I could not be happier that ID have not only walked back the nightmare ꦏthat was Eternal, but outright *sprinted* in the opposite direction.

Forgiv♌e the wordplay, but with the introduction of a sprint feature I couldn't resist.

But yes, I, like many Doom fans, loved 2016 for its reinvention of a classic formula and its tactical paci🐈ng, and *hated* Eternal for turning the game into a twitchy aps-fest that distinctly didn't feel like Doom. So every step away from that is a good one.

The very things that the author of this articl🔴e doesn't like are the exact reason that I will be breaking my "no purchasing on release" rule for Dark Age. Might even go so far as to pre-𒊎order it.

The problem with Veilguard was that, pretty much regardless who🐓 you ask, there is *something* wrong with it.

Personally, I don't care about the "wokeness" side of it, it's not a knoc𝓡k against the game for me. For me, it was that the dialogue was badly written, the combat was unengaging and spam-tastic🎃, and its biggest sin: it lacked any meaningful role-playing possibilities.

In a Role-Playing Game.

Luckily, Mass Effect 4/5 has the perfect formula: a well-crafted, beloved, pre-existing universe; the fantastic moment-to-moment gameplay and role-playing capacity of Andromeda (Andromeda's personality system blows Paragon/Renegade out of the water, and I will die on this hill); and the (mostly) pitch-perfect storytelling and art style of the Original Trilogy (which I honestly believe th𒅌at an "Andromeda Trilogy" could have potentially topped, had it not been cancelled).

...but yeah, I don't have m🅷uch faith that modern Bioware can pull it off either...

People 🃏cram their decks in as "7 or lower" becau🧸se that's what most groups mean by "casual".

Generally, I've seen the scale described as

1-3 Jank, no 𒐪wincon, no tutor or draw controlཧ, wildly inconsistent

4-5 Aver𒅌age, no focussed wincon, generally thematic or tribal, in𝕴consistent

6🌸-7 High-Power, focussed wincon, generally mechanically focussed with tutors, draw control and fast mana, consistent

8-10 CEDH decks, ✨multiple ♎wincons, mechanically optimised, consistent

No Caﷺsual group wants aꦬ CEDH deck at their table, so no-one admits that their deck is higher than a 7.

Me? I run a Thraximundar Zombie Tribal deck. It's probably a 4 due to lack of consistency. My newest deck is an Atraxa, Praetor's Voice Phyrexian Tribal deck that began as "I want every version of all of the Praetors in one deck" and then I couldn't find a 5-colour Phyrexian (yes I know Omnath, Locus of All exists, but I didn't at the time). It's probably a 5.5 because it is🌄 powerful and I have won 4-player games over the course of a single turn (not "turn 1", but taking all three other players from 0 to dead in just once of my turns later in the game), but it has no consistency. It's themওatically focussed but not mechanically focussed.

That's the kicker, focus and consistency.

Okay, so we've got some serio🐼us disagreements here.

#1) Every deck is a 7 because everyone interprets the scale differently. To some, the scale really starts at 5 because no-one would ever play a 4 or lower, so 7 is average power. To others, the whole scale is used, so 7 is a high-power deck. Other people have no 𒅌idea how to judge the power of their decks because they're wildly inconsistent. And yet others look at the power of the cards in t🗹he deck instead of the deck as a whole.

#2) You absolutel꧋y can not judge a deck by its Commander. For CEDH, sure judge away. But for Casual, not a prayer. Take Atraxa, Praetor's Voice, for example. It could be an unholy Infect/Proliferate machine, or it could be a +1/+1 stacking engine, or it could just be a Phyrexian Tribal deck. Her being commander tells you n🌊othing about the deck or what it does, unless you bring expectations from CEDH which you yourself call out as being wrong to do for Casual.

#3) Your Archenemy comments are... unfortunately tainted the same way your Commander comments are. 🍷Because they're not actually based on the strength of the deck you're playing, but on your opponents' presuppositions of the strength of your deck. A guy I used to play with before I moved house had a reputation for building decks that were 8s or 9s, dude was running full-on CEDH decks in a Casual group. So he was always targeted first by the entire table, even when he ran decks that were the very definition of 3s and 4s. That example shows that Archenemy situations have next to nothing to do with the actual deck you're playing at everything to do with what your opponents think you're playing.

Assessing whether your deck is actually a 7 is about two things and two things only: time to win, an🌼d consistency. If you're consistently winning by turn 8, your deck is a 7. That's it.