Bailey

@Scoop_Phase POE2 scratched my itch for a bit but at this point if they both dropped a league on the same date I’d be much more inclined towards POE. The mapping system in poe2 is just so annoying to deal with that I don’t even want to grind gear.

@bailey_abner_ That'll do it. And the economy isnt borked like poe2 temples. Divs are actually worth something.

Got back into Diablo just in time for a $50 skin. Costs more than the new expansion or the new Doom game

@Scoop_Phase Ahh gotcha. Yeah, playing a popular build also kinda sucks for getting good gear early on. I dropped a div in campaign this time around which helped immensely lol.

@bailey_abner_ The carrot dangling was like...not enough this time. I got my 2nd ascendancy done and just lost interest. The tree last season was OP for gear, and im on xbox so the cost of things are way higher if I want to craft endgame stuff. Holy Hammer Inquisitor this season.

@Scoop_Phase Whaaa??? The point is to get to maps brother, this is the best season I’ve played in a while mainly due to the map changes.

@bailey_abner_ I cant get through the campaign AGAIN. Got to act 9. And was like...whats the pointttttt.

MY BOY

Marathon is a great game, even better when you ignore the 35 year old arc raiders gooners who unironically say goop in their day to day lives. Arc gooners can’t fathom an extraction shooter where people actually shoot you instead of making friendship bracelets.

How do you make rules against that? What if the person going for the win is playing a deck that I have a good matchup into and I’d prefer to see them in top cut vs a rogsi or something? Is it not competitively advantageous for me to protect their win over the other player? Making rules that are incredibly hard to enforce can’t be a solution.

@bailey_abner_ I think we will eventually see the panel change the banlist, they're just slower than many of us would like. But I'd rather that than radical sudden change. The other thing like I said is rules against protecting other player's wins. All things are possible with good judges.

The only round at the mid season invitational that didn’t have at least a 50% draw rate was the final round, in which players HAD to win to secure a spot (that being said, you could pretty easily get in with a single win and all draws). I seriously think the format would be better off with 0 point draws, or a maximum of 1-2 points from draws during Swiss or something similar. The format is not going to be taken seriously when you can get top cut with a 20% win-rate and only have to play one game of magic well.

mtgdecks.net/Standard/regio… Here’s RC Milwaukee where numerous players bubbled from top 16 with the same record. I just think bubbling is apart of competitive formats and is preferable to going 1-0-4 or 1-1-3 and making top cuts. If you beat better players, you go higher in standings. That seems reasonable and fair. Perhaps you can raise the cut on larger tournaments to include top 32 to make it cleaner. But either way, I still feel like it’s more competitive.

@bailey_abner_ Here's one where 9th-37th place all has the same point total with 2 wins. edhtop16.com/tournament/jew…

@ThePfef This is a pipe dream though. Either we wait for WOTC to make these changes (which won’t happen) or we make our own ban list again (which worked out splendidly before). Impacting the things we can impact is our only option.

@bailey_abner_ It just needs to be harder to force draws. Period. Right now there's just too much free interaction, card draw and flash enablers. We need either less of those things or more things that get around those things.

No idea how those work. Closest I can think of is like a free for all battle-royale style game, in which case there are no draws. I’d be willing to bet Catan also has no draws, given the fact that you can always get victory points by farming the development cards. I also don’t think this is a relevant defense for how cEDH tournaments currently function. I would honestly just like to see a large scale 0 point draw system for one or two tournaments and see what actually happens on a large scale. If the players that are wholly against it don’t want to participate, they don’t have to. But I don’t think it’s going to be nearly as bad as some people make it out to be.

@bailey_abner_ What other multiplayer competitive games are there in existence like cEDH? Catan? How do those work?

I mean, I still dont really see how allowing players to draw 4 of their 5 games to lock top 16 is a better alternative tbh. Would be interested to see a topdeck link to the bracket though so I can look at it. Damn near any side effect of 0 point draws is preferable to allowing 20% win-rates to top cut consistently in a pro-tour of the format. Realistically, do top 16 games have a bunch of toxicity and kingmaking? Or a win and in pod? 0 point draws essentially just make every Swiss round into one of these. I don’t see how it’s that big of an issue.

@bailey_abner_ I know of a few run in California and Germany and a few online. All of them had CRAZY bubbles with 30+ players at the same point totals.

But the fact that it is a valid strategy in the current state of the game is what makes this format wholly uncompetitive. A comp format that “lends itself to incredibly high draw rates” is pretty antithetical. Also, what tournaments have been run (not in Japan) with the 0 point draw system? I don’t think I’ve heard of any but I’m out of the loop on a lot of smaller tournaments.

@bailey_abner_ I think that scenario makes up a very small percentage of the draws. Most of them are situations where a player with no chance to win the game has the power to stop one player but not a second. Or when they have the power to force someone else's win through.

I think forcing players to make hard decisions even if it means they decide who wins is objectively better. At least then there are actions and consequences, and I have to play to win every time still. Right now, if I have my win in the Swiss, every tutor or mulligan can just be for interaction to force a draw as soon as a win is on the stack. That doesn’t seem very competitive to me. Also, with how many teams there are nowadays, kingmaking is already going to be rampant and has played roles in tournaments before. I’d like to see every Swiss game play out like a top 16 game, where every pod NEEDS a winner.

@bailey_abner_ There have been a few run now and they've been absolutely atrocious. Toxic kingmaking, loooong bubbles, with top cut being determined by terrible tiebreakers. The game itself just lends itself to a high draw rate. That's the reality of it. Especially when played optimally.

I feel players will engineer ways to subvert any rule that doesn’t affect the point system directly, unfortunately. Hell, I heard players are finding ways to initiate a coin flip via a gamble to determine a winner in a way that is *technically* allowed. At the very least, I’d say run a few tournaments with 0 point draws just to see, because having 1 win and 3 draws should not be good enough for top cut when we are talking about what is essentially the cEDH pro tour.

@bailey_abner_ You can't fix the problem with the point system. The card pool is the real way to impact it, but also coming around to the idea of rules around prohibiting protecting opponent wins to force draws.

@eaglesvscrows Goblins!

Someone talk me out of building a premodern deck

@DTrain_94 Standard, modern, vintage cube when it’s around. Been playing a lot of deadlock and working though mainly.

@bailey_abner_ What’re you up to these days anyway Bailey?

Not that my opinion matters or is all that interesting, but if I see a proxy requirement for a cEDH tournament and I know I can’t abide, I just uh… Don’t go. That being said, as of late, I don’t go in general haha. I agree running proxy-less or proxy-limited cEDH events is dumb but it’s a private business and they had their rules stated very clearly. When you sign up and break those rules, you know what the risks could be. Be more productive and boycott events that say no proxies or limit proxies instead, vote with your wallet. The market is extraordinarily saturated (at least where I live). You have options to go to proxy-friendly tournaments I’m sure.

I wasn’t there so I can’t really speak to the facts around the situation and if it seemed intentional or not. On first read it did not seem intentional, but I’m not the business owner or judge. That being said, cEDH players can count to 10 and if I’m paying money and traveling to a tournament, I’d be damn sure my deck was in order for a deck check.

@bailey_abner_ I don't really get why the discussion became about proxy limits and not whether a deck issue of one card that appeared within reasonable mistake territory and player could fix justifies a DQ and running top 4 as a 3 pod.

Uh yeah, lying can help you win a game in a game built around social deception. How you choose to engage with lying is up to you. Whether discreet and buried under 10 layers of nuance or just straight up saying you won’t do something then doing it. Lying isn’t cheating. Stop equating it to cheating. It’s also not amoral to lie in a game with lies built into its entire system. I’m not gonna get pissed off if you say you won’t build the longest road in Catan if I trade you a brick and then you do it lol. I might not choose to trade with you again, but I’m not going to think lesser of you.

@bailey_abner_ @dg18960711 Can you name a single positive aspect about lying and why it shouldnt be vilified? Is your only argument calling honest players priviliged?

Y’all do realize that keeping you bound by words is how the best players maintain some of the crazy win% stats they have right? As someone who also actively participated in the lawyer-shenanigannary when I actively played, if you just start playing your cards and stop being confined into the worlds worst trade deals of all time your EV will go up. Not saying to lie for the hell of it, just saying sometimes it’s probably just correct EV wise to lie, and in every magic format where it’s almost always about EV (excluding things like actively cheating/angle shooting), it just makes sense. Obviously take into account how future games are impacted, but having real friendships be tarnished by lying in a politic heavy hidden information game for money is asinine.