u/FarAd4971

Yes, like and play everything that you are drawn to, this isn't a post about which is "better" or which is "trash" this is just me trying to evaluate in writing what I'm recently rediscovering with magic, which I used to play in real life back in the 90s and also just gaining more reflection on how different designs have different draws.

Hearthstone got me back into CCGs because a friend from way back in the day pitched me on it during a phone call when I told him I had an urge to start playing CCGs again.

I'm not a particularly competitive person. I'm not especially driven to play games in order to attain a particular rank against other competitive players.

I do really enjoy the collecting part of CCGs...gaining a larger and larger collection of cards, that vastly expand my options for building a homebrew deck that I really like and have fun executing. The options with how large the total card pool is on Arena are freaking fantastic and will theoretically keep me busy for many years.

I also really love that homebrew aspect. More cards means more tinkering options. A lot of people say craft decks not cards, but that's not really me...To some degree sure, like getting my first viable historic deck put together mostly on spec in that first month, going with something that fit my idea of "fun" to play and competent...but more fun is had as I continue to play historic and gradually redeem wildcards in small batches to say...okay, let's see how this card fits in, or a handful of these....what if I swap out these ones for those ones....and play some to continue to tweak. That's incredibly fun and rewarding for me and really calls back to old-school days as a teen.

So much of the fun was, can I make something like this work, cause it would be cooler if I can.

I really like board-play and absolutely love that I've had multiple games with literally hundreds of creatures on board or literally tens of thousands of damage points...even if I lose. I just think it's fun and epic to play out. One dude hit me with over 20,000 damage in one turn, from creatures, and I bragged about it to my friend.

I've also noticed that I concede differently in Arena compared to HS. Since in either game my long term goal is collection building, conceding once I know I'm going to lose in Arena makes way more sense. I don't get reward track experience for losing...as best as I can tell. From what I've seen it looks like most people are more like that in Arena, though I have run into at least a couple on here who have made clear they hate when people concede and would really rather them continue to play a losing situation or even an RNG screw.

Also, since the card pool is huge in historic and I'm not a super competitive player, it's a flat out blast seeing how different everyone's decks are. Even regarding differing card choices within the same archetype. Love that.

I haven't managed to really do anything in Commander yet, it's totally new and I haven't dived in...but I'm guessing once I have some semblance of ability to build synergy with that many unique cards, hopefully the design part will click and I'll love it.

There is fair criticism. It exists. If hearing any criticism of your ideology causes you to go into an angry or dismissive mode, you are more likely a zealot.

If someone says they left your ideology and your first, or only response is to attack them verbally or make wild assumptions bout them in an attempt to demonize them or bully them into silence, retreat, or rejoining your ideology, you are definitely part of the problem.

Not sure what reactions this post will get, but I'll be in and out throughout the day to respond.

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Not because I think my measly ticket (or two if I'd been able to convince my girlfriend to go) would have changed the verdict on it's box office haul, but because I've robbed myself of seeing this absolute banger on the big Screen.

Yeah, I always intended on seeing the movie on streaming. I rarely go to the theaters and I did have some real reservations about this beforehand...But It's now one of my favorite movies in years honestly. It's my favorite big blockbuster style Action flick since Avengers Endgame (2019) and to be honest, the fact that it came out of nowhere, compared to the build up to Endgame is a little nuts.

Anyhow: I'll be as concise as possible.

Reservations: I am a comic fan, game geek, and action figure photographer. I WANT movie adaptations to feature actors and actresses that look like the iconic characters from the visual properties they originate from (aside from reasonable updates for medium or era). I didn't originally like that Jackman was too tall for Wolverine, that Bale's hair and complexion didn't match Bruce from the comics, or that Amy Adams didn't have raven black hair in the Snyderverse. One of the few times where I was excited about swapping a physical appearance was Mamoa for Aquaman, but really only because I wanted people to take Aquaman more seriously(ironic I know). Also my girlfriend is a redhead and I'm just freaking tired of redheads being erased from geek IPs.

However, Idris Elba and Camila Mendes took the roles, overcame my resistance to changing the iconic imagery of the past, and absolutely became the characters going forward. At least for me. Even in an overall fantastically well cast movie, they both ended up as major freaking standouts. I wasn't familiar with Mendes at all, but really loved her work. I've long loved Elba in things, and as nuts as it sounds, this is likely the character I will always see him as in an action role.

Also....I generally can't stand Jared Leto. Yes he's a piece of crap human, no, I don't really like the idea of going to see his movies, but it is impossible to deny that he truly brought Skeletor to life, and I hope that comforts him during the civil suits and possible prison time. I guess I'm grateful for that and hope that his replacement basically steps right into his shoes.

The rest of the Casting: King Randor, Queen Marleena, the Sorceress, all of Skeletor's goons(especially loved Goatman), the Heroes of Eternia, fantastic. I'll say that Nicholas Galitzene was born for this role, to me. I totally get that some people wanted more separation between playing Adam and He-Man, but it really worked for me with the Fish out of water component to learning to be He-Man, learning to be He-Man and be in the power. He has the power.

Amazingly(Considering that I was excited for Allison Brie), Evil-Lyn was slightly disappointing for me, but they had some good seeds there with her that and she'll hopefully get an opportunity for a bigger performance down the road. It's also just hard to beat Lena Heady's voice acting as Evil-Lyn in the Smith show. (Side note: The fact that Lyn uses one of the magic words from Willow's wand spell is an amazing sleeper nod to 80s fantasy adventure).

Fights/action: LOVED them! Loved. The fight pacing, choreography, music, just so much fun. I especially love the way the chase fights showed off some of the scenery of Eternia and kept the feel of the toys in play. When He-Man faces off with Skeletor's goons in the red lair scene, I loved every second afte he said "You can try" and especially loved how some of the choreography really felt like classic sword and sorcery from the 80s, just better than most of it. The look on King Randor's face during the scene was amazing. We also got that Epic full circle second fight between Duncan and Trapjaw, the bridge defense, and that amazing Skeletor vs He-Man fight we never got in 87. I could use more Battlecat, but I'm glad he got to square off with Beastman.

Humor: I loved all of the character humor Adam had. I loved almost all of the homo-erotic humor. That was a little overdone at times, but overall I loved it. Skeletor has to be mentioned in this. I honestly couldn't have imagined that the villain slash jokester camp of the cartoon Skeletor could ever have translated this well to live action...it just seems nuts to have worked so well. It's hard to say how much I loved that portrayal especially considering I just really haven't liked the actor in such a long time(and couldn't stand his Joker at all). The additional nods

Eternia: Freaking amazing! I want TV shows, more movies, games, more comics, short films and reals...please, more Eternia! It's beautiful and seeing parts of it in the speeder fights felt like classic Star Wars. It's the alien world I want to dream in. Seriously, can we just get some short promotional reals done as National Geographic style clips of Orko showing us places and beasts of Eternia as a Prime short episode show?

Lastly, yes, that first transformation with the sword....I don't know how that could have possibly been any more epic...that final transformation when the Sorceress explains the power...Oh my God. Just the badassery level...

Thank you Travis Knight, all the cast and crew, and everyone who was smarter than I was and saw it in theaters.

Another side note...my girlfriend loved it. Her 22 year old son with no real He-Man connection loved it. Consistently everyone in my real life who's seen it, loved it.

In terms of data, it seems pretty consistent that by objective measurements, approximately 1/3 of high school seniors in the US score as adequate in reading and math when they graduate?

If we had a 30% success rate in anything else were we're setting the goals like that, it kinds seems like we'd all admit it's a failure.

But what's crazier to me is how often it seems like people of many ages totally don't know basic knowledge, like who won the Civil War, how does the electoral college work, or is the Earth round...like really?

That gets into the even weirder aspect of looking at critical thinking skills and conspiracies...part of the reason that wildly falsifiable ideas about basic science, the world, or society are able to flourish because we've apparently been so horrendous at teaching people how to evaluate evidence, research, or even understand basic scientific principles or facts.

Discussion is kind of even worse...people ideally should be able to ask questions, understand when they are invoking logical fallacies, and be secure enough in thoughts that simply hearing ideas they don't like, isn't seen as a threat.

So, like I said, when will most Americans accept that the public education system in the US, as an experiment, has actually failed?

Small note: I did regular public schooling up until HS and it wasn't impressive. For high school I attended a charter school that ran kind of like a variation on home schooling.

I've seen a pattern over and over again, of people simply seeing a post then launching into an unreasonable and absurd conclusion, seemingly for the sake of conflict and tribalism...I don't really see how it's not clearly intentional and just a wildly dishonest and unhealthy way to engage in life.

This is just an example, but tracks over and over again.

I say,
"I really love Gala Apples."

And reactions will be like:

"So you hate oranges?"
"I think we need more fruit diversity bigot"
"Grapes are just as worthy as Apples"
"If you don't love Pink Lady apples, clearly you voted for (Insert any politician)"
"Did (insert any celebrity) tell you to like Gala Apples?"
"My grandmother died eating a Gala Apple, how dare you..."
"I'm allergic to Apples and I really think you should consider being a better person"
"I'm tired of being told that apples are the only fruit we can eat"
"You're just brainwashed by Big Agriculture"
"Clearly you're a bot"
"Stop Karma farming"
"I've never had a Gala apple, but this tells me all I need to know about you..."
"Fruit's not real..."
"I can't believe you're willing to admit this in public, we see you..."

I can't help but think that's it isn't actually hard to engage with what someone says rather than whatever made up ideological or personal conflict you want to interpret everything through in your head.

People have different views. Hearing different views is not conflict, your reaction is. Nothing is wrong with asking questions if you don't understand something. Your ideological wars are not important to everyone.

A lot of times, they are just saying they like Gala apples and it doesn't need to be something else.

I grew up loving female warrior characters, especially as a child in the 80s with fantasy and science fiction movies, comics, and the like.

Despite how the genres and tropes weren't for everyone and may totally come off as cheesy to many, I definitely loved them as a kid and a lot of that just turned into nostalgic love as an adult.

I think that male warrior characters as the default common trope for characters is the common trope because it's reasonably easy to look around in the real world and see that most of the time, if there is a warrior or combat oriented role in society, it's more likely to be populated by men than women. This still persists.

Much of the reason for this is that on average males tend to be larger and stronger than females and have certain benefits in combat typically, not just size and strength, but even in testosterone level that means more risk taking behavior.

Because of that, when you see a character like Red Sonja, Princess Leia, Sheena, Sorsha (from Willow), Valeria(Conan), Black Widow, or Teela, their rarity conveys an automatic message about their character, they are especially deadly.

The trials they've had aren't the same as the ones that got the male warriors there. They had to overcome more.

I feel like the urge that it seems like some have to see parity commonality is well meaning, but sadly robs the characters of a certain potential to tell a different story via the rarity.

My favorite Star Wars action figure was Leia from the third movie with her forest camo. My favorite character in Willow was actually Sorsha, and her rarity in being an obvious outsider in role, but also her ability to be the only one on her side who was able to determine her side was the wrong one, which I think was partly a product of her uniqueness. As a teen my neighbor and best friend told me that I was the only person that ever introduced him to Red Sonja (regardless of whether many people liked that movie or not). Leia strangling Jabba wasn't just epic, it was consistent with playing on tropes that Jabba only saw her as decoration and not a threat and he was "dead" wrong in his assessment.

A lot of people are not familiar with Anosmia(without smell), there are congenital anosmics like myself who have never had a sense of smell and then there are people who lost their sense of smell for some reason. Over time, most people have a dulling of the sense as they age and people who suddenly lose the sense of smell often combat depression.

Most of us who were born this way all have a shared childhood experience of not being believed by one or more family members. Often as kids we'll also just play along when get the idea that others are reacting to something we can't perceive.

Every now and then I run into someone who explicitly makes the claim that it's easier to make legend in Wild....I disagree, based both on my own experience, but also just logical points about how the game is structured, so I'm curious how wild players generally see this....

I played for about a year in 2022 very casually, never really interested in trying to do much climbing, playing Mercenaries half the time, missing daily or weekly quests, and only finishing a reward track I think twice in that time.

When I came back last October still as FtP, I took less than a month to make Legend in standard, literally with a free deck that they gave me, just for playing again(with minor alterations).

In HS, in standard, new players are literally given competitive decks for free. They also are given enough free cards that they may immediately or with only a tiny bit of library building have multiple competitive decks. This happened recently with Green Man, Token Druid, Dragon Warrior, etc in standard...literally super cheap, or free competitive decks that they basically throw at you because they want you to like the game, be immediately competitive, and have little to learn or need to develop much resources.

I would make Legend in wild, last month for the first time, with a heavily customized version of that same free deck, but it definitely took time to mod it with wild cards substantially.

I can't for the life of me understand how anyone thinks that wild is the lower bar to legend in...since the business model of the game is "You just started playing today, here, take one of these decks for free and instantly be competitive, have fun and keep playing!"

No one gives you a free wild deck that's competitive...yes you can netdeck and craft a Discolock, but you still have to build your library to do so which takes time and effort as a FtP player...being competitive in Standard is literally thrown at you as soon as you start playing...no time, no real effort at building or collecting... just pick one of the strongest free decks and compete...right away.

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