Idiomdrottning demonstrates a new and often cleaner way to solve most systems problems. The system as a whole is likely to feel tantalizingly familiar to culture users but at the same time quite foreign.

  • 3 Posts
  • 40 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
Cake day: June 26th, 2023
  • Sandra@idiomdrottning.orgtoMTG@mtgzone.com•Battles appreciation thread
    5·
    2 years ago

    You are correct that they got the power level just right and that they deserve major kudos for that, that can’t have been easy 👍🏻

    Another compliment they deserve is that they were a very good way to represent all planes (together with a couple of other cards from each plane) truly making MOM feel like it spanned all the planes.

    But overall I’m not too fond of them.

    Flavor-wise the sieges are weird. So you play a card named Invasion of Segovia (for example). What would you think such a card would represent? It represents… the Segovians fighting back at the Phyrexians—both sides of the card are flavored as Segovians doing Segovian stuff vs them.

    OK, so it’s called a “siege”. Like Helm’s Deep. And it’s a pro-Segovia, anti-Phyrexia card. So you’d think you’d want to defend it and defend it and defend it, like the Segovians in the story defended agains the Phyrexians. Siege. Simple. But no! You are trying to attack it down to release the sea tyrant Caetus who’ll help you fight the Phyrexians.

    So when your opponent plays a Siege, that means you are suddenly forced to represent someone who is invading Segovia (Phyrexians, presumably, whether or not you’d ever put any Phyrexian cards in your deck) and trying to defend the—not defend Segovia, but defend the invading force so they can’t release the sea tyrant or whatever.

  • Sandra@idiomdrottning.orgtoTechnology@beehaw.org•ELI5: What's the differences between Lemmy and kbin?
    1·
    2 years ago

    Correct, and that’s exactly why it does not work for group things.

    If fedi is like email, and it is similar in many ways, a Lemmy community is like a mailing list. People can send to the list and the threads on the list from different servers. And there can be separate communities about the same topics just as there can be separate mailing lists about the same topics.

    But hashtags in email wouldn’t work as a replacement for mailing lists. Hashtags in email can still have some use, within a mailing list or in a specific conversation, but it’s something very different from a mailing list.

    On kbin, if people think that “Oh, here is where the posts about cycling will show up” but the magazine is just based around a hashtag, there’s no way for people to participate deliberately. It’s misleading.

    Using hashtags as if it were tumblr or twitter is anti-decentralization and drives people into using the biggest instances only. Groups a la gup.pe and Lemmy and Friendica is a solution to that. It’s only a partially decentralized solution, since each group itself is centrally hosted (exactly like mailing lists were), but it’s at least a solution, whereas misusing hashtags that way isn’t.

    @ada @meteorswarm

  • Sandra@idiomdrottning.orgtoTechnology@beehaw.org•ELI5: What's the differences between Lemmy and kbin?
    1·
    2 years ago

    Yes, it works poorly everywhere on the fediverse, is exactly what I’m saying.

    Hashtags on Fedi can be good for organizing stuff within a single account or instance, or it can be used for other things like trigger specific bots, but they can not (as you know) work like an IRC channel like they did on Twitter.

    That’s why I’m not happy about kbin elevating that misfeature and legitimizing its misuse as if it were as robust as the other federated group protocols are. It’s not the end of the world or the worst feature on the planet, I’m not that worked up about it, it’s just not good, is all.

    (Again, not blaming you for that ofc, you only reported on it, and that was awesome, thanks.)

    @ada @meteorswarm

  • Sandra@idiomdrottning.orgtoMTG@mtgzone.com•Do people actually like commander?
    1·
    2 years ago

    I don’t like a lot of “on a whim” lolrandom hatpullery either, but rule zero can be great if it’s done with enough advance notice. House rules can be wonderful at creating fair, unusual, and skill-testing formats, where you can compete and test your mettle even when you can’t afford the hottest meta decks.

    D&D can feel meaningless with a DM with a finger on the scale, but not everyone plays D&D like that.

    There is more than one way to enjoy Magic, and not everyone needs to be into every way to play. I don’t wanna try to force you to play EDH, and I wouldn’t even if it was one of my fave formats, which it’s not.

    It’s just that I used to have some of the same problems and frustrations with it, and my new approach to it (to approach deckbuilding as if I were a game designer, sort of like how I’d build a cube or set or battlebox or set of duel decks) solved some of those problems while other issues remain.

  • Sandra@idiomdrottning.orgtoMTG@mtgzone.com•Do people actually like commander?
    2·
    2 years ago

    Yeah, it’s still not my fave format.

    It can sometimes be super boring. But sometimes it can be really charming and fun. For people who get into the lore, the experience, the flavor, or expressing yourself through weird combos. 🤷🏻‍♀️
    For a Magic that’s more akin to D&D than to chess or poker.

    It’s not good of people who wanna 💯 win. Which, granted, often is me, but that’s when I reach for other formats 🤷🏻‍♀️

  • Sandra@idiomdrottning.orgtoMTG@mtgzone.com•Do people actually like commander?
    7·
    2 years ago

    Yes, I used to have the same problem. It used to feel like it was full of invisible and unwritten rules that all contradicted each other. Getting bullied if cards are too strong or too weak.

    Casual EDH, that is: as you point out, competitive EDH doesn’t have the same problem.

    What I finally realized was that I shouldn’t approach it as a game. I should approach EDH deckbuilding like a crossword maker approaches making a crossword:

    To try to create something that is a challenge but beatable.

    It’s easy to create an unsolvable crossword. Just a bunch of white noise in a grid. But that’s just no fun to anyone. A good crossbow maker wants the crossword solver to have fun and to enjoy the puzzle, to tease them a bit but keep it realistic and grounded.

    Now, a game of EDH isn’t a puzzle, but it’s an experience.

    I started out making my first EDH deck super weak (it’s built around Tolarian Serpent) and have gradually been adding powerful cards or interactive cards or cards where I just like the art or the experience or the memory of when I first opened the card. I have a foil Rethink even though there are a lot better stack interaction cards, but it was just the first foil I ever opened so playing it makes me happy. The deck is still weaker than many of precons are out of the box so I still have a ways to go with it but that can be a gradual process of tweaking and modding.

    I hope this helps.

  • Sandra@idiomdrottning.orgtoMTG@mtgzone.com•2024 Lineup
    3·
    2 years ago

    Is Jace beside her, then?

    Jace’s heel turn and romance with Vraska has breathed new life in his character for me. Always loved Vraska but had a hard time with Jace. I love playing blue but he always came across as a perfect representation of the bullies and gatekeepers in the magic community and that turned me off. But from Ixalan on he has been a lot more interesting. I could see what a perfect fit for Phyrexia he was.