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Kirk was a real one for this

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4, 5, 6, 1, 8, 3, 7, H, 2, 9

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Commander Decks 5/25 Update

Bracket 1 (Exhibition)

Neheb, the Worthy - Taur Tribal - RB - https://archidekt.com/decks/1281109/taurs

It's a tribal deck with some very exploitable weaknesses. The motto is and always has been "If you aren't attacking, you're losing". Dubiously few pieces of card advantage and ramp (7 and 8, respectively), and only 3 removal spells, this deck behaves just like you might expect a charging minotaur to behave: devastating if it connects, ignores most of your defenses, and gains momentum extremely fast, but if it stumbles even slightly it slams directly into the dirt.

Queen Marchesa - The Worst Deck Imaginable - RWB - https://archidekt.com/decks/11282171/the_worst_deck_imaginable

Most EDH decks have one central theme, with one or two supporting sub-themes. This deck has three prominent themes which, in my opinion, are each equally horrible. Keeping this one a secret for now, but I'm really excited to see how this monstrosity goes over in person.

Bracket 2 (Core)

Ghave - Saproling Army in a Can - GBW - https://archidekt.com/decks/1281171/ghuru

Maybe I should call this "big splashy do-nothing enchantment tribal". Ghave will usually make you pull out the calculator resulting in ridiculously beefy board states. However, sometimes he eats a couple removal spells and you're left with some expensive doublers with nothing to double. The restriction on allowing ONLY saproling tokens (ignoring Kaya's ultimate) was a strong limiter that allowed some more fun and silly cards in the deck and made it that much more thematic. For an Abzan deck it has surprisingly few ways to get stuff out of the graveyard. This is partly because many of the advantage cards involve sacrificing saprolings, and partly to allow more thematic cards like Molt Tender and Night Soil to flourish.

Hanna - Party Time - UW - https://archidekt.com/decks/1280769/hanna

All the game changers and pillow fort cards are gone, Solitary Confinement being the last hold-out that was finally cut. Shabraz is basically the only life gain card left. The result is more scrappy and nimble than before, and with an aggressive slant and more varied ways to win. Ultimately, the goal of this deck is still to flood your opponents with card advantage. Turns out this puts you at a disadvantage! Shocker! I've been thinking about adding green and converting this to Ms. Bumbleflower (or Mrs. Tumble if you prefer https://x.com/PFTompkins/status/885559987761668096), but every time I've tried a different commander in place of Hanna they're nowhere near as charming. Mrs. Tumble is so adorable and Spice's analysis of the precon was very compelling, but I think it would change the deck's flavor too much. I'm more inclined to finally build that Mathas, Friend Seeker deck and incorporate those "targeted-hug" ideas there, and keep Hanna "unnatural".

Killian - Cantrip Aura Tribal - BW - https://archidekt.com/decks/1302743/killian_lets_it_ride

I've been thinking of this deck as kind of like playing craps. Sometimes you run hot and start one-shotting opponents. Sometimes you don't and you end up blocking. But the odds are slightly in your favor and you've gotta play if you want to win big. The problem with this deck is that the path to victory is clear as day to everyone at the table. If just one person can find a way to reset your aura stack or blow you out with a battle trick, that could be the game lost right there.

Noyan Dar - Lands - UW - https://archidekt.com/decks/1398816/lands

This should probably be bracket 1, but extra turn spells are forbidden there and Part the Waterveil is too funny to remove. Once he gets rolling, this weird merman can do some pretty bonkers stuff, just good luck getting there. 14 cantrips at 2 mana or less does help, but ramp and early defense can be tricky to maneuver. The spells in this deck are more thematic than effective, but are technically modular if you can stomach not paying the awaken costs. At least Ghave and Pako have the cheap green ramp to get their 5 mana butts on the field.

Toggo & Glacian - rocks - RU - https://archidekt.com/decks/1069678/rock

rocks rocks rocks rocks rocks I made this as a silly gimmick deck, what would now be called bracket 1, but the gimmick was better than expected so I bumped it up. Still, it behaves like a glass cannon and is easily disrupted. The silliness I think helps it get away with more than it probably should. Artifact production should be abundant and effortless, but it can stumble easily on clunky card advantage and removal. 17 independent beefers and 7 incidental pingers are usually able to get the job done. There is technically one tutor in the list (Realmbreaker), but no Praetors to search up so I'm not counting it.

Scorch Thrash - Group Slug - RBG - https://archidekt.com/decks/1342495/scorch_thrash

This guy makes games go fast. This does not necessarily mean you will be winning them. This deck will put the squeeze on people and make you the archenemy, even though half the time you're damaging yourself just as much as you're damaging your opponents. I've pivoted the deck almost completely from the X-spell deck it was before. The two themes had a lot of good overlap and meshed well, but the X-spells stole the spotlight from what I wanted to accomplish with this list. Probably could be a bracket 1, and his win percentage would back that up, but he's intimidating and does so much damage that it seems like the wrong move to me. I could be convinced to bump him down.

Hapatra - Snakes - GB - https://archidekt.com/decks/1281034/snakes

Still has one 3-card combo in it (Hapatra + Blowfly + Obelisk), but all other -1/-1 counter combo pieces have been removed. Much more focused on snakes and consistency than poison-ball shenanigans now. Curious to see how the overhaul turns out, needs more testing to determine further changes. Might end up being bumped down to a bracket 1.

Bracket 3 (Upgraded)

Haldan & Pako - Fog Dog - URG - https://archidekt.com/decks/1281222/fog_dog

All "each opponent" pingers have been replaced by single-target abilities. All token generation has been reduced to just Cryptic Pursuit. Two Game-Changers remain: Deflecting Swat and Fierce Guardianship. I think the good boy performs well enough to justify the bracket 3 classification without them anyway. I've replaced most of the cheap selection cantrips with more mana since that's what you're digging for nine times out of ten anyway, and it has worked out very well in my testing. Who knew you needed mana to cast spells?

Kess - Grixi Disco - UBR - https://archidekt.com/decks/1280877/grixi_disco

I personally don't think Gamble should be a Game-Changer, but the new instant-speed focused Kess might be able to hang in bracket 3 anyway. She can chain cheap advantage spells with the right set-up to have explosive, resilient turns, and then do it all again next turn cycle. Like Pako I've removed most of the group-slug elements, and upped the count of beefy boys and removal spells. It almost acts like a control deck now, so I've boosted the ramp suite a little as well. I'll be tuning this one the most going forward to see if it make sense to have so many counterspells. If Sedris doesn't play well with the new beef then he's the first on the chopping block. I want to like him, but I could count the number of times I've cast him on one hand.

Oloro - Luxury - BWU - https://archidekt.com/decks/1280827/oloro

I'm still digesting what I want to do with this deck. I like the shift I've made towards treasure production and general "wealth" themed cards, but I don't know how good or strong of a theme it is. As my most blinged-out deck I feel that it should be the most powerful, so I want to make sure that it's as tuned as it can be, but I feel like the drain strategy is slow and annoying in practice. Removing most of the counterspells feels like the right choice since so much of the game plan is passively accruing life and resources, but that leaves my life total as my only defense. Gonna sleep on this one.

Quintorius - Getting the Led out - RW - https://archidekt.com/decks/1332105/quint_gets_the_led_out

The biggest overhaul of any of my decks, fully half of the cards were swapped out (44 cards changed!). Now the deck is packed with 20 cantripping artifacts and 18 value critters. Like Noyan Dar, you dig with cantrips and selection spells to find your value engines, but in contrast the cards in this deck are actually good. I think the two game-changers (Ancient Tomb and Underworld Breach) fit perfectly into the non-mechanical Spelunky theme. The one tutor (Goblin Engineer) can't actually get your broken artifacts out of the graveyard, so it's not an instant win. This list is definitely more straightforward and easier to pilot than previous iterations now that the straight references to Spelunky have been removed (Mother of Runes, Cloudsteel Kirin, Selfless Savior), but it's thematic enough for me. It will always be a complicated mess with the fun is figuring out the order in which to sac and recur things, just remember that those spirit tokens are essentially the only way to win. I think it could use more sac outlets, and I'm sure the removal and ramp suites need some work as well, but I'm so burnt out on trying to fix this deck that just looking at it makes me dizzy.

Vorel - The Incredible Machine - UG - https://archidekt.com/decks/1281357/vorel

The second-most revamped deck, and another choose-your-adventure quest to find the hidden infinite. Still heavily weighted towards ramp, but the shift to +1/+1 counters over artifact synergy has paid out doubly. Did you know that large creatures not only attack profitably, but they can block well, too? News to me. The new protection and advantage spells seem to be perfect fits, but I'm still not super enthused about the removal and counterspells. Does it belong in bracket 3? I'm not entirely sure. Zero tutors, weak filtering, and expensive spells that do little on their own means that it's anything but consistent, but there are so many infinite combos, some involving infinite turns, that I think it has to be.

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Games I played in Winter 2024-2025

Tunic - The best game I've played in a long, long time. If you like zelda games, do not read reviews or look up a synopsis. Buy this and play it. Fear the eyes of the far shore.

Animal Well - THIS is how you make a metroid-vania. I'm still reeling at how goddamn good this is. Just the densest concentration of puzzles and exploration, sick art style, perfect and thicc like a pound cake.

Book of Hours - buuhhh, what to even say. I don't even know if I like this game. It's like a mosquito bite that I just want to keep scratching. It has taught me a new definition of insanity. Playing this makes me feel the same way I felt when I first started playing Civ 5.

Hollow Knight - Danny DeVito "I get it" meme, I see why people are so tied up in knots about Silksong. if I were 14 again and couldn't afford to buy games, I'd want this the most out of everything on this list, just for the depth and challenge.

Outer Wilds: Echoes of the Eye - It finally felt like it had been long enough since Tohru died for me to revisit this game, but I still thought about him the entire time. Nothing has really come close to how good the base game is, and this DLC captures 95% of that magic. The only flaw is how it's meant to slot into the main game rather than stand alone, so for someone like me who was just revisiting it to play the DLC, the ending didn't entirely work for me. Still, I get what they did and how they did it, and they made the right choice. I dreamt a happy dream about this game the night after I started playing it, and beat it the next morning.

Chants of Sennaar - This game was made for me, specifically. I wish the last couple levels were much longer, but partly because I just wanted to be in this world more. I really hope the creators of this do more with this style, and damn I wish there were more linguistics-based games out there. Banger soundtrack too.

Crypt Custodian - I had middling hopes for this one. The art style is cutesy, the movement is floaty, and the story seems silly right off the bat. I could not have been more wrong about everything. The combat is so crisp and reactive. It's a wonderful balance between forgiving enough that I never felt like I was being cheated, but difficult enough that I never one-shot a boss or even beat one without taking a hit. The world is vaster than I imagined it could be for a game of this scale, but fast travel is easy to come by. Even in my initial playthrough I never felt like I was being railroaded or having to backtrack and comb through areas again and again to figure out what my next step would be. Instead of a New Game+ or something there's a built in randomizer. Why is this the first game I've ever played that thought of this! Lastly, the story isn't really a story like a linear game would have. Each zone is an illustration of each of the characters, and they all fit together to paint a picture of what the afterlife is for our pets and other wild animals. An absolute masterpiece.

Yoku's Island Express - What if a metroid-vania was a tropical-themed pinball table? So cute and innovative, a delightful little 10-hour adventure that never felt like a slog or back-track city. One of the funniest sequel-bait endings ever; I hope they make one!

Talos Principle 2 DLCs - Another game specifically made for me. DLC 1 felt like a great little happy ending tying up the loose ends from the main story. DLC 2 was such a fun chill island vacation, felt like a victory lap. DLC 3 has some of the hardest individual puzzles I've ever experienced in a video game, but I'm proud to say I beat every last one without any outside help. If you think you can get down with Portal but with the humor swapped out with philosophy, this is that game.

Case of the Golden Idol - Absolutely blew me away, such a cool way of telling a story. Like, what if Where's Waldo committed a murder and you had to figure out not only how and why he did it, but also the occupation and favorite food of the victim's niece. Very Obra-Dinn: dark, funny, and precise. It's a little weird though, I played a bit of the demo of the sequel and it felt like diminishing returns, but I'm optimistic I'll enjoy it once I get around to buying the full version.

Balatro - Honestly the soundtrack is the biggest selling point, which is weird to say but what they do with it is kind of incredible. I get why it was the year's hottest new thang, and I totally got sucked into it for a good long while. At the end of the day it doesn't replace STS for me, though. Too mathy at higher levels, not vibes-based enough to jump in and have a fun run. I wish I had bought this for my phone instead of on Steam.

Celeste - Best, snappiest, and most precise platformer since super meat boy. An 8-way controller is a must though, I got so mad at my x-bone controller so many times that I stopped playing halfway through the B-sides, but that's not really the game's fault.

Transistor - Still my favorite Supergiant story after all these years. A tragedy for the ages. No other game does what this does with combat and encouraging you to switch up your gameplay. I spent hours in the Sandbox just trying out different combos and options. I think some reviews at the time disliked gating story elements behind your gameplay choices but in my opinion that's the point. The game isn't that hard and you don't need to play in a style you dislike for very long. Oh, and get the Sea Monster at Junction Jan's.

Ori and the Will of the Wisps - Not as good as the first one, but damn near close. A little more combat-focused, a little less platformy and movement-based. Much fewer escape-sequences, which is a huge relief, and I loved the new central hub. Felt like they had a really good thing going on with the first one that just needed some cleaning up and polishing, but they wanted it to be more like hollow knight or something and went too far in their tuning.

The Forgotten City - Kinda like if the Talos Principle and Outer Wilds had a lil baby. A little short but nailing the true ending is pretty satisfying. The less said about it the better, to keep its secrets, but it's essentially one big time-loop puzzle that's solved through talking to people and exploring this little Roman town. Absolutely loved the implementation of Galerius giving you the option of not having to redo things you've already unlocked or allowing you to go back and do things a different way. Like, for instance, one of the people is poisoned and dying, and you have the antidote. At the beginning of each loop you can give Galerius the antidote to give to her, run over and give it to her yourself, or let her die. The best part is, each of these three choices has a real impact on what happens that day, and what dialogue and information is unlocked.

Chicory - Lovely little adventure, good puzzles, top notch exploration, sick-ass boss encounters. I can't imagine how annoying it would be if you were only playing on controller without a mouse, though. Cute furry world where everyone is named after food. I was named pierogies.

Death's Door - Absolutely killer worldbuiilding and soundtrack, the vibes are almost completely perfect, and for the most part I loved the unique boss encounters. There are many weird or untuned things that bugged me, though, like getting completely stun-locked in corners and the weapons and upgrades being largely unnoticeable. The Gemsbok just did a video on this game, and it made me realize my biggest problem with the game. Past the first time you see each zone there is no sense of adventure. You walk (or mash the roll button) through a zone, clear out all the enemies, and find there's nothing to discover other than collectibles only accessible via a power you'll get later on. Literally only 1 of these 24 collectibles have a puzzle attached to it (and that being the only real puzzle in the game), so it felt like half my playthrough was spent roaming around The Overgrown Ruins looking for one more secret to check off my to-do list.

Myst - A classic for a reason, there was a ton in here that I forgot about. Very rough around the edges but that's like its whole thing y'know.

Hyper Light Drifter - One of those games that introduced the whole genre of Metroidvanias to me. So glad I revisited it and finally beat the last boss after 8 years. It's funny how much smaller it is than I remember, but the qol is on the money and the combat is as tight as it ever was. Just a fantastic game that I'd rate way higher if I wasn't already familiar with it.

Night in the Woods * So, this isn't really a game I guess, more of an interactive novel. If I didn't relate to the main character so much I think I'd be more gung-ho to dive further into it but it just makes me depressed. lol.

Toki Tori 2+ * Make no mistake, this is a full-ass adventure game, on par in terms of scale with HLD, Ori, and Yoku. The wild thing is that it presents itself as some sort of phone game or a Block Dude. Truly bizarre and devilishly challenging, but unfortunately once the world becomes open I lost track of my objective and didn't want to slog through the esoteric overworld and backtracking to hunt down a hidden path I missed 5 hours ago. Some day I'll find a guide and wrap this up.

Myst 3 - Coming off of the mind-bending difficulty that is riven, this felt like a day at a theme park. Great puzzles, totally immersive and inventive worlds, short and sweet, if a little silly at times.

Peglin - What if slay the spire was a Peggle? It can be fun and a challenge, but so, so annoying when one bad bounce that was out of your control ruins the whole run. I guess STS has that too, when your deck gets a bad shuffle and there's nothing you can do, but it feels like it happens way more often on the pegs. Also, a lot of the bosses can be totally steamrolled without too much thought, which is a little bit of a letdown since it doesn't really matter what your build looks like. As long as you keep in mind how you're going to beat a couple bosses like the painter and dragon, any other boss just doesn't matter.

Dredge - VERY fun fishing game, honestly doesn't even need the cthulu stuff. Doesn't overstay its welcome, and the ending is satisfying and earned. The most fun I had was just the first 3-5 hours rolling around, making money and upgrading my boat. There was a point where it felt more like a slog than a fun time, but I pushed through it and realized it wasn't that big of a push. Still, that's not exactly what you want.

The Sexy Brutale * It sells itself as a grand time-loop puzzle thing in the vein of Forbidden City or Outer Wilds, but it really isn't. Yes, everything takes place in one big mansion, but there's no exploration to be had here. Now, I'm a little further than halfway, solved 5/8 of the main story missions, and I can say that decisively because each of the cases is in a discreet wing of the mansion that is only unlocked once you've solved the previous one. It is intensely linear in a way I was not expecting. Don't get me wrong, it's lovingly crafted, and each puzzle feels unique, creative, and rewarding to solve. But between the checklist vibe of the progression gating, the rocky and sometimes clumsy controls, and repetitive animations, the game largely falls flat. Swing and a miss.

Little Inferno - Cute and fun, a neat little 2-hour experience. There are some surprisingly deep themes that poke in every once in a while, but ultimately it's little more than a bedtime story. A small mark against it, apparently I had already played and beaten this years ago when it came out and had no memory of it whatsoever.

Cave Story+ - Oddly enough another comparison to super meat boy in this list, it looks and feels like exactly what it is, a flash game that somehow got developed into a full-ass game. Surprisingly good though! I did not care for a lot of the humor that felt very lolrandom reference-based, but i guess that was just that era.

Vision Soft Reset * I got stuck on a difficult platforming section directly followed by a very tough fight, and gave up after maybe 30 attempts. Maybe I'll go back to it some day? The time travel aspect a very cool concept, and well implemented, but the game just feels a little too rough around the edges and flash-y. I really wanted to like this game more, but I think it's for someone else.

A Short Hike - Short is correct. A busy little furry island to chill out in for a few hours. Good dialogue and characters. Don't try to just beat the game, that's not the point. Do all the sidequests and talk to everyone, and take your time.

Dorfromantik - If they made A Quiet Year into a video game it would be this. Extremely chill, way too chill for me, but I could imagine how someone would get super into this.

Minit - If this was a free flash game it would be one of the best. I beat it in 1, maybe 2 hours, and had some fun, but I'm glad I got it off of Epic's giveaway

Played but not Beat:

Darkest Dungeon - I might dive into this for real some time, feels more punishing than XCOM but I like the combat setup and basic gameplay loop. I worry that there will be a point that the game becomes unwinnable or soft-locked, and I won't realize it and waste a ton of time.

Snakebird - Actually just a phone game, but cute and devious puzzle design a la Baba Is You. might never boot this up again unless I'm desperate.

Up Next:

Myst 4

Undertale

Enter the Gungeon

Kentucky Route Zero

(*) Asterisks indicate that I didn't finish the game.

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Happy Solstice! Here's a caravan of stoats in their winter finery, for the occasion.

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Weirdly, the Star Wars prequels compressing the hell out of the previously implied timeline in order to make everything all about the Skywalker family actually made the Empire more plausible. It's "unrealistic" that the Empire has existed for less than twenty years at the start of the Original Trilogy and it's already in the process of fragmenting into a loose affiliation of regional warlords paying lip service to a distant and ineffectual imperial core? Buddy, do some reading on real-life Fascism – the fact that they managed to piss away the Galactic Republic's institutional legitimacy in under two decades is literally the only thing that's realistic about the Star Wars timeline.

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ok so math problem , let's say you have a box that is exactly big enough to hold one head of lettuce no more no less it is exactly big enough to hold exactly one head of lettuce and nothing more

okay so how many lettuce head can fit in the box show your work and no calculatorsI'll know if you use a calculator

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Goblin Chirurgeon (Fallen Empires) - Phil Foglio

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Bony Montana (skeleton version of scarface)