There’s a lot of ways to play Magic competitively, going from Pauper which is one of the cheapest competitive formats with average deck price around $70 to Legacy where the average deck costs a few thousand.

These particular set of decks I built are should be in the “middle of the road” for competitive formats, with an average of ~$300-400 or so per deck asides from a couple outliers (MUD Stax is a pile of crazy expensive out-of-print cards). So building these boxes from scratch would be quite pricy. 🙂

However I already owned a ton of cards (I played multiple formats competitively for a decade) and I “financed” most new purchases by downsizing my collection and selling things I wasn’t going to use anymore, so I didn’t really spend that much money in this project.

Edit: Fun fact! I posted about this box on Twitter and it kinda blew up after being retweeted by a couple popular figures in the MTG world. Since we can’t link to that website here I’ll leave this image with the stats.

All of these are from the same “category” which is Premodern, based on Magic from 1995 to 2003, so you can play any of the decks in this box against each other.

The decks cover a broad number of strategies, including agressive, midrange and controlling decks, and also a small amount of combo to spice things up. Exact decklists can be found here.

I also have a second box from another category called Prefire, which is based on Magic from 2003 to early 2019.

Playing Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian!

Good progress this week, got to Chapter 9 and I’m probably near the end of the game.

One boss mid-game was a huge difficulty spike which forced me to stop and go spend some time optimizing gear/items, but other than that I’ve been going through the game rather easily.

Moving to another topic, I finally finished my box of Premodern Magic the Gathering decks! Already did a few sessions with friends while I was building it and had a lot of fun.

Finished Astalon: Tears of the Earth!

Got the “Normal” ending and that’s good enough. I liked a lot of things about this game, but the checkpoint system absolutely ruined my enjoyment of it.

Playing Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian!

I remember being confused when this game was announced because it shares the same name as Gust’s gacha game and I thought it would be some kind of “offline styre mode” for that one - but it’s in fact a brand new game, only taking place in the same world.

What it inherits from the gacha game is the concept of “wanderers”, crossover characters from other games in the Atelier franchise. Your main party is the two new characters (Rias and Slade) plus four returning (Raze, Wilbell, Totori and Sophie), but you also get a ton of other cameos during quests.

The game is a return to old-school Atelier. Low-stakes, slice of life with turn-based combat and a ton of crafting to do. The battle system is very similar to the one in Sophie 2 with characters in the front and back rows constantly switching positions while chaining attacks, and I enjoy how this lets you use your whole party in most battles.

I’m really liking the crafting system. At first it looks very simple, almost reminiscent of the early PS3 games, but the need to “chain” ingredients based color to transfer traits and effects add some really cool puzzle-like elements.

Finally, there’s a new “shop” system where you can sell items to get money and help evolve the city, but I think this one is half-baked. There’s some customization you can do to the store but most of the time it’s just “select some items to sell (usually using the auto-select feature)”, press “Open Shop” and get a ton of money.

No progress on Witch on the Holy Night this week.

Finished Trails Beyond the Horizon. Great game, definitely in the higher tiers of games for that series. But that ending… sure, it was amazing, but how the hell does Falcom follow up from there?

Currently playing Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian. Quite enjoyable, not sure how much I like the “crossover” world but the main duo is solid, the alchemy is miles better than Atelier Yumia and there’s some interesting worldbuilding going on.

No significant progress this week, just a little bit of Witch on the Holy Night and Astalon: Tears of the Earth.

Tempted to start Atelier Resleriana: The Red Alchemist & the White Guardian because I think it’s a game that will work better with my current mood.

There’s also storage costs.

In a world where games can easily be dozens of GB and storage is at a premium (thanks, AI companies) having physical media with most of the game data on it makes it a lot easier to juggle between games.

SP is always your bottleneck since you have healing spells from the beginning (Morgana comes with Dia).

Which is why it gets easier later on to complete palaces in one go, some confidants will get you access to SP regen accessories and ways to create SP recovery items.

Wanted to do it all in one day, but don’t think it was possible.

It’s possible for certain palaces, but others have story-related moments where you’re forced to go back to the real world and come back again in another day.

I did all the palaces in P5R in the minimum amount of days (in other words, only went back midway if the story forced me), but it was more of a personal challenge since I was already familiar with the game due to me beating “vanilla” P5 in the past.

It’s honestly a major pain in the first couple palaces since you don’t have good options for refilling SP, and probably not worth it unless you want to challenge yourself, but became fairly easy to do on later ones.

Also worth mentioning that even if you’re aiming to max confidants taking an extra day in early palaces won’t really change much, the biggest time “optimizations” come from things in the real world.

@slimerancher@lemmy.world I definitely recommend reading the first spoiler above. Missing that makes you lose a huge chunk of content, it’s bad enough that I always say “spoilers be damned” and tell that to any friend of mine that plays P5R.

You cannot complete all confidants

It’s definitely possible, I did it my first run through Royal with some time left over. But I agree that this game is better enjoyed if you don’t stress trying to get all confidants maxed.

The easiest option if you want to play MTG without the need to keep updating is to buy some Commander Preconstructed decks (ideally from the same set) and keep them unmodified.

These decks meant to be played against each other and usually well balanced. Just find a collection with aesthetics that appeal to you, get 3-4 and have fun. There’s the option of “in-universe” sets with classic MTG aethetics like Tarkir, Lorwyn or Bloomburrow, or “crossover” sets with popular IPs - they just released TMNT, and there’ll be Marvel and Startrek later this year.

The biggest thing to keep in mind is that Commander by far the most popular way to play MTG - but also the most complex one.

It’s free-for-all multiplayer mode with politics, singleton 100-card decks and crazy interactions. If you have an MTG-playing friend they should be able to help you get started, but otherwise I’d suggest playing the free Magic Arena game which has some good tutorials, or look for Youtube videos - there’s a ton of content to help people get started.

Very little gaming time since since I’ve been busy with a Magic the Gathering project - building on a box of Premodern decks, a “nostalgia” format with only cards printed between 1995 and 2003.

I don’t have the time or interest to keep up with the crazy speed of MTG releases nowadays, so this type of format that doesn’t require updates suits me better. The idea is to have a bunch of decks ready and use it as a board game of sorts, just pick up a couple decks and play any time we feel like it.

Will still be working on this for a few more weeks, but now that I got the lists defined and I finished organizing which cards I own and which cards I need to buy/trade I should have more time for gaming again.

Playing Witch on the Holy Night!

Progressing through Chapter 8.

Playing Astalon: Tears of the Earth!

Current side-game. An old-school metroidvania with 3 different characters (the classic “warrior, mage, archer” trio), each with different strenghts, weaknesses, and traversal abilities. The map design is great with interesting puzzles, the challenge is “just right” so far and bosses are fun. I think the balance between characters is not great (mage seems way better than the other two), but that’s not a major issue.

However… the checkpoint system really sucks. Health recovery is very limited and anytime you die you go back to the entrance of the castle. Sure, there’s some fast travel spots and you unlock a ton of shortcuts so getting back to where you were before will be much faster than before, but these runbacks get tedious very quickly. I’d also like to add that the key required to use the fast travel is a missable item, which is just mean in a game with this design.

That’s a massive improvement in some games for those who play handheld. Probably should’ve been there from the start, but it’s good that Nintendo finally implemented it.

So, this is now in top five of the series?

I’d say it’s a contender for the #5 spot, but I’ll need to think about it a bit more. There’s a lot of competition for that slot. 🙂

Super Robot Wars Y is also done? No more DLCs?

Nothing announced but datamining from the PC version indicates we might get more DLCs later this year.

Finished Trails Beyond the Horizon!

That was one hell of an ending.

So good that it makes me move this game to the top tier of this series - but it also brings a big question of “will Falcom be able to put a worthy follow-up to this ending?”.

This game also adds a ton to the worldbuilding of the series, and I’m impressed that they managed to create a twist that not only solves some of my long-standing complaints but even turns them into clever foreshadowing.

I’m now desperately wanting the next game on the series. There’s so, so many possibilities and questions going through my mind right now.

Finally, I’m very happy we’re getting more of Risette’s backstory. She’s been one of my favorites since the first Daybreak game, so seeing her role grow in importance is fantastic.

Finished DLC 2 for Super Robot Wars Y!

Definitely not as good as the first DLC. It lacks the strong storyline combining the new series that made the previous batch shine, and doesn’t bring enough to the table to make up for that. At least while the new units are interesting individually.

One big highlight were the Koutetsu Jeeg animations, easily the best among new DLC units.

Playing Witch on the Holy Night!

With the two above done we go back to our regular programming.

From what I gather, this is Ys: Memories of Celceta. Originally released before Ys VIII, but the story follows right after Ys X. This version was released in Japan last year, now coming to the west.

It’s a remake of Ys IV, and this particular version was originally released for the PS Vita.

The Ys games are mostly self-contained, each telling one of the adventures of Adol Christin, based on a list of diaries/books he left behind.

There is a timeline but it doesn’t follow the game release order - X is a good example since it’s one of the earliest games in the chronology, taking place right after I and II.

I’m still thinking the finale chapter is the best Trails chapter to date, wire-to-wire. It was so good.

Finished this game yesterday and I agree, that was one hell of an ending. Really looking forward to the next game (whenever it comes).

Going to post a more complete review at the Nintendo community’s weekly discussion thread this friday.

Yes, Kevin first appears in Sky SC and is the protagonist of Sky 3rd.

Then he kinda disappeared, only showing up as a minor NPC in some games (like Azure) until he finally returned as a playable character in Horizon.

Thinking about picking this one up, since I didn’t play the OG version.

Combat in the OG was a bit too much “button mashing” (gets better if you swap to characters other than Velvet), but was otherwise a fantastic game.

Velvet is a great protagonist and the whole cast works really well together. One of the best “band of misfits” teams in JRPGs.

Playing Trails Beyond the Horizon!

Finished Rean Route 3 and Kevin Route 3, and now going through Van Route 6. Looks like these are the last parts of their individual routes and after that we go for the final chapter.

I’m quite disappointed by how short Kevin’s route was. I was hyped to have him as a playable character again after all these years, but he has the shortest route by far (his last chapter is just two short maps and a two boss battles, doesn’t even have a second city to explore like Rean’s), and he struggles with the weakest of the three teams as well (Swin really needs a buff).

At least his story beats were good. He and the Picnicking Front have a good dynamic, and it also includes some major reveals that I’ll discuss in a spoiler section after I finish the game. Though I’m curious where they’re going with his character building, he seems to have somewhat “regressed” to how he was before Sky 3 - and even his party members are constantly calling him out on that.

Rean’s route was also on the short side, but that didn’t bother me as much since we had so many games to play with him already. It was damn good though, with some long-awaited encounters and also interesting reveals related to what we saw in Kevin’s route.

I’ll leave my final comments on Van’s route for after I finish the game, but so far it’s the weakest of the three, it feels too much like “filler” - despite being longer than the other two combined it don’t contain as many interesting story moments.

With this current pace I’ll probably finish the game this weekend, which is faster than I expected. If that happens I’ll go back to Super Robot Wars Y to play DLC2.

Fully focused on Horizon so no progress on other games.