Oh, I didn't know that. TLC is also for free in the cable here, but no reason and no time to watch 'housewife-tv'.
I rather watch Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and maybe football. And yes, the whole world calls it football, even your English forefathers, and they still do, because it's played with the foot, and not with the hand
And don't come me with the 3,4 min of kick-offs per game
1. Likely a good thing, but I wouldn't deign to know. 2. In regards to football, I'm not partial to either sport of the name or the appendages used to propagate its means of indicating victory, but I would make the modest proposal that Kronos was called fore-bearer of Zeus and, well, we all know how that ended, not to cross pollinate too many different English and Non-English satellites and their literature (and being fair to the English, well, they themselves are pretty much the scions of the Germanic, although still debated).
I had a great time playing this Saturday as I hope everyone else did. I don't think the next lunar eclipse is until 31 JAN 18, but Luna Sangre was in full effect this tourney. Whether I had my head in the stars, or was quite literally grounded by Choke, the land hate was in full effect and led to some very interesting games. Thanks to all for the good games and I hope to see everyone back next week. Here is a video tourney report if you enjoy watching them: CSM 18 MAR 17.
I am searching for an online sparring partner on Age of Wonders 1, 2 or 3, on Steam. If anyone is a fan of that series and wants to duel me on a regular basis, please let me know. I find this series to be more enjoyable than Magic Online, but I do love the Chainsaw Massacre and will never give that up!
Age of wonders can be a blast for a while, but it has a true dilemma. The definitely best part of the game is its combat engine, dozens of special abilities, spellcasters, the mana/spell system. I really enjoyed it( to learn,discover and master it), but very soon you realize that the AI, I rather call it AS, Artificial Stupidity( like in many other games!) is no challenge at all.
So I was happy, when there was an official tournament from the studio.
I jumped right in, only to find out that the vast majority(90% at least) of 'multi-player players' play with 'Automatic Combat Results' and simultaneous moves. Which definitely speed up things, but remove the combat part from the game. The one thing that really shines!
What is left over, is an Empire building game which is far less interesting than any Civ game, with much less options for buildings or research, and a real- time component, because you don't give orders simultaneously , that will be executed together at the end of turn! Instead your opponent can move his stacks to attack you, there are no zones of control or a 'Defend the position and attack enemy' order. Which means the units you stationed in that watchtower stay inactive when the enemy passes your border and just run into or towards your city. They will only fight if the enemy attacks them... If you are quick enough, you can even avoid a fight by running away with your stacks
It's like playing 3 or 4 MTG games simultaneously, and if you miss a 3-5 seconds reaction time, you are not allowed to play a Counterspell or Lightning Bolt anymore...
So, that's the dilemma, playing solo and turn based is fun, until you know the ropes, then AS is no challenge, and huge battles with 40 units are just 'work', take 1h or more and start getting tedious. You hunger to play vs human opponents.. Et voila, now it is a real-time game, with no combat system at all. You give a **** about any special ability or a certain combat spell, because you can not 'use' them anyway, because you just press the combat button...
On the other hand, if you decide to play classic 'turn-based' without auto-combat, you may have to wait 1h until your opponent finished a big battle vs a neutral city, which is really no fun either. Even 10 min waiting for smaller battles 2 turns in a row, while u finished your turn in 2 min, is just boring. I found no way to enjoy the game for a longer time.
All in all Heroes of Might&Magic III from 1999(!) is a better game, and that's because:
-While the combatsystem is much less detailed and has less options for units, it is still not simple or boring
-But the AI can handle the combat-system
-The different races and Heroes are better balanced
-The combat itself is much shorter
-The game works great in solo mode, the scenarios and maps are often 'strategic puzzles'( especially in all extensions), that forces you to make the right choices or conclusions. With other words, you won't win with the same strategy as 1 map or scenario before... Which is great, because it really changes the winning conditions! All maps are unique.
Also it elegantly sail around AI weaknesses about strategic decisions, when the AI Heroes live in that world, too, but your winning condition is to conquer that island with dragons. And they spawn more each turn.
-Multi-player: I spent weeks and months, but it was the pre-internet gaming time. People met to play boardgames, so we also met to play computergames. 'Hot seat' mode had the advantage that you didn't had to dismantle your desktop PC and a car to transport it and the monitor. Oh, god, the ******* monitors, 12kg or 5-6 pounds (2.2pound=1kg), and of course the appartment was on 4th floor..
For all people who don't know, the old houses in Berlin have a ceiling height of 3.5 - 4m (11.5-13.5 feet) and no lifts, of course:-)
But I divigate, I think I wouldn't play it nowerdays with 3 or 4 players( just to much waiting time), but if you have a friend 'physically' near to you , I recommend the 2 player hot seat mode to discover the game together. While you lose the 'fog of war'- effect, it is so more fun, because instead of staring on a blank screen at home or much more likely doing something else while waiting, you watch your opponent's moves and actions and stay connected to the game, you learn from his mistakes or copy his bold actions:-) When you are both more experienced, you could still decide to not watch by intention, to keep the fog of war.
1. Do you believe that Heroes of Might&Magic III is the best in its genre (ever!), or are you just comparing it to Age of Wonders?
2. Regarding your negative feedback about Age of Wonders multiplayer, I can suggest a solution: Human vs Human fights can be done in tactical mode, and Human vs Bot fights can be played in automatic mode. This way, there will be no un-necessary waiting time, and you can also have fun with tactical battles against the other human player. You can have your cake and eat it too.
Alternatively, there is an asynchronous mode. The game remains on the server, and you get a notification when it's your turn. Then you can play your turn, and load it back to the server, making it available for the next player. This allows you to play most of your battles with tactical combat. However, in my opinion this isn't as good as the first option mentioned above because it means that automatic battles must be played against other human players.
1. Do you believe that Heroes of Might&Magic III is the best in its genre (ever!), or are you just comparing it to Age of Wonders?
I definitely played HoMM III for the longest time of all PC games! It was absolutely top notch for 4-5 years, an incredible amount of time in the the fast-living PC games area.
is the best in its genre (ever!)
That is the keyword! Genre. There is no genre, there is HoMM 1-3( basically the same game, just improved ,polished, balanced and added unbelievable amounts of content in the 3rd game) and other games that picked specific concepts of HoMM, but not all briliant ideas. I think there has been never again a game that combined all that.
First of all, the basic game plays like a boardgame. Which may sound boring for 'youngsters' or greenhorns, but it basically means that a) all rules are known and visible, b) the gameplay is most important, not graphics, story or FPS( although at that time the graphics were great,too!) c) the reason to play it more than once is that it is balanced, but still the tactics for the different heroes and races are different.
Many other game designers introduced combat maps for tactical battles after HoMM, but that was just the obvious change to other Empire/Conquer games like Warlords. The brilliance of HoMM III is the combination of the best parts of several genres: Exploring/Discovering/Collecting with tactical combat and resource management and strategic decision with RPG elements and mild 'puzzles'.
Now, 18-20 years later with dozens of HoMM clones, obviously it can't surprise as much as then, anymore.
Age of Wonders is one of them, that's why I compared them.
HoMM had masses of encounters, resource piles, treasure chests, artifcats, mills ( for continuous resource production), one-time events, etc. on the map. So, when u start a map, u don't move your hero to the special 'thing' in range on the map, like in AoW. Instead you must plan which are the most important for u, now, or how you reach 3 or 4 instead of 'only' 2 in one turn.
Troop recruits appear once per week in each city or dwelling, but only Heroes(and the troops attached to them) are allowed to move! You can not move a single archer to collect those resources like in AoW. So, the number of heroes you own, decide how fast you discover and deploit the map. There are many scenarios, where u are limited to a single hero, which of course means, you need to change your strategy. Again, you see the boardgame origin, a normal turn takes 1-2 min( for an experienced player), even with a battle only 5 or 6 min.
And that is, where the game is unreached even after 20 years, your decision matters, you must solve problems, that really change from scenario to scenario, 'strategic puzzles' I would call them.
I give you an example. Treasure chests give you an amount of gold or that amount -500 in XP, your choice! So a 1000 gold chest is worth 500XP a 2000 gold chest could be 1500XP for your hero.
After you started the map, you realize soon, that you are in a 'pocket' surrounded by mountains(impassible terrain), where only one path leads out of, blocked by few Wyverns. No way, that you can win that combat with your 20 peasents and 4 archers, but there are still 4 mines/mills( for resources, like wood, ore, gold and sulfur) and 2 treasure chests protected with units, that you could beat, but not without losses. After collecting unprotected resource piles on the map, you have enough wood,ore and gold(money) to build the next unit building, the armory for swordsman. Should you now go for the treaure chests to get XP, for learning 3rd level spells for your hero by improving his level and gain 2 new traits, or should u take the money instead to improve your city with the next unit type, cavalry? Or is it better to attack the goldmine, and losing 80% of your troops that you collected, but get 1000 gold per week from then on? There will be only 3 swordsman and 4 archers and 15 peasents available next week( and you still have to pay gold to hire them)... Any building needs at least wood, ore and gold in different amounts to be build, so an attack on the less protected ore and wood mill( maybe 30-40% losses) seems reasonable,too, gold alone does not do the job. And if that is a multi-player game, the other player would have the same choices in his mountain pocket!
While many things may seem familiar to Aow, the gameplay is really different, because in relatively short (playing) time, I have to make a lot of decisions. The combat is not unimportant, but the game is about strategic decisions, that matter. AoW emphasises the combat, which is beautiful but slow, but don't deliver an AI that really can handle it. On the strategic side, the decisions seems less important, and are rare, anyway. The scenarios are abitrarily, not unique. Possibly, I'm just disappointed because 20 years after HoMM, there should be a new twist, or at least the old standard reached. HoMM III was polished on all aspects, while in AoW3 I have the feeling , many ideas were not really tested before publishing, like the simultaneous mode. In HoMM III, you will think at many points: "Oh , this is clever!", in AoW3 I think at many points: " That makes no sense!"
But to be fair, reaching the perfection of HoMM III is practically impossible. The rights on the series were bought by a big publisher, who decided it was better/cheaper when a new programmer team creates HoMM IV.
An absolute desaster, and one of the best examples, what happens if game designers don't understand what they are doing.
Or not playing passionately and thereby testing their game by themselves. A change to real-time action could not have been worse. Every single change was so bad, I'm missing words here.
HoMM V was an attempt to reboot the series with 3D graphics and back to HoMM III origins and quality. The gameplay however was 'simplified', less strategic decisions, but always you had to rotate the camera to find hidden treasures and resources on the main map, which really was annoying after a while. There was a new twist in combat: Iniative value, instead of moving all your units in 'your' round, now there was a battle order for all creatures accordingly. An OK game.
HoMM VI was the end of my affection for the series. After 14 years, there should be at least a rough idea about a logic and reasonable user interface, but hey, why not remove all texts for 100 different abilities and traits and replace them with cryptic symbols, and hey, let's create dozens of stupid ones, that will never be useful, but the player has the choice between 6 or 8 different ones instead of only 2. Yeah, let the players fight the user interface instead of the game mechanics, so it will take longer until they realize that this game is totally boring and unbalanced and there is no AI.
With your high praise for Heroes of M&M III, my interest has been sparked. I plan to get the original version for around 5 Euros here (instead of the re-mastered but incomplete version on Steam).
I have also found a mod to gain HD graphics here, as well as a fan-made expansion here.
Anyone want to challenge me on this game? (if you are also a beginner trying to learn this game).
Yes, the gog version is better, it has 2 extensions included and it definitely runs on modern systems, but are you sure that multi-player via internet works!? I think, it's still hot-seat only.
And to be honest, it never was the best multi-player game. On bigger maps with many heroes per player, it has quite some waiting time,too, but we had more patience back then. It is just better than Aow3, although it's already almost 20 years old...
I remembered meanwhile, there is a game that comes closer to Heroes III than others without being a copy: King's Bounty( Gold edition).
The game is definitely more combat-heavy, you spent more time fighting, but it has some nice new features for the fights and you level up not only the hero(yourself) but also your dragon or box of demons. Progress( XP-Level) is slower, but it is definitely more RPG, you follow a story. It lost the boardgame-appeal of HoMM III, but added RPG content, cut-scenes and conversations. The strategic decisions, or better the results of them, are not as obvious, so it can happen that u have to back up to a previous save from 2-3 days ago.
This RPG- content has advantages and disadvantages, the biggest disadvantage is the replayability, which suffers of course, if you know the story and the twists after finishing it once.
It's more a 'long, but single experience game',(typical for PC-games), while Heroes III is rather a series of scenarios for a boardgame. Which allowed the designer to completely change the settings via special events, rules or just map design. Which is what I think I miss most in AoW3, the variety and the surprise.
However, the main campaign in King's Bounty is huge already, and there has been 2 smaller but new ones added in gold edition, too.
And it runs on modern systems, it is only 5-6 years old. So it has more fancy graphics and effects,too.
But maybe, I can draw your attention to cdg's. Card Driven Games.
Paths of Glory and Twilight Struggle are the best, TS is shorter and easier for beginners. Those are 2 player games, which 'exist physically' for face-to-face games( you can buy them as boardgames), or they can be downloaded for free on wargameroom.com for 2 players via Internet.
TS is about the cold war between US and USSR from 1945- 1990, and take 60-90 min for a game, if it not ends with a sudden victory condition before. I can show you the ropes, if you are interested! I will play, although it is the most popular game there, so you will find other players easily,too. https://www.gmtgames.com/living_rules/TS_Rules_Deluxe.pdf
It is rather easy to learn( it looks more complicated as it is), so I would recommend it for beginners in this genre.
The best cdg is Paths of Glory about WW I (!) in Europe and Near East, most balanced (f.e. each player has his own deck)and most challenging card driven game. But already the length of a complete game, 5-6 h online, shows that it is not for beginners, of course it can be saved in progress.
10 years ago I played it every day and was Internet World Champion for 2 consecutive years. Sounds better than it was,though, less than 20 players:-)
PS. There exists a steam version of Twilight Struggle for 20 bucks, which includes a ridicilous AI, that nukes the world and loses the game, and a not working Multi-player matching system, but read the comments yourself.
The free software from Bruce Wigdor, uses the original map board, but the cards are 'only' text, you can find opponents via the chatroom in wargameroom.com
King's Bounty looks nice, but it is a 1-player game which rules out this game for me (to be fair, HoM&M III on GOG is also only hot seat, however the GOG version is a cheap and effective way to finish the full game and learn the ropes before delving into multiplayer on Steam).
I will continue to research. Thanks for all your helpful comments.
Hey friends =) winter time is done this week end ! start 10pm for me is much better.
Michelle iam an old fan of HMM, i ve bought the remastered anthological III on steam. When u want for a multiplayer game mon amie =)
Glad you're back. I am happy to have a sparring partner for HMM! Look forward to it. ML Berlin also hopes to join us in 3-player battle.
Dear all, can I ask your opinion about the card Sea Gate Wreckage? No one has ever used this card against me in the Chainsaw Massacre Tournament, but I think it is very powerful. Obviously this card belongs in decks which realistically will get down to 0 cards. This means some aggro decks and midrange decks that are heavily threat-based. Also, is it suitable for Elves, RDW, WW and Death & Taxes?
That card is very interesting, and I think it might have a home, but it's not in any of the decks you've listed. The problem is two fold for these decks (Elves, WW/D&T, RDW):
1. These decks are curve out/tempo decks not investment based decks (not definitively true, but generally); cards that are completely investment based need to be cast early, like T1-2, or never, if you want the best builds of the decks (land tax is a good example of one investment card I personnally condon in WW/D&T, but others may disagree; I know that some folks have had successes with outpost siege, but I tend to think it's either a win more card or one that is better suited to slower, more forgiving formats). That said, your aggro deck, if you're playing one of these builds, needs to optimize its chances of presenting a threat (or multiple) through turn 4, all of these decks are built with the hope of winning by T4-5 (RDW can kill on T3, but that's a 1% draw most of the time and assumes little to no resistance (ie: T1 goblin guide (2 damage total), T2 swift spear+bolt (9 damage total), T3 ball lightning+fireblast (25 damage total, and RDW!)). This card does not do that, it presents a self imposed tripping obstacle from the very start based upon need for colored mana, and further perpetuates it's trap in allowing you to continue wasting mana while your opponent presents relvant threats to the board and you draw savannah lions. This segways (vroom, vroom) into point #2 nicely
2. Note the example I gave from RDW, all of these decks are dependent upon their colored mana, inclusion of colorless lands (tapped lands are similar in alot of ways) comes at a cost and it's alot steeper than you'd expect. These types of lands will in most cases come at a great detriment to your base plan, which is to kill them before they present something relevant. I've found in testing that the cost is so great that in D&T I don't even run the mishra's factory and mutavault, because they take away from two core plans the deck has in mind: 1. kill them fast, need colored mana to do this and 2. deny them resources to make associated turn # expected mana development and play capability wildly different than the actual gamestate (ie ghost quarter, dustbowl, wasteland, tech edge, ageddon, ravages of war, leonin arb, aven mindcensor, thalia, all the tappers [because the more elegant way to think of tappers is as mana denial engines, ie you cast a siege rhino, my gideon's lawkeeper for 2 mana {1 for casting, 1 for activation} can turn that card [4 mana] into Alms of the Vein for the rest of the game, etc).
So, while I think the card is quite bad in these decks (similar to coercive portal and staff of nin [more :)]); I do also think it has a home.
I've been working on a colorless deck or at least near colorless deck that will use most if not all of the lands that produce multiple mana for one land (Ancient Tomb, Scorched Ruin, City of Traitors, Mishra's Workshop, etc] to cast mana denial spells and big dumb artifacts that win the game. Basically it's like 100CS STAX. I'm still in the early phases of building it and think it might take a while to finish, but in a deck like this I think you can get away with using this land because you don't require fixing as desperately and you'll be a top deck driven deck without cards like this or coercive portal/staff of nin.
Just my thoughts, curious to hear if anyone else has insights on it though.
Hi Lowman, thanks for your thoughts on Sea Gate Wreckage. I used that card today in my Shops deck and I liked how it performed.
Can I ask you: Do you think that the card Den Protector is strong enough for our format? I know she is a good card and I respect her, but I can't help but think that in our format, only the "best-of-the-best" cards can be played, the cream of a massive crop given the size of the card pool available to us. Is she good enough?
I personally believe she is too clunky (and I am the master of clunk myself, since I sometimes use clunky cards like Azorius Chancery, so this is saying something!). I believe that the Den Protector has embarked on a very successful marketing campaign, by trying to convince everyone that she is a second copy of Eternal Witness! She is riding on the success and reputation of Eternal Witness, sort of like a breach of trademark! She is no Eternal Witness, that's for sure. Higher upside if everything works out for her, but a much lower ceiling if it doesn't. So often, she confronts you with this question: Do I play her as a morph for 3 mana and hope that my opponent doesn't remove her with a shock or Murderous Redcap or a thousand other spells which kill her, or do I wait until I have 5 mana available? Most times you don't want to do the former, so she is mostly a 5 mana card and hence why I brand her as being clunky. 1 more mana and you can get a Primeval Titan!
Does anyone else have an opinion on Den Protector? Is she good enough to make the cut in our format? I used to play her, but I have now taken her out of my green decks because there are too many other stellar options in my view.
Hi Lowman, thanks for your thoughts on Sea Gate Wreckage. I used that card today in my Shops deck and I liked how it performed.
Can I ask you: Do you think that the card Den Protector is strong enough for our format? I know she is a good card and I respect her, but I can't help but think that in our format, only the "best-of-the-best" cards can be played, the cream of a massive crop given the size of the card pool available to us. Is she good enough?
Does anyone else have an opinion on Den Protector? Is she good enough to make the cut in our format? I used to play her, but I have now taken her out of my green decks because there are too many other stellar options in my view.
I would play 8 Den Protectors if I could. Sometimes you DP a Witness and have repeated blockers. Or you get back a Wasteland or whatever other reason that EW is good. Sometimes he picks up a Sword and bashes face.
Michelle, I tend to agree with Rob possibly for the same reason, but more specifically for this reason:
Midrange, as it is in most formats, has the best game against other archetypes (at least it shouldn't have many matchups that are less than 45% or so, if it does then I think the builder needs to reconsider the meta and build with greater depth of flexibility) in the format (abzan is the best, as far as midrange goes, but that's a whole other argument/debate). The backbone of the midrange strategy circulates around the flexibility and power level of its cards in varied matchup and their potential to provide 2-1 advantage (which is really saying the same thing, but a point more toward it's flexibility in fighting control decks).
There hasn't been a green deck I've played in recent history that does not include Den Protector (alright I don't run it in elves, but I haven't competitively played that deck). The reason being is the card is extremely flexible, it can play defense when you're up against the ropes and need to block and simultaneously get an answer card back to turn the game, it can play offense with evasion (and sure its evasion gets better with swords) while simultaneously acquiring more expended cards to further press the opponent toward loss, and against control it buys back much needed threats to force opponents to tie up mana not presenting their own threats or, in the case they've run out of answers, just win the game.
Sure this card is not eternal witness, in some ways it is better, although I would not say the pay off is as great as I'd like for the 5 mana vs a 3 mana investment. Early game eternal witness is likely always a better pull off of the top deck, but late game, when you can recast what you acquire from the graveyard, this card is a complete bomb. Also, not completely inconsequential, this card is, in more extravagant (greedy) mana bases, easier to cast.
But, I think a set of decent criteria for card selection when building a strong midrange deck (possibly any deck, but there's some concessions you have to make in control, aggro, and combo) are the following: flexibility, or how many matchups is this good in (ie golgari charm, kolaghan's command, thragtusk), power level (thragtusk, siege rhino, snapcaster mage), playability, can I cast this (thragtusk, restoration angel, solemn simulacrum), and the card's ability to exchange for 2-1 or greater with my opponent's cards (thragtusk [seeing a pattern here :)], kitchen finks, thalia guardian of thraben [I put this one down because effects like this are essentially the same as actually getting the card in the graveyard, if you can render an opponent's cards moot, over the time horizon required for them to be effective, then you're acquiring card advantage virtually). But hey that's just my two cents, some cards pass almost all of these tests, thragtusk I'm looking at you buddy (and really we have delver to blame for this card's creation, if you're the sort to always hate on the U mages), or you could just play blue, because mystic confluence, jace the mind sculptor, and cryptic command basically do all of these things too
So yeah, you should prolly play den protector in G matter of fact here is a list of what I consider to be indispensable creature cards in green decks:
dryad arbor (even without green sun's zenith, which you should also run in a G deck, this card is great)
deathrite shaman
noble hierarch
birds of paradise
scavenging ooze
sylvan caryatid
lotus cobra
tarmogoyf
den protector
sylvan advocate
kitchen finks
eternal witness
courser of kruphix
reclamation sage
tireless tracker
thragtusk
primeval titan
I think shout outs are due to the following:
fauna shaman (this card is certainly not survival of the fittest, the power disparity between this card and survival is far more vast than between eternal witness and den protector, but it's still great if you're running 35-40 critters, which is the only reason I didn't say it was indispensable)
obstinate baloth (when you need life or you know their running liliana well then this guy becomes indispensable)
thrun, the last troll (maybe a pet card of mine, but it's just so good against what green is so bad at beating, ie control, so I think its power level is alot higher than is obvious when played in the right matchup)
polukranos (5/5 for 4 mana, and it kills something if I spend a bunch of mana, count me in, this card is silly, it's a 2-1 if unanswered, and afterward tends to become the abyss when it starts attacking in (why couldn't you have had trample man?))
master of the wild hunt (essentially a much older and worse version of polukranos, but still high on my estimate)
rofellos, lanowar emissary (this card's power level is through the roof, it's downside is too great for me to include it on an indispensable listing; however, for all the power this card has it greatly limits what is playable in one's deck and in turn I think tends to soften your build matchups against certain decks, ie the ones that play counterspells and ***s, although in the right deck and given no answers this card is likely one of the more broken green cards ever printed)
Anyway those are some further thoughts on green cards, been on a run with midrange (which I think generally tends to equate with team "I play green" :P) for a while, decided I'd share some of my assessments of the cards I think are the best and to a smaller extent why.
Also, if anyone is interested I've put up a recording of the CSM here from this last Saturday: CSM 25 MAR 17.
Congratulations to dawts for his victory with 4CBlood.
Take it easy everyone
--KB
P.S. Also included is dawts trophy, on a side note if you've never taken a close look at the tarmogoyf art from MM, it's pretty hilarious the elk is like "OMFG" which is pretty accurate when answers don't abound to this card
1 Batterskull
1 Brainstorm
1 Bribery
1 Counterspell
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Memory Lapse
1 Nature's Lore
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Ponder
1 Three Visits
Lowman and S&R tease me that in order a to build a deck I add these 39 cards, add 38 lands and then the other 23 is the variations between my decks. Of course, there is a high degree of truth to that.
I don't have Caryatid, Advocate, Tracker from lowman's list. I certainly have played them but not in every green deck I've ever built. I disagree that MotWH is a worse Poluk; it doesn't take mana to activate and can take out more than one critter.
Can't say I've ever empirically tested both polyk and master of the wild hunt, and perhaps I was hasty to say that polyk is better than master (although I still think it but the difference in card value is in the smallest of margins for me). I tend to assess cards thinking that my opponents will find every means to break them and then wonder how resilient they are to resisting those means of being destroyed. The master if allowed to continue unfettered through an untap is likely better than polyk. The problem is, I give folks the credit to know how great master can be if unanswered and it's just a lot easier to answer with damage based removal on a one for one basis. Polyk is taking two damage based removal spells in most cases, which if that's how an opponent is spending their turn I tend to be fine with, if however, they're spending one mana to take my bomb 4 drop out then I'm fairly disappointed. The other half of the equation is that polyk is likely to attack before the master can; so while master is a far more attritional card, polyk automatically puts an opponent on the back foot due to critter size, while master foments a premature race, which frankly they might be winning because master isn't really that big anymore (before all their critters die etc).
The other three are obviously all fairly new cards, I think you'd be surprised by sylvan advocate, as I was, when I played the little guy that get's big eventually. We didn't discuss it previously but man lands are very important in this format (and I don't write this for you, I know you know this, but I like to think there's folks out there trying to understand and get started in the format, so I hope that my tone does not come off as condescending, it's not intended that way, many times I'll just try to get debate going to offer perspective to others, etc) 2/3 vigilance that keeps you alive buffs your lands and get's bigger himself is very powerful. Tireless tracker is busted, it's like master in the fact that if it goes unanswered for 2-3 turns it's likely to win you the game, but it's also monohuge in short order (but unless you're running a bunch of mana dorks, I think this card is stronger than edric, for ease of playing it, and for resiliency). Sylvan caryatid, this card also crept up on me, yeah it's a two mana, mana critter, which tends to be a lot worse than the 1CMC variety. However, the card's resilience and it's wall of wood toughness have impressed me in keeping me alive through the crucial T2-3 attacks from aggro decks.
P.S.--I don't think I've ever teased you about running all those cards (it'd be hard too they're all awesome cards), but I would say that having knowledge that those are all available in your pool arms me with a lot of information. I'm not a professional player, but I'm okay at the game, and the more hidden knowledge I have available the more dangerous I tend to think I become in context of the game (possibly true that the same could be said in life). The beauty of these cards you've listed is that often times one cannot play around them, or playing around them comes at large cost, board development vice leaving up mana for counter magic or removal etc. The funny thing is this; it's not knowledge of your card pool that I think arms one with the greatest degree of knowledge in how to play against you though; it's an understanding of why you've selected those cards and how you're wont to play them that I think can make an opposing player beat you regularly (and you definitely broke your teeth or likely still do in limited, you play like a polished limited player does :)). To quit speaking in riddles, for me I typify you as an investment player; you're always looking for the best exchange rate in your cards (for example krosan verge, or my assumption that you would not block my grim flayer with an unflipped den protector given you could not flip it to gain value, thus letting me purify my top deck and possibly acquire 4/4 status given one card type short of delirium). You will often times look to find the maximum value in your own cards vice assessing an opposing player's possible holdings and their desired path to victory. I tend to think of this game in decision cycles (and there is luck involved which makes the game great because, if every game was a grinder and it came down to the best player winning every time well we'd all be playing chess :P) and if I can understand where an opponent wants to take the game I can tend to use that to either derail their plan on the spot given my holdings or better determine the last point at which I need to interact to derail their plan and still accomplish my own (assuming that this will maximize attrition of their available options to assume a new course after causing said train wreck). Often times this leads to plays that are not technically sound or eschew value (blocking the grim flayer) and I think often times they're more based on intuition than logic, but that comes with the territory of playing a very small pool of players and really getting into the meta-meta game of how ones opponent thinks (which is why I love this game).
I have played the Sensei a lot in this format over the years, and yes he is a great player.
This is how a battle feels against him from my perspective:
Turn 1: Sensei WILL play a mana dork. Just accept this and move on with your lives, it IS going to happen. He will use a Green Sun's Zenith if necessary to do so, finding Dryad. Turn 2: Sensei will play a 3 mana card. Or a Three Visits/Nature's Lore and then another 2 drop. Or a Cobra and another 1 or 2 drop. Turn 3: Sensei will use his excellent mana to further develop the board.
Now I will feel under a tonne of pressure. If I lost the die roll, I will be feeling buried by this stage.
Sensei is also a master of dealing with opposing enchantments and artifacts, often packing the Pridemage, Sage, Naturalists, Slime and Wickerbough all in the main deck, with creature tutors to find them when necessary! Don't expect to sit behind a Vedalkan Shackles for long. This is not good news for me because I love myself a good enchantment or artifact.
Sensei will not play cards like Sylvan Ranger, Saytr Wayfinder, Civic Wayfinder, Evolutionary Leap, Mastery of the Unseen and so on, preferring instead the tempo route. Sensei also prefers Den Protector over Whisperwood Elemental, which is good for me because I do not like the Whisperwood protecting him against wraths and gaining him a creature each turn. I feel much safer staring down a Den Protector or a Master of the Wild Hunt than I do a Whisperwood Elemental. Sensei also does not use Selfless Spirit as far as I know (and at very least, I have never seen him cast Selfless Spirit).
However Sensei has one big Achilles' heel. Board sweeps. Sensei is always so committed to quickly developing a potent board early in the game, that a board sweep is devastating. He does have some counter magic and some recovery spells like Fact or Fiction, as well as the Swords which survive most mass removal except End Hostilities, Akroma's Vengeance and Planar Cleansing, but often it's not enough. I feel in a much safer position after the first board sweep happens. This is why I often like adding extra sweepers in the board - they are anti-Sensei weapons. And they are very useful against most aggro matchups, and total blowouts against a dedicated Elf deck.
Well I for one think Den Protector is a tad overrated five mana for a regrowth effect it isn't exactly a house of a card as for the flexibility of being able to beat down or kill planeswalkers assuming they have no blockers for three extra mana, that doesn't sound so enticing to me in my opinion. For a regrowth effect you have to ask yourself is it worth it or are you better off playing a real 4 or 5 mana card, something like Nissa, vital force (this card has been exceptional for me since I put it in my deck) or regrowth itself. I understand sensei has multiple morphs so he has the mind game bonus as well. I can definitely respect the card though especially if people are playing more slower control decks. The card is good but as S&R said sometime last week in regards to Jötun Grunt ''lots of cards are good in s100'', it's definitely a card I can see myself playing with and without.
We all have our cards we gravitate towards to As for miners maindeck yeah that's just something i've had success with, I'll always probably play with them along with good old Dark confidant as long as im playing those colors. I'm surprised no one mentioned duskwatch recruiter I really like this card although I haven't played with it yet, I always feel pressured to remove it, when its in play.
TLC is owned by Discovery Media, that you don't know of such mindless atrocities in the DEU is heartening.
--KB
I rather watch Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead and maybe football. And yes, the whole world calls it football, even your English forefathers, and they still do, because it's played with the foot, and not with the hand
And don't come me with the 3,4 min of kick-offs per game
1. Likely a good thing, but I wouldn't deign to know. 2. In regards to football, I'm not partial to either sport of the name or the appendages used to propagate its means of indicating victory, but I would make the modest proposal that Kronos was called fore-bearer of Zeus and, well, we all know how that ended, not to cross pollinate too many different English and Non-English satellites and their literature (and being fair to the English, well, they themselves are pretty much the scions of the Germanic, although still debated).
Take it easy man
--KB
Undefeated : lowman02 - 0 (lowman donated his prize to Golden_Lin)
Golden_Lin -4
Lost once:
The_Sensei -2
dawts -2
Michelle_Wong -2
Doorprize: blkdrgn18 -1
I had a great time playing this Saturday as I hope everyone else did. I don't think the next lunar eclipse is until 31 JAN 18, but Luna Sangre was in full effect this tourney. Whether I had my head in the stars, or was quite literally grounded by Choke, the land hate was in full effect and led to some very interesting games. Thanks to all for the good games and I hope to see everyone back next week. Here is a video tourney report if you enjoy watching them: CSM 18 MAR 17.
Take it easy everyone
--KB
I am searching for an online sparring partner on Age of Wonders 1, 2 or 3, on Steam. If anyone is a fan of that series and wants to duel me on a regular basis, please let me know. I find this series to be more enjoyable than Magic Online, but I do love the Chainsaw Massacre and will never give that up!
So I was happy, when there was an official tournament from the studio.
I jumped right in, only to find out that the vast majority(90% at least) of 'multi-player players' play with 'Automatic Combat Results' and simultaneous moves. Which definitely speed up things, but remove the combat part from the game. The one thing that really shines!
What is left over, is an Empire building game which is far less interesting than any Civ game, with much less options for buildings or research, and a real- time component, because you don't give orders simultaneously , that will be executed together at the end of turn! Instead your opponent can move his stacks to attack you, there are no zones of control or a 'Defend the position and attack enemy' order. Which means the units you stationed in that watchtower stay inactive when the enemy passes your border and just run into or towards your city. They will only fight if the enemy attacks them... If you are quick enough, you can even avoid a fight by running away with your stacks
It's like playing 3 or 4 MTG games simultaneously, and if you miss a 3-5 seconds reaction time, you are not allowed to play a Counterspell or Lightning Bolt anymore...
So, that's the dilemma, playing solo and turn based is fun, until you know the ropes, then AS is no challenge, and huge battles with 40 units are just 'work', take 1h or more and start getting tedious. You hunger to play vs human opponents.. Et voila, now it is a real-time game, with no combat system at all. You give a **** about any special ability or a certain combat spell, because you can not 'use' them anyway, because you just press the combat button...
On the other hand, if you decide to play classic 'turn-based' without auto-combat, you may have to wait 1h until your opponent finished a big battle vs a neutral city, which is really no fun either. Even 10 min waiting for smaller battles 2 turns in a row, while u finished your turn in 2 min, is just boring. I found no way to enjoy the game for a longer time.
All in all Heroes of Might&Magic III from 1999(!) is a better game, and that's because:
-While the combatsystem is much less detailed and has less options for units, it is still not simple or boring
-But the AI can handle the combat-system
-The different races and Heroes are better balanced
-The combat itself is much shorter
-The game works great in solo mode, the scenarios and maps are often 'strategic puzzles'( especially in all extensions), that forces you to make the right choices or conclusions. With other words, you won't win with the same strategy as 1 map or scenario before... Which is great, because it really changes the winning conditions! All maps are unique.
Also it elegantly sail around AI weaknesses about strategic decisions, when the AI Heroes live in that world, too, but your winning condition is to conquer that island with dragons. And they spawn more each turn.
-Multi-player: I spent weeks and months, but it was the pre-internet gaming time. People met to play boardgames, so we also met to play computergames. 'Hot seat' mode had the advantage that you didn't had to dismantle your desktop PC and a car to transport it and the monitor. Oh, god, the ******* monitors, 12kg or 5-6 pounds (2.2pound=1kg), and of course the appartment was on 4th floor..
For all people who don't know, the old houses in Berlin have a ceiling height of 3.5 - 4m (11.5-13.5 feet) and no lifts, of course:-)
But I divigate, I think I wouldn't play it nowerdays with 3 or 4 players( just to much waiting time), but if you have a friend 'physically' near to you , I recommend the 2 player hot seat mode to discover the game together. While you lose the 'fog of war'- effect, it is so more fun, because instead of staring on a blank screen at home or much more likely doing something else while waiting, you watch your opponent's moves and actions and stay connected to the game, you learn from his mistakes or copy his bold actions:-) When you are both more experienced, you could still decide to not watch by intention, to keep the fog of war.
1. Do you believe that Heroes of Might&Magic III is the best in its genre (ever!), or are you just comparing it to Age of Wonders?
2. Regarding your negative feedback about Age of Wonders multiplayer, I can suggest a solution: Human vs Human fights can be done in tactical mode, and Human vs Bot fights can be played in automatic mode. This way, there will be no un-necessary waiting time, and you can also have fun with tactical battles against the other human player. You can have your cake and eat it too.
Alternatively, there is an asynchronous mode. The game remains on the server, and you get a notification when it's your turn. Then you can play your turn, and load it back to the server, making it available for the next player. This allows you to play most of your battles with tactical combat. However, in my opinion this isn't as good as the first option mentioned above because it means that automatic battles must be played against other human players.
Does this solve your main grievance?
I definitely played HoMM III for the longest time of all PC games! It was absolutely top notch for 4-5 years, an incredible amount of time in the the fast-living PC games area.
is the best in its genre (ever!)
That is the keyword! Genre. There is no genre, there is HoMM 1-3( basically the same game, just improved ,polished, balanced and added unbelievable amounts of content in the 3rd game) and other games that picked specific concepts of HoMM, but not all briliant ideas. I think there has been never again a game that combined all that.
First of all, the basic game plays like a boardgame. Which may sound boring for 'youngsters' or greenhorns, but it basically means that a) all rules are known and visible, b) the gameplay is most important, not graphics, story or FPS( although at that time the graphics were great,too!) c) the reason to play it more than once is that it is balanced, but still the tactics for the different heroes and races are different.
Many other game designers introduced combat maps for tactical battles after HoMM, but that was just the obvious change to other Empire/Conquer games like Warlords. The brilliance of HoMM III is the combination of the best parts of several genres: Exploring/Discovering/Collecting with tactical combat and resource management and strategic decision with RPG elements and mild 'puzzles'.
Now, 18-20 years later with dozens of HoMM clones, obviously it can't surprise as much as then, anymore.
Age of Wonders is one of them, that's why I compared them.
HoMM had masses of encounters, resource piles, treasure chests, artifcats, mills ( for continuous resource production), one-time events, etc. on the map. So, when u start a map, u don't move your hero to the special 'thing' in range on the map, like in AoW. Instead you must plan which are the most important for u, now, or how you reach 3 or 4 instead of 'only' 2 in one turn.
Troop recruits appear once per week in each city or dwelling, but only Heroes(and the troops attached to them) are allowed to move! You can not move a single archer to collect those resources like in AoW. So, the number of heroes you own, decide how fast you discover and deploit the map. There are many scenarios, where u are limited to a single hero, which of course means, you need to change your strategy. Again, you see the boardgame origin, a normal turn takes 1-2 min( for an experienced player), even with a battle only 5 or 6 min.
And that is, where the game is unreached even after 20 years, your decision matters, you must solve problems, that really change from scenario to scenario, 'strategic puzzles' I would call them.
I give you an example. Treasure chests give you an amount of gold or that amount -500 in XP, your choice! So a 1000 gold chest is worth 500XP a 2000 gold chest could be 1500XP for your hero.
After you started the map, you realize soon, that you are in a 'pocket' surrounded by mountains(impassible terrain), where only one path leads out of, blocked by few Wyverns. No way, that you can win that combat with your 20 peasents and 4 archers, but there are still 4 mines/mills( for resources, like wood, ore, gold and sulfur) and 2 treasure chests protected with units, that you could beat, but not without losses. After collecting unprotected resource piles on the map, you have enough wood,ore and gold(money) to build the next unit building, the armory for swordsman. Should you now go for the treaure chests to get XP, for learning 3rd level spells for your hero by improving his level and gain 2 new traits, or should u take the money instead to improve your city with the next unit type, cavalry? Or is it better to attack the goldmine, and losing 80% of your troops that you collected, but get 1000 gold per week from then on? There will be only 3 swordsman and 4 archers and 15 peasents available next week( and you still have to pay gold to hire them)... Any building needs at least wood, ore and gold in different amounts to be build, so an attack on the less protected ore and wood mill( maybe 30-40% losses) seems reasonable,too, gold alone does not do the job. And if that is a multi-player game, the other player would have the same choices in his mountain pocket!
While many things may seem familiar to Aow, the gameplay is really different, because in relatively short (playing) time, I have to make a lot of decisions. The combat is not unimportant, but the game is about strategic decisions, that matter. AoW emphasises the combat, which is beautiful but slow, but don't deliver an AI that really can handle it. On the strategic side, the decisions seems less important, and are rare, anyway. The scenarios are abitrarily, not unique. Possibly, I'm just disappointed because 20 years after HoMM, there should be a new twist, or at least the old standard reached. HoMM III was polished on all aspects, while in AoW3 I have the feeling , many ideas were not really tested before publishing, like the simultaneous mode. In HoMM III, you will think at many points: "Oh , this is clever!", in AoW3 I think at many points: " That makes no sense!"
But to be fair, reaching the perfection of HoMM III is practically impossible. The rights on the series were bought by a big publisher, who decided it was better/cheaper when a new programmer team creates HoMM IV.
An absolute desaster, and one of the best examples, what happens if game designers don't understand what they are doing.
Or not playing passionately and thereby testing their game by themselves. A change to real-time action could not have been worse. Every single change was so bad, I'm missing words here.
HoMM V was an attempt to reboot the series with 3D graphics and back to HoMM III origins and quality. The gameplay however was 'simplified', less strategic decisions, but always you had to rotate the camera to find hidden treasures and resources on the main map, which really was annoying after a while. There was a new twist in combat: Iniative value, instead of moving all your units in 'your' round, now there was a battle order for all creatures accordingly. An OK game.
HoMM VI was the end of my affection for the series. After 14 years, there should be at least a rough idea about a logic and reasonable user interface, but hey, why not remove all texts for 100 different abilities and traits and replace them with cryptic symbols, and hey, let's create dozens of stupid ones, that will never be useful, but the player has the choice between 6 or 8 different ones instead of only 2. Yeah, let the players fight the user interface instead of the game mechanics, so it will take longer until they realize that this game is totally boring and unbalanced and there is no AI.
With your high praise for Heroes of M&M III, my interest has been sparked. I plan to get the original version for around 5 Euros here (instead of the re-mastered but incomplete version on Steam).
I have also found a mod to gain HD graphics here, as well as a fan-made expansion here.
Anyone want to challenge me on this game? (if you are also a beginner trying to learn this game).
And to be honest, it never was the best multi-player game. On bigger maps with many heroes per player, it has quite some waiting time,too, but we had more patience back then. It is just better than Aow3, although it's already almost 20 years old...
I remembered meanwhile, there is a game that comes closer to Heroes III than others without being a copy: King's Bounty( Gold edition).
The game is definitely more combat-heavy, you spent more time fighting, but it has some nice new features for the fights and you level up not only the hero(yourself) but also your dragon or box of demons. Progress( XP-Level) is slower, but it is definitely more RPG, you follow a story. It lost the boardgame-appeal of HoMM III, but added RPG content, cut-scenes and conversations. The strategic decisions, or better the results of them, are not as obvious, so it can happen that u have to back up to a previous save from 2-3 days ago.
This RPG- content has advantages and disadvantages, the biggest disadvantage is the replayability, which suffers of course, if you know the story and the twists after finishing it once.
It's more a 'long, but single experience game',(typical for PC-games), while Heroes III is rather a series of scenarios for a boardgame. Which allowed the designer to completely change the settings via special events, rules or just map design. Which is what I think I miss most in AoW3, the variety and the surprise.
However, the main campaign in King's Bounty is huge already, and there has been 2 smaller but new ones added in gold edition, too.
And it runs on modern systems, it is only 5-6 years old. So it has more fancy graphics and effects,too.
But maybe, I can draw your attention to cdg's. Card Driven Games.
Paths of Glory and Twilight Struggle are the best, TS is shorter and easier for beginners. Those are 2 player games, which 'exist physically' for face-to-face games( you can buy them as boardgames), or they can be downloaded for free on wargameroom.com for 2 players via Internet.
TS is about the cold war between US and USSR from 1945- 1990, and take 60-90 min for a game, if it not ends with a sudden victory condition before. I can show you the ropes, if you are interested! I will play, although it is the most popular game there, so you will find other players easily,too.
https://www.gmtgames.com/living_rules/TS_Rules_Deluxe.pdf
It is rather easy to learn( it looks more complicated as it is), so I would recommend it for beginners in this genre.
The best cdg is Paths of Glory about WW I (!) in Europe and Near East, most balanced (f.e. each player has his own deck)and most challenging card driven game. But already the length of a complete game, 5-6 h online, shows that it is not for beginners, of course it can be saved in progress.
10 years ago I played it every day and was Internet World Champion for 2 consecutive years. Sounds better than it was,though, less than 20 players:-)
PS. There exists a steam version of Twilight Struggle for 20 bucks, which includes a ridicilous AI, that nukes the world and loses the game, and a not working Multi-player matching system, but read the comments yourself.
The free software from Bruce Wigdor, uses the original map board, but the cards are 'only' text, you can find opponents via the chatroom in wargameroom.com
I will continue to research. Thanks for all your helpful comments.
Undefeated : lowman02 - 0 ( lowman donated his prize to me)
ML_Berlin -4
Lost once:
RobertZdar -1.5
The_Sensei -1.5
dawts -1.5
Michelle_Wong -1.5
Doorprize: DrPringles -1
Michelle iam an old fan of HMM, i ve bought the remastered anthological III on steam. When u want for a multiplayer game mon amie =)
Glad you're back. I am happy to have a sparring partner for HMM! Look forward to it. ML Berlin also hopes to join us in 3-player battle.
Dear all, can I ask your opinion about the card Sea Gate Wreckage? No one has ever used this card against me in the Chainsaw Massacre Tournament, but I think it is very powerful. Obviously this card belongs in decks which realistically will get down to 0 cards. This means some aggro decks and midrange decks that are heavily threat-based. Also, is it suitable for Elves, RDW, WW and Death & Taxes?
That card is very interesting, and I think it might have a home, but it's not in any of the decks you've listed. The problem is two fold for these decks (Elves, WW/D&T, RDW):
1. These decks are curve out/tempo decks not investment based decks (not definitively true, but generally); cards that are completely investment based need to be cast early, like T1-2, or never, if you want the best builds of the decks (land tax is a good example of one investment card I personnally condon in WW/D&T, but others may disagree; I know that some folks have had successes with outpost siege, but I tend to think it's either a win more card or one that is better suited to slower, more forgiving formats). That said, your aggro deck, if you're playing one of these builds, needs to optimize its chances of presenting a threat (or multiple) through turn 4, all of these decks are built with the hope of winning by T4-5 (RDW can kill on T3, but that's a 1% draw most of the time and assumes little to no resistance (ie: T1 goblin guide (2 damage total), T2 swift spear+bolt (9 damage total), T3 ball lightning+fireblast (25 damage total, and RDW!)). This card does not do that, it presents a self imposed tripping obstacle from the very start based upon need for colored mana, and further perpetuates it's trap in allowing you to continue wasting mana while your opponent presents relvant threats to the board and you draw savannah lions. This segways (vroom, vroom) into point #2 nicely
2. Note the example I gave from RDW, all of these decks are dependent upon their colored mana, inclusion of colorless lands (tapped lands are similar in alot of ways) comes at a cost and it's alot steeper than you'd expect. These types of lands will in most cases come at a great detriment to your base plan, which is to kill them before they present something relevant. I've found in testing that the cost is so great that in D&T I don't even run the mishra's factory and mutavault, because they take away from two core plans the deck has in mind: 1. kill them fast, need colored mana to do this and 2. deny them resources to make associated turn # expected mana development and play capability wildly different than the actual gamestate (ie ghost quarter, dustbowl, wasteland, tech edge, ageddon, ravages of war, leonin arb, aven mindcensor, thalia, all the tappers [because the more elegant way to think of tappers is as mana denial engines, ie you cast a siege rhino, my gideon's lawkeeper for 2 mana {1 for casting, 1 for activation} can turn that card [4 mana] into Alms of the Vein for the rest of the game, etc).
So, while I think the card is quite bad in these decks (similar to coercive portal and staff of nin [more :)]); I do also think it has a home.
I've been working on a colorless deck or at least near colorless deck that will use most if not all of the lands that produce multiple mana for one land (Ancient Tomb, Scorched Ruin, City of Traitors, Mishra's Workshop, etc] to cast mana denial spells and big dumb artifacts that win the game. Basically it's like 100CS STAX. I'm still in the early phases of building it and think it might take a while to finish, but in a deck like this I think you can get away with using this land because you don't require fixing as desperately and you'll be a top deck driven deck without cards like this or coercive portal/staff of nin.
Just my thoughts, curious to hear if anyone else has insights on it though.
Take it easy everyone
--KB
Can I ask you: Do you think that the card Den Protector is strong enough for our format? I know she is a good card and I respect her, but I can't help but think that in our format, only the "best-of-the-best" cards can be played, the cream of a massive crop given the size of the card pool available to us. Is she good enough?
I personally believe she is too clunky (and I am the master of clunk myself, since I sometimes use clunky cards like Azorius Chancery, so this is saying something!). I believe that the Den Protector has embarked on a very successful marketing campaign, by trying to convince everyone that she is a second copy of Eternal Witness! She is riding on the success and reputation of Eternal Witness, sort of like a breach of trademark! She is no Eternal Witness, that's for sure. Higher upside if everything works out for her, but a much lower ceiling if it doesn't. So often, she confronts you with this question: Do I play her as a morph for 3 mana and hope that my opponent doesn't remove her with a shock or Murderous Redcap or a thousand other spells which kill her, or do I wait until I have 5 mana available? Most times you don't want to do the former, so she is mostly a 5 mana card and hence why I brand her as being clunky. 1 more mana and you can get a Primeval Titan!
Does anyone else have an opinion on Den Protector? Is she good enough to make the cut in our format? I used to play her, but I have now taken her out of my green decks because there are too many other stellar options in my view.
I would play 8 Den Protectors if I could. Sometimes you DP a Witness and have repeated blockers. Or you get back a Wasteland or whatever other reason that EW is good. Sometimes he picks up a Sword and bashes face.
Midrange, as it is in most formats, has the best game against other archetypes (at least it shouldn't have many matchups that are less than 45% or so, if it does then I think the builder needs to reconsider the meta and build with greater depth of flexibility) in the format (abzan is the best, as far as midrange goes, but that's a whole other argument/debate). The backbone of the midrange strategy circulates around the flexibility and power level of its cards in varied matchup and their potential to provide 2-1 advantage (which is really saying the same thing, but a point more toward it's flexibility in fighting control decks).
There hasn't been a green deck I've played in recent history that does not include Den Protector (alright I don't run it in elves, but I haven't competitively played that deck). The reason being is the card is extremely flexible, it can play defense when you're up against the ropes and need to block and simultaneously get an answer card back to turn the game, it can play offense with evasion (and sure its evasion gets better with swords) while simultaneously acquiring more expended cards to further press the opponent toward loss, and against control it buys back much needed threats to force opponents to tie up mana not presenting their own threats or, in the case they've run out of answers, just win the game.
Sure this card is not eternal witness, in some ways it is better, although I would not say the pay off is as great as I'd like for the 5 mana vs a 3 mana investment. Early game eternal witness is likely always a better pull off of the top deck, but late game, when you can recast what you acquire from the graveyard, this card is a complete bomb. Also, not completely inconsequential, this card is, in more extravagant (greedy) mana bases, easier to cast.
But, I think a set of decent criteria for card selection when building a strong midrange deck (possibly any deck, but there's some concessions you have to make in control, aggro, and combo) are the following: flexibility, or how many matchups is this good in (ie golgari charm, kolaghan's command, thragtusk), power level (thragtusk, siege rhino, snapcaster mage), playability, can I cast this (thragtusk, restoration angel, solemn simulacrum), and the card's ability to exchange for 2-1 or greater with my opponent's cards (thragtusk [seeing a pattern here :)], kitchen finks, thalia guardian of thraben [I put this one down because effects like this are essentially the same as actually getting the card in the graveyard, if you can render an opponent's cards moot, over the time horizon required for them to be effective, then you're acquiring card advantage virtually). But hey that's just my two cents, some cards pass almost all of these tests, thragtusk I'm looking at you buddy (and really we have delver to blame for this card's creation, if you're the sort to always hate on the U mages), or you could just play blue, because mystic confluence, jace the mind sculptor, and cryptic command basically do all of these things too
So yeah, you should prolly play den protector in G matter of fact here is a list of what I consider to be indispensable creature cards in green decks:
dryad arbor (even without green sun's zenith, which you should also run in a G deck, this card is great)
deathrite shaman
noble hierarch
birds of paradise
scavenging ooze
sylvan caryatid
lotus cobra
tarmogoyf
den protector
sylvan advocate
kitchen finks
eternal witness
courser of kruphix
reclamation sage
tireless tracker
thragtusk
primeval titan
I think shout outs are due to the following:
fauna shaman (this card is certainly not survival of the fittest, the power disparity between this card and survival is far more vast than between eternal witness and den protector, but it's still great if you're running 35-40 critters, which is the only reason I didn't say it was indispensable)
obstinate baloth (when you need life or you know their running liliana well then this guy becomes indispensable)
thrun, the last troll (maybe a pet card of mine, but it's just so good against what green is so bad at beating, ie control, so I think its power level is alot higher than is obvious when played in the right matchup)
polukranos (5/5 for 4 mana, and it kills something if I spend a bunch of mana, count me in, this card is silly, it's a 2-1 if unanswered, and afterward tends to become the abyss when it starts attacking in (why couldn't you have had trample man?))
master of the wild hunt (essentially a much older and worse version of polukranos, but still high on my estimate)
rofellos, lanowar emissary (this card's power level is through the roof, it's downside is too great for me to include it on an indispensable listing; however, for all the power this card has it greatly limits what is playable in one's deck and in turn I think tends to soften your build matchups against certain decks, ie the ones that play counterspells and ***s, although in the right deck and given no answers this card is likely one of the more broken green cards ever printed)
Anyway those are some further thoughts on green cards, been on a run with midrange (which I think generally tends to equate with team "I play green" :P) for a while, decided I'd share some of my assessments of the cards I think are the best and to a smaller extent why.
Also, if anyone is interested I've put up a recording of the CSM here from this last Saturday: CSM 25 MAR 17.
Congratulations to dawts for his victory with 4CBlood.
Take it easy everyone
--KB
P.S. Also included is dawts trophy, on a side note if you've never taken a close look at the tarmogoyf art from MM, it's pretty hilarious the elk is like "OMFG" which is pretty accurate when answers don't abound to this card
1 Birds of Paradise
1 Conclave Naturalists
1 Courser of Kruphix
1 Deathrite Shaman
1 Den Protector
1 Dryad Arbor
1 Edric, Spymaster of Trest
1 Eternal Witness
1 Fauna Shaman
1 Hangarback Walker
1 Kitchen Finks
1 Lotus Cobra
1 Master of the Wild Hunt
1 Nissa, Vastwood Seer
1 Noble Hierarch
1 Primeval Titan
1 Reclamation Sage
1 Scavenging Ooze
1 Snapcaster Mage
1 Tarmogoyf
1 Thragtusk
1 Vendilion Clique
1 Wickerbough Elder
1 Batterskull
1 Brainstorm
1 Bribery
1 Counterspell
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Garruk Relentless
1 Garruk Wildspeaker
1 Green Sun's Zenith
1 Jace, Architect of Thought
1 Jace, the Mind Sculptor
1 Memory Lapse
1 Nature's Lore
1 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
1 Ponder
1 Three Visits
Lowman and S&R tease me that in order a to build a deck I add these 39 cards, add 38 lands and then the other 23 is the variations between my decks. Of course, there is a high degree of truth to that.
I don't have Caryatid, Advocate, Tracker from lowman's list. I certainly have played them but not in every green deck I've ever built. I disagree that MotWH is a worse Poluk; it doesn't take mana to activate and can take out more than one critter.
Can't say I've ever empirically tested both polyk and master of the wild hunt, and perhaps I was hasty to say that polyk is better than master (although I still think it but the difference in card value is in the smallest of margins for me). I tend to assess cards thinking that my opponents will find every means to break them and then wonder how resilient they are to resisting those means of being destroyed. The master if allowed to continue unfettered through an untap is likely better than polyk. The problem is, I give folks the credit to know how great master can be if unanswered and it's just a lot easier to answer with damage based removal on a one for one basis. Polyk is taking two damage based removal spells in most cases, which if that's how an opponent is spending their turn I tend to be fine with, if however, they're spending one mana to take my bomb 4 drop out then I'm fairly disappointed. The other half of the equation is that polyk is likely to attack before the master can; so while master is a far more attritional card, polyk automatically puts an opponent on the back foot due to critter size, while master foments a premature race, which frankly they might be winning because master isn't really that big anymore (before all their critters die etc).
The other three are obviously all fairly new cards, I think you'd be surprised by sylvan advocate, as I was, when I played the little guy that get's big eventually. We didn't discuss it previously but man lands are very important in this format (and I don't write this for you, I know you know this, but I like to think there's folks out there trying to understand and get started in the format, so I hope that my tone does not come off as condescending, it's not intended that way, many times I'll just try to get debate going to offer perspective to others, etc) 2/3 vigilance that keeps you alive buffs your lands and get's bigger himself is very powerful. Tireless tracker is busted, it's like master in the fact that if it goes unanswered for 2-3 turns it's likely to win you the game, but it's also monohuge in short order (but unless you're running a bunch of mana dorks, I think this card is stronger than edric, for ease of playing it, and for resiliency). Sylvan caryatid, this card also crept up on me, yeah it's a two mana, mana critter, which tends to be a lot worse than the 1CMC variety. However, the card's resilience and it's wall of wood toughness have impressed me in keeping me alive through the crucial T2-3 attacks from aggro decks.
P.S.--I don't think I've ever teased you about running all those cards (it'd be hard too they're all awesome cards), but I would say that having knowledge that those are all available in your pool arms me with a lot of information. I'm not a professional player, but I'm okay at the game, and the more hidden knowledge I have available the more dangerous I tend to think I become in context of the game (possibly true that the same could be said in life). The beauty of these cards you've listed is that often times one cannot play around them, or playing around them comes at large cost, board development vice leaving up mana for counter magic or removal etc. The funny thing is this; it's not knowledge of your card pool that I think arms one with the greatest degree of knowledge in how to play against you though; it's an understanding of why you've selected those cards and how you're wont to play them that I think can make an opposing player beat you regularly (and you definitely broke your teeth or likely still do in limited, you play like a polished limited player does :)). To quit speaking in riddles, for me I typify you as an investment player; you're always looking for the best exchange rate in your cards (for example krosan verge, or my assumption that you would not block my grim flayer with an unflipped den protector given you could not flip it to gain value, thus letting me purify my top deck and possibly acquire 4/4 status given one card type short of delirium). You will often times look to find the maximum value in your own cards vice assessing an opposing player's possible holdings and their desired path to victory. I tend to think of this game in decision cycles (and there is luck involved which makes the game great because, if every game was a grinder and it came down to the best player winning every time well we'd all be playing chess :P) and if I can understand where an opponent wants to take the game I can tend to use that to either derail their plan on the spot given my holdings or better determine the last point at which I need to interact to derail their plan and still accomplish my own (assuming that this will maximize attrition of their available options to assume a new course after causing said train wreck). Often times this leads to plays that are not technically sound or eschew value (blocking the grim flayer) and I think often times they're more based on intuition than logic, but that comes with the territory of playing a very small pool of players and really getting into the meta-meta game of how ones opponent thinks (which is why I love this game).
Event 3.24 25th of March
Undefeated : dawts -4
Lost once:
Michelle_Wong -1.5
lowman02 - 0 (lowman donated his prize to alawrence)
alawrence -1.5
C4R1S -1.5
DrPringles -1.5
Doorprize: iniksbane -1
This is how a battle feels against him from my perspective:
Turn 1: Sensei WILL play a mana dork. Just accept this and move on with your lives, it IS going to happen. He will use a Green Sun's Zenith if necessary to do so, finding Dryad.
Turn 2: Sensei will play a 3 mana card. Or a Three Visits/Nature's Lore and then another 2 drop. Or a Cobra and another 1 or 2 drop.
Turn 3: Sensei will use his excellent mana to further develop the board.
Now I will feel under a tonne of pressure. If I lost the die roll, I will be feeling buried by this stage.
Sensei is also a master of dealing with opposing enchantments and artifacts, often packing the Pridemage, Sage, Naturalists, Slime and Wickerbough all in the main deck, with creature tutors to find them when necessary! Don't expect to sit behind a Vedalkan Shackles for long. This is not good news for me because I love myself a good enchantment or artifact.
Sensei will not play cards like Sylvan Ranger, Saytr Wayfinder, Civic Wayfinder, Evolutionary Leap, Mastery of the Unseen and so on, preferring instead the tempo route. Sensei also prefers Den Protector over Whisperwood Elemental, which is good for me because I do not like the Whisperwood protecting him against wraths and gaining him a creature each turn. I feel much safer staring down a Den Protector or a Master of the Wild Hunt than I do a Whisperwood Elemental. Sensei also does not use Selfless Spirit as far as I know (and at very least, I have never seen him cast Selfless Spirit).
However Sensei has one big Achilles' heel. Board sweeps. Sensei is always so committed to quickly developing a potent board early in the game, that a board sweep is devastating. He does have some counter magic and some recovery spells like Fact or Fiction, as well as the Swords which survive most mass removal except End Hostilities, Akroma's Vengeance and Planar Cleansing, but often it's not enough. I feel in a much safer position after the first board sweep happens. This is why I often like adding extra sweepers in the board - they are anti-Sensei weapons. And they are very useful against most aggro matchups, and total blowouts against a dedicated Elf deck.
We all have our cards we gravitate towards to As for miners maindeck yeah that's just something i've had success with, I'll always probably play with them along with good old Dark confidant as long as im playing those colors. I'm surprised no one mentioned duskwatch recruiter I really like this card although I haven't played with it yet, I always feel pressured to remove it, when its in play.