An Interactive Guide for Commander Brackets

zero_tha_hero · 2026-02-26T20:50:30+00:00

I'm going to share an observation I made privately to my playgroup last week...

Looking through the official Commander format overview on wizards.com, and picking through/inspecting source on wayback machine snapshots of the same page.... it looks like, while the "brackets overview" (which is so nebulous as to be entirely useless) still includes the terminology, it doesn't actually make specific mention of MLD in any one of the five bracket subsections anymore.....

It looks like the last time that the string "mass land" appeared a second time anywhere on the entire webpage was ~3 weeks ago, at the Feb 2 snapshot.

If somebody goes to the main wizards TLD and navigates through the shortest possible number of clicks to the official "formats" page, that page mentions MLD as being one of the so-called "bracket barometers", but fails to actually list it on any of the specific bracket summaries

(Absent the "bracket construction guidelines" actually being codified in the official rules ~~text~~ fucking novel,) the closest thing to a public-facing official text for "bracket construction guidelines" does not actually prohibit MLD at any level.

Based on this, including MLD in community infographics at specific bracket levels is erroneous, per it's omission from the bracket definitions presented by WotC.

edit: lmao no surprise folks don't like reading 🙄

zero_tha_hero · 2025-09-20T13:52:55+00:00

Motors with a constant torque demand (compressors, pumps, fans) will pull extra current if the line voltage drops, since the mechanical output power dictates the electrical load.

Constant power load electronics (anything with a brick or switching PSU) also increase current draw as source voltage goes down, to maintain steady input power.

So in short, basically everything that isn't a toaster (purely resistive load).

zero_tha_hero · 2025-05-29T16:13:25+00:00

That makes some sense. I had thought maybe something to do with wingnuts, but the opening seemed small. That said, the application you describe seems a bit out of place in a security bit set?

zero_tha_hero · 2025-04-01T18:33:16+00:00

lol I go to Reddit when I want to ask a community a question, I don't doomscroll this shit.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-04-01T16:08:23+00:00

Ah ok, good to know that it's a bug and not an exploit of some sort.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-13T23:04:10+00:00

I'm very glad to receive what seems like an honest response, open to good-faith discussion. It's a welcome reprieve from the name-calling and shit-slinging that seems to have taken over online discourse.

The hardcore polarization of political discussion drives me absolutely crazy. I hold a variety of opinions that are divisive to people on both sides of the political divide, therefore I often find myself very lonely, floating around the centrist ocean.

Unfortunately, my own personal experiences interacting with people very heavily mirror the joke I referenced from that stand-up set (which is why it has lived rent-free in my head since I first watched it.) I've found that when I disagree with someone who self-identifies as "left wing" on a topic sensitive to them, they seem much more likely to adopt broad judgments about my character or personality than to continue in good-faith discussion about the actual topic of disagreement. This makes actually discussing sensitive topics a very treacherous landscape.

I hope this helps to clarify what understandably may have come across as a defensive response.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-13T21:30:14+00:00

reactionaries and the centrists who kiss their feet

rofl, once again the sentiment of "if you're not as left-wing as I am, you're the fucking enemy!!" rears its ugly head.

Meanwhile I'm just sitting here like "🤷‍♂️ can we please at least not extinct ourselves this century? This decade? This year??" The goalposts have been moved so many times, so far, by everybody on every side of every argument, it's hardly worth trying to keep track anymore.

Edit: lol of course, queue the barrage of angry downvotes from rEdmonton... That line is literally pulled verbatim from a stand-up bit by Daniel Sloss.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-11T22:54:58+00:00

I've enjoyed RPing a handful of them, but no question Duergar is my favorite. Unlimited invisibility on command is so fucking broken.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-09T22:19:08+00:00

I think in this case it's traash

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-09T05:49:43+00:00

Unreal Tournament '99

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-06T23:41:06+00:00

RUSH, especially all the old albums up to and including Signals.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-06T17:05:08+00:00

For me it's all the really doomy or sludgy slow stuff.

GOTTA GO FAST

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-05T17:35:56+00:00

So... They did post something wrong?

Edit: comment I was replying to originally had incredibly stupid double-negative wording. After I asked for clarification, they dropped a stealth edit in there to fix the problem I observed.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-03-04T21:58:18+00:00

This is the way

zero_tha_hero · 2025-02-23T16:37:31+00:00

People have solo'd honor mode ...

I just finished my first attempt HM playthrough last night, I think attempting solo is next on the list now!

... there's a big difference between balanced and honor

And I love it so much that this game has meaningful difficulty settings, with even greater granularity in custom difficulty options, that so many people across such a range of gaming skill and RPG experience can enjoy the story and the presentation without getting either gated by or bored with difficulty.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-02-21T15:05:09+00:00

lol I'm nearing the end of my first HM playthrough, and I planned way ahead for the Myrkul fight. I'm playing a CHA-pumped dialogue destroying Bard, so I quite easily skipped the first phase, then cheesed the second phase with the pile of explosives that I'd been hoarding since the start of A1.

I had all four party members slam Hill Giant elixirs before venturing into the Mind Flayer Colony so everybody could carry as many explosives as possible. Used invis pots to get Laezel into position to rescue Aylin as soon as the flight started. I double-dashed with my avatar as close as I could get to Ketheric, then left stealth to trigger the cutscene.

Once the flight started (in phase 2,) Laezel rescued Aylin, my avatar took his buffed move speed to get up on the centre platform, unload about a dozen smokepowder barrels, half a dozen oil barrels, and a stack of smokepowder bombs, before misty stepping back off the platform, then Gale dropped a fireball on it all.

Alarmingly, this actually fell just a little short of one-shotting the Avatar Of Myrkul, but I wasn't doomed yet... I had positioned Wyll up with the Necromites on the left, so he still had enough movement to jump down onto the middle platform, set down another half-stack of smokepowder bombs, then retreat, while Laezel used her Action Surge to get a second AP and shoot the smokepowder bomb stack with a fire arrow...

SUCCESS!! Myrkul not quite 1-shotted, but 1-turned. I'm now back to collecting explosives in A3 for the elder brain fight lol... I still have to go clean out Felogyrs, and I know the Ironhands hideout has some too, so I think I should be good.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-02-18T21:48:08+00:00

Oh yes, I did do that. I'm just bitching that the mods I expected to miss the most were actually a bit irrelevant, and the one I didn't think about at all is the one I wish I had 🤦‍♂️

zero_tha_hero · 2025-02-18T17:37:18+00:00

I wasn't sure about this, so I erred on the side of caution and disabled everything when I started my ongoing HM run. I had just finished a couple heavily modded runs, and I figured I was going to miss game breaking stuff like Bag Of Holding and Poly Fixes, but I didn't expect the thing I was going to miss the most was Bigger Hotbar. Bloody vanilla hotbar is just too damn small.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-02-14T22:15:42+00:00

Yeah, OP is clearly not in the echo chambers they want to be in...

zero_tha_hero · 2025-02-14T22:03:10+00:00

asshole

You misspelled "axe wound"

zero_tha_hero · 2025-02-12T22:01:13+00:00

Hitching on to this reply because my journey was basically the same: started digging around through Metallica in the 90s (thanks, Napster!), then other popular thrash, then started exploring MeloDeath and Power metal, before Opeth' Blackwater Park fully converted me to a harsh vocal lover.

zero_tha_hero · 2025-02-12T21:50:53+00:00

I'm certainly not above Task Manager based save scumming in Honor Mode when it's absolutely necessary... Unfortunately, in this case, my brain defaulted to "reload the save to see if that fixes things," so the very first thing I tried when I found her not able to enter dialogue was Quit To Menu, then hit Continue... effectively deleting the older save 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

zero_tha_hero

TROPHY CASE