(10/1/2008)
If multiple Quietus Spikes trigger at the same time, that player loses half their life when the first ability resolves, then loses half of the remainder when the next ability resolves, and so on. The player does not lose the same amount each time.
It’s identical in your situation; both are triggered abilities, they will be separate events on the stack, so they’ll resolve independently. In this case, two halves make three quarters, not a whole.
Note that because of the ’rounded up’ in the card text, if their life total is 3 or less after combat damage is dealt, that’ll be enough to put their life total to zero anyway (3 → 1 → 0, 2 → 1 → 0, 1 → 0).
Incidentally, in very special cases, the last sentence of the Oracle text is incorrect, namely when the affected player has life total 0 (or lower), but is still in the game due to something like a Platinum Angel. In that case, they’ll lose an equal amount of life, namely 0, both times.
Supernova 2025 is one of the largest Super Smash Bros. events of the year and pros from all over the world are flying to Virginia to compete in stacked Melee and Ultimate tournaments. But if that’s what you came to watch, you’re missing the point.
The best thing to watch all weekend at Supernova is the Combo Contest.
What is the Combo Contest?
The Combo Contest is a Smash 64 event in which players compete to create the longest and most complex combos. It’s not a 1v1. Instead, players use Smash’s practice mode to set up various items and character placements in attempt to pull off some wild combos.
If they don’t hit the opponent or the opponent doesn’t land exactly right, the combo could be dropped. This means the combos require insane accuracy, timing, strategy, and planning. Players are given a few times to try and make the combo work but it’s obviously more impressive if the combo works on the first or second try.
There are a panel of judges, consisting of other Smash players, that will rate the combo a 1 through 10. Players are eliminated from a round if they score the lowest, leaving the top competitors to show off multiple combos to keep progressing.
The first-ever Combo Contest was held at Super Smash Con (the former name of Supernova) in 2016. Since then, many big names have emerged in this niche scene, including Prince, Taco, and Huntsman. They’ve become known for their over-the-top creative and high-tech strategies but also their dedication.
The Combo Contest is barely watched compared to games like Melee and Ultimate. It’s on a Thursday when some fans haven’t even arrived yet. The prize money isn’t anything to brag about and there’s only one tourney a year anyway. This is all about the love of the game, grinding all year to come up with these crazy combos that only a few people will see. But that’s what makes the Combo Contest so great — it’s solely for love of a game that came out in 1999.
Huntsman Uses High IQ Strats and Feet to Secure the Win
Image Credit: Supernova / @RELLFGC
When I went to Supernova in 2023, I was disappointed that Prince hadn’t returned. Often considered the best-of-the-best at combos, the Japanese N64 player had once signed my shirt at a past Supernova event, which, if anything, made the shirt even less valuable. But to me — priceless.
But I forgot all about Prince when Huntsman took out his grippers on stage and started using his toes to control a second character for a crazy combo the stream unfortunately didn’t catch. The past few years, players have been trying to make the combos more complex with gimmicks, but this was just next-world entertainment.
This year, Huntsman walked onto the stage and immediately took off his socks. But what made this even wilder? Huntsman was controlling three characters — one controller in his left hand, one in his right, and one on the ground with his toes. Would he pull it off?
Image Credit: VGBootcamp
The combo was so complex that the commentators couldn’t comprehend what Huntsman was even trying to accomplish. Why was Donkey Kong made invincible with a star? What was Samus going to do? In the end he almost accomplished what would have been one of the craziest combos ever attempted, but it didn’t quite land. (If you want to see it completed, check this video out.)
Luckily, Huntsman had one more chance to show off yet another combo and this one is now considered one of the best combos ever to be done. Once again, Huntsman took out the toes to have a 3v1. He used Yoshi, Samus, and Falco — and some well-placed items — to land a complex 13-hit combo on Link. It’s wild to think he was able to use one hand to throw two well-timed and well-aimed eggs along with everything else he pulled off perfectly.
Huntsman’s final combo was just as clean and complex, landing things that even the commentators couldn’t understand. The reaction times and extremely high IQ strats were just mind blowing to common folk like me. Otherworldly execution. It was a no-brainer that Huntsman took the title once again.
Honestly, it gives me chills to think of these guys grinding to perfect these insane combos throughout the year, perfecting a craft that almost nobody knows is even happening. This is what the FGC lives for. If you didn’t watch this year, you really should. These are the unsung heroes of the Smash community, keeping a game from the 90s alive and doing it just for the love of Smash.
This is the culture of Smash — and you’re not watching. But you should be.
The Escapist is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy
I have another question that highlights the importance of correctly wording card text and/or the need to read the text of previous editions of many Magic cards (and not only the available Oracle Text).
Let’s suppose Active Player has a Wardscale Dragon in play from several turns, and it’s the only creature in play.
It’s the draw phase, and immediately after drawing the card, the Defending player –
who has 4 life remaining only –
decides to play his last Magic card:
specifically, a reprint from one of the more recent sets.
Defending player knows perfectly the text of the White Dragon card the Active player owns, and therefore hopes to save himself by casting Fog before the Attack phase,in order to avoid it,since he can’t cast no more spells during the attack phase
(before damage is assigned).
He believes everything is fine, because the recent card text doesn’t mention the need to cast Fog during the Attack phase.
So, he tries to prevent any damage while also evading the protection from spells provided to Active Player by the White Dragon.
The Active player, however, shows to the Defending Player a Fog card from the very early Magic sets, which clearly states that a Player must:
“play [Fog] any time before attack damage is dealt.”
This old card text admits that Fog has to be cast during the Attack Phase (before damage is assigned).
The defending player, however, still complains, pointing out the complete absence of a specific Fog Ruling in its latest reprints.
Like all permanents, it can become tapped. For instance, if you attack with Sarkhan, the Dragonspeaker after using his first ability and he survives, the next turn you will have a tapped planeswalker.
110.5. A permanent’s status is its physical state. There are four status categories, each of which has two possible values: tapped/untapped, flipped/unflipped, face up/face down, and phased in/phased out. Each permanent always has one of these values for each of these categories.
In the previous scenario, Sarkhan will untap during your untap step. However, there are cards that require you to tap a permanent you control, like Gene Pollinator‘s ability, which can be activated during your upkeep, causing your planeswalker to be tapped during your main phase.
But that doesn’t really matter for loyalty abilities; there is no rule preventing activating loyalty abilities on tapped planeswalkers. This is all what the rules say:
306.5d Each planeswalker has a number of loyalty abilities, which are activated abilities with loyalty symbols in their costs. Loyalty abilities follow special rules: A player may activate a loyalty ability of a permanent they control any time they have priority and the stack is empty during a main phase of their turn, but only if none of that permanent’s loyalty abilities have been activated that turn. See rule 606, “Loyalty Abilities.”
Rule 606 doesn’t mention anything about being (un)tapped either.
Well, who would have thought it? Huge server queue problems as Battlefield 6 launches its Early Access Open Beta, and the numbers are only going to get bigger by the time the rest of the world gets to join in in a couple of days.
Hopefully, by then, EA and Battlefield Studios will have added a bit more capacity, and the clamor to be first on board may have waned a little, but right now, for many, Battlefield 6’s first trial run is unplayable.
Images are scattered around X of players having 150,000 plus players ahead of them in line, and even when you get into the game, matchmaking is falling apart due to the volume of players.
Just under an hour ago, the official Battlefield account posted:
“A quick note about queues and Early Access / Open Beta.
Since this is Battlefield’s biggest Open Beta ever, we’re putting in the work to ensure that players have the best possible experience and servers remain stable.
To support this, we will use queues to protect the player experience but expect this impact to be minimal.
You may encounter this during high peak moments, such as the start of servers going live. The team is working constantly to reduce any queue that takes place.
Thank you for your continued excitement and patience. We’ll see you on the Battlefield!!
That last line may be a little hopeful for many, and it will be minutes away before the self-righteous start demanding that the beta time be extended, but this is a good first sign for the revamped Battlefield.
Better this in many ways than being able to jump right in and squad up with a load of bots.
How to beat the Battlefield 6 queues
For now, all you can do is wait it out. EA will doubtless be pushing extra resources in the direction of the game, and, much like trying to buy tickets for any big gig these days, people will soon get bored of waiting and drop out of the queue, causing it to drop more quickly.
We are confident that when you do eventually get in, it will be worth the wait.
The Escapist is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy
Ok, so here’s the card that’s giving me some trouble:
I’m pretty sure there’s a few typos in here, because at first glance is seemed like it wanted me to deal 5 cards per each of the 4 players into a “barrow deck”, then shuffle the Ring cards back in and deal another 8 to each player. Which is a problem, because that would require 53 cards and there’s only 37 :P.
After much study and prayer I have determined that it’s wants me to deal 5 cards, if you are using 4 players, in to the “barrow deck” and then deal the 8 cards out. The math checks out now. But, the last line says that Tom Bombadil puts those 5 cards into his hand. So after all that I could have just dealt Tom 5 extra cards?
Am I missing something? It just seems a little underwhelming to have this whole spooky “Fog on the Barrow-downs Event”, and all it is is that you give some extra cards to ol’ Tom.
This Pokémon can evolve into any Pokémon that evolves from Eevee if you play it from your hand onto this Pokémon. (This Pokémon can’t evolve during your first turn or the turn you play it.)
This just sounds like how evolution works in the card game?
We begin with the poster Pokémon of this set: Eevee EX. Thematically, it headlines the expansion but when it comes to battle, it is probably the weakest EX card until now. Its only flavor is its ridiculously named ability, Veevee ‘volve, by virtue of which Eevee EX can be evolved into any Eeveelution, EX card or not.
It sounds like the card being an ex card changes how evolution works, but I tried to look into it and all I could find was this:
A Pokemon ex card can be played in the same way as Pokemon cards. Basic Pokemon ex cards can be played right away without evolving them, while Stage 1 and Stage 2 Pokemon ex cards require sending their previous forms in the field before they can be played.
With the world of Diablo being around so long, it’s amazing we haven’t had more attempts to bring the game to the tabletop. But as TTRPGs continue to flourish, a new Kickstarter has popped up for Diablo: The Roleplaying Game, a new officially licensed RPG from Glass Cannon Unplugged.
With the campaign not having launched yet, it has already garnered some 3,000 followers, eagerly awaiting it to go live. So what do we know at this stage?
Well, there will be a tasty 300-page book of rules and art, we know that much, along with an anthology of one-shot adventures written by some big names in the business.
The game will run on a custom D6 system, similar to the Blade Runner RPG (which is excellent), and that is no major surprise as Joe LeFavi from that game is also involved here.
But standard RPG stuff aside, the minis, oh, the minis are so good, but at this pre-launch stage, we don’t exactly know what we are going to need to do or pay to get our hands on them. Hopefully, everything will become much clearer in the very near future.
The Kickstarter launch page does say we can expect the game in Q4, which is just around the corner, so it does look like we will be digging out he old Army Painter gear in the following weeks.
Diablo: The Roleplaying Game Classes
We don’t know what era Diablo the RPG is set in. Still, we do know some of the classes that will be available are Barbarians, Druids, Necros, Rgies, and Sorcerers, and that Diablo staples such as Legendary gear will be available. With no mention of the Paladin class, which is also missing in Diablo IV, we are assuming that this visit to tabletop Sanctuary could also be themed around D4.
The Escapist is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy
I have another question that highlights the importance of correctly wording card text and/or the need to read the text of previous editions of many Magic cards (and not only the available Oracle Text).
Let’s suppose Active Player has a Wardscale Dragon in play from several turns, and it’s the only creature in play.
It’s the draw phase, and immediately after drawing the card, the Defending player –
who has 4 life remaining only –
decides to play his last Magic card:
specifically, a reprint from one of the more recent sets.
Defending player knows perfectly the text of the White Dragon card the Active player owns, and therefore hopes to save himself by casting Fog before the Attack phase,in order to avoid it,since he can’t cast no more spells during the attack phase
(before damage is assigned).
He believes everything is fine, because the recent card text doesn’t mention the need to cast Fog during the Attack phase.
So, he tries to prevent any damage while also evading the protection from spells provided to Active Player by the White Dragon.
The Active player, however, shows to the Defending Player a Fog card from the very early Magic sets, which clearly states that a Player must:
“play [Fog] any time before attack damage is dealt.”
This old card text admits that Fog has to be cast during the Attack Phase (before damage is assigned).
The defending player, however, still complains, pointing out the complete absence of a specific Fog Ruling in its latest reprints.
Some effects state that damage “can’t be prevented.” If unpreventable damage would be dealt, any applicable prevention effects are still applied to it. Those effects won’t prevent any damage, but any additional effects they have will take place. Existing damage prevention shields won’t be reduced by damage that can’t be prevented.
Published: Aug 8, 2025 02:27 pm