Taking a day off between each Alan Wake 2 sessions has been a good choice, I think. It’s a very different vibe, but similar to AW1, even tho the chapters have distinct endpoints, they basically all end on cliffhangers that compel you forward. Easy to burn yourself out, even in 1 which wasn’t as long

Playing off-meta and having an okay time this standard. Deck is Orzhov Aristocrats in B03. Izzet Cauldron is still miserable, and it does often feel like a 4-turn format which is… not great, but there’s room for good games and some cool matchups on the whole. Really hope they axe 3-year standard.

So literally the only thing that got spoiled for me in AW2 was the Herald of Darkness sequence (it was impossible not to know about it due to TGAs, youtube, blah blah blah) but having finally actually played through it… that didn’t matter it was so good. I actually wish it was like twice as long.

Alan Wake 2 had an honest-to-goodness entertaining and solid boss fight, a feat Alan Wake 1 only accomplished a single time, and only (half cheating) with an enemy gauntlet set during a faux rock concert, so that’s a nice win for AW2.

My favourite part of Alan Wake 2 so far is Alan being a useless desperate loser barely hanging in to the last threads of reality. American Nightmare (a game I absolutely love) tried too hard to make him cool.

I have done 2 Saga chapters and 2 Alan chapters so far and I’m enjoying the game a lot. It’s a whole lot slower than both Alan Wake and Control, but I think that lets them engage more with the narrative, where in AW specifically it often felt relegated to the interstitial ‘start of chapter’ parts.

Continuing the tradition of listening to the entire song at the end of each Alan Wake chapter even if I don’t love the song.

Only on chapter 2 but Alan Wake II is the tits so far.

If you told me a year ago that a mono-white deck would be one of my favourite EDH decks by a wide margin, I’d have assumed you’d lost your mind. But yeah, finally put one together that hits exactly right.

May have just had the craziest comeback I’ve ever experienced in a game of EDH. Head still reeling from it.

Few more fun ones!

Some choice picks from what’ll probably be the last card order for a few months!

The fact that Vivi is still legal in standard, as RCQs get cancelled and attendance is way down, IN CONJUNCTION with the Spider-Man set not getting healthy FNM numbers, is so fucking funny. Imagine having two huge problems, but one of them is entirely solvable (yay!) And then just doing nothing.

Casting a Japanese ‘Absorb into Time’ I.e. FFVIII-themed Temporal Extortion, when you know the life loss won’t matter to the game at all, just to feel something.

Syr Vondam got hands.

Just had a crazy gastrointestinal attack for about an hour. Pain all through the abdomen, lower back, up right under the ribs… it was wild. Haven’t had one this bad in a while, and I was a bit scared I was having a heart attack until I remembered this just happens to me sometimes 😎

Speaking of Sothera, the Supervoid… I was actually blown away by how much I like Edge of Eternities. Flavour, gameplay, balance… it’s just a real banger of a set. I worried it would just be goofy ‘Star Trek/ wars the set,’ like how OG Eldraine was like 50% Disney/shrek references, but nah. It rules.

Sothera the Supervoid, my beloved. The most recent in a short line of Gravepacts. It may be my favourite one, although I have an extreme fondness for Dictate of Erebos.

Bontu 🥰

Also like, the Pizza lands are stupid, but I’ve played with people proxying Seinfeld stills as their basics, so I’m not too worried about that.

Hell yeah.

my samsara themed escape room continues to kick everyone's ass

Speaking of Un-sets, I think Unsanctioned was probably the most successful from a gameplay perspective. The pre-constructed design makes for a more cohesive ‘goofy board game’ experience without the need to waste money to draft over and over. Even then tho, it’s still a pretty mid magic release.

There’s no denying Mark Rosewater knows what he’s doing, having designed approximately ten bazillion magic cards, but there’s this popular notion that if he says something there’s a lot of sage wisdom attached and like… he’s the sole champion of Un-sets. There’s a true darkness deep within the man.

I think the best way I can describe my distaste for UB stuff is that it’s almost entirely contingent on cohesion, theming, and the art. The other main one is if they remind me of dull Un-Set humour/ goofiness. If you’re just doing ‘look, it’s the thing!’ referential design, I despise it.

Hey so I wrote a fun thing about how some older monsters inspired the digital ones we've come to know and love and how recently it has all come full circle. Only a week later than I planned! 😅 I self-edited so apologies if it's a bit clunky! errollmaaswriting.wordpress.com/2025/10/10/t...

Finished Carimara: Beneath the forlorn limbs and super enjoyed it. It has the perfect atmosphere and art direction for October, but the story pokes at your heart a bit in different ways. I loved going around discovering cards and figuring out hidden little stories. It was lovely.

Sauron would have won if he had Etali on his side.

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Sometimes I think about Mighty Number 9, which makes me think about the Mega Man Legends 3 Demo fiasco, which makes me think about Red Ash, which all cyclically brings us back to Keiji Inafune just not being a competent business guy.

An actual hot take: Too many authors are afraid of editors watering down their voice or whatever and not afraid enough of editors letting you put any old slop on the page.

Yana bought me this nerd from the dollar store today and I am not exaggerating when I say it made my week.

💜💜💜💜💜🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Also made these in the last couple days. Both very fun.

Even casual-focused, absolute beast of a deck.

Watching the new show about Ed Gein (it’s bad) and trying to explain to my partner that literally everything Ryan Murphy’s been attached to is exactly like this, to the point where 90% of the things that happen in this show (about a serial killer) could have happened in his first tv show ‘Popular.’

Rebirth Hard Mode REALLY reveals the flaws that are baked into both the core combat design, and the game’s over abundance of mechanics. Where in the first playthrough the only things that feel truly poor in their design/ balance are the minigames, hard mode is simply badly put together. Sad to see.

Twitter trend where indie game devs show their protagonists interacting with walls ended up leading to the Silly Polly Beast account posting yuri of their protagonist with the protagonist of MotorSlice, which then got retweeted by the MotorSlice account... Women really can do anything

hi everyone! you know i don't normally ask for money (esp. for myself), but i have a friend in great need here in Vancouver who needs help. my friend Ryah, who is a trans woman and immigrant from mexico, needs help with medical expenses to get diagnosed so she can get better and support herself.

My greatest regret in EDH is discovering I’ve accidentally included a much stronger combo than I thought, with cards that would otherwise be really cool. It just happened tonight: I won but it felt super hollow.

Watching a pal play Nü FFT and seeing the XVI lore tabs actually being used effectively in a game that engages with its world and politics is so refreshing. I enjoyed diving into them in XVI, but it always felt so disappointingly hollow there because the narrative doesn’t give a shit about the world

I have reached a new low of depression, and so I think I will rewatch Kaiji.

Canadian Healthcare is affordable because every time I engage with the system I want to kill myself, and I can’t spend money if I’m dead.

store.steampowered.com/app/2109060/... The game is going through the Autumn sales season. Not 30%, but 40% price cut. That's even cheaper than, uhhhhh, a bag of two-days-worth groceries. Anyway you should get this one for the poor dev who has to face the winter night alone in a foreign place. 🥺

If anyone sees something or made something in the Steam Sale that they think is a must-play, let me know. Doesn’t need a high rating or anything.

I’m really frustrated with how Magic’s been managed lately, so you’d think I’d be an easy sell for any think-piece about how WotC’s dragging the game through the muck, or hurting the community or whatever, but somehow every one I’ve seen has the most insufferable, holier than thou writing style.

The literal moment FF draft pops back in Arena I’m there spending all my (FTP) currencies. WotC should just keep it up all the time, it’s such a sick format (and also items basically impossible to draft IRL because of allocation and cost)

Just finished sub 30H 100% on Silksong. (22 hours without pre-planning and almost all from memory). It’s very doable! There’s loads of stuff the game doesn’t care about for the “100%” so it’s not that intimidating. Only thing left is Steel Soul but… I dunno, I think it’d make me like the game less.

I skipped a weekend and watched it today. Movie still absolutely rips. Basically perfect.