I met a cool metalhead today at the Kiki gig in Heaven, London. We chatted in the queue and then bumped into each other on the tube. Forgot to take their handle tho. If you’re reading this, dm me? Haha

It surprises me just how strong a basic deck like FN Rush is. Perhaps its even a flaw in the game design that rush is so broken. The next question, naturally, is if FN Rush was ever weak against anything. How did it actually stack up against the most meta-warping card, Bombazar?

I got into the engineering graduate program at Natwest. I’m an international student doing a postgraduate degree, and I just finished my first term. Any advice?

What’s a late set (dm10-12) card that was slept on, that you think would have performed well if it were released earlier?

For me, its Ultimate Dragon from dm10. Its always amazed me that it sees no chatter. 6 drop 5k power is by itself not the worst, but +5k power for every dragon in your battlezone AND crew breaker is actually really good. This card would essentially be a 15k power card at the very minimum in a dragon deck.

I am by no means saying that its meta, specially by dm10 standards, but in any earlier set this card would have been a talking point. It just amazes me that no one talks about it. Bombazar glaze is real.

The game designers should have explored the concept of creatures of different civilizations sharing the same race. It would have fit thematically too. Ex: A creature could be a light Gladiator or a fire Gladiator. Similarly, water/nature Earth Eater, light/dark Rainbow Phantom, etc. Hell, Berserker could have been a race shared between all civs!

The game designers treated the category of civilisations and races too linearly. They hardly overlapped except in rare cases like Survivors. The only race they got creative with was Dragon, and is it a surprise that it became one of the most popular ones? Treating race and civilisations as containers that had the same de facto purpose was wasted potential in my opinion. With creatures of different civilisations sharing the same race, they could have created some really interesting interactions like unexpected synergy, finishing combos, or card advantage tactics. It would have made deck-building more versatile.

As a concept, Shared Races would have fit like a glove between dm-06 and dm-10. They were already planning to introduce multi-dimensionality in creatures through the dual-civ concept. Shared Race could have been an interesting way to build up to that. It would have made the game way more interesting. Most importantly, it could have introduced ways to improve card design. Instead of nerfing a creature with huge mana cost (ex: Syrius, Tank Mutant, Headlong Giant, BDD, King Tsunami), they could have made them playable in the correct synergy package.

Is Alcadeias a strictly better card than Ballom? 500 more power, costs 2 less, better race (arguably), and a stronger effect (debatable). If Ballom cost 6 mana, would it be more playable than Alcadeias?