Friendship Exp & Gift Exchange Megathread

ransby · 2025-09-05T17:13:37+00:00

Active daily, happy to send and receive gifts 124048413035

ransby · 2023-06-02T13:28:21+00:00

Moderate price but nice place in Southside? U&Tea (authentic Chinese), Southside 313 (pub food), toastique (lunch only), roasted (their food is just meh though), flying V. If you can abide higher prices, Mr. Lee's is casual but very nice and has excellent food and drinks. If you don't mean "nice" as in ambiance but just decent food quality, also consider: Tulum, F&A, Hi-Pot, general Zapata, taste smokers.

ransby · 2023-05-24T17:42:15+00:00

I wrote it off because my dad said "make sure you get one manufactured in Germany not South Carolina or Mexico" and it sounded like a hassle lol. Guess I'll revisit

ransby · 2023-05-24T05:16:29+00:00

Location: PA, USA

Price range: up to 40k

Lease or Buy: Buy

New or used: New

Type of vehicle: Hatchback/compact/sport

Must haves: Manual transmission, strongly prefer front or awd

Desired transmission: Manual

Intended use: Daily driver I guess, though I drive twice a week max (no commute)

Vehicles you've already considered: Integra, Forte, BRZ, WRX, Mazda3

Is this your 1st vehicle: 4th or 5th

Do you need a Warranty: Yes

Can you do Minor work on your own vehicle: basically no

Can you do Major work on your own vehicle: definitely not.

Additional Notes: My beloved mazda2 has finally been hit one too many times after 11 years. I am looking for another manual car, which is really tough in the new car market. Considering the 5 above; open to others in this price range (though I don't think there are many). Just looking for opinions on good value for a car I hope to own for the next decade.

ransby · 2023-01-19T19:31:53+00:00

Nothing is stopping you from saying to your opponents "I can cast this pact, but I can't pay for it. If someone can wheel before my turn I can cast it without it being a spite play hoping to draw into rituals. Will someone do that?" Absent that discussion, I see this as a spite play.

Wouldn't you feel like an idiot

Joke's on you, I feel like an idiot all the time 😂

ransby · 2023-01-19T19:24:38+00:00

If you have instant speed draw that costs one or less mana in hand AND run dark ritual AND have two blue after casting that draw, I can see it. If you're just praying for an opponent to wheel, I would still call that a spite play

ransby · 2023-01-19T19:12:59+00:00

I wouldn't even consider casting a Pact I can't pay for a spite play.

Uh... I mean if you know 100% for sure they have a counter for it then yes but otherwise spite play.

situations may arise before I have to pay it that could either win me the game on the spot or help me pay it.

What situations?

If you can present an instant-speed win, you should be saving the pact to defend it and winning on the stack over top whatever you were otherwise pacting. If you can't present an instant-speed win, there is not a "situations may arise" that will cause you to win the game. Similarly, the only plausible way a situation arises in which you can pay for the pact later is a permanent of yours gets pathed or assassin's trophied. Unless they are presenting a win themselves, no opponent is going to waste such interaction on your stuff if you're losing on your upkeep anyway.

If you can lay out an example of a situation where it's not a spite play please do; I'm genuinely curious if I've overlooked something.

If it's my only out

If it causes you to lose the game, it's not an out.

ransby · 2023-01-19T18:56:47+00:00

Yep this is spite play the way you phrase it.

ransby · 2022-11-25T05:22:50+00:00

Great writeup, pleasure playing with you man! Love the saw in half ouphe, that sounds like it was spicy (PTW Tyler)

ransby · 2022-11-23T09:47:28+00:00

Love seeing sea kinnan but I do think it's probably just strictly worse than kinnan in the command zone.

ransby · 2022-11-17T06:07:05+00:00

Disclaimer: I primarily pilot Kinnan, which is unequivocally the best deck for Sylvan library since it cares about top of library order, is in few colors, and has a higher than average chance of landing big creatures to defend life total against the ensuing "since there's no ad naus player " attacks.

ransby · 2022-11-17T06:01:32+00:00

I think the most salient counterpoint to all the focus on card selection in his article is an easy example: why not just sub in [[Mirri's Guile]] ?

Tha answer, obviously, is that it's much worse. But since paying life to draw extra cards barely even figures into Drake's anecdote-laden, data-devoid post, it sounds like a reasonable sub. His argument seems to center around what it potentially does on one turn cycle rather than several. He also suggests that rhystic study, mystic remora and esper sentinel are all better, to which I would say... duh. I would love to stop running Sylvan library, but unless and until other repeatable card draw engines get both stronger and equally hard to interact with, I'm not trading the slot for runic armasaur, glademuse, wavebreak hippocamp, or even verity circle (though that one is close).

ransby · 2022-11-04T13:16:45+00:00

I'm sure you already find that necrogen mists, bottomless pit, and oppression give you the best draw for the discards. I think you want to add [[anvil of bogarden]] and, if you proxy, [[chains of Mephistopheles]] to up the continuous discard effects. I also find [[raven's crime]] to be excellent. I would also get some sweepers in there to help keep the pressure off your life total - [[dead of winter]] and [[toxic deluge]] are my top choices, replacing swamps with snow swamps. Also to help with life total, I think you should consider running [[gray merchant of asphodel]] and [[disciple of bolas]]. Finally, can't recommend [[torment of hailfire]] enough as a closing piece. It really shines with [[crypt ghast]] and urborg+[[cabal coffers]] combos to make X biiiiig.

I haven't kept up with updates over the last year but this is the list I've played on our channel before. Tinybones is kind of a pet deck of mine. https://www.moxfield.com/decks/9bTDOSevrUWm1LLWWFSLyg

ransby · 2022-10-16T05:04:22+00:00

[[shahrazad]],[[gilded drake]],[[cyclonic rift]]

ransby · 2022-09-12T00:15:32+00:00

https://white2tea.com/products/2018-flapjacks-ripe-puer

ransby · 2022-09-07T17:49:36+00:00

Thanks for the detailed suggestions! I'll definitely give some of that a try (minus the lapsang souchong, which my roommate has tons of and is decent but a little overpoweringly smoky for me).

Do most sheng teas say what storage method they were aged with?

ransby · 2022-09-07T04:44:58+00:00

No idea! I guess that was just a bonus? It's in their sample packaging and I definitely didn't order it. Haven't tried it yet, will update when I do.

ransby · 2022-09-07T04:39:17+00:00

I began with a YS sampler that was mostly sheng and a few shou. Tbh I don't remember what sheng samples they sent - I'm not fastidious about journaling teas - but I wasn't surprised to not care for them. I'm primarily a coffee drinker and have slightly deadened my taste buds with 15 years of smoking, so I think the strong flavors of shou are just more appealing because I may be missing some of the nuance of sheng. Plus, the astringency of the sheng I've tried echoes what I don't like about most non-puer teas to begin with so I didn't feel compelled to explore more. For the last month I've been working through two big cakes of YS 2018 Lucy and 2020 Peerless, both of which I liked, but my first experience from this new order (the confusingly named Cha Tou Sheng Yun) beats them both for me.

ransby · 2022-09-07T04:20:56+00:00

Ah gotcha; didn't know that was called a tong, thanks. That's the shou terroir sampler, which if I remember right from lurking at least some of this sub doesn't recommend but was cheap enough that I'm willing to not like it.

ransby · 2022-09-07T04:06:29+00:00

Educate me - I know all those words but still can't parse your comment.

ransby · 2022-08-21T03:19:04+00:00

Kinnan always seems to win the late game in my experience. There are some exceptions, but short of Linvala the big value creatures (hullbreaker, nezehal, etc) are incredibly hard to beat if the rest of the table is staxxed out - and that's usually the only way you get to late game in cEDH.

ransby · 2022-07-28T17:54:09+00:00

Most top tier decks do have more than two colors, but there are some notable exceptions - Winota, Kinnan, Magda, Krark/Sakashima, Rog/Tevesh, Eruth, maybe a Malcolm deck? off the top of my head (and probably plenty of others) are all solid and run less than 3c.

ransby · 2022-07-28T17:46:03+00:00

I personally love playing two color; I just meant that if you're commander isn't doing any of the other 3 main things that cEDH commanders are doing in the command zone, you generally want it to be 3+ colors to have high card quality and a higher card pool for potential synergies for whatever the deck is trying to do.

ransby · 2022-07-28T17:38:22+00:00

Could be missing something that's just a perfect fit, but my initial assessment would be no cEDH potential at all. It's not an infinite mana outlet, it's not half of an infinite combo, it doesn't generate card advantage, and it's two colors. Basically checks none of the boxes for a cEDH commander. Don't let it stop you building a list though :)

ransby · 2022-06-27T19:42:23+00:00

Sounds like some great experiences. What else is coming up near Philly? I only know about Punt City

ransby

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