My goal is that I want to make this deck faster, and more effective for casual play. I also MAY make a Standard version of this deck in the future, which would be optimized for tournament play.
My Strategy Notes/ Gameplay Comments:
Being a 69 card deck with few lands, it's sort of slow but not as slow as you'd think, at all. Since it's full of 1 mana cards that are actually useful to it's strategies such as Arbor Elf, and Elixir of Immortality, having one forest in my opening hand is no big deal even if I play first! Having one forest and Arbor Elf in an opening hand usually suffices to get my strategy started. If I'm unable to get any good creatures out on the field in the first few turns, I've probably already started using my life-gain artifacts, or at least started building up mana. I once ended up with tons of mana, and no creatures to play, and Terminus took care of the battlefield. Even during a bad play, Sera Avatar gets out on the field as a 10/10 or greater. With 3 of them, (and one more I may add in a revision) Sera is a huge asset to this deck. When used in combination with Sheltering Word, Sera can become HUGE. I gain life equal to its toughness, doubling my life total, which in turn double's Sera's stats. If Rhox Faithmender happens to be on the field, he doubles the amount of life gained whenever I gain life... you can see where this deck is going. It also has a bit of metal-craft support, and Kor-Duelist makes good use of my equipment. With all the cards that make me shuffle my deck, I wanted something like Summoning Trap to actually make some use of the shuffling. Summoning Trap has saved me from getting no creatures for 7 turns but it usually just gets Sera onto the field.
Just because an anime girl looks like she's 12 doesn't mean that she's not really a 400 year old vampire. Or a shapeshifting alien... Or maybe someone who drank a potion of immortality when they were young... Also... you never know if what you think is a girl is actually a boy... Just my 2 cents on anime quirks...
Exxxx-actly!
Oh... one thing about "sexy art", though; Especially for huge anime art enthusiasts, and artists alike, erotic art isn't always purely appreciated for the arousal. There's the artistic aspect of it, no doubt... I suspect some people, when choosing their sleeves may have actually been WORRIED about the erotic nature of them. They may have thought the image was neat in the first place, and the nudity or whatever wouldn't have to be a deciding factor for them. I could easily see a certain VERY serious-minded friend getting that one with the naked girl and the dragon on it, because of the dragon. The man is virtually asexual - his mind is full of 1's and 0's if you know what I mean... Great game master. If you've ever read the manga Cross, imagine that one scene in which the girl shows up naked, and the priest's son doesn't even blink, just making sure she's alright, and she's taken care of. Also, even if a guy has the hots for his sleeves or mat... the image must get old for him. Just figured I'd point that all out.
They do ruin cards. A shuffler is designed to take unsleeved playing cards. Casino's use them, but they also go through at least a deck a day, and while the prevention of card counting is a factor, the fact that shuffling will mark the cards is also important.
If you were to do this with magic cards, where you'd shuffle at least 12 times in a 6 round tourney (assuming all games are 2-0 and no in game shuffles are required).
I also seriously doubt that you'd be allowed to use an autoshuffler. They run on a predictable algorithm, because computers are incapable of true random behaviour. A clever programmer could rig an autoshuffler to shuffle the deck to get a perfect draw almost every game (it wouldn't be easy, but it is certainly doable).
The only auto-machine I'd consider with cards would be an auto sorter for sorting collections.
There have been two threads in the past, with pictures (sorry, can't seem to find them). IIRC, yes, they can shuffle magic cards with no sleeves. IMO, bridge shuffling+no sleeves will very likely shorten the life expectancy of cards.
[FONT=Palatino Linotype][FONT=Palatino Linotype]
In that case, I'd imagine most auto shufflers would do.
Hmmm... does bridge shuffling in general shorten the life span of the cards? I was urged that it was safer than riffling.[/font]
The automatic shuffling machines out there apparently come in all shapes and sizes... mainly geared toward casino games, there are some that shuffle one deck, some that shuffle up to 6 at once. One person told me that they'll ruin our cards. Another friend mentioned having a shuffler before (not used for magic) that basically just did a bridge, like you would with your hands. That one didn't sound too bad. I want to hear from other people who have been brave, and tried using automatic shufflers before; especially with magic cards. Is it a horrible idea, or is there hope of finding a good, safe one? I plan to use it for shuffling only naked decks (no sleeves), and shuffling chunks of my collection for "booster drafts".
Hmm. Well, I for one support the lolli and shota art, but I don't expect people to side with me on that.. On a card sleeve, though..? That's pretty out of place. I'm guessing some of those sleeves come from that one maids game I was hearing about... some sort of role-playing game where you all play as anime maids. I guess role-playing-out dusting shelves is someone's forte. That being said... I've seen a lot of lolli and shota. Those sleeves being spoken of might not be intentionally pedo-ish; google "chibi". Anime can generally have characters that look pretty young, too.. I really don't think it's appropriate to have blatant porn on card sleeves. It's distracting, and it'd make me nervous about the person I'm playing against. If someone who smelled bad, and had porn on their cards, I think I'd be sick, because it would make you wonder. Just to correct people who are in denial... liking shota and loli IS pedophilia. Liking kids at all is pedophilia. Pedophile describes someone with an attraction, not a criminal. Yes, they CAN control themselves. There are plenty of straight men out there who don't routinely rape and violate women - why would every single person with the slightest attraction to children automatically decide to go out and rape them, or something? Now... someone who displays lolli artwork intentionally on their cards... I wouldn't trust that at all personally. They might be looking for people like themselves under the guise of really liking magic, and Id think they want to trade more than just cards. Child pornography ; real life children being forced to do horrible things is wrong. People with a complete obsession with lolli or shota have a problem, too. I don't think the artwork is wrong, or the fetish is wrong, but obsessing over it like that is pathetic, and untrustworthy. Just as a side note, a few people here are correct about tweenies having seen that all before. As soon as I got connected to the internet at age 8, I found porn, after discovering "fanfiction". One thing leads to another when you become Otaku. It just happens. It's like getting hooked on drugs. Before I saw internet porn, I used to draw naked women in my lockable diary. I hardly understood why I did it. Really. Kids aren't that innocent. Respecting their parents by not exposing them to such things is another story.. If the poor kid has a hovering parent who stares them down and cheers for them while they play cards, maybe consider changing your sleeves out.. He's gonna get told he can't come back. You're ruining the kid's fun.
Honestly, I appreciate people admitting to their biases. I really do. Just don't try and act proud of them or something. I dislike how society tries to suppress things like that, and open discussion is made so hard for a lot of things. Just telling people "you shouldn't judge" isn't enough, anyhow... to change people's minds. Give them the chance to talk about their biases. ...It's kinda like how some people believe you can't be mad at something non-objective.. yes, it's not convenient, but you can be mad because of something like "death" existing, and you can be mad at it, even though it can't apologize.
Hehehe Ive got them too. I totally get where you come from you see them. I understand and honestly when you see people with the giant ones over 2 inches across your usually right thats just trashy. Also people who fail to clean their gauges are a problem because its rant and you can smell it. Ive met tons of nasty people with gauges and tons without. It goes either way.
Lol. The girl I met once said something very similar. It just goes to show you that there are exceptions abundant, even if a stereotype seems to be everywhere you look.
This. You can always ask Blutsau for permission if you really really think that your thread should be bumped. He may say no too.
I keep my decks up to date by editing my OPs so people can see the latest version when I link to the deck. If I had a radical change or something and wanted people to see what those updates are, a new thread is the way to go, with a link to the original one.
EDIT: Also, I hate seeing decklists on the blogs, but that's just me.
Kuja, you have overestimated humanity. I wish I had the foresight to have stopped you.
Judging people happens, based on whatever criteria you want to use. Gender, Race, Hygene, Age, Weight or Disorder/Disease. Everyone does it, many deny it. I try to take more than what I can see into account. Often times I will lose respect for a stranger due to a cold, clammy and weak handshake. Thats me though.
Ugh. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the public at large is mature by any means. it's just I expected more from people who play a game where you really have to think to win at all. One can't expect them to be considerate, though, no. That's okay, though. It's refreshing to at least not get replies that simply say things like "judging people based on appearance is wrong", though. People who see things like they really are; that's who I care about hearing from. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is.. hard.
I'd like to believe this, but then I remembered that we've had a grand total of six female neowalkers and all of them have classically beautiful faces by Western standards. I do like Elspeth though. I can actually believe she'd wear that into battle (and her cards are pretty good too).
Thankfully the vast majority of guys I've encountered while playing Magic are intelligent enough not to make sexist comments to my face.
But now they made Liliana kind of ugly -probably to appease people.. I think doing that made the whole thing worse.
My Strategy Notes/ Gameplay Comments:
12 Forests
10 Plains
Nonbasic Lands:
1 Evolving Wilds
3 Sunpetal Grove
Green Creatures:
1 Tree of Redemption
4 Arbor Elf
1 Avacyn's Pilgrim
1 Thragtusk
1 Llanowar Elves
1 Dawntreader Elk
Green Instants:
2 Sheltering Word
1 Harrow
3 Summoning Trap
1 Withstand Death
1 Blessings of Nature
1 Ranger's Path
Green Enchantments:
1 Boar Umbra
1 Heartbeat of Spring
1 Favor of the Woods
White Creatures:
3 Serra Avatar
1 Rhox Faithmender
1 Auriok Edgewright
1 Kor Duelist
White Instants:
1 Ray of Revelation
White Sorceries:
2 False Dawn
1 Terminus
1 Mammoth Umbra
Artifacts:
4 Elixir of Immortality
1 Chalice of Life
1 Well of Lost Dreams
1 Mycosynth Wellspring
Equipment:
1 Silverskin Armor
1 Vanguard's Shield
1 Ring of Kalonia
1 Sylvok Lifestaff
Exxxx-actly!
Oh... one thing about "sexy art", though; Especially for huge anime art enthusiasts, and artists alike, erotic art isn't always purely appreciated for the arousal. There's the artistic aspect of it, no doubt... I suspect some people, when choosing their sleeves may have actually been WORRIED about the erotic nature of them. They may have thought the image was neat in the first place, and the nudity or whatever wouldn't have to be a deciding factor for them. I could easily see a certain VERY serious-minded friend getting that one with the naked girl and the dragon on it, because of the dragon. The man is virtually asexual - his mind is full of 1's and 0's if you know what I mean... Great game master. If you've ever read the manga Cross, imagine that one scene in which the girl shows up naked, and the priest's son doesn't even blink, just making sure she's alright, and she's taken care of. Also, even if a guy has the hots for his sleeves or mat... the image must get old for him. Just figured I'd point that all out.
You made a really good point about programming.
Hmmm... does bridge shuffling in general shorten the life span of the cards? I was urged that it was safer than riffling.[/font]
Lol. The girl I met once said something very similar. It just goes to show you that there are exceptions abundant, even if a stereotype seems to be everywhere you look.
Lol fair enough.
Ugh. Don't get me wrong, I don't think the public at large is mature by any means. it's just I expected more from people who play a game where you really have to think to win at all. One can't expect them to be considerate, though, no. That's okay, though. It's refreshing to at least not get replies that simply say things like "judging people based on appearance is wrong", though. People who see things like they really are; that's who I care about hearing from. Giving people the benefit of the doubt is.. hard.
But now they made Liliana kind of ugly -probably to appease people..