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Your Weak Mental is The Problem. How to Build Confidence like a Tennis Pro.

League of Legends is a technical game. From champion mastery to Lee Sin mechanics, there are many external skills to learn. You can find countless guides on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitch for these topics, but they're half the battle. To perform at the highest level in any field, we must develop inner skills. Staying concentrated. Being resilient. You may possess the knowledge to achieve X rank, but your weak mental is stopping you. No one teaches us how to navigate our minds. We only realize this problem after losing 10 games or being demoted an entire tier. And soon enough, we're back to our normal ways. That voice inside your head, scrutinizing your every move, is hindering your growth. It's preventing you from entering flow, peak psychological performance. We play out of our minds when we're not thinking too hard about our gameplay. After reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, I couldn't help but connect the dots to esports. How can we be self-confident? How can we empty our minds? I'm going to share my notes and observations in this post. I introduce to you The Inner Game of League of Legends.

Self 1 Versus Self 2

We all know what it's like to be mad at ourselves. Your death during laning phase turned into a 5000 gold lead for the enemy team*.* You call yourself idiot, stupid, dumb, and the list continues. In response, you try correcting your mistakes. "I shouldn't have flashed for that kill". "I missed my ultimate". Your judgement suffocates you and brews negative emotions. Who are you talking to exactly? Gallwey identifies in every player the two selves: Self 1 and Self 2. The voice inside your head is Self 1. It craves external validation and feeling special. It believes it knows how to reach the next level. Self 1 believes it must control Self 2 in order to succeed. Self 1 has little to no respect for Self 2. On the other side, Self 2 is your body. Millions of orchestrated neurons. A complex nervous system. The prefrontal cortex. Self 2 learns to ride a bike once, and it forever holds that feeling. It is so powerful that it can perform insane outplays in high-stake moments. When Self 2 is relaxed and free, its potential is limitless. But, because Self 1 ridicules Self 2, Self 2 becomes tense. The rigidity of the muscles and mind cause more mistakes. And Self 1 continues to throw the blame at Self 2. The key to unlocking mental fortitude is changing the relationship between Self 1 and Self 2. When Self 1 respects Self 2, peak performance comes naturally. Remember the last game you played out of your mind. Notice the emptiness of your mind. No verbal instruction. Self 2 was doing the work.

Silence The Inner Critic

Too often I catch myself in a vicious cycle. I enter a game feeling overly conscious of my performance. I make a small mistake during laning phase, and I think the game is over. Many content creators and coaches preach self-awareness, but too much self-awareness can prevent flow. This begs the question, "If I shouldn't critic myself, who will? How will I ever improve?" The answer lies in the difference between judgement and observation. Judgement occurs when we assign a positive or negative value to an event. If you miss a cannon, that's bad. If you destroy their inhibitor, that's good. Seems harmless at first, but imagine this typical scenario. (1) An event occurs, (2) Self 1 judges the event, (3), Decides if outcome is good or bad, (4) Continues or tries correcting behavior, (5) Tries too hard, (6) Self 2 tightens, (7) Worse performance. The cycle repeats. Over time, these instances form unhelpful narratives. We go from "I missed that skillshot" to "I choke under pressure". The narratives become self-fulfilling prophecies. What happens if we replace judgement with non-judgmental observation? (1) Event occurs, (2) Observe event, (3) Gain more awareness about behavior, (4) Let Self 2 learn. We're not ignoring our mistakes. We're just rephrasing them as patterns. Judgement is saying "My CS was bad", and observation is saying "My CS was 5.1 per minute". The former causes negative self-talk, and the latter leads to productive discovery. When we're too absorbed in judgment, we can't experience our behavior. We don't give Self 2 the chance to reflect and adapt. Knowing that you play too passively is nothing compared to feeling that you play passively. Kinesthetic experience is the best teacher. Self 1 doesn't need to manage Self 2. Self 2, your body, is designed to learn through awareness and its senses.

Picture The Desired Outcome

Before books and online tutorials, our ancestors learned skills by watching others. The prefrontal cortex, the product of thousands of years of evolution, is home to mirror neurons. When performing a motor task like picking up a rock, your brain fires neurons. Interestingly, when you watch someone else perform the same task, your brain still fires some neurons. Images are the language of Self 2. Not verbal instruction. When watching Faker's mouse clicks, your Self 2 is subconsciously acting them out. It absorbs the tiniest movements which are invisible to Self 1. The next time you play, your Self 2 refers to Faker as an example. From my experience, I experience a small buff in performance after watching pro play or Challenger VoDs. The problem with ego-based learning systems is their dogmatic and ambiguous nature. We take concepts and ideas too seriously. The answer to "When should I splitpush?" greatly depends on the state of the game. How you play a champion depends on the matchup and junglers. In terms of ambiguity, say a coach tells 10 of its students that "You should play aggressively as Zed". The result is not one cohesive feel for Zed but 10 different interpretations. Does that mean tower-diving at Level 6? Does that mean pushing the wave relentlessly? The less instruction that intrudes Self 2's natural learning progress, the better. Use outside learning models, but don't let them use you. Watch the best and focus on what most interests you.

Cultivate Concentration

You're 20 minutes into a Ranked game and your team is up 20 to 5. This game looks over. Your team's arrogance leads to a 50-50 baron call. Despite the scoreboard, they steal the baron and the throwing begins. Your Self 1 wanders and is bombarded by what ifs and should haves. Nervous about losing, you make a rash teamfight engage that makes matters worse. Soon enough, your teammates lose trust in each other, and you lose the game. Sounds familiar doesn't it? How do we stay focused during the highs and lows of solo queue? There are two strategies we can leverage to let Self 2 thrive in uncertainty. First, the most effective way to deepen concentration through sight is to focus on subtle details. Gallwey suggests focusing on the seams of the tennis ball instead of trying to hit it. I applied this suggestion to CSing in League and saw immediate benefits. CSing or farming is a core fundamental to the game. You try to time your autoattacks with the minions' health bars. You watch carefully as the particles fly back and forth. Your muscles tense. You miss and get angry. This type of focus doesn't let Self 2 do the work. Instead of trying to CS the minion, pay attention to its color and animations. I find this technique to be relaxing and mesmerizing. It's not tied to the outcome. It empties your mind. Second, focus on your breath. Your breath is always available. Whatever happens in your solo queue games, you have your breath to realign your focus. Lost a teamfight? Focus on your breath. Nexus race? Focus on your breath. If you're dwelling on mistakes, you're causing Self 2 to make lapses in attention. Self 1 tries to take control because it's afraid of losing. Your concentration level is the measurement of how many milliseconds you use in a second. How present are you? It's hard to describe what we're thinking during flow, but we know that Self 1 wasn't chattering away. Trust in Self 2 like it's a gift bestowed to you. Sacrifice Self 1.

Play The Game. Nothing Else.

I highly recommend reading The Inner Game of Tennis. It shares insights on performance in the context of tennis but can be applied to all walks of life. When striving for a particular rank, we become obsessed with external validation. If I'm X Tier, then my peers will respect me. Only then am I a person of value and intelligence. This obsession is why we grow anxious and become depressed in game. On top of your team's negativity, your Self 1 belittles your Self 2. Do not be too hard on yourself. You are more than a tier, division, or elo. Be patient with yourself and allow time for improvement. Don't play for the high of winning. Play because you enjoy testing your limits. When playing for the sake of the game, you facilitate a childlike attitude towards learning. You'll feel less stress and pressure to perform. Play for excellence not glory.
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[Discussion] Kaldheim Historic Overview & Top 10 Most Impactful Cards

Howdy folks! Zaalo here. I wanted to put a list together of what I think will be the most impactful cards in Historic as well as discuss the strategies that get better and some fringe/new decks that may get enabled. I’m really excited for the set and think the card flexibility of the MDFC Gods will allow for exciting games with multiple lines of play and a varied meta game, the likes of which we haven’t seen in Historic. There is also some mainboard Uro hate that slots perfectly into both popular existing archetypes and exciting new ones. Being impactful doesn’t necessarily equate to power. I considered the following criteria when evaluating these cards for Historic:
-How often it will see play. If it slots into multiple archetypes, I tended to rate it higher
-Whether or not it enables a new archetype and/or causes a fringe deck to become Tier 1-3
-How it interacts with the meta; if an archetype or card will have a heavy warping effect on the meta
-Flexibility & raw power
Lets jump in!
Honorable Mentions: Pathway Lands/Snow Basics
Smoother land bases for Simic, Azorius, Rakdos, and Golgari. 'Nuff said. While I don’t think we’ll see snow decks running rampant, there’ll be a few good ones in the meta, even if they only end up seeing fringe play. There is one snow deck that I expect to be VERY good.

10) [[Niko Aris]]

Tempo decks are coming back! All of Niko's abilities are solid. Their first -1 will have more relevant targets than people realize, and it'll be very easy to pop off a shard or get some other card draw to take out a creature. [[Paradoxical Outcome]] hasn't really seen any play since the release of Kaladesh Remastered, but I think Niko could make that happen. I like the idea of running [[Authority of the Consuls]] on 1, controlling the early game with [[Seal Away]] and [[Baffling End]], getting down Niko, and then casting Paradoxical Outcome to get your early removal and Niko back, wiping their board next turn. I think Niko will be much better in Pioneer where you can T3feri, Spell Queller, Niko durdle to lock your opponent out. Still, I think this does enough, pairs well with Kaya, and has lots of building potential to make some waves in new Azorius/Esper tempo archetypes. Of note: one thing that makes this card a huge liability is that it is the only Planeswalker with a triggered ability, which means your opponent can destroy it before you get to activate them. Additionally it can get blown out if you pop a shard to kill an x/3 or x/4, and then get targeted by removal before you can activate.

9) [[Cosima, God of the Voyage//The Omenkeel]]

This is one of the more difficult cards in the set to evaluate, but I think it will end up being really strong in addition to its flexibility. Firstly, the stats on this are good; having a 2/4 body on 3 can stall a good amount of decks, and a 3/3 is a clock against control decks. You're reliably going to be able to hit land with your Omenkeel attacks, and even when you don't, you've taken away their spells. Vehicles line up really well in the format already, since they dodge removal, and can leave you a blocker even if your other creature gets removed. The best ability here is clearly being able to exile Cosima and use her as an engine to go toe to toe in the long game. Like Niko, I think this card's natural home is a tempo deck where you've got powerful ETB creatures, but probably most naturally fits into Simic where you're ramping anyway.

8) [[Reidane, God of the Worthy//Valkmira, Protector’s Shield]]

Wizards did a brilliant job on the design of this card. I can’t think of a more flexible hate card in the history of Magic. The problem I see with it is that it’s not doing work a lot of the time. In the current meta, it’s only punishing 25-30% of decks, with Goblins, Sacrifice, Control, and Paradox Engine being the most commonly played strategies that it nerfs. That would probably relegate it to SB play, right? Probably, but the reason the design of this card is so great is because it serves to balance the meta game should particular strategies become popular; this card allows for a constantly shifting meta since it can become a frightening mainboard threat against some dominant and powerful strategies.
Some things to keep in mind that are keeping my expectations tempered:
-I can’t see this being played mainboard in non-aggressive strategies. A 2/3 isn’t what you want in a control deck. I’m not sure what a W/X midrange deck looks like in Historic, but maybe it would have a natural home in Orzhov Angels if that becomes a thing. Right now it only slots into G/W CoCo, and once Kaldheim gets released, I think a white weenies deck is viable.
-it begs you to hit it on curve. The tax on 4 CMC is the most relevant ability.
-Valkmira's target taxing effect will likely be largely irrelevant...the taxing effect doesn’t come down til T4 (or maybe T3 in CoCo). If you get it down on three it could do some work, but is taking a turn off for a marginal tax that your opponent can play around a good play? Probably not. And by T4 the effect is largely obsolete.
-the snow mana clause will likely be largely irrelevant. The Historic builds that will make use of snow are: Sultai/DimiTemuSimic, which will often already be online or have access to removal by the time Reidane gets down; Mono U Tempo is probably going to be the best snow deck and can easily counter or bounce her. The other potentially viable snow strategies are likely to be fringe: Mono B/Dimir Zombies and Big Red - both of which have some great support cards and ARE prone to getting punished by her snow hate ability.

7) [[Usher of the Fallen]]

WOTC has nerfed 1-drops the last few years, so seeing an above rate creature with upside that slots perfectly into White Weenies makes me think we’ll be seeing a lot of this card in any aggressive, go-wide strategy. Also, the Spirit and Warrior types matters and may enable some tribal or party decks down the line. We’ll see how far these strategies go in the format, but this lil guy can at least bring them to the brink.

6) [[Tergrid, God of Fright//Tergrid's Lantern]]

This card is insanely powerful AND synergistic. The problem is that it costs 5 mana, so in order for it see play and not get blown out, you need to have free sacrifice and/or discard outlets (and ideally away to ramp into it). Rakdos builds will likely fall by the wayside, and give way to Jund Food and Jund Sacrifice, which will reliably be able to cast this and [[Immusturm Predator]]. These decks will be way more powered than the Rakdos builds and likely just as consistent. Tergrid breaks mirror matches wildly in your favor, punishing your opponent's game plan. Another place this could see play is Discard decks...[[Skull Raid]] is exactly what those decks were craving and I think we'll see Tier 3 [[Tinybones, Trinket Thief]] builds that use this as a payoff. Doom Foretold decks could also

5) [[Birgi, God of Tales//Harnfel, Horn of Abundance]]

Could we finally see a good storm deck in Historic? There’s already some decent burn decks that use Thermo-Alchemist — if they splash blue for Curiosity, that could be a house. It seems decent in Mono R without having to go all-in on cantrips. And those aren’t the only archetypes this could see play. Rakdos Midrange will love this card. If this survives T3, they’re able to have much more productive T4’s than they otherwise would — often times they’ll have to choose between dropping a Chandra, Torch of Defiance and having it die the next turn, or using a Fatal Push and falling behind on tempo. This allows those decks to double spell, stabilize the board (kill 2 creatures) AND have a Chandra, Torch of Defiance in play, ready to tick up. The back side will be amazing and help close out games in which it’s stabilized but doesn’t have any answers in hand. Graveyard decks can also maybe make use of this to; being able to multi-spell in the decks is really good. I’m thinking of dropping something like a Venture Deeper (Merfolk Secretkeeper) and Unburial Rites in the same turn. I think this will be a heavily played 2-3 of in a variety of decks.

4) [[Mystic Reflection]]

this is my favorite card in the set, and hell, probably my favorite blue spell ever printed. This does so much:
-turns an upcoming Elder Giant into a dork that can’t Escape its new destiny
-is an effective conditional counter spell against planeswalkers
-can upgrade your creatures/downgrade your opponent’s; this has all sorts of fun build around implications and can flip tempo on its head (I’m most excited to brew a donate style tempo Role Reversal deck in Pioneer with Firedrinker Satyr, Faerie Impostor, Bonecrusher Giant, Brazen Borrower, etc.)
-is an instant-kill combo piece (this + Terror of the Peaks + double token generation = 20 to the face)
-is affordably costed and can become even cheaper to set up your combo turns
Where it’ll see play:
u/x Combo Decks - the current Lukka deck is not good, but I think with the addition of Mystic Reflection, we’ll be seeing this all over Historic (and Standard)
Mono-U Tempo - functioning as a more flexible counterspell that can transform your weenies into beaters and your opponent’s beaters into 1/1’s that they won’t have much use for
Azorius Control/Esper Tempo - I think the control decks will want to move toward a more creature-laden tempo-oriented build. Mainboarding Skyclave Apparition is really good and being able to get them and other strong ETB back to your hand with Niko and Kaya can help you maintain control of the game.

3) [[Ascendant Spirit]]

I’ve spent too much time on Reddit trying to get people to see the light on this card
This is exactly what Mono U Tempo in Historic was missing. Having a mana sink on turns where you don't counter a spell or flash something in is really huge for that deck. It doesn't immediately pair well immediately with Curious Obsession, but it doesn’t need to since you’re still running your other evasive creature suite. This also allows you to lower the curve of the build.
Now let’s in to play pattern — if you play it out T1, your T2 you have the option to either cast a flashy boi, counter their spell, bluff a spell, play a non-flash flyer (likely the weakest option in most scenarios), or pump this. If you’re playing against Valki or another incredibly strong 2 drop, you can keep that mana open to counter it. If you’re playing against aggro you can leave it open to bluff blocking their T1 threat with a 2/3. If you’re playing against control or removal, you can drop an additional creature and bluff [[Spell Pierce]]. Now let’s look at what happens when you draw this card T3 (or later). Play it on 3 with two mana open, leaving up mana for a counter spell. If you don’t counter anything, you invest the mana to make it a 2/3. Your next turn: you can make it a [[Tempest Djinn]] on their turn (or yours if you really want to push through damage). So you’re turning this into a creature that’s going to have about the same stats as TJ most of the time and allowing yourself to stay on game plan by leaving up mana to counter problematic cards and win gain incremental value.
I've seen some people talking about this in Spirits or multi-color builds, but I'm skeptical that you could make the land base reliable enough to take advantage of the mana sink.

2) [[Doomskar]]

I think this just straight up replaces Wrath of God in control. Being able to cast this on T3 is a huge upgrade and gives the deck a fighting chance against aggressive decks, where it has been struggling lately. It also grants you a certain amount of bluff equity since most control decks will want to run [[Behold the Multiverse]] in conjunction. Being able to hold it up if your opponent doesn’t commit to the board and you have other answers in hand further lends to its flexibility. Having a solid control deck in the meta is a strong check on the other decks in the format.

1) [[Valki, God of Lies//Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor]]

I was initially pretty disappointed in the card. I thought it would have pretty narrow building restrictions because I believed that any deck that wants this has to care about casting the Tibalt side reliably (this still may be true). As a result, I had thought that Jund and ramp strategies were the only options. I’ve since come around and think that it’s completely busted and will see a lot of play in several archetypes. Here’s my overview on the card:
Unlike most legends, he’s rarely dead in multiples since you can have Valki permanently copy their creature and then drop another Valki.
While copying an Uro on T3 is great, how about casting Tibalt on T3?! [[Release to the Wind]] builds seem very real to me in both Historic and Pioneer, and will only continue to get more great targets with the MDFC’s abound in upcoming sets through the year. Adventure cards play really nicely with RttW as well and I could see a new type of Reanimator build with Merfolk SecretkeepeStitcher’s Supplier. Doom Foretold decks may also want to splash red for Tibalt/RttW. The best Grixis decks that include him, I think will want to focus on cheating him out rather than controlling the early game to cast him late. I believe that the best decks that make use of him will be the ones that try and ramp or cheat him into play as opposed to more classic control strategies.
There are so many ways to cheat Valki into play from your graveyard- Lurrus, Call of the Death-Dweller, Inscription of Ruin, Elspeth Conquer’s Death, Claim//Fame. It’ll be interesting to see how effective a reanimator deck is, and with all the GY fillers/and way to recur creatures, I think we’ll get a few decks with intersecting archetypes.
Play patterns: I think most people are a little too high on the Valki side. Playing this on T2 is what you want to be doing against a lot of decks. It’s too fragile to just about any removal spell and paying 2 just to see your opponent’s hand and draw out a removal spell doesn’t seem great. It seems much better as a midgame card, where you can activate the ability the same turn it comes down. The play pattern will likely change depending what you’re playing against, but I predict that more often than not, playing Valki on curve isn’t what you want to be doing.
I think Tibalt will boost the popularity of these fringe Jund Midrange, Grixis Control, and possiblyRakdos Midrange, and will likely give birth to a “Release the Adventures Reanimator” deck pairing Release to the Wind with DFCs.
Other Cards Worth Mentioning

[[In Search of Greatness]]

I was initially a sour-sport to the players who were bullish on this card. And while it’s been incredibly overrated, mostly because people seem to miss that the free cast only counts other permanents (so you can’t play a free 3-drop on T3), this does have some powerful implications, albeit incredibly narrow.
In order to effectively build-around it, you need to:
-have ways to keep refilling your hand and/or tutor cards; the enchantment asks A LOT to go off. Not only do you need to curve out and keep your permanents on the battlefield, but you have to have the right card in hand at the right time AND an additional good spell in hand to gain a tempo advantage.
-only play high CMC creatures (if at all); as payoffs. Taking a turn off to play ISOG and then curving into a three-drop creature only to have it die before your upkeep means you’ve probably already lost. To avoid this, I’d only be playing enchantments (which dodge most removal spells) and spells at the 1-4 CMC slots.
Thus, the only place I think this could see play is in Abzan, Bant, and 4-Color Doom Foretold decks or Selesneya Prison decks. It’s far more likely to succeed in a Doom Foretold deck, since there’s good card draw options in Omen of the Sea, though having access to Idyllic Tutor to get the Solemnity + Nine Lives lock online is pretty janky and if you HAD to play a 3-drop creature, Setessan Champion does what you want it to do. That said, I still think this card asks too much, and that it’ll be bad if you don’t play it early.

[[Skull Raid]]

This card is a major role-player that the Tinybones discard strategies were desperately missing. When testing Mono B, Dimir, and Grixis discard decks post-Jumpstart, I was usually losing because I wasn’t drawing enough discard when I needed it, had dead discard spells in hand, or was not able to draw into my finishers fast enough for my opponent to stabilize. This card is so flexible and plays great on curve. Foretelling this on 2 into Waste Not and Thoughtseize T3, and having a flexible spell on 4 can destroy a lot of more powered decks. Tergid is also a solid top-end for the deck. I think in order for this to be a tier deck, it’ll need a symmetrical draw effect that doesn’t punish or tax you too badly.

[[Immersturm Predator]]

A resilient flyer and free sac outlet that breaks the mirror match in your favor and snipes Elder Giants from GY's will definitely see play and keep sac decks in the top tier. Jund Food/Sacrifice will be the go-to builds.

[[Old-Growth Troll]]

There's no denying this card's power and it will definitely see play in the Mono G stompy (and possibly even G/b decks). The problem is that those decks are already really crowded at the 3-drop slot, so while slightly upgrading the deck, it doesn't really do anything to break new territory.
Tribes
It's hard to say how well tribes will fare in Historic, since we haven't really seen how well the new tribal payoffs play. Most of the decks don't seem to have enough support or be powerful enough to make the cut in Historic. Here's my breakdown of the Kaldheim tribes and their potential impact on Historic:
Elves: [[Elvish Warmaster]] seems underpowered - it fights for a slot with [[Dwynen's Elite]], but has no immediate impact. I could see the decks including 1-2 still, but its hardly an all-in card. [[Tyvar Kell]] is a sideboard card that can help play the long game against Midrange and Control. [[Realmwalker]] is crazy good ([[Experimental Frenzy]] on a stick) and what I like best for this deck. It'll be meta dependent, whether it's a mainboard or sideboard card, but if the deck sees any significant tier play, it will be because of this card. Golgari elves doesn't seem to make sense in Historic, since there's not any really payoff for doing so, and Mono G may also be able to make use of snow cards. Overall, I'm not all that impressed with the deck, but could see it bumping up to T3 on the back of Realmwalker.
Giants: I could maybe see an Izzet or Grixis Giant control deck being a thing. You don't need that many Giants in your deck for it to tick, but I think there's better and stronger things to be doing in the format, and a lot of the Giant payoffs you'd be in for are just prone to getting turned off before you get the benefit. Probably fringe play, but nothing special here.
Angels: Of all the tribes, I think Angels got the most best cards, but not synergistic for an Angel-tribal deck. That said, I think there are enough lifegain pieces for a Tier 2 or 3 deck to be viable. It would likely be very different than the [[Soul Warden]]/[[Heliod, Sun-Crowned]] decks floating around. The curve plays really strongly here with [[Speaker of the Heavens]] and [[Bishop of the Wings]] with [[Resplendent Marshal]], Reidane, and [[Righteous Valkyrie]] all viable options on turn 3. These decks will also have access to two really good anti-control cards in [[Glorious Protector]] and to a lesser degree Redaine, who can delay their board wipes. If any of the tribal decks get there, I think this will be the one.
Zombies: [[Narfi, Betrayer King]] is Death Baron’s best buddy: a lord that’s great fodder for [[Cryptbreaker]] and ETBs at instant speed. This is so powerful. Zombies may very well make some waves in Historic in a Mono B or Dimir build. There's still a few pieces missing for this to be a top tier deck, but I think it could see some play and will eventually get there (WOTC, I think Gravecrawler is acceptable for Historic Masters 4). The deck wants an additional discard outlet, another good 1 and/or 2 drop zombie, and could’ve benefited from an additional cheap snow card. The downsides of a Mono B vs a Dimir build is up for debate: on the one hand, Mono B has a consistent snow mana base so you can reliably cast him from the GY but get punished if you get him stuck in hand; on the other Dimir has more building options and a way to hard cast him (not what you want to be doing) but an unreliable snow base for recursion. If I were going to build this deck, I'd start with Mono B, but I'm likely going to wait until we get the things I mentioned.
Berserkers: While [[The Bloodsky Massacre]] is one of the best sagas on its face, there just isn't enough tribal support for Historic. In Standard and Pioneer though...
Warriors: There's some good Warriors in the set, but nothing strong enough that I'd choose it over another aggressive strategy.
Changelings: These are roleplayers to make other tribal strategies work. Not happening.
Dwarves: Magda's day in the sun will come, but there isn't enough support for her yet. I think she's the card to watch in anticipation of the D&D set.
Trolls: LOL...nope
Sagas
The Sagas are interesting in that the Uncommon cycle is likely to see more play than the rares. I think in general, most of the sagas won’t see play except occasionally in fringe archetypes. The only ones I think will see play in any tier decks are:
[[King Narfi’s Betrayal]] - This is a great enabler for graveyard strategies and feeds into your game plan right away as opposed to [[Battle for Bretagard]], for example. It’s second and third modes are also extremely powerful for three mana, and still does a lot of work if you only get one creature or PW out of the deal. Yes, it's slow, but it does everything a Reanimator deck wants to do for only 3 mana.
[[Showdown of the Skalds]] - Could very likely be a two of in the top end of some aggressive Boros strategies. I haven’t seen any decklists that would suggest a tier player here, but there may be enough in this set for some party decks to thrive…a Naya CoCo deck similar to the G/W lists we’ve seen could also makes use of a card draw beefer-upper like this.
[[The Trickster-God’s Heist]] - Switcheroo is a unique effect, and this is a great tempo flip in [[Doom Foretold]] lists against midrange decks that could also break the mirror; I’m here for swapping a [[Treacherous Blessing]] for an [[Elspeth Conquers Death]].
[[Arni Slays the Troll]] - I don’t see too many Gruul lists running [[Domri’s Ambush]] anymore, but depending on how the meta shakes out, this could be successful in a hyper-aggressive, weenie/mono R dominated format (which I think we’re unlike to see).
[[Kardur’s Vicious Return]] - This is likely too slow for the sacrifice decks, but with discard decks getting an upgrade in [[Skull Raid]] and Tegrid, I think this slots in wonderfully. Sacrificing a [[Burglar Rat]] to stabilize the board and then further fuel your game plan in the coming turns is solid.
A Beloved Archetype Gets Tools
Big Red snow gets a lot of things to bump this archetype up! Unfortunately, as long as Aether Gust is in the format, I don’t think this deck has a real shot. That said, it gets a lot of great cards that will almost certainly get better with the D&D set this fall. [[Goldspan Dragon]] is probably on par with [[Glorybringer]]; and in some situations, ramping will be the stronger option. [[Toralf, God of Fury]] can upgrade your board wipes out of the SB. [[Tundra Fumarole]] allows for some tempo blowouts, especially when paired with Chandras. [[Frost Bite]] is an amazing piece of early removal to help you control the early game before you go off. [[Birgi, God of Tales//Harnfel, Horn of Abundance]] is very powerful in helping you go off with two big spells in the same turn and get you a card advantage engine in the late game. It also has access to Demon Bolt (which is probably worse than Redcap Melee out of the SB). Magda is very good too, but doesn’t have enough support yet.
Sign-Off
While Kaldheim took a fairly big power dip overall compared to recent sets, I think there are some brilliantly designed/flexible cards that will give birth to a diverse and powerful metagame.
I also predict that Uro will NOT be banned, and think that may even be the right call (I hate the card as much as the next player). This set offers powerful maindeck answers that are part of your game plan in Valki, Mystic Reflection, and Immersturm Predator.
Let me know what y’all think! Did I overlook a card? Am I overrating certain strategies? What do your top 10 lists look like for the format?
submitted by BourgeoisMystics to spikes [link] [comments]

[God Field] How the Game Works for EN Bros

About God Field

So recently I noticed that 5th gen, Pekora and Matsuri have started streaming/playing the game God Field. Suisei & Shion also joined in to play on Pekora's stream. Pekora also mentioned potentially doing a tournament for the game (not confirmed yet though). It seems like we might continue to see more streams of this game within Hololive.
However, I haven't seen anyone TLing any stream clips, which is a shame since it's a very funny game, made even more entertaining when Hololive members are playing it! I suspect it's because the game isn't well known to the overseas audience, so I decided to make this guide for TLers and EN fans who are interested but don't understand the game. I've provided examples from Hololive streams so that you can practice following along.
If you don't know anything about God Field, in short, it's a party card game. You could say it's like the Mario Kart of card games, and by that I mean it's a mixture of skill and unfair RNG mechanics and lucky card draws. The game also has the weird ability to make players start role playing, somehow due to its weird "God" theming and its unusual card and status names. You'll see players start to say silly things as they attack each other cards like "Goodbye Sword" or inflict weird status effects like "Fog". But these aspects are what creates very hilarious interactions and dialogue between the players, some of which I'll include at the end of this guide as a bonus.
You can also play the game for free here, but there's no tutorial, so I recommend reading this guide as you go.

Basics

The goal is to get your opponent's HP to 0. There are two main card types, attack (攻) cards and defence (守) cards. During your turn, you use attack cards to attack an opponent. The opponent can use defence cards to defend against it. 1ATK is equal to 1DEF.
EX: Suisei attacks Pekora with the 14 ATK "Violent Flail" (a very fitting card for her). Pekora defends with "Iron Armor", a 5DEF card, so she takes 9 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3161)
When defending, you can stack as many defence cards as you want at once. But for attacking, it's a bit different. You can only use 1 attack card normally, but you can combine "combo attack" cards to make a stronger attack. You can tell if it's a combo attack card if it has a "+" in its damage, for example "+3 攻" or "+3 ATK". Note that combo attack cards don't have to be used in a combo, they can also be used as standalone attacks.
EX: Polka attacks Lamy with a monstrous 10+13+10 card combo, a total of 33 damage. Lamy defends with a 1, 3, and 9 DEF combo, a total of 13 DEF, so she takes 20 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3314)

Elements

Some cards are color-coded, meaning they have an element. Elemental attacks can only be blocked with an elemental defence of a certain element. Fire & water (red & blue) counter each other, and stone & wood (grey & orange) counter each other. Elemental attacks are very hard to deal with, because you often won't have the specific elemental defence needed in your hand. Elemental cards themselves are also more uncommon than non-elemental cards. Note that you can use elemental defence cards to defend against non-elemental attacks too.
EX: Lamy attacks Botan with "Fire Crossbow", a +4 ATK fire card. Note that she used a combo card by itself instead of making a combo, which was actually a good play, because it preserved the card's element, making it so that Botan needed water element defence to defend it. Of course, Botan didn't have it, so *she took 4 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2603)
*This is a funny moment during a 3v3 team game of "Botan/Polka/Suisei" vs "Pekora/Nene/Lamy", where Botan says she'll "be a wall" for her teammates, and proceeds to get brutally focus-fired by the opposing team. More on why that happens later.
Actually, there are two more elements that behave quite differently: light (yellow) and dark (purple). Light cannot be blocked, and can substitute as Fire/WateStone/Wood for both attacks and defence. So it's like a wildcard element, as well as being virtually undefendable (a few cards can block it). Dark can be blocked by anything, even by non-elemental defence, but it kills the opponent if even 1 damage goes through. As you can imagine, both of these elements are very scary to deal with.
EX1: Shion attacks Pekora with "Justice Lance", a 5 ATK light card. Note that none of Pekora's defence cards are lit up, showing that they can't be selected, because again, light element attacks are unblockable. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5623)
EX2: Botan attacks Nene with "Killer Fork", a 5 ATK dark card. Nene didn't have any defence cards, so she died despite having 24HP due to the dark element's instant kill effect. Note that Botan likely knew she had no defence cards, because in the early rounds of this 3v3 team game, Team Suisei/Botan/Polka all attacked Nene, causing her to use her up defence cards early on. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2977)
You might be thinking that if you combine something like +10 ATK cards with a 5 ATK dark element card, you have the recipe for an OP combo. But actually, stacking attack cards of different elements will cause the entire attack to become non elemental, so you'll lose the "dark instant-kill" effect. However, there are combo cards which are elemental, so if you're lucky enough to get a +5 ATK dark element, you can combine it with a 5 ATK dark element to create a very lethal dark element attack.

Tip for Following Along as a Viewer

It can be hard to add up all the cards and consider the elements for a given interaction, especially when the players play very fast. Some cards are also both attack and defence cards, meaning they have an ATK and DEF value, making it extra hard to understand if you don't know the kanji. So as a tip, the game itself will show the total ATK, total DEF, and elements of a given interaction. It's shown below each of the two "card columns" of the field.
And as mentioned before, usable cards will light up in your hand, so you can tell if the streamer was forced to take an attack because they had no cards to play, or if they took it in purpose to save their cards for later.
EX1: Polka attacks with a 9ATK card and +10 Light ATK *card. Remember that non elemental and light don't combine, so it's actually just a non elemental attack altogether. Note the "19 攻" near the bottom left, showing the total attack, and the fact that it's black means that it's non elemental. On Nene's side, it shows a black "15 守" , meaning the total defence is 15, and is also non elemental. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2679)
*The light card Polka used is called "Meteor", hence why Polka says Suisei's catchphrase in reference to it.
EX2: Lamy attacks Botan with 3 wood ATK and +1 light ATK. Since light substitutes as wood, you can see in the bottom-left that it becomes an orange "+4 攻", or in other woods, a 4 damage wood attack. Once again, Botan is unable to defend, since elemental defence is very rare. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2926)

AoE Attacks

Some attacks have a "%" in their damage, for example "50% 9ATK". What this means is that they have a % chance of hitting each opponent with that much damage. So with "50% 9ATK", if you're in a 8 player free for all, you can think of it as flipping a coin for each of your 7 opponents, and if it lands on heads, they get hit by 9ATK. Depending on luck, the attack can either hit everyone, miss everyone, or do some mix of hitting/missing. AoE attacks are all elemental by design as well, making them extra annoying.
EX: Polka attacks Pekora/Nene/Lamy with "Rain Deity's Sword", a 50% 9ATK water card. And to her luck, it successfully hits all three of them. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2771)

Spells

Spells work basically like how they do in RPGs; they cost MP, and they can be used infinitely. You'll notice after a player uses them the first time, that the card stays in the bottom right of the player's hand. It's sort of like they "learned" the spell. Most spells are simply elemental attacks that cost MP, but there are some other unique effects they can do as well. In general, spells are much stronger than regular attack cards in this game, since they're essentially infinitely reusable elemental attacks. But they're usually hard to use since MP is a somewhat uncommon resource, and spells themselves are uncommon as well.
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Pekora has a measly 2HP, and Shion uses the spell "Ice", a 4ATK water spell that costs 2MP, to finish her off. Luckily, Pekora draws "Moonlight Shield" just in time, which reflect spells, and manages to survive. But if you recall, spells are reusable, so Shion just uses "Ice" the next turn. Miraculously, Pekora draws "Moonlight Sword", which also can reflect spells, and survives yet another turn. Finally, for a third time, Shion casts "Ice", but this time Pekora is all out of luck. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5637)
Spells actually have an interesting side effect. Because of how card draw works (you replenish the same amount of cards that you use), when using a spell, it counts as if you "used it" even though it remained in your hand. So your hand size will increase by 1 every time you use it, meaning it gives +1 card advantage. So if you have a cheap cost spell, you can cast it many times over the course of a game to continuously increase your hand size - and thus create a massive card advantage over your opponent. If you've played card games before, you'll realize that this is a very powerful effect.
EX: Pekora attacks Shion with a 6 ATK wood spell. Watch Pekora's hand in the bottom-left, and notice that she gains a card slot in her hand when she uses the spell. Also note that her hand is much bigger than the default hand size, as she's already used the spell a bunch before. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5152)

Statuses

There are very non-traditional status effects in this game, so I'll explain each one:
Fog: The background becomes blue, and various things become blocked with a blue fill. You can't see what cards other players play, unless they're attacking you. You also can't see anyone's HP/MP/Money, besides your own, and you cannot select who you target when you attack.
EX: Shion uses the "Fog" spell on Pekora. Pekora actually has a consumable that can cure it called "Heart Shell", which can cure all statuses, so she uses it. But "Heart Shell" is single-use, and if you recall, spells are infinite use, so Shion just casts "Fog" again right after, since the MP cost is low. The interaction itself is funny, with Shion constantly teasing her about "absolutely wanting Pekora to not be able to see~" (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5547)
Dream: All cards you draw have a 50% of being "disguised" - meaning they can actually be a different card then what it visually appears as. It'll reveal what the card really is when you use it. A "disguised" card will have a misty filter on it. Note that cards can't turn into cards of another type - meaning you can't defend with a defence card, but then it turns into an attack/spell/consumable card with 0 DEF. It'll always turn into another defence card. And if it's an elemental defence card, it'll turn into an elemental defence card of the same element. This makes it so that you can't play a "wrong" or "invalid" card as a result of dream.
EX: In a close game of Pekora vs Matsuri, where both players have 7HP left, Matsuri attacks Pekora with a 11ATK combo. Pekora's only defence card is a potentially fake "Flame Boots", a 3DEF card, so she thinks she will lose, especially since elemental cards tend to have low DEF, so even if it's fake, it'll still probably turn into another weak card. However, it's actually revealed to be "Flame Armor", a 12DEF card, so she survives with excitement. (Volume Warning https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=4706)
Flash: You can only use up to 1 defence card when defending.
EX: Polka hits Botan with *"Horror Wheel", a +11 ATK card. Botan counters with "Uranus Ring", which inflicts flash to whoever damaged her, so Polka gets the "Flash" status. Then, Lamy attacks the "Flashed" Polka with the 9 ATK "Power Halberd", which is difficult to defend since she can only play 1 defence card. To top it off, Polka's under "Dream" as well, meaning she doesn't know if her 1 defence card will be good enough, since it may change into another, weaker card. This interaction shows a special yellow text (まぶしい) that translates to "bright". So while getting hit, Polka says "It's bright! What's with this brightness?" (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=1043)
*You might be wondering why Polka used a combo attack on its own, since unlike in the previous similar example with Lamy, it's non-elemental, so it should be better to combine it with another attack. It's because she was new to the game - Nene actually starts explaining it to her about "+" and "combo" cards during that timestamp after she plays it.
Dark Cloud: If you're hit with a % attack, it has a 100% chance of hitting.
EX: Shion hits Pekora with "Flare Axe", a 50% 10ATK fire card. Pekora is already under Dark Cloud, so she gets hit. This interaction shows a special purple text (不可避) which translates to "inevitable", as in it's inevitable the hit will land. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5967)
Cold->Fever->Hell->Heaven: These disease statuses give -1/-2/-5/+5 HP per turn. They're related in that diseases can get "worse" at a 5% chance each turn, or when you catch another disease. When a disease becomes worse, it turns into the "next stage" disease. Meaning cold turns into fever, which turns into hell, which turns into heaven, and after heaven, you'll simply die.
Heaven is quite odd since unlike the other diseases, it gives you HP per turn rather than dealing damage per turn. But instead you have a 5% chance of dying at the end of your turn. So it can create some thrilling situations where a player is nearly unkillable because of the +5HP per turn, but also can die at any moment if their luck turns bad.
EX: Lamy uses "Heaven Herb" on herself, which gives +20 MP, but also puts herself under "heaven". Note the +5HP that appears after as a result of "heaven". Polka questions the play at first, since heaven is very dangerous so you'd rather give it to someone else, but then she realizes you can cure it later. So Lamy used it as a desperate way to heal herself, as her HP was running low. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3144)

Common Keywords

There are some common card effects that are important to know.
Bounce Attack/Spell - Redirects an attack/spell to anyone in the game, even to the person who bounced it! A quirk of this mechanic is that the attack/spell will become unblockable if you bounce it and it redirects to yourself.
EX: During a team battle, Polka uses the light element spell "Meteor" on Lamy. Normally, light is unblockable - but Lamy plays "Sky Helm" which bounces spells. It then bounces to... (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3010) Polka's ally Botan, causing Polka's attack to kill her own teammate, who only had 7HP, and no way to counter light element.
Reflect Attack/Spell - Reflects the attack/spell back to the attackecaster. Fairly self explanatory, but it's good to be aware of, as it's the common cause of funny moments, along with "Bounce".
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Pekora has only 7HP and is on her last legs, while Shion has 22HP. Shion plays "Ice Age", a 75% 30ATK water spell. Shion thinks she just won, as it's nearly impossible to deal with 30 water damage. But... (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5268) Pekora uses "Moonlight Sword", which is an attack card that can also be used as a defence card to reflect spells, and makes a comeback.
Cast Spell w/o Cost: You can combine a card with this effect to cast a spell for free. This is why you'll see players occasionally cast a spell without enough MP, and combine it with a seemingly unrelated armoweapon.
EX: Polka casts the spell "Meteor" which costs 7MP on Lamy, but she only has 1MP. She then combines it with the consumable card "Spiritual Doll", which allows a spell to be casted with no cost. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3074)
Block Attack/Spell - It allows you to fully block certain kinds of attacks, regardless of how high the damage is.
Counterattack - A defensive keyword that activates upon receiving damage. You'll see counterattack on a set of cards known as "Elemental Planet Rings", like the "Uranus Ring" mentioned before. They all have very different effects. Some effects scale based on how much damage you took, meaning you might intentionally take more damage to boost the effect. A common mistake is to use defensive cards with a counterattack card, because it may weaken the special effect.
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Shion counters Pekora's 11ATK "Gravity Mace" with "Saturn Ring", which counterattacks with double the received damage, as stone element. So Pekora was countered with 22 stone ATK. If Shion instead tried to fully block the attack while using Saturn Ring, it would've dealt no damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=6025)
Inflict "X Status" on Damage - If the attack deals at least 1 damage, it'll also inflict a status.
EX: During the 5th Gen FFA, Lamy attacks Polka with "Bogus Spear", which has "inflict Dream on hit". Polka gets scared, saying "I have to completely defend this!". Earlier in the stream, nearly everyone had spent a long time under the effects of "Dream", so she was afraid of experiencing it again. It's a very scary status to be afflicted with. (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=4301)

Consumables

These are mostly cards that simply heal HP, MP, or cure statuses. Though there are actually some with much more wild effects, like the "Heaven Herb" mentioned previously. An interesting part about these cards is that you can use them on someone else, so for example you can heal allies in team matches. One more notable feature is that they're in a separate category from attacks or spells, and this game only has blocking cards that work against attacks and spells. As a result, there is no way to block consumable cards.
EX: Continuing from a previous example, Pekora uses "Heart Shell" to cure her teammate Lamy's "Heaven". She was afraid that Lamy would die from heaven, leaving her in a 1v2 situation, so she waited a few turns for it to heal her, then cured her. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3237)

Money

You may have noticed that both players and cards have "￥" on them. "￥", or money, is used for three specific cards: "buy", "sell", and "exchange". These cards are fairly common, have very unique effects, and can be OP when used right, so I'll explain them thoroughly.
Buy: target a player, then the game chooses a random card from their hand. You then have the option of buying that card from them. The real power of this card comes from its glitchy side effect - similar to spells, after buying a card, it actually increases the buyer's hand size by 1. But unlike spells, it also decreases the seller's hand size by 1, meaning this gives a +2 card advantage. You might notice a player's hand size becoming extremely small or big, as a result of multiple uses of this card. Needless to say, this card is extremely powerful.
EX: Pekora gets lucky and manages to buy Shion's "Real Ghost Sword", a 12ATK lifesteal card. This effect is very powerful and essentially means the card has 24ATK in terms of value. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5331)
Sell: choose one of the cards in your hand, and target a player to forcefully sell it to. It has the same side effect as "buy" cards, meaning you lose 1 hand size for using it, and the opponent gains 1 hand size. So at first it seems like a terrible card since it has -2 card advantage, but it actually has its uses. For example, what happens if you sell a $30 card to someone with $0 money? The victim is forced to buy the card no matter what. If they're too poor, they pay in MP instead. If they have insufficient MP, then they pay in HP. So they can actually die from being too poor to buy a card. So when used on a poor player, this card actually becomes an unblockable MP drain, and/or an unblockable attack.
EX: Suisei says "Peko-chan, Peko-chan, looks like you don't have any money right now" and then sells her an expensive Heart Shell. To add insult to injury, she already has two Heart Shells, and because she has no money, she lost 15MP instead, which she crucially needed because she has 3 useful spells in her hand. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3217)
Exchange: allows you to freely exchange your HP, MP, and money at a 1:1:1 ratio. This card is pretty straight forward, and doesn't have any crazy side effects like the others. The thing to note is that there are very few ways to gain HP/MP/money in this game, so this card is one of the most versatile cards in the game and combos well with all HP/MP/money cards.
EX: Shion vs Pekora. Shion has been using the spell "Treasure", which costs 5MP but gives 10$, to reach a total of $60. And as her HP runs low, she uses "exchange" to turn 60$ into 40HP and 20MP. As a result of this, while taking Pekora's attacks, she was able to fully heal herself, and leave herself with 20MP for a strong spell later, all the while increasing her hand size by a lot due to spamming the spell "Treasure". (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5798)
These cards all belong to the "trade" category, so like "consumables", they aren't considered an "attack/spell", so they cannot be blocked.
Note that money is not used to play cards, this value is strictly only for buying and selling. Cards don't have any cost to play them (except MP for spell cards).

Guardians

Certain cards will allow players to summon elemental guardians, which have a 25% chance of casting cards after every opponent's turn. The cards they cast depend on their element, the dark guardian for example will randomly choose between 5 dark element cards. Also, guardians don't need MP to cast spells. Guardians have a 10% of disappearing when the player they belong to gets hit. There's also a money guardian and a healing guardian, which are less deadly since they don't attack, but still are quite annoying if left alone for too long.
In general, guardians are a huge threat, as it's impossible to keep up with the amount of elemental defence cards needed to block their elemental attacks. The value they generate over time is so threatening that players in a team or FFA game will often start focus firing you for having one.
EX1: Pekora uses "Guardian Sealed Jar" on her teammate Lamy, to give her a guardian. She gets the darkness guardian, which has the potential to win the game on its own by constantly sending out dark element attacks. However, its threat causes Lamy to get *brutally targeted by Team Suisei & Polka, and eventually the guardian falls (Summoning https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3042) (Disappears https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3115)
*If you remember, Lamy had to use "Heaven Herb" on herself before due to her HP getting low. This was from the same game and happens right after this. So her HP was getting low because of the guardian her ally Pekora gave her.
EX2: Remember the Botan moment from before, where she says "I'll be a wall for everyone!" in a 3v3 game? The reason she said this was actually because she played "Guardian Sealed Jar" before, and thus you can see she has a guardian icon next to her on the top right. So she was playfully speaking to the fact that she drew the opposing team's aggro. And indeed, she ends up taking the brunt of the opposing team's attacks and dies first for her team. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2603)

Apocalypse

There's an optional setting in the game where when a certain number of turns pass, the apocalypse starts. When this happens, the background changes, and there's a high chance of drawing "devil" cards, which have various effects, most notable of which is just straight up receiving unblockable damage. It's basically a "hurry-up" mode - a way to stop games from being too long. Another fun interaction is that since devils count as cards, you can actually: draw a devil, take damage, devil gets discarded/used so you draw another card, you draw ANOTHER devil, take damage, and repeat. So you can simply die from endless devil damage, all from one card draw!
Pekora/Matsuri/Polka didn't use the setting, so there are no examples of it. But I explained it in case one of them uses it in the future.

Playing The Game

Within the RNG, the game has some interesting mechanics and strategy, which I've tried my best to cover. But if you want to understand the streams fully, I ultimately recommend playing the game yourself, as there's many unique card effects that I haven't covered. In addition to effects, knowing the card names and draw rarity adds much needed context to what the players are saying. There are times when players will play multiple powerful rare cards in a row, which adds to the hilarity.
The game is free and playable on browser and mobile. There's a "bible" on the top-right where you can check card effects and rarities, and modes where you can play vs AI, with friends, or with strangers. This game is very fun with friends, but is boring alone IMO. However, there's no tutorial, and the UI is confusing, so you should familiarize yourself with the game first before introducing it to friends.
It also has a NND style chat, so if you're wondering about the floating text that sometimes appears, it's the hololive members typing it.
The game uses odd "God"-themed terms for things, which I avoided using in the guide to prevent confusion. But you'll need to know them to play the game, and the players themselves make references to it, so here's a chart:
God Field's Terms Regular Game Terms
Artifact Card
Curse Status
Miracle Spell
Sundry Consumable
Ascension Death
Seizure Death by Heaven
Forgive Allow (allow an action to happen without playing any cards in response)
Pray Pass (if you have no attack cards, pass and draw a card)
Bible Glossary / Card Library
Gift Rate Draw Chance
Phenomena Global Effect
Prophet Player
Hidden Melee Private Lobby
Again, one of the charms of the game is how it makes the players "role-play" as they attack each other with unethical cards combos and statuses, so I'm hoping that whoever TLs any clips can capture the nuance and wordplay well. Thanks for reading!

Bonus: Stream Highlights

submitted by catsobi to Hololive [link] [comments]

The 2020 Steam Winter Sale Hidden Gems Megathread

*Hi people. I always do a 'hidden gem' suggestion thread during the bigger sales, so here is the one for the Winter Sale. Since the list only grows, I decided to add a section specifically for new games, for those of you who read through the list each sale when it's posted. I figured it would save you some time. *
NEW GAMES SINCE LAST THREAD
Popup Dungeon - $18.74 (-25% off) - Very Positive | 412 reviews : A top down dungeon crawler roguelite with absolute freedom of creation tools. Create, or download, custom campaigns, enemies, heroes, skills, and more.
DYSMANTLE - $15.99 (-20% off) - Overwhelmingly Positive | 954 reviews : A Zombie survival game that plays more like an ARPG, with a healthy dose of exploration and mystery. Incredibly early in EA, so may be worth waiting on if you want a full experience.
Snakebird - $3.49 (-50% off) - Overwhelmingly Positive | 528 reviews : A deceptively cute puzzle game that will destroy your brain with its difficult puzzles. They released an easier take on the game with Snakebird Primer
Super Cloudbuilt - $2.99 (-85% off) - Very Positive | 132 reviews : Fast paced parkour 3d platformer.
Cogmind - $17.99 (-10% off) - Very Positive | 674 reviews : An incredibly polished roguelike all about creating weird builds and swapping out your machine's parts as you come across new ones, and your old ones degrade.
Element TD 2 - Multiplayer Tower Defense - $8.99 (-10% off) - Very Positive | 265 reviews : A deep tower defense game straight out of Warcraft 3 from the original devs. Has Solo play and multiple ways to play online: Coop, Duels, and Free For All Survival
Ara Fell: Enhanced Edition - $7.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 693 reviews : An RPGMaker JRPG with great art, memorable characters, and a good story.
Metamorphosis - $9.99 (-60% off) - Very Positive | 159 reviews : A Kafka~esque adventure puzzle walking sim. Has a Demo
Prodigal - $7.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 36 reviews : A masterfully done homage to the old Legend of Zelda games, harking back to Oracle of Ages/Seasons on the Game Boy Color
Ikenfell - $15.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 210 reviews : A turn based rpg set in a magic school. Lots of charm and heart in the characters
Under 1k Reviews
Puzzle
Recursed - $1.99 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 261 reviews : A puzzle game similar to Baba is You where the rooms themselves are items that you can move inbetween other rooms
TRI: Of Friendship and Madness - $3.74 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 318 reviews : Puzzle Platformer like portal, but you use geometry instead. It rewards you for thinking outside the box too. I built a staircase to get outside the level, and get to the highest point, and found a collectible at the top. The devs know you will try to break it, and they reward you for doing so, instead of shaming you for thinking creatively.
FRACT OSC - $3.74 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 379 reviews : A Musical exploration game where you solve puzzles with sound
DROD: Gunthro and the Epic Blunder - $4.99 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 65 reviews : A turn based puzzle rpg game. The whole series is great, but this one (#4) is one of the best places to start.
I Am Overburdened - $1.49 (-70% off) - Very Positive | 103 reviews : A great loot based dungeon crawler. Could probably fall under roguelites, but I find it is more similar to a puzzle game with the way you have to strategically attack monsters and level up like Desktop Dungeons did.
Cypher - $1.49 (-70% off) - Very Positive | 361 reviews : A first person puzzle game all about cryptography.
RPG
Battle Chef Brigade Deluxe - $7.99 (-60% off) - Very Positive | 880 reviews : Oh my god, how does this have less than 1k reviews? Its like a ghibli movie, with the superb animations, mixed with a monster slaying version of chopped, and a bit of match 3 gameplay for the cooking. Its such a fun game to play, and the concept of it is incredible. There need to be more cooking games done as well as this, because HOLY CRAP its good.
3030 Deathwar Redux - A Space Odyssey - $7.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 896 reviews : A Space Sim mixed with an old fashion Indiana Jones adventure game, with a sprinkling of cyberpunk atmosphere.
Siralim 3 - $4.49 (-70% off) - Overwhelmingly Positive | 824 reviews : An indie Pokemon game, but actually innovative and good.
Alvora Tactics - $7.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 73 reviews : The second of three games like Final Fantasy Tactics from a passionate developer
Broken Reality - $7.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 600 reviews : Ever wanted to explore the 80s vaporwave internet in first person? Nows your chance
Platformer
Knytt Underground - $1.39 (-80% off) - Very Positive | 139 reviews : A pure exploration based metroidvania platformer with a massive world. No combat to be found here.
Slime-san: Superslime Edition - $5.99 (-60% off) - Positive | 36 reviews : Supermeatboy meets the old style graphics. So sad the community never took off, since the devs released a Level Creator for it as well
1001 Spikes - $7.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 382 reviews : One of the first 'superhard platformers' I remember playing through back on the 3DS. Has a ton of postgame content if you can beat the main game.
Walking Sim
Heaven's Vault - $14.99 (-40% off) - Very Positive | 894 reviews : Man it saddens me that this never got big. Its got the same exploratory feeling that The Outer Wilds left me with. Its linear up until one point, and then you are free to explore wherever you want to go. The world is so fleshed out, and exploring the dead civilization and piecing together what happened while learning the language is a great experience.
Sagebrush - $3.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 111 reviews : Trapped on a cult compound and you gotta figure out what happened here
TIMEframe - $0.95 (-84% off) - Mostly Positive | 231 reviews : Kinda Outer Wildsy, where you are stuck in a time loop that consists of the last 10 seconds of a city's existence, but time is slowed so those ten seconds last for ten minutes.
The Magic Circle - $4.99 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 847 reviews : Too perfectionist to finish any endeavor you start? Well now you can feel called out while avoiding that work too!
Strategy
Stellar Tactics - $12.99 (-35% off) - Very Positive | 823 reviews : A Space Sim RPG with xcom esque planetary exploration and combat. Lots of interlocking systems for people who like complex games.
Tenderfoot Tactics - $19.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 83 reviews : Really surreal take combination of open world party RPG and RNG Free turn based tactical combat. Super trippy visuals where the distant landscape shifts around you.
Fort Triumph - $12.49 (-50% off) - Mostly Positive | 465 reviews : Fantasy Xcom with a fully interactable and destructible environment, with a Heroes of Might and Magic overworld and base expansion system
Impossible Creatures Steam Edition - $2.49 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 969 reviews : An old, old RTS where you build units by genetically smashing together creatures. Want to take the camouflage gene from a chameleon and mash it with a whale, so you have an invisible water behemoth? You better believe you can.
The Dungeon Beneath - $11.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 66 reviews : Quick Autobattler with an awesome soundtrack and plenty of unlocks.
Tycoon/Base Building
Merchant of the Skies - $9.89 (-34% off) - Very Positive | 890 reviews : Ever wanted to be a trader in a steampunk world of islands floating in the sky, and play a magic flute for a giant carrot? Well you can here! Great trading game that has a main goal, lets you set up production chains by overtaking resource based islands, and start a fleet of traders to do your work for you.
Odd Realm - $7.99 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 431 reviews : A 'cozy' feeling basebuilder like Rimworld. A bit light on content, but has great sound design and mechanically different factions worth playing.
Reignfall - $0.49 (-90% off) - Very Positive | 232 reviews : An wave based RTS where you can drop down and control your 'hero' on the battlefield. No campaign, but earn relics throughout games you can bring into future games.
Warsim: The Realm of Aslona - $4.79 (-40% off) - Very Positive | 426 reviews : ASCII kingdom management game with way too many race and characteristic combinations to count.
Roguelites and Roguelikes
Tangledeep - $5.09 (-66% off) - Very Positive | 650 reviews : An easily accessible rogueLIKE for those who want to try out the genre. Lots of systems, including a pet system that lets you capture any enemy as a pet, and a few dlc's that add to the game.
Dungeonmans - $4.94 (-67% off) - Very Positive | 613 reviews : Another great rogueLIKE that works as a great intro, with some good writing and humor. Has a castle you build up and fill out as you continue dying over and over again, and has options to turn off the persistent map and progress, if you like a more faithful roguelike experience.
Kingsway - $3.99 (-60% off) - Very Positive | 912 reviews : A Medieval game like ftl, where the 'OS' is your way to interact with the world. Monsters pop up as windows in the 'OS' and you have to fight and dodge through the interface itself. Nice retro feels, while having some fun gameplay and possibilities.
Beat Blast - $11.19 (-20% off) - Very Positive | 115 reviews : You equip items you get onto a 'beat bar' which activates in sequence to the beat of the music where each row has a different attack. The dev has a web demo up on his site as well.
Casual
Geo - $2.24 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 88 reviews : A casual mining game that feels like a love letter to old flash games like Motherload. Lots of content, and perfect for second monitor gameplay while you watch or listen to something.
Intergalactic Fishing - $9.74 (-35% off) - Very Positive | 112 reviews : No Man's Sky, but with actual depth, and a hell of a lot more fish. Hop to randomly generated planets and craft lures to catch randomly generated and simulated fish.
Wilmot's Warehouse - $8.99 (-40% off) - Very Positive | 203 reviews : Let your inner OCD fly as you organize boxes for delivery inside of a warehouse.
Over 1k Reviews - Generally I want to stick to games with less than 1k reviews, but occasionally I find a game so good that I think it deserves to be seen more
Platformer
Wuppo: Definitive Edition - $3.74 (-75% off) - Very Positive | 3,058 reviews : Move over Hollow Knight. You've been dethroned as one of the top modern metroidvanias. Just a pure fun, silly game.
RPG
Eastshade - $12.49 (-50% off) - Very Positive | 2,955 reviews : Bob Ross RPG anybody? Paint your way into the humanoid animal people's hearts
Hypnospace Outlaw - $13.99 (-30% off) - Very Positive | 1,428 reviews : An insane nostalgia kick to the early days of the internet. Track down misdeeds on the Hypnospace
Tycoon/Base Building
Colony Survival - $14.99 (-25% off) - Very Positive | 4,154 reviews : A great first person game all about growing and protecting a colony. Use your sla... workers to automate a ton of tasks and start thriving.
submitted by XxNerdAtHeartxX to gamingsuggestions [link] [comments]

Why I had to leave the r/MtvChallenge mod team (and the sub)

I wanted to post something to my profile in case users from MtvChallenge have questions about why I'm no longer posting my Player of the Week surveys to the sub.
Over the last two weeks, eight mods left the mod team following months of discord within the team. The team has been dysfunctional, well, ever since I joined. But over the past few months, every small mod disagreement has blown up into a massive fight that usually causes at least one mod to step down, and now caused eight at once, leaving just three people on the team.
After we left the team, all of us were shadowbanned, meaning our comments are automatically removed so the mods can screen them. None of us have ever broken a single sub rule that would warrant a shadowban; beyond that, they are not approving most of our comments, including responses to their own comments, namely this comment where a current mod alleges we tried to "burn the sub down." I tried to respond with this - unsurprisingly, the comment was deleted.
I have never commented anything remotely bannable on that sub. I have contributed good content there for two years. I was a good mod and I’ve been banned because I had a very simple question about whether we could review our AutoMod list to see if every term there was still necessary.
(For reference, the "automod list" that will be referred to is a list of terms that could potentially spoil users. It's >400 terms in order to protect users from spoilers.)
Shadowbanning all of us is an absolute abuse of mod power, so I’ll be reporting to admins, but even more immediately than that I am obviously leaving the sub.
There's really nothing to lose, so if anyone is interested in some pointless online drama, let me break down the timeline of how the mod team of a relatively drama-free subreddit completely fell apart.
The players -
MG - the current top mod, has been top mod for 1.5 years, completely revamped the sub when she took it over and made it a safe space for unspoiled users to access.
Natty - the most active mod; he "left the team" about a month ago following a different mod fight where he felt disrespected by the rest of the team. He left for about two weeks, and most of the following fight refers to him because MG was very upset that we didn't care enough that he left.
Everyone else - former mods that either left that night (7 of us) or were forcefully removed two days ago (1 of us).
The timeline -
I joined as a mod in September 2019. Within a month, the top mod at that time got in a fight with the mod team, removed every other mod, and deleted thousands of posts from the sub. We were able to get the sub back by the next morning, and MG wanted to be the top mod so we could ensure nothing like that ever happened again.
(For reference, being top mod matters because you can remove any mods who are below you; the top mod can't be deleted and therefore has the most "power" on the sub.)
Things ran pretty smoothly for about a year. Our mod team had 6-8 active mods at that time. Though we did have an official mod chat, most decisions about mod actions were taking place in a group chat with MG, Natty, myself, and one other mod. We were messaging this chat hundreds of times a day.
Then, over the summer, we added a bunch of new mods because our sub has grown like crazy in the last year. Conversation shifted away from the group chat and back to the official mod chat and off topic chat, including more mods in decision-making.
That brings us to September and the start of the end (eerie music playing in the background).
The infamous Discord -
So it's September 30, 2020. I'm bored in the house and I'm in the house bored. I'm talking about Among Us with other mods in our off-topic chat. We realize that most of us play, and I get the idea to make a Discord server so we can all play together. I post about it in our official mod chat, and everyone who comments agrees (MG and Natty were not online at the time and didn't see our conversation until later). I posted to a thread on our sub and asked if any users would be interested in a server like that. A bunch of users replied that they would. I said I would have to wait until we had a more official conversation before I got it going.
A few hours later, MG messaged our mod chat and me personally and said I had brought up Discord as a personal attack against her. Apparently, our sub has a long-standing rule against Discord servers (although this is nowhere to be found in the mod handbook and doesn't exist on our sidebar). She also claimed she'd told me several times that she would never approve a Discord server. We had a huge argument about this, resulting in me almost being kicked off the mod team, but I agreed that we would just keep it to mods for the time being because she was so against the idea of inviting users.
For the next four months, we just used Discord to play games together like Among Us and Jackbox. Those of us who used the server - everyone on the team except the three current mods - definitely became closer because we were hanging out a lot more and playing together, but we still used the official mod chat and off-topic chat on Reddit. Over time, we had more and more fights about the Discord and various other happenings on the sub.
Throughout all of this, our mod team was constantly changing. The turnover on this team is pretty aggressive - since I joined in September 2019, the only mods who are still there are MG and Natty. There have been 5-10 other mods, besides the 8 who left in the last two weeks, who were removed or quit.
The strategy of "asking" mods to quit went something like this: MG decided that person should no longer be a mod, picked a fight with them in the mod chat, then asked them to remove themselves from mod chats and to de-mod.
Sometimes it went further than that. For example, after one mod was removed, MG messaged the mod chat and asked us all to stop messaging them, to not invite them to games, and even asked that we turn off our Discord gaming profiles so they couldn't tell when we were gaming together.
Earlier this morning, I tried posting this, but the mods removed it with this comment. Here’s a screenshot of what I tried to post.
For clarity, I did message a couple users tagged in that post - two, to be exact - that I’ve made friends with over the last couple years because I was upset about what had happened.
It’s a blatant lie to say we’ve never allowed mod drama on the sub. Here’s MG herself posting to the sub after the big drama 1.5 years ago. There were SEVERAL threads about that drama, and EVERY mod was commenting about it all over the sub. I would go back and find my own comments (that were approved - because it’s fine to address drama if it’s from a certain POV), but my bitch ass comments a LOT. I don’t have the energy or the job security to find specifics right now.
Now for the fun part. RECEIPTS. The mod fight that resulted in all of us leaving went on for MORE THAN FIVE HOURS (!!!) and takes up 180 photo spots of my iCloud storage. God, the sacrifices I make. Because that's way too much for anyone to read, in the brilliant words of Lin-Manuel Miranda, HIGHLIGHTS!
Here’s the message I sent to MG that kicked off the final fight. We chatted for a bit, but everything we discussed is addressed in the group fight later on.
Part one of the mod fight - MG brings our private conversation to the public chat, says I can step down if I disagree with her, Whit chimes in that he agrees with MG, and she says he needs to step down. (Note: I didn’t leave anything out of this first part, this is exactly how the beginning of the convo went.)
Part 2
Part 3 - whit is removed as a mod
Part 4
Part 5 - PQ and I leave as mods
Part 6 - I left the mod chats and re-joined when Natty was added back as a mod without consulting any of the other mods still on the team.
We later found out Natty told MG he’d come back as soon as she kicked me, rooni, and Whit, so this sequence of events makes perfect sense. It’s clear MG brought this fight public, knowing we would engage to give her a reason to kick us.
BONUS: another mod magically healing and coming back to mod the second I quit.
Part 7 - here’s MG saying she does tell new mods this is a dictatorship, not a democracy.
Part 8 - the fight picks up again the next morning between the mods who are still there.
There's a lot more to that fight, but I'm tired of color-blocking for the time being so I'm moving on.
Flash forward two weeks to Monday afternoon. The mods who have left decide we want to make the Discord active for users who might want to join (heyo, here's that link if you're interested ;)). We make the server public and users start joining.
At this point, there were four people modding MtvChallenge. Pluto was the last remaining mod from Discord who hadn't yet left the team. She had told us when we left that she understood why we were quitting, but she didn't necessarily agree with everything we had said and she still wanted to stay. Of course that was fine, and she still joined the server and helped us get everything ready to go.
On Monday morning, with absolutely no warning, Pluto got this message in the mod chat. She was removed after breaking no rules.
Yesterday, I posted my Player of the Week results like normal. I included a link to the Discord in my last paragraph, telling users they could join if they wanted. I made absolutely no mention of the mod drama or that I had even stepped down as mod. The mods said they wouldn't approve my post unless I took out the reference to Discord, so I did.
During our fight when I stepped down, I was told I could continue as a member. But I have no interest continuing to post when my comments are being removed for no reason and my posts are censored based on invented rules, even after I’ve provided great content for years.
Attempting to burn the sub down -
After Pluto was removed, Rooni, Nita, and I joined back into an old mod chat to express how unfair we felt it was. You can read those messages here.
One of the mods who quit still had access to a community mod that we use to post hubs. That mod edited a hub and directed the links to join our Discord. I genuinely have no idea who did it, but this is what Natty and MG are referencing when they say we tried to burn the sub down. That act definitely undid a lot of hard work - building the hubs is no joke. But I think it's safe to say it's a bit of an exaggeration that we tried to destroy the sub.
That about takes us to this morning, when I tried to post why I was leaving. So you're all caught up!
submitted by honestkodaline to u/honestkodaline [link] [comments]

Why a sequel with Ciri would make sense

A paper explaining my thoughts on why Ciri will be the lead in the next game. Many spoilers for the books and games.
​
Why A Sequel With Ciri Makes Sense
By Noah Strasmann
January 20, 2021
Pt 1: Plans for a new game
I’ve seen a lot of debate online over what the next Witcher game will entail, and the question that always come us is: “Who is going to lead the next game?” We know that Geralt’s story is over, as CD Projekt Red senior writer Jakub Szamałek said back in 2015: “I think good stories must have an ending…You cannot extend them indefinitely, and we felt that Geralt has had such an amazing adventure, and his saga is already so long and complex that this seemed like a good point to think about an appropriate finale for the story.”
This makes sense, as at the end of Blood and Wine, Regis says to Geralt that they have been through a lot and “after all that toil, I believe we deserve a bit of rest.” Geralt replies “That we do” and smiles and looks directly into the camera. This felt like a much more final ending than the main game, especially when Yen, Triss, Ciri, or Dandelion shows up at Corvo Bianco, implying that Geralt will live out the rest of his days, (or at least a little while in some cases,) with whomever shows up.
Originally the games were planned as a trilogy. Said Adam Kiciński in an interview with Bankir: "The first three 'Witchers' were by definition a trilogy, so we simply could not name the next game 'The Witcher 4'. This does not mean, of course, that we will leave the world of The Witcher." I couldn’t find a date for this interview, so it is possible that he was referring to the standalone Gwent game that released in 2018 when he said they wouldn’t be leaving the Witcher world behind. As of now, 2021, CDRP has confirmed that there were three studios working on Cyberpunk, and two working on “other projects.” Likely, one of the projects was The Witcher 3: Enhanced Edition, the other remains a mystery. CDPR co-founder Marcin Iwinski has gone on record saying “This is the end…there won’t be any Witcher any time soon – if there ever will be one.” Without any outright confirmation and other smaller Witcher side projects it is very hard to say if there will ever be a triple A, RPG-style Witcher game again.
Now we come to the interesting topic. When asked about a “Witcher” game specifically, CDPR makes it seem like there are either no plans for another, or they just say that Geralt’s story is definitely over. But when asked about Ciri specifically, they change their tune. In an interview with VG247, Jakub Szamałek was asked if we would get a game with Ciri as the lead. In response, Szamałek said: “I don’t know…would you like to play a game as Ciri?” In my experience, whenever game developers say “I don’t know” and then ask you a question, it is cause to be suspicious. Another very suspicious quote come from later in the interview: “Due to obvious reasons - well, she’s pretty much gone for two thirds of the game - she didn’t get quite as much screen time as we writers would have liked. But hey, maybe it’s something we’ll get to get back to in the future.”
I did find an article from May 18th 2020 claiming that CDPR actually confirmed that directly after the Cyberpunk release, work on a new Witcher game would begin “immediately.” Who knows if this will actually happen, we all know how Cyberpunk’s launch went, and how much work it will take to fix. Adam Kiciński also said that this Witcher game would not be a direct sequel. All evidence points to the next Witcher game featuring Ciri’s two years traveling with Avallac’h through different worlds. This is a pretty obvious choice, CDPR could literally go in any direction with this game, and it wouldn’t be a “typical” Witcher experience. Also, Kiciński mentioned that “we would love to explore more of Ciri’s past,” and Ciri’s past means the opposite of a sequel. Not to mention the fact that Ciri ends up in very different circumstances depending on the ending of Wild Hunt. To make a game led by Ciri set after the Witcher 3, CDPR would have to make one of the endings canon and then take the game from there, right?
Wrong! Ciri’s situational endings are actually more similar than you may think.
Pt 2: Wild Hunt Endings
We all know there are three endings to the main story of the third game: the ending where Ciri becomes a Witcher, the ending where she becomes empress of Nilfgaard, and the ending where she dies. This is the main roadblock from a story perspective, as each previous Witcher game’s storyline flows perfectly into the next. It seems impossible to have a cohesive storyline without a definitive ending, and it would be completely unlike CDPR to make an ending canon. Also, a canon ending would only serve to undermine the other endings of Wild Hunt.
It is possible to have a cohesive storyline following Ciri after the events of the third game without having to make any ending canon. Remember how cool it was to load your Witcher 1 and 2 saves into the next game and be able to meet characters and have unique interactions based on the decisions you made in the previous game? I believe that a sequel with Ciri leading the game will adopt this strategy, but to a much larger degree than we saw in Wild Hunt.
We can see the strategy that could be employed with the release of Cyberpunk. One of the coolest things about that game (at least before launch,) was the idea of multiple lifepaths. While done before on a much smaller scale, I believe that this idea could be the future of RPGs in general. Obviously, once Cyberpunk was actually released, it quickly became apparent that the beginning lifepath didn’t really matter to the rest of the game, and only gave you a unique opening. But that could be exactly what the Witcher 4 (I’m calling it that, but we know it won’t be titled “The Witcher”) needs. A unique beginning based on your Witcher 3 save that has you beginning the game in a different area of the world with a unique intro that only lasts maybe 30 minutes to an hour. Ciri’s “lifepath” would be an introduction to what happened to her after the third game, and how she makes it to the events of whatever the fourth game has in store. People were disappointed with Cyberpunk’s lifepaths because they had no noticeable effect on the game’s story, only really giving some new dialogue options in conversations. This would not have been too much of an issue if the game’s marketing had not overemphasized how much of a difference these lifepaths would have on the main story. This wouldn’t even be a problem for the Witcher 4, however. New dialogue and a different starting point are all that would realistically be needed, although the company could make more story-altering changes to the lifepaths if they wanted to. The reason I do not expect this though is that it would be a lot more work to write differing stories that branch away from each other, and people would always just pick the same stories anyway, as with the third game, I always pick the Witcher ending because I just can’t bring myself to get the bad ending (lol.) If there is no marketing saying how different the game will be depending on the Witcher 3 save you have loaded, there will not be any backlash if that difference is not felt in any more ways than a different intro and different voice lines.
Now the obstacle for a Ciri-lead sequel to Wild Hunt comes down to the endings themselves. I’ll break down each ending separately. I’ll also be assuming that Ciri is the one coming to Corvo Bianco, since her voice lines there are very important in deducing what happens to her in the future.
Ending #1: Ciri Becomes a Witcher
This ending is referred to as the “good ending” by most of the fanbase, so I will call it that from now on. This ending is probably the easiest to make a sequel out of. Geralt tells Emhyr that Ciri has sacrificed herself to save the world from the White Frost, and that the body will never be found. Emhyr then tells Geralt that he never wishes to see him again, and they part ways. Geralt then meets Master Ort, a swordsmith in White Orchard who has made Ciri a matching silver sword that is also named Zireael (cause who chooses The Flash That Cuts, I mean come on,) the same name as the sword she gets from Esterhazy in Baptism of Fire. It is almost identical to her steel weapon and is meant to show her starting her life on the Path. In the ending slideshow, it says that Ciri and Geralt started out on the path together and then parted. In Blood and Wine, Ciri explains why she left Geralt and told him not to try to find her. I find it hard to believe that Geralt didn’t go look for her after she left, because let’s be honest the entire story of the books and third game is basically Geralt looking for Ciri.
Anyway, she shows up at Corvo Bianco and tells Geralt that the reason she left was because she didn’t want to live in his shadow and had to prove that she could be a successful Witcher on her own. They go up to the hillside and Ciri remarks that she could “stay here forever.” When the option “What’s stopping you?” is chosen, she remarks that there is really nothing stopping her.
This ending suggests that Ciri will stay in Toussaint for a while. This is the easiest ending to make a starting lifepath for another game out of, because Ciri is free to do whatever she wants and can go anywhere she wants. Nothing is making her stay in Toussaint, she is only staying because she wants to, contrary to all of the third game and the books where she is forced by the circumstances of the plot to go to certain places. Anything could draw her away from Toussaint, the CDPR writers would just have to make sure that it was a problem big enough to make her want to leave the easy life at Corvo Bianco. A very open-ended ending, and a starting lifepath for a new game could really go in any direction with this one.
Ending #2: Ciri becomes empress of Nilfgaard
I will call this one the “sad ending,” because when I got this ending, I had a lump in my throat the entire time. It begins with Geralt, Dandelion, Zoltan, and either Triss or Yen in the inn at White Orchard. They have been traveling together for some months with Ciri and are making for the Blue Mountains, though it is never mentioned why. Everyone is very happy, and it’s an altogether joyful scene, all the friends have finally defeated the Wild Hunt and are free to roam the Northern Realms together.
Geralt goes to find Ciri and chats with her as they go to see the site where the griffin Geralt kills at the start of the game has its nest. Geralt is talking about how the future is bright and Ciri is answering in monosyllabic phrases, indicating that there is something bothering her. As they walk in the woods, Ciri and Geralt play in the snow, and walk back towards the village. When they get there, a Nilfgaardian envoy is parked in the middle of the road, and Ciri tells Geralt that she has decided that she is going to Nilfgaard because she believes she can do the most good as empress. After an emotional farewell, she gives Geralt her sword and rides away with the Nilfgaardians. The ending slideshow says that Emhyr is preparing to crown Ciri empress.
When Ciri shows comes to Corvo Bianco, Geralt is surprised because he never thought he would see her again. There is a nice moment where she says that she likes coming back into this life. They go up to the hill again, and the dialogue is different on the hill.
I don’t think that Ciri every will actually become empress in this ending. The ending slideshow’s exact quote is: “After years in exile, Ciri returned to Nilfgaard, her paternal home, where Emhyr prepared to name her as his successor.” There are a few strange things about this quote. First of all, Nilfgaard is not her paternal home, Cintra is. Second of all, it says “prepares to name her as his successor” and not “names her his successor.” I believe that the developers originally intended her to become empress, but after the massive success of the game they wanted to keep the possibility of a sequel open. With the release of Blood and Wine, CDPR hints that Ciri will actually never take the throne.
First of all, she returns to Geralt. The fact that she comes back to him at all was doubtful with the base game ending, as she tries to get him to come to Nilfgaard with her. The second piece of evidence that she will never be crowned is what she actually says to Geralt on the hill. She has the same voice line where she says she could stay forever, and when Geralt asks what stopping her, this time she says “Obligations, duties. I’m only here because Papa, I mean, Emhyr concluded I must get to know what I’ll rule once I take the throne. So I’m on a tour of the provinces with a small swarm of advisors.”
This quote makes little sense to me. Why would a tour of Nilfgaard’s provinces even take Ciri to Toussaint? Yes, Toussaint is technically a vassal state of Nilfgaard, but it is not actually governed by the emperor. In Lady of the lake, Shilard Fitz-Oesterlen explains exactly how vassal states of Nilfgaard work when discussing what will happen to Dol Blathanna after the empire pulls out of the north. He says that Dol Blathanna will become a duchy, like Toussaint. They have to pay homage to Nilfgaard but will be able to make their own laws and have their own court system. Thaler also mentions this after Radovid is killed in the third game, how Temeria will become a vassal state and be self-governed. So Ciri would never actually rule over Toussaint as she says. Also, when Geralt first comes to Toussaint, Reynart de Bois-Fresnes, the first knight errant Geralt ever meets is slaughtering Nilfgaardians to help Geralt and his companions. Not to mention the fact that Stefan Skellen hides out in Toussaint after his attempt to kill Ciri because he says that the duchy is the only place in the world where he could be sure he would be safe from Vattier de Rideaux’s spies. The only place in the entire world there would be no Nilfgaardian spies. Think about that. Not only is Toussaint disregarded by Nilfgaard, but the rest of the world largely ignores it as well, thinking of it as “the place we get wine.”
Ciri says some other things on the hill too that make it doubtful she will ever ascend the throne. She mentioned how she is stalling for time in Beauclair by telling her advisors her knowledge would be incomplete until she has tasted each of the year’s wines. The reason she gives Geralt for this stalling is, and I quote: “Though actually, just between you and me, I’m not certain I’m cut out to rule, govern, all that…” Geralt asks her if she is going to give it up, and she says “I can’t say just yet. But I’m not willing to rule it out.”
Geralt also asks her about how the coronation preparations are coming along, and she responds with: “Not at all. I told him I’m in no hurry.” She later tells Geralt she could make him “Court Witcher” which could suggest that she may become empress after all, but this comment was made more as a joke than anything else, and I don’t believe that “Court Witcher” is a title in Nilfgaard or any other province for that matter.
The third reason I don’t think that Ciri will ever become empress is that it is antithetical to her outlook on the world. All she ever wanted, through the games and the books was for people to leave her out of their schemes so she could make her own decisions. I know everyone will say it was her decision to go to Emhyr, but she is sort of manipulated by into becoming his heir. We know Emhyr has wanted to capture Ciri for a long time because of the books, where literally every king wanted to capture her so that they had a ruler of Cintra that could be manipulated easily. The other reason he wanted to capture her was so that he can marry her and produce a son that will rule the world. Yeah, her father wants to marry her. It’s messed up. And Ciri knows this was his plan. So why does Ciri go to him instead of staying with Geralt in the sad ending?
We will never know what happened in the conversation with Emhyr and Ciri, but we do know that they argued, and then she got a letter at some point either after she entered Tor Gvalch’ca or shortly before. She then made her decision to go and be empress, because she felt like she could do the most good there. Then when Geralt says “You could have told me,” Ciri says: “I wanted to, but I didn’t know how. I’ve been happy here.” It is so unlike Ciri to leave a situation where she is finally happy. There are so little of them that she always wants to stay to be happy as long as she can. In the books, she stays with the gang the Rats, and when Geralt dreams about her it is mentioned that he feels her happiness. The reason why she leaves is only because she wants to find Geralt, the person she is literally leaving in the sad ending ending! (Yes, also it’s because the Rats all get killed by Bonhart, but she leaves them before that.) The only other time she leaves a situation where she is reasonably happy and safe is when she leaves the Cyberpunk world to come back and find Geralt and Yennefer. (That is the reason she gives when Geralt asks about it in the hut.)
Ciri says that being empress is what she wants, but it’s really exactly what Emhyr wants. Ultimately, all she ever wants is to make her own decisions, but she forces Geralt to make the decision that ultimately decides her future, whether or not she should go to see Emhyr directly after the events at Kaer Morhen. Also, Geralt can decide if Nilfgaard will win the war or not. This forces her down the path of either Geralt’s actions or Emhyr’s actions determining her future. And while Geralt will make her want to stay with love, respect, trust, and the bond developed even before she was born, Emhyr will draw her away with wordplay and manipulation. I mean, how do you think that Ciri came up with the thought that she could do the most good in Nilfgaard, by herself, or through what Emhyr said to her in the letter? All Ciri’s life, she has only wanted people to leave her out of their plans and have freedom, and she loses that by becoming empress.
For these reasons, I believe that even though this ending is known as the “Empress ending,” there is almost no chance that she will actually take the throne.
This leaves CDPR in the same situation story wise as the good ending. A new game with this ending could have Ciri about to be crowned when something happens, or she can give up and refuse to rule for some reason, because I don’t think that a game with Ciri as tied down as empress would be as interesting as one where she is free to wander the world.
Ending #3: Ciri “Dies”
This ending begins with Geralt hunting down the last crone to retrieve Vesemir’s medallion. He meets a werewolf who tells him that it is not worth the risk to fight the crone, as she is dangerous, and tells Geralt to find another trinket for his daughter. Geralt replies “My daughter’s dead.”
When he finds the crone, she tells him that he will not survive this fight. Even if he kills her, the swamp village is completely surrounded by monsters and he won’t get out alive. Then she tells Geralt that Ciri is dead, which is not news to Geralt as he already knew that.
Geralt kills the crone, and then in anger trashes the inside of the shack. He finds Vesemir’s medallion in a box and holds it, while monsters surround the shack from the outside. We know that Geralt does escape though, because it is canon that the events of Blood and Wine happen after the Wild Hunt is defeated. Geralt actually has different voice lines in this ending when he is talking with Regis about Ciri. When Regis asked if he ever found Ciri if you got one of the endings where Ciri survived, he says: “Back then, yeah. But we parted again soon after. And when the time was ripe, she returned and we defeated the Wild Hunt together.” But if you get the bad ending, he only says: “Back then, yeah. But we parted again soon after” in a sad voice. So he survived the swamp because he still believes Ciri to be dead. Yes, he has no epilogue, but it really wouldn’t make sense for him to die in the crone’s village since technically every ending is supposed to be canon with Blood and Wine. We know that he survived that ending…but did Ciri?
It is hinted at a few times throughout the game that Ciri will die at the end. There is this soothsayer in Benek who tells Geralt that Ciri knew that she was going to have to sacrifice herself to stop the White Frost. The crones tell Geralt that if he finds her, she will die shortly afterwards. There are also many voice lines from the sorceresses and Avallac’h telling Geralt that he needs to stop controlling Ciri and let her make her own decisions or he will regret it. Ironic that Geralt’s decisions ultimately decide Ciri’s fate anyway.
I think that the question of whether Ciri survives come down to a few factors: number one being the White Frost itself. The White Frost in the books is an inevitable event that happens due to the northern hemisphere of the earth tilting further away from the sun. In the games, it is more of an entity, a force that blows through multiple worlds and times, burying everything in ice. The way that Avallac’h wanted Ciri to stop the White Frost in the books was to maker her have a son with the king of the Aen Elle, who would be much more powerful than she. Then the son would use his powers to teleport the population of the Aen Elle’s doomed planet to another. Avallac’h also says that he will save the humans and the Aen Seidhe living on the Earth when the time comes as well.
In the games, it is not clear what Ciri must do to defeat the White Frost, but we do know that Avallac’h needs to make Ciri stop it as quickly as possible, which is made clear by his lab notes. He actually hates Ciri, as she reminds him of his love for Lara Dorren, who spurned him for a human mage. He only wants her to stop the White Frost so his world will be safe and then he will be able to get rid of her.
The question now arises, is it necessary for Ciri to die to stop the White Frost? In my opinion, even though the ending is very ambiguous, the evidence the game does give us points to no. Ciri tells Geralt that she will come back if possible when he implores her not to enter the portal in the tower. She believes she will survive. Also, while Geralt watches the portal, it eventually closes. The portal was opened by Avallac’h so that Ciri could slip away while Geralt was busy fighting Eredin and Caranthir. It is likely that Avallac’h told Ciri what to do to stop the White Frost, since she seems very sure of herself when she enters the portal. She does not have to die though, in order to stop it. The way I see it, she probably stopped it one of two ways.
One, The White Frost is an actual being and she fought and defeated it in combat. This doesn’t seem very likely, as even though the White Frost in the games does appear as more of an evil god or a demon than a force of nature as in the books, I don’t think it likely that she would just stab it with her sword and it would die. It could have been some curse she had to break, but even if this is the case it would not require her to sacrifice herself.
Two, Ciri isolated the worlds that the White Frost was blowing through, cutting off passage between the worlds that were affected and the ones that weren’t. This makes a little more sense, as the elder blood gene is supposed to control passage between worlds. But it doesn’t explain then how the world of the Aen Elle, not to mention the earth are saved, as the White Frost was already blowing through both of those worlds. I believe that the since the White Frost is a more of a being in the games, it was probably residing in one world and then blowing through to others from there. Ciri could have cut off the world it was residing in, causing it to be trapped there forever and saving the worlds that were affected by it. This theory seems like the most plausible, but there is one problem with it. We know Ciri stopped the White Frost, as the portal in the tower closed before Geralt and Avallac’hs eyes, but if travel was cut off to whatever world the White Frost was residing in, how did Ciri escape that world? There really seems to be no explanation, because we know that she succeeds no matter what ending you get, and she is able to travel back to the witcher world afterwards in the good ending and the sad ending.
It really doesn’t matter exactly how she did it, it only matters that she did because that is one thing that we know happened. The portal closing, the conjunction of spheres stopping, and Ciri coming back (in 2 endings) all happened for sure. We can assume she succeeded in her task. So then, why does she die in the bad ending? I find it hard to believe that she just committed suicide by staying in the frozen wasteland just because she doesn’t like Geralt anymore. She actually has tried to commit suicide before in the books, but couldn’t bring herself to do it. I’m not sure why she would finally succeed in her task, be free from all the people trying to use her for their own purposes, and then freeze to death just because she thinks that Geralt doesn’t believe in her anymore. But Geralt truly believes she is dead in the epilogue. The crone says it as well, but the crones have made bogus predictions before, such as them actually saying to Geralt earlier in the game that they would be the reason for Ciri’s death. The crone knew Geralt was distraught and angry, and she could have taken advantage of this by telling Geralt that Ciri died in order to make him more angry and less focused on the fight. Also, when Ciri tells Geralt she will come back to him, she says “if I can.” We know now that she is able to, and yet doesn’t, so it would make sense for Geralt to believe her to be dead.
So what actually happened to her? It is not clear, as she doesn’t have an ending monologue like Geralt when you get this ending. The next game could see her anywhere, just trying to figure out why Geralt made her feel as if she couldn’t stand up for herself and that he was making decisions for her. But it wouldn’t make sense for her to be able to stop the White Frost and then just die. It is much more plausible that she decided not to return to Geralt.
Other Arguments Against A Sequel With Ciri
#1: Too Overpowered
I’ve seen some people argue that after the events of the third game, Ciri is an incredibly strong fighter and would easily defeat any opponent she came up against, making fighting in the hypothetical sequel uninteresting and boring. It also wouldn’t make sense to nerf her abilities in the next game, as it would go completely against the lore, and would almost be an insult to her character to dumb down her abilities for a new game.
The thing that most people don’t realize is that Geralt of Rivia was already an extremely overpowered character. The witchers are much stronger fighters than humans, able to take on multiple foes at a time with relative ease. Geralt is the strongest of the witchers, having the most mutations and has had almost a century of experience by the time of the games. Triss Merigold thinks to herself at one point when she is heading to Kaer Morhen in Blood of Elves that Geralt was the greatest fighter she had ever seen. Yen also remarks in the books that there are only a few people in the world that could have a chance of beating Geralt in a fight. Likely one was Vilgefortz, who Geralt makes no mistakes at all against and still gets beaten in only a minute or so. The other was probably Leo Bonhart, who never actually fought Geralt, but we know he has killed at least three witchers because he carries their medallions with him. Not to mention he fought the entire gang of Rats at once and killed them all in a one versus six battle. The only way Ciri was able to defeat him was by luring him into a very specific situation in the ruined part of Stygga Castle and using the pendulum trick she learned at Kaer Morhen to make him fall.
Summing up, it doesn’t make sense to say that Ciri is too overpowered to have her own game, because we got three games with Geralt who was already one of the best swordsmen in the world even in the first game. I think that CDPR could definitely balance the difficulty of combat in a sequel with Ciri as they already did with Geralt in the trilogy.
#2: Character Creation
Another thing I’ve seen people saying is that they want to create their own witcher to play through a new game. I guess I can understand the roleplaying potential of a game with a customizable witcher, but I don’t see how this will fit the lore at all. There are so few witchers that it wouldn’t really make sense to all of a sudden bring out a new witcher who was in hiding or something into a world where their trade is declining. Also, if the game was set as a prequel when there were more witchers around, it wouldn’t make sense that the wolf school witchers from the first and third games wouldn’t be able to refer to this past witcher by any identifying features because every playthrough’s witcher would be unique.
Also, we know from Marcin Iwinski that the next game won’t be called “The Witcher.” I find it highly unlikely that the third game will be about any of the witchers, or a new one that we don’t know about yet. I also think it very unlikely that we will see a standalone game with either Triss or Yen as the lead, because picking only one of them as a protagonist will leave fifty percent of the fanbase disappointed. This kind of leaves Ciri as the only choice, because I would find it hard to believe that most of the fanbase would not want to see a game about her.
I just wanted to add these at the end because I wanted to address the issues that some of the community would have with a Ciri sequel. Do I actually think the next game will be a sequel starring Ciri? Well, evidence right now points to no. I just wanted to compile some ideas about why a sequel would make sense though, because I have a feeling that a prequel game with Ciri will unfortunately not be an open world RPG. I think that the obvious story to tell is what happened to Ciri right after she dropped Geralt off at Kaer Morhen with his memory wiped. It would be heartbreaking to see Ciri trying to get Geralt to flee the Wild Hunt with her, but he doesn’t remember who she is and so she has to leave him in the woods and run away without him. Then the game would follow her through all the worlds she jumped through to escape Eredin. This does not sound like an open world game, since there would be so many worlds in it! I’m not saying that a game like this would be bad by any means, I’m just saying that I would rather have a game like Wild Hunt, but in a new area (like Cintra maybe,) and starring Ciri.
submitted by noahstrasmann to Witcher4 [link] [comments]

Penny Dreadful 500 for season 18

I'm a member of the mod team for the player run magic online format penny dreadful.
We have been running free-to-enter weekly tournaments with prizes awarded in cardhoarder bot credit for several years now.
Thanks to the continued generosity of our cardhoarder sponsor we will have our second seasonal "Penny dreadful 500" for season 18: an entirely free to enter tournament that will pay out 500 tickets in bot credit prizes.
You can see the prizing breakdown and announcement here: https://pennydreadfulmagic.com/tournaments/pd500/
Some FAQs:
Firstly, there are a ton of resources on pennydreadfulmagic.com in the "about" section and https://pennydreadfulmagic.com/faqs/, and you should also come join our discord which is also linked on pennydreafulmagic.com for any questions.
​
What is legal in pennydreadful?
Legality is determined every "season" via checking bot prizes for an entire week every hour. Every card that meets the prize threshold for 50%+ of the checks that week is deemed legal for the entire season.
You can easily check legality via the scryfall filter "f:pd" which gets updated immediately every season.
https://scryfall.com/search?q=f%3Apd
How do I play pd?
We play games in the "Freeform tournament practice" room on MTGO, label your game "penny dreadful" or "penny dreadful league" if you have signed up to play the free to enter league.
Is this format like pauper?
PD has a very distinct identity from pauper. Many pauper staples are more expensive on MTGO but tons of powerful rares have practically no demand on MTGO and thusly become legal in PD.
Do cards ever get banned?
No card has ever been banned in PD. There have been seasons that were dominated by certain cards and created a (subjectively) less fun season, but those cards have never survived a rotation nor been legal in subsequent seasons. The format is very self correcting.
Ok great, I want to win the PD 500, what's the best deck this season?
We keep complete statistics of every league and tournament match played on the website (With the help of our PD bot) which you can peruse at your leisure. In addition the data gets pulled by this third party site run by one of our members, which breaks it down in a more visually appealing way and can be sorted by last 7 days and last 30 days: https://dreadrise.wizzerinus.tk/decks/formats/pds18
Some of the data also gets pulled by mtggoldfish here: https://www.mtggoldfish.com/metagame/penny_dreadful#online
This season has proved a massive diversity of decks to be contenders.
An "Affinity" deck with the core threats of ornithopter, gingerbrute, signal pest and frogmite and bigger payoffs in etched champion, master of etherium, ensoul artifact and cranial plating and the powerful manland mishra's factory is the most popular deck in the season 18 meta. Overall affinity decks make up 4.6% of all decks submitted this season and have racked up a 59% win rate. Powerful hosers for the deck are available as the meta has adjusted, and there is no consensus on which colored spells are actually best (in addition to blue; although I have also played a rakdos version and mono white version as well which both felt reasonable. White payoffs are more one drop creatures such as toolcraft exemplar, court homonculus and all that glitters, as well as dispatch, the powerful hatebear in ethersworn cannonist )
Red Deck wins is always popular in PD, representing 3.2% of the meta with a 59.7% win rate. The pool of powerful red cards is very deep, although most lists start with chain lightning and burst lightning. stromkirk noble and stormblood berserker are the 1 and 2 drop creatures of choice. Other powerful options include earthshaker khenra and kari zev, skyship raider and incinerate. RDW is often a litmus test for the competitiveness of your brew in PD.
Season 18 Dimir Tendrils is one of the most powerful iterations of the storm deck PD has ever seen, possibly matching last season's high tide deck, representing 3.2% of decks submitted and a 56% win rate. Fueled by the insanely powerful package of pondebrainstorm/gitaxian probe/treasure cruise/frantic search and dark ritual as well as cabal ritual the deck can kill as early as turn 3 and very consistently on turn 4.
Greenpost is the big mana deck of choice, representing 3% of the meta with a total win rate 51.7%. This season has the best tools ever for assembling your cloudposts and glimmerposts with expedition map, sylvan scrying and ancient stirrings. The payoffs vary between lists although I personally have an 82% win rate over 66 matches and 2 tournament wins with a tooth and nail version.
Azorius control is the most popular control deck this season representing 2.7% of the meta with a 49.4% win rate. Azorius has the best sweeper in day of judgment, one of the best win cons in dream trawler, and powerful card draw tools like fact or fiction and treasure cruise if desired. It also has access to flexible tools such as condemn, azorius charm and timely reinforcements.
S18 is the first time a classic dredge deck is a player in pd, representing 2.7% of the meta and a 55% win rate. The powerful enablers of golgari-grave troll and stinkweed imp can dump half the deck into the graveyard as early as turn 2, then creeping chill will bring back silversmote ghouls. In addition the dredge player will have access to smiting helix and conflagrate, so base mardu is the most popular variant.
Izzet Tempo decks are the most popular delver of secrets shell in season 18 representing 2.4% of the meta with a 55.7% win rate. Other threats in izzet colors are sprite dragon and stormchaser mage. Some decks go more midrange with crackling drake or improbable alliance and some more combo with pyromancer ascension. They all share the powerful suite of cantrips and treasure cruise.
The next most popular archetype at 1.9% of the meta and 54% win rate, is "fake-rack," an umbrella for black midrange strategies that aim to leverage hymn to tourach, shrieking affliction and davriel, rogue shadowmage as well as other strong black interaction and creatures such as hypnotic specter and dark ritual to power out their spells ahead of schedule. Some versions also splash white for vindicate or some try to leverage smallpox. There are other black midrange decks in the format as well that are less discard focused, although many of them still use hymn to tourach as premier disruption.
Mono black reanimator is the most glass cannon and fastest combo deck of season 18, coming in at 1.8% of the meta and 52% win rate. This deck basically attempts to mulligan to be able to put a huge thing (pathrazer of ulamog or sire of insanity are preferred) into play as early as turn 1, via dark ritual, putrid imp and reanimate or animate dead.
Mono white heroic is the white aggro deck of choice with 1.8% of the metashare and a 59% win rate. It leverages white pump and protection spells and auras along with heroic creatures such as favored hoplite and phalanx leader. The deck needs specific answers or their huge hero will quickly end the game.
For the first time in PD history, a merfolk deck has arrived with a 1.8% metashare and 56% winrate. The fish have access to multiple lord effects, including the powerful merrow reejerey, the infinite value creature silvergill adept, and some disruptive dorks in the form of mistcaller and cursecatcher. They also have access to good blue disruptive spells like vapor snag and deprive.
The "worldgorger dragon" deck is most likely the brokenest deck of season 18, coming in at 1.8% metashare and a whopping 64% win rate (Although championed by some dedicated grinders.) The deck is basically a dimir reanimator strategy that intends to set up an infinite mana/infinite ETB loop with animate dead + worldgorger dragon. The kill condition varies from shriekhorn, to duskmantle guildmage to bogardan hellkite. Access to the blue cantrip suite lets them often beat multiple pieces of disruption given infinite time, but they can also go for it as early as turn 2. They do risk losing all their permanents if they run the combo into a removal spell and graveyard hate can slow them down.
People love casting stone rain effects in any format. Ponza comes in at 1.8% metashare with a 45.6% win rate. The curve of birds into stone rain into stone rain into goblin dark dwellers can be back breaking for any deck.
I'm going to lump Orzhov Midrange, Rakdos Midrange and Mardu Midrange together. They have 1.8%, 1.7% and 1.5% of the meta respectively and are all hovering near 57% win rate. These are basically the jund decks of the format. They all play hymn to tourach. If they can make white mana they play vindicate, if they can make red mana they usually play tectonic giant and goblin dark dwellers as curve topping threats. These decks are very powerful if the curve out with their 1-for-1s and 2-for-1s and efficient interaction. I have also played my own variant of orzhov midrange that has a slightly lower curve and hatebears style-bent with tidehollow sculler and wasteland strangler.
Mono Blue tempo at 1.7% metashare and 58.5% win rate is the purist's delver deck, with good cantrips some flash threats, and sometimes leveraging curious obsession for more snowball potential card draw.
Elves is the last tribal deck with significant metashare at 1.5% and 50% win rate. The little green people have access to as many as 16 dorks and multiple lord effects such as elvish archdruid and imperious perfect. They can also grind through removal via the help of cards like winding way and lead the stampede.
Zur's weirding is the last deck with more than 1.2% metashare and coming in at 60.3% win rate. Effectively this is a dimir control deck that plays good blue and black interaction and some synergies with the enchantment zur's weirding to lock the opponent out of draw steps entirely.
Of course win rates and metashares only tell part of the story, and are always subject to sample sizes and which pilots decide to pick up the deck (or whether certain decks have champions or grinders that pick them up, which can influence our relatively small meta). There are also tons of fringe strategies that have 5-0d leagues or top 8ed tournaments.
The decks are all available for essentially less than 5 tickets, with most costing less than 1 or 2 tickets, (accounting for post rotation demand fluctuations) so you can basically try out whatever you want for the price of your morning coffee.
I should also quickly plug that Cardhoarder has a free 5 ticket loan program, which would effectively let you play PD for free (Although I haven't used it myself, other people have said good things about it.)
If you have any questions you can feel free to ask me, check out the website or even better, just join our discord.
submitted by crazybaloth to magicTCG [link] [comments]

Your Weak Mental is The Problem. How to Build Confidence like a Tennis Pro.

League of Legends is a technical game. From champion mastery to Lee Sin mechanics, there are many external skills to learn. You can find countless guides on YouTube, Reddit, and Twitch for these topics, but they're half the battle. To perform at the highest level in any field, we must develop inner skills. Staying concentrated. Being resilient. You may possess the knowledge to achieve X rank, but your weak mental is stopping you. No one teaches us how to navigate our minds. We only realize this problem after losing 10 games or being demoted an entire tier. And soon enough, we're back to our normal ways. That voice inside your head, scrutinizing your every move, is hindering your growth. It's preventing you from entering flow, peak psychological performance. We play out of our minds when we're not thinking too hard about our gameplay. After reading The Inner Game of Tennis by Timothy Gallwey, I couldn't help but connect the dots to esports. How can we be self-confident? How can we empty our minds? I'm going to share my notes and observations in this post. I introduce to you The Inner Game of League of Legends.

Self 1 Versus Self 2

We all know what it's like to be mad at ourselves. Your death during laning phase turned into a 5000 gold lead for the enemy team*.* You call yourself idiot, stupid, dumb, and the list continues. In response, you try correcting your mistakes. "I shouldn't have flashed for that kill". "I missed my ultimate". Your judgement suffocates you and brews negative emotions. Who are you talking to exactly? Gallwey identifies in every player the two selves: Self 1 and Self 2. The voice inside your head is Self 1. It craves external validation and feeling special. It believes it knows how to reach the next level. Self 1 believes it must control Self 2 in order to succeed. Self 1 has little to no respect for Self 2. On the other side, Self 2 is your body. Millions of orchestrated neurons. A complex nervous system. The prefrontal cortex. Self 2 learns to ride a bike once, and it forever holds that feeling. It is so powerful that it can perform insane outplays in high-stake moments. When Self 2 is relaxed and free, its potential is limitless. But, because Self 1 ridicules Self 2, Self 2 becomes tense. The rigidity of the muscles and mind cause more mistakes. And Self 1 continues to throw the blame at Self 2. The key to unlocking mental fortitude is changing the relationship between Self 1 and Self 2. When Self 1 respects Self 2, peak performance comes naturally. Remember the last game you played out of your mind. Notice the emptiness of your mind. No verbal instruction. Self 2 was doing the work.

Silence The Inner Critic

Too often I catch myself in a vicious cycle. I enter a game feeling overly conscious of my performance. I make a small mistake during laning phase, and I think the game is over. Many content creators and coaches preach self-awareness, but too much self-awareness can prevent flow. This begs the question, "If I shouldn't critic myself, who will? How will I ever improve?" The answer lies in the difference between judgement and observation. Judgement occurs when we assign a positive or negative value to an event. If you miss a cannon, that's bad. If you destroy their inhibitor, that's good. Seems harmless at first, but imagine this typical scenario. (1) An event occurs, (2) Self 1 judges the event, (3), Decides if outcome is good or bad, (4) Continues or tries correcting behavior, (5) Tries too hard, (6) Self 2 tightens, (7) Worse performance. The cycle repeats. Over time, these instances form unhelpful narratives. We go from "I missed that skillshot" to "I choke under pressure". The narratives become self-fulfilling prophecies. What happens if we replace judgement with non-judgmental observation? (1) Event occurs, (2) Observe event, (3) Gain more awareness about behavior, (4) Let Self 2 learn. We're not ignoring our mistakes. We're just rephrasing them as patterns. Judgement is saying "My CS was bad", and observation is saying "My CS was 5.1 per minute". The former causes negative self-talk, and the latter leads to productive discovery. When we're too absorbed in judgment, we can't experience our behavior. We don't give Self 2 the chance to reflect and adapt. Knowing that you play too passively is nothing compared to feeling that you play passively. Kinesthetic experience is the best teacher. Self 1 doesn't need to manage Self 2. Self 2, your body, is designed to learn through awareness and its senses.

Picture The Desired Outcome

Before books and online tutorials, our ancestors learned skills by watching others. The prefrontal cortex, the product of thousands of years of evolution, is home to mirror neurons. When performing a motor task like picking up a rock, your brain fires neurons. Interestingly, when you watch someone else perform the same task, your brain still fires some neurons. Images are the language of Self 2. Not verbal instruction. When watching Faker's mouse clicks, your Self 2 is subconsciously acting them out. It absorbs the tiniest movements which are invisible to Self 1. The next time you play, your Self 2 refers to Faker as an example. From my experience, I experience a small buff in performance after watching pro play or Challenger VoDs. The problem with ego-based learning systems is their dogmatic and ambiguous nature. We take concepts and ideas too seriously. The answer to "When should I splitpush?" greatly depends on the state of the game. How you play a champion depends on the matchup and junglers. In terms of ambiguity, say a coach tells 10 of its students that "You should play aggressively as Zed". The result is not one cohesive feel for Zed but 10 different interpretations. Does that mean tower-diving at Level 6? Does that mean pushing the wave relentlessly? The less instruction that intrudes Self 2's natural learning progress, the better. Use outside learning models, but don't let them use you. Watch the best and focus on what most interests you.

Cultivate Concentration

You're 20 minutes into a Ranked game and your team is up 20 to 5. This game looks over. Your team's arrogance leads to a 50-50 baron call. Despite the scoreboard, they steal the baron and the throwing begins. Your Self 1 wanders and is bombarded by what ifs and should haves. Nervous about losing, you make a rash teamfight engage that makes matters worse. Soon enough, your teammates lose trust in each other, and you lose the game. Sounds familiar doesn't it? How do we stay focused during the highs and lows of solo queue? There are two strategies we can leverage to let Self 2 thrive in uncertainty. First, the most effective way to deepen concentration through sight is to focus on subtle details. Gallwey suggests focusing on the seams of the tennis ball instead of trying to hit it. I applied this suggestion to CSing in League and saw immediate benefits. CSing or farming is a core fundamental to the game. You try to time your autoattacks with the minions' health bars. You watch carefully as the particles fly back and forth. Your muscles tense. You miss and get angry. This type of focus doesn't let Self 2 do the work. Instead of trying to CS the minion, pay attention to its color and animations. I find this technique to be relaxing and mesmerizing. It's not tied to the outcome. It empties your mind. Second, focus on your breath. Your breath is always available. Whatever happens in your solo queue games, you have your breath to realign your focus. Lost a teamfight? Focus on your breath. Nexus race? Focus on your breath. If you're dwelling on mistakes, you're causing Self 2 to make lapses in attention. Self 1 tries to take control because it's afraid of losing. Your concentration level is the measurement of how many milliseconds you use in a second. How present are you? It's hard to describe what we're thinking during flow, but we know that Self 1 wasn't chattering away. Trust in Self 2 like it's a gift bestowed to you. Sacrifice Self 1.

Play The Game. Nothing Else.

I highly recommend reading The Inner Game of Tennis. It shares insights on performance in the context of tennis but can be applied to all walks of life. When striving for a particular rank, we become obsessed with external validation. If I'm X Tier, then my peers will respect me. Only then am I a person of value and intelligence. This obsession is why we grow anxious and become depressed in game. On top of your team's negativity, your Self 1 belittles your Self 2. Do not be too hard on yourself. You are more than a tier, division, or elo. Be patient with yourself and allow time for improvement. Don't play for the high of winning. Play because you enjoy testing your limits. When playing for the sake of the game, you facilitate a childlike attitude towards learning. You'll feel less stress and pressure to perform. Play for excellence not glory.
submitted by Riftwalkerdotgg to leagueoflegends [link] [comments]

日本ニキの英語、General Language Learning/一般言語学

拙い日本語訳をお詫びします。私は私の意図を見逃しているほとんどの文章をチェックし、再加工しました。まだまだ初心者レベルです。
As decided previously, both Japanbros and overseasbros would like to get a firm grasp on another language in order to converse with Vtubers, fellow fans, and perhaps get a deeper understanding out of a different culture. I want to share what I’ve learned and explain what the Japanbros need in order to understand English fully as I’ve seen an example of a textbook and it was absolutely dreadful. Apparently, the Japanese do learn English, but it’s done in such a way that they beg the teacher to rather kill them, but the teacher will only do so when they say it in English so it never happens. It’s forced onto them and to try to get a grade in a language that is vastly different from theirs will make for a stressful school year. Americans get to learn French or Spanish at high school and they also don’t know when it will ever be useful.
Let’s end that. Welcome to 日本二キの英語, where I will first give some general language learning tips for anyone and then continue going through every part of the English language for our Japanese bros. Each subject will be a new post where I will give relevant and detailed information on every part of the English language.
以前で決めたように、日本ニキも海外ニキも、ストリーマーや仲間のファンと会話をしたり、異文化をより深く理解したりするために、他の言語をしっかりと把握したいと思っています。私が学んできたことを共有したいし、日本ニキが英語を完全に理解するために必要なことを説明したいと思っています。どうやら日本人は英語を学ぶのですが、それは「むしろ殺してくれ」と先生に懇願するような形で行われるのですが、先生は英語で言った時にしかやらないので、絶対にやらないのです。それは彼らに押し付けられたもので、自分たちの言語とは大きく異なる言語で成績を取ろうとすることは、ストレスの多い学校生活を送ることになるでしょう。アメリカ人は高校でフランス語やスペイン語を学ぶことになりますが、それがいつ役に立つかはわかりません。
では、これで終わりにしましょう。日本二キの英語へようこそ。ここでは、最初に誰にでもできる一般的な語学学習のヒントをいくつか紹介し、次に日本の兄弟たちのために英語のあらゆる部分について説明していきます。それぞれのテーマは新しいポストになり、英語のあらゆる部分について、関連性のある詳細な情報を提供していきます。

Your Reason for Learning/あなたの学びの理由

Many language learning programs will ask you why you wish to learn this language. Speaking a language is a skill that takes a lot of time and effort to master. If your argument is that it looked like fun to try, then you won’t keep learning for long. Anything more distinctive than a dialect is considered a language, which means that the structure and pronunciation is quite different. Below is a list of possible reasons for you to practice your target language.
  • Neuroplasticity
  • Connecting with people
  • Discovery
  • Showing off
  • Unfinished business
  • Travel
  • Your resumé
  • Cute anime girls
Motivation is necessary but not enough. You need to gather learning materials and come up with strategies for learning effectively. Motivation is like a flame. It will burn and keep burning until it’s out. That’s where strategic management is like a candle. It will keep a flame burning for the longest time it can. Look for ways to make them both go hand-in-hand.
However, broad goals such as ‘I want to have a conversation’ is too general. What do you want the conversation to be about? What is a subject that you want to cover? Textbooks assume that you want to go on holiday or business in another country so they start with that. If you have no such plans, then you need to think of themes and subjects that are relevant to you. If you are a musician, then you can search about the words for music, singing, voice, instruments, microphone, and melody. If you’re into cooking, you could look for words about pots, pans, stove, cooking, baking, boiling, water, and phrases such as ‘turn it or it will burn!’
多くの語学学習プログラムでは、なぜこの言語を学びたいのかを聞かれます。言語を話すことは、マスターするために多くの時間と努力が必要なスキルです。もしあなたの主張が「やってみると楽しそうだったから」というものであれば、長い間学習を続けることはできません。方言以上に特徴的なものは言語とみなされ、構造や発音が全く違うということになります。以下に、あなたが目標言語を練習する理由として考えられるものを挙げてみましょう。
  • 神経の可塑性
  • 人とのつながり
  • ディスカバリー
  • 見せびらかし
  • 未完の事業
  • 旅行
  • あなたの履歴書
  • かわいいアニメの女の子
モチベーションは必要ですが、十分ではありません。学習教材を集め、効果的に学習するための戦略を考える必要があります。モチベーションは炎のようなものです。燃え尽きるまで燃え続けます。そこで戦略的マネジメントはロウソクのようなものです。炎を可能な限り長く燃え続けます。両者を両立させる方法を探してください。
しかし、『会話をしたい』などの大まかな目標は、あまりにも一般的すぎます。会話は何についてしたいのか？何をテーマにしたいのか？教科書は「海外に旅行や出張に行きたい」ということを前提にしているので、そこからスタートします。もし、そのような計画がないのであれば、自分に関係のあるテーマやテーマを考える必要があります。音楽が好きなら、音楽、歌、声、楽器、マイク、メロディーなどの単語を検索してみましょう。料理が好きなら、鍋、フライパン、コンロ、料理、焼く、煮る、水、"回さないと燃えるぞ！"などのフレーズについての言葉を探してみましょう。

Differences between English and Japanese/英語と日本語の違い

Japanese grammar is like Lego bricks. You can add and take away pieces without it falling over, but the number of different pieces is overwhelmingly high (believe me, I worked in a Lego store). English is more like clay. There is a lot of freedom in how you shape it, but once the colors are mixed, they can’t be pulled apart. The more details you leave out of your sculpture, the more it will look like a shapeless blob.
To understand Japanese, you must know what to cut out of a sentence as a lot of the sentence is already assumed. First, you can cut out personal pronouns when you give a statement about yourself and pronouns of the other when you ask the other about something. You can cut out most of a verb when speaking informally. You can also leave out pronouns and subjects if the subject is already established. You can even cut out the particles they use for grammar if it isn’t necessary. What I suggest for those learning Japanese is first knowing what is intended and then see what is cut out of the sentence.
English is more about the details than Japanese in which the struggles are apparent when articles, plural, and prepositions are left out of translations. Saying “Is apple” in English will leave questions. What is the apple? Which apple? Who’s apple? Where is the apple? Are you the apple? Am I the apple? Are they the apple? It might seem tiresome, but for those wanting to learn English, you need to be ready and give a lot of details. Don’t leave out or ignore parts of an English sentence. Each word has a reason to be there and can’t be cut out.
日本語の文法はレゴのレンガのようなものです。倒れることなくピースを足したり取り除いたりできるのですが、その数は圧倒的に多いです（信じてください、私はレゴのお店で働いていました）。英語はどちらかというと粘土に近い。形の作り方は自由度が高いのですが、一度色が混ざってしまうと引き離すことができません。細かい部分を省けば省くほど、形のない塊のようになってしまいます。
日本語を理解するためには、文章の多くはすでに想定されているので、何を切り取るべきかを知っておく必要があります。まず、自分のことを話すときには人称代名詞を、相手に何かを尋ねるときには相手の代名詞をカットすることができます。非公式に話すときには動詞のほとんどを切り出せます。また、代名詞や主語がすでに確立されている場合には、その代名詞や主語を省くこともできます。文法のために使う助詞も、必要なければカットしてもいいでしょう。日本語を学習している人にお勧めしたいのは、まず何が意図されているのかを知り、その上で何を切り取っているのかを確認することです。
冠詞や複数形、前置詞を省くと苦労する日本語よりも、英語の方が細かいところに気を配ることができます。英語で「Is apple」と言うと疑問が残ります。りんごってなんだろう？どのリンゴ？誰のりんご？リンゴはどこにあるの？あなたはリンゴですか？私はりんごなの？彼らはりんごですか？面倒くさいと思われるかもしれませんが、英語を勉強したい人にとっては、準備をして細かいことをたくさん言う必要があります。英文の一部を省いたり、無視したりしてはいけません。一つ一つの単語にはそこにある理由があり、切り取ってはいけません。

Embrace the Accent/アクセントを受け入れる

There is no need to achieve perfection. I’ve been speaking English ever since I was about ten years old and natives will notice that I get traditional English and American English mixed up. But it’s comprehensible and leaves little language mistakes and that’s what really matters. An accent is the result of old habits that never truly leave. Having an accent creates charm. Yet, practice to a point where people can’t mistake what you’re saying for something else. That’s where you have a level of fluency.
完璧を目指す必要はありません。私は10歳くらいから英語を話していて、ネイティブは私が伝統的な英語とアメリカ英語をごっちゃにしていることに気づくでしょう。しかし、それは理解しやすく、言葉の間違いをほとんど残さず、それが本当に重要なことなのです。訛りは古い習慣の結果であり、決して本当の意味で残ることはありません。訛りを持つことで魅力が生まれます。しかし、人々があなたが言っていることを何か他のものと間違えることができないポイントに練習してください。それがあなたの流暢さのレベルです。

Your Filteあなたのフィルター

The brain is a pattern-recognizing organ, but just as how the stomach can’t process all foods and materials at the same time, so too can the brain not instantly learn perfectly. It uses what it already knows and crystalizes any established knowledge over time. The fact that you have a hard time understanding a different language is because your brain doesn’t recognize the patterns. It is perfectly possible to pronounce English words and remember kanji, it’s just so different from what we’ve been processing with for so many years that starting over feels like a daunting task. It is not your fault. Your brain just never used these ‘muscles’ before and so they start to hurt when you use them. But over time they will hurt less, and you can do more.
What I notice from people with a heavy accent is that they hear through their own ‘filter’. We listen by applying what we already know and filter out the rest just as how the brain subconciously ignores the nose. (Ha! Now you can’t because you’re aware of it!) We create habits by repeating what we have trained to repeat. In order to improve our understanding of language, we need to improve that filter. We need to get a firm grasp on the basics and keep applying new things to our comprehension. Some of it will stick, some of it won’t. That’s okay because you will learn it sooner or later. But when you hear someone say something or read something, being able to pick out the right details is already the start of improving that filter that will help you along the way.
脳はパターンを認識する器官ですが、胃がすべての食べ物や材料を同時に処理することができないのと同じように、脳もまた、瞬時に完璧に学習することはできません。脳はすでに知っていることを利用し、時間をかけて確立された知識を結晶化していきます。異なる言語を理解するのに苦労するのは、脳がパターンを認識していないからです。英単語を発音したり、漢字を覚えたりすることは完璧に可能ですが、私たちが長年処理してきたものとはあまりにも違うので、最初からやり直すのは大変な作業のように感じてしまいます。それはあなたのせいではありません。あなたの脳がこの「筋肉」を使ったことがないので、使うと痛くなるのです。しかし、時間が経てば痛みは少なくなり、より多くのことができるようになります。
訛りの強い人たちの話を聞いていて気づくのは、彼らは自分の「フィルター」を通して聞いているということです。私たちは、脳が無意識のうちに鼻を無視するのと同じように、すでに知っていることを適用して、残りの部分をフィルタリングして聞いています。私たちは、繰り返すように訓練されたことを繰り返すことで習慣を作ります。言葉の理解を深めるためには、そのフィルターを改善する必要があります。基本的なことをしっかりと把握し、理解力を高めるために新しいことを適用し続ける必要があります。それが定着するものもあれば、定着しないものもあります。遅かれ早かれ身につくことなので、それでいいのです。しかし、あなたが誰かが何かを言ったり、何かを読んで聞いたときに、右の詳細をピックアップすることができることは、すでに道に沿ってあなたを助けるフィルターを改善するためのスタートです。

Frequency Dictionaries/頻度辞書

Perfect for language learners, a frequency dictionary sorts by most words used rather than a word order. Instead of aimlessly searching for random words that may or may not be relevant, a frequency dictionary starts off with the most common words and their meanings so you can start learning something that will always be relevant to understand.
言語学習者のための完璧な、頻度辞書は、単語の順序ではなく、使用されるほとんどの単語によってソートします。無目的に関連しているかもしれない、または関連していないかもしれないランダムな単語を検索する代わりに、頻度辞書は、あなたが理解するために常に関連する何かを学び始めることができるように、最も一般的な単語とその意味から始まります。

Phrasebooks/フレーズ本

They are handy for learning chunks of words and relevant sentences quickly. It’s good when you want to learn some small talk but learning full phrases might disable you in getting flexible with a language. It could be a good place to start.
彼らはすぐに単語や関連する文章の塊を学習するために便利です。それはあなたがいくつかの小さな話を学びたいときに良いですが、完全なフレーズを学ぶことは、言語との柔軟性を得ることであなたを無効にする可能性があります。それは始めるのに良い場所かもしれません。

Standard Dictionaries/標準辞書

I found the Oxford Japanese Mini Dictionary at a book discount. After years of not using it, I wanted to throw it away. Yet, when I took up learning Japanese again, did I realize how handy this little book was. It requires an understanding of both the alphabet and kana, but once that was learned it became the most reliable language tool at hand.
オックスフォード日本語ミニ辞典を本の割引価格で見つけました。何年も使っていなかったので、捨てようと思っていました。しかし、日本語の勉強を再開してみると、この小さな本がいかに便利なものであるかに気がつきました。アルファベットと仮名の両方を理解する必要がありますが、それを覚えてしまえば、手元にある最も頼りになる言語ツールになりました。

Textbooks/教科書

It is possible to give learning a more old-fashioned try. Textbooks will cover the necessary subjects and set up challenges for you to see your results. However, if schools use textbooks and they didn’t work, then perhaps there lies the fault. Language learning requires daily practice and going through a textbook alone won’t give you all the practice you need. Plus, some Japanese textbooks are of a poor quality.
昔ながらの学習に挑戦させることができます。教科書は必要な科目を網羅していますし、課題も設定されているので、結果が見えてきます。しかし、学校で教科書を使っていてうまくいかなかった場合は、そこに落ち度があるのかもしれません。語学学習には日々の練習が必要で、教科書だけでは十分な練習にはなりません。また、日本語の教科書の中には質の悪いものもあります。

Cheat Sheets/チートシート

Sometimes making a cheat sheet for yourself can already help with learning and memorizing grammar. With the magic of the internet there are many cheat sheets available written by other people who summarized grammar in neat little sets. Just search for ‘___ grammar’ and you might get an explanation that is more comprehensible than any textbook.
時々、自分のためにカンニングシートを作ることは、文法の学習と暗記にすでに役立つことがあります。インターネットの魔法を使えば、他の人が書いたチートシートがたくさん出回っています。「文法」と検索するだけで、どんな教科書よりも理解しやすい説明が得られるかもしれません。

Mnemonics/記憶術

Don’t be afraid to create your own mnemonics even when they seem weird and nonsensical. I encourage you to first create your own and later on search for what other people came up with. When abstract words are too hard to remember, you can use other senses and your own sense of logic to create something that is easier to remember. If you can visualize something or remember a simple phrase, you can ‘unpack’ your memory from that.
For example, I remember similar looking katakana with ‘ソンシツ’ by remembering Son Goku as a shih tsu dog. I know that the single-drops are on the left, the double drops are on the right, and the horizontal ones are the middle. I remember ‘か’ as it looks like a samurai with a Katana. I remember ‘ふ’ as a man with a tuft of hair who is tired and says ‘フウウウ~’. ‘ぬ’ and ‘ね’ look like a sleeping dog and a stretching cat while I know that ‘め’ and ‘わ’ are without the curly tail. ‘ま’ reminds me of the sun rising from the horizon of the African fields like in Disney’s The Lion King. How did that start? Like this: “まあああああああ~” and that’s how I remember it until I don’t need it anymore.
It can be done with Roman letters as well. If you have trouble differentiating the letters b, d, q, and p, you could create this emoji: d(--)b “デベ” q(><)p “キュペ！” by visualizing it and adding sound, it would make it easier to remember the difference. The same can be done with the letter ‘S’, it looks like a snake and a snake hisses. The word ‘Boob’ shows a top side, front side, and right side of a pair of breasts. Look at both your hands and only stick out your thumbs and index fingers, the hand that shapes and ‘L’ is the ‘left’ one so the other is the ‘right’ one. English prepositions are different from Japanese ones, so don’t hesitate to look for a handy chart that visualizes them.
たとえそれが奇妙で無意味に見える場合でも、自分自身のニーモニックを作成することを恐れてはいけません。まずは自分で作ってみて、後で他の人が作ったものを探してみることをお勧めします。抽象的な言葉を覚えるのが難しいときは、他の感覚や自分の論理的な感覚を使って、より覚えやすいものを作ることができます。何かをイメージしたり、簡単なフレーズを覚えたりすることができれば、そこから記憶を「解きほぐす」ことができます。
例えば、ソン五久をシーつー犬として思い出すことで、「ソンシツ」と似たような見た目のカタカナを覚えています。一滴が左に、二滴が右に、横のものが真ん中にあることを知っています。「か」はカタナを持った武士のような感じで覚えています。「フウウウウウ～」と疲れた髪の毛の房の男が言っていたので、「ふ」を覚えています。「ぬ」と「ね」は寝ている犬と伸びている猫に似ているが、「め」と「わ」は尻尾の巻き毛がないことを知っている。「ま」はディズニーのライオンキングに出てくるようなアフリカの野原の地平線から昇る太陽を連想させる。それはどうやって始まったんですか？こんな感じです。「まあああああああああ～」と、いらなくなるまで覚えています。
ローマ字でもできます。b,d,q,pの区別が難しい場合は、d(--)b "デベ" q(><)p "キュペ！"という絵文字を視覚化して音をつけると、違いを覚えやすくなります。「S」という文字も同じように、蛇のように見えて、蛇がヒスを出しているように見えます。「Boob」という文字は、上から見て、正面から見て、右から見て、一対の乳房を表しています。両手を見て、親指と人差し指だけを突き出して、「L」と「R」を形作っている手は「Left」なので、もう一方は「Right」です。英語の前置詞は日本のものとは違うので、迷わずそれを可視化した便利なチャートを探してみてください。

The Humanity of Languages/言語の人間性

Complaining about a language is useless. The only language you can be critical about is Esperanto as it is designed to be spoken by many people. Every language has its own design, and with all design it can have flaws, fixes for those flaws, and the quirks that stem from it. All languages are based on rules, but the more you learn, the more you notice that there are exceptions and deviations from those rules. So there will be moments of confusion during your learning process. ‘Lice’ and ‘police’ are written the same way but sound different. ‘風’ has the radical for ‘bug’ in it even though it means ‘wind’. So I suggest to understand the basics first and then play around with language. If you find rules on it, good. If you get confused, that’s also good as confusion is a sign of your brain trying to piece together information. Just know that if you don’t get something, either take a step back from your learning process and approach it differently or dig deeper and get a source of information that is clear to you. And if it doesn’t make sense, just accept that it doesn’t make sense and move on.
言語に文句を言っても意味がありません。あなたが批判的になれる唯一の言語はエスペラント語で、それは多くの人に話されるように設計されているからです。すべての言語には独自のデザインがあり、すべてのデザインには欠陥があり、その欠陥を修正するための修正方法があり、またそこから派生した癖があります。すべての言語はルールに基づいていますが、学べば学ぶほど、例外やルールからの逸脱があることに気づくでしょう。そのため、学習の過程で戸惑うこともあるでしょう。「Lice」と「police」は同じように書かれていますが、音が違います。「風」は「かぜ」を意味するのに「虫」の頭文字が入っています。だから、まずは基本を理解してから、言葉で遊んでみることをお勧めします。その上でルールを見つけられたら、それでいい。もし混乱してしまったら、それもまた良いことです。もし何かを得られなかったら、学習プロセスから一歩引いて、別の方法でアプローチするか、もっと深く掘り下げて、あなたにとって明確な情報源を手に入れてください。そして、それが意味を成さない場合は、それが意味を成さないことを受け入れて、先に進みましょう。

Flash cards/フラッシュカード

Take a stack of post cards and cut them into equal pieces that fit in your pocket. You can draw a picture on it or write a word and write the answer on the back of the card. Whenever you are waiting in a line, on the train, or anywhere else, you can pull out your stack of cards and check your memory. I suggest using images rather than words so you won’t pressure yourself into translating something from one word to the other.
ポストカードの束を取り、ポケットに入るように等分にカットします。そこに絵を描いてもいいし、言葉を書いてカードの裏に答えを書いてもいい。行列に並んでいるとき、電車の中で待っているときなど、どこにいても、カードの束を取り出して記憶力をチェックすることができます。言葉ではなく画像を使うことをお勧めします。

Practice/実践

There are generally four parts to learning a language.
  • Comprehension
  • Interpretation
  • Speaking
  • Writing
Reading and listening are on the receiving end of learning a language, but it doesn’t challenge you to create sentences. Writing and speaking would go well, but native speakers tend to speak quickly and skip words. All must go hand-in-hand. If you notice that you aren’t creating sentences then I suggest to write a journal in your target language. Whenever you can’t come up with the right word, make a note of it and plan on practicing it.
言語学習には、一般的に4つの部分があります。
  • 理解力
  • 解釈
  • 話すこと
  • 書き方
読むことと聞くことは、言語を学ぶ側になりますが、文章を作ることには挑戦しません。書くことと話すことはうまくいきますが、ネイティブスピーカーは早口で言葉を飛ばしがちです。すべては手を取り合って行わなければなりません。もしあなたが文章を作っていないことに気づいたら、目標言語で日記を書くことをお勧めします。正しい言葉が思いつかないときは、メモをとって練習することを計画してみてください。

Tips/ヒント

Google is your Friend/Googleはあなたの友人です

Google translator might not be the best translation program out there, but it’s an American product so you could say that it has at least one language right. If you spell a word out it will give suggestions. If you can spell it right in the translator, it can say the word out loud. If it can say it out loud, it can sometimes give suggestions on how to pronounce it.
The same can be done with practicing pronunciation. Use the microphone option to enter a word. If your pronunciation is too far off, Google will interpret it differently. That’s where you get instant feedback on your pronunciation without relying on real people.
Googleの翻訳者は、そこにある最高の翻訳プログラムではないかもしれませんが、それはアメリカの製品なので、少なくとも1つの言語を正しく持っていると言うことができます。単語を綴れば、それは提案を与えてくれます。翻訳者の中で正しく綴ることができれば、その単語を声に出して言うことができます。声に出して言うことができれば、発音の仕方を教えてくれることもあります。
発音の練習も同じことができます。マイクオプションを使って単語を入力します。あなたの発音があまりにもズレていると、Googleはそれを違った解釈をしてくれます。そこで、実際の人に頼らなくても、自分の発音についてすぐにフィードバックを得ることができるのです。

Poetry/詩

Rhyming in Japanese is not much of an art. With a set of sounds that sound so much alike, making something rhyme is a cinch. Japanese songs and poetry are about the feeling of the words and how they impact the listener along with the melody. In English, however, people expect songs and poems to rhyme. With words that sound roughly the same but are inconsistently written, it is easy to confuse the spoken words of ‘Don’t bear the bare hare’s white hair.’ The art lies in creating that sing-songy sound while retaining some kind of narrative. Listen to the following video of The Raven read by the late Christopher Lee.
Do you hear that sing-songy melody? That expectation of how certain words must end? Many different songs from 1980 are well written and rhyme often. Go explore and listen. You might notice some language patterns.
日本語の韻を踏むことは、あまり芸術とは言えません。同じように聞こえる音のセットで、何かを韻を踏むことはシンチです。日本語の歌や詩は、メロディーと一緒に、言葉の感じ方や聞き手に与える影響を考えています。しかし、英語では、歌や詩には韻を踏むことを期待します。大体同じように聞こえる言葉でも、書き方に矛盾があると、「Don’t bear the bare hare’s white hair.」のような話し言葉と混同してしまいがちです。ストーリー性を持たせながらも、その歌謡曲のような音を出すのがアートなのです。故クリストファー・リーが朗読した「カラス」の以下の動画を聴いてみてください。
歌うようなメロディーが聞こえますか？ある言葉がどのように終わるのかという期待感があるでしょうか？1980年からの多くの異なる曲は、よく書かれていて、よく韻を踏んでいます。探って聴いてみてください。いくつかの言語パターンに気づくかもしれません。

Pitfalls/落とし穴

Songs, Memes, and Social Websites Are Unreliable/歌、ミーム、ソーシャルサイトは信頼できない

A lot of media isn’t that reliable when it comes to learning proper English. That doesn’t mean that listening to songs will ruin your language skill, it’s just that you don’t need to take the grammar of a song that seriously. The same can be said about online comments. Not everybody is willing to write proper or formal English. Even I can be negligent of my punctuation and I tend to mix up traditional English with American English.
多くのメディアは、適切な英語を学ぶことに関しては、それほど信頼できるものではありません。だからと言って、歌を聞いているだけで語学力が落ちるということではなく、歌の文法をそこまで深刻に考える必要はないということです。オンラインコメントにも同じことが言えます。みんながみんな、ちゃんとした英語やフォーマルな英語を書こうと思っているわけではありません。私でさえ句読点を怠ることがあり、伝統的な英語とアメリカ英語をごっちゃにしがちです。

Instant Translations/インスタント翻訳

Subtitles and quick Google searches feel handy. But that’s the problem, they feel like you have learned new words. But the moment you solved the translation problem you can forget what you’ve read. It’s like furigana, you just read over the kanji so you don’t need to remember it. How well do you remember that kanji afterwards?
Following a form of media without translation is frustrating when you have no basic knowledge of it. That’s why I recommend to first learn some basics and then look for visual media that is still interesting without words. Casual conversations or media with a lot of abstract talk are not fit for this. You want visually stimulating media that shows objects like videogames and kid shows. You could also take an anime or manga that you have followed and then look for a version of it in a different language. (Man, that takes me back to the days that I read Dragonball in German.)
Especially with Vtubers who stream games, they say out loud what they see. If you miss it, then at least your brain is processing how the language sounds. If you catch it or get curious as to what it means, it means you are learning!
字幕とグーグル検索は便利だ しかし、それが問題なのです。新しい単語を覚えたように感じるのです。でも、翻訳の問題を解決した途端、読んだことを忘れてしまう。ふりがなのように、漢字を読み上げるだけなので、覚える必要はありません。その後、その漢字をどのくらい覚えていますか？
翻訳のないメディアを追うのは、基本的な知識がないとイライラしますよね。だからこそ、まずは基礎知識を身につけてから、言葉がなくても面白いビジュアルメディアを探してみることをおすすめします。何気ない会話や抽象的な話が多いメディアは向いていません。テレビゲームやキッズショーのような、モノを見せる視覚的に刺激的なメディアがいいですね。また、今まで見てきたアニメや漫画を別の言語で探してみるのもいいかもしれません。(ドラゴンボールをドイツ語で読んでいた頃を思い出します)。
特にゲームをストリーミング配信しているVtubersは、見たものを声に出して言う。もし見逃してしまったとしても、少なくとも脳はその言語がどのように聞こえるかを処理しているはずです。もしあなたがそれをキャッチしたり、それが何を意味するのか興味を持ったりしたら、それはあなたが学習していることを意味しています
おすすめの視聴方法:

Onomatopoeia/擬音語

Sakura Miko tried to explain ‘flying’ to Coco with her Elite English. She made the sound effect of ‘patta patta’. However, ‘patta patta’ is a Japanese onomatopoeia, in English they say ‘flap flap’ which is absolutely different. An explosion in English is ‘kaboom!’ but the Japanese version is ‘dokaaan!’. Even when the sound is the same, the languages interpret it differently. This is part of that language filter that I mentioned before.
Even animal sounds and cries of pain can be different depending on the language. Expecting to use sound effects to convey a message is not an optimal choice. That said, learning the onomatopoeia of a language helps with understanding it as well.
桜巫女は、エリート英語でココに「飛ぶ」を説明しようとした。「パッタパッタ」という効果音を作ってくれました。しかし、「パッタパッタ」は日本語の擬音で、英語では「flap-flap」と言いますが、これは全く違います。爆発音は英語では「kaboom！」ですが、日本語では「ドカアン！」と言います。同じ音でも言語によって解釈が違う。これは先ほど言った言語フィルターの一部です。
動物の鳴き声や痛みの叫び声でも、言語によって違うことがあります。効果音でメッセージを伝えることを期待するのは、最適な選択ではありません。だからこそ、その言語の擬音を学ぶことは、その言語の理解にも役立ちます。

Tools/ツール類

Grammarly

An English spelling and grammar application that can be added to your internet browser. You can set it to either traditional English or the American dialect. You get the choice of accepting any corrections it makes but it can’t see past colloquialisms or figurative speech.
インターネットブラウザに追加できる英語のスペル・文法アプリ。伝統的な英語とアメリカの方言のどちらかに設定することができます。訂正を受け入れるかどうかの選択ができますが、過去の口語や比喩的な言い回しを見ることはできません。

Duolingo

A free and thorough training program with a massive portfolio of languages to learn from. However, only if you speak English do you get to learn from this massive list. If you speak a different language you will always be able to learn English and perhaps another language. It is fun to practice with this application but most practitioners agree that it’s not enough. It will teach you to comprehend the language but not speak it. See it as a daily supplement with lessons rather than the core of your learning.
膨大な言語のポートフォリオから学ぶ無料の徹底したトレーニングプログラム。しかし、あなたが英語を話す場合にのみ、この膨大なリストから学ぶことができます。あなたが別の言語を話す場合、あなたは常に英語を学ぶことができますし、おそらく別の言語を学ぶことができます。このアプリケーションで練習するのは楽しいですが、ほとんどの実践者はそれだけでは不十分だと同意します。それはあなたに言語を理解することを教えますが、それを話すことはできません。あなたの学習の中核というよりは、レッスンを毎日補うものとして見てください。

Urban Dictionary

A place where slang is collected. If you ever wonder why certain words show up in chat or reddit and the literal translation doesn’t make sense, you might want to search it on this website.
俗語を集めた場所。チャットやredditで特定の単語が出てきて、直訳しても意味がわからないと思ったら、このサイトで検索してみるといいかもしれません。

Wanikani

A sleek looking training course with the first lesson free. The Wanikani methods will get you through learning all the radicals first with their own mnemonics.

Jisho

Both a dictionary and kanji-centric database. All you have to do is write the word, the kanji, or find the right set of radicals to see what a certain kanji means. It shows all onyomi, kunyomi, radicals, and even stroke order.

DeepL

An effective translator. Google often translates things literally, this translator reads more between the lines. One of its quirks, though, is that it prefers to choose politeness forms over informal words. It’s meant to translate business letters, after all. It's not perfect. I suggest double-checking all translations.
効果的な翻訳者。Googleは文字通りに翻訳することが多いのですが、この翻訳者は行間をよく読んでくれます。そのクセの一つは、しかし、それは非公式な言葉よりも丁寧なフォームを選択することを好むということです。それは結局のところ、ビジネスレターを翻訳するために意図されています。完璧ではありません。私はすべての翻訳をダブルチェックすることをお勧めします。

Punipuni

Lessons in Japanese from a native speaker who creates short, simple, and concise lessons.

Sesamestreet/セサミストリート

Yes, Sesamestreet. There is a version of Sesamestreet in every country and every language. Because Sesamestreet is so clear with their themes, pronunciation, and basic vocabulary, it is easy pick up a thing or two at a basic level while also being engaged with what is happening on screen. Now, as it is for children it might be hard to watch for so long because we’re not the right audience for it. I suggest putting it in the background while doing something else or making a playlist and watch every day.
はい、セサミストリート。セサミストリートのバージョンは、どの国にも、どの言語にもあります。セサミストリートは、テーマや発音、基本的な語彙がはっきりしているので、基本的なことをひとつやふたつ覚えながら、画面の中で起こっていることに夢中になることができます。子供向けなので、長時間見るのは難しいかもしれませんが、私たちには向いていません。何か他のことをしながらバックグランドに置いたり、プレイリストを作って毎日つずつ見ることをお勧めします。

Websites

Anki/あんき

Anki is a flash card app to help you digitally memorize things.
Ankiは、物事をデジタルで覚えるのに役立つフラッシュカードアプリです。

Books/本

  • Japanese from Zero
  • Genki
  • Japanese in Mangaland
  • Remembering the Kanji
  • Minna no Nihongo
  • Oxford Japanese Dictionary
  • Fluent Forever
  • Learn English 300% Faster
  • Natural Language Learning Without A Teacher

Youtube

他の投稿

まだありません。
submitted by OlemGolem to Hololive [link] [comments]

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free online strategy games no flash

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