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Dom Harvey
Contributor
game-ruining bullllllllllllllllllllllllshit
Huh. And all this time I thought it was an acronym for Elspeth, Knight Errant.
If I'm giving you enough credit, and you mean that mainly as a telling joke, I am really missing some context. I've only had the pleasure of playing elsepth4 in rare power cubes, modern testing, rarer riptidey cubes and last mental magic.
I have to tell you it was fucking the worst in mental magic. People trying to learn from the riptide example usually made that card into a real arena, profane command or silverheart but it wasn't too overpowered. In powered cube I've lost to elspeth4 before, in unreasonable ways, but it has also often been a part of interesting and close games in powered, with a lot of "omg I coulda" post game analysis
I just want to be proven that card is horrid in a variety of formats and I know I'm never gonna get the frame of reference I crave (I'll never grind against it in constructed). It seems like a better sorin to me and I wana understand the problem outside of vintage (that I know I would have lost to anything)
I have to tell you it was fucking the worst in mental magic. People trying to learn from the riptide example usually made that card into a real arena, profane command or silverheart but it wasn't too overpowered. In powered cube I've lost to elspeth4 before, in unreasonable ways, but it has also often been a part of interesting and close games in powered, with a lot of "omg I coulda" post game analysis
I just want to be proven that card is horrid in a variety of formats and I know I'm never gonna get the frame of reference I crave (I'll never grind against it in constructed). It seems like a better sorin to me and I wana understand the problem outside of vintage (that I know I would have lost to anything)
Definitely meant this as a joke. But for the context you're wanting:
Our playgroup plays cube in teams (4 vs 4). We draft individually and then the teams work together during deckbuilding, helping each other, discussing strategy, etc. The we play out four matches versus each other person on the other team, and the team with the best combined record "wins" the draft.
In the six months we drafted weekly with Elspeth, Knight Errant in cube (a power-maxy cube), I don't remember a single time where she wasn't on the winning team. It's partially because the best player (not me, by a far cry) in our group has an unreasonable love for Bitterblossom, Lingering Souls, and Elspeth, partially because those cubes suffer the "Junk" problem where there are so many value creatures in those colors and Elspeth just makes them better, and partially because Elspeth is actually super powerful on an empty or near-empty board.
But who cares about winning, or losing, or teams? The point of this rambling is to tell the story of the worst game of magic I've ever played. It was round 1, and I had drafted a BW deck with Elsepth, Lingering Souls, and wraths. My opponent was in Junk. We shuffled up and played the first few turns like normal magic players would, trading resources, casting spells, etc. Then Elspeth hit the table, followed by Day of Judgement, Wrath of God. The game drags on sevral more turns, Elspeth ticking up all the while, but my opponent has built a large board state, thanks to Deranged Hermit, Cloudgoat Ranger, and Revilark. I had a sizeable defense, thanks to the Soliders. At some point during this mess, I make an Elspeth emblem so all my dudes were indestructable. The game dragged on through this stalemate for way-too-many more turns. He had some way to gain a bunch of life and continued to make tokens. We were hellbent thanks to Lilianna joining the party. We got to a point where we realized we didn't want to play Magic anymore, because the game was such a stalemate. We counted cards in libraries (for decking out) and they were even. So we conceded to each other, both took losses, and shuffled our decks back into the cube. There was just something about that particular game that was... miserable.
So in my mind, when I see GRBS, (which, yes, stands for "Game Ruining Bullshit") I think of Elspeth, at least in cube.
Our playgroup plays cube in teams (4 vs 4). We draft individually and then the teams work together during deckbuilding, helping each other, discussing strategy, etc. The we play out four matches versus each other person on the other team, and the team with the best combined record "wins" the draft.
In the six months we drafted weekly with Elspeth, Knight Errant in cube (a power-maxy cube), I don't remember a single time where she wasn't on the winning team. It's partially because the best player (not me, by a far cry) in our group has an unreasonable love for Bitterblossom, Lingering Souls, and Elspeth, partially because those cubes suffer the "Junk" problem where there are so many value creatures in those colors and Elspeth just makes them better, and partially because Elspeth is actually super powerful on an empty or near-empty board.
But who cares about winning, or losing, or teams? The point of this rambling is to tell the story of the worst game of magic I've ever played. It was round 1, and I had drafted a BW deck with Elsepth, Lingering Souls, and wraths. My opponent was in Junk. We shuffled up and played the first few turns like normal magic players would, trading resources, casting spells, etc. Then Elspeth hit the table, followed by Day of Judgement, Wrath of God. The game drags on sevral more turns, Elspeth ticking up all the while, but my opponent has built a large board state, thanks to Deranged Hermit, Cloudgoat Ranger, and Revilark. I had a sizeable defense, thanks to the Soliders. At some point during this mess, I make an Elspeth emblem so all my dudes were indestructable. The game dragged on through this stalemate for way-too-many more turns. He had some way to gain a bunch of life and continued to make tokens. We were hellbent thanks to Lilianna joining the party. We got to a point where we realized we didn't want to play Magic anymore, because the game was such a stalemate. We counted cards in libraries (for decking out) and they were even. So we conceded to each other, both took losses, and shuffled our decks back into the cube. There was just something about that particular game that was... miserable.
So in my mind, when I see GRBS, (which, yes, stands for "Game Ruining Bullshit") I think of Elspeth, at least in cube.
Els4 has always felt "fine" to me. I mean, like on the low/middle end of cards you'd consider a P1P1 (in high power if not "powered" cubes).
Strong on an empty board, but what planeswalker isn't? She gets handled easily by any form of evasive creature, or, you know, if there are two Grizzly Bears on the table when she ETBs.
Strong on an empty board, but what planeswalker isn't? She gets handled easily by any form of evasive creature, or, you know, if there are two Grizzly Bears on the table when she ETBs.
Elspeth just tended to not make great games of Magic for us, and other white walkers felt more compelling.
I would contest that Elspeth is "easily handled" - starting at five loyalty and being able to make one blocker a turn while steadily ticking upwards actually makes her one of the hardest planeswalkers to peel off the table, even when compared to her peers at five and six mana. The fact that, outside of a Hero's Downfall or equivalent, she sticks around for a long time means that she tends to have a disproportionate impact on any given game in which she's cast, even if she doesn't win the game right then and there; buying her pilot four or five turns in a losing situation is something few other cards can do. That's not even getting into her ability to launch tactical strikes at other planeswalkers, sending 4/4 flyers at them turn after turn, giving the player a huge advantage in any midrange planeswalker-on-planeswalker dogfights.
Even when I ran cards like Wurmcoil Engine, Jitte, and the Swords, she was a regular P1P1 over here, and I think justifably so. She's a fair bit more powerful than Jace, the Mind Sculptor in cube, despite the latter's reputation in other formats.
Even when I ran cards like Wurmcoil Engine, Jitte, and the Swords, she was a regular P1P1 over here, and I think justifably so. She's a fair bit more powerful than Jace, the Mind Sculptor in cube, despite the latter's reputation in other formats.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
this is more or less exactly my jam:
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/...ating-magic-cards-using-deep-recursive-neural
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/...ating-magic-cards-using-deep-recursive-neural
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Holy shit, that is so awesome! I had to teach a neural network to recognize the South Park main cast once. Neural networks rock
Also, this is actually a pretty exciting card:
Gravimite
Creature - Dryad
: Regenerate Gravimite.When Gravimite enters the battlefield, draw a card.
2/3
Elspeth, Knight-Errant is difficult to deal with through the combat step and leads to extremely repetitive play experiences. There aren't really any interesting decisions to make while playing her, and she isn't particularly rewarding to play either (the big payoff is... making another 1/1 each turn for the rest of the game?)
She isn't the most powerful, or the most miserable/obnoxious to play against, or the least rewarding/interesting to play with, etc.
But she is like the perfect storm of high power level and poor play experience... in limited/cube. I still try to jam Elspeth in constructed every so often :<
She isn't the most powerful, or the most miserable/obnoxious to play against, or the least rewarding/interesting to play with, etc.
But she is like the perfect storm of high power level and poor play experience... in limited/cube. I still try to jam Elspeth in constructed every so often :<
Holy shit, that is so awesome! I had to teach a neural network to recognize the South Park main cast once. Neural networks rock
Can you explain how neural networks work and how you would use them to generate Magic cards?
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I fear not, sorry. That was a long, long time ago
I studied Artificial Intelligence, which broadly consisted of four pillars at the time: robotics, natural language processing, cognitive ergonomics, and knowledge engineering. Neural networks was part of the robotics pillar, I believe. As a student you got to pick one pillar to specialize and graduate in, and I chose the NLP pillar, so I didn't get to do much neural network stuff. Anyway, I remember our South Park neural network being pretty effective (it was especially good at recognizing Kenny!), but that project was done in, let me think, 2001? Nowadays I can tell you more about software testing, Dungeons & Dragons and Magic the Gathering 
Chris Taylor
Contributor
RIP Tromple, too OP
That thread had me and my wife rolling on the floor
Neural Networks work essentially like this
Give Program Reams and Reams of Data --> FUCKING MAGIC --> Computer Generated Output
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Ouch. Aggravating
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
Good software lets you undo after saving. Unfortunately not all software is good software
I've got a guy with a sandwich named after him and our old nationals champ and quite likely my #magicmentor looking to unseat me. These people made me want to be better at magic so I'm kinda excited.
Oh Myles also axed me about riptide lab and I did a little too much run-on but I got to mention waddz and CML and not caring if you put hybrids in your gold section or not lol.
Oh Myles also axed me about riptide lab and I did a little too much run-on but I got to mention waddz and CML and not caring if you put hybrids in your gold section or not lol.
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Probably a good start. If you wanna get people over here, leading with the small stuff sounds like a better tatic than "HAY GUYZ YUU SHOULD RUN FAWR GRAVECRAWLERZ"
You should also mention how people will actively comment on your cube thread even if your list is crap and you don't run power or Swords. I got more replies on my Cube here in like two days than I ever have on MTGS.
But God help you if you post a list with Wurmcoil Engine over here...
I wouldn't actually mind, it's happened before, but I don't think they stuck around for terribly long.