Dies to Removal

I think I'm past the point in my life where I have enough predictable free time to make MMOs rewarding instead of frustrating and lonely.

digivolve into~!




METAL CLOUDFIN RAPTOR

They're here to talk about their RB decks

Daredevil's tone reminds me so much of Frank Miller's Daredevil

Still playing jank (I'm calling it The Little Engine That Killed), still working a bunch, still fly.

Just got into Evolve, if anyone here plays. Message me your steam info!

so conflicted about whether to snag the episode leaks or not. The scummune screens them every Sunday and I love everyone's fresh reactions... but HRRRRRRGHN

Who?

Take cool-ish showers and use oil-based ("castile") soap if your skin is dry.

"Healthy" is a pretty relative term; .e.g. if "healthy" behavior makes you a social pariah it's probably not going to result in healthy consequences for you as an individual.

Love,
an unwashed hippie.

every time i go out on a limb

Hey, I'm just as awkward as the next nerd. Having light non-topical conversations is the hardest thing I do ever day.

But here goes

How's your life man? You doing everything you want to be doing? :3

https://youtu.be/jPVtKNHTWE0

Phone post / nothing to say yet.

Ugh my r/b testing still didn't provide anything worth a writeup. I've iterated through that same list with about ~15 different mainboard changes, played a couple dozen sets against assorted netdecks. Additionally realized that I'm not even sure where the acceptable competitive bar is, besides UP THERE SOMEWHERE. ~70% win rate, where a VERY SIGNIFICANT(tm) number of those sets include game 1 win? Lower?

I also like to feel out derivative sensitivity, which is super annoying to track in a local cockatrice game. You can't clone or fork the gamestate, which is what I used to do with Arthur when we'd test - "okay, let's say I do this instead..."

Playing 1 drops of opposing colors doesn't seem doable with the current mana. Correct me if I'm wrong, this is observational and not yet supported by math

Going a different direction - does anyone have any experience with arranging a play testing session for something they designed, either virtual or in person? Been working on a new card game for a couple years now and have a few mechanics / ideas I want to test before going further. Z-man Games liked the pitch but won't consider anything till theres a full prototype. Inspiration of game is D&D, MtG, WoW TCG PvE, Descent/HeroQuest, Pathfinder Adventure Card game.

Every card(/+ slaw) game prototype I've seen has used sleeved Kinko prints first. Two Rooms and a Boom's prototype cards cost ~$35 to print in full color, for example, which is cheap enough to pitch multiple times.

If you want playtesters, a PDF of card slugs is pretty much essential. I think the last game my friend group got together to playtest was Two Rooms & a Boom, which was kickstarter'd successfully sometime last year.

Tabletop Simulator has seen some pretty big functionality patches in the past ~4 months, but I don't have experience using it. I do know that a modding community for it exists, which is where I'd start researching. Again, no idea what the learning curve is like & the engine is still considered an early access release on steam.

Nuwen, will I be seeing you in vegas again this year?

Neg, going Camp Neon instead.

Nuwen, I've whitelisted the IP you sent me

<3

Is the Col. still our admin? I have a friend from work who wants to post up a cool artifact brew, but he's IP banned. Dropping a quick note here while he installs Tor. <_<

I should probably be playing +4 of some other fetch color to thin the swamps in my deck.

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles ... ack-aggro/
Paging nowen

The whole Sidisi -> Bloodsoaked champion interaction strikes me as very, very slow - it's certainly slower than chucking Bloodsoaked Champion at their face with Tymaret, and that's already been proven too slow against certain decks.

But that's just one card (and a whole article paragraph???)

He's right about Pitiless horde. That card is performing very, very well in tests.

http://deckstats.net/deck-6318557-74b3c ... 0f762.html

this is what I'm on currently btw. sb is jank from testing.

[deck]d00ds (29):
4 Mogis's Marauder
4 Tormented Hero
4 Bloodsoaked Champion
3 Alesha, Who Smiles at Death
4 Mardu Scout
4 Blood-Chin Rager
4 Battle Brawler
2 Pitiless Horde

spells (8):
4 Lightning Strike
4 Stoke the Flames

mana (22):
4 Temple of Malice
4 Bloodstained Mire
5 Mountain
7 Swamp
2 Mana Confluence

tech (1):
1 Obelisk of Urd

SB: 1 Underworld Cerberus
SB: 1 Chandra, Pyromaster
SB: 4 Roast
SB: 3 Self-Inflicted Wound
SB: 1 Dragonlord Kolaghan
SB: 2 Ultimate Price
SB: 2 Duress
SB: 2 Tymaret, the Murder King
[/deck]

Those things are all correct and my idea was quite awful.

It's just a very small and specific example of the way you erode big policies as an individual contributor. Easier reg for peon players who aren't purchasing byes -> less pressure/demand for sleep-in registration, because the base package is a less shitty experience. VIP prices decrease (at glacial speed).

But what do I know. I've been drinking all week and alcohol makes me dumb as shit.

Not trying to be a bummer, just trying to engage you because you're smart and think analytically. Everyone else here doesn't give a shit, so if you feel convicted about the problem it's up to you to figure out a way to fix it.

Tournament organization requires that a certain threshold of people be branded, corralled, and ready at a certain time. So how do you figure out which people are over/under that threshold? You see who's willing to pay for it.

The UX is shitty but the underlying motivation (running on schedule) is reasonable. The profiteering is obv shitty, but it's not surprising either. Individuals are very well-trained to throw money at problems or inconvenient situations; suggesting people roll dice or arm wrestle wouldn't work.

You could prototype a registration app with two types of client: terminal and personal device. The terminals automate registration, kiosk style, and ready the player slot for every step up to manual product distribution or deck reg. The personal device version includes a utility for individual pool or deck registration. Then pitch it and put their money in your pocket, and carry on making the world slightly less shitty in some other form.

But that's if you actually believe it's a thing worth changing vs. a thing worth talking about (or are you waiting for SOMEONE ELSE to fix it?).

SPEAKING OF THAT R/B DECK

Underwhelming. Performed best against R/W & G/W aggro decks because it could explosively steal 2 games in a set, but seriously underperformed against Azban midrange.

Even in sets where I intentionally made minor* mistakes as the Azban deck, the R/B deck had a lot of trouble closing out games where they opened with any number of 4x cards (Carytid, Rhino, Courser). This might mean my entire SB needs to be transformational specifically for this matchup, but unsure what direction that'd be even after like ~30 games.

Prob going to stick that deck in the place where aborted dreams go

*minor == things you'd let slide in a casual game, like tapping the wrong mana & being unable to cast a spell on time, missing one or three lifegain triggers.

TY FOR EDU

The fuck is a bujcaj. I googled it and nothing above the fold.

Better phrasing for my wordy post: there's no incentive to make SCG want to run unsanctioned tournaments when they could run sanctioned ones instead. Figure out how to change that, other than with mouthwords, and I'll pitch in your camp.

Today sucks man. Two of the biggest onion marketplaces went down and I'm an attention spaz without THC in my blood stream. Productivity levels floating between NOPE and MEH.

Also my job be like

Just all of the weird language you have to use to offer something to your opponent. It's so pedantic and causes people to get DQ'd for no reason.

Earned byes, splitting politics, paid perks...all of these things arent the game I want to play. SCG has wrapped this senseless bureaucracy around Magic.

Does SCG really have anything to do with any of that

They regulate their own earned bye and paid perks system, so yes.

The didn't create the unweidly language policies, but they enforce them. They're large enough that they could break off and hold their own ruleset tournaments if they wanted, a "standard rules minus these few bullshit things" league. They also have enough clout to push for an official rules change.

Need data to nail down a couple of things here, before you can argue the bolded:

Tournaments appear super lucrative because attendees are CONSIDERABLY more likely to drop large amounts of cash at a single event, but that earned income prob doesn't directly translate to clout because Wizards is prooobably providing product under very specific circumstances. Consider the tight margins your local game shops operate on when buying/redistributing Wiz products.

What % of MtG product consumers attend tournaments, how frequently, and what are they spending money on?

Would any of them STOP buying products to assert a demand of their provider? This point is the one you should consider, if you ignore the rest. I think MtG is a chemically/psychologically addictive experience. Magic is a fantastical gambling game. You keep hitting up your distributor, even if the transaction terms aren't in your favor.

I hate the way games extort players' experiences, and I'm an anti-capitalist hacker hippie by anyone's measure. But to actually solve the problem here, you need to offer REPLACEMENTS instead of half-hearted suggestions @ current infrastructure. This is why I have two different Cockatrice servers in two different countries ready to fire if ever Woogerworks goes down. If I were a little smarter and better networked, I'd totally float competitive MtG players participating only in online tournaments on F2P platforms.

Tangent question: Do CFB streamers even use Cockatrice, or are they only streaming MODO?

Not that you shit in the living room or are a dog.

I'm Monday-drunk, you know what I mean.

What a bucket of cunts. You don't kick a dog to reinforce that it shouldn't shit in the living room.

Steins;Gate - Eccentric tinkerer figuring out parallel spacetime by trial & error. Nods to hard science, zany crew of unlikely assistants, Saving The Hot Scientist.
BACCANO! - Narrative depicted by intertwining threads of an ensemble cast. Beautiful animation, high production values, lots of frames that stand alone as art.
Samurai Champloo - Just watch it, man.
Black Lagoon - Bitches with guns. Lots of fanservice, but these chicks aren't just eyecandy.
Serial Experiments Lain - My pet favorite. Best described as "If Neal Stephenson & Cory Doctorow got together and wrote a little girl."
King of Thorn - Survivors of Mysterious Virus uncover its origins, and why they're in a post-apocalyptic wonderland. Film, not a series. More beautiful art, but fairly brutal.

Start rattling off anime people. I need something to watch.

What're the last two or three titles you really enjoyed? What're you looking for?

Tap mutavault to activate itself, sacrifice to Falkenrath Aristocrat, morbid Brimstone volley. *-*

Yeah, there was a game where I dashed Warbringer + Kolaghan Forerunners + Kolaghan Skirmisher with another 2/2 already on board. 11 (4 trample) damage from 4 sources on turn 5. And all of those cards are common/uncommon.

R/B was really under-represented at my store, which I didn't get. We were divided into color groups for product distribution, and there were only ~6 other people at my table. I ended up winning the mirror against one of them in round 4. For comparison, 12+ people each picked R/G, U/B, U/W.

My commons/uncommons were all very strong. Plus bomb and most of the best spot removal in the set.

1cmc:
Lightning Beserker
Coat with Venom

2cmc:
Silumgar Assassin
Kolaghan Skirmisher
Blood-Chin Rager
Kolaghan Aspirant x 2
Qarsi Sadist

Twin Bolt
Ultimate price

3cmc:
Kolaghan Forerunners
Stormreach Brawler
Reckless Imp

Corpseweft
Butcher's Glee x 2

4cmc:
Warbringer
Vaultbreaker
Sabertooth Outrider
Vulturous Aven

Flatten

5cmc:
Sarkan's Rage

6 cmc:
Dragonlord Kolaghan

I opened an incredible sealed pool, but didn't go 4-0 because scrub. Dropped one match while seated at table 1. Mull'd to 5 G1 and got stuck on 2 land / 1 color (whatever, happens) and then proceeded to punt G2 by trying to unnecessarily accelerate a 2 --> 1 turn clock with Butcher's Glee into 2 cards and open mana while racing against blue/white evasion.

Monument Valley cameo in House of Cards! <3

Shop for your plane tickets & book hotels on Tuesday/Wednesday; it's when most price-matching algorithms will set weekly upper/lower limits. North American airlines in particular release fare ratings on Tuesday mornings.

/former sysadmin in a corporate travel/expense management company.

counting down the seconds until I can go home and playtest more with BEER.

Tymaret isn't the crux, but he's certainly an important piece of the puzzle. He gives reach to blocked d00ds, can be overextended, fits warrior tribal and buffs battle brawler.

Saito's list

4 Bloodsoaked Champion
4 Tormented Hero
4 Mardu Shadowspear
3 Ruthless Ripper
4 Pain Seer
4 Mogis's Marauder
4 Mardu Strike Leader
4 Bile Blight
3 Hero's Downfall
4 Obelisk of Urd
14 Swamp
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bloodstained Mire


1 Hero's Downfall
4 Thoughtseize
4 Herald of Torment
3 Murderous Cut
3 Ulcerate

Mardu Strike Leader is most definitely a thing. Need more time to figure out of it's a thing for the format now or just a thing in fantasy land.

I think Obelisk of Urd is a quality piece of tech, especially if I have a low under% against some particular deck; this shell needs to swarm, attempt to skirt blockers, burn, recur if extended into judgement.

Cut the Abzan Whip deck from the gauntlet and replace with Abzan Midrange/Control, it's the most popular deck in the format with some key differences from that list

Add GW Devotion

The other stuff looks okay

These are the lists I'm testing against:

http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=81018
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=80995
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=80713
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=80727
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=80725
http://sales.starcitygames.com//deckdat ... ckID=80704

Seen most frequently in the last ~3 Standard events on SCG. Not the greatest sample, so I have no idea if these see consistent play and what iterations they've gone through. Going to spend the next couple days catching up on the format.

Decline hero's blade. The second Tymaret is a dead draw because he can't sacrifice himself, so 3-4x is bad. Can't afford dead cards to create the slim chance of drawing thing + winmore_thing.

Satyr Nyx Smith, Rabblemaster, and Mardu Strike Leader are all rotating in on my tests.

Still trying to jam Tymaret like a baddie. This is certainly a pile of Cards That Do Stuff. Goldfishing @ work to see if it's worth the playtest time.

http://deckstats.net/deck-6236113-07938 ... 62452.html