This glitch is super hard to set up but after you have steps 1-8 done all you have to do is repeat steps 9-12. The glitch after the setup takes about five minutes per dupe.
REQUIREMENTS: -Office garage -Joinable session in different targeting mode -Office garage workshop -Car you will be duplicating -8 Pisswassers -Mobile operations center -Xbox one or have never purchased criminal enterprise starter pack
This glitch is super hard to setup for but once you do, it is the fastest duplication I have personally experienced.
Step 1: Order elegy RH8 into back of MOC
Step 2: Join friend in different targeting mode, accept first alert and decline second. Repeat two more times. (Alerts should progressively come quicker)
Step 3: Get in elegy and go to purchase criminal enterprise starter pack (located in online options) and purchase the starter pack and drive at the same time.
Step 4: IMMEDIATELY JOIN FRIEND IN DIFFERENT TARGETING MODE. Accept first, decline second alert, and then PULL UP INTERACTION MENU AS SOON AS YOU DECLINE SECOND MESSAGE.
Checkpoint: You should be in your MOC with your interaction menu up, and your elegy should be gone.
Xb1 users with criminal enterprise starter pack: Go to purchase CISP, open it, and immediately click the Xbox home button and then B. Spam A to open the CISP and you should have a purchase option even if you have it already. Do the same steps as shown above with this step added.
Step 5: Drink 8 pisswassers fully to pass out and respawn at nearest hospital. (Hold down button that interacts with drink rather than letting it go)
Step 6: Request MOC, and steal a street car to drive to it. You should be able to open up your map at this point and drive to your MOC.
Step 7: Drive MOC to los santos customs 3/4. There is a tunnel that you can barely fit your MOC into with three lights inside of it it on the same block as LSC 3/4. Your MOC will fit but you have to get it in there and make sure that you have room to run through the tunnel and access the rear of the MOC.
Step 8: Drive MOC into the tunnel and reach the third light with the cab. There is a last overhang on the roof you should stop the trailer at. The game will naturally do that for you, just don’t drive past it if it lets you.
Step 9: Order the car you are duplicating from your mechanic and park it at the end of the MOC where you can drive it into your personal vehicle storage(Don’t drive it in yet.) Then get out of the car and go to vehicle options on the interaction menu and turn the car on. (If you are back here repeating steps you won’t have to order it again just do this step without that)
Step 10: Get into MOC and then detach trailer. Drive forwards a little bit so it doesn’t reattach and then IMMEDIATELY RUN to your car parked behind MOC and click right dpad and A at the same time (X for PlayStation and for pc use enter MOC option and accept alert button at the same time)
Step 11: You should spawn inside your car next to the MOC which should have been relocated. If your map doesn’t work then you are so far so good.
Step 12: Drive to office garage and then enter. Order a new elegy RH8 to your MOC, and then enter garage workshop. Change one thing on your car and then exit to ground.
Step 13: repeat steps 9-12 for FINALLY QUICK duplications. If you get a black loading screen that doesn’t go away on step 10 you have to restart the whole process :(
This glitch is so hard to start but I filled up my office garage of 20 cars within an hour. That is 34 million in an hour after the time it took to setup the glitch. I will answer questions as much as possible... This glitch is the hardest easiest one we’ve had yet.
Credit to: AcegoodzYT and jstone for this great glitch. You guys can thank Acegoodz in the comments! 😀
TUNNEL LINK: (https://twitter.com/johnphillipsivv/status/1343068946111606784?s=21)

About God Field

So recently I noticed that 5th gen, Pekora and Matsuri have started streaming/playing the game God Field. Suisei & Shion also joined in to play on Pekora's stream. Pekora also mentioned potentially doing a tournament for the game (not confirmed yet though). It seems like we might continue to see more streams of this game within Hololive.
However, I haven't seen anyone TLing any stream clips, which is a shame since it's a very funny game, made even more entertaining when Hololive members are playing it! I suspect it's because the game isn't well known to the overseas audience, so I decided to make this guide for TLers and EN fans who are interested but don't understand the game. I've provided examples from Hololive streams so that you can practice following along.
If you don't know anything about God Field, in short, it's a party card game. You could say it's like the Mario Kart of card games, and by that I mean it's a mixture of skill and unfair RNG mechanics and lucky card draws. The game also has the weird ability to make players start role playing, somehow due to its weird "God" theming and its unusual card and status names. You'll see players start to say silly things as they attack each other cards like "Goodbye Sword" or inflict weird status effects like "Fog". But these aspects are what creates very hilarious interactions and dialogue between the players, some of which I'll include at the end of this guide as a bonus.
You can also play the game for free here, but there's no tutorial, so I recommend reading this guide as you go.

Basics

The goal is to get your opponent's HP to 0. There are two main card types, attack (攻) cards and defence (守) cards. During your turn, you use attack cards to attack an opponent. The opponent can use defence cards to defend against it. 1ATK is equal to 1DEF.
EX: Suisei attacks Pekora with the 14 ATK "Violent Flail" (a very fitting card for her). Pekora defends with "Iron Armor", a 5DEF card, so she takes 9 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3161)
When defending, you can stack as many defence cards as you want at once. But for attacking, it's a bit different. You can only use 1 attack card normally, but you can combine "combo attack" cards to make a stronger attack. You can tell if it's a combo attack card if it has a "+" in its damage, for example "+3 攻" or "+3 ATK". Note that combo attack cards don't have to be used in a combo, they can also be used as standalone attacks.
EX: Polka attacks Lamy with a monstrous 10+13+10 card combo, a total of 33 damage. Lamy defends with a 1, 3, and 9 DEF combo, a total of 13 DEF, so she takes 20 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3314)

Elements

Some cards are color-coded, meaning they have an element. Elemental attacks can only be blocked with an elemental defence of a certain element. Fire & water (red & blue) counter each other, and stone & wood (grey & orange) counter each other. Elemental attacks are very hard to deal with, because you often won't have the specific elemental defence needed in your hand. Elemental cards themselves are also more uncommon than non-elemental cards. Note that you can use elemental defence cards to defend against non-elemental attacks too.
EX: Lamy attacks Botan with "Fire Crossbow", a +4 ATK fire card. Note that she used a combo card by itself instead of making a combo, which was actually a good play, because it preserved the card's element, making it so that Botan needed water element defence to defend it. Of course, Botan didn't have it, so *she took 4 damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2603)
*This is a funny moment during a 3v3 team game of "Botan/Polka/Suisei" vs "Pekora/Nene/Lamy", where Botan says she'll "be a wall" for her teammates, and proceeds to get brutally focus-fired by the opposing team. More on why that happens later.
Actually, there are two more elements that behave quite differently: light (yellow) and dark (purple). Light cannot be blocked, and can substitute as Fire/WateStone/Wood for both attacks and defence. So it's like a wildcard element, as well as being virtually undefendable (a few cards can block it). Dark can be blocked by anything, even by non-elemental defence, but it kills the opponent if even 1 damage goes through. As you can imagine, both of these elements are very scary to deal with.
EX1: Shion attacks Pekora with "Justice Lance", a 5 ATK light card. Note that none of Pekora's defence cards are lit up, showing that they can't be selected, because again, light element attacks are unblockable. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5623)
EX2: Botan attacks Nene with "Killer Fork", a 5 ATK dark card. Nene didn't have any defence cards, so she died despite having 24HP due to the dark element's instant kill effect. Note that Botan likely knew she had no defence cards, because in the early rounds of this 3v3 team game, Team Suisei/Botan/Polka all attacked Nene, causing her to use her up defence cards early on. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2977)
You might be thinking that if you combine something like +10 ATK cards with a 5 ATK dark element card, you have the recipe for an OP combo. But actually, stacking attack cards of different elements will cause the entire attack to become non elemental, so you'll lose the "dark instant-kill" effect. However, there are combo cards which are elemental, so if you're lucky enough to get a +5 ATK dark element, you can combine it with a 5 ATK dark element to create a very lethal dark element attack.

Tip for Following Along as a Viewer

It can be hard to add up all the cards and consider the elements for a given interaction, especially when the players play very fast. Some cards are also both attack and defence cards, meaning they have an ATK and DEF value, making it extra hard to understand if you don't know the kanji. So as a tip, the game itself will show the total ATK, total DEF, and elements of a given interaction. It's shown below each of the two "card columns" of the field.
And as mentioned before, usable cards will light up in your hand, so you can tell if the streamer was forced to take an attack because they had no cards to play, or if they took it in purpose to save their cards for later.
EX1: Polka attacks with a 9ATK card and +10 Light ATK *card. Remember that non elemental and light don't combine, so it's actually just a non elemental attack altogether. Note the "19 攻" near the bottom left, showing the total attack, and the fact that it's black means that it's non elemental. On Nene's side, it shows a black "15 守" , meaning the total defence is 15, and is also non elemental. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2679)
*The light card Polka used is called "Meteor", hence why Polka says Suisei's catchphrase in reference to it.
EX2: Lamy attacks Botan with 3 wood ATK and +1 light ATK. Since light substitutes as wood, you can see in the bottom-left that it becomes an orange "+4 攻", or in other woods, a 4 damage wood attack. Once again, Botan is unable to defend, since elemental defence is very rare. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2926)

AoE Attacks

Some attacks have a "%" in their damage, for example "50% 9ATK". What this means is that they have a % chance of hitting each opponent with that much damage. So with "50% 9ATK", if you're in a 8 player free for all, you can think of it as flipping a coin for each of your 7 opponents, and if it lands on heads, they get hit by 9ATK. Depending on luck, the attack can either hit everyone, miss everyone, or do some mix of hitting/missing. AoE attacks are all elemental by design as well, making them extra annoying.
EX: Polka attacks Pekora/Nene/Lamy with "Rain Deity's Sword", a 50% 9ATK water card. And to her luck, it successfully hits all three of them. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2771)

Spells

Spells work basically like how they do in RPGs; they cost MP, and they can be used infinitely. You'll notice after a player uses them the first time, that the card stays in the bottom right of the player's hand. It's sort of like they "learned" the spell. Most spells are simply elemental attacks that cost MP, but there are some other unique effects they can do as well. In general, spells are much stronger than regular attack cards in this game, since they're essentially infinitely reusable elemental attacks. But they're usually hard to use since MP is a somewhat uncommon resource, and spells themselves are uncommon as well.
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Pekora has a measly 2HP, and Shion uses the spell "Ice", a 4ATK water spell that costs 2MP, to finish her off. Luckily, Pekora draws "Moonlight Shield" just in time, which reflect spells, and manages to survive. But if you recall, spells are reusable, so Shion just uses "Ice" the next turn. Miraculously, Pekora draws "Moonlight Sword", which also can reflect spells, and survives yet another turn. Finally, for a third time, Shion casts "Ice", but this time Pekora is all out of luck. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5637)
Spells actually have an interesting side effect. Because of how card draw works (you replenish the same amount of cards that you use), when using a spell, it counts as if you "used it" even though it remained in your hand. So your hand size will increase by 1 every time you use it, meaning it gives +1 card advantage. So if you have a cheap cost spell, you can cast it many times over the course of a game to continuously increase your hand size - and thus create a massive card advantage over your opponent. If you've played card games before, you'll realize that this is a very powerful effect.
EX: Pekora attacks Shion with a 6 ATK wood spell. Watch Pekora's hand in the bottom-left, and notice that she gains a card slot in her hand when she uses the spell. Also note that her hand is much bigger than the default hand size, as she's already used the spell a bunch before. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5152)

Statuses

There are very non-traditional status effects in this game, so I'll explain each one:
Fog: The background becomes blue, and various things become blocked with a blue fill. You can't see what cards other players play, unless they're attacking you. You also can't see anyone's HP/MP/Money, besides your own, and you cannot select who you target when you attack.
EX: Shion uses the "Fog" spell on Pekora. Pekora actually has a consumable that can cure it called "Heart Shell", which can cure all statuses, so she uses it. But "Heart Shell" is single-use, and if you recall, spells are infinite use, so Shion just casts "Fog" again right after, since the MP cost is low. The interaction itself is funny, with Shion constantly teasing her about "absolutely wanting Pekora to not be able to see~" (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5547)
Dream: All cards you draw have a 50% of being "disguised" - meaning they can actually be a different card then what it visually appears as. It'll reveal what the card really is when you use it. A "disguised" card will have a misty filter on it. Note that cards can't turn into cards of another type - meaning you can't defend with a defence card, but then it turns into an attack/spell/consumable card with 0 DEF. It'll always turn into another defence card. And if it's an elemental defence card, it'll turn into an elemental defence card of the same element. This makes it so that you can't play a "wrong" or "invalid" card as a result of dream.
EX: In a close game of Pekora vs Matsuri, where both players have 7HP left, Matsuri attacks Pekora with a 11ATK combo. Pekora's only defence card is a potentially fake "Flame Boots", a 3DEF card, so she thinks she will lose, especially since elemental cards tend to have low DEF, so even if it's fake, it'll still probably turn into another weak card. However, it's actually revealed to be "Flame Armor", a 12DEF card, so she survives with excitement. (Volume Warning https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=4706)
Flash: You can only use up to 1 defence card when defending.
EX: Polka hits Botan with *"Horror Wheel", a +11 ATK card. Botan counters with "Uranus Ring", which inflicts flash to whoever damaged her, so Polka gets the "Flash" status. Then, Lamy attacks the "Flashed" Polka with the 9 ATK "Power Halberd", which is difficult to defend since she can only play 1 defence card. To top it off, Polka's under "Dream" as well, meaning she doesn't know if her 1 defence card will be good enough, since it may change into another, weaker card. This interaction shows a special yellow text (まぶしい) that translates to "bright". So while getting hit, Polka says "It's bright! What's with this brightness?" (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=1043)
*You might be wondering why Polka used a combo attack on its own, since unlike in the previous similar example with Lamy, it's non-elemental, so it should be better to combine it with another attack. It's because she was new to the game - Nene actually starts explaining it to her about "+" and "combo" cards during that timestamp after she plays it.
Dark Cloud: If you're hit with a % attack, it has a 100% chance of hitting.
EX: Shion hits Pekora with "Flare Axe", a 50% 10ATK fire card. Pekora is already under Dark Cloud, so she gets hit. This interaction shows a special purple text (不可避) which translates to "inevitable", as in it's inevitable the hit will land. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5967)
Cold->Fever->Hell->Heaven: These disease statuses give -1/-2/-5/+5 HP per turn. They're related in that diseases can get "worse" at a 5% chance each turn, or when you catch another disease. When a disease becomes worse, it turns into the "next stage" disease. Meaning cold turns into fever, which turns into hell, which turns into heaven, and after heaven, you'll simply die.
Heaven is quite odd since unlike the other diseases, it gives you HP per turn rather than dealing damage per turn. But instead you have a 5% chance of dying at the end of your turn. So it can create some thrilling situations where a player is nearly unkillable because of the +5HP per turn, but also can die at any moment if their luck turns bad.
EX: Lamy uses "Heaven Herb" on herself, which gives +20 MP, but also puts herself under "heaven". Note the +5HP that appears after as a result of "heaven". Polka questions the play at first, since heaven is very dangerous so you'd rather give it to someone else, but then she realizes you can cure it later. So Lamy used it as a desperate way to heal herself, as her HP was running low. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3144)

Common Keywords

There are some common card effects that are important to know.
Bounce Attack/Spell - Redirects an attack/spell to anyone in the game, even to the person who bounced it! A quirk of this mechanic is that the attack/spell will become unblockable if you bounce it and it redirects to yourself.
EX: During a team battle, Polka uses the light element spell "Meteor" on Lamy. Normally, light is unblockable - but Lamy plays "Sky Helm" which bounces spells. It then bounces to... (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3010) Polka's ally Botan, causing Polka's attack to kill her own teammate, who only had 7HP, and no way to counter light element.
Reflect Attack/Spell - Reflects the attack/spell back to the attackecaster. Fairly self explanatory, but it's good to be aware of, as it's the common cause of funny moments, along with "Bounce".
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Pekora has only 7HP and is on her last legs, while Shion has 22HP. Shion plays "Ice Age", a 75% 30ATK water spell. Shion thinks she just won, as it's nearly impossible to deal with 30 water damage. But... (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5268) Pekora uses "Moonlight Sword", which is an attack card that can also be used as a defence card to reflect spells, and makes a comeback.
Cast Spell w/o Cost: You can combine a card with this effect to cast a spell for free. This is why you'll see players occasionally cast a spell without enough MP, and combine it with a seemingly unrelated armoweapon.
EX: Polka casts the spell "Meteor" which costs 7MP on Lamy, but she only has 1MP. She then combines it with the consumable card "Spiritual Doll", which allows a spell to be casted with no cost. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3074)
Block Attack/Spell - It allows you to fully block certain kinds of attacks, regardless of how high the damage is.
Counterattack - A defensive keyword that activates upon receiving damage. You'll see counterattack on a set of cards known as "Elemental Planet Rings", like the "Uranus Ring" mentioned before. They all have very different effects. Some effects scale based on how much damage you took, meaning you might intentionally take more damage to boost the effect. A common mistake is to use defensive cards with a counterattack card, because it may weaken the special effect.
EX: Pekora vs Shion. Shion counters Pekora's 11ATK "Gravity Mace" with "Saturn Ring", which counterattacks with double the received damage, as stone element. So Pekora was countered with 22 stone ATK. If Shion instead tried to fully block the attack while using Saturn Ring, it would've dealt no damage. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=6025)
Inflict "X Status" on Damage - If the attack deals at least 1 damage, it'll also inflict a status.
EX: During the 5th Gen FFA, Lamy attacks Polka with "Bogus Spear", which has "inflict Dream on hit". Polka gets scared, saying "I have to completely defend this!". Earlier in the stream, nearly everyone had spent a long time under the effects of "Dream", so she was afraid of experiencing it again. It's a very scary status to be afflicted with. (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=4301)

Consumables

These are mostly cards that simply heal HP, MP, or cure statuses. Though there are actually some with much more wild effects, like the "Heaven Herb" mentioned previously. An interesting part about these cards is that you can use them on someone else, so for example you can heal allies in team matches. One more notable feature is that they're in a separate category from attacks or spells, and this game only has blocking cards that work against attacks and spells. As a result, there is no way to block consumable cards.
EX: Continuing from a previous example, Pekora uses "Heart Shell" to cure her teammate Lamy's "Heaven". She was afraid that Lamy would die from heaven, leaving her in a 1v2 situation, so she waited a few turns for it to heal her, then cured her. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3237)

Money

You may have noticed that both players and cards have "￥" on them. "￥", or money, is used for three specific cards: "buy", "sell", and "exchange". These cards are fairly common, have very unique effects, and can be OP when used right, so I'll explain them thoroughly.
Buy: target a player, then the game chooses a random card from their hand. You then have the option of buying that card from them. The real power of this card comes from its glitchy side effect - similar to spells, after buying a card, it actually increases the buyer's hand size by 1. But unlike spells, it also decreases the seller's hand size by 1, meaning this gives a +2 card advantage. You might notice a player's hand size becoming extremely small or big, as a result of multiple uses of this card. Needless to say, this card is extremely powerful.
EX: Pekora gets lucky and manages to buy Shion's "Real Ghost Sword", a 12ATK lifesteal card. This effect is very powerful and essentially means the card has 24ATK in terms of value. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5331)
Sell: choose one of the cards in your hand, and target a player to forcefully sell it to. It has the same side effect as "buy" cards, meaning you lose 1 hand size for using it, and the opponent gains 1 hand size. So at first it seems like a terrible card since it has -2 card advantage, but it actually has its uses. For example, what happens if you sell a $30 card to someone with $0 money? The victim is forced to buy the card no matter what. If they're too poor, they pay in MP instead. If they have insufficient MP, then they pay in HP. So they can actually die from being too poor to buy a card. So when used on a poor player, this card actually becomes an unblockable MP drain, and/or an unblockable attack.
EX: Suisei says "Peko-chan, Peko-chan, looks like you don't have any money right now" and then sells her an expensive Heart Shell. To add insult to injury, she already has two Heart Shells, and because she has no money, she lost 15MP instead, which she crucially needed because she has 3 useful spells in her hand. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3217)
Exchange: allows you to freely exchange your HP, MP, and money at a 1:1:1 ratio. This card is pretty straight forward, and doesn't have any crazy side effects like the others. The thing to note is that there are very few ways to gain HP/MP/money in this game, so this card is one of the most versatile cards in the game and combos well with all HP/MP/money cards.
EX: Shion vs Pekora. Shion has been using the spell "Treasure", which costs 5MP but gives 10$, to reach a total of $60. And as her HP runs low, she uses "exchange" to turn 60$ into 40HP and 20MP. As a result of this, while taking Pekora's attacks, she was able to fully heal herself, and leave herself with 20MP for a strong spell later, all the while increasing her hand size by a lot due to spamming the spell "Treasure". (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5798)
These cards all belong to the "trade" category, so like "consumables", they aren't considered an "attack/spell", so they cannot be blocked.
Note that money is not used to play cards, this value is strictly only for buying and selling. Cards don't have any cost to play them (except MP for spell cards).

Guardians

Certain cards will allow players to summon elemental guardians, which have a 25% chance of casting cards after every opponent's turn. The cards they cast depend on their element, the dark guardian for example will randomly choose between 5 dark element cards. Also, guardians don't need MP to cast spells. Guardians have a 10% of disappearing when the player they belong to gets hit. There's also a money guardian and a healing guardian, which are less deadly since they don't attack, but still are quite annoying if left alone for too long.
In general, guardians are a huge threat, as it's impossible to keep up with the amount of elemental defence cards needed to block their elemental attacks. The value they generate over time is so threatening that players in a team or FFA game will often start focus firing you for having one.
EX1: Pekora uses "Guardian Sealed Jar" on her teammate Lamy, to give her a guardian. She gets the darkness guardian, which has the potential to win the game on its own by constantly sending out dark element attacks. However, its threat causes Lamy to get *brutally targeted by Team Suisei & Polka, and eventually the guardian falls (Summoning https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3042) (Disappears https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3115)
*If you remember, Lamy had to use "Heaven Herb" on herself before due to her HP getting low. This was from the same game and happens right after this. So her HP was getting low because of the guardian her ally Pekora gave her.
EX2: Remember the Botan moment from before, where she says "I'll be a wall for everyone!" in a 3v3 game? The reason she said this was actually because she played "Guardian Sealed Jar" before, and thus you can see she has a guardian icon next to her on the top right. So she was playfully speaking to the fact that she drew the opposing team's aggro. And indeed, she ends up taking the brunt of the opposing team's attacks and dies first for her team. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=2603)

Apocalypse

There's an optional setting in the game where when a certain number of turns pass, the apocalypse starts. When this happens, the background changes, and there's a high chance of drawing "devil" cards, which have various effects, most notable of which is just straight up receiving unblockable damage. It's basically a "hurry-up" mode - a way to stop games from being too long. Another fun interaction is that since devils count as cards, you can actually: draw a devil, take damage, devil gets discarded/used so you draw another card, you draw ANOTHER devil, take damage, and repeat. So you can simply die from endless devil damage, all from one card draw!
Pekora/Matsuri/Polka didn't use the setting, so there are no examples of it. But I explained it in case one of them uses it in the future.

Playing The Game

Within the RNG, the game has some interesting mechanics and strategy, which I've tried my best to cover. But if you want to understand the streams fully, I ultimately recommend playing the game yourself, as there's many unique card effects that I haven't covered. In addition to effects, knowing the card names and draw rarity adds much needed context to what the players are saying. There are times when players will play multiple powerful rare cards in a row, which adds to the hilarity.
The game is free and playable on browser and mobile. There's a "bible" on the top-right where you can check card effects and rarities, and modes where you can play vs AI, with friends, or with strangers. This game is very fun with friends, but is boring alone IMO. However, there's no tutorial, and the UI is confusing, so you should familiarize yourself with the game first before introducing it to friends.
It also has a NND style chat, so if you're wondering about the floating text that sometimes appears, it's the hololive members typing it.
The game uses odd "God"-themed terms for things, which I avoided using in the guide to prevent confusion. But you'll need to know them to play the game, and the players themselves make references to it, so here's a chart:

God Field's Terms	Regular Game Terms
Artifact	Card
Curse	Status
Miracle	Spell
Sundry	Consumable
Ascension	Death
Seizure	Death by Heaven
Forgive	Allow (allow an action to happen without playing any cards in response)
Pray	Pass (if you have no attack cards, pass and draw a card)
Bible	Glossary / Card Library
Gift Rate	Draw Chance
Phenomena	Global Effect
Prophet	Player
Hidden Melee	Private Lobby

Again, one of the charms of the game is how it makes the players "role-play" as they attack each other with unethical cards combos and statuses, so I'm hoping that whoever TLs any clips can capture the nuance and wordplay well. Thanks for reading!

Bonus: Stream Highlights

• Pekora vs Shion. Pekora gets excited as she draws "Dangerous Pestle", a 30ATK light card, a powerful and unblockable card which has the effect of randomly attacking anyone in the game. Shion's HP is below 30. Pekora gets cocky towards Shion as she uses it. Can you guess what happens next? https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=5610 The attack hits herself and ends up losing the game soon after because of it.
• Shion vs Pekora. With Pekora at 46HP and Shion at 17HP, Shion's chances look dim. In addition, she takes Pekora's "Gravity Mace", an 11 ATK card, without defending, instead countering with "Saturn Ring", a defence card that counterattacks with double the damage that she just took to the attacker as stone element - so 22 stone damage is dealt to Pekora. But Pekora still has 24HP, so the situation still seems bad. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=6025) Until Shion plays a "Waterfall", a 25ATK water spell, which is just enough to make a nearly perfect sudden comeback against Pekora.
• Pekora vs Matsuri. Pekora attacks with an insane 31 attack combo. And the base attack card, "Ghost Sword", has lifesteal, so the whole attack gets lifesteal as well. (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=4040) But Matsuri counters with "Reflecting Sword" which reflects non elemental attacks. Now, not only does Pekora have to deal with the attack, but Matsuri gets "ownership" of the attack, meaning she gets the lifesteal as well.
• Matsuri vs Pekora, Matsuri has been building up MP all game, making Pekora think that a massively strong spell was coming, which forced her to waste turns playing defensively. But it was just a bluff, and Matsuri exchanges all her MP for HP instead. Pekora says "Eh? Suddenly your HP is at 90... wait a second, weren't you saying you were gonna use that MP for an attack?" (https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=4319)
• Team Battle: Polka noticed that Pekora did not block an attack in the previous turn and plays the "weakest" card in the game. Botan says "There's no way you'll die, right?" https://youtu.be/LugGHWGuVIc?t=3357 Self-explanatory.
• Matsuri vs Polka: Polka inflicted Dream onto Matsuri earlier, so Matsuri cures herself with "Heart Shell". Then Polka hits her with "Bogus Spear", which inflicts "Dream" upon damage. Polka then teases her about making her dream forever in a creepy voice. Later, they have a cute convo about waking up when Matsuri finally cures herself again. https://youtu.be/8qhduadHdtM?t=2502
• 5th Gen FFA: Earlier, Botan used "String of Fate" which causes a random "Phenomena", which is like a global status effect. It caused "Mushroom Outbreak", which causes everyone to lose control of their attack for 3 turns, as the game automatically plays random attacks cards for them. This causes Nene to unwillingly attack Lamy with an overkill combo, consisting of "God Sword", a 30ATK card, and "Angel Bow", a +15 ATK card, making a total of 45ATK. Nene blames Botan for it. And shortly after, Botan is forced to use "Magical Stick", an attack which uses all your MP and deals double your MP's damage. But the Mushroom Outbreak makes her target herself. (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=1911)
• 5th Gen FFA: Polka and Botan both buy a card from Nene. Then Polka plays "Nocturnal Broom" on Nene, which removes 3 cards from the target's hand, and just like "buy", the hand size permanently gets smaller. Watch as Nene's hand size shrinks, and as Nene laments the loss of her "Diamond Sword". (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=2170)
• 5th Gen FFA: Nene despairs as she dies to Polka's 10 light damage Meteor spell. But Nene's "Ascension Bow" which she had in her hand, comes into play, which has the effect of activating as a "75% 30 Light ATK" card upon dying. (https://youtu.be/22rt5Xnte6k?t=3524) She manages to take out Botan with her death, but misses against Lamy and Polka. This card is able to turn the game into a draw.
• Polka online ranked vs Horse. Polka sells "Gold Club" to Horse, a 1ATK card that costs 25$. It's a card that basically only exists for buying/selling. Horse counters by selling it back. But Polka counters by selling it back, thanks to having an extra sell card. (https://youtu.be/UH8eQRXbpUU?t=3575 )Later in the game, Horse actually sells it back once more, but Polka has another sell ready and immediately sells it back.

I finally deleted the app this morning. But don't worry this is not one of those "this was the last straw!" posts. :)
I enjoyed the game and happily never spent a cent for over a year. I will say it was arguably a poor free to play experience. But on the other hand, I strongly feel that whales ruin the game for themselves by having every champion in the game then complaining when content isn't hard enough.
Books in particular are complete cancer. I really can't put it any more kindly.
I'm somewhat proud to say that I turned a free to play account into a very strong account that can easily complete any fusion, farm top chest UNM/NM daily, complete normal doom tower and was working on floor 70 hard doom tower before reset, and would eventually obtain Lydia given the right champ pulls and the time investment of 6 starring champs for no other reason than Faction Wars.
My overall feelings for Plarium haven't really changed. Maybe it's common in mobile games but all along you could just see how they only care about our money. The type of free to play model I always compare games with is League of Legends. I spent hundreds of dollars in that game because Riot (initially) was such a good company and really understood their playerbase. Their model was you can play absolutely everything in that game for free but if you want these really amazing skins that have no impact on gameplay at all you can pay for them. I thought to myself many times "I'm playing this game a lot. I like the game company. Therefore I'm happy to pay for these sweet skins from time to time." I never thought that once about Plarium. But oh well it's nothing that others haven't already said before.
I've known for a while that I would be quitting soon mainly because the game was impacting my life. I have an addictive personality and can't really play online games casually. Whenever you're on your phone at the dinner table or waking up randomly at 5am and think "oh clan boss has reset!" or "oh! void 2x is live!" and sitting in the bathroom to play on your phone I feel it's unhealthy.
Overall here are my pros and cons for Raid.
Pros:
- Challenging game (for free to play) with good depth (champ builds, masteries, team comp, etc)
- Plarium has done better in the last several months listening to the playerbase (updates on their discord, trying on artifacts before spending silver, doom tower, etc)
- active subreddit and playerbase with friendly clans that you can join
- good content creators overall to help you learn the game
- fragment fusions
Cons:
- Plarium clearly trying to extract maximum profit from players (battle pass season 2?????)
- Free to play experience quite poor. Mastery grinding alone is a nightmare but 6 starring all of your champions takes ages of mindless grinding and you basically have to force yourself to ignore the constant stream of events/tournies in order to do so. You also can only get double xp banners once every 5 days from quests, or advanced quests, or occasionally event/tourney rewards. I found myself looking forward to fusions not because I wanted the fusion champ but because I knew I would get tons of free energy and books from fusion rewards.
- Plarium leaving things purposfully vague to ensure they extract maximum profit. Battle pass season 2? eh.....we had this bug that was kicking players out so we just decided to never fix it. Are old school fusions gone forever? All signs point to yes but possibly no. We'll see. Dupe system? Yes hmm we've heard of it and there are plans possibly next quarter in 2025 one day.
- Clan boss is the single most important content in the game for any player but especially free to play. The difference in amount of shards and books between a brutal clan boss player and a UNM clan boss player is laughable. When I finally got UNM & NM clan boss on farm I realized everyone else isn't even playing the game. They only think they are.
- Plarium decides what is cheating/exploiting and what isn't based on zero logic. Cheating in classic arena? I'll allow it. Thousands of unkillable clan boss teams getting easy rewards because those players were lucky enough to pull a maneater? I'm cool with it. Using turn meter and enemy max hp champs in Doom Tower? GTFO NERF!
- Books
- Faction Wars is shit content
- Why can't we go to a stats page that shows the total number of shards we have ever pulled on our account as well as other interesting random stats like how many times we've completed dragon 20 ever? Why can't we see how close we are to the mercy system? I waited just for this void 2x event before quitting just to see what void lego I would get as my first one in over a year of playing, pulled 27 shards, and didn't get a lego. Why isn't this info available to us? Could it be exploitable? Maybe but who cares? We don't get 10x events for Siphi anyway. And hell people opened 150 void shards - they deserve a chance at pulling Siphi!
- Tag Team Arena is aids and no one likes it no matter what you do to the rewards. Literally just make it 3v3 instead of 4v4 and you have actual content with potentially new meta. It's really not difficult.
I could go on and on but you get the point. :) Most important enjoy the game for as long as it's fun. Only you can decide. Stay healthy and safe.
If you're still reading, you're a legend. If you're new and need a clan with VERY helpful players and a great discord, please join The Asylum cluster. I went from the FNG hitting hard/brutal clan boss to a clan leader farming UNM/NM with ez mode bateater comp every day. Fantastic clan.
https://discord.gg/D4E3HQw

Tough Love Arena is exactly what it seems; a browser based fighting game with rollback netcode (also has controller and mobile support). If that doesn’t interest you then I don’t know why you are reading this post. A very simplistic game that emphasizes fundamentals and learning the genre. A perfect Game for entry level players who want to learn fighting games as a whole, as well as a relaxing game for pros to test their skill at a fundamental level.
With it’s recent release, it is still in beta and worked on constantly with consistent updates weekly. Improving and changing balance, fixing bugs, everything that comes with a new game. Tough Love Arena already has some great features, each of the six characters have their own guide including the basic descriptions and use of each move. It doesn’t stop there though, on top of the moves, there is a combo trial to get you used to pressing buttons. Each character has their own combo trial, with each pair (more on that later) having their normal combos as well as their unique combos. They each also have their own list of data on the frame data page. That’s right, the game has a built in frame data page. How cool is that?
In the offline portion of the game, there are three modes: Local Versus, Versus CPU, and Training. Local Versus is a nice way to play with friends at home. Using controllers or differently mapped buttons on a keyboard to play, you can fight each other on the same monitor. Versus CPU is quite self explanatory, you fight a CPU. There are two levels, easy and hard, however I’d say that there is no “easy” as bots are unpredictable and often make random decisions. Though I would say that hard is most certainly harder than easy, and I would not use Versus CPU to measure skill. Training mode is where the offline really shines through. There are multiple features to let you practice your skills and try new combos and setups. To name a few, there is random dummy blocking to practice hit confirms, dummy recording to make the dummy do what you want, frame by frame to figure out what’s possible and there are more to discover by playing the game.
You can do just that at toughlovearena.com. The gameplay is very simple, mostly footsies based and involving the normal things you would find in a traditional fighter. The use of rapid cancels (known as roman cancels in other games) extend combos and make unsafe moves safe. Of the six characters, there are three pairs: Carbs, Meats, and Spices aptly categorized by their name and character design. The carbs consist of Noodle and Rice, the zoners with thin long arms and medium walk speed. The meats are Beef and Pork. Big burly figures with slow heavy attacks, often called the easiest to play, though beef has the only projectile in the game, both having medium walk speed. And finally the spices, Onion and Garlic. Their category was argued over, called all sorts of names like alliums, bulbs, and more, but the community settled on spices. They have the fastest walk speed and by a lot, as well as fast normals and flashy combos. Each pair has their set of normals (light and heavy attacks) while each individual character has unique specials (special attacks), however the pairs share the same jump attack.
All in all, Tough Love Arena is a great game, 10/10, I would recommend to anyone, but especially to someone looking to get into fighting games. It’s got great tutorials, easy to learn gameplay, and different selectable characters. The community is amazing, very welcoming and open to any and all questions, they even run their own weeklys! As of now there are weeklys every day Friday through Monday on the weekends, unofficially known as tournament weekend. With all this amazing stuff, an open community, super great accessibility, and weekly updates, what more could you want in a fighting game?
Game: https://toughlovearena.com/
Discord: https://discord.gg/nYk7QTdBnf
TODO: https://toughlovearena.com/?todo
Develeoper's Twitch (streams every monday and friday 8:00 pm EST): https://www.twitch.tv/mpaulweeks
Edit: Something I totally forgot to mention was the online matchmaking system. It searches a certain distance before expanding and repeats that process until you find an opponent. Currently there is only “casual” but ranked online is in the works.
High level TLA in case anyone is interested: https://youtu.be/TX4hIzeNnHs

Firstly, just want to start off by saying a big thank you to everyone who submitted great questions, but most of all, the hugest thank you in the world to u/Darian_CoC (100% the best community manager ever) for sitting down and grinding through hundreds of your questions over about 3 hours.
Due to the sheer amount of questions, putting them all here exceeds reddit's character limit, so I have put the full compilation of questions in this document here. You'll probably find a few more of the fun, personal or quirky questions are in the document, with more Clash related stuff on this post.
A load of interesting stuff was discussed, including future updates and plans for Clash in the coming year, so lots of great stuff to have a read through! We have compiled all the questions and answers into this post here for your enjoyment, and we hope you come out of this post knowing a lot more than you did previously! So without further ado, here we go:
u/non-reddituser:

1. Is there plans to bring in a new recruitment system or is sc still trying to better it?
2. Any plans to reduce cost/upgrade time? For me at least 2-3 weeks for upgrades is getting slightly excessive and going further than that. I can’t imagine many players will be very excited to grind it out. Especially casual players.
3. Currently, Do you think the game is balanced ? I’ve heard quite a lot of complaints saying th13 is too easy.
4. Any plans to add family clans features ? Like a way to add other clans to chat, white list/ black list players etc.
5. Has a complete remake/ sequel to clash of clans ever been considered?
6. Is sc more focused on bringing more tasks, events and in general things to do during the game or are they more focused on bringing new content like troops ,spells ,defences etc?
7. Are you able to provide any details on what the priorities are/what is being worked on for 2021
8. How is the cost/ sell price of magic items determined?
9. Is there a reason as to why all the hammers cost 120 medals ,but the hero hammer is 165 and the opposite happens for books? All the books are 925 gems, but the hero book is set at 500 gems.

Answer:

1. Regarding the Recruitment Tool, I'll have to repeat something I said a while back .First, the tool isn't developed by the Clash team. I don't say that to try and wipe our hands of any obligation to it, but it genuinely is something the Clash team has little control over. However, with that said, regardless of who the tool is made by we have tried communicating with the community about its features, and even its shortcomings. But because of the nature of social media, online posts, etc. much of that gets lost hours after it's been posted. One of the things we've repeatedly stated is that the Recruitment Tool suffers not from a lack of functionality but from a lack of transparency. The Recruitment Tool actually does a lot of the things behind the scenes that players feel there is a lack of control over. And because they don't see how those work, it can feel like it doesn't work like they expect it to. I'm not saying it's perfect - far from it. We know it could use some improvement, but the biggest area it could be improved on is helping people understand exactly how it works so people are a bit more confident in the searches it pulls up, or at least understand why it gets those results.
2. As we add more content higher up (TH14, TH15, and beyond) we keep a very close watch on how long it takes for players to start from scratch and climb to max. We try to keep the ranges relatively similar so I would say it's a fair bet we'll adjust the upgrade times and costs in the future. In fact, that is a regular facet of the game that can be expected every so often. I can't say if it'll be once a year, or once every new TH level, but refactoring and rebalancing the costs and time are a regular part of that strategy.
3. The game will never be 100% perfectly balanced. It's just impossible. There are simply too many moving parts, too much randomness, and too many variables to consider. We try to balance the game the best we can, based on player data as well as feedback from the community. But adding more content will always shift the balance in one direction or another. Sometimes it may skew towards offense, and sometimes more towards defence. When we see the game shifting like that, we start looking at how we can balance the game to bring it back more towards the centre. With that said, we try to balance the game more towards being offense-friendly. Now, before you get out your pitchforks and protest we're making it too easy, what I mean by this is that we try to make the game as rewarding as possible while still keeping it challenging. If defence was always OP, then the win rates would plummet. If you're unable to win, this is incredibly frustrating as a player and would cause players to leave the game. That's not a good thing. Like any other asymmetrical multiplayer game, you almost always tend to win more often than you lose. We try to maintain a degree of balance slightly leaning towards offense.
4. A Clan Alliance/Family feature has been on our wish list for quite a few years. We simply haven't sat down to truly discuss what we want that feature to be. When we work on a new update, we have to prioritize what new features we're implementing and any additional content must thematically feel appropriate or can be fit in resource-wise (meaning time). Creating a Clan alliance feature should be more than just being able to cross chat and donate troops. That alone isn't worth reprogramming the multiplayer functionality of the game. An alliance system has to be meaningful in order to be something the players enjoy. But what that is, we still have yet to decide.
5. No. Why create a sequel when we can just keep adding new content to the current game without creating a brand new one? What would the goal of a sequel be? As long as Clash of Clans is live, creating a sequel would cannibalize players from one game to the other. That is not a viable way of game development. Additionally, let's say you've been playing Clash for 8 years now. Now let's say we release Clash of Clans 2. If all this game is is just a prettier version of Clash, you'll be less likely to invest the same amount of time as you did the first one. So you quit Clash 2 but the likelihood of you going back to Clash 1 will be reduced. Also, let's say not all of your friends are willing to play the new one. So now that your friends aren't playing, you're more likely to quit because of split loyalties between the games.The best thing we can do is keep improving Clash so you're not forced to choose between which ones you want to play,
6. I'd say it's all of the above, depending on the needs of the game. Content will always be the primary driver for Clash of Clans. It's where we see spikes in players returning, players being more active, etc. But in between content releases, it's good to give players more activities to do.
7. Lots and lots of new content for 2021. Lots. And it is badass.
8. I had an answer for this and I cannot for the life of me remember what it is. Unfortunately our Live Ops guy has left for the evening so I can't cross check with him. I'll try to ask him tomorrow and I'll post a reply here.
9. One big reason with the cost discrepancy is due to the resources you spend to upgrade those units. The cost to upgrade a Hero uses Dark Elixir which is a much more premium resource to farm/earn compared to Gold or Elixir. It's far easier to earn Gold and Elixir for upgrading Buildings/Troops. So the cost for the Book of Heroes is to help offset that. Whereas, because it's easier to earn Gold & Elixir, the other Books are more expensive. With the Hammers, the Hammer of Heroes is more expensive because you don't need to farm the DE for it.

u/ClashDotNinja:

• Are you able to share any details on ideas/concepts that were designed and/or tested within the team that were then scrapped?

Answer: The Elixir Monster was a troop concept we prototyped during the development of TH12. The Elixir Monster was a troop that gained strength and size as it destroyed things. Similar to the Lumberjack, it would drop a Rage Spell after it was killed. In the end, the mechanic was really cool but way too complex for the average player. Additionally, because the unit required to make the kill attack in order to earn it's level up, with so many other troops attacking it actually rarely made a kill so it didn't morph? Mutate? Evolve? as fast as we thought it would. So it's a troop we might save for a rainy day and tweak it a bit to see if we can get it to balance correctly.
u/Drin_CoC:

1. Is the maximum Experience level, which currently is level 500, gonna be increased any time soon?
2. If there'll be more than 100 buildings after TH14 update, how will % be calculated? What about bases that have the 6th builder compared to the bases that don't?

Answer:

1. We might address it in the future, but I wouldn't expect any changes to it in the next couple updates. Apart from vanity purposes it doesn't really do much else so it's not a major priority for us.
2. We won't hit the 100 building limit just yet so we still have some wiggle room left to go before we start needing to worry about it. But it is something we are worried about for when we finally do hit that limit. We haven't found a solution to how we want to address it, but it is something that comes up every time we start working on new content.

u/LordPeter212:

1. What is the status of World’s 2021? The entire competitive community has been eagerly waiting for news about this. We need time to plan and prepare, and if it’s not happening we deserve to know.
2. Are there any plans to include any in game e-sports tournaments other than ESL?

Answer:

1. We are still working on the Worlds stuff and we're inching closer to announcing the 2021 season. We've made a few changes so we're still putting the final polish on those details. But we will announce the 2021 Worlds when we're ready.
2. There are tons of community-run events around the globe. We simply can't add them all in-game.

u/LadyB_clash:

• Will we ever get a rewind button for replays? 😯 not sure if it’s possible but it would be a small but incredible QoL improvement for many. 😁

Answer: The challenge with this is that replays are not stored as videos. So you're not actually watching an actual "replay" of the match. The game stores your screen taps that you performed when you played your game. So when you watch a replay, you are actually watching a live version of the game where the AI is simply reproducing the same screen taps. Because the pathing algorithm and AI functions the exact same way, the system can recreate the same conclusion of the game every time.
So because you're watching the AI play the game using your screen taps, it can only go forward.
u/Soft-Decision5935:

• Hi Darian! I’ve started 3 mini accounts and I’ve made one big observation: the beginning is by far the worst, slowest section of the game. The rest of the game is fun and it’s a great grind, but those opening 3-or-so days would be very unappealing to newer players who don’t know much about the rest of the game yet. Even for me, I absolutely hate those first few days. While I understand CoC is a game meant for people to grind out, I think something needs to be done to attract newer players. Have you considered fixing this/ is there a reason you haven’t yet?

Answer: This is actually a topic of discussion we're looking at; how to make the lower TH's more engaging and less grindy to make the progression to higher levels more enticing. So we totally understand where you're coming from. It's something we hope we can address in an update this year.
u/OverSizedHamster:

• Hi Darian! Would you consider Clash of Clans a good representation of mobile gaming? Has its impact matched up to other notable titles on PC and console? Is it Smash Ultimate worthy?

Answer: Every so often, a game will become a cultural icon of the platform it's released on. For consoles that would be the Mario franchise. For MMORPG's, that would be World of Warcraft. For mobile, that's Clash of Clans. What I mean by cultural icon, is that it's a game that has lasted far longer than most others due to the sheer number of people that play it and the popular success it has had because of it.
Clash has been out for almost 9 years now. On any game platform that is almost unheard of apart from those other games that are cultural icons themselves.
I'm not sure what you mean by "good representation". But I will say this: The Clash community is possibly one of the best gaming communities. Period. It's one of the least toxic, most supportive, and fun communities I've ever had the privilege of working with.
u/301023459:

1. Would it be possible to have custom CC's for friendly challenges implemented into the game? To further explain what I mean, lets say I have my normal raid army set up with the cc troops I would usually take. However I want to practice new armies in friendly challenges but every time I do that, I have to dump old troops and request for new troops but those in my clan who have the troops I need for my friendly challenge army aren't always online. So a feature where I could customize my own cc troops for a friendly army is what I'm getting at.

Answer:

1. The Friendly Challenge is an interesting facet of the game that was introduced much later in the game's development history. So the functionality of it is wholly based on how the rest of the game functions with regards to troop donations, troop deployment, etc. Creating a unique set of functions for this feature is something the team sees as a priority at the moment. However, that priority could change when we start to look at what QoL changes we want to implement in future updates. Many of the changes implemented into the FC/FW features were based on QoL requests from the community so I wouldn't say it's a ruled out idea. Just not something on the production schedule at the moment.

u/purk8:

• When are we getting BH10. Lot of people who are more competitive on B-base, but aren’t playing much because it’s the same old thing every season. We’re all feeling kinda forgotten about ☹️

Answer: It's rather interesting that whenever we released new BH content, there was general disdain that we were allocating development resources to it. But now there is a lot of clamouring for when the next BH level will be. :-) We don't have any solid plans for BH10 yet, but we have discussed it on occasion. We're reluctant to simply just do a new level as we're still trying to decide where we want to take the Builder Base feature. We don't want to keep adding features that are already available to the Main Village; otherwise why not just keep developing the Main Village?
u/El3veN_:

• You said you had a meeting planned about the API, do we have any news regarding the API, your vision on it, whats your plans for it, etc?

Answer: I am not a programmer so I would hate to misrepresent something I know little about. You'll have to forgive my lack of correct vocabulary. There has been some API discussion recently to make certain data more accessible, though what those data are I can't say simply because I didn't understand how that process works. But I can say there has been some movement in the API discussion on the team.
u/Hellrazor:

1. Has an increase to the 30s scout time in legend league been considered along with viewable building radiuses? This was brought up partly last year in one of the TH hour videos where Eino admitted that as new TH levels were released the allotted 30s planning time becomes more & more restrictive the more there is to consider when planning an attack. IMO increasing the time to 45s / 1min in legend league would combat this whilst also separating it from lower leagues.
2. Are there any plans to restructure the Legend League system i.e rewards / ladder / ranks? The gems rewarded to the top 20 players in the top 3 clans is long outdated & legend trophies don’t have much use besides a visual standpoint. The day to day ladder system could also be taken further - something akin to a weekly system for example whereby your standings at the end of the week determine your placement for the next whilst still maintaining a monthly season would be less stale & more meaningful imo. Additionally ranks / badges could also be included within legend league to further develop the ranking system & possibly tie in to a rewards system somehow.
3. How does the Eagle Artilleries target prioritisation work? According to the wiki: The Eagle Artillery targets according to a "heat map" or "hitpoint map". In other words, it targets the area with the largest density of hitpoints. However this doesn’t seem to apply most noticeably during a queen charge / walk. 5 healers for example have a greater combined HP than a maxed queen yet 9/10 the eagle will target the queen so I suspect there’s more going on here. Whilst targeting the queen over your healers is far more favourable for the attacker it can be incredibly frustrating when the opposite occurs. As far as I can tell the logic currently appears to operate under RNG although I hope & suspect I’m wrong. Perhaps someone from the dev team could elaborate on this?

Answer:

1. While it had been discussed, at this time the team feels there's no need for it.
2. While the LL system could certainly use some new polishing and some shiny chrome, there hasn't been anything internally proposed that has made us say, "YES! That's what it needs!"
3. There is no RNG in how the AI targets units or paths towards a target. Every target is calculated based on the rules programmed into the algorithm. For the Eagle Artillery, yes population density does factor in. In your particular example, it could be that the Archer Queen had taken damage, where the collection of Healers now collectively had more HP resulting in a more desirable target before the AQ was fully healed again. I would need to see a specific replay of any instance before making a definitive call on what you're seeing.

u/non-reddituser:

1. In an interview with galadon around 11 months ago you said “ Part of it is as we see a lot of activity of a lot of players returning a lot of them are coming back to their old clans” In response to why sc hasn’t added a clan name change. Has this changed, Is there a still a high amount of players returning? If not is sc planning or at least considering adding it?
2. In the same interview with galadon he pitched you an separate section in the shop were you buy obstacles with legend league trophies. At the end of your answer you said” but, I think it’s an idea that does have some merit and all I can do is to present it to the team” did you present to the team and is there possibility we could see this any time soon?
3. As my final question I’d like to as you if you could explain the choice of sc censoring the whole clans chat when a kids account join?

Answer:

1. Clan name changes are still a ruled out idea for now, for the same reason. Additionally, changing your player name is one thing. That's personal to you. Changing a Clan name is something that affects the entire Clan. While sure, many Clans would be ok with the name change but what happens when members don't like the name that it's changed to? If that original Clan name had sentimental value, and someone changes it, that would feel really crappy for those who liked the original Clan name. So rather than try to come up with rules and edge cases for it, and introduce possibly more unnecessary complexity, it's simpler to prohibit for now.
2. Nothing has come out of that discussion apart from the idea being presented.
3. The rules for this only applies to new underage accounts created in the US. The reason for this is for compliance with new online regulations that are required for certain kinds of games. We have no control over those regulations.

u/thisisathrowawayCoC:

1. Does the barrel shaped building where you boost super troops have a name? If not, then what did the dev team call it?
2. Do you guys plan on adding more achievements?
3. Will there be more single player campaign levels as part of the next update or th14?
4. There has been an insane amount of rumours and ideas as to water based troops or gameplay. Is the dev team even considering something among those lines?

Answer:

1. It's called the Super Sauna. The image of the modern sauna is a Finnish invention, and since we're based out of Finland, it seemed like a nice cultural touch to the game.
2. Yes!
3. We really liked the Winter Challenge map and plan on doing more things like that in the future. However, we'd like players to remember that Clash is a multiplayer game and designed around that idea. Adding more single player content, while fun, minimizes that multiplayer aspect so it's not a primary focus of ours.
4. Water based troops? First time I've heard this rumour. Considering the map is based on land, a water troop would be a bit like...a fish out of water? In other words, I wouldn't listen to rumours.

u/HarrBathtub:

• What was the “big thing” that was meant to be released in the winter?

Answer: We have a super cool feature we're steadily working on. We're not ready to share what that is just yet, but we're hoping we can reveal and release it this year.
u/Quna_chan:

• Can we expect a goblin map maker where community can make goblin maps and clash team can check them and add it to the game.

Answer: This sounds like a good idea, but moderating all the entries that would come in would require it to be a full time job in itself. Checking to make sure the map isn't broken, or doesn't have inappropriate content, or doesn't cause any problems. It's not a matter of just pulling it up on the screen and say "ok there are no middle fingers hidden in the images so it's good to go." It would require playtesting, feedback, etc.
u/Pero_Plays:

1. Would you consider going to a 24-month instead of a proposed 18-month cycle of new TH levels to sync with World Championships better?
2. Could we get a double deployment bar on phones?

Answer:

1. 24 months of no new TH content is simply too long. We're really happy with the pace we've been releasing new TH levels. One of the things we have to look at when spacing out the content is how long before maxed players start to get bored and stop playing. New content is always the biggest driver of player activity, and the longer you draw out not having new content results in players becoming more likely to leave the game. The World Championship is an exciting and cool facet of Clash, but it's not the main one and only a very small number of players will ever compete in the Championships. That small percentage of players cannot dictate the pace of content progress.
2. We tried looking at this but the UI became so small that it was super inconvenient to use, even with a stylus.

u/feareddakota:

• Hey Darian, I’m not sure if this question was asked before but do you think it would pose a significant challenge for your team considering what a new a Town Hall would be due to the weaponization of Town Halls 12 and 13?

Answer: Coming up with new and unique content will always be the challenge as we create new features. It came up when we were working on TH13, and is in discussion as we work towards TH14. And it will likely come up again as we work on TH15 and beyond. Making sure something is cool and unique is always a fun challenge, but we shouldn't make something JUST because it's unique. It has to also be fun and exciting.
u/LowScrow_Tom:

1. Will we ever have a troop, or Super Troop, with the capability of switching from Ground to Air? (I think Ice Golem/ Ice Hound could've utilized this feature.)
2. Without the ability to add new buildings due to percent damages, could you have a "Gear Up" feature at TH14 which would combine all Builder Huts and /or Barracks to 1 main building, which must be upgraded FIRST before being able to purchase new TH14 Defences?. (Multiple problems solved)

Answer:

1. This is something that has been considered, like making a "Fallen Angel" Healer who is a ground troop but heals air units. This is just an idea and not something being worked on, before everyone starts saying it's confirmed. Changing a unit from air to ground or vice versa is actually pretty complicated because the pathing for ground units is different than air units as is the logic algorithm. So it's not just a matter of allowing it to swap places. But I wouldn't be surprised if we introduce a Super Troop that does do this.
2. We've contemplated the building fusion idea in the past and we're not convinced that is a good solution.

u/Alpii69:

• Hello Darian! Is there any Chance we can get second abilities for Heroes? You can either choose the first or the second for a attack? For example the Barbarian King gets stationary and is immune to all damage for 5 seconds. Queens shoots faster and her shots pierce through buildings for x amount of second. The Royal Champion deflects damage for x amount of seconds. Warden heals troops over time

Answer: We had considered this idea and while it's cool, it doesn't offer quite the flexibility and variability players are looking for in a feature like this. We would want a feature like this to feel like players are able to customize their experiences. A second ability doesn't really do that as players would just choose a favourite one, then set and forget. We think there is a better way to offer that kind of customization. Additionally, balancing new abilities would be super challenging compared to new troops or new spells.
u/Immabeloverof15june:

1. Any plans on player made maps as single player map?
2. Any plans on mega base type mode?
3. What are big features which aside from new troops, buildings, townhall levels?
4. What are your plans on bringing more social features to the game?

Answer:

1. Player made maps are never a good idea, though they sound neat on paper. We'd need some kind of moderation process to remove inappropriate submissions, and given there'd be thousands upon thousands of entries, it would require full time moderation.
2. We see this request a lot. Again, on paper it sounds really cool. But what would the overall goal be? What would the benefits be to the Clan? There are a ton of logistics you'd have to look at. Like who would be the caretaker of such a mega base? The leader? What if the leader left or stopped playing? Co-leaders? What if they disagree with how the mega base should be laid out? Would Elders and Members have access to editing the mega base?
3. We've got something pretty big planned this year (fingers crossed we can finish it in time). We'll announce it when it's ready. And it's a doozy.
4. It entirely depends on what social features players want (features that aren't Global Chat or similar function).

u/sportsguy3: Could you give us some examples of new charactetroops/heroes/ideas that were very close to making it into the game but eventually didn't make the cut?
Answer: When we work on new TH content, we try to prototype new troop ideas. When we were working on TH12, we had several troops we had tested out before we finally settled on the Yeti. One of the troop ideas was a Goblin Glider. It was basically Goblins that flew in on little gliders and dropped down to attack resource storages and collectors. If I remember correctly, the Goblin Glider eventually inspired the Builder Base Hog Glider unit since we liked the glider function. But the Goblin Glider felt a bit TOO spammy.
u/NikplaysgamesYT:

1. Do you guys have plans regarding banning accounts? I see so many times players are perma banned for “account sharing” or “account stealing” when nothing like that ever happened. Even someone in my clan was perma banned, and I see posts on Reddit all the time about this. Do you have plans to change the process of being banned or the criteria to avoid these situations?
2. What is your opinion regarding queen walks after indirectly nerfing them so hard? This year, you guys added headhunters and super minions, both of which destroy queen walks if your not careful. Did you guys think they were OP before this update, and do you think they’re still OP now?
3. Do you believe that the game has done a good job balancing progression? For townhall 10, IMO you guys did a perfect job, I finished my hero’s, walls, and defences at almost the same time (got screwed up since at that time there was the event where everything was half off. But for th11, I am currently almost max, just working on my last lab upgrades and walls, but I’ve been full on dark elixir for the past 3 months. Do you think progression overall is super balanced and any plans to change it?

Answer:

1. In the near-4 years I've been at Supercell, I've had hundreds of requests from players to investigate their account ban. Out of those hundreds, I can count on a single hand how many of them were incorrectly banned due to agent error. A single hand. Time and time again such threads rarely ever reveal any kind of loopholes or weaknesses in the support recovery process and more often than not highlight how players treat their account security by engaging in behaviour that violates our Terms of Service policies. Almost every single one of those players underestimate just how accurately we can investigate an account issue. Many of them start off with a friend who let another friend do their War attacks, but most of the banned accounts have shown very suspicious activity of account sharing, buying, etc.How do these accounts get phished? It's simply because most people don't realize just how manipulative scammers/phishers are. Also most people fail to realize exactly just how much identifiable information they put out for the public to be able to see.That's the thing about scammers/phishers. The good ones rarely make their intentions obvious until it's too late. There's a reason why scamming is a multi-billion dollar industry. Good scammers are charismatic, manipulative, and convincing. They are also relying on the fact you have no idea just how useful the information you gave them really is, especially when you think the information is banal or mundanely useless.The fact they leave you blaming a lax in security instead of blaming yourself shows A) just how manipulative they are and B) how willing you are to deflect blame in order to admit to falling for a scam.Admittedly, that second one is a tough pill to swallow. No one likes admitting they made a mistake, and that's especially so when you have to face severe consequences for those actions. But as I said before, we can tell the difference between someone's compromised account vs. someone who fell victim to a scam or gave/bought/sold their account. Usually if the account is compromised, Support is fairly quick at restoring access to those accounts. But because there's no reason to voice any complaints about it, you don't read about those thousands of success stories. What we do hear about on the forums are those examples where support was unable to restore the account because they can see suspicious or fraudulent activity on the account.
2. I still use Queen Walk at TH13 so you're asking the wrong person. I find the strategy still viable and very strong.
3. I do think we've done an overall good job of maintaining balance. It's not perfect, nor will it ever be perfect. This is especially true as we add more content in the future. There is no such thing as a perfectly balanced multiplayePVP game. All we can do is try to balance it to the best of our ability when we release a new troop or keep an eye on the data and balance it as we see the data coming in.

u/GroddTH12:

1. Do you intend to improve the time to update buildings and troop level TH11, TH12 and TH13?
2. Is there a possibility to create a new hero in a new update?

Answer:

1. Eventually, most likely.
2. We don't want to do a new Hero with each new TH level. The earliest we will likely add a new Hero would be TH15, but that's not a guarantee.

u/clashic94:

1. Clan War Leagues and Clan Games are monthly events that last a week. Are there any plans for introducing another monthly event that lasts a few days in between CWL and Clan Games? (Townhall Tournaments, etc.)
2. As the army camp size increases and the possibility for more troops in battle at any given time increases, will we be seeing troops with higher and higher housing space to avoid overcomplexity?
3. Will we be able to use two Siege Machines at the same time in the future? More than two Super Troops?

Answer:

1. Yes. Although what that is we're not ready to reveal yet.
2. It's unlikely we'll adjust the housing space for older troops like Barbs, however, how much housing space a troop takes up is actually an essential part of the design process as we design a new troop.
3. Two Siege Machines would be a bit weird since you only have a single Clan Castle. Being able to deploy two and divide up the CC troops between them would genuinely be way OP. As far as allowing more than 2 Super Troops at a time, I mean, we just started allowing 2 recently! We're keeping an eye on their usage to see if allowing 3 or more would be something positive for the game.

u/confipete:

1. Is it true that Supercell is going to remove builder base by June?
2. Why don't war donations account for donation count?
3. Why is builder base's attacking AI is different from Home village's?
4. Do you consider the ideas we post in this sub while adding new features to the game?

Answer:

1. Wait..what? Remove Builder Base? Where the heck do you guys find this stuff? We're not removing it.
2. Part of it is because you can remove and edit War donations, at least in the War Leagues. So it would be easy to abuse to edit/remove cc troops and keep redonating just to get your count up.
3. The AI isn't different, it uses the same logic engine as the main village. However, a big factor in what causes some issues is the Guard Post. The wandering units cause havoc with the pathing AI because the attacking units have to constantly recalculate their position and the targets it's tracking.
4. Absolutely.

u/EyalReddits:

1. Will we ever get a new gamemode like the builder base?
2. Why are super troops taking up so much space? This makes them almost unusable

Answer:

1. I'm sure there'll be new game features we'll introduce in the future. It won't be like Builder Base, but will be something completely new. In fact we're working on something that I think will be pretty enjoyable. No release dates yet, as it's a fairly complex system. But we're excited to announce it when it's ready.
2. The housing space for Super Troops is to balance out how much stronger they are than regular troops.

u/superman37891:

1. Can we donate super troops with gem donations, even if we don’t have them unlocked?
2. Can we have separate clans for home village and builder base (so I don’t get kicked out of my top clan for not having a good builder base)?
3. Add a clan search filter for CWL league (Champs 1, Champs 3, Master 2, etc.)
4. Can we cap the level of the CC troops donated to lower town halls / CC levels? (Ex: A level 9 loon donated to a TH3 caps at level 2)? I feel this will make it easier to balance lower THs and make it more fair for those who can’t get CCs

Answer:

1. No. Being able to donate them without spending the upgrade cost kinda defeats the purpose of spending the upgrade cost.
2. No. Programming the logistics behind this, having separate chat UI's, Clan logs, match logs, war logs, etc. would be an absolute data nightmare.
3. As a reflex response, my guess would be that it would lead to just those Clans at the top tiers being bombarded with invitation requests while lower clans would remain unfilled. And because they remain unfilled, it would make it harder for them to climb to those ranks, thus perpetuating a bit of a cycle.
4. No. The levels they are donated at is intentional.

u/Luke_theGreat:

• Hey Darian. Thanks for doing this. Right now, every month we have cwl in the first week and clan games towards the end. I personally feel like this is getting tedious. Are there any plans to mix this up more? Thanks. Luke

Answer: We planned out the calendar of events for a very specific reason and the timing is intentional. Having them set the same time allows players to more efficiently plan out how they upgrade and how they spend resources. Mixing up the schedule would make it more difficult for players to do so.
u/One-Decision-6110:

• Hello there, Darian, thanks for taking the time to answer my question if you do,one thing I'm recently annoyed about is botters, it seems like they are everywhere, is it possible if you could give me a percentage of how many players out of total players are botters?also, i use the same army, time and time again, I'm worried my account will get banned one day due to SuperCell suspecting me to bot, are there any other measures you take into account when banning botters?

Answer: We never publicly reveal numbers. With regards to bots, it's a constant game of cat and mouse. We improve our systems to detect them and they improve the botting software to avoid detection. So we then improve the system again to detect them and then they improve the botting software to avoid detection. You can see how this goes on. It's one of the reasons why we do mass bans of botters instead of just individual cases. If we banned players who bot on an individual basis, it allows the bot software creators to analyse what it was that allowed them to be detected and make changes even faster. So by banning in mass groups, it slows down their development a bit.
To answer your question about using the same attack, that's not how the detection system works so as long as you're not using a bot program we don't care how often you attack with the same army.
u/mystic_coc: Hi Darian, what do you think about a new game mode in clash. It can be solo or multi (like clan base or something). You could create multiples worlds with the clash universe like a goblin village etc were we can attack the king of goblin
Answer: I'm curious, but you don't really give any kind of idea what kind of feature you're suggesting. It's like saying "have you thought of a new multiplayer game?" Yes I have, but without knowing what kind of game you want, it's kind of an impossible question to answer.
If you've made it down here, well done! I hope everyone here has learnt something new, and after reading the sheer amount of answers I'm sure you can all thank Darian for the extraordinary effort he put in (he isn't being payed for this either, he's just that amazing).
If you don't see your question on the reddit post or the document it was most likely to avoid duplicates
Happy Clashing!

Greetings Players!
To start the new year off right, we wanted to answer a number of questions we’ve seen in the last few months on topics related to cheating.
One of the things that’s important to understand is that cheating in PUBG MOBILE is not the result of just a few bright kids in their mom’s basements finding a neat new way to get an advantage in-game. PUBG MOBILE is one of the most popular games in the world, and that means that talented teams of unethical engineers are constantly trying to find ways to cheat, and our security team is working 24/7/365 to shut them down as soon as they pop up.
Regardless of who is behind the cheats it’s our obligation to keep your gameplay fair and secure which we take very seriously. Our Security Team is very skilled, and they are experts at detecting and rooting out cheaters. No matter who creates the cheats, we will find the people attempting to use them and keep them from impacting your gameplay.
Now, on to your questions:
“How are you making sure Leaderboards are Fair?”
The Leaderboards in PUBG MOBILE are some of the most heavily scrutinized areas of the game. We utilize multiple strategies to monitor individuals on the leaderboards, including (but not limited to): machine learning, eligibility restriction, manual review, and the Video Review Station. Right now these systems work together very efficiently, but we have plans to both increase restrictions on who is eligible and improve the accuracy of our automated detection in the coming months. We’ll also be increasing the number of staff specifically dedicated to keeping the leaderboards clean. We want our Leaderboards to remain a source of pride for those who put the effort to achieve them, not as a source of accusations about hacking.
“Is it possible for people to get unbanned by paying a service advertising on social media? Does ‘Anti-Ban’ work?”
One major problem companies selling cheating software face is their customers get banned in PUBG MOBILE. Which is really bad for their business. But since these companies have few morals their best strategy is to lie to their customers and claim that they have technology that doesn’t exist. They are selling services to cheat in a game, they aren’t honest or trustworthy groups of people. Anti-Ban doesn’t exist, cheats can’t prevent reports from being sent in game, if someone gives them money to reverse a ban then the money will be stolen with nothing received and maybe the person’s payment information stolen as well. It’s not like someone can complain that “they stole my money after selling me cheats for a video game” and expect anyone to take them seriously.
“Why not have Region Lock for Servers based on Region/Phone Verification/Etc.?”
One of the questions we see most often is some variation of “Why don’t you use technology xxxx?” Rest assured that all of these different options have been strongly considered and evaluated. Unfortunately there are a number of compelling reasons as to why some options are also problematic, including: legal restrictions in different countries around the world, ease of evasion,and negative impact on honest players.
One of our strongest values here at PUBG MOBILE is bringing people together across the world, no one wants people to be cut off from friends and loved ones they connect with in PUBG MOBILE.
The sad fact is that none of these solutions are a magic bullet that will have the impact that people hope for. Utilizing commonly available software you can make your phone appear to be connecting from anywhere in the world, generate local phone numbers, and obscure details about your device used for identification. These changes wouldn’t hurt hackers, but they would hurt honest players.
“Which is harder for you to catch cheaters on, Android or iOS?”
Another very common question we get is why cheaters are harder to catch from one operating system or another. The truth is that both Android and iOS have strengths and weaknesses when it comes to detecting cheaters, and we have experts in both operating systems that know how to leverage those strengths and work around the weaknesses to catch cheaters regardless of what type of mobile device they use.
As well as looking for cheat software, we observe the effects in-game very closely to determine if cheating behavior is taking place. Regardless of the type of device, the ultimate proof is in the game data. When people cheat, they leave telltale signs that we can find to catch them even if it's not a cheat that can be detected directly. Ultimately the device itself can’t hide that; if someone cheats they will be caught.
“Why aren’t certain types of cheats automatically detected immediately?”
Our goal is always to maximize the speed of catching cheaters and minimize the amount of time they spend in game. But accuracy is important too, and sometimes we need to investigate deeper due to network issues that can appear to be cheating or a poorly performing device that starts behaving unusually. As soon as we have 100% confirmation of cheating behavior taking place, we immediately ban the account in question. This happens during games, when connecting to the PUBG MOBILE servers, or during reviews of server data whether the individual is online or not . As soon as we can prove someone is cheating, they are gone.
Our systems that operate in real time often rely on computers interpreting data in-game which takes a certain amount of processor resources and memory. Other times it’s based on people reviewing games in real time and manually taking action, but computers detecting and automatically taking action is by far the most common case. With tens of millions of players logging in daily, and thousands or tens of thousands of matches (each containing up to 100 players) going on simultaneously, the amount of computing power and memory usage is of a scale that is difficult to imagine.
This is a real limitation, that our very talented engineers are always cognizant of and working around to create effective and speedy solutions. However there are some things that a human can do quickly but can take much longer for a computer to verify. A computer has to manually investigate every possible way something could happen and verify that it is impossible in every way before it can make a definitive assertion. A trained person can see something happen with a glance and immediately make the correct determination. This is why we utilize both computer-based and real human observation, as well as some added systems like the Video Review Station to enhance our efforts and catch cheaters much more quickly.
“How do you penalize people for teaming with cheaters?”
Teaming up with cheaters to gain ranks or rating is an indirect form of cheating, and is subject to an escalating series of penalties ultimately potentially leading to account banning. For a first violation this is a simple removal of any ranks or rewards gained, along with a warning and an extended period of observation. People who repeat this behavior after being warned have greater penalties applied.
You don’t have to worry about possibly being randomly matched with a cheater; we can spot this and it’s not something that will get you in trouble. But if you see a teammate cheating, or even just suspect they are, it’s best to report them and let us make sure. If people tell you they can help you rank up super-easily, or it’s impossible for them to lose, be careful. They might just be taking a risk with your account too.
“Why do creators sometimes get banned?”
Creators are often some of the most talented players to play the game, and sometimes their skills in game are so amazing that it’s difficult to believe that they are possible. Our automated detection systems often flag them for review, because they play at an extremely high level. There was a case of one pro esports team that I watched get more than 10 chicken dinners in a row, playing together in classic matches at the start of a new season. In normal circumstances 30 chicken dinners in a row would be extremely suspicious. But professional players playing together after thousands of matches against the other best players in the world can do some pretty amazing things.
The other, sadder, side of the coin unfortunately relates to human jealousy. There have been cases where jealous individuals unfortunately attempted to falsely accuse some top creators. The lengths that people will go to when motivated by jealousy are incredible, and they from time to time have managed to create extremely compelling evidence. Other times they have attempted to take control of a Creator’s account and then have the account banned that way. Because Creators have to deal with these issues more frequently, we work hard to verify any actions taken against their accounts more completely, and eliminate all other possibilities.
“What security measures do you utilize to make sure Esports events are free from cheating?”
Much like Creators, pro Esports players are incredibly difficult to analyze. They are playing the game at a different level, routinely making shots that would be impossible for the average player, and doing so over and over again. If a normal player suddenly displays the ability to shoot through smoke and reliably hit their opponents without being able to see them, this is a dead giveaway that something is likely going on. For Esports players, this is actually not uncommon.
In a match at the Spring Split 2019 PMCO championships in Berlin, we watched a single player fight through smoke and systematically take down RRQ Athena, one of the most accomplished teams in all of PUBG MOBILE. He was playing on a device we provided, in an environment we completely controlled, and there was zero opportunity for any cheating to occur. So it’s hard to analyze their results.
Fortunately for these events we can do a lot more to ensure that cheating doesn’t take place. The situation with Covid-19 has made this slightly more complicated, but we’ve adapted and applied these strategies to online only events. These can include high tech solutions (like doing a much more thorough real time analysis than is possible in normal games), low tech solutions (like providing them a device they can’t install new software on), and many more things we can’t give you details on (because we want to keep cheat creators in the dark on how we catch them). Trying to cheat in esports is a great way to get banned very quickly.
“Will multiple reports of a player in a short period of time trigger an automatic ban?”
Bans are never issued solely on the basis of reports, but player reports are a great way to alert our security team to potential problems. Reports help us prioritize and evaluate who we need to look more deeply into. If we know that someone is acting suspiciously in game, we can direct far more resources into verification (either machine based or human observation) of their game play. The more people that report someone, the more suspicious it looks and the faster it can happen. So lots of reports won’t get someone banned directly, but it will help us catch cheaters faster and more accurately.
“What else are you doing to combat cheating in PUBG MOBILE?”
We’ve made a lot of improvements over the last year that have greatly reduced the ability for players to cheat in game. We’re catching them quicker, identifying them more accurately, and providing fairer and more competitive games for our players. But we can’t rest on our accomplishments, cheaters aren’t going to stop trying to get any advantage they can. In 2021 we’re working on expanding our Security Team to help us respond more quickly, being even more accurate to ensure no one gets falsely accused of attempting to cheat, and cutting cheats off at the source wherever we can. Many of the initiatives we’re planning on need to remain confidential to maintain the element of surprise and achieve maximum impact, but we’re committed to sharing more information more frequently so that you can know what is being done to keep the game safe.
Thank you,
The PUBG MOBILE Team

NEW INFO 5 Results from share redemption are posted. Less than .2% redeemed. Very bullish as investors are showing extreme confidence in the future of PLBY.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/playboy-mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-120000721.html
NEW INFO 4 Definitive Agreement to purchase 100% of Lovers brand stores announced 2/1.
https://www.streetinsider.com/Corporate+News/Playboy+%28MCAC%29+Confirms+Deal+to+Acquire+Lovers/17892359.html
NEW INFO 3 I bought more on the dip today. 5081 total. Price rose AH to $12.38 (2.15%)
NEW INFO 2 Here is the full webinar.
https://icrinc.zoom.us/rec/play/9GWKdmOYumjWfZuufW3QXpe_FW_g--qeNbg6PnTjTMbnNTgLmCbWjeRFpQga1iPc-elpGap8dnDv8Zww.yD7DjUwuPmapeEdP?continueMode=true&tk=lEYc4F_FkKlgsmCIs6w0gtGHT2kbgVGbUju3cIRBSjk.DQIAAAAV8NK49xZWdldRM2xNSFNQcTBmcE00UzM3bXh3AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA&uuid=WN_GKWqbHkeSyuWetJmLFkj4g&_x_zm_rtaid=kR45-uuqRE-L65AxLjpbQw.1611967079119.2c054e3d3f8d8e63339273d9175939ed&_x_zm_rhtaid=866
NEW INFO 1 Live merger webinar with PLBY and MCAC on Friday January 29, 2021 at 12:00 NOON EST link below
https://mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/press-release-details/2021/Playboy-Enterprises-Inc.-and-Mountain-Crest-Acquisition-Corp-Participate-in-SPACInsider-ICR-Webinar-on-January-29th-at-12pm-ET/default.aspx
Playboy going public: Porn, Gambling, and Cannabis
!!!WARNING READING AHEAD!!! TL;DR at the end. It will take some time to sort through all the links and read/watch everything, but you should.
In the next couple weeks, Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp is taking Playboy public. The existing ticker MCAC will become PLBY. Special purpose acquisition companies have taken private companies public in recent months with great success. I believe this will be no exception. Notably, Playboy is profitable and has skyrocketing revenue going into a transformational growth phase.
Porn - First and foremost, let's talk about porn. I know what you guys are thinking. “Porno mags are dead. Why would I want to invest in something like that? I can get porn for free online.” Guess what? You are absolutely right. And that’s exactly why Playboy doesn’t do that anymore. That’s right, they eliminated their print division. And yet they somehow STILL make money from porn that people (see: boomers) pay for on their website through PlayboyTV, Playboy Plus, and iPlayboy. Here’s the thing: Playboy has international, multi-generational name recognition from porn. They have content available in 180 countries. It will be the only publicly traded adult entertainment (porn) company. But that is not where this company is going. It will help support them along the way. You can see every Playboy magazine through iPlayboy if you’re interested. NSFW links below:
https://www.playboy.com/
https://www.playboytv.com/
https://www.playboyplus.com/
https://www.iplayboy.com/
Gambling - Some of you might recognize the Playboy brand from gambling trips to places like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, Cancun, London or Macau. They’ve been in the gambling biz for decades through their casinos, clubs, and licensed gaming products. They see the writing on the wall. COVID is accelerating the transition to digital, application based GAMBLING. That’s right. What we are doing on Robinhood with risky options is gambling, and the only reason regulators might give a shit anymore is because we are making too much money. There may be some restrictions put in place, but gambling from your phone on your couch is not going anywhere. More and more states are allowing things like Draftkings, poker, state ‘lottery” apps, hell - even political betting. Michigan and Virginia just ok’d gambling apps. They won’t be the last. This is all from your couch and any 18 year old with a cracked iphone can access it. Wouldn’t it be cool if Playboy was going to do something like that? They’re already working on it. As per CEO Ben Kohn who we will get to later, “...the company’s casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth.” Honestly, I stopped researching Scientific Games' sports betting segment when I saw the word ‘omni-channel’. That told me all I needed to know about it’s success.
“Our SG Sports™ platform is an enhanced, omni-channel solution for online, self-service and retail fixed odds sports betting – from soccer to tennis, basketball, football, baseball, hockey, motor sports, racing and more.”
https://www.scientificgames.com/
https://www.microgaming.co.uk/
“This latter segment has become increasingly enticing for Playboy, and it said last week that it is considering new tie-ups that could include gaming operators like PointsBet and 888Holdings.”
https://calvinayre.com/2020/10/05/business/playboys-gaming-ops-could-get-a-boost-from-spac-purchase/
As per their SEC filing:
“Significant consumer engagement and spend with Playboy-branded gaming properties around the world, including with leading partners such as Microgaming, Scientific Games, and Caesar’s Entertainment, steers our investment in digital gaming, sports betting and other digital offerings to further support our commercial strategy to expand consumer spend with minimal marginal cost, and gain consumer data to inform go-to-market plans across categories.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tMDAA1
They are expanding into more areas of gaming/gambling, working with international players in the digital gaming/gambling arena, and a Playboy sportsbook is on the horizon.
https://www.playboy.com/read/the-pleasure-of-playing-with-yourself-mobile-gaming-in-the-covid-era
Cannabis - If you’ve ever read through a Playboy magazine, you know they’ve had a positive relationship with cannabis for many years. As of September 2020, Playboy has made a major shift into the cannabis space. Too good to be true you say? Check their website. Playboy currently sells a range of CBD products. This is a good sign. Federal hemp products, which these most likely are, can be mailed across state lines and most importantly for a company like Playboy, can operate through a traditional banking institution. CBD products are usually the first step towards the cannabis space for large companies. Playboy didn’t make these products themselves meaning they are working with a processor in the cannabis industry. Another good sign for future expansion. What else do they have for sale? Pipes, grinders, ashtrays, rolling trays, joint holders. Hmm. Ok. So it looks like they want to sell some shit. They probably don’t have an active interest in cannabis right? Think again:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/09/24/playboy-gets-serious-about-cannabis-law-reform-advocacy-with-new-partnership-grants/?sh=62f044a65cea
“Taking yet another step into the cannabis space, Playboy will be announcing later on Thursday (September, 2020) that it is launching a cannabis law reform and advocacy campaign in partnership with National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), Last Prisoner Project, Marijuana Policy Project, the Veterans Cannabis Project, and the Eaze Momentum Program.”
“According to information procured exclusively, the three-pronged campaign will focus on calling for federal legalization. The program also includes the creation of a mentorship plan, through which the Playboy Foundation will support entrepreneurs from groups that are underrepresented in the industry.” Remember that CEO Kohn from earlier? He wrote this recently:
https://medium.com/naked-open-letters-from-playboy/congress-must-pass-the-more-act-c867c35239ae
Seems like he really wants weed to be legal? Hmm wonder why? The writing's on the wall my friends. Playboy wants into the cannabis industry, they are making steps towards this end, and we have favorable conditions for legislative progress.
Don’t think branding your own cannabis line is profitable or worthwhile? Tell me why these 41 celebrity millionaires and billionaires are dummies. I’ll wait.
https://www.celebstoner.com/news/celebstoner-news/2019/07/12/top-celebrity-cannabis-brands/
Confirmation: I hear you. “This all seems pretty speculative. It would be wildly profitable if they pull this shift off. But how do we really know?” Watch this whole video:
https://finance.yahoo.com/video/playboy-ceo-telling-story-female-154907068.html
Man - this interview just gets my juices flowing. And highlights one of my favorite reasons for this play. They have so many different business avenues from which a catalyst could appear. I think paying attention, holding shares, and options on these staggered announcements over the next year is the way I am going to go about it. "There's definitely been a shift to direct-to-consumer," he (Kohn) said. "About 50 percent of our revenue today is direct-to-consumer, and that will continue to grow going forward.” “Kohn touted Playboy's portfolio of both digital and consumer products, with casino-style gaming, in particular, serving a crucial role under the company's new business model. Playboy also has its sights on the emerging cannabis market, from CBD products to marijuana products geared toward sexual health and pleasure.” "If THC does become legal in the United States, we have developed certain strains to enhance your sex life that we will launch," Kohn said. https://cheddar.com/media/playboy-goes-public-health-gaming-lifestyle-focus Oh? The CEO actually said it? Ok then. “We have developed certain strains…” They’re already working with growers on strains and genetics? Ok. There are several legal cannabis markets for those products right now, international and stateside. I expect Playboy licensed hemp and THC pre-rolls by EOY. Something like this: https://www.etsy.com/listing/842996758/10-playboy-pre-roll-tubes-limited?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=pre+roll+playboy&ref=sr_gallery-1-2&organic_search_click=1 Maintaining cannabis operations can be costly and a regulatory headache. Playboy’s licensing strategy allows them to pick successful, established partners and sidestep traditional barriers to entry. You know what I like about these new markets? They’re expanding. Worldwide. And they are going to be a bigger deal than they already are with or without Playboy. Who thinks weed and gambling are going away? Too many people like that stuff. These are easy markets. And Playboy is early enough to carve out their spot in each. Fuck it, read this too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimosman/2020/10/20/playboy-could-be-the-king-of-spacs-here-are-three-picks/?sh=2e13dcaa3e05
Numbers: You want numbers? I got numbers. As per the company’s most recent SEC filing:
“For the year ended December 31, 2019, and the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s historical consolidated revenue was $78.1 million and $101.3 million, respectively, historical consolidated net income (loss) was $(23.6) million and $(4.8) million, respectively, and Adjusted EBITDA was $13.1 million and $21.8 million, respectively.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Licensing segment contributed $44.2 million in revenue and $31.1 million in net income.”
“In the ninth months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Direct-to-Consumer segment contributed $40.2 million in revenue and net income of $0.1 million.”
“In the nine months ended September 30, 2020, Playboy’s Digital Subscriptions and Content segment contributed $15.4 million in revenue and net income of $7.4 million.”
They are profitable across all three of their current business segments.
“Playboy’s return to the public markets presents a transformed, streamlined and high-growth business. The Company has over $400 million in cash flows contracted through 2029, sexual wellness products available for sale online and in over 10,000 major retail stores in the US, and a growing variety of clothing and branded lifestyle and digital gaming products.”
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
Growth: Playboy has massive growth in China and massive growth potential in India. “In China, where Playboy has spent more than 25 years building its business, our licensees have an enormous footprint of nearly 2,500 brick and mortar stores and 1,000 ecommerce stores selling high quality, Playboy-branded men’s casual wear, shoes/footwear, sleepwear, swimwear, formal suits, leather & non-leather goods, sweaters, active wear, and accessories. We have achieved significant growth in China licensing revenues over the past several years in partnership with strong licensees and high-quality manufacturers, and we are planning for increased growth through updates to our men’s fashion lines and expansion into adjacent categories in men’s skincare and grooming, sexual wellness, and women’s fashion, a category where recent launches have been well received.” The men’s market in China is about the same size as the entire population of the United States and European Union combined. Playboy is a leading brand in this market. They are expanding into the women’s market too. Did you know CBD toothpaste is huge in China? China loves CBD products and has hemp fields that dwarf those in the US. If Playboy expands their CBD line China it will be huge. Did you know the gambling money in Macau absolutely puts Las Vegas to shame? Technically, it's illegal on the mainland, but in reality, there is a lot of gambling going on in China. https://www.forbes.com/sites/javierhasse/2020/10/19/magic-johnson-and-uncle-buds-cbd-brand-enter-china-via-tmall-partnership/?sh=271776ca411e “In India, Playboy today has a presence through select apparel licensees and hospitality establishments. Consumer research suggests significant growth opportunities in the territory with Playboy’s brand and categories of focus.” “Playboy Enterprises has announced the expansion of its global consumer products business into India as part of a partnership with Jay Jay Iconic Brands, a leading fashion and lifestyle Company in India.” “The Indian market today is dominated by consumers under the age of 35, who represent more than 65 percent of the country’s total population and are driving India’s significant online shopping growth. The Playboy brand’s core values of playfulness and exploration resonate strongly with the expressed desires of today’s younger millennial consumers. For us, Playboy was the perfect fit.” “The Playboy international portfolio has been flourishing for more than 25 years in several South Asian markets such as China and Japan. In particular, it has strategically targeted the millennial and gen-Z audiences across categories such as apparel, footwear, home textiles, eyewear and watches.” https://www.licenseglobal.com/industry-news/playboy-expands-global-footprint-india It looks like they gave COVID the heisman in terms of net damage sustained: “Although Playboy has not suffered any material adverse consequences to date from the COVID-19 pandemic, the business has been impacted both negatively and positively. The remote working and stay-at-home orders resulted in the closure of the London Playboy Club and retail stores of Playboy’s licensees, decreasing licensing revenues in the second quarter, as well as causing supply chain disruption and less efficient product development thereby slowing the launch of new products. However, these negative impacts were offset by an increase in Yandy’s direct-to-consumer sales, which have benefited in part from overall increases in online retail sales so far during the pandemic.” Looks like the positives are long term (Yandy acquisition) and the negatives are temporary (stay-at-home orders).
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921006093/tm213766-1_defa14a.htm
This speaks to their ability to maintain a financially solvent company throughout the transition phase to the aforementioned areas. They’d say some fancy shit like “expanded business model to encompass four key revenue streams: Sexual Wellness, Style & Apparel, Gaming & Lifestyle, and Beauty & Grooming.” I hear “we’re just biding our time with these trinkets until those dollar dollar bill y’all markets are fully up and running.” But the truth is these existing revenue streams are profitable, scalable, and rapidly expanding Playboy’s e-commerce segment around the world.
"Even in the face of COVID this year, we've been able to grow EBITDA over 100 percent and revenue over 68 percent, and I expect that to accelerate going into 2021," he said. “Playboy is accelerating its growth in company-owned and branded consumer products in attractive and expanding markets in which it has a proven history of brand affinity and consumer spend.”
Also in the SEC filing, the Time Frame:
“As we detailed in the definitive proxy statement, the SPAC stockholder meeting to vote on the transaction has been set for February 9th, and, subject to stockholder approval and satisfaction of the other closing conditions, we expect to complete the merger and begin trading on NASDAQ under ticker PLBY shortly thereafter,” concluded Kohn.
The Players: Suhail “The Whale” Rizvi (HMFIC), Ben “The Bridge” Kohn (CEO), “lil” Suying Liu & “Big” Dong Liu (Young-gun China gang). I encourage you to look these folks up. The real OG here is Suhail Rizvi. He’s from India originally and Chairman of the Board for the new PLBY company. He was an early investor in Twitter, Square, Facebook and others. His firm, Rizvi Traverse, currently invests in Instacart, Pinterest, Snapchat, Playboy, and SpaceX. Maybe you’ve heard of them. “Rizvi, who owns a sprawling three-home compound in Greenwich, Connecticut, and a 1.65-acre estate in Palm Beach, Florida, near Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg, moved to Iowa Falls when he was five. His father was a professor of psychology at Iowa. Along with his older brother Ashraf, a hedge fund manager, Rizvi graduated from Wharton business school.” “Suhail Rizvi: the 47-year-old 'unsocial' social media baron: When Twitter goes public in the coming weeks (2013), one of the biggest winners will be a 47-year-old financier who guards his secrecy so zealously that he employs a person to take down his Wikipedia entry and scrub his photos from the internet. In IPO, Twitter seeks to be 'anti-FB'” “Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia looks like a big Twitter winner. So do the moneyed clients of Jamie Dimon. But as you’ve-got-to-be-joking wealth washed over Twitter on Thursday — a company that didn’t exist eight years ago was worth $31.7 billion after its first day on the stock market — the non-boldface name of the moment is Suhail R. Rizvi. Mr. Rizvi, 47, runs a private investment company that is the largest outside investor in Twitter with a 15.6 percent stake worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday (November, 2013). Using a web of connections in the tech industry and in finance, as well as a hearty dose of good timing, he brought many prominent names in at the ground floor, including the Saudi prince and some of JPMorgan’s wealthiest clients.” https://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/08/technology/at-twitter-working-behind-the-scenes-toward-a-billion-dollar-payday.html Y’all like that Arab money? How about a dude that can call up Saudi Princes and convince them to spend? Funniest shit about I read about him: “Rizvi was able to buy only $100 million in Facebook shortly before its IPO, thus limiting his returns, according to people with knowledge of the matter.” Poor guy :(
He should be fine with the 16 million PLBY shares he's going to have though :)
Shuhail also has experience in the entertainment industry. He’s invested in companies like SESAC, ICM, and Summit Entertainment. He’s got Hollywood connections to blast this stuff post-merger. And he’s at least partially responsible for that whole Twilight thing. I’m team Edward btw.
I really like what Suhail has done so far. He’s lurked in the shadows while Kohn is consolidating the company, trimming the fat, making Playboy profitable, and aiming the ship at modern growing markets.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-ipo-rizvi-insight/insight-little-known-hollywood-investor-poised-to-score-with-twitter-ipo-idUSBRE9920VW20131003
Ben “The Bridge” Kohn is an interesting guy. He’s the connection between Rizvi Traverse and Playboy. He’s both CEO of Playboy and was previously Managing Partner at Rizvi Traverse. Ben seems to be the voice of the Playboy-Rizvi partnership, which makes sense with Suhail’s privacy concerns. Kohn said this:
“Today is a very big day for all of us at Playboy and for all our partners globally. I stepped into the CEO role at Playboy in 2017 because I saw the biggest opportunity of my career. Playboy is a brand and platform that could not be replicated today. It has massive global reach, with more than $3B of global consumer spend and products sold in over 180 countries. Our mission – to create a culture where all people can pursue pleasure – is rooted in our 67-year history and creates a clear focus for our business and role we play in people’s lives, providing them with the products, services and experiences that create a lifestyle of pleasure. We are taking this step into the public markets because the committed capital will enable us to accelerate our product development and go-to-market strategies and to more rapidly build our direct to consumer capabilities,” said Ben Kohn, CEO of Playboy.
“Playboy today is a highly profitable commerce business with a total addressable market projected in the trillions of dollars,” Mr. Kohn continued, “We are actively selling into the Sexual Wellness consumer category, projected to be approximately $400 billion in size by 2024, where our recently launched intimacy products have rolled out to more than 10,000 stores at major US retailers in the United States. Combined with our owned & operated ecommerce Sexual Wellness initiatives, the category will contribute more than 40% of our revenue this year. In our Apparel and Beauty categories, our collaborations with high-end fashion brands including Missguided and PacSun are projected to achieve over $50M in retail sales across the US and UK this year, our leading men’s apparel lines in China expanded to nearly 2500 brick and mortar stores and almost 1000 digital stores, and our new men’s and women’s fragrance line recently launched in Europe. In Gaming, our casino-style digital gaming products with Scientific Games and Microgaming continue to see significant global growth. Our product strategy is informed by years of consumer data as we actively expand from a purely licensing model into owning and operating key high-growth product lines focused on driving profitability and consumer lifetime value. We are thrilled about the future of Playboy. Our foundation has been set to drive further growth and margin, and with the committed capital from this transaction and our more than $180M in NOLs, we will take advantage of the opportunity in front of us, building to our goal of $100M of adjusted EBITDA in 2025.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
Also, according to their Form 4s, “Big” Dong Liu and “lil” Suying Liu just loaded up with shares last week. These guys are brothers and seem like the Chinese market connection. They are only 32 & 35 years old. I don’t even know what that means, but it's provocative.
https://www.secform4.com/insider-trading/1832415.htm
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mountain-crest-acquisition-corp-ii-002600994.html
Y’all like that China money?
“Mr. Liu has been the Chief Financial Officer of Dongguan Zhishang Photoelectric Technology Co., Ltd., a regional designer, manufacturer and distributor of LED lights serving commercial customers throughout Southern China since November 2016, at which time he led a syndicate of investments into the firm. Mr. Liu has since overseen the financials of Dongguan Zhishang as well as provided strategic guidance to its board of directors, advising on operational efficiency and cash flow performance. From March 2010 to October 2016, Mr. Liu was the Head of Finance at Feidiao Electrical Group Co., Ltd., a leading Chinese manufacturer of electrical outlets headquartered in Shanghai and with businesses in the greater China region as well as Europe.”
Dr. Suying Liu, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mountain Crest Acquisition Corp., commented, “Playboy is a unique and compelling investment opportunity, with one of the world’s largest and most recognized brands, its proven consumer affinity and spend, and its enormous future growth potential in its four product segments and new and existing geographic regions. I am thrilled to be partnering with Ben and his exceptional team to bring his vision to fruition.”
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20201001005404/en/Playboy-to-Become-a-Public-Company
These guys are good. They have a proven track record of success across multiple industries. Connections and money run deep with all of these guys. I don’t think they’re in the game to lose.
I was going to write a couple more paragraphs about why you should have a look at this but really the best thing you can do is read this SEC filing from a couple days ago. It explains the situation in far better detail. Specifically, look to page 137 and read through their strategy. Also, look at their ownership percentages and compensation plans including the stock options and their prices. The financials look great, revenue is up 90% Q3, and it looks like a bright future.
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgadata/1803914/000110465921005986/tm2034213-12_defm14a.htm#tSHCF
I’m hesitant to attach this because his position seems short term, but I’m going to with a warning because he does hit on some good points (two are below his link) and he’s got a sizable position in this thing (500k+ on margin, I think). I don’t know this guy but he did look at the same publicly available info and make roughly the same prediction, albeit without the in depth gambling or cannabis mention. You can also search reddit for ‘MCAC’ and very few relevant results come up and none of them even come close to really looking at this thing.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gOvAd6lebs452hFlWWbxVjQ3VMsjGBkbJeXRwDwIJfM/edit?usp=sharing
“Also, before you people start making claims that Playboy is a “boomer” company, STOP RIGHT THERE. This is not a good argument. Simply put. The only thing that matters is Playboy’s name recognition, not their archaic business model which doesn’t even exist anymore as they have completely repurposed their business.”
“Imagine not buying $MCAC at a 400M valuation lol. Streetwear department is worth 1B alone imo.”
Considering the ridiculous Chinese growth as a lifestyle brand, he’s not wrong.
Current Cultural Significance and Meme Value: A year ago I wouldn’t have included this section but the events from the last several weeks (even going back to tsla) have proven that a company’s ability to meme and/or gain social network popularity can have an effect. Tik-tok, Snapchat, Twitch, Reddit, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter. They all have Playboy stuff on them. Kids in middle and highschool know what Playboy is but will likely never see or touch one of the magazines in person. They’ll have a Playboy hoodie though. Crazy huh? A lot like GME, PLBY would hugely benefit from meme-value stock interest to drive engagement towards their new business model while also building strategic coffers. This interest may not directly and/or significantly move the stock price but can generate significant interest from larger players who will.
Bull Case: The year is 2025. Playboy is now the world leader pleasure brand. They began by offering Playboy licensed gaming products, including gambling products, direct to consumers through existing names. By 2022, demand has skyrocketed and Playboy has designed and released their own gambling platforms. In 2025, they are also a leading cannabis brand in the United States and Canada with proprietary strains and products geared towards sexual wellness. Cannabis was legalized in the US in 2023 when President Biden got glaucoma but had success with cannabis treatment. He personally pushes for cannabis legalization as he steps out of office after his first term. Playboy has also grown their brand in China and India to multi-billion per year markets. The stock goes up from 11ish to 100ish and everyone makes big gains buying somewhere along the way.
Bear Case: The United States does a complete 180 on marijuana and gambling. President Biden overdoses on marijuana in the Lincoln bedroom when his FDs go tits up and he loses a ton of money in his sports book app after the Fighting Blue Hens narrowly lose the National Championship to Bama. Playboy is unable to expand their cannabis and gambling brands but still does well with their worldwide lifestyle brand. They gain and lose some interest in China and India but the markets are too large to ignore them completely. The stock goes up from 11ish to 13ish and everyone makes 15-20% gains.
TL;DR: Successful technology/e-commerce investment firm took over Playboy to turn it into a porn, online gambling/gaming, sports book, cannabis company, worldwide lifestyle brand that promotes sexual wellness, vetern access, women-ownership, minority-ownership, and “pleasure for all”. Does a successful online team reinventing an antiquated physical copy giant sound familiar? No options yet, shares only for now. $11.38 per share at time of writing. My guess? $20 by the end of February. $50 by EOY. This is not financial advice. I am not qualified to give financial advice. I’m just sayin’ I would personally use a Playboy sports book app while smoking a Playboy strain specific joint and it would be cool if they did that. Do your own research. You’d probably want to start here:
WARNING - POTENTIALLY NSFW - SEXY MODELS AHEAD - no actual nudity though
https://s26.q4cdn.com/895475556/files/doc_presentations/Playboy-Craig-Hallum-Conference-Investor-Presentation-11_17_20-compressed.pdf
Or here:
https://www.mcacquisition.com/investor-relations/default.aspx
Jimmy Chill: “Get into any SPAC at $10 or $11 and you are going to make money.”
STL;DR: Buy MCAC. MCAC > PLBY couple weeks. Rocketship. Moon.
Position: 5000 shares. I will buy short, medium, and long-dated calls once available.