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71: They Gave Me All The Clues
108 Plays10 hours ago
The intrepid cohosts review 🤜Team💥Clash🤛 in the latest episode of your favorite Hades II podcast. 🗡️🐸👻🔥⏳🏔️
For our esteemed listeners’ consideration:
- 🫰 Weeks in Snap
- Wild Child 🤪, Fastball Special ⚾️💨, and Aurora 🌌
- 🛡️ Team Clash 🤺
- Secret Homework 🤫: Tell a toy story! 🧸🪁
Follow us on Twitter/Bluesky:
Check out the other great shows in the Snap Judgments Network:
- Snap Decisions
- Snap Judgments
Join us on Discord! 👾
- Join the server
- Head into the channel "welcome-rules-and-tickets"
- Find the "SJPN Podcast Fans" message, and press the button for Snap On This!!
Featured decks:
- Jeeeeet - MonsterReborn.exe
- SafetyBlade - Aurora's Angels
- Smlz - Avengers Team Clash (Midrange)
- Bones - X-Men Team Clash (High Evo)
- Rie - Avengers Team Clash (Midrange)
- Rie - X-Men Team Clash (Midrange)
- Rie - Thunderbolts Team Clash (Affliction)
- Ben - Avengers Team Clash (Surfer)
- Ben - X-Men Team Clash (Midrange)
Credits:
- Cover art by Lauren
- Snap On This!! Theme by Ben
- YouTube thumbnail by Lauren’s kid, Reggi
- Thumbnail portraits by Adam Star
Timestamps:
- 0:00:00 Intro / Our Week in Snap
- 0:28:07 Maverick / Marrow
- 0:28:38 Wild Child
- 0:31:28 Fastball Special
- 0:37:24 Aurora
- 0:46:21 Fantomex
- 0:51:43 Team Clash
- 1:18:02 Secret Homework: Toy Stories
- 1:40:49 Next Week's Secret Homework
- 1:43:01 Housekeeping / Closing Remarks
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Episode Teaser
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Snap on this episode 71. This week's secret homework. Tell a toy story. It's a Marvel Snap podcast, but you knew that.
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm Lauren Woodevs here of my usual amazing, delightful, effervescent co-hosts. Oh, I love it when we're effervescent. If you don't believe me, I just just look at them. um Anyway, first up this week, Rhi, how was your weekend Snap?
00:00:27
Speaker
And keep it snappy.
Rhi's Weekend Adventures
00:00:30
Speaker
Okay, ah my weekend snub was mostly taking up a team clash, which um we will discuss later.
00:00:41
Speaker
um so I thought, for lack of all else, I would i would discuss... Um, the little adventure that I had today, because like the holidays, I think like some other people are kind of a mixed bag for me.
00:00:56
Speaker
um but I am trying to focus on all the many things that I have to be grateful for. And today, um even though i am more of like a suburban Hobbit girl, um like, you know, like I have a whole bag in situation, like not too into the city, not like too far out.
00:01:15
Speaker
Um, And a lot of the times, you know, I just even prefer to eat in because it's like, no, thank you. I would not like a Grand Adventure. I have a Nintendo Switch and I am the possessor of a Papa San chair. yeah. Oh, you've got all figured out. Right. Yes. And it's like into the big city. There are really good restaurants, but um you have to find parking. It's like, you know, but it's a whole thing. But today i was brave and I quested, um which is why I'm like actually in a sweater. Wow.
00:01:57
Speaker
said Cozy clothes. Yeah. And I went to ah this place called Gemutt Beer Garden where I had a vegan schnitzel, which I didn't know what a schnitzel was.
00:02:12
Speaker
before But now I've had a vegan one, which is why it was recommended for, you know, as a vegetarian, there are only so many options, but it was like a really cool place. I went to, um I found the trick of city city food eating is you go like super, you you have like a Tolkien dinner, um which is what I've decided to call it because I feel like Tolkien has failed because it's like, you know, there's like 11 C's or whatever. There's all these, there's second breakfast. There's all this stuff for morning eating, but what about when you push dinner super early so you can avoid traffic and wait times to have food and get out early?
00:02:56
Speaker
Right? Yeah, but like, and is there, at there's not like a twosies or threesies, there's not like, feel like Tolkien didn't make a Hobbit name this. There's not like ah a brunch equivalent for lunch dinner. but there should be. i mean, this has been long-running world.
00:03:12
Speaker
ah problem, one of our minor problems that we've yet to solve along with many of our major problems. so yeah um Anyway, yes, and I also had a potato salad when I first saw it. I'm like, oh, it's all it's just potatoes.
00:03:25
Speaker
Potatoes. Boil and but like the mash them, stick them in a stew. Apparently, this is i think this is like how I think this is how German potatoes are. I'm very encultured sometimes. like this how jim was like the the The dressing on it was so good that i'm like, oh, this is in fact better than like...
00:03:42
Speaker
potato salads I've had. And this place was so cool. It had like a, um, all these like stained glass windows. I couldn't tell how real versus fake they were. I spent a lot of time trying figure that out. But they were really cool. Like one is like, there's this like woman with fire hair and like the sun is behind her and also there are flames and she's either... riding two horses at the same time, which is massively impressive, or a horse has two heads, which is, you know, equally kind of impressive. And there's, like, a wolf arcing in the air towards your face, and it's like, are they friends?
00:04:19
Speaker
Are they about to kiss? Are they fighting? It's unclear. Very unclear, but it's the it's the coolest one. I was very drawn to it. And, yeah, but there were, like, four – there were, like, all these big ones to look at, and um it was – It was a very successful quest. And um even though the pretzel bread pudding i got to go um for a dessert, they were out of ice cream. And it's very sad. But it was successful.
00:04:49
Speaker
Yeah. So I will...
00:04:53
Speaker
I will, you know, talk about my team clash playing later in the time.
Roller's Gaming Weekend: Hades 2
00:05:00
Speaker
um Let me hear. we'll give We'll give Lauren a bit of a break, because and I'll introduce our next, ah you know, um shining, shimmering co-host. Roller, how was your week in Snap? And please keep it snappy.
00:05:18
Speaker
Well, my weekend snap, keeping it snappy, as I just i do without without prompting every day. um Yeah, it was a pretty good weekend snap.
00:05:30
Speaker
um I played, well, I played some Team Clash, but we're going to talk about that later is the thing. That's most of the Snap that I played. Didn't ah didn't play a whole lot of Ladder anything. Or Conquest. haven't found time for Conquest this week. That's so that's such a bummer.
00:05:48
Speaker
um But next week is the important one, right? We're not in the Infinity territory yet. You're correct. Oh, Ben. Okay, so I forgot. i want I was so excited to tell you, and I totally forgot because of today. um Okay, my self-selected Solstice gift. I got Hades 2 for consoles. I've been playing it a lot again. and It's so good. I love Okay. Oh, that's awesome.
00:06:16
Speaker
Also, that ties into... Give me your biggest tip that you have, please, as part weekend's tip. What are you trying to do in Hades 2 right now? You're just trying to get clears?
00:06:28
Speaker
I got to, because like I've only had it for like a couple days. So you know I've had to re-unlock everything from my brief time of playing it on PC. And the very last thing I did last night before i got too sleepy, was a little sleepy playing, um was I unlocked, I guess I can go up now? Does that mean I can go to Hades 1? Yeah. Is that what that is? Not quite. yeah That's different. but But you can go to the surface now? Are you breathing okay? unlocked it. I just cauldroned it.
00:07:01
Speaker
ah so now Okay, so you're not breathing okay yet? Do you die when you go out there? Have you been up yet? No, I just unlocked it via the cauldron. Also, surprisingly, the Moonstone... Normally I'm like, slow weapons, but they're slow. I like to run around and kite and sprint. Especially when you get the ones where you zap people.
00:07:27
Speaker
But like, yes! And then it's like, sometimes you can get the right boons on it, and then when you hold it down, you do the little blitz berserker whirlwind. No, Gygarus is the spear. I'm sorry. I've lost all my cred. What's the... It's a moon something. gosh. It's got a name.
00:07:45
Speaker
Isn't it a moonstone axe? It is a moonstone axe, for sure. It's like an emperor something. Yeah, it's got a name. Gosh dang it. you know like I agree with you, though. I did not like it at first and it grew on me.
00:07:58
Speaker
Zorafet. Zorafet, thank you. you guys feel for Arachne though? Oh yeah, absolutely. You should feel for Arachne. like... Okay.
00:08:10
Speaker
Yeah, good job. You have empathy. But I was playing sometimes it's like I love that it's all voice acted, but I can read so much faster. And I actually process information faster visually than than hearing it because listening is hard for me. so like and ah So I guess him but I'm always with Arachne. I'm fascinated because it's like, oh, that position where it's like the gods around her and like her really good friend now is just kind of like.
00:08:35
Speaker
both sides in it and she's like well you know you're they literally turned me into a spider yeah you know like it's real cool that you're like well we all equally here and I'm like uh I feel for you girl okay anyway um but I also just unlocked uh the like the guns the umbral flames like oh there's the torchies Yeah, those are so much fun, too. yeah, Igneum.
00:09:07
Speaker
Yeah. Don't they have two names? I think it's just him. I'm thinking of blades. You're right. um I skip a lot of dialogue in that too. Not skip it, but like skip it before they finish reading it. Right. So like I enjoy hearing their voices and intonation, but like the second half of the dialogue, I never hear. I'm right there with you.
00:09:28
Speaker
My tip. also feel ambivalent about it. What's your tip, Lauren? My number one tip that Ben would not give you. Okay. Maybe he would, but, but I don't think he would. If you think you, if you can see yourself ever turning on God mode, turn it on now.
00:09:44
Speaker
Because you can manually control, you can manually, can it basically it reduces how much damage you take. And you can manually control how, how much it, like how much it does. You can cap it out. So you can say, I don't want you to to reduce damage by more than 25%.
00:10:00
Speaker
But you have to die to increase it Every single time you die, it increases just a little bit. So if you think you're ever going to use God mode to like explore endgame stuff, I think it's worth turning on early so that you can start building it up.
00:10:16
Speaker
Lauren was correct. I would never have given you that advice. Never in a million bajillion years. Here's the difference. good advice. It is good advice.
00:10:26
Speaker
And
Gaming Difficulty Debate
00:10:27
Speaker
i I waited. Personally, I waited until I had beaten both of the final boss type figures ah once without God Mode before turning it on. But then like I wanted to start trying like more advanced stuff. And yeah I could improve my skill level. But like... i'm I'm just not going to pour hundreds of hours into this game. I'm going to pour 20s of hours into this game. But I still want to see the content. Even then even then i felt I bet you could get pretty... pretty i feel like for me, though, I'm so... It's like, some ways, I'm so old-fashioned. Like, if I do it, then in some sense, I will have, like...
00:10:59
Speaker
See, that is the thing. boiled this place just just from ah I've place. I've known you for a while now, and i feel like maybe, maybe it may i don't know.
00:11:11
Speaker
Give Godmode a try. I never have, but to give it a try. I don't know. Here's the thing, though. I never fight. I don't think I finished every single thing you could finish in Hades 1 because I was still busting it out occasionally to pull it out. i feel like Hades 2 will be like that.
00:11:29
Speaker
I haven't looked up anything about it. just playing. it Is it worth it to you to make it us a little bit easier in order to see more of the content in the same amount of time that you're going to play it?
00:11:41
Speaker
I don't know. This is my permission to all of you, especially as you're adults and you have more and you have less free time to play your games. It's OK to put them in easy mode if the parts you care about are the story or, you know, getting to see all the different weapons or whatever the case may be.
00:11:58
Speaker
For sure. It's but better to play it on god mode than not play it at all. is is my or you know like just Just play it however will bring you joy. is my i just I suspect that there's one hair there's something within you that likes to be the very best like no one ever was or whatever.
00:12:19
Speaker
You do not shy. I've noticed that about you, Rhi. I don't know. But this if if you feel like did the i there should be no shame in it because it's there for a reason and I've known a lot of people to really, did they they swear by it.
00:12:39
Speaker
they They swear by God mode. Is that funny? I think it's a little funny. It's a little, yeah. Anywho, yeah, do whatever feel. I think the option is there, so everyone can enjoy games at their level, and especially with a lot of the games with really good stories, you know?
00:12:55
Speaker
I really admire games that implement a story mode or an easy mode that doesn't penalize you for using it. like And it... like Just let me penalize myself for it. like If I don't want to use easy mode, I'll play on a harder as difficulty, and there are games that I love, and I would love to experience them in a higher difficulty and all that, but also...
00:13:13
Speaker
Currently, I value novelty the most. I want to try more games instead of just pouring all my hours into one game, she says pouring tons and tons of time into model stack.
00:13:25
Speaker
um But I guess it lets me play let me play more games if I play games on easy or normal more often than I play them on hard or whatever it's after that. I've ruined a lot of games for myself, though, to be honest. Like the first one was the near the near one um with two. Automata.
00:13:44
Speaker
Yeah, the one where was it was... Or Automata, perhaps? don't It's way more fan... I was like, it's not that fanservice-y, and then I tried playing it again, and like, okay, it was really fanservice-y. But anyway, it was like, that one, I turned it to easy, but then I got bored because it was easy. And the same thing with one of the Tales games...
00:14:07
Speaker
It was one where it was like the spreadsheets were too much. I'm like, I am not learning these spreadsheets for a non-MMO, like a non-long-running game, right? There's only so much time right now you're willing to put into like a game you're going to be done with and into learning those systems. And I and i was like, I'm not doing So I turned it on to like an auto-easy mode and then I'm like, oh, no, it's too easy. I'm bored. And neith neither of those games did I finish. So now I have this fear of like, oh, um making things boring for myself. Yeah.
00:14:35
Speaker
And this is the first time I beat Hecate again. i was like, oh, yeah, because there's two times before that I got like real close and didn't. And then I was like, now it's like cake. Like every time. I was messaging Ben throughout my like my climb. Like I can't I can't imagine myself ever beating this boss. And now it's like I've beaten him tons of times, about half those times without God mode.
00:14:57
Speaker
I know all the patterns like it does. It does feel good to get better. What keepsakes have you been using, Rhi? Oh, my gosh. Also, OK, I had to split with keepsakes. I did. i am like I do you ever play games in like a so ah punishing way sometimes? I'm trying to stop. Yes. Where it's like it's like. First, I was like, okay, I'm going to do get all of the keepsakes I like least out of the way, like max them up, level them up, and then I'll have all the fun ones to play. And then also I'll be better, so I'll be using the better ones at the time I'm better. so I started doing that, and I'm like, well, let me just go from like left to right. And then I'm like...
00:15:47
Speaker
Why don't I just play the ones I like? Because why don't I just get those ones done? Because like eventually I'll play another game probably before I finish out everything here and I'll just slowly come back to it.
00:16:03
Speaker
And then I was so proud of myself. I'm like, I'm letting myself have fun. Okay, so which kind of keepsakes do you think are fun? Like, if if I know which ones you like that you've unlocked, I'll know which ones you would like if you unlocked them, I think.
00:16:18
Speaker
um I'll probably go for the certain boon ones. I won't lie, I've been using arachnids. That's a really interesting one. I like that one a lot. Also, because I'm like, I just like arachne, too.
00:16:34
Speaker
Using that, um i e I'll put on the Nemesis one now occasionally because, it's like, I got the thing where you can swap it out midway. And so it's like um I haven't beaten the Sirens yet, to be honest. Interesting. They're tough.
00:16:51
Speaker
So that means you haven't met Echo yet. When you meet Echo, you should give her some nectar because she's got a great keepsake. Oh, okay. I haven't met Ico yet, but yeah, I've been getting, i've been trying to spread out all the nectar and I've been using um the the Lucky Tooth for the extra like dust defiance. Ooh, if you like the Lucky Tooth, could I introduce you to its friend, the Knuckle Bones? That's the Odysseus keepsake and I like it.
00:17:22
Speaker
Oh wait, I do have the Odysseus I thought you were going to say the cat. That's the Guardians one, right? Yes, Tula's good too. Tula's good too. Tula's a good cat. Isn't the Odysseus one just for Guardians though?
00:17:36
Speaker
It is, but that's that's what usually kills me. And getting the the damage reduction from the bosses is pretty cool. Also, the free damage on a tough boss, if you equip it right before the the final boss, it's pretty good.
00:17:53
Speaker
um Also, you might try Moro's Keepsake. Moro's Keepsake is pretty good, too. I did get that. It's sort of like stubborn defiance in the first. I mean, it's it's not a direct. ah it's an It's an interesting. It's pretty good.
00:18:09
Speaker
um Other keepsakes that I really love, the chaos keepsake, the transcendent embryo. That's a great way to start your day. ah Oh, the Narcissus keepsake. Narcy Narcy.
00:18:22
Speaker
That's my guy right there. Oh, baby, you got to get that aromatic vial. It lets you just like you pick up a common thing early on and then at the...
00:18:33
Speaker
you can You can swap keepsakes before you use the fountain. And if you do that at the start of the second region or between the first and second regions, you can like you can sort of guarantee a certain common boon you picked up will become...
00:18:49
Speaker
Like whatever rarity, if you if you max out the keepsake, it'll go all the way up to heroic. So like you you can, if you see a boon you like, you know, and you're like, oh no, it's common. I don't like settling for a common smoldering. You can do that. And then...
00:19:07
Speaker
you can guarantee that it turns heroic as long as it's the only common boon you have. um Or you can have a 50-50 at turning it heroic. and I don't know. Point is, the Narcissus Keepsake is super cool. But yeah, if you like the ones that are like defensively handy, like the Arachne one or... um The luckier tooth. I love the luckier tooth. I think that's so cool. how It's such a good one early in the game. One more point than the lucky tooth. It's it's so silly. great yeah And it leaves room for a luckiest tooth.
00:19:41
Speaker
Ooh. 102 on a revive. I'm a little behind. i was playing too late in 80s and a lot of times I would be running out of out the door and then be wait, you know, that's like ah a specter grasp, but a guy I could have got...
00:19:56
Speaker
Like, missing out on resources. there will be an incantation in the cauldron that will solve all of that for you soon enough.
Family, Holidays, and Marvel Snap
00:20:05
Speaker
I think you just have to talk to Selene and maybe slip her some. Oh, she's got a great keepsake. No, I'm just going now. Now she does a thing where she's like, don't leave yet. And I'm like, you're the best. I love you. Oh, I love how we're the Silver Sisters.
00:20:21
Speaker
I want that to be a wife. uh they're amazing yeah okay selenie's is my favorite and then maybe medea's after that she's so pretty very good yeah every time i see selenie i'm just like so serene i think she was the first character i maxed I'm always happy to be talking about Hades 2 in my weekend snap.
00:20:49
Speaker
I actually haven't played too much Hades 2 this week. I think I did like one session of Fresh File Grind and still trying to get that good time on night one. That good time. But what I was actually going to talk about that wasn't Marble Snap in my weekend snap, I was going to actually, i don't usually do this, I'm going tell people not to play a game.
00:21:12
Speaker
oh Loop Hero, kind of a stinker. That's my opinion. I've played Loop Hero! Yeah, really? It might be my cup of tea, but I felt like I was misspending my time as I played it. I was like, is this...
00:21:30
Speaker
I just didn't... yeah like i you know it it has It does all the tricks. you know ah it gets i did like that there was a lot to explore. like i enjoyed learning how things worked without looking yeah things up because there's a lot of complexity there, but there's also a lot of really just like mindless repetition and like doing the same stuff over and over. and i just...
00:21:59
Speaker
I found that yeah I just didn't feel like it respected my time and it wasn't yeah like I just ah yeah, I don't know. I'll probably play some more, but like.
00:22:11
Speaker
I just didn't feel I felt stupid for playing it and I will probably still continue to feel stupid for playing it. But I will play a bit more because I am curious and i I like the discovery. But like I just there are so many more fulfilling games that I like to play. I don't know.
00:22:30
Speaker
Well, don't know that it gets better, so I wouldn't force yourself to play. I think I got a few good hours out of it. I really enjoyed the idea and the initial discovery, but then I hit a wall that I think is exactly what you're saying, where I stopped discovering new things. I felt like I was going to have to go look up. like It's like I feel like I should be progressing to somewhere.
00:22:51
Speaker
And I'm not, right? And I do like, what do I need to do to do that? And I'm, yeah, I'm tired of having to play like games with a guide. Basically, I want the game um to be enjoyable to discover. And that's where it hit the wall for me. And maybe like, yeah, you just hit there really fast.
00:23:12
Speaker
And it's like, well, now it's not fun anymore because I don't want to look up how to do stuff. Yeah. Yeah, i've I've given it some hours, but I just I don't like the game.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. I think it's just not... I don't know. i just I thought I would mention it because it's you know it does have cards in it. And there there are some similar it is similar in some ways to other games that I like to talk about, but like I don't love all of them. you know i' Some of them, i when when I recommend them, it's because I really think they're good and they'll...
00:23:50
Speaker
you you'll be happier for playing them. And this is one where I'm like, not so sure. Oh, I guess if I'm going to talk about one more, no, I'm not going to talk about one more. I'm just glad we got to talk so much about Hades too. Um,
00:24:04
Speaker
I played some Marvel Snap, but I played with a new card. I played a limited time mode that we're going to talk about later. So i I guess my weekend snap is going to really be living in the later segments. But right I'm just so glad that we got to talk about Hades 2.
00:24:24
Speaker
Wow. That's... what I think that the loop hero thing goes to our conversation about difficulty, right? It's such a hard thing to tune, like making sure that discovery feels fun that it's ongoing. But like, if it's too hard to earn progress, then like that's yucky. But if it's too easy to earn progress, it doesn't feel like anything you earned or any discovery or anything like that. It feels like you're just, you know, it might might as well be an idle clicker where there's no skill. It's just about the time you put in.
00:24:55
Speaker
i think I think it's hard to find that sweet spot. And I'm impressed by devs who find it, especially at multiple skill levels or difficulty levels. Anyway, yeah um my weekend snap, yeah, mostly ah mostly in in Team Clash and trying to trying to get practice with the new cards. So we'll talk about that later. I did grind out three cool clips this week, which was fun to do. I...
00:25:20
Speaker
taken a few weeks off of doing that, trying to get fourth location ready.
Marvel Snap Card Dynamics
00:25:24
Speaker
So check them out on my Twitter or blue sky, or I ended up putting them on fourth location YouTube. I know I talked about doing it on snap on this YouTube before, but that's where they are. Uh, just the new ones. I still have a whole stable of old ones. I don't know what I'm going to do with.
00:25:39
Speaker
Anyway, let's ah let's get into it. Okay, I can talk a little bit about my week. It was holiday week, and I got to spend a lot of time with family, which is nice. I'm looking forward to spending more time with them this weekend.
00:25:49
Speaker
um One of my nieces is eight, almost eight. One of those. And ah we've we've been close for a while and is fun to see her finally like when the group split up between the little kids and the everybody else. She is this year for the first time in the everybody else group. So she's playing like Jackbox with us and playing Telestrations with us. like ah That's exciting. But like there's a handful of things she's been able to join on and it's been really fun to see and to connect with her on.
00:26:20
Speaker
And then my other niece is like just turned three and is very shy. And so it's it's hard to you know, it's it's a slow process, the forming of this relationship. But, you know, i got to help her with some block puzzles this year. And and that was that was fun to get that one on one time with her.
00:26:36
Speaker
So that was my favorite part of the holidays so far. um Edge. Sorry, you said something about block puzzles and somebody in the audience will love that I said Edge. Okay. Oh, yeah. The people who played Catherine.
00:26:50
Speaker
Thank you. um It took me a second. And I have played that quite a bit. um Probably nowhere near as much as you, though. um there's There's literally no way you could have. No on Earth. There may be others, but I'm just a freak. I think I'm older than you, but yeah, there's no way possible that I could have. I've never stopped playing Catherine. Yeah.
00:27:19
Speaker
Yeah, it's good. ah My child surprised me with, but she sent us to bed on on Christmas Eve night and said, you're stuck in your rooms. If the dog needs to go outside, send him down to me.
00:27:32
Speaker
Okay. And I woke up that morning for the first time with the kind of excitement of a child that I had you hadn't had since I was, I don't know, eighteen ish And... ah ah Reggie had put a bunch of time into cleaning up the main floor, which has has never recovered from wedding planning. So that was i the quite the treatise and an impressive gift from a 14 year old, if you ask on me.
00:27:54
Speaker
Wow. Mm hmm. I agree. Hey. Yeah. I also got a coupon book promising even more main floor cleaning. So. Oh.
00:28:06
Speaker
Put him to work. um Let's talk about last week's cards. I didn't check with you ahead of time. Do either of you have anything new you want to say about either Maverick or Mero? um Maverick still owns Bones. And I guess so does Mero.
00:28:21
Speaker
Thematically. Yeah. But not on the not on the not on the gameplay level of Maverick, in my opinion. I have seen her around.
00:28:32
Speaker
Folks are trying. I love it. Love to see it.
00:28:39
Speaker
Okay. Let's talk this week's cards. And we're lumping Wildchild and Fastball Special in here because you had to play an event to get them. Okay. Wild child to one ongoing plus four power. If you've discarded a card plus four power, if you've, if I threw myself off, cause I started questioning if I read it wrong and I don't know if I did plus four power. If you've discarded a card plus four power, if one of your cards has been destroyed,
00:29:06
Speaker
ah If you ask me, the star of the Destroy Discard Hybrid. That's what I said before we even got to play with him. I am so far in agreement, although I don't know that... Still do not feel very good about that deck's long-term ah viability.
00:29:27
Speaker
But Wildchild is just a big card if you if you do it, if you do the thing. Yeah.
00:29:35
Speaker
I've seen people doing it in Team Clash. It helps that Wolverine destroys himself for you. and then you just gambit to get the other proc.
00:29:46
Speaker
Yeah, i've I've seen Wild Child around. I haven't gotten to play Wild Child yet. But ah somebody, the ancient one, Dao Mandala, a Wild Child on me, and they won the shit out of that game, I'll tell you. Yo, that's cool. that's ah That's a great way to throw, like...
00:30:08
Speaker
24 power or well, not not 24, you know, an extra 16 that I like wasn't expecting into that lane. And ah yeah, I mean, like they gave me all the clues.
00:30:21
Speaker
you know, Mr. Policeman or whatever. Like I, I saw them play the ancient one. I saw them play wild child, did not put two and two together and got absolutely rocked. So, uh, that's one cool thing you can do with this card.
00:30:35
Speaker
And, uh, I'm sure there's more. I mean, we've already discussed the, like, you can moonstone it up pretty good, pretty easy. um Yeah, just ah just a real neat card. I'm happy to see it. I'm happy to get to play more regular Snap, because like I haven't really gotten to play a ton of regular Snap since it's ah joined the joined the world.
00:30:56
Speaker
um So yeah, I'm looking forward to getting to know Wildchild even better and losing to it in more exciting ways.
00:31:06
Speaker
Rhi, have you run into the Wildchild? Um, honestly, like, I'm like, oh, yeah, have seen some, but it's not he's not made waves in my world for someone called Wild Child. like, I kind of pretty tame. how i've So people have got to have made the mild child joke. I feel like. Oh, it rhymes. Right.
00:31:28
Speaker
I can segue us into fastball special if everyone's done talking about. Yeah, that i ran absolutely. Okay, so I haven't, like, I did, I've mostly been stuck in Team Clash. I did do my immediate thought, and I put it in as a backup for a Soran deck.
00:31:46
Speaker
And it was like, it was fun. it was You know, it's a good map for Sauron because like, you know, it gets rid of a card you don't want around. But it wasn't like exciting because it's just, you know, more of the Sauron. It's like how I imagine like FIFA game enjoyers feel when they get like a new version of the game. It's like, oh, but it's like kind of the same thing as last year.
00:32:08
Speaker
It's like it works, but it's like not exciting anyway. And then I saw out in the in the wilds ah that people were, of course, just using it with Galactus. I'm like, oh, OK, yes, them of course. ah Of course, that's that's that's where people went with it. ah It makes sense.
00:32:29
Speaker
ah Any time that Galactus is big, though, is a good time to pull out Valk.
00:32:37
Speaker
um but He's a really fun finisher. Falcon the Hobgoblin after they successfully Galactus you. Yeah. yeah I haven't seen these... ah I haven't really had an opportunity to to learn what people are doing with Fastball Special so much. I only just got mine today with the Team Clash. but um are Are they doing Galactus on 6 with Fastball Special with 8 Energy?
00:33:04
Speaker
Or are they... but what's what's the What's the pattern? like what what What are they doing? It's the same point as Hobgoblin you. The idea is and forcing really negative power into a lane. so you but Do they do it in one turn or two?
00:33:21
Speaker
think it's usually two. too yeah You could do Sarah. Sarah's enough to do Fastball Special and Galactus in the same turn. But then it's like, but then you have to have big power on an earlier turn. But like there's cards that can do that, right? Like Starbrand is a big, big guy.
00:33:36
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, it's it seems like a very strong card. I certainly think so. I thought so. I have no idea if other people have been doing this like for in real decks, but in my clip version of this, I was doing it in the same turn. I was using Astral Projection to do the Galactus.
00:33:57
Speaker
Oh, so it was star brand man spider and then fastball special astral projection. And then it's like negative 60. It doesn't matter that astral projection doesn't have any power. There's body. Yeah.
00:34:10
Speaker
ah That sounds really cool. It was fun. I haven't seen the clip. i don't think it should be good. I don't think it should be like a widespread thing, but it's fun.
00:34:21
Speaker
um I love this card. i think it is great. And if we have to have skills, like take that bit aside. This is a very cool card. And i think like the most skill-ish of all the skills. Absolutely. This is actually a real skill you bring into battle with you. If every skill were fastball special or like, you know, like...
00:34:45
Speaker
at least at least get a fun sound effect in there, like a snicked or a bam for a thwip, you know? like Something like that. I would respect those so much more than a deafening chord. Fuck is that? a majestic wingbeat?
00:35:00
Speaker
Yeah. You know what a majestic wingbeat is? That's a great name for a Magic the Gathering card. Yeah. It's just generic fantasy term. who Where there's like brand of Shaolau next month. It's like, how is that a skill? That's not a skill. Having a brand, having a tattoo or whatever. yeah a magical marking. I don't know what the brand of Shaolau is, but it's not a skill. I'll tell you that much.
00:35:26
Speaker
um yeah this card is very cool it's cool to have a cheap way to destroy stuff um another one favorite but yeah and my favorite thing i've seen people doing with it is a deck that does lots of cheap destroy and lots of revive i think it was a jet deck because he's like the phoenix force guy but yeah i played somebody who revived their fire lord like four times and it got big and it was it they didn't win but it was cute um There's a point with Morgan Le Fay where it gets like bounce, right? I'm like, don't have to think about this so much. Like the order that I'm going to like doing revive stuff. Managing your hand size and and yeah, like stuff like, like who is Elixir going to revive versus who Adamantium Infusion or Phoenix Force or Fire Lord is going to revive. Like they all have slightly different targets.
00:36:17
Speaker
See, it all sounds fun until you start laying out the choices. No, it sounds real fun. have fun, not chess. Also, the listeners don't know about it because it's still under construction, but like you two have seen the the prototype 200 bad guys with swords. That's true. now I'm like wondering, is that a fastball special deck? I don't know. Maybe it is. could very well be.
00:36:42
Speaker
a good way to protect your power. It's a good way to protect your power. start speculating. or Or don't. You probably have better things to do with your brain. um But... some Someday soon I will reveal think the point being we have like critical mass on on cheap destroyers and ways to revive cards.
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah, Fire Lord is such a cool card. I'm so i'm so glad Fire Lord is getting there. Yeah, I mean, it's it's hard to say of getting there if being in a jet deck council is getting there because there aren't that many people who can play Phoenix Force that well. Well, I'm playing Fire Lord without Phoenix Force, and I will say Fire Lord feels like a card that is getting there.
00:37:21
Speaker
o Okay. One more card that just came out this week, Aurora, a 6-6 on reveal. i was going to say just like yesterday, but it's been several days. Give one of your other on-reveal cards at each location plus two power. Repeat for ongoing, activate, and end of turn. Did you get her?
00:37:41
Speaker
What do you think? Have you played against her? cetera.
00:37:45
Speaker
um I'll go ahead, I guess. I did not get her, but i will mention the coolest thing. I have seen quite a bit of her out in in the wild. And the coolest thing I thought I saw was someone do with her was like was like a ones zoo deck.
00:38:01
Speaker
Because it's like, oh, you know, that does work with like Marvel Boy, who is end of turn. You know, you can copy some stuff. and with one of those, with a deck where you've got a lot of little cards, you do kind of want, you know, some big cards to play out when your hand gets emptier. So um it looked kind of fun. I was like, oh, if I had Aurora, would be doing this with her right now. um what did What did you all, did you guys get her?
00:38:30
Speaker
I did. and oh you did? What'd you do I was on the fence. I wasn't sure, but um it's not really what I did. uh,
00:38:41
Speaker
Safety seemed to be having fun with her. Okay. And ah so, you know, there there have been travels and holiday things. And so I sort of like, I i haven't really, i didn't, I brought my laptop with me on my travels, but for simplicity's sake and keeping things mostly packed up in the hotel room so I didn't have to worry about losing things. I never actually did anything with, i I thought maybe I would get stranded somewhere and I would need the laptop for the podcast. So that's why I had it with me. But basically I've like been on a social media and internet blackout, uh, for the past several days until today. But, uh,
00:39:21
Speaker
I don't know if Safety has built a better version of this deck, but he had a he had a day one Aurora cook that I jotted down and built. And ah it's really fun. It's a pretty cool pretty cool deck. I'll tell you what's in it. um Aurora's Angels.
00:39:39
Speaker
ah That's Nico Minoru, Spider-Ham, Hydra Bob, Captain America, Herbie, Hawkeye, Kate Bishop, Cosmo, Copycat, Juggernaut, Stardust, The Thing First Steps, and Aurora.
00:39:52
Speaker
And ah it's really fun. Wins games. ah It's, you know, it does. it it's It's got that safety blade quality where it's.
00:40:04
Speaker
big pile of cards with Cosmo and Juggernaut and some good one costs. And like, you know, i get to play Herbie. i love playing Herbie. Herbie is a good card. I've been saying it for a long time. um You know, it's ah's it's yeah i'm I'm having fun. the the The mix of on reveals and ongoings and activates and end of turns you know Aurora just puts up the numbers in a way that I've never really seen Spectrum do.
00:40:33
Speaker
and ah some Some of these cards like having higher numbers, like ah higher numbers help a Herbie double, higher numbers help with the thing murder something larger.
00:40:45
Speaker
Also...
00:40:48
Speaker
gosh also Cosmo and Juggernaut are really good cards that I never want to put in decks that I build. But like, man, when i play these safety decks, I'm just like, I should be playing more Cosmo and Juggernaut. Also, Copycat, that's that's one that I have been playing and is always good.
00:41:07
Speaker
And ah it was so nice to play Stardust again, although I do miss that seventh point of power. Gosh, what were they thinking? um Well, they thought better of it, and it's for the best, but I still miss that 4-7 Stardust. But yeah, Aurora feels like a pretty real card to me. That's that's my opinion. I think the just not forcing you to play exclusively ongoing, that's actually a much bigger advantage than i had really given her credit for to begin with. I was like, how much better than Spectrum can she be? But like kind of a lot.
00:41:45
Speaker
That's my opinion. I agree a lot better than Spectrum. She feels like to me and based on all the decks I'm seeing everybody play, she is like
00:41:56
Speaker
mid-range that's real right now or like the good the good card slop like it's it's do you either take the aurora path or the werewolf by night path those are the two versions that can compete in the meta right now so it's cool that we got diversity in the meta that way it's like there's now another way to do mid-range um you know because like you get tech cards that that she can hit and like there are some ongoing tech cards but like that's not really what the spectrum deck is doing um It's not taking a tech heavy approach. You know, Cosmo is kind of it's only like big tech card. um
00:42:30
Speaker
i I, I finished. I was trying to play her for the podcast, but like it's just hard to play sixes. And i finished the weekend mission for her without having actually played her a single time.
00:42:44
Speaker
I staged her once and my opponent retreated. So maybe if her setup is good enough, she doesn doesn't even matter how good she is. Her animation surprised me. runs out like Makkari does. it's like That's not what I was expecting to happen at all. around Super speed is the is the power.
00:43:03
Speaker
yeah i played Aurora in Heroclix and she was pretty good there. Hypersonic speed, all that. It was a very strong ability in Heroclix. Pretty broken. um I thought of one thing that was... I heard Scott's voice in my head when I was contemplating buying Aurora because when when we had him on the podcast, he asserted that...
00:43:27
Speaker
I don't like to play six costs. And he's like, or no, no, that like nobody plays six costs. And I was like, no, that's not true. And he's like, yes, Ben, we know you play Heimdall and Magneto.
00:43:39
Speaker
But and I was like, no, I've seen other people play other six costs. I know they're out there. I know they're good sometimes. But like, he put the doubt in me. I was like, do I really want this Aurora? Would this be foolishness? Is this, is Scott Wright, are six costs garbage?
00:43:55
Speaker
And no, I think six costs are just as real as cards at other costs. and yeah But, you know, he had he had me wondering because Scott is sometimes right about some things.
00:44:10
Speaker
And I thought he might have been right about that one. Yeah. I mean, I think overall it's not ah it's not a super important card to get. Like, she's kind of a fun deck building puzzle, but honestly, the versions that are going to be like the most competitive in the meta, if you care about that, I think that's it's It's just going to be minor variations on the same pile of good cards.
00:44:29
Speaker
um I've seen mixed responses on Thanos. I've seen some people not high on the Thanos one, even though some of the stones get plus four power from her. I haven't been able to try that yet. i'm a little scar i've I've played against the Thanos one, but I haven't played it myself.
00:44:45
Speaker
And I felt like... safety's Aurora deck seemed to be winning against those. Or yeah maybe i maybe it was only one matchup, but I don't know. i did Yikes, forgot to silence my phone. Anywho.
00:45:00
Speaker
I think you might be missing something by investing in Aurora because it means you have to play Thanos on five. Like, why wouldn't you? Yeah. And, you know, unless you haven't played your time stone. And then in that case, you're doing like the Thanos versus Aurora thing. But like if you did get Thanos down on five, then on six, you can do things like finish the set of stones so that he's bigger and stronger or or, you know,
00:45:22
Speaker
play Play tech cards. for like i don't there's just It just feels like there's better things for that deck to be doing than throwing a few extra power at the stones. Yeah, and specifically with that extra power on these ah the two keyword stones, you know those like what I noticed playing Aurora with the safety list was that it's not...
00:45:43
Speaker
the The best way to win is by playing the best cards in the best places, not by sweating the origami of like, well, I must have one ongoing in each lane and I can't double up on on reveals in any lane. No, it's just like play good cards where they belong and play Aurora at the end and you'll have enough power even if like you could have, you know, optimized more. It's really just about playing good cards correctly.
00:46:10
Speaker
Yeah, it's like diversify where you can, but like don't make a bad play for two extra power. It's like you are you're missing the forest for the trees. OK, let's get a vibe check on next week's card. Phantom X, the. ah the apparent hero of the discard destroy archetype. 4-6. Activate. If you've had cards both discarded and destroyed, afflict front row enemy cards at each location with minus two power.
00:46:38
Speaker
Do you think this deck's going to be good enough to be real?
Team Clash Mode Exploration
00:46:42
Speaker
I mean, the deck might be good enough, but this card is like... ah You think so? don't like it. You think Phantom ma is stinky for It's four-cost activate...
00:46:55
Speaker
It's pretty yucky. Danger is pretty good. I've seen danger in some Aurora decks. I remember a card called Fantasticard that offered a similar amount of power and stuff.
00:47:13
Speaker
But that does all the cards in your deck. Yeah, but this does six cards in your opponent's deck. and still activate like I'd rather play the thing first steps. like i would rather in like well That's a cost.
00:47:31
Speaker
The thing first steps is a great card. I've been playing it in that safety deck. It kills things. you I don't know. i' I'm against this. I just feel like you'd for the things you'd rather do, I don't know. I personally don't like it, that's all. i like It might be good. i don't know.
00:47:55
Speaker
I'm pretty low on it. I think it'll be cool when it happens, but I don't think it's going to be reliable enough. um I mean, the the the unreliable part is the forecast activate thing, but, like, we've seen with Wildchild that, like,
00:48:09
Speaker
It's not that hard to fulfill this condition because it's the exact same... then what? You got like minus four power, you know? You're like, woohoo! Four power! Minus four power in three lanes? It's not Yeah.
00:48:23
Speaker
There's a 418 when everything hits. Like, that's sort of undeniable. That's like... It's all good. you know Okay, it is better than I thought, but like it's still a 4-cost activate. I don't know.
00:48:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i don't love the 4-cost activate in this. Yeah, there is. I think that feels pretty real. And Jocast important for this, that you can play this on the last turn.
00:48:53
Speaker
Yep. But, I mean, I think it's also important that you can just double dip. To set this off, we're talking about cards that neither discard nor destroy, but you're still wanting to pull this off. And it's like you're already trying to do two things in a 12-card deck, discard and destroy, it which is already, like...
00:49:18
Speaker
You're not going for volume. You're just going for like one instance of each One of each. Yeah. But you have to have enough redundancy in your deck that you can reliably do one of each. You'll have more than one source of each effect. I think it's probably going to be like three sources of each.
00:49:34
Speaker
i think that I think it's going to be real. Like it's going to be playable. And I think like Phantom X's numbers are big enough that like it can compete with the good decks. Just can it.
00:49:45
Speaker
how reliably and how many cubes are you getting when you don't pull it off right and you're putting out your wild child putting out all these activate stuff and i'm just like red guardian like boom like you know what i mean come out on the last turn that's fine i don't know things that are telegraphed are so easy it just feels like rage bait i just feel bad like i see people doing these intricate setups and i'm just like common tech card called you sorry buddy but like i've got the card i'm gonna play it like while we're engaging with the jocasta thing which i'm not sure is the only way to play this card i'm not sure you need jocasta to be phantom xing i think i think it's definitely one cute avenue we could walk down and while we're walking down it
00:50:32
Speaker
Let us think about the intersection of activate and destroy. That reminds me of, you know, another fastball special type card, that old Kid Omega, Quentin Meyer.
00:50:44
Speaker
ah that's That's a card that seems pretty good and maybe getting its effect twice would be at the very least cute. And, you know, possibly practical under the right circumstances. I'm not sure what those circumstances are because I don't really like the card and I haven't been playing it. So I don't I don't know this guy like that, but I'm not sure there's nothing there.
00:51:05
Speaker
i think it's at least worth thinking about.
00:51:09
Speaker
right, oh we'll see what we think next week. I actually... i got i got a hunch this one's strong. I'm more excited about Phantom X personally. i don't think it's going to have a bigger impact on the meta than Aurora, but I'm more excited to play it. It feels more novel.
00:51:23
Speaker
um But that could also be more of it than Aurora. This guy Destroy could be a whole new thing. I shouldn't be like poo-pooing it. Excited for more reasons to play X-23.
00:51:37
Speaker
always Always like ah a new archetype that can be somewhat real. That's always a good thing to add to the game. Okay, let's talk about Team Clash. I think we already talked about it some last week.
00:51:48
Speaker
um And by the time our listeners hear this, the earliest listeners, there there will only be like a day left of Team Clash. But, you know, we can review it and see what you thought. did you How do you feel about a 10-day long mode asking you to complete Clash?
00:52:03
Speaker
missions frequently and not burn your tickets and and all that. Oh, I burned all kinds of tickets. i I burned so many tickets.
00:52:16
Speaker
I did. I don't like it. No, go ahead. Oh, I mean, like, I don't like the feeling of burning tickets. I actually found myself having more and more fun with the game mode the more I played it and the more license I felt to get experimental with it.
00:52:31
Speaker
At first, I was just like, gosh, this is a lot to take in And I one of my my big complaints that is still my big complaint is that, like, The extended rosters are ah not exactly equally distributed. There's a shit ton of Avengers and X-Men and no Guardians of the Galaxy.
00:52:53
Speaker
So like you can have a lot more fun experimenting with Avengers decks and X-Men decks and you can take them in all sorts of different directions. I ended up doing Surfer Avengers ah because that's what felt good to me. as that hi that That felt like all the flavors I enjoy. um But like, ooh, not a lot of room to get creative with the Guardians of the Galaxy. I was like, oh, all the good extra Guardians. Those are the best ones in the pre-con. Like, there aren't... Those are the only... It's all... they They're hot garbo. There's no synergy for the Collector. So you could be playing the Collector, but like, why would you be playing the Collector? They're just... Ah, man.
00:53:35
Speaker
I just felt so bad for the Guardians. And they've got Howard. I never tried him, but they've got him. But like the list is so short.
00:53:46
Speaker
And of course, I found that list on fourth location where all the good information lives. um But yeah, but the the the stuff that was fun to build for was fun to build for.
00:53:57
Speaker
i ah i They have the seed of a good idea here, for sure. Although it's not something I necessarily was clamoring for because I've played a lot of other collectible games, some of which...
00:54:12
Speaker
involve the Marvel IP, and I'm like a little bit tired of matchy-matchy, let's play all the X-Men together, let's play, ah you know, like, you know, it's like I've played versus system, of've played Heroclix, you know, like, I'm just, let them commingle.
00:54:27
Speaker
I mean, you could do that Heroclix mostly, unless... You were, yeah unless you were playing in themed tournaments where you had to play themed teams and, you know, the the local Heroclix judge was very fond of those. So maybe, maybe, maybe that's just a, maybe that's just a thing that I'm tired of for very specific reasons, but I'm not even that tired of it. I don't know. It's it's cool to play themed things. I don't know.
00:54:49
Speaker
Yeah. It's a neat mode. I like it so much better than a lot of the other modes.
00:54:55
Speaker
Not Sanctum, but a lot of the other modes. We should have had snaps. Don't know how it couldn't have just had snaps. If they'd added snaps, like when you do something clever, it feels really good to snap about it.
00:55:08
Speaker
I don't know. What what did y'all think of Team Clash? Also, are we going to talk about specific decks? Because like, what what if it comes back? What if somebody wants to to play our fun decks? I don't know. Should we? Is that a waste of time? Who can say?
00:55:22
Speaker
think it's Somebody else talk. I want to hear what we thought about the mode overall. Okay. um i So I and not like bummed out on having to play the mode, but it's just like I did spend the gold on the pass, and I'm not done with the track. And I have been trying to... like play, you know, have a little bit a healthier relationship with the game, but I've been playing pretty much every day. and it's like, how am I not done with the track and there's still two days and I'm kind of like worried I won't fish it. And that's like not a good feeling because I assumed I would be playing over overly much. And I did. I've gotten both the cards, but it's like, so that's that's kind of my bummer is that like that's happening and I still like that means that you haven't gotten to play ladder like forever or conquest and like
00:56:13
Speaker
stuff I want to do too. So I like the mode, but like the fact that it's like I've had to play that pretty exclusively. I did finally. had started and I was just doing pre-cons, but I did enjoy how easy they made it to go in. Once I was like, okay, do kind want to play. It's so easy, like I said, even for someone who is like, don't have time to a whole deck building, a whole cooking. I don't have time to get in the kitchen. It's still just like, oh, half the deck's already there. It's almost playing draft mode. You know mean? You have a limited selection. with the ability. So it was kind of fun to put it together. And I very much like Inigo Montoya did it. I mean, in that how I choose my cards, it's like, guide me.
00:57:04
Speaker
Spirit of dead card games that exist still in my brain. you know ho And then it's just like, oh, card I like, card I like, tag cards. 10 cards that can be a surprise. um And i built... Okay, you can tell which decks I enjoyed most. I mean, kind of following what Ben said, I did not build a custom deck for the Guardians. I did not build a custom deck for Spider-Verse, and I pretty much only play those when the missions have me do it. um But I did make Avengers. Of course, Hulkling is in it. I did do an X-Men.
00:57:36
Speaker
um That White Queen is a joy in because you have so much energy. So if you have something big and juicy for you to play, you almost always have the energy to play it if you've been X-mening like all over the place. Very resourceful.
00:57:49
Speaker
Yeah. And I love, i have like... and More White Queen. I don't know. I'm always looking to play more White Queen and Rogue. This has been such a great mode for Rogue and X-Men. There's so much stuff for her to steal. um It's been glorious. But my real... The deck I've been enjoying most um is Thunderbolts. like I already mentioned that I already love i just love Toxie Doxie. And this is like Toxie Doxie free of her downside. Yeah, on her best day.
00:58:19
Speaker
I'm so used to just dealing with her, you know, like Corvus Gleeveliela or when he used to be so much better now, but when he used to discard cards, I didn't want in Toxie Doxie. It's like, okay, I was planning to play that next time, but all right. You could have hit Jeff. Jeff was right there. Anyway, um i like...
00:58:38
Speaker
ah it's It's still fun enough because I put together, it's like the Thunderbolt. So um like Cage, usa US Agent, and Man Thing is a whole little package for it. And they're great like surprises too. You either put down the cage on the last turn so they like miscounted what they needed, it even on the lane you had filled so they kind of thought you were done there, or throwing down the Man Thing or US s Agent where they've put down a lot lot of like man thing has won a lot of games once like in a game i just played i got a random um ah ancient one and i just like i made everything i made a negative one yes sorry have a question i don't have the lists in front of me i was just wondering are either cage or man thing are they extended roster thunderbolts by any chance because they've got a long list as well
00:59:29
Speaker
You can see in the icon and the art that all of them have icons. I was actually going to comment. I'm impressed that Rhi has all of her off team is also. oh yeah. is the show note is how I didn't. i't Oh, you're not looking at the show. It's OK. Yeah. All three of Rhi's decks are fully 12 members of the team.
00:59:46
Speaker
Oh, cool. Yeah. I had i had no idea Luke Cage was on Thunderbolts. Like I've seen people playing a little bit of Luke Cage in the mode, but I had no idea he was Thunderbolts. Right.
00:59:57
Speaker
It's so good. So it works with everything. Like, that's how I did it it. was fun for me to play it like draft where everything hits it. Like in Avengers, especially stuff, you just want everything to be hitting. And I like i like figuring out what tech I can win with. Right. Like what tools I always need, like one or two tools in a deck like tech. to win out against other other decks. And in this one, okay, this is where the Thunderbolts... just went through Thunderbolts and i'm like, all right, you can see where, you know, the power is coming from in this deck. Like, what all tech can I put in it? I have Electra in it, which is just so good to take out. so Like, right? Because you know the other decks that are out there. So it's like, yeah, just kill a Nebula, just kill a Rocket.
01:00:39
Speaker
Good stuff. They still don't expect it always on turn six to just to lose that much power. And ah just to be cheeky and cute, I put in Batroc the Leaper when I have no movers in the deck. But because, like, you hit the Spider-Verse, sometimes Avengers are playing, like... um um a lot of sam wilson america sam wilson captain america yeah and stuff so there's a lot of times where bat rock has just been like it's just like been helpful and it's like oh it's been it's been a lot of uh that's that one and x-men have been my my two most fun to play so uh
01:01:20
Speaker
So, yeah, it's been a joy. I wish that it didn't, like, take over everything. but um, and yeah, I kind of agree about this. Some of them are just kind of a bummer to play. Although I can still win with Guardians, you know? Like...
01:01:38
Speaker
And I'm always like, uh, and they needed to limit the mode where you couldn't get it Like it's happened to, I think most of us were one of your missions was just like, play every single deck, you know, it's like, uh, I saw somebody with a screenshot where it was six missions, you know, a full set. And it asked you to play five different decks.
01:01:59
Speaker
Yeah, that can be a bit frustrating. Come on! For the missions, I liked having missions that asked you to play other decks. It both encouraged me to try other decks that I might not have if I had already found one that I vibed with. And also, it improved the diversity of the metagame, right? But I am not a fan of the missions that ask you to win with another deck, especially a lot of times. Yeah.
01:02:25
Speaker
I don't want to have to win that many times with guardians. I will burn more than four tickets winning with them four times. Um, overall, I, I like It's still a mode that I like, but I think it's my least favorite of the modes I like, which means I hold it only over high voltage.
01:02:43
Speaker
And I'm trying to figure out why it's like really hard to disentangle it from the economy. It's also, I did not do a lot of deck building in this mode, and I think I had the most fun when I was deck building in it. Like, I actually, one of the clips I got this past week was in this mode.
01:02:57
Speaker
um I did a silly Weapon X clip using the X-Men deck, because I realized this was originally, my original plan was for it to be a Jocasta stack with a Tuma and X-23, and that's how i'm going to do my giant Weapon X. And then I realized Team Clash Wolverine destroys himself.
01:03:12
Speaker
So he does a Tuma's job and he gains power, so he does X23's job better because he can he can win a lane on his own. um And so I had a lot of fun when I was being silly and crafting with the mode, but mostly like the economy feels so tight. So like yeah on day one, i I was playing my own decks and they weren't doing great. And rather than like...
01:03:32
Speaker
trying to learn the mode better and and build better decks. I just like, OK, I'll just net deck and use the decks that people are saying are working great. And like I had fun with those. um Ultimately, one of my favorite Avengers decks was one that smiles made. And one of I think I brought them up last week. one of my favorite my favorite deck overall for the entire mode was actually a high Evo deck with X-Men.
01:03:51
Speaker
Oh, nice. um And literally the only high evo card in it is Hulk. And I had people tell me that's bad. Like, why wouldn't you just run Galactus for steps or Red Hulk or or even the Infana? And it's like, OK, but Hulk doesn't show them that he's scaling. I won so many lanes by being able to play an 18 to 22 power Hulk. um And then you have Warlock in your deck.
01:04:12
Speaker
What's that? Yeah, 614 is a base, right? And he he doesn't show your opponent when he's scaling. So, like, that combination, actually, I thought it was it was worth running high Evo. um Oh, yeah. you know Even though he's kind of a dead draw card. That just had evolved Abomination and, I think, evolved Thing. And, like, it' it's worth it for a little splash of the Evo juice sometimes. yu and Yum, yum, yum.
01:04:36
Speaker
I was going to say, Ben's posting his decks now. I was like, I'm impressed that Re had 12. of like The only deck where I did that was Avengers.
01:04:48
Speaker
um My final versions of the others, X-Men deck had had three X-Men. I should say nine. Nine X-Men. Thunderbolts had 10. Nope, nine.
01:04:59
Speaker
Guardians of the Galaxy only had six Guardians, which goes to Ben's point of saying there's a short roster. I don't have any of them in my like in my bottom row. I did serve for Guardians. That was actually super fun. Cool.
01:05:11
Speaker
Because Sebastian Shaw and Superior Spider-Man are both great things to put in the Guardians lane. Yeah. um And then something i I saw somebody point out, but I never tried doing anything with it is Kitty Pryde. Seems really cool on a Guardians deck. Oh, that's smart. The extra point every single time. um still haven't tried that maybe i will i don't know um and then spider verse i i'm at 11 i'm hydrostomper's only one there who's not on the team um yeah i agree that those two were my least favorite the spider man or the the what it spider verse and guardians they just they just don't feel as strong um my favorite was x-men overall it's just fun having that much energy
01:05:50
Speaker
And don't know. I want to like the mode more. And I kind of wish that it just wasn't so demanding ah keep up with the modes. Right. Like I got both cards and I got one emo. I got that the Mobius emo. And that was my goal. I got all those things for free asterisk. I put about 200 gold into mission refreshes just to figure out how they work, because I didn't think the way Griffin said they worked was probably how they actually worked. Were you aware of that?
01:06:18
Speaker
Yeah, they work like high voltage where they they cycle every single time. and They rotate. um But I had spend some gold to prove that. But like I finished it with days to spare, so it totally would have been doable for free to get two new cards and an emote. That's a good deal, but... like I don't want to spend that much time in the game. I like in 10 days playing this event. Like what if I didn't like this event at all? I'm sure there are players who that fit, you know, that's the case. It's a very, like I said last week, it's a very reasonable way to feel like if that's how you feel, you're obligated, like 6,000 tokens worth of new cards. Like it feels like something I have to do instead of something I get to do. And like most other games I play, like events are fun and exciting things. There are ways that you tell people to come play this game. And you could argue that for some modes. Arena is really fun. Sanctum is really fun. For some people, I know some people disagree. I know a lot of folks don't that. It's my and Ben's and Scott's favorite mode.
01:07:17
Speaker
And so it's like it's so it's like, yeah, I will play that mode even if even if there's nothing to earn. I just like playing that because it's it's a fun mode to play. But then there's all these other modes where I feel obligated. and no no thank you i don't want that in my game and so I don't know how they balance that I know that they it will never be balanced fully towards making it a good game because it's also a free to play game and they need to monetize that friction but I don't know I don't know either I'm gonna look at Ben's decks now yeah
01:07:50
Speaker
I guess I'm going to compare them to the pre-built ones. They do they do have... each Each of my custom decks has three of the same cards as the pre-built ones, but three different cards, which is interesting, I guess. So let me tell you about those Avengers. I've got the six basic-ass Avengers. I think that the the actual cards in the Avengers deck are all pretty darn good.
01:08:15
Speaker
and And some of the decks, I think, have like, of their base six cards, I think like there might be a stinker or two in some of these decks. And I don't think any of the Avengers are stinkers. Although I think Team Clash Thor is probably...
01:08:33
Speaker
maybe team class, clash vision. I don't know. Those two I'm a little iffy about, but what I've got are America Chavez cause surfer. That's right. I warned you. It's a surfer deck. Then Jeff. Cause I miss playing Jeff and surfer. I actually in October, I think it was, I was playing Jeff again for a week when I just wasn't seeing much move and I'd been playing mercury. This was before I started playing mercury and cannonball together and surfer. But like I, I was like, I get to play Jeff again. Cause Jeff historically has been a cool surfer friend. Then I got brood captain Carter.
01:09:02
Speaker
Silver Surfer and Maverick. Yes, he's that good that we just you gotta you gotta have him. um And my X-Men deck, which again had three of the cards that are also in the pre-con X-Men.
01:09:17
Speaker
the The six cards I've got are Jim Hammond, Human Torch, Surge, Prodigy, Juggernaut, Legion and Magneto. Because he's so Magneto. um Anyway, anyway, i had great fun with those and um they seemed to win a lot, especially the Avengers Surfer one, because I feel like a lot of people just weren't expecting. They're they're not ready for...
01:09:43
Speaker
They're like, how are you going to fill that Captain Carter lane? I know what cards you have. You're never filling that Captain Carter lane. Avengers lets Carter be a decoy. like Or like it lets Carter hide, right? like huh Normally she's like, duh, this is a surfer deck. Exactly.
01:10:00
Speaker
Same thing with America Chavez. Like, yeah, yeah. They don't know that I'm just doing what I always do. That's great. ah For my custom X, I think my the only particularly interesting things I have to say about that are that Prodigy is such a fun card.
01:10:17
Speaker
Gosh, I just love playing Prodigy. um it's fun to copy a team clash wolverine especially with prodigy i think that's the most fun card to copy uh but you know there are lots of good things to copy juggernaut is always a cool thing to copy with prodigy um and jim hammond i've got jim hammond which is in the regular x-men deck but i think he's just so much better than sunspot even though sunspot has the x-men icon um yeah I really, really enjoyed those two decks. yeah that's just like I made some very big Sunspots. it was like i What I like about Sunspot 2 is then you can lock that lane with a Professor X but still like grow power into it. You know what i mean? You could do that with Jim Hammond also. like he'll say He can't get as big as like a really big Sunspot, right? he's only I think normally that's true, but I don't know about in the X-Men deck.
01:11:10
Speaker
Okay. I don't know. I just know what seemed to be working for me. And I felt like Jimmy Hams was bringing the heat in a way that Sunspot could not.
01:11:21
Speaker
Oh, because he's the torch. I get it. i mean, they're they're both they're both they're both hot boys. Let's let's be frank. Yeah. We're dealing it with a couple of hot boys.
01:11:31
Speaker
um But yeah I had fun with the mode, but I was a little frustrated that, you know, it was a busy week. I had like no time to play Ladder. I didn't really get to i got to you know play 20 or so games with the safety Aurora deck, but that's like that's been about it.
01:11:51
Speaker
i played one game with my final surfer of 2025. ah Maybe I played more than one game. I don't know. That deck still seems to work. Still loving and Maverick. ah Yeah, I don't know.
01:12:04
Speaker
But... a team clash was a lot i will say that it was not torturous but it was a lot and i did not get the i did not get that mobius emote that everyone is so gaga for and it still felt like a lot of grinding just to get the two cards and it could have been more of a chore but it wasn't not a chore and i didn't have time to do anything else so ambivalence ahoy I think something I'd like to see them change, and I and doubtful we'll ever see it change, but remove any limitations from playing the modes.
01:12:42
Speaker
As in, remove tickets. Tickets. I want people to be able to experiment. like <unk> It's both more fun for me as a deck builder, but it also means that we don't just solve the meta in a few days and and everybody's just using the same decks.
01:12:58
Speaker
um Maybe this is just a me problem, but I... I never got close to running out of tickets and I felt like I was grinding plenty.
01:13:09
Speaker
i don't know. i But I do think think just removing the pressure and having to think about it at all would be good. I'm just saying I never even came close to bumping up against that. To get four tickets every eight hours, like that means I have to be playing 12 games every eight hours, like at least. it's like It's a whole thing.
01:13:29
Speaker
But it wasn't until- There have been modes where I lose a lot more. High voltage, I'm looking at you.
01:13:36
Speaker
I'm sorry, re what what what were you saying?
01:13:41
Speaker
I don't know. I think it's experimenting. you Oh, I was going to say that I didn't have for me, though, I you didn't feel comfortable to experiment because I wasn't sure until and then. I was like, oh, I'm just like, I'm not running tickets like. You know, and so it wasn't until later that I did. I'm like, oh, let me start messing around then and whatever. week but i also bought the pass, so I didn't know how much of that was oh was part of it. But yeah, i also haven't run out of tickets. But it's just like there's plenty of things that are just about the way things are stated and set up and structured that make you feel stressed. You know what i mean? Sometimes stress is about the appearance of things. Yeah, it's true yeah i agree i probably I probably would benefit from just mentally being less precious about my tickets.
01:14:31
Speaker
Because i finished I finished the mode by... yeah I met the goals i the goals I had set for myself. I finished those with days to spare. So I could have had time to experiment on my own.
Gaming Strategies and Stories
01:14:41
Speaker
um We should mention that our friend Michael was throwing games just to burn tickets and ah get some return on that, right?
01:14:48
Speaker
do do i Do I understand that correctly? I should have been doing that more, but I did that for the first time. I was like finishing some Guardian. I had to do matches with Guardians. I'm like, oh, I could just retreat and this would still count. think I ran into some people who were doing that. And that's what I did.
01:15:06
Speaker
If it became clear this wasn't going to be a fun game for me, then I just started like retreating. Well, there's no snap to tell you when to retreat. you know like I usually always try my hardest to win. who So it felt bad, but then it felt freeing because I wasn't enjoying the game.
01:15:24
Speaker
All right. That's Team Clash. I'll be happy to see it again, especially, you know, every now and then there will be a new team and then you get to learn a new ability and six new cards instead of learning them all at the same time. That'll feel yeah that'll feel more surmountable. um Yeah, mostly i liked I liked in the long run. I liked learning all the new abilities and some of them are really cool.
01:15:47
Speaker
I had had one good, really good Gamora play and like the history of it because she destroys Oh, Gamora's the best. I love this Gamora. See, I mostly for me, she's destroying things that are smaller than four. So I'm like normal Gamora would actually be better. Like, and I don't want to unclog you. I don't want to be gaining less than four.
01:16:07
Speaker
But sometimes. When you get the Wolverine. Yeah. Oh, and there's nothing respawn it? Is that? Oh, no, because it doesn't respawn. you destroy Wolverine, it's destroyed. I've messed that up before. Ah! like I didn't have room for Wolverine.
01:16:20
Speaker
oo But playing X-Men decks with White Queen, there were so many times i would like steal an extra Professor X and then get to play. would have two Professor X's down. Or i I killed so many. like I stole so many people's Gamoras.
01:16:35
Speaker
then Anyway, okay White Queen is fun. just saying I think Gamora is super cool. and She probably is an upgrade, but... Yeah, I had a lot of them that were hitting smaller cards, and I was like, the standard Gamora would be perfectly fine here.
01:16:50
Speaker
Hawkeye is a real deal in this. Like, taking down a Hawkeye with Electra or with a Gamora is big, because... So I was complaining about how the Guardians have nobody good that isn't already in their pre-con.
01:17:06
Speaker
just There's one good one, and it's Grandmaster. And that's so you can get an extra extra bit on your Gamora or your Drax or whatever, because doubling twice is better than doubling once. It's ah much better.
01:17:18
Speaker
Okay. I guess I one nice thing to say about the Guardians. Guardian. i saw a lot of people playing. And also Sarah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if Beta Ray Bill's good. Sarah, I would say it's good. That was the card that convinced me that I should build a Guardian's ah custom deck. because Just to take it out. Is he in a pre-con? I didn't know he was in a pre-con. He's so useless. and That explains why I saw so many of them. okay ah yeah i i i didn't I guess I haven't learned all the pre-cons I thought I had. like i know I know which tech I can safely avoid because it's a pre-con, but...
01:17:56
Speaker
You know, I was always very careful to play magic against X-Men pre-cons because they run Legion.
Nostalgia and the Magic of Toys
01:18:02
Speaker
Okay. On to our side quests. First up and only this week, secret homework.
01:18:07
Speaker
It was assigned by Rhi. All right. i wanted everyone to tell a toy story um to keep it light. And because i like presents and I love toys. One, dually, because when I was a kid, i was never like, we didn't have as much money. So I didn't get commercial toys that I wanted, which is what I wanted because they're on commercials. Therefore, they were very cool.
01:18:36
Speaker
And he just kept toys magical because as an adult, then i could buy the toys that I couldn't, that I wasn't allowed to have as a kid. Because too, always too would put like a console on my list.
01:18:49
Speaker
And like every single year, even though I knew they wouldn't, because my parents were both like, it was both a money thing and they were kind of like spiritually opposed to video games. So it was like not what they were going to do.
01:19:01
Speaker
But, okay, on the bonus side, because I never got fulfillment of having ah advertised toys when I was a child, I never got to, like, be disappointed and find out that, like, the commercials didn't live up to the reality. like, toys still seem super magical to me because I never learned that they might be less than what you would expect from my advertisements. Like, I still love every year, like, when I would get... It's been happening less, and they've been less cool in recent years. But, like, you know, to just general toy catalogs coming from, like, Target or whatever, I'd be like, what are the toys? Like, it's cool.
01:19:40
Speaker
oh shit's like I I would play with it. um Now, lately, it's, like, way less. Like, kids need to stop trying and grow up and have fun. It's not
Disney Infinity and Corporate Influences
01:19:49
Speaker
all... Grass isn't all greener. Some of it is. Okay.
01:19:52
Speaker
Um... So I was thinking, even though I signed it I didn't have a set thing in my mind, but I cited one of the last really magical ah set of toys that I was buying for myself i that I think maybe some other people experienced is the magic that was from like 2013 to Disney Infinity.
01:20:15
Speaker
ah called disney infinity um If you're familiar, Disney Infinity was like, so if you're they're like Amiibo, it was like where you'd have a little figurine of ah various Disney owned properties.
01:20:29
Speaker
um i had, I didn't have every single one, but i had like pretty much all of the Marvel ones and Star Wars ones. I just, I'm not as into like Disney proper So like, I didn't get those.
01:20:42
Speaker
But that was the idea to have these little figurines and they could go on a stand. And then they would, you know, zoop into the world. So it's like ah a thing that exists now.
01:20:54
Speaker
But like the real magic was like, OK, they would each come with their own little adventure and, you know each character would have their own abilities. And that was fun. They were really well designed. Just the right amount of cartoonish. The figurines were really quality. Like, I love a good tactile, like, um ah you know, figurine. Something you can stuff in your mouth, like Griffin McElroy.
01:21:21
Speaker
Right. And one of the like and it's so many other things. It's like, oh, paper cards you scan in or something. But there's something like that that's just that we just love about like a good little plastic thing. So. Yeah.
01:21:36
Speaker
Yeah, there's that. And then be beyond the little adventures and worlds we you would play, which were already fun, it was already like, think like, you know, the Lego stuff, but even like, maybe even a little more fun to me than the Lego adventures, that kind of level. But then it was like this whole, like universe. So I haven't played like Roblox or all the things they have now, but this was like, well, you could take these characters and like,
01:22:02
Speaker
they they opened up the tools. You could even build whole worlds that request things and like visit other things. And you could take these characters into other made adventures. It was like this whole digital universe. And I think what was so fulfilling about it, looking back,
01:22:20
Speaker
was that they like, it was like the first that I had seen real promise of like digital action figures, because you could actually play with these toys. You could take these characters and you can mix them up. You could have them meet each other from different universes. You could play with them, right? Like kids could play with them. They could build their own adventures and there's this world you could build. I so i had so many dreams. Like this was coming at a time where I was just like super burned out by work. and i had no extra energy and I would just dream. I'm like, oh, in in the future, you know? like I was planning out all the Disney like infinity like quests I would make and worlds and adventures and like roller coasters and like all of this stuff. It was this really huge, impressive toy box. And
01:23:06
Speaker
um you know and it got shut down not because people didn't love it, you know not even because it wasn't doing that well, but because um unfortunately, supply and demand don't really decide things anymore, um what make short-term profits do. And it was cheaper for Disney to get out of ah They decided they were just going to stop making their own in-house games. And this is like part of what that like Star Wars project about like, you know, the gritty Star Wars. under I forget what it had been code word, but everyone had been hyped for it for years. That got killed as part of that. This Disney Infinity got killed. They're like, we're just going to license out. We don't want to worry about we're doing such a good job with our IP.
01:23:53
Speaker
Let's not make our own products. Yeah. So like and, you know, it's an interesting thing with licensing stuff out because um side tangent when talking about toys, such an interesting I'm like not like a Barbie fan, but like I got swept into some Barbie news. You would not describe yourself as a Barbie girl.
01:24:16
Speaker
Rabbit. No, I like if it's dolls and fashion dolls like Monster High is kind of weird. But like, um, but like Barbie recently made a decision to also they're going to stop making their own products. They're just going to license them out. And this was met with huge and they let go like this, the like celebrated beloved like designer of like Barbie stuff for so many years. They've let a whole bunch of staff.
01:24:41
Speaker
Oh, And in the barbie news, a lot of people were like super upset about this. And it's because they knew this meant that like this is like, it felt like at least the beginning, if not the death of the brand. Because already there had been quality kind of issues, because they're always trying to be cheaper and cheaper. but The idea is it's like, oh, they found out if we just like cheap and if we just sell the name Barbie to everything and it doesn't matter if that's quality, you know what I mean Then like they'll just make money in the short term, even if that damages the brand in the long term. And that's not to say it's like some... Companies will license things out because theyre like, oh, we're just not good at this industry. Let's do a partnership, you know, with someone who is good at this thing and um can respect it. Sure, that happens. But like in the long run, yeah.
01:25:34
Speaker
I think it's, you know, like the way that a lot of people do it is like, hey, if we just cut a bunch of in-house staff and then just sell a bunch of licenses out without thought, like, that's a way we can make money short term. And I'm really mad that Disney Infinity got sacrificed to that because, like,
01:25:53
Speaker
You know, like for me, I never got to like fulfill. I think they've when I just when I was looking up the dates of when it was alive, you were like, oh, on Steam, there's like Disney Infinity 3.0 where you can play like everything. So maybe some version have been refreshed. But now I'm just like making my own.
01:26:11
Speaker
I couldn't make Disney Infinity stuff. But I missed out on the time when I really wanted to play with it because I just didn't – I was just – it was that time when you were just burned out and dreaming of the time when you would enjoy things again.
01:26:23
Speaker
and And so, you know, I don't want to be like play with your toys while you have them because the whole point was that I was too burned out to do them. But I guess the lesson is like capitalism will destroy the things you love before you have time to enjoy them. Yeah.
01:26:36
Speaker
Rip Disney and Infinity, you were amazing. Like props to everyone who worked on you and all the joy you could have been is a sandbox. um That is my toy story. Depressing in me.
01:26:51
Speaker
Yeah, I should have said of a better, you know, I'm a little scatterbrained today. It's all good. Not for a thought. But I would like to hear, since Ben is assigning next week's home, and Lauren, please tell us your toy story.
Creative Play and Career Influence
01:27:05
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to start with a really broad definition of a toy. um just Just, you know, something something you can play with. My siblings and I are all creative people. And mean, I think most children are creative if you let them be, if you encourage it.
01:27:22
Speaker
But we played tons of imaginary games, which is really just role playing games. Uh, and we often made costumes out of paper or game pieces out of paper. it happened a lot. And so anyway, some of the ones that, that highlights me, we we, we would turn anything into an imaginary game.
01:27:42
Speaker
And, uh, my, my sister, who's two years younger than me is really, she has a really different personality than the rest of us. Um, especially as children, And she's kind of like the one who wants the limelight. She loves being the director. She loves being the star of the show. I'm making that sound like it's like, it's a bad thing, but it's not. Now you're making yourself awesome.
01:28:04
Speaker
Okay. She is awesome. Um, I, It's different now that we're all adults, but as children, like, i think it would be pretty clear to say, like, she's the extrovert and the three of us were introverts. And she also, like, she just had the personality where she wanted to run everything. And in some ways that can be seen as bossy, but also, like, we loved it because we had this built in DM. We didn't know what that was. We didn't discover Dungeons and Dragons until later. But um we had this, you know, DM to run everything. um And so...
01:28:29
Speaker
And my sister would always play all the NPCs and we would each have our one character and things usually were quite video gamey and RPG Eve. Like but we played imaginary games with, with super smash bros melee. We are, our bikes were dragons and horses and they leveled up and learned abilities. The croquet mallets, they came in colors and obviously the, the red croquet mallet was for shooting fireballs, not for playing any sort of sport.
01:28:51
Speaker
Um, you know we had We had several Lego games that... like my My favorite, the one that was that I most fondly remember, was a Lego game where we we each built a store. and It was like a retail tycoon game, but it was built out of Lego. and you know it was very like Sims-ish. like we We gained money and we used it to buy new pieces to add to our store. It was very impressive considering the age of my sister. But...
01:29:16
Speaker
um The one I want to talk about is a game we played on poe with Pokemon um on a cork board. And I had this silly like desktop publishing software called Pokemon Project Studio.
01:29:30
Speaker
It came out at the end of 1999. Just like the Game Boy games, it came in red version and blue version. So you did not get all the Pokemon in one single desktop publishing app. You got like 80 of them.
01:29:41
Speaker
um Yeah, and so I believe we had red. I was looking through the exclusive lists and red the red list looked right to me, but we had only one of them regardless. but i had a lot of They came with like 80 Pokemon, a handful of trainers, all eight badges. And of course, we printed these things out and had a lot of fun using the like desktop publishing software in it to, I mean, I designed tons of things with it. um But for this game specifically, I liked scaling the Pokemon to the size of the of the character. So really tiny Diglett and a gigantic Onyx, printed them out on paper and we would move them around ah and we played Pokemon that way.
01:30:19
Speaker
um And my sister did, was the DM and the three of us all had our teams that we and we had wild Pokemon encounters. and And I don't remember how we randomized or anything like that. um Years later, I'm probably like 18-ish at this point, and my brother would be 7. We have an 11-year age gap.
01:30:39
Speaker
I'm the oldest, and he's the youngest, and I've always considered video games very valuable for our relationship. um Because, you know, now that we're 36 and 25, I can do math. um Now that we're 36 and 25, the age gap isn't such a big deal. But, like, 4 to 15 is a big age gap. And the way that we dealt with having ah an 11-year age gap at that time was playing smash brothers and mario kart um he's a little older we had hero scape which was a super cool miniatures tactical board game um had great terrain pieces at a reasonable price because it was marketed for children but like honestly it was great it was a fun game yes may i briefly tie some things together
01:31:21
Speaker
Absolutely. no The HeroClix judge who very often liked to stipulate that people had to play themed teams where everybody was on Comics Acura teams. We teamed up and played in a HeroScape tournament and won the shit out of it. And that's the only time I ever played HeroScape, but it was a lot of fun.
01:31:39
Speaker
o It doesn't surprise me at all to hear that you have played HeroScape. um I used i I played a game. It's just my brother and i But we use heroes. We use Pokemon toys that we had and we use Heroescape. And I used Google spreadsheets to convert Pokemon into Into Hero Skate. Like, I converted all the... It's very Like, Snorlax and Chansey have high HP, and Machamp has high attack, and whatever. like And Jolteon's very fast. And so, like, I converted all the all these stats that are already readily available. I converted them into Hero... ah
01:32:21
Speaker
HeroScape scale stats and gave them abilities. And I wrote like random formulas to right i use I wrote formulas to use RNG accurately representing the Pokemon capture mechanics from the game. So, you know, hanging out on Bulbapedia and reverse engineering. How do I write in Google Sheets a formula that.
01:32:43
Speaker
that accurately matches the Pokemon capture formula. You know, like you get a higher chance if you use a better ball, you get a higher chance if the Pokemon is asleep or paralyzed, and you get a higher chance if its HP is low, trying to trying to capture all these things.
01:32:58
Speaker
um Which is very nerdy. But it's it's how I learned Excel um and and Sheets is is by building this like hybrid tabletop digital game for my brother. you know There's a button you could click on the what on the page and all the random numbers would would update accordingly.
01:33:16
Speaker
um And that I think that led directly to where I am now, both professionally and like in the Snap community, because there was a job interview 15 years ago at this point, not quite, where i I mentioned that I liked Excel. And they were like, wait, you like Excel? And of sudden, you were off grabbing a different manager and I was interviewing for a different position than what I had applied for just because I like Excel. And that's how I got started in an entry-level analytics position. And then I learned tons in that job that have led to both yeah the job I have today and also like the reason I got into Marvel Snap community was because i was a very analytical person and I wanted to use my analyst skills on all this data that surely these you know like untapped and SnapZone and SnapFan had all this data. And I wanted them to be doing cooler things with it.
01:34:05
Speaker
and i think That's why I reached out to Snap Zone in the first place. Like, I'll write cool articles using your data if you just give me access to your data. And they did. And ah that has led to kind of accidentally being a content creator, ah making this podcast today and being a part of this community and making new friends and all that.
01:34:22
Speaker
um so because of Because of homemade Pokemon toys.
01:34:28
Speaker
and So maybe it is also kind of depressing or too real to have my toy story end with. And she grew up and got a job, but like, yeah. And she grew up to love Excel. Yeah, I thought it was beautiful.
01:34:40
Speaker
That was a great story. I suppose that make it my turn. All right. Well.
01:34:49
Speaker
You know, i also had a sister. Still do, in fact. um So I have a sister. Just the one, unfortunately. Well, I don't know.
01:35:02
Speaker
it's It's felt like about a manageable amount of sisters. I don't know. I'm sure if I had more, I would love them, too. They would be great. My hypothetical sister's...
01:35:14
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure they would be great. But the one I have leaves little to be, you know, leaves little to be desired. She's great. this She's just so unimaginably great. and she also ah was ah very much the the the director type for for our games. You know, she's the showrunner of Playtimes because, ah you know, she's older than I am and... ah ah You know, i I think it's fascinating that your younger sister was able to boss you around because I sort of thought that the bossiness came with being the older sister, but clearly not. No, ah but that's really interesting. And it it has me questioning the the context in which I understood things to have happened. But anyway, I love my sister and she's great.
01:36:07
Speaker
And ah she also would, you know, run Pokemon RPGs and things and write stuff down. She did not get quite as mathematical about some of these, these sorts of games as, as you ended up doing there. I don't recall there being spreadsheets, but there were, there was certainly a lot of writing and binders and stuff.
01:36:25
Speaker
Um, so we had, we had great fun there, but, uh, that's fun without toys. And I'm here to talk about a toy story, damn it. And, um, my sister,
01:36:37
Speaker
uh, now has a daughter, my, my amazing niece. And, uh, she's, you know, getting older. And, and when I say older, I mean, she's two now. So her personality is becoming more and more evident and, uh,
01:36:53
Speaker
this this ah This past holiday visit at my parents' house, my niece's grandparents' house, it's lots of fun calling my my parents grandma and grandpa and stuff. you know It's just fun because that's not who they are to me, but I want it to make sense to the little one. you know so So that's neato. But...
01:37:14
Speaker
i've I've really enjoyed playing with my niece and i i wasn't sure how she felt about me, you know, because she doesn't see as much of me as she sees of her grandparents, for instance.
01:37:28
Speaker
um Oh, also just one set of grandparents. ah my My sister... had had this kid all on her own so that that really that makes her just ours for all the holidays and stuff so i have delighted in playing with her and i am ah really pleased that she she loves to play with our stuffies that uh my sister and i had as uh as kids and I know, Lauren, you've you've spoken of playing with stuffies and beanie babies and things and how that can be like a special thing with your your siblings and stuff. And, you know, ah that that was certainly true of my sister and me.
01:38:10
Speaker
So I've been delighted to see that... You know, I, I, my niece, uh, like, you know, she, she plays with the same like dog stuffy that my sister did. And it has the same, you know, nonsense name. It's called puppy doggy, a little redundant.
01:38:31
Speaker
That's a very good name. Very on the nose. But, um, you know, so I, I was shocked to hear her talking about puppy doggy. Cause I knew which one was puppy doggy. And I was like, Oh, so, so fascinating that this lives on. And, um,
01:38:46
Speaker
You know, my niece does not always love when it is time for her nap. But I thought it was so fascinating that she chose to, as part of playtime, we we put Puppy Doggy down for a nap. And we turned on the noise machine and ah tucked Puppy Doggy in with a blanket.
01:39:08
Speaker
And then we would close the door. And my niece would tell me, don't wake him up. He's napping. And we'd walk down the hallway and then she'd run back and open the door and say, bye close the door. And we did this, um I'm going to say about 15 times.
01:39:31
Speaker
And ah sometimes she she'd say, I'm going to wake him up. And then she'd, you know, go in and I guess maybe wake him up, except yeah anytime I was like, are we waking him up?
01:39:46
Speaker
You know, my niece would be like, no, he's sleeping. You know, just, ah I don't know. She's just a really adorable kid. Also ah saw K-pop demon hunters exactly one time and came at my sister with ah some object that was intended to function as a sword and said, I'm fighting mommy. And so K-pop demon hunters now exists only as a beautiful song cycle.
01:40:12
Speaker
And, uh, the movie is, uh, not in rotation in, uh, in that household. So that's just a fun little tie in, but, uh, yeah, toys are great.
New Year Resolutions and Marvel Snap
01:40:23
Speaker
Kids are great.
01:40:25
Speaker
Toys are great for kids. They encourage creativity and let them work through all sorts of interesting things. Oh, my gosh. My niece really does hate those naps. And I'm like, that is so fascinating that you are you are simulating the the nap time process with Puppy Doggy. Anywho, I guess that's my story. It's lovely.
01:40:48
Speaker
Yeah. I will now assign next week's secret homework. All right. Well, I'm personally of the opinion that New Year's resolutions are maybe a little silly.
01:41:06
Speaker
And if you want to make a meaningful change in your life, you probably need a better reason than a new number at the end of the the date. you know ah I like New Year's resolutions, though. No, they're fine. I'm just saying, like...
01:41:21
Speaker
I've changed things in my life and and not the easy kind either. And I needed better reasons than it being a new year. But anywho...
01:41:35
Speaker
But even though I have great, you know, i don't I don't have much respect for the concept. I am forcing us all to resolve to find a Marvel Snap card that you're just excited to play more of.
01:41:47
Speaker
Like, ah i'm not I'm not going to do these because this would be wrong and lazy. And I already talked about it earlier in the episode. And i'm I'm not interested in rerunning next week. But, for instance, I'm really, I've been telling myself for a long time that I should be playing more Cosmo. I should be playing more Juggernaut.
01:42:05
Speaker
So those would be things that I would resolve to play more in the new year, but maybe something a little A little goofier, maybe maybe. Maybe something a little less pragmatic and, ah you know, ruthless. Because, goddammit, if those cards do not win some games, your Cosmo and your Juggernaut, sometimes together, often together, that's ah that's how you get them. You sort of fork them like in chess.
01:42:31
Speaker
Anywho, but yeah, just ah find ah find a card that you could be comfortable resolving to play more of in 2026.
01:42:41
Speaker
Yeah, didn't, you know, it's not the most ambitious secret homework I've ever assigned, but that's okay. I like it. Yeah, it's been it. Sounds good.
01:42:51
Speaker
It's been busy times. Hey. Yeah, I say and waving my child off to a sleepover at her grandparents. um If you liked what you heard, like, comment, subscribe.
01:43:05
Speaker
rate and review all the fun things. Um, you can leave us a comment on YouTube or Spotify or come hang out with us in this. video but I should say, and come hang out with us in the speakeasy because you got to feed that. I'll go, you know, uh, come hang out with in come,
01:43:21
Speaker
so good at this. Come hang out with us in the speakeasy, our little corner of Discord. There are instructions to get there in the show notes and and video description. um We're probably part of the Snap Judgments Network. That's the that's the Discord that we've glommed onto ah where we have our little corner where you can listen to other great shows like Snap Judgments, but our grand pod by Pulse Glazer and Roy on Saturdays. i think maybe it's Pulse Glazer and nick degreeky Nick the Greek geek these days. My goodness. um Anyway, if you like what you heard, next week we will be rating and reviewing the cards coming up in January. We're going to be ranking dragons, not just talking about them. Dragons.
01:44:01
Speaker
Dragons. It's a season that is far more appealing to me than this one. um Yeah. I mean, at least aesthetically. Yes. We should have, sorry, we just talk about dragon media we like.
01:44:14
Speaker
Just talk about dragons. um Talk about dragons sung by Anne McCaffrey. Okay, sorry. That's fine. Tune in next week. Same snap time, same snap channel.
01:44:29
Speaker
Oh, man. One of my friends recently said, same bat time, same bat channel. I'm like, they know about the podcast? That's become a reference.
01:44:41
Speaker
I'm wearing my Saja Boy hoodie that I got. Oh, I love it. That's great. Christmas. My mom was like, you sure you want that one? There's so many cheaper ones other places. But I'm like, no, I need the one that has the patterns.
01:44:54
Speaker
That's why I wanted it. I wanted it for the patterns. love it. So it's from the official Netflix store, which is expensive. That's pretty cool. I am a little envious because I want to express my fandom of the Saja Boy's.
01:45:10
Speaker
I mean, like, don't get me wrong. Huntrix is great, too, but, like, I feel like everybody's got those Huntrix shirts and things, but... That's true. Somebody needs to... Somebody needs to... I mean, the Soda Pop is a banger.
01:45:22
Speaker
Your idol? Double banger. Yeah. I'm really interested to see how they
Family and Future Generations
01:45:28
Speaker
do that in the next movie. Cause like, I kind of don't expect there's going to be s such boys in the next movie, but like, i don't think so either surely they want to bring in boy band music still. So is there going to be like a battle of the bands or who knows?
01:45:40
Speaker
Who knows? I'll be interested to find out. Oh my gosh. Speaking of those songs, though, my niece, she has got, she's got the pipes. She's got a very good sense of pitch, though she does struggle with the the range of ah Golden. They really do ask you to have a fucking enormous range. It's a very hard song.
01:46:04
Speaker
um But wow, she's got the beat and the pitch, and I'm just um real real excited to see where she goes. Maybe if can can afford it, I'll get her a ukulele or something. Because, I mean, like, you know, there are those toy instruments and their feet are well and good. I'm sure they encourage musical inclinations in children. You know, the the keyboards that play the songs when you hit the the, you know, but they're not like, I kind of think that this kid is sharp enough that she could probably get more mileage out of something real like a ukulele.
01:46:38
Speaker
Or an ukulele if you feel like being correct, but having people wonder you know what you're talking about. We all have to make these game time decisions about we're going to say the word the right way or the way that people will know what we mean.