Dort, Caruso, Wallace, and JDub being super physical on the perimeter and funneling guys into Chet and iHart, all while Shai attacks their dribbles and passes with his timing and 7’1” wingspan at the PG position

And our other guys like Isaiah Joe and Aaron Wiggins are still solid themselves, with no real weaknesses to attack after the Giddey trade

So excited. We moved out our worst defender in Giddey and added Caruso and iHart, absolutely wild

Or "not a true fan."

We got to that level of toxic this season lol

(Debates about trading guys like Giddey came down to "Shai is ready to compete now" vs. "no, we have to keep developing our players, you're not a true fan if you want to make trades")

Yeah, trees with the Old Gods. Seawater with the Drowned God. Freshwater with the Rhoynar. Fires and heat and light with the Red God. Shadows with the shadowbinders. Ice and cold with the Others. Blood with the Valyrians.

It’s a cool subtle detail of George’s worldbuilding. Elemental, physical magic.

I haven’t really been following Modern for a few years now, but obviously I’ve seen the current Nadu+Shuko builds.

As a long time Stoneforge stan, would Nadu+Stoneforge+Lightning Greaves be an actual deck? Like, not a T1 “gonna get banned deck” but a legit T2 or T3 deck? Cause that’d be cool.

I guess it's a cultural difference.

To me and the way I was brought up, she's always super rude to him. I'd get my ass beat and told how much I disappoint my ancestors if I talked to my parents like she does.

But other people in these threads think they have a super cute relationship.

So it's different cultures. Does make me jealous of people who don't have that type of generational baggage hanging on them though.

It's Carmy's dish (in that they created the Seven Fishes dish together, and since then Carmy has been revising and changing everything without telling Sydney, incuding changing it to a scallop dish).

So he hinted at thinking it was a Sydney dish as part of his way of trying to poach her away for Ever, which Sydney understandably had to take awkwardly because she knows that it's really Carmy's dish because he didn't involve her in the editing of that dish.

That's why she deflects and awkwardly says it was a collaborative dish.

Lmao, our "Chet and PGs" strategy continues to live on 😂

That's exactly my initial reaction to this set.

The discourse has centered on technology and the TVs and all of that, but what I wanted to talk about was that what sounded like a cool, unique setting is basically just a big ol' house functioning as an excuse for horror movie references.

Magic settings are cool when the settings get to breathe and be alive. Not when they're just an excuse for references and memes and jokes.

I got into Magic around Tarkir. Tarkir was cool as shit by itself. Khanfall was a wildly popular short story, and that was purely about the planar characters themselves. Imagine if Tarkir was just an excuse to make a bunch of bad references to, like, martial arts movies. There's a big difference in the influences on the Jeskai tribe and straight up having, like, a legendary Jeskai monk with nunchunks in an obvious Bruce Lee reference.

IIRC, assuming Lauri agrees to re-sign, you can absolutely have Shai and Lauri and max both Chet and JDub.

The thing is, afterwards, you're into the tax aprons and your ability to add players around them is limited.

That being said, that's an insane core four, and from there, you just need a handful of solid players to essentially just not be liabilities if all four are active and healthy at the same time. There's a reason you have so many draft picks--because draft picks mean you can add a young player for 3-4 years guaranteed on a rookie-scale contract. If you pick the right prospects, you can fill out the back half of a rotation reasonably well.

The philosophical question is if you would prefer to go "Shai, Lauri, Chet, JDub, whoever we can manage to keep on contract, and young players on rookie-scale deals" or "Shai, Chet, JDub, and a mix of other players including a couple of mid-level contracts."

Dillon is 6'6" in shoes, Topic is 6'7" in shoes. So your judgment is spot on haha

(Dillon is 6'4.5" barefoot, Topic is 6.5.75" barefoot; NBA heights with shoes is adding one inch and rounding up if necessary)

Everything Tom Glynn-Carney (who plays Aegon) says has already proved this to me lol

It's a show carried by the actors' performances and character-moment writing (as plot writing consistently takes a strong downturn)

Mirepoix isn't meant to be a dish, as I understand it. It's the base to other dishes.

In other words, a recipe might basically say, like, "step two: prepare a mirepoix; step three: etc."

Carmy's mirepoix broth thing seems like it's just supposed to be a super basic first course, warming the diners up to the rest of their meal thing. The broth is probably delicious, but the goal is just to literally warm up the diners and get them ready to eat.

The kinda episode you can make when you drop the whole season at once.

If this was a weekly show, you wouldn't be able to swing that.

As is, episode 1 is a wonderful overview of Carmy's psyche, which leads right into episode 2 of him in manic mode going 110% into the restaurant

Also having grown up with one bathroom for the family, I was the opposite tbh

"Bathroom time" doesn't exist; if someone needs to shit, you get out.

Players often used to start with beginner-specific products or kitchen-table type 60 card decks in 1v1 games, and then get into Commander later.

EDH used to have a reputation as being a lot more complex and complicated, so brand new players weren't shepherded into that format as their first one.

It's different now. A lot of players start with EDH now with the precons, and there's not as many (or any?) starter kits.

When you start playing 60 card Magic, you learn the game differently--your opponent attacks you, removes your things, counters your spells, tries to stop you, etc. So players who learned that way tend to go into Commander expecting to be interacted with and attacked and to have their opponents try to win the game.

There's a big problem in EDH now where a lot of players take it as toxicity or hostility when they get interacted with, or when they get attacked, or when a player tries to win the game or stop someone else from winning the game. Some players act like EDH is a board game where everyone takes turns having their deck "do its thing" and then I guess at some point the game ends somehow?

But EDH, and Magic in general, isn't really that. Because the game is fundamentally about trying to win the game and stopping your opponent from winning. You can still have fun and make goofy moves and be creative with deckbuilding of course, but in a context where Magic is a competitive game (not in terms of cEDH vs. casual EDH, but in terms of a competition).

Mikey also asks him about "Copa" (Noma) in Fishes, he probably remembers the dish photo.

Which means that Carmy was working in Copenhagen during the era of Fishes, which is long before Mikey's suicide.

Carmy was at Ever in Chicago and went to Copenhagen from there on Olivia Coleman's recommendation. Went home for a while for Christmas, and then from there, went to New York.

This episode, we see that he was working at the Joel McHale restaurant when he got the call about Mikey. We also know that that was his last place before going back home, so it would have been the show version of Eleven Madison Park.

i’d put this episode up against any other “single character study” episode of television in history. the only thing I wasn’t sure about—where did the scenes of him wearing blue and picking food from gardens and standing in front of all of those pictures take place? was that in Copenhagen? New York? or am i forgetting a third place he studied

So we know about:

French Laundry, northern California

Noma, Copenhagen

Eleven Madison Park, NYC

Restaurant Daniel, NYC

Ever, Chicago

Anywhere else?

It sounds like the timeline goes: Carmy stages at The French Laundry, stages at Ever, then to Noma in Copenhagen, then DANIEL in NYC, and then at some point becomes executive chef at Eleven Madison Park in NYC until he leaves and goes home to The Beef in Chicago again.

Yeah, maybe less "B-roll" and more "they planned ahead and filmed a lot of these moments for the future."

That way you don't have to get, for example, Olivia Coleman and the Ever set twice; you can bang out all of those shots in one go and use them for two seasons.

That was cool to see.

Matty's public persona and character in this show are both very loud, as opposed to this very quiet, calm, thoughtful episode.

I think Joel McHale's character is in New York, so that would have been during the time where Carmy was executive chef. So Joel McHale's character would have been Carmy's last stop before heading back home to Chicago, right?

So it seems like Carmy's first big stage experience was The French Laundry in CA, then Ever in Chicago, then Copenhagen, some time at Noma and with Daniel Bouloud, and then finally executive in NY before going back home to Chicago and The Beef.

So I guess when we see him starting to be more rough with Luca at Ever, that's pre-McHale.

IIRC, book Criston is bar none comfortably the best fighter in Westeros during his time. He has no real competition for that title during his era, IIRC.

A combo on turn 12? I would have been fine, even if I was playing with one of my combo-less decks.

At worst, I would have been criticizing myself for not holding up countermagic or removal, not complaining about a combo loss on turn freakin' 12.

Growing up, I thought scones must be the most delicious things in the world.

Still never had one. They sound fine. I've seen what they look like in videos. But definitely not the basically-ambrosia I imagined growing up lol

Meanwhile Bobby was running it effortlessly while Dana White wearing his Korean Zombie shirt gushed over his physique lol

That was a classic moment