America

50 states, 13 colonies...

Attention to detail. +1

this is beautiful

"Un-conventional" ha I see what you did there.

Arrest
Abandon Reason
Murder
Prey Upon

Sadly, Murder and Prey Upon don't fit the colors.

-1 to me for lack of attention to detail.

Turn/Burn does :)

Added a few of those :)

You must be a fun person.

I honestly agree with moooooooo, except I don't think an age requirement is the way to go.

1) What's going on in the US isn't exactly funny, it's very serious. About 20 years ago jokes about the US involved cowboy hats and fat people that are not able to point out other countries on a map. These days it's about corruption, warmongering and imperialism.

2) Humour is often used to make light of difficult or stressful situations and to brighten up a social atmosphere in general. Believe or not many people including me feel threatened by the US and fear the future. Jokes help alleviating that a bit.

3) For decades the US were making fun of other nations in their movies, pop culture and media. Now that the tide turns a bit and the US has to take their own medicine making fun of others isn't so funny anymore?

tl;dr

Have to agree with a lot of what Puschkin said. And it's a bit ironic that moooooooo wants to talk about an age requirement, but then snaps back with tl;dr when the discussion heats up. The truth is that the U.S. is in a dire situation. I made a joke of it, it is funny, "epic lulz" as he says. But that doesn't detract from the seriousness of the situation at all. And just like Puschkin says, humor is often used to make light of a serious situation, or sometimes even increase awareness of it.
I'm not claiming credit for that. I just attempted to make a funny deck. But maybe you should go watch V for vendetta or something moooooooo. Or modern American comedy. Comedy is oftentimes used as a tool to subversively discuss serious issues, and get others talking about it. Again, all I was really trying to do was make a funny joke. So I guess you kind of caught me in the "epic lulz" trap. But it is hilariously ironic to me that you say this site needs an age requirement, then 3 posts later post tl;dr when someone actually tries to seriously discuss anything.

Since my post wasn't that long, let us just assume he was sarcastic which I would appreciated :)

Nah, I noticed that too.

That's not true. You can still vote for Sanders, right? He is the best candidate you ever had. He might not win but always voting for someone you don't really like because you think the one you really want won't get enough votes is what you got you into the situation where you think you only have two choices in the first place.

The other thing you could do is using all your damn weapons. I mean, what's the No.1 argument for guns in the debate about gun control? The 2nd ammendment which was made to allow it citizens to bear arms in order to keep the government in check should they try anything funny. Well, I'd say, it's about damn time to use that!

See, I am german, and whenever that is mentioned, americans are fast cracking nazi jokes. Which is more than annoying. Not only because these events happened 70 years in the past, 30 years before I was born. Germany truly learned it's lesson, the holocaust, facism and everything that caused it is taught in schools and debated to death. And when I say "taught in schools" I mean almost an entirey YEAR in history lesson plus many segments in other classes as well (in english class you read "Animal Farm" and so on), up to the point where students are sick of it. Do american schools teach about the atrocities agains the american natives? Or agent orange?
But at least we now know why it happened and how Hitler got his power. We ALSO learned that he wasn't a special snowflake and that it can and will happen again at any time. All you need is a bunch of gullible people that scare enough. The following quote is from GÖRING, one of the highest ranking nazis back then:

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship…
Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”

The US are slowly turning to facism and they are doing this for many years. It's a bit better disguised this time but the inner workings and methods are the same and coupled with predative turbo-capitalism we might have gotten an even meaner beast. And yet, when you point out the similarities to americans you'll get answers like "we didn't kill millions of jews, right?". Dudes, once that happens it is way too late! Whenever the talk is about the holocaust and WWII movies where germans are demonized and americans the heroes and every german soldier is called a nazi I'd like to point out that the majority od soldiers were drafted and in no way nazis, they were regular guys like you and me. They'll answer "well, they are all guilty, too, because they elected HItler and didn't stop him later when they still could". Well, yeah, that's tough talk from the comfort of your chair. And RIGHT NOW YOU should be out there and stopping what is happenening.
But you won't do, because you are delusional about what's happening and because you still have hope it'll get better without your involvement. You are still doing quite well compared to others. And later on you won't do anything because you are too afraid or because you think it's too late and can't possibly get worse. And after that it's impossible to do anything without risking your life and the life of your family and everything you still own. And THATS why nobody stopped Hitler/fascism back than in time.

And yet americans still have the audacity to crack nazi jokes and to point fingers at others like they always do. Please understand that that is a wee bit irritating and annoying.

Now it's time for a tl;dr ;)

Well, tl;dr ;).
Now for my thoughts.
First, Sanders. His ideas are good, and maybe eventually things similar to them could be implemented. However, right now his policies simply couldn't work. This is because of flaws in America, which I am the first to admit to. The general populus simply isn't ready for Bernies ideas, and if the Republican Party attacked him instead of Clinton... He'd have no chance against Trump. Furthermore, he isn't perfect either, paying less attention to certain important issues that he should (sexism, racism, LGBTQ+ rights). He also hasn't had experience with leadership; those who have worked with him and know him best are generally endorsing Clinton.

Now to what else you said.

Weapons, guns and control of them. This is one place where the US just really sucks. I think everyone is in agreement about this, so I'm not gonna say much about it.

Americans', and others', attitudes towards Germany, Nazi jokes and America's rise to fascism. You went over this in quite a lot of detail, opening my eyes to very interesting things. First, on behalf of EVERYONE, I apologise for Nazi jokes. I know that people who fought generally didn't know the atrocities committed by Hitler and the Nazis, and I know that modern Germany in no way caused the Holocaust (something Trump doesn't seem to like, based on his comments about Merkel's Woman of The Year award). In American schools, the acts committed by the colonisers are mentioned generally, but in less detail than you talk about WWII. (I think, I've barely lived in the US, so I hope someone can confirm or deny this). Now I was a little confused at what the similarities were, but, well, Google was made for a reason! So I looked it up, and I can see the possibility of a fascist America, but this depends on whether or not Trump wins. If he wins, we are looking at the next Hitler. And you are right, once the slaughtering starts (probably of Muslims if Trump wins) then it is too late.

So, you are right, there, but I do think this is slightly off-topic.

America has its issues. But so does everywhere else. And I gotta say, this is offensive. 13 Bloodstained Mires? Sure. Confusion in the Ranks? Political Trickery? Fine. But 50 Breeding Pools, Dumb Ass, It that Betrays, Blind Obedience, Mercenaries, Bribery, Totally Lost, etc.? That hurts. And even you, Puschkin. "And yet Americans still have the audacity to crack Nazi jokes..."? Sure. Some Americans do. So do people of other nationalities, races, etc.. And NOT ALL Americans do.

Well, I'm signing off, expecting quite a few tl;drs coming up. ;-)

FoolishDeckbuilder

There was an article I saw where Hitler quotes were shown to trump supporters, and they supported them. America is in a bad place right now. Not that Hilary would be any better.

About the second amendment: we should have the right to bare arms. But it's up to the people not to abuse that, and that's not happening so something has to be done.

And FoolishDeckBuilder, your right. We do barely cover the bad parts of American history like the treatment of the Natives, and how we treated the Japanese in WII. That was horrible, believe me, but at least there was reasoning behind that unlike with the Native Americans. The closest we get to really covering the bad parts is about slavery and even that's not covered too much.

That's the thing, though: If you don't vote for a candidate like Sanders because he has less experience and because his ideas are too advanced ... then you are continuing the vicious cycle! You really prefer to vote for someone that is experienced in bad politics? Furthermore, it's not about winning - it's about signalling everybody envolved that change is needed and offering alternatives. I mean, it's ridiculous you are down to just 2 parties and you'll never have more if you don't give anyone else the chance to thrive. I am not exactly sure how your system works but I am pretty sure that you could have coalitions, right? Well, for that you need more than two parties. Sanders might not win but if people would still vote for him you'd end up with something like
41% Republicans
36% Democrats
23% Sanders with his own party
Republicans might win but Democats and Sanders could do a coalition and win together. This in turn means that both Reps and Democrats would have to take Sanders serious and alter their program to try to get some votes of the Sanders supporters. At least that's how it works here in germany, the Green party for example won't ever be strongest party, however, if you vote for them, you assure that every party involved has to make more concessions to green topics.
But instead, every time a good candidate or third party shows up, he'll run for it but way before elections actually take place they give up and recommend their supporters to vote for X or Y, whatever will be the least horrible choice. And that's how you will be stuck forever with just two parties that can alternate in screwing over everyone.

About similarities between nazi germany and the US today?
- Times of economic disasters prior to taking power
(hyperinflation back then in Weimarer Republic due to ridiculous high reparations germany had to pay due to the treaty of Versailles)

- Keeping the public in fear of things from the outside

- Emergency decrees during the end of Weimar Republic => various acts like the Patriot Act
(acts that give the government extra powers at the cost of freedom and civil rights, allegedly for a short time of need but in fact these Acts do never end, instead you'll get more of them)

- "Reichstag fire (2.27. 1933)" => 9/11
(especially if 9/11 was an inside job or at least something US agencies knew about but let it happen anyway)

- Jews => muslims/terrorists; as in having a common enemy and scapegoat
(the convenient thing about terrorists is that you can label anybody "terrorist")

- Guantanamo => concentration camps
(yes, you are not gassing millions of people *yet* but you DO incarcerate people without properaccusations, stripping them of all rights without giving them any fair trial or due process)

The list of similiarities is endless, actually.

Facism, BTW, begins way earlier and will often be more subtle. Lets take something seemingly harmless like wrestling. I mean that wrestling that the WWF/WWE is broadcasting. So they have a fake sport and in order to make it more entertaining they give their athletes silly personas and costumes and write even more silly storylines. But still to this day they write foreigners as "heals" (villains) and all-american dudes as "faces" (crowd favourites). It's not wrestling if you don't have a heal pretending to be an iraqi or whoever the current political enemy is. This is NOT harmless fun, especially since there will always be children taking all this for real. Also, this kind of propaganda (and you'd have a hard time arguing it's something else!) is omnipresent in american media and popculture. Have a sleazy character in a movie? Give him a french accent. You maybe shrug that off or don't even notice it, but that's the dangerous part of it. I once read the following dialog in a form or blog:
russian: "I admire the americans for their really clever and subtle propaganda!"
american: "What are you talking about!? There is no propaganda in the US!"
russian: "See? That's what I mean. Our propaganda is so obvious that it's easy to ignore it. But you don't even realze it's there!"

As for the various cards and their level of accuracy:
I agree that something like "Dumb Ass" should not be there. But the others?
- Bribery. Why not Bribery? Your entire political system is based on bribery! The industry, lobbyists and whoever can afford it will fund political campaigns in exchange for "gratuitous services", read, laws and regulations in their favour. The fact that this kind of bribery is legal is adding even MORE insult to injury!
- Mercenaries. While you DO have the biggest military in the world you STILL have lots of mercenaries on your paycheck, if not officially. Your various agencies like the CIA is constantly funding all kinds of shady organisations that fight your proxy wars for you. You probably know that the Taliban for example where once trained by US agencies, right?
- It that betrays: Sorry, but that's EXACTLY what we feel like about the US right now. They always claim to be the heroes but time and again don't live up to it, quite to the contrary, more often than not they turn out to be the villains. Ask the people of iceland what it is like if american banks take over your local banks, fucke everything up and then leave. Heck, the financial crisis of 2007 which was caused by greedy american bankers and insurances caused regular people like me and my wife to lose most of our savings even though we live on the other side of the pond and hadn't invested a single € in the US real estate market.
- Blind Obedience. I don't know why this hurts - it's actually a kind of excuse why all of this can happen. Obedience isn't a bad thing as long as you follow a good leader. The problem is you don't have good leaders and you KNOW that!

And yes, I am aware that not all americans are like that, it's just very cumbersome to phrase it otherwise. I know from experience that most americans are fine people, but the system they live in isn't and most of them are too blind to see that. They point at china and pity chinese citizens for being brainwashed and obeying a crooked government without realiazing that their own country isn't any better - just way better in hiding that fact. My country isn't perfect either and heading into the wrong direction, too, but incidently, the US is involved in that, too. Did you know that to this day the US has stationed lots of troops and nuclear warheads here in germany? And that, technically, germany is still occupied by the US because they never officially gave us back sovereignty? Which probably is why the US is still able to bully us around, spy on us without anyone batting an eye. You heard of TTIP an CETA? They will be in effect soon and make us slaves of the american economy. They are passing those behind closed doors and voters have no say in it, why? Because governments worldwide are taken over by the industry and wealthy persons and the US is the frontrunner in this.
Of course we also have our own bad things going on without foreign help, but at least we are (mostly) aware of this and wouldn't mind anyone making fun of it. Merkel is a muppet. Many of the weapons that are used in current wars were sold by germany. There is a right wing surge right now and populists are getting track because of the high number of refugees. We are also privatizing too many things and about to kill the middle class.

Anyway, half of the world is heading towards a grim future and lots of conflicts, but it's less about nation vs nation and more about rich vs poor.

Maybe anyone can be labeled a terrorist, but there definitely are some. Even if the Taliban was was trained by the CIA (I'm honestly not sure, I don't think that it's 100% known, but I could be wrong), they still rebelled against them. And 9/11 was not by the government. There may be "Bush did 9/11" jokes but no one believes them, at least no one educated. Also, some Americans think of Muslims as bad, because you don't often hear about the ones that aren't terrorists. I am 100% sure that most Muslims aren't bad, but you only hear about the ones that are usually, so that creates a false image in their minds. Probably in the. Muslim countries, they think of Christians as bad.

P.S. I'm sorry to kezekan for all this happening on your deck. I know you were just trying to make a bad situation lighter.

I don't think a civilized discussion is something bad :)

I don't either, just kezekan probably didn't want this going on on his deck. Maybe he does though.

I have no problem with the discussion whatsoever. I actually quite like how there is a good meld of both humor and serious discussion.

What a lively discussion! And all very interesting! For anyone reading this who isn't aware of how the US electoral system works when electing a President (sad to say, that would include too many US citizens), what really matters is the Electoral College vote. A candidate can win the popular vote & still lose the election if they lose the EC vote (the most recent example of this was Gore vs. Bush, aka George W.; Bush lost the popular vote but still won the election, as he won the EC vote). EC votes, w/ the exception of 2 states - Maine & Nebraska - are winner take all, so "bush league" candidates essentially have no chance whatsoever. Also, we have a Supreme Court Justice to be appointed right now & another in about a year, & that fact right there will sway MANY votes. With the system set up the way it currently is, my own particular vote won't likely make a difference, as I currently reside in a deep blue state (which is where my own sentiments lie), but I'll still vote, just because I can, & that freedom must never, ever, ever be taken for granted. But as someone who is FIRMLY in the "never Trump OR Pence" camp, I strongly urge others who feel the same way to get out & vote, particularly if you live in a "swing" state. "This message hasn't been approved by anyone...except my own sweet self." :)

To me, this discussion is even more Hillaryous than the deck. Have you guys Trumped common sense? Your wit Sunders into pieces and this is the outcome.
You're afraid of america, not global warming, pollution nor that we've passed the exploitation's point for many resources nor the drop of pokemongo's popularity, while still believing 11 september may have been an inside job

*facepalm*

Since the time the word "country" has been used, never there was a direct democracy, for the facts we are too many and most of us are stupid and/or ignorant on most issues an organization as big and complex as a state has to face. So most countries are representative democracies, which for conspiracy's fans becomes immediately labelled as oligarchy. It's just natural for men in power to abuse it, doesn't mean there have to be a system or a scheme (on bigger scale) behind it. Maybe one day our children or grandchildren thanks to the web will have a more direct way for managing their country, who knows.
Also usa and other europeans countries may go down an ugly road, but it's anachronistic comparing them to nazis. All totalitarisms (fascism, nazism, communism) took the last step to come to power and kept it through force. Nowadays that would be impossible (for usa and eu). For war, you don't have to worry: we were born on the right side of the world for this era. 1st world countries will just continue (although less and less) to wage war...ahem ahem, sorry, to export democracy onto 3rd (or unstable 2nd) countries for their own benefit. We will never witness WW III outsides movies and games, just local small scale conficts. Nuclear warheads are just for playing "who has it bigger" with putin and allies (and of course obama always win at this game).


So just relax, enjoy magic, try reading more books and less comments (except mine, of course ;) or poor articles on internet, all while keeping an open and unbiased personal point of view.

If you feel offended, so did my brain reading the comments above (except Umoonpuca)
If not, http://i.imgur.com/N6zYmvE.jpg?1 , so now you should.
Still nothing? http://img0.joyreactor.com/pics/post/funny-pictures-auto-joke-trollface-473448.jpeg

Spoken like a true american that was raised within this system. Germans said pretty much the same back then in the 1930s.

I didn't say modern day america equals 1940 era nazis - nothing can ever be the exact same. But the mechanics that worked back then are still working today, just on different levels and in different flavours. And why, again, wouldn't anybody be able to "take the last step by force" today? The LAST step follows up a lot of other steps where each of them makes it a little bit more unlikely and possible for anyone to stop the process.

1st world countries will continue to exploit everyone else which is the exact reason we'll see lots and lots of those "small scale conflicts". The true war in this century isn't fought on the battlefield anyway, it's fought on economical level. It's free trade agreements, embargos and monopolys that enslave entire nations. But you don't worry because you were born on the "right" side, I see. Nice point of view.

Now we need to do this for other countries. I have one for the UK, but it's pretty bad.

@Stormtide: Is the UK deck a Brexit deck, a Colonial deck, or what? Any way it goes, I'd like to see it. :)

It's more based on just general Britain. I was hoping for red white and blue since that's what the flag is, but I wanted a leprechaun and the only one is green. It needs some work, but I haven't seen a deck for Britain and I thought that there should be one.
www.mtgvault.com/stormtide/decks/united-kingdoms/

'Merica. :(

Probably not, it's more made as a joke I think. I haven't tried it though

It's a theme deck, so...but what I want to know is how it can be legal in Vintage w/ 50 Breeding Pools. O.O (...& the Vintage players say, "That's just how we roll.") :)