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  • Why are enemy color pairs less "cohesive"?


    It seems to be common knowledge that enemy color pairs in Magic have less synergy than allied pairs. As an example, the highest score question on the site, What are the names for Magic's different colour combinations?, asserts without explanation that allied color pairs have "higher deck cohesion". Then it repeats this claim in explaining why wedges are generally less often seen than shards. But I don’t really understand why. It seems to me that every color pair offers something different, and many enemy color pairs seem very cohesive to me. The current meta in multiple formats seems to support this.

    In standard the most popular deck right now according to MTG Goldfish is Izzet Prowess. And the 2 most popular modern decks are Boros Energy and Izzet Prowess.

    I haven’t played much Canadian Highlander, but watching LRR’s North 100 podcast, it seems Jeskai is the most powerful color combination in that format.

    It doesn’t seem like an outlier when multiple formats of varying power levels are dominated by enemy color pairs and wedges. Izzet Prowess seems like a very synergistic deck built off the payoff for slinging a lot of cheap spells. Boros Energy in Modern seems built off the back of several very powerful cards some of which happen to have Energy. But to me, Red and White offer a lot to each other. Red provides reach in the form of direct damage and card selection with rummage/impulse draw effects, while White is a better at going wide and gives non-damage based removal to deal with high toughness or non-creature threats.

    Perhaps I am somewhat conflating power and cohesion, as my examples rely on high performing decks. And I do want to acknowledge that there is a bit of a bias with my examples, perhaps Boros and especially Izzet are just particularly well suited to each other among enemy pairs. However, other color pairs seem similarly synergistic to me. Simic pairs the card draw of Blue with the ramp of Green for a powerful big mana deck. Orzhov pairs the go wide power of White with the sacrifice theme of Black to be the backbone of many aristocrats builds. Golgari pairs the powerful mill and graveyard effects of Green and Black giving a powerful, recursive engine. All the enemy color pairs have a very solid synergy built in, in my opinion.

    So can someone please explain where this seemingly common conception that allied pairs are more "cohesive" comes from?



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  • Elden Ring Nightreign’s been out less than a day, and a Souls legend is already showing off a duos mod demo for it, because of course they are

    Elden Ring Nightreign’s been out less than a day, and a Souls legend is already showing off a duos mod demo for it, because of course they are


    Boy, that escalated quickly. Elden Ring Nightreign, as I write this, has been out less than a day. So, of course someone’s already put out a video demonstrating a duos mod for it.

    To be fair, I guess Nightreign’s devs had arguably thrown down the gauntlet to the FromSoft modding community when the game’s director admitted that duos play hadn’t been a big focus in development and would only potentially get some TLC further down the line.

    Anyway, modder Yui – that’s the same person responsible for Elden Ring‘s Seamless Co-op mod and its various siblings for other FromSoft games – is unsurprisingly the person who’s managed to whip this out in uber-quick fashion.

    In the video below spotted by IGN, they demonstrate a mod that’d allow you to hop into a Nightreign session with just two players instead of the usual three or one plucky solo Soulser that’ll have a much easier time once the next patch drops.

    Watch on YouTube

    “As the modification runs without connecting to the matchmaking server, it is possible to use additional mods during gameplay,” Yui explained in the vid’s description, adding that they “Made it for fun.”

    As of right now, they’ve not released this mod to the public meaning you can’t play it. I’d imagine if they do intend to put it out that it’s currently a work-in-progress that’ll need a lot of extra graft to fine-tune the likes of balancing – that being the main thing FromSoft’s had to work on in order to make sure the game works just as well for solo players as it does trios.

    After all, more stabby blokes, more stabs inflicted on bosses, therefore bosses need to be able to take more stabs to not die too easily, and vice versa.

    If you’re going HAM on Nightreign this weekend, make sure to check out our bunch of handy guides to help you get to grips with it, and our ranking of every Nightlord, The latter’s based on key factors like difficulty, spectacle, and how often they brush their teeth.



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  • How likely are you to lose because Fool’s Landing sinks into the abyss?


    Since I like probability questions, and tttpp brought it up, I figured it might be interesting to calculate how likely you are to lose on the first turn in Forbidden Island, because Fool’s Landing sinks into the abyss. This question is only interested in figuring the odds of losing the game during the first players turn. It would be slightly more difficult to figure the odds of losing during the first round, where each player has taken one turn at most. If this question gets enough attention, I might decide to ask that question and figure out the odds. To figure out the odds of losing, you will need to calculate the following:

    • What are the odds that the first player cannot shore up Fool’s Landing? (depends upon the first player’s character, their starting location, and Fool’s Landing location)
    • What are the odds that no player has received a Sandbag/Helicopter (depends upon number of players)
    • What are the odds that a Waters Rise card is drawn?
    • What are the odds that Fool’s Landing is redrawn after Waters Rise? (difficultly level effects this)

    What are the odds range of losing on the first turn for a 2-4 Player game? Calculate each individual component separately, and then provide a range of maximum/minimum odds of losing on the first turn based upon the individual components above. Assume the following:

    • The all players will attempt to shore up Fool’s Landing. (use Sandbags/Helicopter)
    • The default island map is used.
    • The first player and their character are randomly determined, per the rules.
    • Ignore the odds of losing because a player sinks into the abyss. (optional:)
    • Ignore the odds of losing because both tiles for a particular treasure sink into the abyss. (optional)

    Note: Calculate this if you want, but I am not uninterested in the minimal effect on the result of losing first turn.



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  • How Board Games are Made — Pine Island Games

    How Board Games are Made — Pine Island Games



    A lot goes into making a board game. From design to development, marketing and of course manufacture. In the past I wrote about the distribution pipeline (see our article: Supply Chain A-Z), and decided that it might be helpful to dig a little deeper into the actual process of manufacturing a board game.





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  • Are the utilities worth buying?

    Are the utilities worth buying?


    In Monopoly, there are two utilities. They cost 150, and rent is 4x the dice roll if one utility is owned, or 10x the dice value if both are owned.

    2 cards: Electric Company and Water Works (descriptions summarized above)

    Are the utilities something I want to purchase if possible? Or are they junk? How valuable are they compared to the other properties on the board?



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  • What do raiders attack if there are multiple targets in the same category?


    The rules for activating raiders say:

    When activated, each Cylon raider carries out only one of the
    actions listed below, taking only the first action that it is able
    to perform (in numerical priority, with “Attack a Viper” taking
    the highest priority and “Attack Galactica” taking the lowest)

    1. Attack a Viper:
      area. It attacks an unmanned viper if able; otherwise it attacks a piloted viper.
    2. If there are no vipers in its area, the Destroy Civilian Ship:
      raider destroys one civilian ship in its area. The current
      player chooses a civilian ship in the area and flips it over.
      The resources listed on its face are lost, and the token is
      removed from the game.
      …

    These rules leave ambiguous which ship is targeted within these categories. Which ship do raiders attack when there are multiple ships that can be targeted that are different? This can happen in two cases I’m aware of:

    1. There are multiple piloted vipers in the same space area (which matters for who gets sent to sickbay if there is a hit)
    2. There is an unpiloted viper and an unpiloted assault raptor in the same space area (the rules for assault raptors say they are treated as vipers, so these are both unpiloted vipers from a priority standpoint, and this matters in terms of difficulty to hit)



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  • Steam Deck gamers are playing Oblivion Remastered in droves, despite controversy

    Steam Deck gamers are playing Oblivion Remastered in droves, despite controversy



    As a new month dawns, we’re taking a look at the most played Steam Deck games for April 2025, and it’s surprising to see Oblivion Remastered storm up the charts despite having become a bit of a meme for its poor performance. In the monthly data, however, Balatro still reigns supreme.

    Each month, it’s fun to look at which games are performing well on the best handheld gaming PC and look for any surprises. The chart of top played games on Steam Deck lists, quite simply, the games with the most hours played from one to 100, and there are some big debuts in this month’s list.

    In April, while it’s no great surprise to see indie games such as Schedule 1 and R.E.P.O continue to climb the rankings, the inclusion of Oblivion Remastered is somewhat puzzling. This is because of the ongoing performance issues affecting the game on the Steam Deck. It’s even become a meme, with players posting to Reddit saying they’ve finally got Oblivion to run well on the Deck, before posting a screenshot of the original game.

    While players were always going to try to get Oblivion Remastered running on the Steam Deck, the controversy comes from Valve’s decision to give it a Verified rating, despite it failing on the core criteria that a game needs to earn this status.

    We already tested the best Oblivion Remastered settings and found that, on the Steam Deck, you need to at least consider changing the upscaling method, as well as the level of upscaling from balanced to performance. This crucial change alone should relegate Oblivion to a Playable rating, but this hasn’t happened.

    Despite the Oblivion Remastered system requirements suggesting that the game would be difficult for the Steam Deck to run, players are clearly just pushing through and running the game however they see fit. Given that the game only released late in the month, the fact that it’s already the number two game on Steam Deck is quite the achievement. It didn’t have quite enough plays to dethrone Balatro for the monthly stats, but it is currently the most played game over the last week.

    Other notable inclusions on this month’s top-played list are Clair Obscur Expedition 33 at 26, a game that launched as Unsupported but has already been upgraded to Playable. The Last of Us Part 2 has debuted at 41 while the first game has reappeared at 60, likely due to renewed interest thanks to season two of the TV show.

    Finally, there was another strong indie debut in the list as Blue Prince, the intriguing roguelike puzzle game, debuted at 16 for the monthly list, although it did appear inside the top 10 briefly during its release week.

    If you want to read more about some of the Steam Deck’s biggest competition, check out our Ayaeno 3 review and Asus ROG Ally X review to see where they Windows handhelds stack up.

    You can follow us on Google News for daily PC games news, reviews, and guides. We’ve also got a vibrant community Discord server, where you can chat about this story with members of the team and fellow readers.



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