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talenlee · 4 days

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Game Pile: Sheriff of Nottingham

Sheriff of Nottingham is one of my favourite games that I will probably never get to properly play.

The core mechanism of Sheriff of Nottingham is a simple game of bluffing. It’s hide-and-seek with a deck of cards. The group are all playing merchants, and in each round, one player takes turns being the Sheriff of Nottingham. The Sheriff gets to inspect each of the players’ offerings, with a penalty if they inspect someone innocent and a reward if they find someone guilty.

That is the core of what goes into the game. Things like tallying scores, the distribution in the deck, burn cards and comparative weight of contraband, that’s all stuff that’s there to lend it texture, but in its absolute heart of hearts, this is a game where one player watches as two to five other players all line up to not tell them lies, honest, officer. Complicating it from just a straightforward ‘do you believe me?’ vs ‘do you not?’ is that players can wheedle and negotiate during the phase where the Sheriff is deciding whether or not to bust your chops, but also complicating that further is the way that the game is set up to have a clear and distinct boundary between whether you’re being investigated or not.

See, you could just have this game built around a deck of cards; you set say, four cards in front of the Sheriff and say ‘hey, this is all apples, please don’t look,’ but they pick it up to look at it – when in that process is it too late for the Sheriff to turn back? How quickly can you blurt a bribe that’ll stop the whole affair out? It’s a really interesting thing where when you deal with physical, material objects, truly binary boundaries between two game states can be very challenging to maintain cleanly.

What Sheriff of Nottingham does to facilitate this is a little purse in which you slip your cards. Once you do, you’re committed; there’s no almost-in, or not-quite in cards. You choose, you put them in, and then you close the purse with a clasp. That clasp is a push-clasp, which also means that pulling it open is a little bit of effort. The player commits when they submit their bag and the Sheriff commits to searching the bag once they pop that clasp.

It does not escape me that this effort creates an access problem for players with weaker hands. This is along with the way that this game of pretty much pure bluffing discourages players who don’t like to lie or can’t lie, and the way that the whole game presents real challenges for players who struggle with on-the-fly mathematics. See, one of the complaints of Sheriff of Nottingham is that the actual resolution of the game is a bit fiddly; once you get to the end of the game you work out how your score works based on the number of cards you got, and to facilitate that, you get a little paper pad. Trust me, a game that ends with everyone doing complex math has to be satisfying at every step of the way, or, you know what, no, it has to be Wingspan. Wingspan can end the game with fiddly math and note taking, that’s how good a game has to be in order to make this not a pain.

Sheriff of Nottingham is an introductory game in disguise. You don’t need to buy into an elaborate fiction to understand it, even though the narrative supposes a modest connection to a Robin Hood kind of story. The fiction of the game is that the players represent traders who are moving into a market, in irregular groups, and each time they move in, they get their carts checked (or not) by the local sheriff who is of mercurial mood and disposition. In fact, buying into the fiction creates a question of why bribing the guards goes into the pockets of another player, so really, it’s for the best you don’t. The gameplay loop of trying to fool one another presents itself very obviously and by pushing all the scoring complexity to the end game, nobody needs to track exactly how well they’re doing while they learn.

I think that a scoring system that doesn’t rely on doing math but instead relies on dividing your end-game cards would be the best way to do things. Make it so it’s not that apples are worth 2 points and the player with the most apples gets a bonus, but instead, you keep every third apple card, and have scores be much lower. Numbers would need tweaking to ensure that the coinage scores weren’t that important – the fiction clearly indicates that

The problem of course is that when the game is this simple, built around a mechanism so tightly defined, is that it’s essentially, a tension engine. Not only is it a matter of a game where you have to lie to people – even if only to not seem completely honest! – it’s a game where you’re presented with a non-stop sequence of tense experiences. It might as well be Shoplifting Simulator for the way the game’s mechanics inspire people to start sweating!

And therein lies the barrier for entry.

I love this game. I love watching this game. We use it in our classes to teach students who have never played a board game before how to go from ‘nothing’ to ‘proficiently playing.’ It has a beautiful, almost predictable arc where poeple play the first rounds in quiet silence, then someone gets away with their first lie and suddenly there’s a layer of tension and people start to laugh. Then someone bribes someone else to investigate another player and suddenly there’s a new source of laughter.

I love to see it! I love to see the way players learn to tease one another, the way players learn to mess with one another.

Now remember that my play group often involves children and my mother.

This is not a game that fits my playgroup! And that’s okay to know and it’s okay to remember it! But then I get to enjoy watching people play it, either on the internet or in class.

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#Game Pile #Games

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uniconbetgroup · 2 years

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ARE YOU SEEKING ONLINE CASH GAMES? GO AHEAD AND PLAY THESE GAMES!

Before the Ancient Era, when children played with stones or small pieces of wood, moving forward to the Era of board games, video games, etc., and then delving into TODAY'S ERA with Virtual Games and ONLINE GAMES, games have always played a significant role in our lives.

Everyone today is devoted to their smartphones and laptops. In the direction of using this technology to make money, our civilization has advanced. Are you anticipating the same things as well? Here are a few basic games you can play and get paid to play online.

WHO ARE CASH GAMES FOR?

A quick and easy approach to getting money is by playing cash games. The players in cash games must wager or pay an entry fee to receive a larger payout.

Cash games only depend on luck. Where there is a chance, there is a game, kind of like a lottery! To gain the most of your actual money back, it is normally advised to choose the games with the lowest house edge when looking for the top money-making games in India.

Teen Patti was the first online cash game, and afterward came games like poker, roulette, slot machines, etc.

In the modern era, sports betting has also played a significant role in India. Similar amounts of money have been wagered by billions of Indians on online sporting events. Indian gamers reportedly spent a remarkable $1.73 billion on online sports betting in 2018, and this figure is expected to skyrocket this year, especially once cricket is resumed in the nation. Even while cricket dominates the betting market, certain analysis reports have revealed that Indians will also gamble on other sports, including Kabaddi, Football, Hockey, and others, to increase their chances of winning bets.

There are several game apps available for online revenue generation. You might think about keeping your favorite game with you at all times as downloading an app is not a big deal. You may play games at your convenience thanks to apps.

Utilizing mobile data, you can instantly connect and start using the app's game. Additionally, low-cost cell phones are now more popular than home desktops and laptops. This indicates that not everyone will be able to set up a PC or laptop to play the game online. In this case, a low-cost smartphone will enable you to realize your desire to play your preferred game.

GAME LIST FOR NEWCOMERS:

1. ADULT PATTI:

You will need both talent and luck to succeed at this well-liked family game. This real money game, which uses a 52-card deck, is a straightforward card game similar to three-card poker that excludes the Joker.

The dealer deals each player three cards, face down, to begin the TEEN PATTI GAME. The first wager is made by the player on the dealer's left, and the process is repeated.

The best hand wins the full pot after the hand is over, and the winner is announced. You may play this game right in your browser as well as a multitude of other free gaming apps on the Google Play Store.

2. POKER:

One of the most well-known games in India is this one. It is stimulating, fast-paced, and easy to learn. It also offers a ton of opportunities to develop your psychological skills. It's a system-based game that calls for concentration, assurance, tolerance, and the ability to make quick decisions.

Your chances of winning a poker game can be improved by having a good understanding of mathematics and analytics.

3. ROULETTE:

The game of roulette is played in casinos all around the world. To play roulette, you must place bets on any square on the roulette board to predict the number that will appear after the wheel has spun.

You can wager on a single space, a gap between two spaces, or the intersection of four spaces when playing the numbers.

After placing all of your bets, click the Spin button to cause the ball to fall into the wheel, which will then start spinning.

Observe the ball as it lands in a slot to find out which number is the winner. The process is repeated once winnings are distributed and lost wages are removed.

4. BACCARAT:

Baccarat is a two- or three-card gambling card game in which the hand with the greatest remaining value after dividing the face value by ten is the winner. The following are some tips on how to play baccarat:

· Decide whether to bet on the player or the bank.

· The dealer deals two cards to the player and the bank.

· The dealer won't deal with any more cards if the sum of each hand is 8 or 9.

· The dealer deals the third card if the sum of either hand is 0-5.

· The closest hand to nine is the one that prevails.

5. Online spammer:

Rummy games have been a staple of Indian culture for a very long time. Rummy is a matching card game with a minimum of two players and a maximum of six players in which building card sequences is an essential aspect of the game.

The best aspect is that there aren't many complicated rules to learn when playing Indian card rummy.

6. DREAM CRICKET:

These REAL MONEY GAMES are loved by millions of people around the globe. In the strategy-based sports game Fantasy, you must put together a virtual team of real cricket players who take part in international competitions. And based on how well these players execute, you receive a grade.

If you think it's a game of chance, you're wrong; to beat the odds and win the game, you'll need to develop specialized predictive and analytical skills as well as perform some research and understand the relevant data. Your initial objective when you download a fantasy cricket games app is to choose the top 11 players from the teams that are competing on a given day to beat your rivals.

UniconBet, one of the most cutting-edge names in fantasy sports, offers one of the best resources for both new and seasoned players to learn about fantasy sports across several sports and engage in competition for real money rewards.

7. BLACKJACK:

Blackjack is one of the most-played casino games in India. It combines both TRILL AND SKILL. Blackjack is a gambling card game in which players try to assemble a hand of cards whose combined face values total 21 or fewer. There are a few limits you should be aware of before playing for real money. A suggestion is to start out playing the game for fun to get comfortable with it. Let's examine a typical game to learn how it functions:

· When everyone is ready, the dealer deals each player at the table two cards, face up. Two cards are dealt to the dealer, one of which is face up and the other is face down.

· Decide whether to strike or not to strike: Calculate your hand's worth about the dealers to get as close to 21 as you can without going broke. If you opt to stand instead of hit, you ask the dealer to deal the other players another card.

· If your hand value is now 21 or less, you should continue. Otherwise, check your hand value.

· After every player at the table has decided what to do, the dealer will reveal his or her face-down card.

· Verify who's closest to 21: If your hand is nearest to 21 than the dealer's, you bust the dealer and win. If the dealer comes closest to 21 than any other player, they win. Depending on the sort of stake you made, the dealer may, if you're lucky, award you your winnings.

8. SLOTS:

The easiest game to master and the one factor that truly determines your success in an online slot machine game is luck. Coins are deposited into a slot of a slot machine, and a handle is pulled to activate a collection of spinning symbols on wheels. The reward delivered into a bottom receptacle is then determined by the ultimate alignment. Now, let's walk through how to play this game:

STEP 1: Open the game on your desired gadget after selecting your preferred online slot machine. The wheels of your slot machine and control buttons like "spin" and "max bet" will occupy the screen. Additionally, your bankroll will be visible on the screen corner.

STEP 2: Review the payable for the game. This will inform you of the value of each symbol and let you know which ones to search for.

STEP 3: Decide on your wager and the number of pay lines you want to play. If you want to choose all of the pay lines at once, click the "max bet" button.

STEP4: Click "Spin" to start the reels spinning. The game will show your winnings and give you the option to wager if you have won. This offers you the chance to play a bonus game and win larger payouts.

STEP 5: You can keep turning the reels as long as you like, but remember to monitor your bankroll.

LAST WORDS:

The easiest and most popular way to make money today is through online cash games. These games are now much easier and quicker to adapt because of smartphones. It ought to be performed with both eyes and ears wide open. Although it is entirely legal, it should be played with extreme caution.

#Online Gaming #Online Casino Games #Live Casino #Best online Casino Site In India

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rowansparrow · 3 years

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By Any Other Name: Chapter Three

Summary: Rex follows you to the back room of the bar to check on you, and you trade stories about what used to be.

Chapter Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: mild drinking and cursing, a bit of gambling?

Ships: Rex x Female!Reader, Fives x Female!Reader, Clone OC x Female!Reader, other ships tbd.

Tags: #ByAnyOtherName, #BAON

Word Count: 1.7k

A/N: It’s going to get much spicier after this chapter. Once again, bless @fat-zygerrian for being my beta reader!

Comment if you want to be tagged! Reblogs are SO appreciated!

Chapter One Chapter Two

You had not expected to see him again.

Of course, a part of you had been hoping you would run into him at 79’s again. But what were the chances he would be there? Stars, what were the odds he’d have even remembered your name?

You entered the bar with measured caution knowing you didn’t have your girlfriends with you this time around. Although they didn’t really offer you much in the way of moral support the last time you’d been here for a night out, it still felt so strange to come alone. You hesitated, looking around for Rose, wrapping your arms around yourself and suddenly feeling incredibly anxious when he didn’t immediately appear.

This had been a stupid idea.

You shook your head. If you were already second guessing yourself maybe it was best to just leave and save yourself the embarrassment. You turned back towards the exit quickly, ready to get out. Whatever little gods out there must have been watching over you that night, because just before you stepped through the doors, somebody crashed into you.

“Ah, kriff, sorry ma’am!” The clone chirped, careful to steady the multiple glasses in his hands as he shifted quickly around you. You recognized the handprint on the trooper’s armor. He had been one of the two men who pulled Rose away from you the night you had met.

You stood on your tiptoes, eyes trailing him to a round table pushed into the back corner of the cantina. The trooper hurried over and slid into his seat, distributing drinks and then passing one of the amber drinks to the man on his right. You recognized him too. Even from a distance, the goatee and numeric tattoo on his temple were hard to miss.

The troopers appeared to have been waiting for the replenished drinks, because as soon as the soldier with the handprint on his armor took his seat, the tattooed one immediately began dealing out cards.

You inched closer, trying to catch a glimpse of the other players while not being too obvious about it. Maybe coming here was a good idea after all...

“No, no, you dealt last hand, di’kut.” A trooper with a Republic cog tattooed on his face swatted at the other man’s hands. “It’s my turn.”

“Did not!” He protested. “Echo had the last one. Then he got drinks so now it’s my turn!”

“The entire point of me getting drinks was so you could deal while I was gone.” The one named Echo drawled.

“Quit bickering and just deal the damn cards.” Another clone griped. “Force knows I’ve already lost enough hands to Rose. Let’s get this over with!”

Your heart skipped a beat. Rose. You tried to look inconspicuous as you shifted even closer to see the rest of the table.

“Ah, don’t be such a sore loser, ‘Case. You’d have better luck with your cards if you’d stop flashing them at me half the time.”

“That’s cheating!”

“Then hold your kriffin’ cards up, vod.”

Rose’s laugh was what finally made you turn fully to face the table. He was not in full armor this time. Instead he wore armor below the belt, but the upper half of his body was just the black bodysuit the clones wore beneath the plates. The top of the suit had been unzipped slightly, showing off a triangle of Rose’s chest and what appeared to be tattoos adorning the bronze skin. Something about the tease of flesh was enough to make your mouth go dry, a more tantalizing intimacy than if he had been naked to the waist.

You suspected Rose must have sensed your staring. As the trooper's gaze shifted from his cards, those beautiful eyes of his darted directly to you. Then for a moment you froze, jaw opening and closing in a panic as you tried to think of something to say, an explanation for why you had been lurking in the shadows, just watching them.

But Rose beamed at you.

“Hey! I know you!”

The men at the table turned and you felt heat creep up into your cheeks.

“I was just – I’m sorry, I-I didn’t mean to intrude -.”

“Nah, come here! We’ve got room.” He reached over his shoulder, grabbing an empty chair from a nearby table and swinging it over effortlessly. He placed it right at his side. “Y/N, right?”

You nodded in response; your voice gone for now. He remembered your name?

“Boys, this is Y/N,” Rose waved at the men around the table. “Over there, that’s Fives and Echo.”

Echo gave you a little wave and Fives smiled, offering a small, two fingered salute.

“This is Jesse, Kix, and -.”

“Hardcase,” The trooper immediately to your right introduced himself then offered you his hand. You took it and he shook it with vigor. “You know how to play Sabacc?”

“Er.. no.”

“You’ll pick it up fast. Rose can coach you! He’s a natural.”

“That’s because he’s a strategist and cheats at cards.” Jesse mumbled, taking a long swig of his drink. Rose scrunched up his nose and flashed Jesse a little smirk. Fives then dealt the cards out to everyone and when each man had a full desk, Rose handed his cards to you.

“This here is the hand pot,” Rose explained, gesturing to a little pile of what looked like junk in front of him. “And that bigger one is the Sabacc pot. Hand winners get the hand pot and whoever wins the game overall gets the Sabacc pot. Make sense?”

You nodded, trying to follow along. “What’re you betting?” You asked, picking up a small canvas bag off the pile closest to you. You risked a glance inside and were surprised to find two hard candies.

“Contraband.” Hardcase replied conspiratorially. “Or whatever else we’ve got. Not like we’ve got credits to bet.”

“Cards up, darlin’.” Rose told you, reaching around to the back of your hand to tilt your cards back up towards your chest. Even through his glove, you could feel the heat of his palm against your knuckles. You glanced up at him and he gave you a charming little smile.

“Alright, Fives dealt.. so Jesse should lead, yeah?” Kix nodded towards the table. Rose shifted so that he was sitting slightly behind you. His arm settled around the back of your chair and he looked at the cards over your shoulder. He moved his head low, his lips just barely brushing against your ear as he spoke.

“Your goal..” Rose murmured in a voice meant only for you. “Is to not break twenty-three. Each card has a different value.”

You felt a shiver run up your spine and tried to focus on the game as Rose coached you quietly from behind. Hardcase was the first to bomb out, theatrically tossing his cards on the table in a huff. Jesse, Kix, and Echo were eliminated when none of them broke twenty. Then it came down between you and Fives.

Fives studied you from across the table, cocking one eyebrow up. He drew a card and smirked, holding his deck close to his chest.

“You’re at twenty.” Rose whispered in your ear. “If you draw anything higher than a three, you’ll bomb out. You can choose to stand and hope your hand is higher than Fives’...or you can draw.”

“What do you think?” Fives grinned while tilting his head at you. “Do you feel lucky?”

You glanced up at Rose again for guidance but he just shrugged his shoulders. You smiled, turning back to Fives.

You drew a card.

You pushed your way into the back storage room, bracing your palms against the shelves while trying to steady your breathing. You simply couldn't catch your breath; your chest squeezing tighter with every raspy inhale you attempted.

You sank down to your knees, hands steepled behind your head and curled in on yourself as you fought for air.

You briefly registered the door opening and closing again behind you. The sound of rustling of armor properly caught your attention as Captain Rex knelt down in front of you. He gently guided your hands off the back of your head.

“Breathe.” He murmured. “C’mon. In with me, out with me.”

You tried to match his breathing, tears streaking your cheeks and ruining your makeup.

“In… out.” Rex repeated, reaching up with one hand to brush your tears away.

“Don’t!” You snapped, jerking away from his hands. Rex held them up in surrender, sitting back on his heels.

“Y/N, I need you to breathe or I’m going to have to find Kix.”

You closed your eyes, trying to ground yourself. Blood pounded in your ears, and you sucked in another sharp breath.

“In… out… in… out… that’s it.”

Slowly, your breathing relaxed and you leaned back against the wall, head thunking against the durasteel.

Rex sighed and sat cross-legged opposite you. “I’m sorry. I… I shouldn’t have come.” He said softly. “I never wanted to upset you.”

“It’s not your fault.” You said finally while rubbing your hands down your face in exhaustion. “It’s just…” You took a deep breath. “Hard.”

You sat in silence together for a long time. The distant thrum of the music and shouting from the cantina was the only sound around you until Rex finally spoke.

“He was one of the few I could stand.”

You let your head loll over towards him and raised an eyebrow.

“Rose, I mean.” Rex said, looking at his hands. “I love all my brothers. But the boys in Torrent… they can be insufferable.”

You chuckled. “I can’t imagine. Fives is bad enough when he’s planet side and comes to bother me. You’re stuck with him all the time.”

“You have no idea.” Rex cracked a small smile and picked at the fabric of his glove. “Rose… he’d act like the others, sometimes. Get into mischief with Fives and Echo. Do something stupid on the field and wind up with Kix, sure. The usual stuff. But Rose…” Rex shook his head fondly, as if he was recalling some far-away memory. “Rose was kind.”

You pulled your knees up to your chest and closed your eyes. A wave of relaxation calming you as you listened to the clone Captain.

“He was the kind of soldier who the shinies would always flock to.” Rex’s voice carried through the little room and you hummed softly, picturing Rose talking to the younger bright-eyed vode fresh off Kamino.

“He’d take ‘em under his wing. Show ‘em the open bunks.. tell ‘em where to stash their gear. After their first battles, he’d be the one to sit up and talk until they fell asleep.”

You cracked an eye open upon hearing a dull thunk. Rex had shifted to lean against the wall beside you, his eyes closed too, his face relaxed as he spoke.

“He was a good kid.” Rex mumbled. “And stars... did he love you.”

“Don’t.” You whispered while shaking your head, giving him a small, sad smile. “Not… not right now.”

Rex understood and put his hand over yours in an affectionate gesture. He gave it a small, reassuring squeeze. Then he seemed to suddenly remember who he was talking to and quickly pulled his hand back. Rex cleared his throat and rose to his feet.

“So,” He grabbed his helmet off the floor then began awkwardly inching towards the door. “I’ll ah – I’ll leave you alone. Congratulations on the opening. You did good.”

He quickly left after that and you lingered in the back, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of the past.

TAG LIST: @fat-zygerrian @ladydiomede @pro-fangirls-unsocial-life @threevie @cheesemachine44 @bubblyace @fivedicksinatrenchcoat @loverofclones @starwarsgarbage @crazygirlwithasword

#ro writes #ByAnyOtherName #BAON #star wars #star wars the clone wars #tcw #the clone wars #sw #rex #Captain Rex #Rex x Reader #Captain Rex x Reader #Fives #ARC Trooper Fives #Fives x Reader #ARC Trooper Fives x Reader #Reader insert #Clone OC #OC Rose

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bellatrixobsessed1 · 4 years

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The Final Agni Kai (A Terrible AU Fanfic that literally no one asked for!)

This was totally going to be the battle between Sie and Zuko in the cabbage fic but I couldn't pass having the fire siblings do this.

Summary: Agni Kai AU where instead of actually fighting the Agni Kai, Zuko and Azula play a monoply-uno hybrid from Hell.

The sky is heavy with smoke and an odor of sulfur. Sozin’s comet paints the mid-afternoon sky a shade of orange-red. Azula, stares up at said sky--she is daydreaming about just leaving everything behind to become a J-pop idol.

“By decree of Phoenix King Ozai, I now crown you Fire Lord…” But it is hard to do that when the fire sage keeps blabbing on and on. And it is twice as hard when a wild flying bison swoops into view. Suddenly feeling as though she has run out of time, she turns to the sage and asks, “What are you waiting for? Do it!”

Azula had been rather vague so he isn’t sure what he is supposed to just do. All he knows is that he can’t let his dreams just be dreams. Just do it! Azula’s voice echos in his mind. But in his mind she sounds more motivating than angry.

Appa lands in the courtyard and Zuko dramatically jumps off of him. “Sorry, but you're not gonna become Fire Lord today. I am.”

Azula laughs, “you're hilarious.”

“And you're going down.” Zuko informs her.

“That was my line.” Katara whispers.

“Sorry.” Zuko replies.

The fire sage, recalling Azula’s words--just do it!--begins to ignore the interrupting duo and brings the crown closer to Azula’s messy topknot.

She lifts a hand and then the rest of her body. “Wait!” And then to Zuko she says, “You want to become Fire Lord? Fine. Let’s settle this. Just you and me, brother. The showdown that was always meant to be. Monopl-uno!” She whips out a game board and a deck of cards and slaps them onto the ground.

“You're on!”

“What are you doing? She’s playing you. She knows she can't take us both, so she's trying to separate us.”

“I know. But I can take her this time.” Zuko declares.

“But even you admitted to your uncle that you would need help facing Azula.” Katara protests. Also she does not want to have to wait through a game of Monopoly, that game is boring as hell even if it is mashed together with Uno.

“There's something off about her, I can't explain it but she's slipping.” Zuko rubs his chin as he takes in the disheveled sight of his sister. Her hair is a mess and her eyes are tired. “Hmmm...can’t quite put my finger on it.” She flashes him an uncanny and feral smile. “Nope. No idea.” He makes his way across the courtyard.

He and Azula stand on opposite ends of the courtyard, kneeling as you do before beginning a game of monopl-uno. It is always best to start any board, card, or any kind of game by kneeling before your God and asking for protection lest the game transform itself into Jumanji and you find yourself stuck in a jungle forever.

This is what had happened to Jet. He has been stuck in the Foggy Swamp, which is also a jungle, ever since. He is now a backwater redneck. But this is no surprise being as he already liked to chew on straw prior to being transported into the jungle to live out the rest of his fuqboi existence.

“I'm sorry it has to end this way, brother.”

“No you're not.”

But she really is. She actually hates monopl-uno, in her foggy state of mind, she had momentarily forgotten this. But she cannot back out of this now. “I am so.” She whispers quietly.

“Are not.”

“Are too.”

“Are not.”

“Are to.”

“Are…”

Luckily Katara is there to get them back on track. The only thing more boring than Monopoly is reading approximately six pages of ‘are not’, ‘are too’. Even more boring than that is pre-algebra. Thank Raava, that math does not exist here. “Will you two just get on with it!?” She asks.

Azula passes out five uno cards and a fat stack of monopoly cash. For every green card, the player receives $500. For the blues the player gets $100. Yellow cards earn the player $50. And red earns the player $20. 10’s & 5’s are a free for all, Azula and Zuko snatch as many as they can. 1’s are distributed by wiping out a Candyland, whoever draws Queen Frostine gets to steal all of the 5’s. Azula bites Zuko as he reaches for the last one dollar bill. He retracts his hand quickly.

It settles in that Azula is losing her shit.

If no one draws Queen Frostine by the game’s end then the 1’s burst into flames and are claimed by the void that manifests itself as a third player in the form of a sentient piccolo, that plays truly awful covers of Rammstine’s Du Hast and Smashmouth’s All Star the whole time.

With dread, Azula notes that, “Colonel Mustard has murdered Mrs. Scarlett with a candlestick in the billard room.”

Zuko grips his head in stress, knowing that this means that Azula has to move her gingerbread man to the next purple square. This ends the game.

No one has drawn Queen Frostine.

The 1’s burst into flames and a piccolo rises.

The first notes of Du Hast echo through the courtyard, terribly off key.

Katara has a wicked urge to puncture her own earholes just to end the madness.

Why did Colonel Mustard have to murder her with a candlestick. If he would have just used the wrench then they might have had a chance to draw Queen Frostine!

Far, far off in the distance Sokka, Suki, and Toph fight a different kind of battle. They play Battle Ships, but they use actual ships. Except the ships are not water ships but airships and they are in the sky and the bombs are real.

Suki is uncomfortable with this.

It is Toph’s time to shine. She can use echolocation to cheat.

Aang and Ozai also fight. But their fight is different. It is a battle of wit. They have chosen several popular debate topics including women’s rights, religion, which economic model to follow, and whether or not pineapple belongs on pizza.

Pineapple does not belong on pizza.

Neither does cheese, because cheese is gross.

In fact, pizza does not belong on pizza because pizza is gross and no matter what Aang is still a vegan and Aang is not sure if a good vegan should be eating pizza.

Iroh finds himself a tall mountain and yodels atop it until the militia stationed at Ba Sing Se submit.

But none of this is as important as Azula declaration, “go fish!”

Zuko cusses and picks up a goldfish. He curses again. Drawing a goldfish means that he has to pull a block from the jenga tower and that rickety thing is already very close to collapsing. Azula smirks as he nears an old and vacant house in Capital City. It is the same one that they have been stealing boards from since they were children.

It is on its last legs.

A bead of sweat drips down Zuko’s forehead as he tugs at the board. The whole house bobs precuriously. Azula and Katara take several huge steps back. They, in fact, stand approximately one-hundred feet from the building, which is a safe number when practicing social distancing.

Zuko yanks the board free and the building groans. He clenches his jaw. But the building remains up right.

“Ha! Take that, Azula!” He says loudly. The building shakes at the sudden noise and it topples. He has done this to himself. Now he has to draw six more uno cards and one more go fish card.

“So, how have you been?” Zuko makes small talk as they walk back to the coronation courtyard.

Azula thinks that it is a stupid question, she is obviously in a state of mental torment. “Oh, I’m fine.” She replies nonchalantly.

“Yeah, me too.” He replies. “I read this really cool book the other day.”

Azula hasn’t, she has been stress eating cherries and pacing around her bedroom. “I read one too.” She lies.

“Which one.”

“Oh...you’ve never heard of it. It’s a really underground novel.”

They reach the courtyard, Zuko draws his uno and go fish cards. It is still his turn so he rolls the dice. “Yahtzee!” He declares and Azula flinches. She moves her gingerbread man to an orange square and picks up a trivial pursuit card. She relaxes a little, upon remembering that she is a trivial pursuit expert.

“What’s the tallest piece on a chessboard?” Katara reads the card.

Azula rolls her eyes, this is an easy one. “It is the King.”

Zuko Googles the answer just to be sure that Azula isn’t lying again.

Katara winces, “correct.”

Azula flashes a smug smile as she passes go and collects $200. She is glad that she did not have to answer a Guess Who question. Those always throw her off.

Zuko stands up, it is his turn. He throws down a green skip. This time Azula curses. He then throws down a green reverse card so it is his turn again. Azula snarls. He realizes that he has no more green cards so he picks up a Go Fish card. It is an angelfish. Angelfish act as substitutes for yellow cards so he is stuck with it. Having none of her own, but having the mindstate of one, Azula literally turns herself into a wildcard and flops down onto the deck. She changes it to blue.

She always changes it to blue.

She has no blue cards, but she never changes it to anything but blue.

She reclaims her human form and draws a Go Fish card.

It is a clownfish.

Which makes sense because she played herself (clownfish substitute red cards only), she is the clown in this situation.

Zuko smirks and throws down a blue seven.

Azula is about to throw down a blue three, when Zuko brazanly shouts. “No draw fours today? What’s the matter, afraid I’ll reverse it!?”

“Oh! I’ll show you a draw four!” Azula shouts. She lifts her blue drawfour as well as four scrabble tiles--one for each letter of her name, except she is missing the ‘u’ so instead she has Azla--and powers her draw four up with them.

A is the first letter of the alphabet so Zuko has to not only draw four cards but another two extra. And since Z is the last letter he also has to draw twenty-six extra cards. By this time the deck has run low so he has to pick up a twelve of spades which amounts to twelve green uno cards.

To figure out what number each represents they must spin the twister spinner and consult the magic eight ball.

“Nooooo!” Zuko screams as she throws the cards down.

Katara bites her cheek. She doesn’t like cheating to win, but she is pretty sure that Azula had swapped out her ‘u’ scrabble tile for a ‘z’ while Zuko was messing with the Jenga tower. So she doesn’t think too much of it when she completes Zuko’s Connect Four line.

“Zuko!” She yells. “You forgot to say, ‘I’ve united the four!’”

Zuko pumps his fist and says. “I’ve united the four!” This nullifies the power up Azula has used on her draw four. It balances out so he only has to draw four uno cards.

Azula’s face bunches up in disgust as she gives the twister spinner a flick.

Right hand on blue.

She places her right hand on blue and the twister board tells her to move her top hat to the chance square. Katara picks up the chance card and reads “go directly to jail. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.”

Azula blinks several times. She is trapped, with nowhere to go. She sadly makes her way over to the grate, overwhich they have constructed a jail out of a cardboard box. The word ‘JAIL’ (though Zuko accidentally spelled it ‘JAYL’ at first so that was crossed off and ‘JAIL’ is written beneath it) is written in big red marker. Katara doodled a star under it in pink gel pen.

Azula sadly lifts the box and sits under it, clutch her knees to her chest as Zuko passes go, collets his $200, and uses it to buy a candyland card. A smile lights up his face, he has drawn Gramma Nut! That means he gets to discard exactly three uno cards.

He sets them on fire and shouts “uno!”

He throws his remaining card, a blue five, onto the deck.

From within her jail cell, Azula shrieks. She sets the jail on fire, marches up to the unused chessboard, flips it over, and throws the pieces at Zuko “I hate this game! This is a stupid fucking anyways!”

Zuko and Katara slap each other high five. Unbeknownst to them, Momo swoops down. “But you forgot to play Bop It before saying uno, which means that your victory is null.”

Zuko slaps his forehead.

Azula’s eyes grow wide.

This means only one thing…

One terrible thing…

Azula swallows as she removes Don’t Wake Daddy from the box. The siblings stare at each other. If at any point, daddy wakes up, Ozai will materialize before them and win the game. “Here, you do it!” Zuko says to Azula. She very carefully takes the tweezers and as steady as she can, attempts to extract the wrench representing the funny bone.

But Azula is already shaken from her loss and the stress of losing her friends. She accidently touches the rim and the game buzzes.

She and Zuko weep as they both take turns pressing the alarm clock. Daddy springs up and Ozai appeared before them to reclaim his Fire Lord crown. In leaving his debate, Aang has automatically won. Ozai’s bending yanks itself from his body, as he had bet it before the debate started. Aang cheers!

Another airship explodes as Toph cackles.

Ozai begins to weep for he might be the Fire Lord again, but he has no fire.

Neither Zuko nor Azula are the Fire Lord. They both hug each other and cry as Katara plugs her ears.

The piccolo still plays Rammstine.

Ozai also cries because, even though he is Fire Lord in title, no one is going to listen to him since he is a non-bender. The Fire Nation will fall into anarchy unless the siblings can work something out.

Aang also weeps because her realizes that, Ozai is still the Fire Lord so he is still going to have to defeat him somehow.

Truly, nobody has won here.

Nobody except Iroh and Toph.

#Avatar #Azula #Zuko #Agni Kai #Katara #Alternate Universe #Fanfiction

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allhailbolas · 8 years

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What are you looking for?

When thinking about commander's philosophy, we identified that one of the most important things when sitting down for a game is making sure that each player can get the experience they're looking for. For that to work, we have to know what we ourself are looking for. Identifying our goals and the anticipated experience can be quite tricky but we'll try to tackle it here.

There are many motivations for playing magic. To break them down and analyze them, we'll look into the main psychographics, as described by Mark Rosewater here:

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/timmy-johnny-and-spike-revisited-2006-03-20-2

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/vorthos-and-mel-2015-08-31

The psychographics

The basic breakdown is into Txmmy, Jxnny, and Spike on the motivation side, and Mel and Vorthos on the appreciation side; the three original psychographics are about why you play, and the other two about in which way you enjoy the game's aesthetics.

Txmmys want to experience something, they are looking for fun and enjoyment, which can be found in hilarious and big, swingy plays. They want to see fun interactions in the game and between the players. They embrace variance and randomness, going with the flow of the game and the hands they're dealt.

Jxnnys are looking for a way to express themselves. Expression can be about cleverness, creativity, personality, and uniqueness. Jxnnys love deckbuilding, potentially even more than playing. Their decks can be very thematic and weird, including unusual cards and subtle synergies that (hopefully) no-one has ever thought of before them. Convoluted combos are their jam, as are constraining themes and exploring out-of-the-box ideas.

And then there is Spike. Spikes want to prove themselves, which is mainly done by winning. They are very self-critical and judge their own abilities, which is why others' recognition of their skill is important for Spikes. Spikes can enjoy analytics; figuring out what is good and why it is good. Evaluating cards and decks and tuning lists to make them as efficient as possible. Some are always trying to improve their own play-/deckbuilding skills.

Vorthos enjoys the flavor of the game. Names, types, artwork, flavor text, and characters are what is aesthetically pleasing to Vorthoses. Flavor is beauty to them, beauty which can be found in decks and gameplay.

For Mels, beauty is found in magic's mechanics. Interactions between cards, rules and different lines on the same card are like multiple tiny gears in a big machine. Mels love observing these machines and enjoy its functionality and intricacies. When the machine is running smoothly with all parts fitting together, Mels are happy.

All of these psychographics are compatible. It's best to imagine all of them as traits of a player's personality, with each trait varying in degree of intensity.

Armed with knowledge of these traits, one can now try to identify one's own influences and the goals they lead towards:

Mel and Vorthos are not influential when it comes to gameplay, but rather big factors when building a deck. Remember, commander as a format encourages themes and embraces flavor, and that's an area where Mel&Vorthos's fancies are tickled.

If you enjoy building your deck around characters, stories, artworks and similar, you show strong aspects of Vorthos.

If mechanical interactions and constraining themes based on game elements intrigue you, your Mel trait is showing.

I believe Txmmy and Jxnny are self-explanatory when it comes to figuring out how these traits are influencing you in gameplay and deckbuilding. You just have to ask yourself: What kind of expression am I seeking and what do I find most enjoyable?

But now, let's talk about the elephant in the room, Spike.

Being spiky is a pretty controversial trait when talking about commander. As we concluded last week, commander is, contrary to most other formats, about more than winning. In tournament formats, you can be 100% spiky and this won't be problematic, as this formats' goal is to win the game so you won't be scorned for trying as hard as you can to achieve this goal. But commander is different; it has a social spirit. We described a game in line with this spirit as:

‘All players are actively working together to create a game in which each of them can meaningfully participate and everyone gets to experience what they were looking for so, in the end, each player had fun and can take away a lasting, enjoyable memory’

For this to work, we have to answer the question of which sought-after experiences are compatible and what can take away from compatibility.

Compatibility

The first thing that comes to mind is, that all psychographics need a certain environment to get what they're looking for.

Txmmy can want fun/big plays, swingy games, high variance, huge numbers, crazy turns and similar. These can be enabled by expensive cards, lots of mana, multiple amplifying effects, chaos inducing cards, and large board states. This can only happen if there is enough time to deploy these and the game goes late enough to play expensive spells. Additionally, there need to be enough resources available for Txmmy. Ending the game very early and taking resources away from other players, which can already start in the form of playing lots of removal, prevents Txmmy from calling the game a success. Another thing that Txmmy hates is feeling bored. If you have ONE big combo turn that takes a long time or if you take many turns in a row while others have to watch, Txmmys will be annoyed by the time monopoly you created. The same is true if you prevent Txmmys from doing anything that can advance the game, by locking them out of the game and denying them the ability to participate. On the other hand, if you make plays and play cards that will make the game more fun or chaotic and enable new game states that are unique and interesting, you can make Txmmys at your table happy.

Jxnnys are about expressing themselves and want an environment where that is possible. In general, that can be similar to Txmmys’ needs, as Jxnnys who like convoluted combos with many pieces need time to have a chance of assembling them. But mostly, they want you to notice and recognize what they're expressing. The smart synergies in their deck, the constraining theme that they could make work, the unusual card that had a surprisingly high impact on the game. What they need is other players who are interested in more than their own deck and plays and are open to new things and weird choices. It's devastating to them if you tell them that their choices are bad and that they should be playing other things, because by saying such things you show them that you didn't notice what they were expressing, or even worse, don't care. Jxnnys are happy if you ask them about their choices and reasons, appreciate and acknowledge when their deck works, and it's very satisfying for them if they can show you something new and you show your appreciation for that. The tricky thing is, that it is very unusual for magic players to not care about winning at all. Most players want to at least have a realistic chance to win the game. Jxnnys can handicap their ability to win the game by a lot, because for them expression comes first. So for them to still have a shot they need others to play decks which are not too strong, too consistent or have a focus that is on something else than winning as well.

And Spikes? What Spikes need is players who have at least a similar degree of spikyness, so that the competition is tough for them and they won't get handed an easy win. If your main, and highly dominant, trait is spikyness, you want to win, at any cost. This can be problematic when playing with people who are less spiky than you are because they have different motivations which make them make decisions that are at odds with maximizing the ability to win the game. If your only focus is on winning, you'll make decisions in deckbuilding and playing which will destroy the environment that Txmmy and Jxnny need.

Therefore, the experience’s characteristics that players are looking for can be:

variety

entertainment

social interaction

participation

competition

With the premise, that every player has aspects of all the psychographics' traits, but with different degrees of intensity, everyone is at least a little bit of a Txmmy, Jxnny, Mel, Vorthos and also Spike. The intensity of the Txmmy, Jxnny, Mel, and Vorthos traits can be ignored, as their goals are compatible without much trouble; in the end, the one thing we need to focus on when trying to achieve compatibility is the degree of spikyness in a player.

The less spiky you are, the more willing you'll be to make decisions that'll make you lose win-percentage to enable other goals, and the more you will agree with the statement:

Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do it.

At the top of spikyness are players who are unwilling to compromise and try to win above all else. Descending from there, more and more other factors and motivations are added, and players are freely giving away more and more percentage points because winning matters less to them.

This can be in many ways:

-Including cards in your deck because they are fun or you personally like them (pet cards) although more efficient or powerful options are available

-Constraining your deckbuilding by sticking to a theme that you enjoy building around rather than just optimizing your deck to be as powerful as possible

-Avoiding certain cards because they are too good and make winning 'too easy' or 'too boring' and could lead to repetitive gameplay

-Making a play that is not the best one available, but one you find fun and enjoyable

These, along with similar things, are all decisions based on personal factors that decrease win-percentage. But thinking of the format's spirit that we established, one can freely give away win percentage as well, because one is empathic and cares about the other players. You might avoid certain cards because they don't lead to the environment that other players need or are actively unfun to play against. You might not play certain styles of decks because you know that others won't enjoy playing against them. You might not make a specific play because it will make someone unhappy, although it might be the best play available. Understanding these interpersonal reasons to give away win-percentage is the secret to successfully embracing the format's spirit.

You have to be willing to diminish your own ability to win the game, to enable others to enjoy the game. That’s what the pre-game communication is for. It's for figuring out if all players are willing to lessen their own ability to win the game by a similar amount, to enable the other players' enjoyment, to avoid an imbalance of experiences.

So if someone asks 'What is your deck's power level?' or 'How long do you want this game to go?' or 'How competitive is your deck?' what they are actually looking for is the answer to the question 'How much do you want to win, and to what degree will you be able to compromise about that?'. If that is the question that we're actually trying to get an answer to, maybe we should change how we approach pre-game communication. Why not actively ask others how strongly they want to win and if they are willing and able to adjust that based on how you and the other players answer this question. The big problem here is that the abstract concept of degree of spikyness is hard to put into words or numbers. I would advocate for a different approach. Try to explain, what needs to happen for you to enjoy the game and see it as a success. For example, do you want to: Make as many tokens as possible? Cast an X-spell for a large amount? Surprise someone with an unusual effect? Assemble a specific synergy? Draw lots of cards? Use a particular card in your deck? Show of some flavorful cards? Make political deals, maybe betray someone? Or would you just like to win?

The thing is, that empathy is really hard and so is figuring out what others really want, so make it easier for everyone and just tell them what you're looking for.

I hope we all are now able to identify our own motivations and sought-after experience, are aware of potential problems with compatibility and know how to communicate these motivations before a game.

#mtg #magic the gathering #mtgcommander #edh #social contract #spirit

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fellchinchilla-blog · 6 years

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A full deckmaking tutorial.

Target ranks: Copper - Amethyst. High ranked players may read for the heck of it, but I doubt they will find anything new. In this post you’ll find a tutorial on how to make a deck and maximize it’s effectiveness. Not talking about certain metas here, but rather general steps and tips for most players. Feel free to skip some things you really think you know about - like the paragraph below!

A little bit of theory

In Undercards decks can be divided into several major groups regardless of the class.

-Aggro: A deck that aims to end the game early. An aggro deck usually consists of charges or just cheap monsters and some ways to deal with their counters - Taunt, Bug Mouth and some others. Usually those “ways” are silence.

-Zoo: An aggro deck that still relies on early game but doesn’t necessarily rush the opponent’s healthbar. Rather, it uses monsters like Napstablook, Charles and such to seize the board control really early, and turns aggressive when said board control is more or less secure.

-Midrange: A midgame oriented deck, and the most versatile type. It’s pace is in between aggro and control, thus, they attempt to slow the game vs aggro, and turn aggressive themselves vs control. Consists of cards that have good value or tempo factors, while also keeping card advantage. Effective trading (definiton below) is the main point of midrange decks.

-Control: A lategame oriented deck. Also sometimes called Stall. The most iconic form of Control is Chara Stall DT. Other notable one is Mill Patience. Control decks want to go to late game either to play their win card/combo (Chara), overwhelm the opponent with big, threatening cards (Integrity likes to do that), or continue surviving, leaving opponent to die from Fatigue.

-Combo: These decks are all-in focused on a certain card/combo in their deck. Cloning Frisk Integ, Last Dream DT, all are examples of combo decks. Includes OTK (One Turn Kill) decks.

General

So now that we know what are the decks in this game, we can start making them. Feel free to skip some parts, if you, for example, want to make a midrange deck, you don’t really have to read the aggro part ;p

Because this is a full tutorial for ranks starting from copper, I’ll give you that - the deckmaking process itself is in the end, scroll. Although I’d really recommend to read the below, at least your respective decktype, because you might not be able to understand what’s going on in the end, if you didn’t read the beginning :)

Aggro

Main soul is Bravery. Alternatively, there’s a Justice, Patience and even a Determination version.

This is an aggro deck. It consists of cheap monsters to have the board early on, charges to rush, atk buffs for even more rush, silence to get rid of counters and a Froggit Trio to handle other aggros (snowmen and Charles help too). Most other souls would want to get a draw engine, like Fishing Rod, or Follower 1, but bravery has passive. This is because with so much cheap monsters you have to play them all quick, thus, run out of cards in hand. To make an Aggro deck you need to have all the parts described above. You need to convert all your gold to face damage, so most of your cards are either ways of dealing damage, or helping deal damage (silence). Cheap cards like Spider and Tiny Froggit also count because they usually are able to get a face attack when they flood the board early. The other 2-3 cards may be tech cards for handling specifically annoying situations. Aggro decks fear handclog. See how there is only one Aaron’s secret and Tsunderplane? That’s because they both violate other 2 rules of aggro, but help dealing face damage so much, one copy of each can pass. - Handclog cards are a no-no. Anything that can be a “dead”, useless draw should be really frowned upon. - Cards costing more than 5G are generally avoided. Tsunderplane can be an exception. Zoo decks should be built accordingly, but the face damage cards like Charge monsters are less and the cheap, sticky, tempo-ish cards are more. The handclog rule is less strict but it’s still there. Bravery and Kindness are the main souls.

Midrange

This an example of Midrange deck. As you can see, the cards there are either for effective board control (Magic: Deal DMG, Muffet’s Pet, So Sorry and literally two thirds of the deck). Alphys helps with card advantage (basically not running out of resources), Mettaton EX counters control decks and helps your board survive longer vs something that uses, for example, Asgore. Main souls: Justice, Perseverance, Integrity. Also Kindness, but it stands out and has a separate post. In card games trading means attacking an enemy monster with your monster. Although originally was used only when it led to death of monsters, nowadays trading is just attacking one monster with another. And doing this effectively is what midranges focus on. To build a midrange deck you need to focus heavily on board control and cards that cost 3-9 and help controlling the board. Don’t overdo Legends - 3-4 is usually enough. Mettaton EX is not that good anymore in most of midrange decks but he can help vs charastall and boardwipes, as for DT, typical choice is Omega Flowey, while Angel Of Death and The Heroine can also be useful. Finally, you need at least one board clear and some anti-aggro cards. They need to be useful vs non-aggro, so, don’t drool on Blue Laser - pack a Big Mouth/Dancer Mettaton instead. Kindness and Integrity midranges also exist, though they are odd from Justice/Perseverance ones. Instead of being reactive with damaging cards, they use good-statted monsters with 4-6 cost to seize the board, for example, Lemon Bread, Alphys, Ice Wolf, So Sorry, Muffet’s Pet. Integrity is in general considered to be midrange because Fortune and their passive make practically any Integrity deck superior in midgame. Librarian decks tend to be a form of midrange, or, rarely, control. I have a link to Librarian post (it got a separate one). Read more.

Control

Not so popular in UC. Can even be limited to the 2 decks above (DT chara and Patience Mill). This is caused by lack of control finishers, Chara and Frisk being, in fact, the only ones. Control deckbuilding can have some similarities to combo decks, as they both focus on their survival. So, you need your win condition (Chara, in this case) and tools to survive. Can either be board clears, Taunts, Healing, Removal or a mixture of all. Control decks rarely aim to control the board heavily, despite the name. If Integrity Coffin can be considered control, it’s an exception then. Usually Control doesn’t need a specific anti-aggro card, because Taunts and Healing are already included. It can run Dancer Mettaton though, if really needed.

Combo

Actually those are built much like control. The difference there is that control wants to survive until lategame, while combo deck wants to draw their win combo. Examples are Torilock, OTK Kindness, Frisk Cloning, DT Last Dream, so on. To build a combo deck, you need the… combo. Then, Taunts, Healing, Removal, anything that will allow you to survive. If your deck is an OTK that fears taunt, for example, might want to put something that counters taunt. You can also put gold gain and card draw for pulling the combo faster.

Universal deckmaking tips

-Look for a stable win condition, a singular goal. That means you should include cards that will help you attain a goal you have in mind. For example, Tiny Froggit is a powerful aggro card, yet stall chara DT deck won’t be happy if you decide to run 3 of those. And I doubt it’s a wise idea to run an Asriel Dreemurr in Aggro deck.

-Cost distribution.

High cost cards tend to be flashy and powerful, like Onion San or Legendaries. Rarity does not equal power, and if you give in to flashiness of legendaries and high cost epics, you might end up having 15 cards of 7+ cost, and, that’s not needed. Makes sure you have early-game, mid-game, late-game. Some control decks can stall out early stage with taunts.

Step-by-step deckmaking process

Step 1: Think of a win condition (the goal of your deck) and the decktype.

Step 2: Add the auto-include cards. Most deck have them. For Dog deck, add the necessary Dogs. For Aggro - add charges. Et cetera.

Step 3: Add the decktype specific cards. For aggro it’s draw engine and a Silence, for midrange it’s a couple of Fuku Fire, for most Integrity it’s a mid-cost monster x3 and Fortune, you get the idea.

Step 4: If you don’t have the deck complete, add neutral strong cards. The game has some cool universal cards that can suit anything but aggro, Undyne, for example. Always remember to keep your cost distribution, and power doesn’t equal high rarity. By the way, one of the most universal cards in the game that suits even some aggro is Vulkin. Napstablook too. Also keep an eye on your win condition.

Step 5: Add tech cards. A tech card is something that doesn’t necessarily help you reach victory, but they rather counter your counters. It’s confusing, so, have an example: Aggro decks can tech a Scarf Mouse in them to get rid of Big Mouth if it ever pops up. Non-aggro decks can tech a Dancer Mettaton in them (or Mouth) to counter Aggro decks.

A wise strategy is to ask someone what’s the meta right now, if you are uncertain. This is a rare occasion when higher ranked players’ advice can be dismissed if you have a non-salty person closer to your rank. Diamond and Amethyst metas are different, okay?

Step 6: Final test. If you were really picky in your deckmaking and don’t have a full deck, add the best cards of those which you’ve thrown out. Then hit play (or test in custom) and pay closer-than-usual attention. After approximately 5 games you should be able to tell which cards are underperforming or just laying useless in your hand, which are really strong, what makes you lose, what is your hardcounter, and if there is a specific card you are afraid of. Act accordingly and edit your deck.

Finally, some win conditions aren’t worth going for. If your deck doesn’t work, that’s probably because the win condition is too weak.

Why this tutorial?

Netdecking is not exactly a crime, but making your own deck is better. You can stray from the meta, forcing the opponent to actually think about their plays vs an unexpected deck, you will know your deck better, and, as a result, play it better than a netdecked one.

Finally it’s extremely satisfying when you win with your own creation. And even if it doesn’t work, playing your own decks makes you understand more of the game, more of the weaknesses and strengths of certain cards, decks, classes. More of strategy. In general, making your own decks is a way to improve and become a better player.

Really useful stuff

Information on some more specific decks and their types. By: Albertalberto

A Tempo post

More information on zoo decks

Librarian decks have a separate post.

Disclaimer and definitions.

All the decks above are mine. You should not use them though, as they are example decklists, not made for real competitive play, but rather as the most iconic representative of their respective archetype. And, if you copy decks from here, what’s the point of reading this? :)

Netdecking - entirely copying or applying really minor changing to someone else’s deck.

Draw Engine - a card or artifact that helps you draw. Not to be confused with below.

Card Advantage - a resources/hand advantage, having more options to play. Cards that help you gain it don’t necessarily draw. Alphys and So Sorry can help.

Meta - a current state of Ranked decks playrate and popularity. Also can be applied to archetypes, for example. “Aggro meta” means that Aggro is really strong and is played a lot.

Face - your opponent’s health. Going face - directly attacking your opponent.

Hardcounter - deck or a decktype that antagonizes your deck entirely and makes it almost impossible to win. Kindness with a lot of Taunts and Healing is an Aggro hardcounter.

Tempo - you can ignore this term, as it’s used only once. For more information on what tempo really is I have a separate post.

A really brief definition would be “the momentum of the match and how a card influences in the particular situation”

Handclog, dead draw - a card that is useless in your current situation, or drawing such a card.

Counter - See hardcounter, except it’s not impossible to win, just harder than usual.

UC, DT, Integ - Undercards, Determination (soul and rarity), Integrity respectively. Tell me if I missed something here! Or just feedback. Discord’s Sktima22#3976. You can also find me in UC official discord server in Strategy - don’t hesitate to ping. Or just ask/message me here, on Tumblr.

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cardboardedison · 6 years

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Meaningful Decisions: Benoit Turpin on Design Choices in Welcome To...

In our Meaningful Decisions series, we ask designers about the design choices they made while creating their games, and what lessons other designers can take away from those decisions.

In this edition, we talk with Benoit Turpin, the designer of Welcome To…, about roll-and-write games, randomness and control, low-interaction designs, game rhythms, and more.

Welcome To... is often grouped together with roll-and-write games despite the fact that it doesn't have any dice. Instead, the game uses a deck of cards to control the random output from which players select their actions each round. Was this core system always the same, or did it change during development?

Actually, not at all. The core system was originally dice-based. You had three custom D8 dice with a color and a number on each side. You rolled the three dice and then combined them two-by-two, numerically and chromatically. For example, you would get a 2 blue and a 3 yellow, and that would make a 5 green. So you had, in the end, three combinations with numbers ranging 1 to 16 and six different colors corresponding to the six effects. That was the system I came up with, with the express desire to make a game system as pure and elegant as can be. Three dice and nothing more; but lots of possibilities. So at its core, Welcome to... is definitely a roll-and-write.

However, during the development phase, two things came up: One, the game length was too long. Around 40 to 45 minutes a game. And a good chunk of the game was dedicated to figuring out the three combinations each turn (six mathematical operations every time). And one of our playtesters (a local store owner) felt that the game was not a dice game in the sense that the player rolling the dice had no benefit compared to the other players. He was just “the Randomizer” (a cool title but still...).

So we went on looking for a better way to randomize the results (after a brief but painful phase where I had to say goodbye to the basic principle of my game--a necessary evil and a good lesson for a new game designer like me, but ouch...). The first goal was to replicate purely the dice roll without any dice. And we tried many things, from tokens pulled out of a bag, tokens dropped on a board, and many variations of card dealing. It was not easy to replicate the breadth of possible combinations without having an insane amount of components or a very clunky interface. But when we tried the card system present in the final game, we knew we had found the solution. Having the combination created by pairing the different sides of the cards allowed both the replication of the dice randomizer to a T, and got rid of the lengthy math phase. Suddenly, the game was 15-20 minutes shorter.

And from there, new options came: altering the gaussian bell curve to better fit the flow of the game; adding the effect on the top part of the number side to give player a bit more info to make their decision; and also, quite naturally, give the players a sense of control to the randomness. So, even though this “better control of the randomness” is often hailed by reviewers as a key part of the game system, it is just a byproduct of a completely different game design issue… And from my perspective, controlling randomness is important but not always a good thing...

Are there things that designers of roll-and-write games (or flip-and-fill games, as Welcome To… has been called) can or should do to mitigate randomness and give players more predictability or control?

In a roll-and-write, randomness is structurally a factor players have to take into account. Sure, there is a wide range of randomness from Yahtzee to La Granja: No Siesta, but if there is no randomness, then it is not a roll-and-write. It becomes a very different type of game, more akin to worker placement or action selection than R&W. So mitigating randomness should not be the ultimate goal when designing a R&W. For example, in Welcome To..., players can know the distribution of the cards, and can do a bit of card counting, but we limited this control by allowing at least one reshuffle of the deck during a game. Why? Because if players had access to complete information, then AP (analysis paralysis) could set in, and the game would just be a solvable, dry math problem. And that’s no fun… (at least for me).

So “things designers can or should do to mitigate randomness” are two very different questions...

Should they do it depends on the kind of experience they want to create. For example, Avenue has more randomness than Welcome To... and it gives a very different feeling: more highs and more lows because players are less in control, so they enjoy more having a break (feeling lucky is feeling good) and whine more (or is it just me?) when the fourth golden card comes too soon. And it is not a problem at all. It makes the game more accessible thanks to the lack of mitigating mechanics. It also can make games meaner, in Qwinto most notably. In Qwinto, the design is so sparse that there is very little luck-mitigating elements. And it can feel brutal sometimes. But this feeling is also explained by the type of randomness involved in these games.

Qwinto and Welcome To... share some similarities (most notably the three lines of ascending numbers) but the type of randomness in these games are very different. Qwinto has what is called output randomness: players make a decision (roll one, two or three dice) and then the die roll gives a random result and players have to deal with it. The designer mitigated the randomness using two tactics: First, by allowing the players to choose which die to roll, he gave the players control of the bet they were making. And then, the players can reroll if the result isn’t satisfying. But as you made your decision beforehand, the stakes are very high with each roll.

In Welcome To..., there is rather input randomness: players are randomly dealt three choices beforehand, and then they decide what to do with it. This type of randomness gives the player a bigger sense of control (it’s the same one you get in euro-style games; whereas output randomness is more akin to “ameritrash”). You pretty much always have the opportunity to adjust your strategy to the random result, and you get a feeling of “building something” more coherent. But at the same time, you won’t quite get the thrill of rolling the perfect number after sticking to your bet. You do get a bit of it, bingo-style, waiting for the 10-pool you so desperately need, but the stakes are lower.

So “should” is very much a design philosophy, and many great games went opposite routes on that.

As for “can,” designers have a very large panel of options. The most frequent design strategies are allowing the players to re-roll, allowing some players (usually the passive players in R&W) to refuse using the results; and giving several options to pick from the random result: In Ganz schön clever, for example, as the active player, you get to reroll and pick from several dice.

Designers can also use modifiers, powers that allow the player to manipulate the result of the die roll (+1 to a die, turning a die on its opposite side, etc.). For cards, Welcome To... uses a system where players know the effects of the next turn, but not the numbers, so that they can form a bet, akin to the dice selection in Qwinto. In Roll to the Top!, the designer used another system where players can adjust the random factor of the die by picking a different die, from a D4 to a D20, forcing the players to choose between safety and potential high rewards, which is pretty smart.

But personally, one of the best ways to mitigate the randomness is not by controlling the die roll or card flip, but rather by giving the players decisions to make after the random result. What I mean is that if the only thing to mitigate the luck you have is to act on the die roll, you will feel pretty helpless once you used all your tricks (rerolls, modifiers, etc.) if you have only one place to put your result in. Just imagine playing Qwixx by rolling one white die and one colored die (that you chose). You would feel very dependent to the randomness. As soon as you give players options on the result (which dice to use in Qwixx, which line to write your number in Qwinto, which route you connect in Avenue), then not only do you mitigate the luck, but you give the players a feeling of control over their game. And the best games are those where this decision is crucial because whatever you do, you always give something up in the process.

There are various ways to score points in Welcome To..., which allows players to pursue a variety of strategies. At the same time, each score track is capped at a certain number, which usually forces players to diversify at least somewhat. How did you settle on this approach?

Even though all score tracks are capped in Welcome To... the way they are capped is different. The goal of this is to give the game different rhythms. Parks have a very low cap, meaning you can get a feeling of achievement during the game, giving it a rhythm of small victories after another. Pools, on the other hand, have a very high cap: You aim for the target and fail most of the time, until that one epic moment when you finally get all the stars aligned and complete all the pools. It gives a different feeling for the player. Temp workers have a very high cap as well, so that you wouldn’t focus on it but rather on the race with the others. As for the real-estate agency, the rather low cap was made to avoid creating too big of a discrepancy between players not using the real estate and players using it. It was for balance purposes only. As for the Bis, I’ll get to it later on.

The way we settled on this approach was intense playtesting, trying all strategies to balance the game while aiming for different feelings corresponding to the different strategies. And the last phase of the development--with the graphic designer--helped us also define the structure of the score tracks. We needed something simple and common to all score tracks to make it easy for the players to follow their progress. The way Anne Heidsieck implemented that with the effect always being “crossing off the topmost available box” and the result always being “the topmost non-crossed box” was amazing but not compatible with other ways we explored without any cap. So it took the whole development for us to reach this final state.

How much leeway should designers give players for certain kinds of experiences? Are there times when giving players more or less freedom to pursue one strategy single-mindedly is appropriate?

All depends on the amount of leeway a designer wants to give the players… Giving a lot of freedom to players is a great but risky approach because if you remove any incentive to “play well,” you run the risk of having players playing very poorly and blaming the game for it, or feeling very bad.

For example, in Avenue, you are free to do pretty much what you want with each card. That can lead to very wide scoring differences (from -10 to 120 in the same game at my house) which can be frustrating but also exhilarating for players scoring very high, because they feel they earned it completely.

Usually, you need some kind of control over which strategy the players will use or you risk having a flaw in your game design.

For example, in Qwixx, you cannot end a line without having five numbers crossed previously, to avoid rushing. In Avenue, you have the “-5 if you don’t score more than the previous village.” In Twenty-One, you must cross off the numbers from the left to avoid players biding their time. In Ganz schön clever, the designer used different caps for the scoring tracks to give leeway to the players. They can play purple and orange as much as they want, while the others are more constrained. But he used the foxes to balance out that leeway (to paraphrase the rugby quote, “no fox, no win”).

I don’t pretend to know all the designers’ intent, but from an outside perspective, giving a sense of freedom to the players is probably better than giving them actual freedom (but don’t put that out of gaming context... it sounds awful).

The box for Welcome To... says 1 to 100 players can play at a time, but theoretically any number of players can play at once if they all have a play sheet. This makes the game a relatively low-interaction affair. Was this always your intention?

The very first iteration of Welcome To… was much more “take that-ish” than the final game, but this high interaction brought so many problems that it got cut off progressively during playtesting. At first, players could lock out other players from certain estates, or lower the value of their estates. But that created timing issues in a simultaneous game and could not be properly scaled for a large number of players. It was also some of the most hated parts of the prototypes during playtesting.

It is very difficult to have high interaction in a roll-and-write due to its indelible nature (at least until now) and its tendency toward simultaneous play. And we felt it was not a needed feature in the game.

Not all games need high interaction between players, and there are many advantages to low (but not altogether absent) interaction. As soon as we settled on this gameplay, we tried to remove any hurdle to higher numbers of players, especially around balancing issues. For example, we made the City Plans scalable to any count by allowing all other players to score the lower value of the card. Being first still mattered, but then everyone could still play.

What can designers of low-interaction games do to make their game accessible to a wider range of player counts?

Well, should they? Sure, it is always great to put on the box “1 to 100 players” as it is a good marketing tool, but using such a scale is very rare and probably not very interesting. And games such as Ganz schön clever did not need any of that to succeed: It doesn’t scale very well, especially at four players, but no one cares because it is such an amazing one- and two-player game. Players (and publishers) tend to want everything: a 1-100 player game with high interaction, fast-paced but strategic, deep but fun, thematic but thinky... But I believe a game should fit a specific niche rather than aim at the impossible and remove what makes it unique.

That said (sorry for the rant), if designers want to make games accessible to a wider range of player counts, there are a few things they can do. First, they have to look at it from a component perspective. To have a higher count, you need to take into account the need for each player to have all that they need. Roll-and-writes are structurally pretty good at this because you can put all a player needs on the sheet, without any need for multiple copies of tokens. Other designs need to find a way to minimize component gloat.

One way is to adapt your gameplay to fit that structure: You cannot have any mechanism that requires players to grab central tokens. You cannot have a “complete race,” with every position mattering. You cannot have limited action spots for a turn. Working on the sequel to Welcome To… with the express goal of making it also 1-100 players, I felt a bit limited in my scope of mechanics when I wanted to interject some interaction. I had to rely on a few that scaled well: majority, semi-racing (first gets better, rest gets a little).

You can also stick to “non-interacting mechanics,” with which you’ll have greater freedom. In games like Qwixx or Noch mal!, all passive players can pick from the “remains” of the active players. You can also have games where everyone use the same random result: Criss Cross, Knister or Avenue, for example; the variability coming from the individual positioning. From that initial stance, then designers can go to any mechanics that don’t affect other players (route building, hand management, etc.)

But at some point you must also consider simultaneous play (or semi-simultaneous with passive players still engaged on the active player’s turn). You probably will have to turn away from turn-based, drafting mechanics because variability in game length can be a dealbreaker if you want to increase player count.

The Bis action allows players to advance more quickly toward completion of a goal card, but at a penalty. How did this action come about?

It started as an action that let players write the card number next to a previously written identical number: You have a 7/Bis card and if there is a 7 somewhere, you can place another 7 next to it. It was meant as a tool for players to soften the harshness of the draw and erase some of their missteps. But it was very random depending on your game state and not that effective. Then we switched to “you place a 7 and then you can place another 7 next to it.” But it was clunky and also too luck-based. So we went to the actual Bis action: You can place a 7, and then anywhere on the board, you can write the same number next to a previously written number.

Bear in mind that it was developed before the City Plans/goal cards. So it was useful for players to get themselves out of a tight spot and finish a housing estate. It became much more powerful with the goal cards as it was also a way to race these. So we had to come up with a penalty. And there came into play psychological balance... We first gave a fixed penalty for each Bis. And it was statistically pretty balanced. But players refused to use the Bis action, seeing it as too costly (which it wasn’t). It was left unused, except by experienced playtesters who would crush the others by rushing Bis. By switching to a more progressive penalty, we almost completely erased that psychological barrier, and people started using it way more, even though it is statistically costlier today.

Are there things you learned from developing the Bis action that would help other designers who want to allow players to take risks in pursuit of a goal?

The most important thing is to make sure there is a real risk. If the action is just an alternate way of progressing through the game at a faster pace for a cost, there is a chance that some players will be able to math out the equation and find the exact amount of Bis that should be used. In Welcome To..., you are not guaranteed that your bet will pay off. If you fail to get goal cards or finish up housing estate even though you used Bis, because other players played differently, then it was not a worthy strategy. And that is important.

Another thing, as I mentioned before, is psychological balance. If your gain-to-risk ratio is perfect but players feel that it’s too good or too hard, then you have a design problem. And it happens in great games. And you can’t math-talk your way out of it. Players’ perception always wins, even when they’re wrong. And it is hard to make sure both mathematical balance and psychological balance are fine.

Finally, this action revealed an unexpected boon: It speeds up the game by cutting 2-3 turns. And in this day and age of impatient gamers, that is pretty interesting (and it led to a fun new action in the sequel). It turned out well for us, but I think it is important to look further than your expected target when introducing a new action like that because it can lead to unexpected results, both ways.

Cardboard Edison is supported by our patrons on Patreon.

ADVISERS: Rob Greanias, Peter C. Hayward, Aaron Vanderbeek SENIOR INVENTORS: Steven Cole (Escape Velocity Games), John du Bois, Chris and Kathy Keane (The Drs. Keane), Joshua J. Mills, Marcel Perro, Behrooz Shahriari, Shoot Again Games JUNIOR INVENTORS: Ryan Abrams, Joshua Buergel, Luis Lara, Neil Roberts, Jay Treat ASSOCIATES: Dark Forest Project, Stephen B. Davies, Adrienne Ezell, Marcus Howell, Thiago Jabuonski, Doug Levandowski, Nathan Miller, Mike Sette, S GO Explore, Matt Wolfe APPRENTICES: Cardboard Fortress Games, Kiva Fecteau, Guz Forster, Scott Gottreu, Aaron Lim, Scott Martel Jr., James Meyers, The Nerd Nighters, Matthew Nguyen, Marcus Ross, Rosco Schock, VickieGames, Lock Watson, White Wizard Games

#meaningful decisions #featured #theory

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talenlee · 5 years

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MTG: It's Not Gacha

I try not to shoot from the hip on matters like these.

I try not, generally speaking, to do long-form articles about important topics where the subject matter is high impact and there are well-intentioned people who look uninformed to me. It's a sure-fire way of wading into a complex situation where I contribute no actual value, just noise.

Plus, this is the intersection of Magic: the Gathering, game development, and human incentive systems, which I'm sorry to say I'm rapidly doing things that make me kind of expert on, even if I shy from being considered an expert. There's a whole gulf of information between where I sit and where a lot of other voices on the matter sit, which can make me feel like I'm either talking over them (because they don't know what they're talking about, and don't realise that) or that I'm getting into an extremely contentious fight (because they know what they're talking about, and are presenting falsehoods and do not care).

Still, it's April, it's my month, you're here on my blog so sit down, shut up, and learn why every time people compare Gacha to Magic: the Gathering I roll my eyes so hard it makes my skull ache.

Differences of Scale

In any given Magic: The Gathering set in a modern printing, there are about sixty rares, and twenty-three mythic rares. Mythic rares happen about once every eight packs. So, if you want one mythic rare, and you want to pop boosters for it for a chance to get it, you hypothetically need to pop 184 boosters to have a 'statistical chance' to get the mythic rare you want, or about a .5% chance to get that mythic rare.

Now, again, let's set aside just how bad an idea this is. Let's just say this is how you're going to do it. Pop boosters until you get the card and you get a .5% chance, give or take some rounding.

Gacha games obviously vary, and those games use a host of variable systems to make your chances more or less reliable, so it's hard to say what those chances are on average for their rarest stuff, but some games - some very popular and very well liked Gacha games, Gacha games I've seen my friends playing have rates for their rarest pulls during fortnight-long events at .007%.

Not 7%. Not .7%. .007%.

Magic: The Gathering's rarest game objects by the worst method of obtaining them can be hundreds of times easier to get. And these Gachas offer paid boosters at roughly the same prices as Magic boosters too!

Which honestly doesn't matter, because Gacha games and Magic purchases aren't comparable in this way because of...

Differences of Ownership

Magic Cards are physical objects. When you pop a booster, you don't get a bunch of digital stuff on a drive, you get actual physical devices, objects that are exchangeable, and tradable. You might find that other people want what's from your boosters, and that stuff is yours to trade away. You can even sell it for money. Is it worthless? It's probably not worth a lot, because value concentrates around the best cards in any given set, but the point is this stuff is yours and you can make choices about that.

In Gacha games, by default, there's no trading mechanism, and why should there be? There's no reason for you to be able to play swapsies with these digital items. Heck, from the perspective of the company doing it, trades are probably really annoying to implement.

Since the cards are a physical object, and unregulated, you can trade them with other people, and there are even stores that exist, and those stores have a reason to want to maintain a stable business, so you can take your cards to them, and sell them to them and they'll get you involved in the business of trading and playing the game. They get more money over time if you keep coming to them, so their motivation to rip you off isn't exactly strong.

And these stores will sell you specific cards you want.

Let's use that idea of you gunning for a specific Mythic Rare by popping boosters. Let's use the most expensive mythic from Guilds of Ravnica as an example, Arclight Phoenix.

As of the time I write this, Arclight Phoenix is $30 on Starcity Games, and it is out of stock at that price. The demand for this sucker is pretty high and the card is pretty good. Don't worry about why, it doesn't matter. The point is, you can have this card for the price of 5 boosters, which beats the snot out of buying 184 boosters to hope and crack it (at a rate of around $1,104).

Now, yes, that is pretty pricey, and we'll get to that later, but the point is, this card is good but expensive and in an external market, there's a way to get it that costs you way less. Gacha doesn't typically have a secondary market (though we'll get to Artifact later).

Do I recommend you go out and buy a playset of Arclight Phoenixes? No, not really. This is not a card you should be buying as your first point of investment in Magic: The Gathering and there's no urgent need for you to have it right now unless you have some really weird priorities. The 'default way' of playing Magic: the Gathering isn't going to ask you to have an Arclight Phoenix.

There are other, even more expensive cards out there, and we'll get to that later.

For now, though, the introduction of this secondary market is important, because of...

Differences In Distribution

Know who makes money off Gacha purchases? The company that runs the game. They spend some of that money on running servers (which are often in-house), they spend some of that money on developing new services for their game, and they spend some of that money on promotion and advertising and all that stuff, but the root purchase goes straight to the company, and that company then decides how they spend it.

Know who makes the most money off a Magic: The Gathering booster? Well, based on current industry metrics, the people who drive the trucks transporting those boosters around. Around 50% of board and card game purchases are made up of transport and distribution costs. Some of the booster sales go to the store where you bought them, and they purchased the boosters off Wizards, but between Wizards and the game stores, there's the distributors, who pay a large percentage of their costs in getting the objects around the world.

I swear with corporate diagrams like this I'm surprised I'm defending these people

Now, Wizards still make a profit on Magic: the Gathering, because lots of people buy boosters, and supplemental products. But the people getting paid for Magic: the Gathering includes a host of people who aren't Wizards. Boosters go up and down based on the cost of paper, disposal methods, localisation teams, and a lot of what's going on involves a number of intermediary businesses, and changes in those businesses has impacts on Wizards.

Now, this isn't to say that Wizards have a more moral position than anyone else, but it changes the relationship between Wizards on the profit-per-sale and the demands on what a booster is worth. Because if a Gacha game sets a price for a booster, that's how much they get. That means from their perspective, they get a lot more profit per-booster, and therefore, they have a very direct reason to want you to buy lots of boosters. Wizards want you to buy a lot of boosters too, and ideally, they'd like you to buy more. But if you buy twenty boosters trying for one card, you're not paying them twenty booster's worth of money. You're paying that to your local store, to transport, and distributors, and printers.

And that secondary market? The explosive rares like Arclight Phoenix? That's not valuable from Wizards' perspective, not really.

See, the secondary market is typically driven by a few forces. One is a few chase formats like Vintage and Commander where players will often spend a disproportionate amount on cards that seem weird to everyone else, but which largely don't matter, and don't drive play or attendance. One of them is casual appeal (and we'll get to that). Then there's tournament success, where players will buy cards to build constructed decks that are likely to win in constructed formats.

But remember, Wizards make money on the boosters. They don't make money on the sale of the Arclight Phoenixes that have already been popped. Those sales go to a secondary seller. If a card becomes too valuable, what happens is, stores start popping boxes of product in large volumes to get the chase card, and sell that chase card at the highest rate they can.

Booster boxes have fixed value from Wizards' perspective; they sell them for (about) $100, and retailers pay less for them, for about 36 boosters. That means that any given mythic should show up once every six boxes... which means if a card becomes worth (say) $100 on its own, card stores are better off opening boxes and selling all the singles in them. This puts a ceiling on the possible prices of a mythic rare, and that means the rest of the cards in that box wind up being 'free.'

We've seen this happen, by the way. Wizards deliberately started putting in chase cards in a few sets to push down the prices of other rares and it resulted in some very good, reliable cards selling very cheaply and that made the formats they were good in very accessable. It was a cool thing.

But again: Wizards don't control the secondary market. They don't run these stores. They don't profit off them, they profit off the sales of boosters. From their perspective, what changes the amount of money they make is not single overpowered cards, but lots of people playing the game a lot. They want you to engage with the secondary market by coming to the store more and playing more, not so they can scoop up some kind of kickback for buying Arclight Phoenixes, but because you playing the game makes it more likely other people will play the game with you, and you'll all buy boosters, because boosters are fun and cool.

By the way, this is why I side-eye Artifact. Because the people who make that game have that game's secondary market, which gives them an incentive to make people turn over their collections often so they can collect the fees.

Differences of Purpose

All this talk of Boosters and math makes my head hurt anyway, because it acts as if Boosters are how you get the Magic cards you want, which they're not. Boosters are not a tool for getting cards. If they were, they'd be garbage at it. You saw those odds, .5%? Hundreds of dollars to get a card that may be at best, worth, what, $30?

Boosters are boosters. Boosters are made, and designed to be a game-complete unit on their own.

There's a way to play Magic: The Gathering called Booster draft. It is one of the two easiest to approach tournament formats that exist, and it is a format full of creature math and building tight decks, and it both rewards very specific skill, and strives to sort out for random good or bad luck.

What you do in Booster Draft is you get three boosters - that's usually the price of entry, by the way, just the cost of three boosters. You open the first booster, take one card, and pass the rest on. The player to your side did the same thing, and now you have a different booster, minus one card, to choose from, and so on. This is a great format, it's a good way to build skill, and it's a good way to build a collection. If you want to play tournament magic, this is absolutely one of your best starting points.

Some of the articles harping on this point used the entry point for formats called Legacy and Vintage as their data points. This is pure crap. Those formats are functionally vestigial. Wizards are not looking to recruit players into playing Vintage or Legacy, because those formats are both fundamentally constricted (the number of cards) and entirely secondary (Wizards have promised not to print the cards that define those formats ever again).

Oh, and because this is my month, fuck it, here, let's get really petty: I see you, Person I Don't Even Remember The Name Of, complaining about the high prices of Legacy sideboard card Moat keeping him from playing Legacy competitively, and therefore, a sign of how much of a bad game Magic: The Gathering is and how problematically exploitative it was. I see you passing off the high cost of a bad format as a proof of Magic: The Gathering's tournament scene being inaccessible.

In that article, you said that Legacy was a 'financially rewarding' tournament environment and all I could think is are you kidding me and my balls. There is going to be one Magicfest in 2019 that's Legacy. There were four Limited Magicfests in February alone. If you fail to get rich playing Legacy, it's not because of the price of Moats, buddy.

Differences of Data

Wizards markets Magic. They want you to think it's cool and buy it. They do this by making the game serve a whole variety of communities, with different axes of art, gameplay, expression and culture. Straight up, I am 100% certain that for all the moral footing of making Magic more inclusive and pushing to get more queer and millenial people into their market, is because there are people in that age range with money.

Yet because Magic is a product on cardboard that has to be mailed around the world, if they want to make art for a card they hope you, specifically, will like, they have to decide that months in advance, pay for the artwork, get it out there, and hope that you find it and hope it makes you want to buy their products. And they have to make that decision knowing that they're putting this stuff out there for a lot of people, and what product they release, even in varied bits, is going to be trying to appeal to a very big audience with a lot of different people in it. They can't make the game display Tity Witches for one player and make it show Tity Witches Waving Flags Saying Trans Rights for another.

Meanwhile, Gacha games weaponise the data gathering of your phone.

This isn't a controversial issue, by the way. This isn't some secret sleazy practice that some companies do, but the majority of Gacha game makers think, no, we are noble and honourable and would never. It is fundamental to these games that run out of your phone that they are absolutely gathering all the data they can on you, and they are setting up algorithms to tailor that game experience to you on your phone so that your version of the game is as psychologically satisfying as possible.

Some of these games go so far as to subtly change the success sound on a Gacha pull until they find the one you'll consistantly listen to all the way through. And why shouldn't they? There's nothing stopping them from doing these intensely creepy things. They're not just selling you an object they've made, they're marketing an experience to you to get you into their platform so you will keep giving them money. It's straight up platform capitalism, and it's so different from the studies that show that 'the moment you open a booster is exciting.'

Now, this is not a fixed point. After all, there's no reason to believe that if Wizards of the Coast could take the thumbprint reactions off your phone to the types of Magic card that you liked best, they wouldn't do that, because they are still a company. But they're trying to make something in a different way, and they can't tailor their product to your unique psychological responses.

Differences of Access

Fact is, if Wizards shut down tomorrow, every single card you own (with the exception of Urza's Head) would work. They would work fine. If they banned your favourite card tomorrow, there is nothing they can do to make you stop using that card.

Because all of this talk about tournament formats and secondary markets is ignoring the single most common Magic format. It's called Casual, and the cards legal in it are 'what I own.'

Players, broadly speaking, play Magic without a central authority, without tournament structures, without net decks, without an eye towards the next stage of the pro tour and without anyone able to stop them. And this is the biggest thing with Magic: The Gathering that sets it apart from Gacha games and why the comparison between Magic and its ludicrous secondary market as a booster purchasing motivator, in that none of those things are necessary to play the game in the vast, vast majority of ways the game is played.

Is any of this to say that Magic: the Gathering is a perfectly moral game system? No, not insofar as it's a capitalist system. It's connected to and rewards Hasbro, who do shady shit, and it's in the same company that makes 5th Edition D&D, which has both uplifted and tried to defend (in the past) the actions of utter monsters (Mike Mearls Retire Binch), even as it now tries to make amends.

Does it reward gambling in children? Not really, I don't think. Even if it does, that's a different conversation, and maybe one we can have. But it's hard to have that conversation when there are these other, much more bullshit conversations happening, like the conversation that wants to compare Magic: The Gathering having a Legacy format and Fate: Grand Order asking you to spend five thousand dollars in a week to get a character wearing a sexy bikini.

Don't worry, if you've made these comparisons. It's okay. This is a topic where there's a lot of complicated things going on, and it's hard to know them all. One commenter on my twitter feed remarked that when it comes to Magic it's either a topic you know nothing about or something you have a mini-PhD on, and yeah, I guess that's where I'm coming at this from.

This isn't even the thing that pisses me off the most about the conversation around Magic: the Gathering.

After all, some business assholes have taken to comparing Magic: The Gathering to bitcoin.

#magic the gathering #gacha

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theagomez15 · 3 years

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Does 코인카지노 Card Counting Still Work? Interview With a Pro Player

For the best chance to win -- and to limit losses -- players need to understand the games before they start to play. http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection®ion=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/온라인사설바둑이게임주소 In that case if the dealer's hand is better than the player's, the player's ante and bet are collected by the house. If the dealer's qualifying hand is worse than the player's hand, the player is paid even money on the ante and an amount on the bet according to the player's hand as follows: Both decks are continuously alternated in and out of play, with each deck being used for every other round of play; and The cards from only one deck shall be placed in the discard rack at any given time. All other payouts remain the same as in a full pay game.

So in games like roulette, craps, baccarat, keno, wheel of fortune and pokie machines, the brain sees patterns that aren’t there. Like three card poker, Caribbean stud is a variation of the game that is just you against the dealer. This makes it ideal for those playing from home, and it’s commonly available at casino sites like Comeon,where you can either play against the computer or a live dealer. The value of the card is represented by numbers and by figures (jack, queen, king). We have all certainly asked ourselves at one time who these figures actually are. Payout is based on the odds that this is possible, based on the difference in values of the first two cards.

Player may insure his hand with three of a kind or better. The insurance bet will always lose if the dealer qualifies. The minimum insurance bet is 1x ante and the maximum is half of the possible win amount. Insurance pays 1 to 1.No instant payouts. Breaking the Bubble or "Possible" – The bubble is the minimum number of balls required to complete the Bingo pattern. Derivatives of poker underwent a crescendo and among its earliest forms was called ‘Poque’ which was played in the gambling dens of New Orleans. To play, just place your bet on the Ante box. You may place additional bets in the jackpot area for a chance to win the jackpot bonuses. The goal is to get a five-card poker hand higher than the dealer’s. You get an additional prize if your hand is one of the top five poker hands.

Sixteenth century French-suited playing cards A set based on the cards of Pierre Marechal of Rouen, France, dating to 1567 Queens began appearing in Italian tarot decks in the mid-15th century and some German decks replaced two kings with queens.When playing a standard 3 to 2 payoffs with reasonable rules and few decks, the house edge will be less than 1%. There are games with a house edge of less than 0.3%, but the range between 0.5% and 1% is typical. Note that patterns don't include Jokers as they are a very recent addition which leads to every manufacturer making their own trademarked depiction of this card.

At the start of a new hand, players make an Ante bet against the dealer. Each player is then dealt five cards face-up. The dealer receives four cards face-down, but their fifth card is dealt face-up. (She is actually just short of 100 marks, but gains the sympathy of a casino employee who gives her the chip for what money she has.) She bets her single chip on 20 and wins.Racinos differ from traditional VLTs in that all video lottery games are played on a gaming machine. The dealer continues to deal from the shoe until coming to the plastic insert card, which indicates that it is time to reshuffle.

Basically, it’s the long-term edge that is built into the game. He copyrighted it and published a rule book in 1933. 우리카지노계열 In the binomial distribution, SD = √npq, where n = number of rounds played, p = probability of winning, and q = probability of losing. In Arizona this system is only legally available for use by fraternal organizations, by service organization such as the VFW, American Legion or Amvets, or non-profits such as hospice or volunteer fire departments.

However, casinos do use bright and sometimes gaudy floor and wall coverings that have a stimulating and cheering effect. Players identify their Field bets by placing them in the Field area directly in front of them or as close to their position as possible.In roulette, bets can either be inside or outside bets. Today, Blackjack is the one card game that can be found in every American gambling casino.

This is orchestrated by the player entering into "battle", where the player, in accordance with the item that machine is based on, must "defeat" a certain enemy or foe in order to earn another kakuhen. We’re here to help you understand those rules, and you can visit the casino etiquette page below to begin learning how things work.The Venetian Macao is currently the largest casino in the world. Macau also surpassed Las Vegas as the largest gambling market in the world. The term ‘stiff’ in blackjack refers to a hand that is under the total of 17 but is likely to go bust.

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outourfrontdoor · 3 years

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The fundamentals 바카라사이트 of baccarat

Most individuals do not play 바카라사이트 추천 baccarat at a casino since the players do not interact with the card. However, once they grasp the game’s complexities, they like playing it. This game is also known as “Banco y Punto” in Spanish.

The game is played between two hands: the dealer (or “banco”) and the receiver (or “punto”). The goal of the game is to see who has the best hand, with 9 being the greatest card. Bettors may wager on a “standoff” or an even game in specific situations. robot builders

All face cards (Jacks, Queens, and Kings) and tens are counted as zeros, the Ace is counted as one, and the remaining cards are tallied according to their numerical values (2 to 9). After removing the tens digit, the hand value is calculated by adding all of the two or three cards given. For example, if the overall value of the hand is 24, the set’s value is just 4.

The dealer is the one who 바카라사이트 가입 distributes and hands over the typically six or eight deck card to the recipient. Any player can be the dealer, and the role is usually rotated. Before the cards are given, the bettors put their wagers on whether the player or receiver will win or if the game would end in a draw. Each participant is dealt two cards. The worth of their hand will decide whether or not they can obtain a third card. Because the dealing of the third card is based on mandatory regulations, it is not essential for the players to fully comprehend and practice the third card rules.

When either the dealer or the receiver’s two-card hand value is 8 or 9, no third card is dealt. This is referred to as “natural” behavior. If both hands are “naturals,” the winner will be determined only by their two cards.

When the value of the receiver’s two cards is 6 or 7, the player will not be handed a third card. This is referred to as taking a “stand.” The third card is always delivered to the recipient first. When the two-card hand is 5 or less, the “punto” will receive this card.

A third card will be dealt if the dealer’s hand value is 2 or less. If the two-card value is 3, the dealer will also be dealt a third card, unless the receiver’s three-card hand is an 8. If the receiver’s hand is between 2 and 7, the dealer will be handed a third card with a two-hand card of 4.

When the hand is 5, the dealer must also draw a third card if the receiver’s three-card hand is between 3 and 7.

Though the receiver’s three-card hand is a 6 or 7, the dealer will be dealt a third card, even if the hand is just a 6.

When the two-card hand totals 7, the dealer remains.

The closest card to 9 will be proclaimed the winner once the final card is dealt. When the value of both hands is the same, a “standoff” is proclaimed.

A Few 메이저 바카라사이트 Words about Bacarrat

Baccarat is a casino card game that is played with two decks of cards. This card game is similar to all of the other games found at a casino. Before you start putting your bets, you need familiarize yourself with the game.

You should be aware that there are several baccarat variations. This implies that before you start wagering money on a game, you must first determine the variant you are playing.

If you wager on a game of baccarat before you know which type you’re playing, you’re likely to lose. The same may be said if you begin betting without first learning how to play the game. Before deciding whether or not it would be a smart idea for you to place a wager on any casino game, be sure you understand the regulations of the game.

the silvеr 호텔라이브카지노 club cаѕinо

Baccarat is a casino card game that is quite popular. Many individuals love playing card games as a kind of entertainment. People feel that betting on a card game has a higher probability of winning than playing on something entirely random like slot machines.

When it comes to baccarat, you 바카라사이트 추천코드 should be aware that there are three distinct versions of the game to choose from. In one of the versions, the game does not require any actual talent. You are totally dependent on luck to win.

Two of the three variations of baccarat let the player to make decisions while playing. This allows players to utilize talent rather than luck to increase their chances of winning.

When people want to wager by playing baccarat, the majority of them choose to play the variations that require skill to win. Of course, one variation is dependent on chance since the participants are compelled to make decisions based on the cards handed to them.

Before you spend any of your hard-earned money on a baccarat game in a casino, be sure you know how to play the game. There are a variety of locations where you may get information about the game’s regulations.

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slideloading234 · 3 years

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Drivers Yamaha

93 drivers total Last updated: May 11th 2017, 12:32 GMT RSS Feed

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