I know he's coloured so it's not infinite, but Dream Stalker seems like an efficient way to power this guy up, and a decent blocker in the early game to boot (assuming you have other CITP effects to recur... which I assume you do in a RUG commander deck :).
Out of curiosity... what do people who think it's underpowered think it should have been instead? I was thinking about it, but all the versions I could think of are either overpowered (eg: target players may pay/put tokens into play) and would blow out the game routinely, or are completely apolitical (pay X to get X). No doubt the current incarnation is odd, but it's still one of the cheapest token generators ever printed, and rewards people for making allies.
We'll see... I think the discussion will be longer than people think. (Of course, it may not be good at all... that happens some time, and I don't have anything vested in it personally )
I like it, but given that I explicitly told Genomancer on Monday that I, for one, was lurking that directory for titbits, I'm putting my money on red herring.
Yeaaah... sorry, I couldn't resist having a little fun. Hopefully people are still happy with the two real new previews ... I know I am.
Yeah, most of my work (and all of the original data) was backed up, but the last 4-5 weeks, stuff I'd written on the road and just before I left for the holiday, hadn't been backed up yet so it was all lost... I should have set up an automated remote backup of some kind.
I think I've rewritten most of it now, but I know there was at least one really good idea I had for the diabetes paper that I had and I can't remember what it was for the life of me. It was a flash of insight on the plane to Europe and unfortunately I haven't been able to replicate it. At least my insurance covered half of the cost of the replacing the physical laptop... MSc students don't make all that much :/
BTW: I think Trusted/Untrusted is a lot more of a value judgement and less objective a term than Casual/Competitive.
Interesting, how so? I figured it was a more objective split, by virtue of more accurately identifying the real difference. The idea isn't that anyone was "untrustworthy" (from some arbitrary outside perspective), but rather that a untrusted environment is one where the players' can't rely on their opponents to construct their decks* by agreed-upon, but noncodified, rules of conduct.
Put another way, it's not that the players aren't trustworthy, it's that trust isn't expected or required.
G
* Really, it's not play decisions that should be the focus of the issue ... very few people expect someone not to win given the opportunity in a game. The difference comes at deck construction time.
Why not discuss the French ban list? What about discussing what is going on in this very sight to create a competitive atmosphere for EDH? Should these things be allowed? Or are we going too far?
Since DC has put in some valiant effort to protecting the environment on the forums and tournaments here, and I'm looking forward to playing in the next tournament (there needs to be a thread one can subscribe to with email/RSS so I don't miss signup) I figured I should try to contribute positively (I didn't mean to imply before that the MTGS forums aren't worth frequenting... I try to keep up. Just that some threads wear me down :/)
On the whole, I think the banned list here is pretty good. The French list is well tested and supported (that's why we brought one of their leaders onto the RC to help guide 1v1 efforts), although I think Surge's tournament report (great stuff btw) shows that Biorythm might be a bit strong as the fourth wincard in Rofellos' armoury.
One thing I'd really like you guys to try is the sideboard option. I saw the comment saying they helped the combo/tutor decks more than the other styles, but I think it might be worth considering:
1) The combo/tutor decks are already playing most of their bullets/good pieces maindeck anyway, as they alredy have their tutors.
2) In an untrusted environment like these tournrmanets (for more details on why I prefer the term Untrusted/Trusted to competitive/casual, see my writings elsewhere), people can't viably play "off the top" anyway... they have to play some tutors, library manipulation, or something to help manage their draws. So anyone who isn't getting blown out can probably make good use of response cards.
3) I believe (based on our testing for multiplayer EDH) that sideboards would let you have a much lighter hand for banning cards. There are a number of cards on the banned list that, if someone can just bring in an extra 2-3 hate cards, can probably be taken off.
4) If, as I've seen, one of the things people really like here is the opportunity to use more diverse cards in a untrusted-competition environment, sideboards really do open up a wealth of new options which aren't viable in maindeck only matches. (Sprout vs Biorythm! ;))
Basically, if people believe that "You should play answers" is a viable response/argument when structuring the format (which it is, for many crowds), then sideboards let you play the right answers answers while still having an interesting balance between answers and threats.
At the very least, I'm hoping you guys could try it for a tournament. I'd be interested in the results/logs of that tournament, and might even be able to incentivize it a bit.
[There's another project in the works to help regulate/balance tournaments like this, which will be particularly well suited to MWS tournaments. I'll report back when it's released]
Good grief. Reading this thread enough to formulate a coherent response is so painful as to be not worth it... now I remember why I avoid some forums.
Unfortunately, there are some rather savage falsehoods here that need to be addressed... namely, Sheldon taking BS heat for the rules page. DarkAngel's absolute surety that it's all Sheldon's fault is so misplaced as to be almost comical... given that he had nothing to do with writing that page. I did, and invited likeminded people to join me in determing the best _balance_ in the rules. Sheldon espouses it, but didn't create it... so blaming him makes you look foolish.
I emphasize balance because there is no way to codify social interaction. If you believe it is, I encourage you to read up on the concept of "ethical calculus." If you don't believe that socialization is a worthwhile activity, I pity the loneliness of your life and invite you to have nothing to do with this... a self-proclaimed crowd in search of social interaction.
EDH isn't about "fun", because fun is different things to different people. It IS about socialization... the +shared+ interactions between people, rather than the established differences between them.
Secondly, his circular assertions that
1) the EDH rules suck because they don't achieve their purpose
2) the purpose of the rules must be to maximize competitive interaction
proves only that 1 is true if 2 is true. We know axiomatically that #2 is false... since we made a concious decision when deciding to put our effort into building EDH. The EDH community has supported this decision. Therefore, this entire argument says nothing at all about #1.
If you don't like that decision... too damn bad.
Please don't bother rebutting it by saying "obviously #2 is true" because you have presented no evidence that the purpose of all games, by definition, is to maximize competitive interaction. If you can't understand that, clearly your father never played enough catch with you as a kid, and I hope you don't have any kids since I can only assume you'd throw the all at them as hard as possible "since it's not against the rules."
Given that social interaction is a worthwhile endeavour, it shouldn't be so hard to accept that EDH is a balance between social and competitive interaction. What balance exactly to strike is something the participants MUST establish before they start... by communicating. Earlier, someone said that politics has a single winner... that's absurd. Politics are most succesful when everyone wins... that's a fundamental tenet of every form of politics outside force majeur. Another topic to read up on.
To summarize... we wanted a format which maximizes enjoyment of all parties, which meant requiring people to negotiate with each other before the game starts, about what style of game they want. The rules are written to require that. Anyone who ignores that rule might as well ignore all the other rules and/or not play EDH, and if people like DarkAngel don't play EDH because _they_ can't solve the social interactions required to make sure everyone enjoys the game (aka, they think it's "dumb") ... we've achieved _exactly_ what we set out to.
Actually it is. It's right there on the official rules page... try reading them again.
A format is defined by game rules.
Wrong. A competitive format is defined by the rules and intended to be 'solved'... a social format is defined by convention and is meant to be shared. Trying to "break" EDH is like trying to "break" Christmas dinner. Good job.
The new one will support to around 60 cards effectively providing for much better shuffles.
For the record, I believe they're now using a Merseinne Twister (rtfm) for generating the random numbers, along with a proper slot-swap algorithm for shuffling.. so it should be able to support "decks" much larger than 60 cards.. probably in the range of several thousand cards or more. (It's important cause, as someone mentioned, MWS is popular for playing 5-colour online)
I don't know for sure, not being one of the devs, but there was some discussion about it on the forums a few months back and Det said they were going forward with the MT-based shuffler.
I don't know if you made that up, but <3
http://mtgcommander.net/Forum/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=11940
Enjoy
G
We'll see... I think the discussion will be longer than people think. (Of course, it may not be good at all... that happens some time, and I don't have anything vested in it personally
Yeaaah... sorry, I couldn't resist having a little fun. Hopefully people are still happy with the two real new previews ... I know I am.
G
I think I've rewritten most of it now, but I know there was at least one really good idea I had for the diabetes paper that I had and I can't remember what it was for the life of me. It was a flash of insight on the plane to Europe and unfortunately I haven't been able to replicate it. At least my insurance covered half of the cost of the replacing the physical laptop... MSc students don't make all that much :/
Interesting, how so? I figured it was a more objective split, by virtue of more accurately identifying the real difference. The idea isn't that anyone was "untrustworthy" (from some arbitrary outside perspective), but rather that a untrusted environment is one where the players' can't rely on their opponents to construct their decks* by agreed-upon, but noncodified, rules of conduct.
Put another way, it's not that the players aren't trustworthy, it's that trust isn't expected or required.
G
* Really, it's not play decisions that should be the focus of the issue ... very few people expect someone not to win given the opportunity in a game. The difference comes at deck construction time.
Since DC has put in some valiant effort to protecting the environment on the forums and tournaments here, and I'm looking forward to playing in the next tournament (there needs to be a thread one can subscribe to with email/RSS so I don't miss signup) I figured I should try to contribute positively (I didn't mean to imply before that the MTGS forums aren't worth frequenting... I try to keep up. Just that some threads wear me down :/)
On the whole, I think the banned list here is pretty good. The French list is well tested and supported (that's why we brought one of their leaders onto the RC to help guide 1v1 efforts), although I think Surge's tournament report (great stuff btw) shows that Biorythm might be a bit strong as the fourth wincard in Rofellos' armoury.
One thing I'd really like you guys to try is the sideboard option. I saw the comment saying they helped the combo/tutor decks more than the other styles, but I think it might be worth considering:
1) The combo/tutor decks are already playing most of their bullets/good pieces maindeck anyway, as they alredy have their tutors.
2) In an untrusted environment like these tournrmanets (for more details on why I prefer the term Untrusted/Trusted to competitive/casual, see my writings elsewhere), people can't viably play "off the top" anyway... they have to play some tutors, library manipulation, or something to help manage their draws. So anyone who isn't getting blown out can probably make good use of response cards.
3) I believe (based on our testing for multiplayer EDH) that sideboards would let you have a much lighter hand for banning cards. There are a number of cards on the banned list that, if someone can just bring in an extra 2-3 hate cards, can probably be taken off.
4) If, as I've seen, one of the things people really like here is the opportunity to use more diverse cards in a untrusted-competition environment, sideboards really do open up a wealth of new options which aren't viable in maindeck only matches. (Sprout vs Biorythm! ;))
Basically, if people believe that "You should play answers" is a viable response/argument when structuring the format (which it is, for many crowds), then sideboards let you play the right answers answers while still having an interesting balance between answers and threats.
At the very least, I'm hoping you guys could try it for a tournament. I'd be interested in the results/logs of that tournament, and might even be able to incentivize it a bit.
[There's another project in the works to help regulate/balance tournaments like this, which will be particularly well suited to MWS tournaments. I'll report back when it's released]
G
Unfortunately, there are some rather savage falsehoods here that need to be addressed... namely, Sheldon taking BS heat for the rules page. DarkAngel's absolute surety that it's all Sheldon's fault is so misplaced as to be almost comical... given that he had nothing to do with writing that page. I did, and invited likeminded people to join me in determing the best _balance_ in the rules. Sheldon espouses it, but didn't create it... so blaming him makes you look foolish.
I emphasize balance because there is no way to codify social interaction. If you believe it is, I encourage you to read up on the concept of "ethical calculus." If you don't believe that socialization is a worthwhile activity, I pity the loneliness of your life and invite you to have nothing to do with this... a self-proclaimed crowd in search of social interaction.
EDH isn't about "fun", because fun is different things to different people. It IS about socialization... the +shared+ interactions between people, rather than the established differences between them.
Secondly, his circular assertions that
1) the EDH rules suck because they don't achieve their purpose
2) the purpose of the rules must be to maximize competitive interaction
proves only that 1 is true if 2 is true. We know axiomatically that #2 is false... since we made a concious decision when deciding to put our effort into building EDH. The EDH community has supported this decision. Therefore, this entire argument says nothing at all about #1.
If you don't like that decision... too damn bad.
Please don't bother rebutting it by saying "obviously #2 is true" because you have presented no evidence that the purpose of all games, by definition, is to maximize competitive interaction. If you can't understand that, clearly your father never played enough catch with you as a kid, and I hope you don't have any kids since I can only assume you'd throw the all at them as hard as possible "since it's not against the rules."
Given that social interaction is a worthwhile endeavour, it shouldn't be so hard to accept that EDH is a balance between social and competitive interaction. What balance exactly to strike is something the participants MUST establish before they start... by communicating. Earlier, someone said that politics has a single winner... that's absurd. Politics are most succesful when everyone wins... that's a fundamental tenet of every form of politics outside force majeur. Another topic to read up on.
To summarize... we wanted a format which maximizes enjoyment of all parties, which meant requiring people to negotiate with each other before the game starts, about what style of game they want. The rules are written to require that. Anyone who ignores that rule might as well ignore all the other rules and/or not play EDH, and if people like DarkAngel don't play EDH because _they_ can't solve the social interactions required to make sure everyone enjoys the game (aka, they think it's "dumb") ... we've achieved _exactly_ what we set out to.
Genomancer
Actually it is. It's right there on the official rules page... try reading them again.
Wrong. A competitive format is defined by the rules and intended to be 'solved'... a social format is defined by convention and is meant to be shared. Trying to "break" EDH is like trying to "break" Christmas dinner. Good job.
For the record, I believe they're now using a Merseinne Twister (rtfm) for generating the random numbers, along with a proper slot-swap algorithm for shuffling.. so it should be able to support "decks" much larger than 60 cards.. probably in the range of several thousand cards or more. (It's important cause, as someone mentioned, MWS is popular for playing 5-colour online)
I don't know for sure, not being one of the devs, but there was some discussion about it on the forums a few months back and Det said they were going forward with the MT-based shuffler.
G