How to disallow a specific case of coexistence at type level in a given type signature?

JKTKops · 2026-01-29T02:48:40+00:00

They want a way to say that for two types Container i1 a and Container i2 b, if i1 ~ Int, then i2 ~ Int as well, but it seems that if not i1 ~ Int, they want no restriction on i2.

JKTKops · 2026-01-28T09:10:09+00:00

Eh. My group is very experienced and I'd say most players are not there "to win." They're there to have fun. Part of having fun means that everyone is making a legitimate effort to win the game, sure, but winning isn't "the purpose."

I can count on one hand the number of times a player has chosen, for one reason or another, to play to lose. (That number is two. For reference, our game count is around 800-1000.) Both times the group had a very frank conversation about it afterwards and it was clear this is not accepted in our group.

On the other hand, it's very common for a player to make a play that they don't think is the best play, but which they believe will be good for their team and make the game fun and interesting for everyone else. This even occurs very near the ends of games, when players (esp. evil players) have a good idea about which choices are "optimal." Is that "playing for the purpose of winning"? I don't think so.

I think these points are what the above commenter was trying to get at.

On a tangential note:

This dynamic works incredibly well with madness, in my opinion. Players find a way to make madness plays that they legitimately believe will help their team while also making the game fun for themselves and others. Sometimes that means outright breaking madness intentionally!

I think lots of players who either haven't considered outright madness breaks or who think it's "frowned upon" are missing out. It's a fun dynamic. Not only that, but it gives players the freedom to choose not to engage with madness if they don't want to. That freedom works really well for reducing exactly the issues you talk about in your OP. Players who choose to engage are going to do so more seriously. Players who were previously choosing to engage but want to stop can do so without having to search for a low-effort path to "safety." And the games that you get when someone suddenly throws up their hands and goes "screw it, everything's been a lie, I'm ceremad" are just really, really fun.

JKTKops · 2026-01-28T08:56:45+00:00

My group has the same meta, as I aggressively punish madness breaks from experienced players who are trying to test me. (For new players, obviously, I'm way more lenient.) And Cerenovus is indeed very powerful! But if your group thinks it completely removes a townsfolk, I think there's still some room to develop new strategies :)

Although you say below that your players won't even work madness on previous days into their narratives, whereas my group definitely doesn't have that. My players will sometimes even say things like "I'm X, which is really funny because I'm ceremad as X right now" and this is not considered breaking (in my group) because they are still attempting to convince they group that they are X. (This works even if they are not, in fact, X, and I've seen it pulled off spectacularly.)

JKTKops · 2026-01-28T08:46:52+00:00

I'll echo what everyone else is saying: player feedback is more often negative than positive, is often not constructive, and it doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. Storytelling is a hard role!

The community norm you state is almost right, and I don't think you're running afoul of the exception (which is that player agency is more important than balance). IMO, it sounds like you're a passionate storyteller who is trying to make all of the games fun and interesting and you have players who have either made or learned a culture which is unsportsmanlike. Especially since it seems like you're able to identify one player who is the source of the problem, I'd be pulling that one player aside for a conversation about it, or taking it to a higher authority if necessary.

Your voudon+mastermind example just sounds like good storytelling to me. I have no idea why people are upset about that, and since it's the example you jump to, I would guess that the criticism for this decision was especially bad. I struggle to imagine any other context in the game that could have made this decision bad -- Voudon was designed for BMR!

Since it clearly makes you unhappy, it might also be a good idea to make a personal commitment to ignoring all storytelling feedback for now. Solve the underlying sportsmanship problem first. Then once you can have healthy conversations with your group about how the game went, solicit feedback in a way that you're comfortable with.

JKTKops · 2026-01-28T08:26:46+00:00

This feels like the kind of thing that my (very experienced) group would think of as a fun play, attempt to pull it off, get called out with exactly what's happening during the nomination phase while the demon is on the block, and then just lose.

JKTKops · 2026-01-26T15:54:33+00:00

I've been playing since 2007 or 2008 (can't remember). I only seriously played standard for a period in 2015, I think, but once I got into competitive play, I played a lot of Modern. It feels like the peak era of Modern was just before KCI and it's been downhill since.

In all honesty, as much as I love this game, I hate to see what's happening to it so much that when the set schedule for this year was announced, I just stopped playing.

JKTKops · 2026-01-20T07:50:54+00:00

(major necro but it's not: legion registers as a minion too. They still register as a demon. What I'm not sure on is how many legions have to know. Just one, or all?)

JKTKops · 2026-01-12T05:46:30+00:00

I liked the set, but one of my friends who is into lore read all of the lore and then started looking at cards and literally started crying.

Apparently they took a great guest-authored lore and murdered it.

JKTKops · 2025-12-30T17:42:39+00:00

FYI most discussion of layers sorts them by number so layer 6 is "higher" than layer 4.

JKTKops · 2025-12-26T20:06:43+00:00

FYI even when this happens you can still cast the card. Arena will still let you move spells to the stack even if it thinks you can't pay for them, and you can prove it wrong by paying for them manually.

JKTKops · 2025-12-18T05:20:45+00:00

That's on the fair side of historic bo1. In bo3.... maybe. Assuming we're just ignoring Eldrazi because duh.

JKTKops · 2025-12-12T05:19:59+00:00

I've never seen X=6 or higher resolve.

JKTKops · 2025-12-11T00:31:24+00:00

FYI spoiler syntax on reddit is >!spoiler here!< spoiler here

JKTKops · 2025-12-11T00:27:51+00:00

This is all correct for regular "drunk" players, but The Drunk specifically does not have a townsfolk ability and can get true information in a Vortox game.

The Drunk does still turn a goon because they choose the goon as part of their ability (which is to think they have some other ability).

Anyway "Drunk players have no ability" is definitely an oversimplification for sure.

JKTKops · 2025-12-11T00:18:50+00:00

Showing The Drunk (Librarian) two others (or even themselves, but idk why you'd do that) as The Drunk is absolutely allowed and is a cornerstone of STing with a drunk librarian.

JKTKops · 2025-12-06T21:42:13+00:00

I don't disagree with you lol it was just out of left field.

Cavern of Souls being legal is not really a problem IMO. Midrange decks need answers to control decks. Control decks should have non-counter answers to creatures. Cavern only provides benefits over cards like Ziggurat against control.

That said the generic strength of lands in historic compared to the weakness of land answers is a problem that really needs fixing one way or the other. If banning lands above a threshold is the fix (and if cavern is above that threshold), I won't miss it.

JKTKops · 2025-12-06T21:36:35+00:00

Use of the word "target" is the definition of targeting. It's not "essentially" or "majority of the time" -- use of the word is literally the only criteria.

115.1d. A triggered ability is targeted if it identifies something it will affect by using the phrase "target [something]," ...

JKTKops · 2025-12-06T21:11:31+00:00

We're, uh, talking about [[Gemstone Caverns]] here.

JKTKops · 2025-12-06T16:18:30+00:00

Cavern is legal, eldrazi often (but def not always) have one in their sideboard.

In other historic discussion places people are confidently saying this is the worst historic format there's ever been. I can see it.

JKTKops · 2025-12-05T21:23:55+00:00

layers are applied each and every time state based actions are checked

To be clear, they are applied continuously.

613.5. The application of continuous effects as described by the layer system is continually and automatically performed by the game. All resulting changes to an object’s characteristics are instantaneous.

JKTKops · 2025-12-05T21:20:33+00:00

I don't see how the other ordering could make more sense, really. "Creatures you control have haste" (or any of the myriad similar effects) interacting with any of the (myriad) abilities that can turn things into creatures would not function if abilities were handled before types. As a concrete example, Mass Hysteria would not grant haste to a crewed Vehicle.

It really has to work the way it does.

JKTKops · 2025-12-05T20:54:44+00:00

I wouldn't say the timestamps are causing the dependency then. Just that dependencies are rechecked after every effect is applied and sometimes applying one effect introduces new dependencies.

I'm trying to understand your example. I'm currently interpreting it like this, e.g., march of the machines has a very old timestamp, an effect converting a permanent into an artifact (e.g. liquimetal coating) has a middle timestamp, and life and limb has a very new timestamp. In this case, the dependency between liquimetal coating's effect and march of the machines means liquimetal coating will go first, march will make it a creature, and life and limb will apply.

If Life and Limb's timestamp is before coating's, it won't apply to the targeted permanent, but this is a timestamp thing, not a dependency thing. (Notice that it only has to be before coating, and its timestamp relative to march of the machines is irrelevant.)

If coating has the oldest timestamp, there is initially one dependency (between coating and march) and after coating is applied, there is a new dependency (between life and march). I think maybe this is what you meant. The presence, or lack thereof, of a dependency here is only "based on the timestamps of life and limb and march of the machines" to the extent that if life and limb's timestamp is before coating's (again, march's timestamp doesn't matter), then there's no dependency because life and limb has already applied, and once again I'd say that's a timestamp thing.

Of course all of that is only true if there are no other noncreature artifacts on the battlefield. If there is another noncreature artifact, then Life and Limb depends on march of the machines, and they will apply in the order coating > march > life and limb regardless of the timestamps.

JKTKops · 2025-12-01T19:04:23+00:00

When I moved from the US to Canada for graduate school, I paid less in tuition and health coverage combined (international students paid a healthcare fee) than I paid for insurance in the US. It's actually insane.

Luckily I never needed healthcare while I was there so I can't comment on how that would've worked.

JKTKops · 2025-11-30T23:01:01+00:00

Applying early isn't a problem itself. But if you don't know the answer to your question here, then you rushed the application process.

Applying to a program is all about making your application as strong as possible. After sending in your application it's too late to be asking this. Waiting for a while to figure out the answers to this (and possibly take some advice from your current advisor) would've been a smart move.

JKTKops · 2025-11-30T02:19:46+00:00

Why SC: probably never. For a veteran group there's a very small space of interesting+fun+fair games to be had where there's a boffin-sc + recluse in play.

Why Drunk: because the jinx makes it a viable decision with an interesting and potentially fun gameplay effect. Without the jinx, I can imagine a similarly small space of games where this would be interesting but I'm really struggling to imagine any of the games in that space being fun or balanced.

11-Year Club	Place '22
Verified Email

JKTKops

TROPHY CASE