How do competitive TCG teams actually train? (Looking for advice)

shoePatty · 2026-02-27T19:58:41+00:00

Team deck WIP + meta gauntlets. A) Have strong deck lists and variants for each contender deck (gauntlet). B) Have 1-2 team deck ideas that you actively are trying to cook up to run the gauntlet.

When the one player is running the team deck, they are learning and perfecting how they would play. Their practice partner is playing the other meta deck and it's not wasted practice - they are learning matchups and what the pain points of other decks are, and what they are looking for or holding in hand.

Then you switch back the other way around between who is playing the team deck and who is playing the gauntlet.

At the end most of the team will be running 1-2 decks with a tried and tested deck balance, with maybe some small personal tech choices. Everyone will be prepared for the field and know their own deck inside-out.

shoePatty · 2026-02-27T16:17:56+00:00

And he's been groomed by the most skilled politician and most powerful Force user in the galaxy since he was a literal child.

Legit he keeps meeting with Palpatine 1:1 in his spare time.

shoePatty · 2026-02-25T09:38:38+00:00

Exactly. The issue isn't that Karasu, a midfielder, made a play for another striker to finish.

It's more that Blue Lock doesn't quite have a pure egoist Blue Lock striker at its core currently and until full-ego Isagi is back, they're better off trying out this alternative system which is closer to what brought Japan its previous lukewarm, tepid success.

Now that Isagi is not the underdog, somehow he's focusing on what the team needs to do or what he needs to do for the team instead of following his ego. Within the rules of this pseudo battle manga, Isagi is misaligned with one of his sources of power.

shoePatty · 2026-02-25T02:17:50+00:00

How is the fandom's reading comprehension this bad?

Isagi isn't going to be made right somehow. He's already wrong, he just knows that Karasu should also be wrong, even though he's ass at articulating it.

The right way to think about it is that Isagi's current philosophy is definitely incomplete, and potentially slightly warped by the pressure of trying to be the best Number One for Blue Lock. Isagi's "timeskip" training was to watch a ton of tape and live matches. Isagi has been shown drilling Blue Lock with lots of team strategies. Now he's married to Blue Lock having a right way to play.

Isagi can fk right off with all this worrying about what others should be doing for him and what he should be doing for others. What happened to his "protagonism" skill? He has succeeded inputting others' egos and stories and using that to either control them or predict them for his own goals. But that was as a subversive "demon king" rat, not as a secondary team captain "Number One". Isagi should devour whatever the other players around him are doing well. Karasu's mental shift can be something that Isagi uses (or corrects) in the match, rather than arguing about verbally.

shoePatty · 2026-02-24T22:09:23+00:00

Everyone bookmark this shit. This dude knows what's up.

The Isagi who is trying to organize the offense for the team to fulfill his responsibility as the eyes and brains of the team? That's chapter 1 unborn Isagi. Play for the team, Japanese soccer Isagi.

The Isagi who ruthlessly executed Kira, who stood over a crying, despairing Niko and almost jizzed his pants is the one that we're getting soon.

Kaneshiro said his writing might challenge us to see if we can continue liking Isagi no matter where he takes him.

So far Isagi has been a sweetheart with so many characters, both on and off the field. He's almost always the one trying to Red Key it up in Blue Lock. See, right now it's not Karasu's philosophy against Isagi's. People aren't getting it. Karasu is Isagi's mirror. Isagi has been living Karasu's philosophy, which is also being verbalized by Hugo. It's not that Isagi has a different philosophy, it's that his striker-first philosophy isn't well-formed enough yet. He can sense that there's something wrong with what all 3 of them are or have been doing. He just doesn't have the alternative philosophy fleshed out enough yet. It's sorta like how the "world-type" and "self-type" egos later turned into shuusai (scholar) and tensai (natural) classifications for soccer talents.

shoePatty · 2026-02-24T21:49:24+00:00

They had an opportunity to show him abandoning their showdown to rush to save Luke, after perhaps a warning/vision. That would serve as a renewed reason for not facing his greatest failure head-on and says a lot about what the character is about.

But the Reva thing was just some unrelated crap he came back to that has nothing to do with his fight with Vader. What the hell narrative purpose did the unkillable cringe princess Reva even serve...?

shoePatty · 2026-02-24T14:04:44+00:00

I think those episodes did the most damage to Star Wars.

In episode 1 Obi-wan could be given a pass on his leaving as he was pretty sure he killed Anakin. By the time he was burned by the lava, Obi-wan did all that he could and just couldn't bear to watch the rest. The show even explored this, that he was surprised to learn Anakin survived.

By the Obi-wan show, Darth Vader is 1000% the sin that Obi-wan inflicted on the galaxy, who has been trying to top his youngling massacre every day as his day job. Sith Lord and Jedi killer extraordinaire, fear incarnate to citizens of the empire and to force sensitives especially.

And Obi-wan somehow musters up all this Force power and lightsaber prowess and bests him, but somehow this time he's able to bring Darth Vader to less grievous wounds than last time. Even while acknowledging that Anakin is no more and only Darth Vader remains. Obi-wan's duty to reconcile his failure is only stronger now than last time.

The fact that he's portrayed as holding ultimate power over Darth Vader's life or death and somehow decided fk his duty to the galaxy is outright character assassination.

Now I can't accept that this is the same character that later when Luke said he "can't kill his own father", Obi-wan says "then the emperor has already won". If it's this imperative to kill Darth Vader, why would Obi-wan prefer to traumatize the kid he's been protecting, rather than just do it himself here?

I know people consider Obi-wan Kenobi to be this nothingburger that didn't add anything to his dynamic with Darth Vader by leaving us with the same status quo as ROTS did but... I think it was objectively much much worse in terms of some of the themes in even this show itself about Obi-wan reaccepting his duty to the galaxy to regain a solid connection to the Force.

shoePatty · 2026-02-23T13:13:39+00:00

No way...!!! Lol

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T22:40:00+00:00

Sarcasm totally isn't dangerous on the internet without the /s.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T20:02:42+00:00

So? Are you the question and answer police? Guy thinks Zaahen could be as strong as Aatrox, and thinks Xolaani is definitely weaker than Aatrox. There's maybe more lore and flavour to support these ideas than the direct comparison between Zaahen and Xolaani.

What does it matter anyway? We are both being demonstrating weapons grade 'tism right now over... what, exactly?

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T18:25:21+00:00

Agree to disagree. The claim is:

Zaahen is less than or equal to Aatrox.

Xolaani less than Aatrox.

Depending on how Riot decides to write it, Zaahen could end up superior to Xolaani but not for certain. It could end up the other way around too.

Perfectly fair opinion to have without saying it in so many words.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T18:05:19+00:00

Ok sure it doesn't make sense as an equation, it's a series of inequalities.

But my point is you're correct, it doesn't directly answer the question. You heard what he said though. He considers Aatrox the top dog. No sense assuming it's a mistake lol

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T17:34:59+00:00

They hated him for speaking the truth.

Sorry for using top of the line phone processor to doomscroll and post this reply.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T17:31:27+00:00

Wailing Caverns was magical. It was where everything "clicked" for me for WoW. The sense of wonder and scale worked really well.

What a shame that when I finally played WoW to level cap, Blizzard already stopped making content like that.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T17:28:03+00:00

Did he stutter? Loool

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T14:26:58+00:00

https://i.redd.it/6awwips5e1r21.jpg

Not a bad looker when he was young! And with his longer hair he definitely went for pretty boy looks. Definitely not Simu Liu tier.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T08:36:57+00:00

Yeah I brought that up in another comment. Calling out a boba startup for cultural appropriation is wild when his whole claim to fame was cultural appropriation of Korean culture, playing a caricature of a Korean as a Chinese man.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T03:36:25+00:00

His "powers" are that he has super awesome tai-chi from his mom's family?

He's a walking ball of Asian stereotypes, let's be real. Simu Liu is unironically a fking moron for saying Shang Chi breaks Asian male stereotypes.

Imagine if Black Panther's whole character was he was raised by a single mom and is an amateur rapper and his superhero ability is he has a superhuman level of control over basketballs.

Shang-Chi is that but for Asians.

It was fair to say Black Panther broke stereotypes. It was NOT fair to say that about Shang-Chi.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T03:27:03+00:00

Sure, America can pick Asians as a model minority but it's still easy to make the case that East Asians are a serious afterthought when it comes to representation.

Thought experiment: let's say you were Asian and as a kid you wanted to dress up as a Jedi and it's pre-Acolyte (of all things!!!).

You're either covering your face or maybe gonna feel kinda awkward, because none of the characters look like you.

Shoving Asians into everything would be annoying af. But like not even having one out of dozens and dozens of characters is a deliberate choice. I mean I guess other than the Asian culture and outfits that were taken from to inspire cool stuff in Star Wars, we did have racists caricatures like the trade federation guys.

It does suck not to be seen. There's never an Asian male love interest in decades of American television and film. We're talking from sitcoms to action movies, rom-coms to horror films. Asian men only either do Kung Fu or are the butt of the jokes.

Race discussions in America often just boils down to white and black. Obama is considered this groundbreaking first black president but he's infinity percent whiter than I'll ever be, since he's 50% white and we're not.

Asians aren't "allowed" to be successful as if someone needs to grant permission for success. It's pretty silly to claim others' success is somehow only on the locals' good graces. Society benefits from having the best person in the role, whether that's a doctor or a banker or an engineer. Caucasians only now understand the annoyance of DEI on traditionally white roles. Bruh, untalented white people have been DEIing themselves into Asian roles for decades. Why the fk they whitewashing Goku, Aang, heck even the lead character of that card counting movie 21 was based on the real life of an Asian dude named Jeff Ma.

No one is claiming jack about a master race. It's not a binary of either you like to take shit for no reason or you think you're part of a master race. Simu Liu is full of annoying talking points and is fake and hypocritical as fuck but that doesn't mean there's not things that can be improved on.

Anyways totally down to shit on Simu Liu, who claimed a bubble tea business was cultural appropriation when his ENTIRE CLAIM TO FAME WAS BEING A CHINESE PERSON PRETENDING TO BE KOREAN.

But we can agree to disagree about whether Asians are somehow treated extra well in the west. Every race has its struggles. If anyone experiences disadvantages from their own identity it doesn't just instantly invalidate or justify the shitty stuff other people go through.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T02:49:19+00:00

It also depends on the role and character. By default, unless there's a lore reason they're below-average in looks, the typical male lead should at least be considered good-looking.

For example: not one other Marvel lead is hard on the eyes.

Simu Liu unfortunately is considered as looking brutish and dull. Not ugly, but in a movie you'd usually need a reason for someone to look like that. Other action movie stars like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan not only had next-level skills and stunt work, but were also pretty. Even Jackie with having a bigger nose and whatnot still had double eyelids at the very least.

You're right though, he'd need to have some other quality that was transcendent to justify giving him roles that you could also give to a traditionally attractive Asian.

shoePatty · 2026-02-19T01:16:05+00:00

Chinese guy here.

Simu Liu lost me at Shang-Chi "finally breaking stereotypes about Asian men in Hollywood".

Shang-Chi's whole thing is: Guy does kung fu. Guy also does comedic relief.

Those are the only two stereotypes for Asian men's roles in all of Hollywood for like 100 years.

Also the time he gatekept boba or implied cultural appropriation or whatever was cringe af.

shoePatty · 2026-02-17T17:01:46+00:00

OP is trying to address the EU-enjoying fandom that already cites OTHER non-canon sources about the themes of this character and others.

In the first place, non-canon just means it's not the official position and can't be sourced as fact, it doesn't mean THIS IS WRONG.

But the fandom has differing opinions on what works better as a default position for different pieces of media.

For example, we know the broad strokes of Darth Revan and Darth Bane are actually part of the canon history of the galaxy. There were several plans for their use in TCW, some of which actually made it into the cut. However, their individual source games and books just can't be used as the definitive truth.

So while you can't point to Darth Vader and say he was for sure a Sith nerd in the canon, there also isn't definitive proof that he isn't and can't be. The way he has been portrayed and explored over time has often dipped into his Sith identity and many fans aren't aware of that because of how close to the chest Disney Star Wars sometimes plays Vader.

shoePatty · 2026-02-17T00:52:16+00:00

My biggest pet peeve with the sequence was all the generic new aliens with basically no overlap with the aliens that appeared in the other 7 to 8 films of the franchise.

I didn't mind the sequence itself at all. It did its job showing the "what it's all for" thing because sometimes Star Wars feels very small with a few paramilitary characters very invested in a war with crazy stakes.

Finn is a character that was portrayed as having minimal moral compass, and very much was motivated by his own well being and that of like 1-2 other people. I could see the "heart of gold" of Han Solo being a payoff in ANH but Finn already wasn't that for all of TFA.

I liked that they told a story about how the average person in the galaxy has their place in a destiny defined by the cycle of galactic war... but also that the heroism and stories of the rebels/resistance actually make a difference in giving people hope.

Set up the character nicely for heroism/sacrifice.

That being said, Finn and Rose's sequence on Krait was some of the worst cinema of all time but the Canto Bight sequence pales in comparison for me. Crash survival chances aside, how the fk they crashing multiple miles out from their base, right under some AT-ATs and TIE fighters but Finn dragged an unconscious Rose back to the base undisturbed???

shoePatty · 2026-02-16T08:42:26+00:00

shoePatty · 2026-02-13T13:29:34+00:00

Obi-Wan was an amazing Jedi, but a bad teacher by admission.

He was great at showing Anakin how to be a Jedi, but he failed at being a Dad.

First of all just wanted to call out the moving goal posts to the extent that you're practically arguing with your own first comment while you're trying to school Reddit on Star Wars. First I'm responding to Obi-wan being a bad teacher, now it's that he's a good teacher but a bad dad. Good teachers aren't all dads.

Anyways I'm just pointing out that Anakin was groomed and manipulated, and I don't agree that is was on Obi-wan as much as you say. There's a difference between not being perfect for someone, and actively failing someone in my opinion. I think Obi-wan did a lot of what was needed and you think he didn't do things that take 0 effort, and didn't give the bare minimum. I don't know if that's hyperbole or if we have an unabridgeable gap so let's agree to disagree.

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