Spzi

Have you seen this PW before, or used it yourself? At 3 mana, she is fairly cheap. There are two options:

• +1: target creature gains vigilance and reach until your next turn
• -2: Exile one of the top 3 cards of your library face down. If it's a creature, you can cast it from exile even if Vivien is gone.

Her passive: You may cast creatures as though they had flash.

Of course, she doesn't make much sense if you have lots of noncreature cards. You cannot choose to not exile a card for -2.

But since many decks are heavy on creatures, why isn't she used more?

Stashing creatures into exile is nice. AFAIK they are safe from whatever your opponent could do, until you choose to bring them out.

Casting creatures with flash though, is literally a game changer. It essentially gives your creatures haste. Makes countering them much harder. And dodges sorcery-speed removal, if only for one turn. And of course, you can destroy combos by having a rule-changing creature jump in at instant speed (like Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines, which disables entering effects for your opponents)

Other creatures become much more versatile and powerful through V, CotW. Maybe the best example is Yorion, Sky Nomad (on enter, exile any number of other permanents you control and return them at the next end step). If your army would get wiped, or Vivien herself removed, flash Yorion in, pack all your stuff in a neat box, and unpack everything once the threat has gone. If you can return Yori to your hand, that's similar to a reusable Teferi's Protection.

Also worth mentioning, opponent's greed and combat tricks. Most people will attack Vivien with just enough to get her killed, and otherwise attack your life. Between declare attackers and declare blockers, you can throw in more creatures and completely screw their attack.

So ... cheap, versatile, powerful, and kind of unique. Is she underrated or what are your thoughts/reasons for why she shouldn't be used?

[[Estrid's Invocation]] enters as a copy of another enchantment you control. At your upkeep, you may re-enter it, allowing you to choose a different target.

Note that casting it without an eligible target will void the second part. It will just stay and sit there, not triggering on upkeep.

I tried to build a deck around this card with lots of non-legendary enchantments. And found out, Sagas are particularly interesting. The crazy interaction is that Estrid's re-enter triggers before Sagas tick up.

An example match start:

• turn 2: [[Omen of the Sea]] (1U, flash, scry 2, then draw 1)
• turn 3: [[Estrid's Invocation]] (2U), gaining another scry 2 + draw 1
• turn 4: [[Binding the old Gods]] (2BG, destroy nonland), Estrid re-entered before on the Omen to get a 3rd scry2+d1
• turn 5: Estrid re-enters as the Binding, which immediately lets you destroy a second nonland. Next but still in your upkeep, both Sagas tick up, letting you fetch two ~~basic~~ forests.
• turn 6: Estrid re-enters as the Binding before it's saga counter can tick up, letting you destroy a 3rd nonland, and fetching a 3rd forest, before the original Binding finally expires.

If you managed to get a 2nd Estrid out by that point, you can have both Estrid Sagas copy each other infinitely, without ever expiring.

Also nice: [[Elspeth conquers Death]] (3WW, exile mana 3+) and [[The Eldest Reborn]] (4B, sac creature, discard, return creature/PW from any GY)

Other non-saga enchantments which I found useful:

• [[Omen of the Hunt]] (2G, flash, fetch basic land)
• [[Wingbright Thief]] (more on that later)
• [[Smothering Tithe]] (3W, opponent chooses wether they have less mana or you gain more)
• [[Revenge of Ravens]] (3B, drain 1 life for each creature attacking you)
• and of course [[Triumphant Getaway]] (1UBR, flash, heist twice, drain 2 on casting heisted cards)

Some are useful because of their on-enter effects, some are useful to stack up a beneficial ability. A Smothering Tithe times 2 makes a significant difference in speed, no matter wether they choose to have less mana for themselves or give you more treasures.

[[Wingbright Thief]] (1WU, creature, on enter reveals opponents nonland hand cards, choose one which perpetually gains "opponent draws 1 and gains 3 life" when you cast this) ... is the only enchantment creature I found worthwhile (maybe aside from [[Overlord of the Hauntwoods]]). But it's a crazy good target for Estrid! Not only does it give you intel on their hand each round for free, you can also burden their most valuable spells with an advantage for you.

For some spells, like untargeted discard, this outright renders it useless. Sure, you can cast it and make me discard a card, but before that happens, I get to draw one and gain 3 life. Similarly, red face damage can be neutralized by this.

For most other spells, the question becomes "how many stacks of Wingbright Thief can this card endure, before casting it becomes more beneficial to your opponent than to you?", which is quite an interesting game mechanic if you ask me. Both sides have to weigh options and estimate value.

Some spells remain useful regardless of how many stacks they have. When a [[Haze of Pollen]] (1G prevent all combat damage) would prevent you from dying, it's still worth casting, even if your opponent draws 10 cards and gains 30 life.

Another poweful aspect of Estrid's Invocation is the flexibility it provides. On each upkeep, you can re-spec your toolkit, choosing wether you want more creatures, more sagas, or more passive abilities this turn.

Sometimes I even use it on [[Utopia Sprawl]] (G, forest makes extra mana) to have 1 more mana this round of a missing color, or on [[Valgavoth's Lair]] (a hexproof land of any color) to have more mana next round, and to flee an expected nonland destroy.

The more I play with it (Magic Arena Historic), the more I wonder why I see it so rarely. Have you played with or against it already? What are your thoughts?

This post is meant to help me (and you, be welcome) vent some frustration, as well as help this community grow.

To make it interesting, try to explain at least a little bit why something bothers you.

• Noisy pets. I hate them.

I'm talking about the cackling goblin, the obnoxious horses, the dumb dogs, the intrusive mice and whatever repeatedly makes any sound.

I mean, it's a fun addition at first, but it gets old quickly. And whenever Someone gets some damage, or something else of minor importance happens, it gets commented by not more than 3 (?) sound reactions. I think I heard all of them a few thousand times by now. It's just annoying.

Sadly, the only way to mute them for good is to mute all opponent's text and image emotes, basically shutting off communication. Which has it's own merit, but it's a different thing. Why combine both in one control?

So sometimes I cruise on everything off to have more peace of mind. When I feel more open, I enable reactions again, but manually mute every opponent who has a pet which cannot behave. Sorry bros. If you want to be heard, make this useless thing shut up.

• Decks which require you to react on dozens of triggers per round. Like 0-cost artifact spam, lifegain frenzy, foodcat sacrificers.

It's just so tedious. And some people seem to do it just for the fun of it, without any impact on the game.

Like when the Scurry Oak starts growing, I have a Ritual of Soot in Hand, but still want to use my remaining mana in their end step. I may have to click through hundreds of triggers just to wipe it all away whenever they feel they spammed enough.

• One trick shows.

Talking about Dualcaster Mage, Minion of the Mighty, some decks around Colossal Hammer. I mean, it's nice you can make these decks which can kill you on round 2 or so (but fall apart instantly when they don't), just in principle. But in common play, it's just a boring waste of time. I know these decks exist, cool. I'm pretty sure you just copied it from someone else or the internet, wow. Okay, you won and the only thing good about it is that I don't have to shuffle physical cards afterwards. Now get lost.

• Fast decks in general.

I'm aware they are necessary to keep the lategame horrors in check, but meh. Why do I put 60 cards together if I only get to see 10, and to play 2?

To me, it smells like bad game design that some strategies revolve around making your opponent unable to play (also looking at discard, counter and other locks). Again, in principle it is amazing that MTG has this flexibility and variety. But does it make for interesting and fun matches for both sides? I much prefer games which have some back and forth, not one steamrolling the other.

• Uncreative decks.

Such wow, 4 copies of each elf/goblin/whatever, which everyone else plays too. Generic UR wizards, or Boros cats with Goblin Bombardment. Seen them a hundred times, mostly losing to them. I guess there's the crux; they are so strong you can hardly play anything else. Which ironically makes the aforementioned flexibility and variety of this originally amazing game self defeating, resulting in stale repetition.

• Overpowered / too cheap cards

Did the reanimators really need an upgrade in the form of a 2-mana Persist? Or lifegain the Ocelot Pride? Both were already strong and popular before these were added. I also consider Sheoldred's Edict one such culprit. Just a few years ago, I (and many others) were playing Fleshbag Marauder, a creature which has "on enter: each player sacrifices a creature" or something. Now it's a 2-mana instant with more flexibility and precision. I think it just leads to a race to the bottom, where games are decided by whoever drew their winning solution first (we give you 3 turns to make that happen). Again, I very much like that something like this is possible, but it should not be so common that it displaces other strategies, which could make for more interesting and more fun games, for both sides.

This got longer than I anticipated. Feel free to add your own thoughts independent from mine, or cheese to my whine.

A shower thought which applies not specifically to MTG, as it would obviously be a different game.

What problem does this idea try to solve?

Balancing. It is hard to balance every card during design phase (or even impossible, as can be shown), which results in some overpowered cards which make the game less fair.

How?

Supply and demand. A card which is played often (by many players, in many games) has it's mana cost increased slightly. A card which is played rarely becomes cheaper.

Implications

This is probably not feasible with most mana costs sitting in the 1-digit-range. We can't make a 2-cost card "slightly" cheaper. So we would either need a mana system which works with decimals (e.g. 3.1415 CMC), or raise the integer system to a higher plateau (e.g. 314 CMC)

It's also only contemplable in digital versions, where a server can monitor every card drop, and adjust costs accordingly.

A big drawback is that your deck's costs can change over night (or even between consecutive games), forcing players to edit their decks more frequently. A partial solution could be a notification system, and/or scheduling the recalculations to a slower frequency, like once per week or once per month.

A big advantage is that we now have an impartial Big Brother watching the balancing. Humans can err, crowds and echo chambers even more so. When people complain about an imbalanced card, is their cause justified or is it just a small but loud minority? Monitoring the cold hard data seems like a better way, and automated problem solving likewise.

What are your thoughts on this idea? Do you know another TCG which applies something similar?

The deck (60 cards, Historic) is based around the 'perpetually' keyword. It also involves [[Rusko, Clockmaker]], because I simply love that guy.

Here's an overview of the most important general cards:

• [[Three Steps Ahead]] as a counterspell and to make copies of creatures or [[Midnight Clock]].
• [[Test of Talents]] to thin the forest.
• [[Saw It Coming]] because it stays when [[Midnight Clock]] cycles.
• [[Sheoldred's Assimilator]] to recast own spells, to exile or steal cards.
• [[Sheoldred's Edict]], because it's too good.
• [[Tear Asunder]], same reason.
• [[Ritual of Soot]], because why do so many people play with soot? :(
• [[The End]] is there still forest?
• [[Casualties of War]] to reduce biodiversity.
• [[Druid Class]] for life and ramp. Also a sweet target to make copies.
• [[Glarb, Calamity's Augur]] ramp and "draw", plus emergency deathtouch blocker.
• [[Primeval Titan]] for ramp, also helps fetch enhanced lands from [[Vigorous Farming]] which were shuffled.
• [[Doppelgang]] because we need a sink for our 50 mana.

And here are the perpetual stars:

• [[Antique Collector]] as a cheap drop for round 2, or to enhance creatures. Note, casting it twice does nothing extra.
• [[Absorb Energy]], another counterspell. Though I feel this is one of the weakest here.
• [[Smogbelcher Chariot]] because giving creatures lifelink, deathtouch and menace perpetually is pretty sweet! Love to use it on [[Hall of Giants]] or [[Primeval Titan]].
• [[Vigorous Farming]] this is a tough one. It needs some time, but boy can the rewards pile up! Today I had a single land producing 12 mana. Also a nice clone target.
• [[Nashi, Illusion Gadgeteer]] you need to have a nice creature or sorcery in grave, then Nashi conjures a copy to your hand and gives that copy flash! When using Doppelgang on Nashi, you can conjure a copy of DG back to your hand, lol.
• [[Blooming Cactusfolk]] we do have plenty of mana, now we need cheaper spells. It's nice to copy the cactus, and to have spells with X cost.
• [[Discover the Formula]] for the lulz.

The idea is to play defensively, build up manabase and reduce cost on spells, enhance spells with flash and creatures with extra abilities. Worst enemy is having things exiled. [[Farewell]] or [[Ugin, Spirit Dragon]] are the absolute worst to encounter.

I think the synergy between Rusko and 'perpetually' is pretty nice. Enhance stuff, drop it in grave, draw it again to enhance it further.

It's a bit sad players have only 20 health. This setup starts to shine when the game is already over.

I was happy to find a working deck (currently around 85% ladder) which uses Glarb and Nashi. Haven't seen them played by anyone else yet. Same for [[Vigorous Farming]] and [[Blooming Cactusfolk]], underrated cards imo.

So, what are your thoughts? Have you played something similar? Have we met online? What would you change?

What they actually mean is rather "these two things are very dissimilar", or "these two things are unequal".

I guess in most situations "cannot be compared" could be replaced by "cannot be equated", with less lingual inaccuracy and still the same message conveyed.

To come to the conclusion that two things are very dissimilar, very unequal, one necessarily has to compare them. So it's rather odd to come up with "cannot be compared" after just literally comparing them.

For example, bikes and cars. We compare them by looking at each's details, and finding any dissimilarities. They have a different amount of wheels. Different propulsion methods. Different price, and so on.

When this list becomes very long, or some details have a major meaning which should not be equated, people say they cannot be compared.

An example with a major meaning difference: Some people say factory farming of animals and the Holocaust are very similar, or something alike. Others disagree, presumably because they feel wether it's humans or animals being treated, the motives or whatnot make a difference big enough that the two should not be ~~compared~~ equated.

Can you follow my thoughts? Are 'dissimilar' or 'unequal' better terms? I'd be especially interested in arguments in favor of 'compared'.

https://piped.video/watch?v=hvk_XylEmLo

Sources: Juliet B. Schor, "The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure"

David Rooney, "About Time: A History of Civilization in Twelve Clocks" E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism" | https://www.jstor.org/stable/649749 James E. Thorold Rogers, "Six Centuries of Work and Wages: The History of English Labour" | https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/rogers/sixcenturies.pdf George Woodcock, "The Tyranny of the Clock," Published in "War Commentary - For Anarchism" in March, 1944

GDP per capita in England, 1740 to 1840, via Our World in Data | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-in-the-uk-since-1270 Nominal wages, consumer prices, and real wages in the UK, United Kingdom, 1750 to 1840, via Our World in Data | https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/nominal-wages-consumer-prices-and-real-wages-in-the-uk-since-1750

Running around with StreetComplete, the app sometimes tells me to leave a note instead, which I do. Short time later, I receive an email that another person has resolved my note. That's nice, but wouldn't it be better to do it all on my own?

I think I need a more powerful Editor for that, and installed Vespucci. Now I'm scared to break things. What are the next steps, how to proceed?

The volume of a cylinder is found using the formula V = πr^2^h. Using π = 5, r = 10 and h = 10. Find the volume V.

Before, completing the last lesson of a group (e.g. completing 5 of 5) activated a 15 minute boost. Which allowed me stop doing lessons at 4/5 and do practice instead. Later that day, I could complete lesson 5 to get a boost for a new session.

Now, these activation steps seem to be randomly scattered across lessons. Sometimes it's lesson 2, sometimes 5. Never the last one.

Did anyone else notice this? Any idea why? How do you deal with it?

It leads me to learn longer than I actually wanted (because I accidentally trigger boosts), or leads to me 'wasting' boosts, both of which feels bad.

https://www.youtube.com/@Brackeys/about

Text version, thanks to @CorneliusTalmadge@lemmy.world:

Image Text

BRACKEYS

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while. I hope you are all well.

Unity has recently taken some actions to change their pricing policy that I - like most of the community - do not condone in any way.

I have been using Unity for more than 10 years and the product has been very important to me. However, Unity is a public company. Unfortunately that means that it has to serve shareholder interests. Sometimes those interests align with what is best for the developers and sometimes they do not. While this has been the case for a while, these recent developments have made it increasingly clear.

Unity has pulled back on the first version of their new pricing policy and made some changes to make it less harmful to small studios, but it is important to remember that the realities of a public company are not going to change.

Luckily, there are other ways of structuring the development of software. Instead of a company owning and controlling software with a private code base, software can be open source (with a public code base that anyone can contribute to) and publicly owned. Blender - a stable 3D modelling software in the game dev community - is free and open source. In fact some of the largest and most advanced software in the world is built on top of open source technology like Linux.

The purpose of this post is not to denounce Unity because of a misstep, to criticise any of its employees or to tell anyone to “jump ship”. Instead I want to highlight the systematic issue of organizing large software projects under a public company and to let you know that there are alternatives.

I believe that the way to a stronger and more healthy game dev community is through software created by the community for the community. Software that is open source, democratically owned and community funded.

Many of you have been asking for us to produce new tutorial series on alternative engines such as Godot, which is currently the most advanced open source and community funded game engine. I don’t know yet if this is something that we can realise and when.

I can only say that I have started learning Godot.

Best of luck to all of you with your games, no matter what engine they might be built on!

Sincerely,

Asbjern Thirslund - Brackeys

https://www.youtube.com/@Brackeys/about

Text version, thanks to @CorneliusTalmadge@lemmy.world:

Image Text

BRACKEYS

Hello everyone!

It’s been a while. I hope you are all well.

Unity has recently taken some actions to change their pricing policy that I - like most of the community - do not condone in any way.

I have been using Unity for more than 10 years and the product has been very important to me. However, Unity is a public company. Unfortunately that means that it has to serve shareholder interests. Sometimes those interests align with what is best for the developers and sometimes they do not. While this has been the case for a while, these recent developments have made it increasingly clear.

Unity has pulled back on the first version of their new pricing policy and made some changes to make it less harmful to small studios, but it is important to remember that the realities of a public company are not going to change.

Luckily, there are other ways of structuring the development of software. Instead of a company owning and controlling software with a private code base, software can be open source (with a public code base that anyone can contribute to) and publicly owned. Blender - a stable 3D modelling software in the game dev community - is free and open source. In fact some of the largest and most advanced software in the world is built on top of open source technology like Linux.

The purpose of this post is not to denounce Unity because of a misstep, to criticise any of its employees or to tell anyone to “jump ship”. Instead I want to highlight the systematic issue of organizing large software projects under a public company and to let you know that there are alternatives.

I believe that the way to a stronger and more healthy game dev community is through software created by the community for the community. Software that is open source, democratically owned and community funded.

Many of you have been asking for us to produce new tutorial series on alternative engines such as Godot, which is currently the most advanced open source and community funded game engine. I don’t know yet if this is something that we can realise and when.

I can only say that I have started learning Godot.

Best of luck to all of you with your games, no matter what engine they might be built on!

Sincerely,

Asbjern Thirslund - Brackeys