They did note a few small things wouldn’t work, like waking the system remotely using the home button on an old JoyCon, but for actual playing, it should work fine.

Online groups! There are great ways to play using things like Discord or other voice options, along with digital tabletops (roll20) or virtual tabletop applications (Foundry, Talespire, Tabletop Simulator or even the new beta for Project Sigil).

Online has its own set of bumps and friction points, but it can be a good way to get your feet wet with the rules and also practice the role play part. Just make sure that you’re finding a group that is like-minded. There is often something called a “session 0” where the group will discuss the expectations in behavior and roleplay and responsibilities. It doesn’t always happen with online groups, but in that case make sure you have a DM who is setting those expectations in advance.

It’s pretty powerful and can win through fogs if it’s using the 2022-2024 version, with Pestilent Cauldron // Restorative Burst as a combo finisher. But that won’t work against, for example, the Nexus of Fate being re-added to the deck.

Awesome!

I’m a fan of Pioneer, but it definitely does not get a lot of love, especially this year. Even The First Pioneers podcast has been quieter and quieter, with fewer tournament results to discuss and no hype for RCQ seasons and PTs to aim for.

If I had to guess the winner of it all, I’m betting on Green Devotion. At least in the 3 years since I’ve started playing, it’s the matchup that has seemed to raise the most frustration and stink from players (aside from ABA combo leading to draws).

Rule 0 still exists. This is meant to help give a quick distinction for playing in “untrusted groups” where you don’t know what other people consider a “7.” You can state clearly that by the brackets, your deck is considered a 3, but also mention that it plays out more powerfully, like a 4.

For most players, this is a pretty helpful guide:

• 1 is for your jank and meme decks. It’s not designed to be strong, it’s just to do something funny.
• 2 is for precon level decks. Not awful, but definitely not optimized. A number of budget decks and pet decks may fit in here.
• 3 is for your good decks, but with the caveat that they’re not full of the salt-inducing “game changers” or Mass Land Destruction or 2-card combos that go off turn 2.
• 4 is for your best non-CEDH decks. Push it as far as you want, understanding that other people at the table likely did the same
• 5 is for CEDH. If you don’t know what that is, you’re not playing a 5, just a powerful 4.

I know that most of my decks are 2s, or a 3 with 1-2 Game Changers. None that would really be 4s, but sometimes I can play them at a 4-level table and still luck out into a win.

Well, no one voted for"Genocide Joe" because Biden was not in the election. I’m sure there were a number of people, though, who abstained from voting for Harris because she also did not represent their wishes for the situation in Palestine, though to me that feels like being a single issue voter.

I don’t understand the quote or run-on sentence of yours. People should indeed try and campaign for candidates they believe align with their ideals of governance.

Imagine if it had

“Max Speed – Haste”

Five bucks says that the guy who didn’t vote for Ichiro didn’t hand out 10 votes, and that the snub is purely because they don’t believe anyone should be unanimous.

Energy could have lost:

• Guide of Souls
• Galvanic Discharge
• Static Prison
• Amped Raptor

And on the non-energy portion of it:

• Ocelot Pride
• Ajani
• Phlage

I guess removing Raptor helps prevent those unwinnable turn 3, turn 4 board states, at least. But getting rid of Phlage would get strip away some of their removal and survivability. Getting rid of Guide of Souls would kinda crush Energy as a deck. Ocelot and Ajani are being left alone because they can still be used in a Boros go-wide deck, at least.

TOR in Legacy feels okay to me, but I don’t play or follow Legacy too much. I feel like Legacy has the answers and counterplay for it, though, no?

Honestly, this feels very well thought-out, and close to an ideal B&R.

Standard is still finding its footing post-Foundations, and it’s a bit too soon to really ban anything there.

Pioneer, I could’ve been happy to see Cruise get banned, but that might be too much of a shakeup after last ban. Jegantha going away feels funny, because almost no decks truly relied on Jegantha as a win condition or anything, but the value of an extra card was just too much, and its Companion condition was just stifling creative builds. In general I’d like to see a bit more variety in midrange decks be viable there (I’m a Gruul Boats player, and that deck has basically vanished over the last year).

Modern needed these bans months ago. One Ring was just too homogenous. Basically every deck that could fit it wanted it. It stalled out games in a way that didn’t feel interactive. Boros Energy definitely needed a check, and I hope Amped Raptor is enough to bring it back down to earth. Could have just as easily been Ajani or Ocelot Pride or Galvanic Discharge, but time will tell. The unbannings seem relatively safe. Opal should open up some affinity decks. GSZ is a big maybe; I don’t know if Yawg would even want it right now. Looting is great. Twin is hilarious, but shouldn’t actually make an impact besides getting old Modern players back into the format.

Legacy needed those bans. The frog was scary good and flexible, and the Bauble just shut down too much in a format where free things are vital.

Overall, just an absolute Christmas gift of a B&R. Hoping to see this improve player turnout at local events.

Personally, I played a Mono-G stompy thing in Explorer when it first came out, so I still have that available to me.

In paper, I play Gruul Boats (despite it not being a significant player in the current meta), but my list is definitely out of date and could use a few updates with cards that have come out over the last year.

Definitely looking forward to playing decks that didn’t exist in Arena before, even if that means having to finally deal with Niv to Light and Lotus Field combo finally.

Will be interesting to see where Soto ends up. Mets have shown they’re willing to open the wallet for the big players. Yankees have always been spenders. I could see some other teams that were just short of making it spending to get him as a long-term build-around piece. I’ve heard the Dodgers are in on the Soto Sweepstakes, but I don’t think it makes sense from a financial perspective.

Some people sell their code packs online, though I guess it could be risky.

I’m basically in TCG Live to practice the game and to figure out how a deck is working before sleeving up in paper.

TCG Pocket is just a fun diversion. 2 free packs a day is like little dopamine hits, for better or worse. I can let my nieces and nephews “rip” a pack open as a reward without thinking “that’s $4 gone.”

TCG Live is for people who actually care about Pokemon TCG and the complexities and depth it offers. It’s not that confusing; there are maybe 3 currencies, and one of its features, like it or not, is that you can’t just swipe a credit card and get everything you want. The only money-to-game translation is buying IRL boosters and scanning in the codes. Yes, the app can be fairly buggy, but it’s what we’ve got for now, ever since they closed Pokemon TCG Online. It doesn’t have trading, which is to prevent people from just having a dozen accounts and amassing all the value into one.

The currencies aren’t too bad: Coins are for cosmetics. Crystals are the “premium” currency for unlocking the battle pass or buying the equivalent of IRL sealed products (boosters, display packs, bundles, etc). Credits are like dust from other TCGs. Duplicate cards beyond 4 are “dusted” and you can convert them into the singles you want for deck building.

TCG Pocket is to slowly attract people into collecting actual cards again. After you get into the cadence of opening your 2 free packs a day, people might start to be interested in collecting physical cards, which pulls them into paying for boosters (rather than just buying singles) and trying the actual card game. It’s just a small bonus that TCGPocket might also earn them a bit of money, largely off of old art and minimal playtest work.

Bam, Brotherhood’s End. Or something like that.

I’m hoping that the Spotlight Series next year really highlights Pioneer, because there really isn’t anywhere else it’ll get the eyes of the tournament grinders.

UB in everything is definitely a big pill to swallow. I obviously love a lot of the media that the crossovers are coming from, and I’m certainly going to enjoy buying the cards. But it does take away from the cohesion of what Magic is and feels like (even in its multiplanar setting). And now that it’s making its way into Standard and Pioneer, instead of a casual space (Commander) or a place where I never played (Modern, Legacy, and Vintage), it does feel icky to think about sitting down with my deck that’s all in-world, and my opponent is playing some amalgam of Magic cards and Sephiroth and Spider-Man.

What a game! I’m way out in the suburbs, but we heard the entire neighborhood pop off at the slam.

I’m a Marvel guy, so I’m definitely interested in these Secret Lairs… But they’re limited print again, so they’ll be sold out within an hour and then scalped for 4x the price. Yay.

Dodger fan here. I wouldn’t count any chickens before they hatch. 3-1 is a good lead, but it’s led to a series upset something like 14 times in MLB postseasons. And the Dodgers leading 3-2 is an even more tenuous situation than it appears. Game 6 will likely be a bullpen game, and game 7 will be Buehler, with maybe Yamamoto coming in relief if absolutely necessary. Today was LA’s best remaining pitcher matchup, and the pitching staff couldn’t record a single strikeout.

Also, it has been 11 times in over a century of baseball. It hasn’t been a recent matchup that people would be tired of, it’s just the usual complaints/griping about large market teams.

I know ownership will never be loved by the fans, but I do believe that as a sport, baseball is better when the owners care about the game rather than treating it purely as an investment.