How to Find the Value of Coins Online for Free Our Pastimes

Greetins /coins,
i found some 999 silver coins in a coin collection i bought. I never saw such coins.
a friendly /Silverbug found some information online: http://imgur.com/IOYtblC
But beside this site, I'm not able to find further information.
Here are some pics of the coins: http://imgur.com/Owzg6mp http://imgur.com/bdaUntV http://imgur.com/fDG1YPF
I wonder if these coins have any value beside melt value?
Thank you!

Let’s all go to the movies, then the moon. Before we begin, this is not financial advice, if you want financial advice to lose money, turn on CNBC.
TL;DR
With no more bankruptcy worries, additional liquidity, a reopening trade with more vaccines coming through the funnel, and with additional hype surrounding the brand, revenues should increase in FY2021 and FY2022+, giving AMC potential to reach prior highs at the $35 area, w/o a short squeeze. With? $60+. Important to note: The expected liquidation value post liquidity injection this past week, would be HIGHER than the current market cap. Also Blackrock now has a 5%+ stake in AMC. Bet with the suits that the FED trusts.
Prelude
What a crazy time, where the internet fights against greedy hedge funds and boomers who don’t manage their risk and over-short various equities. Not a surprise, as the wise Gordon Gecko once stated, Greed is Good. Now it seems it’s legal. Because everyone is drinking the same Kool-Aid.
Well, some of these funds got bailed out last Thursday in some of the largest VISIBLE market manipulation you can ever see, where individuals were only allowed to sell shares and many were FORCED to sell shares into a price well below the price equilibrium. What does that mean? To refresh the Econ 101 class lesson that the hedgies snorted coke through, when you cut Demand by say, 70%, yet force the supply to stay near the same or even increase, the price paid per, in this case, share, will be SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER than the fair market price. To Robinhood, TDA, and any other big firm that made a point to lower the fair market price of the various equities ranging from GME, AMC, BB, and others, I hope the SEC can get off their paid off asses and do their job for the American people. Also, to the Biden Administration that stands for the people, unity, and liberty, get off your lazy asses and do your goddamn job. We know many of the various representatives and organizations are corrupt, but at least catch the hand that’s still in the cookie jar.
Now lets begin with AMC’s true value, and most importantly, what their future value is.
The Cons:
One of the biggest issues that loomed over AMC’s head was bankruptcy. And it was a BIG fucking problem. So much so, the equity went from trading at $30+ to sub $5, especially hit by the pandemic and all it’s wonderful externalities. Back in April and May, two firms actually upgraded this stock with more positive outlooks, B. Riley FBR with a target of $4, and MKM Partners (sound familiar from 2.1.21?) with a target of $5 claiming that their risk of bankruptcy is lower and with the reopening of theatres possible from Covid presumably coming to more of a halt. Well today, the brilliant mind at MKM, Eric Handler, decided to downgrade the stock again with a price target of $1. Surprising, since they actually got a cash infusion recently by offering shares… Wait what? Oh yeah, wall street analysts are as much of a joke as their predictions of the future. No wonder they are so wrong all the time. Eric, I get you want to get your inner Kanye out but please take the medication before you put out a completely illogical downgrade compared to your firms last upgrade and PT. You do have a fiduciary responsibility, after all.
Financials:
Recently, AMC actually raised a ton of cash even before any offering of shares or anything of the like. To quote the President and CEO of AMC, Adam Aron, “Any talk of an imminent bankruptcy for AMC is completely off the table.” Then the stock RAN from 3 to 25 in a short period of time, and AMC did what TSLA does best, they raised cash. In fact they extended their cash lines by a smidge over $1B USD. Heh, not bad to combat bankruptcy.
Lets look at YOY ER:
We will get Full FY2020 results on 2.25, lets use the numbers we have already.

Attribute	FY 2020	FY2019	FY2018
Total Revenue	2,527.60	5,471.00	5,460.80
Gross Profit	1,654.30	3,493.20	3,479.70
Operating Expense	5,617.30	5,335.00	5,195.80
Operating Income	-3,089.70	136.00	265.00
Net Income	-3,656.80	-149.10	110.10

Operating Expenses aren’t pretty, but a bulk is from Q1 and since, Covid has been a slaughter. Now how to we recover from a very dreary year? Pretty simple: Have cash to stave off upcoming costs, start opening up your theatres so that you can get those rev. numbers up, and begin partnering with old and new media companies in ways that haven’t been as exposed in the past, creating new revenue streams. Now lets go through these.
News Events
AMC announced that they will be able to last months before raising additional cash this past week. They then proceeded to raise over a billion dollars.
AMC announced that they will now be opening a majority of their theatres again. Movie releases will start to come back, per the industry.
Blackrock, one of the largest investment banks on the planet, has a +5% stake within the company,
JNJ and NVAX announced their Phase 3 vaccine results with decent efficacy. Reopening needs this as larger vaccine availability means a quicker reopening trade.
A bolstering of hype surrounding the company by the common man, with hundreds of millions of eyes if not billions, increasing net exposure of this once beloved brand to the general public yet again. Think movies were coming back? Now they are going to be back, bigly.
A short squeeze was set off recently as well, costing funds who were short AMC hundreds of millions to potentially over a billion dollars. This is one of the main driving forces brought to AMC, which we will cover below.
Needs to survive:
Have cash? Well recent funding and stock sales provides liquidity. AMC will survive FY2021. Check! Start opening theatres? Vaccine distribution is to expand exponentially, especially with the results of JNJ and NVAX covid vaccines adding onto PFE and MRNA’s. Biden admin ftw? Time for AMC to get some revs back. Check! New rev streams? This is something that AMC will need to work on, and in my opinion, are underexposed to.
It is my belief that this is one thing stopping AMC from becoming a TITAN, with their reach and location across the country, there are many major and minor partnerships that can be started to generate revenue, especially in a post-covid world. NFLX on the big screen? Doable, even with potential discounts for NFLX customers. Disney+, same! Streaming will have its moment of fatigue and film will be a fad, but there are many many avenues to attack the entertainment senses of a theatre attendee. What if Epic Games utilized AMC to throw some of their concerts, having individuals log in to a server of that theatre or theatres to attend some crazy concerts with their parents and other kids/teens just like them? I would love for AMC to bring on new members into the board to enhance the theatre experience. Food for thought to CEO Aron.
Short Float:
Now this is something very important with the recent momentum in this stock. According to finviz, as of today, 2.1.21, the short float is at a whopping 43.82%. Issue with finviz that I am seeing, is that there are only 107 MM shares outstanding, looking like a pretty significant ~47 MM are short. I’m seeing that there are 339 MM shares outstanding, so if that number can align, the amount of shares short are triple at 120 MM, which wouldn’t surprise me given the lovely and reputable news stories we get from CNBC, Bloomberg, and whatever sorry piece of shit that thinks that reddit is targeting a short squeeze in a $1.5 Trillion dollar market in Silver, as well as other useless coins.
Longing the stock
With the biggest concern to AMC, bankruptcy, behind them now, we can safely say it is worth it to look at the stock in a more elevated view. Let’s proceed.
Upon our recent review on AMC, our projections for revs to increase to ~5.4 B from the meager numbers in 2020, with a now-healthier view on AMC’s financials and cash-on-hand due to recent strides to increase liquidity. With additional potential revenue streams of new partners who grew at WFH scenarios such as NFLX, DIS, ROKU, and others, we project that this company should be seeing more explosive growth in the next 3-5 years and have lower expectations of ~6B in revs per year, and a larger bull case of ~9-10 B in revs if expansions do occur and new revenue streams are fully actualized. Anything above is a gift.
Now to actually long the equity: With RH opening up more shares allowed, other brokers allowing this equity to be traded and accepting more and more users with each day as they migrate from one of the worst brokerages around (RH), this should give more buying power into the recently popular AMC and GME trades. With such a high short rate and with many traders believing that the hype is done for, I expect additional firepower in the long trade as these traders will have to cover. Without the short %, my PT would be $20, but with, this could go quite far and squeeze anywhere between 40-60 if not beyond. It’s not really a trade as much as it is a math problem.
Long AMC.🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀
someone asked about positions: 3700 shares and will buy more soon, just focusing on managing this trade. I did reenter my BB trade

Hello friends and welcome to my should you pull post, where I'll be doing an in-depth evaluation of the first pipe in the Peach vs. Daisy Tour. Most things stated in this post are my opinion and yours' may vary.
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I now have a Discord server! Feel free to join it here: https://discord.gg/hY2AQBAyn6
​
These links may be useful:
Drivers Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/la2qbu/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_drivers_in_mario/
Karts Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/lb114l/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_karts_in_mario_kart/
Gliders Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/lbss4m/stats\_based\_tier\_list\_of\_all\_gliders\_in\_mario/
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Also check out my Locked Ones post: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/lgsgpn/the_locked_ones_peach_vs_daisy_tou This lists all the drivers you can unlock as a top shelf in ranked if you get them to level 3 or 6. I will be covering these within the evaluation.
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‘Should you pull the pipes’ information
Pipes are given points based on four different factors. A percentage of points go towards each of these factors. These factors include:
- (35pts) Spotlights – How good each spotlight is in the pipe.
- (10pts) Spotlights type – Whether there are more drivers, karts, or gliders. Usually the best go in the order of drivers, gliders, then karts, so a pipe with more drivers will be given more points than a pipe with more karts.
- (10pts) Non-Spotlights – What other High-Ends and Supers are available in the pipe that usually wouldn’t be there.
- (10pts) Ranked Usage – What items in the pipe you may need for ranked in the current tour.
- (35pts) Pipe Elements – The odds of getting High-Ends and Supers compared to Normals. How many items in the pipe are also considered.
All spotlights will be given a score out of 10. These scores out of 10 will then be added and converted to fit into the 30% ratio. Spotlights that are new with the current tour will be graded based on their item/skill and how they perform in the ranked cups of the tour. They will not be graded based on their favoured maps. This is because all new content starts out with few maps, and this is updated overtime. However, returning spotlights will also be graded based on their favoured maps, as these will most likely not be changed too much in the future.
At the end the pipe will be given a score between 0 and 100. If the score is 50 or higher, you should probably pull this pipe.
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Peach vs. Daisy Tour Pipe 1
This pipe features six spotlights, including Wedding Peach, Fairy Daisy, Sweet Daytripper, Prancer, Silver Bells, and Daisy Glider.
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Ranked Cups
The current ranked cup is the Peach cup which includes RMX Choco Island 2, Yoshi Circuit R, and Bowser’s Castle 2T.
The next ranked cup is likely to be the Daisy cup which includes RMX Choco Island 2T, Daisy Hills T, and Choco Island 1R.
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Wedding Peach Evaluation
First up is Wedding Peach. She’s a pretty rare driver, with only appearing twice in pipes. She appeared once in her debut tour, the Peach Tour, and then in a special pipe in the Sunset Tour. I don’t think that pipe was too popular though. Looking at the latest tier lists, she’s an amazing driver and ranks as the second best in the game in both types of tier list. She has quite a lot of overlap, but when levelling her up her potential really shines. Her special item is Triple Mushrooms which is great.
For the Peach ranked cup, she is available top shelf in RMX Choco Island 2 along with Fairy Daisy, Cowboy Wario, Captain Toad, and Cat Peach. You can also unlock Rose Pauline at level 6. This is quite a difficult top shelf with pretty rare drivers. You have Fairy Daisy here though who is also available in this pipe. Cat Peach was available in a pipe last tour, and she is now a permanent High-End in the pipe. Overall though, you’ll probably need Wedding Peach here.
She is also available top shelf in RMX Choco Island 2T of the Daisy ranked cup, along with Party Time Lakitu, Rose Pauline, Lederhosen Luigi, and Cherub Baby Peach. Once again, a very difficult top shelf. Rose Pauline is available in a special pipe though, which isn’t out yet, but will be out before this ranked cup starts. Same goes for Cherub Baby Peach. You’ll likely need one of these two or Wedding Peach here. Party Time Lakitu came from a pretty popular pipe, but the majority probably won’t have him.
Overall, I’ll give Wedding Peach a 10/10. What is actually going on. Every single tour she’s getting buffed. Can’t you focus on other characters Nintendo? Cough cough Pirate Boy. But anyway, she’s a top tier driver, maybe even the best in the game with these buffs now so she’s definitely worth it. Not only that but she’ll probably be needed in two ranked maps this tour.
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Fairy Daisy Evaluation
Next up is Fairy Daisy. She’s just as rare as Wedding Peach, with only appearing in her debut tour, the Flower Tour, and in the same special pipe as Wedding Peach in the Sunset Tour. Looking at the latest tier lists, she’s just okay. She ranks around average for Highest Point Potential, and a bit below average for Overall Efficiency. Her special item is the Heart which is trash. One of the worst items for ranked.
For the Peach ranked cup, she is available top shelf in RMX Choco Island 2. I already went through this top shelf in Wedding Peach’s evaluation, and you’ll very likely need either Wedding Peach or Fairy Daisy here.
She’s also available top shelf in Yoshi Circuit R, along with Peach, Musician Mario, Black Yoshi, Bus Driver Waluigi, Egg-Hunt Yoshi, and Explorer Peach. Everyone should have Peach and at a decent level. There’s no reason to use Fairy Daisy here.
For the Daisy ranked cup, she is available top shelf in Daisy Hills T, along with Baby Daisy, Daisy, Builder Luigi, Vacation Peach, Dixie Kong, and Black Yoshi. Here we have both Baby Daisy and Daisy who are very common, so you should have one of those to use instead. There’s no need for Fairy Daisy here.
So overall, it may seem she’s valuable this ranked, but really you don’t actually need her on any of these maps. I guess you could argue that you could level her up to 6 and make her the best choice on all 3 of those maps, but she’s just not worth it with her current value. She doesn’t have a great item either. I’ll give her a 4/10 as she is pretty rare.
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Sweet Daytripper Evaluation
Moving on to the karts now, our first spotlight is the Sweet Daytripper. Like with the other two, it is rare and has only been seen in its debut tour and the special pipe in the Sunset Tour. Pretty much this pipe seems to be the Sunset Tour’s special pipe but a spotlight version instead. Looking at the latest karts tier list, it’s very good overall, and only just misses out on top tier in the Highest Point Potential list. Definitely a kart you want to start investing in. Its special skill is Rocket Start Plus, which is pretty bad but it’s just a kart skill after all. Not a massive deal compared to its value.
For ranked this week, it’s available top shelf in RMX Choco Island 2 along with Silver Bullet Blaster, Pirate Sushi Racer, Crawly Kart, and Pumpkin Kart. All of these are very rare, but you at least have the Silver Bullet Blaster and Pirate Sushi Racer available on purchasable banners this week. If you’re F2P though or don’t want to buy any of those, you’ll likely need the Sweet Daytripper here.
It's not available top shelf in the Daisy Cup.
So we have a great kart with a bad skill, and it’s useful in one ranked map this tour, I’ll give it a 9/10. It’s also very rare which is a plus.
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Prancer Evaluation
The other kart in this pipe is the Prancer, which once again as we all know now, has been seen in its debut tour and the Sunset Tour’s special pipe, so it’s pretty rare. Looking at the latest tier list, it ranks around average. Its special skill is Slipstream Plus which is terrible.
For ranked this tour, it’s available top shelf in Yoshi Circuit R along with Mach 8… come on, is there really point in reading out all these karts? You have Mach 8, Egg 1, Red Streamliner, Blue Seven, all of those being Supers. And then you have the Badwagon which is a permanent item in the pipe and can appear in the Coin Shop. I think it’s clear you’re not going to need the Prancer here.
Overall, I’ll give it a 4/10. It’s just okay with a bad skill, and not needed this tour in ranked. The thing that keeps the points up there a bit is the fact it’s quite rare.
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Silver Bells Evaluation
The first glider is the Silver Bells. Again, it appeared in its debut tour and the Sunset Tour. Looking at the latest tier list… it’s surprisingly not very good considering how good the other things in Wedding Peach’s set are. It ranks around average, maybe slightly below average in both types of tier lists. Its special skill is Super Horn which is awful to have on a glider.
For ranked this week, they are available top shelf in RMX Choco Island 2, along with Bright Glider, Butterfly Prism, Black Great Sail, and Silver Manta Glider. Wow, what a brutal top shelf. If you’re F2P, you’re pretty much screwed here unless you got lucky with the Bright Glider or the Butterfly Prism. However, you have Black Great Sail and Silver Manta Glider in banners this week, so you can buy one of those if needed. For the majority though, you’ll very likely need the Silver Bells here.
They are not available top shelf in the Daisy Cup.
Overall, I think I’ll give this glider a 5/10. It’s just okay with an awful skill (quite the recurring thing with the spotlights in this pipe). The only reason it’s not getting a 4/10 like the others, is because you will very very likely need it for the first ranked cup.
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Daisy Glider Evaluation
And finally on to the final spotlight, we have the Daisy Glider. It appeared in its debut tour and the Sunset Tour. Looking at the latest tier lists, it also ranks around average, a bit better than the Silver Bells. Its special skill is Super Horn which is garbage.
For ranked this week, it’s available top shelf in Yoshi Circuit R. You have the Shell Parachute and Eggshell Glider here though, so you probably won’t need it unless you level it up a lot.
It is also available top shelf in Daisy Hills T of the Daisy Cup… and the Shell Parachute is here once again to take the spotlight. You also have the Paper Glider which you could use instead.
So overall, I’ll give it a 4/10. It’s okay with an awful skill. A little better than the Silver Bells, but what brings it down lower is the fact it’s not needed at all in ranked this tour.
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Spotlight Total
Adding up those scores, that brings these spotlights to a score of 36/60, which is equivalent to 21/35, that’s an alright score, a little above half. Most of the spotlights are just average but it’s Wedding Peach and the Sweet Daytripper that are keeping the points up there.
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Spotlights Type
So what types of spotlight are we getting here? We are getting 2 High-End drivers, 2 High-End karts, and 2 High-End gliders. All even, and that’s always great! As we know drivers and gliders are the most important, so 4/6 items are pretty important here. I’ll give this value a 6/10.
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Non-Spotlight Items Evaluation
Taking a look further into this pipe, you also have a small chance of getting Pastry Chef Shy Guy, Chef Mario, Choco Macharon, Chocolate Banana Crepe, and Strawberry Crepe. That’s pretty cool stuff which will be available in next week’s pipe. There’s not loads here though, so I’ll just give this a 4/10.
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Ranked Necessity Evaluation
Let’s take a look at the other items that you may need for the ranked cup in this tour.
For RMX Choco Island 2 you may need Fairy Daisy, Wedding Peach, or Cat Peach. You may also need Sweet Daytripper or Crawly Kart. You may also need Silver Bells. For Bowser’s Castle 2T you may need Dry Bowser Umbrella or ? Block.
For RMX Choco Island 2T you may need Wedding Peach. You may also need Sports Coupe. You may also need Silver Starchute.
It’s an okay amount outside of the spotlights that you may need. Most of the stuff in Week 2 though will be more beneficial for pulling the 2nd pipe. I’ll give this a 5/10.
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Pipe Odds Evaluation
Looking into the details of the pipe, you will be getting 3 High-End drivers, 3 High-End Karts, and 3 High-End gliders. That’s great for a 100 pipe, it’s an extra 3 High-Ends compared to a standard 100 pipe. I’ll give these odds a 27/35. It would be preferred if it was a 50 pipe as you will likely get the High-Ends quicker without spending too many rubies.
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So should you pull the Peach vs. Daisy Tour Pipe 1?
The total score for this pipe is 63/100. That’s actually a great score compared to most pipes! It’s a 100 pipe with pretty great odds, filled with nothing bad at all aside from a few average items, and you have some top tier items in there. Everything here is rare. I think that says it all. You should pull this pipe if you’re missing most of this stuff.
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Should you get the Gold Pass?
The Gold Pass costs £4.99 and you can activate a free trial across two tours.
One thing some people get confused about within this evaluation is when I say the Gold Pass isn’t worth it. I personally and many others think the Gold Pass is always worth it, but this particular evaluation compares the rewards of this Gold Pass to previous rewards to find whether it’s worth it.
I won’t be going over the ruby count, ticket count, or coin count that the Gold Pass offers as this seems to be the same every tour and you can view those yourselves through the gift boxes. The Gold Pass items in this tour include: Baby Peach, Baby Daisy, Peach, Daisy, and Strawberry Donut.
I think we can make this evaluation pretty short. Baby Peach and Baby Daisy are obviously not worth it as they’re Normals in the Coin Shop. I wouldn’t say Peach or Daisy is worth it either, as they are also in the Coin Shop, and they are pretty bad overall. Now the Strawberry Donut though… that’s going to be tricky. It’s definitely worth it, but it’s just whether it can hold up the whole Gold Pass this tour as everything else isn’t worth it. The Strawberry Donut is one of the best gliders in the game, if not the best, but it is a permanent item in the pipe so it's not all that rare.
I think the Gold Pass this tour really depends on whether you have the Strawberry Donut or not. If you do, I don’t think it’s worth it. If you still don’t have the Strawberry Donut though, I’d get it.
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If you want to support me even further, consider becoming a Patron! I explain a bit more about it here: https://www.reddit.com/TheSpikeLounge/comments/kylkx8/spikes_patreon/ Please do not feel pressured to, you are supporting me more than enough at the moment just by being here :)

Hello friends and welcome to my should you pull post, where I'll be doing an in-depth evaluation of the first pipe in the Cat Tour. Most things stated in this post are my opinion and yours' may vary.
​
I now have a Discord server! Feel free to join it here: https://discord.gg/hY2AQBAyn6
​
These links may be useful:
Drivers Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/la2qbu/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_drivers_in_mario/
Karts Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/lb114l/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_karts_in_mario_kart/
Gliders Tier List: NOT YET COMPLETE
​
Also check out my Locked Ones post: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/l62vxv/the_locked_ones_cat_tou This lists all the drivers you can unlock as a top shelf in ranked if you get them to level 3 or 6. I will be covering these within the evaluation.
​
‘Should you pull the pipes’ information
Pipes are given points based on four different factors. A percentage of points go towards each of these factors. These factors include:
- (30pts) Spotlights – How good each spotlight is in the pipe.
- (10pts) Spotlights type – Whether there are more drivers, karts, or gliders. Usually the best go in the order of drivers, gliders, then karts, so a pipe with more drivers will be given more points than a pipe with more karts.
- (10pts) Non-Spotlights – What other High-Ends and Supers are available in the pipe that usually wouldn’t be there.
- (15pts) Ranked Usage – What items in the pipe you may need for ranked in the current tour.
- (35pts) Pipe Elements – The odds of getting High-Ends and Supers compared to Normals. How many items in the pipe are also considered.
All spotlights will be given a score out of 10. These scores out of 10 will then be added and converted to fit into the 30% ratio. Spotlights that are new with the current tour will be graded based on their item/skill and how they perform in the ranked cups of the tour. They will not be graded based on their favoured maps. This is because all new content starts out with few maps, and this is updated overtime. However, returning spotlights will also be graded based on their favoured maps, as these will most likely not be changed too much in the future.
At the end the pipe will be given a score between 0 and 100. If the score is 50 or higher, you should probably pull this pipe.
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Cat Tour Pipe 1
This pipe features three spotlights, including Cat Peach, Cat Cruiser, and Toe-Bean Balloons.
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Ranked Cups
The current ranked cup is the Peach cup which includes Donut Plains 2, Paris Promenade 2T, and Shy Guy Bazaar.
The next ranked cup is likely to be the Toad cup which includes Koopa Troopa Beach RT, Royal Raceway R, and Donut Plains 2T.
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New Item: Super Bell
We finally have a new driver item, which is the Super Bell. We haven’t seen a new item since the Hammer Bruh Tour. I have yet to use this item, so I have no idea how good it is. Looking at the description though, it seems to just be a reskin of the Super Horn, but I imagine it’s slightly different in some way. If it is just a reskin though… that’s pretty bad. Super Horn really isn’t all that great. For now, while I don’t know much about this item, I will rank it slightly below average. Hopefully someone will share a video sometime of this item in action.
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Cat Peach Evaluation
The first spotlight in this pipe is Cat Peach. She’s new, so all her value will be assumed. Looking at her current top shelf though… wow. That’s actually pretty good. 4 normal tracks and an RT. Normal tracks are worth the most as they appear the most in ranked. Her locked maps are okay, with an R track and a few T tracks. Her special item is the Super Bell. I don’t know much about this item yet, but I will place it slightly below average for now.
For the Peach ranked cup, she is available top shelf in Donut Plains 2 along with King Bob-omb, Cherub Baby Peach, and Explorer Peach. You can also unlock Cat Toad at level 6 but good luck with that. This is a very difficult top shelf overall. Cherub and Explorer are both very rare, and King Bob-omb is pretty rare too. He did recently get added as a permanent item in the pipe, so it’s possible you may have pulled him now. Overall though, I think it’s very likely you’ll need him here.
For the Toad ranked cup, she is available top shelf in Royal Raceway R along with Pink Gold Peach, Vacation Peach, Kimono Peach, Wedding Peach, Dixie Kong, Swimwear Rosalina, Explorer Toadette, and SNES Donkey Kong Jr. I think you’ll definitely have at least one of these drivers. If not, you are very unlucky.
You can also unlock her top shelf at level 6 for Donut Plains 2T. Here you have Party Time Lakitu, Sunshine Mario, Penguin Luigi, and Cat Toad. These are all fairly rare, so that may be a good idea if you are lacking a top shelf for that map… actually, maybe spending so many tickets on her wouldn’t be such a good idea.
I think I’ll give Cat Peach a 6/10. She seems to have a great top shelf to start with, so I can see quite a lot of potential in her. Her special item judging by the description looks pretty weak, but we’ll have more knowledge on that within the next couple of tours. She’ll very likely be needed in the first ranked cup, but probably not the second ranked cup unless you level her up to 6 for Donut Plains 2T, which I wouldn’t recommend.
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Cat Cruiser Evaluation
Next up is the Cat Cruiser, which is also new with this tour. It has an okay top shelf, but nothing to special. It has 1 normal track, 2 reverse, and 1 RT track. It also has a normal city track, but these don’t appear too often. It also gets a city track as one of its locked maps, so that kind of sucks. Other than that, it seems okay to start off with. Its special skill is Mini-Turbo Plus which is the best kart skill, so that’s something at least.
Another thing that needs to be mentioned is that this kart is a Gold Pass gift this tour, so that’s going to deduct the value of it even more, as it’s not nearly as rare.
For the current ranked cup, it is available top shelf in Donut Plains 2 along with Choco Macharon, Surf Sailer, 8-Bit Pipe Frame, and Steel Driver. All of these are pretty rare karts. The Steel Driver is a permanent kart in the pipe though, but with the current odds of getting it, it’s very possible you still don’t have it. You’ll likely need the Cat Cruiser here.
For the Toad ranked cup, it is available top shelf in Royal Raceway R, along with White Royale, Platinum Taxi, Radish Rider, Swift Jack, Happy Ride, Rose Queen, and Wildfire Flyer. The White Royale is a Super, but it’s a Gold Pass exclusive so you may not have it. You do have quite a wide selection of karts here overall though. You even have the Platinum Taxi and Wildfire Flyer which have been permanent karts in the pipe since the beginning. It’s likely you’ll have something to use here.
The Cat Cruiser also unlocks at level 6 on Donut Plains 2T, and the current top shelf includes Gilded King, Black Dozer, Head Honcho, Party Egg, and Wild Pink. While you may not have any of these, I definitely don’t think it’s worth levelling Cat Cruiser up to 6 straight away just to cover this course.
Overall, I’ll give this kart a 3/10. Its top shelf is okay and it has a great skill. It will likely be needed in the first ranked cup, but probably not the second. The thing that weighs it down the most is the fact it’s a Gold Pass gift. There’s not really much point in pulling for it and wasting rubies.
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Toe-Bean Balloons Evaluation
The final spotlight in this pipe are the Toe-Bean Balloons, which are also new. Its top shelf suffers for the same reason as the Cat Cruiser, it has a city track as well as a city track taking up a locked map slot. It has one normal track, 2 reverse tracks, and an RT track, the same as the Cat Cruiser. It’s an okay top shelf, but it could be better. Its special item is Mega Mushroom which is garbage.
For ranked this week, they are available top shelf in Donut Plains 2 along with 8-Bit Jumping Luigi, Dragon Wings, Chocolate Donut, and Silver Starchute. The 8-Bit Jumping Luigi is a Super, but the only ever time it has appeared is on a purchasable banner, so most of you probably don’t have it. The Dragon Wings are on a purchasable banner this tour, but you’re mad if you pay that much just for a glider, and the other two are fairly rare. The Silver Starchute is a permanent item in the pipe though. You most likely will need Toe Balloons here, but I think this top shelf is at least a bit nicer than the driver and kart top shelves for this map.
For the Toad ranked cup, they are available top shelf in Koopa Troopa Beach RT along with Eggshell Glider, Heart Balloons, New Year’s 2020, Soaring Jack, Daisy Glider, Bright Glider, and Festival Wings. Most of you will likely have the Eggshell Glider as it’s a Super. If not though, this top shelf is still pretty big, so you’ll likely have something to use here.
The Toe Balloons do unlock top shelf at level 6 on Donut Plains 2T just like the other two. The top shelf here includes Super Mario Kart Glider, Calico Parafoil, Cheep Cheep Masks, and Sunset Balloons. Although you will likely be missing a top shelf glider here, I really wouldn’t recommend spending so many tickets on this glider just to unlock it. It’s a waste whilst we don’t know the potential of it.
Overall, I’ll give the Toe-Bean Balloons a 4/10. Their top shelf seems okay, but it has a trash item. It may be needed in the first ranked cup, but it’s unlikely you’ll need it for the second ranked cup.
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Spotlight Total
Adding up those scores, that brings these spotlights to a score of 13/30. It’s an alright score, a bit below average. I don’t think these spotlights are really worth it.
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Spotlights Type
So what types of spotlight are we getting here? We are getting 1 High-End driver, 1 High-End kart, and 1 High-End glider. All even, and that’s always great! As we know drivers and gliders are the most important, so 4/6 items are pretty important here. I’ll give this value a 6/10.
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Non-Spotlight Items Evaluation
Taking a look further into this pipe, you also have a small chance of getting Cat Toad and Funky Kong. Funky Kong now seems to be a permanent pipe item. So… just Cat Toad? Really. Okay, 1/10 for that.
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Ranked Necessity Evaluation
Let’s take a look at the other items that you may need for the ranked cup in this tour.
For Donut Plains 2 you may need King Bob-omb or Cat Peach. You may also need Cat Cruiser or Steel Driver. You may also need Toe-Bean Balloons or Silver Starchute. For Paris Promenade 2T you may need Strawberry Donut.
For Donut Plains 2T you may need Cat Toad. You may also need Head Honcho. You may also need Cheep Cheep Masks.
As always, it’s pretty much just the new maps that need coverage. All the spotlights can cover these, with some additional items as well. I’ll give this a 5/15.
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Pipe Odds Evaluation
Looking into the details of the pipe, you will be getting 2 High-End drivers, 2 High-End Karts, and 2 High-End gliders. This is the normal amount of High-Ends you get from a standard 100 pipe, and it’s pretty trash. For that I’ll give these odds an 11/35.
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So should you pull the Cat Tour Pipe 1?
The total score for this pipe is 36/100. That’s a very low score. Basically everything about this pipe is trash. The spotlights are just okay, the odds aren’t great, there’s basically no additional non-permanent items in the pipe, and you don’t need too much for ranked outside of the two new maps. I really don’t think this pipe is worth it.
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Should you get the Gold Pass?
The Gold Pass costs £4.99 and you can activate a free trial across two tours.
One thing some people get confused about within this evaluation is when I say the Gold Pass isn’t worth it. I personally and many others think the Gold Pass is always worth it, but this particular evaluation compares the rewards of this Gold Pass to previous rewards to find whether it’s worth it.
I won’t be going over the ruby count, ticket count, or coin count that the Gold Pass offers as this seems to be the same every tour and you can view those yourselves through the gift boxes. The Gold Pass items in this tour include: Cat Cruiser, Pink Flower Glider, Pink Mushmellow, and Birdo.
So let’s start with the Cat Cruiser. It’s a new High-End kart. We already talked about this kart in the evaluation, as it’s also a spotlight. It seems like an okay kart, but we can only guess the potential for now. The fact it’s new though and a High-End definitely means it’s worth it here.
Now on to the Pink Flower Glider and Birdo. The Pink Flower Glider is awful and a Super, so it’s not really worth it. Same thing with Birdo too. They are both at least pipe locked, but I don’t think that makes them worth it.
Lastly is the Pink Mushmellow. It’s a pretty bad normal kart, but it is at least a Gold Pass exclusive. I’d only say this kart is worth it if you don’t have it yet and you like collecting everything.
So that’s 1/4 items that are worth it. However, as the Cat Cruiser is a new High-End, I’d say that’s worth it as long as you’re not planning on pulling the first pipe.
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I've recently noticed many people confused and frustrated by Tesla's recent decision to purchase $1.5B Bitcoin. I understand that cryptocurrencies are polarizing and confusing. What are they? Why are they so volatile? Are they just a fad or will they gain traction into the future?
I believe these are all good questions, but perhaps not the first questions we should be asking. I'd like to use this post to give background on existing 'paper' currencies, and what concerns many people have over them. By understanding the very real and existing problems with paper currencies, we can start to see how cryptocurrencies may offer solutions.
First a bit of background on me - I've been around this sub for a little while now.. Long enough to see many of the bulls frustrated to no end by the relentless FUD from bad short-sellers and media men looking for clicks. When TSLA started posting profits Q3 2019, I watched the stock skyrocket, and I remember the euphoria when it hit $420 the first time! I was around when COVID started hitting. I tried to bring attention to it back when people thought it was just in China, and that it was 'no worse than the flu'. (Like here and here, where I guess I was a little more direct than I needed to be. The fallout from that second link actually ended up in one of the mods quitting I believe. I'll try to learn from my mistakes and get frustrated less easily in the future.) I was also around when Tesla hit rock bottom during the fallout from COVID, and hopped back into TSLA when it looked like governments were reacting and preparing 'bailout' packages. I now have a new concern - the condition of the USD, and by extension, all paper currencies on the planet. I've been concerned about this for quite a while now. I share all this, not to inflate my own opinion, but to promote the idea that just because something isn't popular doesn't mean it's not right. Usually most people are confused and skeptical about something until it actually happens. We should all take what we hear for what it's worth. The following isn't advice, do your own research, blah blah blah, haha.
Without further ado, here's the history of the USD:
In the United States constitution, the founding fathers wrote that nothing but Gold and Silver should be used as legal tender. They said this because they knew of the danger of FIAT currency. (FIAT currency is any legal tender not backed by a real asset that has real value). When a FIAT currency exists, it is very easy for politicians to get their fingers into it and just make more. They do this to fulfill campaign promises, civil works, or to fund war. The end result is inflation. A century later, it was 'determined' that this part of the constitution applied only to states, and not to the Federal government. At the time of this decision, the Dollar was 100% backed by gold. The dollar was an asset. It was a claim check on gold. You could take it to the bank, slap it on the counter, and say 'I want my money, Mitch'.
In 1913, that all changed. In 1913 the first seeds of a broken financial system were sown. In 1913, The Federal Reserve was legalized and allowed to operate. One VERY important thing to understand about 'The Fed', is that it is NOT part of the government! It is a private corporation, and it has shareholders. Have a hard time believing this? Check out this Wikipedia article, or The Fed's own website, where they say at the very end that reserve banks pay dividends. In 1913, The Fed began operation and offered to legally print more dollars. The politicians were attracted to this idea because it meant they could deficit spend, and just tax the people. Coincidentally, 1914 was the first year of income tax in the USA. They band-aided things by enacting a requirement that enough gold should always exist to back 40% of the dollars in circulation. Here's an article on it from the Fed. Sure it might create problems later, but not on the politician's watch who legalized it. Meanwhile the Fed and its shareholders get rich off guaranteed interest payments from the US Government, which in used the IRS to collect tax payments from citizens. This went as poorly as you could imagine. The 20's were roaring, in large part to the deficit spending that was happening. Then in the early 30's - the 'Great Depression'. The first sign that something wasn't right in the financial world. Strangely, more millionaires were created during the Great Depression than from any other previous time in history. The working class were being 'taxed', to pay interest to the rich. It was legalized theft and this Ponzi scheme STILL EXISTS today! People keep looking to The Fed for answers to the problem. The Fed IS the problem!
As time progressed after 1913, two very fortunate things happened to the US economy: WWI and WWII. Both wars started in other countries, and the US entered the wars comparatively late. At the beginning of both wars, other countries had to send a lot of their food and goods production to soldiers, or convert some of that production to making war machines. This meant they had to buy foods and goods from other countries, and the US had plenty of supply. So the US sent a lot of production to these other countries, in exchange for real metallic gold. The gold reserves increased by a lot, and held the US economy relatively stable all the way until the 1970s. (This is where the concept that war is good for an economy comes from. War is actually very BAD for an economy, it just worked out well a couple times for the United States.) As WWII was coming to and end, it started to become very apparent how the war had impacted the economies of many countries. Many countries no longer had the gold to back their own currencies, and were at risk of a new problem - a bank run which would lead to hyperinflation of their respective currencies. The US offered a solution - The Bretton Woods System. Under this system, every FIAT currency would be backed by the USD, which was backed by gold. The various countries liked this because it allowed them to avoid immediate economic collapse, and the US wasn't opposed because it gave them nearly a monopolistic control over the world's currencies.
This worked for a while but by the 60s and 70s, countries started to to wise up to the idea that the US simply didn't have the gold in their vaults to back all the dollars in circulation. There was about to be a bank run on the United States. The tables had turned, and now the US was the one at risk of an economic crisis. President Nixon had no choice - in 1971 he ended the Gold Standard. The USD was no longer required to be backed by Gold, and the USD could no longer be exchanged for Gold. This solved the immediate problem, but again was only kicking the can down the road. Now the entire world was running on FIAT currencies, all depending on the US to not inflate their own dollar too much. Did the US stop deficit spending at this point, now that they were carrying the weight of the world's economy on their shoulders? LOL. Check out https://wtfhappenedin1971.com. The economy being on fire actually resulted in the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. 1971 threw gasoline on that fire and the wealth gap accelerated.
Now let's fast forward to 2007/2008. We all remember what happened then. What many might not realize is exactly how close the entire world's economy was to collapse. There were too many bad loans out there, made by very big banks. These loans began defaulting, as was inevitable. The biggest banks were all at risk of collapse, which would have had a cascading effect to nearly every bank in existence. It would have taken decades for things to reset and start from scratch again. Remember - banks are shareholders of the Fed. What ended up happening? That's right - with the blessing of politicians, the Fed BOUGHT mortgage-backed securities from the banks. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but if this doesn't reek of a scam, I don't know what does. In reality - what option did the politicians really have at this point? As a way to patch the 'economy', and get dollars flowing again, The Fed was also authorized by the govt to print about 15% additional currency. Here's the chart.
In addition to that - a brand new financial model, never before used except in Japan, was legalized and instituted - Quantitative Easing. Quantitative Easing allows the banks to take your dollars in your account, and lend them out to someone else. This is very similar to short selling, where a share is borrowed from an owner, a fake share is created and sold to someone else, and then is covered at a later date. QE has a 'Reserve Requirement', which means that not every dollar in your bank account can be lent back out. If the RR is 50% - only half can be lent out. If the RR is 5% - 95% of your bank account can be lent out. The RR was set at 10% in 2008, where it remained for 12 years. A flood of extra currency was sent into the economy, but the RR kind of kept a cap on things, because the artificial dollars had to be paid back and were destroyed at that point. In addition, the extra currency directly printed by the Fed ended up mostly in bank vaults, as the currency was given directly to the banks and at the same time the banks had restrictions put on them, requiring them to keep a larger vault to avoid this sort of thing happening again.
Fast forward to 2020. We all remember how quickly things changed in March and April. The world quickly had to react to a problem it didn't understand yet, and much of the world was even still in denial. COVID restrictions had to be enacted to save lives, but how would people pay their bills? How would business survive? Would the banks go under again? The Fed and the government had to quickly and drastically react to 'save' the economy. 30% more dollars were printed in 2020, and this time they were sent directly to the consumers, not to the banks! This means there's now 30% more currency out there in consumer's hands, ready to be used. Whether people are spending that on rent or on cocaine and booze - it doesn't matter as far as the economy is concerned. The currency is just trading hands, and the next person in line now owns it and can buy whatever they want. The currency exists and now there's more of it in circulation. When 100 people show up willing to buy a $10 item because now they can afford it - guess what happens to that item? It goes to $12. Basic supply and demand. Now, in 2021, it's looking like they'll be printing an additional 10% of currency. We'll have to wait and see what the new 'bailout' package contains. But wait, there's more - remember the QE RR? Guess what happened to it? They set it at 0%. Can't make this up. The banks are now allowed to just create money out of thin air. I deposit $100, the bank can lend $100 of that out to someone else. Then that someone else deposits $100, and their bank can take all of it and lend it to someone else. And on and on and on. But wait, there's more. You'll see in that same link that The Fed is encouraging banks to use their vault dollars from 2008 to lend to consumers as well. So that additional 15% from 2008 is now likely leaking into the economy as well. Someone PLEASE explain to me how this will end well.
Right now, 'Money Velocity' is still low, which is why we aren't seeing prices rise yet. Doesn't matter how much people have in their accounts, if they're not showing up to spend it, there isn't a lot of demand, and the prices don't rise. However as the vaccination programs progress and the virus comes under control, restrictions will be lifted and people will feel more comfortable going out to restaurants or booking hotels or buying plane flights, getting that new car now that they're driving again, etc. 'Money Velocity' will pick up quickly in 2021, and with who knows how much more dry powder out there, this can only end in one way - LARGE amounts of inflation. Eventually, people will lose trust in the USD, and in all the FIAT currencies that are STILL tied to it, and start trading with things that have real value again - like gold and silver. (I've heard a lot of people say that inflation isn't a risk, that actually the biggest risk is deflation right now. Hopefully this helps you understand those concerns and put them in context.)
Enter Bitcoin. There's a finite supply. Politicians can't control it. It's secure. Companies are starting to accept and purchase it. (Tesla is only the most recent to do so). There's smart people out there who already know everything you just learned, and they're trying to get ahead of the pack. This leads to a common misconception about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies in general, one that even many around this subreddit have - that Bitcoin is a speculative asset, that it's too volatile to be considered a good investment. Bitcoin isn't an 'asset', it is a CURRENCY. It's a digital coin that both buyers and sellers have agreed to exchange in return for real goods and services. It's new, so of course there can be a good bit of volatility. But volatility doesn't mean it's a bad investment. Case in point - TSLA. In addition to a newcomer's natural volatility - there's another thing to consider: the dangers of inflation of the USD. If you look at BTC/USD, the volatility is high. If you look at BTC/Gold, the volatility is less. BTC/Silver, the volatility is even lower. We have to stop using the USD to determine something's value. Really, we should use other things to determine the USD's value. When you do that, the USD is looking pretty horrible right now.
Tell this to your grandma or your co-worker at work, and they'll look at you like you're crazy. But now you understand what they don't. EVERY FIAT currency eventually collapses at the hands of politicians. Happened to Rome, to Greece, Germany, Venezuela, etc etc etc.
Just so you know, I didn't figure all this out on my own. I learned from the best - Mike Maloney. He has a series on YouTube called 'The Hidden Secrets of Money'. I -highly- recommend investing a few hours and watching every episode! Here's a link to the playlist.
TLDR: USD is FIAT and FIATs BAD. Lots of history leading to BAD stuff. BTC good. TSLA now bulletproof. Elon smart.
(PS: I don't think cryptocurrencies are perfect. While each crypto does have a limited supply, there's nothing preventing people from just making new types of cryptos, which will inflate the existing crypto pool. Also, regarding BTC in particular - it has scalability issues. If the whole world switched to BTC, it could take days to confirm a transaction, and would require more electricity that the planet produces. A more efficient crypto is desirable. Mike Malony likes Hadera Hashgraph's HBAR. I'm still investigating and thinking on this.)
EDIT - Words

Deck Image
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Hey yall, I have been playing hearthstone since beta but have never quite found the motivation to grind to legend. After 22 hours of playing this deck, I found myself at legend in a ladder climb that ended 74-22 (77%WR)!!! including a 17 game win streak at one point. I believe this variant of Aggro rogue to be the best deck in hearthstone right now, and a deck that really has no bad matchups in the meta right now. First, let me make this clear, this is a face deck. Yes, we do spend time clearing their board but most of the time we never trade and go face, forcing them to trade. For example, if we Spymistress on 1 and they play a 1/3, we go face 100/100 times. Most of the time you are racing decks before they have the cards of mana to react, this ends most games around turn 5 or 6. Proof
Additionally, here are stats of just legend rank games
Card Choices
This deck spawned of the existing archetype benefitted crazily from the miniset. Nitroboost poison and Self Sharpening Sword provided the insane sustained damage that the deck needs to beat Warrior, Priest, and Quest Warlock, which are the really only "tanky" decks in the meta right now. My average game time was somewhere near 6 minutes, and they game was routinely over by turn 6 or 7, sometimes as early as 5.
Pen Flinger: Putting this guy first because I believe that he was the key to winning a large portion of my matchups. So many games ended after the opponent though he stabilized, put up a big taunt, and then died to some crazy line like [Pen Flinger -> Pen Flinger -> Eviscerate -> Pen Flinger -> Pen Flinger]. Pen Flinger gave this deck the reach that it needed to close out games and in conjunction with Secret Passage, finished out games with ease. It was also of value to simply throw one at phase to fill out mana curves if you think you will have extra at the end of your turn. Flinger is also a key enabler of Prize Plunderer, and those cards could clear taunts with ease. Pen Flinger is also the best possible combo enabler, so Pen into Swindle is a great play.
Prize Plunderer: Fits well in this deck, can be used to tempo and kill minions in Aggro matchups. Most often used during a Secret Passage or Pen Flinger pop-off turn to clear taunts. This card is great against Libram Paladin and Warlock, which represent a decent portion of the deck I faced.
Secret Passage: Probably the best card ever printed for Aggro rouge. Having one in hand gives us 2 lines of play. The first one if playing it on 5 to dig for Self-Sharpening Sword and either of the Poison Cards, the 2nd is simply waiting until your opponent in a turn off winning and digging for lethal in the form of Poison, Pen Flinger, Eviscerate, or Sinister Strike.
Spymistress, Worgen Infiltrator, Sneaky Delinquent, Greyheart Sage "Stealth Package": Main core of minions, I found this package to be faster than the secret package going around, and notably fast enough to beat Face Hunter and Demon Hunter, Which often times are not great matchups to secret rogue. The stealth package is incredibly consistent and few decks have a way to punish spreading the board wide.
Nitroboost Poison + Self-Sharpening Sword: The key to the deck against non-face decks. Developing a weapon with weapon and corrupted Nitroboost Poison or Deadly Poison gives us 3+4+5+6= 18 Damage off of one weapon or more if you buff twice. Although Evolve Shaman has fallen out of the meta completely, Slower decks still run Acidic Swamp Ooze or Kobold Stickyfinger, however this happened maybe 4 or 5 times the entire climb.
Cutting Class: So easily can we find a 3 damage sword or dagger. The one thing to be aware of is that Self-Sharpening gains 1 attack after swinging, so often times its better to attack first to make Cutting Class cost 1 less rather than play it to find weapon buffs.
Matchups
Demon Hunter: A fun matchup for sure and also one we win. Developing a stealth board, using Prize Plunderer to clear scary minions and setting up to kill him from hand. As he cannot counter our stealth minions effectively, often times we could kill him from 17+ health, even after DH pulling off a big lifesteal weapon turn, they simply can't keep up as we take board and continually push weapon damage.
Druid: Another favored matchup. Even the popular Treant/Spell Druid is not fast enough to beat us, once they get behind and waste a turn ramping, the game is over. My one loss to Druid came after a triple Solar Flare into Arbor up on a board. After a turn 4 or 5 Glowfly, you can continue hitting face, however, count minions and make sure you do not die to Savage Roar or Arbor Up. Out of all the Druids, i did not get punished by Swipe once, I am not sure if that card is too slow for them or if I just got lucky and dodged it. You should win this matchup unless the Druid highrolls the hell out of you.
Hunter: It seems as if Face Hunter is back in vogue. I faced only face hunter in this climb and did not see any Highlander decks I do not think. This matchup is tricky however the deck was able to develop weapon and kill from hand often enough. Obviously, Explosive trap is quite tricky to deal with, but with a weapon up we can trade our minions and trigger the trap on an empty board with our buffed weapon. This matchup favors us, but almost all of my wins were on 5 or less health. Another line to be aware of is if the Hunter gets misdirection off of Ringings Rifle, at that point, if the board is clear, it will not trigger. Good matchup for us if you can clear his 2/3 and use Prize Plunderer effectively.
Mage: Weird matchup, against mage we want to develop board and burst mage down before he finds Mozaki in the Mozaki mage variant, sometimes you simply loose to getting frostbolted face. Secret Mage is a much better matchup, they cannot clear our threats efficiently and often times we can kill them from hand and completely bypass their desperation Ice Barrier. Overall, Mage is a good matchup.
Paladin: Libram Paladin is perhaps the most frustrating deck to play against in hearthstone right now. Their buffed 1/3 can severely hamper our minion development and without a crazy Pen Flinger or Prize Plunderer turn, the amount of taunts they can spit out is crazy. Occasionally, they can just highroll and win turn 5 on the back of True Silver. Probably the worst matchup of this deck, however we still won the majority of our games against Paladin. Occasionally, we faced a Murloc Paladin, which is too slow to beat us, and a Nozdormu Paladin (I believe Firebat's List), which is one paper beats us, but Secret Passage on 10 mana into Greyheart Sage or Swindle is too good to beat. Both games, we were able to kill them turn 6 when they were behind a 7/7 Scrapyard Colossus.
Rogue: The most fun matchup this deck has is the Aggro mirror. A good portion of the time this matchup came down to who could develop a weapon first. The deck maintained a good win-rate vs Rogue. The secret package was too slow, even if we triggered Dirty Tricks and the other Combo variant featuring Hooked Scimitar and Foxy Fraud is slow as well, but perhaps a better matchup for them. Using Pen Flinger to remove 1 health minions and then returning them to hand is very good in this matchup.
Shaman: A great matchup for us. We lost a game to an insane highroll spell damage (!) shaman who found 4 taunt totems, but that deck is not consistent enough to beat us and often loses turn 5. The only other variant found was Totem Shaman, which is almost the only deck in the meta we ever trade against or use Eviscerate on minions against. Killing Eys'or and Mana Tide Totem is essential, other than the highroll, we win this matchup. Only one lonely Evolve Shaman was found, and he lost turn 6 before he could do anything of note.
Warlock: Interesting for sure. Against Quest Warlock, we need to develop a big Self-Sharpening Sword ASAP and start pushing damage. We lose to the Warlock that can heal 20-ish health, which is uncommon, but we found one tech-ing double Sacrificial Pact, so what do we really know. Most of the game, you do not want to overextend taunt minions. You should always have Dark Skies and Plague of Flames in the back of your mind. Additionally, we got absolutely rolled by the only Zoolock we found, perhaps if that deck was more popular we would be worse against Warlock. We are certainly favored here, any Warlock who taps on 2 should give up at that point.
Warrior: Did not see a ton of warrior until Rank 2, when we encounter 5 of them. The matchup is tough but win-able and maybe 55%/45% in our favor. The key is maximizing weapon damage (AKA not attacking the turn you equip an unbuffed Sword). They amount of health gain and removal they have is discouraging sometimes, but seeing them panic and Shield Slam a 1 drop or Brawl 4 mana worth of minions makes it worth it.
Mulligans:
Always Keep: Worgen Infiltrator OR Spymistress, Sneaky delinquent, Prep and Swindle Combo (Trust me, Prep + Swindle Turn 1 is good and thins the deck).
Situational: We kept Sword vs Priest, Warrior, Rogue, and Warlock. Keep Greyheart Sage vs Slower decks or if you already have a stealth minion in your mulligan.
Notes / Tips:
This deck is a little more nuanced than most Aggro decks. Here are a few things to keep in mind.
1. Greyheart Sage and Cutting Class can find Sword, Swindle can not! If you are playing cutting class and swindle in the same turn and want to find your other weapon, always Swindle First to thin the deck of drawable cards.
2. On Secret Passage turns, if you corrupt Nitroboost Poison but don't play it, you still keep it in your hand Technically, the corrupted card is different from the one you found with Passage, so it does not get shuffled in at the end of your turn.
3. Cards drawn with Swindle, Sage, or Cutting Class do not get shuffled at the end of your Secret Passage Turn For example, if you Secret Passage -> Swindle, you keep the cards you drew, even after the Passage is over. This makes Passage on 5 just to find card draw an acceptable line if you are ahead on board.
4. Always Always Always Nitroboost poison a minion that can attack Immediately rather than one that cant, no matter what
5. Casting Sinister Strike just to round out our curve is fine!
6. Example of openings:
[T1-Worgen/Spymistress T2- Sneaky Delinquent T3 - Sage T4-Sword + Poison] An absolutely nuts opening and the first 3 turns are actually pretty damn consistent. Remember that Self-Sharpening Sword will corrupt poison
[T1-Prep+Swindle OR Coin+Swindle] Better than it sounds on paper, getting a guaranteed minion can makes Sage a much better inclusion in this deck
[T1-Worgen/Spymistress T2-Coin+Greyheart T3-Sword]
As always, I would love to talk about this deck with yall so let me know if you need help with piloting the deck. This deck is perhaps the most fun I've had in HS since GvG. Happy Laddering!

• Krsgator

Why Dogecoin to $1 is Only a Matter of Time
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The Bubble
It’s February of 2021, and let’s be completely honest: We’re in a bubble. It’s kind of like 1999 but not the same. In 1999, interest rates were much higher. Today, they are nearly zero. In some countries, they are even negative. From a long-term perspective, this is very bad.
The Federal Reserve is completely to blame for this. Their policies are entirely reckless, and officials refuse to acknowledge what is going on here. The Coronavirus hysteria caused by the media and enabled by officials made the crash last summer the worst man-made disaster in the history of our financial system. The Great Depression was caused by over-speculation and a lack of regulation in an emerging financial system. The Great Recession was caused by greed and fraud (strangely, no one is in jail for this). This market collapse was caused by elected officials and the fed, who got trigger-happy and cut rates to zero back in the spring of 2020.
Whatever we wind up calling the burst of this bubble is to be determined. It will, however, be entirely manmade because the fed refuses to acknowledge the speculative behavior currently going on in SPACs, Cryptos, Penny Stocks, and anything else that serves as a legal Ponzi scheme for inflating the bubble. Even real, dividend-paying stocks have gotten way overvalued in some sectors. Also, since the fed has no plans of raising rates within the next two years (so they say for now, at least), if you’re searching for yield, you have nowhere else to look than the equities markets or one of these legalized forms of Ponzi schemes. It’s extremely unfair to conservative or retired investors looking for an honest return on their savings. This all is actually why it is a great time to look at Dogecoin, as I will get to in a moment. So long as rates are near zero, the bubble will continue to go on for longer and longer. And while it continues, people will constantly look for the next big thing.
For How Long?
Now, this may sound all doom and gloom, but that’s not my point. One day the bubble will burst, but I’m not making a prediction of when that will happen. Anyone making up dates for when the bubble will burst is either clueless or a con artist. No one knows when this bubble will burst. It could be weeks, months, or even years. One thing is for sure, the bubble will not burst just because things are overvalued. That’s not how bubbles work.
There needs to be a catalyst to burst the bubble. A major military conflict. An unexpected move or comment by the fed (raising rates, calling out the bubble for what it is, etc.). Another nationwide lockdown. I can go on with examples, but a little selloff here and there (August 2020) that causes the financial media to lose its mind is not enough. Just because you claim the bubble is bursting isn’t enough either. If you follow the media, you will get burned over and over again. That’s how it works. They want you to go to their sponsors for help, and once they burn you (sell you gold, overcharge you for poor investments, etc), you’ll come back to them hoping to figure things out. It’s a shell game. When the bubble burst, it will happen extremely fast and unexpectedly. There’s nothing wrong with playing the bubble, but you need to be mindful of when it ends because once the music stops, there will be a mad rush for the exits. You don’t want to be stuck holding the bag because everything will get crushed when the bubble burst. Even the blue-chip stocks that pay solid dividends will get hammered.
Fundamentals Don’t Matter (For Now)
In this bubble environment, fundamentals don’t make sense and, quite frankly, they don’t matter. You can argue back and forth all day long about whether something has a practical future or whether something is overvalued. I’m not here to do that about Dogecoin, Bitcoin, or any other crypto. The same could be said about Penny Stocks right now. (Hint: virtually all of these companies are way overvalued). You can find tons of articles of that nature, and I’m not likely to change your preconceived notions anyway. If we look at all the irrational bubbles that have occurred lately, you are a complete fool if you believe that TSLA or BTC is worth nearly a trillion dollars. It’s worth nowhere near that valuation.
How do I determine what something is worth, and who do I mean? It is called the market cap. In layman’s terms, that is where you take all the stock shares and multiply it by the share price. And I’m not recommending buying or selling TSLA or BTC, I’m just pointing out that these valuations are absurd. Does that mean they will not pass 1 trillion dollars? Of course not. There’s a very reasonable chance they do pass a $1 trillion market cap. That sounds absurd to write but it’s true. When the bubble bursts, you better believe fundamentals will be back in play. This disconnect can’t last forever. But it can go on for a while. And while it lasts, we all want to make some money
A Quick Word About ALL Cryptos
While I don’t believe Cryptocurrencies are going anywhere (as in, people will always buy and sell them), I also do not see any APPLICABLE future in them other than trading with other people. In fact, the biggest use I see of Cryptocurrencies is for illegal and untraceable transactions. The government will do all they can over the next several years to bring in lost tax revenue and track transactions better, but that’s the extent to which Cryptos will have relevance. How do I know this? Because the federal reserve, which is backed by the taxing authority of the US Government and the might of the US military, isn’t about to let some alternative currency usurp the US dollar. How do you think we can afford to provide all this government stimulus to fight Covid? If you think about this, you will see why other countries are much worse off. They must play by our rules, while we get to export our inflation to other countries because they must use the USD to buy commodities on the international exchanges (look at what happened when Saddam tried to circumvent this). If they print more money, their currency gets devalued. That’s why as bad as things look, relatively speaking, the US isn’t in terrible shape compared to the rest of the world.
If your financial future is so married to Bitcoin, ask yourself this: what happens if your account gets hacked? Who will you call? Who will make you whole again? If you have a brokerage account with legitimate stocks, there are regulations in place. There is the SIPC which protects again brokerage failure. With Bitcoin, you are completely gambling. This lack of regulation and lack of price stability means that there is no viable path to Bitcoin being a legitimate currency. Does it mean people can buy and sell it? Of course. But if you are in the cult of believing that Bitcoin is the future world reserve currency, you need to get your head examined.
Gold and Silver con artists have been trying for decades for people to get on this alternative currency train. At least gold and silver have some practical industrial applications. And hundreds of years of history on its side. Crypto isn’t anything but something people agree upon as having value. Why do I point this out? Because the one thing you need to do is separate yourself from what you think you know about Crypto and Blockchain, etc. While it all sounds cool and revolutionary, it really doesn’t matter. The US government could easily create their own form of Crypto that gives them more control. The decentralized part just doesn’t jive with our current global hegemony. If you don’t understand this, you should think more and read less. Once you accept this, you can start to see all Crypto as fundamentally worth the same: virtually nothing. The technicals, however, are why we want to look at Dogecoin.
Relative Valuation of Dogecoin
Now that you understand a little more background into where we are, I believe Dogecoin is extremely undervalued. Why? It’s simple. Relative valuation. This is one of the easiest and most efficient ways to compare investments. Ok, so maybe this isn’t really investing anymore; it’s gambling. Still, we can apply the same concept. Imagine two companies: they are in the same industry and have similar margins, earnings, growth prospects, etc. One company is valued at $50 billion and costs $120 per share, and one is valued at $85 billion and costs $80 per share. Which one would you invest in? Of course, you would invest in the one that is worth $50 billion at $120 per share. The cost per share means absolutely nothing. It is psychological.
Now, you say Dogecoin isn’t on par with Bitcoin and that where I’m going with this isn’t a fair comparison. Go back and read the last section. That’s why I wrote about the practical applications of Cryptocurrencies in general. None of that matters. The only thing that matters is the general sentiments shared by people that buy and believe in Cryptocurrency. So, let’s look at the current valuations:
Bitcoin – Price $40,500, Market Cap $755B (estimated as of 2-6-21)
Dogecoin – Price $.05, Market Cap $4.4B (estimated as of 2-6-21)
(Source: Yahoo Finance)
Now, I’m not saying Dogecoin is worth what Bitcoin is. I’m not even saying it's worth half or a third of Bitcoin. Who really knows? No one does. You certainly cannot say for certain that one is better than another. One is more “established” and has more name recognition. What I am saying is this: if Dogecoin goes to $1, it will have a market cap of just over $85 billion. Even at Bitcoin’s current market cap, that’s just over 1/10 of its value. And that isn’t even pricing in more appreciation of Bitcoin’s value over time. This means I see tons of room for Dogecoin to run. (I know some will mention dilution via minting of new coins, but that’s another discussion and not entirely relevant to the points I am trying to make in this piece.)
Could Dogecoin match Bitcoin? That sounds absurd, but let’s look just for fun: if Dogecoin were to have the same market cap as Bitcoin, that means it would have a current price of $8.55. So, what am I saying here? You must know the range of possibilities (within reason, if that even exists anymore) before you start thinking about price targets. To say Dogecoin is going to $100 is just absurd; things need to be put in the proper context.
Why Dogecoin?
Using relative valuation, I believe you could make a case for any Crypto. Will they all run to Bitcoin’s level? Of course not. The last question is why Dogecoin? This is the most important one that we have to answer before deciding on buying Dogecoin. The answer is simple: hype and name recognition. If I look at the most valuable cryptocurrencies by market cap, Dogecoin is number 12. I have taken an informal survey of probably 100 people over the last two weeks. I showed them the top 15 Cryptocurrencies by market cap to see which they were familiar with: Stellar, Binance Coin, Cardano, Polkadot, XRP . . . almost all of these were completely unheard of. But, somehow, they have valuations of 2-3 times Dogecoin.
Dogecoin has a few things going for it. First, hype. Elon Musk and many other prominent celebrities are pilling in. Mark Cuban has said he’d buy it over a lottery ticket. That alone can help aid a very quick lift off. Second, the name Dogecoin is very easy to remember and a trendy thing. What the heck is Cardano anyway? XRP? I mistakenly called it XPR before I edited this piece. And if you are still hung up on the practical use of Dogecoin or other Cryptos, you are missing the point of this piece entirely. Look at the story behind Bitcoin. An anonymous person online created a decentralized platform for money movement or something like that. What? How in the world did that idea ever take traction? It’s just like people online arguing over which Penny Stock is the next big thing. Neither person is right, but the perception is really all that matters.
Third, stimulus checks will be hitting within weeks or months. This naturally promotes price inflation when people have more dollars chasing few goods. People will inevitably pile into whatever they think is the next great thing. Dogecoin has momentum right now. And this brings me to number four.
Fourth, and perhaps most importantly, FOMO is very powerful right now. There are people all over the world that know people who have won big money in this bubble. Penny stocks, GameStop, Bitcoin, and many others that you can name. How many people do you personally know that have won big in the lottery? Probably none. This is a unique time in history. People have won big in this market and are looking for the next thing.
Dogecoin is something that could pick up steam quickly. It could blow up overnight. It may not, and that is the risk you take. At the end of the day, it’s just money that you can always make more of. Life-changing money is worth the risk when you find the right risk-reward ratio.
Do your due diligence, but also think ahead to a scenario that you could imagine. Would you be that surprised if Dogecoin reached $1? And if it did, would you be surprised if it started running towards multiple dollars? $1 is a psychological number that typically leads to a further breakout. The current market cap suggests this is all very possible. Now imagine getting in at four or five cents.
Disclosure: Long Dogecoin with Diamond Hands. No positions in any other things mentioned. -BJ

Seeing that a significant interest has developed around VMNT. I have put together an investment DD that puts us where we're standing now. I'll be going over current and past events and why it's severely undervalued.
What's up everyone, feel bad about missing the gain train on GME or TSLA? Something much greater is here. The stock VMNT has attracted legions of shareholders who continue to accumulate. VMNT is pink current with virtually no debt, no notes and a low O/S. The Company has seen significant growth.
First lets look at the share structure which is one of the most important key information you should look at first before making any investment decision.
Authorized shares: 500,000,000
Outstanding shares: 65,784,086
Floating shares: 22,670,000
link https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/VMNT/security
So why is this important?
Share structure is important because it reflects fundamental investment information not explained by stock price alone. Two stocks that have the same price may represent different values. Share structure impacts how a stock’s price acts in relationship to buying and selling activity. It plays an important roll in any stocks... For example, the bigger the share structure the more money (dollar volume) it would take for price to go higher, we call them "bloated pigs".
VMNT on the other hand-their share structure is small (Low Float), the sweet spot... not too small (micro float) not too big (bloated pig)
Lets put this all into perspective - VMNT can do several hundred percent and hold gains with just minimal volume.
Now lets get to some of the exciting stuff.
Interest started to build when the CEO secured $30,000,000 for its peer-to-peer (p2p) fintech company Fvndit/eloan.vn from 2 institutional investors.
Read more about it here: http://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2020/09/08/2090187/0/en/Fvndit-Closes-30M-In-Financing-For-eLoan-And-Seeks-To-Advance-Its-Market-Leading-Position-In-Vietnam.html
This not only caught interest for retail investors but also caught interest in the fintech industry as a whole. What does the fintech industry taking interest in VMNT have to do with us? Well...now the company has bankers, institutional investors, all kind of people trying to partner or give him money.
full interview here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ohMAfLGndc&t=475s
*Keep in mind a NY-based banker has been retained for $10,000,000... yes, cash on the side if the CEO of VMNT ever needs it.
I can get into more detail about all this above but lets keep this quick and short.
Now lets talk GOLD and SILVER...
"WTF!!!... i thought this was a fintech company?"
The CEO is has a plan to make its own stable coin... A crypto currency backed by gold or silver! It really is shitting on shit coins (altcoins)
So why stable coin?

1. it's their own currency
2. more services
3. making cross boarder transaction of cash more easier

(stable coin definition)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stablecoin
Keep in mind they have been approved on https://www.gemini.com/ for an institutional account... pretty soon you'll be able to add VMNT coins in the same digital wallet as your BTC or DOGE coins.
Here are some details of the new gold acquisition
If you want to hear the CEO speak in detail about the gold acquisition check the full interview here:
Interview with Tan Tran of Vemanti Group Inc. on 8-19-20 (VMNT) talks Marena gold Mali
Vemanti Group Signs LOI With Marena Gold
https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/VMNT/news/Vemanti-Group-Signs-LOI-With-Marena-Gold?id=281995
The company Marena Gold Mali is already a $160,000,000 that is projected to be a $700,000,000 company
Partnering with VMNT it will increase their production levels to ten tons a year and will get them qualified for LBMA and that's just for the refinery business.
The LBMA, which stands for the London Bullion Market Association, plays a huge role in the bullion markets and may be the difference between you receiving genuine gold from a trustworthy supplier, and being deprived of your money and left with nothing
Key Takeaways
· Free of debt and long-term liabilities
· No changes in total number of issued and outstanding shares since last quarter
· Started talks to get equity in Singapore based company that owns 3 gold poly-metallic deposits in Armenia. These mines are worth $360M
· Filed to be uplisted to OTCQB, with plans to hit NASDAQ this year.
· Partnering with VND-backed stablecoin issue to allow eLoan to launch a digital currency-based SME lending product
· Plans to use security tokens by working with a prominent Vietnam Bank
· Secured 30M in institutional funding
· Started process to be first licensed bank by State Vietnam bank to do p2p lending
· No toxic financing or dilution
· Marena Gold Mali Acquisition

It seems like the same discussions come up around Reddit a lot, so I figured I'd gather up some common topics, and their rebuttals.
Many of these arguments can be expanded with more points and sources but I'm trying to keep this as compact and to the point as possible.

Myth 1: "Sexism against men is never institutional or systematic"

Many forms of sexism and discrimination against men are explicitly institutionalized or systemic in society.
Examples include police violence, court biases, incarceration, child custody discrimination, military service, educational biases, health research and spending, insurance, housing discrimination, reproductive rights, bodily autonomy rights, and many others.
The widespread ignorance and denialism around these issues can itself be interpreted as a form of systemic discrimination against men as well.
Note that some of these are institutional because they boil down to statutory legal rights which exist in the realm of government policy and administration. And the government is obviously an institution.

Myth 2: "Most politicians and CEOs are men, and this has led to a society that privileges men and disenfranchises women"

The fact that many positions of formal power are occupied by men does not translate into measurable privileges for the average man.
The assumption this is based on is the idea that men have an in-group bias and prefer other men over women.
Which is an idea that has been debunked over and over again in the academic literature. The gender bias among men is almost zero, and sometimes manifests as an out-group bias sightly in favor of women, not other men.
In-group bisses do exist among women though. In fact some research has found evidence for very strong gender biases among women. Including when it comes to educators, bosses, and hiring managers. Women in formal positions of power do actually seem to prefer other women over men, in much the same way that men are accused of behaving. So maybe this is just projection: people who themselves have gender biases assume that everyone else does as well.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15491274
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022103101915112
https://link.springer.com/chapte10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_9

Myth 3: "Women were uniquely oppressed in history compared to men"

Much like today, sexism in history was often two sides of the same coin. If it was unfair that women had to stay home and take care of their children then it was also unfair that men had to work long hours outside the comfort of their homes. Many people try to equate sexism to the history of racism, as if men were unilaterally oppressing women for their own benefit. And that's simply not an accurate view of history (nor is it a very healthy belief to have).
Gender norms were often unfair to women. But for most of history, women could own property, get divorced (where they usually took most of their husband's money), run businesses, and even be heads of state. Many large empires were ran by women, for example.
The reality of the situation though is that pregnancy (and breastfeeding) often dictated the need for women to have men supporting them. Birth control and baby formula didn't exist. So your options were basically abstinence, or marriage. Which was the same choice that men also had.
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Privileged_Sex.html?id=4szznAEACAAJ&source=kp_book_description
https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:2e88e3f6-b270-4228-b930-9237c00e739f/download_file?file_format=application/pdf&safe_filename=Item.pdf&type_of_work=Journal%20article
https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199582174.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199582174-e-036
https://archive.org/details/legalsubjection00baxgoog/
https://www.marxists.org/archive/beard/woman-force/index.htm
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/1855/f217b082603d0ab37ea80c4741fceb8a4a23.pdf
"What about voting rights?"
Voting rights were historically tied to military service and the draft. It was never something that men got "for free" just for being men.
In England, most men couldn't vote until 1918, and that was only because they instituted a draft for all men during WWI.
Women aged 30 and older were also given the right to vote in 1918, and this came without the same obligation to serve in the military that men had. Women over 21 were given voting rights just 10 years later in 1928, which was the same age that men could vote. And that temporary age difference had a practical purposes: so many men died in WW1 that there was a need to even out the gender ratio.
So men have been allowed to vote for a whopping 10 years longer than women, at most. And that was only because of the mass, involuntary slaughter that they experienced around the world during WW1.
Other obligations that men had were paying taxes, attending caucuses, and signing up for bucket bridges to fight fires.
It took a few decades in some parts of the world for people to decide that it was fair for women to be able to vote without giving anything back to the state, but I think it's important to understand the context here. It wasn't misogyny or oppression but political theory. Specifically the question of whether or not it was fair to give women voting rights without equivalent responsibilities that were required from men (something known as a moral hazard, and that can be contextualized as "female privilege also sometimes harming women").
https://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/transformingsociety/electionsvoting/womenvote/parliamentary-collections/collections-the-vote-and-afterepresentation-of-the-people-act-1918/
http://www.familyofmen.com/when-did-men-and-women-have-the-right-to-vote-in-canada/
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/iu2ebj/women_could_and_did_own_property_and_have_rights/
https://www.reddit.com/LeftWingMaleAdvocates/comments/l1byes/suffrage_was_primarily_a_class_issue_not_a_gende

Myth 4: "Domestic violence and sexual assault are primarily women's issues"

Domestic violence and sexual assault affects everyone, and at nearly identical rates between men and women.
In the US, roughly 37.3% of women have been victims of domestic violence, stalking, sexual harassment, and sexual abuse. Including 1.4 million women who experience sexual assault annually.
For men that same figure is 30.9%. Including 1.7 million men who experience sexually assault annually (defined as "made to penetrate"). The vast majority of these men are also victimized by women, not by "other men" (which is another myth).
This pattern is similar across the world, including in poor and underdeveloped nations (see here for a collection of studies), and is consistent with a wide range of research demonstrating "gender parity" between men and women for this topic.
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/NISVS-StateReportBook.pdf
http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Faculty/bibs/stemple/Stemple-SexualVictimizationPerpetratedFinal.pdf
https://1in6.org
It's also not true that there's a significant difference in severity between male and female victims. Around 66% of intimate partner homicides do have women as victims (which is hardly a staggering majority), but when you include intimate partner related suicide deaths (including assisted suicides), a greater number of men are killed because of domestic violence than women. These statistic also ignore the fact that lesbian relationships are more violent than heterosexual and gay male relationships. Which inflates these numbers and doesn't necessarily back up the idea that women are being uniquely victimized by men.
We should obviously work to fight against abuse in any form, but our current, gendered approach to this doesn't seem to be helping very much. It is also commonly used as an excuse for misandry. Many people who discuss abuse against women do not actually care about female victims. All they care about is advancing a culture of hatred and sexism against men.
https://web.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm
https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.5042/jacpr.2010.0141/full/html
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01506/full
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/f4rvop/some_sources_on_the_severity_of_domestic_violence/
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/koinom/some_sources_on_the_sexual_abuse_of_men_and_boys/
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/f5tes5/gender_parity_for_sexual_assault_academic_studies/
"But women are afraid to walk down dark alleyways at night!"
As they should. And as do men. Most violent crime targets men. And fear is subjective. This is hardly evidence of some kind of unique oppression against women (at least one that doesn't also affect men), and it ignores the fact that men are usually afraid of finding themselves in those same situations as well.
Men are stronger and more capable of defending themselves so I wouldn't blame someone for having gendered views or assumptions here. But let's try not to minimize male victimization or blame it on things like "male oppression".

Myth 5: "False allegations are extremely rare"

Multiple studies have found alarmingly high rates of false allegations in society.
As many as 1 in 7 men have been falsely accused at some point in their life, and they often have to live with those allegations even after proving their innocence.
In addition, around 1 in 20 women have also been falsely accused at some point during their life.
False allegations are particularly common when it comes to child custody and divorce, where well over half of all allegations have been estimated to be false. There is also a common racial element that targets minority men. Especially in history during the era of lynchings in the US.
http://www.saveservices.org/dv/falsely-accused/survey/
http://www.prosecutorintegrity.org/psurvey-over-20-million-have-been-falsely-accused-of-abuse/
https://quillette.com/2019/04/16/divorce-and-the-silver-bullet/
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/14977/14977-h/14977-h.htm
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/e6w4yc/i_call_bullshit_on_the_false_rape_accusation/

Myth 6: "Men commit suicide more often than women, but women still attempt suicide more often than men"

This idea has its origins with faulty hospital reporting which lumps suicide attempts in with self-harm (which is something that's more common among women). Women are also more likely to report their suicide attempts than men. And even if this statistic were accurate, it ignores the obvious fact that a suicide survivor can attempt again, thus artificially inflating this statistic.
The fact is, most suicid deaths are men, and most evidence points to there being more unique attempts by men. Any evidence that men are "better" at it than women has been interpreted as evidence for greater motivation of success, due to the very same factors that lead them to attempt suicide to begin with. Not as evidence that women are somehow attempting suicide at rates similar to men in the background.
https://bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12888-017-1398-8
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/cvpyve/comment/ey5xeda

Myth 7: "Men make more money because of their gender, and this is evidence of male privilege"

Existing gender norms encourage men to earn money in order to meet the financial demands that are placed on them by women.
This causes them to work harder and sacrifice more for their careers than women. Which they do in part because their income is tied to how successful they are with women, and whether or not they qualify as "marriage material".
The wage gap is therefore an example of a gender norm that harms men just as much as it does women.
92% of workplace deaths are men. Men work on average an extra 4 to 10 hours a week (depending on your source) than women. They start working at a younger age (often skirting child labor laws). They retire later (which is also during their peak earning years). And they die sooner than women. Men have worse health outcomes than women and that's largely because of the pressures that society puts on them to be successful and earn money to spend on women.
This is the other side of the wage gap that is equally as important, and that is equally as harmfully to men as it is to women. And it's really just the tip of the iceberg.
In many ways the wage gap is just a reflection of the financial exploitation of men in society. Which is facilitated by things like hypergamy and unfair marriage and divorce practices.
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/kzvfcg/about_the_wage_gap/
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/dxaimc/the_wage_gap_is_created_by_women_and_reflects/

Myth 8: "Men don't go to the doctor because of toxic masculinity"

The main reason that men sometimes don't seek help is a lack of time to see a doctor.
Men work longer hours than women at jobs that are less flexible, and more stressful, than jobs that women usually work at. Men overall engage in an extra hour of paid and unpaid labor per day compared to women, and an extra 45 minutes commuting to jobs that are further away. Meaning men on average have quite a bit less free time to go see a doctor than women do.
This is also something that changes during retirement: retired men are just as likely to go to the doctor as retired women.
https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/8/e003320
A general lack of help and support, especially financial support, for men who need medical help also contributes to this. There is a myth that men are better taken care of than women which has resulted in gendered policies that help women, but exclude men. Even though it's men who often need that help more.

Myth 9: "Men don't speak up about sexism as much as women, so it's obviously not as big of an issue"

This is because people are less likely to care or listen to them. In part because many men who do speak up are silenced and accused of being misogynistic. A situation known as testimonial injustice or epistemic oppression.
Men are told to keep quiet and many end up internalizing the idea that only women can be discriminated against, since this is what society tells us to believe. Instead, men often adopt different terminology when they discuss gender issues. Like referring to differences in treatment between men and women as "double standards" instead of sexism or discrimination.

Myth 10: "Most men's issues are caused by men themselves"

Most men's issues are caused by gender norms and those gender norms are enforced by women just as much as they are by men.
Men's issues are often just one side of the coin, and usually reflect disadvantages that women face as well.
One of the biggest gender norms in society is hypergamy, or the tendency for women to try to marry up, and for men to marry down. And this gender norm is mostly enforced by women, not by men.
Two other gender norm that are enforced by women is the providership gender norm, and the childcare gender norm. Which also causes women to perform more unpaid work and earn less money than men in the labor market.
A fourth gender norm that is enforced by women more than men is the "boys don't cry bias". Which is mainly instilled in young boys by their mothers and by female school teachers. In fact, fathers and male school teachers actually fight against this gender norm.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1053535711000321
https://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/04/messages-of-shame-are-organized-around-gende275322/
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/09/24/chapter-1-public-views-on-marria
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/akillewald/files/money_work_and_marital_stability.pdf
https://www.fatherhood.org/fatherhood/maternal-gatekeeping-why-it-matters-for-children
https://news.uoguelph.ca/2019/11/mothers-push-gender-stereotypes-more-than-fathers-study-reveals/
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/gjtj10/most_people_regardless_of_gender_prefer_to_stay/

Myth 11: "Toxic masculinity is harming men and their mental health"

The concept of toxic masculinity has never been empirically tested, and some research questions the validity of it in the context of psychology and mental health.
Even if you do think it is valid though, it is still commonly used in a way that is sexist and hateful torwards men.
In recent years it has become associated with female supremacy, feminist hostility towards men, and misandry in general. And as a result, the vast majority of men find the term to be sexist and offensive.
Men who identify with traditional masculine values have greater self-esteem, better mental health, better relationships with women, and are usually better educated than men who are opposed to masculinity or who accept feminist views about the patriarchy and toxic masculinity.
The key to better mental health for men might therefore be an embracement of masculinity, not a shunning of it. Instead of trying to redefine masculinity, we should work to understand it better, and offer men better services based on an honest acknowledgement that men's and women's mental health might require different approaches.
Men are not "defective women", and treating men's mental health in that context does not seem to be working very well.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/17/opinion/apa-guidelines-men-boys.html
https://zenodo.org/record/3871217#.X-p1ji2l2J_
https://link.springer.com/chapte10.1007/978-3-030-04384-1_5

Myth 12: "Most men's activists just hate women or are opposed to feminism. They don't really care about men."

This rhetoric is normally used to silence the voices of men (and women) who support men's rights and prevent them from expressing themselves. Which makes it another example of testimonial injustice or epistemic oppression.
The fact is that many people do care about men's issues, and that's why they become MRAs. Feminism does get discussed in the men's movement, but there are a couple reasons for that:

1. Many feminists, "radical" or otherwise, have advocated against men and have even pushed for public policy in ways that are harmful to men or discriminates against men. Feminists themselves tend to not fight against this, meaning it's often up to MRAs to address it.
   
2. Many MRAs are themselves current or ex-feminists who were ostracized for daring to take the feminist rhetoric about "also caring about men" a little too seriously.
   

Warren Farrell is a great example of this. He used to be on the board of directors for NOW, the world's largest feminist organization.
And then he said that we need to work on child custody equality and reproductive rights for men. Topics that he assumed should fall under the umbrella of feminism since they are issues pertaining to gender equality. Instead of agreeing with him though, he ended up being excommunicated from the feminist movement. And now he's often regarded as the "father of the modern men's movement" for carrying on his advocacy outside of feminism.
The problem that many MRAs have with feminism is that it usually stops half way when advocating for gender equality.
So sometimes what MRAs are doing is just taking it the rest of the way towards actual gender equality. Our frustration with feminists comes from the fact that they refuse to see this as valid (or do it themselves to begin with).
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/ihmb2p/by_denying_that_the_feminist_establishment_is/
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/9v6tqj/a_list_about_feminism_misandry_for_anyone_who/

Myth 13: "Men don't receive custody of their children because they're bad fathers and don't bother requesting custody"

Academic research simply does not back this up. The only study that ever found something like this was discovered to be purposefully fraudulent, although that hasn't stopped people from trying to repeat this. The fact is that men are widely discriminated against on numerous different fronts when it comes to child custody and other areas involving family court law.
Note also how hateful this rhetoric is. This is the kind of stuff that you find repeated by feminists, and it simply doesn't treat this topic in a fair and honest manner. Fathers love their children and many fight tooth and nail just to get a few hours a week to spend with them. The system is broken and it represents a grave social injustice that is deeply unfair to fathers and their children.
https://www.sharedparenting.org/2019-shared-parenting-report
See also:
https://www.reddit.com/MensRights/comments/ilzceq/cmv_equal_child_custody_for_mothers_and_fathers/

Myth 14: "Most child abusers are men"

A majority of child abuse is actually committed by women, and especially by mothers. This is even more true when you include emotional abuse and neglect instead of just physical abuse.
By some metrics, the biological father is the safest person for a child to be with. This is because when men do abuse children, it often happens while under the custody of the mother. Who is sometimes complicit in the abuse or even encourages it.
Close to half of child abductors and traffickers are also women, not men. And many of their victims are boys. Boys face sexual abuse and are also used for forced labor and organ harvesting. They are less likely to survive or escape, are less likely to be reported on or identified, and they suffer from higher rates of abuse than girls who are trafficked.
And yet very little attention is given to this. Missing boys, and especially missing minority boys, are often ignored by society and the media. To the point that people often assume that most of the victims are girls. Something which is known as the missing white woman syndrome (although in Canada there is a lot of attention given to missing indigenous women, even though 71% of missing indigenous people are men and boys).
Note that I'm not saying these things to attack women, imply that they shouldn't receive custody, or to downplay the plight of girls. Which is a lot more than you can say about people who try to paint men as the villains in this picture. We should however be fair about what the facts are, and give male victimization, including victimization by women, the attention that it deserves.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16165212
https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/childmaltreatment-facts-at-a-glance.pdf
http://www.breakingthescience.org/SimplifiedDataFromDHHS.php
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213416302599
https://www.savethechildren.org/us/charity-stories/child-trafficking-myths-vs-facts
Fair is fair and equal is equal. Gender equality will never be fixed if we refuse to look at both sides of the coin. We need to be honest about what the problems are, and stop ignoring them when they involve men, fathers, and boys.

Hello friends! Welcome to my 'should you buy' post, where I'll be doing an evaluation of the purchasable banners in the first week of the Peach vs. Daisy Tour. A final decision will be made at the end of the post, deciding whether they are worth it or not.
This is dedicated to players who are not completely F2P. This is also my opinion and yours' may vary. Some people may think these prices are overly expensive and I agree with that. Some people like spending on this game though (I agree I purchase some banners sometimes) and please understand that. Buying content like this also helps keep the game running.
Another thing I like to mention, if you really like the character / kart / glider and I say they're not worth it, go ahead and buy them! I'm the type that would rather have a character that I love rather than one that is good.
Final thing, it's good to note that if you are planning on purchasing rubies, get a pack that has rubies instead. It is way more worth it over a standard ruby pack.
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I now have a Discord server! Feel free to join it here: https://discord.gg/hY2AQBAyn6
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These links may be useful:
Drivers Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/la2qbu/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_drivers_in_mario/
Karts Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/lb114l/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_karts_in_mario_kart/
Gliders Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/lbss4m/stats\_based\_tier\_list\_of\_all\_gliders\_in\_mario/
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Ranked Cups
The current ranked cup is the Peach cup which includes RMX Choco Island 2, Yoshi Circuit R, and Bowser’s Castle 2T.
The next ranked cup is likely to be the Daisy cup which includes RMX Choco Island 2T, Daisy Hills T, and Choco Island 1R.
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Available Packs
So the packs for this week include: Pirate Bowser Jr. Pack, King Bob-omb Pack, Pirate Sushi Racer Pack, Silver Bullet Blaster Pack, and Happy Ride Pack.
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Pirate Bowser Jr. Pack Evaluation
Let’s start off with the best pack of them all, the Pirate Bowser Jr. Pack, which is a £38.99 pack and includes Pirate Bowser Jr. (High-End Driver), Black Great Sail (High-End Glider), and 90 rubies. Let’s start off with Pirate Boy. I don’t see a point in evaluating him, because he’s obviously worth it just from his cuteness, but I’ll evaluate anyway. He hasn’t been seen since the Pirate Tour, so overall he is very rare. Here is your chance to get him. Looking at the latest tier list, as much as it pains me to admit, he’s not very good. He ranks around average for Highest Point Potential, and below average for Overall Efficiency. Show him so love Nintendo! Why do you keep buffing Wedding Peach every single tour but not Pirate Boy. His special item is Bob-omb Cannon which isn’t all that great, but not the worst.
For the Peach ranked cup, he is available top shelf in Bowser’s Castle 2T along with Fire Bruh, Birdo, Party-Time Lakitu, King Bob-omb, Gold Dry Bones, and Dry Bowser. They even did him dirty here as he is 100% not needed. And he’s not present in the Daisy ranked cup.
Let’s move on to the Black Great Sail. It’s new so all value will need to be assumed. It has started off with three maps, a normal, reverse, and a trick, not too bad but could be better. Its locked maps look alright as well. Its special skill is Bullet Bill which is trash. So really, it’s just okay at the moment.
For ranked this week, it’s available top shelf in RMX Choco Island 2 along with Silver Bells, Bright Glider, Butterfly Prism, and Silver Manta Glider. This is a very difficult top shelf, and probably won’t have any of these. You may have the Silver Bells though from pulling this pipe. You also have the Silver Manta Glider which is available in King Bob-ombs Pack. I’ll compare these two packs later to say which would be more worth it.
The Black Great Sail is also available next week in RMX Choco Island 2T along with Rose Parasol, Nabbit Oilpaper Umbrella, Gold Crane, and Silver Starchute. Once again, a very difficult top shelf that only a few of you will have. The Gold Crane has been seen a couple of times now, so maybe you even have that.
Overall, I think I would say this pack is worth it, even though that’s obvious cause it’s Pirate Boy. Pirate Boy isn’t all that great sadly, but he isn’t terrible at least. The great thing about him is how rare he is. The fact the only time he’s appeared is next to King Bob-omb who I know a lot of people pulled for, most of you definitely won’t have him. It’s really hard to predict how good the Black Great Sail will end up later on, it just seems okay at the moment. But it is however very useful in both ranked cups here.
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King Bob-omb Pack Evaluation
Next up is the King Bob-omb Pack, which is a £38.99 pack and includes King Bob-omb (High-End Driver), Silver Manta Glider (High-End Glider), and 90 rubies. As we all know, King Bob-omb recently got added as a permanent driver in the pipes, so he’s not all that rare anymore. He’s also been seen another time in a special pipe before he was permanently added into the pipe. Looking at the latest tier list, he is very good and ranks top tier in both, he even makes it to the third best for Overall Efficiency, definitely someone you want to start investing in.
Like Pirate Bowser Jr. he’s available top shelf in Bowser’s Castle 2T, but you shouldn’t need him here.
Now let’s take a look at that new Silver Manta Glider. It has 5 top shelf maps to start off with, two being normal maps which is already way better than the Black Great Sail. It even has better locked maps. Its special item is Blooper which is decent.
It’s available top shelf in RMX Choco Island 2, and this was already covered in the Black Great Sail’s evaluation. You will likely need either this glider, or the Black Great Sail here.
So overall, I would say this pack is definitely worth it. King Bob-omb is amazing and I can see a lot of potential in the Silver Manta Glider.
Now, if you want to only buy one between the King Bob-omb and Pirate Junior packs… that’s a tricky one. Both High-Ends in King Bob-omb’s pack are better, but Pirate Junior is a lot rarer than King Bob-omb, and his glider is better for this tour’s ranked. So really, it all comes down to preference I guess. They’re both worth it so you’re not really making a wrong choice.
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Pirate Sushi Racer and Silver Bullet Blaster Pack Evaluations
The Pirate Sushi Racer Pack is a £19.99 pack and includes Pirate Sushi Racer (High-End Kart), 45 rubies, and 1 kart point boost ticket. The Silver Bullet Blaster Pack holds the same contents, except you get the Silver Bullet Blaster instead of the Pirate Sushi Racer. Both of these karts are just as rare as Pirate Boy, as they haven’t been seen since their debut in the Pirate Tour. Taking a look at the latest tier lists, the Pirate Sushi Racer stands around average in both types of tier lists, whilst the Silver Bullet Blaster ranks above average in both. Pirate Sushi Racer has Rocket Start Plus, while the Silver Bullet Blaster has Jump Boost Plus, a much better skill overall.
For ranked this week, both these karts are available top shelf in RMX Choco Island 2 along with Sweet Daytripper, Crawly Kart, and Pumpkin Kart. All three are very rare and you probably won’t have them. The Crawly Kart is permanent in the pipe at least, and the Sweet Daytripper is a spotlight in this first pipe. For the majority though, you’ll likely need one of these two.
Overall, I’d say they’re both worth it as they’re rare, and none of them are exactly bad, but if you only want to get one of them, Silver Bullet Blaster is definitely better here.
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Happy Ride Pack Evaluation
The Happy Ride finally makes a return since the Peach Tour! It’s available on its own in a £3.99 pack. As we all should know by now, it’s a very good kart, and ranks as the second best for Highest Point Potential. Its special skill is Mini-Turbo Plus as well which is the best skill to have on a kart.
It's not available top shelf in the Peach ranked cup, but it is available in RMX Choco Island 2T along with Rose Taxi, Cheep Snorkel, Wild Pink, and Sports Coupe, and these are all very rare. You may have the Sports Coupe as it’s a permanent item in the pipe. The Wild Pink was available in a pipe last tour, and then the Rose Taxi will be available in the special pipe this tour.
So of course, this pack is definitely worth it for the very lower price. And as a bonus, it’s one of the best karts in the game and will likely be needed for ranked next week.
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Should you get the Gold Pass?
The Gold Pass costs £4.99 and you can activate a free trial across two tours.
One thing some people get confused about within this evaluation is when I say the Gold Pass isn’t worth it. I personally and many others think the Gold Pass is always worth it, but this particular evaluation compares the rewards of this Gold Pass to previous rewards to find whether it’s worth it.
I won’t be going over the ruby count, ticket count, or coin count that the Gold Pass offers as this seems to be the same every tour and you can view those yourselves through the gift boxes. The Gold Pass items in this tour include: Baby Peach, Baby Daisy, Peach, Daisy, and Strawberry Donut.
I think we can make this evaluation pretty short. Baby Peach and Baby Daisy are obviously not worth it as they’re Normals in the Coin Shop. I wouldn’t say Peach or Daisy is worth it either, as they are also in the Coin Shop, and they are pretty bad overall. Now the Strawberry Donut though… that’s going to be tricky. It’s definitely worth it, but it’s just whether it can hold up the whole Gold Pass this tour as everything else isn’t worth it. The Strawberry Donut is one of the best gliders in the game, if not the best, but it is a permanent item in the pipe so it's not all that rare.
I think the Gold Pass this tour really depends on whether you have the Strawberry Donut or not. If you do, I don’t think it’s worth it. If you still don’t have the Strawberry Donut though, I’d get it.
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So to sum up the packs:
- Pirate Bowser Jr. Pack – Of course he’s worth it!
- King Bob-omb Pack – Worth it!
- Pirate Sushi Racer Pack – Somewhat worth it.
- Silver Bullet Blaster Pack – Worth it!
- Happy Ride Pack – Definitely worth it!
- Gold Pass – Possibly worth it for the Strawberry Donut.
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Hopefully you liked this evaluation and let me know if you are going to buy any of these packs!
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Thank you so much to my current Patrons:
- Gaymerbrad (Discord)
- u/mjpist
- u/MaddieUsernameCollec
- BusterStatus (Discord)
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- Matt Coady (Patreon)
- u/r0main__ (Reddit)
- rogerwinhye (Discord)
If you want to support me even further, consider becoming a Patron! I explain a bit more about it here: https://www.reddit.com/TheSpikeLounge/comments/kylkx8/spikes_patreon/ Please do not feel pressured to, you are supporting me more than enough at the moment just by being here :)

Hello friends and welcome to my should you pull post, where I'll be doing an in-depth evaluation of the first pipe in the New Year’s 2021 Tour. Most things stated in this post are my opinion and yours' may vary.
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These links may be useful:
Drivers Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/kewd3l/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_drivers_in_mario/
Karts Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/kf4lda/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_karts_in_mario_kart/
Gliders Tier List: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/kfjvek/stats_based_tier_list_of_all_gliders_in_mario/
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Also check out my Locked Ones post: https://www.reddit.com/MarioKartToucomments/kn1yxf/the_locked_ones_new_years_2021_tou This lists all the drivers you can unlock as a top shelf in ranked if you get them to level 3 or 6. I will be covering these within the evaluation.
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‘Should you pull the pipes’ information
Pipes are given points based on four different factors. A percentage of points go towards each of these factors. These factors include:
- (30pts) Spotlights – How good each spotlight is in the pipe.
- (10pts) Spotlights type – Whether there are more drivers, karts, or gliders. Usually the best go in the order of drivers, gliders, then karts, so a pipe with more drivers will be given more points than a pipe with more karts.
- (10pts) Non-Spotlights – What other High-Ends and Supers are available in the pipe that usually wouldn’t be there.
- (15pts) Ranked Usage – What items in the pipe you may need for ranked in the current tour.
- (35pts) Pipe Elements – The odds of getting High-Ends and Supers compared to Normals. How many items in the pipe are also considered.
All spotlights will be given a score out of 10. These scores out of 10 will then be added and converted to fit into the 30% ratio. Spotlights that are new with the current tour will be graded based on their item/skill and how they perform in the ranked cups of the tour. They will not be graded based on their favoured maps. This is because all new content starts out with few maps, and this is updated overtime. However, returning spotlights will also be graded based on their favoured maps, as these will most likely not be changed too much in the future.
At the end the pipe will be given a score between 0 and 100. If the score is 50 or higher, you should probably pull this pipe.
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New Year’s 2021 Tour Pipe 1
This pipe features nine spotlights, including Party Time Lakitu, Party Time Toad, Party Time Pauline, Party Wing, Glam Bruiser, Platinum Taxi, New Year’s Kite, Fireworks Parachute, and Heart Balloons. As always when there are a lot of spotlights, I will merge the different drivers, karts, and gliders into one instead of evaluating each one separately.
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Ranked Cups
The current ranked cup is the Bowser Jr. cup which includes RMX Rainbow Road 2, Vanilla Lake 1T, and Waluigi Pinball.
The next ranked cup is likely to be the Dry Bowser cup, and that includes Kalimari Desesrt T, RMX Rainbow Road 2T, and Mario Circuit 2.
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Drivers Evaluation
There are three Driver spotlights in this pipe, including Party Time Lakitu, Party Time Toad, and Party Time Pauline. Let’s start off with Lakitu. He’s new, so we can’t assume his future value. However I can make a prediction. Looking at his current top shelf, he has… OMG. WHO STARTS WITH 10 TOP SHELF MAPS? That’s ridiculous. Alright I’m calling it now, in a few tours he’s probably going to be top tier with Nabbit. Of course I could be wrong so don’t come crying to me if you spend all your rubies on him and he’s worthless in the end :D His special item is Lucky 7 which is a very good item.
Party Time Toad is quite the meme, and not in a good way. He is trash. Looking at the latest tier list, for Highest Point Potential he ranks as the third worst in the game, and for Overall Efficiency, he ranks as eighth worst. His special item is Mushroom Cannon which isn’t all that great. It’s pretty incredible getting the + version though.
Everyone has been waiting for Party Time Pauline to come back, and here she is finally. She really isn’t that great for a Coin Box driver, but she definitely isn’t the worst. She ranks in Tier 2/6 for Highest Point Potential, and Tier 3/6 for Overall Efficiency. As I just mentioned, her special item is Coin Box which is the best item in the game. You always want to collect these Coin Box characters.
For the Bowser Jr. ranked cup, Party Time Lakitu is available top shelf in RMX Rainbow Road 2 along with Santa Bowser, Wedding Peach, and Halloween Peach. Wow, what a nasty top shelf. I think it’s safe to say you will very likely need Lakitu here. Maybe you pulled for Santa Bowser as he’s Coin Box, but if not, you may be screwed.
Also in the Bowser Jr. cup we have Vanilla Lake, and Party-Time Toad is top shelf here. You also have Bowser Jr. top shelf here though, and most of you should have him by now. He also has the better item and is cuter, so there’s no reason why you wouldn’t use Bowser Jr.
And once again in the Bowser Jr. cup, we have Waluigi Pinball, where Party Time Lakitu and Party Time Pauline are present. However, you have Baby Mario here who has a really good item as well. Party Time Pauline would obviously be a better choice as she has Coin Box, but I think it’s best to stick with Baby Mario here if you have him at a high level.
Now in the Dry Bowser cup for Kalimari Desert 2T, Party Time Lakitu is available top shelf. However, we have Roy top shelf here. Roy our boy has never been in ranked before until now, so everyone will obviously want to use him. Except you also have Pink Shy Guy and Boomerang Bruh here that you may use instead. Or even Dry Bowser. You most likely won’t need Party Time Lakitu here unless you level him up a lot.
So let’s sum up these drivers. Party Time Lakitu is new so it’s hard to say, he seems very good though to start with and I really wouldn’t be surprised if he makes it to top tier eventually. He also is available in three of the ranked maps this tour, although you probably will only need him in one. Party Time Toad is pretty useless. He’s very bad and isn’t useful at all for ranked this tour. Party Time Pauline is great to have as she’s Coin Box, but you don’t really need her for ranked this tour. I’ll give these drivers an 8/10. It’s Party Time Toad that’s weighing the other two down.
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Karts Evaluation
The three kart spotlights in this pipe include Party Wing, Glam Bruiser, and Platinum Taxi. The Party Wing is new this tour, so long-term value will need to be assumed. Its special skill is Mini-Turbo Plus which is the best kart skill to have. It has 4 top shelf maps, with 4 locked maps. 2 of the top shelf maps are Normal ones which is decent. It has decent locked maps as well. I would say this starting top shelf is pretty good, not a lot of variety in terms of maps at the moment though.
The Glam Bruiser has appeared a few times in pipes now, but you may still not have it. Looking at the latest tier list though, you’re really not missing out on too much. It ranks very low on both types of tier list. Its special skill is Slipstream which is useless.
The Platinum Taxi has had many apparencies now. It is decent overall and ranks slightly above average for both types of tier list. Its special skill is Mini-Turbo Plus which is the best kart skill.
For the Bowser Jr. ranked cup and in RMX Rainbow Road 2, we have the Party Wing top shelf here. We also have Ribbon Rider, Black Kabuki Dasher, 8-Bit Pipe Frame, and Steel Driver. All of these are quite rare. The Black Kabuki Dasher is available on a purchasable banner this tour though. The Steel Driver is permanent in the pipe, but it only got added to the pipe last tour, so you may still not have it. You probably need the Party Wing here.
Also in the Bowser Jr. cup, we have Platinum Taxi and Glam Bruiser available top shelf on Vanilla Lake, along with Snow Skimmer, Sushi Racer, Banana Master, Karp Kart, Ice-Blue Poltergust, P-Wing, and Gilded Prancer. You can also unlock Rose Queen, Festival Girl, and Pirate Sushi Racer at level 6. There is a lot top shelf here, so hopefully you have at least one of these. Vanilla Lake is quite a small map though, so you don’t necessarily need a top shelf kart here, although it is helpful.
For the Dry Bowser Cup, the Party Wing is available top shelf in RMX Rainbow Road 2T along with Gold Egg, Crawly Kart, Dark Trickster, Gilded King, and Gold Cheep Charger. If you are F2P, you probably won’t have any of these karts, some of them are from purchasable banners in previous tours, others are random spotlights and from special pipes. If you do buy banners occasionally, you may be lucky enough to have one of these karts. For most of you though, you probably need the Party Wing here.
Now let’s sum up these karts. It’s really hard to say how good the Party Wing will be in the future. I do see quite a bit of potential in it though, and I can imagine it getting to top tier. I very much doubt it will stay below average. It is also useful in both ranked cups this tour. The Glam Bruiser is trash, it’s really not that good, and you probably won’t be needing it in ranked this tour. The Platinum Taxi is definitely the better option for Vanilla Lake 1T if you are lacking a top shelf kart there. It is slightly above average, but it’s appeared multiple times so… it will probably appear multiple times next year as well. You definitely aren’t missing out if you don’t pull for it. I think a 4/10 will be acceptable for these karts.
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Gliders Evaluation
The three glider spotlights in this pipe include New Year’s Kite, Fireworks Parachute, and Heart Balloons. Let’s start with the awful New Year’s Kite. IT’S A COIN GLIDER IT MUST BE TOP TIER!!! Please… never say that… Looking at the latest tier list, it is very bad. For Highest Point Potential it ranks as the fifth worst in the game, and for Overall Efficiency, it ranks as the fourth worst. You really don’t need this crappy glider. At least it’s very rare. It hasn’t appeared since the New Year’s Tour, so most of you won’t have it.
The Fireworks Parachute is awful. Well, at least it was for a long time after it released, but it’s pretty awesome now. Looking at the latest tier lists, it ranks above average in both. Its special item is Bob-omb, which is just okay. It’s appeared quite a few times now in pipes, and once on a purchasable banner.
Last up is the Heart Balloons. They are available in the pipe and rank around average for both tier lists. Not too bad.
For the Bowser Jr. ranked cup, the New Year’s Kite is available top shelf in RMX Rainbow Road 2, along with Purple Oilpaper Umbrella, Jolly Bells, and 8-Bit Star. All are quite rare. The 8-Bit Star was at least available in the Starry Pipe a couple of tours ago. The Purple Oilpaper Umbrella is available on a purchasable banner this week, but I don’t blame you for not wanting it as it’s quite bad. You probably need this crappy New Year’s Kite here.
Also in the Bowser Jr. cup, we have all three spotlights available on Vanilla Lake 1T. Do we need any of them though? Probably not as we have the Blue Flower Glider here, which was available in the tier shop some tours ago.
And then once again in the Bowser Jr. cup, we have Waluigi Pinball, and here we have Fireworks Parachute. You probably won’t need it here though, as we have the Wario Wing and Waluigi Wing top shelf, and they’re both Supers. It’s pretty unlucky if you don’t have either of them.
Then in the Dry Bowser cup for RMX Rainbow Road 2T, New Year’s Kite is available top shelf. Here we only have Spider Glider, Planet Glider, Silver-and-Gold Hearts, Silver Starchute, and Dry Bowser Umbrella. These are all quite rare items. Silver-and Gold Hearts have appeared quite a lot at least, so you may have them to use. The Planet Glider appeared on a purchasable banner last tour. Other than that, it’s a good chance you won’t have any of these and need this crappy kite again.
And now let’s sum up these glider spotlights. The New Year’s Kite is just trash. However, it at least got a good buff this tour so that should take it up in the tier lists a little bit. You also probably need it in ranked. The Fireworks Parachute is great, but you probably don’t need it for ranked this tour, and then the Heart Balloons are alright, you won’t need them in ranked this tour, and they are a permanent pipe item, so that sucks a bit. It’s possible you still don’t have them though! I think I’ll give these gliders a 6/10. They’re a decent selection but could be much better.
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Spotlight Total
Adding up those scores, that brings these spotlights to a score of 18/30. It’s a pretty good score! The drivers are great, but the karts weigh them down.
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Spotlights Type
So what types of spotlight are we getting here? We are getting 3 High-End drivers, 3 High-End karts, and 3 High-End gliders. All even, and that’s always great! As we know drivers and gliders are the most important, so 4/6 items are pretty important here. I’ll give this value a 6/10.
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Non-Spotlight Items Evaluation
Taking a look further into this pipe, you also have a small chance of getting every single Mario except Musician Mario for whatever reason. I don’t blame Nintendo for forgetting him though as he’s pretty useless. Starchute is also in here which is interesting, it seems it will be a permanent item in the pipe from now on. Instant 10/10 for all those Marios.
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Ranked Necessity Evaluation
Let’s take a look at the other items that you may need for the ranked cup in this tour.
For RMX Rainbow Road 2, you may need Party Time Lakitu. You may also need Party Wing or Steel Driver. You may also need New Year’s Kite. For Vanilla Lake 1T you may need Glam Bruiser, Platinum Taxi, Banana Master Sushi Racer, or P-Wing.
For RMX Rainbow Road 2T, you may need SNES Mario, Sunshine Mario, or Halloween Mario. You may also need Party Wing or Crawly Kart. You may also need New Year’s Kite.
You probably won’t need too much here outside of the new Rainbow Road variants. I’ll give these a 6/15.
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Pipe Odds Evaluation
Looking into the details of the pipe, you will be getting 4 High-End drivers, 4 High-End Karts, and 4 High-End gliders. What is this madness? This is literally insane. This is getting an instant 35/35. 12 High-Ends? That’s amazing!
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So should you pull the New Year’s 2021 Tour Pipe 1?
The total score for this pipe is 75/100. That’s an incredible score. I don’t think I’ve scored any 100 pipes that high before. The spotlights are decent aside from a few of them, and you have amazing odds. However, I wouldn’t immediately go spend all your rubies on this pipe. We have another great pipe coming up next week, and that one may even have a better score than this one. I’ll only spend rubies on this one now if you desperately need something for ranked, or you are missing most of the spotlights.
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Should you get the Gold Pass?
The Gold Pass costs £4.99 and you can activate a free trial across two tours.
One thing some people get confused about within this evaluation is when I say the Gold Pass isn’t worth it. I personally and many others think the Gold Pass is always worth it, but this particular evaluation compares the rewards of this Gold Pass to previous rewards to find whether it’s worth it.
I won’t be going over the ruby count, ticket count, or coin count that the Gold Pass offers as this seems to be the same every tour and you can view those yourselves through the gift boxes. The Gold Pass items in this tour include: Mario, Oilpaper Umbrella, B Dasher, and Gold New Year’s Kite.
Mario is a Daily Selects Super, so he’s not worth it. From next tour, Oilpaper Umbrella will also be a Daisy Selects Super at a normal glider price, so that’s not worth it either. The B Dasher isn’t a very good High-End and is also available in the Daily Selects and the pipe, so that’s not worth it. The only thing that’s worth it really is the new Gold New Year’s Kite. We don’t know how good this glider will end up in the future, but currently it’s exclusive to Gold Pass and we don’t know if that will ever change.
So that’s 1/4 of the items here that are worth it, but the one that is worth it is exclusive currently. It’s a hard choice. I would probably say it’s worth it as you’re getting an exclusive item, but it’s up to you really in the end!

Hey bugs. So, the GME euphoria looks like it’s going to spill over into silver.
It seems like most of us here just like to show off our stacks, support each other, and occasionally speculate about where silver’s price is going. I would say that this isn’t the place where we entertain the idea of big market moving investments. This is a physical silver sub imo, and rarely do I see posts and discussions about ETFs, mines, and super technical market conditions.
There’s PMstocks , which is dedicated to paper metals trading. Btw, this isn’t an endorsement for the new people coming here to go over there, but I don’t think Silverbugs is going to improve with an increased presence of people discussing potentially market moving paper trading, and speculation on miners. If anything, I think it’ll take away from the spirit of the sub. It seems like there’s already brigading by people that either want to make a political/social statement and/or pump silver for their own gains. We all want our stacks to grow in value. But, I’d say most here are pretty familiar with silvers historic volatility, and the subsequent fallout that inevitably occurs. If silver gets too pumped most of us are going to be priced out of buying physical. I don’t disagree that silver is wildly undervalued and manipulated. But, there’s a difference between fair market value, and a pump that prices out nearly all of the stackers on this sub.
I don’t want to see rubes and noobs paying $1k for an ounce silver even if it means my stack is way more valuable once it settles into a non-pumped /oz price. If you go on to kitco, or other forums, you can easily find stories about people that speculated on the shiny during its last parabolic run (when it only went up to about $50), and suffered when it fell. It’s my opinion that this is a community where we measure/mitigate risk, try to advocate for stacking as a hedge for inflation/store of value, and hope to better our financial situations in a responsible way. To put it flatly, big time silver speculation could really fuck up our hobby, and even our financial goals. The majority of us aren’t here to get in and out with a bunch of fiat. Most of us stack because we’re skeptical of fiat. But, if silver is super pumped, and we can’t afford it (or, what we can afford is overvalued) with fiat, we get pushed out of the market. Most stackers seem to like the price low, so they can keep stacking. Sure, we all want a day to come where our stacks pay off for us, but a lot of us are playing the long game. And, we’re enjoying beautiful coins, rounds, bars and pours along the way.
To those who are new here, and want to stack, I’m sure we’ll all be glad to help you on your journey. There’s a ton of knowledge here. Most people on this sub know silvers true, intrinsic value and feel that holding physical is the only way to own silver - if you don’t hold it, you don’t own it. To those who are here to pump, I respectfully suggest you find somewhere else to do it. I’m not saying this as a statement of support or discouragement, but plainly, I don’t want you to ruin this sub.
I think it might be prudent to discuss how this may effect the sub and it’s moderation going forward. Also, if you’re on this sub calling each other “comrade,” that shit’s probably not going to fly with a lot of us - this is not a political statement, but take it for what it is. If you got this far, thanks for entertaining my morning ramblings.
I’m not trying to discourage anyone who wants to help 🚀 silver. I’m just saying this doesn’t seem like the place to do it.
And, should any of you WSB types (I love wsb, just have a different strategy/philosophy w/ silver) want to assume I’m a boomer, I can assure you I’m not, although my wife’s boyfriend is.