First off, what’s your name and where can we see you stream?

What’s the significance of baX? How did you get the name?



One of my first jobs was working nights at a telemarketing firm in Boise, Idaho. Each employee had a a 4-letter company ID, and you used this to login and track your sales, calls, and disposition tallies. My assigned letters were “HBAX”.

Each night, for one hour, they would have ‘Flick Sale’ competitions. During the hour, every subscription sale you got you would hold up these small notepads and flick them, which made a distinct noise to alert the supervisor without being so obtrusive that it interrupted other calls. They would then write your ID up on the whiteboard and give you a tally. The top two sales totals at the end of the hour received raffle tickets. Raffles happened at the end of every month for movie tickets, coupons, a frozen turkey, you know, things and stuff for raffles.

My ID was up on the whiteboard enough that, for ease of use, they dropped the “H” and started calling me BAX.



Do you stream other games?

I’m currently expanding my game-list for streams, but Star Realms is the #1-seed in my “games-I-stream” bracket. I’ve streamed Rocket League a few times and a few other games I play will start to work into the rotation, hopefully in more prominent roles.

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When do you usually stream Star Realms?



Starting now, Tuesdays and Thursdays from 9:00AM (PDT) – 10:30AM, and Wednesdays from 7:30PM (PDT) – 9:00PM.

Other stream times, such as weekend streams or themed events, might be separate from those times. Same goes for other games.

What’s the card that you buy no matter what? Like even if it’s a terrible idea.



There might be some video evidence out there of me not taking the Imperial Frigate, but it’s fake news.

The only time I wouldn’t take Imperial Frigate is if the purchase directly contradicts my deck’s overall strategy. Most of the time, my deck’s overall strategy is to acquire more Imperial Frigates so it works out.

Assuming there’s no obvious direction in the Trade Row, which faction do you tend to chase?



In order of priority, I’ll chase Machine Cult and then Star Empire. As an overall idea, I want to build Red/Yellow decks as often as possible and there’s a widespread stigma against Star Empire that let’s me build up discard control early which hurts opponents twice as much late game.

Machine Cult feels slightly obligatory as an option because a deck’s cycle speed is not only crucial to general success in all formats but it’s also crucial to the success of Star Empire decks. If I have the opportunity for a cheap R/Y startup, like Trade Bot and two Imperial Fighters, I’ll rarely pass it up.



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Do you have a preferred mix of expansions?



Big Happy Family (“BHF” Bases & Battleships, Heroes, Fleets & Fortresses)

The thing I love most about this mix is the added amount of draw and scrap-for-ability options. Decks move faster and most games, you can pivot to a new archetype halfway through by dumping 3 or 4 early purchases, which also increases cycle speed. For me, that usually means hitting my opponent with more damage and more discards more often. And that’s worth it.