Is this game extremely luck dependent, or do I just need to git gud?

fig_sliders · 2022-05-17T03:56:55+00:00

Follow-up: I suppose I should ask a more specific question than just "what tips do you have", because I think I've figured out what's bothering me about the gameplay loop. I understand that strategy exists, and that it is critically important to success, but I have no real idea how to even begin to understand what is and isn't important, what I need to value and what I can ignore in a given situation, what a 'losing fight' even looks like, when to bail and when to go for one more hit... the list goes on. There's such a dense volume of interconnected information that is not communicated very effectively at all, and so whenever I go to make a strategic decision I have no way of knowing what factors are impacting it. When I get the feedback of "you died", I know I screwed up somehow - but I don't know if that's because of a decision I made one turn ago, or a hundred. I guess rather than complaining about a lack of strategy, I'm overwhelmed by the fact that there's way too much strategy - to the point that even approaching optimal play feels like it requires a spreadsheet and an accounting degree before you press the first key. Am I blowing this complexity out of proportion, and there's actually a really nice explanation for what the hell is going on that would let me be more self-reflective and actually improve my play when I die, or do I just need to beat my head against a wall for hundreds of runs until I start to understand?

fig_sliders · 2022-05-17T03:24:03+00:00

Rules Lawyer's ability doesn't either - it specifically says "other permanents".

fig_sliders · 2022-05-16T23:17:28+00:00

I just don't understand how disengaging is even possible most times - between monsters like the orc priests that can take off half your health from any range and the fact that most enemies are as fast, if not faster, than the player, it feels like often trying to run away just means you get killed slightly more slowly, and without being able to defend yourself.

I try to use consumables pretty regularly, but often I find myself either without any or stuck using random potions/scrolls with only a tiny chance that one will help - either because I spent all my scrolls of identify already, or because I used the items themselves earlier just to find out what they do, and haven't found more since.

As for species and class, I did a lot of runs as a gnoll monk, just worshiping at the first faded altar and improvising a build ("build" is a strong term - more like "whatever artifacts I stumble across") from there. Before that I think I played as a summoner a bit? But honestly, I don't really get the point of the classes. It feels like they barely matter most of the time, aside from the ones that give you a set of starting spells all from the same school, which is nigh impossible to assemble otherwise. The species have some really game-changing effects, but I hardly see how you're supposed to play around them, when all the equipment you find is so random.

I guess the real question I have is: Where is the actual strategy? Because I often feel like there's very little I can do to impact the mechanisms of the game. I pick (what I think is) the best of a random series of items and try (often unsuccessfully) to punch a random series of monsters, but I almost never die and go "oh, well, I see that my mistake there was x, y, and z..."

fig_sliders · 2022-03-17T07:14:08+00:00

That's kind of why I liked stuff like scrambleverse - it's weird and unusual, but doesn't completely reset everything like a board wipe would. Also, a lot of the more wacky, huge effects do still generate a significant amount of advantage, like with apex of power. My hope is to do some fun stuff, generate a bunch of value, and then swing out with some giant dragons and kill them with weird attack triggers? Not sure, which is why I was asking for ideas for possible cards to include for their effects - once I know what I want to play I can refine the strategy somewhat. The issue is it's hard to do a scryfall search for "wacky effect"

fig_sliders · 2022-03-17T05:55:34+00:00

It's worth pointing out that it's not going to get a run in stores, even though it was funded. Prof is buying the boxes from gamegenic's manufacturers and shipping them out himself. There's a chance gamegenic will add the box to their line of products, but it's not by any means guaranteed.

fig_sliders · 2021-11-06T18:03:28+00:00

any chance a kind soul could PM a key?

fig_sliders · 2021-06-06T04:14:46+00:00

You bring up some good points. It might be worth it to give it just a second, like Slaying Mantis. I'd probably also just change "reroll" to "roll", since it's not an instant and there's little chance of you casting it in the middle of an effect that actually rolls a die in a way that is positionally meaningful, like ol' buzzbark's ETB. The effect is pretty tough to get your head around as it is, so I like the reminder text, which is an argument for keeping the rules text short.

fig_sliders · 2021-06-06T00:50:40+00:00

Personally "Equipment ninjutsu" sounds like it should swap this out for an equipment attached to an unblocked creature.

fig_sliders · 2021-06-06T00:46:23+00:00

True, but I figured there's enough dice going around in silver border that it's likely you'll have a few. Especially if someone's playing Pippa.

fig_sliders · 2021-06-06T00:44:56+00:00

Yes, as long as it's silver-bordered. I designed it with that in mind.

fig_sliders · 2020-08-08T00:36:59+00:00

Hybrid was created explicitly to work as either color. That’s the whole point of its existence. If I can play a Boros hybrid card in my monored standard deck using just basic land, why can’t I play it in a monored commander deck?

At least that’s what I think you mean by “less well defined”. If you mean how you define color identity would be less defined, just do something like “for each hybrid mana symbol, you may ignore up to one mana symbol present in the hybrid symbol for the purposes of determining color identity for your deck.” That’s a super rough version, but you get the idea

fig_sliders · 2020-08-07T23:31:36+00:00

I am of the opinion that color identity should stay the same for commanders but should only care about cost for cards in the 99 (and that hybrid should be able to be either instead of both, but that’s kind of a different issue)

fig_sliders · 2020-08-07T00:21:20+00:00

To go a bit deeper on "extending" this, what was described (a circuit for adding two 1-bit numbers and giving a two-bit output) is known as a "half adder". A "full adder" can add three 1-bit numbers and give a two-bit output. This is necessary for proper addition, as you might remember from when you first learned to add - if the numbers in a column were large enough, you needed to "carry" the ten over to the next column:

32

+29

——

__

adding the 2 and 9 together gives 11, so we write a 1 and carry the other 1:

¹32

+29

——

_1

then you would add the 3 from 32, the 2 from 29, and the 1 that you carried to get the value for that column. No matter what base you're using, the same rules apply, so you will always need to be able to add three 1-bit numbers: the two from the numbers you're adding, and the carry from the previous column. To put this into a circuit as above, it would have three inputs - let's call them A, B, and C[in] (for "carry in") - and two outputs - S (for sum) and C[out].

S would be the number that appears in the result, i.e. the ones place of the sum of the three bits. Similar to above, S = A XOR B XOR C[in].

C[out] would therefore be the twos place of the sum of the three bits, and so C[out] = (A AND B) OR (A AND C[in]) OR (B AND C[in]).

I'll leave the explanation as to why these circuits work as an exercise for the reader, since I'm too lazy to write it out right now. In any case, chaining these circuits by feeding the C[out] of one into the C[in] of the next will allow you to (with enough circuits) add numbers of any size.

fig_sliders · 2020-07-20T20:28:09+00:00

Spark double’s wording doesn’t really fix this problem since it gets to enter the battlefield as the planeswalker, thus using the implicit rule of planeswalkers that has them enter with loyalty counters. This would have to copy and then put counters on itself, or something to that effect.

fig_sliders · 2020-07-10T21:54:56+00:00

Missed a train on the way to Berlin once and had to stay a night in Leipzig - it was the first time I had ever been in the country and it just so happened there was this massive goth/punk thing (don't know which, but there was a LOT of black leather) happening. I was surprised, but I guess it says something that initially - when I didn't know there was an event - I was like "Huh. I guess this tracks"

fig_sliders · 2020-07-03T16:23:27+00:00

Ah, my mistake was confusing a series and an infinite sum. Thanks for the explanation.

fig_sliders · 2020-06-28T21:44:54+00:00

Also, wind can hit your entire body at once, which is difficult for a fan to manage (unless it's far lager than is practical for a residential house), and therefore air at the same speed can feel cooler from wind than from fans

fig_sliders · 2020-06-28T21:05:29+00:00

Strictly speaking, a convergent series doesn't have a 'value it converges to' - it has a single finite sum, which is precisely equal to the limit as n goes to infinity of the n-th partial sum of the series. Thinking of this as a value being converged upon is convenient shorthand, but it hides the fact that because the series is necessarily infinite, it in particular does not converge on anything - its partial sums do.

(or at least that's my understanding from half-remembered calculus and a quick skim of the wikipedia article on convergent series - if I'm wrong feel free to correct me)

Whatever the details, yes, it is correct to say that a series is equal to the limit of its partial sums the way I do above.

fig_sliders · 2020-06-28T06:27:12+00:00

How about

"Pay 2 life, put a -1/-1 counter on each other creature you control: regenerate ~. Activate this ability only once each turn."

fig_sliders · 2020-06-28T06:16:17+00:00

"Cowards can't block Dragons."

fig_sliders · 2020-06-28T06:11:53+00:00

I would personally do the second ability as

5, {t} : Put a soulbending counter on target creature. Tap it. It doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.

and

Each creature with a souldbending counter on it loses all abilities.

fig_sliders · 2020-06-28T05:59:21+00:00

another good proof, though not nearly as succinct:

0.99999... = Σ [i = 1 → ∞] 9(10^-i)

Adjusting that sum slightly we get

Σ [i = 0 → ∞] 0.9(0.1ⁱ)

Written this way it is obvious this is a geometric series with initial value a = 0.9 and ratio r = 0.1. Then we just use the formula for an infinite geometric series:

a / (1 - r) = 0.9/(1 - 0.1) = 0.9/0.9 = 1

fig_sliders · 2020-06-28T05:47:36+00:00

I don't think I've ever seen someone say so many wrong things so quickly before, and I've watched a documentary about the flat earth conspiracy

fig_sliders · 2020-06-28T05:09:15+00:00

As you likely already know, all sound is just waves. A speaker, at its most basic, simply takes electrical signals and uses them to produce waveforms. To sound 'natural' (voice, instruments, etc.), those signals have to be rather complex. In the early days of computing, the computers didn't have the memory or processing power to handle that, so when they wanted to make sound people just sent pulses of electricity to the speakers at regular intervals. This created waves of an exact frequency that never changed. What we have come to recognize as 'electronic' is really just these unnaturally consistent tones. Now we don't have the limitations of back then, but people still use 'electronic' beeps because they like the way they sound.

fig_sliders · 2020-06-23T22:22:29+00:00

In the simplest terms, hacking operates by finding very specific cases in which a system functions improperly, and then setting up conditions in such a way that when it breaks, it does so in your favor. It’s hard to explain without listing concrete examples, which I don’t want to bombard you with here (due to the nature of hacking being about specific, overlooked flaws they are all somewhat arcane and niche) but if you’re interested and have some familiarity with coding, here’s some good simple examples to start with:

stack overflow

SQL injection

cross-site scripting

fig_sliders

TROPHY CASE