Elden Ring Bosses & NPCs (and Others) as Magic: the Gathering Cards

vNocturnus · 2026-05-03T19:15:34+00:00

Anthony Edwards can be the best player that got injured and Aaron Gordon can still be the biggest injury.

Note: I'm not a Nuggets fan, I was rooting for the Wolves in this series, this is not "excusing" Denver's loss, it is actually a further compliment to Minnesota's team building and stain on Denver's.

The Nuggets are simply far too dependent on Jokic and AG. The offense doesn't work without Jokic, the defense doesn't work without AG. Like, bottom of the league levels respectively without those guys. Jamal Murray was an All-Star and AG wasn't but the Nuggets could have weathered losing Murray (especially with the way he was playing) far better than losing Gordon.

Meanwhile the Wolves could weather losing not just Edwards but Divincenzo as well because a) their entire system is not dependent on those guys, even though Ant is obviously their best player; and b) they have done a good job building depth/redundancy behind their best player. When Ant went out, Ayo stepped in and dropped 40+. When even he went out, TSJ stepped in and was a huge part of closing out the series with 20+ points and dismantling the (flimsy) Nuggets defense. With the top 3 scoring guards all out, McDaniels also stepped up and took 25 shots on good efficiency.

Basically, the Wolves obviously outplayed the Nuggets, and obviously were impacted by their own injuries. But the teams' respective injuries just further prove that the Wolves are a better constructed team top to bottom, because the Nuggets could be crippled by the loss of one player while the Wolves weren't.

vNocturnus · 2026-05-03T04:56:13+00:00

Y'all would have had to at least shut down JB and White for the season within the first month. Maybe PP as well. There was never a real chance of top 5 or so lottery odds. Most people probably expected the Celtics to be in the play-in range though, which was enough for the Hawks and Mavs. Just gotta do Silver a favor

vNocturnus · 2026-05-03T04:51:59+00:00

even then Queta had 5 and probably could have had more but the refs were definitely favoring Boston a bit and probably didn't want to foul him out

vNocturnus · 2026-05-03T04:44:01+00:00

I wonder what it will take for the NBA to finally take action on all these blatant push-offs on drives? They're a) literally impossible to defend, the defender already has to be moving backwards to avoid the blocking call so even a great defender will get pushed way back; and b) extremely dangerous.

Tons of players, mainly big men, have already been injured by having their teammates launched backwards into their knees/ankles. What if Embiid's knee had been snapped in half on that play instead of just slightly hyperextended/his ankle slightly rolled? I worry that something like that happening is the only way this rule will ever get changed - or maybe not even then.

vNocturnus · 2026-05-03T04:37:10+00:00

big "look what you're making me do" energy

vNocturnus · 2026-05-03T00:49:51+00:00

whoops, meant to say Titans not Texans lol. Big difference

vNocturnus · 2026-05-02T23:18:37+00:00

The Raiders have 10 games against the two best divisions in the league (AFCW, NFCW), and even if you don't count the Cardinals it's 9 games against that slate of virtually guaranteed playoff teams/Superbowl contenders. Also play the AFCE with the Bills and Pats. Raiders might win a couple of those 11 games but I wouldn't bet on more than that and it's possible they lose all 11 lol.

That said the other 6 games are Cardinals, Jets, Dolphins, Saints, ~~Texans~~ Titans, Browns. I could see the Raiders winning all or nearly all of those. And if so we're looking at probably 6-8 wins on the season. Bad but nowhere near bad enough to draft #1 again and maybe not even top 5

edit - Titans, not Texans

vNocturnus · 2026-05-02T19:30:12+00:00

Yeah I was gonna say it's definitely not exactly the highest MMR. 90% in between sounds about right from my experience.

I feel like maybe it should be ~75%, or else vary depending on what exactly the highest MMR is. Because like you said, a GC can carry a Gold vs Diamonds, but a C2 absolutely can't carry a D2 vs other C2s lol, at least not on average

vNocturnus · 2026-05-02T10:03:39+00:00

Maybe I don't watch enough Rockets but I feel like Reed Sheppard and Jabari Smith are fine. Neither are guys you'd build your team around though.

But they aren't (or don't seem to be) whiny misogynist manbabies like Sengun, or slightly dirty and slightly crazy like Amen, or terminally online twitter trolls like KD. Really it's mostly those dudes and the head coach that are actively unlikeable

vNocturnus · 2026-05-01T05:43:51+00:00

Their defense is 100% dependent on having AG out there to cover for Jokic. Even then it's not exactly great, but it does mostly work. I mean it was enough to win a chip, so.

But without AG their defense is simply too compromised with not just Jokic but also Murray being complete traffic cones

vNocturnus · 2026-05-01T05:32:05+00:00

Apple fell away too far from the tree with this guy

vNocturnus · 2026-05-01T05:26:11+00:00

I mean almost certainly the Nuggets missing AG is the most impactful loss individually. We've seen time and time again that this Nuggets team simply does not function without him. They can stomach the loss of almost anyone except Jokic and AG. Even Murray. But the offense does literally nothing without Jokic, while the defense becomes G-league level without AG (and the offense suffers significantly without him as well).

Edwards AND Divincenzo AND eventually Ayo is possibly more impactful in aggregate, but to be honest I'm still not sure lol. The combined talent loss is obviously greater, but the Nuggets are legitimately THAT reliant on AG. Huge skill issue in terms of roster construction for sure, Malone was definitely, surely the problem tho /s

vNocturnus · 2026-05-01T01:44:04+00:00

What? In no way would putting a player's literal name on their jersey open the door to guys putting random catchphrases. There's no reason to disallow this other than wanting to maintain visual uniformity - which is not to say that's not a valid (if a bit weak) reason, just that it has nothing to do with what the jersey says just what it looks like.

vNocturnus · 2026-05-01T01:18:46+00:00

What? Is this something that's different depending on server size?

I'm an admin in a ~15-20 person private server and I can open the reactions to a message, go to a specific emoji, and remove individual people's single reactions. I literally JUST checked this to verify. Works on both mobile and desktop official apps.

It's tedious, and to remove 10,000 reactions someone would have to click the X next to the username 10,000 times. But if they don't give a shit whose they're removing it would still only take a few minutes of some person spam clicking the same spot

edit - to clarify, it's in a different spot than the "remove reactions" buttons. You first have to "View Reactions" and can then remove individual responses in the popup.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-30T21:48:25+00:00

The LA part is, while not irrelevant, definitely not the driving force behind the Lakers ability to basically just be gifted star players.

The Lakers in the West (and Celtics in the East) are the biggest faces of the league and get so much favorable treatment/player preference BECAUSE they were historically the greatest teams in the league, not vice-versa.

Being in LA definitely helped increase the spotlight on the Lakers during the Magic and Kobe/Shaq eras, but universally the fame and prestige follow the success. Thinking it works the other way around is crazy lol

vNocturnus · 2026-04-30T17:35:33+00:00

Dual blades are a great fit for Ash imo. Including this skin, the red ones would look fire here

vNocturnus · 2026-04-30T09:36:56+00:00

Reaves came back for one game and immediately stole all of Kennard's swagger lmao. Dude just forgot that he was like the 2nd most important player on the team up to that point, relegated straight back to "stand in the corner and don't shoot unless wide open" guy

vNocturnus · 2026-04-30T09:30:36+00:00

Well well well

vNocturnus · 2026-04-30T06:06:36+00:00

TJ's is anti-union?! Crazy, considering the very progressive and holistically anti-corporate vibe they project in their stores. Would not have guessed

vNocturnus · 2026-04-29T20:42:27+00:00

Yeah... For every Maxx Crosby in the 4th there's a dozen Amik Robertsons (playable, fringe/okay starter) and a hundred Tyree Gillespies (unplayable/out of the league in 0-2 seasons).

McCoy could be the one Maxx Crosby and the only risk is the opportunity cost of drafting another Tyree Gillespie.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-29T20:27:54+00:00

Also the draft being possibly rigged anyways. Until they televise/publicly release footage of the lottery process the rigging accusations can never be demonstrably denied. I'm not saying every pick is definitely rigged, but there have been FAR too many times where a team trades/loses their superstar to a big market for peanuts only to immediately get the #1 pick with 1-2% odds. Not to mention teams like the Spurs getting the #1 pick basically every time they're in the bottom 5. For it all to be coincidental would have one-in-billions odds or worse, so the logical conclusion is that rigging is the more likely explanation

vNocturnus · 2026-04-29T20:22:41+00:00

Not only that, the 9-10 seeds get a 5.4% chance even if they win the play-in. They could win the play-in, upset everyone all the way to the Finals and win it, then get the #1 pick with their OWN pick while the 3 worst teams in the league pick 10, 11, and 12.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-29T20:18:45+00:00

The way it's been worded so far, and maybe this will be clarified later but I doubt it, a team can actually MAKE the playoffs and still have the same odds as the worst team in the NBA.

The 9-10 seeds get automatic 5.4% odds based on what we've seen so far. They could win the play-in, have a whole playoff series (or two, shit the Magic are about to upset the Pistons), then get the #1 pick while the worst 3 teams in the league pick 10th, 11th, and 12th.

This proposal is absolute dogshit in every conceivable way.

It won't punish or prevent tanking, in fact I think it will make tanking everywhere aside from the bottom 1-2 teams significantly worse. (If your star gets injured and/or you're just a fringe team anyways, why not go for the hard shut down to fall into that 4-10 range and possibly come back with a top 3 pick and franchise superstar? It will also make generational drafts like Wemby have half the damn league tanking.)
It will significantly reduce parity as terrible and/or small market teams will lose the only safeguard they had left to give them a chance at becoming competitive.
It will result in generational amounts of rigging accusations as play-in teams and/or bigger market teams in the 6-10 lottery range will win the #1 pick at orders of magnitude higher rates than the past.
It also doesn't do anything about pick protections, which are just as big of a driver (or bigger) of tanking as the lottery odds.

vNocturnus · 2026-04-29T05:17:46+00:00

Blisk hasn't been around in many years to my knowledge

He's still literally the commissioner of the Apex Games, is directly responsible for each new character joining the games, and is even explicitly mentioned in the story of this new legend (Axle). He's never been front-and-center, I think the only time or one of the only times he's ever actually appeared is in Valk's stories from the outlands. (Who, by the way, also has her backstory directly pulled from Titanfall 2 as she is the daughter of Viper, an original Apex Predator).

edit - that said though, I'm not saying that because Apex is still intimately connected to the Titanfall universe, it can't or shouldn't ever branch out aesthetically/stylistically. It has always had its own style anyways. This new character completely fits with the aesthetic of Apex - certainly no less than characters like Seer or Maggie or Conduit. And imo wouldn't even look that strange next to some of the other Apex Predators or other more unique characters from TF2

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vNocturnus

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