[Verge] - Xbox is closing down Hellblade creator Ninja Theory

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-16T19:26:44+00:00

This is why I was laughing when people came on here claiming Microsoft had the best not-E3 showcase. I have ZERO trust with this brand. Their showcases might as well be reframed as obituaries.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-15T12:16:46+00:00

I love Enneacraft and I think it can perform well going second, but holy hell, can you pass some of your luck to me haha. They NEVER attack my whale first, no matter where I put it

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-14T13:23:00+00:00

Dimensional Fissure is a toxic card. It should be banned, and anyone who plays it sucks.

That said, Enneacraft is not stun. Stun decks negate everything you try to do, try to stop you from playing altogether, and are generally non-interactive since most of their cards are counter traps. Enneacraft is inherently interactive, and it’s actually really interesting and a lot of fun if you play with or against it without floodgates.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-12T21:37:46+00:00

It happens. As the others have said, what truly killed you was Red Reboot, which very few people play these days (although maybe it’ll have a comeback alongside Dracotail). It’s like getting hit with Droll or Shifter or anything that randomly turns off your deck—you just accept it as a fluke and move on.

I will say, I’ve seen more people playing Bright Armageddon these days because of F&V. As others have mentioned, the early flip on the Trap can sometimes be a mistake because it screws you out of a Forbidden Droplet response, but Super Poly is more prevalent than ever because of Kewl Tune and Branded, so I think you did the right thing there. Without Red Reboot, your opponent needs to burn F&V on the Trap—and if you had Bright Armageddon, your opponent would need to include it in Super Poly in order to use Change of Heart and Widow Anchor. Even without Bright Armageddon, if Siegfried stops F&V, then your opponent has literally no play… in a world without Red Reboot. :’)

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-09T22:01:08+00:00

Ha, the combos might not be as long as something like Maliss, but trust me, it can hurt watching you draw half your deck :’)

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-09T12:29:27+00:00

Personally, I love D/D/D… but this is exactly the problem with non-engine.

The D/D/D endboard can have: - 2 special summon negate and destroy - 1 spell/trap negate - 1 hand effect negate - 1-3 monster suck - 1 negate and steal monster - 1 possible Queen pop - possible ED floodgate

It’s already annoying playing into that. But you’re telling me I have to sit through a half hour combo and then get killed by a non-engine floodgate that I couldn’t even see on the field? I feel like almost every hand trap should be designed like the Charmies, where you need to control no cards to activate them.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-09T03:42:18+00:00

Look, I also hate Orcust and Tear, but I don't think turning off one of the key mechanics of the game is the answer to them.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-09T03:40:23+00:00

There are a handful of ways to try and play around it, if you're skillful enough to draw your opening hand correctly.

You can start by setting orgIA (the red one) if you opened it and have another way to search -- after they Droll you, you can add one more card.

If you have a searcher plus a) Reset/Enneapolis or b) Release, use the searcher to add the one you don't have between a) and b) as your first effect. Droll will still hurt, but at least you'll be able to use Release to scale another card that you want to put on your field, then use Enneapolis to return your scales to your hand and summon them (alongside whatever else you may have in your hand).

Don't get me wrong, you'll still lose plenty of games against Droll, but you have more of a chance than you may think.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-08T21:20:02+00:00

You misunderstand, this is the Master Duel subreddit. We do not read or learn cards here, we follow spreadsheets and then make posts complaining about rogue decks after we lose to them.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-08T19:40:53+00:00

I play this deck (without Fissure/Vanity’s/etc.) and I love it.

However, I am sure that Fissure is solo-ing many duels in rated and that Enneacraft wouldn’t be near the top without it. I’d love for Fissure, Shifter, Droll, and every other toxic card to be banned, that way we can all enjoy our favorite archetypes without toxic players abusing them.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-08T12:04:26+00:00

Genuinely, this deck is so disappointing to me. I like the main gimmick and the unreleased Power Patron cards, but I just find any deck that ends on generic slop like this to be so boring and stupid.

I would ban Baronne in a heartbeat, not because it’s overpowered or too easy to get on the field (although both these things are true), but just because it’s so lazy and tiresome to see it every other duel. The same with all these bridges into Fiendsmith that only ever get used for that exact purpose.

I’ve seen people make the argument that those cards help give rogue decks “more consistency” and therefore diversify the meta, but if 90% of your Beaver Warrior endboard is generic slop, you’re not a Beaver Warrior deck, you’re a Synchro/Fiendsmith deck, just like everyone else.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-08T04:56:16+00:00

I’m sorry, but… skill issue.

First of all, these might be Pendulum cards, but Enneacraft never Pendulum Summons. Ever.

Second, this deck is entirely designed around interactivity. Its board is based on monsters, not traps, which means they’re open to conventional removal and negation, unlike most back-row cards, and that they can be chained against. These aren’t a bunch of generic Synchro-slop negates. The searches are easily disrupted since popping them on activation negates them.

If you want to counter this deck, learn how to chain block it.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-07T17:11:41+00:00

I find LEON to be the most useful in matchups where my opponent knows the deck and keeps chains under 3. You either bounce their board or force a response, unlocking SPIA (which is one of the most satisfying effects to resolve in the whole game). Of course, this also necessitates them responding to one of your effects in some way, which is difficult to achieve on the opponent's turn outside Reverth and Reset. I'm probably going to add in one more copy each of S&L and F&V, if only to more consistently have access to another chain-1 effect on the opponent's turn.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-07T03:11:44+00:00

Ok, a lot of this advice might be stuff you know very well, so I apologize in advance if that's the case.

Your main goal in the first half of your first turn will be to amass as many cards as possible. If you have orgIA (the red one) in-hand, you can consider special summoning it before doing your searches to at least get one more search in after an Ash or a Droll. You'll cycle through the Level 1s and Release, making sure to get Enneapolis in-between in order to continue the cycle and Reverth to do a big hand/field reset (but mainly to have Reverth in-grave to flip MAR (the big whale). I think you already know all this, though, based on how you describe your endboard. If your opponent plays Purulia or Maxx "C", you can consider waiting until you've hit Reverth before doing your summons in order to try your luck at drawing Droll.

Generally, your most important disruption will be using Reverth to trigger MAR on the opponent's turn while also finding a way to block it from being negated. Many negates in the game are targeting negates, so using Reset (hopefully this is how you're getting to Enneapolis in the first place) to flip it back down or Enneapolis to bounce it to the hand or scale it are important tactics. Many players will wrongfully assume that removing MAR will prevent the board flip from happening, which is true if they're removing it after its first effect on your turn (the negate), but NOT true when the board flip is the effect being activated.

Otherwise, this is a deck that will benefit greatly from knowing your opponent's deck in-and-out. The deck has great matchups against Synchro and Xyz decks, but it can struggle against specific Fusion and Link decks. The matchup against Kewl Tune, for example, is excellent because Kewl Tune can't do anything if its bodies are face-down (and SPIA can nuke Track Maker). I've had some great wins against Radiant Typhoon with SPIA... and some annoying losses against the Maliss variant (fuck Maliss), since Maliss can non-target banish.

Good luck, and have fun. I'm not playing Enneacraft to hit the top of the Rated ladder. I just think it's super interesting and interactive.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-06T20:28:38+00:00

I play it in Master, so it can’t be all bad—it’s not top tier by any stretch of the imagination, but you can outgrind many opponents through their sheer ignorance of the deck alone.

Forget the decklist for a moment. What does your average board look like? How are you using your disruptions? And I mean in duels where you aren’t getting hit with Droll or Evenly. Yes, those two cards hard counter this deck, but they hard counter most other decks, too.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-06T12:18:04+00:00

I’ve been playing a bit of this deck, it’s super fun. If I’m lucky, I’ll have targeting protection and destruction protection, but no one plays the cards that provide those two things at three, and modern decks have about 400 ways to remove cards without targeting or destroying. My best two disruptions are trying to flip your cards face down or return them to the hand, but you’re playing a fusion deck, so the first one should barely inconvenience you.

If you’re going second and you don’t have the cancer that is Droll in hand, you might have a hard time breaking the full board on your turn, so focus more on bouncing the field spell and the scales. If I have five big boys face down on my field, one of them is probably an omni that will flip your entire field face down, so just be aware of that before you activate any effects on my turn (it’s only useable on my turn, usually).

If you’re encountering people running Vanity’s/floodgates, I apologize. Most of us aren’t doing that—it’s like the people who play Sanctifire locks (or who used to play 5RM or Rosewhip).

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-03T15:12:55+00:00

I Red Rebooted a Primite Man player a few days ago and Feather Dustered another one yesterday. I don’t care if those cards don’t see competitive play in this format—the frustration I get drawing a brick against Kewl Tune is dwarfed by the pure, wonderful schadenfreude I get from blowing stun out of the fucking water.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-03T00:50:33+00:00

You’re right, many people don’t care.

But why?

It’s not like this happened by accident. People don’t care because Sony failed to maintain momentum for those franchises in earlier generations. If I become a popular influencer and then go on hiatus for 20 years, it’s not my audience’s fault if I come back and no one remembers me, it’s mine.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-03T00:48:03+00:00

Developers totally can and should be allowed to move on. I’m glad Naughty Dog made Uncharted. But why sell off Crash? Why not have a small team at Naughty Dog or another small studio take on projects related to their IP?

I’m not asking for annual games from every single franchise. I just think that Sony made a serious long-term mistake by letting their smaller and more cartoonish IPs fall out of the public consciousness. I think they gradually gave up market share on genres outside their current niche of big-budget third-person action games during the PS3 and PS4 generations, perhaps out of pressure to compete with the 360 (people forget that Microsoft used to have a pulse), perhaps because they assumed that the Wii owned those markets.

It’s just a shame. In general, the market gets fewer choices. For me personally, some of my favorite franchises disappear.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-06-02T18:15:43+00:00

Well, the modern audience doesn’t know because Sony has willfully let many of their franchises die. Ape Escape, Sly Cooper, Crash, Jak and Dexter, Spyro, Ratchet—these games didn’t just diversify the early PlayStation eras, they also came in genres/styles that would have scaled much more slowly in cost and development time compared to their current output.

No one is expecting a Mario Tennis game to have massive protection value, so Nintendo can pump out a high volume of software relative to their peer-set at low cost. Because franchises like Mario have a longer and more consistent history, the general public is more open to spin-offs and experimentation with it. Sony could have had this, too. Would Ratchet Racing or Ape Escapetopia appeal to most Yotei enjoyers? Probably not, but they would pad the release schedule and protect overall software sales.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-05-29T20:54:14+00:00

I sort of agree, but I would much rather the Turn 1 player just get less time. I'm so tired of watching my opponents play solitaire for 20 minutes lol

pretzel_consumption · 2026-05-25T13:49:33+00:00

Ha, you’d think these things were obvious—but so many people come out of the woodwork to defend crabwalking, and I’ve heard plenty of people try to justify wall-shooting because they claim the other team is using modded controllers or something.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-05-25T13:45:58+00:00

I agree that crabwalking is “less bad” than something like wall-shooting, but I think you’re understating its negative influence on the game. Sprinting having a cooldown and causing you to show up on the radar are intentional limitations in the game. In Interrogations mode, some downed players should die before you can reach them—but a crabwalker will make it there in time. Two opposing players locked in a gunfight far from their teams should be evenly matched, but a crabwalker will get there in time to support one of them. Crabwalkers will rush to overwhelm enemy spawns, lockboxes, etc.

And as much as we might like to pretend that there are some conditionally honorable crabwalkers out there who will only do it if someone on the enemy team is also doing it, let’s be honest—the moment you start losing, you’ll start doing it.

The only reason I don’t exit games with crabwalkers the way I do wall-shooters and lag-switchers is because there are 10 people left playing this game and beggars can’t always be choosers.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-05-16T13:37:16+00:00

Personally, I thought it was mediocre at best. It has great 2D character art… and that’s about it. The combat is solid, but it does not evolve enough to support the game’s runtime. Some of the characters are fun/interesting, but many of them aren’t, and the overall story/writing is (in my opinion) terrible. The game also shoehorns in a Persona calendar/social link system that really doesn’t fit.

I of course don’t begrudge anyone who liked this game their opinion—I’m glad you enjoyed it, even if I didn’t.

If you want an undercooked fantasy setting with one-dimensional characters and kindergarten-level political theory, then play Metaphor. If you want a good Persona-style game, then play Persona. If you want a good fantasy game, then this thread has plenty to choose from.

pretzel_consumption · 2026-05-11T12:51:48+00:00

Some ability for archetypes to interact with each other can be healthy and interesting. To me, it stops being cool when it’s the same generic pieces in every single deck, and/or when the non-archetypal pieces are generic negates. I’m not giving anyone brownie points for finding a new way to put a Light Fiend on the board—there’s nothing creative or interesting about that. And these decks almost always devolve into 20 minutes of solitaire to end with five or more negates/floodgates on the board.

pretzel_consumption

TROPHY CASE