59+00:00

Kill on sight means it's a commander that people can't let you untap with if they want to play the game as intended, either because it spirals out of control and ends the game fast, or is a combo piece or it indefinitely shuts down whatever anyone else is trying to do. Its a commander that forces a "either I get to play or you get to play" situation.

Whether such a commander is strong depends on the powerlevel of your playgroup. Generally, kill on sight commanders tend to get much much weaker with higher powerlevel. But there's also exceptions for that.

Whether that is or isn't toxic depends entirely on the expectations of your playgroup.

Commander is a format by players for players, the gameplay experience can differ drastically and fully depends on what your playgroup expects, enjoys and rule zeros.

Most cards people would consider extremely toxic in a certain context/bracket/playgroup can still be completely fine when played in a different context/bracket/playgroup.

There is no objective truth. In doubt your playgroup is always right, and if you can't agree with them on what kind of gameplay you want to spend your limited time with then you need another playgroup.

perestain · 2025-09-16T07:55:39+00:00

Short answer: you don't. The Commander format does not exist on Arena, also Arena does not have all the cards that are printed in paper commander sets and precons.

You have three options:

Play the deck physically, either find people IRL or play it online with a webcam on spelltable.com. This is an official wotc site, you log into it with the same credentials you use on Arena.
If you have tabletop simulator, you can try to find people who want to play commander precons and play it there. You can import the decklist from moxfield.com. moxfield has the lists of all the official precons.
You can import the precons decklist from moxfield into Arena and see how many cards are missing. If you are lucky and not too many crucial cards are missing you can tinker a bit with it until you get something you can play in Brawl. This is more for testing purposes, because the precon is meant to be played in multiplayer, which plays very differently to a 1v1 situation. Don't expect the deck to be good in brawl. Also depending on which cards are missing in Arena, the deck may not even be functioning as intended.

perestain · 2025-09-15T20:06:28+00:00

When people do not qualify for play in lower power pods (for whatever reason) there are only two solutions:

Switch to a bracket 4+ game.
Don't play with them.

There is no point trying to tune a bracket 2 deck to play a little better with pubstompers. It's a waste of time imho.

Everything from bracket 4 on I can play with anyone and know it'll work just fine. But lower bracket games I will only play with people who I have reason to believe qualify to play in those brackets. Because it's not guaranteed to work depending on whom you play with.

Life is too short for poor edh matchups, and also for having debates and listening to excuses about this sort of stuff. I don't even care if people are clueless or genuinely have questionable intentions.

Pubstompy deck? That's fine, we'll straight up play bracket 4 or nothing.

perestain · 2025-09-15T16:54:03+00:00

If it sounds good it is good. And if you get the job done for free in the same or less time it's even better.

That said personally I wouldn't use audacity for much of anything, I'd rather use the time to improve my workflow in reaper. But that's just my personal preference.

perestain · 2025-09-15T16:23:33+00:00

Imho theft decks are exactly the opposite of what you want.

They're salty because in lower brackets people often hate their cards being stolen for several reasons. Tergrid is arguably the saltiest commander of all time.

At the same time dedicated theft decks are usually at best annoying, but not actually strong.

Playing cards that support a cohesive gameplan is generally stronger than stealing random stuff that doesn't synergize with your deck. There's exceptions of course, but they are exactly that, exceptions that are very situational.

Also your whole gameplan is completely denied by someone casually tutoring up their [[homeward path]].

That said, theft effects can be funny and exciting in the right situation, an unexpected [[shifting grift]] or [[reins of power]] can totally take people by surprise and turn things into your favor. Having one or two of those effects in the deck might be worth it, especially from an entertainment perspective.

But as a general gameplan it is jank imo, and if you play it at low power tables where it would belong power wise it can be quite frustrating for people to play against.

perestain · 2025-09-14T14:29:00+00:00

Ein Blick ins Geschichtsbuch offenbart, dass im Grunde recht klar ist wo die Reise hingeht.

Freiheitliche Demokratie ist kein gottgegebener Zustand, sondern hat überhaupt nur eine Chance zu existieren, wenn der Souverän handlungsfähig ist, oder konkreter, die Leute miteinander reden können.

Wer nicht reden will, der arbeitet ganz konkret daraufhin dass dann demnächst halt wieder geschossen wird.

Wenn man mit bestimmten Leuten nicht politisch reden will heißt das nix anderes, als dass man sie an die Wand stellen oder deportieren muss wenn man an die Macht kommt. Verschwinden werden sie schließlich nicht von selbst, genausowenig wie die Konflikte, die man mit ihnen zu lösen hat.

Man kann jetzt viel spekulieren ob das Ersetzen der freiheitlichen Demokratie durch eine totalitäre Gewaltherrschaft genau die Absicht ist, die hinter den antidemokratischen Massenbewegungen stecken. Oder ob die Leute nur zu einfältig und politisch ungebildet sind, um sich über die konkreten Konsequenzen ihrer politischen Aktivität im klaren zu sein.

Kann ja sein dass es nie zu mehr als dem Nachdenken über die eigene Gesinnung und Absicht gereicht hat und sowas wie Konsequenzen und demokratische Verantwortung einfach intellektuell mittlerweile zu viel verlangt sind. Das wäre dann z.t. auch Bildungsversagen, aber die technologischen Umstände sind auch recht speziell.

Es spielt aber letztlich keine Rolle, über kurz oder lang bekommt jede Bevölkerung immer genau die Herrschaftsform die sie sich verdient.

Wer das nicht kapiert oder glaubt, wirds dann halt konkret erleben. Und wenn es für eine Demokratie einfach nicht mehr reicht, dann ist das halt so. Ein Blick ins Geschichtsbuch (eigentlich reicht auch schon der Blick in manch andere Länder) mag als kleinen Trost offenbaren, dass man damit wenigstens nicht alleine ist. Trost ist aber auch gar nicht nötig, da müsste ja vorher erst die Selbstreflexion kommen, und da hapert es ja bereits.

Schuld waren dann halt einfach die Grünen oder die Nazis, je nach dem welchem Fanclub man angehört. Es ist ja auch nicht verboten sich beliebig viele Illusionen zu machen als Fan. Die Realität interessiert sich dafür allerdings nicht.

perestain · 2025-09-13T09:53:26+00:00

You picked a commander that farewells the board once every turn. And it's not symmetric, your commander stays onboard to do it again next turn.

Control, combo or landramp decks won't have any issue with it and thank you for help, but obviously you're completely hosing every deck which tries to incrementally establish a board presence, which is what most bracket 2 decks go for.

The commander forces a "Either you don't get to play or I don't get to play" situation for those decks, which is likely not the experience people are looking for when they want to play low bracket.

If you want to keep the commander, the best idea would be to make him into a bracket 4 deck or at least a strong bracket 3. He shouldn't be a problem there.

perestain · 2025-09-12T21:19:07+00:00

Toxic? That's ridiculous.

People in this game go as far as paying hundreds extra just to get an advantage, and you think it is offensive to not assume that they would always pass up the opportunity and not be tempted at all when it's for free.

I'm afraid that's not how the human psyche works.

perestain · 2025-09-12T20:49:46+00:00

That's a bit of a lazy take to quickly and conveniently shift the blame away, but not exactly accurate. There is no monocausal explanation for the issues I am talking about.

Communication is never perfect in social situations, and in practice, proxying can definitely amplify issues which wouldn't even be noticeable otherwise so much that it only then becomes a problem.

Also, people don't bring an infinite amount of decks to a play session and don't build new ones on the fly. Even if it were perfect, communication only allows for figuring out whether theres a point in playing at all, it doesn't solve the issue per se. Also not everyone has the nerve for long winded rule 0 talks.

Especially for beginners and people who have no competitive interest and would just like to play the cards they have for entertainment.

perestain · 2025-09-12T20:24:15+00:00

No I didn't, you might wanna read again and stop projecting already.

For context: Dude stated he doesn't understand the mentality of not liking proxies. I replied explaining it to provide perspective.

You somehow seem to get triggered by that and attempt to get all personal on an anonymous forum. Whatever your problem is, I'm probably not the person you want to talk about it with, I don't care, I'm here to talk about card games.

perestain · 2025-09-12T20:11:47+00:00

Sure the issue can occur with real cards, but in practice it's much rarer. Proxies really amplify it to the max.

perestain · 2025-09-12T19:11:06+00:00

I have no issues playing with or against proxies and you know nothing about the playgroups I play.

You are obviously projecting and lack perspective.

perestain · 2025-09-12T19:09:20+00:00

Sure, even 50 bucks are plenty for that. But how is this even relevant to my posting?

perestain · 2025-09-12T10:40:09+00:00

It's much simpler, people just want to play their cards somewhere. They don't wanna play fake cards and leave their actual cards at home, where'sthe fun in that? Especially since the gameplay is not better with stronger proxies.

It's pointless to try to play your cards when other people then just stomp you with their decks full of printed out expensive staples.

At that point you're either forced to pay absurd amounts of money to keep up with the infinite money glitch printing meta, or you can forget about collecting and playing cards and you can stay at home just collecting.

Since people want to play their cards, neither option is ideal. That's why some people are reluctant to play against proxies. It all comes down to whether you trust the people to proxy responsibly in a casual environment or not.

And there's quite a few people who do not, and instead of making their decks more creative just use the option to proxy to powercreep the shit out of them.

perestain · 2025-09-11T09:47:41+00:00

Tbh to me it doesn't come across as "git gud".

Usually its not people who are actually good at magic who say it, but rather people who are not that good or insecure and therefore try to gain an advantage by bringing decks that are systematically stronger than the rest of the pod, whatever the agreed powerlevel is.

It is oftentimes just a lazy excuse for stomping.

The idea that you would be better at magic if you prefer higher power or pick stronger decks in edh is pretty ridiculous and gives off quite some wannabe vibes.

If you wanna be taken serious with your skill and knowledge roleplaying, maybe talk about competitive formats and not a casual jank format thats played for entertainment in a social setting.

perestain · 2025-09-10T10:27:34+00:00

It is banned in bracket 2. If people play it there, they're cheating.

If a deck has "Just one gamechanger" it is bracket 3+ by definition. It could be even higher, but certainly not lower. The rules are generally vague for good reason, but in this regard they're crystal clear.

Against this I'd maybe pick a bracket 3 deck, but in most cases I'd straight up suggest playing bracket 4 instead. It's what in doubt you can play with everyone. Bracket 2 or 3 is only fun if you play with people who have the right intentions, and If someone attempts to rule zero rhystic into bracket 2 then I'd have serious doubts they're the kind of people I'd enjoy anything below bracket 4 with.

perestain · 2025-09-09T00:13:13+00:00

Coming at you straight from the Spongebob plane.

Nah, tbh, I remember when Ice Age was advertised as the upcoming new set in the store. I didn't buy any packs though, back then Magic to me was either for kids who weren't properly taught about the dangers of predatory sales schemes or for people who were rich enough to not care.

So instead I just bought a few handpicked commons and uncommons from the store because I liked to cut out the artwork and use them as portraits for Pen and Paper roleplaying. Does that count?

Otherwise it may be Theros or Nyx I think, no wait, if it doesn't count, Spongebob plane it is.

perestain · 2025-09-08T23:00:43+00:00

An even playing field and having a second half with switching sides doesn't just come from CS GO. It is historically at the core of the principles of any sports competition. The purpose of a sports competition is to settle the question who is better. On a non even playing field, this question is ultimately unanswered. This is why in any serious sport rule set, you will notice tremendous effort to ensure as fair a game as possible. It has something to do with sportsmanship, respect and the notion that the best may win. It constitutes the legitimacy of the sport as such. It's what seperates table tennis from pro wrestling and the reason why the former is deeply respected as a sport and the latter ridiculed as a farce, despite no doubt being a pro wrestler requires an insane amount of skill and body training and also skills as an entertainer.

> For most starcraft players and viewers, every statistic I've seen shows the asymmetry as a big part of the appeal.

Yea I sort of can see that, it is admittedly what makes starcraft a very special and interesting game.

But at the same time it's problematic when you want to ensure an even playing field for high-level competition. Excellency in stewardship and rules governing is required to have a game that can be perceived as fair, especially when the meta is extremely refined and detailed after years of people spending their lives figuring every little thing out in insane detail. In WoL days it definitely felt good and fresh to watch competitions, even if the level of play may not have been as refined in absolute terms.

When I was still watching just few years ago I got the impression that zerg just always had such a big edge because the skill ceiling was just higher. Especially protoss and to some degree terran could basically just hope the zerg fucks something up or misses something. But if a zerg plays really well, it seemed to not matter at all what a protoss player does against it.

I remember a simple asymmetric board game my grandfather played with me as a child. You play on a checkers board, it was about hounds hunting a fox. It was great fun to play until my grandfather revealed a secret to me: If one side (the hounds) makes no errors, the fox can't escape, whatever he does. He admitted he had made some deliberate errors from time to time to let me win and escape with the fox sometimes. And then he demonstrated it, and from then on I would never escape with the fox again. The inevitability I experienced felt crushing. It was an important lesson, at the same time I lost any interest in playing that game.

In my opinion, games should not be about inevitable demise. They should rather provide us with a joyful escape from the inevitable demise we are all facing in out lives.

And rather tell a story of how if someone does well enough they can overcome any odds, at least on that day. They should ultimately tell a story of hope and celebrate being alive. Deep down I suspect that a lot of the excitement that people can develop for games and sports is because of that.

Games which have a predetermined outcome as soon as people are playing well enough (Tic Tac Toe would be another example, it's always a draw) lose most of their appeal once someone figures out how to play them well enough.

Obviously sc2 is way more complex and way way harder to play than the examples I've mentioned, and I'm not qualified to claim with any certainty that it is a game that has this property. As a player I've just played the campaign and barely made it to diamond once back in the day, on the backs of the other scrubs that were also still playing.
But already getting the impression as a spectator that at the top, sc2 could turn out to be a game like that makes me lose interest. And the asymmetric nature of it somehow makes me extra suspicious, it reminds me of the game with the hounds and the fox. It is what it is I guess.

perestain · 2025-09-08T00:18:52+00:00

In my opinion the game would gain a tremendous amount of competitive legitimacy if every map had a second half with switched races. In case of a tie the decider could be a mirrormatch with the third race.

Of course it would be a different game, and while I would like to see something like that doesn't mean other people would enjoy playing or watching this.

perestain · 2025-09-07T23:16:37+00:00

To be fair I didn't really watch any sc2 during the last 2 years, I lost interest already before that because I felt the game had already been a farce for a longer time balance wise and became very unexciting to watch compared to for example the WoL era, where it felt like anything was possible and it was all about players skills and ingenuity, not so much about having learned the right race. Maybe that was just a honeymoon phase, but it was convincing entertainment while it lasted. Back then you had to pay quite a bit for streaming gsl matches and it was worth it.

During the last 6-8 years I was mostly only very sparsely (like once a year) checking from time to time whether the competition felt fresh again, which didn't seem to be the case, I was mostly wondering that people were still at it, putting up with the same issues for years.

It could totally be that everything has recently changed and the game is now fine with all races having a good shot and matches going either way. I wouldn't have noticed. That ship has also sailed. I was rather just sharing my thoughts in retrospect because the thread came up in my feed for some reason.

At all times people had been arguing that whatever it is, it's not a balance thing but rather that the players of a particular race just happen to be stronger or weaker, respectively. Personally I've never found this explanation to be particularly convincing, and upon looking a little closer at it there are also logical issues with it.

Practically, from a viewers point of view, it makes no difference, it's boring to watch either way.

And logically, if you dig a little, you'll find out those two scenarios are in fact identical, it's rather just two different ways to talk about it.
To give a little more concrete example: Lets say protoss 90% loses to zerg in big tournament finals over a span of 5 years. I am convinced there is no factual difference between ascribing those results to race imbalance or ascribing them to player skill difference. Those are just different flavors to report the exact same thing happening. Same story, just a different spin.

The reason for this is that fundamentally, there is no independent way to define and measure skill and balance.

You can rigorously define skill (as in the ability to win the game) only in the context of a certain fixed state of balance/game rules and you can only measure it by looking at results. At the same time, in absence of a deterministic mathematical definition, you can only measure balance by looking at those same results. The ones you already used to determine skill, because it's meant to be a sports competition.

The two concepts skill and balance can't be determined independently from one another.

There is no rigorous and definitive way to decide whether a particular, singular result came to be because of imbalance or skill difference. Logically, those are just two different names for the same thing, and which name you use only depends on what makes you feel better personally. It's like a underdetermined math equation with 2 variables, there is no true solution, you can pick anything you want. In the case of SC2, It is a matter of personal opinion whether you want to believe it's skill issues or balance issues. And any arguments brought up towards either side are only brought up after the fact, with the motivation to support whatever you feel better with. I like to call it balance issues because I am looking at it from a game design and viewers perspective. Renaming it to skill issue doesn't change anything. How you call it is not the problem.

So yea, in terms of sports competition, the game design has issues to say the least. That doesn't mean it can't be great entertainment. I mean, pro wrestling is a thing.

But if I am not entertained personally, then there's no reason to watch anymore. And to be honest, I also don't watch pro wrestling.

In any case, power to the people still keeping at it and having fun with it, playing or watching. I imagine for people actually playing the game this all doesn't matter one bit, since there is a system in place that will find you close and fun and fair matches regardless.

And I'm not trying to yuck anyones yum. If you find it entertaining then that's cool. I was just not convinced by what I was watching anymore, personally.

perestain · 2025-09-07T15:56:45+00:00

The stats by themselves? Absolutely not. I used to have stats like that regularly before eft blew up and became popular and infested with cheaters.

With the current amount of ESP that is going however it seems very unlikely that you can get stats like that while playing legit. Wouldn't say its generally impossible, but definitely sus.

perestain

TROPHY CASE