As someone who studied psychology and game theory..
Blink is entertaining but a lot of the concepts in the book aren't really novel, most of the stuff is already well established in the literature and has been just pieced together by the author to be accessible to the average person.
As far the expanse play.. Personally I believe that the amount of information in limited you reveal by cracking your expanse early is highly trivial. Your opponent isn't going to likely have multiple lines of play in the first 2 turns most games. If they do, I'd think that they would have one that is optimal vs. the vast majority of decks regardless of color a fair amount of the time.
So I'm a big game theory fan but the issue you run into when you try to make models for things like this is determining the payoffs. We don't really know how valuable knowing whether your opponent is good or not. The ultimate goal is winning the game. You could draw out an entire game of magic in a decision tree like the example in the article. Imagine how large the tree would be. There are going to be hundreds of branches each of which represents a decision point. The best player is going to make the right call at vast majority of nodes. The decisions in that giant tree are what determine the outcome of a game. The example in this article is a potential very small part of that tree and only if the value of determining whether someone is good or bad greatly influences crucial decisions later in the game would that little subgame be important in determining the overall outcome of a win/loss. Keep in mind if your opponent truly is bad there are likely to be multiple instances of recognizable bad play or you can just see they have low card quality.
So when do you crack your expanse in limited? The answer is that the expanse question isn't a very important one and you should worry about 50 other decisions that happen over the course of the game. The chance that it effects the outcome of the game is not great because 1. It won't change your opponents opening plays very often. 2. There are going to be better situations for determining the skill level of your opponent.
The suggestion of this article is use a mixed strategy where you pop it early some of the time. I'm fine with this strategy. It is hard to argue against because we don't know the value of determining if someone is good or bad..or if our opponent will use that play as evidence for determining that. I wouldn't be surprised if the mixed strategy is better than waiting. Of course if your opponent knows you then you wait....or do you bluff you are tired...
I don't know much about this Malcolm Gladwell guy, but you should never believe in the "science" of a history major (and one who only has a bachelors at that). History's version of "methodology" an absolute joke.
Never play 41 cards, there is just no reason for it. It's a bad decision as you screw your chances of getting the cards you really need, there is always a card that is worse than the rest. And if your 41st card is a land often, why not only play 16 Lands ( I do that very often Tempest and ACR and it works, if you get the fixing or the right curve for it ).
I'm not really in the mood to watch all these videos now, will do that later... just watched Match 3 Game 2 Part 2 and for no reason you played a sleep at the beginning of it. You were ahead in the race and except of the 5 round clock he had no threat. You better had developed your board in this round...
I agree on the one hand that it is nice to have alternate art for cards that you like to play. (But why bother with the cards you don't eh?) And I too do not play daily events so the fact that they are stopping handing out promos should upset me as the prices will rise. But really...if I own 4x of a card I like...does it REALLY matter if it has the promo stamp on it? In almost every case the original art is more valuable. (Which was not the case in the old days when promos were actually rare.) My opinion is that it does not matter unless I make it matter. I for one detest foils and prefer the plain unadorned cards at least online. On paper Foils actually look decent and can be quite attractive. Online they tend to be ugly and hard to look at. I prefer having my decks be easy on the eyes.
Sounds painful. I think Progenitus is a double edge sword that you wield knowing he may bite you. You could run path to exile as another out. It's not like you don't have the potential mana for it and the lands aren't that hard to arrange. Natural Order into Bogardan Hellkite is a pretty good deal too. Again a double edged sword vs blue but thats just the way things 'balance' in the game.
I just had to comment on the book "Blink" because it is floating around on several Magic Websites where amateurs and pros claim it to be a fantastic book about decision making. I had to do a thorough analysis of the book as an assignment in Business School ("Decision Modeling"). The book is in my opinion completely overrated, lacks "real" research, has a weak or rather no causation and is far from the best book on the topic at hand.
I know worldwide known authorities on "Decision Making" that would agree with me. The reason why everyone jumps on it seems to be the easy read and digestibility for people new to the topic.
If you want to read something with more substance I recommend:
"Wharton on Making Decisions", Steve Hoch, Howard Kunreuther, Rober Gunther or
"Judgment Under Uncertainty", Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky, Cambridge, 1982
Unfortunetly I don't have much experience running PREs. I've played in several but I've never run one myself before. So I figured that I should start out with a very easy tournament structure in order to avoid administrative problems.
Also, I currently don't have a method to do SWISS pairings quickly that avoids duplicate matches of players with the same record. (IE two players being paired up with each other more than once in the same tournament if they have the same record)
That was my point. I don't have playsets, since I never get to play in any events. I have to purchase each of them individually, which comes at a cost to me, so I like that the prices are low. I do have friends that have more than playsets of some of them, and for that I would say, maybe giving them out for the daily events is a mistake. I have one friend who plays in a daily event every day. Why not just give those promo lands for the daily events? Who really needs 27 Tormont's Crypt? I agree the amount of promos circulating does lessen their "value," but only if you assume that the words "promotional" and "valuable" mean the same thing. Personally, I don't. When I buy a magazine and it has a free cologne sample in it, I never think, "Wow, what a value! I should try to sell this." It's free stuff that they give away. I think promo cards are for people, like me, who think that alternative art is neat. I don't think that promo cards were created with the idea that they would be more valuable than other cards. The Exiled version of Gifts Ungiven is worth less than it's actual counterpart. I think real life MTG is proof of this, as well. The FNM card for last month was Sakura-Tribe Elder, a card that isn't even in standard, which, arguably, of course, is the most valuable format to WOTC since players need to buy new cards to play standard. The "value" of these cards is determined by the person that wants them. If MTGO wanted you to have something of "value" they would give you packs or more tickets. My advice would be to find someone who likes promos, like me, and give them away. :-)
Several prominent writers and social scientists have challenged the integrity of Gladwell's approach. Gladwell has been criticized as oversimplifying the essence of large complex phenomena, focusing on out of context data, and making pseudoscientific claims that are inadequately researched.
He has, however, received criticism from academics for his sampling methods, as well as his tendency to imply causation between events where only correlation exists.
graduated with a degree in history from the University of Toronto's Trinity College
yeah all information about Malcolm Gladwell, he is some obvious new age hack trying to make a dime. How in the world am I supposed to take stuff like Blink seriously when the author has not experience what so ever in any field of psychlogy?
Promos aren't pointless! They are fake foil versions of fake cards that can't be redeemed and have no inherent value. Foil promos fit in nicely with my all foil card deck for a digital product so that every person I play online is so impressed by all my fake foil cards with no real value...... wait. Let me try again.
I love promos. They allow me to make my 5-color Commander Deck using nothing but promo cards. It irritates and annoys my opponents while they watch me stupid deck do nothing. It's my only way to "be that guy" in commander..... wait. One more try.
Seriously, I like promos. I guess I am one of those people that is wow'ed by alternative art. I got into Magic because of the fun and because of the art. I don't like the idea of promos becoming hard to get. Granted I buy all mine since I work a lot and don't have the hours it takes to play in events. So making promos harder to get will raise their prices for me, which I don't like.
Oh I agree. The only deck that could be stronger than Blue is red. When we were playing 4x, my deck looked something like, 4 Lightning Bolt, 4 Shock, 4 Char, 4 Flame Javelin, 4 Pulse of the Forge, 4 Magma jet, 4 Shard Volley. You get the drift. It was the only thing that could beat my 4x Blue deck. Running singleton burn? I think it's still good, but your number of good "bolts" decreases, whereas my number of counterspells is huge. I can run all my favorite counters and side in 15 more as the case may be, and a Chill to top it off. I think it would be an interesting match up. A true Jace vs Chandra meeting.
Other obscure sideboard options against creature decks are Torture Chamber, and Hammerhead Shark which is an excellent blocker and also breaks the mirror.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
>>> You can't bluff a bad player. <<<
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Flores taps out to cast a Woolly Mammoth and passes the turn. LSV controls a Grizzly Bear, a Forest, a Mountain, and a Swamp! Without making any other play, LSV attacks. Flores blocks. The Bear dies. Then LSV yells at Flores "You idiot! This is why you suck at Magic! I could've had a Terror, or a Lightning Bolt, or a Giant Growth, or a number of things! Look at all these untapped lands!" And then Flores says "wut?"
I actually like Mike Flores. But he calls himself "Bad Player Flores" in his own book so he was the first name that came to mind when I needed someone oblivious for my example.
As someone who studied psychology and game theory..
Blink is entertaining but a lot of the concepts in the book aren't really novel, most of the stuff is already well established in the literature and has been just pieced together by the author to be accessible to the average person.
As far the expanse play.. Personally I believe that the amount of information in limited you reveal by cracking your expanse early is highly trivial. Your opponent isn't going to likely have multiple lines of play in the first 2 turns most games. If they do, I'd think that they would have one that is optimal vs. the vast majority of decks regardless of color a fair amount of the time.
So I'm a big game theory fan but the issue you run into when you try to make models for things like this is determining the payoffs. We don't really know how valuable knowing whether your opponent is good or not. The ultimate goal is winning the game. You could draw out an entire game of magic in a decision tree like the example in the article. Imagine how large the tree would be. There are going to be hundreds of branches each of which represents a decision point. The best player is going to make the right call at vast majority of nodes. The decisions in that giant tree are what determine the outcome of a game. The example in this article is a potential very small part of that tree and only if the value of determining whether someone is good or bad greatly influences crucial decisions later in the game would that little subgame be important in determining the overall outcome of a win/loss. Keep in mind if your opponent truly is bad there are likely to be multiple instances of recognizable bad play or you can just see they have low card quality.
So when do you crack your expanse in limited? The answer is that the expanse question isn't a very important one and you should worry about 50 other decisions that happen over the course of the game. The chance that it effects the outcome of the game is not great because 1. It won't change your opponents opening plays very often. 2. There are going to be better situations for determining the skill level of your opponent.
The suggestion of this article is use a mixed strategy where you pop it early some of the time. I'm fine with this strategy. It is hard to argue against because we don't know the value of determining if someone is good or bad..or if our opponent will use that play as evidence for determining that. I wouldn't be surprised if the mixed strategy is better than waiting. Of course if your opponent knows you then you wait....or do you bluff you are tired...
I don't know much about this Malcolm Gladwell guy, but you should never believe in the "science" of a history major (and one who only has a bachelors at that). History's version of "methodology" an absolute joke.
Never play 41 cards, there is just no reason for it. It's a bad decision as you screw your chances of getting the cards you really need, there is always a card that is worse than the rest. And if your 41st card is a land often, why not only play 16 Lands ( I do that very often Tempest and ACR and it works, if you get the fixing or the right curve for it ).
I'm not really in the mood to watch all these videos now, will do that later... just watched Match 3 Game 2 Part 2 and for no reason you played a sleep at the beginning of it. You were ahead in the race and except of the 5 round clock he had no threat. You better had developed your board in this round...
Problem is, now that this article is written, good players will crack the fetch right away, right? or is that just still bad players? heh
He didn't counter Chameleon Colossus because he couldn't. It is a faerie. :)
I agree on the one hand that it is nice to have alternate art for cards that you like to play. (But why bother with the cards you don't eh?) And I too do not play daily events so the fact that they are stopping handing out promos should upset me as the prices will rise. But really...if I own 4x of a card I like...does it REALLY matter if it has the promo stamp on it? In almost every case the original art is more valuable. (Which was not the case in the old days when promos were actually rare.) My opinion is that it does not matter unless I make it matter. I for one detest foils and prefer the plain unadorned cards at least online. On paper Foils actually look decent and can be quite attractive. Online they tend to be ugly and hard to look at. I prefer having my decks be easy on the eyes.
Yeah it did, I need to play with the game chat up, but i've also come across other errors with Harm's Way
The reason your Awakener Druid was killed after Giant Growth was because he redirected the damage from your Acidic Slime to it (Deathtouch). I think.
Sounds painful. I think Progenitus is a double edge sword that you wield knowing he may bite you. You could run path to exile as another out. It's not like you don't have the potential mana for it and the lands aren't that hard to arrange. Natural Order into Bogardan Hellkite is a pretty good deal too. Again a double edged sword vs blue but thats just the way things 'balance' in the game.
Shaman en-Kor + Angelic Protector + Worthy Cause
I think the DCI Reporter could be used for pairings etc., but that's just a suggestion from someone who just recently started playing online.
I just had to comment on the book "Blink" because it is floating around on several Magic Websites where amateurs and pros claim it to be a fantastic book about decision making. I had to do a thorough analysis of the book as an assignment in Business School ("Decision Modeling"). The book is in my opinion completely overrated, lacks "real" research, has a weak or rather no causation and is far from the best book on the topic at hand.
I know worldwide known authorities on "Decision Making" that would agree with me. The reason why everyone jumps on it seems to be the easy read and digestibility for people new to the topic.
If you want to read something with more substance I recommend:
"Wharton on Making Decisions", Steve Hoch, Howard Kunreuther, Rober Gunther or
"Judgment Under Uncertainty", Daniel Kahneman, Paul Slovic and Amos Tversky, Cambridge, 1982
music tips.
Hadn't heard of any of those bands, but quite liking what I'm hearing.
The decks & commentary are interesting too ;).
Unfortunetly I don't have much experience running PREs. I've played in several but I've never run one myself before. So I figured that I should start out with a very easy tournament structure in order to avoid administrative problems.
Also, I currently don't have a method to do SWISS pairings quickly that avoids duplicate matches of players with the same record. (IE two players being paired up with each other more than once in the same tournament if they have the same record)
That was my point. I don't have playsets, since I never get to play in any events. I have to purchase each of them individually, which comes at a cost to me, so I like that the prices are low. I do have friends that have more than playsets of some of them, and for that I would say, maybe giving them out for the daily events is a mistake. I have one friend who plays in a daily event every day. Why not just give those promo lands for the daily events? Who really needs 27 Tormont's Crypt? I agree the amount of promos circulating does lessen their "value," but only if you assume that the words "promotional" and "valuable" mean the same thing. Personally, I don't. When I buy a magazine and it has a free cologne sample in it, I never think, "Wow, what a value! I should try to sell this." It's free stuff that they give away. I think promo cards are for people, like me, who think that alternative art is neat. I don't think that promo cards were created with the idea that they would be more valuable than other cards. The Exiled version of Gifts Ungiven is worth less than it's actual counterpart. I think real life MTG is proof of this, as well. The FNM card for last month was Sakura-Tribe Elder, a card that isn't even in standard, which, arguably, of course, is the most valuable format to WOTC since players need to buy new cards to play standard. The "value" of these cards is determined by the person that wants them. If MTGO wanted you to have something of "value" they would give you packs or more tickets. My advice would be to find someone who likes promos, like me, and give them away. :-)
i dont care about value, i just look at promos as something special...large quantities is not special
Thanks for the article about ext which I play a lot. gl on your ptq I will play too
Several prominent writers and social scientists have challenged the integrity of Gladwell's approach. Gladwell has been criticized as oversimplifying the essence of large complex phenomena, focusing on out of context data, and making pseudoscientific claims that are inadequately researched.
He has, however, received criticism from academics for his sampling methods, as well as his tendency to imply causation between events where only correlation exists.
graduated with a degree in history from the University of Toronto's Trinity College
yeah all information about Malcolm Gladwell, he is some obvious new age hack trying to make a dime. How in the world am I supposed to take stuff like Blink seriously when the author has not experience what so ever in any field of psychlogy?
i like promo's too, but what is "promo" about them when everyone and their grandmothers all have playsets?
Promos aren't pointless! They are fake foil versions of fake cards that can't be redeemed and have no inherent value. Foil promos fit in nicely with my all foil card deck for a digital product so that every person I play online is so impressed by all my fake foil cards with no real value...... wait. Let me try again.
I love promos. They allow me to make my 5-color Commander Deck using nothing but promo cards. It irritates and annoys my opponents while they watch me stupid deck do nothing. It's my only way to "be that guy" in commander..... wait. One more try.
Seriously, I like promos. I guess I am one of those people that is wow'ed by alternative art. I got into Magic because of the fun and because of the art. I don't like the idea of promos becoming hard to get. Granted I buy all mine since I work a lot and don't have the hours it takes to play in events. So making promos harder to get will raise their prices for me, which I don't like.
To be honest, I wouldn't run anything that is mono in this format. That would make a very easy target for Grindstone.
LE
Does anyone know if this is christian calcano? Of boros bushwackers fame?
Oh I agree. The only deck that could be stronger than Blue is red. When we were playing 4x, my deck looked something like, 4 Lightning Bolt, 4 Shock, 4 Char, 4 Flame Javelin, 4 Pulse of the Forge, 4 Magma jet, 4 Shard Volley. You get the drift. It was the only thing that could beat my 4x Blue deck. Running singleton burn? I think it's still good, but your number of good "bolts" decreases, whereas my number of counterspells is huge. I can run all my favorite counters and side in 15 more as the case may be, and a Chill to top it off. I think it would be an interesting match up. A true Jace vs Chandra meeting.
Other obscure sideboard options against creature decks are Torture Chamber, and Hammerhead Shark which is an excellent blocker and also breaks the mirror.
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
>>> You can't bluff a bad player. <<<
VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV
Flores taps out to cast a Woolly Mammoth and passes the turn. LSV controls a Grizzly Bear, a Forest, a Mountain, and a Swamp! Without making any other play, LSV attacks. Flores blocks. The Bear dies. Then LSV yells at Flores "You idiot! This is why you suck at Magic! I could've had a Terror, or a Lightning Bolt, or a Giant Growth, or a number of things! Look at all these untapped lands!" And then Flores says "wut?"
I actually like Mike Flores. But he calls himself "Bad Player Flores" in his own book so he was the first name that came to mind when I needed someone oblivious for my example.