Zvi Mowshowitz
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Zvi Mowshowitz's LiveJournal:
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| Friday, December 10th, 2010 | | 7:40 pm |
Main Game Fall 1904: War Continues
All west as expected, and now it's West vs. East as the race to Italy begins. Chances are that one of the two sides breaks but it could be a long time. I won't comment on this game until something interesting happens. | | Wednesday, December 8th, 2010 | | 5:59 pm |
LW Main Game: Spring 1904: A Lot More Straightforward Than It Looks
We now have two clear sides: G/E/I/R against A/T/F... for now. The game master is being coy about the situation but it's hard to be clearer than that. Turkey can take the Ionian Sea and Austria can knock out Venice with the risk being Germany sneaking Trieste. I don't expect either side to try anything on the eastern front for a while. The question is, will Italy pick up enough from his new friends to survive? France is toast and will be down to only Liverpool after this year, at which point he's only a nuisance. England and Germany's task now is to get as far into the Med as possible and meet the Turks as far east as they can. Granting Italy Spain and Mar for this turn is potentially a good idea, but trust is a huge factor there, but sending the extra unit west was costly; as E/G I'd much rather he stayed behind and held the Ionian. A/T has grown large and it's not going to be easy to take them down. This game is probably going to be a long, hard slog sooner rather than later. | | 8:41 am |
LW Game 2: The Fall of Austria
Four turns in and the triple alliance has made quick work of Austria. Italy has all three core Austrian centers, Turkey has Serbia and Greece. Russia didn't get much out of the exchange due to Austria's sneaking into Warsaw and not having enough time to recover, and Turkey controls the Black Sea. The fleet in the Ionian Sea indicates that Turkey may not want to keep this beautiful friendship with Italy going. Italy will no doubt build multiple fleets, and these two have a choice to make. Turkey can withdraw and they can head north and west like an A/I/T triple (since they have Austria's 5 natural territories) or they can fight. If they fight, Russia stays intact and is probably wise to stay neutral for a bit and get involved in the north on one side or the other, but he needs to start picking up centers quickly. Turkey's move to the Ionian Sea is an act of war, but there's no strict commitment here. I wouldn't have done it unless I thought war was inevitable, which it certainly isn't, because you can't hold onto much by doing it and Italy can keep you from breaking out to the west if he cares enough. He should care enough. England struck at Germany in the north, and Germany struck back. With only one fleet France can't do much for Germany's cause and is a good ally for England to have so chances are we're going to get England/France despite England's opening. This encourages Russia to enter on their side so I would use my build on F StP(nc) and occupy Norway in exchange for help elsewhere, with the flip side being to take Norway anyway if England doesn't agree, then try to get England headed south and set up a R/I/E triple. That's my guess as to what happens next. | | Saturday, December 4th, 2010 | | 9:02 am |
LW Main Game: Winter 1903
Russia's move is puzzling. Is he that afraid of England? Turkey was handed Ukraine, which was an important gift and now Russia can't protect everything on a given turn even if England is neutral. If England is hostile, everything falls apart quickly. If Germany is anti-Russia, which the move to Tyrolia implies, that's also very bad news; in a true 4-on-3 situation Russia is going to collapse but while losing Ukraine hurts he can potentially still stall A/T alone for a while. Italy did the best he could and risked the Ionian, while A/T guessed wrong so the damage was limited but getting that one territory free makes things worse than is obvious and the Ionian Sea is going to fall in two turns. For reasons previously discussed it's in Germany's interest to get a foothold in the east potentially Warsaw but if Russia collapses too quickly the two halves of the alliance will have the North and South respectively and the alliances will have to shift. | | Wednesday, December 1st, 2010 | | 12:09 pm |
LW Main Game: Fall 1903
No diplomatic surprises, so it's all tactics. Austria's failure to move VIE-TYR to bounce Italy's unit is oddly brilliant, since it means Austria can cut the support and take Venice while Serbia covers Trieste and Turkey can bounce himself in Greece. The problem for that alliance is that in the north Russia is bulletproof unless England and Germany intervene, and they aren't in a position to do that yet although England may take Norway as per agreement. England's failure to take the Mid-Atlantic and loss of Brest is a tactical blunder rather than being outguessed and means time lost but not that much time. If he's wise he will take the Mid-Atlantic in the fall instead. Either way, this game should be slow for a bit but the eventual outcome isn't in doubt in either battle. Italy will be a three center rump but it can hold the Ionian until F04, and France bought itself a little more life but it's not clear who if anyone could bail him out. | | Tuesday, November 30th, 2010 | | 8:10 am |
| | Saturday, July 24th, 2010 | | 11:10 am |
Wikipedia Links... Here?
Welcome everyone who followed the links to my blog that I just realized were there. Technically this is correct, but I don't use it very often anymore. I also find it odd if WotC did in fact "clean up" the pages that they couldn't find a single free image of me. Anyone is free to take any image they like, as far as I'm concerned. I've heard I'm not supposed to edit my own page though. | | Thursday, March 11th, 2010 | | 7:29 am |
List of Nomic Rules (Day 1)
This is from the Nomic game I played Tuesday night. Rules with a * attached at the front were voted down. A lot of point totals are currently in the 80s... Original Rules set can be found here.New rules: 301. No rule may name a player 302. Amongst players whose turn it is not and are not calling for judgment, judges will be selected at random using maptool’s dieroller. This rule supersedes rule 212 *303. The lowest possible score is 0. *304. Rule 109 is mutable. *305. Judges decisions must be bound by precedent. Judges decisions must be recorded. 306. Rule 209 is repealed. *307. Each player’s number of votes is equal to their score. 308. Rule 301 is immutable. 309. New players may enter where they choose to sit down, when they wish, with 0 points. 310. Voting will be simultaneous by coin reveal. Coin means in favor. 311. Each player that votes for a rule that receives at least 2 points that does not pass receives 10 points. 312. The window shall be open 1-6 inches. Any player may call for a vote once per turn to suspend or unsuspend this rule at any time. *313. Transmute rule 114 from immutable to mutable. 314. People may choose to veto a rule just passed by skipping their next turn. 315. No mutable rule may state that it overrules an immutable rule or have wording such that it would if that rule were immutable. *316. Rule 314 is repealed. Every score under 0 is set to 0. Scores of people who voted against this rule are set to 0 and divided amongst those who voted yes, remainders are discarded. If there are 7 or more votes “yes,” the proposer of this rule wins. *317. Rule 207 is immutable. *318. Rule 315 is immutable. 319. Proposed rules may not state that they have any effect on players based on how they voted. 320. The Sager Laptop holds the official rules and scores. Rules and scores must be recorded correctly. At the end of each turn, the scores are called out so that people may object. *321. Rule 105 is mutable. *322. Every player is awarded 90 points. 323. Rule 315 is immutable. *324. Roll 202 is amended so that you roll three die and add the total to your score at the end of your turn. *325. Amend rule 212 to say that a majority can overrule a judges decision instead of unanimity. *326. Amend rule 208 to say “The winner is the first player to achieve 200 (positive) points. *327. Players who have 90 or more points cannot gain points from votes on a proposal except for this one. *328. The game is not necessarily over when someone wins. Instead, the winner may either leave or choose to continue playing by changing his score 0 and gaining an additional vote. *329. Amend rule 208 to say “The winner is the first player to achieve 150 (positive) points. *330. After this vote, the winner will be determined by a random maptool dieroll. | | Monday, February 15th, 2010 | | 7:33 pm |
Zvi's LJ: The Resurrection
As some of you may know, I live in interesting times. Awesome, interesting times. Alas, my work is something I can't talk about on the internet, and my newly discovered actual life does not, as I put it on Twitter, belong in a Family Fun Center. I'm starting to think I shouldn't let that stop me, but a filter will most certainly be necessary. So while I debate if I'm going to do that, if you would want to get through that filter, this would be the place to let me know. | | Saturday, July 4th, 2009 | | 11:05 pm |
Thoughts on the Twitter M10 review concept
I wanted to try something new, since I don't have a good outlet for a normal style review and the usual style would run into the problem of far too many cards that are functional or actual reprints and don't justify much in the way of comment. I feel at this point that I've proven to myself that I CAN do it if I want to (although it would take a long time to do it with any kind of quality), but is it worth doing, with or without a traditional bookend or five? I would like everyone's thoughts. | | Thursday, June 11th, 2009 | | 7:31 pm |
Magic 2010: Take a Third Option
Proposed Rule Changes Alt-5 and 8 (Replacing new rule 5): Rule Alt-5: Combat damage does not use the stack. When combat damage is dealt, players may assign damage however they like and that damage is dealt including trample damage. There is no ordering of blockers. Rule 8A: Instead of creatures with lethal damage being placed directly into the graveyard, whenever the stack is empty an effect is placed on the stack that says "All creatures that have been dealt lethal damage are put into their owners graveyards." Rule 8B: All effects that can save creatures that would be dealt damage, including regeneration, damage prevention and protection, are errata-ed such that they can also remove damage that has already been dealt. Technical Note: Deathtouch would likely go back to being a triggered ability, and you can choose how it deals with damage prevention however you like. Note that this change creates a different intuition for new players. There is now a universal, intuitive rule that all creatures can be saved in a variety of ways after damage has been dealt. My instincts tell me that unlike the stack there is nothing unintuitive about this and it seems easy to explain (e.g. "You get a chance to save your men.") and you can understand it without the stack. New players get a game that's easy to understand while old players get to keep using good old stack tricks. The one issue I can think of so far with this could make cards that damage your own men more powerful by refusing to let the stack empty and thus keeping them alive, which may enable new combinations. It is possible there is a card or two we would have to alter to prevent this if it got out of hand, but there are a number of possible fixes for that. Note also that yes, this is similar to the pre-6E system, but its problems were in large part caused by only allowing certain types of spells and effects during a special 'damage prevention step' rather than simply giving players a chance to do whatever they want. EDIT: A dealbreaker objection now that I've considered it is that now you can't kill anything with damage while a stack is in progress, such as in response to an enchantment or a giant growth. One fix to to say that the trigger is whenever a creature is dealt damage or its toughness is reduced, at which point a trigger is placed on the stack (empty or not) for all creatures that were effected and are now about to die (or each creature triggers seperately, which we want to avoid due to Magic Online). Thus: Alt-8A: Whenever a creature is dealt damage or its toughness is reduced, and this results in it taking lethal damage, put upon the stack an effect that says "If this creature has taken lethal damage then place it in its owners' graveyard. If multiple triggers occur simultaneously, combine them into one trigger." I like that last sentence for other places too! This now creates the problem that when trying to save a creature anything that damages it all will re-kill it. I'm guessing that is the price we pay... Thus: This is why it doesn't work. Alas. You have to get more and more convoluted to avoid doing ugly things and while you're doing that add a lot of extra stacks all the time, making the game more complex. The lesson here is that the stack works the way it does for a reason. It is simple, it is elegant, and it gives us the game we love. Combat damage uses the stack because otherwise double blocking is an ugly mess (see new rule) and because it allows us to do all sorts of cool things. We've decided that we dislike the cool things, because they are 'not intuitive' and that the ugly mess is an acceptable loss towards that end. The attempt to make these things intuitive was a noble idea, but just like the actual new rules it ends up making things more complex and ugly in the name of making them intuitive. I enjoyed thinking about that quite a bit, and I think I learned a lot about the game and the way it works. Kudos to everyone who gave me all the great feedback, which is one reason I love the internet. There is no way to cheat this one. I still can't help but feel like there's a better way to handle double blocking, but so far I haven't been able to think of one. | | Sunday, May 3rd, 2009 | | 8:50 pm |
Restrictions breed creativity, or perhaps the opposite. We shall see.
I'm going to try out Twitter, because I realized that it actually does make sense in a strange kind of way. If you post one line on LJ, it simply feels wrong. It shouldn't, but it does. I'll still keep checking things out around here no matter what happens, cause there are many people worth reading (plus this is how I read xkcd so it's basically a free trip) and when I have something long to post, if it's not MTG-centric I'll probably post it here unless it belongs on Less Wrong which is another site where I'm going to post just as soon as I figure out what it is I should be posting. It'll probably be interesting, at least. Oh, and the user name is the same as this one. | | Tuesday, April 28th, 2009 | | 7:45 pm |
You know that moment...
...when they say exactly like you'd say a trio of points that Livan is "one of the better hitting pitchers in baseball, one of the better fielding pitchers in baseball..." and then Ron just drifts off with a whiff of quiet depression in the air? And you know exactly why? Yeah. I know it too. | | Sunday, April 26th, 2009 | | 7:07 pm |
The fate of Arizona is in their hands!
The Arizona Diamondbacks announcers are so partisan it crosses the line into comical. I've experienced the Atlanta Braves announcers, who fail to acknowledge that any other team contains human beings or has fans. I've listened on the radio to Phillies announcers talk about how to score local green points, after the video failed and was accompanied by the previous night's Mets game audio. I often watch the Yankees announcers, who consider victory such a birthright that they barely can find the words to inform you how many outs there are. But these guys from Arizona are an experience. They played a series of flashbacks of previous home runs in the hopes that one of them would 'rub off' on the current batter. They talk constantly about what needs to happen, as if a Giants victory would mean the terrorists win. The giant, blue state terrorists. It was quite a thing to hear. | | Friday, March 20th, 2009 | | 10:36 am |
Money is Fungible
What is to stop the banks that recieved TARP money from simply no longer paying anyone a "bonus" and instead giving people frequent salary adjustments? Raises and cuts in pay are still legal, as far as I know, and there is no reason for either side not to welcome such a change. Yes, you'd have to spread out the money rather than writing one big check, but even if that proves to be a serious problem we also already have one big bank giving its employees loans. In short, while this will hit the bonuses that were already paid out and guarenteed (in other words, the bonuses that are not a bonus) I see no reason for it to ever hit an actual, fully optional bonus. There is no salary cap in banking. Yet. That doesn't make this any less scary. There's the abstract case that all taxation is theft, and then there's actual theft. Anyone who isn't terrified by the fact that this is happening either isn't paying attention, lacks basic grounding in economics or is blinded by rage, but it does look like a pretty basic loophole. Please don't tell congress. | | Saturday, December 27th, 2008 | | 7:50 am |
Merry Christmas, Everybody (except you over there, with the face)
That guy is creeping me out. I was away on Christmas so sorry that I missed all such merry messages while being off with actual tree actual gifts and actual Christmas dinner for the first time. Having experienced it, I actually think I prefer the Jewish version. The stores stay open, which is to say you don't make such a gigantic production out of it. People don't scramble to spend money they don't have to buy gifts they don't want to buy because they're afraid someone else is doing the same thing. They don't torture you with a month's worth of music - you'd be lucky to get a Chanukah in Santa Monica in my sandels lighting candles by the sea. Similar superiority is achieved in television, movies, books and other media avenues. So I say, instead of a Christmas Miracle I will happily settle for a Chanukah Happening. I need my miracles for when I'm working! | | Thursday, December 11th, 2008 | | 10:33 am |
Magical Thoughts at Worlds Time
I will not be in Memphis this weekend. I considered going, but there were several strong reasons why not. I am going on a lot of non-MtG trips lately, and work needs me at this time of year. While I have the opportunity to draft several times a week, I've only taken that opportunity once and the set felt like it wasn't something I would particularly enjoy. On top of that there were two constructed formats, one of which (Extended) is miserable right now. In my opinion not dealing with Elves at all was a mistake. Yes, there are solutions and decks that beat it, as there always will be for all but the most extreme solutions, but I don't think I'm the only person who thought about having to deal with that deck and deciding to skip it - not that I probably wouldn't have anyway but that made it easy. The other problem was simply that the local team that did such good work for Worlds 2007 and Hollywood (and KL draft preperation) does not exist in that form any longer, and my presence would not have saved it. On a similarly sad note, Neutral Ground is closing its doors at the end of the month. This will leave Manhattan without a place to game. I have nothing against Kings Games and Alex is great but that's an hour away. I remember the days of going out to King's Games, Queens or even New Jersey (I know!) and it was no fun having to do that, although the times were good once I got there. Without a substitute for Neutral Ground, New York's gaming community won't survive aside from the old school group. There is some work being done on possible solutions now that a new place wouldn't have to compete with Neutral Ground, and I hope for their success; certainly there is room for one viable place, and certainly there is not enough room for two. | | Thursday, September 25th, 2008 | | 8:07 am |
| | Sunday, July 13th, 2008 | | 9:47 pm |
| | Friday, June 20th, 2008 | | 9:25 pm |
Ponder: A Restricted Series
I had a longer post I was writing to try and break down the economics involved, but it seems unnecessary now. Instead, a brief summary of the other changes they will be making soon. Having heard the actual explanation for Ponder, which was that it is an attempt to shift the metagame away from combination decks, while banning the best combo and a superior enabler with Flash and Brainstorm, I think it's downright silly. Basic Land in the Boosters: Epic Fail. This is really freaking dumb. Basic land wants to be free, not liberated and inexpensive. The change makes producing boosters costs more, it probably makes drafting worse, making fully 12.5% of the booster useless for limited and constructed. Maybe the 16th card didn't feel like taking a card away, but this one? Good luck with that. These lands will mostly just get thrown away, whereas dedicated gifts of land are cheap to make and would be welcomed. If you want everyone to have land, just sell land tubs at cost plus shipping to whoever wants them, have stores give away as much as anyone could ever want as part of standard operating procedure and no one will ever want for basic land again. However, this isn't all THAT big a deal, since 15 was always an arbitrary number, although my instincts and 7E experience tell me 14 will be worse. Less Cards: Good Idea. Things were getting rediculous and something had to be done. The new level seems about right. Lorwyn was gone in a flash and Ravnica was also gone before its time; there will be plenty of play left especially if we take the lost common and lost cards as an excuse to reduce the chaff as the next phase in power inflation. It will also likely be good for constructed formats, but it's a strange statement that Standard can have 'too many' cards given Extended is doing just fine. Of course, I love block constructed, so there you go. Mythic Rare: Shockingly Good Idea. At first I thought this was a shameless attempt to maximize profits and then I realized that it was a shameless attempt to maximize profits. The big difference is whose profits, and realizing that in this case we are all in the same boat. Preserving the value of booster packs is good for all of us, because it reduces the cost of opening packs which is the main effective cost of playing Magic. This assumes some things about distribution and pricing curves, but it seems reasonably safe. For those playing constructed, the cost of cards goes up but that only matters to the extent that transaction costs go up. If I can get 4 Tarmogyf for $200 and sell them for $190, then the cost is still very low, in fact not much higher than a card I buy for $20 and can only sell for $10, which is closer to the real market than you might think as only expensive cards have liquid markets. That isn't the reason I'm for it, though. I'm for it because it makes Magic Online cards much harder to arbitrage with offline cards, since you need a set of Mythics to move a set of Rares offline, thus making it hard to impact that market too much. This arbitrage was providing substantial downward pressure on prices and on sales, its surplus got eaten by the dealers and it needed to be stopped. Overall, other things I've seen and heard in the past year, particuarly the player Q%A at KL, scare me far more than these changes. What worries me most of all is just that Shadowmoor doesn't work for me at all; I've played 2 limited games, both of which I lost to enchanted Swans, and in constructed it leaves me cold. There's also the power inflation, which is slowly getting quite silly. Finally, some bad news. Due to the fact that the timing sucks, I don't care for Shadowmoor limited and the prizes aren't what they used to be, I'll probably be skipping US Nationals. The next time you see me may or may not be Berlin. |
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