[Fedoras of Salvation] - White Knights ITT

[zemanjaski]

Boros Charm and Legion's Initiative are likely to be very good. An anthem that gives you some measure of wrath insurance is pretty sweet. Making all your guys 3 power is also very relevant.

[Valdarith]

Yeah, and a 4/4 Reckoner is nothing to sneeze at.

[zemanjaski]

Well, if you've got a bad cold, you've got a bad cold

[Jack]

Tired as fuck right now. 22 hours of thinking and typing in two days with a cold and low sleep makes me feel close to death.

[Link]

Temporal advantage being good and VCA, very good post. I was following it somehow until you dropped the word power matrix on me >_>

then it got fuzzy and I tried to run it through the Gruul translator:

"CARD SMASH WELL? GOOD. CARD SMASH EVEN BETTER WITH OTHERS? MORE GOOD."


but seriously that makes me feel even more confident about my list. BTE gives temporal advantage, LM does as well obviously, and firefist is the epitome of Virtual Card advantage (doesn't actually eliminate their card by having it stuck in their hand, but by having it stuck in the field! Wasted mana is even better and translates into temporal advantage, no?)

Going to keep fine-tuning the SB and do more testing with your post in mind Z.

[zemanjaski]

^ Yeah, mana advantage is something that is becoming increasingly important as magic gets faster and more tempo oriented. Removal that can answer your opponent's board cheaply while letting you advance your own game plan is SO important now; haste creatures and fast mana (eg: BTE) are at their all time best.

[zemanjaski]

It would be really interesting to graph the power matrix of cards as an analytical tool, but I fear it is too contextually dependant.

[photodyer]

<lightbulb blinks on>

@zeman - Your post regarding temporal and relative CA pulls the meta into remarkable clarity. Let me see if I'm indeed following your line of thought:

Temporal advantage is inherent in cards that somehow warp the relationship between players' life clocks. This can be either a "positive" effect--either directly or indirectly increasing your life in ratio to theirs; or a "negative" effect--either directly or indirectly decreasing their life relative to yours. Thus, SRev represents potentially high temporal advantage of a positive nature (increasing your life total directly, and indirectly by gaining answers to an opponent's and thus preventing the opponent from impacting your life total) and possibly of a negative nature as well (by giving you threats with which to threaten their life total). It also of course provides direct card advantage.

Craterhoof, in contrast
represents high potential temporal advantage of a direct negative nature (by visiting massive damage against their life total). Sweepers, in this context, would represent potentially high relative temporal advantage of a positive nature (by reducing their clock relative to your life total) as well as possible direct card advantage (depending our your creature density relative to theirs).

Am I on the right track?

[zemanjaski]

Yes!

It will also benefit you to consider the 'velocity' of plays, relative to Virtual Card Advantage (VCA).

An example: normally you want to curve out as: Turn 1 creature, Turn 2 creature, Turn 3 creature etc. BTE allows you to play 2 creatures on Turn 2, which is not dissimilar to giving on of your creatures haste (as it attacks on Turn 3 instead of Turn 4 in this example). In many board states, this will generate, say, 2 extra points of damage, which is the equivalent, in burn theory, of drawing 1 extra card (burn theory posits that 3 damage = 1 card). So, now you're up on VCA (you've generated anywhere from two thirds to a full extra card) but you also have the threat of more damage in play, on account of the speed with which you can play out threats, which generates temporal advantage.

Conversely, a wrath (4 mana) which answers 4 or mana worth of investment inherently stabalizes ~ mana sum theory posits that
the deck which spends more mana in a game generally wins. This makes sense, an aggro decks spends all of its available mana in short games (curving out, pumps, etc) but then is unable to do so as the game draws out. Conversely, a control deck is often quite mana inefficient early, until it can get its engines online ~ giving it a significant advantage in the long game. This is why Stonewright is so absurd (allowing you to always have maximized mana efficiency ~ no other mana sink has ever done that!) and why lines of play like:
"Turn 1 Guy
Turn 2 kill your Guy with Pillar, play another Guy"

are so devastating ~ they're generating temporal advantage and VCA; but the momentum these plays can generate are immediately lost once your opponent stabalizes; hence the emphasis on lines of play that keep the opponent under sustained pressure for a longer period, even if that results in a lower overall level of pressure ~ if you can make a board state sufficiently threatening such that they cannot rely
on their endgame cards to generate sufficient advantage to force a win (eg: tapping out for thragtusk is no good against a board with a pyreheart wolf) you in turn give your creatures more opportunity to generate VCA ~ red 'draws cards' by just bashing face ~ and you generate temporal advantage because you're casting free lightning bolts ~ so you're now drawing cards and playing them for free.

That's a broad overview of where I see the theoretical direction of aggro heading in the next few years ~ this is why creature heavy aggro is increasingly better than spell based aggro; spells have trouble generating VCA (they don't print many burn spells as good as lightning bolt now; you're really looking for cards like Arc Trail to support your creature plan now); whereas a card like Hellrider just represents SO MUCH value every turn that it sits in play (doesn't even have to turn sideways!).

[Kazekirimaru]

Happy birthday from the east coast, Johnny_Spike!

[photodyer]

Happy Birthday, JS! Thanks for all your efforts with The Aristocrats!

@zeman - Alright, James...I really think you should write this up formally. I know that you are drawing some of the philosophy from existing works, but a single resource that could direct people to view cards from a temporal perspective would go a long way in helping folks make the leap from casual to "serious" play and theory. Seriously...this is powerful stuff.

So going on with this line of theory, Young Pyromancer has the potential to be an absurdly powerful card. It generates card and temporal advantage, both of which can be exponentially increased through synergy with anthem effects such as those inherent in [card]Legion's Initiative[/card] and Ogre Battledriver, as well as force multipliers like Hellrider. Casting [card:
1ztrag10]Shock[/card] and generating a 1/1 doesn't on the surface appear that powerful, but doing the same and generating a 4/1 hasty elemental after already reaping the advantage of the burn spell is remarkable. Red could potentially be chaining absurd plays with the cards we will have at our disposal.

[zemanjaski]

Young Pyromancer looks very good. Even if you're just chumping with the 1/1s to gain life, that lets you draw into more burn etc; the more 'modes' and functions a card has the better (consider any charm cycle).

[Dane]

This is why Stonewright is so absurd (allowing you to always have maximized mana efficiency ~ no other mana sink has ever done that!)

But, I thought Cedric Phillips said Stonewright was bad, and that with Gatecrash's release, we could finally dump it from red decks and add awesome stuff like Skullcrack?

He wouldn't lie to us, would he? /puppydogeyes.

[zemanjaski]

http://gif-hunting.tumblr.com/post/3535 ... g-gif-hunt

Select your preferred response out of those.

[photodyer]

In general, Battledriver and Pyromancer on the field together represent a temporal potential that no opponent is going to be able to ignore. Something like BTE into the new token spell would drop a pumped and hasty army onto the field. BTE nut draws are already potentially devastating, but red's temporal potential after M14 goes live is jaw-dropping. It also brings into perspective what Alex was saying about the power of wraths; playing against red aggro is basically going to be "wrath or die" simply because of the redundancy that can be built into a token/burn strategy to take advantage of the temporal warps.

[RedNihilist]

Not going to interrupt you there, just wanted to wish Johnny an happy b-day.

[Wrathberry2]

hey guys
decided to reg here now too, had to create a second account cause i accidently clicked the wrong age^^.

hopefuly we will have much fun together again.

@the dicussion above: i think that battledriver+pyromancer will be really good. battledriver is on the field the enemy does not think anything bad. you cast pyromancer, clear their blocker with a shock or other removal. then attack for 11. sounds nice . many more moves like that are possible with these too.

is [card]Legion's Initiative[/card] currently worth playing it?

im currently not playing standard or any kind of magic since i sold every standard card, which was worth more than 3€ which rotates out in october before their prices fall.
will start again with m14 or
with the rotation, depending, if there will be a competetive deck i like, which does not play any expensive innistrad or m13 cards^^.

[Christen]

Happy birthday Johnny_Spike!

[Lightning_Dolt]

Cheers RedBros. Another year older and deeper in debt. On the bright side, PTQ in a few days. Last second advice?

[zemanjaski]

Get plenty of sleep, bring food.

[windstrider]

Happy birthday, Johnny!

[Link]

JS!

foundry street denizen.. into young pyromancer... into bte+shortcutter. battledriver into chandras Phoenix+loyalist...
HEHEHHAHA
the gears are turning already. Gonna be a good time to be RED!? HEHEHHAHAHAH

[rcwraspy]

Happy Birthday, Johnny.

[windstrider]

Why doesn't life ever throw things at me gracefully?

I mean, jeez, not only does my wife tell me she's pregnant, then she tells me that her new job might be in jeopardy because of some difficulties with her co-workers. Right now, she's the primary income for the family since she makes a heck of a lot more as a nurse than I can as an instructor. She's already not happy with the current state of the healthcare industry, so this adds to her stress as well.

Add to that my daughter and I have to be in court tomorrow for my ex-wife's preliminary hearing for her criminal trial. I'm terrified that she'll get probation with time served. From recent letters to my daughter, my ex states that she did nothing wrong. To her, probation is a slap on the wrist, which means she would escalate again if she got out. She's already trying to convince my daughter that she can legally run away.

These past few days have not been fun
in the stress department.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

As for Magic-related stuff, those were some excellent posts, z. Thank you. They absolutely clarify the current state of the game and the direction it's heading.

[Helios]

I now have a legacy burn deck. Yay!

@windstrider: Find life, and say to it, "You fuckstick." It'll get its shit together. Just remember to breath.

@thisthread: I love you guys.

Only, like, 5% homo.

@Z: I think VCA is definitely a thing that's been observed before, but very few people have written any really good material on it. And I've never seen anything good about the whole temporal effectiveness. You need to write all this up.

Happy birthday Johnny!

As a guitar player, I have pretty strong and nimble fingers so I let those do the "talking". I talk them all the way to the bedroom or bar room bathroom....

The benefits of guitar playing know no bounds.

[zemanjaski]

I'm less crazy than the music and frequent drug use might otherwise indicate. Or not.

[redthirst]

Well, that was a fun half-dozen pages to catch up on.

1. It's good to know my clan doesn't think white-knighting is the way to get girls. The only thing more annoying than someone talking out their ass about Magic when it's clear they have no idea what they're talking about is someone talking out their ass about women when it's clear they have no idea what they're talking about. You wouldn't listen to me and now you're in the "friend zone"? Good. That's where you belong you pussy shit. Now get me a drink because I'm dehydrated from blasting your "friend" in the face all night.

2. I'm sincerely glad Dane is not dead.

3.

LK, we've tried over and again to make Dos Rakis work in this meta and haven't been able to make a go of
it.

The current Dos Rakis list works beautifully.

4. Happy Bday Johnny.

[LP, of the Fires]

Happy Birthday Johnnny. PTQ advice:

Depending on your age, and sleep/energy is less important than you would think. I played a PTQ on 4 hours of sleep after being slightly drunk/stoned the night before and finished 1 win outside of top 8, but that's mostly due to having lived a lifestyle where I would regularly party all night, then work 3 hours later so I'm accustomed to working on little rest. As a general rule though, 8 hours and hydration.

Bring Pen, paper and appropriate tokens. This ensures there is no confusion regarding the game state and nobody gets scumbaged.

If in doubt, ask a judge. Trust nobody.

Don't listen to anything your opponent says. They want to win the game as much as you do. To quote game of thrones, "I don't trust you Littlefinger." "That's the wisest thing you've said Ned Stark."

Pile shuffle before every match and check your sideboard before presenting your deck.
Ain't nobody got time for random game losses that can be easily avoided.

Triple check your deck registration form, then have a buddy check it for you. Related to the above point.

Always announce clearly each action you take. "Burning-Tree, resolve? Use floating red+2 from mountains to cast boros reckoner."

For the love of god, don't searing spear an attacking creature from R/G agro when they have RG open.

Figure out how you deal with tilt and get into a routine for fixing it. When it does happen to me, I focus on my mistakes, then build up aggressive emotions internally till I burn the negativity away. Imagine throwing everything into a fire I guess and only ashes remain.

I have no advice on nerves. I dealt with anxiousness for the first time in literal years playing magic and it got the best of me. Usually I'm emotionless until the turn I'm about to win in which case I get super tense as I'm quintuple checking my math. It's so fucking weird. My heart rate tripled every
time I dealt lethal damage.

Try to have general boarding plans ready before the tourney, but nothing concrete as flexibility is king. I almost never have a set plan though I'll have an idea of what I want to do and I reevaluate based on my opponents play. If you're playing agro, half the time, it's better to present your deck with no changes on the play.

When sideboarding, a trick to have up your sleeve is putting in and taking out the same cards if you don't shuffle the entire board in the deck before taking stuff out. It's a little mind game thing against clever opponents.

Use different life pads each round. Everything gives away information. If an opponents lifepad has him gaining large chunks of life at certain stages of the game, probably a sphinx's revelation deck. If increments of five, thragtusk.

Play something your comfortable with. Last second changes are in the eye of the beholder(usually a bad idea, sometimes brilliant), but make sure on the whole you are very familiar with your
deck and you should do well.

Just play clean, tight, technical magic. That will improve your win rate more then anything else. If you play technically better than your opponents, you'll watch them beat themselves so much it's not even funny.

Lastly, have fun. Easier to do when you're winning

[LP, of the Fires]

Lets talk Modern Masters:

Who's as excited about the set as I am. I'll admit a lot of this has to do with my fixation on doing well at GP Vegas, but the set also looks EXTREMELY interesting as a draft format. I'm just so ready to force red in every draft.

Suspend rift bolt. Next turn, bolt you, ritual, ritual, manamorphse, Empty the warrens for 10 Goblins? That's a possible turn 2 play and since none of the mentioned cards are rare, you are very likely to get multiple of them. Add in Lava spike and murderous red cap and you start getting some consistent reach. I can easily see just drafting 3 storm cards, 4 desperate rituals, burn, and some midrangy red guys being a solid deck. On the other hand, Fae looks like they may be mildly OP in draft as they get lots of tempo plays and very aggressive fliers so this could all just end up being a pipe dream. We shall see.

[Alex]

Lets talk Modern Masters:

Who's as excited about the set as I am. I'll admit a lot of this has to do with my fixation on doing well at GP Vegas, but the set also looks EXTREMELY interesting as a draft format. I'm just so ready to force red in every draft.

Suspend rift bolt. Next turn, bolt you, ritual, ritual, manamorphse, Empty the warrens for 10 Goblins? That's a possible turn 2 play and since none of the mentioned cards are rare, you are very likely to get multiple of them. Add in Lava spike and murderous red cap and you start getting some consistent reach. I can easily see just drafting 3 storm cards, 4 desperate rituals, burn, and some midrangy red guys being a solid deck. On the other hand, Fae looks like they may be mildly OP in draft as they get
lots of tempo plays and very aggressive fliers so this could all just end up being a pipe dream. We shall see.

So I see you've never drafted a powered cube before?

I'm not excited about Modern Masters because I've drafted a high powered cube plenty of times. I'm more excited about the GP because it's going to be one of the biggest ones in history.

I love large convention-type ordeals like Grand Prixs. GP Charlotte was a record breaker too, and I had a blast there. I don't even care about anime, but I go to anime conventions because the atmosphere is awesome and you meet cool people. I plan on doing the same thing in Vegas.

[redthirst]

I don't even care about anime, but I go to anime conventions because the atmosphere is awesome

Translation: I like Asian tweens...

[Alex]

I don't even care about anime, but I go to anime conventions because the atmosphere is awesome

Translation: I like Asian tweens...

Spoken as a true pleb.

There is an endless supply of free booze and pussy at anime conventions if you're looking in the right places. Especially if you're in costume, which is easy for me since I owned most of the pieces to
my Eric costume outright. I just wear that and drown in booze/questionably legal pussy.

I don't really have any luck at Magic events, but my friend Manny got banned last year after a long, complicated debacle at a GPT where he banged the head judge's wife in between rounds at the convention center. For proof: he's two slots down from Alex Bertonnici, lol. The guy found out, and after some shady shit, Manny was facing down accusations of deckstacking and mana weaving, as well as outright cheating. (Drawing too many cards each round.) I couldn't believe it, but they passed that shit by the end of the week. After seeing that I just automatically assume that any fine-looking woman at a Magic event is either jailbait or not worth the suspension.

[windstrider]

Well, looks like the worrying may have been for naught.

My wife hasn't come home after going to work this morning, so it looks like she still has a job. And the hearing for tomorrow was cancelled due to a death in th family for one of the attorneys involved. It also sounds like the prosecuting attorney is taking the case semi-seriously as they want to discuss my daughter's testimony with her. They also want copies of the letters my ex has sent.

[redthirst]

I don't even care about anime, but I go to anime conventions because the atmosphere is awesome

Translation: I like Asian tweens...

Spoken as a true pleb.

I mean, it's the reason [
i]I[/i] like anime conventions.

[hamfactorial]

Barely legal Asian tweens? This is relevant to my interests.

[Alex]

Barely legal Asian tweens? This is relevant to my interests.

Not so much into Asians, but I did hit this a few months ago at a con:







Gingers really do just keep trapping me somehow, I don't get it. I know better, yet still I cannot abstain.

[Calamity]

If I ever become single for some reason I know where I'm headed

[redthirst]

Girl: I love your costume! Who are you dressed as?
Me: I have no fucking idea. Want to get a drink?
Girl: I'm only 17.
Me: Really? You look younger...

[hamfactorial]

If there's grass on the infield... too old.

[Kazekirimaru]

If there's grass on the infield... too old.

I was about to post almost exactly that. Then when I hit submit I saw this.

Postception.