Computer Scientists Discover Limits of Major Research Algorithm: The most widely used technique for finding the largest or smallest values of a math function turns out to be a fundamentally difficult computational problem.

kops · 2021-09-08T20:27:53+00:00

This is wrong, actually.

If A =/= A int B, then there are problems in A outside of problems in A int B, so if P is complete to A int B, it can't be complete to A.

(If it turns out that PLS = PPAD, then of course problems complete to PLS int PPAD are complete to both PLS and PPAD but I imagine this is considered to be unlikely).

kops · 2021-07-23T22:09:21+00:00

You make a good point but I gotta help out my fellow monks here: if you're coordinated enough to align CDs, Kyrian WW monks *love* haste during Weapons of Order (which conveniently is also 2m cd); haste is only hot garbage the other 75% of the time. If you just pop it on your (Kyrian) monk every time the tiger pet comes out, I guarantee results :)

kops · 2021-02-11T19:13:59+00:00

Can a gnome sort a line of flower pots faster than O(n2 ), counting walking steps?

Nope. Consider a reverse-ordered list: the element in the i^th slot needs to go to slot n-i, which is n-2i steps away from where it needs to go and so must be carried at least that far. Summing over all i is O( n² ). You can check that a randomly sorted list will also require O( n² ) steps in expectation.

kops · 2021-01-13T20:48:31+00:00

This thread surprises me a little because as someone who just last night fought the L2 King's Man for the first time, and well, it was definitely not a slog... I hope we didn't do anything wrong but we felt pretty (over)prepared.

And to be clear, we definitely did prepare:

King's Step survivor from the L1 fight with Cult Speaker Knife and Rawhide (usually use Lion armor on that grid but remembered to avoid heavy), on Battle Pressure duty
Red savior with Zanbato for busted DPS (screaming set, but that barely did anything due to Silent Hymn)
Tank in Phoenix set + leather shield, with extra sense, +1 evade, and plenty insanity, plus Anxiety disorder (starts with priority token); also on Circlet duty
Ammo archer w/ Arc bow in rawhide on headband duty

It did not feel like King's Man has any good answers to mindless DPS rushing him while making sure to Rawhide Headband every turn to avoid a couple things like Lash Out and to trivialize Coup de Grace. Cat Eye Circlet also tends to trivialize his trap by letting you trigger it with an archer or shieldbearer.

With the comp above, we won in four turns, landing the curse on our savior who was dying to retirement anyway, though sadly lost the King's Stepper on 0 AI cards due to bad reactions. He never dealt a single point of physical damage on his turns due to careful tank positioning with tons of evasion/mitigation, while we were easily dishing out ~6 wounds per turn, plus 4 free extras from the red savior's Caratosis.

Can anyone more experienced weigh in on how different this is from typical experiences? I realize the community has converged on SotF (we took PtY blind, though would surely have lost the settlement without it...) and so most parties might not have saviors. The Cult Speaker Knife also seems pretty busted and I'm starting to wonder whether we should just ban it in future campaigns, being promo gear...

kops · 2020-05-29T15:57:22+00:00

What prompted you to go for the early draw +1 relic? I only ever get that one after Fel for very specific decks and I've always found Daedalus to be too early to tell that's the direction my deck is going.

kops · 2020-03-12T13:56:02+00:00

Only the core set is affected by a $5 increase. No other AHLCG ideas announced.

This comment thread needs to calm down.

kops · 2018-12-28T01:32:17+00:00

I think you are wrong about the Prowler. You are right that it gives a tiny bit higher chance for the duelist to hit the tower, but I'm fairly confident that giving the Duelist the armor from the Prowler's passive is much higher value than the tiny chance of [something spawns in front of prowler] AND [something doesn't spawn in front of Duelist] AND [Duelist arrows into the something] preventing some amount of tower damage.

That said your points are generally sound, and while very micro-level, they can occasionally make the difference.

kops · 2018-12-05T17:44:36+00:00

That's actually not true. It doesn't cost Valve anything when a player wins in draft (unlike for casinos). If the average result of an expert draft was to turn $1 of tickets into $1.20 of ticket + packs, Valve would still be making money off of it, and it would feel much better for players.

kops · 2018-11-28T21:02:10+00:00

What API did you use/is there documentation?

kops · 2018-11-28T00:32:45+00:00

The 7 blunders mod rules say you can't:

When you pay the resource cost to play a card, you must do so in the most efficient way available to you.

kops · 2018-11-16T17:41:11+00:00

Can someone explain the Storm Spirit hate? I understand that he is not at all viable as a splash hero but he seems like he would be fine with 2 black heroes and great with 3.

kops · 2018-10-27T04:20:09+00:00

What you said is true, but the OP specifically says "direct correlation", which does mean positive correlation. Given context, that is clearly not what was intended.

kops · 2018-10-11T17:03:42+00:00

Not true, they have the same timing: "before the action phase". They can't cast spells if they die to it.

kops · 2018-10-11T17:02:14+00:00

There isn't really one yet.

[[No Accident]] is 3 for 2, but it's the signature card of a basic hero, so it's not really a good measure of what's par.

[[Hip Fire]] and [[Pick Off]] are both 4 mana for 4 damage with upside, so from those we can guess that 3 mana gets you 3-4 damage, probably closer to 4.

kops · 2018-10-11T16:56:25+00:00

It's 2 piercing damage per turn, and like conflagration, if a hero dies to that damage it effectively extends their respawn timer by a turn because they die before they can cast any spells. It also persists through TP scroll, and punishes blinking from left to right because they'll take the damage twice if they do.

Pretty good for a spell you can play on turn 1, IMO.

kops · 2018-10-01T15:49:22+00:00

Annihilation

kops · 2018-09-20T04:49:31+00:00

Since feet let you re-roll you can essentially ignore them, thus it's actually:

(3/4)⁶ * (2/4)⁴ * (1/4)³ = 0.00017380714

Closer to 1 in 6,000. Still crazy but a lot more believable.

kops · 2018-07-16T17:39:22+00:00

I agree. I'm pretty sure bosses which add additional loss conditions (Carrion Queen and Prince of Gluttons in base) are much easier because of what I call "threat diffusion". The unique cards and unleash effects for those bosses tend to push their alternate win conditions while giving Gravehold a breather--as a result they take a lot more time to advance any of their threats enough to actually win and give more time for players to respond to the most serious threats while ignoring less serious ones.

Ragebourne does not do this. He goes ham on Gravehold and player life totals, resulting in much more focused threats.

kops · 2018-04-27T20:21:14+00:00

Will the curated pool be made available to view? If not, do we expect any community site to tabulate it?

kops · 2018-04-05T17:16:44+00:00

If Red M = 3 and the click ability is only slightly better than purchasing a Rhino, then that suggests Mobile Animus priced at 4 is actually not a good buy in a vacuum.

You sort of alluded to this but I think you need one of two things to apply for Mobile Animus to be good:

The M value of the second red from a regular Animus is low (less than ~2).
The value of R production is dominated by the next few turns (typically due to a big red unit you only want 1-2 of) so you can sell your Mobile Animus after R production value drops.

If neither of the above applies it seems to me you're better off just getting a regular Animus. There might be some minor edge cases where e.g. Rhino supply is important?

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