Omae wamou shinderu

This happened a couple of years ago, but is by far the biggest fuck-up I've ever committed.
I was working in a cinema at the time and Avengers: Endgame was out. I was working the day shift in the week so it was relatively quiet. A woman came out of her Avengers screening complaining about the sound balance. I went to check in the screen and the movie sounded normal. So I went to check the sound level on the speakers and they were all set to the normal levels.
I came back and explained to the woman that all of our levels were normal. She insisted that they weren't. Now, I'm somewhat of a movie buff and have noticed a trend in recent years of action films having really poor sound mixing. The dialogue is usually too quiet and the action too loud. I don't know where this trend came from, but everyone seemed to finally realise when Tenet came out and they couldn't hear a damn thing anyone was saying.
So, I said to her that that's just how Endgame sounds. That for whatever reason, the sound mixers made the dialogue too quiet and that I find it to be a really annoying stylistic choice in modern filmmaking.
The look of rage that engulfed her face cannot be described. I don't think I've ever seen someone go from 0-100 on the anger meter that fast.
"I AM THE SOUND MIXER!" she said. Turns out she worked at Pinewood Studios and was the person responsible for what I had just described as bad sound design to her face.
She went on a whole tirade about how she knows more than me as I just had to stand there and take it. I still stand by my belief that the sound mixing in Endgame was not good, but I never thought I'd end up saying that to the person responsible for it.
TL;DR Was working at a cinema and a customer complained about Endgame being too quiet. I told her the sound mix was bad, turns out she was one of the sound mixers for the movie.
EDIT: I am talking about Pinewood Studios in London, England, not the one in Atlanta, Georgia.
EDIT 2: There's no need to call her a bitch, guys, I've had far more hostile customers, believe me. Maybe she was just having a bad day. I'm sure she's a nice person.
EDIT 3: Please stop suggesting that I should have taken her to personally inspect the equipment. I would have been fired for breaking a myriad of rules. It was a no-win situation.
EDIT 4: The cinema in question wasn't far from several major production studios and several high-profile location sites for big Hollywood movies. So the odds of me serving someone who worked on Endgame (which was partially made essentially down the road from me) are actually pretty high.
EDIT 5: She might have worked at Shepperton Studios, which is next to Pinewood. I'm honestly not sure which one it was.
FINAL EDIT I PROMISE: I fully acknowledge that she knows more about sound mixing than me or most of the people in this thread. However, as consumers, we have a right to voice our opinion if we don't like a product. The fact that the VAST MAJORITY of the commenters agree that action films nowadays are way too loud in some places and quiet in others shows that there is clearly a problem. You don't have to be a professional chef to know if your food tastes bad, and you don't need to be a professional sound mixer to know if a movie sounds like trash.

First of all let me introduce myself, im a Spanish Offtank player with a peak of 4500 who achieved Contenders Trials at the beggining of 2020 along with my teammates, i want to point that to let you know im way above the average user, and as somehow who spent the last 3 years competing on this game, my opinión might be more valuable than others (Sounds kinda yikes, but we can all agree that the opinion of an OWL player is more valuable than a gold player, so this is kinda the same but at different levels)
So im writing this because im sick of this game, so instead of crying, which is all i do in generall, imma do this and hope someone from blizzard sees it, where im gonna give contructive opinions and things they could improve.

· Path to Pro and Tournaments

To begin with, there is no reward on going pro, people have to take it as a full time job, just to get not enough money even to live in prison conditions, you can see on twitter that half of contenders players are just moving onto Boosting, Valorant or IRL stuff, just because of that, there are almost no orgs in contenders, why? Sponsors, Blizzard acts so hard about sponsors in contenders/trials, they have cocacola as sponsor, so if you have any drink company as sponsor (Monster, redbull…) well guess what, you cannot play under that sponsorship, so companies will not pay a team to dont represent them.
So with no orgs, there cannot be big names out there, thats why contenders has such a low viewership, even with the contenders skins thing, which lasted like 2 days, because who wants to stay afk for 7h watching a stream to get a Symmetra contenders skin… No one.
Also what the fuck happened with SA and PAC contenders? How is it possible that they dropped those two? PAC was like second division of chinese contenders yeah, but whats wrong with that? More regions equals more pros, more pros equals more people in OWL…

· Rewarding “yikes players”

For he last years, there have been a lot of changes that helped bad players, throwers, clients, etc.
Beggining with the private profile, back in the time you could just open someones profile and watch whatever, “Oh the enemy team have a junk and pharah main, lets play long range hitscans”, “Oh this person dropped 1000 sr in one season, he might be a bought account…” having someone that bought an account, aquired a boost or whatever being, able to hide is just shit, yet some of those are that Smart that dont pur their profile on private, and you see a dude in platinum inting with an account that was 4300 last season, but guess what blizzard does not care.
Smurfs, why would someone play on their main? There is no reward at all to do that, Skins? Already have all of them, gold guns? Worthless, in my opinion there should be a season pass like in Forntnite, Apex or some other games, rewarding people to play on their main, but smurfing gives you joy destroying games for people in lower ranks than you, hides your identity, so you can be super toxic, and you will not get banned, will explay why now.
Lets talk about bans,
(This only affects at gameplay sabotage or abusive chat, not to cheaters)
As easy as just getting banned once you recieve ciertain number of reports, so for example, if you drop the N Word once, nothing happens, because you need at least 20 reports, so you are free to do whatever you want before getting a mute or ban, which ends up on a 10h mute or some worthless shit.
Now comes the ontricking, how is it possible that in a game with more than 30 heroes someone wants to play only one hero, regardless of the game situation? Even if you get hard countered.
You wanna do it in QP? Ok, arcade? Ok, but brother, competitive is competitive, you play to win, and adapting to situations and enemy team compositions its a basic thing, don’t stick onto a hero.

· MMR resets and drastical meta shifts

Carter already talked about this, lets put as an example, a diamond Orisa player, double shield meta comes, he ranks up to 4200, meta changes, his main hero is now shit, but guess what, since there are no resets between seasons or anything, he will not drop, because on the enemy team the chances that there is someone in the same situation are so high, so one Will win, the other will lose, so in average the person will stay in the same SR, even withouth deserving it.
Also, the 3900 placements cap cannot be more shit, without reseting MMR, its literally worthless, the only thing it does is matching on the same game poeple that is 4500 with diamonds, also, as a personal experience, i managed to rank from 3900 to 4300 last season, with negative winrate, so imagine how shit that is, NEGATIVE WINRATE AND 400SR UP.

· Boosting, new accounts & account selling

So there is basically no control over that, and an incentive to do it, is getting 0 money because there are no open tournaments, maybe 1 or 2 per year, which is, of course, not enough
Also there is no control over that, someone from EU can boost an account of someone from NA and nothing happens, come on blizzard, if a platinum US account, suddently gets logged in Sweden, ranks up 500sr, and then it logs back to the owner’s country... Come on blizzard, just check a bit the IP’s and thats it, the feature already exists in the security page of your battlenet account.
Also another shit reason to do that, is that blizzard gifted 100.000k accounts for free, with the Gladiators and Toronto thing, come one man, now you rank up for a ranked game, and 10 out of the 12 players of the lobby are smurfs, and 8 out of that 10 are fresh accounts, that of course, the matchmaking cannot take control over that, so thats why MM is so bad.

· Events & Content

Well thats it, there is no fresh content, an event comes, and no one cares, people log in, buy the skins and logs off to continue smurfing.

· Balancing

On this point is just a meme that blizzard nerfed Hog and Genji ( 2 skill héroes ) after 1-2 weeks of being OP, but does not manage to blanace brig after 2 years of constant nerfs, this was already explained by Samito, if you nerf the numbers, but not the concept, the ability/hero will remain OP, same with Ball, Nerfing the shield so he has 800hp instead of 900 is just absurd, since the hero can fucking run faster than a bullet.
Patches are useless, irrelevant, back in the time there was complete hero reworks, ability reworks, NEW HEROES, drastical nerfs/buffs, but now theres this, shitty experimental patches that nerf 0.1 damage into one hero and thats it, well done blizzard.

· Competitive seasons

What season are we in, 28? 26? Doesnt matter, its literally irrelevant, seasons are too short and nothing differeniciates one season with the next one, in my opinion a good thing to improve that, would be making 3 seasons per year of 4 months each, with competitive rewards, and fresh things, so people would have an incentive to play on main accounts, which of course, the more main accounts are in a lobby, the better, since matchmaking is more balanced, people care about their main acc and all those things.

· Cheating

Half of the games there is at least one person cheating, its not even worth anymore to draw, I havent draw a lot of games, because if i do i would be afk 3 games per day, which is one hour.
How is it possible that someone rage hacks in one game, where everyone sees hes blatantly aimbotting, everyone reports that person, and doesn’t get banned? It doesnt fit on my mind, blizzard made us lose GamerDoc, a dude that was giving his life onto anti cheats and things, what happend? Since blizzard just ignored, he left for Valorant and he got hired by Riot, they saw someone doing a pretty good job, and they hired him, now they have an anti cheat 10 times better than us.
Also in the strange case that blizzard bans someone for cheating, remove/give back those points that were aquired/los ton that game…

· Toxicity and frustration

https://twitter.com/AvAtAr1822/status/1274744663719776258
As a savant person from EU called AvAtAr said, “Disgusting developer team breeding toxicity out of the player base by causing constant frustration and mocking people's grind by offering them unbalanced games for the sake of finding game.20 min q for this.And then they ban players for toxicity that they cause.disgusting thieves”
Its kinda agressive, but think about it, someone spends months grinding, just to get in a game with someone way lower that him that is not even trying…
That is a pretty strange thing, but its a fact that people are more toxic when they get on an unbalanced lobby, or are just sick of the state of the game, and watching how a company does nothing about your favorite game just frustrates people.
And as a final fact here, how is it possible that on GM you can only duo with people -+ SR ahead of you, but you get games with people 500sr lower… It just makes no sense, if you dont let me duo with someone, dont put it in the same game.
Now as a personal advice, i recomend to read this post, about how to manage tilt and those things
https://twitter.com/Moreweth2/status/1357460528248090624

· Queue times, playerbase, splitting gamemodes

Queue times are so high in all modes, why? There are too much modes, the clearest example could be the junkestein event, there used to be 2 modes, and 3 difficulties each, now when the event comes, there are 5 modes, with difficulties, which means the players are too split, for no reason, i would do the modes be random.
A good thing that i would do, that probably is kinda difficult to implement to boost playerbase drastically, is crossplay, in all gamemodes but competitive. Queue times for casual gamemodes would be much lower, also it allows you to play with people that doesnt have a PC, how many times have you talked with someone in class, you both played the same game but you played on PC and your friend on PS4/Xbox, so you couldnt play together?

· OW Excuse

So its been more than a year where blizzard is not doing a shit with the excuse of ow 2, no events, no balancing, no nothing, the game has been the same shit for more than a year.
TRANSPARENCY MAN, what is happening there, show is something, we dont know anything of OW 2, give people hype, because withouth knowing anything, people is just leaving.
Also there is the rumor that OW2 Demo in blizzcon was made in a month or so, if you look at gameplay, all looks kinda scuffed…

Good morning, steam_giveaway! 🥰📢
I'm holding another giveaway raffle to get some great Steam games out of my inventory. The process is a little convoluted for games already in one's inventory, so I hope you'll bear with me! 🐻💦
Mods, if there are any issues conducting a raffle in this way, please let me know! 🥺
Here are the games on offer!

• Crypt of the Necrodancer 💀💃💀
• Don't Starve & Don't Starve Together Bundle 😱🤝😱
• Dysfunctional Systems: Learning to Manage Chaos 🌎⌛✨
• Invisible, Inc. 🕶️🕵️🕵️‍♀️
• Lone Survivor: The Director's Cut 🧟‍♂️🎥
• Never Alone & Foxtales DLC & OST ❄️🦊🎶
• The Banner Saga 1 (this game is actually available for $3 until February 5th on Steam, if you don't want to wait for the end of the raffle! I think the whole $70 collection is priced at $12 at the moment? VERY juicy sale!) 🎏
• The Stanley Parable 💻
• The Wolf Among Us 🔍🐺
• This War of Mine: Final Cut 🔫🏚️👻

The entry requirements are as follows: please post just one comment per person, and in that comment please only pick one game in the interest of statistical fairness! 😖🙏💦
Please also try to spell the game correctly, as I will be using my browser's "Find" function to determine the number of entrants for each game and my final winner. 🔍👀
The giveaway will end on February 5th, 2021 at 12pm (check what time that is for you). If you comment after that time, you will not be eligible to win. ☹️
After the winners are announced, I'll message them with a link to my steam profile and ask them for their username so I know to accept their friend request.
After we've satisfied Steam's policy of being friends for 3 days (Feb 8th at the earliest), I'll gift them their game, at which time our brief but fruitful friendship must come to a close. 🎁🤝💔
I'm just trying to re-home some games, not hold you guys hostage in a social contract! I figured I should make that clear ahead of time so there's no confusion.
The rest of this post is just housekeeping/info for other giveaway runners, so if you've made it this far and aren't interested in that, feel free to skip all that and comment with the game you want!
😉👍✨
In the interest of transparency, and maybe helping future Givers out, I thought I'd tell you all how I select my winners. It's really nothing fancy, but I saw someone say they're going to draw names out of a hat?!
These posts get so many comments! It's 2021! We don't have to live like this any more, sirma'am!!
I can't really cast stones because my own method probably isn't perfect, but it was certainly easy enough to implement last time, and if it'll help someone else out in the future I'm willing to embarrass myself a little. :')
So my process goes like this:

1. Reveal all the comments
2. Cross reference the word "reply" using Ctrl+F with the number of comments the Reddit post says I should be seeing, to make SURE I've revealed all the comments
3. Search for the title of the first game with Ctrl+F and take note of how many results the page pulls (say, 89)
4. Find a digital dice roller and roll an (89)-sided die
5. If the die lands on say, 15, then I navigate to the 15th instance of the game's title on the page using Ctrl+F -- et voila! A winner! Repeat ad nauseam until all the games are gone. 🎮💨👋

And yea I know there's a website that does Verified Reddit Raffles but I don't know if it'll work for a giveaway like this, and I'm not entirely confident using it. 😰
Also, I'd like to apologize for the frankly unconscionable number of emojis in this post, but it was getting really long and dense, and I figured between the two evils, I'd personally rather be subjected to cringe than tedium. 🤷‍♂️ I hope you guys agree!
Edit 1: I have broken up the paragraphs to be smaller. I hope it is easier on the eyes for mobile redditors, now! 😅
Edit 2: Entries posted after noon EST today are not eligible for consideration. Thank you everyone who participated! I'll be determining winners and responding to their comments/reaching out via private message soon.
Edit 3: And that's a wrap! Winners have been contacted regarding the steps to receive their prizes.
If any of the winners decline their prize, or there are other issues (I don't really anticipate any, but harassment might qualify, I suppose?) then I'll use the same process to select a different recipient for the prize being forfeit.
Thank you for participating! You've all been lovely 😘💕 I'll definitely encourage my friends to off-load their Steam inventories here if they've got any games lying around!

Source: https://www.bungie.net/en/News/Article/50006
This week at Bungie, we’re back in action.
It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Since the last TWAB, you’ve gotten your hands on Hawkmoon. The Dawning has come and gone. Next-generation consoles received some wonderful enhancements. You’ve released a crow from their cage, and Lord Saladin watched as you decimated your foes with Stasis in the Iron Banner.
On the Bungie side of things, we took a breather. This last year has been full of challenges that none of us expected. Even through everything 2020 had in store, we were able to get Beyond Light and Season of the Hunt in your hands. This did come at a bit of a cost, though, and we needed some time to recharge our batteries for a new year. We have no doubt that 2021 will have mountains to climb and unexpected surprises, but we’re all excited to get back into the groove for a new year of Destiny development.
So, let’s get this party started. We’ve got four TWABs between you and a fresh Season of Destiny 2 content. You’re hungry for what we've got planned, and we’re eager to dish out the goods. First up, we’ll be looking at a few changes to vendors, Dreaming City and Moon rewards, and some sandbox tuning for Hunter Stasis abilities in the Crucible.

Rewards Update: Dreaming City and the Moon

Since the launch of Beyond Light, we’ve been collecting what feels like a metric ton of feedback on various Destiny systems. While we’ve shared some plans related to rewards, DDoS protection on consoles, crossplay and transmog, we have new details on rewards from two of our more recent destinations: The Moon and the Dreaming City. Rewards Area Lead Justin Dazet will be walking us through some changes in response to player feedback.

Justin: Last month, Assistant Game Director Joe Blackburn spoke about some changes we were making to gear in Season 13 in response to some feedback. Today we’re going to briefly chat about what some of these changes are as they relate to our back catalog of expansions, and the reasoning behind them.
First let’s review a list of what you’ll see starting in Season 13:

• Reissued Dreaming City Reverie Dawn and Moon Dreambane armor.
  
  • These will also drop with high stats when earned in Shattered Throne or Pit of Heresy.
  • The final chest in Pit of Heresy will no longer drop a fully Masterworked Dreambane armor piece.
  • Instead, the Dreambane armor piece that drops will have 7 armor energy and is guaranteed to drop with at least a +16 in two different stats and higher stats overall.
  • Dreambane class items will not drop from this chest.
• Reissued 4 weapons for Dreaming City with new Perk Pools.
  
  • Waking Vigil, Sleepless, Vouchsafe, and Retold Tale.
  • Dreaming City weapons that drop in the Shattered Throne dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
• Reissued 4 weapons for the Moon with new Perk Pools.
  
  • Premonition (Pit of Heresy only), Heretic, Blasphemer, and Apostate.
  • Weapons that drop in the Pit of Heresy dungeon can roll with perks that are unavailable from drops from other reward sources.
• Expanding Lost Sector Legend and Master rotation to 4 Moon Sectors.
  
  • K1 Logistics, K1 Communication, K1 Crew Quarters, and K1 Revelation.

We are making these changes to help preserve the relevancy of the destinations, specifically some of the pinnacle end-game activities that still exist there. To get more specific around the actual experience, activities where re-issues are acquired will be heavily weighted towards rewarding re-issued gear over capped gear -- though the exact weighting and mechanisms may differ. For example: In the Dreaming City if you have already obtained an infusion capped weapon, it will not drop for you again.
Image Link
While not every gear source or Legendary reward will be kept up to date for the entire lifetime these destinations are available, we do believe there’s high value in targeting some specific activity drops for continued relevancy to give you more options for where to spend time as you seek to improve your arsenal.

Turn in those Tokens

Since Destiny 2 launched, Guardians have been amassing vendor reputation tokens. These could be turned in for Legendary gear, which would usually be dismantled for Legendary Shards and materials. Looking to the future, the team is excited to update the ways in which you earn reputation with ritual vendors and the rewards that come from them. Dazet, back to you!

Justin: The rewards for continuous ritual playlist completion has been a subject that’s come up several times as we’ve looked over Beyond Light feedback, and we’re happy to announce some changes coming soon to Gambit, Crucible, and strike reward structure.
Firstly, we’ll be adding two new unique weapon rewards to each of the three playlist rituals (so six total across all three activities). These weapons are in addition to the ones added in Season of the Hunt, and continue to have a small chance to drop at the end of each activity.
Second, starting in Season 13 for Gambit and Crucible (Valor) and in a future Season for strikes, rank rewards will be visible on the ritual vendors. Each Season you’ll be greeted by a row of rewards, progression toward which will be earned automatically as you complete relevant playlist activities.
Instead of having rank rewards dropped automatically into your loot stream, they now will be picked up manually from the vendor lists. We feel this gives much better visibility into what you’ll be earning as you progress, and helps you make better choices about where to spend your time.
Image Link^imgur
Progression is on a per-ritual basis. You can be on Rank 10 for Crucible and Rank 4 for Gambit, for example. You’ll reset your rank right at the vendor by picking up the final reward.
Rewards for each individual ritual are as follows:

• Rank 4: 3x Upgrade Modules
• Rank 7: 3x Enhancement Cores
• Rank 10: Seasonal Ritual Shader (changes to 3x Enhancement Cores after resetting your rank)
• Rank 13: 2x Enhancement Prisms
• Rank 16: Seasonal Ritual Emblem (changes to 2x Enhancement Prisms after resetting your rank)
• Reset Reward: Ascendant Shard (changes to Exotic Engram after resetting your rank)

Every rank-up awards a base Ritual Engram just like before. Additionally, each of the above ranks also awards a Prime Ritual Engram.
Image Link^imgur
Due to this automated progression, Crucible Tokens and Crucible Token Gifts are no longer needed and will be deprecated into junk that will delete as a full stack starting in Season 13. So, cash those tokens in before the end of the Season, and get ready to earn some Masterwork materials!

Taking a pass: Revenant Shatterdive & Fissures

The conversation and feedback on rewards wasn’t the only thing we were tracking over the holiday break. Many of you have been spending time in the Crucible, experimenting with Stasis and all of the ways in which it can change the flow of a PvP match. Prior to the break, we had a round of tuning for Warlocks. Next up, we’re looking at Hunters, but also have some comments on our approach to future Stasis tuning as we head in to the new year. Please welcome Combat Area Lead Tomonori Kinoshita back to the TWAB to talk through our goals for Stasis abilities in PvP.

Tomo: Over the holiday break we saw Trials go live, and with that a wealth of valuable feedback from the community. Along with this feedback, we have been tracking data from Trials and identified some short-term changes, as well as more mid-term goals we are focusing on in the coming weeks and months.
Short term goal: Address outlier Stasis abilities to keep subclass decision making interesting.

• Reduce the potency of Shatter Dive + Whisper of Fissures against Guardians, going live with Update 3.0.2.
  
  • Shatterdive
    • Now has damage falloff vs. unfrozen targets
    • Max range damage reduced from 50 to 5
    • Damage reduction during ability reduced from 50% to 25%
  • Whisper of Fissures
    • Reduced max-min damage vs. non-super players from 42-22 to 30-4
    • Reduced max-min damage vs. super players from 42-22 to 16-2
    • Reduced detonation radius vs. players from 10m to 9m
• Investigate the efficacy of the Stasis Titan Behemoth Super. We want to let the above change settle to see where the Behemoth stands in our PvP hierarchy, but this is next on our radar.
  

Mid-term goal: Improve PvP subclass usage and win-rate balance.

• Addressing Stasis ability outliers will help us lower the ceiling, but we also want to pull up other underperforming Light subclasses.

Mid-term goal: Review our ability-to-gunplay balance in PvP.

• Destiny is a game about both explosive space magic moments and intrinsically satisfying gunplay. Especially in our 3v3 playlists, the usage of abilities has climbed as we introduce more and more ways to charge them quickly.
• We’re still in very early discussions, but we’re looking into restoring a better balance where proper gunplay is rewarding in these playlists.

A few of you noticed that prior to our holiday break, we were able to get a few sandbox changes delivered faster than expected. Thanks to changes on Destiny 2’s backend and the Destiny Content Vault, our patch pipeline is indeed better than before! That said, some changes won't happen at light speed, as our team wants the appropriate time to collect feedback, check the data, and test proposed changes.
Once these changes have been validated, we’ll be eager to get you details via TWABs, blog articles, and more.

Worldwide Community

Sometimes, it can be difficult to think of how large the Destiny community has become since 2014. It seems no matter where you may be in the world, you might bump in to a fellow Hunter, Warlock, or Titan. Last year, we bolstered our efforts with the addition of two international community managers. Join us in welcoming a third to the team! Introducing our new Russian Community Manager, Ivan Yanyushkin.

Ivan: Privet!
My name is Ivan and I'm the latest community manager added to the team for Russian speaking Guardians. In Destiny 2 I enjoy making raids more complicated by doing them with fewer than six people and endlessly roaming around Europa on my Warlock, which for me is a meditating experience.
Some of you might know me from my past work at Blizzard Entertainment, where I worked as a community manager for different titles. This experience will help me, but I will also be thankful for your guidance. Feel free to reach out to tell me what works, what doesn’t, and how things can be improved for the Destiny community. One day, when real-life gaming events finally become possible again, I will be happy to meet you in person. But for now, let’s stay in touch on Twitter, VKontakte, and on the Russian Bungie Forums.
It’s an honor to work with such an amazing community. My job will be to pass the voice of the players to developers, help local content makers grow, manage Russian social media channels, and take care of many other duties. I’ll do my best to be Ivan the Great not the Terrible!
P.S. Hopefully one day I’ll even get used to the fact that Hydras explode after death :)
Spasibo.

Keeping You Updated

Image Link^imgur
Through the holiday break, Destiny Player Support was at the ready, providing vital information to players encountering bugs, seeking workarounds, or just asking for help with their network setup. This week, their eyes turn towards an upcoming Hotfix, preparing you all for the incoming update.
This is their report.
UPDATE 3.0.2
Today, January 14, background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 will begin. Below is a timeline of events:

• January 14, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 begins.
• January 14, 2 PM PST (2200 UTC): Destiny 2 background maintenance for Update 3.0.2 completes.
• January 19, 8 AM PST (1600 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance for Update 3.0.2 begins.
• January 19, 8:30 AM PST (1630 UTC): Players are removed from activities and won't be able to log back into Destiny 2 until 9 AM PST when Update 3.0.2 is available.
• January 19, 9 AM PST (1700 UTC): Destiny 2 Update 3.0.2 is rolled out across all platforms and regions. Players can log back into Destiny 2 at this time. Ongoing maintenance is expected to conclude at 10 AM PST.
• January 19, 10 AM PST (1800 UTC): Destiny 2 maintenance is expected to conclude.

UPCOMING RESOLVED ISSUES
Below is a list of some issues expected to be resolved with Update 3.0.2:

• Hive bosses, In Ananh, Brood Queen and Xillox, were not counting as Hive boss kills in bounties.
• Some players couldn't respawn if they died during the boss fight of the Inverted Spire strike.
• Players could get out of environment in several Crucible maps.
• Some quest items were not dropping in the Moon Freeroam activity. This prevented completion of several "Essence" quests, such as Essence of Rage, Essence of Insanity, and Essence of Servitude.
• The Unrelenting perk was not triggering health regeneration.
• MIDA Multi-Tool's catalyst wasn't dropping from Competitive Crucible wins.
• Taken Psions were replicating too rapidly in some Prophecy dungeon encounters.
• Garden of Salvation flawless completions were not awarding the “Inherent Perfection” Triumph.
• The High Celebrant sometimes wouldn’t take damage nor go to the Ascendant Plane.
• Fixed an exploit where players could have "Shelter From the Storm" permanently applied in the Deep Stone Crypt raid.
• Fixed an issue where Cloudstrike hits on the Divinity cage counted as two precision hits.
• Fixed an issue where the Grandmaster Nightfall timer was set to 30 minutes.
• Fixed an issue on PlayStation 5 preventing clan rosters from loading.

DUST AND ECHOES
Almost nine years ago, stats and files from our previous franchise, Halo, stopped getting updated on Bungie.net. Since then, all stats, files, and other data from Halo 2, Halo 3, Halo 3: ODST, and Halo: Reach have lived on in remembrance at halo.bungie.net.
On February 9, the halo.bungie.net website will be taken offline permanently. Everyone is welcome to save their stats and files, however they can, if they'd like to save anything. Please keep in mind that our News articles, Forums, and Groups were imported into the current version of Bungie.net back in 2013.
KNOWN ISSUES
While we continue investigating various known issues, here is a list of the latest issues that were reported to us in our #Help Forum:

• The Exotic Ship Reward from the High Celebrant mission is not properly showing that it is a “Rare” chance reward in the activity description. Chances for this reward increase with each activity completion.
• Portals aren't opening when the High Celebrant leaves because the black orbs take no damage. Players can mitigate this issue by not using Sidearms and not shooting the orb as it immediately spawns.
• Enemies in Crucible and PvE aren't colorblind-friendly when highlighted.
• The Special Finisher mod no longer unlocks for new players.
• Bomber mods don't work when Hunters have the Dragon's Shadow Exotic equipped.
• The Overload Shot on Auto Rifles doesn’t proc if you hold down the trigger right after reloading, even though it does the Overload animation.
• Some players receive the BIRD error code trying to get to the Wall of Wishes in the Last Wish raid.
• Sometimes the Vault encounter in the Last Wish raid won't let you read icons nor spawn enemies after slamming on a plate or finishing a phase.
• Sometimes Riven doesn't get stunned on the second level in the final encounter of the Last Wish raid.
• The Forfeit Shrine Ascendant Challenge completion doesn't count towards the Ascendant Champion or Honed for Speed Triumphs, blocking the Cursebreaker Seal.
• The Run the Gauntlet Triumph doesn't unlock when completing the time trial in the Cimmerian Garrison Ascendant Challenge.
• Ahamkara Bones are missing in the Shattered Throne dungeon and multiple Ascendant Challenges.
• Players will sometimes go into a Nightfall with 16 people when they try loading into the Tower.
• Sometimes dialogue gets cut off at the end of a Wrathborn Hunt.
• For Hunters using the Way of the Warrior subclass, Combination Blow sometimes stops working and doesn't give Gambler's Dodge back.
• Non-Exo characters are receiving Exo specific dialogue on Europa.
• The Light of the Dawning emblem cannot equip stat trackers.
• The Coaxial Bonds ornaments for Ophidian Aspect causing the bottom-left of the screen to glitch/flicker.

For a full list of emergent issues in Destiny 2, players can review our Known Issues article. Players who observe other issues should report them to our #Help forum.

Home Streaming Device

Image Link^imgur
It’s been a little over nine months since I’ve been to a theater. While I definitely miss the smell of fresh(ish) popcorn and mind-blowing visuals on a massive screen, I’ve been keeping myself busy with Destiny clips, montages, and videos from our amazing community. Let’s see what we’ve got this week:
Movie of the Week: Confectionary Ghost
Video Link
Movie of the Week: Deep Stone Lullaby Cover
Video Link
Movie of the Week: Goodbye 2020 – A year of Crucible
Video Link
Movie of the Week: Cloudstruck

#ShareFactoryStudio #PS5Share pic.twitter.com/AW1XpA0S4G
— WisMiStazix 🥶🥶 (@25300Milan) January 5, 2021

Make sure to put a link to your Bungie.net profile in the description of your video. Why? We have a sweet emblem to grant you for your troubles. As always, upload your finished product to the Creations page.

Doodling

Image Link^imgur
Since we’ve kicked off the weekly artist features, I’ve found myself doodling more often. Thinking of what my Guardian would look like in the heat of battle, or just chilling on a couch after getting some sweet loot. Thank you to all who continue to inspire members of the community to embrace art! Let’s kick off the year with some fun pieces.
Art of the Week: Rogue Hunter

The Star Wars theme continues! This time I made the Rogue One Darth Vader scene #DestinyArt #destinythegame #BeyondLight #destiny2art #starwars #digitalart #blenderart@rDESTNYCREATION @DestinyComArt pic.twitter.com/PVEHbKHDRP
— Ohlac 🎨 (@Ohlac3D) January 11, 2021

Art of the Week: On Ashen Wings

“On Ashen Wings”
Fun commission to kick off the year.@Bungie @rDESTNYCREATION @DestinyComArt #DestinyArt pic.twitter.com/HrUhuLBHcd
— Michael “Built Different” Werner (@mcwerner_) January 12, 2021

Art of the Week: Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice (or solar and stasis)
"Dread it. Run from it. Destiny arrives all the same."
My last painting of 2020#Dawning2020 #Destiny2 #destinyart @Bungie @DestinyTheGame @rDESTNYCREATION @A_dmg04 @Cozmo23 pic.twitter.com/m92xowyErF
— MetaWorks (@MetaWorks818) December 31, 2020

Art of the Week: Atraks-1

Atraks-1
12x12"/30x30c, mixed media on wood panel. pic.twitter.com/2nevFD0xpE
— irrezolut (@irrezolut) January 9, 2021

If you’d like to be featured, make sure to tag your art with #Destiny2Art on Twitter, Instagram, or wherever you happen to post it!
While we may not be in the office, it feels great to be back in the saddle. Always enjoy diving through feedback, discussing the future of Destiny with the team, and figuring out how to tackle the challenges of a new year. Cheers to all who’ve walked this path with us since 2014. It’s always crazy to think how far we’ve come, and we still have so far yet to go.
See you in the wild.
Cheers,
dmg04

TL;DR: vaping, marijuana, Michael Burry, low as fuck IV, hugely under-valued company 🚀🚀🚀
\Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. This is not investment advice. All information stated in this post is my own opinion, and some information may be unknowingly inaccurate or outdated. Please do your own due diligence before investing your money. I currently hold a long position on various Altria LEAPs.**
Nicotine products have been in continuous use in North America for thousands of years [1]. Upon the arrival of the Spanish to the New World, tobacco use spread rapidly throughout the globe, becoming hugely popular not only across Europe, but also in far-flung Asia and the Ottoman Empire. The only comparable product to conquer the world so thoroughly is the ubiquitous, similarly addictive, mighty coffee bean.
By the 1900's, smoking had become a huge commercial enterprise. Glitz and glam surrounded the tobacco industry. All of your Grandmother's favorite actors smoked [2]. Many high schools had smoking lounges for the students (of course, your Nana still regularly snuck out behind the bleachers to have a private puff with the quarterback). Nicotine use was a normal and accepted part of life.
We are all, of course, familiar with the rest of the story. Studies came out showing just how damaging cigarette usage was on the human body. Campaigns were begun, laws were enacted, and Big Tobacco became Public Enemy #1 [3]
Fast forward to today. For the past few decades, despite decreasing cigarette volumes, the tobacco industry has remained immensely profitable. Big players in the cigarette industry have been able to compensate for declining cigarette volumes by raising prices. Cash flows from cigarette smoking have never been higher. Yet looking at the stock market performance of the tobacco industry over the past 5 years, you would think that the industry was on life support.
No company has lately fared worse than Altria ($MO). Despite growing income at a 5.9% CAGR since 2017 amid a backdrop of stabilizing declines in cigarette consumption [4], the company's stock remains 45% off its 2017 high. Much of the underperformance can be attributed to investors losing confidence in the company's management after a series of questionable investment decisions, including taking a 35% stake in JUUL, a 45% stake in Chronos (a Canadian marijuana company), and a 10% stake in Anheuser-Busch.
These investments have performed poorly over the past few years. High-profile teen deaths from illicit THC vaping products were widely linked to JUUL usage by our sensationalist media [5], causing Altria to write-down its initial $12B investment in JUUL to a value of only ~$2B today. The bubble in the marijuana stock market popped in 2018, causing a 30% reduction in the value of Altria's Chronos stake. And the rise of the craft beer industry has continued to weigh on the profitability of Anheuser-Busch.
Despite the short-term pitfalls, I will argue that it is reasonable to believe that Altria has positioned itself very well for the future. And with all of these factors weighing down the stock over the past few years, I believe $MO is ripe for a turnaround.
I have a 2023 price target for $MO of $90 which, given the low IV Altria enjoys, implies a 30x (3,000%) return on MO Jan 2023 65c LEAPs.
My thesis relies on four key beliefs:
​

1. The company's core business is under-valued
2. Vaping will see a resurgence as a less-harmful alternative to cigarettes
3. Altria is poised to win big if marijuana is federally legalized
4. Michael Burry's Scion Asset Management is heavily invested in $MO

1) The Company's core business is under-valued
Altria enjoys a stunningly low forward P/E of 8.7 and a stunningly high dividend yield of 8.1% [6]. Various online discounted cash flow analyses of Altria give it an intrinsic value between $62-$72 [7] [8]. These analyses are very conservative in that they only take into account Altria's current business, which is predominantly smokeable tobacco products.
There are also bright spots in Altria's miscellaneous businesses that these DCF models don't account for, such as the fast-growing "on!" line of nicotine pouches, or the likely reinstatement of Anheuser-Busch's dividend after it was paused last year due to Covid.
We'll ignore these bright spots for now and give Altria's core business a conservative price target of $65.
2) Vaping will see a resurgence as a less-harmful alternative to cigarettes
\Please note: I am not a doctor. All health claims made in this post reflect only my own opinions.**
Nicotine has gotten a bad rap in the past 50 years, but on its own there isn't much research I've seen to suggest it's any more dangerous than caffeine. The big problem with nicotine is simply the delivery mechanism. Smoking large amounts of anything is bad for your lungs. Vaping exposes your lungs to far fewer ancillary chemicals in much smaller doses than traditional smoking. For instance, Michael Blaha, M.D., M.P.H., director of clinical research at the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease, says about vaping “there’s almost no doubt that they expose you to fewer toxic chemicals than traditional cigarettes.” [9]
Altria surveyed the landscape in 2017 and determined that acquiring a stake in JUUL was its best way to position itself for the future. Since then, JUUL's name has been dragged through the mud and associated with many teen deaths. However, these deaths were later determined to be caused by unauthorized THC products unlinked to JUUL [10]. JUUL's case for harm reduction in the nicotine space is still intact.
The FTC filed an anti-trust case recently attempting to block Altria's stake in JUUL [11]. This case is due to be heard this spring. The uncertainty around JUUL's future has weighed on $MO, but in my opinion all outcomes of this case are positive:
1) Altria is forced to divest its stake in JUUL
This is not ideal, but as part of the JUUL acquisition, Altria agreed to not compete in the vaping space against JUUL. If Altria is forced to divest, it can capitalize on the recent decline in the quality and brand value of JUUL (just check out juul to see the declining sentiment around the brand) to bring its own high-quality product onto the market.
2) Altria is allowed to keep its stake in JUUL
In this case, Altria can capitalize on JUUL's troubles by acquiring a larger stake in the company at a discount. Altria can then flood JUUL with the cash it needs to help rebuild its quality and brand. This is the ideal case in my opinion, for both JUUL and Altria.
Setting aside JUUL for the moment, Altria has the exclusive rights to distribute in the USA Phillip Morris's FDA-approved IQoS product [12]. This is a "heat not burn" product that is more similar to existing cigarettes than vaping, but still reduces the number of harmful chemicals inhaled. This product is already popular in Europe and Japan, and is just beginning to be marketed in the USA. One major advantage of this product is that it produces no smoke, and so may potentially end up being allowed in restaurants, bars, and offices.
3) Altria is poised to win big if marijuana is federally legalized
Altria is the one company with the regulatory experience and distribution networks necessary to gain substantial market share in the nascent marijuana industry. Altria has been quietly filing patent after patent for THC and CBD vaping devices [13]. In fact, people in the fledgling marijuana industry are so worried about Altria's entry into the market that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, when speaking about his upcoming federal legalization bill, recently said "I don’t want to see these big tobacco companies coming in and shoving everyone out" [14]. (Note however that, while this position may play well with Senator Schumer's base for now, having a marijuana industry that is run by well-established and responsible companies is ultimately the best outcome for public health, and so it is unlikely that any steps will be taken to bar Altria from competing in the free market of marijuana products).
4) Michael Burry's Scion Asset Management is heavily invested in $MO
Would this really be WallStreetBets if I didn't mention Michael Burry? Burry's fund Scion Asset Management had 5% of its portfolio in $MO as of Q3 2020, making Altria its 13th largest holding [[15](https://dataroma.com/m/holdings.php?m=SAM). For context, this is about half the weight that Michael Burry's fund had in GameStop during the same quarter.
If nothing else, this is a good sanity check on the analysis here.
Summary
In summary, it's likely that the true value of Altria's core business is closer to $65 than the current price of $43. Add on top of that the potential for success in the vaping category, and the potential for growth into the marijuana market, and it is easy to see $MO adding an additional 20-30B in market cap to reach a price of $90 by 2023.
IV for 2023 LEAPs sits at ~20%. MO Jan 2023 65c's are currently priced at $0.77. If Altria reaches $90 by 2023, these options will be worth at least $25. This would represent a >3,100% return.
For this reason, I believe that Altria LEAPs represent a unique opportunity for asymmetric upside. Please let me know your thoughts below, I'd appreciate counter-arguments that highlight any flaws in the reasoning outlined above.

I hit rank 1 Mythic in limited today. I'm usually a constructed gamer, but Kaldheim is so good that I can't bring myself to play 60 cards.
I didn't start tracking my gameplay until recently, but you can see my recent drafts and records here. Counting the 7-0 draft I started recording near the end, my recent record is 57-15.
This post isn't a comprehensive guide or anything like that -- I've mostly been drafting the kinds of decks I like, and there are cards I've never cast (e.g. Invasion of the Giants) that seem important for a full understanding of the format. But I wanted to talk about some cards and interactions that seem underrated.
My general approach to the format:

• In every draft, I want to be either a multicolored pile of cards with good fixing or an equipment-based aggro deck. I've had much more success with those strategies than with decks built around big creatures, two-color control decks, etc.
• That said, "multicolored pile of cards" doesn't have to mean base-green Snow. I've had success with four-color sans Green, UR splashing green, Abzan Sagas splashing blue, etc. There are a lot of powerful gold uncommons and interesting synergies that can be worked into different archetypes.
• Running someone completely out of cards is difficult, and if you drag the game out, you run the risk of encountering one of the many bombs in the format. (Even an aggro deck can swing things around if they pull out Dwarven Hammer, Valkyrie's Sword, Immersturm Predator, etc.) I want my cards to do active, impactful things to the board when I cast them, and I always want to be aiming for positions where I can start pressuring my opponent's life total.
  • One example of this is that I prefer Sarulf's Packmate to Behold the Multiverse (I think most pros put them in the opposite order). Behold is very strong, but people have gotten better at being aggressive over the course of the format, and I have many games where there's just no time to cast Behold early. There's always time for Packmate.
• Almost all the equipment is really good, and underdrafted. Goldvein Pick is a great card in any deck that can reliably attack; I've only drafted a few harder control decks that didn't want it. Tormenter's Helm is less flexible, but better than every single common red creature; it's hard to think of a number I wouldn't play. All the creature-making equipments are great; Dwarven Hammer is a strong contender for the set's best uncommon. Runed Crown will be one of the best cards in your deck if you have even a single Rune.
  • On the other hand, Raven Wings seems a bit overplayed; your creatures should already be attacking through your opponent's if you have enough equipment and pump, making flying less important. But I do like the Wings in GW or GB decks that have bigger bodes and no access to Helm, because equipment is just that important.
• You're almost definitely going to end up with enough playables. This makes snow lands a great choice when your only other option is a borderline/unexciting card in your colors. Even off-color snowlands can have surprising utility if your manabase isn't too greedy in other ways. I got seven wins once with a UG Snow deck playing two Snow-Covered Mountains with no red cards, because I had two copies of Avalanche Caller and a few other synergies.
• This won't come as a surprise to many readers, but black is really bad. It has a high number of unexciting commons and is hard to make work as a primary color.
  • That said, it can still be a good complement to Red, White, or (least often) Green. I've never played UB and have no plans to, because Black almost needs to be aggressive to stand a chance and blue cards are not aggressive. Deathknell Berseker is incredible once you have a few pieces of equipment, and Raise the Draugr can be a reliable 2-for-1 with the right set of creatures in your deck (often with help from a Koma's Faithful milling you).

Cards that seem underrated to me, based on how often I see them go late:
Not a complete list, just me thinking out loud -- feel free to ask about other cards!

• Every piece of equipment other than Raven Wings (see above).
• Glimpse the Cosmos is a top-5 uncommon -- every time you draw it, it's like you got to start with an eight-card hand. It's like Behold the Multiverse, but much better. You need roughly three Giants to reliably double-cast it, and even one Giant makes it quite playable (including Mistwalker, Masked Vandal, etc.)
• Story Seeker might be the best aggressive two-drop in the set. It holds equipment beautifully and turns tight races into blowouts. Your combat tricks have random lifegain attached now. Your opponent's good attacks stop looking good when your 2/2 can race their Craven Hulk.
• Horizon Seeker is almost always either "kill your opponent's three-drop on the draw" or "kill your opponent's two-drop on the play, draw a card". Sometimes your opponent has no creature or you have Bind the MonsteFrost Bite and you get a Divination off of your three-drop. I think Seeker might be better than Sculptor of Winter if you don't have Glittering Frost or a bunch of strong four-drops. (Remember that it also gets all your snow basics if "snow" is the color you need.)
• Sarulf's Packmate still goes too late. It's better than almost every uncommon and many rares. (For example, it's better than Cosmos Charger or Righteous Valkyrie. There's a ton of removal in this set, and getting a card off your solid body is fantastic.
• Master Skald has a ton of synergy in the format; it's really not hard to get a 2-for-1 off it, and a 5-mana 4/4 is a totally fine "fail case". It works with sagas, auras, vehicles, Scorn Effigy, Bloodline Pretender, cards you mill off Koma's Faithful, etc.
• Masked Vandal has many good targets, thanks to the high number of playable equipments (as well as sagas, Path to the World Tree, Icebind Pillar, artifact creatures, etc.) It holds equipment fine, making the 1/3 body less weak. I want one in every green deck and I don't mind running two, even without tribal synergies.
• Depart the Realm -- I want one of these in every deck with blue, and I'm okay with playing two. It resets Sagas, stops the format's ample removal spells, counters Runes, and has too many other neat applications to list.
• Dwarven Reinforcements makes two creatures you can equip, which also trade with many good creatures in the format (both Seekers, Tuskeri Firewalker, etc.) I like this card more than Craven Hulk in a lot of my red decks, but it seems to go around much later.

Cards that seem overrated to me, based on how often I see them cast:
Not a complete list, just me thinking out loud -- feel free to ask about other cards!

• Iron Verdict. Very easy to play around, bad in aggressive decks, doesn't solve problems with equipment.
• Feed the Serpent. Fine black common, but "premium removal" is in a weird place given how important equipment and board presence are, and how much better small creatures tend to be than big ones. I find that this trades down on mana more often than it trades up.
• Withercrown. This card is effectively unplayable unless you're doing some kind of weird Master Skald thing with it. Your opponent can almost always use it to gain virtual life by blocking, and sometimes their creature will just pick up equipment and start hitting you anyway. I'm legitimately unsure whether I've ever seen the card be better against me than a random 2/2 would have been.
• Raven Wings. Unlike Pick/Helm, this card is better with bigger creatures. But it's too mana-intensive to be strong in decks that need to spend turns 4 and 5 actually getting creatures onto the board. Too often, I see it go on some random 2/2, then watch its controller lose the race to my actual creatures that are hitting them back because they spent four mana on Wings instead of a blocker.
• Breakneck Berserker. Play it on curve and it trades down. Play it off curve and the haste probably doesn't matter. I'm unhappy if one of these has to make my deck.

Other resources on the format:

• The streamers I've learned the most from are Sam Black and Deathsie.
• Sam's podcast is a great guide to drafting many different decks.
• You can check out my stream here -- all my draft VODs are still available, and you'll probably see a lot more drafts later this month if you drop a follow :-)

Hello friends, ImpetuousPanda again! 🐼
 
Two days ago I posted a pretty in-depth survey regarding the community’s perception of balance regarding the different regions, champions, and some of the more problematic cards! I’d like to personally thank all of you who took the time to answer such a lengthy survey, as well as give it ample visibility on the front page of the subreddit, and I'm happy to announce we registered roughly 700 responses. I’m here now to present all of the data and conclusions I was able to extrapolate from all of your responses. Most of the in-depth data can be found on this thread but if you'd like to see it in a more visually appealing graph format you can find links through the thread or just check out the Twitter thread on my profile here.
 
First of all, it’s important to understand all champions/cards were graded on a 1-5 scale, 1 being “Too weak” and 5 being “Too strong”. All numerical averages will go from 1-5, whereas any average from 1-2 is a champion, card, or region the community thinks needs a buff, and any average score from 4-5 is a champion or card the community thinks is problematic and needs a nerf of some kind. I will present the data to the best of my ability here on Reddit, but if you want the raw data it can be found here:
 
All Form Responses and Graphs
Raw Data
Stylized Data with formatted and color coded tables [CLICK HERE ⚠️]
 

General Data Points

• 693 total responses
• Patch: v2.0.0
• Survey Date: January 30th-February 1st
• This is the ranked distribution among participants:

 

Rank	Percentage
Masters	15.4%
Diamond	18.6%
Platinum	25%
Gold	18%
Silver	6.9%
Bronze	2.9%
Iron	1.2 %
I don't play ranked	12%

 

Balance

General Perception of Balance: 3.79
Deck Diversity: 3.69
 
Conclusions: Both the general perception of balance and deck diversity ratings have gone up when compared to three months ago, and it's not too surprising considering the current meta. Although it has been one of the longest periods without major balance changes, the introduction of the cosmic creation expansion was enough of a shakeup to keep things interesting and fairly diverse, especially taking into account the recent bandaid patch that nerfed "Go Hard". The introduction of impactful meta cards such as Wiggly Burblefish, Ballistic Bot, Grand Plaza, and Zoe was enough to breathe life into struggling artchtypes/regions, while simultaneously creating new archtypes and decks altogether. Although the general perception of the game's balance is positive, there are also quite a handful of truly problematic cards that will most likely be addressed in the upcoming patch, which if done well may lead to one of Runeterra's best periods, with an ever-growing cardpool offering more diversity than ever before.
 

Regions

 

Regional Power Level

 
Data in Graph
 

Region	Rating
Targon	4.43
Demacia	3.63
Bilgewater	3.32
Shadow Isles	3.25
Noxus	3.14
Piltover & Zaun	2.79
Freljord	2.67
Ionia	1.98

 
Conclusions: Targon's dominance is clear, and it's no surprise with the addition of Zoe and Targon's evasiveness when it comes to having received any nerfs in past balance patches. As a region Targon is able to do many things incredibly well, similarly to Shadow Isles, although the impact of cards like Hush and Pale Cascade is clear, and when pairing the region with other champion/archtypes like Lee Sin or cards like Grand Plaza it's strengths only continue to be highlighted. The runner up position goes to Demacia, and the addition of Grand Plaza and cards like sharpsight single handedly elevated the region to new heights, strenghtening existing archtypes(Targon/Demacia, Scouts) and creating new ones altogether(Hecarim Plaza). Bilgewater and Shadow Isles unsurprisingly remain as staple strong regions in the game with a variety of archtypes and decks, the former benefitted by the inclusion of Wiggly Burblefish in the most recent expansion, which has proven to be a strong buildaround card. Noxus holds a stable position, and remains especially relevant thanks to the popularity of Ezreal/Draven in the past few months, as well as the usual aggro strategies + Ashe/Noxus. Piltover & Zaun finally finds some new life, although surprisingly it's mostly due to strong staple cards such as Ballistic Bot and not thanks to the addition of Viktor as most people expected. With the nerf to Trundle a few months ago, Freljord seems to have fallen all the way from the top and is considered a fairly weak region, although I personally believe it is being underrated. Ionia falls to a truly disappointing sub2.0 rating, although this is not surprising considering it seems Lee Sin/Fiora & Shen are the only viable Ionia strategies that are truly relevant in the meta currently, and even then the region serves as more of a supporting role in both decks.
 

Regional Archtype and Thematic Satisfaction

 
Data in Graph
 

Region	Rating
Targon	3.53
Bilgewater	3.38
Shadow Isles	3.35
Piltover & Zaun	3.19
Freljord	2.90
Noxus	2.86
Demacia	2.40
Ionia	1.82

 
Conclusions: Targon overtakes both Bilgewater and Shadow Isles, which is a fairly historic feat, although it can probably be attributed both to the diversity of deckbuilding options Zoe offers as well as the general strength of the region. Bilgewater and Shadow Isles remain consistently positive in the playerbases' hearts, with a clear identity and interesting thematic options to explore in several archtypes. Piltover & Zaun climbs a considerable amount from the last survey, and this can probably be attributed to the renewed interest in the region thanks to impactful buildaround cards such as Ballistic Bot or Hexcore Foundry, enabling certain champions to find a solid home(Teemo, Fizz, Sejuani, Ezreal, etc). Freljord falls a small amount, and this can probably be attributed to Scargrounds' failure to really catch on and the general staleness in the most relevant archtypes within Freljord(Ashe Nox/FTR, Anivia). Noxus, Demacia, and Ionia have generally always been near the bottom of the thematic satisfaction ratings, and it seems the playerbase as large is generally in a state of discontent with the archtypes and themes these regions have to offer.
 

Champions

 
Champion Balance Rating Graph
 

Champion	Rating
Lee Sin	4.32
Zoe	4.03
Twisted Fate	3.82
Miss Fortune	3.72
Draven	3.63
Fiora	3.43
Swain	3.32
Aurelion Sol	3.31
Ezreal	3.27
Sejuani	3.23
Elise	3.17
Lucian	3.17
Hecarim	3.17
Trundle	3.09
Jinx	3.05
Quinn	3.00
Shen	2.98
Tahm Kench	2.95
Ashe	2.95
Kalista	2.93
Gangplank	2.92
Tryndamere	2.91
Soraka	2.86
Leona	2.85
Teemo	2.84
Fizz	2.82
Karma	2.71
Darius	2.71
Zed	2.70
Garen	2.70
Anivia	2.67
Braum	2.47
Heimerdinger	2.40
Diana	2.39
Nautilus	2.38
Thresh	2.34
Vi	2.34
Lux	2.29
Maokai	2.21
Nocturne	2.17
Yasuo	2.11
Riven	2.03
Shyvana	1.94
Taric	1.93
Vladimir	1.87
Lulu	1.55
Katarina	1.55
Viktor	1.54

 
Conclusions: As usual, Champion ratings seem to be a fairly clear reflection of the current meta(as they should be, with the ratings being a "perception of balance" for the majority of the community). Lee Sin continues to remain one of the most problematic champions, even following multiple reworks and nerfs. This is simply due to the extremely binary nature of the win condition this deck presents. Zoe, to the surprise of many, clocks in just above a 4.0 rating, and this can be attributed to the very potent effect you're able to gain from a 1 drop as well as the versatiltiy of benefits she presents in a myriad of archtypes. The rest of the top fifteen or so champions' ratings are expected and easy to explain, with the exception of maybe Swain or Aurelion Sol being a little too highly rated and serving as outliers in my humble opinion. Some of the major rating gains include Draven's highest ever rating(due to the popularity of Ezreal/Draven), Fizz's climb up to normality(thanks to the recent meta staple Fizz/TF enabling a mind meld archtype), and Quinn finally getting her dues(thanks to the consistent popularity of scouts and the introduction of Grand Plaza). When looking at the worst performing champions there's several key points to highlight. We can see the continued freefall of one of the playerbase's dearest archtypes, Deep, with Nautilus and Maokai both taking a plunge to mediocrity( a lot of this being Targon's top end able to simply do things better as a late game archtype). We also see Vladimir's continued existence in the deepest depths of the sewers, with both a rework and the introduction fo scargrounds unable to stabalize his position in the relevant meta landscape. We can also see the apparent failure of a lot of this set's champions(Taric, Shyvana, Viktor, Riven, Lulu), and it's very possible we'll see reworks/card changes introduced to try and revive these champions/archtypes once more.
 

Controversial Cards

 
Controversial/Problematic Card Rating Graph
 

Problematic Cards	Rating
Grand Plaza	4.69
Hush	4.48
Pale Cascade	4.27
Ravenous Flock	3.99
Feel The Rush	3.91
Sparklefly	3.90
Troll Chant	3.85
Captain Farron	3.84
Ballistic Bot	3.80
Sharpsight	3.78
Fortune Croaker	3.75
Zap Sprayfin	3.69
Eye of the Dragon	3.65
The Harrowing	3.58
Wiggly Burblefish	3.56

 
Conclusions: Grand Plaza clocks in with what may be a record-breaking(and nice) 4.69 rating, and it's no surprise considering the amount of archtypes this single landmark has been able to both create or elevate to a very competitive standard. Outside of this record-breaking rating, there also seems to be a larger number of 3.50+ rated cards this time around, and it's also not surprisining considering the amount of time we've gone without a major balance patch due to the holiday break coinciding with the release of a new expansion. As we can see, the majority of high rated cards are from the newest set, and this clearly indicates that previous sets were continiously balanced over time and we can expect the same to occur to recently released cards that are a bit too impactful in the current meta, either in this next upcoming patch or future ones. As usual, it is expected for cards above a 4.0 rating to receive some sort of nerf or re-work, with cards sitting in the 3.75-4.0 range sometimes being hit as well.
 

Survey Conclusion

Thank you to everyone who participated and took the time to go through the entirety of the survey.
As promised, I will continue to run these surveys and as long as I continue to be involved with the game from a content creator aspect. If you have any suggestions as to how to improve the survey or presentation of results in any way, feel free to share. Once again thank you for reading, hope you guys found the data interesting!
Last clarification: Some people seem to assume I'm somehow part of Riot Games or the development team. Not the case at all, just another content creator who happens to love data and statistics a lot and has a lot of free time on his hands. Felt that was an important thing to clear up!

From December 1-31, you can collect cards, trade with friends, earn a badge, and win prizes!
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Cards can be earned by conversing with your fellow wishlisters. For every four comments you make anywhere on Wishlist, you'll receive one card. Up to five cards per day! The goal of the foolery is to encourage conversation and activity around the sub. We want you to make new friends, catch up with old ones, and have fun. Please help us maintain the integrity of the foolery by participating in good faith. In other words, don't just spam trade requests or do things like this.
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Have fun!

Hello,
We did a pre-FA mock draft in the Jets discord with 32 members GMing for the various teams. Some of the GMs provided explanations below on their thought process for the picks. Sheets link
1) Jacksonville (Gmoney): QB Trevor Lawrence, Clemson #16
I pick Trevor because we needed a qb and Trevor is a generational talented qb
 
2) NY Jets (stackingdollars): QB Zach Wilson, BYU #1
Both Fields and Wilson have great qualities but I think Wilson has the edge. The biggest advantage Wilson has is his anticipation. I think he would fit very well in the LaFleur offense and can become a franchise QB with the Jets.
 
TRADE: Miami gives 1.03 (3), Carolina gives 1.08 (8), 3.09 (73), 2022 CAR 1st
3) Carolina (cantstopthis): QB Justin Fields, OSU #1
Justin Fields is a highly talented prospect with all the tools to become a franchise guy. In Carolina, he can sit behind Teddy B and work with elite skill position players to truly hone in the skills to allow him to reach his full potential. Moving ahead of Atlanta was important because it allowed me to secure one of the top QBs in the class. Moving a future first and a third this year felt like great value because I was able to snag a QB I believe has elite potential in the nfl, while maintaining seconds which I can use to build around Fields.
 
4) Atlanta (jorjor): T Penei Sewell, Oregon #58
A very good tackle who I think is bpa rn. I don’t feel good taking Lance this early so I took the best player at the pick.
 
5) Cincinnati (Sliz): T Rashawn Slater, Northwestern #70
This is the worst case for Cinci, and they'll be kicking themselves for a meaningless late season win over Houston. OT1 Sewell was off the board, as were the top 3 QBs that could fetch decent tradeback value. While Chase has been a common mock, I think a Higgins/Boyd duo is easily complimented without spending this much capital to address it. With no trade back partner, Slater (OT1 on some boards) is a nice consolation. Slater will slot in as an immediate starter at tackle with versatility to slot inside should CIN address the tackle spot opposite Jonah Williams in FA.
 
6) Philadelphia (Salty): WR Ja’Marr Chase, LSU #1
The Eagles are light in the weapons department. They haven't have a reliable receiver in years, and the negatives of that have shown their face the past 2 years, with Carson Wentz and Jalen Hurts struggling at times to move the ball because of the lack of Receivers. Justin Fields was off the board at 6 and I feel like Wentz or Hurts paired with such a dominant prospect at Receiver could work wonders. Chase is a unique blend of size, speed, and talent at the WR position. He has solid size at 6 foot and a bit over 200 pounds, with sure hands and really good route running. His 2019 season at LSU was incredible and he produced one of the best WR seasons of all time at the collegiate level. I have no doubt with his abilities that he will immediately be able to put up good numbers and improve the offense and passing game, giving the eagles a much needed extra dimension to their offense.
 
TRADE: Detroit gives 1.07 (7), 3.25 (89), San Francisco gives 1.12 (12), 2.11 (43)
7) San Francisco (Anc): QB Trey Lance, NDSU #5
Kyle Shanahan is too good of a coach to keep languishing with a mediocre Jimmy G who is only okay when he can stay healthy. Trey Lance is a boom/bust prospect with a TON of upside and a big learning curve. In this scenario, he has the opportunity to either sit and learn with a capable bridge QB, OR if Shanahan chooses kick start his career in the best system in the league at empowering QBs to be successful. Lance joins a loaded team that, despite having some deficiencies in the IOL and a few pieces potentially leaving in FA on the defense, is ready to compete for the division right now and can afford moving down in round 2 to try and secure the future face of the franchise at QB. If he works out, the Niners get to have the type of athletic and dynamic QB under center that Shanahan has never had.
 
8) Miami (tolgzz): WR DeVonta Smith, Alabama #8
Bringing Tua a much needed weapon and ex teammate.
 
9) Denver (paxton): CB Caleb Farley, Virginia #3
At this position with no QBs in consideration, I chose to address Denver's most obvious need, CB. Farley has an almost impossible blend of physical traits. Size, speed, fluidity. Farley to me projects as a shutdown corner who plays on WR1s on the outside. In a division with Tyreek Hill, Henry Ruggs and Keenan Allen, he's a perfect fit. While Surtain was in consideration, I dont think he can match the traits and athleticism and will struggle against speedy receivers in the AFC West. Farley's ceiling is too high to pass on here.
 
10) Dallas (spencerw): CB Patrick Surtain II, Alabama #2
With a depleted DB core and 6 S/CBs entering FA, CB is the biggest need for the Dallas Cowboys. Going for Surtain, a corner whose best fit is an outside man-coverage CB is a huge upgrade and can be a day 1 starter on the outside for the Cowboys. Surtain's length and athleticism creates a lock-down potential that can be extremely helpful for a defense lacking talent across all three levels.
 
TRADE: NY Giants give 1.11 (11), New Orleans gives 1.28 (28), 2022 NOR 1st
11) New Orleans (Misery): LB Micah Parsons, Penn St #11
 
12) Detroit (Zingy): T Christian Darrisaw, Virginia Tech #77
Detroit sucks, OT is the second most valuable position in the NFL, Darrisaw will be a really really good tackle in the NFL and has experience playing in the scheme Goff has played in his entire career. One of the first building blocks that will actually be on this team when they get a real QB in a year or two. Okudah and Darrisaw might be the only 2 on the roster in 5 years.
 
13) LA Chargers (run1609): CB Jaycee Horn, South Carolina #1
The Chargers have a pressing need at CB with Michael Davis entering free agency (I expect him to be retained) and CHJ/Casey Heyward on the wrong side of 30. He profiles as a lockdown man CB who new HC Brandon Staley hopes can approximate the role Jalen Ramsey played for him across town with the Rams.
 
TRADE: Minnesota gives 1.14 (14), 3.27 (91), Arizona gives 1.16 (16), 3.16 (80), 2022 ARI 2nd
14) Arizona (Brodie): TE Kyle Pitts, Florida #84
 
TRADE: New England gives 1.15 (15), 3.33 (97), 7.15 (241), Tampa Bay gives 1.31 (31), 2.31 (63), 3.31 (95), 2022 TAM 2nd
15) Tampa Bay (rgoing): EDGE Gregory Rousseau, Miami #15
Tampa is a perfect spot for GR. He can learn behind JPP and Barrett for a year or so and get more refined as a pass rusher. Rousseau is someone who I believe can play all across the DLIne and won’t have any pressure to start right away. At only 20 years old and equipped with excellent measurables and a high motor, the sky is the limit for him.
 
16) Minnesota (beezus): EDGE Kwity Paye, Michigan #19
With darrisaw and horn coming off the board at 12 and 13, the Vikings sought a trade back knowing there would be suitors hungry for one of waddle/pitts. The cardinals called and offered 1.16 and a 2022 2nd for the pick. We countered, adding in a pick swap of 91 and 80. Arizona obliged and it was a done deal.
At 16, it came down to paye, AVT, and Christian barmore. After seeing a trade with the football team fall through, the Vikings took the toolsy edge rusher from Michigan. Kwity Paye has the athletic tools and the build to become an elite pass rusher. His ceiling combined with Minnesota’s pedigree of developing defensive talent is a recipe for success for the Vikings.
 
17) Las Vegas (jmah): IDL Christian Barmore, Alabama #58
I’ve only watched Christian Barmore in the national championship game, but he should really help the Raiders trash defense.
 
18) Miami (tolgzz): LB Zaven Collins, Tulsa #23
With this pick Dolphins bring in a LB they plan to start from day 1. Collins brings with him size and power combined with his athleticism. He can defend the run, play the pass in coverage and even be used to rush the QB. Collins fills a spot of need for Dolphins and hopefully turns into a stud LB for them for years to come
 
19) Washington (klondike): QB Mac Jones, Alabama #10
Good fit. Lots of talent and running plays out of the backfield. Smart player, good game manager. Ideal fit for both parties. He can sit behind Alex Smith for however long.
 
20) Chicago (Mayor): WR Jaylen Waddle, Alabama #17
With the Bears offense being eternally awful, Allen Robinson looking like a goner more and more and rookie WRs more frequently making plays fresh out of college picking up Waddle will hopefully jump start this offense with whatever vet QB the bears roll with in 2021
 
21) Indianapolis (Viddstuff): T Sam Cosmi, Texas #52
While the colts are lacking all over at offense, Costanzo retiring really put them in a tough spot. I could have gone WR here, but the colts offense can get creative with their weapons, and it was too early to overdraft the QB on the board. Cosmi would fit in well on the blindside and protect whoever starts at QB for a long time.
 
22) Tennessee (botlane): EDGE Azeez Ojulari, Georgia #13
Azeez Ojulari is an attempt to fix one of the biggest voids in the Tennessee Titans defense, the pass rush. Ojulari has a great get-off, a mixture of speed, bend and power which makes his kit very powerful to take even the most agile lineman off of their game. A great athlete with tremendous upside, Ojulari's explosion off the line is marvelous, paired with a great jab/stab, he is able to create space with his length. If you don't jam him at the line and initiate contact, he's got a solid enough technique that pairs with his athleticism. Ojulari has the intangibles to be a great pass-rusher in this league and if he keeps developing, that's right where he's headed.
 
23) NY Jets (stackingdollars): WR Rashod Bateman, Minnesota #0
Entering this off-season the Jets are in need of a WR. Bateman has tremendous route running ability and great hands. Pairing this pick with QB Zach Wilson will help give the Jets offense the spark they are looking for.
 
24) Pittsburgh (Fireblast): QB Kyle Trask, Florida #11
Although this might be a bit of a reach, Steelers desperately need a qb and neither big benor dwayne haskins is it. The plan here would be to sign a FA guy, let trask sit behind him for a year, and then he takes the reigns. Trask with the right devolopment can probably be at least a decent enough starter I'd guess, not near where ben was in his prime, but very qbs are that good.
 
25) Jacksonville (Gmoney): T Alex Leatherwood, Alabama #70
 
TRADE: Cleveland gives 1.26 (26), Green Bay gives 1.29 (29), 3.29 (93)
26) Green Bay (herb): CB Asante Samuel Jr, FSU #13
So my reasoning for picking Samuel is the packers need someone to pair up with Jaire Alexander, Samuel was the best choice available and he can really bring a much needed CB2 to Green Bay.
 
27) Baltimore (oman): EDGE Jayson Oweh, Penn St #28
Ravens have Judon and McPhee hitting the open market, thus opening some obvious holes. I was looking WR initially but given how the draft played out so far I liked the edge options more. I like his athletic ability in Winks scheme and he should be a good fit.
 
28) NY Giants (rubbersoul): WR Rondale Moore, Purdue #4
 
29) Cleveland (Huntington): EDGE Joe Tryon, Washington #9
Tryon is a tall, big, athletic edge who can play standing up or can be a traditional 4-3 DE. He can both drop back in coverage or rush the passer. He’s a 3-down player who can grow and complement Garrett. A very productive 2019 overshadowed by his opting out in 2020. Tryon is a high energy player with the size to defend the run though its an area he needs to improve. With Vernon both injured a free agent, Tryon will have a chance to start immediately.
 
30) Buffalo (AntRob): RB Najee Harris, Alabama #22
The Bills completely abandoned the run for large portions of last year and basically told Josh Allen to go win games by himself. The Bills need some juice in the backfield, I don't have confidence in Singletary or Moss being that guy for them, as evidenced by Daboll's playcalling.
Harris is the most well rounded back in this class and checks every box for me. What makes him valuable in addition to his frame and run + catch ability is his elusivity (wiggle...light, nimble feet) and his power. The blending of all these things together gives you a really upper class RB prospect that will finally be able to bring the Bills offense some multiplicity and balance in scheme.
 
31 New England (rgoing): LB Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah, Notre Dame #6
The patriots fielded calls at the 15th spot, although there are questions surrounding the Quarterback position, New England ultimately felt a trade back with the Buccaneers was to the 31st pick was the best move.
New England does not draft for need in the first round, they draft for best available player. The Patriots drafted Jeremiah Owusu-Koramoah out of the University of Notre Dame with the 31st pick. Although JOK is listed as a linebacker, New England isn't going to just utilize his talents there. JOK is the new breed of defender, his ability and versatility allows him to play different roles on defense the perfect type of player for the patriots.
 
TRADE: Kansas City gives 1.32 (32), Cincinnati gives 2.06 (38), 4.06 (110), 7.05 (231)
32) Cincinnati (Sliz): IOL Alijah Vera-Tucker
No matter what they do in FA, the value was too good to pass up here. With OL needy teams (MIA, NYJ) sitting ahead of the Bengals this trade up felt necessary to lock up a top guy. A 4th and a 7th (Bengals got a 7th back in the Dunlap trade) was a cheap price to pay to get there, while also picking up the 5th year option.
AVT projects as a solid OG that should be a consistent starter on an IOL that desperately needs a long-term piece. I feel AVT's an insanely safe pick to be productive, putting him a tier above the next group of guys each with their own question marks (medical or otherwise). Paired with Slater in rd 1 and a healthy Jonah Williams, CIN now has several young cornerstone pieces to protect and grow with Joe Burrow and open lanes for Mixon. AVT has positional versatility, allowing the Bengals the chance to let guys compete for multiple spots and see what lineup works the best. This is a make or break year for Taylor. This is a franchise that needs to protect the future in Joe Burrow. Double dipping at OL helps both those facets.
 
33) Jacksonville (Gmoney): S Trevon Moehrig, TCU #7
 
34) NY Jets (stackingdollars): IOL Creed Humphrey, Oklahoma #56
NYJ’s OL was a huge improvement from 2019 but it still needs work especially in the middle. Creed offers versatility and a long term option at center. Connor McGovern would be able to play OG as he has experience there, or Creed can play OG as he has taken some snaps there during the senior bowl. Creed has quick hands and good size and can bring stability on the OL for years to come.
 
35) Atlanta (jorjor): CB Tyson Campbell, Georgia #3
 
36) Miami (tolgzz): S Andre Cisco, Syracuse #7
 
TRADES: Philadelphia gives 2.05 (37), Denver gives 2.08 (40), 4.09 (115), 2022 DEN 6th
37) Denver (Paxton): WR Kadarius Toney, Florida #1
I was shocked Toney fell this low, and after having tried to trade up multiple times before, I was finally able to make it work. I felt I needed to jump the chiefs so some might say I overpaid, but hey. Toney was IMO BPA, his evasiveness is unmatched in this class and he is a willing contested catcher. Toney is a perfect fit alongside Jeudy, Sutton and Hamler and will provide the Broncos with a true "weapon". While WR isnt close to the broncos most pressing need, this pick makes the broncos offence a lethal force.
 
38) Kansas City (teutonic): G Jalen Mayfield, Michigan #73
I tried trading up for the falling JOK but had no takers on my trade offers and when it got to my pick I felt comfortable with enough options that I elected to trade back for an extra 4th and 7th. Mayfield is a big man who I think will slot into a guard position at the next level, he's extremely strong and fits a need on the OL.  
TRADES: Carolina gives 2.07 (39), 2022 CAR 5th, Chicago gives 2.20 (52), 3.20 (84), 2022 CHI 4th
39) Chicago (Mayor): IOL Wyatt Davis, Ohio St #52
 
40) Philadelphia (Salty): EDGE Joseph Ossai, Texas #46
I originally had pick 37, and was looking at Ossai as well as other players like Nick Bolton as a possible selection. However, the Broncos came to me with a nice offer that netted me a current 4th and a 2022 6th while only moving back 3 spots. I acquired the 40th pick and used that on Ossai.
Ossai is a great pass rusher who is also talented in the run game. He was moved around a good amount in college before settling as an EDGE for the Texas Longhorns. He is big and fast, and can be moved around the D line. The Eagles run a 4-3 defense which Ossai can excel in, and he also works very well in other defensive packages. Putting Ossai on this already promising D Line with names like Derek Barnett, Brandon Graham, Josh Sweat, and most importantly Fletcher Cox could put this line back at the peaks they experienced in 2017, when their defense could take over and destroy the opposing offense.
 
41) Detroit (Zingy): EDGE Jaelan Phillips, Miami #15
 
42) NY Giants (rubbersoul): LB Nick Bolton, Missouri #32
 
43) Detroit (Zingy): WR Terrace Marshall, LSU #6
 
44) Dallas (spencerw): IDL Daviyon Nixon, Iowa #54
I'm once again addressing the putrid Dallas defense that gave up almost 30 points a game last season. Nixon can line up at the 3-tech as a 4-3 DT under Dan Quinn and can make an immediate impact on the inside as a power gap rusher and can help with one of the worst rush defenses in the league (almost 160 rush yards/game). I was hoping to grab Bolton here, but Nixon is a solid IDL that can shore up a huge hole in the Dallas defense on day 1. The Cowboys now have 2 young defensives pieces to begin rebuilding/rejuvenating a declining side of the ball.
 
45) Jacksonville (Gmoney): TE Pat Freiermuth, Penn St #87
 
46) New England (rgoing): T Jackson Carman, Clemson #79
The Patriots picked Clemson standout Jackson Carman. The Patriots are unsure if he will stay at Tackle or move to guard, what they do know is that they received a powerful and athletic player standing at 6’5 330. Carman is best known for his superb run, although he was able to neutralize DROY Chase Young in the 2019 CFP Playoffs last season. Carman fits perfectly for the Patriots offense as they are known for their smash mouth football, and play-action passing.
 
47) LA Chargers (run1609): IOL Trey Smith, Tennessee #73
This pick is contingent upon his medicals checking out (blood clots in lungs, 2018). Frankly, I'm not positive as to what a Joe Lombardi offense will look like, but I do know that Smith has what it takes to succeed at the next level. Very powerful, consistenly wins in a phone booth but has the requisite athleticism for his size to win in space too.
 
48) Las Vegas (jmah): EDGE Carlos Basham Jr, Wake Forest #9
Carlos Basham Jr.: I've seen PFF tweet about this guy before so I think he might be good. Raiders D line is already looking much improved with Barmore at 17 and now "Boogie" Basham at 48.
 
49) Arizona (Brodie): IDL Marvin Wilson, FSU #21
 
50) Miami (tolgzz): RB Travis Etienne, Clemson #9
 
51) Washington (klondike): T Liam Eichenberg, Notre Dame #74
WFT desperately needs tackle. He has shown great strides in advancing his game. Not the most physically gifted player, but he plays smart football.
 
TRADE: Carolina gives 2.20 (52), LA Rams gives 2.25 (57), 6.25 (210), 2022 LAR 5th
52) LA Rams (prime): LB Dylan Moses, Alabama #32
The Rams are projected to be bottom-5 in cap space in both 2021 and 2022 once the Stafford trade goes through according to OTC, and they don’t have a first-round choice until 2024. Even worse, they have six starters projected to be UFAs this year (Reynolds, Blythe, Floyd, Ebukam, Johnson, Hill), and four next year (Corbett, Kiser, Young, Fuller). As a result, landing a future starter with this pick was crucial. I was willing to move up a little because of how important it was to land a future starter here. Moses had a dominant 2018 season before missing 2019 with a knee injury and rebounding in 2020, and I think he fits well as a 3-4 ILB replacement to either Micah Kiser or Kenny Young in 2022.
 
53) Tennessee (botlane): EDGE Jaylen Twyman, Pitt #97
 
54) Indianapolis (Viddstuff): EDGE Patrick Jones II, Pitt #91
 
55) Pittsburgh (Fireblast): RB Kenneth Gainwell, Memphis #19
Although the steelers have some other needs, RB I felt was a major one. James connor isn't the answer, and I think gainwell although only really playing 1 season fully can provide versatility in the backfield, as not only did he have almost 1500 yards on the ground, with an average of over 6 yds per carry, he also had just over 600 yds receiving. Overall, I think he can be a solid RB for the steelers, assuming their offensive line holds.
 
56) Seattle (Kdelgado): IOL Landon Dickerson, Alabama #69
 
57) Carolina (cantstopthis): CB Greg Newsome II, Northwestern #2
After the Chiefs took Jalen Mayfield, I was left in an awkward spot. I didn't feel too strongly about any of the guys on the board at 2.39. Luckily, the Chicago Bears came calling and I was able to regain some of the assets that were lost in the trade up for Justin Fields. At 2.52, I had a few guys on my board I was comfortable with and decided to trade back 5 spots, taking a chance that at least one of my guys would be there. Luckily, Newsome was still on the board.
Greg Newsome II has been rising on boards everywhere, and rightfully so. He has good ball skills to combine with solid athleticism as well as a nice frame that will help him to succeed at the next level. He also has good awareness as well as good instincts to help him out. Newsome will fit right in with the Carolina Panthers, who were among the leaders with their usage of cover 3 and zone.
 
58) Baltimore (oman): IOL Ben Cleveland, Georgia #74
 
59) Cleveland (Huntington): S Richie Grant, UCF #27
Grant is tall, athletic, versatile player who can play both FS or SS and even nickel if necessary, though likely slots as aFS. A productive ball hawk, high motor player, and energetic tackler, the Senior Bowl star Grant has the makings to be a fan favorite in Cleveland for years to come.
 
60) New Orleans (Misery): WR Elijah Moore, Ole Miss #8
 
61) Buffalo (Antrob): IDL Levi Onwuzurike, Washington #95
One of the more glossed over storylines of the Bills 2020 season was their defensive regression. They lost a lot of talent in their front 7 to FA. This pick attempts to replenish the young talent in that area. Levi is quickly becoming a big riser in the draft as more people familiarize themselves w/ his 2019 film. He's a really talented defensive lineman who has the ability to develop into a potential every down force. He has a matured frame and plays with an explosiveness that jumps off on tape. In addition to his physical tools, he is also pretty advanced from a technical perspective as well, as he knows how to use his hands and understands the importance of filling space and occupying gaps. To me, in a relatively weak IDL class, he's one of the few prospects who could become something worth noting at the next level, mainly due to how well rounded he is. His natural athleticism, burst, quickness and get-off coupled with his technical refinements (hands, leverage, body control) give me confidence that he can effect the QB consistently in the passing game. Whereas his strength, quickness, instincts, length and leverage make me optimistic he can be good against the run in time as well.
 
62) Green Bay (herb): WR Amon-Ra St Brown, USC #8
 
TRADE: New England gives 2.31 (63), Philadelphia gives 3.06 (70), 4.09 (113), 2022 PHI 5th
63) Philadelphia (Salty): CB Eric Stokes, Georgia #27
I originally had the 70th overall pick in the draft, but I had not addressed one of the Eagles biggest needs yet in the draft; Cornerback. The Eagles have struggled with that position, and it has been a weak point of their defense the past few years. Greg Newsome II went a few picks before and I was getting worried that there wouldn't be a quality Corner available at my pick. Because of this fear, I traded up to pick 63. Admittedly, I overpaid. I gave up pick 70, the 4th round pick I got from the Broncos trade back, as well as a 2022 5th for pick 63, to the Patriots. This was an overpay, yet one with a reason, as it was used to secure a good Corner for the team.
Eric Stokes is a good Corner prospect who can be a day 1 starter who develops into a impact player for the Eagles. He is on the taller side at 6'1", and can play both man and zone well. He has some ball skill issues and you might see him not making some easy interceptions at the next level and can clean his technique up some, but hes a good prospect that is a bit of a steal at the end of the second round. With Stokes on the team the secondary will improve and might finally have some promise.
 
64) Kansas City (teutonic): LB Chazz Surratt, UNC #21
A converted QB, Surratt is another very toolsy player for the chiefs. I like the speed he plays with and he fits the mold of the 'modern' LB. He has a lot of work to do still but I think with the right coaching he can realize his potential.  
65) Jacksonville (Gmoney): CB Shaun Wade, Ohio St #24
 
66) NY Jets (stackingdollars): CB Elijah Moldin, Washington #3
Jets lack CB depth and arguably their best CB, Brian Poole, is a FA this year. Molden has great instincts, but is a little undersized, and can play ideally as a nickel CB. He thrives in zone coverage and is solid in run support. Molden can be a starter from day 1 and grow into the Saleh defensive system.
 
67) Houston (Kdelgado): T Teven Jenkins, Oklahoma St #73
 
68) Atlanta (jorjor): EDGE Quincy Roche, Miami #2
The falcons suck at edge and Quincy Roche is my favorite edge rusher available.
 
69) Cincinnati (Sliz): IDL Jay Tufele, USC #78
With Geno Atkins aging out a bit, and a potential cap casualty either this year or next, it was hard to pass on the top rated player on my board by a large margin (second time a USC player has slipped to my range). Tufele is a dominant player at the 3T with versatility to take snaps along the interior as needed. He offers value on all 3 downs, and gives a stud to slot in beside DJ Reader longterm. With the run on CBs and Edge players prior to our pick, Bengals take another pick to build the trenches.
 
70) New England (rgoing): IOL Quinn Meinerz, UW-Whitewater #77
Senior Bowl standout Quinn Meinerz gets selected, not many know about Wisconsin Whitewater since it is a D3 school. Meinerz impressed and dominated at the Senior Bowl, some scouts had him rising into the top 100 even the top 50 for best available players. Questions always rise when drafting a player at a lower level, I think the Senior Bowl eliminated any of those speculations for Mr. Meinerz. The Patriots love the value they have received with their pick!
 
71) Denver (paxton): LB Charles Snowden, Virginia #11
I was scared the patriots would pick him. Really good fit for their...ahem….organizational philosophy. Anyways, Maybe this is a bit of a reach, but it’s impossible for me to pass on Snowden. You can't teach his physical tools. A 6’7 defender who can play all over the front 7, paired with Vic Fangio? This is a bit of a risk, but its at a position of need for the Broncos and I believe his tools, ceiling and football IQ make it a risk worth taking.
 
72) Detroit (Zingy): S Jevon Holland, Oregon #8
 
73) Miami (tolgzz): WR Tylan Wallace, Oklahoma St #2
Miami selects WR Tylan Wallace to add yet another weapon for their QB they decided to stick with Tua. Tylan they feel slipped to their laps in this draft and believe he cant be a very solid weapon with good upside that has been overshadowed by an elite WR class.
 
74) Washington (klondike): CB Aaron Robinson, UCF #31
 
75) Dallas (spencerw): CB Ifeatu Melifonwu, Syracuse #23
I go defense for the third time in as many picks, I was hoping for an OT (not big on Radnunz) but none really fell the way I wanted, this is the second CB drafted but I see Ifeatu excelling way more as a S in the next level, this fills another hole Day 1 IMO and cleans up the secondary.
 
TRADE: NY Giants give 3.12 (76), New England gives 3.31 (95), 4.15 (120)
76) New England (rgoing): WR D'Wayne Eskridge, W Michigan #1
Patriots selected speedy receiver D’Wayne Eskridge out Western Michigan University. There were many questions why the Patriots waited to take a receiver until the 76th pick in the draft, Eskridge was the reason why! The former track star runs a (4.3 – 4.4) 40yd, putting him up as one of the fastest WR in the draft. There were a bunch of questions about the low level competition in the MAC, but D’Wayne showed he can go up against some of the best at the Senior Bowl this year. The idea is that D’Wayne can come in and be a starter day 1 on special teams returning kicks as well as a slot receiver.
 
77) voided
 
78) LA Chargers (run1609): T Dillon Radunz, NDSU #73
Was ecstatic to see Radunz at this pick. Has been training with the recently-retired Joe Staley all year and it showed at the Senior Bowl last week, where he was named OL of the week by his peers. The Chargers have no long-term pieces at OT and a ROTY that needs protecting. Radunz fits the bill perfectly.
 
79) Minnesota (beezus): S Hamsah Nasirildeen, FSU #23
 
80) Minnesota (beezus): IOL Josh Myers, Ohio St #71
At the top of the third round, the Vikings had 4 players they were targeting: jay tufele, Jevon Holland, Dillon radunz, and hamsah nasirildeen. Three of the four were gone by the time our picks came around, three out of the four were gone (whoever took Dillon radunz is a stupid dumb idiot head). After taking nasirildeen at 79, it came down to Myers and walker little. The Vikings ultimately went with Myers at 80, shying away from Little’s injury history. Myers offers a strong run blocking profile coming out of the gate, but is admittedly a work in progress in the pass game. Regardless, an upgrade over Dakota “turnstyle” dozier was needed, and Myers should be a day one improvement.
 
81) Las Vegas (jmah): S Paris Ford, Pitt #12
I searched Paris Ford on YouTube and he has a highlight vid with almost a million views. That’s a steal in the 3rd round.
 
82) Miami (tolgzz): IDL Tyler Shelvin, LSU #72
The Pick is In. Dolphins select IDL Tyler Shelvin, LSU. Miami adds a true nose tackle in Shelvin adding to their DL to help stop against the run. With Miami's plan to rotate DL Shelvin will be in during running downs where the Dolphins lack run stoppers on the DL.
 
83) Washington (klondike): RB Demetric Felton, UCLA #10
 
84) Carolina (cantstopthis): T Walker Little, Stanford #72
Little is a high upside prospect who has the potential to be one of the better tackles in this draft. With great size and length, Little is able to eliminate defenders from the play. He also has solid athleticism and can play in multiple schemes. With the Panthers oline being up in the air right now, it was important to take a guy who could protect Fields blindside.
 
TRADE: Indianapolis gives 3.21 (85), Cleveland gives 3.28 (92), 6.27 (212)
85) Cleveland (Huntington): S Keith Taylor, Washington #27
Taylor is a tall cornerback who isn’t afraid to tackle ball carriers or receivers. A senior, he’s athletic and has experience playing both man and zone coverage. Can stay with most receivers but will get burnt by speedsters one on one. Lack of any collegiate interceptions is concerning, but his size and coverage skills will earn him a role in any NFL secondary.
 
86) Tennessee (botlane): IDL Tedarrell Slaton, Florida #56
 
87) NY Jets (stackingdollars): LB Cameron McGrone, Michigan #44
The Jets LB group has a few question marks. CJ Mosley has pretty much had 2 years off from football, Neville Hewitt is a free agent, and Blake Cashman can’t stay healthy. McGrone can be a three down LB adding some depth and becoming a starter.
 
88) Pittsburgh (Fireblast): IOL Deonte Brown, Alabama #65
An absolutely huge frame at 6'4 350lbs, I believe Brown can be a solid Guard in the nfl, his size means that he can be a force both in pass and run blocking, and I think overall he can be a big peice of that aging O-line, perhaps replacing one of their current guards within the next year or 2.
 
89) San Francisco (Anc): EDGE Dayo Odeyingbo, Vanderbilt #10
Niners get good value here as Odeyingbo falls to them at 89. With a number of players departing in FA or victims of potential cuts across the DL, SF targets a versatile player who lined up both as a 3T and on the EDGE productively. Odeyingbo has great length which he knows how to use to his advantage to control his opponents, and has a high ceiling as a pass rusher. He has a strong club move and uses his athleticism to quickly close out on QBs once he gets free. Needs work to refine his pass rush attack, as the most common reps involve him relying on his length and burst. Against the run he has a lot of work to do, especially on the interior where his subpar pad level can get him blown up too often. Does do a good job at setting the edge. Overall, Odeyingbo is something of a project which isn't the best fit for the Niner's timeline but we didn't want to pass on good value at a position group of need.
 
90) Cleveland (Huntington): WR Dyami Brown, UNC #2
Tall, vertical receiver who had a highly productive collegiate career. Athletic with a great burst, he can get down the field and go after deep balls. An energetic blocker and able ball carrier, he’s a potential 3 down WR if he works on his release and route tree. Can contribute immediately and has starting WR potential.
 
91) Arizona (Brodie): CB Shakur Brown, Michigan St #29
 
92) Indianapolis (Viddstuff): WR Marlon Williams, UCF #6
With questions surrounding TY Hilton’s return, I decided to take a WR who could fill in in case TY leaves. While not a traditional slot Wr, Williams provides skill over the middle as a big slot wr, and will be a good target for any QB. He should get snaps early as a rookie.
 
93) Cleveland (Huntington): LB Jabril Cox, LSU #19
Tall, agile LB with superb coverage skills. A natural 4-3 OLB who fits the Browns scheme very well. Has the ability to cover TE or RB and has tremendous range and motor. Needs to learn how to take on and disengage blocks, but has the makings of a 3 down OLB who can do it all.  
94) Buffalo (Antrob): T Spencer Brown, N Iowa #76
After having a really good season Daryl Williams is set to hit FA. I think the Bills should prioritize re-signing him, but even at his best I wouldn't view him as a long term solution at RT. Spencer Brown is an interesting prospect who's recently gotten more attention after having a really nice week at the Senior Bowl. Standing at 6'8" he offers unique length and size at the Tackle position. He also has good mobility and a light, nimble lower half in which he still has the opportunity to fill out to really solidify his anchor which is already pretty decent. He plays with the 'mean streak' that you always want to see out of your OL. And as a small school guy, dominated his competition which you always want to see, which he parlayed into solidifying himself as a guy in the Senior Bowl against legitimate rushers. The hope would be that he and Dion Dawkins can be the anchors on the Bills edges in regards to protecting Josh Allen and opening up running lanes for Najee Harris for the next decade.
 
95) NY Giants (rubbersoul): EDGE Hamilcar Rashed, Oregon St #9
 
96) Kansas City (teutonic): EDGE Payton Turner, Houston #98
Turner is another player with an ideal frame that is raw. He is a big edge player with some positional versatility that should be able to take over for Kpassgnon.  
97) Tampa Bay (EFS): IOL Aaron Banks, Notre Dame #69
At 6'6", 330 lbs, Aaron Banks is a dependable, well-rounded, G who also has some experience playing at T. He's a smart player who frequently reaches the second level and neutralizes oncoming defenders. In Tampa Bay, he'll serve as a backup to Ali Marpet and serve as a welcome depth piece.
 
98) LA Chargers (run1609): LB Baron Browning, Ohio St #5
 
99) New Orleans (Misery): CB Israel Mukuamu, South Carolina #24
 
100) Dallas (spencerw): TE Brevin Jordan, Miami #9
I went with a piece I think can be utilized anywhere on the field besides wideout, he lined up all over the place at miami and was used a lot in pass/run blocking and route running, I wanted to go OT at some point but the board never really fell the way I wanted to so I decided to go with a high utility weapon for them to use
 
101) Tennessee: WR Seth Williams, Auburn #18
 
102) LA Rams (prime): EDGE Joshua Kaindoh, FSU #13
Floyd and Ebukam are free agents in 2021, and given the Rams’ relatively poor standing with the salary cap, it may make sense to try to get edge rushers early in the draft. Kaindoh fits the athletic mold of Floyd, and he has the length to give tackles fits whilst he develops his pass-rush arsenal over the next couple seasons.
 
103) San Francisco (Anc): CB Paulson Adebo, Stanford #11
 
TRADE: LA Rams gives 3.39 (103), Minnesota gives 4.14 (119), 6.15 (201)
104) Minnesota (beezus): IDL Tommy Togiai, Ohio St #72
tommy togaia profiles as a player who can offer year one upside as a run defender at the three tech with potential to develop as a pass rusher. This past year he logged 24 pressures and three sacks for the Buckeyes, and could continue to grow as a pass rusher under the tutelage of MN’s exceptional defensive coaching
 
105) Baltimore (oman): WR Damonte Coxie, Memphis #10
 
106) Saints (misery): EDGE Rashad Weaver, Pitt #17

I'm so glad I found this forum because I recently had a strange experience that I can't really explain and I have had nowhere to talk about it and no one to talk about it with until now.
I hope I explain it well enough. This is also my first ever Reddit post, so I hope it's acceptable for you all <3
Here goes:
My birthday is the 6th of October, and this last one was quite uneventful with one exception.
Let me first preface a little bit by saying that between 1-2 days before my birthday I had 3 different and unrelated people tell me "happy belated birthday", which I thought nothing of when the first person said it, but by the third time I was thinking maybe my birthday on my Facebook profile changed somehow. So I checked and it wasn't. It was set to show my correct birthday.
Fast forward to the night of the 4th, and my partner, after a long commute got home from work at 7pm and started complaining about a match with his favourite football (soccer) team. They are usually a very excellent team, and win majority of their matches. He was enthusiastically telling me they had lost against a team that was known to be not so stellar. He told me the score was 7-2, which he repeated several times throughout the night in disbelief. When this conversation happened I was sitting in the chair at our dining table and he was sitting on our 2-seater lounge about 2 metres (6ish feet) away.
Fast forward again to the next day, the 5th, and it's about 5pm, my partner had just gotten off work and sent me a screenshot of a score message saying that he was so upset that his favourite football team lost 7-2. I told him "yeah, don't you remember we had this conversation last night? They lost 7-2 because of " and he said "what conversation? I have no idea what you're talking about."
Needless to say I was confused at this point and thought he was acting strangely. What is he talking about!? We absolutely 100% had the conversation, there is zero doubt in my mind. I was there in person, it happened, it wasn't a dream.
So I pushed further and described what I remembered. He said "what are you on about?? That didn't happen. There's no way we talked about it last night. They didn't even play until 2am this morning."
So I furiously went onto Google to find the list of game times and to my shock, he was right! The only game that had the score result 7-2 was a match that was played that very morning at 2am my time. There was absolutely nothing the night before, when we clearly had that conversation. But I was the only one remembering it happened.
So that, coupled with the odd "belated" birthday wishes when it wasn't even my birthday yet made me kinda wonder if I was somehow glitched forward in time to a day later for a short period.
I'm still just as confused about it. He still also denies it happened, including where we were sitting.
TL;DR: Wibbly-Wobbly-Timey-Wimey - reality is weird - I experienced an event that apparently didn't happen until the day after.
Thanks for reading :)

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Content Warnings: Emotional abuse, manipulation, gaslighting, suicidal thoughts
Note: I wrote this horror story about three weeks ago. Since then, enough new horror on top has come to light about this DM to write another story of similar length, involving false rape allegations, sexual predation, demanding and controlling behaviour, turning friends against each other, lying about his day-to-day life and age to appear older than us, spreading false rumours about us to each other, pity-farming, exploiting another very vulnerable player to worship him, and much more. This is a story that just seems to get worse and worse the more our group of survivors talk about it. That said, I hope you enjoy this initial dose of horror. Happy reading.
I never imagined I’d be penning up the next story here. I’ve had my fair share of lite horror stories, sure: the nice-enough lad who wanted to play an excessively edgy Prototype-inspired homebrew class for Waterdeep Dragon Heist, the duergar wizard who had an obsession with Prestidigitation and cleaning soiled objects to the point of screaming at the DM about whether or not a bag of holding had a bottom to it, the barbarian altering his Roll20 sheet settings and macros to add hard-to-catch bonuses to his rolls, etc… but never anything bad enough to justify a full vent piece here.
Yet I finally had one: the worst one, involving me realising a former 'serious, abusive problem player' of our group - someone who wrote up a popular story here ('DM ruins Curse of Strahd by adding his Sorcadinlock Self Insert who’s “coincidentally” also Strahd’s brother') - wasn’t actually a problem player at all, and was right in it about many things. They were totally justified to be as pissed off as they were. Unsettlingly, I realised I’d helped enable horror-story behaviour towards that poor player myself and become an accomplice without even realising it. For reference to u/newt__noot's HorrorStory linked above, we're talking about the same DM here (named 'Rob' in Newt's story).
This is a really big story with a lot to unpack, given this has come from years and years of many campaigns with the same problem DM. I’ll try to condense it as much as I can into sections. For context’s sake, know that we’ve often identified these problems with the DM before and tried to diplomatically raise them as his friend and fellow player, and nine times out of ten been shot down hard for it and made to feel guilty or as if we’re irrational for seeing the issue or thinking of it as such.
So. Context time, my friends. I write wordy, with apologies in advance, so snuggle up with some cocoa and a blanket.
I’ve played D&D for many years. The man who helmed most of my groups is, for the sake of exchanged names, called Alex in this story. For the last five years, Alex has been the first man I’ve met who I can genuinely say I’d take a bullet for. He taught me how to write fiction, be a great Dungeon Master, and though we weren’t of blood, called me his brother. I grew up in a not-so-great household, and so did he. When he told me he considered us that close, I cried. I cried like a baby with joy and felt seen and loved for weeks, and finally knew what a life-long friendship as an adult was supposed to feel like. Only a cult leader could hope to compete with his incredible charisma, and he always became crowned by everyone as the ‘Group Dad’ of every D&D and friendship group we formed. He was only two years older than any of us, or so we thought, but had the incredible wisdom, insight and maturity of a man far older. He was creative, intelligent, and the sort of guy who could give you lectures on random topics for hours and have you captivated the entire time.
For the first few years, he was a wonderful friend. He was supportive, caring, loyal, and we loved him. We all got him gifts and made tokens of affection for him, and he did so back. And he was an incredible writer. His worldbuilding, character voices, NPCs and descriptions felt on-par with Matt Mercer, and I don’t say that lightly. We often fawned over how we felt we had our very own Critical Role at points. However, we had problems - for one, games never lasted. We got through twenty-four in the last three years. Most were Alex’s. A good chunk were mine that Alex convinced me to stop running, despite the rest of the group wanting to keep playing them (except one. One was pretty crummy. We were all okay with that one going). I can name every single one and what they were about, if I sit down to list them. Each and every one lasted either only one or two sessions, or never started at all. In almost every case, we had those sessions, loved them and our characters, and Alex turned around afterwards and gave a seemingly-compelling excuse as to why we couldn’t do that one anymore - or, turned to me when I DM’d, and spent hours justifying to me why my game was bad and how despite the others loved it, I needed to shut it down, ‘be a player for a while’, and make a new one ‘in the future’ (read: repeat this all over again one month from now).
Ironically, this cycle is what’s caused us to finally wake up and realise the true issues we’ve had with our group. It’s only with the sheer exhaustion and apathy towards D&D we’ve developed as a result that it’s become apparent there’s problems. Each of us have made enough characters to, for each player individually, populate entire taverns. Every single one of them was lovingly crafted, had full backstories, completed sheets, planned potential development arcs, roleplay plans with fellow players, theme tunes picked out, the full shebang. Every single one of them has not been used for any longer than two sessions, except for one unusually long-lived game where we mercifully got a whopping 25 sessions… and then Alex said he didn’t want to run it anymore, and wouldn’t allow anyone else to take the DM’ing role on it, given that it was his world and it ‘wouldn’t feel right’ given he wanted to use it for a book.
Whenever we asked to reuse these aborted characters, we were firmly told no, with only one exception ever being made. Alex always wanted to try new genres and ideas not everyone was really on board with, but we went along with because he was a good enough narrator to make them interesting, but even if a new game was in the same genre as the last, reusing characters wasn’t allowed. Yes, even if we hadn’t played a single session with them. Alex made new worlds with every campaign, spending entire weeks worldbuilding down to entire personality profiles and written physical descriptions for every NPC (and insisting this was the only way to DM properly for me, showing me incredible disapproval whenever I used a more improv-heavy DM’ing style and telling me I wasn’t going about it right). Whenever he made these worlds, you had to make an entirely new character to fit that world. No redos. Suffice it to say, all of us ran out of character ideas quickly, and eventually simply didn’t want to make characters anymore.
That’s the core issue, so feel free to stop reading there if that’s already a lot. But, if you’re hungry for more, there’s more, all in the delightful flavours of gaslighting, manipulation and general emotional abuse. God knows I have the need to get it all out in writing at this point, so if you do read on, I hope this is both enjoyable and serves as insight into some serious and harder-to-read red flags than your typical stories. I’ll write up the problems we faced and stories in sections from here.
​
1.) “Your game will fail unless you only run it for 10 sessions, tops. Otherwise, it’s doomed. You might as well cancel if you don’t want to do that, because I know your style, and you’re not the sort of DM who can manage a big game.”
Alex runs his games in a very ‘compact’ way, taking modules of D&D and crunching them down to about ten or so sessions. Whenever we raised concerns about this, he’d always insist that this was the way our group needed to run these games, or we’d ‘lose interest and the campaign would collapse’. The result of this was a heavily railroaded, watered-down version of D&D where our characters were funnelled into situations we didn’t truly get a say in.
Alex always seemed to initially support and enjoy my campaigns. He was incredibly helpful from a mentoring standpoint and gave me no end of advice that, honestly, was very good in the early years. I attribute much of my players’ happiness in my games to his lessons. Though the advice became more questionable in recent years, he always told me he enjoyed my worlds a lot and wanted to play in them.
However, in the last two years, five of the games I’ve run have seen the same cycle occur. Alex joins as a player for session one with a beautifully thought-out character and decked-out character sheet. The characters are almost always a bit edgy and reflect some of his personal flaws, but that’s okay. We all often made characters like that. It doesn’t harm anyone and can actually be quite fun, especially for the player, so I allow it. They usually have a good chunk of reflavouring to bend the rules. Again, totally okay; it’s small things like allowing for STR-modifiers on bows, like Pathfinder’s Composite Longbows, or having a rope wound round their starting spear so they can pull it back after throwing. A lot of the reflavours are really cool, and reflect Alex’s talent for building interesting and compelling characters off the bat.
We play session one. It’s usually well-liked with some small issues that get brought up, oftentimes pacing. Alex had us run this routine for a long time of giving reviews of sessions when they were done, rating them out of ten and giving likes and dislikes. If the session scored an aggregate score of 80% of less between all players, whether it was him or me DM’ing, he considered it a failure and made his views known through his behaviour and how he spoke to you afterwards. If session one of my games were very successful and loved by all, he’d stick around for another. If a single session beyond that was ever simply ‘good’ or ‘great’ rather than ‘outstanding’, he’d be very cold, then lose all his enthusiasm and go very quiet about the game.
Then, he’d make excuses about not being able to attend for the next sessions. I’d often try and postpone to accommodate him (much to the others’ frustration when it became more common to postpone than actually play), and he’d quite fairly insist on having the group run without him - but he was my mentor. He was the one who supported me and taught me to DM. Honestly, I was quite codependent on him in an unhealthy way, much like all of us to a smaller extent. At the time, I felt I needed him to see and approve of my campaigns to be truly happy.
Eventually though, it didn’t matter what I did. After enough weeks or months had passed (and especially quickly if I began running sessions without Alex, as per his suggestion), Alex would pop into my DMs out of nowhere and begin suggesting I kill my own campaigns that he hadn’t played in for any longer than the openings.
Alex stuck around in my games for no longer than two sessions, and that wasn’t even continuous. Each time, he successfully convinced me to kill the campaign afterwards. I always hard a sharp reaction of “What?! Why? No!” to him at first, but then he’d start talking. “It had a weak start”, “You can do better”, “They don’t really like your game. I know what they like, so-and-so does this when they like a game and did you see them do that in yours?”, “The other players will understand. You’re the DM, too! Your fun matters!”. Every time, I was steadily made, usually over private voice calls that lasted multiple hours, to believe that I didn’t enjoy my own games. In truth, I actually enjoyed them plenty and loved them dearly until Alex started working that Natural 20 Persuasion of his.
It wasn’t until the fifth one where two of my players, rightfully so, confronted me. I’d run eight sessions without Alex, and they were having a lot of fun with the game. It was the furthest we’d ever gotten in one of my games with Alex hovering around our server. The two players both adored their characters. They had a LOT of roleplay planned out. They had been fawning over the world. They were sick of me letting Alex cancel their games over, and over, and over again.
They demanded an explanation from me. I began very calm and thought they were acting irrationally, running Alex’s reasonings through my mind. Alex was preparing to run his own game (again) and had spent three months prepping for it. Yes, this game later crashed and died after two sessions solely because Alex refused to run it again despite us asking for more, but at the time, Alex had convinced me this was the One:™: that would survive… again. Alex told me it would be selfish to continue with my game if we ran frequently at all, such as a weekly or biweekly schedule, as it would ‘take the focus away from [his] game’. In his words, “the only way you can do this without quite frankly sacrificing this new game I’ve worked on is to run it once a month, if that, maybe once every three months.” He calmly and gently, in that all-too-rational voice, described to me that it’s only natural that players in two or three games at once would naturally like one more than the other. If they liked my game more, his efforts would be wasted. My game had less work put into it than his given I clearly didn’t work as hard as he did on my worlds, which he’d spend countless hours daily for months on, and so it wasn’t fair to him for me to take the spotlight away from his new campaign. Equally, another player was running an ailing game that we both knew and admitted to each other sadly was not going to last due to their personal circumstances, but Alex insisted that I’d be doing that player a disservice by taking the light off their game, too.
My players questioned me, having a hunch that Alex was the reason I’d cancelled yet another game, and I proved them right by parroting this rhetoric to them. They felt extremely hurt I put Alex’s feelings ahead of theirs and challenged every word, and not without reason. As I had the conversation, I gradually found myself stopping short of sentences, losing my train of thought - everything I was repeating from Alex to placate my players was making less and less sense. I felt myself getting angry and upset mid-conversation as I realised I’d killed a campaign that my players and I loved for no real good reason, and upset them and myself deeply as a result. I logged off shortly after.
Without inserting personal problems too much into this, it’s worth noting I do have moderate depression. It’s thankfully on the mend and I’m managing it well. The reason I mention it is because that night was the last time I experienced a severe suicidal episode, and made plans to end my life. I’m a very sensitive person naturally, but my codependence with him put me in a position where I realised I couldn’t get out of it without upsetting my players or Alex. Alex was still in my head after I sided with him, though, and I found myself feeling heart-wrenched and guilty. I saw myself as the bad guy who was damaging Alex’s beloved new game and being a poor friend to our fellow player who ran their own. I took his reasoning as truth, and it made me believe I was a bad enough, inconsiderate person to not deserve to continue my life. Thankfully, I ended up in hospital and got further support and help for my state, and was home by the following afternoon.
Sadly enough, Alex was already then in a state of barely messaging any of us, or taking literally weeks to reply to us. My best friend, who I felt owed me a serious apology but I couldn’t stand up to, never learned nor to this day knows he put me in hospital overnight with his selfishness. It makes me furious to this day, and I’m no longer convinced he would even care if he learned that. We now believe Alex simply never wanted anyone else to DM; or, at least, DM successfully. He wasn’t exactly supportive of our mutual friend’s campaign, either.
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2.) “Considering you clearly can’t take down his challenge alone, like ALL your challenges, my DMPC/the random inconsequential NPC finishes off the BBEG for you.”
Secondly, Alex had a severe issue with deus ex machina. Overpowered supportive NPCs we never asked for help from were used over and over again to make our player characters feel clownish, and destroyed our own hopes for and perceptions of them. He had an intensely-ingrained philosophy of applying JRPG mechanics or design ideas from his favourite recently-played video games into his D&D campaigns, and designed them quite literally as if he was a director on such a project.
Alex introduced various restrictive, arbitrary video-gamey mechanics into his campaigns that destroyed our immersion and punished us for things we had no agency to control. In one recent game, we had a period of time - a week - to resolve a serious incoming invasion of an army upon the capital city of the setting. We were level 3, and this was our first quest as a party, the hook being that we were prophesied heroes who everyone looked upon with great awe and expectations. We were told that for every day we did something to prepare, we would be forced to take an ‘off-day’ where we were physically incapable of doing anything to prepare. No reason was given. Later, we were told a consequence of ‘our actions’ were that the people of the city considered us lazy and were growing restless with the fact we were sitting around and doing nothing, despite the fact Alex had insisted we must spend those days essentially jacking off in a tavern with nothing better on our minds. We weren’t even allowed to roleplay during these off-days or handle downtime tasks. It was a small thing, but each of us felt frustrated. Our characters wouldn’t have sat around doing nothing, or if they did need a rest, they would’ve used that time to talk and get to know each other better, considering they’d only just met and needed to work together on an impossible-seeming suicide mission. As such, we were incredibly unsatisfied. Any attempts at roleplaying were often cut short and we were ushered along very quickly to the ‘next bit of content’ before we could exchange any more than a couple of sentences.
And don’t get me started on feeling useless or clownish. We told Alex out of character that we loved his DMPC’s personality and characterisation, because it was legit really good. Remember, Alex was an truly amazing storyteller and great actor. However, we didn’t want him to one-up us. If he had a DMPC, he was a fellow player and had the same limitations as a player. “I promise,” Alex had told us.
At level 11, Alex hurled a CR 27 custom dragon at us for a chase sequence that we only survived because his DMPC stopped the carriage and cut a mountain in half with his sword. For reference, this is the first time we, as players, had ever faced a dragon in his games, and the fucking thing was more jacked statblock-wise than an Ancient Red Dragon. I saw it. This thing would wipe a level 20 party. It would rival Tiamat. This wasn’t an encounter we were supposed to stumble into, Alex insisted, but beforehand, he had made a hidden roll and made a small awkward laugh as if he’d randomly gotten it on a random encounter table. I’ve co-DM’d with Alex before. Alex does not use random encounter tables. He had the statblock ready to go in our Roll20 while we were level 11, and he doesn’t fill in stats unless he expects to use that creature soon. He often forced us into ridiculously dangerous fights where we’d need outside help to win and could never handle problems for ourselves. This was deliberate, and I firmly believe that, though I have honestly no clue why except to further highlight how weak our party was compared to his DMPC and saviour NPCs.
During the final battle of the first arc of that game, level 10, his same DMPC fought the final boss by himself while half the party were in a basement fighting a much weaker henchman whose CR no longer posed us a threat, then barely escaping a stupidly high escape-DC instant death explosion as a ‘cool set piece’ that felt more like an unnecessary, unfair death trap to ‘up the stakes’. We got up top just in time to see him move into a pocket dimension where he claimed each strike he made against the BBEG was for us. It was absolutely insulting. We had the entire final boss and BBEG stolen from us and relegated to a DMPC’s personal moment. We were cool with DMPCs getting their own arcs and personal moments, but not that, dear fucking god. If it’d been another party member getting to 1v1 the final boss from the get-go until victory then we’d be just as upset. This was supposed to be a group challenge.
Two of our characters never even saw the BBEG’s face during the entire campaign. Before that game died, I’d actually intended to bring it up in roleplay - “huh, what did that guy even look like? I never actually saw him.” Cheeky, I know, but we were all getting upset. That said, Alex proclaimed himself a forever DM (partially now we realise because he never could accept that other DMs don’t tend to run how he does and feels the need to always do it himself), and the guilt of telling him he couldn’t or shouldn’t get to roleplay as a DMPC was too thick for us to deal with at that time. His life was in a shit place. This was one of the few things that made him happy. Nobody wanted to be the one to tell him his precious hero was overpowered and too much. Do that, and you become the asshole of the group. You make things awkward.
Alex’s character was a Paladin-Sorcerer-Warlock multiclass at one point. Roleplay reasoning? None. No, literally none. I can see the Sorcerer side a teeny bit, sure. But he took no Oath or Pact at any point. He just suddenly had the full class switchup after a solo fight scene earlier in the campaign with the BBEG (it lasted twenty minutes. Yes, we sat and watched. Yes, that was more okay to us - again, we approved for him to have some sort of personal moment here and there, but it was frustrating that he was getting the bulk of the interaction with the BBEG even back then). He came to me, knowing I liked my build theorycrafting and number-crunching, and asked me for a powerful nova class build. I suggested it the Paladin-Sorcerer-Warlock and suggested Order Of The Stick if he wanted to know more, but joked that he’d need to be careful given how powerful it was and that it might make us all feel useless. He insisted he’d take it easy, did his research, respecc’d his character from barbarian, and then proceeded to blow everything up whilst acting very stunned and surprised at the table at his own damage output.
He later reclassed to Rogue, but then proceeded to still do similar nova damage by conveniently ignoring the “one Sneak Attack per round” limitation with his self-given magic item that gave multiple strikes, claiming his character ‘had something that let him do that’. This meant his character was frequently dealing about 50 damage per round without crits at level 8 when most of us didn’t have magical weapons yet, and were still using starting gear except for the odd trinket.
He gave himself a Vestige of Divergence (a scaling, personalised unique magic weapon tailored for the character from Critical Role) before any other member of the party. And boy, did he get is EARLY. Very, very early. We’d each been promised one ‘eventually’ at my own suggestion to Alex, and we were all very excited. What wonderful, flavourful and personalised artifacts would we each be getting our hands on? I hoped for a cool cane or walking stick. I was told no, you’re getting a staff. Alright, okay, sure. It’s still going to be personalised and unique and implement my character’s personality and story arcs in its design, right?
Only one other party member ever got one. By the time they did, Alex’s DMPC’s Vestige had already Awakened (hit tier 2 out of 3 in terms of power) and gave him ridiculous abilities and bonuses (+2 CHA, +2 to-hit and damage, additional damage dice on-hit, ranged attacks with 8d6 damage per short rest, other assorted abilities) that elevated him far above the rest of us. Even worse, the one party member who did get one got an axe that was barely better than his non-magical starting one and had an incredibly niché blood-tracking ability that didn’t make much sense for the character’s playstyle, nor would likely ever come up in play more than once. Though thematically suited to the character, by comparison functionally, it was a joke of a weapon.
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3.) “Fiction is reality with the boring bits taken out. So, no downtime, money or resting when you want to.”
Thirdly, Alex’s condensed style meant half of D&D 5e went out the window. Resting was bizarre. During a two-week ship journey across an ocean that our characters were forced into when his DMPC became king of a player character’s tribe (which said player character should’ve been king of at that point, by the way - this is also the player who received the borderline-useless Vestige of Divergence axe), we weren’t allowed a long rest. Why? “For the sake of this journey, you need to be somewhere safe to rest.” We were on a caravan of longboats with sheltered bedding quarters and allied warriors! You’re telling us we can’t have 8 hours to sleep once in those two weeks and get our resources back?!
We never saw money, ever. None of us ever had more than 150 gold pieces in our pockets. NPCs didn’t pay us because we didn’t ‘do quests’, we were ferried along a storyline where we weren’t ever employed by NPCs but instead always chasing a BBEG with no promise of pay except for magic items dropped by powerful foes along the way: like a video game. This wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that in the one game that survived for a time, Alex’s DMPC was given 5,000 gold pieces for free despite having no use for it except getting to say he was richer than the rest of us. Shopping came up exactly once in that campaign and never again, and the party were financially indebted to his character whenever payments came up. This meant many spells, items, downtime activities and such were off the table, and many spells or items were utterly useless. Rest encounters never came up, so Alarm, Leomund’s Tiny Hut and clever trap or camouflage techniques had no use here (but Alex still let you waste spell/item choices on them without a word). We never got to have cushy campfire roleplay as a casual, on-a-whim thing. Considering we never decided where to go or what to do and were told when we needed to seek a tavern for rest, money became an object of ‘how much do you want to have your wallet taxed to stay in this next chapter of Alex’s book overnight?’. Travel was turned into a minigame using yet another arbitrary video-game esque system that, ironically enough, slowed it down to a crawl and made roleplaying with each other during the travel very difficult due to how it split the party and made them go do very different things, very far away from each other.
Many spells didn’t work or had their effects handwaved away. During a travel minigame, we had to hunt for food - our Druid realised they had Create Food and Water prepared specifically because travel was ahead, and happily pitched using it to, as per the spell, create enough food to sustain us. The DM realised this would mean no hunting DC check and no chance of failure because of intelligent planning and expending limited resources, so naturally, he told the Druid that the spell ‘wouldn’t sustain you for the journey’. When the Druid mentioned they could cast it every day, the “you can’t long rest for weeks” bullshit arose again. Oh no, you all slept, you just don’t gain spell slots back or anything until I say so. For clarification, there was no prior discussion or agreement for this random, unexpected switch to what was essentially Gritty Realism long rest rules (or worse than gritty realism, considering the time was often two weeks instead of one for the rest). We were just informed it was the case when we tried to play the game as we expected it.
Many spells were banned at higher levels. I played a Wizard for it, and Alex didn’t like the Wizard. He didn’t like the fact they could bypass his encounters with clever problem solving, despite the fact it’s a core appeal of the class and requires limited resources and creative thinking to do so. Of course, I wasn’t aware of this until we were already too far into the game to make a change, and it wasn’t because Alex said so; it’s because of how he treated the Wizard as a class. It wasn’t until I hit level 13 and was genuinely excited to use spells like Magnificent Mansion for roleplay (my character wanted to give the gift of a custom-designed, comfortable home to our party) that Alex told me such spells were banned. Here’s a few and the reasonings why.
Magnificent Mansion: Our party travelled around in a carriage. I wanted to use this to show off my character’s growing mastery of the arcane and finally prove themselves as USEFUL to the party, giving them the beautiful gift of a comfortable home - something many of them had said in roleplay they wanted someday. It would be wonderful progression and open up great roleply. Alex said no. He wanted the party to be stuck in the dingy, rotten carriage that is owned by his DMPC for ‘thematic reasons’.
Illusory Dragon: One of the few lategame illusion spells. Was told I’d be allowed to use it as a ‘cool final attack’ in combat exactly once, “maybe in a big boss as a combo attack with another player or something, because it’ll become boring if you reuse it”.
Mirage Arcane: Another lategame illusion spell I’d been pumped for for a very long time. Was told no when the time came to choose my 7th-level spells, because shaping the terrain around us would trivialise his travel minigame and make the navigation DC almost impossible to fail - as if it wouldn’t be resource expenditure, a form of problem solving inherent to my chosen class and subclass specialism, and part of the expected adventuring solutions a Tier 3 play party may employ.
In case you can’t tell, being locked out of the most exciting spells in the game sucked a lot of the fun and excitement out of playing what had been becoming my favourite class for me. I had mostly no damage-dealing options and was specc’d to be all about utility, but I was already deliberately avoiding spells like Simulacrum, Clone, Contingency and Magic Jar so as to not be difficult for Alex. These bans were on top of my own self-imposed limitations. Ironically, Alex criticised that my spellbook didn’t have a lot of illusion spells at one point considering I was supposed to be an illusionist. Gee, thanks, Alex. It’s not like my Silent Images, Minor Illusions and Major Images have not worked even once because all your enemies have traits to hard-counter them, and you’ve banned all my interesting options at higher level until I’m stuck taking Chain-fucking-Lightning on my happy-go-lucky pacifist Wizard who doesn’t want to hurt anyone. Even worse, we never saw a single spell scroll or spellbook. I didn’t get to scribe any new spells. I was playing a worse Sorcerer who did nothing of value in combat. I could not have felt less useless or happy in my class choice - it was the first time I’d played a Wizard, and I desperately wanted to play a utility/support caster who helped solve problems without resorting to violence all the time. I realised very quickly that didn’t fit with Alex’s JRPG game design and the railroad forcing us into combat for ‘pacing reasons’. In his words; “No, no. I’ll be real here, think about it - we’ve tried ‘classic’ D&D. You don’t like classic D&D, not really. Our table wants a quicker game with proper pacing, whether or not you realise it now.”
I still vividly recall a pre-established PvP scenario where myself and one other characters (a Wizard and a Druid respectively, Level 10) were placed in an arena with a newly-introduced PC after a character death. This new PC started as a servant of the BBEG and needed to be fought and convinced to fight for us, with Alex and the player working together on an admittedly very cool boss fight sort of deal. We went in with the awareness that the Boss-PC would, in this area, have Lair Actions, Legendary Resistance and the full shebang. We were also clearly informed in advance that the Boss-PC had permission to kill our characters if it made sense.
We beat the Boss-PC by the skin of our teeth, but the debate after was tense. My Druid friend was down and I needed a way to guarantee her safety so I could stabilise her before she died. Afraid my not-so-charismatic Wizard wouldn’t be able to convince the Boss-PC to be nice before she bled out, I realised he had no Legendary Resistances left and pulled what I thought would be the perfect move - Sleep. He had a smattering of hit points left. No Legendary Resistance, no save. It was guaranteed to work, and meant a minute of time to get the Druid up, be safe, and then restrain and wake up the Boss-PC to have a full conversation with them - ask them who they were, have some fun roleplay, make it a memorable moment where they come aboard the team. It’d also mean the Druid’s player would get to be a part of the roleplay of convincing our new party member to join us, and I wanted to include them on this cool moment.
“... and I cast Sleep.”
Instead, Alex immediately guffaws laughing, and so does the Boss-PC player, wheezing and shouting “NO! OOHHHH, NO! NO! NO, YOU IDIOT! YOU JUST KILLED [the Druid]! WHY DID YOU DO THAT? THAT WAS SO STUPID! YOU HAD IT! YOU HAD IT! YOU THREW IT AWAY!”. These two knew my sensitive spot is having my intelligence insulted. I don’t think I’m a very smart person. In fact, I’m very, very self-conscious about it, and they know fully well how much that very-much-not-joking statement would hurt. In the moment, I became furious, horrified that Alex had just twisted the rules to give favouritism to the Boss-PC at the end of the fight to make the Druid’s now all-but-guaranteed death my fault - make me look like a clown who messed up.
I asked to retcon the move if that was the case and said ‘it’s bullshit otherwise’, and Alex immediately dropped the laughter and took on a dark tone. It was a clear-cut ‘you’ve fucked up’ tone. “No. I’m the DM. What I say, goes. If I’m bending the rules, that’s what I’m doing. I’ll let you take it back, but don’t you dare say that’s bullshit. It’s not.”
Alex never apologised for this. The Boss-PC player taunted me after the game and further insulted me by saying it was a stupid thing to do, rubbing it in that it almost got my fellow player’s beloved character killed. Worst of all, I felt like the bad guy afterwards, again. I left a completely heartfelt and self-flagellating apology in Alex’s DMs that was paragraphs long, to which I received a simple, cold ‘Just make sure it doesn’t happen again. It was very disruptive’.
At the time, everyone was on board with Alex, because it was Alex. Of course they were. I would’ve been if it was another player at the table. Now, after we’ve removed ourselves from his influence, the other players have come to see my side of events. I actually posted a story on DnD about it a while back asking for advice on how to better handle DM rulings like that personally, and received no shortage of comments telling me my DM sounded like a bad egg and that they’d be mad too. At the time, of course, I dismissed them and responded with ‘no no, you don’t understand! He’s an AMAZING DM!”.
Later shenanigans involving making our characters feel clownish or useless beyond not being able to ever achieve anything on their own include;

• Retconning in a crowd of people to visibly watch me cast Mass Suggestion, who were not implied to be there previously, so as to make my character HATED by the local community and vilified for mind-controlling their friends - something that got rubbed in both in- and out-of-character.
• Forcing a character to kill an innocent NPC ‘by accident’ with one ever so slightly failed roll, and then not allowing roleplay time afterwards to have the character express their thoughts or discuss the event with their party.
• Usurping the grand reward of a player character’s personal quest arc by instilling his own DMPC as the new leader of that character’s tribe.
• Often designing enemies to be immune to our parties’ spellcasters specialisms (elemental damage and illusions, the latter of which enemies ALWAYS saw through or resisted the effects of, no matter what), eventually introducing an entire faction of mecha-suits that had permanent and infallible anti-magic fields around them
• Ruling the Wild Magic Surge feat actually cancels the spell you originally intended to cast but still consumes the spell slot, hard-nerfing the character for something that was supposed to be flavourful and fun
• Insisting on rolling the Wild Magic Surge table himself, privately, and rerolling whenever he got a boring (read: positive for the playeparty) result - combined with the above point, this made the character an incredible liability to the party and manifested in much of the party not trusting the character to do anything, and treating them like a child, destroying the vision for the character
• Having an NPC shittalk a PC for issues Alex had with the IRL player, breaking the fourth wall and making them feel incredibly unwelcome at the table - yes, we all picked up on it
• Not giving the party any time to roleplay after deeply impactful or personally traumatic events; party member freshly resurrected from the dead for the first time ever? No, you just focus on travel wordlessly for the next two weeks. They don’t get to talk about the experience until almost a month later when I say “you now have roleplay time”, because that makes sense.
• As mentioned previously, not letting some party characters even ever see the BBEG or be personally involved in taking them down. The worst case of this was, as a clue, a BBEG who had the entire module named after him.

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We're not even done yet. Told you this was a long one! I'll post the second half shortly and provide a link to it here.