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@kelzamgaming
In honor of the fact that representation matters, I did this AU version of Magic: the Gathering's poster character, Jace Beleren. Magic and Wizards needs to be a space inclusive to POC, not just performative action and lip service when they see "noise" being made. Representation for Black people EVERY DAY.
Commander Night 6/11/2020
First time playing Commander in store since the pandemic began in the south, in store where half of the player base and the co-manager are bigots. Needless to say with the BLM movement and political climate and WotC’s bans the same day, it was a frustrating experience being surrounded by whataboutisms, “All Lives Matter” types and so on. But, I did have a good time playing the game itself, at least.
Game 1: Gyruda (Me) // Norin (Bigot) // Shabraz & Brallin // Nezahal
The bigot that played Norin is notorious for constantly abusing Rule 0 and asking to bend the rules. I’m don’t like being made to be the jerk and say no since everyone else doesn’t care that he has a wishboard and an Un-card in the deck. I was already expecting to deal with bullshit.
Well, Turn 3 I managed to get Sphinx’s Tutelage out and I’m playing against two mono color decks. Score! I milled most of Norin’s best cards, including his Purphoros. Eventually I got Gyruda out and milled into a clone, milled again. A bit of removal was necessary to take out the Nezahal player’s Psychosis Crawler.
The game ended rather quick, though, because around Turn 8 or 9 I managed to mill the Shabraz player’s Dockside Extortionist into his graveyard, and got 8 treasure tokens. I had planned on casting Deadeye Navigator and Soulbonding it to Gyruda with a couple mana open to have a blink available for removal. Buuuuut Deadeye + Dockside at that point was infinite mana, so infinite mana from blinking Dockside, then blink Deadeye, soulbond it to Gyruda when it comes back and blink Gyruda til everyones milled out.
Game 2: Trynn & Silvar (Me) // Saskia (Bigot) // Shabraz & Brallin // Nezahal
Understandably, Shabraz and Nezahal wanted to try again because the game didn’t last long. Before Game 1, the bigot told me about how he had build 5-color Gyruda with Gyruda as the Companion. I think he got salty and wanted to one-up me, because he asked if he could play Humans too, and it was Saskia. I’m very confident in my Trynn & Silvar deck, so I said sure.
I drew a Sol Ring T1 but had two tapped lands and a basic land and wanted to get the tap lands out of the way. T2 I drew a signet, so I played my basic land, into a Sol Ring, into an Orzhov Signet into a Rakdos Signet. T3 I played Judith and Verge Rangers. T4 I played General Kudro of Drannith and Trynn. Needless to say, I had a scary board and started getting concerned about a board wipe, so I played Silver T5. By T6 At this point I was expecting Saskia to come out of nowhere with Infect or something, so I played Thalia, Heretic Cathar to slow the table down. Everyone was pretty open to damage at this point so I rolled a d6 to see who I was swinging all in at, and swung into the bigot Saskia player for 27 damage between my tokens and non-tokens. I reasoned that I had committed to the board super heavy and needed to start taking players out so there was one less chance of a board wipe in the following turns. He scooped despite still being at 14 after that. I finished the other two off.
At this point, the bigot got frustrated at losing and demanded to randomize pods, again. He some Swamps and Forests and told everyone to pick a card at random and Forests were in a pod together and Swamps were in a pod together. Well, bucko, guess what? We’re still in the same pod together. The other two players switched out.
Game 3: Kruphix (Me) // Kaervek (Bigot) // Krenko // Morophon
Tonight I wanted to use all the decks I’d built during quarantine that I hadn’t played at the shop yet. Kruphix was a lot different, and it didn’t have Black! Occasionally I find it funny to shock people that I have some decks that don’t have Black in them.
My Kruphix deck is a group hug, big mana deck. It’s goal is to eventually draw or mill everyone out. There’s not a single Eldrazi in the deck. The Morophon player, however, specifically stated he was playing Morophon Eldrazi. I told everyone I was playing in in group hug mode. Kruphix, after all, has four arms for one-arm-bro-hugs+3 pats. I laid back most of the game after an early Abundance into a Mystic Remora. Kaervek and Krenko duked it out while Morophon struggled to get going due to a pretty budget mana base.
I kept a slow hand with no ramp in it, which is usually a bad idea. But, eventually I got Kruphix out and had enough lands to start coming back around to my turn with 7+ mana on Kruphix. I’d bided my time long enough, and was down to 3 life because of Kaervek and people just swinging at whoever was open, so four open arms became four angry fists. I had 14 mana stored up going into my turn and used it and tapped some Forests and dropped a Nyxbloom Ancient. Everyone was tapped out, so I was safe. Then, I dropped a Doubling Cube and taped all my lands for mana. I had around 64 mana. I dumped all but 7 of it into a Prosperity that the Morophon player couldn’t counter with his Kozilek, the Great Distortion, and used Abundance to put every nonland card in the deck into my hand. I didn’t have enough to draw everyone out with Prosperity, but left enough mana to cast a Windfall. I also had a Library of Leng on board at that point since I was keeping 10-12 cards in hand, minimum, due to a few rounds of the Mystic Remora before it got destroyed, and I didn’t want the bigot/Kaervek player or Krenko player to wheel my hand away.
Post Games
We got a couple promo pack and I got a Vadrok, Sprite Dragon and Unmoored Ego, as well the Sorin from M20. I found out a friend of mine had a foil extended art Ayara and managed to trade for that and some Zombie goodies. The commentary and bigotry and ignorance casually slung around started to weigh on me after I walked out the door. I’d considered it my home store for years now despite knowing how backwards and wrong the beliefs are of some people there, including the co-manager. They’ve treated me well and as a friend in many respects, and that’s probably because I’m white, despite being openly gay and comfortably safe at the shop in that regards. The only other shop in a 30 mile radius barely has the player base for Commander and... I just don’t know what to feel or think right now. I’m glad I got some fun games in before we inevitably go back into lockdown since COVID-19 is spiking again.
I have a lot to think about.
EDH Combos: Reveillark & Karmic Guide
Reveillark and Karmic Guide are one of the more well known combos in EDH/Commander. Any deck able to run a White can make use of both of them, but when you’re running them in concert with Black is when things get really juicy. The great thing about these cards is that despite the powerful combo, they can still be excellent cards by themselves. But we’re here talking about their interaction today, so let’s get to that.
How Does the Combo Work?
There are a lot of ways to start the combo, but first you need to have some permanent with the ability to sacrifice a creature on the battlefield. My personal favorite is Ashnod’s Altar, because piling up mana enables a lot of ways to finish the game.
Here are the steps to do this combo:
Have a sacrifice outlet on the battlfield.
If Karmic Guide is in your graveyard and Reveillark is in play, sacrifice Reveillark.
Target Karmic Guide with Reveillark’s “leaves the battlefield” triggered ability.
When the trigger resolves, Karmic Guide enters the battlefield, triggering her own ability. Target Reveillark, who is in the graveyard.
Put Reveillark back onto the battlefield, then sacrifice Karmic Guide.
Repeat Steps 1 - 5.
You can initiate this combo from many game states. For example, you can have either Karmic Guide or Reveillark in your graveyard, as long as the other is on the battlefield or in your hand ready to cast. You can have Reveillark in the graveyard and cast Karmic Guide targeting it to reanimate it, followed by sacrificing Karmic Guide, then Reveillark. You can do it in vice versa, and since you’re playing colors with reanimation spells, you can start out with both in your graveyard as long as you have Reanimate, Animate Dead, Beacon of Unrest or one of numerous other reanimation spells in your hand.
What Do I Do With This Combo?
There are several ways to go with this combo.
Infinite Mana - generate infinite mana to use on a spell such as Exsanguinate, Profane Command, Decree of Justice, or whatever X cost spell fits your fancy.
Infinitely Big Creature - Vish Kal is a sacrifice outlet and finisher in one. By continuing the cycle not only can you inevitably clear the board by using his activated ability, but you can make him infinitely large and attack to kill a player easily (and gain an insurmountable life lead thanks to Lifelink)
Abuse other triggers - bleeders like Blood Artist or Zulaport Assassin on the board at the time you begin the combo will bleed each opponent out for 1 damage every time Karmic Guide or Reveillark are sacrificed.
Blasting Station - Tapping blasting station to sacrifice one results in untapping Blasting Station when you bring back the other. Thus, you can clear all creatures on the board and kill each opponent.
Works wonderfully with Grave Pact, Dictate of Erebos or Butcher of Malakir on the battlefield. Even if you’re missing a way to finish opponents but have the ability to begin this cycle, you can clear out any threats.
Ultimately there are many, many ways to abuse this combo. There are many outlets and additions to sweeten the deal. If you’re using Ashnod’s Altar for infinite mana and you don’t have the finishing piece to the combo, you could use the mana to attach Skullclamp to each of them to draw two cards each time they die. If you’re playing in Blue, you could cast Stroke of Genius or Prosperity and force each opponent to draw their entire library so that they lose the game at their next draw step (may be ill advised unless they’re tapped out, as giving them their entire library is just saying “Stop my combo, please.”)
If you’re aiming just to be a pain, you can use the infinite mana to cast a Death Cloud equal to the highest life total in your pod and bring the game to a draw.
Setting Up the Combo
While powerful, this is a well known combo that will flush any good political plays you’ve made right down the drain. In general, playing most of the good sacrificial outlets will immediately raise eyebrows and draw your opponent’s ire. Ashnod’s Altar will make you an immediate threat, as would a creature such as Vish Kal. For this reason, it is best to hold your cards to your chest until you’re ready to make a big play.
Being that you’re ideally in Black, use your tutors to find your combo pieces and keep them in hand. You can wait to get your Ashnod’s Altar or Blasting Station with an Enlightened Tutor until the end step before your turn, so when you reveal it your opponents are more limited in their ability to disrupt you. If you’re facing graveyard hate, you will definitely want to wait to find a way to protect your graveyard before enacting your power play.
If you’re in a group that tends to react negatively to combos or losing, then make sure you practice your trigger orders. When you’re set up for the combo and if you have a finisher to play off of it, you can announce that you have infinite and see if your pod concedes. But, sometimes players get agitated and will try to rules lawyer you into going through every action in order to kill them, and they will look for you to mess up the order of your triggers. It happens - I’ve seen people do it to each other before.
This is a fun combo that has a lot of ways to either win outright or put you at a significant advantage. No matter what secondary or tertiary color you’re playing, there are excellent X spells to use infinite mana for.
Happy planeswalking!
An oldie but a goldie! Check out some of the parts of one of my favorite Orzhov Commander combos!
Elsie being her usual aloof calico tortie self 😄 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxxy9EcnCxq/?igshid=ein5q4hjd66f
A lot of people decry their own past for things they missed or what it did to them; the person they became, or where they're at now. But everything I've ever been through lead me to where I am now: soon - in the near future - to be married to my partner of over 6 years, and the love of my life. Every friend I thought I was close to who betrayed me, or person I gave my heart too that turned away, or mistake that I made helped me grow as a person and be here where I am, today. I wouldn't change any of it, because I'm where I want to be, with the person I love. (at Huntsville, Texas) https://www.instagram.com/p/BxjPJKtnn9e/?igshid=1m427md9pzihv
These are fucking amazing
The figure swinging the earth – The Force Of Nature by Lorenzo Quinn
The guy being dragged by a bird – part of an installation titled Hacienda Paradise – Utopia Experiment by Fredrik Raddum.
The balancing elephant – Balancing Elephant by Daniel Firman.
The tea splashes kissing – Kiss of Eternity by Johnson Tsang.
The figure emerging from the wall – Break Through From Your Mold by Zenos Frudakis
The meditating figure splitting apart – Expansion by Paige Bradley.
The horses running through water – Mustangs at Las Colinas by Robert Glen.
The giant peeking from under the lawn – Popped Up by Ervin Loránth Hervé
The man under the raining umbrella – L’uomo della Pioggia (The Rain Man) by Jean-Michel Folon.
The huge bearded guy – The Appennnine Colossus by Giambologna.
The impossibly balanced stones on a beach – Untitled by Adrian Gray
The dragons with an egg – The Dragons in Love or The Varna Dragons by Darin Lazarov.
The stairway to nowhere – Diminish And Ascend by David McCracken
The underwater circle – Vicissitudes by Jason deCaires Taylor.
The epic warrior guy – General Guan Yu by Han Meilin
The sinking library – Sinking Building Outside State Library, Melbourne, Australia. I couldn’t find an artist’s name.
The giant hand holding a tree – The Caring Hand by Eva Oertli and Beat Huber
Every. Fucking. Morning.
Oh look it’s my husband.
OPEN for expression sheet and chibi commissions!
I’m gonna try something a lil new and just keep the forms open for a while, working thru them as I get them. Sorry for not posting notices early like I normally do! I’ve been sick :,,D
FORM: https://goo.gl/forms/1MGXv3lu1yo5oNUx2
still open for these! I’m handling this batch a little one by one instead of my normal process, It’s been fun to try things different/try and rebalance how I handle my work load! (tho don’t worry work is still getting finished on respectable times)
Did pretty awful at the prerelease for the first time in a while and our pulls weren't great other than Teysa and Ethereal Absolutiom. But, I did do some great trading for some of my Commander decks. Got stuff for Savra Dredge, Krenko, Mogis Group Slug and traded for a foil Bedevil and A Judith 😁 So, successful night all in all 😊 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs0SNwcH4mK/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=yat7qolvmauc
hey guys psa regarding hospital bills
don’t just pay it. do not automatically pay the hospital bill when you receive it. call your health insurance provider and POLITELY say, “excuse me, i just received a bill for $1200 for my hospital visit/ER visit/etc., is that the correct amount i’m supposed to pay?” because hospitals bill you before your health insurance and they will take your money no matter how the amount due may change based on your health insurance looking at it. 90% of the time, if your health insurance is in any way involved in the payment of that bill, you do not have to pay as much as the hospital is billing you for. call your health insurance provider first, and POLITELY request clarification, always remember that the person you are talking to is human and this is just their job, and then you will very likely find out you actually only owe $500.
don’t shout at anyone about it, don’t get mad, just understand that this is The Way Things Are right now and call your health insurance provider before paying the bill your hospital just sent you. there’s a chance the hospital bill might be correct, true, but call your health insurance provider.
THIS IS SUPER IMPORTANT. after my car accident last year the hospital billed me ~$8000. They sent me letters asking me to pay, and I called them back saying my insurance was processing the claim. This is also what I told the collection agency when they kept calling me about the $1000 emergency room fee (billed separately from the hospital fee, mind you). Once everything got straightened out, all I was actually liable for was my $200 emergency copay.
!!!!!!! things my ass didn’t know !!!!!!!!
Yes this is a life lesson my adulting ass didn’t know I needed and I’m out 80 bucks for an anti-nausea pill. 😒😒😒😒😒
Reblogging for American friends.
Also, it is important [for people receiving medical care in the USA] to carefully read all of the items on the medical bill and look for errors and overcharges. I know that the normal feelings of avoidance and dread can make it hard to look at scary hospital bills, and that’s okay! But as the OP mentions, private orgs like hospitals don’t monitor overpayment of bills - they are motivated to charge you extra - and it is basically impossible to get your money back. Read the bill carefully and make sure that the charges are correct, using the links below for help if you need. If they haven’t sent you an itemized list, you can ask for one. Sometimes you will be charged extra for items or treatment you didn’t receive. Most people don’t know that you can dispute medical bills! But in 2009, Consumer Reports stated that 8 out of 10 medical bills scrutinized by a watchdog had errors, and generally you are not obligated to pay for someone else’s error.
You may be charged for using medication that you actually brought into the hospital with you - that’s easy to dispute! You may be charged for the consumables used during your stay such as sheets, gloves, gowns, etc - the hospital should actually cover that under its running budget. You may be charged for a brand name drug if the generic was available for cheaper - the links below explain how and when you can dispute this. You may be charged a surprisingly expensive “oral administration fee” (where a nurse puts pills for you to take in a little clean paper cup and then hands it to you) but that’s worth disputing if you were actually able to take the pill out of a bottle and put it in your own mouth. And so on.
8 Things You Should Know About Challenging a Medical Bill (FORBES) (includes links to sites that help you calculate how much a procedure/treatment usually costs in your area, if the costs seem super high)
7 Tips for Fighting and Paying A Huge Medical Bill (FORBES) This explains briefly how to negotiate costs, and payment plans.
10 Common Medical Billing Overcharges You Can Prevent (Bill Advocates) A breakdown of errors and overcharges to double check.
Check medical bills for errors: Overcharges are fairly common, and correcting them can save you thousands of dollars (Consumer Reports) More of the same with links to some groups.
As someone who worked in health insurance, I can confirm to always double check your statements and compare them against an Explanation of Benefits.
Sometimes insurances won’t pay because a surgery requires a pre authorization (which your provider *should* get prior to a surgery) or the primary diagnosis codes are incorrect.
Please please please call your insurance companies; they tend to have alot of insight and are more than willing to help out.
So my therapist has been helping me get to grips with my ADHD, and also the concept that I’m not shit at being an adult, I just can’t do things the way everyone has always told me to do them. Like every single “organize your life” books have always left me wanting to cry with frustration, and after I got hold of a copy of Organizing Solutions for People with ADHD by Susan Pinsky I realized that was because they primarily focus on “aesthetic” over “function”. And the function of most standard “organize your life books” is to “make things look Show Home Perfect”.
So the standard “hide all your unsightly things by doing xyz” may look nice for the first week or so, but by the end of the week it’ll look like a tornado made of pure inhuman frustration ripped through the house as I try to find the fucking advil.
To give you an example of the kind of hell I’ve been fumbling my way through the last 20 odd years: dishes will be washed and left in the drying wrack but never put away. Which means I can’t wash more dishes, which means dishes pile up, which means I can’t make food, which means I don’t eat, which means my CFS gets worse, which means I don’t have the energy to put the dishes away, and so on so forth until I have a meltdown, cry to ETD (who also likely has ADHD but has never had it confirmed) about how I can’t cope with life, and then we fix it for a while, but inevitably end up back at square one within about a week.
Pinsky’s solution to this was “remove an obstacle between you and your goal, if that means taking all the doors off your kitchen cabinets to make things easier, so be it.”
And lemme tell you, fucking revolutionary.
Laundry never ends up in the hamper??? why???? is it a closed hamper??? Remove the lid. Throw it out the window. Clothes are now miraculously finding their way into the hamper??? Rejoice????
Mail ends up spread out over every available flat surface? Put a sorting station right where your mail arrives. Put a shredder or “junk” basket under it. Shred or dump the junk immediately. Realize you only actually have two real letters that need attention, feel less overwhelmed, pay your bills on time.
Like I’m not saying this book is miraculous, but it did help me realize that I was effectively torturing myself by trying to conform to certain ideals of “perfect house keeping”, and presenting a certain image rather than just allowing myself to live in my space as effectively as possible. And why? Why was I doing that? Cause people with different lives and capabilities are perceived as the norm? Fuck that. If this was a physical problem I wouldn’t be forcing myself to conform to an ableist standard, so why am I doing it with this?
My lived space will never look a certain way, and that’s okay. It will never look show home perfect, and that’s okay. It will likely always be cluttered and eclectic where nothing matches, and that’s okay. Sometimes I will have odd socks on because sorting them out required too much mental energy, and that’s okay. Actually fuck sorting socks, just buy all your socks in the same color. Problem solved. Boring sure, but also one less thing to do, which means more time to hyper fixate on fun things. Which really, what else is my life for if not to write screeds and screeds of vampire shit posts, I ask you.
Why sort socks at all? Just. Wear whatever sock on whichever foot! :D nobody really sees your socks that often.
This actually speaks to me on do many levels.
五反田ネオン // 東京
When you are wondering if someone is gay and you look for hints such as the Gay Glance™ and the Gay Stare™.
For example:
Another example:
Taron has big dick energy for not shifting his glance
I feel attacked
I've taken many risks in life and many leaps of faith; I've found myself in places and doing things I'd never thought I'd do; but I've never felt like I would risk so much as in so many ways for feeling the how I feel now.
When someone board wipes then scoops in an EDH game
Omg xD
Wildstar Model Rip Tutorial
Because I’ve wanted to learn how to rip models for EIGHT YEARS NOW. I want to share what I learned yesterday in like a 4-5 hour trial of confusion.
HUUUUGE Thanks to @badaxefamily for helping me learn! Everyone go give them a high five!
These are the steps *I* took to rip my characters model. I can only get you as far as getting .OBJ files. But you can open and edit those in almost ANY 3D Program!
Here’s the GoogleDoc tutorial! It has pictures if you’re like me and easily lost, and a link to a set of four short videos of what it looks like to rip a model and shove it in a 3D program. It’s not perfect, I’m just one guy as confused as you who loves topology. Forgive any spelling errors, I made this at 3am-5am.
Suggestions and better versions of this tutorial are welcome!
Happy Ripping!
And one more time, huuuuge thank you to @badaxefamily! They wanted to make a video tutorial! But here’s a crummy one I made just in case they get too busy. Go cheer them on! They know their stuff, PLUS THEY MAKE COOL MODS FOR FF14!!
This is honestly better than anything I could have made. XD Follow this tutorial and even if you have no 3D experience you can still get your characters and be able to look at them all you want. I haven’t had character models do anything too weird, and exporting them as .obj files fixes the few things that can happen.
I also did a small tutorial on getting full resolution textures, in the (rare) event Ninja Ripper gets low res ones, that’s over here.
Go save your dudes!
EDIT: Also I’m willing to answer questions if anyone has trouble. Feel free to drop me a message and I’ll help when I’m able. :D
