UB Finkel Aggro Combo - Stifle Parallax Nexus and Phyrexian Negator

UB Finkel Aggro Combo - Stifle Parallax Nexus and Phyrexian Negator

Per the other decklist I shared earlier today, Im trying to make UB aggro work and take advantage of two of the most powerful underplayed 3 drops in Premodern [[Shadowmage Infiltrator]] and [[Phyrexian Negator]].

Lo and behold, NM posted a sweet league with a UB list abusing [[Stifle]] and [[Parallax Nexus]]…

https://youtu.be/FmAnDSGQPYI?is=ZYGXqmCN5Vc_P9pW

That specific list didnt fare well but the Nexus and Stifle combo did a lot of work.

It just so happens that Stifle also combos with Phyrexian Negator by removing all sacrifices from any combat or burn spell once. And Nexus exiling opponents hand is a great way to make sure Negator can finish off your opponent.

Do you think its possible to build a strong UB aggro deck using these interactions and Finkle?

[[Shadowmage Infiltrator]] is super underused.

Its a phyrexian arena that instead of costing you 1 life instead costs your opponent 1 life every turn.

How many times do you die in part to your own Phyrexian Arena or Graveborn Muse life loss? Shadowmage does the reverse as it taxes your opponents life total rather than your own while drawing you cards.

How would you build such a deck?

I think 4 Hyppie is a must so I would start with..

20 Lands

4 Dark Ritual
4 Stifle
4 Parallax Nexus
4 Phyrexian Negator
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Shadowmage Infiltrator

I think the below cards make the most sense to fill out the rest of the deck

4 Duress

2 Smother

1 Funeral Charm

1 Diabolic Edict

1 Recoil

1 Probe

1 Withered Wretch

1 Rotting Giant

1 The Rack

1 Phyrexian Furnace

1 Cursed Scroll or Fact or Fiction

1 Winter Orb or Fact or Fiction

But there is definitely room to add all manner of spice, like a 1 of Psychatog to serve as a removal magnet if not an alt win condition.

Cards like Mana Leak and Portent also have potential but I would prefer to not play any mono blue cards other than Stifle to better leverage Dark Ritual.

u/Secret-Lecture — 5 days ago

Blue Moneyball - Splashing blue to Black Aggro lists

There are a dozen popular black aggro decks that splash green (wurm rack, brocholli soup, rock etc), red (machine head, tomato soup) or white (deadguy ale), but none so far that splash blue despite it being an easy color to splash.

4 Dark Ritual
1 Diabolic Edict
3 Duress
2 Smother
2 Standstill
1 Mana Leak

2 Graveborn Muse
4 Hypnotic Specter
4 Phyrexian Negator
1 Bane of the Living
4 Carnophage
1 Wretched Anurid
1 Withered Wretch
1 Rotting Giant
4 Sarcomancy
3 Shadowmage Infiltrator

2 Unstable Mutation
1 Sleeper's Robe
1 Bad Moon

5 Swamp
4 Underground River
4 Gemstone Mine
4 Polluted Delta
1 Rootwater Depths
1 Island
1 Dromar's Cavern
1 Wasteland

SIDEBOARD:
2 Annul
2 Chill
1 Duress
2 Dystopia
3 Engineered Plague
3 Hydroblast
2 Tsabo's Web

Moxfield Link: https://moxfield.com/decks/1fEraHLz2kyeFs8b889CwA

How would you improve the below list.

It plays the most aggressive black threats but if the aggression fails, it leverages blue for card draw (Standstill, Shadowmage Infiltrator), pump/evasion (Unstable Mutation, Sleeper’s Robe), permission (Mana Leak) as a back up plan to gain card advantage and for the awesome sideboard options blue adds.

u/Secret-Lecture — 5 days ago
▲ 28 r/eagames+2 crossposts

The 2026 Star Fox and Halo remakes make me long for a similar remake of Burnout 3 and Revenge

Both Star Fox and Halo are perfect remakes of the original levels, features and gameplay but with modern visuals, and they are getting a ton of love both from the people who grew up with these games, and from modern gamers that never experienced the simple fun gameplay these games offer.

This is what we who grew up with these games want, and it will also appeal to new generations who will find in them the same joy we felt when we played them decades ago.

No modern racing game scratches the itch that Burnout 3 and Revenge do. Open world racing is lame imho. My buds and I frequently still play Burnout Revenge in splitscreen because modern racers just dont have the same gameplay as the game we grew up playing for thousands of hours.

Instead of abandoning the franchise, EA should take the 2026 Star Fox and 2026 Halo approach and make a game that plays the same as Burnout 3, featuring all of the awesome modes, splitscreen local multiplayer etc, same gameplay, modern graphics. Do you agree?

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u/Secret-Lecture — 5 days ago
▲ 39 r/xboxlive+2 crossposts

The 2026 Star Fox and Halo remakes make we long for a similar remake of Perfect Dark

Both Star Fox and Halo are perfect remakes of the original levels, features and gameplay but with modern visuals, and they are getting a ton of love both from the people who grew up with these games, and from modern gamers that never experienced the simple fun gameplay these games offer.

This is what we who grew up with these games want, and it will also appeal to new generations who will find in them the same joy we felt when we played them decades ago.

The announced and cancelled Perfect Dark game never felt like Perfect Dark in any of the videos they released. The gameplay was completely different from the game we grew up playing for thousands of hours.

Instead of abandoning the franchise, Microsoft should take the 2026 Star Fox and 2026 Halo approach and make a game that plays the same as the n64 game, featuring all of the awesome modes, bots etc, same gameplay, modern graphics. Do you agree?

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u/Secret-Lecture — 5 days ago

Would you pay $300 to purchase a digital bundle or UHD release of all of Rajamouli’s movies before Varanasi’s release. Its impossible for NRI and US citizens to buy RRR/Bahubali etc. Really hope the same doenst happen to Varanasi

Indian Film Producers are leaving money on the table by not allowing Americans and NRIs to digitally purchase films like RRR and Bahubali (and likely Varanasi) literally anywhere. Its not available for purchase digitally on Apple, Amazon, Google, Vudu, Movies Anywhere, Criterion Store or the Microsoft video store. I would be ecatatic to purchase these movies (especially as a bundle to show to my American friends to get them interested in watching Varanasi release week)

RRR is my sons favorite film. He watches it once a week. It is literally the only reason we have Netflix. I would happily pay $30 to buy RRR rather than spend $10 each month for a Netflix my son wont let me unsubscribe from for the sake of literally one film.

I would be happy to buy it on blu ray or UHD discs and import it into the US but even that is not an option!

These are not small films. Varanasi has a budget of 150 million dollars, which is far more than most US films (Backrooms and Obsession were both made for under 10 million dollars and still have digital releases and uhd releases planned).

ps: I can import the japanese uhd for $50 after shipping but would also need to buy a region free uhd player to play the Japanese UHD in the US, plus the Japanese UHD doesnt include English subtitles or the Hindi, English or Tamil soundtracks.

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u/Secret-Lecture — 8 days ago
▲ 9 r/AmazonPrimeVideoIN+2 crossposts

I want to purchase RRR Digitally in US (Apple, Amazon, Anywhere). Why is it impossible to purchase?

Indian Film Producers are leaving money on the table by not allowing Americans and NRIs to digitally purchase films like RRR and Bahubali literally anywhere.

RRR is my sons favorite film. He watches it once a week. It is literally the only reason we have Netflix. I would happily pay $30 to buy RRR rather than spend $10 each month for a Netflix my son wont let me unsubscribe from for the sake of literally one film.

I would be happy to buy it on blu ray or UHD discs and import it into the US but even that is not an option!

reddit.com
u/Secret-Lecture — 9 days ago

Should WoTC release an old border only reprint set of all Premodern staples

What would an ideal Premodern Masters set look like? I believe it would look like this:

  1. The Set includes every Premodern staple that is not on the reserve list, and nothing else. If its not a staple of the Premodern format, its not in the set.
  2. Every single card is printed in old borders. No special printings (except for foils). Each pack also includes an old bordered basic land with an iconic art, and an old bordered token.
  3. Reserve list cards are included as rare bonus cards and they are only printed in gold border with the old borders with the world championsip back as to not violate the reserve list (they wouldnt violate the policy as they wouldnt be tournament legal at sanctioned events).

Such a set might seem unlikely right now, but if Premodern continues to exponentially grow in popularity, WoTC would be stupid not to release such a set. It would sell very well and would also greatly improve accessibility to the format.

I also suspect it would make for an amazing draft environment (slower paced than modern sets) and that it would prove extremely popular both with Premodern players, longtime players that played during extended, and with newer mtg players that want to try something different.

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u/Secret-Lecture — 13 days ago
▲ 0 r/nihilism+1 crossposts

How Hard is your Atheism? Do you discount any possibility of an larger mind of any sort, the people running the simulation, or a higher dimensional emergent overmind?

I want to understand what the term God and Atheism mean to you.

I reject all organized religion, or any similar group that claims to have 100% certainity about an insular simplified worldview, is that enough to make me an atheist?

Am I still an atheist if I think its possible that a god of some sort may exist as one of these 180 possibilities, as a developer running our simulation, as aliens that may have seeded life on earth and guide us while using advanced technology to remain hidden from us, as a higher dimension that emerges as a tesseract of all our possible block universes and 177 other possibilities explored here…

https://www.lastalgorithm.com/post/science-s-unknown-unknowns

u/Secret-Lecture — 1 month ago

Did a podcast discussing Universal Daycare, UBI and the Yang Gang. Recently met Andrew Yang in person. Doing a more Yang focused follow up episode next week and would love input on topics you would like to see discussed.

My brother, stand-up comedian Vishnu Vaka, and I (a forensic neuropsychiatrist) recently started a podcast series where we talk about human cognition, psychology, society, and the weird future we all seem to be walking into.

I recently met Andrew Yang in person and wrote about that experience as well as the podcast: https://www.lastalgorithm.com/post/met-my-hero-ubi-2032-yang-gang-4ever

You can listen to the podcast directly on YouTube, Apple or Spotify:

Youtube Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Naa-1LE8OiU&t=1320s

Spotify Link: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DJwml7ITtAO4KDCILzfB6?si=fffe005eac2d41bd

Apple Link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/late-night-live-with-vishnu-vaka/id1823181274?i=1000766194332

In this episode, starting around 22nd minute mark, we started talking about benefits of policies like universal daycare, and we got into Andrew Yang, the additive compounding benefits from his various policy ideas, the potential of automation to help or to harm, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, post-scarcity, and how work, meaning, survival, and dignity might change as AI and automation keep moving faster.

We both had a lot more to say and were thinking about doing a full episode focused on Yang’s ideas, automation, universal basic income, post-scarcity, and how Maslow’s hierarchy fits into all of it.

I am curious what topics people here would actually want us to cover.

For example, should we talk more about whether UBI solves the problem of automation, whether people still need work to feel meaning, whether post-scarcity is realistic, or whether Yang’s ideas look more or less relevant now than they did a few years ago?

u/Secret-Lecture — 2 months ago