I've seen people fake posting restrictions way too often. I almost always assume they are fake until proven otherwise. Also, typically the truthful posting restrictions are the ones that aren't so obvious. You've also got to look at it from a flavor standpoint. I really can't think of a 24 character that would have such a restriction. Anyway, all I wan't is some sort of explanation one way or another.
Seriously??? Vote: Xyre I cannot think of any reason why DYH would make up such a lame posting restriction. And if you can't talk about it, just say 'I can't talk about it'.
Quote from Vampyr »
Anyways, since Xyre wants to call an end to the random stage, I will Unvote: Xyre and Vote: Cubus. I didn't like his second vote on Feuer. With no indication of a joke, I'm viewing his post as being serious. With that being the case, his reasoning for the vote is horrible.
The reason his reasoning is terrrible is that it was obvious sarcasm. Although I've seen it before where plainfaced sarcasm was used by scum to veil bandwagon votes, I see more often that scum use the sarcastic statements of others, treat them seriously, draw bad conclusions from doing so, and use them as lame reasons to attack them (which is exactly what you did). FOS: Vampyr
Actually guys FO is technicly shorter:p, but when you consider how long your messages took you could have random voted anyone!!
Abbreviations don't count!!!!! We'll just start abbreviating your name as D from here on out to make it as easy as possible to lynch you. Unvote, Vote D. See how easy that was!?!
Anyway, Unvote again befoer the OMGUS scum-wagon starts to roll.
Also, anyone know where the rest of our players are? We are still missing 3 people...
The very nature of chess suggests that given enough time and computing power, chess could be solved (by solved, I mean always knowing what the best play is). It is a system that obey specific laws, has finite variables, and most importantly has a known starting position of all of the peices. There is no need to calculate each board, since there are many boards that are impossible to get to anyway. You just start from the begining and start generating trees.
To a certain extent, chess at the highest levels is already solved. Grandmasters have hundreds of openings and defenses memorized all in an effort to bring about a certain board state where the player already knows how to play the endgame. Where one player loses is because they either a)haven't studied the line of play the opponent is using, b) the opponent deviated from the expected line of play, or c) the player makes a mistake.
What makes chess interesting is that all the best grandmasters know pretty much the same info, and have access to powerful computers where they can test different strategies. Its this counter-strategy that often confuses the board, and produces board states that neither player may have studied, in which case you are lerning on the fly. At that point, play moves back and forth from strategic to tactical in order to gain advantage to a point where board position is mostly immaterial.
Now if the player were a computer, the computer can calculate all the different decision trees and figure out which play is optimal no matter what the board state is. The tactic at that point is to drive the opponent into a line that no matter what moves they make, they will lose. I think the larger issue is whether that is possible. In other words, Can the computer always make a move such that the human player has no chance in winning? The answer to that is no. The essence of the matter would be that the computer would 'know' when it has reached a board state where the human player cannot win (i.e. all possible trees lead to computer victory), but from a theoretical standpoint there are probably just as many lines that are impossible for the computer to excape defeat (assuming we knew all the right decisions to make from that point on).
So to sum up, the way grandmasters play the game is very much like a perfect chess algorithm, but with the obvious limitations on memory. The begin the game with known openings in order to maximize their chances for winning (i.e. neither player choosing a line that is an automatic loss). This goes on until one player deviates from the line in such a way that was unexpected for the opponent, or they get to a board state that a known set of moves will bring about victory meaning the opponnt misplayed or doesn't know about your endgame plan). It amounts to the same thing as the computer would do anyway.
Running Flectomancer as a Chord target is brilliant. Not having played Heartbeat against at Regionals, but also not having a really bad matchup against it, I can't say I'm disappointed I didn't think of that myself. Nice Tech though...
Anyway, here is my verion of Chord that I ran at Central California Regionals to a 5-2-1 record.
The 4th Okiba "Gangbang" comes in versus control, the 2nd Ink-Eyes versus mid-range board control decks, the Extractions versus anything with limited win conditions (like Vore and Heartbeat), the Castigates versus Control and Combo, and the Putrefy/Last Gasp package is for aggro. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure that the deck needs 2-3 SB Shining Shoals to help out against burn-based aggro.
The MD is okay. I think the mana needs another tweaking, but I'm not sure. Birds of Paradise over Llanowar Elves is also something that I debated for a long time, especially seeign how Birds helps the mana, and is devastating with Okiba-gang (attacking with a Bird against control elicits some of the best reactions...). In the end, I chose Elves because they are better with a Jitte. I would also probably move the Ink-Eyes into the board for the 4th Guildmage or a Ghost Council.
Anyway, I beat mono-R Aggro/burn, mono-G aggro, B/W Hand, GWB Control (without Chord), and R/B aggro/reanimator (utilizing Delerium Skeins). I lost to RWG Zoo (to someone who ended up in the Top 8), and to the mirror. I drew with U/W Control (we were at a game apeice when time got called).
I think the best answer to this question is "You better have no reason to hold back Welder for something else before you attack". As everyone has said before me, the answer is very situation dependant.
The dangers of attacking with Welder also need to be weighed heavily in each matchup. Sometimes the board may look clear to swing for 1, but that may just give the opponent the opportunity they were looking for to Gifts into Tinker-Collossus-Time Walk. Knowing your matchups, especially those matchups where you know it will come down to a few points of damage, is key to making this decision. In the absence of knowledge about what your opponent is playing, my default would be to hold Welder back until you know what your opponent is up to.
On a side note, I want to relay a stroy about how I attacked with Welder and it cost me the game. It was pre-bannings Extended (I know this is the Type I forum, but the lesson is the same), and I was playing George W. Bosh, and it was game one against Twiddle-Desire. I won the die roll, and drew into a turn 3 kill. I played Welder on turn 1, and he went Island-go. For some reason, I thought he was playing Scepter-Tog, so I just played out my artifact accelerants (playing around Force Spike), and Swung with my Welder confident I would win next turn no matter if he had a counter or not. He proceeds to drop Ancient Tomb into a ton of artifact mana into a Tinker for Gilded Lotus and he kills me that turn. If I had just held back the Welder (as I obviously would have done if I had known he was playing Twiddle-Desire), he would have had no chance to beat me. I ended up winning the match based on a superior sideboard strategy and my Welders nullifying his Tinkers in games 2 and 3, but it goes to show you that you have to be careful. It also proves my point that in the absence of known information about your opponent's deck and what it is capable of, you should hold back your welders.
As for the six threads, three of them were removed, based on a hunch by me (and several other members) on Friday and Saturday. They were the threads mentioning the next block, including the scan of playtest stickers (or something that looked like that). The other threads, which had nothing to do with the next block, are now also removed. I hope that's sufficient to satisfy this "dmca complaint" against Hannes.
So it was 3 threads for scans of playtest cards, but what about the other 3 threads? That would end a lot of speculation, and answer a lot of questions. To be honest, I thought it would be the card checklists or the FAQ e-mail, but those are still there.
Out of curiosity, what was in the 6 threads that they wanted removed? Did they all have something in common? Were there playtest card scans in all 6 of them?
I'm sorry to inform you, but "Stormcount ++" means he only wanted to increase it by ONE. Where do you see any two in there, that would have to be "Stormcount ++ ++"
FYI, it's a programming thing.
I highly doubt he was posting in C++... If so, then why not just cast the Remand, draw your card, spend only 1U doing it, and leave the Guildmage out of it? Adding the Guildmage into the equation give you nothing, and in fact it just wastes you mana.
On a seperate note, do we know of any Instants and/or Sorceries being printed in Guildpact that will be able to take advantage of this effect? The GP spoiler has very little in the realm of instants or sorceries that cost 2 or less that are worth copying. Both Gigadrowse and Shattering Spree have replicate costs that are less that the Guildmage's ability, and copying Quicken seems rather pointless except to draw another card. There is the WB discard spell, but paying 2WBR seems a little on the steep side. I guess we are stuck with copying Volcanic Hammers and Mana Leaks?
I'm starting to think that this was an April Fool's joke.... the cake is a lie.
In all seriousness, I had just opened up a TO account with the intention of putting all my decks there when this announcement came out. I held off doing anything with the hopes of just keeping everything here on MTGS. 4-1/2 months since the announcement, we don't even have any information about what is going on. Even bad news would be better than no news at this point.
My favorite Magic card is probably Oversold Cemetery. Reusing and abusing the graveyard for fun and profit has always been one of my favorite things to do.
The sig editor is telling me there is a 512 character limit, so it won't let me "fix" the mana tags in my signature. Furthermore, it must also be counting the url in each link as part of the character limit.
Either your $ key is now broken, or your 'S' key now works. Which is it???
Seriously??? Vote: Xyre I cannot think of any reason why DYH would make up such a lame posting restriction. And if you can't talk about it, just say 'I can't talk about it'.
The reason his reasoning is terrrible is that it was obvious sarcasm. Although I've seen it before where plainfaced sarcasm was used by scum to veil bandwagon votes, I see more often that scum use the sarcastic statements of others, treat them seriously, draw bad conclusions from doing so, and use them as lame reasons to attack them (which is exactly what you did). FOS: Vampyr
Abbreviations don't count!!!!! We'll just start abbreviating your name as D from here on out to make it as easy as possible to lynch you. Unvote, Vote D. See how easy that was!?!
Anyway, Unvote again befoer the OMGUS scum-wagon starts to roll.
Also, anyone know where the rest of our players are? We are still missing 3 people...
To a certain extent, chess at the highest levels is already solved. Grandmasters have hundreds of openings and defenses memorized all in an effort to bring about a certain board state where the player already knows how to play the endgame. Where one player loses is because they either a)haven't studied the line of play the opponent is using, b) the opponent deviated from the expected line of play, or c) the player makes a mistake.
What makes chess interesting is that all the best grandmasters know pretty much the same info, and have access to powerful computers where they can test different strategies. Its this counter-strategy that often confuses the board, and produces board states that neither player may have studied, in which case you are lerning on the fly. At that point, play moves back and forth from strategic to tactical in order to gain advantage to a point where board position is mostly immaterial.
Now if the player were a computer, the computer can calculate all the different decision trees and figure out which play is optimal no matter what the board state is. The tactic at that point is to drive the opponent into a line that no matter what moves they make, they will lose. I think the larger issue is whether that is possible. In other words, Can the computer always make a move such that the human player has no chance in winning? The answer to that is no. The essence of the matter would be that the computer would 'know' when it has reached a board state where the human player cannot win (i.e. all possible trees lead to computer victory), but from a theoretical standpoint there are probably just as many lines that are impossible for the computer to excape defeat (assuming we knew all the right decisions to make from that point on).
So to sum up, the way grandmasters play the game is very much like a perfect chess algorithm, but with the obvious limitations on memory. The begin the game with known openings in order to maximize their chances for winning (i.e. neither player choosing a line that is an automatic loss). This goes on until one player deviates from the line in such a way that was unexpected for the opponent, or they get to a board state that a known set of moves will bring about victory meaning the opponnt misplayed or doesn't know about your endgame plan). It amounts to the same thing as the computer would do anyway.
Anyway, here is my verion of Chord that I ran at Central California Regionals to a 5-2-1 record.
3x Selesnya Guildmage
3x Umezawa's Jitte
1x Kami of the Ancient Law
4x Wood Elves
4x Mortify
1x Viridian Shaman
4x Loxodon Heirarch
3x Okiba-gang Shinobi
3x Kodama of the North Tree
3x Yosei, the Morning Star
1x Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
3x Chord of Calling
4x Temple Garden
3x Overgrown Tomb
2x Godless Shrine
1x Llanowar Wastes
1x Brushland
3x Forest
2x Swamp
2x Plains
2x Vitu-Ghazi, the City Tree
1x Okina, Temple to the Godfathers
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1x Miren, The Moaning Well
1x Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
4x Cranial Extraction
4x Castigate
3x Putrefy
2x Last Gasp
The 4th Okiba "Gangbang" comes in versus control, the 2nd Ink-Eyes versus mid-range board control decks, the Extractions versus anything with limited win conditions (like Vore and Heartbeat), the Castigates versus Control and Combo, and the Putrefy/Last Gasp package is for aggro. In retrospect, I'm pretty sure that the deck needs 2-3 SB Shining Shoals to help out against burn-based aggro.
The MD is okay. I think the mana needs another tweaking, but I'm not sure. Birds of Paradise over Llanowar Elves is also something that I debated for a long time, especially seeign how Birds helps the mana, and is devastating with Okiba-gang (attacking with a Bird against control elicits some of the best reactions...). In the end, I chose Elves because they are better with a Jitte. I would also probably move the Ink-Eyes into the board for the 4th Guildmage or a Ghost Council.
Anyway, I beat mono-R Aggro/burn, mono-G aggro, B/W Hand, GWB Control (without Chord), and R/B aggro/reanimator (utilizing Delerium Skeins). I lost to RWG Zoo (to someone who ended up in the Top 8), and to the mirror. I drew with U/W Control (we were at a game apeice when time got called).
The dangers of attacking with Welder also need to be weighed heavily in each matchup. Sometimes the board may look clear to swing for 1, but that may just give the opponent the opportunity they were looking for to Gifts into Tinker-Collossus-Time Walk. Knowing your matchups, especially those matchups where you know it will come down to a few points of damage, is key to making this decision. In the absence of knowledge about what your opponent is playing, my default would be to hold Welder back until you know what your opponent is up to.
On a side note, I want to relay a stroy about how I attacked with Welder and it cost me the game. It was pre-bannings Extended (I know this is the Type I forum, but the lesson is the same), and I was playing George W. Bosh, and it was game one against Twiddle-Desire. I won the die roll, and drew into a turn 3 kill. I played Welder on turn 1, and he went Island-go. For some reason, I thought he was playing Scepter-Tog, so I just played out my artifact accelerants (playing around Force Spike), and Swung with my Welder confident I would win next turn no matter if he had a counter or not. He proceeds to drop Ancient Tomb into a ton of artifact mana into a Tinker for Gilded Lotus and he kills me that turn. If I had just held back the Welder (as I obviously would have done if I had known he was playing Twiddle-Desire), he would have had no chance to beat me. I ended up winning the match based on a superior sideboard strategy and my Welders nullifying his Tinkers in games 2 and 3, but it goes to show you that you have to be careful. It also proves my point that in the absence of known information about your opponent's deck and what it is capable of, you should hold back your welders.
In a more civilized time, I prefer the following:
"The meaning of life is one thing, and one thing only..." - Curly
So it was 3 threads for scans of playtest cards, but what about the other 3 threads? That would end a lot of speculation, and answer a lot of questions. To be honest, I thought it would be the card checklists or the FAQ e-mail, but those are still there.
I highly doubt he was posting in C++... If so, then why not just cast the Remand, draw your card, spend only 1U doing it, and leave the Guildmage out of it? Adding the Guildmage into the equation give you nothing, and in fact it just wastes you mana.
On a seperate note, do we know of any Instants and/or Sorceries being printed in Guildpact that will be able to take advantage of this effect? The GP spoiler has very little in the realm of instants or sorceries that cost 2 or less that are worth copying. Both Gigadrowse and Shattering Spree have replicate costs that are less that the Guildmage's ability, and copying Quicken seems rather pointless except to draw another card. There is the WB discard spell, but paying 2WBR seems a little on the steep side. I guess we are stuck with copying Volcanic Hammers and Mana Leaks?