Linear Arboricity Puns

Listen to the most recent Vicious Syndicate podcast here - https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-podcast-episode-73/

As always, glad to do these summaries, but a summary won't be able to cover everything and can miss nuances, so I highly recommend listening to their podcast as well. Next VS Report should be out on Thursday, January 6th, with the next podcast being out sometime next weekend.

General - The most recent meta report took a lot of work because there were so many decks. We're in a very diverse meta right now primarily because Team 5 changed their design philosophy and by opening up new card draw options to most classes, and no longer printing pack filler. ZachO thinks there can be even more diversity if they open up additional card draw options to Warrior, or late game lethality to Priest. "Kibler said the meta is solid, we can move on guys! If Kibler is happy, I'm happy." They can still make some additional balance changes, but with some classes having 5+ viable decks, there's not a lack of diverse options to choose to play from. This is probably the best December patch they've ever released when you look at issues with Galakrond, Evolve Shaman, and Rastakhan metas over the past few years. Both Hat and ZachO think this is the best meta since Scholomance and may go down as an all time great meta.

Rogue - With Thief Rogue's popularity, you can almost assume that a Priest or Warrior opponent at high legend right now is presumably a Thief Rogue player. Clear best deck in the game right now, and will likely dictate the format. No deck in the format seizes early game board initiative better than Thief Rogue. They point out that one of the deck's strengths is the fact that it doesn't have to spend much mana on most of its cards - the vast majority of the deck has cards you're playing for 2 mana or less. Deck has a strong matchup spread, but not unbeatable. Decks with strong defensive tools and removal options can deal with the deck. Decks like Fel Demon Hunter, Handlock, and Libram Paladin are favored in the matchup, and if more people play these types of decks, Thief Rogue's winrate may drop. Thief Rogue is likely the only Rogue deck where Shadowcrafter Scabbs isn't the best card in the deck due to how strong early Gnolls are. While Gnoll may be a target for future nerfs (and both point out Gnoll is nowhere near as highrolly as things like Drek'Thar or Incanter's Flow), both ZachO and Hat seem to be a fan of Thief R

I will say that this is slightly misleading now that I am looking back. Only 26 colleges were applied to, but there were 30 decisions total. This was for class of 2025, but I didn't post in the past because even though it's been more than 6 months, I can't say I'm over these results. I'll add more in the note at the end. To those of you that recognize me, please ignore this and do not send this around. I still am not over my college decisions so I would rather this stay anonymous.

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: Asian - Han/Hui/Uyghur Chinese
• Residence: Southern California
• Income Bracket: Middle-upper class (did not apply for financial aid)
• Type of School: Competitive Californian public school
• Hooks (Recruited Athlete, URM, First-Gen, Geographic, Legacy, etc.): Legacy at Cornell

Intended Major(s): This is going to get very complicated. I was basically undecided but I applied Astronomy + Religion/Philosophy at almost every university except computer science at UCs (mainly because it is easier to transfer out of CS than transfer into CS at UCs, as opposed to private schools where you don't have to declare your major later, especially that CS was something that interested me)

Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.9/4.5
• Rank (or percentile): Unranked
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 17 APs, 5 courses taken through UCSD summer session (linear algebra, multivariable calculus, vector calculus, organic chemistry 2, organic chemistry 3)
• Senior Year Course Load: 4 APs

Standardized Testing

• SAT I: N/A
• ACT: 35 (35E, 35M, 34R, 36S)
• SAT II: Math II (800), Chemistry (800), Chinese with listening (800)
• AP/IB: Basically all 5s (for the pre-senior year APs) except for a 3 in AP US History and a 2 in AP Music Theory
• Other (ex. IELTS, TOEFL, etc.):

Extracurriculars/Activities

It's been too long for me to remember the details of what I put.

1. Quizbowl - Team captain and led team to 14th place at nationals; ranked top 10 in regular season; coached teams and players - even made youtube videos to help people study
2. Academic Competition Federation - I wrote quizbowl questions for the main college quizbowl organization (I am the first high school student to write for their Regional's tournament, which is the qualifying tournament for the college national championship)
3. Science Olympiad - Was on school's varsity Science Olympiad team. I coached the event Astronomy where all 5 teams from my school swept the top 5 pla

I don't want to step on anybody's toes here, but the amount of non-dad jokes here in this subreddit really annoys me. First of all, dad jokes CAN be NSFW, it clearly says so in the sub rules. Secondly, it doesn't automatically make it a dad joke if it's from a conversation between you and your child. Most importantly, the jokes that your CHILDREN tell YOU are not dad jokes. The point of a dad joke is that it's so cheesy only a dad who's trying to be funny would make such a joke. That's it. They are stupid plays on words, lame puns and so on. There has to be a clever pun or wordplay for it to be considered a dad joke.

Again, to all the fellow dads, I apologise if I'm sounding too harsh. But I just needed to get it off my chest.

#"Terrestrial" Anacondra Druid

Intro

I call this deck Terrestrial Druid because it's like a mini version of Celestial Anacondra Druid. It also plays a lot of Nature spells, so fitting the "terrestrial" moniker. What the deck does is do nothing until turn 5-6, then play a bunch of mana rituals, Anacondra, and then some combination of Germination, Solar Eclipse, Arbor Up, and potentially Fungal Fortunes to generate a lethal board before most decks can answer it.

That is the only thing the deck does. It is extremely linear, akin to Mozaki Mage. If your Anacondra Arbor board gets dealt with, you have no realistic way of winning from there. However, the tools in the meta that can deal with a wide+tall board on turn 5 are quite limited, and if your opponent doesn't have them, then none of their decisions mattered.

And the deck does its thing with near-absolute consistency. In less than 15% of my games was I unable to combo by turn 6. About half of the games had a turn 5 combo. So it's a pretty good deck for climbing, you almost always know if you've won or lost by turn 7.

I climbed to Legend with this deck on a 12-game winstreak and continued to climb once I hit legend. I'm 22-7 since the balance patch, with a 36-19 overall record since I started playing the deck. I believe the balance patch was favorable to the deck, since it pushed aggro decks into the meta which this deck snacks on. The reduction in Paladins has also been a boon since Barov is by far the best counter to this deck.

One last word on the deck, it is extremely uninteractive. You do nothing until turn 5, and then sometimes your opponent concedes on turn 6. Other times, you do your big turn and they play a couple cards and you concede. I think the deck also has a relatively low skillcap, but it's not without its clever plays, and I'm certainly better at it than I was when I started.

#Decklist and discussion

2x (0) Innervate
2x (0) Lightning Bloom
2x (1) Nature Studies
2x (1) Resizing Pouch
1x (1) Sphere of Sapience
2x (2) Capture Coldtooth Mine
2x (2) Guess the Weight
2x (2) Lunar Eclipse
2x (2) Moonlit Guidance
2x (2) Solar Eclipse
2x (2) Thorngrowth Sentries
1x (3) Feral Rage
1x (3) Frostwolf Kennels
2x (3) Fungal Fortunes
2x (4) Germination
2x (5) Arbor Up
1x (6) Lady Anacondra

AAECAZICBI/OA+TuA7igBLi+BA3lugPmugObzgPw1AOJ4AOK4APR4QOM5AOP5AOt7AOvgASunwSwpQQA

To break down the list, we run:

• 6 rituals including Resizing Pouch

Do your worst!

They were cooked in Greece.

I'm surprised it hasn't decade.

Don't you know a good pun is its own reword?

Two muffins are in an oven, one muffin looks at the other and says "is it just me, or is it hot in here?"

Then the other muffin says "AHH, TALKING MUFFIN!!!"

For context I'm a Refuse Driver (Garbage man) & today I was on food waste. After I'd tipped I was checking the wagon for any defects when I spotted a lone pea balanced on the lifts.

I said "hey look, an escaPEA"

No one near me but it didn't half make me laugh for a good hour or so!

Edit: I can't believe how much this has blown up. Thank you everyone I've had a blast reading through the replies 😂

It really does, I swear!

Because she wanted to see the task manager.

But that’s comparing apples to oranges

Heard they've been doing some shady business.

but then I remembered it was ground this morning.

Edit: Thank you guys for the awards, they're much nicer than the cardboard sleeve I've been using and reassures me that my jokes aren't stale

Edit 2: I have already been made aware that Men In Black 3 has told a version of this joke before. If the joke is not new to you, please enjoy any of the single origin puns in the comments

BamBOO!

They’re on standbi

A play on words.

My daughter, Chewbecca, not so much.

And boy are my arms legs.

Pilot on me!!

Christopher Walken

Nothing, he was gladiator.

Or would that be too forward thinking?

Dad jokes are supposed to be jokes you can tell a kid and they will understand it and find it funny.

This sub is mostly just NSFW puns now.

If it needs a NSFW tag it's not a dad joke. There should just be a NSFW puns subreddit for that.

Edit* I'm not replying any longer and turning off notifications but to all those that say "no one cares", there sure are a lot of you arguing about it. Maybe I'm wrong but you people don't need to be rude about it. If you really don't care, don't comment.

When I got home, they were still there.

Hindus, on the other hand, never had any beef.

I won't be doing that today!

This morning, my 4 year old daughter.

Daughter: I'm hungry

Me: nerves building, smile widening

Me: Hi hungry, I'm dad.

She had no idea what was going on but I finally did it.

Thank you all for listening.

[Removed]

Where ever you left it 🤷‍♀️🤭

And then shook his arm really fast.

(True story, please groan with me.)

Listen to the most recent Vicious Syndicate podcast here - https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-podcast-episode-73/

As always, glad to do these summaries, but a summary won't be able to cover everything and can miss nuances, so I highly recommend listening to their podcast as well. Next VS Report should be out on Thursday, January 6th, with the next podcast being out sometime next weekend.

General - The most recent meta report took a lot of work because there were so many decks. We're in a very diverse meta right now primarily because Team 5 changed their design philosophy and by opening up new card draw options to most classes, and no longer printing pack filler. ZachO thinks there can be even more diversity if they open up additional card draw options to Warrior, or late game lethality to Priest. "Kibler said the meta is solid, we can move on guys! If Kibler is happy, I'm happy." They can still make some additional balance changes, but with some classes having 5+ viable decks, there's not a lack of diverse options to choose to play from. This is probably the best December patch they've ever released when you look at issues with Galakrond, Evolve Shaman, and Rastakhan metas over the past few years. Both Hat and ZachO think this is the best meta since Scholomance and may go down as an all time great meta.

Rogue - With Thief Rogue's popularity, you can almost assume that a Priest or Warrior opponent at high legend right now is presumably a Thief Rogue player. Clear best deck in the game right now, and will likely dictate the format. No deck in the format seizes early game board initiative better than Thief Rogue. They point out that one of the deck's strengths is the fact that it doesn't have to spend much mana on most of its cards - the vast majority of the deck has cards you're playing for 2 mana or less. Deck has a strong matchup spread, but not unbeatable. Decks with strong defensive tools and removal options can deal with the deck. Decks like Fel Demon Hunter, Handlock, and Libram Paladin are favored in the matchup, and if more people play these types of decks, Thief Rogue's winrate may drop. Thief Rogue is likely the only Rogue deck where Shadowcrafter Scabbs isn't the best card in the deck due to how strong early Gnolls are. While Gnoll may be a target for future nerfs (and both point out Gnoll is nowhere near as highrolly as things like Drek'Thar or Incanter's Flow), both ZachO and Hat seem to be a fan of Thief R

Sorry I'm a little later on this one, was traveling all of yesterday, so this is the earliest I could get a summary of this one up.

Listen to the most recent Vicious Syndicate podcast here - https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-podcast-episode-70/

As always, glad to do these summaries, but a summary won't be able to cover everything and can miss nuances, so I highly recommend listening to their podcast as well.

General - Next VS report comes out Friday December 17th instead of the typical Thursday. Insights are all based on the first 5 days of data, so what's talked about here can very well change by the time the next VS Report comes out. Both Hat and ZachO do not think there's anything that needs an emergency nerf right now, though ZachO believes Drek'Thar is a Barnes type of problematic card that will need to be nerfed. ZachO currently thinks there won't be a "dead" class, although some classes will be more limited with their options.

When it comes to balance changes, both Hat and ZachO think the patch window would be after HS Worlds on December 18th and 19th but before the holiday break (likely the week of the 20th). Towards the end of the podcast when discussion possible balance changes, ZachO doesn't think Libram Paladin or Warlock currently need to be targeted, nor does Trogg since it's not a power outlier in most of the decks its in, and it's a balance check to spell centric decks. There are many answers to Trogg that people are not running right now (silence, Devolving Missiles, general spell removal). He admits that the current meta is a lot more of a "solitaire" meta than the early Stormwind one with how strong various OTK decks look. The meta isn't any faster than the Stormwind one, but it's unrealistic to expect the meta to slow down significantly. What slows down the meta isn't new cards - it's card rotation and/or balance changes. There's a reason why the slowest metas tend to be the ones of the first expansion of the year. If you're looking to change these types of decks, the common thread of all current viable OTK decks (Owl Lock, Celestial Druid, Garrote Rogue, Lifesteal DH, Mozaki Mage) is that they all have a mass mana cheating effect (Rod, Celestial Allignment, Octobot, Kurtrus + Quest Reward, Siphon Soul/Incanter's Flow). Nerfing Owl or their fair costed card draw options won't do much to slow down these decks, and ZachO points out that educated content creators are missing the mark when discussing what nee

Sorry I'm a little later on this one, was traveling all of yesterday, so this is the earliest I could get a summary of this one up.

Listen to the most recent Vicious Syndicate podcast here - https://www.vicioussyndicate.com/vs-data-reaper-podcast-episode-70/

As always, glad to do these summaries, but a summary won't be able to cover everything and can miss nuances, so I highly recommend listening to their podcast as well.

General - Next VS report comes out Friday December 17th instead of the typical Thursday. Insights are all based on the first 5 days of data, so what's talked about here can very well change by the time the next VS Report comes out. Both Hat and ZachO do not think there's anything that needs an emergency nerf right now, though ZachO believes Drek'Thar is a Barnes type of problematic card that will need to be nerfed. ZachO currently thinks there won't be a "dead" class, although some classes will be more limited with their options.

When it comes to balance changes, both Hat and ZachO think the patch window would be after HS Worlds on December 18th and 19th but before the holiday break (likely the week of the 20th). Towards the end of the podcast when discussion possible balance changes, ZachO doesn't think Libram Paladin or Warlock currently need to be targeted, nor does Trogg since it's not a power outlier in most of the decks its in, and it's a balance check to spell centric decks. There are many answers to Trogg that people are not running right now (silence, Devolving Missiles, general spell removal). He admits that the current meta is a lot more of a "solitaire" meta than the early Stormwind one with how strong various OTK decks look. The meta isn't any faster than the Stormwind one, but it's unrealistic to expect the meta to slow down significantly. What slows down the meta isn't new cards - it's card rotation and/or balance changes. There's a reason why the slowest metas tend to be the ones of the first expansion of the year. If you're looking to change these types of decks, the common thread of all current viable OTK decks (Owl Lock, Celestial Druid, Garrote Rogue, Lifesteal DH, Mozaki Mage) is that they all have a mass mana cheating effect (Rod, Celestial Allignment, Octobot, Kurtrus + Quest Reward, Siphon Soul/Incanter's Flow). Nerfing Owl or their fair costed card draw options won't do much to slow down these decks, and ZachO points out that educated content creators are missing the mark when discussing what nee

What did 0 say to 8 ?

" Nice Belt "

So What did 3 say to 8 ?

" Hey, you two stop making out "

There hasn't been a post all year!