Theorycrafting! (Because I like competitive metagames too much)

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Played a winchester draft tonight.  Which basically means both of us got three packs, and were able to select a little bit for colour but not really.  He played a four colour deck, I played five colour.

Went 2-2.  Both of my losses were to Debt to the Deathless:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=369039

(Although one of my losses I was just mana screwed, and my opponent actually had a decent number of early plays, so while I might have stabilized without Debt to the Deathless, it wasn't looking good).

Haunter of Nightveil was an all-star for me.  Maze abomination was really hard to play against.  In general, the maze elementals were good just for their french vanilla stats.  I found Maze Rusher kinda scary.  It was kinda like sealed with half the packs, so much slower than normal, which basically meant that anything that costs 6 was good.

My bomb rares were...

Pontiff of Blight
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=369006
(Good despite playing 5 colour.  Should definitely be able to extort enough in a 3 colour deck, but hard to splash black just for it, due to the double cc).
Scion of Vitu Gazi
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=369092
(did a fair bit of work for me because there was a pontiff of blight in play giving the tokens extort, and there was a milling flying vampire I needed to chump block).
Ready//Willing
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=368967
(Requires double white to play both halves, which is something I hadn't thought about before with the gold split cards.  This is not that splashable, and pretty much failed me due to colour screw).

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Let's see, what else.

Beetleform mage was good.  Often stopped by 1/5 flying blockers with deathtouch, but I think that's pretty specific to the deck I was playing against (which happened to have two of those uncommons, and be in precisely red/blue/white/black to get those + maze abomination).  The other cards I had were not as good at causing a ground stall as I expected, though, so getting attacked on the ground by 6CMC maze elementals happened a fair bit.  I think if I'd had maze abomination it would have helped there.

Punish the Enemy...did some work killing specifically Tithe Drinker.  (and against me it would kill beetleform mage while I was tapped and Carnage Gladiator while I was tapped).  But a lot of the time I was just looking to cast it post combat to kill a big creature I was struggling with, and a combat trick would have been just as good.

Incidentally, protect//serve was solid.  I wish it gave a little more than 2 power, because sometimes that's needed to kill something.  But I usually found myself casting both halves and doing relevant stuff with each half.

Renounce the Guilds seemed pretty good; I was usually able to get a key target out of it.

Large vanilla or close to vanilla stuff seems pretty hard to deal with (outside of deathtouch).  I think if I'm in the colours I should value Armored Wolf Rider decently highly; like 3.0 range.

Gatekeepers...I only had the green one, and it was...ok, not great.  Gained me 7 life one time, and didn't on another occasion but I needed a blocker for Tithe Drinker asap.  I think it would have felt better without Maze Abomination on the field, making it a bad blocker.

Ok, for reals, how much Maze Abomination am I going to face; let's think about this.  It's a common, so once every 6 packs or so (1/2 the players will have it in their card pool) and my opponents have to put it in their deck if they do draft it, and then draw it without getting mana screwed out of casting it.  So......1/4 games or 1/5 games.  Not enough for me to devalue high tougness cards.  I wish I could think of more ways to deal with the card, though.  Other than the "kill anything" removal cards that should probably be reserved for bombs.  It's not the kind of format where you want to be chump blocking--there just aren't enough cards on the table.  Gang blocking a 4 power deathtouch is awful.  5 power is pretty rare (the green bear can pump that much!)  Combat tricks are options, but only Protect//Serve can make you actually win the combat (by giving it -6/-0 as well as pumping)--and even that card doesn't pump too much--if you have nothing but 2/4s you can't kill it in combat outside of a gang block.  Three of the maze elementals can trade in combat (green/red/black) but that's it among commons (except Krahul Warrior pumping to 5/5, and battering Krasis can grow that big too; goooo green commons).  Uncommons with 5 power or deathtouch are....there's three that always have them, and three more that can pump.  And obviously three cards that pretty much read "kill target creature".  Although...actually, Krasis Incubation isn't that great against Maze Abomination because the static effect of handing out deathtouch still happens.  Even among rares, a few trade (if you want to trade a bomb rare for a common), a few others have protection from it and can block forever (but don't kill).  I think I need to value Maze Abomination higher just because of how hard it is to trade 1-for-1 with it, and how rarely losing it will be a tempo loss (a lot of stuff that can trade with it costs 5+).  Worded that way it sounds kind of like a bomb....

One quick note; I've been valuing Runner's Bane pretty high, and valuing Far//Away pretty high.  These cards don't synergize.  Same for renounce the guilds, although at least there I can put Runner's Bane on a monocolour creature.

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Starjeweled:

So...to recap, there is a strategy without a real name (that I call omnistax, but there's no consensus) where you warp cell your team's first three ultras in a perfect parallel line to the cannons such that they will block the pathfinding of anything behind them, and then continue building ultras while keeping those three frozen.  This allows you to build up an effectively unlimited (maybe 15 or so) ultras, usually at the cost of your front cannons.

So...the top tier team (luke/crush) had already killed us twice, once normally, once with this, and so this next time i re-warpcelled their wall ultras about when I expected them to release the built up masses, and re-warpcelled again.  Ended up killing their back cannons, and seriously blunting their push.  (Still lost, because they had about 40% more energy, but it was funny).

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Starcraft 2:

So...as Terran, if your only goal is to mine as much minerals as possible and don't want to make any army, what should you make; orbitals?  Mules?  Supply Depots?  Supply Calldowns? SCVs?


An SCV mines about 40 minerals per minute.

Supply depots take 30s to construct, which wastes about 20 minerals of mining (realistically 25 due to travel time).  This means their total cost is 125 or so.

SCVs take one supply, which means their total cost with the cost of a supply depot is 66 minerals.  Going the supply depot route they take about 100 seconds of mining to repay themselves.  Add in 17 seconds of build time and it's 117 seconds.

Mules collect 240 to 270 minerals over 90 seconds.  Orbitals accrue energy at a rate of 0.5625/sec, which lets them call down a mule once every 88.89 seconds.  So...in total, orbitals collect about 172 minerals per minute.  (4.3x as much as an SCV).  This means that if you already have a command center, and are choosing between morphing it into an orbital, and building an SCV, morph an orbital.  Repays itself after 52 seconds of mining, which with the 35 second build time means 87 seconds.  But more to the point it's like building 4 SCVs in the time it normally takes to build 2.

If you don't yet have a barracks, and are considering building one just to make orbitals (not build any units out of it) the build time is 65 seconds (44 minerals of lost mining time, plus travel time so this rounds off to 50) and cost is 150 minerals.  Total investment 200 minerals.  With one Orbital this becomes a 350 mineral investment (takes mules about 122s to pay that off) and then add in 100s build time (222 seconds to pay off investment).  With two orbitals it's a 500 mineral investment (takes two mules about 87s to pay that off) and then add in 100s build time (187s to pay off investment).

Command centers take 100s to build, which, with the lost SCV mining means 67 lost minerals (70ish with travel time).  Total investment 470.  They also provide 11 supply, which is 1.375 supply depots, worth about 165 minerals, so actual total investment is closer to 305 minerals.  If you're only making them to morph them into orbitals for the mules, it's a 455 mineral investment (takes mules 169 seconds to return investment; 300s with build times considered).  CCs also build SCVs and let you mine from more mineral patches if placed at expansions, of course.


So...realistic RoI times tend to be about 2 minutes to 5 minutes.  Call RoI time T.  That means that if I make X in time T, and I invest everything into more income, then my total wealth at time 2T will be...2X (same as it would be if I spent nothing) but my income will be double.  Now go invest your 2x bank into more income.  In this way you can double your income every T or so.  Actually probably slightly better because you reinvest constantly with constant scv production, so instead of *2, it's probably closer to *e, where e = 2.71828.  (Honestly likely somewhere in between; maybe 2.5).  So...choosing between making a supply depot and doing a supply calldown, the supply depot costs you 125 minerals 30s earlier, the mule collects 240-270 minerals over 90s.  So...it depends how short your RoI time is.  If it's very short--you have a ton of CCs already built that you can make SCVs out of, such that you can spend all your money on SCVs, supply calldown is actually more economical.  With a 2 minute delay, 125 minerals is worth about 312 minerals 2 minutes from now.  With a 5 minute delay (more realistic; SCV production tends not to be the limiting factor) mules are better; supply calldown only ends up being worth about 180 minerals.

Of course, in the event of an unplanned supply block, supply calldown allows the terran to invest in SCV production rather than CC production, which has a much faster RoI and therefore is almost certainly worth doing.  (The alternative is to drop a mule, but in the 30 seconds that it takes to build a supply depot, you could make 4 SCVs out of two CCs, which have the same mining rate as a mule, so your mineral per second income will be the same, for 75 more invested compared to the cost of the supply depot, but those four SCVs will continue mining--it is highly unlikely you can reinvest those 75 minerals elsewhere to get more than four SCVs worth of mining by the end of 90 seconds.  Like...maybe if you had a field full of CCs that you didn't have the money to turn into orbitals you could make up the 75, but in that unlikely event  you wouldn't be wasting time building a supply depot to un-supply block yourself anyway, because morphing orbitals would be higher priority.

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SC2

So...laggy asked me if Tempests have the highest cost to supply ratio in protoss.  They're not the highest in the game (Ghosts and Banelings and Ravens still win that) but within protoss is an interesting question.

Tempest:
500 resources/4 supply = 125/supply

Dark Templar:
250 resources/2 supply = 125/supply

Phoenix:
250 resources/2 supply = 125/supply

Carrier:
700 resources/6 supply = 117/supply

Void Ray:
400 resources/4 supply = 100/supply

So...the answer is that it's now actually a 3-way tie for first.

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Boom, drafted.

Got a master of cruelties first pick, which made me think I would be blue/green/red or blue/green/black.  Started leaning black, but ended up picking up quite a bit of random red stuff from one source or another, and looked at my card pool at the end of the second pack, and decided I was black/red/blue.

Third pack, first pick had Trostani's Summoner, which was a real groaner for me because I had already decided I was black/red/blue.  But it also had Turn//Burn which was in colour and reads destroy target creature (or get a 2-for-1) so I didn't feel too horrendous about passing that one.  Master of Cruelties and Trostani's Summoner were the only real bomb creatures I saw.  (Although I did draft a Maze Abomination, which as I've mentioned is pseudo-bomby).

I ended up with about 30 cards in red/black/blue, and decided not to splash for the little green I got.  The green I cut:

1x Beetleform Mage (I have plenty of flying)
1x Thrashing Mossdog
1x Give//Take (I have plenty of card draw)
1x Kordoza Gorgon (to be fair, between Thrashing Mossdog and Give//Take I would actually have +1/+1 counters to remove, but only those two cards).

Cards that are in-colour that I'm not running:
1x Carnage Gladiator (had him in at first, but every deck I played against was more aggressive than me, and I have no lifegain.  He sounds great on paper, especially since he's a multicolour creature that gets all the bonuses)
2x Toil//Trouble (I have 3x Pilfered Plans, and have had trouble with keeping my life total up against the two decently aggressive decks I played.
1x Nivix Cyclops (I'm already playing two in the deck.  They have been decent performers, I just worry that they're not great when you have multiple on the table, so I'm not sure about going up to 3)
1x Smelt-Ward Gatekeeper (I'm playing 2x blue gatekeeper, and 2x black gatekeeper, and several other 4 drops.  This is the least controlling of the three)
1x Morgue Burst (I'm already running 3 cards at 6 CMC, blue maze elemental, black maze elemental, and blast of genius.  Morgue Burst operates off of power, and my powers tend to be 1-2 range when they're in the graveyard).
1x Maze Rusher (See Morgue Burst about the 6CMC).
1x Selesnya Guildgate (I really, really, really don't know whether to include this.  I only have four gates, which is really low when the gatekeepers are actually pretty important to my deck.  On the other hand, it's a land that taps for colourless and ETB tapped.  On the third hand, with 3 colours I really have yet to be colour screwed).
1x Maw of the Obzedat (yeah, not splashing white)
cluestones: My deck apparently struggles with being too slow, and already has plenty of card draw.

Mana:
17 lands, (4 gates, 13 basics--7 blue sources, 7 black sources, 6 red sources)
3 Divination variants (2CMC, draw 2 cards)
2 Opal Lake Gatekeepers (if I have 2 gates in play, draw a card)
1 6 CMC card draw spell (ok, this probably isn't mana fixing)

Spells (activates the 2x Nivix Cyclops, and 1x Fluxcharger)
1x Weapon Surge
3x Plifered Plans
1x Turn//Burn
1x Far//Away
1x Warped Physique
1x Blast of Genius

Cards I'm unsure about that I currently have in the deck:
1x Runner's bane.  It interacts so poorly with Far//Away.  And there's so many static/triggered abilities on small creatures that don't get shut down.  And I'm always a little disappointed that it isn't an instant or sorcery trigger.  That said, one of two 2 CMC spells in the deck (well...technically five spells can be played at 2CMC); I feel like I should keep it just because having a mana curve is a good thing.
1x Rubblebelt Makka.  So far it's been...a hill giant.  Attacking isn't something I've done a ton of.
1x Maze Glider.  It's been alright so far, but mostly a 3/5 flyer.  Still, that's something that I've needed.  Although...this card is really, really funny with Master of Cruelties....
1x Notion Thief.  Only been a flash blocker, but has pretty consistently killed one attacker I wanted dead; can't really complain.  Actually, it's also multicolour for interaction with the maze elementals, and still has the potential for cardstealing; doubt I'll cut this.
1x Weapon Surge.  Seems ok so far, but feels like an odd fit for a low creature deck.  It has consistently done work, though.

And I think that summarizes every card in my deck.  Oh yeah, 2x Wind Drake.  They don't interact with anything, they're just wind drakes.


Other possibilities: with so much card draw, I could think about going down to 16 lands.  I don't really like that though; I have a high curve, without the card draw I'd probably run more like 19.  Also, I've died with cards in hand; when I draw lots of cards, I need mana to cast everything.

Hmm...so sideboard options aside (there's probably slower decks than me, and I have the sideboard to make them suffer) there's not that much I'd be likely to change.  Maybe bring in the third Nivix Cyclops in exchange for...runner's bane?  I dunno.  Or I could mess with my land--bring in the simic guildgate, or go down to 16 lands.

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Also, I suspect I have a powerful but somewhat hard to pilot deck.  For instance, I had been casting my draw spells on 3, but I suspect that's a misplay and I should hold those in hand until I'm quite low on cards, especially when they interact with several of my creatures.

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Ok, after a few goldfish tests I am adding the Selesnya guildgate.  Reason being I don't have any double mana costs, but I often felt like I did need two gates.  And yet my counts were 7 black sources, 7 blue sources, 6 red sources, 4 gates.  Cut a swamp, because wind drake and runner's bane and nivix cyclops are good early plays.  With some goldfish testing...I rarely felt colour screwed when I drew the selesnya guildgate and almost every time I got it, it was my second gate for a gatekeeper.  (although there was one time I was missing a black on a mulligan to 5).  I did, however, have a monent of "nooo, it's a tap land "

EDIT: ok, played a game where I felt thoroughly colour screwed (out of black) and I drew the selesnya guildgate.  The problem being I'm relying on plifered plans to draw me out of mana screw situations.  Maybe I should run 5 red sources?  Problem with that is that red has some of my only early blockers.

Weapon Surge has been feeling unspectacular during these goldfishes, but it felt good last night.  Maybe I'm just bad at imagining combat trick scenarios.  Thing is...cut weapon surge for...a Nivix Cyclops I guess?  But Weapon Surge is one of the things that turn on the cyclops.  Then again, just as a multicolour creature the cyclops often picks up deathtouch and/or flying.  EDIT: yeah, making that switch.  Drew it one extra goldfish where I just flat out did not have a play until turn 4, because weapon surge does nothing if you have no creatures in play.  (Incidentally, played Rubbebelt Makka as a creature that game...).  It's kind of a painful cut, because the card is good, but....

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Ok, played one game against a generally stronger deck.  (Which is to say, he had eight power uncommons, I had four, he had three rares, one of which was a massive bomb, I had two, one of which is a bomb.  He has lots of lifegain that I lack).  He was certainly ahead in both bombs and removal.  I was ahead in card draw and overall card advantage stuff.  But it was control on control and he had an X spell that could kill at 14 mana, which thankfully he didn't draw at key moments.  (I didn't get a single counterspell, not even the terrible 4 mana one to sideboard for that; poorly done on my part).

Went 2-1

He was playing a slower deck than I was, 4 colour with a ton of cluestones.  I sided in Carnage Gladiator (which I never got to play) and Maze Rusher.  Sided out some runners bane and nivix cyclops.

Cards that caused big problems for me:
2x Haunter of Nighveil (he was to my left and took both, probably why I didn't see them when I wanted them; my deck really badly wants one).
his bomb (Pontiff of Blight, particularly in combination with Haunter and my generally low power)
2x Sin Collector (I have a lot of pretty important instants and sorceries, making this always a pretty key 2-for-1)

A card that I should be playing a lot better: Notion Thief.  I had been thinking most decks won't have card draw, but that's not true.  Cluestones are going to be in almost every deck, and when I have a board advantage, my opponent's going to dig, and then I can 3-for-1 with Notion Thief.  I should probably also value keeping it out so that my opponent has a bunch of dead cards, rather than taking the first decent combat trade I'm offered.

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MtG

In spite of all my card drawing, which on paper means I can run less mana, I'm considering going up to 18 mana sources.

2 land hands are hands I kind-of want to mulligan, but a 6 card hand will very rarely have more than 2 lands either.  This deck doesn't really have 2 drops, and many of the 3 drops are two-colour cards (easy to miss a colour when I'm stuck on 3 lands).  So...basically if I have a 2 land hand, chances are I'll have nothing I can play in my opening hand, AND I'm pretty much in a situation where I should keep.

I don't know what I cut, though.  The 6 drops have all been strong performers.  The 5 drops are bombs and removal.  The 4 drops are most of my light mana requirement cards (and Notion Thief, which I want to keep using now that I realized how it works with cluestones).  The 3 drops...the wind drakes have done work, as have the Nivix Cyclopses.  I suppose I could swap out Plifered Plans as it serves a somewhat similar role (gets mana early if needed; draws cards late).  The 2 drops are removal, although...I guess I haven't been in love with Runner's Bane--so many of the problematic creatures with 3 power or less have passive effects or the ability to pump themselves, and it's antisynergistic with Far//Away.  Something I'd certainly board in for certain matchups, though.

Swapping in...a cluestone I think, rather than a swamp or an island?  On the one hand, it's rare that a cluestone will actually accelerate me, so it's like a double CIP tapped drawback on a land.  On the other hand, it makes two colours, and that's important.  The danger with cluestones that I discovered in an effectively sealed pool was that if you try and run like...15 lands and 5 cluestones, you might get stuck on 2 lands and 2 cluestones in hand.  But that's not what I'd be running here, which is 17 lands 1 cluestone.

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Probes vs Zealot 2

So...in the old game, weapon speeds went as follows:

100: +20%
200: +40%
400: +80%
800: +100%
1600: +200%
3200: +400%

In the new game they seem to be:

100: +20%
200: +40%
400: +80%
800: +100%
1600: +150%
3200: +200%
6400: +300%
12800: +400%

So...when do you upgrade speeds optimally?

0 speed, 0-300 damage
100 speed, 300 damage
200 speed, 400 damage
400 speed, 500 damage
800 speed, 3400 damage
1600 speed, 3000 damage
3200 speed, 7800 damage
6400 speed, 9400 damage
12800 dspeed, 25400 damage

So...basically the 800 cost speed is still largely ignorable.  The 1600 is worth getting just for being something that's an upgrade over the 400 cost speed and not as worthless as the 800 cost stuff.  3200 is a bit of an underwhelming upgrade--worth keeping the 1600 one a bit later or getting the 6400 a bit early.  128 you can avoid until you're pre-gas maxed.

[Grefter]

Oh more Probes vs Zealots.  Was all excited for more MtG meta in a format I don't toy with.

Any insight as to why the change?  Was speed always optimal upgrade before or have all the scales been changed here?

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Was all excited for more MtG meta in a format I don't toy with.

I'm sure there will be more of that.  I have a tournament match this week against someone with I've heard 3 phytobursts, an armadillo cloak, and I believe Lavina of the Tenth+Species Gorger combo.

I really wish I had some lifegain in my sideboard for the phytoburst decks; it's pure card distadvantage, but I can't ignore it because my life total only goes down, so I'll probably have to chump block.  Cloak...I have removal, and deathtouch.  I've played against a cloak deck already.  Lavina I think could be a huge problem for me, as I have all of three creatures with 3+ CMC, and protection from red is very hard for me to deal with.

I'm not sure this is one of the lavina decks, though; it might not be.  (I do know there are two decks with lavina + species gorger).

Any insight as to why the change?  Was speed always optimal upgrade before or have all the scales been changed here?

A while back there was a forum of a new PvZ game that I don't think ever got made where I proposed a few changes.  Stuff like...

1. Nerf gas armor so that a gas based zealot is actually possible to deny feed on
2. Buff regen
3. Nerf max weapon speed
4. give the zealot a vision tool for lategame cleanup

The reason for calling out a max weapon speed nerf is as follows.  Attack boost blades are always matched dollar for dollar in PvZ.  The amount of damage you deal is your income.  400% speed boost means that you can literally double your DPS (and therefore double your income) after 15 seconds of feed.  15 seconds is not very much (to put things into perspective, if you have enough turrets to kill the zealot in 5 seconds, that tends to be straight up death, because you have a 5 second freeze spell.  Taking the freeze spell into account, then, if your turrets kill in 20 seconds, that's a ton of feed; the zealot can double up on you.  That's only a factor of 4 between instant death and easy feed, and in a game about powers of 2, a factor of 4 is a pretty thin margin.  Also add in that if the zealot arrives at your door and you realize your turrets are too low, it's about 5 seconds per upgrade).

This change only partially addresses the issue--the max weapon speed is still 400%.  However, it delays dealing with the max speed issue until much later in the game (right around when gas kicks in, where there's all kinds of balance issues anyway).


Granted, there are a bunch of other changes that I haven't really described because there's no interesting calculations to be done about them.

* Selling turrets now only gives a 50% refund.  This means turrets are usually not worth selling, unless you don't expect to rebuild them until you have quadruple your current income (at double income you only break even).  I don't really like this change because it gets rid of some of the higher skill/higher APM play where you regularly salvage and rebuild your turrets.  Although, it does mean as zealot if you're up against skilled probes, you can actually pressure their income just by visiting them.
* Probes auto-void.  In a game that usually isn't won by the smartest probe, but rather lost by the dumbest probe, this is very nice.  This means that the bottom end of skill is not quite so painfully low.
* Zealot has some ultra expensive end game damage blades and armor.  I think it goes from 32 to 160, and 160 to 512 for the price of doubling up.  It does make it a bit less frustrating as zealot "I'm totally maxed and can't break you wtf"--now at least the zealot won't be totally maxed, so they won't feel so bad.  The little I messed with these, though, they're too expensive and don't really save you.  It does change the balance a little as probe--formerly the correct play was to cut econ after 3 or so perfect miners and rush a final wall--yeah, don't do that anymore.  But that was a strategy maybe the top 1% of probes knew about (like...me, and people I'd shown my calculations), and everyone else just econed up anyhow.
* Probes aren't revealed for not having a nexus anymore.  Not sure how I feel about this--this was always a poor mechanic in the earlygame, and theoretically nice in the lategame but in practice easily circumvented with automines anyway.  It does mean your day can't be ruined by someone revealing your location
* Zealot gets full damage off of low HP targets (instead of the damage capping out at the target's max HP).  Definitely a good change--running and scattering automines everywhere is still entirely too strong a strategy, but at least now the zealot gets bank for killing the automines.
* Nexuses don't give full income until they complete their 5 second build time (annoying!  But not hugely relevant).
* Nexuses and automines don't have infinite resources (very weird!  But it hasn't come up for me so far)



Aaaaanyway, back to the interesting attack speed stuff that actually involves math....

How much slower is it compared to the original?

Up through 3100 resources, exactly the same income.
Up through 5300 resources, at the largest gap, 20% more income.  This is the point when in both games you'd use the 1600 mineral attack speed, and it's a 150% increase rather than a 200% increase.  x3/x2.5 = 1.2.
Now the gap rapidly spikes up between 5300 and 11000 resources.
Between 11000 and 15700 resources, it stays constant at 67% more income (this is the point when both games you'd use the 3200 mineral attack speed, which means 200% increase in one game, and 400% increase in the other)
And then the gap slowly drifts down from there once the higher attack speeds become good; around 38400 minerals (pre gas max) it's down to about 37%.
And obviously anywhere in the gas range the differences start evaporating.  (At one gas, it's 14%-18% off depending on whether you use a 128 blade too.  At two gas, 8%-9%.  At four gas, 5%)


EDIT: so...how much longer does it take to get max weapon speed?  Because once you get there, that equipment slot doesn't change and you can completely ignore all the game differences.  There's two factors in this...
1. max weapon speed costs more--the target is 38400 minerals instead of 28800 minerals for pre gas maxed
2. You reach the target slower

And the answer is...assuming continuous upgrades at all point (and also assuming that the 1 mineral per second passive income still exists--haven't checked that)

Old game: 220 seconds of feed
New game: 248 seconds of feed

Most of this gap coming from the slowed down midgame rather than the cost difference of the final setups (that evaporates in about 7 seconds of feed).  I will point out that 28 seconds isn't actually all that daunting; one extra feed session if you're lucky; two if you're not.

Although granted, this isn't the whole story.  In a real game there will be walking time, and you will need to upgrade your durability (and if your income is increasing slower, upgrading your durability will require a larger percentage of your total income, slowing you down more).

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Probes vs Zealot 2:

Some testing:

Mining gold minerals does not appear to have changed from PvZ1.  (Which means I think master through legendary miners only get +1 per mining cycle on gold; it was not a noticeable increase at any rate).

Zealot gets full income regardless of defence.  So there's no partial feed reduction by upgrading walls.

Boots don't stack.
Gas HP does not stack.
Gas regen still stacks.

Stalkers have the same damage and attack speed as turret 13s, but they have the following attribute "attacks: 3".  Tested this out, and they do indeed deal triple damage.




So like...stalkers as compared to turret 13.


When perfect miners are in the picture, 2 minerals are worth about 10 gas.  Which is to say, 1mil gas gets you 1296 min/sec, which gets you to 200,000 minerals in 154 seconds.  200,000 minerals worth of automines provides 6250 gas/sec, which adds up to 1mil gas in 160 seconds.  If you're rushing for either T13 or Stalker, you will be cutting some of your income development (automines in the case of T13, Perfect Miners in the case of Stalkers).

Which is to say, the effective cost of these two are...effectively

6mil gas: T13
15mil gas: Stalker

Which is to say, in a long game you should not be building any T13s.  Stalkers are just more cost-efficient and space efficient (even if they just stay stationary).  T13s still have a niche, however; you can rush a T13 faster than you can rush a stalker.  (Also, longer range!  Which doesn't mean much when stalkers can move and have blink, but...).

[metroid composite]

MtG

Not too much to report in the dragon's maze draft.  I've gone 2-1 in two different official matches (and 2-1 and 1-2 in unofficial matches).  My deck was built partially around the hope that I would get bombs, so I have a lot of stuff that stalls and a fair amount of card draw to...support bombs I don't really have, but it's still one of the few 3-colour decks (instead of 4-5), with card draw on top of that for extra smoothing, so I get free wins when my opponents choke and I don't.


In the mean time, looking forward to M14 draft...

Slivers!

Hard to tell right now, but it looks like maybe every colour will get two common slivers, one uncommon, and one rare.  Probably the same distribution as M13, so about 114 commons, 64 uncommons, 58 rares.  Which is to say, on average packs will have one sliver.  If you're looking for a specific common sliver, it'll be in about 1/11 packs.  If you're looking for a specific uncommon sliver it'll be in about 1/21 packs.

Artifact Commons:

3 mana for a 2/2 with no abilities.  I'm pretty skeptical about this one.

Green commons:

2 mana for a 1/1 slivers get +1/+1: it's a bear with an upside.  Also, fixed Muscle Sliver.  Pretty awesome
7 mana for a 5/5 slivers get trample: Looks pretty bad, honestly

Green uncommon:

(not yet revealed)

White Commons:

2 mana for a 2/2 slivers get vigilance: it's a bear with an upside even if you have no other slivers!
3 mana for two 1/1 slivers: not great without support, but slightly more interesting than the artifact 3 mana for a 2/2.

White uncommon:

3 mana for a 2/2 slivers get +0/+1: ehhh.  you'd need to be pretty heavy on Slivers to care about this, because 2 mana for a 2/3 is crappy on its own.  Even then it's not great.  Veteran Armorer is a common that existed at one less mana, and pumped everything.  (Great card to be fair, but it does put the power level of this into perspective).

Red commons

1 mana for a 1/1 slivers get first strike: If there's an aggressive deck running some muscle slivers or something this seems alright just for being a 1-drop that can stay relevant.  Probably not something you'd run in a non-sliver deck unlike the white and green bear-slivers.
3 mana for a 2/2 slivers get haste: Again, not something you'd run in non-sliver decks probably, but you can attack for 7 damage on turn 3 with this muscle sliver, and the red 1-drop, which is kinda cool.

Red uncommon

5 mana for a 3/3 slivers get +2/+0: not that great in a vacuum, but the synergy here is pretty nice, with red having a common first strike sliver, and a lot of small slivers in general, including one that could give this haste.



Blue/black

not yet revealed.



All in all I'd love to get 4-5 of the muscle sliver, but...in an 8 person draft, between 24 packs, with a frequency of 10/114 per pack, there's going to be two of those in the entire pool on average.  The entire pool.  4-5 is unlikely even if -nobody- else picks them.  The white bear is cool too, and something I'd cheerfully draft if in colour, but not really something that pulls me in the direction of slivers.

[Parametric]

You should do some theorycrafting on Space Zombies (another custom map)

[SnowFire]

From an email to a mailing list with interest in Magic & board games at my company:

So, I was thinking about absurd magic decks. And I became curious about the following question: what's the most damage a deck without an infinite combo can do in one turn?  ...<snip<...

So far, the best I've come up with is 125,049,445 damage on turn 53 on the draw. Can you do better?

<3<3<3

(I had the perfect links in response, of course.  It seems the combo's since been updated for Dragon's Maze, too, and uses a rather different engine now involving Cowardice & In The Grip of Chaos.)

http://soniccenter.org/sm/mtg/megacombo.html  for those too lazy to check met's earlier links.

[metroid composite]

From an email to a mailing list with interest in Magic & board games at my company:

So, I was thinking about absurd magic decks. And I became curious about the following question: what's the most damage a deck without an infinite combo can do in one turn?  ...<snip<...

So far, the best I've come up with is 125,049,445 damage on turn 53 on the draw. Can you do better?

<3<3<3

(I had the perfect links in response, of course.  It seems the combo's since been updated for Dragon's Maze, too, and uses a rather different engine now involving Cowardice & In The Grip of Chaos.)

http://soniccenter.org/sm/mtg/megacombo.html  for those too lazy to check met's earlier links.

Oh, yeah, guess I never reposted it post grip of chaos/cowardice revolution.  That kind of broke things wide open, because anything that targets a specific group without being a part of that group becomes pretty powerful, like Dwarven Pony and Merfolk Assassin.  Definitely pushed us well into the realm of "we are cutting lots and lots of cards we could be using because they would push us over the 60 card limit."

[SnowFire]

Speaking of which, minor nitpick to maybe pass on to SadisticMystic...  he mentions a Snow-Covered Island that's animated for Natural Emergence.  Is that just a holdover from the earlier draft?  Or does he mean "in later loops, we can use a Tundra Kavu mutated Mothdust Changeling?"  (or is he CHEATING and introducing a Snow-Covered Island not in the decklist?!)

[metroid composite]

Speaking of which, minor nitpick to maybe pass on to SadisticMystic...  he mentions a Snow-Covered Island that's animated for Natural Emergence.  Is that just a holdover from the earlier draft?  Or does he mean "in later loops, we can use a Tundra Kavu mutated Mothdust Changeling?"  (or is he CHEATING and introducing a Snow-Covered Island not in the decklist?!)

Probably just a holdover from an earlier version of the description.  I'll try to catch him online; haven't talked to him in a bit.


In the mean time, something interesting that I just thought of MtG related.  You see a card like Staff of Nin and you think "there's a card that would have been good in 1998".  Or even "There's a card that would have been good around the time of Kamigawa".  But you probably think "gosh, if the bar for 6 drops these days looks like this, it's probably nowhere close to good enough."  But actually, as it turns out, the card is good enough, and does get played in standard.  Turns out, drawing a card every turn from an artifact or enchantment is still worth about 5 mana (like it has been since at least the days of Kamigawa), and a pinging effect is worth the extra 1 mana.

[metroid composite]

MtG EDH

So like...in addition to limited, my coworkers play some EDH, and I've been borrowing decks.  And one of my coworkers just printed up a proxy decklist of a deck he's thinking of putting together, which got me thinking "well I really don't have enough of a collection to really put together an EDH deck with the tiny cardpool I own, but I could do that."

EDH is a bit of a funny format, because it's not strictly a competitive metagame; there are unwritten rules of "don't do cheap stuff like infinite combos."  But on the other hand, people appreciate a good deck, and take apart a weak deck.  And the current strongest deck in the playgroup is sort-of a combo deck (gets Pariah's Shield on Darksteel Colossus and various immortality tricks like that).  Whereas more average decks are like...a Ghave deck, a Kaalia deck, a Doran deck.  Not necessarily perfectly optimized or anything, just decks with on theme cards and bombs.  So this is the kind of power level to aim for.



What would I like to build given the ability to proxy anything?  The idea of a Relentless Rats EDH deck amuses me, just because it gets to use a whole lot of cards that otherwise don't show up in the format like Bloodbond March and Thrumming Stone.  But upon further reflection all of the combos seem to have a really similar endgame.  "Hi, I have a bunch of vanilla 8/8s."  Seems like it would get monotonous.

I have certainly thought about making a Zedruu the Greathearted in the past, with the ravnica hunted cycle and forbidden orchard.  Also, Sorrow's Path, because donating that to people with the potential to force them to tap it is hilarious.  I don't really have the deck thought out beyond a few cards like the hunted, Sorrow's freaking Path, Gilded Drake, and a couple of cards like that, however.

What does seem like it could be kind of fun, however?  Slivers!  Especially since they are topical with all the new M14 cards coming out.



Obvious commander is Sliver Overlord (since it can tutor for the other two sliver legends).  Which...presents a slight problem.  I don't want to make this "that deck with an infinite combo", because tutoring is built right into the deck's commander--basically guaranteed to be tutoring every game.  The number of situations where "tutor for your infinite combo" would be correct is...probably pretty high.  So...right off the bat a few cards I think need to be mutually exclusive.

Probelm combo #1:
Sliver Queen
Basal Sliver

Technically this isn't infinite on its own, but combine with anything (a CIP effect, a tap effect plus haste) and it is infinite.

Which one to cut...?

What Basal Sliver does for the deck is give mana to a mana hungry deck.  When it really gets silly, it will let you play a bunch of slivers, triggering card draws, sac them for mana, play more slivers, sac them for mana until you're out, and then cast Patriarch's Bidding or Living Death.

What Sliver Queen does for the deck is just generally being a pretty bomby threat on its own, but also triggering stuff more cheaply.  Giving you free fodder you want to sac to your powerful sac outlets.  When it combos out is when like...all your slivers can tap for 1 mana, meaning you can double your creature count each turn.

Between the two of these...when Basal Sliver combos out, it probably takes 10 minutes of careful thinking about which land to tap for which colour of mana.  When Sliver Queen combos out, you tap some stuff, and up the counter on some dice.  Basal Sliver sounds more fun to goldfish, but Sliver Queen sounds like it'd be more fun for all the opponents, and for the nigh unreachable goal of keeping EDH games below 2 hours.

in: Sliver Queen
out (due to combos)[/b]: Basal Sliver


Probelm Combo #2:
Pulmonic Sliver
Hibernation Sliver
(insert sliver that gives haste)
Gemhide Sliver
1 mana Sliver
a powerful 0 mana sac outlet like Darkheart Sliver

Granted, this is a six card combo that just gets infinite life, but with Hybernation Sliver a 1 mana sliver and a way for that sliver to pay for itself, you do have "pay 2 life: draw a card".  So...really, it's infinite life and draw infinite cards.  Unfair enough that...you know what, let's just not have that in the deck.

In terms of cutting stuff....

0 mana sac outlet: I want 0 mana sac outlets, because I want to run Living Death alongside Patriarch's Bidding.

Gemhide Sliver: The deck is going to be starving for colour fixing and starving for mana as-is.  Not cutting this, especially since there's two of them.

Haste Sliver: this does too many hilarious things for me to want to cut it.

1 mana sliver: So......this one I would miss.  I kind of want to run screeching sliver just so that I can mill myself for a bunch, and then recur my entire graveyard.  I kind-of want to run the new 1 mana flying sliver.  I kind-of want to run Virulent Sliver.  But...none of these are essential.  In fact, Virulent Sliver and Screeching Sliver are in-general kind of bad in the deck, they just represent variety.

Hibernation Sliver: This thing is just over the top and funny.  With Sliver Queen it's 2: draw a card and put a 1/1 sliver into play.  Over the top without being infinite gets in my good books.

Pulmonic Sliver: This I could live without, although it is just genuinely a good card even when it's not comboing.


Tossup between Pulmonic and the 1 mana slivers.  Think I'll keep Pulmonic for now, although that's both the more powerful and more boring choice, which makes me wonder if I should choose otherwise....



Problem Combo #3
Wild Pair
Combined with a bunch of the above stuff.

You can play a 2 mana sliver, tap it for mana, tap the creature it searched up for mana, then bounce it in one of the variety of ways described above, and recast it with the 2 mana you just made.  And with Wild Pair that's enough to search up...the entire deck!

Technically, this isn't infinite!  It ends when you run out of cards in your deck.  That said, "all the slivers in the deck" probably means that if you're left with four untapped slivers, you can attack all four opponents with one sliver each, and each sliver will be like...a 35/35 doublestrike lifelink can't be blocked vigilance shroud.  While not technically infinite, the moment you untap with this the game is kind-of over.

I don't see an especially elegant way around it either.  Even if you cut the Pulmonic Sliver so that you need to pay life on every bounce, paying 20 life to get 10 slivers for free isn't too large a life payment, and probably is still game-ending.




Ok, those caveats out of the way....noncreature spells...

Yes to Patriarch's Bidding
Yes to Living Death
And...you know what?  Yes to the M14 version of this kind of card (Rise of the Dark Realms)

Lurking Predators...yeah, sure; doesn't go infinite because I can't control it, but sounds powerful in a multiplayer format.
Cryptic Gateway...could certainly run it.  Doesn't go infinite as long as putting a sliver into play doesn't cause two slivers to be in play.
Aphetto Dredging...maybe.  Seems decent.
Unnatural Selection...yes.  Does funny things with Sliver Overlord.
Genesis Wave...you know, slivers tend not to cost more than 5, so this could be pretty funny.
Call to the Kindred...also sounds pretty hillarious a lot like Lurking Predators
Descendant's Path does something like Call to the Kindred, but only looks at one card.
Coat of Arms...not thrilled by this.  The number of decks in the playgroup that can get 8 saprolings out (really not that much stuff) is...pretty high.
Door of Destinies...This, on the other hand, is much safer.
Distant Melody...mmm it's ok.  Like...you can get this effect without the creature type restriction for a couple extra mana.  But there's also a commander that lets you tutor cards, and slivers that draw cards.
Heartstone/Training Grounds...obviously out if I want to stick to the no infinites rule I've imposed on myself.
Tutors: Yeah, sure whatever, these can fill in card slots.
Eldrazi Monument: Given that the commander of the deck can steal cards (which can then be sacced to the monument) this seems fairly cool, yeah.  Would probably be obnoxious if it were tutorable, but since it's not and should only come up once every five games?  probably ok.  Kind of boring, though.  Like...it's obviously good, but my aim isn't to make an unanswerable deck.
Genesis: this is kind-of cute for sure, as slivers don't inherently have ways to get cards out of the graveyard.  Certainly something I could run, although living death effects are flashier.
Tunnel Vision: now THAT is more like it XD.  Might be a bit overkill, but I can at least try it first; people tend to run ways to exile graveyards so it might be alright.
Twilight's Call: another living death if I want it.
Survival of the Fittest: wait, this is legal in commander?  Apparently this is legal in commander.  Ok then.  Well, since I seem to be in the mood to have a living death subtheme, yeah, throw this in.
Crib Swap: It's a sliver, it's tutorable!

Ok, noncreature spells are looking something like

Patriarch's Bidding
Living Death
Rise of the Dark Realms
Tunnel Vision
Survival of the Fittest
Genesis Wave
Unnatural Selection (stealing stuffs)
Crib Swap (Tutor for it, kill something, and then steal the sliver left behind!)
Liquimetal Coating (what?  there are hilarious shenanigans I wish to execute with this, and they can be tutored for.  Yes, it's bad in this deck, but I suspect the deck will need power toned down a bit to be reasonable anyway)
Call to the Kindred (seems like the splashiest and most vulnerable of the lurking predators/descendant's path group.  Lurking predators is probably better, but could also go in any deck).
Aphetto Dredging (Eh, sure, the one thing slivers don't do on their own is get out of the graveyard.  A little more redundancy there, on a card that wouldn't go into a goodstuffs deck, seems like a fine include).
Cryptic Gateway (Yeah...if nothing else for the time it saves me on "oh wait, did I tap the right colours of mana?")

Ok, so 12 cards I want to run.  I'm a little suspicious Tunnel Vision might be pushing things a bit, though.

Next up: mana

[metroid composite]

So...mana.  Like...I am proxying, so I could just go like...10x Beta duals, 10x fetchlands, Mirari's Wake.  But that's completely out of step with the playgroup (where some decks are mostly basic, some have quite a few nonbasics).  So...arbitrary restriction time!  I can only use commons and uncommons!  What are my options....

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=31761
Odyssey sac lands.  Inclined to pass on these.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=368523
Zendikar tapped life duals.  Seem like obvious includes, especially given the Karoos are also obvious includes.
(x5)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=23236
Invasion sac lands.  Actually a bit more interesting, but I think this deck never wants to sac its mana.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=207930
Ancient Ziggurat.  Yeah, when it's mostly creature spells, definitely this wants in.
(x1)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3035
Homelands triple lands!!1  Maybe if I'm desperate.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=175128
Alara triple lands.  Yes please
(x5)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=121158
Coldsnap dual snow lands.  Maybe.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=270826
Karoos, obviously
(x10)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=174842
Panoramas, maybe.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=369008
Guildgates, maybe (there's 10 of these).  Would be more tempting, except that the way I've worded the rules Maze's End is out.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=108930
Storage lands.  Mmm...this feels more like the kind of deck that wants to spend all mana every turn.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=21170
Doesn't untap after use.  Thinking no on these ones.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370490
City of Brass...apparently made its debut as uncommon!
(1x)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=45491
The completely vanilla taplands!  I'd probably take snow or gate lands over these for the style points.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=338442
Command tower, auto include
(1x)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25936
Lairs!  I'm...skeptical, with the Karoos being so good, and already having this downside.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=368505
Evolving Wilds.  Sure.  Honestly seems a step above the panoramas to me; it's just tap sac, instead of 1, tap: sac to get a tapped basic land out of the deal.
(1x)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=19768
Henge of Ramos!  Mmm...feel like it could be less expensive to get the coloured mana.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=39421
Mirrodin's core...maybe.  I'm undecided.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=271142
Rupture Spire, also a pretty good 5c land
(1x)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3235
Again with the 2, T to get non colourless; maybe if I'm desperate, but I feel like it could be better.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=271203
OH LOOK, it could be.  Yeah, this is a definite maybe.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=368529
The tainted series (all trigger off of swamps).  I'm thinking no to these.  Won't fix mana when I need it.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247406
Temple of the false god is...colourless only, but might still be worth-it because of the colourless activated abilities.  Not sure.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=25980
Terminal Moraine...it's an any colour land search, but I'm not excited about it.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370459
Terramorphic Expanse, sure.
(1x)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=253550
Transguild Promenade; yeah, this seems good enough
(1x)

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=189078
This is...a lot iffier than 1, T, add one mana of any colour.  Doesn't work on Karoos.  Not sure

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370400
Vivids!  Wow, Vivids are uncommon?  Welp, auto include.
(5x)


Ok, so how many cards is that?

5 life duals.
5 alara triple lands
10 Karoos
5 Vivids
2 fetchlands
5 rainbow lands

32

Yep, that's more than enough; might even want to cut something to make a bit more room for basics, as I do have some basic searching already, and am likely to pick up more when I get to spells.  Or I could just do the sensible thing and run more than 40 lands....  43 wouldn't kill me.  The basics will probably have a bit of a green focus, both so I can cast green ramp spells, and so that I can activate Survival of the Fittest lots of times in the later game.

In fact...how many of these produce green?  This is important to not choke out.  Let's see...two life lands, four Karoos, three Alara triple lands, 5 Vivids, 2 fetchlands, 5 rainbows.  21 so far.  If I run 4-5 forests that's 25.  25 is probably acceptable.



Moving on to mana spells....The lack of rares is making me cry just a little here.  I mean...

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=151989
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=290542

Want!  But can't have.

Let's see...artifacts....


Aether Vial was uncommon?  Ehhh...for all that it would be really good, this feels like exactly the kind of card the "only commons and uncommons" rule was meant to avoid.
Sol ring: This on the other hand...every EDH deck seems to have one, so sure.
Chromatic Sphere/Chromatic Star?  Maybe; good cards even if their fixing is temporary.  Handles one of the problems with Karoos (that they make you discard if you haven't played anything yet).
Terrarion?  Yeah, see above.
Springleaf Drum?  It's a definite thought.  I mean, there is a sliver that does the same thing, though, so...eh.
Fellwar Stone?  Seems decent; most of the time it'll be able to make 3-5 colours.
Kaleidostone?  LOL, well, it gets the overlord out I suppose, and then the overlord can tutor for mana slivers.
Prismatic Lens?  Also seems solid; probably worse than Fellwar Stone usually.
Sphere of the Suns?  This was played a bunch in standard, but it was played alongside Primeval Titan, which once you got titan out, it didn't matter that this would deplete.
Darksteel Ingot?  You know, the sliver that destroys artifacts and enchantments does not say "you may", so I might want this just to have a way to avoid blowing up my own stuff....
Borderposts!  Hmmm...well these are basically lands, but also lands that can't be played without a basic land, which I'm apparently only running around 9-12 of.  So...I'll give these a pass.
Vessel of Endless Rest.  Actually?  This is kind-of cool because I can use it on myself and then tutor with Sliver Overlord.  Or if someone puts their commander in their graveyard (which happens) then this is shenanigans.
Khalni Gem.  Hmm...with all the karoos, bouncing two lands sounds like it hurts a lot, so pass.


Enchantments...

Carpet of Flowers.  Umm...I think I'll file this under the Aether Vial category of "yeah, let's not actually go there."
Khalni Heart Expedition: this seems solid.
Bunch of enchant lands that let you add 1 extra mana; these mostly don't thrill me because of the 2-for-1 potential.  I guess Dawn Reflection is pretty cool: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=51222

Instants and Sorceries

Search for Tomorrow: It's decent.  I feel like there's so many fixers that fix two colours, though, that I'm not sold on a spell that only fixes one.
Into the North: I suppose I could run the snow taplands instead of the life taplands
Rites of Spring: lol, funny with the living death plan.
Cultivate/Kodama's Reach: just good, and worth running.
Harrow: Mmm...the deck is mostly nonbasics, that pay all of their penalty early by etb tapped.  Saccing them would kinda suck.
Explosive Vegetation: This card is really good with Karoos running around.
Shard Convergence: Great on paper.  In practice I kind of expect this card to make me discard if I cast it early (Again, that Karoo clause).



Ok, so, in a deck where I can literally always spend more mana because I can pay 3 to tutor, and want to consistently hit WBRUG every game, I think "half the deck is mana" sounds reasonable.  If I'm running 43 lands (might be too much with karoos essentially counting as 2 lands hrm) that would mean 7 spells.

1x Khalni Heart Expedition
1x Cultivate
1x Explosive Vegetation
1x Sol Ring
1x Terrarion
1x Fellwar Stone
1x Vessel of Endless Rest

So.....2 spells that cost 1, 2 spells that cost 2, 2 spells that cost 3, 1 spell that costs 4?  Decent curve to it.  I...don't really feel satisfied yet, particularly given that I'd like more 1-drops due to the fact that I can't run any at all in the actual sliver part of the deck, and given that 43 lands with 10 Karoos is more like 53 lands.  Hmm...

-2 lands
+2 in Chromatic Star/Chromatic Sphere

Ok, that feels a lot better.  Kind-of tempted to make the two lands I cut the Transguild Promenade type lands, because with Karoos there's still a frightening number of lands I can't play on turn 1, and upping that to 12 is a bit scary.  So...ok 41 lands, 30 nonbasics, 11 basics?

6 forests
2 swamps
1 island, 1 mountain, 1 plains

The mana fixing spells (and the mana fixing slivers) are green, as is survival of the fittest.  I don't want to be stuck unable to cast patriarch's bidding/living death/rise of the dark realms because I couldn't search up another swamp.  The other two colours though...at worst there's a sliver with a double CC in its cost that I can't cast, but if I can cast the overlord I can tutor up some sliver based mana fixing, so yeah, whatever.

[metroid composite]

Ok so on to the actual creatures.  38 deck slots left, but realistically I think 39 because I'm eyeing Tunnel Vision and thinking "yeah, that's probably overkill".  Slivers are divided into three basic categories.

The "herp derp slivarz" category pumps each other and smashes faces in.
The "tricksy" category does various silly stuff, destroys permanents, mills, etc.
The "don't hurt me" category, that saves itself.

I want to go more towards the tricksy, and less towards the "herp derp".  Not that I think it's too likely that I'll be that deck that knocks a player out of the game by turn 6 when all my lands are taplands, but still, whenever someone gets knocked out of an EDH game before they really cast anything, they tend to be sad.  Not that I won't do powerful stuff, but I want to focus more on, say, stealing and blowing stuff up and disrupting opponents than on attacking for 20 on turn 5.

With that in mind...

Acidic Sliver - While it is tricksy and allows blowing stuff up, I dunno.  Maybe if M14 provides a deathtouch sliver.
Brood Sliver - IN!  This card is hillarious.
Cautery Sliver - Same kind of sentiments as Acidic Sliver
Clot Sliver - Probably.  The thing is, there's already a 2 mana black regenerate sliver that's really good, namely
Crypt Sliver - IN.  Boring, but good protection
Crystalline Sliver - IN.  Not even that boring with flash
Darkheart Sliver - IN.  No questions here.
Dementia Sliver - Ehhh not sure.  Like...the effect seems really weak.  Tap all your creatures to maybe get them to discard a card or two.
Dormant Sliver - IN.  Hillarious
Essence Sliver - IN.  Yeah, lifegain is good if I become the target, which I might.
Firewake Sliver - IN.  Definitely want at least one haste sliver; this is the most interesting one.
Frenetic Sliver - IN.  Yeah, this card is pretty funny
Fury Sliver - probably not--as much as I do want double strike in the toolbox somewhere, the M14 card is better, and like I said the focus isn't beatdown; don't need redundancy here).
Gemhide Sliver - IN.
Harmonic Sliver - IN.  LOLOLOLOLOL Liquimetal Coating.
Hibernation Sliver - IN.
Homing Sliver - Probably not.  It's a lot worse than both Survival of the Fittest and Sliver Overlord's ability.  It is an additional way to search up mana fixing, I guess.
Hunter Sliver - Maybe.  Kind of board control, but assumes that I'm playing a lot of pump so might not be effective a lot of the time.
Magma Sliver - IN.  It is a herp derp beatdown card, but I do want a few I can tutor for to close out games, and this is particularly good at "take 21 commander damage".
Mesmeric Sliver - Ehh...seems like it would slow things down a lot, and just generally not be fun to play against "you draw nothing but land, you stay mana screwed".
Mindwhip Sliver - IN, I suppose.  The good sliver discard for multiplayer costs 1 mana, but that's out.  This probably won't be used too often, but toolboxes and all that.
Mnemonic Sliver - You know, all the other sliver draw is better; leaning against this for now.
Muscle Sliver - Probably.  I imagine there aren't 38 different and unique utility slivers, so I'll have to fill the last few slots with herp derp ones; might as well be this.
Necrotic Sliver - IN.  so in.
Opaline Sliver - IN.  Not actually all that interesting, but I doubt I'll end up cutting it.
Psionic Sliver - Maybe.  Funny card.  Doesn't do much without pump cards, though, and I'm deliberately running light on those.
Pulmonic Sliver - IN.  (Kinda hits all three categories; protection, combo shenanigans, herp, derp I fly)
Quick Sliver - IN.  The shenanigans with this are hillarious.  Especially since they can be tutored for.
Quilled Sliver - Maybe.  Depends if M14 has a deathtouch sliver.
Root Sliver - Maybe.  I'm not thinking of a whole lot of counterspells in the playgroup, and I'd expect them to go on the living death effects instead.
Sedge Sliver - Maybe.  More regenerate, but won't often get the pump.
Shadow Sliver - Maybe.  Not sure how many "you can't block me" effects the deck needs.
Shifting Sliver - IN.  Speaking of you can't block me effects, though, this is blatantly the best one.
Sinew Sliver - Maybe.  Moar muscle sliver.  This is less likely to make the cut if I'm space filling than the other two because I'm base green.
Sliver Legion - IN.  If there is one "herp derp slivarz" card to include, this is it.
Sliver Queen - IN.  Shenanigans.
Synapse Sliver - IN.  Yeah, sure, mass curiocity is funny.
Telekinetic Sliver - IN.  Exactly the kind of place the deck wants to go, with more control and less "I win the game".
Toxin Sliver - Maybe.  I guess it's decent with the provoke sliver if I run that, but only if there isn't a deathtouch sliver in M14.
Two-Headed Sliver - Hmm...how much evasion do I need?
Ward Sliver - IN.  Does all kinds of stuff.
Amoeboid Changeling - IN.  LOLOLOL stealz your stuffz.
Chameleon Colossus - Maybe.  It's a herp derp sliver for sure, but it's good at what it does.
Mirror Entity - Maybe.  Another powerful herp derp sliver.
Taurean Mauler - Maybe.  Another powerful herp derp sliver.

For M14...
Bonescythe Sliver - IN.  I certainly want access to doublestrike, if for no other reason than it's funny with all my "when this deals combat damage to a player" triggers.
Sentinel Sliver - IN, Probably.  Vigilance allows for some shenanigans, like attacking, and then using tap effects afterwards.
Syphon Sliver - IN.  The fact that you can stack the two lifelink effects to gain double the life, and then use Bonescythe Sliver to gain quadruple the life is something I want to do just once.
Thorncaster Sliver - IN, probably.  This is a lot more intriguing if deathtouch is possible.
Megantic Sliver - maybe.  It's a herp derp sliver, but a pretty good one.
Predatory Sliver - maybe.  Best muscle sliver and all that.
Manaweft Sliver - IN


Ok, so what's the card count looking like...29, and waiting on M14 to see if it delivers the expected deathtouch sliver.  If it does, that's 30, and then 3 or so of the slivers that benefit from deathtouch can be added.  Round things out with the muscle slivers and Megantic Sliver or something.  If not...well hmm, maybe I cut a different combo piece like Pulmonic Sliver so that I can run a bunch of 1 mana utility instead.

[metroid composite]

Starcraft 2: so...something funny I've noticed?  You can almost always figure out the DPS of a starcraft 2 army just by being told how many units are in the army (with no regard for what kind of units are in the composition).  With some exceptions of course, but....

Let's call a unit that deals 7 DPS "one stuffs"

Zergling: 1 stuffs
Queen: 1 stuffs
Roach: 1 stuffs
Hydra: 2 stuffs (Ohmigosh, hydras deal sooo much damage!11)
Locust: 2 stuffs
Ultralisk: 6 stuffs
Mutalisk: 1 stuffs
Corruptor: 1 stuffs (1.5 stuffs against massive)
Brood Lord: 1 stuffs (for its main attack)
Broodling: 1 stuffs


Marine: 1 stuffs (1.5 stuffs when they stim!)
Marauder: 1 stuffs (2 stuffs against armored, 1.5/3 stuffs when stimmed)
Reaper: 1 stuffs
Ghost: 1 stuffs
Hellion: 0.5 stuffs (1.5 stuffs against light with blue flame)
Hellbat: Slightly defies classification (1.3 stuffs against armored, 2 stuffs against light)
Widow Mine: 0.5 stuffs (but very frontloaded)
Siege Tank: 2-3 stuffs unsieged (light-armored) 1.7-2.5 stuffs sieged (light-armored)
Thor: 7 stuffs (1 stuffs against air.  2 stuffs against light air)
Viking (air): 1.5-2 stuffs (light-armored)
Viking (ground): 1.7 stuffs
Medivac: 0 stuffs, but it counteracts the fact that marines and marauders have stim and Hellbats are OP to make terran armies have the right amount of DPS for their unit counts.
Banshee: 3 stuffs
Battlecruiser: 5 stuffs vs ground, 4 stuffs vs air

Zealot: 2 stuffs (but when you kite them they're 0 stuffs, so it balances)
Sentry: 1 stuffs
Stalker: 1 stuffs (1.5 stuffs against armored)
Dark Templar: 4 stuffs
Immortal: 2 stuffs (5 stuffs against armored)
Colossus: 2.5 stuffs
Archon: 2 stuffs (3 stuffs against biological)
Phoenix: 1.3 stuffs (2.5 stuffs against light)
Mothership Core: 1.5 stuffs
Void Ray: 1.7 stuffs (3 stuffs-5 stuffs against armored depending on alignment)
Oracle: 2.5 stuffs (4 stuffs against light)
Tempest: 1.3 stuffs (3.5 stuffs against massive air) -- clearly the real reason Blizzard made the tempest was so that the protoss capital ship of choice would do the same DPS as a marine.
Carrier: 4 stuffs (This is obviously why they wanted to remove the Carrier)

Probe/SCV/Drone: 0.5 stuffs


A few units buck the trend, but usually in obvious ways.  (An immortal is a double stalker!  A marine is extra stuffs when it stims!  A worker is less stuffs than a unit).  And air units are a little more all over the map than ground units.  But most ground units fall very close to 7 DPS (or a multiple of 7).

Except Hellbats.  WTF.  Did hellbats really need to deal more damage to armored units than roaches?

[metroid composite]

The full M14 has been spoiled!  And..........no deathtouch sliver.  In fact, black and blue got exactly one sliver each.  Well then.

I really like the interaction of the pinging sliver and deathtouch, though.  Exactly the kind of combo I want to go for (does something powerful without actually killing a player or ending the game).  So.........stuff that gives your creatures deathtouch?

This actually seems to be a pretty underused effect.  There's...Ready//Willing, Vault of the Archangel, and that's about it; everything else is like...wolves have deathtouch or rats have deathtouch or multicolour creatures have deathtouch or skeletons and zombies have deathtouch.  Vault of the Archangel is rare and a land, so I guess that means Ready//Willing.  Although...hmm, maybe I should make an exception for Vault of the Archangel, because I'm obviously not including it for the mana fixing.  On the flip side, if I start going there, there's this card called Mutavault that I maybe should be including....

Certainly Ready//Willing has a good bit of utility either way.  Saves slivers from sweepers.  Will often literally pay for itself by untapping things that make mana.  To say nothing of the deathtouch silliness.  So yeah, it's in.