chrob's recent activity
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
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Comment on What have you been listening to this week? in ~music
chrob LinkI've been wanting to start a new band so I've put together a playlist of bands I want to draw from - and it's been heavy in rotation with that spotify "add more similar" feature engaged. It's...I've been wanting to start a new band so I've put together a playlist of bands I want to draw from - and it's been heavy in rotation with that spotify "add more similar" feature engaged.
It's comprised of Eyehategod, Converge, Thou, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Botch, APMD, KEN Mode, Baptists, GAZA, Dead in the Dirt, and Chat Pile, so that's been the bulk of my week probably.
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Comment on I can't get my head around US President Joe Biden polling poorly and Donald Trump polling well in ~talk
chrob Link ParentYep. What you're describing is colloquially known as the ratchet effect, when it's put into practice. The Republican party understands that pushing politics to the right is their job, and turn...Yep. What you're describing is colloquially known as the ratchet effect, when it's put into practice.
The Republican party understands that pushing politics to the right is their job, and turn everything to the right while they're in power. The Democrats, who are frankly barely even centrist in the grand scheme of things, either through incompetence or impotence (really, it doesn't matter), prevent government from moving back to the left when they're in power.
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Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games
chrob LinkI work in game dev and my new project is on a well known, very cool military fantasy series so I've been super deep into a lot of games I don't normally play to build familiarity with the...I work in game dev and my new project is on a well known, very cool military fantasy series so I've been super deep into a lot of games I don't normally play to build familiarity with the reference material.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 1 / 2 / Warzone / etc.
Gears of War 1-5 + the spinoff game
Counter-Strike, good lord, a lot of Counter-strike and Valorant
Rainbow Six: Siege
I've played almost all of the Halo titles back to front as well.A lot of games like this are not normally in my wheelhouse and I'm having a LOT more fun with them than I really thought I would have. I usually turned my nose up at the annual Call of Battlefield debates in my earlier college years but these games are way more fun than my pretentious hipster ass believed they were.
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Comment on Any 'Magic the Gathering' fans here? in ~games.tabletop
chrob Link ParentI feel like a lot of people really overthink cubing. I started mine by just collecting all of my take-home cards from pre-releases, drafts, etc that weren't going to be used in my modern decks. I...I feel like a lot of people really overthink cubing. I started mine by just collecting all of my take-home cards from pre-releases, drafts, etc that weren't going to be used in my modern decks. I know everyone loves playing with power or making really optimized cubes but I'm also the kind of player who loves playing EDH with the mentality of "here's a cool legendary, let's grab a bunch of cards and see what happens."
I've always been a big fan of set cubes where you only use cards from a single set / block. I've got 3 from sets that I enjoyed enough to put the effort in (the most recent of which, I'm borderline ashamed to admit, is the new LOTR set).
The basic formula, depending on how many cards/archetypes you want to support is:
1 of every mythic*
1 of every rare*
2 or 3 of every uncommon*
3 or 6 of every common*(* Or just use the ones you enjoy / have on hand.)
Then grab 24 of your favorite mini deckboxes (I prefer cube shells from dragon shield, but cubamajigs get a lot of love and randomly slot cards 15 cards per pack - 1 rare/mythic, 3-4 uncommon, 10-11 common.
Alternatively, you could just feed all of your draft materials into a cube too and then just keep track of how it takes form with something like cubecobra. I love the idea of a cube becoming a bit of a living environment. The hardest part is maintaining archetypes so that when people sit down and draft they can start finding targets to draft towards - I usually just let my multicolor cards dictate archetypes and as long as I have a good handful of synergies with each multicolor, I don't mind if my cube isn't perfectly tuned.
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Comment on The unique printing of "The One Ring" has been found in ~games.tabletop
chrob (edited )Link ParentI thought your suggestion of "how many lawnmower elves cards are sitting around collecting dust in basements" was meaning that there's just a glut of cards that are just too weak to see any sort...I thought your suggestion of "how many lawnmower elves cards are sitting around collecting dust in basements" was meaning that there's just a glut of cards that are just too weak to see any sort of play and I based my comment on that assumption. The reality is that most of those intrinsically less interesting cards are there to support formats like draft or pauper that need those cards in order to work.
I'm not suggesting it's good balance for rich players to have decks full of better cards than everyone else, but if someone cares about that kind of balance (I do, and that's why I don't play vintage or competitive commander), many formats intentionally correct for the cost of cards on the secondary market (e.g. I don't think I've ever seen a pauper deck with a card that was worth more than $3 in it.) Others like standard and sealed and draft (the last of which is the only way I play these days) also correct for balance over time by strongly limiting the pool of cards available. Obviously, maybe someone in your pod cracks a huge bomb card, but they're hardly filling their deck with them.
I wasn't saying you were suggesting that cards should be equal in power - I was saying that 2 similar cards might have been balanced to satisfy two very different play groups. I guess my point is that there will always be "cards people don't want" in a game that has so many varied ways to play.
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Comment on The unique printing of "The One Ring" has been found in ~games.tabletop
chrob Link ParentUnfortunately, it's pretty hard to make some cards good if you don't make other cards bad. Magic is balanced in many different ways and not all cards are balanced against the same metrics, so it's...Unfortunately, it's pretty hard to make some cards good if you don't make other cards bad. Magic is balanced in many different ways and not all cards are balanced against the same metrics, so it's not always obvious why one card might see a ton of play and another is "literally unplayable." - a lot of times, a card good in one format is just not super important in another (and what those metrics are, regardless of what youtubers will tell you, are completely in the eye of the beholder).
For example, Identifying good commons and uncommons would be good for your deck are incredibly important in limited play formats like sealed deck or draft. In constructed formats, most of those same cards are more or less useless. But you do need to supply the playbase with both, because players play formats ranging from commander to pauper to modern to vintage to standard to draft to.....you get the idea.
Both excellent bands!