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Magic: The Gathering |OT|

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Haly said:
Victorian? Or older than that?
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Eh, probably victorian. My real problem with steampunk recently is how its seemingly become about fashion almost exclusively. Plus steampunk "designed" weapons have crossed over into being too intricate and maximalist. What I always liked was the kind of "foggy London/mysterious african jungle" environment vibe combined with the romantic attitudes towards science and technology that were coming to a head in the 19th century.
 
WanderingWind said:
Just watched another match similar with elf tokens. Except...he was playing white. Day of Judgement. Rage quit.

Fun stuff.

...man, I really missed out on now playing during the Lorwyn days. Great googly moogly.
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Aside from the Faeries infestation at times, it was good stuff. It wasn't the most diverse format, but it was fun. I remember playing so much 5 color control, it was so much fun (stuff like Nassif's PT Kyoto 2009 deck. So good.).

Now I miss playing at Lester's. We used to go there on Wednesday nights for Standard during our Summer/Winter breaks (mostly around Lorwyn block), but now that I've graduated and moved away I haven't been there in 2 years. Great little shop, Lester was awesome, decent competition and we always filled the place. Good times.
 
An-Det said:
Aside from the Faeries infestation at times, it was good stuff. It wasn't the most diverse format, but it was fun. I remember playing so much 5 color control, it was so much fun (stuff like Nassif's PT Kyoto 2009 deck. So good.).

Now I miss playing at Lester's. We used to go there on Wednesday nights for Standard during our Summer/Winter breaks (mostly around Lorwyn block), but now that I've graduated and moved away I haven't been there in 2 years. Great little shop, Lester was awesome, decent competition and we always filled the place. Good times.
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Yeah, faeries are why I've been digging through Lorwyn boxes. My wife asked if they made enough faeries to make a decent deck...apparently they were the standard tournament winners of the day. They're kind of hard to find. Guessing that's why.
 
While the codenames are chosen to have absolutely nothing at all to do with the content I still like to believe that Hook/Line/Sinker will be pirate themed. They've done ninjas, robots, zombies and I think vikings so...
 
Apparantly there has been a small controversy debated today. At the SCG Invitational this past weekend, Zac Hall and Mike Flores played each other. Apparantly there was a play that some are calling out. Hall posted this earlier, and the reactions that I've read from the pro community has been interesting so far.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/zack-hall/scg-invitational-and-mike-flores/10150655359001144

Zac Hall said:
Throughout the past week, there has been a lot of discussion about 'the play' that occured between me and Mike Flores. I wanted to write a post here explaining what happened in my mind and the board state leading up to and during the play, and a few takeaways.

My relationship with Flores is a distant one. I've played against him twice previously, once in a PTQ long ago and once at an SCG Open 3-4 years ago. He had defeated me both times. We mentioned each other once in awhile on Twitter, and once a decklist was sent over Facebook. That was all the interaction me and Mike ever had, so acquaintances would probably be the word I'd use to describe it.

We were in game one, I had 3 land (tapped) and 4-5 cards in hand. He has 1 land and an Aether Vial on one counter. I pass the turn and he EoT Vials in Nomads en-Kor. He untaps, ticks Vial up and puts in Cephalid Illusionaist. Mike flashes me a Force and a blue card and says, "I have you". I have no instants in hand, so I know it's probably true that I'm dead. My response is, "Show me".

Here is where things get tricky - he flips his deck into where his graveyard would be - no cards had gone to the yard this game. He shortcutted the Illusionist ability to mill his entire deck, not 3 by 3 as would have ensured him a win. He pulls out his Narcomoebas and is looking for the Dread Return when I motion with my hand like I want to see his graveyard. He hands it to me to look through, which I do.

Then I let him know he's dead - I say, "Let me know when you want to move to your draw phase". Mike gets very upset, telling me what I did was low, claiming the friendly banter of the match meant that a play like this should have never been done, that I should just scoop. I say no of course, as he's the player who messed up his combo and milled his entire deck. Mike doesn't call a judge because, in his words, "he'd rule in your favor". We finish the match and I win 2-1, picking up my first sanctioned win against Mike Flores.

The problem with all this lies in my wording. "Show me" is the contentious phrase here. When I said "show me", I meant "Proceed". I meant that, yes, you probably have me, but you still have to play it out and kill me correctly. The onus is on the combo player to execute his combo correctly. We've all won (and all lost) games where a combo player has punted, handing an "unwinnable" game to his opponent. When Mike heard "Show me", he thought the implied sentence ended with "...and I'll scoop". We were both on different levels of seriousness in the game as he thought he had won where I thought Mike might (and did) screw it up.

The social contract issue put forth by Finkel and Drew - I don't see this at all. I didn't say "Show me your combo and I'll scoop", nor did I say "Show me your library and I'll scoop". In response to an inquiry as to whether or not I was dead, all I said was "Show me". The game was not over, and one would be foolish to assume so. Just because we both work for SCG, or we have interacted with each other before doesn't mean Flores doesn't have to execute his combo correctly, it doesn't mean he has a free pass to mess up. He still has to do it.

Two things that I wish were done differently:

1. I wish I used clearer language. This one is obvious. Yes, I got the win. No, I don't think I cheated. I do think was ambiguity though, as Mike thought one thing and I thought another. I always try to play a clean and clear game Magic, and I thought I was here. Mike didn't. If I could go back I would have used language like "Kill me" or "Proceed". These would have left no mystery as to what I meant and they would have still given Mike the chance to hand me the game.

2. I wish we had called a judge. Calling a judge is never a bad thing. Both players agreed upon what had happened, and both felt like there should have been different outcomes. An impartial arbiter would have been a better way to have resolved this.
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I'd like to know how the rest of that combo goes.

It's funny, I was just telling my friend the other day that you can't take shortcuts and say "I tap all of this over and over and you take a billion damage/draw a billion cards/get a billion infect counters" in tournaments since it's possible to screw up the combo. This will be a fine real world example to share with him.
 
Leunam said:
I'd like to know how the rest of that combo goes.

It's funny, I was just telling my friend the other day that you can't take shortcuts and say "I tap all of this over and over and you take a billion damage/draw a billion cards/get a billion infect counters" in tournaments since it's possible to screw up the combo. This will be a fine real world example to share with him.
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When do they stop? I've had people say that but only after they did it once...
 
zethren said:
I'm currently in the market for 2x Primeval Titans. I don't have a trade list uploaded but is there anything off the top of your head that you are looking for?
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Yeah, definitely. My wife wants a faerie deck...so faeries. Heh.

3,Bitterblossom
4,Glen Elendra
3,Scion Oona
4,Secluded Glen
3,Sower of Temptation
3,Spellstutter Sprite
4,Zephyr Sprite
4, Oona, Queen of the Faeries
 
Zac didn't do anything wrong. Flores didn't draw a card before decking himself. Simple as that.


Zaraki_Kenpachi said:
When do they stop? I've had people say that but only after they did it once...
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Combos that go infinite don't actually require you to do the combo a million times if you want to say, gain a million life. I think you can demonstrate the combo a few times and then have to specify a number though. You can't gain "infinite life". It has to be 100 billion or some arbitrarily huge number. I think that's in the rules somewhere.
 
An-Det said:
Apparantly there has been a small controversy debated today. At the SCG Invitational this past weekend, Zac Hall and Mike Flores played each other. Apparantly there was a play that some are calling out. Hall posted this earlier, and the reactions that I've read from the pro community has been interesting so far.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/zack-hall/scg-invitational-and-mike-flores/10150655359001144
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I have to say that Zac didn't do anything wrong...at most just a slightly ambiguous statement, but that could easily be clarified by Mike communicating with Zac.

And hey, c'mon...this SCG Invitational is a competition!! Not some casual game. You don't just go, "I mill deck and pull out my Narcomebas". Opponents will find any possible error and point it out to the judge.

I feel that Mike's being sloppy.
 
WanderingWind said:
Yeah, definitely. My wife wants a faerie deck...so faeries. Heh.

3,Bitterblossom
4,Glen Elendra
3,Scion Oona
4,Secluded Glen
3,Sower of Temptation
3,Spellstutter Sprite
4,Zephyr Sprite
4, Oona, Queen of the Faeries
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Heh, I don't have any of those but it's funny 'cus I have a friend with two faerie decks with a good number of those cards.

The bulk of my rares go back to Zendikar, as that's when I got back into the game. I'll try to upload an updated trade list for you when I can.
 
I'm actually on Flores' side here. "Show me" carries a clear implication of a concession. Often you just display that you have the ability to kill, allowing the game to quickly proceed to the next game in the set. Legacy is currently notorious for having unintentional draws, and because of this, it's not unreasonable to assume the inference that Mike did re: Zach's statement. If I did not know the person, I would ask for clarification before doing so. However, Mike did not (falsely assuming a relationship was there that obviously was not), and thus we had the situation as it resulted. The social game matters. If you think it doesn't, look at Craig Wescoe and what he did to Drew Levin, and how it's impacted him.

WanderingWind said:
Cool. Nobody seems to have faeries. It's funny. Sort of a MTG blindspot.
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Lorwyn block didn't sell very well, apparently. Faeries are also notorious as a nasty griefer deck. In competitive play, they're infuriating to play against. (I'm currently rocking them in Modern.)
 
An-Det said:
Apparantly there has been a small controversy debated today. At the SCG Invitational this past weekend, Zac Hall and Mike Flores played each other. Apparantly there was a play that some are calling out. Hall posted this earlier, and the reactions that I've read from the pro community has been interesting so far.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/zack-hall/scg-invitational-and-mike-flores/10150655359001144
Click to expand...

Mike Flores was being a lazy, conceited fuck and expected his opponent to just scoop by showing him FoW and a blue card? Get over yourself, asshole. Glad you're banned from Wizard events. There is no precedence for "Show me" indicating "I concede."
 
Hero said:
Mike Flores was being a lazy, conceited fuck and expected his opponent to just scoop by showing him FoW and a blue card? Get over yourself, asshole. Glad you're banned from Wizard events. There is no precedence for "Show me" indicating "I concede."
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I've seen it happen plenty of times. It's a shortcut to save time. "You have the burn spell?" "Show me a counterspell" , etc. The only way Zach could win that game was by Mike screwing up, and Mike's "screw up" was only due to Zach's (unintentionally?) ambiguous statement.

Craig Wescoe claimed he was "just doing the right thing" when he got Drew Levin DQ'd, but everyone knew he did it to try and steal his Top 8 spot.
 
Interesting. I would take "show me" as an indication to finish the combo, since he said it even after being shown the Force of Will. What else would he be asking to see? I'm not familiar with the short hand players might be using, but it seems unwise to make assumptions about your opponent at such a venue.
 
kirblar said:
I've seen it happen plenty of times. It's a shortcut to save time. "You have the burn spell?" "Show me a counterspell" , etc. The only way Zach could win that game was by Mike screwing up, and Mike's "screw up" was only due to Zach's (unintentionally?) ambiguous statement.

Craig Wescoe claimed he was "just doing the right thing" when he got Drew Levin DQ'd, but everyone knew he did it to try and steal his Top 8 spot.
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Certainly shortcuts are acceptable in casual play but this was a competitive match. It was completely possible for Flores to have two or more Narcomoebas in hand and have been unable to cast Dread Return from the graveyard. Refer back to a game of Mark Justice versus Mike Long in the Pro Tour where Long bluffed having multiple copies of Drain Life. You play things out and nobody should be encouraging shortcuts in professional play.
 
Hero said:
Certainly shortcuts are acceptable in casual play but this was a competitive match. It was completely possible for Flores to have two or more Narcomoebas in hand and have been unable to cast Dread Return from the graveyard. Refer back to a game of Mark Justice versus Mike Long in the Pro Tour where Long bluffed having multiple copies of Drain Life. You play things out and nobody should be encouraging shortcuts in professional play.
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Those are done in competitive play. Shortcuts happen all the time.
 
The fact of the matter is that he screwed his combo and lost. "Show me" is not the same as "I concede" and making any kind of silly assumption in a tournament match is stupid.
 
Sinatar said:
The fact of the matter is that he screwed his combo and lost. "Show me" is not the same as "I concede" and making any kind of silly assumption in a tournament match is stupid.
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I don't think the assumption was stupid. I think that not clarifying it was. When this has come up with players who I don't know that well, I've always gotten the concession promise verbalized before flashing the spell in the hand. He "screwed the combo" because he thought Zach was trying to speed things up by saying "just show me that you have it, (and that there aren't 3 Narcomebas in your hand.)

I get the feeling that the legions of people "ok with this" simply haven't played in a competitive setting long enough to encounter this situation repeatedly. (The "hey, just show t, so we can concede and move on to g2/g2") Time's a huge deal.
 
It doesn't even matter what he said exactly. There is only one circumstance in which I know the opponent has conceded the game, when he or she scoops up their cards and shuffles them back in to their deck. They can say whatever the hell they want, I quit, good game, guess I should scoop, and so on. But until they have physically removed their cards and reset their deck and life, the game is still being played and everything counts. I can't even begin to count the number of matches I've won just because I refused to assume the game was over and then watched some dipshit botch his combo. I had one guy do it twice with a high tide deck. Watching his face go from arrogant pride to painful embarrassment was very enjoyable. Too many players are impatient as fuck, hopped up on mountain dew and adhd. Always play it out, even the best players fuck up and hand a win over.
 
ultron87 said:
Yeah, I don't see how that gets read as "(I concede but) show me (how you would have killed me)."
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That's not what the read is. The implied meaning is "Show me that you have the combo available, and I'll scoop (rather than waste precious game time that will result in an inevitable outcome.)"
 
kirblar said:
Those are done in competitive play. Shortcuts happen all the time.
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Wow, dude. Okay, yes. Shortcuts are taken so you don't have to say which phase you are entering, leaving, spells go on the stack, etc every single time. Shortcuts such as DUMPING YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING DECK INTO THE GRAVEYARD does not happen all the time and I will call you a liar to your face if you think that is acceptable.

kirblar said:
I don't think the assumption was stupid. I think that not clarifying it was. When this has come up with players who I don't know that well, I've always gotten the concession promise verbalized before flashing the spell in the hand. He "screwed the combo" because he thought Zach was trying to speed things up by saying "just show me that you have it, (and that there aren't 3 Narcomebas in your hand.)

I get the feeling that the legions of people "ok with this" simply haven't played in a competitive setting long enough to encounter this situation repeatedly. (The "hey, just show t, so we can concede and move on to g2/g2") Time's a huge deal.
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I play in competitive matches all the time and a situation like this over two words has never come up. Do you enjoy strawman arguments?

kirblar said:
That's not what the read is. The implied meaning is "Show me that you have the combo available, and I'll scoop (rather than waste precious game time that will result in an inevitable outcome.)"
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In what universe do you live in where "show me" has an IMPLIED meaning of "I will concede?" Seriously, you are grasping for straws here. Are you Flores or some shit? Go study the English language some more if you truly believe in what you are typing up here.

Pandaman said:
'show me' has always meant 'play it out' to me.
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Sinatar said:
That's how I'd interpret it.
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y2dvd said:
Honestly, what other ways are there to interpret it as in this case? There's no way to take "Show me" as "I concede" in this case.
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siddx said:
It doesn't even matter what he said exactly. There is only one circumstance in which I know the opponent has conceded the game, when he or she scoops up their cards and shuffles them back in to their deck. They can say whatever the hell they want, I quit, good game, guess I should scoop, and so on. But until they have physically removed their cards and reset their deck and life, the game is still being played and everything counts. I can't even begin to count the number of matches I've won just because I refused to assume the game was over and then watched some dipshit botch his combo. I had one guy do it twice with a high tide deck. Watching his face go from arrogant pride to painful embarrassment was very enjoyable. Too many players are impatient as fuck, hopped up on mountain dew and adhd. Always play it out, even the best players fuck up and hand a win over.
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ultron87 said:
Yeah, I don't see how that gets read as "(I concede but) show me (how you would have killed me)."
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Look at all these other people getting it! Amazing how logic works.
 
kirblar said:
What on earth is your problem?
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People trying to spread bullshit.

OnPoint said:
Fixed /nerdout
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Haly said:
Double fixed.
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siddx said:
Super nerdout
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Three spells cast you say?
Image.ashx
 
Someone would just WoG/DoJ them on the next term anyway.
 
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