Greeting Theta Gang boys and girls,
I hope you're well and not bankrupt after last week. I'm just now recovering mentally myself. I saw a few WSB converts and some newbies asking for tips, so here you go. V2 of my Options guide. I hope it helps.
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I spent a huge amount of time learning about options and tried to distill my knowledge down into a helpful guide. This should especially be useful for newbies and growing options traders.
While I feel I’m a successful trader, I'm not a guru and my advice is not meant to be gospel, but this will hopefully be a good starting point, teach you a lot, and make you a better trader. I plan to keep typing up more info from my notebook, expanding this guide, and posting it every couple months.
Any feedback or additions are appreciated
Per requests, I added details of good and bad trades I made. Some painful lessons learned are now included. I also tried to organize this better as it got longer.
Here's what I tell options beginners:
I would strongly recommend buying a beginner's options book and read it cover to cover. That helped me a lot.
I like this beginner book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00GWSXX8U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_OxNDFb2GK9YW7
Helpful websites:

• Tasty Trade (TT) and Ally Invest have helpful articles and videos.
  • https://www.tastytrade.com/tt
  • https://www.youtube.com/c/tastytrade1/featured
• Ally training:
  • What is options trading? https://www.ally.com/do-it-right/investing/trading-options-for-beginners/?CP=EM2012111
  • Top 10 options mistakes: https://www.ally.com/do-it-right/investing/top-10-option-trading-mistakes/?CP=EM2012111
• 3 common option mistakes: https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/library/options/common-mistakes-options-traders-make
• Common options strategies: https://www.optionsbro.com/basic-options-strategies/
• Investopedia has tons of great investing info for stocks and options: https://www.investopedia.com/
• Kamikaze Cash Theta Gang Videos: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOweupE79XXiBaeH_xBpkUcYUsrAaKQen
• 20 rules of professional traders: https://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/022715/20-rules-followed-professional-traders.asp

Don't trade until you understand:

• You can lose your entire contract value when buying.
• You can lose a lot of money when selling "naked", theoretically unlimited.
• How option expiration works.
• Theta (decay) and how it works. This is imperative since it's attrition when buying and a payout when selling. https://www.optionseducation.org/advancedconcepts/theta
• DTE: Days till expiration/expiry
• Options positions with respect to price:
  • ITM: In the money; strike is below stock value. Signif
  • ATM: At the money; strike is just at or above the stock value, often very highly traded. Can be very effective with moderate - long term expiry.
  • NTM: Near the money; strike is above the stock value, but fairly close. Slightly unofficial term.
  • OTM: Out of the money; price is at least a few strikes from the current stock price. I would say 10-30% over stock price.
  • Very OTM: Not a real definition, this is essentially a lottery ticket. Cheap, but almost certain to expire worthless unless there is explosive movement.
• Understand delta in general and how delta changes with ITM and OTM options.
• Understand all the greeks at a high level, as you get better understand them well. The greeks: https://www.optionsplaybook.com/options-introduction/option-greeks/
• IV, IV crush, and how IV affects pricing. In general, you want to sell when IV is high and buy when the IV is low. Increasing IV is good for held calls/puts. IV drop or crush is generally good for sellers.
• Selling options can be quite beneficial. Once you have a good general understanding, lookup thetagang . Kamikaze Cash has good youtube videos on most theta strategies (linked above). I personally believe selling options (especially cash secured) is much safer and can consistently make you profits. Θ Gang 4 life.
• FOMO and how to avoid chasing a dangerous trend. DO NOT CHASE FROM FOMO!
• What intrinsic and extrinsic value are. Know how they are affected by being exercised/assigned and how theta affects them.
• Understand that some of WSB recommendations are straight up high-risk gambling and factor in the information accordingly. Be careful with Meme stocks and the survivorship bias on YOLO plays. However, I love the sub and think it’s hilarious. It has a lot of valuable information / DD if you are comfortable with the “colorful” language. It’s also great if you like rocket ship emojis.

Basics / Mechanics

• Understand the 4 "main" option types. Buying or selling a call and buying or selling a put. Spreads and more complex multi-legged option strategies are based off these in some way (see below)
• You can sell calls with 100 shares of stock or if you own an underlying longer term option; see LEAPS and PMCCs later. Selling calls naked is incredibly risky and often requires Level 4 (very advanced) permissions and usually a lot of capital. I will literally never sell calls naked since I don't want to ruin my life and end up living in a dumpster eating saltine crackers.
• Puts can be sold/written cash covered (cash secured), which means you have the cash in your account to buy 100 shares. Your broker will put this money on hold until the trade is closed. Puts can be sold "naked" using Margin and Level 3 (with most brokers). Your broker will hold a percentage of cost of 100 shares (often 30-40%, 100% on meme stocks) allowing you to sell more puts. This increases your available capital/power as well as increasing risk.

General Tips and Ideas:

• Don't EVER leave (short) spreads open on expiration day, close them. (more details below)
• Start off trading very small. Slowly build up over weeks / months. You need to get accustomed to a fifty dollar swing a day, then a few hundred, then a few thousand. You need to ensure you don't get emotional (see below). I started trading options with 5k, then 25k, 50k, and later over 100k. I added my own funds over time and used my gains to build my account. Don’t go all in immediately, that’s dangerous and unwise.
• Especially as you build up the amount of money you have invested, keep it diversified among several stocks.
  • Don't go all in on one thing, ever. Be able to take a hit from one stock and not mortally wound your portfolio.
  • A company may be doing great, then there's a major product issue out of nowhere. If you are overexposed in one stock this can really hurt you.
  • I had to roll options I sold that were about to expire completely worthless because FDX's CEO changed and the stock took a hard dip.
• Don't trade emotionally. If you realize you are emotionally trading for vengeance, you should probably exit the trade and cool off for several days with that stock. Same if you get caught up in a wave of hysteria.
• Have a plan for every trade, ideally with entries / exits that are specific values, ranges, or a set condition. This helps remove emotions. This is super important for strong movements and high volatility (see later).
• Use an options profit calculator from your broker or an online one before entering a "new" trade, especially a complex multi legged trade: https://www.optionsprofitcalculator.com/
• “Rolling” an option: Closing your existing option and opening a similar one at different strike and/or expiration.
  • Rolling a call “Up” would be selling a call you own and buying a cheaper call at a higher strike.
  • Rolling a put “Down and out” closes your original one and buying or selling one at a lower strike at a longer expiry.
  • Better broker interfaces have a literal “Roll” button. I know E-trade does. You can manually do it by selecting relevant contract legs.
• If you have a losing trade, re-evaluate it. If your initial assumption is definitely incorrect, close it. Don't stay in losing trades forever and lose the entire value of the option over stubbornness. If you re-evaluate and you think your assumption was right, hold, potentially consider adding another cheaper option (or buy another call / put). Rolling out sold options can help here.
• Don't try to day trade, especially with options. It's statistically unlikely to be profitable. Day-trading with options introduces extra liquidity risks and is dangerous, especially with spreads.
• Try not to over-trade, you'll likely mis-time the market over time. When I get emotional I over trade, then lose additional money on wash sales. If you scale your entries into positions it should help alleviate your desire to exit positions when they turn badly against you. Whenever I buy calls I do it at larger increments after W almost made me loss my hair; luckily it eventually came back.
• NEVER enter a position on a stock you have no idea about, especially when you read about it online or heard about it from some rando.
• At market open options contracts are often volatile and inflated. Buying during this time can be more expensive. Options are usually cheaper mid-day, I read somewhere 2-3PM is cheapest. I’ve had success around 12-1PM EST after prices settle.
• Try wheeling on cheaper stocks once you get all fundamentals down.
• When selling puts if you are very bullish consider "doubling down"; note this is higher risk. Use the credit from your put sale to buy shares or a cheap call. This can be roughly inversed with puts, except I wouldn't ever recommend shorting shares.
• Learn from your mistakes. You can’t go back in time and beating yourself up (to a point) is useless. Make a physical &/or mental note of it so you don’t do it again. If you don’t learn from it, then beat yourself up so you won’t do it again.
• If you have friends that like to trade, I find it helpful to discuss strategies and planned plays. I talk openly with my close friends about my current holdings and planned trades, it helps keep me accountable. If I get a wide-eyed look, I might be doing something excessively risky or stupid. I’ve over-leveraged myself in calls twice and I knew I shouldn’t have done it both times. When I tell my friends what I did and I’m embarrassed, it exemplifies the face that I shouldn’t have done it in the first place. You will also get ideas for new strategies or plays from them. It’s good to stay versatile and use multiple strategies when appropriate. Beware of group think/echo chambers.
• I recommend NEVER telling someone what to buy/sell and when. I’ll tell people MY plays or what I like and why, but I will not encourage them to emulate what I do. Depending on the audience, I’ll tell them my exact positions along with my exit and entrance strategy. With closer friends I’ll offer my thoughts on their trades (if asked). If my friend is doing something really risky (one of my friends does some scary stuff) I may ask them if they want my advice, and provide it, especially if they overlooked a risk/event. I will not encourage someone to execute/enter a trade since it has a high potential for hurt feelings or animosity all around.
• Don’t fall in love with a stock. Just because something made you money before and you have high confidence in it doesn’t mean it will keep performing. I joke that FDX betrayed me when it started dipping and losing me money. I was over-confident of its bounce-back and sold too many puts too quickly. I’m in several losing trades because of it. However, I will keep good stocks in my rostetracking list or try different strategies or re-enter trades when they change their behavior.
• As you start to both buy and sell options and get more experience in general, you'll start seeing the two sides to every trade. You will likely start adjusting your strategies or trying new trades out because of this. Things will likely click one day. Most/all the greeks and options concepts will become almost second nature. For me this was when I could build an Iron Condor from scratch, which was a watershed moment involving a good understanding of many strategies.
• Understand Liquidity and volume.
  • Trading in low volume, low open interest contracts results in wide bid/ask spreads and difficulty having your contracts filled. Look at all the data for a contract, not just the strike and price.
  • Monthly Expiration dates typically have better liquidity.
  • Multi-legged trades (Common examples are 2-legged vertical spreads or 4-legged iron condors) have more difficulty being filled, especially on bad brokers like Robin Hood. Having very liquid options for all legs is extremely helpful in obtaining timely and well-priced fills, which maximize your potential profits.
• Time in market vs timing the market:
  • It is extremely difficult to time the market perfectly. If you wait for the perfect opportunity forever, history has proven you will miss out on gains. Keeping all your money out of the market has proven to be ineffective. Now if there is something serious happening with a stock/the market (like say a new pandemic), don’t go all in. I recommend entering incrementally at dips. If the stock has huge upside potential it may never go down, so it might make sense to partially enter at the current price.
  • IMIO selling puts is a great strategy to get into a stock you like, or at least make money off it. I think buying stock in lots of 100 is usually for suckers. Selling an ATM or ITM put (assuming the math works out) on a stock you were going to buy and hold is ALMOST free money.
  • I recommend keeping some cash available regardless. If you have a very large account or expect a downturn, hedging with indexes like QQQ, SPY, or VIX or calls/puts may be wise.
• Every trade can't be a winner. You will take some losses, you must get used to it. I don’t like having a realized loss of 1K or more on any trade. However, this will happen, especially with larger accounts.
  • As long as you win more often and beat the S&P that year I consider it okay. I’m kind of aggressive, so I consider 20%+ annually good. 30%+ annually is great. 40%+ and I’m dancing. After trading options I am almost baffled by my old belief that 5% annual returns (mostly from dividend ETFs) was “good”. That’s nothing to me now since I’m willing to take risks. Note: While lots of people danced in 2020, realize that’s an insane Bull Run year and is atypical.
  • Adhere to your own risk tolerance and never over-extend yourself, especially with margin use. Don’t make huge gambles leaving you uncomfortable. Only gamble with money you are willing to lose.
  • My personal strategy is to make safer gains for the year and then enter slightly riskier strategies using those gains. I can be slightly-moderately more aggressive and compound my gains. For me I often sell puts to make money, then when I see a big opportunity I’ll sell a put and buy an OTM or moderately ITM call.
• Understand it’s not safe to try and get rich overnight. However, once you hit big “steps” things may start to snowball. You can enter more positions and take more risks if you choose to.
  • For me this when I hit 50k, then 100k. I was able to balance low and moderate risk positions to more significantly grow my account. I’ll even do a high risk thing now and again because my gains can absorb it (assuming I have them).
  • I can’t wait to get to 250K, then 500K. I know it’ll take quite a long time, but I am confident I’ll eventually be able to have 500K and (hopefully) 1M in my non-401k trading account with gains and additions from my job. I can only imagine how “dangerous” I will be with that kind of capital.
• If you missed "the next big thing" like AAPL, TSLA, or the time machine I’m building in my basement. Don't get upset, learn from it. Adapt and become a better trader for next time.
  • Figure out why a company was so promising, before they mooned. Determine how you would have traded differently in hindsight. Apply those lessons to the next company you believe has long term growth prospects.
  • For me that's putting in 1-2.5k towards shares and/or buying LEAPS on it. Depending on my bullishness I may buy “cheap”, fairly far OTM calls. The far OTM options are sort of lottery tickets. If I'm right the (relatively) low cost will have explosive profits; if I'm wrong, they didn't cost that much so it's a calculated loss I’m willing to accept. For more serious bets I’ll buy ITM LEAPS to run PMCCs on. I also like to buy 1-2K in my 401k for very long-term plays.
• The stock market hates uncertainty, it seems to crave the status quo. A shakeup can potential tank a stock, even if it's nothing. With shares you can wait it out, but this can be problematic for options. If you see volatile/uncertain times ahead (politics, disease, manufacturing, earnings, etc.), you might want to reduce your overall portfolio risks or hedge.

Profit Retention / Loss Mitigation

• If selling options, it is a viable strategy to close early after a large gain with many DTE left until expiry. See TT videos / strategies on this.
• Don't hold options through earnings unless you literally want to gamble. I like playing on earnings run ups, but that can be risky.
• If you hold options through earnings, IV crush will happen immediately afterwards, devaluing the option. However, if the option is profitable enough, IV crush won’t matter, which will still make money for a call buyer. A sold put sufficiently far OTM will benefit from IV crush, even if the stock dips after slightly bad or lukewarm earnings.
• Don't throw good money after bad. Don't gamble on a recovery if your assumption appears to be wrong or the market is flat out tanking. If you are wrong and still believe in the company, wait twice as long as your original plan (wait for your 2nd entry point vs 1st) before adding to your position.
• Consider using stop losses to lock-in profits on rides up or sometimes use them to prevent losses. Note, stops can be easily triggered in volatile options. Now when I'm up a lot on calls (especially around earnings or large momentum run-ups) I always set stop losses. I have been burned too many times. In December 2020 I didn't set a SL on several thousand dollars of FDX calls I was already up on and I "lost" ~$5K of unrealized gains. If you're up big, don't get too greedy.
• A possible strategy if a stock is on a tear and you have multiple options open: Close some positions (I prefer to do this incrementally if the stock has momentum), but leave 1+ open in case the stock goes into outer space/the floor. Next, set a stop loss with a little buffer below its current movement / range so it doesn't get hit unless the stock falls hard. Finally, watch the stock closely and if it keeps rising, keep moving the stop loss up in little bits incrementally. This will let you keep more profits on a hot streak, but give some protection and secure more gains. It will also help eliminate FOMO if a stock exceeds your expectations.
• Have rules when to roll out, down & out, or up & out. I like TT’s roll at break even or at 1x loss and to always roll for a credit (or for me a very minor cost). Obviously these rules need some monitoring. Know your stocks, the news, and technicals so you don’t jump the gun.
  • If you roll early for a credit and you’re right, it’s not the end of the world. You’ll just need to hold longer, which will obviously tie up capital. Sometimes it’s better to tie up some money (especially if you aren’t paying interest) than eating a huge loss.
  • Rolling too late can be worse though. I currently have a very underwater FDX put I sold that is over 2x loss, rolling it does almost nothing unless you want to pay a debit or extend it extremely far out.
• On huge options gains, I strongly you recommend taking profits by rolling up/down or incrementally sell your contracts at several different prices (this is why having multiple contracts is nice).
  • Rolling up involves selling your initial call, then using a fraction of your proceeds to buy a cheaper, further OTM call with the same expiry; puts are inverse this. When rolling up I like to ensure the new option’s cost is 15-40% of my realized gains. I’ll buy a more or less expensive new optoin based on my convication to the stock and predicted movements. You can also roll up and out to get a further expiry and strike.
  • This is monumentally important if you are playing with incredibly high rising stocks or during a short squeeze.
  • Sad story time: I completely screwed up when I forgot to roll up, twice, during the GME gamma/short squeeze. I didn’t take my own advice; I didn’t have a real exit or transition plan and I got emotional. It all happened so fast and I was at work; the insanity of the run up and subsequent gamma squeeze caught me off guard. I should’ve clocked out and thought through the situation for 15-30 minutes to form an impromptu plan, then executed trade(s). My moderate risk tolerance coupled with my desire to take profits took over. When the stock partially cratered after a run up, I sold to retain gains. In the heat of the moment I thought the squeeze was squoze and it was going to plummet into the ground and I wasn’t being rational.
    • On 1x 4K call I would’ve made an additional 15-25K if I rolled up to a cheaper contract with some of my profits.
    • I know I missed out on significantly more with a 2nd call I had. Depending when I rolled it, it would likely have been an additional 25-50k in profits.
  • I talked about learning from your mistakes above. This mistake is branded into my brain due to the massive gains I missed out on by not rolling up. I’m furious with myself as I write this 1 week after the GME gamma squeeze, I’m a planner and I didn’t plan. If anything I own is significantly up ever again, I’m rolling up (or at least setting a stop loss). If necessary, I’ll roll up a trade multiple times to keep extracting profits.
  • Learn from my mistake so you don’t miss out on gains too. I strongly recommend rolling up when you are up big on a call / roll down when you are up big on a put. This enables you to take profits, stay in the game, and keep extracting more gains.
• If you trade a lot of options, talk to your broker about a discount. I was getting the standard $.50/contract with E-Trade, but I traded over 300 contracts a quarter and was able to get the fee reduced by over $.10 by just asking. I am now doing more spreads and condors, so once my volume gets very high, I’ll ask again.
• If you have a broker that isn’t great and you want to switch, leverage your current trading fees to the new broker. Tell them you’ll move over $### thousand if they beat your current options trading fee per contract.

Trade Planning & Position Management Tips

• As you gain experience, start monitoring what kind of Delta, OTM, DTE, etc. you are most profitable with. Use it in your future trades. You'll often see the tasty trade 30-45DTE .3 Delta strategy for selling.
• Before entering a trade, look at rough technicals like resistances and supports to consider your relevant strikes as well as entry/exit points. Look at upcoming earnings & dividend dates as well as stock/market news.
• Consider staggering strikes and expirations for safety and diversity; it’s nice to avoid assignment on 3 puts at once because you used the same strike for all 3.
• Incrementally enter positions on large rises/falls. One of my favor strategies is to buy dips after over reactions. By doing this slowly in large price "steps" it helps combat FOMO and helps you avoid getting slaughtered.
  • This will also help you avoid "chasing a falling knife". It also ties into having a plan.
  • I set alerts at several predetermined prices and I REALLY try not to enter new trades unless I hit my preset points. It makes me less emotional and usually more effective.
• Don't buy far expiration options with poor liquidity for shorter term plays. I bought 1x GME 1-year+ LEAPS call before the 2021 short squeeze. That was stupid, I should've bought 2-3x 60-120 day calls to have better liquidity. I also paper-handed it and missed out on my lambo.
• If selling options, consider rolling (for a credit) to avoid assignment when it makes sense / meets your plan. Rolling closer to expiration can be a valid strategy to get theta on your side. On the flip side, if the stock moons or plummets it could've been better to roll before it got crazy deep ITM. See rolling “rules” above.
• Covered Calls:
  • If a stock has a large movement range, I think it can be worthwhile to wait to open a CC after the last one is closed/expires. I have been more successful waiting for another opportunity vs. opening one immediately on the Monday after the second the last one expires.
  • Consider selling covered calls at all time highs/peaks. If you sell a CC and the stock dips significantly, and you think it’s temporary, you can buy to close your CC for a quick profit, then reopen it later.
  • If you own Meme stocks, selling covered calls runs the risk of missing out on large gains. On these stocks I typically only sell them further OTM than I normally would or not at all. If I do sell CC on a Meme stock I try to ensure I have 25-100 other shares that won’t be called away.

-Advanced Beginner-
Spreads

• Spreads (with 2 legs) are neat because they manipulate how delta and theta act. It caps your gains and losses, but you can profit with less stock movement. Try several spreads on a P/L calculator to see for yourself.
• Spreads usually require margin trading.
• Spreads allow you to define max losses (assuming you close before expiration day) and use less capital.
  • Experienced traders will open many spreads at identical/similar strikes to heavily profit off movement. Spreads can make you/lose you a lot of money if you are right.
  • For example. I could make a $200 premium off a $500 risk trade, max loss would be $300. This is much more effective capital utilization than a naked or cash secured put, however it does not have the same downside protection or “wheel” potential as a sold put. Higher risk, higher reward.
• Vertical Debit spreads: I think of these like mini calls/puts. I personally don’t use them unless calls are outrageously expensive or the break even is absurdly high, but there’s nothing wrong with them. A call debit spread will lower your breakeven and overall cost vs just a call. You can do clever things like making a positive theta call spread if you’re creative. I like doing this since I hate losing money to theta.
• Vertical Credit spreads:
  • Very good theta strategy to define downside/upside risks.
  • A put credit spread is bullish and allows you to bet on upward movement with less capital and defined losses.
  • A call credit spread is a bearish strategy that allows you to bet on downward movement. These are very cool since they allow you to sell calls without selling naked calls, which can ruin you financially. I see selling these as better than buying puts since it’s so much easier to be profitable; to be redundant, Θ rocks.
  • https://www.schwab.com/resource-centeinsights/content/reducing-risk-with-credit-spread-options-strategy-0
• I repeat this on purpose: Don't EVER leave short spreads open on expiration day, close them. If you don't close, they better be VERY far from the strike on a non-volatile stock. In after hours a stock can jump/dip below your strike and be exercised without the other leg to protect you. This can lead to massive, life ruining losses. This is not an exaggeration, google this and be scared. It happened to a fair number of people with TSLA. Video explanation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtVFj9nRRDo&t=315s
• Short Straddle:

Trading Mechanics, Taxes, Market Manipulation

• Learn about wash sale rules. They suck and are very easy to activate with options. This will eliminate your ability to write off losses. Over trading can easily cause wash sales. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/w/washsalerule.asp
• Short attacks:
  • Learn to recognize these sketchy attacks by hedges/firms. They manipulate the market, it’s been documented countless times. A common one is rapid short selling, which pushes the price down.
  • Short Ladder attacks:
    • https://www.google.com/amp/s/seekingalpha.com/amp/instablog/11442671-gerald-klein/3096735-anatomy-of-a-short-attack
    • Some people say short ladder attacks don't exist. I've seen some very strange stock nosedives off low volume, so I tend to think they do.
  • If you plan well enough and the market doesn’t give up on the stock you may be able to use it as a great opportunity to buy the dip.
• Cramer explains how he intentionally manipulated the market when he ran a hedge fund years ago. Multiple links to the video are below since this video gets pulled often, Cramer / The street never wanted this to go public.
  • Reuters article: https://www.reuters.com/article/cramer-interview-idUKN2036292620070320
  • httpss://youtu.be/r07Gg92YjOI
  • https://youtu.be/VMuEis3byY4
  • https://youtu.be/JEzsfPmh894
  • https://youtu.be/QFfjX8dW-QQ
  • Due to this video I don’t fully trust Cramer. His show can give you stock ideas to buy (or inverse), but you never know where his true loyalties lie.
• Plan for taxes if you are up big. You may need to over withhold or contribute to taxes quarterly depending on your situation. https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306

-Intermediate / Advanced Strategies (work in progress)-
You’ll notice many of these strategies inverse one another.
Options Strategy Finder
This website is great for learning about new strategies, you’ll see many links to it below.
https://www.theoptionsguide.com/option-trading-strategies.aspx
Short Strangle / Straddle

• Both of these strategies profit from little price movement. I recommend using a P/L calculator to determine BE, profit, etc.
• A straddle sells (or buys) two options at the same expiry and strike.
• A strangle sells (or buys) two options at same expiry with different strikes.
• Both these strategies involved selling a Call and a Put for a credit. Straddle uses ATM legs, strangle uses OTM legs.
• Limited max profits and unlimited risk. Due to the unlimited risk, I am not a fan. However, many people like these a lot.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-strangle.aspx
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-straddle.aspx

Iron Condor and Iron Butterflies

• These strategies profit from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. They receive a credit to open and benefit from theta decay. If your stock is range bound, these may be a good choice.
• These are both 4 "legged" trades, so you will have 4 trading fees to enter or exit the trade. A lower cost or zero cost broker shines here. However, “bad” free brokers will give you poor fills, which may not be worth the discount.
• Condors and butterflies have "wings" which are your purchased puts and calls. The wider the wing the higher the max profit/risk. The condor body can be riskier and skinny with a narrow high profit range or wider for a much greater chance of success with lower payout.
• An iron condor is built by combining a put credit spread and a call credit spread with the same expiry.
• An iron condor can be thought of as a modified short strangle with limited risk, and therefore a bit less profit. I prefer defined limited risk.
• The butterfly is similar except instead of a plateau it has a sharp peak. My personal mental note is that a condor looks more like a strangle with wings, while a butterfly looks like a straddle with wings.
• Pay attention to earnings dates when you open these, I have forgotten to check before and it led to bad trades.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-condor.aspx
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/iron-butterfly.aspx

Long Condor (Debit Call Condor)

• The debit version of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to stay inside your defined range. This strategy profits from neutral or mostly neutral stock movement. I’ve never tried this, Iron Condors make more sense to me.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/condor.aspx

Short Condor (Credit Call Condor)

• Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Credit to open.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• Can be harder to set up. I want to try these, haven’t yet.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/short-condor.aspx

Reverse Iron Condor

• Inverse of an Iron Condor. You expect the price to go OUTSIDE your defined range. These are useful when you expect significant price movement. Debit to open.
• Limited risk / limited reward.
• https://www.theoptionsguide.com/reverse-iron-condor.aspx

LEAPs

• LEAP Options are options that are long term with many DTE, often over a year until expiration. LEAP calls are great for long term growth plays (downtrends with LEAP puts) or simply when you really like a company and can't afford 100 shares. LEAPs (or any "longer term" option) enables you to sell a PMCC or PMCP (below)

PMCC / PMCP

• PMCC or PMCP are poor man's covered call (or poor man's covered puts). They are diagonal options often used with purchased LEAPs. You sell a shorter DTE call/put with a further OTM strike than your purchased call/put. For PMCC/PMCPs it is often recommended to recoup your extrinsic value as soon as possible, some recommend with your first call CC or put sale, to ensure you are positive if the option is assigned early. These have a lot of moving parts and strategies. If you buy a barely ITM call/put and sell a nearby strike call/put you run the risk of the purchased option getting "blown by" on large stock movement and ending up with a very negative losing trade. Keeping your purchased LEAP deeper ITM should protect you. Check your initial PMCC using an options calculation to make sure you don't screw up.
• I'm currently tinkering with these myself. So far I like .7-.9 delta call LEAPS with 30-45 DTE calls on my CC. The goal is to hold the LEAP long term, potentially until expiration, and constantly sell calls/puts on it that expire worthless. Typically the call/put is rolled up and out or down and out if it's going to be assigned, unless you don't want your LEAP anymore.
• Some people look at these many sold CC or puts as profits, I look at them as lowering my cost basis until it's zero (or even negative). I have a page in my notebook I write each CC on my NIO LEAP (I Meme stock sometimes). I find it satisfying to slowly see the cost of the original option disappear. When I originally wrote this I had ~2 years left on it and it's 9-10% paid for; that doesn't even count the actual gains the LEAP has.
• TT states this is considered an IV play, which I partially agree with. You want to buy these during low IV times since an IV drop will hurt your LEAP value. I look at them more as a way to sell calls/puts on a high IV company with a lot of price movement and potential upside/downside.

Advanced Orders

• Guide to several order types: https://us.etrade.com/knowledge/events/webinars/order-types-from-basic-to-advanced-07162019
• One Triggers Other (OTO):
  • Good brokers will allow you to set these up, some will require a desktop to do it. This lets you link one action to another. In programming think of it like an if-then. You’ll tie a buy/sell to another buy/sell
  • Setting trailing stops on options is very chaotic since their price movement can be drastic due to volatility. I prefer to set my trailing stop to a stock.
  • What I like to do is set a trailing stop on a stock (or just link it to a stock price drop) and have it sell 1 share I own. Then it immediately executes a market order to sell my call. I’ve had good luck doing this with incredibly volatile plays were stop losses aren’t effective. I’ll often have an order saved and ready saved for when a strong run up starts. When my price alerts start blowing up my phone, I’ll immediately hit execute to turn it on.

​
Disclaimer:
I’m not a financial adviser, I'm actually an engineer. I’m not telling you to invest in a specific stock/option or even use a specific strategy. I’ve outlined and more extensively elaborated on what I personally like. You should test several strategies and find what works best for you.
I'm just a guy who trades (mainly options) part-time for financial gain and fun. I don't claim to be some investing savant.

I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
 
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to.
Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547
I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can.
I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts.
Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T

Intro

• "The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
  • "I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
• "For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
  • "We're spread way too thin."
• "If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
• RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
  • Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
  • ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
  • Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
  • Widespread match fixing
  • The Pandemic
    • "People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
    • "People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
      • "To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
      • "Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
      • "People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
• "It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
  • RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
    • He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.

CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association

"Who does this union really fucking serve?"

• RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
  
  • He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
    • He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
      • He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
    • Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
    • RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
    • Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
      • "and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
• He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
  
  • "We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
  • He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
  • "They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
• He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
  
  • He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
    • He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
  • He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
    • RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
  • "I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
  • "Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
    • "Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
    • "That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
• He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
  
• He also says their rankings are a joke
  
  • "Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
• He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
  
• "Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
  

ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission

"They have been put in an impossible position."

• RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
• "ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
  • "Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
  • "Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
    • Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
      • Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
  • "They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
    • "They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
• ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
  • He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
    • Also says more coaches being banned are coming
    • He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
• ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
  
  • "I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
  • "So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
    • "Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
• RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
  

Stream Sniping

"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"

• RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
  • On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
    • "Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
      • He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
        • He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
        • The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
        • "ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
• He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
• "All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
  • He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?

Match Fixing

"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."

• RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
  • "Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
• "Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
• Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
  • Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
    • They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
      • "I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
        • "Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
• RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
• "There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
  • "It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
• "It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
  • "I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
• He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
• "That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
  • "All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
• "I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."

North America

"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."

• RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
• There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
• He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
  • RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
  • He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
• He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
  • He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
    • They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
    • When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
    • "was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
    • He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
• He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
  • He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
• He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
  • He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
• He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
• He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
  • Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
• RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
• RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."

Talent

"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."

• RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
• He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
• Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
• He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
  • He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
• He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
• He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
• New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
• He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
• He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
• He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."

Valve

"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"

• Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
  • Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
• In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
• RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
• He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
• RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
  • A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
  • RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
  • RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
• RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
• Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
  • They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
• RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
  • Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
• He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
• Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
  • RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
• "It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
  • Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
• "Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
• "People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."

Closing Statements

"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."

• RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
• "We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
• "There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
• "How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
• "Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
• "The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
  • He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
• He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
  • "If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
    • "They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
• He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
• "Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
• "This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
• "You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
  • "Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
• "Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
  • "You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
• "I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
  • "I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
• "I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."

Before trying to make the case for $BANANO, I feel like it's important to bring up that the biggest issue working against the project is decentralization. Currently about 61% of all Ban is controlled by devs and slowly released to users who can earn Ban through captcha faucets, by playing online games, or by donating computer power to charity through Fold at Home. Still, though, the release has been slow, and devs estimate it will take 2 more years for Banano to become fully decentralized. So, the question is whether or not you believe them, and I personally do, but that's probably the biggest risk in this yolo, and it's why I've only allocated 5% of my $NANO stack to gamble on.
Aside from that, though, Banano actually has some solid fundamentals. As a currency it's basically the same as $NANO, so instant transactions with zero fees on a spam-resistant DAG capable of processing micro-transactions 6 million times more energy efficient than the BTC blockchain. There are no fees on transactions, no mining, and the DAG can theoretically process thousands of transactions per second. Basically everything that is true and good about $NANO is true of $BANANO (with the exception of decentralization, which is happening, just slowly), and on top of that there are also a lot of cool projects being developed specifically for $BANANO including second layer privacy solution called Camo Bonano that's currently in beta.
Here's just a few more pluses:

• Banano has one of the coolest wallets out there, Kalium available on iOS and Adroid.
• It's got a small but active subreddit banano full of memes and silliness
• Decent Twitter following
• Growing watchlist on Coinmarket Cap
• Very low $7m market cap with strong potential for 10x, 100x
• Built in community from $NANO enthusiasts, who have the most active subreddit per market cap dollar.
• Memes are in right now, as stupid as it seems/is. As with NOK, GME, AMC, DOGE, memes are moving markets
• Held on very few exchanges which can create some intense pump action.

As of two days ago I switched 5% of my Nano stack over to Banano and so far it's up 30% against Nano. I own 0.0013% of the global supply of Banano at a cost of ~$600, so if it makes it to the top 100 on CMC, that'd be about 56x from here, ~100x from where I bought in.
Anyway, looking forward to criticism. It's a yolo, so anyone who can convince me to cash out now at a profit is welcome to do so.
tl;dr - Banano is a Nano forked meme coin w/$7m market cap. My assumption is that it will do well as both a meme coin and an actual currency with zero fees, and grow alongside Nano which has been doing well. It's not yet fully decentralized but devs are working on it.

Disclaimer I want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it.
Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it.
Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions:
For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month!
For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k.
I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device.
Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers

• Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
  
• Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
  
• Now TV (I believe it's 7 days)
  
• Disney+
  
• Britbox
  
• Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
  

If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system.
Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section.
Completely free TV

• Pluto TV
  
• Viki
  
• Roku
  

If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox.
Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like.
Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird.
Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device.
For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV.
Anime
If you are into Anime there is

• Crunchyroll
  
• Funimation
  
• HiDive
  

The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two.
PC Centric software
If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design

• Humble Bundle
  
• Fanatical
  
• IndieGala
  

Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12.
Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development.
The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals.
Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap.
Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam.
**BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however.
IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff.
Game Store Fronts

• Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
  
• Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
  
• GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
  
• Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
  
• Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
  
• Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
  
• Games with Gold Bleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
  

Gaming Subscriptions
Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months

• Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
  
• Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
  
• EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
  
• PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
  

There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that.
Audiobooks & Ebooks

• Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
  
• Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
  
• Marvel Unlimited No experience with this. ItFuckingWont wanted me to add it. A subscription service for Marvel.
  

Education

• Sign Language BSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
  
• BBC's Bitesize here is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
  

If you need some spare change
Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change

• If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the details According to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
  
• Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
  
• Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
  
• There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
  
• Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
  
• Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
  

That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment.
Hope it helps someone at least
PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year
fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75!
tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books
Learning Language
Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments:
Togtogtog Gives a lot of links for Spanish

• Duolingo Numerous people have suggested this So I haven't used myself. Thanks to OhHiGCHQ StephanieMecredy & Allorie_95

Board & Tabletop games
Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games
ilyemco suggested these
HEALTH
I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix.
Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7.
If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery.
HELP & ADVICE
The lockdown Rules.
Reasons to leave home include:

• Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
  
• Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
  
• Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
  
• Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
  
• Communal religious worship
  
• Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
  

I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)

• To flee the threat of harm or violence.*
  
• CoronaVirus Symptoms
  
• CoronaVirus government site You can check your location and how many cases here.
  
• Worldometers Shows cases around the world.
  
• Interactive UK Map Another easy to read map with cases in counties and local area's.
  
• World Health Organisation
  

Support

• Samaritans
  
• Mental Health UK forum on reddit
  
• Link to above's stick post for support outlets
  
• Mindful
  
• Mind.org
  

FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THE ROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though)
_riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:

• https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/
  
• https://www.goodsamapp.org/
  
• https://vaccinationvolunteers.sja.org.uk/roles/volunteer-vaccinator.html
  
• https://nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk/getting-you-started-guide-steward-volunteer
  
• https://peoplesmomentum.com/evictionresistance/
  
• https://londonrentersunion.org/
  

Update:
Digital Art
These are Free

• Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
  
• Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
  
• Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
  

You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen.
Office suit software
A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.

• LibreOffice This has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
  
• Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
  

Music Making
I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software.
Games development
D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here

Hey you. Yeah, you. You tired of playing the same Golos deck, playing two lands a turn, drawing into your combo pieces, and winning while the entire table finishes War and Peace on their phones? You bored with your Sultai landfall deck, where you play solitaire for three hours? Board police getting too much to bear?
Well, let me introduce you to your new best friend: [[Neheb, the Eternal]].
Now, if you've never seen Neheb before, I know what you're thinking. "Wow, that card looks absolutely absurd", and buddy, you're right. Neheb decks aren't as much EDH decks as they are high-score attempts, seeing how much damage they can dish out in a single turn. Damage doublers, triplers, pingers that only go face, and enough X spells to make Zaxara cry in a little Sultai corner.
You want infinite combats? Neheb. You want to [[Comet Storm]] for 80? Neheb. You want to burn that lifegain deck right back to the pit it crawled out of? YOU WANT TO PUT THE FEAR OF GOD INTO ANYONE WHO DARES CONTINUE TO LIVE? N E H E B.
STEP ONE: RAMP
While Neheb himself is both a beeftank of a man and creates mana like he's eighty mountains strapped to a rocket sled, Neheb works best when he's out, and five mana isn't exactly cheap. So, what do we need? The standard rocks and ramp, like [[Sol Ring]], [[Wayfarer's Bauble]], [[Mind Stone]], [[Arcane Signet]], [[Ruby Medallion]], you get it. We do, however, run a few interesting ramp cards.
[[Cryptolith Fragment]] comes in tapped, sure, but once we have our big Lazotep Lasher out, we can tap it for one mana in the main phase, and three (3!) mana in the 2nd main phase. The good news is that if it transformed, something has gone horribly wrong, so we're not even gonna talk about the back. If it does flip, though, nine mana in the 2nd main isn't bad at all.
[[Everflowing Chalice]] isn't a rock, it's a bank. If you have a ton of mana floating in the second main, and you will, Everflowing Chalice is a way to keep some of it and use it on turns going forward. You can replace this with [[Horizon Stone]], I guess, but Everflowing is just a bit faster, and remember: Horizon Stone is based on Kruphix, and he's Simic, and we blow Simic players into small chunks. Oh, also, we have better Horizon Stone.
THAT'S RIGHT WE HAVE [[Leyline Tyrant]] BABY. You want to float mana? Leyline Tyrant. You want an evasive beater? Leyline Tyrant. You want protection from removal in the form of Leyline Tyrant choosing violence and blowing up someone's face? Ley. Line. Tyrant.
You want mana? You want it NOW? Cool. We got [[Seething Song]] and [[Jeska's Will]] for all your mana needs. Turn 2 Neheb is always a bucket of fun. Black can keep [[Dark Ritual]], I bet they're casting single target removal with it, what a bunch of nerds.
Our mana doubler is [[Extraplanar Lens]] and [[Snow-Covered Mountains]]. We want mana. Not them. If they have snow-covered mountains, blow them up first. Cowards.
[[Chandra, Torch of Defiance]] has two +1 abilities: gain red red, or deal two damage to each opponent, draw a card, and get six red mana. She's here for her good +1.
Now that we have our mana online, let's talk about our two plans: Nukes and Dukes.
STEP TWO: DUKES
PART ONE: BOXING GLOVES
Neheb is a commander that likes to attack. Once he's out, we're going to want to have him swing probably ever turn, because even if he's blocked he goes right over the top. The issue, however, is that while he has 6 toughness, that's not a lot going into the late game. So, we've got some boxing gloves for our beeftank.
[[Darksteel Plate]] lets us not really worry about Neheb. Slap some darksteel on that lazotep and watch the haymakers fly.
[[Sword of War and Peace]] and [[Sword of Sinew and Steel]] give him protection from white and black, and also importantly, RED. We can use our X spells that also hit creatures with impunity once we give Neheb one of his twin blades.
[[Shadowspear]] gives Neheb trample, which lets him smack harder, and also, for two mana, you can remove indestructible and hexproof from an opponent's permanents. A glorious piece of tech. The lifelink can be nice, but it's, there to punch through. Speaking of punching through
[[Embercleave]] needs no introduction. If you're turning something sideways, Embercleave is always a great way to make sure it damn well hurts.
[[Swiftfoot Boots]] makes killing Neheb harder, and anything that makes Neheb stickier is good in my books. Haste is also an absolute plus. We don't have [[Lightning Greaves]] because we want to give Neheb more equipment than just lightning greaves, and shroud makes that harder than it needs to be.
PART TWO: SIDEWAYS CREATURES
If we're swinging more than once a turn, and we WILL be swinging more than once a turn, we want to swing with things that create effects that benefit from multiple combats. Enter our beaters:
[[Tectonic Giant]] swings once and deals three damage to everyone, or impulse draws. You swing multiple times with him and with Neheb in play, and boy howdy did you just draw and make a ton of mana. An absolute unit of a card.
[[Etali, Primal Storm]] is four free draws per swing. You swing multiple times with Stompy McCardsteal, and you've basically cast Villainous Wealth in red.
[[Neheb, Dreadhorde Champion]] is both real and not impulse draw and mana ramp. Swing, dump bad cards, get mana, repeat. EZ Clap.
PART THREE: TECHNICAL KNOCKOUT
[[World at War]] and [[Savage Beating]] gives us extra combats, with World At War having rebound to guarantee us extra combat the next turn and Savage Beating giving us double strike to combat trick like an absolute madman if we need to really add insult to injury.
[[Aggrivated Assault]] takes a small amount to explain. So, if we swing with Neheb, and he's unblocked, we get four mana. Tap a mountain, five mana, get an extra combat, swing with Neheb, go to the next main phase, EIGHT MANA, because Neheb cares about total damage of the turn, and checks every post-combat main phase, not your first one. That's right. We go infinite. Blow up the world, send out Neheb, and swing for infinite gaining infinite mana.
Also do not shout the names of the cards in this section because most of them are absolutely crimes and your pod will call the cops to stop you from beating their life totals into the dirt.
STEP THREE: NUKES
PART ONE: PRIMING FOR FISSION
Before we can bow up the world, we need to prime ourselves for it. To do this, we need to damage our opponents, and get our damage increasing abilities online.
[[Acidic Soil]] and [[Price of Progress]] are pretty much free damage. That guy who spent all game mana fixing? Yeah, he's getting shot for 16. The Golos deck? 30. Acidic Soil is there because it also counts basics, so the budget player who thought he was safe can get slapped for daring to play Magic as well.
[[Chandra's Ignition]] is 5 red mana for 12 red mana if you hit Neheb with it. It also board wipes. Slap it on Etali if you have protection for Neheb, and watch the world go down in fire.
[[Flame Rift]], [[Slagstorm]], and [[Fiery Confluence]] hit our opponents for dirt cheap costs. Three mana to get nine mana? two mana and four life for 12 mana? Treasonous Ogre is crying, he's been unemployed. Fiery Confluence is also a board wipe and a removal spell, which is super neato, as we're a mono-colored deck, so our toolbox isn't super diverse.
[[Combustible Gearhulk]] says "Give me draw or give me mana''. It's our Fact or Fiction, and much like Fact or Fiction, there are only bad answers. With an average CMC of 3, we're going to either draw three or get our mana back when someone takes 6 damage.
[[Pyrohemia]] says "pay one red mana: Gain three red mana". It's literally just Dark Ritual that is also removal. If you can't see why that's good I have no idea what you're doing in a red burn deck explanation.
[[Heartless Hidetsugu]] deals damage to each opponent equal to half their life total, rounded down. Deals damage. This isn't loss of life, this isn't 'becomes', Hidetsugu takes their life totals outside with a baseball bat and teaches it to fear the color red. Shadowspear on him makes you gain all the life they lost. If you have a damage doubler out, Hidetsugu says "Tap this creature, Win the Game." If he taps, and Neheb is out, one X spell almost guarantees a player death.
PART TWO: ROCKET FUEL
[[Torbran, Thane of Red Fell]] is not a damage doubler, but it does make our smaller pingers like Flame Rift, Fiery Confluence, and Pyrohemia absolutely backbreaking. Think of him as the initial charge.
[[Insult // Injury]] often time reads "Pay 3 mana: Your next spell kills a player". Injury is nice, but we're really here for the cheap damage double and to stop any damage prevention shenanigans. We're casting Insult when we know we can go off.
[[Fiery Emancipation]] Is here because, honestly, we make so much mana we'd be stupid not to run it. Six mana to triple damage when we make dozens of mana a turn is an incredible deal, and because it's one-sided, we don't have to worry about people killing us immediately with their tiny creatures. [[Furnace of Rath]] is two mana cheaper, yes, but importantly it doubles instead of triples, and also, uh, it doubles on US. We're trying not to self-destruct.
PART FOUR: DETONATION
[[Rolling Earthquake]] hits everything without horsemanship, so it hits everything. It's strictly better than Earthquake, because if we're casting an X spell, 80% of the time we're casting it because either A) We're about to lose or B) We're about to win.
[[Molten Disaster]] has split second, which makes it uncounterable, unreturnable, and uninteractable. It's our "YOU DARE PLAY BLUE?!" card.
[[Jaya's Immolating Inferno]] targets up to three targets. You will have three opponents in your pod. The math works.
[[Comet Storm]] is flexible, in that if you've already blown someone to kingdom come, it costs one less mana! So that's nice! It's also great target removal, and great with our newest card...
[[Toralf, God of Fury]]. Oh yeah. In this deck, a deck where we overkill everything, Toralf becomes an absolute monster. Earthquake everyone, and have the excess damage dealt to their creatures finish them off. The flip side of the card also goes mana-positive with Neheb, if we really need to get there and are just out of reach. This is a card this deck loves like your opponents love not being blown off the face of the earth by fireballs.
PART FIVE: CLUSTER MUNITIONS
[[Primal Amulet]] lets us copy our damage when it flips, and makes our damage spells cheaper before it does. It's easy to see why it's an all-star here.
[[Reverberate]] lets us copy something. Sometimes it'll be the counter that's trying to stop Jaya's Immolating Inferno. Sometimes it'll be the Immolating Inferno itself.
[[Reiterate]] is a multi-use reverberate, and we have the mana to use it.
STEP 4: THE REST OF THE DECK ^{ThisIsn'tAStepButShhhhhh}
HASTE
We want to give our creatures haste. [[Generator Servant]], [[Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded]], we can wheel away an [[Anger]] with ease, and [[Ogre Battledriver]] gives us a bit of oomph when our creatures enter the battlefield. Purphoros also functions as a sneak attack for when we want a creature to attack, but we don't have the mana to get it out.
DRAW
Look. We're in mono red, which means we have... one tutor that's halfway decent for our plan, and that's [[Gamble]]. We need draw. We're running a lot of it. [[Valakut Awakening]], [[Reforge the Soul]], [[Molten Psyche]], [[Magus of the Wheel]], [[Commune with Lava]], [[Cathartic Reunion]], [[Faithless Looting]] whatever we need to draw a whole ton, we have.
The real all-star draw card is [[Knollspine Dragon]]. Draw equal to damage to target opponent? In a burn deck? In a burn deck where our burn makes mana? Oh baby you best believe that when you slam this puppy down people are going to quake in their boots. From the dragon. And maybe from the Rolling Earthquake. Or the Molten Disaster. Whatever.
REMOVAL
We're not running much actual removal, because, well, A: Mono Red, and B: We're a player removal deck. If you want board control, or if you want a deck that doesn't feel like piloting a crashing roller coaster that is currently on fire, go play [[Zada, Hedron Grinder]]. We're here for the boom boom.
[[Vandalblast]] and [[Shattering Spree]] let us remove pesky artifacts, [[Blasphemous act]] removes board states for dirt cheap, and [[Chaos Warp]] lets us deal with one of anything.
[[Deflecting Swat]] is for anyone trying to touch our Lazotep Loverboy or for stack interaction when our [[Pyroblast]] fails to stop a counter.
LANDS
[[Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx]] is pure gas, [[Ancient Tomb]] gets Neheb out fast, and [[Rogue's passage]] gets us through chump blockers and deathtouchers if we need to swing with Neheb. Other than that, it's mountains, a [[Myriad Landscape]], and a [[Smoldering Crater]] to remind our opponents of the fate that awaits them and also some draw if we need it.
SIDEBOARD
For some, four X spells isn't enough. [[Fall of the Titans]] and [[Earthquake]] are easy to slot in, and for those who want more combat, [[Fury of the Horde]] is easy enough to get. [[Mana Geyser]] is great against landfall decks, [[Red Elemental Blast]] is good if your meta includes people who try to stop you from throwing the sun at them (Cowards.). If you want more draw, [[Apex of Power]] is a free draw 10 spell, and [[Dragon Mage]] is a [[Wheel of Fortune]] on a stick. Well, Magus of the Wheel is Wheel of Fortune on a stick ALRIGHT YOU GET IT.
UPGRADES
The easiest upgrade path for this deck is fast mana. [[Mana Crypt]], [[Grim Monolith]], [[Mana Vault]], [[Jeweled Lotus]] the faster you can pump out Neheb the better. They're not on this list because they're pretty goddamn expensive, and if you turn two Neheb people are going to focus you into the absolute dirt. [[Doubling Cube]] is neat, but honestly, it's just a but overkill.
Otherwise, upgrades include [[Wheel of Fortune]], your favorite Eldrazi Titan as a big ol' beater if you like the multiple combats, [[Sword of Fire and Ice]] is just the best damn sword we can get, and I'd say get [[Gauntlet of Might]] but for many people that card costs more than rent for the month, so just skip it.
GAMEPLAN
Step 1) Cast Neheb as fast as possible.
Step 2) Deal symmetrical damage, swing in.
Step 3) Go infinite with Aggressive Assault or cast a spell where X is, like, six trillion.
We're not interested in things like "Midrange" or "Control". No. We're Neheb. We're here to get high scores on the "How much damage can I make without going infinite" leaderboards. This is not a deck that does anything besides slam into people. It explodes. It goes absolutely haywire, totally off the rails, you'll need a calculator to check your mana.
This deck exists for one reason and one reason only: This deck is for Burn Timmies. Is it competitive? Eh. Does it win a lot? Eh. Does the fear in the eyes of your opponents make this deck worth it? Yes.
For your consideration, Nuclear Neheb: https://www.archidekt.com/decks/1072303#NUCLEAR_NEHEB

I recently wrote this up for my friends who asked me how I do what I do. I figured I'd share it here. This is freely available to anyone who wants it, though please credit me if you simply copy/paste. Nothing here is novel, and can be done by anyone. I am not a financial professional, and the example given below is only Abbvie because I forgot that Abbott Labs was alphabetically the first in the S&P 500 when picking an example.
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First, let’s come right out and say that if you do not have the time to do this, or do not find it enjoyable, just buy low-cost index funds that track either the total market or the S&P 500.
Second, let’s make an important distinction:
Investing – This is the act of purchasing assets for less than their intrinsic value. This PDF will focus on how to determine the intrinsic value of an asset that produces income. Note that for most assets, this is simply how much money you can extract from the asset over the period of time that you hold it for. There’s no other value than money in investing. Causes and emotions are what philanthropy is for.
Speculating – This is, at its core, the act of taking supply of an asset from the present to the future (by hoarding it). If there is more demand, lower supply, or both, this pays the speculator to take the asset from a period of low value to one of high value. It is not gambling, but is very difficult to do, since it entails taking on timing risk. It is not illegal, immoral, or impossible, but I have no special insight into it. I’ll leave it there.
Gambling – This looks a lot like speculation, but without any particular reason to believe the asset will be more valuable in the future. Speculators at least estimate the value of an asset to investors, as they are ultimately the end market for an asset. Do not gamble. Full stop.
Determining the intrinsic value of an asset
The value of an asset is simply the present value of all future income that asset can provide you. Since a dollar in five years is naturally less valuable than a dollar today, you have to discount future income against the opportunity cost of forgoing the dollars you invest today. When we get to the Present Value equation, this is represented by interest. It can also be thought of as the opportunity cost of investing in the asset instead of some other asset or simply consuming the dollars instead.
Here’s the actual math. Note that it’s not super hard, and while I will explain it, there are dozens of free websites that will quickly let you calculate this. The key phrase to Google would be “present value of a growing annuity calculator.”
PV = (C / i - G) * {1 – [(1 + G)/(1 + i)]^n}
PV = present value
C = cash flow per period
n = number of payments
i = interest rate
G = growth rate
The value for PV is your estimation of what the asset is worth today. If this ends up far higher than the market price, you are probably purchasing dollars for quarters. Avoid edge cases, as you are guessing about both the interest and growth rate.
C is the cash flow per period. If you have a high degree of confidence in the culture of the company and it has a long history of being good stewards of retained earnings, you can use the earnings per share (EPS). I usually use the dividend. It is impossible to fake or financially engineer a dividend, and requires less looking through financial documents to make sure it’s what it appears to be. But for, say, Apple or Microsoft or Chevron, feel free to use the EPS.
The number of payments is how many payments you expect while holding the asset. Dividends in American companies are typically quarterly (though some pay monthly or every six months, so check on that), so every multiple of four would represent one year if you choose to do it that way. If n = 16, then you’re expecting to hold the asset for 4 years. You can also put in a year’s worth of dividends and keep n = years rather than quarters.
I typically do n = 30, since 30 years is both a long time horizon that is realistic, and coincides when I will hit “retirement age.” You will have to decide how far ahead you’re planning. For most people, they are net purchasers of investments while working and net sellers while retired, so keep that in mind. Note that using years instead of quarters will lessen the amount of compounding, and will provide some cushion in case you’re wrong.
Interest is one of the two variables you have to guess at. Typically, one would put what you expect the actual long-run interest rate to average for this investment. Unfortunately, this is really difficult. Instead, I use a rate that represents my opportunity cost. There are any number of relatively safe ways to get a 5% yield on money invested, so I generally use i = 5% to represent that this asset has to perform better than a utility or telecom or real estate investment trust. Feel free to use what you feel is most appropriate for you. A higher interest rate will lower the value of the asset, so high-balling this number will provide some cushion in case you’re wrong.
The second variable you have to guess at is the growth rate. If you’re looking at the dividend, you want to know how fast to expect it to grow over time. If you’re using the EPS for C, then you want to see how quickly the total earnings are growing per share. This is extremely difficult to predict. I recommend taking the 5-year growth rate and halving it. Dividends will also be more predictable here, as most companies pay out far less than they make, which means even if EPS grows slowly, the dividend can still grow quickly for many years after a boom is over for the company. Note that lowering your estimate for G will lower the value of the asset, so low-balling this number will provide some cushion in case you’re wrong.
OK, so let’s walk through an example. I’ll use Abbvie, a biotech/pharmaceutical company. It has a quarterly dividend for the coming year of $1.30/share. Its dividend has an 18.5% growth rate over the last 5 years, and has grown it for the last 7 (it’s only been around for 8 years).
I assumed a growth rate (G) of 7%. I used $5.20 as the starting dividend this coming year and used years for my n = 30. As always, I used i = 5%.
This gave me an estimated present value of 1 share of Abbvie at $197.94. As of writing this, Abbvie shares are trading on the market at $103.43. This looks like a screaming buy, but first let’s look at why I have a high degree of confidence.
Note how the interest was higher than the going rate – I used my “low-risk alternative” as an opportunity cost. Abbvie has an extremely high rate of growth for its dividend, so I took less than half of its current rate. I also calculated annually rather than quarterly, which reduces the impact of high rates of growth. That’s three places in the equation where I consciously lowered the estimated value of a share of Abbvie, and it still came out as a strong buy – spending less about 50c for a dollar!
I do this because even if I’m wrong in some or all of my predictions, I now have quite a bit of room to be wrong and still make money. It’s like how you don’t walk next to a steep cliff, right? You should know how to walk where you want to, but there’s always the small chance something could cause you to slip or put a foot wrong. But if your plan is always to be 5 feet away from the edge of the cliff, the odds are that you’ll not go over the edge even if you fall down.
Many people feel this is over cautious. But let my portfolio speak for itself. I’ve beaten the S&P 500 index fund every year except one since 2008. My brokerage only keeps digital records back to Dec 2015, but the S&P 500 returned 101% since then – with dividends reinvested. My own portfolio has returned 256%.
So caution is still very high reward. In fact, if you just don’t lose, you’ll do better than the vast majority of professional money managers (about 85% of whom cannot even match the index funds).
Due diligence still has to occur
Now, we can’t just go straight out and buy Abbvie – though it’s a high profile company that receives lots of investor and regulator scrutiny so it’s less likely to have a landmine than most. Just to make sure, you’ll want to do the following before buying shares in this company:
-Check the debt load. If the debt is very high, has very high interest rates, or has a lot of it maturing very soon, then this is a yellow flag. It doesn’t mean don’t buy, but make sure you understand the structure of the company’s debt and make sure it won’t impair the company’s earnings going forward. This information is found on the balance sheet. Abbvie has $97.287 billion in long-term liabilities such as debt, pension liability, and deferred taxes. That’s a lot compared to their assets, but they also are owed some money, so it nets out about $90 billion.
-What’s the book value? Book value is fairly low at $8.65/share. This is pretty much the assets minus the liabilities. Abbvie is in a knowledge industry, however, so you shouldn’t expect their main assets to be physical capital that can be sold. It’s mostly organizational or human capital from their workforce, so this isn’t worrying. If Abbvie was, say, a retailer with stores and land and inventory, you’d want this to be much, much higher for the share price. There’s no easy way to judge this one, unfortunately, but it’s good to look it up and you’ll eventually get a feel for it. No red flags here.
-What are the catastrophic risks that even you or I could think of? For a company in the pharmaceutical space, the obvious answer is regulatory and political risk. Regulatory risk is just want it sounds like – more regulation which can be either costly to comply with or lower profits. This does have an upside, which is that it makes it harder for new competitors to enter a market, so I tend to be rather sanguine about regulatory risk. Political risk is much more severe. This is when politicians decide to either confiscate a company, target it specifically rather than the industry it’s in, or other ways in which the government is involved with taking rather than regulating. In Anglo countries (US/UK/Canada/Australia), the rule of law is typically strong enough that this doesn’t happen much, as there is usually some kind of due process. Places like China, Argentina, Russia, and the EU are much more likely to nationalize or otherwise capriciously penalize a company due to the prevailing political winds. Abbvie has a global footprint, but that also means it’s diversified against such risk. It’s headquartered in the US, so it’s unlikely someone will simply take the entire company.
-Payout ratio? Abbvie has a fairly high payout ratio (80% for the last completed fiscal year of 2019), as they have been aggressively growing the dividend. That’s another good reason to input a much lower G than the last few years. That being said, Abbvie has been around for 8 years (it was spun off of Abbott Labs) and has grown its dividend for the last 7 years and has announced it will this coming year as well. The payout ratio is pretty high, but not worrisome. It suggests a fairly mature company that’s now returning cash to shareholders. I’d say this is not nothing, but less than a yellow flag for me. Any company with 95%+ payout ratio is much more vulnerable to a dividend cut.
-Credit rating? S&P gives Abbvie a BBB+ grade for its unsecured debt. This is a slight downgrade because their balance sheet is currently digesting a big acquisition from early 2020 (Allergan). Moody’s gives it a Baa2 rating for unsecured debt. These are both good, solid, investment-grade credit ratings (if you were buying the bonds of Abbvie). This looks great.
-Does it need a genius? Some companies run on all cylinders because they have a genius at the helm – often a founder. But what you want is a company any dummy can run, because sooner or later any dummy will. Don’t plan to invest long-term in companies that require skilled management. Abbvie is fairly diversified and has an OK pipeline of research. They also can buy little biotech companies that invent something but can’t navigate the regulations to bring it to market. So pondering giants are actually a good thing. Means they’re hard to break.
So, given that there was nothing obviously treacherous in our basic due diligence, and the extreme discount at which our example is selling for, this would be one you might want to buy! This is what I do for all the companies I invest in.
Notice that there is no story, no excitement, no narrative, no counting on good or bad management. Emotion has no place in investing. You also will notice that we took every opportunity to reduce the risk of losing your capital by always sandbagging the estimated value of the company. You never want to pick up nickels in front of a steamroller. You want the investment to be so obvious it hits you in the face like a baseball bat. If you’re ever on the fence, don’t do it. You don’t have to hit home runs – just don’t strike out.
You can be even more conservative in your estimates than I am. If, for instance, you used 5% growth rate for Abbvie’s dividend, you’d still get a present value of $148.57/share vs the current market price of $103.43. Similarly, you could use a higher interest rate, which would also lower the estimated present value.
You may have to do this calculation with more companies to find one to buy, but even in a very expensive market like today’s, there is always an opportunity. You don’t even have to look at little companies. There’s around 500 companies in the S&P – just start with “A” and work your way through all of them.
A quick note about further reading: I very strongly urge most people to actually read as little as possible on this subject once they get the basics. That’s not because there’s not more to learn, but because I would sadly say the majority of what I see and hear is actively bad advice. But if you do want to keep up with financial news and books and chat boards, the best thing to do is find out what the historical returns of the person giving advice are.
Since WWII, the long-run return on the S&P 500 has generally been just a bit shy of 10% per year. If someone can’t beat that, year-in-and-year-out, then their advice is worthless. As in, you don’t want to accidentally absorb it. This is, unfortunately, true for most professionals. Over the last 15 years, 92.2% of actively managed funds have underperformed a simple S&P 500 index fund (and they charge you fees for the privilege). Beware anyone selling something. The advice here is given freely
That’s why I made a point of mentioning that I have and regularly outperform the standard fund almost every year. Granted, I don’t have many of the regulatory restrictions a public fund would have, but it shows how useful the advice I’m giving here is. You don’t need anything fancy. You don’t need anything high risk. I’ve done this through two deep recessions and the longest bull market in history.
If you want to learn more about investing in general and where I learned how to do this, you can read Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor. It was written in the 1930s, so much of the technical information is out of date. Skip over that and just read it for the concepts.
Even easier reading is to go online to Berkshire Hathaway’s website and pull Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger’s annual letter to shareholders. Almost all of them have something useful in them and don’t make you do equations.
I am available for questions in the comments

Context: (you can safely SKIP this section if you know what a ROM is and how it works)
In this context, emulation refers to the process of running a video game on a host system to which it is not native. This is done with the help of an emulator, a special script that translates the game code into something the host computer can understand. Running a ROM (raw game code) in an emulator will produce a playable game. If the emulator does a good job, the code will function identically to how it functions on the hardware in the arcade cabinet.
These ROMs are exact copies of the data found on the computer memory chips in the arcade cabinet or game cartridge. Each game has a unique ROM, and the ROM contains all of the data the machine needs to run the game. It is functionally identical to a modern .exe game file. Owning a ROM is synonymous with owning the game, and pirating a ROM is synonymous with pirating a game.
Seeing the success of the homebrew emulation market and wanting to capitalize on the millenial nostalgia boom, the video game developers themselves took a whack at releasing licensed emulators. These mostly came in the form of (a) porting old games to other consoles, and (b) creating "classic version" re-releases of retro consoles that came pre-loaded with popular games. These attempts would receive mixed reviews, generally skewing negative amongst the enthusiast community. The biggest complaint: the emulation work was laughably horrid. It was good enough for the layman to enjoy a quick nostalgic dip, but those with reasonable baseline knowledge of how the game should look were shocked and offended by the quality of these official, licensed emulators. The PlayStation Classic famously got panned for including the European version of some games instead of the US version, even on consoles sold in the US. Europeans have a different screen refresh rate than "we" do (25 Hz vs 29.97 Hz) and this caused massive gameplay and graphics issues. It was quite clear that these consoles were meant to be quick cash-grabs, not faithful and well-intentioned re-creations of classic and beloved games. The game libraries were too small, and what few games were on the emulator were of very poor quality. These quickly became a running joke in the emulation community, further encouraging the piracy and continued use of the ROMs vis-a-vis the actual IP holder was not treating it with care or respect.
The main takeaway here is that the emulation community places great value on the accuracy and authenticity of their work. Seeing that the commercially available option was not a loving and faithful recreation of these nostalgic games,the emulation community often justified their work by saying that it vastly improved on the low-quality emulated alternatives offered by the actual IP owners.
The dubious legality of obtaining ROMs online (Skip to here!)
Nowadays, the most common way to obtain the ROM for a game is to find it online. This is not a completely legal procedure because that ROM is usually hosted on a website that is not explicitly authorised to distribute it. Some websites which distribute legal ROM games do exist, but they generally do not distribute (nor have they been given permission to distribute) ROMs corresponding to well-known classic arcade games.
Most sources agree that downloading an emulator, in itself, is actually legal. Think: the same way one can legally carry lockpicks in many states as long as the picks are not used to commit a crime. But picks are useless without a lock, and an emulator is useless without ROMs to run. This is actually a fascinating point of contest, too. Some game companies will claim that an emulator contains proprietary information about the game, specifically its BIOS.
Many game developers will maintain the ownership to their old code even if they are not currently offering any way to purchase it. They are within their rights to do this - and well within the understanding of copyright law as it applies to digital media. This means that some classic games may exist, but be literally unplayable - that is, there may be no legal method to obtain code that emulates or runs a certain game. That game is unobtainable. At least to someone following the letter of the law.
So emulation enthusiasts often sail the open internet in search of original copies of game code.
The dubious nature of this task can lead to some sketchy websites. Enterprising hackers are well known to set up fake ROM dumps (viruses disguised as original game code). This attack primarily targets inexperienced emulation enthusiasts who do not know which type of file extension their emulator accepts and tend to be very lax with their downloading habits. When a new site pops up offering ROM downloads - especially if it is a foreign site - it can be very hard to tell whether they are a sincere member of the emulation community offering a selfless service or a hacker looking to gain access to a computer.
Therefore, sites that are known to have safe downloads are spread very quickly around the emulation community.
Enter EmuParadise and LoveROMs
These websites both provided access to ROM downloads - raw copies of game code. Though some would dispute it, these websites had a general reputation for hosting safe downloads. They were both received favourably in the emulation community and their names were thrown around frequently on emulator discussion boards.
Both of these websites hosted ROM downloads for a considerable amount of time. Each of the websites managed to keep their doors open and their downloads working for years. Obviously, both of these websites succeeded in distributing massive amounts of raw game code. If you've been following the story carefully, you know that the legality of such an operation is.... Well...
One hundredTwelve million dollars. Oh, and a public apology.
Nintendo is not to be swayed by the common emulator community argument that "the IP holder does not present a legal way to purchase the game": a relatively complete library of their old games come with a paid subscription to "whatever they're calling the switch online subscription nowadays". Nintendo also has a reputation of being exceptionally defensive of their IP, perhaps in part because they feel they have done an adequate job making their historical content available for purchase.
Needless to say, Nintendo was not thrilled to see code in their ownership being distributed freely without their permission on the LoveROMs website. Nintendo sued the pants off of Jacob and Cristian Mathias, the owners of LoveROMs. Nintendo cited 140 illegal ROMs and 40 instances of copyright infringement, claiming a hefty $100,000,000 in damages for which they intended to hold Mathias completely liable.
As a matter of fact, the case never even made it to court. Mathias immediately admitted to direct and indirect copyright and trademark infringement, presumably (at least in part) due to the astronomical one-hundred-million-dollar penalty that could come with the outright loss of a lawsuit which would be very heavily stacked against him from the start.
The common main talking points "for" the legality of hosting illegal ROM copies are generally not persuasive in a court of law. Website owners will often cite the desite to "create a community resource" and "share nostalgia", but neither of these would provide a valid excuse for what Mathias was being accused of.
The parties settled out of court for a grand total of just over twelve million dollars. At that time, LoveROMs immediately removed all downloadable content from their website. Gone was the iconic Mario-style background decorating their landing page. In its place, they displayed a public apology to Nintendo which read as follows:

Our website ... acknowledges that it caused harm to Nintendo ... and has agreed to cease all such activities.

The commotion must have spooked the owner of EmuParadise too. Almost immediately after the LoveROMs settlement, EmuParadise published a statement on their website that read as follows:

... It's not worth it for us to risk potentially disastrous consequences. I cannot in good conscience risk the futures of our team members who have contributed to the site through the years.

At that point, two of the biggest names in ROM distribution had been effectively cut off at the source. The closure of both within a short period of time presented a significant challenge to individuals who had grown accustomed to using these websites to obtain ROM files. A few "workaround" and "archive" scripts were floating around, but none are able to reverse the inevitable: EP and LoveROMS were gone for good. Those two websites were no longer an option for downloading ROMs reliably.
Without a reliable name in mind, many users have turned back to once again surfing the sketchy high seas for raw game code. some sites have emerged as replacements, but none have fully taken hold. The distribution of ROMs remains at least somewhat disrupted. Nintendo took aim, and it seems they hit their target quite square-on.
So where does that leave the hobby of video game emulation?
Pretty much right where it was. Most of the ROMs hosted on those websites had been copied hundreds or thousands of times onto various private storage media. Copies of a particular game tend to be more resilient than the heads of hydra: should one download link be taken down, two will come back in its place. However, none will be a wholly adequate replacement for two websites with safe track records of 10+ years. Every new, untested site that somebody chooses to download a ROM from is a tremendous gamble they are taking with the security of their computer.
ROM hosting is a battle being fought tooth-and-nail by many who see it as their way of archiving our culture and sticking it to the man.
The drama between emulator enthusiasts and developers is constantly ongoing and has been for a number of years. While the enthusiasts claim that a developer should not maintain claim to a game they have no further plans to profit from (in the interest of preventing lost files), the developers claim that the game is still their intellectual property regardless and thus copying the game remains an act of piracy.
As for Mathis and his debts to Nintendo - no further news has been released since the news of the settlement broke in 2018. Presumably he is still making good on his payment plan.
I will leave you with a request to please keep discussion civil, as I know this is a polarizing topic.

I read some interesting analysis online and thought it might be interesting to start a conversation here regarding the recent leak of a suggested strategy by a pr firm regarding labour using patriotic imagery.
The idea for this started from another thread when I was discussing with a user LabouStarmers approval ratings with BAME voters. A claim had been made and backed up via a StatsForLefties tweet that Starmer was losing approval with BAME voters (implication being BAME in particular) at a shocking rate. I looked into the IPSOS Mori data tables to verify and found this:

Ok just had a look at IPSOS. In Jun 2020 their BAME subtab consisted of 180 people. In December 2020 I couldn't find the numbers at all, but the general satisfaction rating they posted for Starmer that month was: 38 satisfied, 33 dissatisfied. So not only does the BAME number in the image seem to track the overall number (and thus indistinct), it also looks like BAME have a slightly higher net approval than the general number. So not sure the point holds water. Let me know what you think. EDIT: the december 2020 tabs had 100 people in the BAME subtab. So not only is the margin of error pretty stonking, but if you're tacking to the idea of this data being reliable it shows him having marginally slightly higher approvals amongst BAME than the general pop. So bit of a dud theory.

(The discussion was here https://old.reddit.com/LabourUK/comments/le14xblack_labour_members_are_set_to_boycott/)
Having looked at this I was curious about the earlier arguments, made in particular by Richard Burgon but with wide purchase from online posters, that the aforementioned strategy would cause us to haemorrhage votes with the BAME electorate. I found the following analysis which was interesting:
https://twitter.com/robfordmancs/status/1357370332676513800?s=19

Three problems with Richard Burgon's contribution to the whole patriotism/flags debate - which was (1) voters who like flags and patriotism have their own party - the Conservative party (2) chasing them means taking young and BAME voters for granted

1. People who like flags and patriotism is "most people" (see Sunder Katwala's thread for evidence). So the argument amounts to "Labour should reject what most people think on this, and actively encourage them to vote Conservative if this is something that is important to them."
   
2. The "most people" who like flags in patriotism includes, actually, most young people and BAME voters. So if your concern is not to take such voters for granted - i.e. seeking to reflect their views not ignore them - then rejecting flags & patriotism is the wrong approach
   
3. Burgon is concerned this will cost more voters than it gains. That seems unlikely given (1) and (2) above, but it also ignores geography. The minority of voters who actively dislike tepid appeals to flags are concentrated in safe Labour seats.
   

Losing some votes in seats where Labour has towering majorities to improve Labour's appeal in the much larger set of seats which do not return Labour MPs would seem, on the face of it, a worthwhile gamble.
Just to underline that I am not misrepresenting Burgon's views on this, the quote I am responding to is at the end of this article. https://t.co/dEnrJleNQb
The better point Burgon makes is that this kind of thing is no use as a substitute for more substantive policy and strategy. At best it is mood music. But given voters' views about Labour on this topic, a change of mood music is potentially worthwhile
For evidence that Labour has an image/brand problem to address here, see this polling. Voters consider themselves patriotic by a 61-16 margin (+45 net). They are more likely to think of Labour as not patriotic than patriotic - 35-40 margin (-5 net) https://t.co/RXWUjW8kNz

There is also the following article, which makes for interesting reading:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/feb/07/labour-politics-making-use-of-patriotism-british-identity
Some quotes:

On this latter point, if the idea is that patriotism repels ethnic minority Britons, that feels to me like a foundational misunderstanding of British identity today – and how it has changed during the last decades.
Research for British Future soon to be published finds that pride in being British is shared by more than three-quarters of British ethnic minorities and a similar portion of their white fellow citizens. There are differences of tone and emphasis across generations and places but the story is definitely not one of white pride versus ethnic minority aversion.
“There ain’t no black in the union jack” was an old National Front chant before Paul Gilroy repurposed it as a title for his influential book on race, published in the late 1980s. The cover image of a black veteran, war medals on his chest, signified how selective the NF was in tracing the history it claimed to be proud of. Introducing his second edition early in the new century, Gilroy wrote of how British popular culture had put plenty of black in the union jack across the 1990s. How strange it would be if the left of the Labour party remained among the last to believe that devilish old tune.
Talk to refugees about what becoming British has meant to their families and you may decide that we should mark this summer’s 70th anniversary of the UN refugee convention by entrenching seven decades of refugee protection as a British value, too.
British Future found that one-fifth of white British Remain voters now say they are “not proud” to be British – about twice the number of ethnic minority Remainers who say the same. The British identity of ethnic minorities was much less tied up in their EU referendum choice. I would need less than the fingers of one hand to count the black and Asian Britons whom I have heard say they identify as European, yet most ethnic minorities voted Remain.
An everyday ease with our national symbols – the NHS, Remembrance Sunday and our flags, too – is one essential foundation. Only with that is it possible to secure a hearing for the next generation of arguments about what more needs to change.

In conclusion there appear to be two arguments forwarded. The first is that the strategy should not take the place of more substantial policymaking and should serve as a backdrop. The second is that the strategy will alienate and lose us votes with minority electorates.
The former is perfectly valid. The latter, as far as we can tell, is misinformation. We should be very careful to frame criticism in things that are either unambiguous fact or can be demonstrated with data... failure to do so not only proliferates misinformation but also puts us in the unenviable position of building strategies on sand that can do nothing but fail, because they are not related to reality.
Thought it would be cool to have a thread to get other takes on this