Hey! So, after the amazing response I got on this post detailing my struggle with planning while severely depressed, I decided to use some extra energy I’ve been having to condense all the answers I got into a master list for easy reference. I was initially just going to make and keep this but then decided that it might be useful to share in case you

didn’t see the initial post and feel this info would help to you, or
did see the post but didn’t have energy or time to read through all the responses.

Feel free to browse the list and see what may work for you if you are in a similar spot.
Things to note:

Some of the advice given here seems to contradict itself (e.g., DO use habit and mood trackers, DON’T use habit and mood trackers) simply because multiple people gave their perspective and some of the things that worked well for some didn’t for others.
I didn’t reference spreads unique to particular people and just focused on the general trends in suggestions – if you want to see descriptions/images of those unique spreads, I’d encourage you to read the original post.
This advice was in the context of my particular situation (which again, you can refer to here) so it might not work for you if you are in a different situation and have different constraints.
Lastly, if you have any ideas that you feel aren’t listed, mention them in the comments. Thank you again for all the support, and enjoy!

WHAT TO FOCUS ON

Prioritize celebrating what you do get done with Done Lists/Tada lists instead of just To Do lists!

Consider ditching traditional habit trackers if you feel they discourage you. If you engage in a positive habit, mark it down! Then you’ll have a total of all the times you did do something instead of a tracker with glaring reminders of when you didn’t.
Aside from habits, write at least one thing you did today, no matter how small (e.g., drank a glass of water)

Track goals in a way that shows what progress you have made even if you didn’t reach the goal

E.g. If your goal was to get to inbox 0, write down the number of emails you did get through even if you didn’t reach 0. Acknowledge progress!

Focus less on productivity or SMART goal setting, and more on taking care of yourself and tasks that contribute to/maintain functioning.

Once you have reached a baseline of functioning again, add goals and tasks outside of this
Have a basic list of tasks you need to do every day that enrich you/are self-care e.g. (medication, hygiene, food and water intake, journaling, fresh air)

Focus on ‘Did I’ goals instead of ‘How Much’ goals (e.g. 'Did I drink water > Did I drink 8 glasses of water?')

The bar for success then becomes when you did something, as opposed to only when you did a certain amount of something.
Can be a good precursor to tracking ‘How Much’ goals once you have reached a point where you are doing the thing consistently.

THE METHOD (SPREADS AND STRUCTURE)

Create simple easy spreads

Low set up time, takes little time to use, and don’t need to be kept up daily
Create/buy stencils of various sized squares, letters or lines that can make the process of setting up a spread easier and faster

Stick to the extreme basics, or the original Ryder Carroll method

Instead of weekly or daily spreads with initial set up, rapid log in your BuJo when you need to (even if that means your entries are scattered across the week or month and don’t have every day accounted for in chronological order)
In this vein, consider avoiding spreads that are dependent on you having accomplished the previous days tasks – this way you can miss days without feeling like that jeopardizes your ability to use the journal.
If relevant, note briefly in your journal skipped days, and why you skipped them.

Use a line a day spread that can give you an overview of your month

one positive line about your day, or
one line about how you were feeling that day

Gamify the structure of you BuJo or self-care tasks
Make it so you earn something if you do your tasks e.g.

in-game ‘points’/XP
a win in a battle/increase in battle statistics
levelling up
real-life rewards

If games are nor your forte, structure it differenlty but implement a reward system to create incentive

create a tree for your habit. Draw it with no leaves. When you do the habit, add a green leaf. If you miss it, add a brown leaf. This way you are incentivized to keep the plant alive and flourishing with more green than brown leaves.
Like with trackers, if you know the brown leaf/green leaf approach might make you fixate on the number of brown leaves (times you didn't do the habit), just focus on adding leaves when you do the habit and when you miss a day or three, don't add anything to the tree. This way the reward is getting to add leaves, and there is no reminder of when you didn't do that habit. Just a beautiful display of when you did!

Use Rolling Weeklies (sometimes called the Alistair Method)

Create an undated master list of tasks to do, keep it in view, and slot them on to do on higher functioning days.

Break down tasks into their smallest manageable increments and tackle those
Instead of ‘do laundry’, break down tasks into:

remove clothes from laundry basket
take clothes to laundry room
put clothes in washing machine and start cycle
remove clothes from washing machine
put clothes in dryehang clothes up to dry
collect dry clothes
fold dry clothes
hang dry clothes

Detach any routines you make from a set time

Focus on establishing the routine before you place it at a specific time or within a specific time frame e.g. do morning routine.
This way you are free to focus on getting into the habit of the routine first without feeling obstructed by having to do it with time in mind. If you do the habit but at varying or inconsistent times, it is then still a success.
Tackle time (when you want it to happen and how long you want it to take) once you have established this.

MENTAL HEALTH RELATED

Track things related to mental health

Start with a few simple basic selfcare things – once the habit is ingrained, add more.
Track mood, symptoms (when they occur, their severity) and try and identify any patters in when and why you may feel how you feel. Also be aware of what coping mechanisms do and don’t work.
If you complete a task while experiencing a symptom, write the symptom on a column on the side of the task – this way you might notice a correlation between a symptom and the tasks you are able to do.
If tracking your mood is too complex (multiple feelings at once) or discouraging (you mark 'sad' every day), stop!

Create a personalized resource on what to do when you feel at your worst (‘When I Feel Like Shit’ list)

Steps to take
Coping mechanisms that work
Self-care you need to keep up on (medication, hygiene, food and water intake)
Bad Thought/Good Thought list (The bad thoughts you are having, and corresponding good thoughts that give a different perspective – consider writing the good thoughts when you are clear headed and feeling good, so that you can reflect on them when you aren’t!)

Track what triggers particularly bad episodes or feelings

This can help you avoid, manage or prepare for the trigger (if it's inevitable)

Create ‘bad day’, ‘okay day’, ‘and ‘good day’ to do lists that correspond with the kind of day you are having

‘Bad day’ – the absolute bare minimum you need to do to take care of yourself
‘Okay day’ – the bare minimum + simple task(s) to get done
‘Good day’ – bare minimum + more tasks that require more energy (might be a good idea to do things that will help you on worse days – meal prep, do biggest cleaning tasks, etc.)

***What would be classified as a bad, okay, and good day is very dependent on your mental health and state of functioning. Some days when I’m really non-functional, a good day is doing the bare minimum. Some days it is just staying alive. So you might categorize this differently than done here!
Forgive yourself for what you don’t or can’t get done – some days are just bad, and that’s okay!
Involve a gratitude practice in your bullet journaling

Doesn't have to be detailed or long - it could be anything from a single word to a couple of sentences. It's a good way of reminding yourself of the bright spots of a particular day.
No standard about what qualifies. If it's that you got through the day, add it!

(Even if you don’t have it) Check ADHD related subs for ideas on how to trick yourself into doing things!

ALTERNATIVES

Focus more on creating a stable routine and less on Bullet journaling and tasks.

Waking up at a specific time
Hygiene (teeth, shower)
Meals
Movement/exercise (even just a walk)
A household chore

Resources and Recommendations

‘Level up your Life’ By Steven Kamb
Zinnia app for creativity and organization
domesticblisters on tiktok gives tips on what to do to keep your life functional cleaning wise
Unf*ck Your Habitat for tips on how to keep your life functional cleaning-wise, with articles on chronic pain, depression, anxiety, and cleaning-related trauma (Content warning for discussion of abuse and trauma)

Console Update 10.2 – Patch Notes

Learn from my mistakes. I got a job, but it took me a year, 1100+ applications, and failing 11 final interviews. Here is what you don't do while job searching.

Sure, there are plenty of posts from people who applied to a job and got an offer 30 seconds later. Good for them. But if you're on this sub, you're probably running into more difficulty. I did. Job hunting these days is inherently pretty hard, but there are plenty of things I did wrong during my job hunt that could have saved me time and trouble. I'm a 35 year old in product marketing in the bay area, so this advice may or may not apply to you.
Most of this advice is not new, you may have seen it elsewhere. Well, HEED MY WORDS! You should take that advice.
Here are my don'ts of job hunting:
e: Here's the real #1 piece of advice because someone brought it up in the comments: Don't Not Have A Network. The main reason I had such a hard time was I moved to a new city where I didn't have a professional relationship with ANYONE. I think if you're applying without a friend on the inside, it reduces your odds by 80-90%, based on random factoids we've all seen that say 80% of jobs are never posted publicly.
I went to networking events and coffee meetups and blah blah blah, but COVID put a stop to that before I could make much progress. The biggest piece of advice (by far) is just to have a friend who can get you a job. But if you're reading this, you would have done that already if you could have.
Don't try to get by without doing the standard "best practice" stuff.
I spent a while thinking I could get away without making a customized resume for different jobs. I also thought I would probably have the right keywords naturally, and that I didn't have to worry about that either. WRONG. I wasted many weeks submitting poorly optimized resumes and getting few interviews.
What you should do is have at least one version of your resume customized for each job title you're applying to. That means if you're applying for Sr. Widget Fiddler and Director of Widget Fiddling, you need 2 versions.
Keyword optimize each resume version by copy-pasting 50+ job descriptions for that job's title into a tool like Voyant Tools, which will spit out all the most common words and phrases. Find the most frequent ones that seem important and relevant, and work them into your resume, even if it seems weird to refer to yourself as a "team player" or "entrepreneurial".
Don't be bad at interviewing, not even a little bit bad.
Being a good interviewee is a skill. Most of us aren't born with that skill, and most of us are rusty when it comes time to look for a job. I knew I wasn't great at interviewing, but I really didn't want to go through awkward practice interviews with friends, so I told myself people would understand why I was all nervous, and realize I was still super talented and experienced despite my 'rough edges'. WRONG. I blew it on a lot of interviews before admitting that I had to practice, a lot. I did a bunch of practice interviews, got feedback, and I even talked to an interview coach. The latter was expensive, but I think the dose of outside perspective really helped. YMMV.
I practiced enough that I started getting to final rounds instead of washing out in the first couple rounds. It made a huge difference. Practice.
Don't wing it during the interview.
For 'behavioral' questions (i.e. "tell me about a time when..." questions) everyone says you need to have multiple answers memorized for every major category of question. Ugh! So much work. Greatest weakness. Success story. Failure story. Conflict story. Collaboration story. YAWN. I thought I could come up with good answers on the spot. It's "supposed to be a conversation", right? WRONG. I blew it on a couple interviews before realizing I was coming across as both unprepared AND inexperienced.
Sit down and work out your bullet points for every answer, BEFORE you land an interview. Pain in the butt? Yes. But not as big a pain as getting an interview, blowing it, then ending up doing the work anyway.
Don't apply to old job listings.
If it's still up, they're still hiring, right? WRONG. I have found that job listings are good for about as long as fresh bread. You mostly want to apply the day they're posted, 2-3 days is OK, 5 days is pushing it, beyond that, it's literal trash. I started out applying to anything relevant that was less than a month old, and my app-to-interview yield was around 1%. Started applying to new listings exclusively, and my yield went to more like 3%. YMMV.
Don't apply to listings that aren't on the employer's own site.
It's become disturbingly common for 3rd-party sites to steal and re-post job listings they have nothing to do with. You click on a link on LinkedIn or Indeed, and you end up on Neuvoo or some random BS. Don't submit any of your info on those sites. Very often the jobs are expired already, but these 3rd-party scammers are still re-posting them to steal your info. Even if they're not expired, there's no reason to think they actually send your application to the employer.
If you land somewhere unexpected, go to the employer's actual careers section on their site and find the listing yourself. Otherwise you're just giving your info to someone to sell, and the employer probably never sees it. Please report these listings as you go.
Don't be too picky with job titles.
Unless your resume precisely "fits the profile" employers are looking for, you're going to have to apply a lot. I had to apply a lot. At first, I was exclusively applying to one title, because although I didn't "fit the profile" I didn't want to compromise. I ended up getting a really solid job with a different title, after I loosened my criteria JUST a tad.
Have a serious talk with yourself about how many months you're willing to apply before broadening your search, and don't talk yourself out of good jobs because they have the "wrong" title.
Don't be too loose with companies you apply to.
At a couple points in the process, I ended up with interviews at companies that I seriously didn't want to work for. I was playing the numbers game and I would apply to anything with the right title, even if I hadn't heard of the company. I figured if I got an interview, I would worry about the company later.
Difficulty: If you are on unemployment, this can lead to a sticky situation - if you turn down an offer, you legally can't collect unemployment anymore in many places. It's also pretty hard to justify to yourself turning down ANY interview if you actually need the money.
Have a loose idea of who the company is before applying, to avoid those awkward moments.
Don't stop applying until the ink is dry on your offer letter.
My advice is to apply to every suitable listing as soon as it's posted, which could be as many as 10-30 per day depending on your field and geography. If things are going well, you'll also have interviews going on during any given week, which also put heavy demands on your mental energy and prep time.
It is tempting to stop applying for jobs if you are doing multiple interviews and they seem to be going well. You need the time, and one of them has to work out, right? WRONG. It happened to me multiple times - I'd get further along in an interview process, I'd be focusing on prep, and I'd let my application routine slip. Bad idea. If your application pipeline runs dry, it can be another 2-6 weeks before the interviews start flowing again. ABA - always be applying.
Don't get your hopes up. (maybe the most important tip.)
Your mental resilience to rejection and your self-regard are finite resources. They are resources you need to conserve to maintain your overall mental health and good job-hunting habits. Job hunting can burn through these resources like Joe Exotic through a bag of meth. Don't be like me and get emotionally invested in any given job before you get an offer. Don't start picking out all the stuff you're going to buy with the new salary. Don't start thinking of what doors are going to open up for you with this step in your career. Don't mentally pick out outfits for your new commute. Just don't.
I consider myself a mentally tough person, so I should be able to handle the repeated rejection, right? WRONG. If you allow yourself to start caring about a job before you GET the job, you WILL be crushed to bits. Maybe not the first time, but after the 5th, or the 10th, it becomes hard to take.
To some of the newer job hunters I've seen on this sub: Caring about a job from the day you APPLY? Sheer lunacy. You shouldn't even remember where you applied by the time you go to bed that day.
Keep in mind: It's a numbers game. It's not personal. You WILL get the right job eventually, if you keep going. You have to maintain faith in yourself, but hold no hope for any particular job.
In emotional terms, treat it less like a poker game, (where any hand can be a big deal) more like a slot machine (where you care zero until you finally win). No matter how tough you think you are, take care to maintain your mental state, especially during COVID where so many aspects of life are also wearing down our mental health.
Don't be afraid to be a try-hard.
The role I finally got was based largely on a "take home project" used to demonstrate my working style. It was paid, also really long, the minimum suggested time was 10 hours. Usually I put 70% effort into trial projects, because I don't want to bust my ass for a throwaway, and I don't want to look desperate. My thinking is "Well, we're all professionals, so as long as I mention a few of the right things, they'll know we're on the same level, right?" WRONG.
On this one, I decided to go HAM on the project. All or nothing. I ended up putting over 20 hours into it, (the max time they suggested was 20) and came up with a total overkill amount of material, it was probably 20 pages worth, if not more. To give some idea, I spent like 4 hours just doing addressable market sizing, which everyone including me acknowledges is fairly pointless.
Part of the project was also to see how we communicate about our work - they put me on their company slack, so I logged onto it pretty much every day to update them on my progress. It was firmly in try-hard weirdo territory. But it worked!
So I guess my lesson from this is, if you're going to bother with these projects, be the one who turns in the blue ribbon material.
NB: Be aware of "free work" scams where they try to get you to do the actual job without hiring you for the job. If it's pertinent to the actual job and it's more than an hour or two of work, it should be paid. Unpaid trial projects that don't relate to the actual business are OK, but you'll have to decide for yourself how much time you're willing to put in for free.
Don't assume ***anything*** until it's final.
In 3 instances, I got much further than I expected in a hiring process, and in one I was blindsided by a rejection where I thought I was a shoo-in. #1, they interviewed me for the role (up to the final round) even though the job called for an actual engineer and I have zero engineering experience.
In #2, I blew an interview and got rejected. I knew exactly how I blew it, I got the yips and did poorly. So I sent an email reply explaining what I SHOULD have said, and that I really believed in the company's mission, and that I realize I was a poor interviewee, but I was working on it - they actually gave me another shot and I made it to the final round.
In the last unexpected twist story, they actually scheduled a final interview, then CANCELLED IT. I have been rejected for about a million jobs, but I've never been cancelled on. They said that instead of an interview, they would just review my trial project. I couldn't imagine cancelling an interview with someone you intend to hire, so I assumed this 'review' was just a consolation prize and the job was going to someone else. On the day the cancelled interview was meant to take place, they offered me the job. Huh???? Later that day I rode to heck on a flying pig and bought a snowcone there. But I also got a job.
On the other side of things, I was told directly I was the top candidate for a role, the only one who was really qualified, but because of COVID they were putting the role on hold. OK cool, I figured I was a shoo-in once they actually hired for it. Well, they re-listed the job about 45 days later. They didn't reach out to me. I messaged them. They told me I wasn't even going to get a phone screen for it. WTF? They lied to my face for no reason whatsoever? Yep. They did.
The lesson: Do not assume anything! ANYTHING!

About how claw machine games are played in Japan

Stories from 12 years of Casino Industry

I was asked to make a post about some stories within the Casino grounds so I thought I'd share. I have many so I'll do my best to pick the better ones.
Some back information: I've been a Casino Dealer for 11 years, I've been a supervisor for five years, and I've been a Surveillance Operator for one year. I've worked at three properties, none of which are connected or owned by the same company. I've worked on : Government/Private/Native American owned casinos.

From Hero to Zero.

At my first Casino, I was one of the first group of people who were trained to deal Roulette . After 4 weeks of working 6PM-3AM then doing roulette training from 3AM-8AM (Not paid) , I actually really enjoyed the game and after about six months I became extremely quick at the number game and the pace of the action was steady with very low margin of errors. Young man walks in, cashes in for $500. He buys in for $2 chips and just loads the board. After a few spins and pretty decent hits, he then changes his chips from $2 to 5$ then to $10 and racks his winnings up to $10,000. It was then, five spins in a row, he loaded the board with some pretty gross bets, and every spin I would hit the ONE number with either NO CHIPS on it, or maybe 1 chip , He lost all $10,000 in a matter of minutes. He leaves , and I go on break. After my break I was going back to the same table and wouldn't you know it, the same young man walks in and cashes in another $500. He tells me he just sold his car outside and this is all that he had left. So we do the same deal, buys in for $2 chips, then slowly starts betting $5 chips, $10, $25...and he makes $10,000 AGAIN. Within the next 25 minutes it was straight agony. Every spin, same thing, he would bet $2500 in chips, and win only $250, $400, and after about a half hour he lost it all . Never saw the guy again.
2) Man down
At this property, we are 24 hours for table games. It's currently 5AM , and I'm dealing some $25 Blackjack to this guy. He's probably early thirties , heavy guy. He's sober as can be, but right away I can tell he's been losing. We know how much you've bought in for, how much your down, or up, and I could see he was down $2000+. After about twenty minutes of pure losing, his temper starts to flare.At this point I now have two other guests at my table. Drinking coffee, not saying a word, just losing their money. After losing hand, after hand, this guy looks me straight in the eye, seized up, starts shaking, he can't move. He tries to punch towards me and smashes his stack of chips all over the place and falls backwards to the floor. I call for security, we cannot touch him due to liability . I can't move from my table because, well, liability / casino cash property, all I can do is try to talk to him. As I'm doing so, these other two woman who are sitting at my table just look at me and one says "OK, dealer, cmon lets go " as she taps the table telling me to start dealing and forget about the guy having a stroke on the floor. As security takes him to the ambulance out front, I had to stay behind for a couple minutes and give a statement. I go on break. I come back, and 45 minutes later, he comes right back in with a oxygen tank and keeps gambling for the remainder of the morning.
3) You get a dildo, and YOU get a dildo!
On a late summer Saturday night, we had a large event for these massive muscle guys/strongman competition type thing. After their show, I'm at the roulette table , and five of these boys come over to play. They were absolutely hilarious. They were feeling pretty good, cashed in somewhat large amounts and I could tell this was going to be a fun time. After about a hour of dealing to these guys, it's almost midnight, everybody is pretty hammered , I spin the ball, and all five of these guys take out these god damn (what I can only tell was) two feet purple dildos from inside their pants, and wiping them around in the air. The ladies were just loving it, one of the dildos landed in the roulette wheel and we had to shut the table down to re-calibrate the wheel to make sure nothing had been changed. I just remember that night was so much damn fun, I couldn't believe what I was seeing and I would never forget it.
4) Full Moon
On this day, I was actually training dealers / supervising them on small games like Three Card poker. We opened the table at 10AM, and this older man came and sat down . He played all day. The jackpot was $21,000 and that was pretty high for this table. He played, and played and played. He's one of the players where you know he's wearing a diaper because he's been drinking coffee/pop all day and hasn't moved in eight hours. As the day went on, this man never moved from his chair. Getting closer to midnight, he was aggravated and said "I need to go have a smoke, I'm getting killed in here". He left, and the very next hand, the lady beside him was dealt the jackpot . He didn't say much, but you could just tell he just hated life at that very moment because had he not gotten up, it would of been his hand. The man calmly took his cane , his hat, jacket, coffee, and left. The next morning I found out when he did leave he drove his car straight through his bank and was arrested.
5) Slick Robber
I actually give props to people who can actually pull this off. This story may confuse you so I'll try and explain things as best as possible. A lot of casinos have machines as soon as you walk through the front doors. A man walks up to one of these machines and sticks in HIS $100 bill. He doesn't gamble it, instead he hits the cash out button and gets a $100 TITO ticket where he then takes the ticket to the ATM machine to get his $100. Now remember, his Original $100 is in the slot machine. He then takes the $100 from the ATM and goes back to the same machine, and repeats this process over a hundred times. Essentially he's taking money from the ATM, and loading up the Slot Machine . Now he knows he can't do it too much because if the slot machine gets full of money, the machine will shut down and the slow attendant will have to take all the cash out. So he deposits over $10,000 , then has a small crowbar, he cracks the machine open and makes a run out the front door. To my knowledge he was never caught . But damn, that was pretty smart .
EDIT:
6) Mental Health is a thing.
10PM man walks in to play some high limit BlackJack. This guy knows the game and played well. Dressed nice, drank juice/tea , a little bit of a attitude, cashed in over $10,000. When this man was half way down his buy in, he said something a long the lines of "If I don't win here tonight, I'm going to go set myself on fire." I wasn't sure if he was serious because when people are down, they tend to say a lot of nonsense. I actually left early that night, and from a third party was told he did exactly that in the parking lot. The next day it was clear something terrible had gone wrong in the parking lot .
EDIT:
7) Nothing good happens after midnight
After a busy Saturday night, I was dealing a mix of games, and during this story I was in the middle of Blackjack. I had one young kid (probably 19) sitting in the middle, one older male probably in his later 40's sitting beside him on his right, and I had a really nice couple in their 20's sitting together at the other side. This young kid wasn't playing just sort of watching, and ever time the old man won he would give this young guy some of his winnings. The older man, was a wine drinker, and he had black between all of his teeth, I'll never forget. He's a little drunk but nothing terrible. As the night goes on, the older man goes and uses the washroom, at which point the couple asked the young guy "Oh was that your dad?" and the young guy says "Hah, no I wish!". The couple and I just looked at each other. This old guy, was in complete control over this kid. Absolutely disgusting. The night ends, and I find out the couple called a few of their friends, and they all waited outside by this old mans truck and beat the living hell out of him. 40 years old, sleeping with a 19 year old, completely brain washed . Very weird.
8) That one co-worker where you just wish they would quit.
One of our co-workers, nice guy but had a very big ego and we as employees just sorta left him alone. One day he had enough of the atmosphere and quit. Now usually when you quit, you cannot come back until you paperwork is finalized. How ever, HR was in that day, and he was given the paperwork the very next day. He came in, cashed in $1000, and made $50,000 in about a hour at the Baccarat table. My manager, was extremely annoyed, because now this guy is just mocking the casino and having the time of his life (Thanks for the big tip by the way :) ) and so he decides to call it quits. He wants to ban himself and he wants $50,000 in cash. The casino says Nope, we are going to give you a cheque. Now here's the thing, most business people will take the cheque, how ever you CANT CASH the cheque until the following monday because it's on that day where the funds are available. The casino on the other hand will cash their own check in anytime , because they want you to play. So this guy pretty much said go to hell I want my cash, and he called the police. Police show up, and management promptly gave him the cash.I though it was absolutely hilarious .

9) No good deed goes un punished
I was dealing Three Card Poker, and the jackpot was around $17,000. This old man (a regular) was sitting there all day grinding it out. Super nice guy, always a pleasure to deal to. Well, after hours of playing, he stands up and says "Hey john!, can you come here for a minute?" so his buddy John comes over. He says to John "I need to go take a piss real quick, can you play my card until I get back?" John agrees . John takes the chips and I stop him and explain he can't play his friends chips, he needs to cash in and play his own. And he does. Welp, second hand out and bam, doesn't he win it. The old man comes back and is so happy, he can't believe it. John, took his $17,000, didn't say a word to his "buddy" and walked away. I never felt so much hatred in all my life. Didn't give him a dollar, not a thank you, nothing. The old man sits back down again, the progressive resets to $2500, and he sat there grinding away again.
10) The Top Knot
I had this player , young guy, who was born into a fortune. One of his relatives passed away and left him a pretty big sizable amount of money, so he played poker every single day for the rest of his days. I will add, he IS a good player. I did not enjoy his company just because of the "Know-it-All" attitude, but he was good. We'll call him John. John is 5'10, and well build, with muscle. John also decided today was the day to show off his Top Knot. (google top knot if you're not sure what I mean) So he sits down, and he's absolutely KILLING the table. Every hand, after hand, after hand. And because he's in such a good mood, he's playing any two cards, calling any $500 bet, and he's just dominating. This one guy at the table decided he had enough. He got up, without saying a word and left. A moment later, he comes back in, walks behind John, and takes a pair of scissors , and cuts off his Top Knot. I for one couldn't believe it, dying laughing inside, and it just turned into one big brawl. That was a good day.
11) That one bad seed
One of my best friends who I haven't seen in YEARS ended up being part of the crew. Was kind of nice to catch up. We never really got along as we grew up because he has a very high picture of himself . He wanted that 10/10 woman. A mansion, and a new Corvette. So every month or so we would all go up to the other casino to play. I myself would bring no more than $500, but I couldn't understand how this guy (we'll call him Kyle) was spending THOUSANDS of dollars at the tables. So this wen on for a few months. Well, one day, as we're closing the casino, he and I are in the High Limit room and we're getting ready to close the tables. We are told to take the chips out, count them, put them back, sign this piece of paper and that's it. Well as the supervisor was locking the tray, the piece of paper fell to the floor, so she asked Kyle to grab the piece of paper. As he bends over, a great big $500 chip falls right out of his sock. Kyle was fired immediately , but it all made sense. They offered Kyle a deal where if he replaced all the stolen chips they would not make it public. Not sure how that turned out.
12) If I ever decide to write a book, this will be the last chapter: <3
After working at my first Casino for five years, I met a Indian woman who was visiting from another part of the country. During this time I was explaining a game to her, which honestly I don't think she even cared. She explained she was visiting and sight seeing , and that was that.Well, two years later I ended up moving to the other side of the country and transferred casinos, and low and behold she worked there as a Dealer. We got married , and it's been 5 years.
13) The Tip
One of our tables that we've had for a couple years had a progressive jackpot that had reached $100,000. The dealer at the table was sitting pretty lonely. Nobody really played the game because people knew it was extremely difficult to win the jackpot. My memory is a tad foggy, but you somehow needed to flop the royal flush. This young guy sits down and says to the dealer, we'll call him John. "John, if you pay me that jackpot, I will tip you $10,000" Well John started dealing, and about a half hour into his shift, he F*cking did it. He dealt him the royal. And you know something?This young lad, kept his word, and he made sure there was a audience, and he tipped exactly $10,000. That was a moment right there. That pay cheque was real nice. I think we all got about $500 more than usual. The moment that jackpot was awarded they got rid of the table because the money it was making was not near what the casino wanted. I'm sure there have been bigger tips at other casinos, but that was something special .
14) The Lawsuit
Now this story I'm going to have to beat around the bush a bit due to the nature of what happened. I can't won't answer any questions that you may have on this topic other than what I have to say because it had a lot of publicity . The waitresses at this casino had to wear very thin sexy clothes. Not borderline legal, but it was noticed. One day they called all the waitresses to come in and explained they were changing their outfit to something even more sexier. Now these new dresses were very very borderline legal . The staff said No way. We're not wearing that.So , friday night comes, and the staff work their whole shift, then at the end of their shift were called into a meeting and were all fired. Welp, one of those ladies father was a pretty big time lawyer. Brough the casino to court and won. They won big. Good for them. We had no waitresses for a couple days haha.
Thanks for reading along, I have many more I can add as the day goes on, those were just some off the top of my head. Feel free to ask any questions of the Casino industry. I don't really have many stories about the surveillance department because that's the one area where I can't really say a whole lot due to its privacy and contracts I was and still am under.

Early Tips for the Remaining SBBs (13, 8, 0, 12, 7)

Some Newb tips I wish I knew earlier

Hey guys, after the overwhelming positive response (thank you so much btw) on my last post of useful mons below A rank, I'm back with some more tips and info for F2P and non alike.
I've noticed a trend on the Facebook fan page and here that some info isn't well deciminated amongst everyone...either from not knowing of or not reading through the JP wiki in bad translate mode, or just a lack of posts like these to bundle it all together.
So here are my top "things I wish I knew" items, and for sake of not taking credit as me finding all this, fwiw...all of these are either in comments here or on FB, or in the wiki.
USING THE WIKI

You'll see i link the JP wiki a bunch, you can have Chrome auto translate and its okay...names are scuffed for stuff and its def Engrish but its usable.

MORE INFO ON USEFUL MONS

To extend on my last post, the wiki does have its own ranking system of strength for each monster rank here https://gamewith.jp/dq-tact/article/show/207923 and in addition if you click into the details on any monster of a rank, say a B rank one, in the site breadcrumbs you'll see a page for "# rank monster evaluation list"...click that to see a bigger view of each rank with point value assigns.

OVERALL PROGRESSION TIPS

In every aspect, keep an eye on your char exp and mission completions. Try to accept the player xp rewards to level your account for a free stam reset. Overlapping a bit is okay, the bar will overfill, but don't leave any stam on the table. You want to be sure you can burn it all.
Imo focus on story until you can't clear the stages. Don't fret the CP number, just go...doesn't matter if you 3 medal or 0 medal, it's prog and xp.
When story is too hard, move on to making sure you have Rank Up, Weapons, and lastly Ability Rank Up missions cleared up to the highest you can.
If you have Stam, imo Rank Up farming is the best use until you are set on mats for your next several mains progression, then go to weapons until you have B or better for your mains, then Ability Rank mats.
No stam? Go to Battle Road and grind until you can clear stage 6 and get the goodies.
Once you finish story, you get A rank weapon quests, and now you move on to clearing all material / resource missions / account prog like master perks, saving, etc.

SAVING RESOURCES

Gold is precious, be wary of throwing it away.
Read the Draw Details on banners, they list the mons you can pull...if you notice there are only S and maybe 1 or 2 A ranks you don't have, DONT waste gems on it...you can sit on them til a new banner and pull for new S ranks. Early game 1-3 10 pulls along with clearing content (and all the freebies we get for launch) should get you 85 to 95% of the non A or S ranks ez.
Unless you are 100% sure you can't do better on a retry, don't use the 50 gems to revive. The only one it really should be needed on is the Night Clubber fight bc holy hell. The rest you can def get stronger for, not auto, something.
You don't have to refill stam with gems, you can go to battle road, but if you are hellbound on it, I'd suggest only doing it a handful of times a week until the cost resets...40 gems vs 100+ is a lot easier to stomach.
You don't have to rank up a monster until it is capped or say 1 level away, save your stones and gold.
You do get more xp scrolls weekly, but I'd suggest funneling them or holding ones for your 2nd or 3rd round of mains...we all will pull that elusive Wight King or Killing Machine, or next banner S rank eventually and you'll want to be able to both boost it and other complementary mons up to usable state quick. This also goes in toe with saving rank up mats.

RECRUITING IN STORY

You can click Enemy Details on the Embark screen to see which monsters are recruited.
Skip tickets can be a good way to gnab the rarer recruits (B ranks, etc)
The wiki lists drops here https://gamewith.jp/dq-tact/article/show/216122

USING SKIP TICKETS

This will probs be more personal preference, but I use mind to quick farm Rank Up missions for mats. Manually 3 medal the highest you can and blast.
If you somehow are flush with mats you could use them in high xp grinds to save time.
When using them, have a party of low levels as your group bc you auto win, ez xp.

HOW TO GRIND MORE EFFECTIVELY

Battle Road for free when you wait for stam is a godsend.
Typically i grind Stage 1 a few times with fresh mons until 13 or so, then 2 until like 15 or 16. Assuming one of the B ranks you can use is higher you shouldn't have trouble.
After that I farm either 3 or 4 for a LONG time depending on which stage...maybe even 5 in some...basically aiming for 1200+ xp a run...or the highest you can clear in 2 to 3 or so turns.
Story mode has some good xp per stam stages to grind, listed here https://gamewith.jp/dq-tact/article/show/210788 and your goal
I personally like Ch 12 Ep 4, its a solid chunk of xp for 8 stam, i can clear with basically 1 dedicated and 1 flex carry, and it drops mons i want awakening on.

HOW TO GAIN QUICK MASTER PERKS

This is really an extension of How to Grind, so everything in there applies.
Lots of tactics but mine has been to A) do battle road in my downtime farming quick but higher xp stages, B) boost low levels in my story mode grinds to cap before ranking a lot up and once and repeating.
Any decent xp grind can be carried by 1 to 2 mons of high level, leaving 3 or even 4 boost slots. Example: I can farm Ch 12 Ep 4 with my Archdemon and 1 other decent A or S rank, boosting 3 of anything. You should always try to carry with mons you also can gain xp on to always be gaining something on everyone.
Doing this, you get some levels on your "mains" or "mains in training", and can boost low ranks ez. 1 decent xp stage can insta take them 11, which is +30 or +40 levels depending on how many boosts, plus or minus if your mains level. You generally can do this until the boosts no longer gain at least a full level a run and then swap in more. E.g. my Ch 12 grind I usually take them to 25 or so and then rotate, maybe less if I want to just power through more progress and circle back later to specific mons.
Basically you can quickly hit gold in like a day on most classes, dragon can be more annoying bc there are fewer.

BATTLE ROAD

I focused on getting to stage 3 on everything, then farming till I could clear stage 6 for weapons.

QOL STUFF

If you hit Rematch you don't have to go through Battle Prep again, makes it ez to have less manual taps to get into the actions.
If you are grinding and need to swap members, do Edit and Rematch, this lets you edit then go back in and not hit the battle prep.

So You Want To Be An Invader

Part 2 of the "How To Demon's Souls: Sassy Edition." Given that Demon's Souls has brought in a couple trophies for invasion-related activity, I figured some people who struggle with invasions might find a general guide for standard invasion tactics and helpful tips for both the invaders and the hosts' side useful. In honour of my 1000th invasion in Demon's Souls, here is your How To guide to invasions.

So You Want To Be An Invader

You had some red guy come into your world, kill you in two hits with a longsword from across the room, clap at your disintegrating corpse and leave. What was that all about? How was he so strong?
Welcome to Invasions 101. ~~where everything is made up and the points don't matter.~~ ^{Are we allowed to use that? Am I going to get a call from Drew Carey's lawyer?} Here we'll learn how to invade, how to counter invaders and how to get those valuable trophies.

What are Invasions?

Invasions are an online component of the Soulsborne series in which players can attempt to kill one another. There are no rules, there is no honour, and there is no glory. It's like the Thunderdome but with more nudity and less blood. Using the Black Eye Stone in coop areas a player can invade another person's level. They can invade at any time if you're online and human, but it will happen most often at the beginning of a level, as fogwalls create natural coop and invasion boundaries. Most spawn points for invaders are at the beginning of a level, which can be a significant downside for invaders which we will discuss later.

How do you win?

~~You win by being the person with the shittiest internet.~~ You win by being the last man standing. Invasions are all about skill, tactics and using whatever you've got on hand. For the invader, it's an uphill battle that is often being fought entirely on the backfoot, and so you will want to use whatever you have at your disposal. Poison, hiding behind mobs, . For the host, it's a battle for surival. Use everything you can to eliminate the invader. That includes summoning, hiding, using the Banish spell, abusing the fact that you have 25-50% more health and making a break for the fogwall if you just want to get rid of them.

Finding your Opponent.

As an Invader
One of the more exhilarating parts of invasions is the tracking. Some hosts are like a whirlwind through a level, and you can track their path of destruction through a level. More discerning and skillful hosts can evade pursuit for a surprisingly long amount of time. Always be wary of doors and corners as hosts and phantoms love to hide behind them for free damage. Get into the habit of rolling through doors, and checking corners. A hosts' healthbar is the easiest way to track them. Any time they take any form of damage, their healthbar will show up from any point on the map. Some Hosts will hide, and a new discovery recently is that the Plead emote will cause the host to clip through a wall, leaving only their feet visible. Keep your eyes open and be alert.
As A Host
This bit is easy. If you see an invasion notification, if you head back to the entrance, you're almost guaranteed to run into your invader. It's up to you on whether you want to engage with them, but a surprising amount of invaders are corner-blind and you can elude them simply by standing to the right or left of a door. Be aware that they may have the Graverobber or Thief's ring on, making it harder to track them from long distances. But most of the time, they're actively hunting you, and want to be found. Just be wary of sneak attacks.

Solo Host Invasions

This one is pretty simple, it's a lone host in the area. Depending on your luck, this is either a new player who hasn't figured out the risks of human form; a hyper-competent veteran of the series who is an efficient killing machine and fears no invader; or a lure who is sitting around waiting for invaders because they don't want to engage in combat without their extra 25-50% health.
Most of the time, it's going to be a duel around the Archstone, or an open plateau. Occasionally, you might encounter an entrepid, courageous sole adventurer who can handle both you and the mobs, but most of the time the second they spot you, they're going to make a break for the nearest clear area. You can choose to give them space to do so, or you can choose to hound them relentlessly as they flee, it depends on you as an invader. But be aware of reversals in those situations, as sometimes a fleeing host may turn around and take a few shots at you if you're pursuing too hotly.
Hot Tips

Beware of Hidden Soul hosts who will take the opportunity to backstab you. They can be spotted more easily by the black outline when moving, or the Augite hanging from their belt. They can also still be locked onto when invisible.
Slower weapons can be easily backstab fished one-on-one. Abuse this readily for an easy victory.

One Host and One Phantom

This is where the uphill battle really starts to get heavy. Your Sisyphean task only ends when the host is dead, as in most cases, if you merely kill the phantom the host will flee to the start of the area to summon his buddy again.
This is where your spawn point really displays its weakness. You're going to be starting behind enemy lines. Most 2-man invasions are password coop buddies playing through the game. Expect some level of advanced cooperation, as they likely have some form of voice communication. Traps, ambushes and coordinated play is common, you should prepare for this. Graverobber's ring is a must for evasion. Utilise corners, stairs, tight alleyways and doorways, although beware that this can be reversed on you in a heartbeat. Remain mobile as much as you can. Divide and conquer is the key, you want to be able to use mobs like a shield. Most of the time, hosts and their phantom will have an unrelenting bloodlust for you, and will chase you into even the most obvious of traps, so use that to the best of your ability. Force them into mobs.
The most difficult bit is usually finishing off either one of them. If you get one of them to low health, their partner will often automatically close in on you to protect their friend, and giving them time to heal. Use one-shot abilities to eliminate targets as quickly as you can, or prepare for sieges.
Good news is, you won't often be alone for long. Invasions match on a 1-1 ratio, meaning if the host has a phantom, if someone else is invading in the area, you're almost guaranteed to have back up in the form of another invader very soon. When you see that second spawn notification, as soon as it is safe, sprint for backup. If nothing else, you can keep the second invader from being jumped at spawn. Once you are facing 2-on-2, things become a bit more interesting, as they lose their bloodlust and become a lot more timid. Swap opponents often with your partner, and keep an eye out for rogue backstabs, in case your partner's opponent disengages and homes in on you.
Hot Tips:

See Advanced Tactics for some... well, advanced tactics.
In general, you're always safe to assume there's going to be more than 1 player in a world. Be prepared for a trap, and keep your eyes open for any secondaries trying to sneak up behind you.

One Host and Two Phantoms

The legendary Gank-squad. Not too common in Demon's Souls Remake yet, but not unheard of. These are usually dedicated, focused, and absolutely deadly. The win ratio for facing three or more players at once is not high, regardless of how skilled you are. Your best hope is for backup. For the most part, the tactics between 1 and 2 phantoms remain the same, but it becomes a bit more dicey running away, as they can cover each other in far more effective ways.
Mages are absolutely crippling here, especially Firespray mages. Anti-Magic is a must. If you're not able to shut down their magic, then you need to eliminate the fire support as quickly as possible. If there's more than one mage, I'm sorry, I'll send a letter to your widow.
Most of the time, they will have pre-cleared the area, meaning there are no mobs to hide behind. Run and hide until back up arrives. Thief's Ring or Graverobber's ring come in great use here.
Hot Tips:

Send me your address, I'll bring flowers ~~and condoms~~ to your widow.

Advanced Tactics

I want to dedicate some time to talk about advanced tactics. These are things that you may naturally do anyway, but they're good to bring up.
I've already mentioned some chokepoints, but one of the most important ways to use these chokepoints is by playing Fortress.
Fortress is the act of holding siege warfare at certain areas, in which there is back-and-forth, and there is a battle for territory. Some phantoms and hosts will automatically hunker down at a safe spot, and they will not be removed from it. Some common ones are the first large island in 5-2, the Swamp of Sorrow and the first small stairway to the left of the boss room in 1-1, the Gates of Boletaria.
It's important for you as an invader and a host to recognise when a game of Fortress is about to ensure, and what tactics you can use to foist them from their strongest position. I previously mentioned the partner-cover, and this is a huge flag that a game of Fortress is about to start, as well as a lack of desire to move from a particular spot. Most hosts will, upon the loss of a fortress, will immediately seek to either take it back, or flee to the next safe spot.
One possible response to Fortress is to apply pressure to their position, by shooting arrows from a distance. It's not intended to seriously injury or damage, but it's harassment that is used to frustrate an enemy into chase.
Hit-and-Run is particularly effective, as it makes the enemy think you're in hurtin' range, and may force them to take to chase. You're going to want to use a fast weapon for this, as you don't want to have your trousers down at an awkward moment. Hit and run is rarely going to kill an enemy, but it's about unsettling your opponent and keeping the pressure up.
Reversal is a major component to the invasion game. I've mentioned it previously, but the unrelenting bloodlust of some hosts and phantoms you face mean they're more than happy to run straight into your weapon, often several times in a row. Be aware of your surroundings, and make sure that you're only doing it at safe windows where you can target a single opponent at a time, or hit both of them in the same swing. The safe windows for attack are much smaller if you're facing 3 opponents, but still feasible. Use your heaviest weapon, if you can.

Invasion Counters

I've already talked a lot about what invaders can do, and I'm sure you can glean some idea of what to do from that discussion, but just to highlight a few things:
Summon when you can. More enemies that they have to face, the more chances the invader is going to mess up.
Play Fortress. You have the highest chance of success when you own the turf.
Don't chase. Invaders are going to want you to give chase, which they will use to put you into traps.
Keep calm. Invaders are at a massive strategic disadvantage, and you can use that to your delight.
Double Firespray is a guaranteed win. Very few invaders can deal with it without specifically speccing for it, and very few expect it. Grab a buddy and pew pew away. ~~Don't you dare stoop to such low tactics.~~

Hints and Tips.

You absolutely must have a fully upgraded weapon. Preferably two, a light chase-down and a heavy critical weapon. Don't even attempt to invade without a maximum upgraded weapon, you have very slim chances of winning.
Disconnects are going to happen. You're just going to have to accept that. Thankfully the SSD of the PlayStation 5 removes most of the frustration of the previous games. This isn't Bloodborne at launch, thankfully. For Invaders, just pop your stone again and hope you don't get the same host. For Hosts, try not to disconnect. Losing to an invader is a risk, but the positive side of that risk is that if you manage to beat them, then you earn 30% towards Pure White World Tendency, so there is a good reason to stay and fight. If you want to know more about World Tendency, I wrote a short guide on the basics here.
Your Graverobber or Thief's Ring is your best friend. The element of surprise is by far your best advantage, if your opponent can't see you, they can't tell what you're planning. If not, get used to wearing the Foe's Ring for that extra 20% damage. I can mean the difference between a two-shot and a three-shot kill.
You're going to be in soul form, for all intents and purposes. It's advisable you get used to wearing the Cling Ring if you don't want to be killed in two hits by a Northern Regalia wielding phantom, if your build can afford it.
Your spawn point is usually at the start of the level, which is a serious tactical disadvantage. Most of the time, you're going to be facing at least 2 hostile phantoms right out the gate with no backup. Be prepared for immediate death the second you head through the fog.
For melee builds, I'd highly recommend having Anti-Magic Field, especially if you see your opponent has Homing Missiles. I've been killed by buggy or laggy Homing spells more often than I can count.
Poison and plague halves healing and lights you or your host up like a beacon across the map, regardless of their Thief or Graverobber's ring. If it's an expansive level, I'd recommend using poison, bleed or plague if your host or invader likes to run away and hide.
Second Chance can be used before an invasion spawn, and can be an absolute lifesaver. It prevents one-shots, and helps you survive longer. You need a minimum of 15 Faith for the 2 spell slots, and a minimum of 15 Int for the 100MP spell cost, so invest wisely.

As always, if you have anything to add, do so in the comments!

Guide to the Vanilla Sengoku Jidai Campaign: Legendary Edition! (UPDATED!)

Field ashigaru-heavy armies. This will allow you to keep costs low. It is not for their spear wall ability, though this is powerful, it is because their cost effectiveness will allow you to make mistakes.
Remember, you cannot save-scum on legendary. Something will go wrong, and when you don't need to throw your all-samurai army away in a piss-up, the game is a lot more forgiving, and a lot more fun.
Attack first. Be aggressive. All the tables favour the A.I. So, it is up to you to turn them. Build cheap, expendable expeditionary forces to take enemy castles. You'll thank me when your first stack crushes the enemy at your capital in a siege defence, but doesn't have the movement range to counterattack effectively: this usually results in the enemy A.I. using its game-breaking economy and über recruitment slots to field another full stack in two turns. Fuck the A.I. Make sure there's an ambush force in range of the enemy settlement before the enemy begins their assault on your castle. Do this right and you may not even have to fight their army, fingers crossed. (Armies go poof when their last town goes bye-bye.)
Which reminds me, fight using your castles. Open field battles, when you're attacking that is, are a piss-up. The enemy A.I. always camps on hills and makes it a life or death struggle (unless you bring siege equipment). Arrow towers are not worthless. Choke points are provided to you during siege defences. Use every layer. Don't underestimate good strategy. You can hold 300 men on one side of the castle with one unit of ashigaru. The enemy has to try and take your towers and your central flag; so, place your ashigaru in spear wall directly in front of your flags. The enemy must run at your ashigaru and defeat them before progressing through the rest of the castle. Utilise the stupidity of the A.I. and break the enemy by making them come to you.
If the enemy has archers during castle defences, make them waste their ammo, if there are too many of them, attack first.
Cavalry are not good in bulk unless you're Takeda. Four units is too many units. I bolster my generals with a single cavalry unit, which I place on top of my general during deployment, and then lock them together as if they were a single unit. I have one additional cavalry unit in reserve to replace this one; usually, I hide this unit in the woods until I need it. What this does is make my general more weighty. I can now slam him into the lines when they're looking like they're about to tilt in the enemy's favour, which I don't want. This makes him a true support unit, rather than a liability in combat. Yes, your general may die doing this, but you've taken every reasonable precaution, and 60+ additional bodies makes for at least three well-executed charges into the line before things start getting dubious.
Abuse the charge animation. Once you set your cavalry to charge something, the animation begins, calculates the charge bonus, and then deals out the corresponding damage onto the enemy unit. Pull them out the moment the animation ends, because by then your horses are useless and caught-up in the dice-roll matrix. Once your cavalry are out, check the line. If your men aren't winning decisively, slam your bolstered general into the same line again and watch it crumble. Your cavalry will be tired, but you've just won the engagement.
Reduce your micro-management in battles to three key tools: Infantry core, archers on support, and general-cavalry. If you're fast, throw in a quirk unit: ninjas, firebomb throwers (my personal favourite because they don't require much micro to use and they affect the enemy's morale), or brawlers (marathon monks/nag' warrior monks). Whatever your quirk unit is, min-max it with encampment and skill tree buffs. Otherwise, sorry, but you've wasted time and money acquiring it for the roster. If you're building an army you can't field in three turns, you're fucked.
Economy, economy, economy. Get it? Sake dens and markets, sake dens and markets. That's money for your army: not for your navy, not for your nation's well-being and happiness - that's why you're building sake dens - money is for your army. (I had feedback that the fastest way to create a stable economy on Shogun 2 was to take more towns. Personally, I think this is a bad idea, because it exposes you to the borders of other clans. More about that later.)
Use your agents. None of them are shit or under-powered or any of the mumblefuck-none-sense people put online when they don't know how to use them. Monks fuck. Walk them through the enemy's territory and past their capital and into their back lines and wololo those bastards into an early revolution. 33% chance is a 1/3 chance, and if the cost of inciting unrest is only 500 gold... I'll take that bet. This fundamentally weakens your enemy and cuts off their supply lines: which causes the A.I.'s diplomacy to go haywire. How can Takeda be trading with Hojo if I just made their border provinces into grey states? That's right, they can't. Break their relationship first, then bribe them to turn on one another. If you've made them hard enough for you, they'll do it. There you go. You just crushed one of the hardest clans without fighting a battle on the open field! See? Monks fuck. Monks can also demoralise the enemy and inspire your troops with morale bonuses. If the enemy stack has no general to recover from this loss, this is deadly. You will win the encounter on morale alone.
Which reminds me: diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy. Think it doesn't matter? Actually, I made Hojo destroy Takeda as Oda, and Imagawa-Tokugawa, and then made Kyoto spit on Hattori, and Hatano clash with the Ikko Ikki: all whilst I sat back, lining up my troops. When the time was right, I sent my armies to take the provinces I needed to execute my Kyoto-plan. Thank you, machine-learning.
Have a plan. Choose territories for their perks (+accuracy bonuses, blacksmiths, resources, gold mines, schools and libraries), not for their availability. If you overextend... Good luck. Just be aware you can't take back coming into contact with the other clans. The more isolationist you are about your affairs, the better.
Your borders are your worse nightmare. Connect with too many clans too quickly and you enter the death-brawl of which there's no escape. Enjoy your war of attrition. Tzu states that there is no instance of a nation benefiting from extended period of war, and yours won't either. Your economy will be shitting bricks by turn fifteen and you'll be playing in -134 income hell. The game isn't fun this way. It isn't fun because you thrust your fist out into the unknown and hell answered back.
Back to agents: Ninja. Ninja fuck harder than anyone's ever fucked. They can redirect enemies and make them go crying home to baba. Sabotage everything in sight during the first few turns of their lifespan. But do not sabotage things belonging to the clans you want to like you, because if you fail, and you will, -20 or even -40 to diplomatic relations. -40 will convince most clans that you're a threat and that you need wiping off the map. Dump points into assassination. Protect your ninja with +5%/10% chances to escape unharmed if they fail in their attempts, and take every +1 to assassination that RNG sweetly offers. Take 33% chances on enemy Daimyo. I've wounded the Oda more times than I can count with these odds and sent his army running back home. And remember, on Legendary, nothing can be taken back. Every attempt might be your agent's last: get used to it. I see a lot of people saying ninja are 'too expensive to maintain'. But what else are you spending money on other than recruiting ashigaru and upgrading vital infrastructure? ... Right? Nothing. People who say this can't run a half-decent economy because they're too busy building archery dojos instead of sake dens.
Metsuke are too expensive to maintain, admittedly. They should not be used to bribe, unless you're doing an 'all-out Metsuke offensive.' By this I mean using Metsuke instead of Ninja to send armies back at the A.I, badminton-style. But personally, I don't see this as cost effective. Instead, Metsuke should be used to spy on strategic choke points to watch out for enemy agents, and to bolster the profitability of rice dens. Did you know that if you put Metsuke into provinces with markets, that the growth and economy of those provinces goes up? They can also protect your Daimyo or top-tier generals from being assassinated by enemy Ninja; and I highly recommend putting one in each of your core armies. Trust me: it sucks to lose your five-star general to a suspicious death on turn 60, especially when the game auto-saves at the beginning of each turn. Bye-bye Stand and Fight. Bye-bye Ashigaru Commander. Farewell Night Attack. Hello sadness.
For Sieges, have ranged superiority from the off-set if you're the attacker. Six bow ashigaru will melt most armies inside of their fort. On my Chōkosabe play-through, each unit had 200+ kills by the end of the siege. I do not find siege battles intimidating when I know I'm coming in with more archers than the opposing army, because I can and will surround them, can and will out-trade them, and then when they're weak and tired from trying to avoid my arrows, that's when I send my yari ashigaru in to take advantage of their failing strength. One unit of bomb throwers on the gate of your choice will blow it to shreds and allow spear-wall after spear-wall to penetrate their defences. The A.I. will blob the gate: perfect, that allows your remaining archers to menace them. If the enemy army has bow samurai, do not attack the wall they're stationed at. You will get fucked because the A.I's bow samurai is always god-tier, and yours fling kaka in comparison until they're high ranked. Instead, place an infantry reserve unit just out of range of that wall, and the A.I. will station most of their archers at it and... wait, allowing you to haemorrhage the fort from an opposing angle. Don't bother moving the reserve unit into range of the enemy archers, not necessary, they'll stay there as long as you stare back at them menacingly. Target priority is: generals, infantry, bows. If you kill them off in that order, you can afford to get impatient and rush the walls, because bows can't stop yari ashigaru from getting in. Finally, if your bomb throwers have spare ammo, launch it at any stubborn archers manning the walls: they will quickly get the point and relocate elsewhere.
Toppeth-Tippeth: Bomb throwers can follow your yari ashigaru through the main gate, and toss bombs into the enemy's ranks over the heads of your infantry. I really didn't think this would work when I first tried it, because I figured the narrowness of the gate would cause my bomb throwers to report their line of sight as 'blocked': rendering them useless. Turns out no, actually, they're pretty happy to line themselves up on the ramp, swing their grenades, and launch them into the enemy blob. Yes, you will lose men: bah. But the enemy's morale will break long before you run out of reserves, especially with all their generals dead already. It's also fun as fuck. Boom... boom... boom.
Katana infantry fuck, but only under the right circumstances. I've found having one or two in reserve to be really advantageous. They are absolutely class for flanking or going in with the second wave during sieges. Fresh and eager, and up against tired defenders, they will melt. But inspired? They will fuck on everything. Best of all, katana infantry fight to the last man (because bushidō), and because the A.I. loves to field spears, they always have the advantage. The only drawback is that they're expensive to maintain, and therefore they should only be used this way in the early to mid game, if at all. Lastly, they're dumb-good in siege defences. Put them on the walls, away from the enemy archers, and whoever's coming up isn't coming up for long. I never have to worry about the walls I've assigned my katana to. They're just too good at holding the battlements due to their superior melee stats.
Once your armies have been fielded, hold an economy of around 500/1000 koku. If you don't use it, this will just keep adding to your war chest. It's not a lot, but in three or four turns you will accumulate enough wealth to put together an ashigaru army in a pinch, or bribe an ally to join a war. \Smacks lips.* Nice.*
You can body block stacks from entering your territories and delay them for at least three turns before they can reach your capital. The way you do this is by taking a single unit of yari ashigaru, placing it on a choke point on the campaign map, and then when the enemy is forced to attack it, you retreat. And then you play this game with the enemy's avatar until you've rallied your forces. You can also do this by inciting a rebellion stack. This is a big dick move, and has saved my ass many'a time. If you also have Ninja, you're laughing. It'll be five turns before the enemy can get to you. In five turns I can throw an expendable army at them from the god-damn barracks.
In field battles, do not use all your units at once. By this, I mean don't commit everything to one assault. Put four ashi' up to take the enemy charge. Flank with two ashi' on either side. Move your archers around. Harry them with your cavalry. And if you have samurai, use them to take out the key players. Commit in units, not in bulk. Yes, your main line will be chewed apart while you adjust, but who cares? You can recruit two/three ashigaru next turn. Expend the expendable, preserve your veterans. If your initial commitment breaks and surrenders... good! Now the enemy has to reform and turn around: usually into a line of no-dachi. Banzaiii!!!
If your objective is to win every battle with no casualties, start praying. Most sieges on Legendary end up in most of my army routed, and only my generals and a single unit of tired yari ashigaru left, with all my archers either out of ammo, or about to be. I always lose two units to critical losses, but then I can always recruit them back next turn. The rest of my army limps back to rejoin me another day, despite taking severe losses from enemy archers/the gate. Game's pretty forgiving when you commit to siege battles, use that to your advantage.
You can force the enemy to attack your main army by putting it on a choke-point on the campaign map. The A.I. will have to come through you to get what it wants. Sadly, the A.I. can also be a huge puss', calculate unfavourable odds, and never bother to attack you as you straddle the border to your territory like an asshole, forever. In this case, either go into ambush stance, or make a play. Defensive battles in the field are preferable to attacking, always. The A.I. will come to you, and you can choose anywhere on the map to make your stand. This leads to easy and fun battles, even on legendary, where you can set-up your men in ranks on hills, between valleys, in villages, and around bridges. Battles where you're on the attack always end the same way: by baiting and switching, which is not fun (... to me.)
I was wrong in my previous iteration of this guide about Katana Cavalry — Katana Cavalry do fuck on single player. They're absolute killing machines, actually. Not a game goes by where my Katana Cavalry don't rack up 400+ kills each. The way this is achieved is by waiting until all enemy units are engaged, then flanking with your cavalry. After that, leave them in. They are not charge units. They are sure, steady killers. Let them have their fun. Only pull them out if they're directly engaged by spears. The best upgrade you can give them is +2 armour, also.
Light Cavalry should always be your top killers on the field in the early-mid game. If you're not leaving those early battles with 200-300 kills per Light Cavalry unit, you're doing something wrong. Adjust your game accordingly.
Bow samurai are great on castle walls, but questionable in the field. I'd rather have two units of bow ashigaru any day of the week.
Yari Samurai are okay, but I always disband them on turn 1, then use the additional income to recruit other, cheaper spears. The enemy cavalry runs at your line during deployment, they're so dumb. Don't waste money on fielding a unit that's built to counter something that tends to counter itself.
For extra income, you can sell military access, but do so strategically. On average, I can sell 5 turns for 500-750. 10 turns for 1250-1500. And 20 turns for 3000 koku++ upwards. I do this when I want to upgrade essential infrastructure, like gold mines. But you must be wary of doing this on legendary, as you create a dialogue with potential enemies that wraps you up in red tape should you decide to attack them before the peace-bond made between you runs out. And sometimes it can take a very long time for this to happen (30+ turns if you settle for a 20 turn deal). This is huge because if you decide to attack before the timer runs out, then you'll suffer from diplomacy penalties with all the other clans you've come into contact with so far. On some campaigns, this can really hurt you. e.g. Piss off the Hojo as Oda, and Takeda will march on you early (because he's programmed to want your territory). That's not good, really not good. Likewise, as Shimazu you may want Tachibana or Chōkosabe on your side to buffer the northern clans. Well, not if you go cheesing Ito and betraying alliances with the Otomo. If you act the prick on legendary, you're asking for trouble. If your diplomacy window reads hostile, hostile, hostile, and you're not the Ikko-Ikki or a Christian clan, then you're doing something wrong. The game sets you up with natural enemies and natural allies, but you can break the mechanics and side with clans who're designed to inherently hate you, as long as you keep their attention fixed elsewhere via correct use of military access. Beware, selling military access to aggressive clans will cause them to come into your territory and devour your vassals, forcing you to make awkward decisions; and I'm certain you didn't just sell Date military access so that he could come and cause issues for you left and right: so, better to avoid this altogether. Be cautious about the fronts you're engaging with, TL;DR.
Vassals are worthless, even as buffers. You can't sell them military access and most of the time you can't encourage them to wage war, and if they can't be depended on as allies, then they're useless as allies. And they will betray you, they'll betray you because the game makes it impossible to keep them happy because you're demanding military access from them in return for protection, when they should be the ones protecting you. Only they don't because they're fucking dumb and can't be coerced into attacking who you want them to attack. So, don't take the settlements you don't need, and occupy them peacefully if you do.
Which brings me to ONAH! ... Honor is very important (unless you're the Ikkō-ikki or the Ōtomo). Low honor causes rebellions in your back lines. Low honor means clans hate you :-). Low honor makes it so that when you take a new city, the new city will whine turn after turn unless you have a general with the '-6 to resistance' trait, really good Metsuke, or a spare army to shut them up. (Psst. Recruiting men just to put down rebellions means less koku and negative economic growth.) This game literally makes you pay for your mistakes. There aren't many clans that can afford to be honour-less on legendary, not unless you want stacks of pissed-off armies marching into your territory every couple of years. Did you know that if you gift 150 koku to your super-powered feudal overlords, you get +3 to your diplomatic relations with them? Do this every other turn and you'll have +20 in no time. +20 is enough to dissuade them from attacking you: as long you have an active trade deal going and are giving them plenty of military access.
Be in it for the long game. Let others weaken your enemies for you, it is not so good to wage war before you are sure that you have the advantage.
Special shout-out to these units for being worth the koku: Yari Ashigaru (150+ kills on average). Bow Ashigaru (100+ kills on average). Naginata Warrior Monks (250+ kills on average), Katana Cavalry (350+ kills on average), Katana Infantry (200+ kills on average), Kisho Ninja (150+ kills on average). Tadakatsu's Tetsubo Warriors (200+ kills on average).
On Siege Defence, Matchlock Ashigaru are God.
Have fun. Legendary's great because it is fast-paced and consistent. You'll rarely have more than a couple years of peace, enjoy it while it lasts.
One last battle tip: use the terrain. Even a slight incline gives your ashigaru an advantage. A slight incline for the enemy marks your death. Zoom in, check where you are actually positioning your forces, and do not make the mistake of fighting on fatal ground. The reason why I lose so many armies to inferior opponents is because I think the A.I. is ha-ha dumb. It is ha-ha dumb. But it is also committed to attacking. If you march onto unfavourable ground, and you allow the enemy to attack you on it: his strategy is superior. Watch as your lines break. Then zoom in afterwards and realise: you just marched your entire army onto some really weird and obnoxious inclines that made holding the line difficult for your ashigaru. Woopsy. 'Woopsy' on legendary could cost you the campaign.
Good luck, my dudes. Great game +10 years on, and still one of my all time favourites!!! Wahaha!

Woke up Kidnapped 33 (Ship inspection)

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The movie planned the previous night turned into a short marathon. So when Gabriel blearily opened his eyes because his pcu beeped, it was almost noon. He yawned, sat up, and rubbed at his face before grabbing the pcu.
Madeline stirred and stretched beside him. “What time is it?” she asked.
“Late,” Gabriel said. “Hour and a half until lunch.”
“We’ve been in bed for over 14 hours then,” Madeline said with a sleepy smile.
“Time well spent,” Gabriel pointed out and read the message. “Oh, it’s from Krihana. We can take a look at the ship today.”
“What time?”
“Working hours,” Gabriel stood and stretched his back. Slouching in bed watching movies was nice, but his back had some complaints. Or maybe that was from the training and improv self-defense course yesterday.
“Send a message and ask if we can see it after lunch, but now, I need a shower,” Madeline said and sat up as well.
“Same, want to save water and take one together?” Gabriel asked as he typed out the message.
“Like saving water is why,” Madeline teased and headed for the bathroom. “You coming?”
Gabriel stopped a pun from escaping his lips, “I’ll have you know I care for the environment,” He said and followed happily along.
They spent some time relaxing, letting Madeline’s fur dry before heading out and collecting some lunch to go on the way. It was a bit after lunch by the time they walked through the park, many citizens were hurrying back to their jobs. By the time they reached the second park rain began to fall again. Luckily this time they had umbrellas and the rain was light as usual so they didn’t have much trouble and managed to get to the Union tower with dry socks. Not that Madeline wore socks but Gabriel considered it a win.
Inside they received the same treatment as before. The receptionist recognized them and they were sent to wait. This time, however, they were guided by an attendant to the security section. Inside, Zura and Rik’Tensel waited for them.
“Hey, any reason we’re in security?” Gabriel said to the two Justicars.
“Not really, there’s just no landing pad on the tower,” Zura said.
“And we have more pull over security so it’s easier to free up a slot,” Rik’Tensel said and led them to an elevator. It was a quick ride to the top where a shuttle waited. It looked about the same as the one Gabriel had already ridden on but this one was slightly larger and had markings that showed it belonged to Union security. Everyone got in and they took off, heading towards the docks.
“Excited?” Madeline asked and grabbed Gabriel’s hand. He only then realized he had been fidgeting.
“Yeah, I mean, it’s a spaceship. I might have flown in a few already but still,” He said.
Madeline chirped and nodded. “I know how you feel, It’s different to see them flying around and going inside.” She turned to Zura and Rik’Tensel, “But I suppose you get used to it?”
“If you work as a crewmember I guess you do. But most only take a trip or two a year so it’s somewhat of a special occasion for most,” Zura said and nodded to Rik’Tensel. “We have of course been on more trips than that, but I have never worked onboard.”
Rik’Tensel nodded, “And I have. I worked on a ship for just over a year, about the same size class as the one we will go see.”
“What position?” Gabriel asked.
“Classified,” Rik’Tensel said.
“I see,” Gabriel said. “What was that about size class?”
“It’s a general measure of size,” Rik’Tensel said and launched into an explanation. “A class 1 ship is a one-manned fighter or personal racing vessel or similar. A class 2 would be what your pilot friend has, Cani was it?” Gabriel nodded. “A ship with one pilot but with space for two or three passengers and some storage or with a very small cargo bay. A class 3 is usually crewed by two or three and can haul cargo or at times passengers.”
Gabriel turned to Madeline, “Like Captain Scarrask's ship?”
“Yeah, I think so,” she said. “Two crewmembers, pulling large modular containers?” she asked Rik’Tensel.
“Precisely. A size 4 ship is a smaller leisure ship or passenger transport. Typically five to eight ship crew but that can vary depending on its purpose. It’s the largest ship that is still too small for an FTL drive. A size 5 is what we will be looking at and travel in. This particular one has 14 crewmembers and six additional security personnel. It has two cargo bays and seven passengers cabins with double beds.” Rik’Tensel said and brought up his pcu. “I can send you the floorplan, a simplified version that is.”
“Yes, please,” Gabriel said and they exchanged numbers. A minute later his pcu beeped and he brought up a picture of a large ship with numbered rooms. He had trouble reading the descriptions though as he was less than proficient in Station standard still. “And the rest of the sizes?” Gabriel asked Rik’Tensel.
“Here, I’ll translate,” Madeline said and they got to work changing the numbered list on the side.
“Right, size 5 ships have 10 to about 20 crew, again depending on the purpose. A Cargo hauler has less and a cruise ship more. Size 6 is up to twice the size of the one we are looking at and the largest that can easily land on planets. We have specialized landing strips for class 7 as well.”
“And they are much larger?”
“Yes, I think Mr. Nionis ship is a class 6, though on the smaller side. A class 7 is twice that size. They often have their own docks for small ships and few are built to land, most stay in orbit.”
“Would a large mining ship be a class 7?” Gabriel asked.
“If you are referencing a certain rebuild mining ship then no, that one was class 8,” Rik’Tensel said.
“And finally class 9. Very few exist, and they are more or less mobile space stations. Some were actually built into stations back in the day.”
“And how large are they, compared to a size 5?” Gabriel asked now that he had the floorplans.
“Very much depends, a size 8—as you have seen—can be more than twenty times larger than a size 5. Size 9 are maybe five to ten times larger than them.”
“Oh, so at least a hundred times larger?”
“Very much depends, if you see one, you won't have to guess what size class it is.”
Gabriel nodded and turned his attention back to his pcu. “This is quite a big ship,” Gabriel said, looking over the floorplan. “And the blue lines are doors I imagine. Can the corridors close?”
“Yes in case of an emergency. And regarding the size, I would have opted for one without such large cargo bays but this is what was available,” Zura said and leaned over so she could point at the plans. “This is your room, the largest one on the upper floor. The captain's room is the one opposite. We will take rooms meant for guests if you don’t mind,” she said and leaned back.
“Not at all,” Gabriel said and shrugged. “Not like I have that many guests.”
“One of your two doctor friends might have to take one as well, this layout only has one doctor in mind,” Rik’Tensel said. “Honestly it’s a bit messy, this ship has had its insides refitted a few times.”
“As long as it flies I’m happy,” Gabriel said.
“I’m told it will,” Rik’Tensel said and glanced over his shoulder as he was facing the back. “After we pass this building you should be able to see it.”
Gabriel craned his neck and looked out the window. The ship that came into view was—like the floorplan suggested—arrow-shaped. It had a large engine in the back, two wings on the lower third with two additional pivoting engines in the middle. The upper two-thirds tapered into a blunted tip with two more engines on each side.
“It looked front-heavy,” he remarked.
“Yes, but the front had a few thrusters underneath to balance it out. And the heavy stuff is in the back. Water supply, generator, and cargo bays. You can see the doors where the wings meet.” Zura pointed and Gabriel saw a large closed door.
As they moved over to the left side of the ship to land, Gabriel saw that the other door was open, a ramp stretching down to the ground. In the front, a door was open and a ramp stretched down from near the bridge.
Gabriel took one last look at the floorplan before they landed. “There are three unmarked rooms, what are they for?”
“The one opposite the airlock is for spacesuit storage, the two above are not finished but I think one will be used for environmental, the other might remain empty,” Rik’Tensel said.
They finally landed and Gabriel got out to get a proper look at the ship. It was big, his best estimate was close to 100 meters but it was hard to see from down here.
“This feels like a very big ship, almost too big,” Gabriel said.
“It is on the larger side, but considering we are going after the syndicate, I wouldn’t mind an even larger one. Still, an Ambassador can get away with something like this,” Zura said and led them towards the ship. “Usually though, you would travel with a handful or more personnel from your government.”
“That will be difficult to arrange,” Gabriel said, looking up at the ship as they approached. “Only two stories though, it looks like it can handle three.”
“There are maintenance tunnels under the floor,” Zura explained. “I think the water and fuel tanks are down there as well.”
“Right,” Gabriel said. It had somehow slipped his mind that that needed a large spot.
Zura walked in front and guided them over to the airlock in the front, over by the bridge. “Let’s get this tour underway,” she said and walked up the extendable stairs that were extending from the hull.
Despite having spent more time in spaceships than outside, or maybe it was beginning to switch, he had honestly lost count of the days. Regardless, he was still excited to see the insides. The roof was quite low, but not to the point that he or Rik’Tensel had to duck, though the tall Igris did bob his head when going through doorways. First, they checked out the bridge. It had two seats with controls and screens located right ahead once they crossed the threshold. To the left were stairs going up to a balcony of sorts. To the right were two more stations and stairs down to a seating area of all things.
“Remains from when this was a pleasure craft,” Zura explained and swept a hand around the room. “The owner and his guests would sit and drink while looking out the windows.”
“I see,” Gabriel said and looked the bridge over. “And the stations?”
“Pilot, Captain, Communications, and FTL.”
“And the rest of the crew is backup?” Gabriel guessed.
“That’s right, shipmaster, copilot, second communications officer—which I will fulfill the role of—and second FTL officer,” Zura explained. “And of course someone has to cook and take care of the ship, two mess officers and two each engineering and environmental.”
“Why do you need someone on FTL if the trip takes days or weeks?”
“They do more, it’s called FTL because that’s their main task. Jumping unanchored to FTL gates takes a lot of work and planning. But they also are in charge of delivering information about the ship to the rest of the crew. Engine status, hull breaches, and that kind of stuff,” Zura said.
“Alright,” Gabriel said and nodded.
“Let’s move on,” Zura said and gestured toward the back of the ship. They first passed the crew quarters, galley, and medbay, then they passed the two cargo holds that were mostly empty. Some boxes, parts, and other various equipment laid about but Zura said that most would be gone in a few days and be replaced by food, spare parts, and other necessities needed on the trip.
After a brief peek into a crowded engineering section they took the elevators up a level. The gym was not yet stocked with machines and more than half was empty, the leisure area next to it had a large screen for movies and even a wall bar, though that was empty as well. It was half movie theatre and half pub. Gabriel approved of whoever designed it.
Toward the front were the guest rooms and another galley, this was unnecessarily big. The entire crew could easily fit inside. Two meeting rooms were attached, one with a table and chairs and the other with couches and screens on the walls. And finally beyond that was the ambassador suite and captain’s quarters.
“It’s a very nice ship, though like you said, the interior is a little strange,” Gabriel said and gestured to the galley.
“I believe it was the only one when the ship was built,” Rik’Tensel said, looking back at the galley. “The lower one was added later and this one remained unchanged.”
“With the room at the back, this ship could serve a crew of like five times this size,” Madeline mused.
“Yes, I think that was the idea, I cannot remember who built the seating area in the bridge but he often threw parties on the ship from what I recall,” Rik’Tensel said.
“I see,” Gabriel said. “In that case, I suppose it makes more sense. And we can’t make any changes to—” Gabriel began before his pcu began ringing. He picked it up but only got a number he didn’t recognize on the display. “Hello?”
“Gabriel? This is Sen’Chakar,” He heard from the other end.
“Hey! how are you?”
“Well, considering, I am at the station where Deana is jailed, she wants to talk to you.”
“Alright, sure,” Gabriel said. He heard some rustling as the pcu was shifted around.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Deana, how are you?” He asked.
“Well, but confused.” Deana paused for a second. “I was planning to spend a few years in prison for… you know… but I was offered a very strange deal...”
“Alright,” Gabriel said as Deana paused.
“Yeah, I can work as an indentured servant for a time equal to the same amount of my original sentence, but without any possibility of getting released early.”
“And what does that mean in detail?”
“It means that I work for as little as possible while still affording food, clothes, and stuff… you know, more or less for free, but as long as I work, I’m more or less free. Well bound to my workplace but you know, the next best thing. I think it sounds great... There’s only one issue”
“Which is?”
“... I need to be hired by someone high ranking in the Union, the woman who contacted me suggested a factory owner, franchise owner of… maybe an emissary of some kind,” Deana finished sheepishly.
“You’re hired,” Gabriel said.
“I can clean the floors and… what?”
“You’re hired,” Gabriel said. “Oh, and if Cani is there, tell her that she has a job as copilot waiting if she wants it. And we can hire Sen’Chakar as well if he wants to go.”
“Wha… really?”
“Yes, really,” Gabriel said grinning into the phone. “I don’t exactly know what the future might hold but I’ll hire you as long as I’m able to.”
“I… thank you, Gabriel. That means a lot that you trust me this much.”
“I’ll contact the owner and see about getting you onto the ship, can you contact Cani?” Gabriel asked, still smiling.
“Yes, she’s here,” Deana said.
“Great, give me a call and I’ll set it up,” Gabriel and Deana said goodbye and he hung up before explaining the situation to Madeline.
“So that’s what Krihana meant about changing the sentence,” Madeline said.
“I guess so,” Gabriel said and called Krihana to explain the situation.
“I assumed as much,” Krihana said after he was finished, “You pilot friend will have to act as third pilot, however, but we can certainly use a security officer with some knowledge about the syndicate, Sen’Chakar was it?”
“Yes,” Gabriel confirmed.
“I’ll make the arrangements if they sign on, miss Deana will join you the day you leave.”
“Thank you for fixing this,” Gabriel said.
“No problem, now, was there anything else?”
“No, I don’t think so. Thank you again, bye.” Gabriel hung up. “Well, that was fortunate.”
“I agree,” Madeline said and grabbed his arm, “So, what now?”
“I don’t know.” Gabriel turned to Zura and Rik’Tensel, “Anything else to show us?”
“No, you can walk around if you want, but I think you have seen it all. The only thing left for you to do is name the ship.”
“...I get to name the ship?” Gabriel said, a smile beginning to spread on his face.
“Yes, Krihana thought it a good idea,” Rik’Tensel said. “Though she might object if you call it anything tasteless.”
Gabriel nodded slowly, racking his brain for a good name. “This will require some serious thinking. Not my strong suit I might add.”
“You have three days if you want it painted on the hull,” Zura said as Madeline tried to keep from chirping in laughter.
“Let’s go, Madeline. I’m giving you a crash course in human sci-fi,” Gabriel grinned and began pulling Madeline along towards the docks.

A/N: Ship floor plan (a bit messy :D)

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As ever, this is not investment advice and do your own research
+++++++

26 Capital Acquisition Corp or ADER
is a 240m SPAC with usual terms - 10$ units, 1/2 warrants. Seeking a merger in "gaming and gaming technology, branded consumer, lodging and entertainment, and Internet commerce sectors".
I think this is highly worth a play on the online gambling hype if you can get in at near NAV, based entirely on the management which is unbeatable in its knowledge of the gambling industry

CEO Jason Ader
has held director level positions at Las Vegas Sands Corp. ($42bn one of biggest casino groups in world), IGT (£3.72bn multinational gambling firm specialised in software and slot machines) and Playtech (£1.4bn multinational gambling software firm)
Before starting his own fund in 2013 he was regularly ranked Wall Street's top analyst on the gambling and leisure sector
His fund, Spring Owl Capital, is a small activist fund focused on gambling and leisure. They are probably most famous for ousting the CEO of Viacom in 2016 and a crusade against Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer in 2015.
Ader knows the gambling - and online gambling - industry inside out. He drove bWin to a £1.1bn takeover by gambling giant GVC (now Entain) in 2016, and has been driving similar change and demands for improvement at board level at Playtech
The fund mostly manages money for a select group of wealthy families, which could be a positive sign for the SPAC (although I don't know how much skin in the SPAC the fund has, if any)
Here is a video of Ader from November talking about how he's excited about SPACs. He talks about how he has been advising certain States about legalising sports betting and how to maximise value and liquidity by linking up with European companies in the space (Playtech e.g.??).
Ader is extremely bullish on US legalising online casino and more sports betting options, accelerated by need for revenue because of pandemic

Rafi Ashkenazi
One of the most highly respected names in the online gambling world, including COO and CEO positions at major online gambling firms such as Playtech and Stars Group (a world leader in online poker and casino). At Stars he led the $4.7bn takeover of Sky Betting to create the world's largest publicly listed online betting firm in 2018. Most recently he led the £10bn merger between Flutter (biggest gambling company in world by revenue, market cap £26bn), and Stars Group (Ader also involved). Also has connections into the booming Israel tech space which is interesting

Joseph Kaminkow
Special Advisor to the Chief Product Officer at Aristocrat, a leading gambling software provider and games publisher, previously Vice President of Game Design at Zynga Inc. This guy is a former video game / pinball designer who is credited with revolutionising the slots industry after moving into gambling software from video games in 1999. Regarded as a "legend" and "hall of famer" in this niche. At Zynga he designed so-called 'social casino games' which don't involve real-money gambling but are otherwise basically gambling apps (revenue from microtransactions etc). 130 patents on gambling/gaming design inventions

Greg Lyss
This is a very interesting but extremely low profile person. He was Bill Ackman a.k.a SPACman's right hand man at Gotham Capital. Ackman respected him so much that when Ackman set up a personal hedge fund to invest the Ackman family's money, he put Lyss in charge of it. To repeat - Bill Ackman thinks this guy is such a good investor and trustworthy that he put him in charge of investing his family's money. Don't know anything more about him, but I like this association with Ackman, which suggests to me some integrity around management of this SPAC, especially as the gambling world can be very murky.
The other member of the team is the CFO of SpringOwl with 20+ years' hedge fund experience and not notable (although clearly competent)

Thesis / potential targets
Based on the above experience and many public comments by Ader over the past year, I would be very surprised if ADER is not looking to merge with an online gambling technology provider / existing online betting website / social casino app / possibly a supporting technology provider
They are activist inventors, and specifically say in the IPO prospectus that they could look for businesses that can benefit from turnaround or are not being run well. I speculate that their deep knowledge of the European / global online gambling industry means they have a target in mind that they think would benefit from their expertise and US liberalisation of gambling legislation.

1) Ader believes the listing of UK-listed gambling companies in US is immediately big in terms of market cap because of the premium on online gambling stocks in US. He has pitched DraftKings to takeover Playtech and called on Playtech to spin off non-core business. This makes me wonder if he would spin off some element of Playtech to list in US to cash in on gambling hype.
This might be Finalto.com / TradeTech which is an online financial platform owned by Playtech. Playtech has been trying to sell this for 200 - 240m since August so it fits. This company provides liquidity and trading to brokerages and runs markets.com a trading site. I wouldn't be that excited although apparently the business has been booming during COVID and there could be a decent pop just on fintech hype.

2) This could be a 'picks and shovel' type data/B2B betting software play a la DMYD, or something like e.g. Israel based CRM software Optimove which works with some of biggest online gambling cos and has links to Ashkenazi. This would be interesting but probably not a huge pop

3) Possibly - given Ader's links to Sands - an online gambling tie-up with one of the big Vegas casinos who are desperate to get into the online betting space (see MGM's attempt to buy Entain for $8bn last week). Interestingly, Sands' owner Sheldon Adelson, previously a major opponent of online betting, has just died. Ader predicted a few months ago that Sands would be moving in this direction.

“There’s no stopping online gaming,” Ader said [before Adelson's death]. “(Las Vegas Sands’) initiatives to stop online gaming, at this stage, are largely historic. There hasn’t been a lot of spending recently to do that, especially post-pandemic.”
“I think the company will see the value created by DraftKings and FanDuel and Penn (National) Gaming and others. They’re not foolish,” Ader added. source

4) Ader is very confident that Macau will legalise online gambling in next year or two. Sands is big in Macau, the biggest gambling market in the world. A SaaS-type product positioned to capitalise on Asian gambling would be MASSIVE - at present however, China's attitude to gambling and local regulations mean this is unlikely

5) I also wonder if they might try to take legitimate one of the offshore bookmakers with big customer databases and brand recognition but which have been grey-area/illegal under US gaming legislation. For example, Five Dimes recently announced a settlement with the FBI to attempt to transition into newly legalised US markets. This might have the most hype potential

Potential upside
This is entirely a play on management experience and the meme factor / hype around online gambling in the US. I think if they pick a good target - which given their experience and connections seems likely - and get the right publicity and attention from retail investors looking for the next DKNG this could easily 3x and maybe 5-6x if on DKNG-type hype levels.
There is currently little spotlight on this and it is a good time to get in at NAV

Potential Downside

Ader has been vocal that he thinks US online betting is overvalued and in a bubble - why is he starting his own SPAC in the space then? Does he just want to cash in while the hype is at all-time high or does he have a legitimate business goal?
If he just wants to dump a part of Playtech which he does not like onto retail investors, this is a bad deal.
Other targets could be e.g. hotel industry or other leisure sector which would be zero sexiness to retail. Given Ashkenazi and Kaminkow's background this seems unlikely though
Usual SPAC caveats apply about potential difficulty finding a target, locking up your money for unspecified period of time, and the fact I may have completely misread the potential and my above thesis might be totally wrong

RAAAAAAAAR! - Legend With Rattlegore Warrior (Featuring Silas Darkmoon)

Introduction

Since the dawn of time, Control Warrior has risen against the face decks. After encountering a slew of Demon Hunters and Totem Shamans, I decided to experiment with a pure survival deck, and predictably, it dominated against aggro but fell off hard against anything else. There was enough space open in the deck to shore up some of this weakness, though, and the end result is Rattlegore Warrior, so called because Rattlegore and his clones are the only win condition in the deck. If your opponent has a heavy deck that also contains a Rattlegore counter, you'll probably lose, but at the moment, this doesn't describe too much of the meta I saw. The result is a deck that still blows aggressive strategies out of the water, but has the juice to stand up against a lot of other archetypes with a bit of luck. It's obviously way too early to make any definitive statements about the deck, and it's exploiting a pocket in the meta where not too many people are teching Silence effects, which could obviously change. With that said, it treated me very well for my run. I played ~30 games from Diamond 5 to Legend and kept going to 41 total, with a final winrate of 68%.
Proof of Legend: https://imgur.com/a/2U3DkAw
Proof of winrate: https://imgur.com/a/iTDL4y4

The Deck

Easy visual reference: https://imgur.com/a/GhMku0h

RAAAAAAR

Class: Warrior

Format: Standard

Year of the Phoenix

2x (1) Athletic Studies

2x (1) Risky Skipper

2x (1) Shield Slam

2x (1) Sword and Board

2x (2) Armorsmith

1x (2) Corsair Cache

2x (2) Minefield

1x (3) Ancharrr

2x (3) Bloodsworn Mercenary

1x (3) Bulwark of Azzinoth

2x (3) Coerce

1x (3) Lord Barov

2x (3) Shield Block

1x (4) Kargath Bladefist

2x (4) Sword Eater

2x (5) Brawl

1x (7) Silas Darkmoon

1x (8) Deathwing, Mad Aspect

1x (9) Rattlegore

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Card Highlights

Risky SkippeArmorsmith/AncharrCorsair Cache/Sword Eater
The first 4 are your typical armour gain shell that's been in wide rotation ever since Warriors had the option, so of course they were going to be included in a survival deck. Sword Eater interferes with this to a degree, and there's an argument for not including him since Risky Skipper is responsible for a lot of the deck's most impactful turns...but the card is just so good. It's a fantastic board control and stall tool earlier on, while also being able to assist your Rattlegore pressure if drawn later. I've cut down to one Corsair Cache, as between Anchaaar, Bulwark of Azzinoth, and 2 Sword Eaters, that's already 4 weapons in similar mana slots. I didn't want to run more weapons, and the second Corsair Cache was often a dead card with only 2 targets in the deck.
Minefield
What an incredible tool Control Warrior was given this expansion. Minefield completely denies basically any early board your opponent tries to build, whether that's Phase Stalker, Lab Partner, an attempted Totem setup, any Demon Hunter card...it's an incredibly efficient removal tool that also has some additional utility, such as combos with Lord Barov, or bombing your own Armorsmiths in a pinch.
Bloodsworn Mercenary
There are a lot of good targets in this deck, the main ones being Rattlegore (against heavy decks with no reliable counter), Kargath Bladefist (heavy decks that can counter Rattlegore), and Armorsmith (Risky Skipper -> Armorsmith -> Mercenary is often a game-ending play against aggro). It also pairs well with a lot of Silas Darkmoon thefts, and sometimes that extra Taunt (Sword Eater) or pressure (Deathwing) is just what you need.
Bulwark of Azzinoth
A good card against many forms of aggressive strategy, but an absolute force of nature against Demon Hunter in particular. Pen Flinger is the obvious counter and I did see it in a few of them floating around, but a 3 mana heal 4 is still acceptable in that scenario, and in many instances I easily denied 20+ damage over the 4 turns it took them to ping the Bulwark down with their Hero Power, since this deck can very reliably prevent them from sticking a board.
Silas Darkmoon
There's a lot of mana cheat and big minions running around right now, many of which have Taunt or Rush. Silas acts as a Mind Control lite here, and even if you don't have a smaller minion than Silas to give away, you usually have enough health to not worry about the 4/4 you donated to your opponent. In all honesty, Silas probably wouldn't stick around in a hyper-optimized build, but I threw him in on a whim and he felt good enough to keep, and blindsiding opponents with a big Silas play never gets old. I also ended a game on the spot by stealing an opposing Rattlegore, so there's definitely potential depending on what you're facing. A couple important interactions to note:

If you donate Risky Skipper, its effect doesn't trigger.
Don't play Silas on an empty board, he still gets rotated to your opponent. I tried this in the name of science during a game I was winning handily, so now you don't have to.

Deathwing, Mad Aspect
There's anti-synergy between Deathwing and Rattlegore, so if I had any reasonable opportunity to play him in a slower matchup, I usually did. You could certainly make a case to cut it because of this, but it's still an extremely powerful standalone card that saved me many times.

Other Cards to Consider

Stage Dive
The only Rush minion in the deck is Kargath Bladefist, meaning that Stage Dive can draw Kargath Prime very reliably. I didn't know how many losing games would be won on the back of this though, the deck does very well against aggro already and it's a solid but not definitive play against slower opponents.
Battle Rage
You're running Risky Skipper combos and there were some games where I'd have liked a bit more draw. With that said, holding these combo pieces can already clog your hand a bit sometimes, and the deck is kind of light on other activators, both in terms of minions and damage effects.
Costumed EntertaineBanana VendoKing Mukla
It occurred to me that a lot of this deck's harder matchups are often holding onto 9 card hands, so an attempt to mill them and burn key cards might be doable, but probably not your highest priority.
Bladestorm
An obvious choice especially against Druid's clowns, but I was just finding too many logjams against larger boards and didn't feel the need for more removal against aggro decks. Dropping Silas for a copy is probably one of the more straightforward optimization attempts you could make, if a pretty boring one.
EVIL Quartermaster
During the transition to the final clone-focused build of the deck, at one point I was running a single Bloodsworn Mercenary and a single Quartermaster, and the card felt pretty good, just not nearly as good as the 30 in the deck for the most part.
Lorekeeper Polkelt
His main appeal is helping you find your Rattlegore earlier, so this would be a meta call and one that probably should go into the deck if you're seeing a lot of Control Warlock in particular. This run was done fairly early in the meta so I tended to opt for all-rounders rather than a ton of tech cards, and it does clunk your draws up pretty badly against Demon Hunter, which was by far my most common opponent.
Faceless Manipulator
Redundancy for Bloodsworn Mercenary in Control matchups, obviously aimed at Rattlegore but also viable with a decent amount of big minions from your opponent. Again, meta call, I think you'd want to run it and Lorekeeper in the same deck.
Plague of Wrath
Passable removal against aggro while also providing a potential out against Druids or out of control Totem Shamans, and a pretty reasonable choice, albeit hampered by the lack of Bladestorm.
Claw Machine
Removal and card draw, and a lot of the deck's key cards are minions. There are probably bigger priorities, but I'm curious about this one, it seems pretty solid.
Troublemaker
I think Troublemaker probably isn't impactful enough in a lot of matchups, but it is a reasonable compromise between a late game bomb that still offers some amount of utility.
C'Thun, the Shattered/Yogg-Saron, Master of Fate
If you feel that the deck needs another bomb, these would be some options, although they kind of oppose the principle of "anti-aggro deck that can still win thanks to Rattlegore." C'Thun makes it actively harder to draw into Rattlegore, and while I certainly did play games that went long enough to make use of it, there weren't that many, and this deck can't draw aggressively. Against slower decks that can reliably counter Rattlegore? Sure, I'd love to have C'Thun, but realistically, those were a pretty small percentage of games. Yogg-Saron is a much less deck-defining option, although if you're going to take that approach, you'd probably want to add a few more spells as well (probably Bladestorm).

Encounter Stats

Demon Hunter
Encounter Rate 20%, Won 88% of Games
Druid
Encounter Rate 12%, Won 80% of Games
Hunter
Encounter Rate 5%, Won 50% of Games
Mage
Encounter Rate 17%, Won 57% of Games
Paladin
Encounter Rate 2%, Won Game
Priest
Encounter Rate 2%, Lost Game
Rogue
Encounter Rate 10%, Won 75% of Games
Shaman
Encounter Rate 10%, Won 75% of Games
Warlock
Encounter Rate 15%, Won 50% of Games
Warrior
Encounter Rate 7%, Won 67% of Games

Strategy

As stated, this is a survival deck first and foremost, with the ability to build an oppressive board in the late game in appropriate matchups.
Demon Hunter
I encountered Soul Fragment, Face, and Outcast variants of Demon Hunter, all of which felt extremely favoured. You remove their minions easily, and can reliably heal out of their damage. Bulwark of Azzinoth is the standout card in the deck since so much of their burn relies on attacks from the hero, and I usually tried to play it out as soon as I had a clear board, or after they'd equipped a weapon with a single minion in play. Bloodsworn Mercenary is saved for Armorsmith, and it's usually best to resist the temptation to play Armorsmith on curve, but against specifically Umberwing it can be a passable play if you don't have a great hand. Mulligan for Athletic Studies, Armorsmith, Risky Skipper (with Armorsmith), Bloodsworn Mercenary (with the other 2), Sword and Board, Corsair Cache, Minefield, Anchaaar, Bulwark of Azzinoth.
Druid
I faced Clown Druid and Spell Druid, with Spell Druid feeling very reasonable and Clown Druid feeling a bit more manageable than expected, albeit largely being up to holding the right answers (I suspect with a larger sample size this would be a bad matchup). This is 100% a Rattlegore duplication matchup, and if you can get this up and running before they completely overwhelm you with more than a wave or two of clowns, you've got a fighting chance. Spell Druid is the same thing, win with Rattlegore, although you're on a much more manageable clock. Silas Darkmoon is a lifesaver after a Survival of the Fittest -> Strongman play, as it can immediately pressure them or force out a clown wave to be Brawled down. Mulligan for Corsair Cache, Anchaaar, Lord Barov, Brawl, Rattlegore
Hunter
A sample size of 2 isn't much to go off, but I encountered one Face Hunter and one Deathrattle Hunter, the results of which were largely as expected. The Face Hunter was convincingly crushed, while the Deathrattle Hunter was able to fire off too many missiles for survival thanks to Darkmoon Tonk, Jewel of N'Zoth, and Vectus. It's worth noting that they had a pretty ideal draw while mine was fairly poor, but I still intuitively think it's probably not a great matchup, while I'd bet good money that Face Hunter is. I didn't play any Highlander Hunter or the new Secret version. Mulligans (assuming aggressive strategy): Athletic Studies, Armorsmith, Risky Skipper (with Armorsmith), Bloodsworn Mercenary (with the other 2), Sword and Board, Corsair Cache, Minefield, Anchaaar, Bulwark of Azzinoth (with earlier plays), Sword Eater (with earlier plays).
Mage
Minionless C'Thun Mage was the most common version I fought, although there was also Tempo Secret Mage, as well as one Highlander. C'Thun felt very good, and your main goal is to press the Armour Up button every turn you can possibly get away with it. Corsair Cache on turn 2? Wrong, press the button. Rattlegore doesn't have much chance of sticking between Devolving Missiles and Polymorph, whether native or discovered, so save Bloodsworn Mercenary for Risky Skipper -> Armorsmith plays. It's very reasonable to be well above 30 health on the turn they play C'Thun, and if you can pull this off with some resources left, you've likely won. Bulwark of Azzinoth isn't going to do a lot of major damage blocking most of the time, although I still tried to save it for later in the game, and after they'd played Eye of C'Thun. Tempo Mage is a similar principle, but felt tougher since you're not as free to sit back and build armour. Highlander Mage is not one of the decks this is meant to fight, with Zephrys and The Amazing Reno piling onto the anti-Rattlegore tech, so I think saving for a 10 mana Kargath -> 2x Bloodsworn Mercenary is likely the play, although I strongly suspect it's still an uphill battle. In all matchups, don't just discard a dead Corsair Cache if you're floating mana, as it's still good for triggering Counterspell. Mulligan for Athletic Studies, Risky Skipper, Sword and Board, Armorsmith, Corsair Cache, Anchaaar, Shield Block (with other plays), Kargath (with other plays).
Paladin
I faced a single Pure Paladin, which I beat down handily thanks to Rattlegore duplication. There's not too much detail I can go into here in terms of strategy, but I think it's fair to say that you basically can't win without Rattlegore specifically, as their Librams will eventually wear you down, so hard mulliganing for him might be the best plan. I've seen both Pure and Penflinger Paladin across the expansion so far, but the aggro/Silver Hand Recruit variant doesn't seem like it's taken off, so you can probably assume you'll have at least a bit of time. Coerce might be another fair mulligan, as well as Silas to snipe their big Libram target later in the game (preferably after Lady Liadrin).
Priest
Again, one game fought, but I think the deck is pretty much brick walled here, as you can never play Rattlegore and have no other way of killing them. Pretty much tradition at this point for Control Warrior vs. Control Priest, and I don't know if the new Resurrect tools have gained any traction. If they have, Silas might be a small saving grace, but in general, go for Kargath -> 2x Bloodsword Mercenary and pray.
Rogue
I encountered C'Thun Rogue as well as Galakrond Rogue, and the win condition was similar to Mage, squeeze out as much armour as possible while keeping the board under control. Risky Skipper -> Sword Eater is a useful way to clear Shadowjeweler Hanar without using a spell, and I saw her in every match I fought, so keep that in mind, Counterspell and Spellbender are extremely common picks (the same Corsair Cache tip as for Mage applies here). An important tip to note for C'Thun Rogue specifically: I think the correct way to play this matchup on the Rogue's end is probably to save both Shadowsteps exclusively for C'Thun, which would result in a total damage output of 90. The implication here may be that you as the Warrior should be saving your Bloodsworn Mercenaries for armour combos, but I'm not so sure, since 3 (or even 2) Rattlegores can potentially body block most of that damage. This will be an interesting matchup going forward, although none of the opponents I saw on my run were actually using Shadowstep this way, likely assuming I was Bomb Warrior. Wand Thief can discover anti-Rattlegore effects though, which is a bit of a bummer. I didn't fight any Aggro Rogue, but between being a natural counter to aggression, multiple ways to kill stealth minions, and Bulwark to block their big weapons, I have to imagine it'd be very favoured. Mulligan for Athletic Studies, Armorsmith, Risky Skipper (with Armorsmith), Bloodsworn Mercenary (with the other 2), Sword and Board, Corsair Cache, Anchaaar, Coerce, Lord Barov (with another combo piece to deal with Edwin Van Cleef), Sword Eater (with earlier plays), Kargath (with earlier plays).
Shaman
While I saw a few Battlecry Shamans in the first few hours of the expansion, all the encounters I had with this deck were the Totem version. Their entire deck is built around sticking a board, and your entire deck is built around removal, so it's a pretty comfortable matchup provided you draw a decent answer or two. You've generally won or lost by the time Rattlegore comes down, so save Bloodsworn Mercenary for Risky Skipper plays or as another Rush minion to keep their board clear. The main priority against Totem Shaman is to kill everything, don't leave even a basic totem alive if you have the option not to. Mulligan for Athletic Studies, Risky Skipper, Sword and Board, Minefield, Anchaaar, Lord Barov, Kargath (with earlier plays), Sword Eater (with earlier plays), Brawl.
Warlock
Control Warlock is probably the deck that most relies on Rattlegore to save the day. If you can stick a Rattlegore and clone it, you can dole out enough pressure to get past their deck burning, but if you don't, there's very little hope. Even then, I played one game where I managed to get 2 Rattlegores out that the Warlock was able to whittle down until they were no longer threats, and I died in fatigue. It's a pretty rough matchup, and one where you need to try and apply a bit more pressure than usual with weapon face swings, etc. Luckily, Zoo decks are much more favoured, although Control seems like the matchup you should assume you're walking into right now. Which means a hard mulligan for Rattlegore, because if it's milled, you're done.
Warrior
There are a few Warrior archetypes out there, but I mostly ran into Bomb Warrior with a couple Menagerie builds as well. Against Bomb Warrior, Bloodsworn Mercenary has several valid uses, and I think in an ideal world you'd aim for one armour combo and one Rattlegore clone, although armour probably comes first since the deck tends to devolve into burn damage. Rattlegore isn't a core card, but I have seen it several times (maybe for the mirror?), so that's your ideal Silas target. Menagerie Warrior isn't that popular, but keeping up a board presence in order to delay your hard removal as long as possible is important, their minions keeping growing as the game goes on so being able to trade into their earlier ones rather than burning Coerce/Shield Block is very helpful, especially since this build doesn't run Bladestorm. I didn't face any of the new Rush OTK version, but have to assume you're going for armour combos, and saving Silas for their Rattlegore. Mulligan for Athletic Studies, Armorsmith, Risky Skipper (with Armorsmith), Bloodsworn Mercenary (with the other 2), Sword and Board, Corsair Cache, Anchaaar, Bulwark of Azzinoth, Kargath (with earlier plays), Sword Eater, Rattlegore (with earlier plays).

Closing Thoughts

I think Control Warrior has a lot of potential this expansion, and while this almost certainly isn't the most optimized version possible, it was a ton of fun to play, and scratched that classic control itch in a big way. Hope you found this helpful, and RAAAAAAR!

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RAAAAAAAAR! - Legend With Rattlegore Warrior (Featuring Silas Darkmoon)

Introduction

The Deck

RAAAAAAR

Class: Warrior

Format: Standard

Year of the Phoenix

2x (1) Athletic Studies

2x (1) Risky Skipper

2x (1) Shield Slam

2x (1) Sword and Board

2x (2) Armorsmith

1x (2) Corsair Cache

2x (2) Minefield

1x (3) Ancharrr

2x (3) Bloodsworn Mercenary

1x (3) Bulwark of Azzinoth

2x (3) Coerce

1x (3) Lord Barov

2x (3) Shield Block

1x (4) Kargath Bladefist

2x (4) Sword Eater

2x (5) Brawl

1x (7) Silas Darkmoon

1x (8) Deathwing, Mad Aspect

1x (9) Rattlegore

Card Highlights

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