Patrick’s Realm

I watched an intriguing talk on TED by Peter Donnelly, a statistician with a specialty in genes, that spawned some thinking about deck building.  The talk it about 20min and I highly encourage you to watch it - but if you arn’t in the mood, let me spoil a little of it for you.

Peter talks about a simple coin-flipping exercise.  One side of the room is interested in getting a combination of HTT (heads, tailss, tails), while the other half of the room is interested in getting the combination HTH.  Statistically speaking, everyone believed that after a large enough data set, both combinations would have an equal chance of appearing.  Additionally, Peter asked the question of which combination will appear first?  Nearly everyone thought (as I did) that they would occur, on the average, at the same time in every test.  This was wrong: HTT appeared first because of it’s pattern vs HTH.  However, if you where looking for HTT and you have your first H and first T and then are delt a H you are effecitvly starting over; if you where looking for HTH and have HT a second T would be devastating, but a second H would not only complete your pattern but give you opporunity to start a new one.

Peter talked more about this and how it relates to his specialty, but for our purposes the point is made: when you stand back and look at the entire deck, one set of card choices may very well be equally powerful as another, but that doesn’t mean that it will produce results for you as fast or as concentrated as you might expect.  This is profound.  This explains why Kitchen Finks are better than, say, Nyxathid in a Death Cloud deck.

Kitchen Finks

Before Death Cloud: 3/2 creature and +2 Life vs X/X creature OR no creature

After Death Cloud: 2/1 creatue and +2 Life vs no creature OR Y/Y creature

Do you see how Kitchen Finks provides card advantage over Nyxathid?  It pratically plays itself a 2nd time after the cloud goes off.  Additionally, it is covering up two of cloud’s weaknesses (you loosing creatures and you loosing life).  A 7/7 monster after a board wipe is scary, but at the cost of a Thoughtsieze/Distress followed by a Deathcloud THEN to draw Nyxathid… you are making things complicated for the sake of a big stompy that can be removed or mitigated easily (Path to Exile, Bitterblossom).  Do you see the HTH vs HHT pattern?

The obvious pattern of choice with a card like Death Cloud is HTH.  So, what else goes good with Deathcloud other than the obvious Tarmagoyf?  Lets look at Deathgreeter first.  Pretty mediocre when you first play it.  You wouldn’t want to use it to block: basically this guy stops you from loosing most if not all of the life to cloud.  But now we’re thinking.

Toshiro Umezawa is an interesting pick.  At 3/3 while blocking, he can beat back smaller opponents.  And if your deck is set up correctly, you will be slinging spells at the opponent (including instants that where in your hand just a second ago - read the order of the card).  Getting warmer, but this guy requires a specially tooled Death Cloud deck compared to what we’re use to.

Dusk Urchins

Dusk Urchins has to be my favorite.  You want to use him to block, and you can use him for a swing or two.  This guy is good for one to two cards after Death Cloud.  How much better does it get?  That is a HTH if I’ve ever seen one.

Lastly, cards like Deadly Grub, Dregscape Zombie, Golgari Thug and Nether Traitor need to be mentioned.  While not the biggest bang for your buck, all provide decent answers to the lack of creatures after the cloud goes off while providing potential beforehand.

Take this knowledge and grow, my young friend!  When you start winning cash prizes, e-mail me and I’ll give you my address so I can collect my fair share.

I’ve been facing an onslaught of people demanding I join a social networking site.  I all ready have a LinkedIn account that I give no attention to, so I see no reason to make a Facebook account that I would never use.  I am of a dying breed, however.

While I have not caved into the requests for a REAL social networking account, I have joined the relatively useless but addictive community of Twitter.  The account is seven hours old and all ready I have 13 tweets.

Follow me at http://twitter.com/deltran!

Rip-Clan Crasher

I played a few hands with my RB Deathcloud deck today.  It was not a good time.

RG Aggro

The first deck I played against used Rip-clan Crashers and cards like Lightning Talons and Giant Growth to overrun an opponent quickly.  It came out the gate swinging, but fell apart late-game.

Game 1

I have 12 cards dedicated to creature control ON TOP OF Deathcloud - should be a scince, right?  WRONG.  The deck fell apart.  I thew down an early deathcloud, but he recovered before I could even draw one Infest.  Night-night.

Game 2

My opponent had nothing useful during game 2.  It was a cake walk.  I walk way from the 2nd round the winner.  It is as this point we bid farewell to the matchup and I move on to the next deck.

Multicolor Enchantment Control

This deck is composed mostly of enchantments.  It uses Collective Restraignt and Honden of Cleansing Fire to hold off the opponent long enough to bring out multiple shrines - including Honden of Life’s Web for token generation - followed by a Titanic Ultimatum.  It is a very powerful deck, and I knew I didn’t have much of a chance against a deck who I couldn’t remove cards for.

Collective Restraint

Game 1

This round went well.  I won by deathclouding two demigods into my graveyard just to summon them back with a third demigod of revenge.  I used Deathcloud to get me the other 5 I needed.  I used all of my creature control cards on Chrome Mox.  The nature of this enchantment deck lends it to have a very uneventful game until later, so I tried to not give him a chance.

Game 2

Although Thought Hemmorhage and Distress removed 3 of the 4 Collective Restraints, I didn’t see one demigod until the game was his.  I was left with a hand full of creature control.  It was a long game, and I went through half a deck before he finally had enough of a lock-down between his single Collective Restraing and two Hondens for my lone demigod to matter.

Conclusion

My version of RB Deathcloud needs a second win condition.  Some opponents can play around 3 Deathclouds, and while I always had tons of mana with this deck, I only had one real way to win the game.  While potent, I obviously can’t depend on Demigod for the win.  Bituminous Blast wasn’t a factor in these games and probably needed to sit out in the second set of games.

I will attemt a few more times to make this a viable deck.  With powerhouses like Thought Hemmorhage and Demigod of Revenge, it has great bones.  I’ll keep you updated as it progresses before I move onto a different Deathcloud variant using some BIG cards from Alara Reborn.

So Arcane Power is out.  I’m a bad fanboy and haven’t bought the book yet, but I did take the liberty of updating the Character Builder.  If you haven’t noticed, I’ve been chomping at the bit to do some RPGAing with a Cosmic Sorcerer.  I’m disappointed that character builder doesn’t have the 1st level daily power the preview article had, but otherwise my crunch-tastic dragonborn cosmic sorcerer is better than I imagined him to be.

====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======
Marzanix, level 1
Dragonborn, Sorcerer
Spell Source: Cosmic Magic

FINAL ABILITY SCORES
Str 18, Con 11, Dex 13, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 18.

STARTING ABILITY SCORES
Str 16, Con 11, Dex 13, Int 8, Wis 10, Cha 16.

AC: 16 Fort: 14 Reflex: 11 Will: 16
HP: 23 Surges: 6 Surge Value: 5

TRAINED SKILLS
Arcana +4, Diplomacy +9, Intimidate +11, Athletics +9

UNTRAINED SKILLS
Acrobatics +1, Bluff +4, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Heal, History +1, Insight, Nature, Perception, Religion -1, Stealth +1, Streetwise +4, Thievery +1

FEATS
Level 1: Armor Proficiency (Leather)

POWERS
Sorcerer at-will 1: Blazing Starfall
Sorcerer at-will 1: Dragonfrost
Sorcerer encounter 1: Ray of the Moon
Sorcerer daily 1: Ice Javelins

ITEMS
Leather Armor, Implement, Staff, Adventurer’s Kit
====== Created Using Wizards of the Coast D&DI Character Builder ======

It killed me to have a 13 Dex, but I needed it for Dual Implement Spellcaster (gain bonus if carrying 2nd implement in off-hand).  Like-wise the Ice Javelins is meh, but if I’m going to use Draconic Spellcaster (+hit with powers matching breath weapon element) to good effect, it’ll have to stay.

On a tangent, what is the deal with cold getting so much of the spot light?  Fire use to be the trendy element, then suddenly Ice turned all Hot Topic and is an attention whore now.  I’ve liked cold-themed casters for years, but now I just look trendy.  I feel like people are giving me the same criticizing eye given to people who claim they liked Elmo BEFORE he was popular…

Magic: The Gathering is a mandatory hobby of many geeks. Whether you like ripping people’s work off and pass it as your own or seek deep-thinking exercises in logic, the game has something for you. I tend to fall into the first category. Before you blame me, Halo 3, World of Warcraft, and cheese all did it too, and they where big successes.

The mono-black Deathcloud deck first came about as the Kamigawa block was new. It was neat, but slow. Aside from casual multiplayer games it lacked bite. People didn’t give up on it, however. BG Deathcloud became a favorite, due to green’s mana ramping abilities. Eventually, the brute known as Tarmogoyph emerged and gave BG Deathcloud it’s shining place on top of the tournament scene.

Red, Green and Black have been reluctant pals for years. But with the introduction of the Alara block, playing three colors is even easier. I currently have a BG Deathcloud deck from ‘back in the day’, so now I want to make a RB Deathcloud deck before I jump into the manage-et-toi.

RB Deathcloud - 62 cards

Creatures (4)
4 Demigod of Revenge

Spells (30)
3 Bituminous Blast
1 Call to the Netherworld
4 Blightning
4 Deathcloud
4 Distress
4 Infest
4 Night’s Whisper
4 Terminate
2 Thought Hemorrhage

Artifacts (8)
4 Chrome Mox
4 Veinfire Borderpost

Land (20)
4 Blinkmoth Nexus
8 Mountains
8 Swamps

This deck seems to perform well against agro decks.  I haven’t tried it against control decks, although everyone knows that Demigod is the bane of existance for counters.    The borderposts are there to act as tap lands with the bonus of them sticking around after the cloud.  The one-of Call to the Netherworld hasn’t been too useful to date.

The reason I use Distress vs Thoughtsieze is because of the Bituminous Blast.  I would HATE to cascade into a card that drained my life for no reason.

Have a suggestion?  Please, I’m all ears.

The last WordPress theme I had started to get a little screwy once I used bullet lists, so it had to go. This one will do for the time being.

Why is the default font size 12px? I have no intention of being a credit to your blindness, so why does every free template designer fight me on this point? No biggie, I stuck it to the man and made my font size 14px. I’m also sticking it to the web design man and kept it in pixels instead of going ems.

HACK THE PLANET!

For the past 3 to 4 years, I have been oblivious that April 1st existed…  until Google totally had me fooled that:

• Internet via sewer lines was possible
• Mars was going to become an open-source planet
• many, many other creative things

This year, I would have probably fallen for CADIE if it wasn’t mentioned to me last night today is April Fool’s day.

For those of you who haven’t checked out the most recnet Arcane Power preview for 4th edition, go do it.

While I haven’t had the opportunity to try out a 4e sorcerer yet, I know that I need to play this variant.

To give you a clip of what this striker can do:

Cosmic Persistence: While you are not wearing heavy armor, you can use your Strength modifier in place of your Dexterity or Intelligence modifier to determine your AC.

Cosmic Power: You gain a bonus to the damage rolls of arcane powers equal to your Strength modifier. The bonus equals your Strength modifier + 2 at 11th level and your Strength modifier + 4 at 21st level.

Soul of the Cosmic Cycle: At the end of a short rest or an extended rest, you choose a cosmic phase from those described below and gain its benefits.

Check out the rest of the article.  I’m pshyced!

In my homebrew Dungeons & Dragons game I run bi-weekly-ish, they picked up an NPC that they just can’t get enough of.  They have gone so far as to risking their lives for him and even renamed their adventuring party after the NPC (small SPOILER: It’s Splug from H1: Keep on the Shadowfell).  They just won’t let the guy go!  I’m glad they offered to run him in combat, but now I have a problem: the party has an assess they don’t want to ever loose, and I have to deal with an extra combatant for encounters.

There was a recent preview article on the Wizards of the Coast website from Arcane Power concerning summoned creatures.  I decided to take that mechanic, combine it with some of the rules for Artifacts, and came up with a neat sub-system that would let the players keep their pet NPC in a fairly balanced way while still providing for an out that wouldn’t leave the players high-and-dry.  Take a read!

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

*NPC* doesn’t have it totally together yet.  He is confused, but not alone!  You have the chance to turn *NPC* into a full-fledged combatant!

Bonding: One PC can bond with *NPC*.  There is no cost to do so, although bonding to a new PC will cause *NPC*’s progress to reset (see below).
The PC that bonded with *NPC* gets to control *NPC* in combat using their own actions.

• Minor Action: As a minor action, you can command *NPC* to take one of the following actions that would normally be a move action for you: crawl, escape, fly, open or close a door or a container, pick up or drop an item, run, stand up, shift, squeeze, or walk.
• Move Action: Anything not on the list above that would cost you a move action to do you can command *NPC* to do as a move action.
• Standard Action:  By spending a standard action, you can command *NPC* to attack using his attack powers.  *NPC* has a basic attack power, an at-will power and an encounter attack power that mirror powers of the class of the bonded PC.  You can also command *NPC* to do any other action that you normaly could using a standard action with the exception of Second Wind (see below).

Reguardless of who *NPC* is bonded to, he has the following actions:

• Opportunity Attacks: *NPC* can be commanded to take an opportunity attack as per the normal rules by commanding him with a free action.  The attack depends upon the class of the PC that bonded to him.
• Minor Actions: You can have *NPC* do something that would be a minor action by using a free action.  Reguardless of other commands this round, *NPC* can only do one minor action per turn.

Hit Points, Defenses, and Healing: *NPC* has HP equal to the bonded PC’s bloodied value.  Calculate *NPC*’s bloodied value based on his max HP.  *NPC*’s defences are equal to the bonded PC’s defences -1.  Reflex is equal to the bonded PC’s Reflex defence.  Temporary bonuses or penalties to defences that affect the bonded PC do not automatically affect *NPC*.
*NPC* has 0 healing surges, and thus cannot take a Second Wind.  If *NPC* is affected by a power or effect that allows him to spend a healing surge, the bonded PC may spend one in his place.  *NPC* has a healing surge value of 1/4 of his total hit points.  If *NPC* drops to 0 hit points, the bonded PC may spend a healing surge to stablize him, rendering him unconcious.

Action Points: When a bonded PC spends an action point, he or she may command *NPC* to execute a Standard action as a free action.

Skill Checks: *NPC* gains one trained skill associated to the class of the bonded PC.  His skill modifier is is the higher of the PC’s skill check modifier or 5 + 1/2 bonded PC’s level.

Attack Powers and Other Powers (by class):
*NPC* is still learning, so while he is under the tutalige of a bonded PC

Cleric:
Skill - Religion
Features - channel divinity, healer’s lore, healing word
At-Will - Priest Shield
Encounter - Split the Sky

Fighter:
Skill - Athletics
Features - combat challenge, combat superiority
At-Will - Reaping Strike
Encounter - Precise Strike

Ranger:
Skill - Nature
Features - fighting style (archer), hunter’s quary, prime shot
At-Will - Twin Strike
Encounter - Thunder Boar Strike

Warlock:
Skill - Arcane
Features - eldritch blast, eldritch pact, warlock’s curse, prime shot
At-Will - Eldritch Blast
Encounter - Fiery Bolt

Wizard:
Skill - Arcane
Features - arcane implement master, cantrips, ritual casting
At-Will - Magic Missile
Encounter - Shock Sphere

Racial Powers:

‘Leveling’ *NPC*: *NPC*’s statistics for combat purposes always mirror yours as noted above.

Advancing *NPC*: After the bonded PC levels twice, *NPC* becomes a full-fledged member of whatever class the bonded PC is.  This means several things.

• *NPC* becomes an NPC who is no longer directly controlled by the bonded PC.
• *NPC* gains several new powerful abilities tied to his new class.

Moving On: After attaining his training, *NPC* will be wide-eyed and ready so seek hs own adventures.  After a few sessions, *NPC* will leave the party.  All is not lost, however.  First and foremost, you have made a strong allie that is bound to turn up at a pivitol moment in your future as you set out on quests of even greater peril.  Secondly, *NPC* shows his grattitude by presenting his previously bonded PC with a gift he stole/bought/prayed for/enchanted/sold his soul for, etc., as a thank you.

This is quite possibly the 7th comming of my blog.  So welcome to it!

What’s different this time around, you ask?  I intend on ditching this once my other pet project gets up-and-running.  That’s right - I intend to abandon this one eventually.  But my project is going to be awesome, so don’t touch that dial!  Well, you shouldn’t be viewing this web site on any machien with a real dial, for numerous reasons.

1. Your machine is too old
2. Your machine isn’t ment for web serfing
3. Your machine is too important to serf the web with
4. You mod cases with a horrible sense of style… probably…  (if I’m wrong, pics or it didn’t happen)

New content will appear here soon.  I KNOW you are adding this to your RSS feed of choice.