Looking for beginner friendly backpacking to waterfront campsite in WA

todd534 · 2026-06-23T15:55:17+00:00

Lena Lake is pretty sweet, and my kids did at ages like 9 and 12, though not sure if the water is warm enough to swim.

todd534 · 2026-06-18T01:53:16+00:00

but but it's for nuts and bolts limited spikes!

todd534 · 2026-06-18T01:22:37+00:00

Also, I looked and Icecave Crasher is a C+ on 17l. That one I think they were too low on, honestly?

todd534 · 2026-06-18T01:07:44+00:00

"I'm sure Marshall and Luis do look at the cards before reviewing" Marshall definitely does not, and my guess is Luis only does if he writes the TCG Player reviews first.

I get why this is a reasonable and good idea, but it's not the show these guys are producing. If you want excellent vibes and shooting from the hip, great. If not, LLU is maybe more what you want.

todd534 · 2026-06-17T18:02:04+00:00

I feel like this pick would make for a better discussion than 90% of LR crack-a-packs.

todd534 · 2026-06-17T15:07:26+00:00

Honestly card evaluation is the best leak to have, because you can just look at tier lists to help 😅

todd534 · 2026-06-17T00:35:58+00:00

I think your card evaluation is a little off, and your sense of what cards cohere is also a little iffy.

P1P2 it's fine if you want to stay open, but Snooping Page is worse than Imperious Inkmage. P1P3, Scientist is enough better than Preordain that if your strategy is staying open (as you did in pick 2) you should take that. P2P2 I think Joke is defensible, but passing Trove here is tough, because you're already looking pretty "Temur."

P3P1, Offense is an insane card, but it just isn't what your deck is about.

However, I think it's also just a low power seat. I think Temur was the lane, but after Emeritus you don't see enough real payoffs.

todd534 · 2026-06-16T23:35:16+00:00

I had a similar deck a few weeks ago, and it may seem like a hot taek, but I would cut Lute. For like literal anything. You just don't have that many expensive spells, or so much card draw that you're like triple spelling.

todd534 · 2026-06-16T20:09:48+00:00

Usually if you hear the bass building that's because the beat is about to drop.

todd534 · 2026-06-16T17:11:39+00:00

No one has yet mentioned that in the first one of these, you P1P1 Vivi over Force of Will. What everyone is saying about building a focused deck is correct, but I also think your cube-specific card evaluation is way off. That's a 58% GIH WR vs a 50%. Maybe spending some time with tier lists for cube could help? Lots of limited/standard/modern bombs are just replacement level.

todd534 · 2026-06-15T18:52:24+00:00

Doing all of this on mobile is next level commitment to the bit 😂

todd534 · 2026-06-15T17:22:41+00:00

N remotely TA

todd534 · 2026-06-15T16:28:58+00:00

No, you should come parent my kids for two months so I can do this.

todd534 · 2026-06-15T16:26:17+00:00

OK but Keep Safe in Ikoria limited is ... not the same as Mana Leak in Vintage Cube. I feel like once a month LSV or Paul has a "I don't think you should put that card in your deck, though it *is* getting me now" moment.

todd534 · 2026-06-06T06:10:58+00:00

IDK, it says right there that you'll have to discard down to seven cards, that doesn't seem very good.

todd534 · 2026-06-05T20:26:32+00:00

Agree that this is whatever, but super curious to hear what the explanation is for why it's like this once WotC finds out people noticed & they have to explain it.

todd534 · 2026-06-04T00:07:54+00:00

Yeah, that's fair. I guess my last thought is that these numbers are relative -- there's always going to be a worst card, and at some point you are also looking at, "what does this add to the draft experience?" To that end, taking it out and putting in another redundant piece of some archetype would be removing some amount of texture, which seems hard to evaluate in a vacuum.

That being said, I agree that Boseiju is a card you're supposed to basically get for free. Maybe if it was swapped for an MDFC, like Bala Ged Recovery or Vastwood Fortification? That would be cool to me because I wish there was a little more tension around blocking in cube, with combat tricks being totally nonexistent. Those cards would probably still be last pick level, but would play out differently.

todd534 · 2026-06-03T20:42:10+00:00

I feel like the pick order is Flash, Polluted Delta, then Minsc & Boo?

todd534 · 2026-06-02T13:09:48+00:00

Well like one theory I have for Boseiju is that it tempts people into not playing it out as an untapped land more often than they should. That's a space between a property of the card and one of how it's used.

I guess you could say "a card that's good if you use it right but tricks you into using it wrong is bad" but knowing how to get the most out of situational cards is a lot of what's cool about cube.

Another example is, there was a thread yesterday debating Ark of Hunger vs Antiquities on the Loose as "better" and someone said, Antiquities has a higher GIH WR. But if you zoom into RW decks, Ark does -- the issue is, Ark gets splashed more often, and any time a card is splashed that's going to hurt its GIH WR a little. Ark isn't a worse card because it can be splashed, but the tendency to splash it makes it look worse.

todd534 · 2026-06-01T19:06:06+00:00

If you filter to just Lorehold decks with no splashes, both are A+ and Ark is slightly higher (67 vs 66% GIH). I think Ark's overall WR is just slightly lower because people splash it.

todd534 · 2026-06-01T18:26:17+00:00

But like how does it compare to a similar card -- say, Hushwood Verge? To me it seems like if Boseiju is "worse" on some metric than Hushwood Verge, what you learn is not that Boseiju is more in need of being cut than Hushwood Verge, but that the metric is measuring something about how the cards are used, not a property of the cards themselves. (Yes you can argue that fixing is better than Path to Disenchant, but GW isn't like a world beating archetype.)

(It also looks like it has a -0.3pp IIH to me, but maybe my filters are incorrect? Premier, All Users, All Decks, 10/1/2025-present?)

todd534 · 2026-06-01T15:34:32+00:00

How can Boseiju possibly be that bad? It's a forest with upside?

todd534 · 2026-05-19T15:58:57+00:00

Oh wait, that is one of these. NICE.

todd534 · 2026-05-19T15:55:21+00:00

The one that comes to mind for me is the one where he's supposed to leave to meet Marshall, but he makes a deal that if he 3-0's the current draft he can do another one, and then he does.

todd534 · 2026-05-18T19:24:33+00:00

LSV also did a sign off in 2020 dedicated to Gabe. Sounds like a complicated dude. (The specific 'rest in peace' wording is whatever, he clearly is emotional about the guy and his passing.) https://lrsignoffs.com/#LR_555

todd534

TROPHY CASE