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Tahn
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Member for 19 years, 3 months, and 9 days
Last active Fri, Jan, 17 2020 03:09:40

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Jan 9, 2017
Tahn posted a message on

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Jan 9, 2017
Tahn posted a message on

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Jul 9, 2015
Tahn posted a message on Best Color Pairs in Magic Origins?

Best pairs: RW and BU, for being the two most aggressive colors and two most controlling colors, respectively.

Worst pairs: BR - the most controlling color and the most aggressive color; and UG where there is actual zero synergy.
Posted in: Limited (Sealed, Draft)
1

Apr 3, 2015
Tahn posted a message on [[Official]] "PWNED!" Plays Thread

Okay, I'm ready to wrap up this format. Final achievement unlocked.

I lost g1 (finals of an 8-4) to Mastery of the Unseen, so I did some creative sideboarding... and it totally worked out.
Posted in: Limited (Sealed, Draft)
1

Jan 26, 2015
Tahn posted a message on Thoughts on the draft as it proceeds

Quote from magicmerl »
Yeah, but across all 3 tables Sene is predicting 3 total wins for my seat. I managed to go 1-2, so I hit 'average' for my seat.

Here's Sene's predictions for the record for each of the draft tables (I'm the 1 in Seat E's 201):

A 113
B 210
C 132
D 121
E 201
F 122
G 322
H 011

So although he predicted three different winners from the three different pods, seat G was apparently THE seat to be at, with C and F also helping.

B, E and H were not where you wanted to be sitting in this draft.

I don't think your conclusion is correct here. Sene's predictions were made after the drafts - so he was judging the drafted decks. The three decks drafted in a certain seat might be weaker than those drafted in another seat - but that doesn't necessarily mean that seat was a priori worse. To check that, you'd have to analyze the null hypothesis.

Assume the seat does not influence the strength of the drafted deck. So essentially the 24 decks drafted are of a random relative strength. Sene then judges that strength by assigning 3, 2, 1 or 0 match wins to each deck. Then we add up the match wins per seat. For each seat, that means the odds of that seat being assigned a total of 0-9 wins are:

9 0.2%
8 1.8%
7 7.0%
6 16.4%
5 24.6%
4 24.6%
3 16.4%
2 7.0%
1 1.8%
0 0.2%

That means that on average, we'd expect (slightly less than) 4 of the 8 seats to have either 4 or 5 match wins, and 9% of seats to fall in both the 2- and the 7+ match wins group (so a bit less than 1 in 8). What we got now is 2 3 3 4 5 5 6 7. This looks slightly more skewed than the average, but not enough that I'd say it's a huge indication that the null hypothesis is invalid. (Of course, to formally prove it invalid, we'd have to run many more experiments - with just this one, we can't prove anything either way. That last statement is merely my interpretation of the numbers.)

Of course it's logical to assume that the seat has some influence on the resulting strength of the decks drafted there, but if anything, I'd say this experiment shows only a slight influence. Calculating the variance of the null hypothesis (1.23) versus the result we got (1.375) suggests this too.

I personally don't think you'll see much correlation with the precise seat. The behavior of your neighbours is at least as relevant, especially in this format. In simple non-gold formats it might be easier to predict decks based on seat, but here it's just too hard to predict which deck ends up where.

Posted in: Khans Duplicate Draft
10

Jan 19, 2015
Tahn posted a message on Current Modern Banlist Discussion (1/19/2015 - 7/13/2015)

Okay, they suck. So they're just going to ban out the strongest decks/cards in the format, for no real reason? There was nothing oppressive going on anywhere, but hey, let's cut the top cards just for the hell of it.

It's not even that I care about any of those cards or decks. It's just the completely wrong attitude to have. They should aim to not ban as long as it's possible, but they're just wielding the ban-hammer like a child waving a stick around and hitting whatever it hits. Dig Through Time, seriously? The card wasn't even played much. Let's just ban cards before they have a chance to even affect the format.

Well, I always thought 95% of the posts in the banlist thread were silly, but now, I don't know anymore. Suggestions like banning Kitchen Finks, Abrupt Decay or Gitaxian Probe aren't so ridiculous anymore. Anything is on the table, let's have another four months of the wildest speculation 'cause who knows what gets banned next.
Posted in: Modern Archives
1

Dec 11, 2014
Tahn posted a message on [[Official]] Current Modern Banlist Discussion (7/14/2014 - 1/19/2015)

Quote from CharonsObol »
This is true, but Sword of the Meek can only be stopped by a very narrow range of hate. That Krosan Grip in your sideboard isn't going to cut it.

In order to stop Thopter Sword, you need a Stony Silence, Pithing Needle, Rest in Peace, Leyline of the Void, or you need to get lucky with some activated form of graveyard removal.

If Sword of the Meek comes off the ban list, control will get better, but I'm not sure it actually increases the deck diversity in a positive way. You start having to run a narrow range of cards out of the sideboard, many with color dependencies. There has to be a better way to increase control's presence in the format, without creating a go-to engine for control decks.

Why does Krosan Grip (or Abrupt Decay) not cut it? Sure Sword is immune, but you kill Thopter Foundry.

Even besides that, between:
- the combo being quite slow (needs some mana to really start doing anything)
- there being playable (and played) answers in the format
- many decks being able to ignore it
- the combo not actually having a good shell ready for it
I don't see it breaking much.

What decks actually get hurt by this? Pod, Twin, etc can go over the top with infinite combo's. (Note that there are more combo decks / ways to go over the top in the format now then when ThopterSword was big.) The actual combo decks ignore it. Burn can race it, and will succumb if it can't, but that's just how burn goes. It probably hurts Delver, but that's kind of the point, and they still have plenty of ways to fight back, between racing, disrupting, and sideboarding cards like Izzet Staticaster. Junk plays Stony Silence and Scavenging Ooze. UWR has Stony Silence and Staticaster if it wants. Against Affinity it will eventually murder them, but the ThopterSword player will still need several pieces of interaction before the combo will be good enough.

I honestly think ThopterSword would maybe be a deck, and definitely not break anything. Is it really a better finisher for control than Scapeshift? I don't think so. I guess it would see more play than Bitterblossom, somewhere in the range of Wild Nacatl. AKA, harmless.
Posted in: Modern Archives
1

Nov 27, 2014
Tahn posted a message on Match report

g1 He has a t4 Anafenza but it runs into Hooded Hydra so things are looking good although I'm behind on life. Then he plays Rakshasa Deathdealer and it's a huge problem. I throw Hydra and then a Snake per turn in front of it, as it's simply to be big to be stoppable. I Dig for Aeralists to try and race him in the air, but he has double Abzan Guide, and a Dragonscale Boon to keep one alive, so I never get to race him and eventually succumb. I flooded out at the end (13 lands out of 22 cards, including two spells taken with DTT), but I don't know if it would have mattered because I wasn't remotely killing him.

g2 He puts pressure with Heir of the Wilds and Awaken the Bear, while I unmorph a Pine Walker to kill his Archer's Parapet. Somewhat strangely, he decides to race - twice he attacks with Heir and then plays a Sultai Scavenger, but I have two Savage Punches to get rid of the Scavengers while getting ahead in the damage race. He is then forced into blocking mode and I draw a pair of Glacial Stalkers after we both empty our hands, which is enough to get there.

g3 T2 Rakshasa on the play. :-( I play Monastery Flock on t3 to slow him down, and my plan is to use Glacial Stalker + Savage Punch once he's tapped out. Unfortunately I miss on my fifth land. I use Crippling Chill to help me find it, but the draw + next draw step still whiff so I'm forced to use Sultai Charm to find the missing land. Next turn I play Sultai Soothsayer (seeing four lands now, which is actually good at this point, as it means I get to take the sixth land while getting rid of three more). I then play Riverwheel Aerialists, which meets Rite of the Serpent but that gives me the opening to punch the Deathdealer! I now have a hand full of gas while he's out of things, and I'm only being clocked by Archer's Parapet. I play the second Aerialists, which goes to town, punches left and right. My DTT chains into Treasure Cruise and I find more fatties to put on the board and then the game is ours soon!

Victory!
Posted in: Team D
1

Nov 22, 2014
Tahn posted a message on

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Nov 22, 2014
Tahn posted a message on Match report

Round 2!

I get to start the first game, which is good cause my draw is slow. Luckily it turns out his deck produces a somewhat awkward start. I Crippling Chill his morph, he plays a Timely Hordemate and then his 2-drops show up in the form of a pair of Valley Dashers. I play a Hooded Hydra with x=4, which eats the Hordemate, gets Crater's Clawed and then trades some more, letting me stabilize. Dig Through Time finds an Aerialists, a pair of Savage Punches lets me clean up and kill him quickly.

In the second game he curves out with Valley Dasher into Mardu Hordechief into Timely Hordemate (bringing back the Dasher which traded with my morph) into more Valley Dasher and Monastery Swiftspear. I have a decent draw but get overrun.

The third game is a longer affair, I have Wetland Sambar to trade with a Valley Dasher, which eventually comes back due to Timely Hordemate. But we have about the same amount of creatures so I can stop the offense. He's forced to use Crater's Claws on Sagu Archer, but the board still stalls when my Sultai Flayer and Heir of the Wilds face off against Mardu Hordechief and 3 1/1 tokens, with both of us out of cards at around 14 life each. We play draw-go for a while, at some point my larger creatures show up. A Pine Walker and a massive Hooded Hydra soon reduce him to chump-block mode and once he runs out of chump-blockers, the game and the match go to the Durdle Turtles.
Posted in: Team D
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