Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

[metroid composite]

Apparently I'm not the only person to have thought of something like this.......and I'm nowhere near optimal.

http://www.liquidhearth.com/forum/hearthstone/773-killing-opponent-before-he-can-do-anything

Innervate is the right start, but the correct thing to do is Innervate into Gadgetzan Auctioneer, and then all further Innervates draw you a card.  Proceed to draw deck, while adding lots of mana.

[Grefter]

I really dig the Moonfire one because Spell Damage hype is always great.  Also the whole thing because so much card advantage and as I keep telling Laggy, card advantage better than winning.

[metroid composite]

I don't think Moonfire is the way to go ultimately, for the question that Laggy posed (which is "if you can put anything into your deck, what do you put?" not "if you can stack your entire deck too?")

Trying to get a consistent turn 1 kill is a little bit harder.  You need Gadgetzan Auctioneer in your opening hand.  If you're going first, you see 6 cards out of your deck, so that probably means you want to run 5 of them.  But running 5 becomes problematic, because of the following:

Innervate, Innervate, Gadgetzan

You now have one card left in had.  Cast your Innervate, draw an Innervate etc.  But if you ever draw a Gadgetzan before drawing something that gets a second spell in your hand, you are completely fucked.  Now, if you cast a spell that draws you a card, then you can totally play a second Gadgetzan and that is completely fine, all the rest of the spells in your deck now draw 2 cards, which maybe means you need to watch out for Fatigue, but more on that later.

I think drawing all 30 cards in your deck so that you can run as few spells that aren't part of the innervate engine as possible is probably the right plan.  Hmm...Force of Nature x2 Savage Roar x1 is only 26 damage; that's disappointing.  Force of Nature x1 Savage Roar x2 is only 22 damage.  Cmon, there's got to be a way to do this in 3 cards.  Alexstraza, Force of Nature x1, Savage Roar x1, Shapeshift...yeah, there we go.  Alternatively, Alexstraza, Ragnaros, Faceless Manipulator.  I actually don't mind Faceless Manipulator because it can play double-duty--you do want two Gadgetzan Auctioneers out eventually, because otherwise you won't draw your entire deck, and faceless can copy a Gadgetzan.  (If you planned on ever using it like that, though, you'd need to run two Faceless so that you'd have the second one for killing).

Not sure which of these I like better; thinking maybe Force of Nature Savage Roar?  If the opponent goes first, you don't want them to actually live; that would be silly.  I do have some concerns with these, however; if Force of Nature is the last card in the deck and you have two Gadgetzans out...potentially you take 1 fatigue when you draw it, 2+3 fatigue when you play Force of Nature, 4+5 fatigue when you play Savage Roar, 6+7 fatigue when you cast innervate to get your hero power because you are capped at 10 mana crystals.  Are you dead?  1+2+3+4+5+6+7 = 28.  No, but goddamn that's cutting it close.  Actually, wait no, nothing's stopping you from playing your hero power earlier when you're digging for Force of Nature, so the max fatigue damage you'll take is 15.  Also, this doesn't kill if your opponent plays like...Shield Barer, although you have an 8/8 dragon and two 4/4 goblins in play so you'll probably be fine....

Hmm...although...how much mana does all this take?  Gadgetzan -> Nourish -> Gadgetzan -> Hero Power -> Alexstraza -> Force of Nature -> Savage Roar.  That's 35.  Requires casting 17 Innervates...yep, that's totally fine; you aren't forced to draw a ton of extra cards just to get the mana you need.

Hmm...I wonder how worthwhile Nourish really is.  It's necessary for the turn 1 kill when you go first.  But if you pass the turn first turn, and then go off second turn, you wouldn't need it at that point--you could just keep casting Innervate until one of your two cards in hand was a Gadgetzan, cast it, and then innervate again and start increasing your hand size.  Obviously when you go second this is much more possible because you have three cards left in hand after getting the first Gadgetzan down (hopefully two innervates and a coin) all of which draw off of gadgetzan.

So....maybe the deck is like...

Gadgetzan x6
Innervate x21
Alexstraza x1
Savage Roar x1
Force of Nature x1

This deck can't win turn 1 when you play first, but I think I like it more than running like...5 Nourishes and praying that you can mulligan for a Gadgetzan and no Nourish in your opening hand, followed up then after that draw three Innervates in a row followed by a Nourish (and not a Gadgetzan, not a Savage Roar, and not a Force of Nature).  The percentage that would win turn 1 just seems low.  So...with this version, if you play first, just pass turn 1, I think (dumping a Gadgetzan out there is asking for it to be soulfired).  Turn 2 when you have an extra spell to combo with is time to combo out.

Might be worth it to run two Savage Roars maybe?  It really, really sucks to draw it when you don't have two Gadgetzans down filling your hand, but at least if there were two of them you could cycle it without losing.

Hmmmm...actually, I wonder if there's a risk of having your hand be too full, and thus losing a key combo piece?  Let's see...you'll always have 5 cards drawn when you start out (either you have coin, or you don't but it's turn 2).  You will draw at least 3 more cards before you can play the second Gadgetzan.  22 cards left in the deck.  2-3 cards in hand depending on coin.  If 2, you can draw 18 cards before you start burning any.  If 3, you can draw 16 cards before you start burning any.  So...potentially 2-3 cards out of the deck will get discarded due to maximum hand size.  Given that the kill combo is 10% of the deck, and lacking any of them sink you, each card you discard due to hand size is a 10% chance to fail.  So like...2 burn cards is overall a 19% chance to fail; 3 burn cards is a 28% chance to fail.  Although...if you've seen 8 cards in your deck, and none of those cards have appeared yet (almost necessary unfortunately for the combo to get started) then the odds get a lot worse.  28% for two cards; 41% for three.

Maybe I should add in some way to turn one of the Auctioneers off once you're nearing the 10 card count?  Starfire is somewhat tempting, because it can help you get the combo rolling if you're really in a bind by drawing you an extra card.  It does get around silly ways to lose like "opponent plays a shield barer" or "opponent armors up."  So maybe that's a good idea.

+1 starfire
-1 hmm...auctioneer or Innervate obviously; not sure which one.

Now...using starfire as the only victory contition is interesting.  It helps get the combo going, it allows you to control your auctioneer count as well, and once again opens up the possibility of getting turn 1 kills if you are very lucky.  The problem I see is mana; if you plan to cast 7 starfires (six on your opponent, one on your own goblin auctioneer) that's 42 mana.  52 mana counting casting two Auctioneers.  There's literally not enough deck space for that many Innervates.  So...ok, maybe the starfire deck plans to cast only one auctioneer and never kill it, relying instead on the card draw from Starfire.  Now we're down to 41 mana (20 innervates--doable) but it relies on drawing more Starfires than Auctioneers.  I think that deck would pretty much have to look like... 4x Auctioneer, 6x Starfire, 20x Innervate.  If your first six cards are Auctioneer x1, Innervate x5, then you probably win.  That does sound rough getting the combo started, though--4 auctioneers when you literally can't win without one.  6 starfire that...becomes helpful a lot more quickly than the previous kill conditions, but could still potentially screw over your opening.  And just generally not that much wiggle room--you can't put a second auctioneer into play--no mana, so two dead draws in a row can stop you.

How likely is that?  Starfire draws you two cards...each has a 33% chance to not be an Innervate.  11% of the time, you're fucked.  44% of the time you're fine.  The remaining 44% of the time...hopefully your non-innervate is a Starfire (60% chance) so you don't need to worry about that.  You now need to draw two Innervates in a row (44% chance).  Alright cool.  Now if you have a Starfire repeat this process (possibly with a second live card, in which case you're in great shape).  If you don't, well...you had damn well better draw a Starfire in the next two cards because if you go over 10 mana with Innervate the mana is lost, and the starfire deck needs all 41 mana, can't waste a single mana.  Eugh.  How likely is this?  Hmm...after Starfiring you can see a total of 7 cards before hitting the mana crystal overflow; 80% of the time you should see your next starfire in time.  Well...assuming you were starting from 0 mana crystals.  Could be up to 33% if you start with 2 mana crystals.

All in all, this is really rough calculations, but let's say overall there's a 33% chance that after you cast Starfire you just fail to get the next Starfire before you overflow on mana, or you draw two non-Innervates off the Starfire.    You have to Starfire six times.  I...don't like it.

So...yeah, sticking with the Alexstraza version.  Possibly with 1 Starfire to deal with some odd situations, like times when you're comboing well, have all the resources, you could ever need, but should kill your own auctioneer to make sure you don't burn cards from the deck.

[metroid composite]

Magic the Gathering

Raksha EDH deck

So like...turns out this deck is really good, so I probably won't go upping the power level of the deck.  A few notes on cards that are underperforming so far, though:

1. Konda's Banner--is there really that much difference between making my other cats 4/4 double strike (attack for 8) and making my other cats 6/6 double strike (attack for 12)?  Sure, it's 50% more, but either way it ends up being "about 10 damage", and if my opponent can throw a 1/1 token in front of it, they probably do.  And it can only be equipped to legendary creatures, so 90% of the time it's just an extra +2/+2 bonus on Raksha being equipped.  Noteworthy, however: in the rare case I get it on one of Bimaz or Kemba (the cat legends that make cat tokens) it's fairly cool.  Fairly cool, but not mind-blowing.  Getting a 4/4 token every turn is often not as scary as it sounds when the default sizes in EDH are like...5/5 and 6/6.

2. Hedron Matrix--I've had it in my hand a few times; usually don't even bother playing it since getting Raksha to the magic 22 commander damage has actually happened pretty consistently and it costs a lot of mana to cast and equip.

3. Dreamstone Hedron--More than once I've been mana screwed with, say, three lands and this stuck in my hand.  And when I finally do get up to 6 mana, usually it's better to start dropping my power spells.

4. Mind's Eye--this is a funny one that is probably meta dependent.  Raksha has emerged as one of the more threatening decks at this kitchen table, and has dangeorus stuff to do once it has 6 mana.  As such, I often look at this in my hand and think "so...this would paint a massive target on my head."  I think if I brought this deck to a different group that didn't consider Raksha much of a threat, Mind's Eye would be good, though.

Prototype Portal has been weak, but it's hillarious so I don't care.


Replacements...

Worn Powerstone is an easy sub-in for Dreamstone Hedron if I want to keep the ramp.  They are both -3 mana this turn, Powerstone ramps 2 mana instead of 3, but it's a get out of mana screw card.

Adaptive Automaton is a lot more interesting than I initially gave it credit for.  I thought it was a construct that gave cats +1/+1.  Instead it's a cat construct that gives cats +1/+1.  Given that I'm happily including some vanilla cats, this is noticeably better than vanilla.  Also, it does hilarious stuff with Prototype Portal.  And...just in general, having an artifact creature in the deck could be good, because protection from white is a thing.

Empyrial Plate...I know I said this was inconsistent but...look, it's an EDH deck.  You always draw first turn putting you at 8 cards in hand.  We play such that mulligans can't reduce hand size.  You always have a few ways of filling your hand back up (in my case the land tax effects and some of the swords, for example).  And turns where all I do is cast a commander or equip some equipment, don't even play a land are not unheard of.  This will almost never be less than +4/+4.  It's hard to imagine a game where I'd rather have Hedron Matrix over this.

And...maybe some low-cost library manipulation or card draw in the Mind's Eye slot.  Decent candidates include Sensei's Divining Top, Infiltration Lens, Witches Eye, Mask of Memory, Explorer's Scope, Scroll of Origins, Scroll Rack, Bottled Cloister, Solemn Simulacrum.  With a leaning towards equipment, especially ones with cheap equip costs, of these options due to several cards that trigger off of equipment.  Hmm...of these...I suspect Scroll Rack is probably the most consistent at helping out of mana screw and/or digging for removal to some problematic threat; it's also pretty gross if I have both it and Land Tax.  Infiltration Lens is probably the funniest, since people often find themselves wanting to block this deck (although there's a decent amount of evasion in this deck, and there's usually at least one player who can't block, so mask of memory might be better.  Notably, infiltration lens doesn't help dig out of mana screw or dig for answers if the person you attack doesn't cooperate).  Hmm...you know, I think Scroll Rack might be the best choice if I wanted to power the deck up--the original thought of Mind's Eye was to combat white's general lack of card advantage.  But this deck doesn't feel like it wants to pay 10 mana and draw 5 cards; if it has 10 mana to spare it's usually thinking about "Ok, let's start killing people, screw card draw."  Card draw is needed for getting out of mana screw, and later for getting a silver bullet (either removal or evasion).  That said, I'd feel kind-of dirty playing Scroll Rack--it's not a kitty, and it's not equipment, and it's not basic ramp, but it is known as being completely bonkers.  Mask of Memory is probably the synergy pick, since the deck has lots of evasion and a good amount of double strike and cards that love the line "equip (1)", but it won't get me out of certain binds (like if I'm mana screwed with small creatures and they have blockers, or like if I'm facing down some enchantment that stops me from attacking, or if there's an indestructible creature with pariah).  Still certainly the more in-theme option, and sounds like the more fun option (and more in-theme and fun than Mind's Eye, that's for damn sure).



Hmm...maybe I should swap out Mind's Eye for Mask of Memory.  The rest of them are kind-of just power level upgrades rather than fun upgrades.  Konda's Banner has hilarious potential, even if it usually ends up doing nothing most games--not in a hurry to swap it out.  Worn Powerstone and Empyral Plate are good but super vanilla boring.  I suppose I'm a little excited about Adaptive Automaton because it combos with Prototype Portal (and Leonin Abunas I guess), so like...in the 3% of games where I draw both portal and Automaton and haven't already cast one of them, it'd be fun I suppose?  Not in a hurry to swap out a bad card for it, though.

[metroid composite]

Starcraft 2 "swarm mod"

Ok, so I've happened into this mod a few times now.  Kind of want to figure out what's going on, and if Zerg is really as imba as they seem in it.

Zerg units:

For the most part have their cost cut in half (including drones), and have much faster regeneration--like being healed by medivac fast regeneration in some cases--in testing I've sent in single units and watched them just not die.  The cost lowering sometimes means changing the gas/mineral balance of a unit (Roaches now cost 50 minerals).  Exceptions:

2 Vanilla zerglings cost 50 still (zuh?) but they have 40 HP instead of 35

Overlords cost 100 still (but you don't care because drones are 0 supply for some unknown reason)

Buildings have pretty much been changed at random, seems like, hatcheries cost 125 and take 60 seconds to build

Mutalisks cost 50/25 (because 50/50 was not inexpensive enough, apparently)

Vipers cost 100/50 (so...this is half, but I'm not sure why vipers are now a mineral unit)

Queens are now swarm queens and can move off creep like in the campaign, autocast transfuse, and also have bonus damage to armored, but their HP is only 150

Brood Lords cost 200/200, but are buffed in other ways (12 range, 325 HP, faster)

Roaches and hydras are faster; looks like Roaches have 120 base HP.

Spawned locusts last for 60 seconds, and spawn every 25 seconds from swarm hosts

Ultras are nerfed.  Fully upgraded they're 31 damage (down from 44)  They do have...that appears to be 3 base armor, though.

Infestors cost 25/100.  They have consumption and parasitic domination (200 energy) from the campaign.  Infested terran eggs cost 10 energy.

Banelings appear to do 52 damage to everything when fully upgraded (95 vs structures, but that sounds normal)

Looks like most units attack 50% faster on creep.


In addition, campagin units are available, at largely campagin prices.

Swarmlings have had their stats lowered below zerglings (4 base damage) and spawning three of them costs 125 (wtf)

Raptorlings still have cliffwalking and +2 damage.  looks like they're not affected by adrenal glands once you get that upgrade, though.  Cost 50.  Might be worth it, earlygame; raptorlings are kind-of awesome.

Two swarm host variants (costing 200/100) are in...the one that can teleport to creep locations, and the one that spawns higher damage flying locusts.

Two roach variants are in, the one that spawns roachlings, and the one that slows enemy attack and movement speed by 75%.  In addition, they both have 180 HP instead of 120 HP for the vanilla roach.  Both cost 75 minerals.

Two hydra variants are in costing 100/25, and having 130 base HP.  Their special thing is that they get to become impalers or lurkers.

Impalers have 250 HP, 12 range, 36/67 damage (bonus to armored) when fully upgraded.  Guessing that's 30/55 before upgrades.  1.3 attack speed.  Net cost: 150/50.  Oddly, Impalers don't seem to get the 50% attack speed bonus on creep (lurkers do).

Lurkers also have 250 HP, 12 range (wtf), 26/49 damage (bonus to light) when fully upgraded (probably 20/40 before upgrades).  Also 1.3 attack speed.  Net cost: 150/50.  Even accounting for the fact that everything is half price, this looks a bit busted.

Abberations exist!  Cost 200 minerals.  Deal...looks like 20/40 (26/49 when fully upgraded) bonus to armored.  275 HP.  Weapon speed 1.2.  Yeah...this is kind-of garbage; Ultras cost 150/100, have more DPS to everything, and 500 HP.

The alternate ultralisks...looks like they're supposed to have more armor than the base model, but don't.  (they're 6/3 and 9/3 respectively, but the base model is 5/3 but when mouseovered reports 8 armor, which seems to hold up to testing).  They cost 400/200 and 600/200 respectively with 600 and 700 HP respectively.  With the campaign bonus abilities of course (reviving and toxic fumes).  Not really worth it.

The campaign mutas that can morph into brood lords and vipers are available.  They cost 100/50 and have...small stat bonuses (one has 160 HP, the other has 5 movement).  Don't really seem worth the doubled price tag.

Well, ok, that's zerg; time to see if Terran or Protoss have anything that keeps up with this (because the times I played against other players, it felt like they really didn't, but maybe my opponents were just bad).

[metroid composite]

Ok, well, seems more like every race is just crazy, and my opponents have just been bad.

Protoss gains 8 minerals per trip, has invisible probes that move faster than mutalisks.  Chrono boost is a lot better (400% speed for 30 seconds).

Protoss units generally have their cost doubled but their stats also raised.

Zealots cost 200 minerals, but deal 14x2 damage at slightly faster attack speed, and have 250 total HP and charge has a 3 second cooldown. 

Stalkers have 350 net cost, but deal 20 damage at range 10, with 50% faster attack speed, have a 3 second blink cooldown, and have 240 net HP.

Sentries...whoops, someone forgot to double the cost maybe?  15 damage, 10 range, 120 total shield/hp, but still 50/100 cost.  Also 25 energy forcefields.

Dark Templar have blink, charge, and 80 damage and 240 HP, 4 movement, for a net cost of 600

High templar have 140 net HP, 25 energy feedbacks, 50 energy storms, for a net cost of 400 (storm deals 120 damage).  Also energy in general seems to gain faster.

Archons deal 55/85, have 10 range, attack faster, and 510 net HP.

Then there's some hero units which don't seem worth-it at all.  Zeratul has a net 6000 cost, in exchange for 120 damage, 800 HP, and some special abilites; void which is good, and throw void spheres, which seems to be a ranged aoe move.

Krass has a net cost of 40,000, and is a high templar with a 50 damage range 15 attack, 500 energy, and 1200 HP.

Cannons are more expensive and do more.

Immortals deal 50 damage to light, 90 damage to armored, have 13 range (need to upgrade to get 13), hit air and ground, have 300 shields and 10 HP, attack faster, for a net cost of 700.

Colossus have net 600 HP, 15 range, 25x2 damage, faster attack speed, for a net cost of 1000.

The mothership core has vortex for 50 energy.  All the normal mothership core spells for 50 energy.  costs twice as much.  Has 230 net HP (not much of an upgrade actually).  Has 32 DPS but normal range (!).

The mothership has 2500 HP, 400 energy, 200ish DPS...which it can't seem to use; seems like a glitch.  and most of the same spells, for the net cost of...2400.

Phoenixes have 270 net HP, 9 range, and double damage.  Oh and 25 energy graviton beam.  For the net cost of 300 (actually they haven't gone up much in cost, interesting).

Void Rays cost 650, have 400 net HP, and...have mostly increased damage only against armored.  Range 8.

Tempests cost 800, have 22 range, deal bonus damage to structures, attack 50% faster, have 700 HP, and are otherwise mostly unchanged.

Carriers have 15 range, hold 12 interceptors, 800 HP, 8 base ship plating, interceptors have 40% more base attack, but might also attack 3x as quick, not sure. 1100 net cost

Oracles have 500 net cost, and...they've gained Entomb and Time Warp, void siphon, and a little HP, but that might be all; the damage and range haven't changed.

Scouts exist, they cost 100/50, and...yeah, they're solid.  250 net HP.  Same damage as mutas to ground; double that to light air.  quadruple that to armored air.  6 range.  Pretty close to brood war scouts except for the costing less than half as much.

And then there's some hero air units

Uthurn hero phoenix for 600 net resources: deals...looks like less damage than a phoenix, has 12 range and some armor/shield upgrades for free, and 30 extra HP.  Wut.

At 1000 net cost, Morhandir the hero void ray, which is...a WoL void ray (needs to charge up), comes with built-in upgrades, and has 20 base damage (good luck charging up) 13 range, 500 net HP.  A bit fragile maybe, but seems probably good.  Also, for some reason costs 0 supply, and you have no limit to the number you can make of him.  Hmm...Zeratul also costs no supply.

And then the other heros seem ridiculously overcosted again.

6000 for a void seeker, which is...a warp prism that can attack!

15000 for Selendis carrier, a carrier with 32 interceptors 2000 HP, double/triple damage interceptors depending on damage bonuses.  Well...I guess it only costs 20 supply, and it is probably better than 3 carriers (just worse than the equivalent cost 14).



Hmm...toss seem fine economically with zerg, actually, due to the double power of the workers.  Ignoring range and abilities, I think zerg gets more cost-efficient units, but the fact that damn near everything has 10-13 range, immortals hit air, etc.  Toss honestly looks just fine in this patch.  Another interesting thing is this--zerg has no max supply in this patch, and toss does, which could throttle toss...if not for Mohandir costing 0 supply and being really good.  Also, like zerg, probes cost 0 supply.  So...mmm, yeah, this might potentially be balanced.  Actually, if anything I'm not sure what zerg does about 10 range 50 damage archons....

[metroid composite]

So...Terran is a little weird.  no increase in resources returned or super fast SCVs.  Stim costs 5 HP, doubles attack speed, and works on all biological units including hellbats and SCVs.  Reapers at the start of the game were costing 25 minerals and taking 10 seconds to build, but after some point started costing 50/50; not sure what happened there; possibly nitro packs revert them to being wol costed?  Or more likely the drop pod upgrade.

And Mules are completely ridiculous.  Last for 300 seconds.  Return cargo almost instantly (they work faster than SCVs).  I'd estimate each mule is worth about 2000 minerals.

Anyway, this follows the general zerg pattern of 1/2 cost for most things, coupled with faster build times (usually 8 seconds).

Reapers cost 25 minerals at the start of the game, and are hots reapers.

Marines cost 25 minerals, and have 75 HP with combat shield (not sure how much they have without).  They also don't cost supply

Medics exist and cost 50 minerals.  They also don't cost supply

Marauders cost 75 minerals

Firebats cost 50 minerals


Most of the merc units seem like a waste of money, since they aren't half price.


The hero units seem...maybe ok?  Hero Raynor is a 400 net cost marine with 16 attack and 250 HP and a bunch of abilities...hmm...nah, would rather have 3 marines (or 16 more to the point) unless I really needed those abilities.  The abilities are ok, though; a timewarp like spell and some aoe.  Tychus has 600 net cost for a 300 HP unit with 50 DPS (chaingun).  That's...again, not worth the 24 marines.  He also has some aoe, though.  General Warfiled for 500 cost is like...a 10 range double HP triple damage marauder--you can get about 7 marauders for that price.  Although one cool thing about him is that he's 0 supply.  The one thing I will say about these is that they deathball well.

Hmm...running out of time.  I will say BCs are nuts; over double the attack speed, 12 damage, yamato is basically a nuke. 8-10 range.  Granted, their cost is pretty close to original BC cost.

Terran might actually be the best race, somehow.  Their start is painfully slow, though, because they still need a depot to make a barracks....

[metroid composite]

So...a few games I played against Mike:

PvZ

I sent a probe to invisiharass; it doesn't matter too much with the rate zerg can make drones though.  I also sent out four probes to block expansions invisibly.  He expanded on my side of the map.  I was theoretically behind I think because half my workers were not mining, but his bases were in awkward locations.  I moved out with one sentry, 2-3 immortals off of one base, while I expanded behind.  this killed everything; don't think I lost a unit.  Also, forcefields are like...double-size.

TvZ

I opened reaper harass, which had worked well against him in a 2v2 (I actually pulled back in the 2v2 because I wanted to give him a chance to play).  This time, however, he threw down emergency spines, and spines have 11 range and build in 5 seconds.  Ok then.  I was probably behind from this point, but whatever, make MM, move out precisely for a stim timing.  This was a great idea, except I built no turrets, and mutas killed my economy.  Turrets have splash AoE and would have killed the mutas.  I did trade 1-2 bases of his for mine, but he was on more bases than me by this time.


Well...still, initial guess would be P > Z > T based on this, but I'm not sure if that's fair for T--knowing how easy it is to defend with spines, and how good orbitals are, a fast second orbital rather than a rush could make a huge difference.  Also, I should have put down static defences, since T's static defences are really good in this mod.  Granted, I did not play PvT, but it sounds like a rough match for T--invisible probe harass stops buildings.  If the supply depot and barracks can be delayed significantly, then the orbital gets delayed significantly, and the turbo economy from Terran comes from the orbital.

[metroid composite]

Swarm mod a week later....

Some strategies are starting to crystallize a bit more.

Zerg:

Probably the biggest balance issue I've seen is spine crawlers.  They build in 5 seconds (and as you might expect they're insane like everything else in the mod).  This makes early offence against zerg almost impossible; pure drones and then make reactionary spines will hold off all early pressure I've seen.  Which is fine--so it's a norush 3 minutes type of mod.  The bigger deal is spine crawler rushes.  Zerg can respond with their own spines (just build more of them) but both Terran and Protoss are at risk because Zerg can start a hatch, cancel it, and make a spine on the small spot of creep, and T/P don't get early static defence to throw down in response (cannons require robo bay, presumably because cannon rushing was ridiculous.  Terran has some anti ground static defence, but it's shorter range).

Units choices from zerg:

I'm favouring the slow-type roaches, mutas, a mixture of swarm hosts vs protoss sentry immortal balls (the ones that spawn flying locusts cost more, but circumvent forcefields and don't get stuck behind other locusts) and I will make ultras against heavy AoE.  Also: infestor parasitic domination is good against protoss things--you can cast it while burrowed too.

Units for protoss:

Immortals are terrifying.  Sentries are great (forcefields are massive).  Storm is pretty good too.  Carriers seem alright as well.  I had kind-of dimsissed phoenixes, until I saw how good they were in PvP.  When your opponent has an army of 10 terrifying units, you can just lift them all.

Units for Terran:

Reapers aren't as good as I expected, because there are so many early defences available.  Marines once you have stim and combat shield are fantastic, though--they are basically Hydras for 25/0 instead of 50/25.  Siege Tanks and thors are also good, because AoE in this game.  Turrets have AoE (as do spores and cannons) and are pretty much a necessity if there's a zerg in the game.  The one time I madde Battlecruisers I actually wasn't impressed--went up against hero Thors and thor volleys would take off half my health.  Sure, Yamato being a nuke and BCs attacking 3x as fast is cool and all that, but AA is geared to be good enough to deal with 40 mutas at the 5 minute mark, and BCs don't really keep up.  That said, I'm not sure what the right thing for Terran to build vs Protoss is; probably bio just because of how scary immortals are, but there's still the super sentries to get around; I'm not sure.

Terran is very snowbally, though.  In a lot of ways Swarm Mod is like double-speed starcraft, which means mules last 10 minutes (basically the whole game).  So...Terran starts painfully slow, and then every time they drop a mule their income goes up by roughly 10 SCVs (and basically never goes back down).  On top of that, you still need stim and combat shield and really want combat drugs eventually to forego medics (if you're going bio). And lots and lots and lots of infrastructure (whereas Zerg rarely runs out of larva, and Protoss can often support two base economy with two unit-producing buildings because Chrono Boost is 400% speed, Terran needs like...20 unit production structures on one base).

[metroid composite]

MTG EDH

So...a couple new people have joined the EDH table, with a collection of cards that are sometimes just leftovers from drafts, and the power level difference is kind-of noticeable.  My intention with Raksha was to make a weak deck I could take to the table, but I actually think Raksha might be my best deck.  Mostly because swords are good.  I don't want to neuter Raksha, though.  So...it's time to make another deck.  And...just putting some cards I own into a deck doesn't have much appeal to me so...time for some interesting restrictions.

My first thought was a pauper deck, but pauper is a bit silly when it comes to super-old sets, because common had no special design meaning.  So...I modified this to be Modern pauper (which is to say: it must be a common in a Modern-legal set...not counting Modern Masters if that is modern legal as it makes a bunch of uncommons into commons due to being a high power set).

With one special exception: the general can be uncommon (since there are no common legends).  Legend options...well there's Bushi Tenderfoot, but I already have a deck with a 3/4 double-striking general that wants to be equipped to trigger important abilities.  Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro is interesting, but also ramp focused, and pauper ramp in EDH--wtf are you ramping into?  Craw Wurm?  And then there's some creatures which flip on spirit and arcane spells, but I'm guessing with monocoloured commons-only those will actually be somewhat problematic to trigger.  Which leads me to Nezumi Graverobber as having a very good EDH effect (which in particular scales with the opponents).  Technically I'm not sure if Nezumi Graverobber is a legal commander, because it's a flip card, but whatever it has me excited.

So...what do the Modern commons look like?

Searching for cards with "Each Opponent" turns up...

Gray Merchant of Ashphodel (commader allstar, and works great with the general + a sac outlet)
Liliana's Spectre (also great).
2x shitty stat extort creatures (Basilica Screecher and Syndicate Enforcer--I suppose run both)
Servant of Tymaret (hm, intriguing; a regenerating dude isn't bad to have anyway if I expect to be outclassed)
Squeaking Pie Grubfellows (I'm really iffy on this one; there's...maybe 20 cards I can legally play that trigger it).
Blistergrub (hm, underwhelmed)
Infectious Horror (you know, I might like this a little more than blistergrub, even if the recursion with the commander isn't as good; give it evasion and it's probably worthwhile)

Blood Seeker (Just tossing this in here as something to include just as a unique effect)

Well...one thing I do like about restrictions like this is that as long as I stay on-theme I can be tryhard...which brings me to infect creatures....

13 infect cards in black and artifact...probably want to run most of them.
In addition, there's two proliferate cards.  Grim Affliction looks underwhelming, but I actually don't mind Spread the Sickness.

And while we're doing that, equipment/auras...

Adventuring Gear: don't think I'll be landfalling much
Bone Saw: well it is cheap...
Bonesplitter: (yes!)
Cobbled Wings: well...it's evasion...
Cranial Plating: Probably won't run enough artifacts, but we'll see...
Executioner's Hood: well...it's evasion....
Explorer's Scope: (yes--card draw is damn near nonexistant for common black)
Fleetfeather Sandals: (yes--been doing good work in Raksha)
Kitesail: (evasion and a damage bonus--if I'm including it for the infect interaction, then yeah, this is worth considering)
Leonin Bolas: (A kind of removal; I feel like I should consider it...)
Leonin Scimitar: mmm...I dunno
Strider Harness: (yes)
Sylvok Lifestaff: (Lifegain is good in multiplayer generally, and this was constructed worthy; definite yes)
Viridian Longbow: (hmm...gets around blockers, and I can run some deathtouch creatures for it too; definitely considering it)
Vulshok Morningstar: (yes)
Vulshok Gauntlets: I don't know; that's way more power than anything else I can run, but the drawback seems hefty
Whispersilk Cloak: (yes)

And there's also some decent bestow...
Baleful Eidolon (yes--deathtouch)
Cavern Lampad (of course--intimidate)
Nyxborn Eidolon...iffy on this one

Auras...
Dark Favor...it is a lot of power...
Grizly Transformation...actually I maybe like that; cycles.
Necromancer's Magemark is kind-of neat
Scourgemark...also cycles, making it possibly ok
Predator's Gambit (This does get run in straight constructed pauper decks, so is probably good enough here)
Mark of the Vampire (Yeah, lifelink in EDH can be a big deal; even if I'm not likely to get as much out of it, I think I want this)

Removal--ok, running a deck containing only black commons; of course I'm going to have some of this:
Devour Flesh (sac)
Geth's Vertict (sac)
Bala Ged Scorpion.  maybe
Blind Zealot (target creature destruction I can recur)
Consume Spirit (drain life)
Death Wind ...maybe
Deathspore Thallid ...maybe
Disciple of Tevesh Szat (It's a common pinger that can give things -6/-6? o_O)
Disfigure (-2/-2)
Doom Blade (destroy)
Echoing Decay (-2/-2 multitarget)
Executioner's Capsule (destroy)
Eye Gouge ...well...cyclopses are relevant in my EDH meta...
Eyeblight's Ending (destroy)
Grasp of Darkness (-4/-4)
Grizly Spectacle ...worth considering if I'm looking for reanimation targets.
Hideous End (destroy)
Last Gasp (-3/-3)
Murder (destroy)
Nameless Inversion (+3/-3)
Quicksand (-1/-2 -- Common in Worldwake o_o)
Rend Flesh (destroy)
Seal of Doom (destroy)
Soul Reap (destroy)
Tendrils of Corruption (damage)
Terror (destroy)
Tragic Slip (-13/-13)
Vendetta (destroy)
Victim of Night (destroy)
Festercreep (-1/-1 sweeper)
Brainspoil (think I want it just as a way to tutor for Gray Merchant...)

Well...I can easily run 20 pieces of pretty premium removal if I feel like it (as in 3 cost or less)

Random might want: Death Denied, Driver of the Dead, Footbottom Feast, March of the Returned, Recover, Shadow-Alley Denizen, Soul Stair Expedition, Undying Evil

Well...hold on, I do want an enters the battlefield theme to work with the commander.

Cadaver Imp
Chittering Rats
Disciple of Phenax
Ghoulraiser
Gravedigger
(Gray Merchant)
Liliana's Shade
(Liliana's Spectre)
Phyrexian Rager
Ravenous Rats
Returned Centaur
Maaaaaaybe... Spiderwig Boggart
Warren Pilferers

And...sacrifice engine stuff...

Altar's Reap
(maybe?) Basal Sliver
Blood Bairn
(maybe?) Bloodflow Connoisseur
Bloodthrone Vampire
Dimir House Guard
(Maybe?) Mindlash Sliver
Vampire Aristocrat
Viscera Seer

Hm, I think 6 of these is plenty; really, the commander will usually have better things to return from other people's graveyards rather than needing stuff in mine.

Let me check mono black stuff...

Devotion:
Add Marshmist Titan

Swamps:
Add Dross Golem...maybe
Add Sink into Takenuma
Hmmm.....I guess consider Quag Sickness to get around indestructible?

On top of that, pretty sure I want at least one if not both of the common Eldrazi

Ulamog's Crusher (for sure)
Possibly Hand of Emrakul (but I am not feeling either of the common black Eldrazi spawn token generators, so I'd be hardcasting this; not sure if it's worth it).


Hmm...feel like I've already mentioned close to 60ish cards.  Will need to think about trimming, honestly.  There's also some theoretically powerful discard spells I can run like Duress, but I'm not excited about single-targeting a player in a multiplayer game.


EDIT:

Stuff I missed:

Pilgrim's Eye

Death triggers:
Black Cat
(Blistergrub)
Caustic Hound (more life loss)
Soulcage Fiend (although this might be the better life loss choice just due to the stats)
Driver of the Dead (pretty good)
Forsaken Drifters
Deathknell Kami (soulshift...)
Gibbering Kami (soulshift...)
Scuttling Death (soulshift...)
Hornet Harasser (-2/-2 ...is that the best ETB/LTB death trigger I have?)
Perilous Myr (this too I guess)
Myr sire
Sadistic Augermage (oh this is powerful!)



Undying:
Butcher Ghoul
Sightless Ghoul (meh)
Undying Evil (actually...probably)

Dredge
Stinkweed Imp (obvious choice)

Might want to consider:
Fume Spitter (although I guess I don't have much proliferate)

[metroid composite]

One more pass through:

Haunted Fengraf
Boujuka Bog
Quicksand


Boon of Erebos (maybe--pump)

Pulse Tracker (each opponent loses 1 life hmm)

Rimebound Dead (snow skeleton)

Shadow Alley Denizen

Soul Stair Expedition

Thoughtpicker Witch

Typhoid Rats (1/1 deathtouch)

Wayfarer's Bauble (3 mana rampant growth)

Armillary Sphere

Cranial Plating? (If I can get two artifacts out it's good)

Daggerdome Imp (flying lifelink)

Death Denied

Leaden Myr

Rotting Rats (each player discards)

Skeletal Grimace

Vault Skirge

Vorrac Battlehorn (trample?)

Wicked Akuba (excellent card; is it what we want, though?)

Chilling Shade (super coldsnap shade)

Delerium Skeins

Faerie Macabre (already EDH tech)

Morbid Plunder (2 for 1)

Moriok Replica (draw 2 lose 2)

Read the Bones (scry 2 draw 2)

Sign in Blood (draw 2)

Recover (return and draw)

Heartstabber Mosquito (only ETB kill bigger than -1/-1)

Ur Golem's Eye

Dread Drone (making 3 bodies for one resurrection is actually relevant if I'm running lots of sac creatures)

Enemy of the Guildpact (protection from multicoloured means blocking most of the generals)

Okiba Gang Shinobi (ninjitsu is good in an etb deck)

Traitor's Clutch (gains shadow and +1/+0)

Terrus Wurm (7 mana 5/5 scavenge)



Aaaand general path I think I'm going to take:

Obviously run good cards in general, but I think the gameplan is going to be as follows:

* Include all the card draw/return that actually provides card advantage and can be compared to a Divination.  There just isn't any recurring card advantage cards, and not even that many one-time cards; they all go in.

* All players discard is probably better for the deck than target player discards; fills up graveyards, and I can reanimate/return to hand anyway.

* Big Lifegain stuff is fine (Gray Merchant, lifelink, extort).  But while yes, Gray Merchant can kill people, I don't think I should focus on that and include a bunch of "all opponents lose life" cards.  There's enough poison to plan on winning the game with poison, so packing the deck with lifeloss is probably not what I want.

* Cranial Plating is decent if there's one other artifact, although it's still a worse bonesplitter in that case.  It does kind-of fight with Grey Merchant for what I want to pack the deck with, though.  Devotion...artifacts....

[metroid composite]

Continuing modern pauper EDH....


Poison (13)

Blackcleave Goblin
Contagious Nim
Corpse Cur
Flensermite
Ichorclaw Myr
Pestilent Souleater
Phyresis
Phyrexian Digester
Plague Stinger
Scourge Servant
Tainted Strike
Toxic Nim
Vector Asp

Card advantage (5)

Moriok Replica
Read the Bones
Sign in Blood
Recover
Phyrexian Rager
(optional Altar's Reap)
(optional Death Denied)
(optional Morbid Plunder)
(optional soul stair expedition)

Mana (6)

Wayfarer's Bauble
Armillary Sphere
Ur-Golem's Eye
Liliana's Shade
Pilgrim's Eye
Explorer's Scope

Good shit (4+)

Stinkweed Imp
Ulamog's Crusher
Delerium Skeins
Okiba Gang Shinobi
Sink into Takenuma (probably)
Butcher Ghoul (probably; undying...)
Undying Evil (probably; undying...)
Enemy of the Guildpact (maybe, I dunno)
Marshmist Titan (maybe, I dunno)
Dross Golem (maybe, I dunno)
Faerie Macabre (EDH tech, although maybe I don't need more graveyard hate)

Equipment (8+)

Bonesplitter
Cranial Plating
Fleetfeather Sandals
Strider Harness
Sylvok Lifestaff
Vulshok Morningstar
Whispersilk Cloak
Adventuring Gear
(maybe Vulshok Gauntlets)
(maybe Kitesail)

So...some thoughts: these are mostly 1 mana to equip, which I like.  My initial dismissal of Adventuring Gear may have been hasty, since I will actually have a fair bit of mana searching, and a bunch of it is recurrable.

Auras (5)

Baleful Eidolon
Cavern Lampad
Grizly Transformation (could cut if needed)
Predator's Gambit
Mark of the Vampire
(Shadow Alley Denizen is another option for intimidate)

Hm, that's actually 3 different ways to give intimidate; might be excessive.

Lifegain (6)

Gray Merchant of Ashphodel
Shitty extort dude
Shitty extort dude #2
Servant of Tymaret
Vault Skirge
Daggerdrone Imp (could cut if desperate; weaker Vault Skirge)

ETB outside of lifegain/card draw (5)

Cadaver Imp
Liliana's Spectre
Gravedigger
Warren Pilferers
Rotting Rats
Disciple of Phenax (probably)
Chittering Rats (probably)

(So...three gravedigger variants, and two everybody discards; yeah, looks solid)

Transmute (3)

Shred Memory (possible cut)
Dimir House Guard
Brainspoil

(Yeah, probably want all three; Shred Memory can get specialized creature kill since most of it is 2, or get the general back if tucking happens, or get a sac engine piece.  Dimir House Guard is actually good just for the body.  Brainspoil can get gray merchant)

Sac Engine (4)

Viscera Seer
Blood Bairn
Bloodthrone Vampire
Vampire Auristocrat


Alright...so...I still want a bunch of removal, how many card slots are left?  Oh?  Zero?  Well hmm.

Not cutting poison or draw or mana yet.  Let's cut some shitty extort dudes, yeah!  And maybe Servant of Tymaret.  A regenerator when I expect to be outclassed on creature size is cool, but...I can just bring back a creature each turn with etb and chump too.
That's -3.
Sac engine could downsize.  The deck is less about reusing ETB effects than I thought, and there is a lot more high quality and a lot less "Ravenous Rats did its job; sac it."  Keep Viscera Seer obviously, and I suppose Bloodthrone Vampire for its searchability with shred memory.
-2
Auras...honestly, most of the equipment feels constructed-worthy, most of these auras feel like good limited cards.  I'd rather have a Terror spell than a deathtouch bestow creature.  Lose the bestows and Grizzly Transformation.  Actually...lose Mark of the Vampire too--I get away with Angelic Destiny in Raksha because it kills people, and returns to hand.  If I enchant an infect creature, it's probably not going to kill in one swing, someone will use removal on it, and I'll get 2-for-1'd; if I enchant something big, ditto.  In fact...fuck it, cut all auras; I'll be behind enough on card advantage as is playing commons.
-5
That loses me a ton of evasion; maybe add in Kitesail to make up for that.
+1
Daggerdrone Imp I kinda want to keep now that I cut Mark of the Vampire; just for something to do with equipment
+0
Okiba Gang-Shinobi is awesome but a bit anti-synergistic, since everything I have actually badly wants to connect with opponents (lifelink, poison)
-1
Recover...actually, there are enough ways to get creatures back from my graveyard, so this will often be mostly for draw one card; not that exciting.
-1
On second thought, fuck it, cut Daggerdrone Imp.  Creature kill is a better way of being defensive than lifegain; there's still two other lifelink creatures that can be tutored for.
-1
Is Cranial Plating actually going to be any good?  Hmm...9 equipment, Vault Skirge, 5/6 mana cards--they want to be sacced, but it's not mandatory, 5/13 poison creatures, so...about 20 artifacts in the deck.  Should be +3/+0 on average, for a 1 equip cost.  So...yes, that's solid.
+0
Infect creatures...some artifact ones are kinda weak, but they pump cranial plating...but also intimidate combines brilliantly with artifact creatures although...hell I have zero intimidate givers at the moment.  Hmm...my gut instinct is that 5 mana is going to be bad, cause if you have 5 spare mana you want to use the commander.  Which pushes me towards cutting Scourge Servant or Pestilent Souleater.  Hmm...fuck synergies with 1-2 cards, Digester is the worse card.
-1
Hmm...maybe I should do something about this lack of fear.  Shadow Alley Denizen is looking solid the more I think about it--recurrable with the general, and almost always triggerable--the general can either bring a creature into play, or casting the general itself will trigger it.  I like that it costs no mana, too.  And this makes me feel ok cutting Kitesail again.
+0

I'm still low on ways to give myself evasion, but removal is helpful for that anyway.


Alright, so I've freed up 13 removal slots.

Removal (15)

Devour Flesh
Geth's Verdict
Blind Zealot
Consume Spirit
Disciple of Tvesh Szat (for all that this costs 11 total mana, this can be recurred and sacced to kill things; good in case of emergency imbasphinx)
Doom Blade
Echoing Decay
Executioner's Capsule
Grasp of Darkness
Seal of Doom
Tendrils of Corruption
Terror
Tragic Slip
Victim of Night
Festercreep

Hmm...hmm...I think I want the 3 things I can recur.  Despite the interaction with one single card in the deck (cranial plating), not really feeling Executioner's Capsule; it's like having a doom blade in hand, except people know about it and can blow it up.  As for a second card......Consume Spirit?  Pretty garbage as removal, and it's not like consume spirit someone in the face for 7 is actually all that good in Commander--or this deck in particular which has a plan A of poison.  Only other thing I should probably consider is going more general with my removal--running some 3-mana stuff like Murder.  But...cutting Terror for Murder doesn't sound appealing.  Vendetta...sounded like a better idea before I cut all my lifegain, now...meh.  And...actually, my recurrable stuff hits anything including black creatures, and my instants are low cost; that sounds like a good mix.

[metroid composite]

Hearthstone--just storing these here as a kind-of bookmark:

http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/230vc8/dragon_priest_my_legend_shadowform_priest_deck/

So...someone made a priest deck based on shadowform, Prophet Velen, Malygos, and Mind Blast.  And then made Legend with the deck.



In other news, the #1 ranked player in legend is running Hunter with no Leeroy Jenkins, no traps, and no Eaglehorn Bow (and two River Crocolisk chosen over Bloodfen Raptor, as well as King Mukla):

http://i.imgur.com/NWPFGnc.png

[metroid composite]

MtG Nighteyes the Dessecrator commander:

So...observations so far:

I don't have a lot of pump.  I had between 0-2 equipment at any one time.

I'm very light on evasion; having a poison creature out generally didn't mean that much.

The commander is pretty awesome when flipped, but it's hard enough to flip that I generally don't want to offer up trades.

My friend thinks that I should run less 2 mana removal like Doom Blade, and more 3 mana removal like Murder and Eyeblight's Ending.

I think I want more lifegain in general.  The "I don't need to be defensive because I'm not a threat" plan somewhat applies, but there was enough "everyone loses life", and just political situations when someone decided "you're the only person I can attack right now."  Certainly someone else was running some common extort creatures that I cut, and they were doing work.  I should at least try Servant of Tymaret since I have one.  I think I actually won't be pursuing the second 1/1 flying lifelink, because I don't have enough pump.

I'm just not finding myself excited about the gravediggers when my commander can do the same thing.  It's more consistency for times when I can't flip, and it gets another body, but 1/1 through 3/3 bodies are negligible in size.

Sac outlets are good--I might not have many enters the battlefield triggers I want more than once with my commander on my own creatures, but I do on other people's creatures.

[metroid composite]

Heroes of the Storm

Li Li

So...abilities:

1. I think Path of the Wizard is the one to go here.  With it, at level 20, your mana regeneration is 9.  Without it, at level 20, it's 5.  9 is good, because you use healing brew once every 3 seconds, which is 25 mana per 3 seconds (requires roughly 8 mana regeneration to cover).

The competition: Gale Force--yeah, spec your lili for damage!11!  Mass Vortex: I'm usually happy to hit 3 heroes with Blinding Wind.  The case when there are more than 3 relevant targets in rage is pretty rare.  Bribe: eh, never tried it.  Healing Ward: crunching some numbers this actually sounds reasonably solid, assuming your whole team sticks within a circle for 20 seconds.  Would be similar numbers to her ult.  It doesn't have the mobility, though, and I don't think losing her mana is worth it.

2. I like Lingering Blind.  So...Zeratul misses two attacks, you say?

The competition...Bringer of Gifts adds the mana/HP restoration of the potions to your serpent.  It's ok for an early, if expensive way to heal yourself several levels before this is normally a viable option.  Temp shields can also target you.  Poison...yeah, skepticism about that ability.

3. First Sip is really good right now.

By comparison, The Good Stuff increases healing by 25%, but First Sip heals Lili for 50% of the target.  Additionally, I tested and First Sip combos just fine with the later acquired Two For One (making you drink a whole potion when you toss two).

4. Jug.

Water  Dragon is terrible.

5. Well...I've been using Hindering Winds, but I wonder if I should use more Elusive Feet.  Both movement related abilities, one slows the opponent, the other makes you move faster (and blocks a bit of incoming damage).  One is a nice support to help chase down opponents.  One is almost purely defensive, but probably does it better than the slowing crowd.

The other stuff here...double the damage of Lightning Serpent...it's a bounce though, so often hitting creeps or nothing.  Shrink Ray is cool, slows by 50% instead of 25% and lasts for 4 seconds instead of 2.  Hindering Winds has 12s cooldown instead of 60, though, and is MT.  Ice block looks incredibly trashy--invulnerable but can't move?

6.  Two for one.  Double your marquee spell.  Herbal Cleanse excites me too, because CC effects are a big deal, but having played both, the raw battering ram power of two for one seems to make things so much easier.

Magical essence...really not needed if you have First Sip--get in there, soaking some hits is good.  Timeless creature...lets you double the dps of that spell if you really plan ahead.  Stoneskin is...again, I think with first sip I like two for one more--double your self heal.

7. All of the final level ones are somewhat low impact, since they have 60 second cooldowns.  I was messing with Bolt of Storms for a bit (it's blink with a 60s cooldown) but decided that Jug of 1,000,000 cups was a bigger deal (double the power of an already good spell).  Resurgence of the Storm is probably worth it if you expect to die, because of lategame death timers.  Storm Shield...seems worse than Jug, which also saves people but keeps them healed for more than 3 seconds.

[SnowFire]

Crazed DLers takeover Blizzard and ban all Neutral Minions (not "unique" enough) and create a DL Hearthstone tournament where each character can build decks using only their own unique cards.  Hey, fewer options means voting is easier, right?  Here's my rough idea of the power levels (mc / others who know Hearthstone, please feel free to correct my theorycraft).  Note this is assuming these decks play each other and not random "normal" decks on ladder, so the metagame should be much weaker & slower.

Mage - Pretty great.  Rush to get some damage in early with the cheap dudes and actually have a curve, finish off with burn / Pyroblast.  This is actually vaguely close to Otter's burn deck.
Hunter - The best beatdown deck by a mile, lots of minions on a reasonable curve backed by removal.  Unleash the Hounds isn't as good as in real play since enemy minion count will be lower, but hey, that just makes Deadly Shot better. 
Priest - Since rushing is hard, the long-game deck seems pretty advantaged.  Steal and kill all your opponent's dudes while healing.  Not much early game but Priest can get away with it here, I think.  Probably beats Mage but loses to Hunter?
-- gap --
Druid - Similar to Priest?  Except rather than stall & slow & steal & kill everything, Druid just accelerates into huge monsters with Taunt.  Seems workable if slightly weaker.
Warrior - Seems like a worse version of Hunter.  Okay midgame beatdown deck that is slower.
-- gap --
Shaman - Their deck will be Overloaded with Overload.  Their minion curve is kind of awkward too, too much support, not enough actual beatdown.  Seems okay if anti-synergistic.
-- gap --
Warlock - Uh, all of those drawbacks and self-killing cards seem like overkill.  That said, Jaraxxus is still boss if he gets out, and Sense Demons helps find him a bit, and there's lots of removal to not die until then?  Maybe?
Paladin - You'd think they'd sport some kind of rush deck, but there's way fewer Paladin minions than you'd expect.  Better hope buff'd Silver Hand Recruits can finish the job.  At least Truesilver Champ is still pretty good.
Rogue - Insanely awful.  Better hope a giant Edwin VanCleef goes unanswered?  Your dudes are small and suck and the combo rewards won't actually win and without Auctioneer there's no card-draw engine.  Headcrack hype?!?!  (no)

EDIT: From chatting with Otter & Alex - they think that Hunter is the clear top dog, and Mage is probably more mid-tier if acceptable.  They also kneejerked that Druid > Priest for the slow deck since Priest is too dependent on the theft.

[Ranmilia]

Top: Shaman, Druid, Hunter
Decent: Paladin, Rogue, Warrior, Mage
Bad: Priest, Warlock

My thoughts run along those lines.  Not 100% sure on the order of the top three, but I think those three are clearly the top, they lose very little from the format.  It's possible I'm sleeping on Priest too, they don't lose much except taunters, but... Priest.

Editing for more:  The format is slow, owing to a general lack of minions while all of the normal removal is still present (and even more removal is likely to come in).  Considerably slower than normal, except for Hunter and even they are taking a substantial speed hit by losing neutral charge finishers like Leeroy and Arcane Golem, as well as the lack of opponent's minions making Unleash worse and big combo turns harder to achieve.  That said, Hunter still runs mostly class cards anyway, still has the single best card in the game (Tracking), and their aggro gameplan is now completely unique among the classes and much harder to defend against due to the loss of neutral taunts and taunt givers.  For the cards Hunter loses, they can just play more bows, more secrets, or some of their more expensive removal, which all match up well against a slower field based on big single minions.

Shaman is the class least affected by the format change.  Their top performing lists vary as the class has fallen slightly out of favor lately, but all tend to run 25+ class cards, with the nonclass cards they do run being "for value" propositions like Bloodmage Thalnos, Azure Drake and Gadgetzan Auctioneer.  These are easily replaced by cards like Earth Elemental and Windspeaker which are unfavorable in current constructed, but seem quite good in a no-neutrals format.  Their low drops are virtually unaffected, they retain outstanding removal including Hex and Earth Shock (silence is a lot harder to come by with no Owls...) while their top end retains the power of Al'Akir, windfury and rockbiter combos - in fact Earth Elly existing gives them another great combo target.  Additionally, totems rocket in value in a minion-light metagame.  Hunter is probably most people's pick for best class in this format, but if I was actually playing in a tournament like this I might take Shaman.

Druid is also pretty self explanatory.  They have BY FAR the best class minion selection.  They have excellent removal for small and medium sized minions, Naturalize can even be a serious consideration in this format, and they retain their mana acceleration and the Force/Roar combo to put games to a quick end.  Oh, we can't run Golems and Ragnaros anymore?  Whatever, just put in Power of the Wild and Ironbarks.  What else can I say, they are clearly the most dominant non-aggro class in normal play, have been so forever, and they do it all with class cards sooooo...  oh yeah they also have a great Hunter matchup because they now have a real reason to run double Healing Touch.

Paladin is hard to measure because of how rarely it is seen in current constructed play as it is.  They have very few class minions and therefore must expect to lean extremely heavily on their hero power tokens in this format.  But this may be a blessing in disguise, since they DO have the hero power for consistent board presence and inevitability, and can now play All Of The Spells alongside it.  Blessing of Wisdom seems extremely powerful in this format, Equality still threatens one sided board wipes, and maybe even the secret that takes the opponent's next minion to 1 HP is good.  They're also extremely hard to kill.

Rogue, I think, plays more like Arena Rogue than any current constructed build... but Arena Rogue doesn't seem all that bad in the format.  They have a good curve and well rounded suite of abilities, and are free to play cards like Master of Disguise (the Yeti of this format?!),  Patient Assassin, Assassinate and maybe even Sprint.  This type of rogue doesn't appear in current constructed is because it gets shut down pretty hard by collateral anti-aggro hate, Defender of Argus and that sort of thing, but in this format I think a lot of its natural checks are lessened or gone.  It doesn't look GREAT, don't ask me how they beat Hunters, but it looks playable.

Warrior is in a sort of similar position to Rogue, forced into a midrange build, but while Rogue has a lot of medium power toolkit cards, Warrior is heavy on enablers but light on workhorses.  They do however have weapons.  Lots of weapons.  In a low taunt, low minion game, weapons are kings of efficiency.  So what if warrior can never keep a creature on the board, all they need to do is draw various flavors of axe and upgrades thereof and chop your face.  Or your minions' faces, I hear Gorehowls are pretty good in pseudo-limited.  I have no idea how good they are but they don't seem completely awful.

Mage... ew.  Mage has the worst set of class minions for this format.  Water Elementals and that's basically it because everyone else is packing heavy removal.  They have to finish with burn, but they also can't finish with burn because they'll die to creatures, and they have no easy way to capitalize on freezing things or mirror imaging.  I think Mage in this format is all but forced into a Secrets build, just so they can play Kirin Tors and maybe Ethereal Arcanists to try and threaten some form of board presence.  These builds are very high variance, and all the more so by possible variations in what secrets you want to run so ehhh head hurts.  They do murder everything the opponent plays, of course.

Priest is bad, everyone knows Priest is bad, but everyone tries to make it work anyway, and when it DOES work it works on mostly class cards, so they should be sort of okay right?  Well... no not really, because unlike the top tier classes, the neutrals Priest is losing are things they really did specifically rely on.  The Priest cardpool just does not contain reasonable replacements for the game-ending legendaries they need to close out matches.  Velen and Temple Enforcers and trying to mind control stuff, yeah that is not really going to cut it to actually kill people with.  There's no substitute for Crazed Alchemist or Injured Blademaster, unless you want to go down the dark paths of Lightspawns and Divine Spirit/Inner Fire gimmicks (and you don't actually want to walk those paths in a format where everyone is maindecking all the hard removal they do have.)  Shadowform is seeing a bit of constructed play currently, but without any ability to be aggressive and with most other classes not running great ping targets, it doesn't seem great here.  Cabal Shadow Priest and Shadow Madness lose all their good common targets.  Priest is bad.

Warlock is worse though.  The price of the best hero power for exploiting any neutral cardbase is a really terrible class cardbase.  You ever try actually drafting demons in arena?  You need one of two things to make it work: A. a good mix of neutral minions to be supported by the occasional giant Doomguard/Void Terror/Pit Lord/curve-fitting Felguard or B. 4+ Flame Imps and other 1 drops, yolo all day.  In this format neither is possible.  Warlock can't aggro, can't really control, and has almost no minions it can play without crippling drawbacks.  They do have Jaraxxus, Jaraxxus does win games.  But I have a very hard time envisioning Warlock winning vs any other class in this format if they can't hit exactly a drawn out game into Jaraxxus in a favorable position.  And even then, there's been many a game where I've had the Eredar Lord of the Burning Legion on the field and still gotten crushed, and that's just an even greater possibility when there's no taunt givers or HP restoration available. 

Unless you want to run Sacrificial Pact, of course.  For your Pit Lords and stuff. 

[Grefter]

How about Neutral, no hero ability, just the minion cards.

[Ranmilia]

I think the All-Neutral Non-Hero would crush everything else in the format.  Maybe not "with ease" but I want to say with ease anyway.  Even with no hero power, Neutral has access to at least two different and powerful decks...

- Murloc Face Aggro.  All the murlocs, Leper Gnome, Abusive Sarge, Wolfrider, Arcane Golem, SSC and DID, Leeroy, Mukla, Owls, whatever else you want.  Similar to current Warlock Aggro decks, lacking some of the burst and the hero power but making up for it with minion density and being well positioned in a taunt-light format.

- General goodstuff control.  Cheap value critters like Loot Hoarder and Harvest Golem, the Ancient Watcher + silencers/tauntgivers package, a lot of strong taunters to survive, and going up to Cairne, Sylvanas, Ragnaros, Onyxia, Ysera, all your favorite neutral legends.  Whatever curve you want and all the best value guys and yetis and etc.

30 minion decks seem strong when other decks are only running 7-15 and lacking various essentials.  Sea Giants seem strong in 30 minion decks.  Blood Knight combos seem potentially strong.  Earthen Ring Farseer seems strong.  Sunwalker seems strong.  Abomination seems strong.  Faceless Manipulator seems strong.   Not having a hero power, direct removal or card advantage engines seems weak, but they can run card draw minions and pseudoremoval if need be.

Out of all the class-only decks, Shaman and Hunter are the only ones I see having much of a chance, and Druid vs the aggro version.   But I think Neutral is squarely on top of the pack, yes.

[Captain K.]

http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2014/05/05/hearthboned

[Captain K.]

Hearthstone

So I've been playing a lot of Arena lately, and here's my thoughts on how the various characters rank in this mode (which is a sort of random draft build without the normal 2 card limitations on cards).

1. Paladin - I find Paladin kind of underwhelming in constructed play but it really shines here.  Particularly due to this guy:



This is seriously the best card in the format.  It's so versatile, giving you another attacker while protecting whatever you need protecting at the time.  Paladin epics and legendary are all useful, so you can't really get screwed on them.  But what Paladin really excels at is having the last card on the field.  Even a 1/1 Reinforcement becomes a holy terror when you drop Blessing of Kings on him.  Consecration is also an excellent card in this format with all the low hp weenies.

2. Mage - This would be number one but Jaina really, really hates Divine Shield.  Other than that?  You're golden.  Unlimited aoe damage spells?  Yes please.  Jaina wins by making sure you never get to have a monster under your control at the end of her turn.  She plays one little 2/2 generic and pokes you with it the entire game while she systematically destroys everything you play.  And then she hits you with Pyroblast on turn 10 because fuck you, you thought you had a chance to win still.

3. Priest - Priest is another staller.  Just plays his stupidly high hp characters and defends until he eventually draws 2 Divine Spirits and an Inner Fire and kills you in one turn.  Biggest weakness to priest is vulnerability to rush decks.  But if you can't finish him off he will beat you in the lategame.

4. Rogue - Rushing is good in this format, and Rogue is good at it.  Defias Ringleader and Cold Blood show up frequently in the card draws and they get the job done nicely.  Speaking of which, Coin+Defias Ringleader+Shadowstep+Defias Ringleader on the first turn is guaranteed to make your opponent shit his pants.  Rogue epics are pretty weak and she tends to lose if the match lasts past turn 7.

5. Shaman - like Paladin, Shaman excels at keeping more monsters on the field than your opponent.  Which is frequently the most important thing in this format.  Dust Devil is stupidly powerful against anyone but Mage.  And Blood Lust is an outstanding finisher.

6. Warlock - If rushing is good, why isn't warlock higher?  Primarily because warlock doesn't have constructed rushing.  You might start collecting Murlocs, then the game gives you Pirates instead, then something else.  Potpurri rush isn't bad, but there's better things out there.

7. Druid - Druid's cards are really expensive, and in this format you're not guaranteed to get a proper selection of Innervate or Wild Growth.  Druid does have some nice monster buffs like Paladin, but lacks Paladin's protection for them.  Druid hates facing rush decks.

8. Hunter - Hunter really misses his constructed decks.  You might not get your Buzzards.  You might not get your Hyenas.  You might not get Unleash the Hounds.  And you just might not get a large number of beasts in general.  One time the game gave me so many generics that I only ended up with 3 beasts total.  Yeah, wow.  Hunter does have nice removal though, which at least puts him ahead of...

9. Warrior - Yeah, Warrior decks need to be constructed, period.  Random cards just do not get the job done for Warrior.

[metroid composite]

So like...apparently Coldlight Oracle King Mukula rogue can actually be pretty good.  As opposed to Day 9's silly version (which was a slow deck) the trick seems to be to build it very aggro.

Trump getting rolled by it and holding on to a teddy bear:

http://www.twitch.tv/trumpsc/b/536665961?t=5h42m38s

The decklist with commentary/strategy, and notes about how he hit rank 2 legend:

http://www.reddit.com/r/hearthstone/comments/2719t5/2_na_backspaces_coldlight_rogue/

I want to build this deck....

[metroid composite]

Played EDH at lunch yesterday; loaned out decks to people.  The following problems happened.

1. One deck that I handed out (Raksha) had a lot of "wow, this is way more complicated than I remember Magic being."  She drew a lot of like...sword of fire and Ice and Umezawa's Jitte and such cards with overfull textboxes.  Another deck we gave out, which was supposed to be the "beginner deck"--basically a deck with big creatures that attack, the new pilot's comment was "you guys seemed to have an endgame and were comboing cards; was I playing my deck wrong?  How do I do that?"

Trying to put together a deck with combos and endgame, but which is not too complicated for beginners.

General

Roon of the Hidden Realm

The idea is to have a bunch of enters the battlefield abilities.  It should be fairly obvious to new players "Oh, every turn I should pick one of these I want to have happen again, and then target that with Roon."

NOTE: there are two templates for this.  "When this creature comes into play do X" (the old template) and "When this creature enters the battlefield do X" (the new template).  For consistency's sake we're going to go the same way on these every time, and that way is going to be "Enters the Battlefield".  If a card isn't printed with that template, too bad.

Other important synergy

Angel of Glory's Rise

For some reason, I really want to make this card work, and it's not overly complicated.  There are two measures of complexity that I have been watching:

1. number of lines of text.  Note that you can mentally subtract about 1 line when it has "When Angel of Glory's Rise enters the battlefiled"--this text will get mentally "chunked" very quickly upon learning the deck.
2. Static effects on the battlefield, and triggered effects on the battlefield.  Once effects (and effects that are re-triggered) don't have memory issues, but people will forget about stuff they have in play.

Angel of Glory's Rise is 5 lines, but with an Enters the Balttefield line so basically 4 lines, and Flying is one of the few keywords that don't need to be explained to people.

Anyway, the point is, there will be a focus on humans.


The next mini-synergy is the Splicer cycle; either running five, or maybe even all six:

Blade Splicer Maul Splicer and friends

They're a little bit on the wordy side, but you know what I loved when I was new?  Slivers.  My friend also pointed out that newbies tend to love tokens.  And they all have a similar template and art.  And even if you get them on their own, they make 3/3s so that's cool.  And they're all humans for Angel of Glory's Rise.


Here are the notes I've taken so far.

Mana base:
All lands add 1 mana.  Include some simple tap duals like guildgates.  Obviously the tri-land.  Nothing with weird choices when it enters the battlefield.
 
blunt force commander stuff: 
This deck is meant to be given to beginners, and not necessarily played every lunch, so we can put in some top-end cards with a lot of blunt force, since a lot of such cards are actually quite straightforward, like 2 lines of text.
 
Storm Herd (3 lines of text)
Boundless Realms (4 lines of text)
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Agur (4 lines of text (ok technically 5 due to poor linebreaks))
Craterhoof Behemoth (6 lines of text) (bonus: combos with Roon)
Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite (3 lines of text)
Mirari's Wake (4 lines of text, decent amount of memory stuff, though; I've seen new players trip over this one)
Consecrated Sphinx (3 lines of text)
Avacyn, Angel of Hope (3 lines of text)
Novablast Wurm (2 lines of text)
Memnarch (4 lines of text)
Blatant Thievery (2 lines of text)
Priviliged Position (3 lines of text)
Lightning Greaves (2 lines of text)
Inkwell Leviathan (1 line of text)
Keiga, the Tide Star(2 lines of text)
Tidespout Tyrant (3 lines of text--maybe redundant, though--probably more fun for people to get this effect through comboing their commander with man-o'-war)
Time Stretch (2 lines of text)
Reya Dawnbringer (4 lines of text)
Omniscence (2 lines of text)
True Conviction (2 lines of text)
Serra Ascendant (4 lines of text)

I think take everything with 2 lines of text, possibly excepting stuff that's heavy on keywords (Inkwell Leviathan has 3 words, but a beginner will probably ask what all three mean).

And then pick and choose from the 3-4 liners.  Like...Consecrated Sphinx even the veteran player we need to keep reminding him "hey, I drew a card with this spell, are you drawing 2?"  Jin Gitaxias is probably actually simpler since you don't need to pay attention to opponents.
 
Reject pile: Cards that are good, but have like...seven lines of text:
 
Rite of Replication (7 lines of text)
Prime Speaker Zegana (7 lines of text)
Frost Titan (7 lines of text)
Solemn Simulacrum (7 lines of text)
Progenitor Mimic (7 lines of text)
Duplicant (7 lines of text)
Deadwood Treefolk (8 lines of text with the reminder text)
Avenger of Zendikar (8 lines of text)
Vorniclex, Voice of Hunger (7 lines of text)
Deadeye Navigator (8 lines of text with reminder text)
Karmic Guide (7 lines of text)
Phyrexian Metamorph (6 lines of text)
Birthing Pod (8 lines of text, library searching, yeah no)
Sundial of the Infinite (6 lines of text, and relies on weird timing stuff)
Prophet of Kruphix (5 lines of text...but also has an unexplained "flash" keyword and a lot of memory stuff; on the fence here)
Woodfall Primus (7 lines of text...granted 4 of those are persist).
Sun Titan (6 lines of text, but people seem to forget "oh I should attack with this to get this other stuff to happen")
Noble Hierarch (4 lines of text, but everyone forgets exalted, there's simpler mana accelerators)
Snapcaster Mage (8 lines of text)
Spike Weaver (8 lines of text)
Perplexing Chimera (7 lines of text)
Brutalizer Exarch (7 lines of text)
Angel of Serenity (7 lines of text)
Reveillark (8 lines of text, 5 if we ignore evoke, but it's also a leaves trigger instead of an enters trigger)
Captain of the Watch (6 lines of text)
Geist Honored Monk (6 lines of text)
Knight Captain of Eos (5 lines of text, and stalls like crazy; not ideal for lunch games; close to simple enough)
Lavina of the Tenth (7 lines of text)
Cloudgoat Ranger (7 lines of text)
Treasure Mage/Trinket Mage (6 lines of text, and searching a deck you don't know)
Masked Admirers (5 lines of text -- iffy on this, though; triggers from graveyard and all that; there might be better options)
Land Tax (7 lines of text, requires counting and memory)
Karmametra, God of Harvests (7 lines of text)
Faith's Fetters (7 lines of text)
 
Reject pile - wrong templating
 
Palincrhon (5 lines of text, most of which are short; shame about this one)
 
Combo stuffs
 
Seedborn Muse (3 lines of text...but important memory stuff)
Coiling Oracle (4 lines of text)
Armada Wurm (5 lines of text)
Acidic Slime (4 lines of text)
Clone (3 lines of text)
Eternal Witness (3 lines of text)
Farhaven Elf (4 lines of text)
Mulldrifter (6 lines of text,  3 lines of text if we ignore evoke)
Mystic Snake (4 lines of text)
Restoration Angel (6 lines of text, but 2 of them are keywords)
Stonehorn Dignitary (4 lines of text)
Wall of Blossoms (3 lines of text)
Wall of Omens (3 lines of text)
Wood Elves (4 lines of text)
Conjurer's Closet (4 lines of text and memory stuff)
War Priest of Thune (3 lines of text)
Angel of Glory's Rise (5 lines of text)
Mistmeadow Witch (4 lines of text)
Archaeomancer (4 lines of text)
Venser, Shaper Savant (4 lines of text)
Bane of Progress (5 lines of text)
Luminate Primordial (6 lines of text)
Thragtusk (5 lines of text)
Angel of Finality (4 lines of text)
Banisher Priest (4 lines of text)
Aether Adept (3 lines of text) (Man-o'-War exists too, but wrong template)
Borderland Ranger (5 lines of text)
Sylvan Ranger (4 lines of text)
Sea Gate Oracle (5 lines of text)
Master Thief (4 lines of text)
Village Bell-Ringer (3 lines of text)
Blade Splicer (6 lines of text, but larger font)
Master Splicer (4 lines of text)
Maul Splicer (6 lines of text, but larger font)
Vital Splicer (4 lines of text)
Wing Splicer (6 lines of text, but larger font)
Body Double (4 lines of text)
Sower of Temptation (4 lines of text)
Indrink Stomphowler (3 lines of text)
Sunblast Angel (3 lines of text)
Nephalia Smuggler (3 lines of text)
Loxodon Hierarch (4 lines of text)
Ondu Giant (5 lines of text, big font, though)
Soul of the Harvest (4 lines of text; one of which is trample; some memory)
Djin of Infinite Deceits (4 lines of text; one of which is flying; requires learning about "owns" vs "controls")
 
In general, it looks like enters the battlefield triggers don't get below about 3 lines, which is fine.  I'd say put the cutoff at 4 unless there is a pretty specific reason to go over (like mana fixing, or being part of a theme).  Remember that mentally the words "when X enters the battlefield" are like -1 line, so this cutoff should maybe be 3 for cards that don't have that.

Basic Control

We want control.  If there is a problem thing, it's nice to be able to blow it up.  There isn't really a good excuse for it being complex or wordy; it's not the fun focus of the deck; can probably keep these 3 lines or less, honestly.  Note: I'm avoiding stuff that really slows down the game like Wrath of God; games should end.
 
Swords to Plowshares (2 lines of text)
Control Magic (2 lines of text)
Treachery (3 lines of text)
Aura Shards (4 lines of text)
Bant Charm (4 lines of text)
Trygon Predator (5 lines of text)
Path to Exile (5 lines of text)
Banishing Light (5 lines of text; simpler than Oblivion Ring)
Return to Dust (4 lines of text)
Condemn (3 lines of text)
Evacuation (2 lines of text; synergizes decently)
Beast Within (3 lines of text)
Counterspell (1 line of text)
Curse of the Swine (4 lines of text)
Archon of Justice (3 lines of text)
 
Ramp/Card draw

These can be kept fairly simple.  A lot of these 3 liners are deceptively not really 3 lines

Birds of Paradise: (3 lines of text)
Bloom Tender: (3 lines of text, but somewhat complex)
Oracle of Mul Daya: (6 lines of text, but big font)
Brainstorm: (3 lines of text)
Explosive Vegetation: (4 lines of text, big font)
Skyshroud Claim (3 lines of text)/Ranger's Path (3 lines of text)
Chromatic Lantern (4 lines of text, but simplify things)
Prismatic Omen (2 lines of text)
Cultivate (5 lines of text)
Kodama's Reach (5 lines of text)
Harmonize(1 line of text)
Gilded Lotus (2 lines of text)
Sol Ring (1 line of text)
Darksteel Ingot (3 lines of text, but only due to poor linebreaks)
Elvish Piper (2 lines of text)
Exploration (2 lines of text, but does have memory issues)
Show and Tell (4 lines of text)
Rampant Growth (4 lines of text)

I think I do want to run Elvish Piper and Show And Tell, because they are hilarious and splashy (and I liked Elvish Piper when I was new).  Note: there's plenty of this in the combo section, so we don't need to go overboard here.

[metroid composite]

Updates on the Roon deck...

Sunblast Angel is in.  Turns out it's a sweeper newbies get because it's one-sided.  Also turns out it doesn't make a soft lock with roon, since he taps.

And my friend really wanted Sleep for the Sleep into Sunblast Angel combo.

+1 Sleep (3 lines of text)

Mystic Snake is a no; the recursion doesn't work due to Roon doing a delayed bounce, and even if it did, obnoxios softlock.


Human count is going to be lowish; want about 20 to make Angel of Glory's Rise good.

We were discussing removal, and how white removal is complicated.  He suggested Desert Twister which...probably makes the cut, just for simplicity.

Desert Twister (1 line of text)

[metroid composite]

Ok, human count.  Ideally, I want a count around 20 to be enough that Angel will usually grab at least a couple.  Here's the humans if I run all the ones mentioned above:

Eternal Witness
War Priest of Thune
Archaeomancer
Venser, Shaper Savant
Banisher Priest
Aether Adept
Borderland Ranger
Sea Gate Oracle
Master Thief
Village Bell-Ringer
Splicer
Splicer
Splicer
Splicer
Splicer
Splicer
Nephalia Smuggler

In addition:

Mangara of Corondor

Removal with 2 lines of text, human, and actually combos quite well with the general, although the timing rule is obscure.  From oracle:

9/25/2006   If Mangara of Corondor leaves the battlefield before the ability resolves, the targeted permanent will still be exiled.
9/25/2006   If the target permanent becomes an illegal target, the ability will be countered and Mangara will remain on the battlefield.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking

It's a replacement for Exploration; possibly worse in the deck, but it's a human.



Other options include...

Prophet of Kruprix (very clearly more complex than the competition)
Noble Hierarch (Ditto)
Captain of the Watch

Hmm...ok, so Captain of the watch...six lines of text, so that's more than anything else we have.  What bothers me more, though, is that it gives +1 to Soldiers, and the general is a soldier.  Like...there could randomly be one or two characters who would be soliders.  It's just more to think about.  Probably more stuff to think about for a relatively thowaway card.

Speaking of which...while it's not a human...

Trostani's Summoner: this one I could certainly get behind, despite 7 lines of text.  It just makes dudes.  Not a human, though, and seven lines of text....

In other news...also not a human but...

Pelakka wurm.  I don't really have any CIP heal effects, and it's one of the biggest ones, while being one of the simplest (the others have more complicated effects than draw a card, or more complicated heals).  Plus it got played in Standard constructed, so it's a solid enough card.