Dunkum

haven't gotten any. don't know if I will. i've said before that I was never a fan of the original Zendikar, and my friends have dropped off of drafting for a bit, so not sure I'll bother getting any. That said, looking at spoilers and card lists I did like what I was seeing a lot more than I had expected to, so I might do it eventually.

For that matter, how certain are we that hemalurgy isn't genetic. specifically, I mean that do we know that just anyone can charge a spike? I assume just about anyone can, but at the very least it is possible that one has to be from Scadrial to do it (or have a connection to it or whatever. We've seen this with other types of investiture), which means that ostensibly it makes sense to wonder if there is something Harmony can do to create that. also, for surgebinding running in families, I think it might be more psychological than genetic. the same family is going to have a lot of the same experiences, and presumably some similar philosophies learned from parents and grandparents, all of which might mean that where one family member is likely to become a radiant, others generally are as well.

all else aside, the moment you started burning the duralumin, you would also supercharge your bendalloy, and run out of that. I guess you might briefly have a very large time bubble, or else the brief moment of burning supercharged bendalloy would last even less time to an outside observer...

right, but per WoB an invested object resists further investiture, so a charged spike would resist having more investiture (in the form of ferruchemy in this case) added to it. you can overcome this, but it would have to take extra effort.

not that i'm aware of. I lucked out and found the anthology at a used book sale for somethign like $1.50. For reference, I would recommend a. the anthology itself, which I thought was pretty great and b. the lightning tree story which paints a much more interesting picture of bast than the two novels manage with their brief glimpses. I've said it before, I think, but I kind of like Slow Regard and Lightning Tree better than the main stories.

For the first question, I think we have confirmation that you could do that, but it would be more difficult than using an ncharged piece of metal. I could be mistaken about that. for the second, the specific composition of the metal is important, and I believe is identical to the various allomantic and ferruchemical metals, however for making a spike there is more to it than that. it has been noted (though I can't find the source right now) that all of the various cosmere magics require some kind of intent, you have to want to use that magic. you don't make a hemalurgic spike by just stabbing someone. but if you were already in the process of stabbing someone, and knew what you were doing, you could make one from the sword.

I still like the first generation, and have revisited it a couple times. For a while Gen 2 was my favorite, but I haven't been able to go back to that one in a while. as they made more and more of the games, I don't think any of them ever lived up to the quality of the first few though.

it actually does, though it's been a long time since I did anything with Julia sets, so I couldn't confirm that it is correct

just started on that one a few days ago. It's good, though so far I would still rate Tigana and Lions of Al-Rassan higher

we'll just have to disagree on this, I think

Nynaeve wasn't really in a mentor role at that point. I'll grant some of her actions weren't great, that one included, but they mostly weren't stupid, which I can't really say about her prior to that point (Elayne and post book 1 Nynaeve are again just as bad). moreover, they got progressively less stupid for the remainder of the series (again as opposed to Nynaeve and Elayne, the latter of whom simply assumed she couldn't die until she almost did). my point is: for me Egwene's character was at her most annoying when she was falling into obvious traps and just generally ignoring the advice of smarter/wiser folks (ala literally everything Harry potter ever did, but I shouldn't get started on that series). after her time with the wise ones, she at least starts to pay attention to what older and wiser heads might have to say. she makes her own decisions, some of them wrong, but none of them so blatantly stupid as anything she does in the first few books.

really? i had the opposite reaction. Egwene (and Nynaeve and Elayne, for that matter) annoyed me for pretty much the entire first 5 or 6 books. basically, I thought that everything Egwene did after meeting the wise ones was a dramatic improvement over how she was at the beginning. her arc in the white tower was her at her most competent, and I liked it better than, well honestly better than almost any other part of the series.

Its been a while since I read LOTR, but I seem to recall Orcs mostly being a challenge for the Hobbits. everyone else has been fighting them their whole lives. so when the fellowship is one man, and a bunch of hobbits with no training whatsoever, Orcs are hard. when there are allies who actually know what they are doing, it gets easier.

I always play on like the second lowest difficulty (challenge is fun, but so is dominating the board), so this pretty much happens in ever game I play

well, mostly I figure experimental hemalurgy (side note: cosmere band name?) would be a good way to you know, kill some folks, which Ruin seems pretty ok with

freedom I think. Vetinari is mostly very hands-off. he is a dictator when he needs to be, but for the most part he just lets people run wild. I don't think that fits the autocracy ideology too well. also, I may need to get my hands on whatever mods you are using for that, because that sounds fun

yea, Ruin would probably be perfectly OK with that sort of thing

I have 2 mill decks, one is a blue white tribal merfolk that relies on drowner of secrets and a set of ink dissolver to mill, the other is blue/black and closer to yours, though I might have had a bit more draw and discard type spells (or maybe that was just a concept I had been playing with...its been little while). I would say consider adding another mind grind. its a bit of a risk, but it has the potential to mill quite a bit if their lands aren't near the top of the deck; using 2 or 3 mana for the x cost tends to work pretty well, I have found, plus you are guaranteed to mill a land, which is usually nice. I'd have to look at my decks to see what else I had in them. haven't played either in a little while.

hadn't seen that one, but it is pretty good. though against a creature based deck it ends up just being an expensive mill. on the other hand, in a blue deck that would play that card, you almost definitely already have 2 instants or sorcerys in the graveyard by the time you have 4 mana, so against anyone else, you are probably getting that spell mastery ability, which could end up being very powerful, if you get lucky. I hadn't considered putting Tormod's crypt in a mill deck, since most of my friends don't do a whole lot of graveyard interaction anyway, but that combo would work extremely well with oblivion sower.

that emblem of his would be nice in one or two of my decks. so far this set is putting me off as much as I expected it to. Eldrazi are still ludicrously overpowered, but at least there isn't too much annihilator so far. I hate that ability so much. also, just now realized that oblivion sower's ability applies to all exiled cards the player owns, not just the most recent batch caused by his ability. that means it works with ingest and any other exile abilities you might put together.

Most comic book or gaming (d&d type, not video game) stores will sell cards. you can usually find premade decks there. I know I've bought cards at Target before, though not sure if they had decks or just booster packs (which you wold need a lot of to make a coherent deck), likewise for book stores. comic shop is probably going to be your best bet.

I can't even fathom how someone could believe any of the things you say here. they are basically the opposite of my experience. Granted it has been a bit since I last reread the series, but if I'm remembering correctly, books 8 and 9 are both worse than Crossroads of Twilight, and I absolutely cannot stand book 1 (this is the book I have read least recently, but I seem to recall that Rand and Mat's trip to Caemlyn to be just unbearable)

I think I managed to pick up a second Malazan book (though not book 2) and I think I have 1, 2, and 4 from Apt. planning to go to a used book sale this weekend, so I'll be on the lookout for more of each there (in theory I could get the full series of both for less than $20 total if they have them). as for WoT. there is a definite dip in quality, starting around book 7 or 8 (haven't reread in a while, so I can't pinpoint it exactly), but books 3-6, and 11 or 12 through 15 are all good. and even for those middle books, I liked Mat and Perrin enough for them to get me through. some of the other characters and their storylines too, but always Mat, and usually Perrin.

finished Gardens of the Moon. thought it was pretty good, so I will have to locate the rest of that series, and my library is not very useful for that. after that, reread New Spring, since I found it for cheap at a used book store recently. currently on to Empire in Black and Gold. only just started but it is interesting.

My immediate guess on Nicrosil is that the main limitation would be that it is hard o convert "pure investiture" into something you can use. Hoid could almost certainly do it, and probably most of the worldhoppers, but for the average scadrian, I imagine it would be exceptionally difficult to actually convert the stored investiture into something more useful (like a different stored attribute) or converting it to power allomancy.