Last night I cracked a pack1 that had Oran rief survivalist, baloth woodcrasher, scute mob, some meh white/red, and a hideous end.
I picked up the hideous end, hoping the players to my left(right?) would all fight over the phenomenal green, and that I would be rewarded pack2 with some black. I was not disappointed. Never found a nighthawk, but I did pull:
3 grul draz vamps
2 hexmages
1 gatekeeper
3x hideous end
1x disfigure
burst lit(never made it in the deck)
1x bala ged thief
1x hagra diabolist
1x blade of the blood chief
and some filler creatures like a croc and the swamp walkers. Let me tell you what a sick combo it is to swing with a 1/1 grul draz with a blade of bloodchief on it, and a hex mage. Put the first strike dmg on the stack, sac it for counters on the grul, and disfigure the remains. It was very satisfying to finally draft Mono-black. Went 3-0.
Game one I used bala-ged thief on my opponents final card in hand. It was Iona o.o CLOSE CALL!
I still need one game for the league this week. SN is TheKruseMissile if some people maybe wanna add me to their friends list and keep an eye out for me.
Evan Erwin's latest The Magic Show has glimpses of the "UI redesign" from a preview he got at PT Austin. It's pretty cool, although not as cool as the news that MTGO could eventually be played from a browser. That's pretty mind-blowing, actually.
It's a good thing that change won't actually roll out until 2015 or my work productivity and general employability would be in serious jeopardy.
Here's the text of the preview for anyone stuck at work. Just text doesn't do this justice, though.
A New Magic Online
So while I was at Pro Tour: Austin I was invited to a special presentation on how the upcoming Magic Online UI redesign is coming. But I think it's actually a misnomer to categorize what I saw as simply a "UI Redesign." That would imply that Magic Online was simply getting "fixed" in as much as they would still have the same fat Windows client but a few things that are better, like a nicer play area or something.
No, this is not that kind of redesign. This is much, much more.
This is a complete overhaul, and I mean 180 degrees away from anything I ever imagined. Quite simply, Magic Online is getting badass.
They're getting rid of the Windows fat client altogether and are going to run Magic Online in a browser window! Now... think of that for a minute. Think of the long, strange path that Magic Online has taken, from the original game Shandalaar to the Duels of the Planeswalkers. Think of the time and effort that had to go into downloading and installing every electronic Magic game. Now think of simply loading a URL and playing Magic instantly. No weekly updates, just a webpage. No 'download this installer and then lets download all of the game content,' just a webpage. Think of any browser, on any platform - Mac, Linux, whatever - platforms that have never even had a chance to run Magic Online before without virtual machines or emulation or whatever.
Needless to say, this is huge and will open up Magic Online like never before.
Now the demo I was shown was mocked up through Silverlight, Microsoft's Flash competitor. The key reason for this, I was told, was partially because there is right click functionality in Silverlight where there isn't a right click ability in Flash. This is said to change for the near future for Flash, and honestly I don't really care one way or the other as to which technology is used. The point is, wow does it look fantastic. Let's start the demo, shall we?
The first thing spoken of were the User Research findings. These will come to no surprise to long-time users of Magic Online. Version 3.0's "User Interface" is barely one at all, important social features, you know, like a decent chat interface, are very much lacking in the client without being inundated with either windows or tabs. The cards themselves can get heavily pixelated and are tough to read and find, while the documentation is... lacking, to put it lightly.
Now do note that this redesign you'll see today is merely one part of a complete overhaul of what you and I think of Magic Online. Let's get started.
First Wizards of the Coast did some Eyetracking Hotspot research. This is where they have cameras on your eyes while you play the game and learn your behavioral patterns via 'hot spots' where you give significant visual attention and 'cold spots' where you look infrequently or not at all. From this research they unveiled a new play scene. Check it out, all seen from within a browser window.
Notice how the graphics are razor sharp. The text is beautifully rendered, in fact, all aspects of the card apart from the art and textured backgrounds are vector rendered. What does this mean? It means that you can scale the graphics to as large or as small as you want and it looks just the same. This means readability from tiny text and large text alike. Even the mana symbols are now vector art, so they too scale perfectly. Look at how sharp it shows up here on the Lightwielder Paladin.
Ready to see some sexiness? Check out what happens during combat: Oh yeah, that's the red zone, boys. Beautiful and vivid, ready for action.
Check out how Serra goes into the red zone swiftly and smoothly, not tapping of course due to Vigilance. In another scene, we actually see some Canyon Minotaur's turn sideways against an army of Grizzly Bears.
Check out the arrow-less blocking! The smooth shift of cards as you assign blockers and it gives you space to see who is blocking whom.
When you want to assign the order of blockers, simply put those in front on top of the stack, and proceed. No need for numbering, with ugly up/down arrow controls, you see the order in front of you!
You may also have noticed the lack of mana symbols that forever live next to your avatar and graveyard. Those are no longer there, instead replaced by pop-up mana symbols, along with their amount, whenever you add said mana to your pool. That is just simply efficient and awesome.
But we're not done yet. Let's take a quick look down here on the bottom right at one of my favorite features: The notepad. Oh my God. So simple, yet SO necessary. It's sad that you currently have to use a different text editor outside the game in order to take notes about the game you're playing. Yeesh. Think of having a persistent list of possible removal spells your opponent could have, or cards you've seen in the match already. So sick.
Do note that right now they're working out how best to deal with the chat interface. This problem has been solved before by IM programs, and integration with those in a browser is obviously easy to do. We'll see what they have in store for that little issue, and I'm pretty sure it'll be an improvement when compared to the tab-tastic interface we currently 'enjoy.'
Moving on, let's take a look at some cards actually being played. Here we have Serra Angel, attacking, while your opponent is at five life. You play the game-winning Glorious Charge. But what's that? Here comes Seismic Strike while that's on the stack. Luckily you have another Glorious Charge to save Serra.
Check out the stack layering. You can make it transparent to see what's going on in the battlefield or you can shrink it. Take a look at the targeting of Seismic Strike and how it's communicated. You see a set of triangles around Serra, you see the card on the stack highlighted the same time and the same color as Serra when moused over.
After the stack has resolved, check out the damage indicator on Serra Angel. A hell of a lot slicker than an ugly red number somewhere in its art, no?
Take a look at how the stack is represented when triggered abilities go wild. Specifically separating an ability from a spell in terms of game representation. This gives you a clear and easy understanding of what ability is happening and when, easily read text of said ability, and reduces confusion.
Moving forward, something you may not have noticed. While looking at creatures on the battlefield, you notice the lands? Do they seem... different? Lands in this UI revamp are actually smaller than their other permanent counterparts. This is rarely noticed but provides significant more space for other permanents and is not missed most of the time.
Again, I would like to reiterate this as much as it was reiterated to me: Everything I've shown you in the demo could change. They could not use Silverlight, they could represent the stack and/or red zone differently, chat could be in different places, etc.
With that said, the possibilities of this are just mind boggling. Oh Magic Online, The Places You'll Go! Imagine integrating Facebook with Magic Online, sending a status update that you're playing in the Tournament Practice Room and provide a URL for your friends to immediately begin spectating. Going from zero to draft in seconds, no longer deterred by set content and card images that need to be downloaded all to your machine.
Up next, they said, will be the revamping of the Collection screen and the Deck Editor, a place of pity and scorn for many a user. And considering how incredible the play scene is looking, I am stoked that they'll have something really fantastic, quick, and sleek to show us in regards to those areas of the client.
But soon, it won't even be a "client," it'll simply be Magic Online. A URL. Loaded in seconds, playing in moments, moving forward in sheer gameplay, not 3D avatars and custom granite-marble themes.
I for one am stoked, and while I will continue to play Magic Online no matter what it's form, things sure look incredibly good from here.
Up next are a few Pro Tour: Austin Extras. If you can make it, I'll be live this weekend in Nashville, battling at the $5K and rocking the PTQ the next day. Do say hello, and I hope everyone can make the PTQ as well, as I can personally vouch for the Next Level Games store as being very much awesome. My buddy Donnie Noland has a great place to game, and a huge space across from the store in which he holds his events.
So until next time Magic players, this is Evan Erwin. Tapping the cards... so you don't have to.
Um, it's kinda hefty because I couldn't think of an efficient way to cover the pertinent information. So each player has their own little grid area that shows their weekly official opponents, the match results, and a total points earned that week. On the left side, where your names are, you'll notice I've changed the Opponents column to a Handicap column. This will be relevant in upcoming weeks, as players that do poorly will receive a Negative Handicap, meaning that defeating them will result in fewer points, while the strong players will receive a Positive Handicap resulting in the earning more points for defeating them.
Make sense?
Hopefully such a system won't terribly skew things. And if enough people would rather I not try to incorporate such a thing, I will happily discard the idea. But I wanted to find a way to incentivize improving your deck and playing different, perhaps more powerful, opponents.
Oooh, I like it. You can't sort by points easily, but there are few enough players that its easy to scroll. (Also, the right half of the spreadsheet takes a second to 'catch up' to the left when you scroll wheel down. Made me kind of dizzy going through. Not entirely unpleasant. ) Nice!
I need 1 more match unless I count the one I played with someone who had played 3. I'll get it in tomorrow likely.
Unsane, technically you're supposed to just count the first three matches you play in a week, regardless of how many matches your opponents have played.
The handicap system I devised is supposed to help adjust point totals for people who repeatedly play the same individuals.
I played Unsane for what could be considered his third game, but at the time we both went into it specifically calling it a practice game since he was testing new deck ideas. Of course, since he won, he may want to count it anyway =P.
Also, are points awarded for game victories or match victories only?
P.S.: your spreadsheet is purdy.
Dropping Loads on
Sceptre: Penny Arcade, where you get starcraft AND marriage advice.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
Yea go ahead and count my 2-1 victory over the likely impossible to track down combo of invisibility and ninjitsu combined with alien space technology.
Yea go ahead and count my 2-1 victory over the likely impossible to track down combo of invisibility and ninjitsu combined with alien space technology.
Ha! That name comes from when we were bored we'd try and type in 3 word combinations into Google that would yield zero results. For a time, "invisible space ninja" had zero Google hits, which makes sense, if you think about it.
I'll be on tonight for some drafts and general messing around-ness.
Dropping Loads on
Sceptre: Penny Arcade, where you get starcraft AND marriage advice.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
So since I've had no luck getting league games in this week, for the rest of the night outside of showering and until I go to bed, I'm going to just make rooms in Anything Goes and wait for people to take the bait til I get my games in. Please don't make me feel like Fry's dog.
Won an 8 person queue tonight, so fun. I played boros, there was 6 jund and a RG valakut deck. Beat the jund deck without too much trouble, second round opponent didn't show up and forfeited. Third round I won the first game easily, second game he played a grazing gladeheart and ramped to victory with lifegain. Third game I almost lost but topdecked an earthquake that I had sideboarded and killed him with it.
Anyways, Yay. Maybe I'll try and draft and be horrible at it.
I'm feeling you on the drafting rut, Meta. I haven't been able to put together a cohesive deck (i.e. on color creatures and removal) in like 3 consecutive tries, and then I get rolled first match by Sorin or Jar Jar Sphinx. I did an M2010 draft and had a bit more luck with it, just taking every Tendrils of Corruption I saw.
Nisi, I've played my Boros against Valakult 3 times now in tourney practice, and every time they've died before they had even 4 mountains in play. What is the deck actually supposed to do, and what are their outs for sideboarding? I put in Mark of Asylum and Earthquake from my sideboard (which is a great combo against other Boros), but none of those cards came up, and I still won.
Dropping Loads on
Sceptre: Penny Arcade, where you get starcraft AND marriage advice.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
I'm feeling you on the drafting rut, Meta. I haven't been able to put together a cohesive deck (i.e. on color creatures and removal) in like 3 consecutive tries, and then I get rolled first match by Sorin or Jar Jar Sphinx. I did an M2010 draft and had a bit more luck with it, just taking every Tendrils of Corruption I saw.
Nisi, I've played my Boros against Valakult 3 times now in tourney practice, and every time they've died before they had even 4 mountains in play. What is the deck actually supposed to do, and what are their outs for sideboarding? I put in Mark of Asylum and Earthquake from my sideboard (which is a great combo against other Boros), but none of those cards came up, and I still won.
if your talking about the not so great RG version of valakut, it pretty much just tries to ramp up to 5 mountains as quick as possible, and thats about it, they generally don't even have that much to ramp into, so it just sort of flounders and dies.
And than theres the RW version, which not as many people play but they should. It doesn't have any ramp except armillary speheres, and just controls the board via burn,white exile removal, doj, and 2 planeswalkers, chandra nalaar and ajani vengeant. It works much much better
Yeah I've beaten RG Valakut every time I've played it with Boros. This version with Grazing was annoying but I still beat him. RG Valakut just seems like a bad deck to me, slow ramp to nowhere.
Also I played draft and was eliminated first round, it was a terrible disaster. I think I'm going to stick to the constructed queues for now.
I'm feeling you on the drafting rut, Meta. I haven't been able to put together a cohesive deck (i.e. on color creatures and removal) in like 3 consecutive tries, and then I get rolled first match by Sorin or Jar Jar Sphinx. I did an M2010 draft and had a bit more luck with it, just taking every Tendrils of Corruption I saw.
See, I've been drafting nice coherent decks, even in color-schemes that are overdrafted (like B/R or Mono-black), but I've just been undone by shuffler shenanigans and poor hand choice.
For instance, keeping a hand of Skyfisher, Lynx, Hedron Crab, Journey to Nowhere, Island, Windrider Eel, Into the Roil.
And then not seeing a land for 7 draw steps.
With 18 lands in the deck.
But yeah, Jar Jar Sphinx is a dominator.
EDIT - The present shit list is as follows:
Gogokodo
Shamus
cshadow42
Last Son
Tommat
Acxen
Winky
djfindus
Apparently Infidel withdrew and decided to just keep that fact between him and THE SIGN UP SHEET.
LockedonTarget, you still need to submit one more match.
Oh crap, really? I played in 3, too. I don't have access to MTGO right now, either...eep. I played two people back on tuesday...oh man...does anyone remember playing against me(my online name is TheKruseMissile)? I lost, I know that. I thought the person I had played against had reported it.
Could you double-check the tuesday night PMs just to make sure?
Oh crap, really? I played in 3, too. I don't have access to MTGO right now, either...eep. I played two people back on tuesday...oh man...does anyone remember playing against me(my online name is TheKruseMissile)? I lost, I know that. I thought the person I had played against had reported it.
Could you double-check the tuesday night PMs just to make sure?
I'll just pick a random person for you to have lost against.
I'm feeling you on the drafting rut, Meta. I haven't been able to put together a cohesive deck (i.e. on color creatures and removal) in like 3 consecutive tries, and then I get rolled first match by Sorin or Jar Jar Sphinx. I did an M2010 draft and had a bit more luck with it, just taking every Tendrils of Corruption I saw.
Nisi, I've played my Boros against Valakult 3 times now in tourney practice, and every time they've died before they had even 4 mountains in play. What is the deck actually supposed to do, and what are their outs for sideboarding? I put in Mark of Asylum and Earthquake from my sideboard (which is a great combo against other Boros), but none of those cards came up, and I still won.
if your talking about the not so great RG version of valakut, it pretty much just tries to ramp up to 5 mountains as quick as possible, and thats about it, they generally don't even have that much to ramp into, so it just sort of flounders and dies.
And than theres the RW version, which not as many people play but they should. It doesn't have any ramp except armillary speheres, and just controls the board via burn,white exile removal, doj, and 2 planeswalkers, chandra nalaar and ajani vengeant. It works much much better
That does sound like a fun deck, but w/ Boros I haven't had much problems against planeswalkers either. I highly recommend Mark of Asylum .
Dropping Loads on
Sceptre: Penny Arcade, where you get starcraft AND marriage advice.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
Ok, well...um, only Last Son actually did anything about playing some games.
I've deleted dj_findus and AJAlk/Winky from the league, findus because he/she is new and Winky because he seemed really tentative about playing.
The other folks (Gogo, Tommat, AcXen, Artful, and Shamus) get a pass for now because they're regulars and I'm assuming some baaaaaad shit came up they lives.
it didn't just win, it got 3 of the top 8 spots, which probably means it's legit...
also, the 2nd place 5c cascade deck just scooped to it in the finals without playing, and that deck also had an exact copy in the top 8. metagame is starting to shape up
I've been playing the paper version of this game for 4 years now, and I just noticed that my 9th Edition Starter Set has a coupon for a free MTGO account.
Is there any reason for me to set up an online account if I play paper? Perhaps new Online accounts come with enough product that it's worth installing and messing around with? The coupon also boasts "Track your collection both online and off", does that mean it has some inventory tool?
I've been curious about MTGO for a while now.. I think I just need a push in the right direction.
Posts
Like Jeff said, 4-3's are probably the best way to go as it's really easy to win the first round at least.
I'm not really sure why that is, but it's true. It's been a long long time since I scrubbed out in a 4-3.
But 8-4's will probably teach you the most about drafting.
I picked up the hideous end, hoping the players to my left(right?) would all fight over the phenomenal green, and that I would be rewarded pack2 with some black. I was not disappointed. Never found a nighthawk, but I did pull:
3 grul draz vamps
2 hexmages
1 gatekeeper
3x hideous end
1x disfigure
burst lit(never made it in the deck)
1x bala ged thief
1x hagra diabolist
1x blade of the blood chief
and some filler creatures like a croc and the swamp walkers. Let me tell you what a sick combo it is to swing with a 1/1 grul draz with a blade of bloodchief on it, and a hex mage. Put the first strike dmg on the stack, sac it for counters on the grul, and disfigure the remains. It was very satisfying to finally draft Mono-black. Went 3-0.
Game one I used bala-ged thief on my opponents final card in hand. It was Iona o.o CLOSE CALL!
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
It's a good thing that change won't actually roll out until 2015 or my work productivity and general employability would be in serious jeopardy.
Here's the text of the preview for anyone stuck at work. Just text doesn't do this justice, though.
So while I was at Pro Tour: Austin I was invited to a special presentation on how the upcoming Magic Online UI redesign is coming. But I think it's actually a misnomer to categorize what I saw as simply a "UI Redesign." That would imply that Magic Online was simply getting "fixed" in as much as they would still have the same fat Windows client but a few things that are better, like a nicer play area or something.
No, this is not that kind of redesign. This is much, much more.
This is a complete overhaul, and I mean 180 degrees away from anything I ever imagined. Quite simply, Magic Online is getting badass.
They're getting rid of the Windows fat client altogether and are going to run Magic Online in a browser window! Now... think of that for a minute. Think of the long, strange path that Magic Online has taken, from the original game Shandalaar to the Duels of the Planeswalkers. Think of the time and effort that had to go into downloading and installing every electronic Magic game. Now think of simply loading a URL and playing Magic instantly. No weekly updates, just a webpage. No 'download this installer and then lets download all of the game content,' just a webpage. Think of any browser, on any platform - Mac, Linux, whatever - platforms that have never even had a chance to run Magic Online before without virtual machines or emulation or whatever.
Needless to say, this is huge and will open up Magic Online like never before.
Now the demo I was shown was mocked up through Silverlight, Microsoft's Flash competitor. The key reason for this, I was told, was partially because there is right click functionality in Silverlight where there isn't a right click ability in Flash. This is said to change for the near future for Flash, and honestly I don't really care one way or the other as to which technology is used. The point is, wow does it look fantastic. Let's start the demo, shall we?
The first thing spoken of were the User Research findings. These will come to no surprise to long-time users of Magic Online. Version 3.0's "User Interface" is barely one at all, important social features, you know, like a decent chat interface, are very much lacking in the client without being inundated with either windows or tabs. The cards themselves can get heavily pixelated and are tough to read and find, while the documentation is... lacking, to put it lightly.
Now do note that this redesign you'll see today is merely one part of a complete overhaul of what you and I think of Magic Online. Let's get started.
First Wizards of the Coast did some Eyetracking Hotspot research. This is where they have cameras on your eyes while you play the game and learn your behavioral patterns via 'hot spots' where you give significant visual attention and 'cold spots' where you look infrequently or not at all. From this research they unveiled a new play scene. Check it out, all seen from within a browser window.
Notice how the graphics are razor sharp. The text is beautifully rendered, in fact, all aspects of the card apart from the art and textured backgrounds are vector rendered. What does this mean? It means that you can scale the graphics to as large or as small as you want and it looks just the same. This means readability from tiny text and large text alike. Even the mana symbols are now vector art, so they too scale perfectly. Look at how sharp it shows up here on the Lightwielder Paladin.
Ready to see some sexiness? Check out what happens during combat: Oh yeah, that's the red zone, boys. Beautiful and vivid, ready for action.
Check out how Serra goes into the red zone swiftly and smoothly, not tapping of course due to Vigilance. In another scene, we actually see some Canyon Minotaur's turn sideways against an army of Grizzly Bears.
Check out the arrow-less blocking! The smooth shift of cards as you assign blockers and it gives you space to see who is blocking whom.
When you want to assign the order of blockers, simply put those in front on top of the stack, and proceed. No need for numbering, with ugly up/down arrow controls, you see the order in front of you!
You may also have noticed the lack of mana symbols that forever live next to your avatar and graveyard. Those are no longer there, instead replaced by pop-up mana symbols, along with their amount, whenever you add said mana to your pool. That is just simply efficient and awesome.
But we're not done yet. Let's take a quick look down here on the bottom right at one of my favorite features: The notepad. Oh my God. So simple, yet SO necessary. It's sad that you currently have to use a different text editor outside the game in order to take notes about the game you're playing. Yeesh. Think of having a persistent list of possible removal spells your opponent could have, or cards you've seen in the match already. So sick.
Do note that right now they're working out how best to deal with the chat interface. This problem has been solved before by IM programs, and integration with those in a browser is obviously easy to do. We'll see what they have in store for that little issue, and I'm pretty sure it'll be an improvement when compared to the tab-tastic interface we currently 'enjoy.'
Moving on, let's take a look at some cards actually being played. Here we have Serra Angel, attacking, while your opponent is at five life. You play the game-winning Glorious Charge. But what's that? Here comes Seismic Strike while that's on the stack. Luckily you have another Glorious Charge to save Serra.
Check out the stack layering. You can make it transparent to see what's going on in the battlefield or you can shrink it. Take a look at the targeting of Seismic Strike and how it's communicated. You see a set of triangles around Serra, you see the card on the stack highlighted the same time and the same color as Serra when moused over.
After the stack has resolved, check out the damage indicator on Serra Angel. A hell of a lot slicker than an ugly red number somewhere in its art, no?
Take a look at how the stack is represented when triggered abilities go wild. Specifically separating an ability from a spell in terms of game representation. This gives you a clear and easy understanding of what ability is happening and when, easily read text of said ability, and reduces confusion.
Moving forward, something you may not have noticed. While looking at creatures on the battlefield, you notice the lands? Do they seem... different? Lands in this UI revamp are actually smaller than their other permanent counterparts. This is rarely noticed but provides significant more space for other permanents and is not missed most of the time.
Again, I would like to reiterate this as much as it was reiterated to me: Everything I've shown you in the demo could change. They could not use Silverlight, they could represent the stack and/or red zone differently, chat could be in different places, etc.
With that said, the possibilities of this are just mind boggling. Oh Magic Online, The Places You'll Go! Imagine integrating Facebook with Magic Online, sending a status update that you're playing in the Tournament Practice Room and provide a URL for your friends to immediately begin spectating. Going from zero to draft in seconds, no longer deterred by set content and card images that need to be downloaded all to your machine.
Up next, they said, will be the revamping of the Collection screen and the Deck Editor, a place of pity and scorn for many a user. And considering how incredible the play scene is looking, I am stoked that they'll have something really fantastic, quick, and sleek to show us in regards to those areas of the client.
But soon, it won't even be a "client," it'll simply be Magic Online. A URL. Loaded in seconds, playing in moments, moving forward in sheer gameplay, not 3D avatars and custom granite-marble themes.
I for one am stoked, and while I will continue to play Magic Online no matter what it's form, things sure look incredibly good from here.
Up next are a few Pro Tour: Austin Extras. If you can make it, I'll be live this weekend in Nashville, battling at the $5K and rocking the PTQ the next day. Do say hello, and I hope everyone can make the PTQ as well, as I can personally vouch for the Next Level Games store as being very much awesome. My buddy Donnie Noland has a great place to game, and a huge space across from the store in which he holds his events.
So until next time Magic players, this is Evan Erwin. Tapping the cards... so you don't have to.
Evan "misterorange" Erwin
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
It can be found here: Magical Spreadsheet of Visual Imprisonment
Um, it's kinda hefty because I couldn't think of an efficient way to cover the pertinent information. So each player has their own little grid area that shows their weekly official opponents, the match results, and a total points earned that week. On the left side, where your names are, you'll notice I've changed the Opponents column to a Handicap column. This will be relevant in upcoming weeks, as players that do poorly will receive a Negative Handicap, meaning that defeating them will result in fewer points, while the strong players will receive a Positive Handicap resulting in the earning more points for defeating them.
Make sense?
Hopefully such a system won't terribly skew things. And if enough people would rather I not try to incorporate such a thing, I will happily discard the idea. But I wanted to find a way to incentivize improving your deck and playing different, perhaps more powerful, opponents.
Also, I know shit is ugly.
But so's your mom.
Oooh, I like it. You can't sort by points easily, but there are few enough players that its easy to scroll. (Also, the right half of the spreadsheet takes a second to 'catch up' to the left when you scroll wheel down. Made me kind of dizzy going through. Not entirely unpleasant.
EDIT: Nevermind. I kan reed now.
Steam profile.
Getting started with BATTLETECH: Part 1 / Part 2
It really shouldn't be that hard. You know, you just have to play anyone! PM me the results.
And I think everyone is in the clan know, but if you're still clanless, I'll be on hella late tonight (~Midnight EST).
I'll try to be catching folks after dinner tonight so I can get games done before the weekend.
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Unsane, technically you're supposed to just count the first three matches you play in a week, regardless of how many matches your opponents have played.
The handicap system I devised is supposed to help adjust point totals for people who repeatedly play the same individuals.
Also, are points awarded for game victories or match victories only?
P.S.: your spreadsheet is purdy.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
Ha! That name comes from when we were bored we'd try and type in 3 word combinations into Google that would yield zero results. For a time, "invisible space ninja" had zero Google hits, which makes sense, if you think about it.
I'll be on tonight for some drafts and general messing around-ness.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Anyways, Yay. Maybe I'll try and draft and be horrible at it.
Also, I'm in a terrible drafting rut. I'm so sad.
Nisi, I've played my Boros against Valakult 3 times now in tourney practice, and every time they've died before they had even 4 mountains in play. What is the deck actually supposed to do, and what are their outs for sideboarding? I put in Mark of Asylum and Earthquake from my sideboard (which is a great combo against other Boros), but none of those cards came up, and I still won.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
if your talking about the not so great RG version of valakut, it pretty much just tries to ramp up to 5 mountains as quick as possible, and thats about it, they generally don't even have that much to ramp into, so it just sort of flounders and dies.
And than theres the RW version, which not as many people play but they should. It doesn't have any ramp except armillary speheres, and just controls the board via burn,white exile removal, doj, and 2 planeswalkers, chandra nalaar and ajani vengeant. It works much much better
Also I played draft and was eliminated first round, it was a terrible disaster. I think I'm going to stick to the constructed queues for now.
See, I've been drafting nice coherent decks, even in color-schemes that are overdrafted (like B/R or Mono-black), but I've just been undone by shuffler shenanigans and poor hand choice.
For instance, keeping a hand of Skyfisher, Lynx, Hedron Crab, Journey to Nowhere, Island, Windrider Eel, Into the Roil.
And then not seeing a land for 7 draw steps.
With 18 lands in the deck.
But yeah, Jar Jar Sphinx is a dominator.
EDIT - The present shit list is as follows:
Gogokodo
Shamus
cshadow42
Last Son
Tommat
Acxen
Winky
djfindus
Apparently Infidel withdrew and decided to just keep that fact between him and THE SIGN UP SHEET.
LockedonTarget, you still need to submit one more match.
Could you double-check the tuesday night PMs just to make sure?
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
I'll just pick a random person for you to have lost against.
Steam ID: Obos Vent: Obos
That does sound like a fun deck, but w/ Boros I haven't had much problems against planeswalkers either. I highly recommend Mark of Asylum
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
Ok, cool.
I think the issue is that Locked didn't declare it an official match for HIM, like he did his other matches. So, you know....
Anyone around to play some games tonight? In-game name is Last Son of Khas, though I'm not in the PA guild.
Yo dawg, I'll be on in like half an hour to hook you up with a guild invite and maybe battle you. Glad you checked in.
I've deleted dj_findus and AJAlk/Winky from the league, findus because he/she is new and Winky because he seemed really tentative about playing.
The other folks (Gogo, Tommat, AcXen, Artful, and Shamus) get a pass for now because they're regulars and I'm assuming some baaaaaad shit came up they lives.
3clipse: The key to any successful marriage is a good mid-game transition.
if your deck cant win by turn 6, go home.
Elves
also, the 2nd place 5c cascade deck just scooped to it in the finals without playing, and that deck also had an exact copy in the top 8. metagame is starting to shape up
Is there any reason for me to set up an online account if I play paper? Perhaps new Online accounts come with enough product that it's worth installing and messing around with? The coupon also boasts "Track your collection both online and off", does that mean it has some inventory tool?
I've been curious about MTGO for a while now.. I think I just need a push in the right direction.