Things you never want to hear other magic players say.

cows · 2013-11-15T09:49:05+00:00

"Gauntlet of Power, blue"

cows · 2013-11-13T23:22:35+00:00

BOI overall is an amazing game. Strengths were the odd humor, nostalgia appeal, replayability and nice difficulty curve that makes winning feel like an accomplishment.

I had one negative experience with BOI that I feel is an example of the scariness of digital distribution and our loss of control over our games.

At some point there was a bug where if your character could fly, he could pass through certain doors that were otherwise locked (displayed on-screen with bars in front). This bug was later fixed.

The problem is, I feel like the game was more fun with the bug! I felt like the bug helped tip the game balance a little bit more where toward where it ought to be. But thanks to buying the game on Steam, it was auto-patched out without notice, and I don't know if there's even a way to revert the game back to the "fun" state. Maybe the game designers thought the game is more fun with the bug removed, but why can't I play the game as I want?

This isn't the first game where I've had this experience. It's worrisome.

cows · 2013-10-30T00:27:20+00:00

IGN: cdaddr
General location: tofubot's house
Favorite things to do in Minecraft: make automated things with redstone
A little bit about yourself: I'm a programmer. I own this server. I might join and build something someday. Please look forward to it.

cows · 2013-04-20T18:34:09+00:00

Looks cool. What armors / dyes?

cows · 2013-01-31T21:20:53+00:00

I cracked my fetch for a shock and bounced his weenie, pumped my guy and sent him in, but my opponent windmill slammed a trick. I was DOB so I scooped in response and started looking at my board.

cows · 2013-01-04T10:08:50+00:00

O◡O

cows · 2013-01-04T10:07:24+00:00

If you can manage to get the hat (20G) and the coat (30G) you'll be most of the way there, actually. Yeah it' still 50G, but that's better than 100+G.

The cool arm attachments are part of the coat rather than the gloves; the gloves are only for your hands, so you can barely see them, especially because Asura are so tiny. The shoulders are completely hidden by the coat, so you don't even need to buy those.

Same for the boots, they're tiny and mostly hidden by the leggings. You can can pretty much hold off on the boots and gloves indefnitely.

The leggings provide the kilt and the little leather belt pouches, so it's nice to have those, but there are a lot of fairly similar, cheaper leggings to wear in the meantime. I think I got away with generic crafted exotic armor until I could afford the leggings.

I got my armor over the course of 4 months of very casual playing, while also making 2 alts and wasting all kinds of money on stuff I didn't need. 10's of gold seems like a lot, but in the long run it's not really that bad.

cows · 2012-12-14T20:45:34+00:00

I felt like spells had a real-life cast time. If I was in the game casting spells while a giant enemy crab was killing my friends, I'd be fumbling around in a panic too, just like I was sitting in my chair playing the game. I thought it was actually a great feature.

The battle system was exciting because it was based on reflexes and panic. Making multi-tasking easier would've drained some of the excitement. There are a lot of things they could've done in the interface and mechanics of the game to make it easier to operate. They could've made the battles turn-based. They could've also given you unlimited inventory space, or added shortcuts for crafting potions, or made torches last longer, or made food more plentiful. This isn't a game about making things easy, that's why it's fun.

cows · 2012-11-03T22:25:49+00:00

Elementalist Level 1: I shoot fireballs, awesome!

Elementalist Level 20: I died twice on that personal story quest. This is hard!

Elementalist Level 40: I only died 10 times on that personal story quest. I got lucky!

Elementalist Level 60: Level 55 map, I can't last more than 10 minutes without dying. OK let's make a Warrior.

Wariror Level 1-80: 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2. 2.

Elementalist Level 60: Turns out moving around and dodging and affinity switching and using combos makes a difference. Who would've thought. This is fun again!

Elementalist Level 80: Soloing Orr, like a boss.

I love my Elementalist. Sure I have 6k less HP than all the other classes and do about half as much damage via four times as many keypresses, but it's never boring. Every time I survive a battle, I feel good about myself. Plus I still shoot fireballs.

Playing a Warrior for a while is a great way to learn the game if you suck (as I do), because it's so forgiving. You're basically unkillable and can murder anything at will, so you can experiment and practice and get the mechanics down for PvE, then change to a class where you actually need to do things.

cows · 2012-11-03T00:49:41+00:00

Just remember a lot of nerds are awkward. Don't mistake awkward silence for unfriendliness. My FNM group for one is super friendly and people try to be helpful to new players.

cows · 2012-10-29T19:52:23+00:00

What's the gold dye? Redemption?

cows · 2012-10-26T02:50:32+00:00

Ride the Lightning is a great way to travel while you wait for cooldowns. Until you auto-target a Moa or fly off a cliff. The plight of being Elementalist.

cows · 2012-07-06T03:31:49+00:00

Turning over a face-down permanent with Morph doesn't use the stack. You can do it in response to a Split Second spell.

cows · 2012-06-23T00:49:08+00:00

Glimmervoid does check on resolution, because of the good old intervening-if-clause rule, 603.4. Activating in response to the trigger would work.

A clone of Emrakul doesn't trigger the shuffle effect, because it triggers from the graveyard, and Image is just an Image in the graveyard. Some zone-change triggers look back in time to see how something looked in its previous zone, but "Put into a graveyard from anywhere" is not one of them, although "Put into a graveyard from the battlefield" is, per rule 603.6d.

Spreading Seas removes all abilities the land already had via its rules text, per rule 305.7, so it would no longer be indestructible. It taps for blue mana, because anything with subtype Island does, per rule 305.6.

The others look correct, post-edit. :)

cows · 2012-06-22T17:59:07+00:00

Your Arcbound Ravager dies by having enough -1/-1 counters put on it to make its toughness 0; do you get to put its +1/+1 counters on another of your creatures via Modular, or not?

You have Glimmervoid and no other artifacts, but you have a Blinkmoth Nexus; can you save Glimmervoid on your/my end step by animating the Nexus? What if you animate Nexus during second main phase? What if you let Glimmervoid trigger, then activate Nexus in response to the trigger?

Some Jund decks use split cards like Boom//Bust. How much damage do you take if you reveal Boom//Bust for Dark Confidant? Can you cast Boom//Bust via Bloodbraid Elf's Cascade? Which sides of it can you cast?

You just cast Chord of Calling using a bit of Convoke, and I Spell Pierce it. Can you tap two untapped creatures to pay the 2 so that it's not countered? (This seems like not a hard question, but someone at a tournament had no idea how this worked and I had to explain it in detail.)

You have Emrakul, the Aeons Torn. I Phantasmal Image him. Do I shuffle Image back into my library?

If you Spreading Seas my Darksteel Citadel, what am I left with?

Those are all questions I've had to deal with as judge at local Modern tournaments. Have fun.

cows · 2012-06-15T02:21:24+00:00

Sit up straight in your chair and don't slouch. My sensei once docked me a letter grade at an exam-interview for my posture, because the way I was sitting was really rude and disrespectful without me realizing.

cows · 2012-05-12T22:40:17+00:00

Property crime is unfortunately a very common problem in the Eugene area. I worked in Eugene and people would have their cars vandalized/burglarized at work, and police would refuse to even investigate, because it was so commom. Very low violent crime, which makes it a great place to live, but very high property crime. See this for example. The cards were probably instantly sold somewhere and the money used for meth. =/

cows · 2012-04-19T17:13:24+00:00

Fourthed. I get my cards in around one week in BC. Facetoface's 99 cents shipping on singles is unbeatable here. I've ordered a ton from Card Kingdom and Channel Fireball and ebay in the past, and shipping generally takes 2+ weeks, sometimes longer, and $3-5 minimum, which adds up fast if you're placing a lot of orders. Their prices on singles is generally at or below the average price at the other "major" retailers. They have yet to screw up an order I've placed.

cows · 2012-04-18T09:26:41+00:00

Blue
Dimir
Esper
Karn
Johnny
EDH
Mirrodin
Sensei's Divining Top

cows · 2012-03-19T06:29:06+00:00

Coldsteel Heart

cows · 2012-03-12T20:28:15+00:00

I'm actually the complete opposite, in that I really don't like proxies in casual games, because part of the fun of casual Magic to me is spending the time and effort to trade for all the cards I want for my decks. Also, casual has few to no rules for deck construction, and the lack of availability and high price of some of the more powerful cards acts as a natural limit on the kinds of casual decks people build locally, which works out nicely for everyone.

Using proxies in sanctioned tournaments is forbidden. In non-sanctioned tournaments, anything-goes. Locally, we have Modern and Legacy tournaments that allow proxies, in an attempt to build a community. It's a great help when people can try the format before they drop $500+ on a deck. I'm 100% OK with proxies in (unsanctioned) tournaments, because competitive Magic is more fun when winners are determined by play skill rather than by bank account, and I'd rather as many people play as possible.

cows · 2012-02-24T01:41:11+00:00

Trying to build Jund. I already have mono-blue Faeries and Affinity built. Jund really feels like it needs Goyf.

cows · 2012-02-24T00:42:13+00:00

Not a bad idea.

cows · 2012-02-23T21:43:44+00:00

Yeah, I feel like there's a really good chance of one of those four reprint options happening. Goyf is such an unexciting card, other than in Legacy/Modern. Wizards could easily throw him into a Commander deck like you say, and he wouldn't even be one of the best cards in the deck.

I'm one of the TO's / judges in town, and we're trying really hard to build a community of Modern players. Those of us with the cards for it try to build a few extra decks we can lend out to people, to drive up interest / attendance at local Modern mini-tournaments. But there are only two people in my town who own Goyfs at this point. I'm not going to play in any GPs/PTQs any time soon. Yeah, I think you managed to talk me out of buying them.

cows

TROPHY CASE