BDM and Flores at End of Year - Part 3

BDM and Flores close 2008 in style discussing a wide variety of Magic topics.

BDM and Flores at End of Year - Part 2

BDM and Flores close 2008 in style discussing a wide variety of Magic topics.

BDM and Flores at End of Year Part 1

BDM and Flores close 2008 in style discussing a wide variety of Magic topics.

Interview with Eric Kesselman Part 1

BDM interviews Reels and Deals creator, World Series of Poker Event winner and Finkel draft regular: Eric Kesselman

This is a quick request to help a brother out to any of the listeners / readers out there who play Dungeons & Dragons Tiny Adventures.

The Global Leaderboards were originally  designed to measure how fast it takes to get to Level 11 (read the FAQ). However the Encounter Percentage Leaderboard and especially the Career Length Leaderboard have been marred for months with failed Ironman players.

Basically you can set your guy to Ironman and try to die permanently as quickly as possible. The game reads this failure as “retirement” because you are not allowed to continue playing, so it slots these failed Ironman players on the Leaderboards if they die quickly enough and can even displace the top Encounter Percentage players by suiciding after you win a few encoutners (it really helps if you just reset until you can buy a Belt of Sacrifice so you can spontaneously cost yourself 10 HP). So if you can choose Wizard (lowest hit points) and then go into a Dungeon where you will die in one or two hits, congratulations, you beat out players like McGee who play with brilliant speed to try to ACTUALLY WIN THE GAME in less than three days (amazing, by the way).

Obviously I have a vested interest seeing as I was the former (as of yesterday) #1 Encounter Percentage player… But there is literally one guy who suicides all day and is scumming up both the Career Length and Encounter Percentage Leaderboards, ruining them for every player.

So if anyone else out there thinks the Leaderboards should be set to reflect what they were orignally intended to reflect - actual career performance to get to 11th Level and not who can play the worst game of Tiny Adventures, please comment here and join your voices to my post on the Tiny Adventures forum on Facebook (”Who else thinks they should remove Ironman failures from the Leaderboards?”).

It wasn’t long ago that I thought Will Price of Progress’s 76.41% was nigh-unbeatable… but it inspired me to try. I would love nothing else than to be beaten fair and square (another invitation to try better). This seems like a very simple fix for WotC to put in, which would make a whole lot of people happier and annoy only the 1-2 people whose entire goal on the game seems to be to ruin the Leaderboard stats.

Thanks for listening to this rant and please speak up if you agree.

–michaelj

PS They should probably change the Day:Hour:Minute settings to three digits instead of just two. The #1 and #2 players just waited until they hit 100 days so that they could win in 00:00:00. I really want to see how quickly we can beat the game and these loopholes are ruining the experience in my opinion.

Top8Magic Fans,

BDM, Flores, Sadin, Will, Gabe, myself and the rest of the Top8Magic crew wish you and yours a Happy Holiday!

We have tons of posts that will slowly be uploaded over the holidays. Expect two to three every 24 to 48 hours.

Happy Holidays,

Top8Magic Crew

Getting the friends list #1 in Encounter Percentage was pretty hard with Will Price of Progress posting such a strong percentage, but the #1 on the global leader board… I thought it was impossible because of all the failed Ironman players. But nothing is impossible for a Halfling with a Dancing Shiv!

It looks like I peaked

Here are my suggestions:

1) Play Halfling Rogue (I have played DI Halfling Rogue and Human Rogue, and Halfling Rogue always seems to be better).
2) Pass the Shiv. I passed the Mithral Coat so many times, admittedly with some nice results, but this breakout finish was with the Shiv (per the character’s name).
3) Use potions aggressively. I didn’t use a single healing potion on ShivAn Draggin. I only k-o’d one time. It probably sounds stupid / greedy considering the insane Encounter Percentage but I didn’t realize I was going to retire and I had a Prismatic Elixir LEFT. Really, don’t ever think about “wasting” potions on early dungeons. Just use them. You will have enough if you are doubling up gold as a Rogue and passing gold, etc.
4) Maximize your Encounters in Forest. Rogues kick butt in Forests if you have the Shiv or the Mithral Coat. Use Quick Fingers and Pick Pockets in the Forest every single time. If you can’t pay close attention, use Quick Fingers and Pick Pockets at the beginning of every Tiny Adventure.

Everyone keep playing and supporting Tiny Adventures. It’s great!

LOVE
MIKE

Last time I wrote I was confessing to missing top 8 of a sealed ptq with an absolutely insane pool.  At that tournament, as often happens for a seat-all-players, I was sitting near Chris Calcano for the sealed build.  Before we opened our pools to get started, I had offered him the blind-trades, and he had turned me down, poor fellow.

Well, fate had his back this weekend.  Chris opened up a sealed pool which allowed him to play 1 Mountain and all plains and forests for basics, splashing 1 red card, 1 blue card (off 2 obelisks) and still playing 6 rares.  Yes, 6.  Included in those six were 2 battlegrace angels, a stoic angel, and a sigil of distinction.  Unlike myself, Calcano was able to parlay his insane pool into a top 8.  I draft-capped him, and here’s approximately what happened.  Relevant cards are listed, bold is what he picked, and discussion follows in italics with me (GCB), Matt Ferrando (MF) (who also watched Chris’s draft as it progressed) and Chris Calcano (CC).

–Pack 1–
1: Arcane Sanctum, Sharding Sphynx, Soul’s Fire, Kathari Screecher
GCB: I guess I can see it as a forceful choice, but at this table I would take the bomb.  True, you pass 3 blue cards which is better signaling, but Sharding Sphynx can win games by itself and I like to draft a little more passively.
MF: Sharding Sphinx is definitely my pick, its not easy to deal with and unlike “dragons” it starts to take effect immediately if you have other artifact men in play.
CC: I think Soul’s Fire is one of the top red commons in shards draft, i figured with it being the lone red card in the pack my neighbor would pick up on that and make my draft go smoother. I later discussed the pick with GCB and Matt F and we all came to the conclusion that I was dumb and should’ve taken the Sphinx lol.

Read the rest of this entry »

Round 14 of the World Chanpionships saw a titanic matchup between Hall of Famer Olivier Ruel and certain Hall of Famer — once he becomes eligible in two years — Masashi Oiso.

Olivier was playing Gifts Rock with Loam while Oiso was playing a Faeries deck that was not playing any Bitterblossoms. Instead he was sporting full sets of Vendillion Clique and Glen Elendra Archmage and a singleton Azami Lady of Scrolls.

That Lady of Scrolls was the difference maker in the deciding game of the match as Olivier disruption could not outpace the card advantage of Azami.

With four rounds left to play Oiso was 11-3 and in great shape to make a run at his 7th Top 8. Hot on his heels — and also in the Feature Match area –was Kenji Tsumura looking to secure his 6th Top 8. Perhaps they could also settle the debate as to the identity of the best Japanese player in the history of the game.

I have to admit I was pretty stunned to see Finkel sit down for the first round of Extended play on Saturday. Over the latter course of his career Jon has made no secret of his distaste for Constructed. At 5-7 in the first two legs of the event I would have assumed it was time for him to hit the team draft circuit with fellow Hall of Famer Dirk Baberowski.

Instead there he was, handing in a decklist and shuffling up a sixty.

“I can still win money,” Jon said defiantly. Apparently he is within shooting distance of passing Kai on the lifetime winnings list. “Besides someone gave me a deck that is a lot of fun.”

I didn’t need much more than that to settle in and see what was in store. What Island based monstrosity could it be? I couldn’t imagine Jon calling Faeries fun. Maybe the Tezerator?

I almost lost my grip on reality when Jon dropped a Mountain and sent Spark Elemental hurtling into the red zone for absolutely zero card advantage. He then proceeded to follow up with another, Lava Spike, and a suspended Rift Bolt over the next couple of turns. Up was down, right was wrong, and blue was red.

Jon could not comprehend my surprise.

“I played a monored deck to a Top 8 at Worlds.”

In 1998.