Even if a PW has a static ability (or a triggered ability), it should still interact with loyalty in some way. So, for example, you could get an Elspeth with "As long as Elspeth has 5 or more loyalty counters, creatures you control have indestructible." or a Ral Zarek with "Instant and sorcery spells you cast cost X less, where X is the number of loyalty counters on Ral." in place of the current Ult abilities - meaning that you'd want to balance use of the other abilities with these buff effects. Triggered abilities could work the same, such as a Gideon with "Whenever a creature you control attacks, put a loyalty counter on Gideon." in place of a plus ability, or a Tamiyo with "Whenever you cast a spell, you may remove a loyalty counter from Tamiyo. If you do, draw a card." in lieu of the normal minus (or 0) ability. Essentially, looking at static abilities or triggered abilities that would fill a slot one of the PW's other abilities would otherwise take, and interacting in similar ways to the corresponding abilities, rather than just being things like "Creatures you control get +1/+1". If we had an anthemwalker, I could almost see it being like this:
Ajani, Pride Leader 1WW
Legendary Planeswalker - Ajani (M)
+1: Up to one target creature gains first strike until your next turn.
-1: Create a 1/1 white Cat token with lifelink.
Creatures you control get +X/+X, where X is the number of loyalty counters on Ajani, Pride Leader.
(1)
I doubt the balance is anywhere near what would be expected, but that's the general idea.
I believe he did an entire game with no words and just gifs. He also did a game with only direct flavor text from cards in the Alara block. And he played a game as a spider; and a robot. So yeah.
Anyway was a fun game to watch.
Huh. Something I'll have to keep in mind, at least, then.
@shadowlancerx: He's seriously gone through entire games averaging 5 words a post?
Honestly, the gimmick just was not fun for me to play against. It pretty much gave him a pass on posting actual content, since he just needed to come up with a short quote that was vaguely applicable to the situation at hand - the only reason I didn't push early for a lynch on him is because there was no way for me to get a scumtell from the little bit he was posting.
It was still a fun game, though, and I will definitely look forward to the next one.
If you're saying that the last scum can't hammer me for risk of being caught, Vaimes, then it means one of two things. Either scum has to NOT vote me at all - meaning they'd have to persuade everyone else that I'm town - or they have to be one of the votes already on the wagon. As it stands, only you and Tom are actively trying to push for a lynch on me. Neither Rhand or Omnom have taken that step, or we wouldn't be having this discussion. If Omnom or Rhand are scum, then I'm not sure what kind of play they would be going for here. That being said, I still will reiterate that Vaimes is my #1 scumpick, Tom second - so there's where you should look after I get lynched.
As far as Rhand's massclaim suggestion goes, he's got something planned - I'm interested to see what he's thinking of. I've already claimed (back on page 2), but I'll restate it here - I'm Vanilla Town.
@Vaimes: You're right. When I made that post, I was at work, pressed for time, and fully expecting to see a third vote on me before I had a chance to do any rereads and further posting. Given that I'm still alive, I'm able to take the opportunity to correct this.
First, regarding Tom. So far, as I've mentioned above, he has been consistently focused on me - barring his decision to quickhammer Grapefruit. From the best I could tell, he didn't give any indications of suspicion on Grapefruit previously, but I've already expressed that his posting style is not something that I can actually work with. At all. So if I'm missing something here, feel free to point it out for me. With him hammering as quickly as he did, though, and with no logic to indicate suspicion of Grapefruit beforehand, it seems (to me) to be more of an attempt to be seen more as a bussing attempt - he wants to be seen trying to lynch scum so as to secure himself as town, since most of you have been quite willing to just give him a pass based on his 'content'.
Second, regarding Omnom. Again, I'm resigned to my own death at this point. And I think I've made it pretty clear that I feel Tom should be the one looked at next - I wasn't aware that I needed to spell that out. Omnom... I'm not at the point where I'm willing to townclear him, but I also am not at the point where I'm willing to push him as scum. He has very few posts to derive any information from. His comment from his vote on Grape, that he still felt we should give Grape time to defend himself, makes me think of town. Yet I still have reservations from his initial 'claim', particularly now that we can mostly pin down the roles in the game. In particular, there is only one Mafia PR (the Roleblocker) possible based on the grid, meaning that Omnom's claim of not being 'roled' could be seen as true regardless of whether he's town or scum, as the Mafia Goon would be considered the scum equivalent of the Vanilla Townie. At this point, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but admit that he may still be scum.
I do believe that Rhand is town - there's just too many steps that have to be followed for me to see his actions here as scum, given his play up to this point. I also don't believe that Rhand thinks Omnom is scum - but as I've stated, I don't see scum actually taking the shot on Omnom over Rhand, so it makes sense to get an opinion from him of where to go next in the event that he does get killed.
So, that leaves Vaimes. And the progression here is interesting. On day 1, you had displayed no interest in me whatsoever, first putting a vote on Rhand at the close of RVS before putting the L-1 vote on Nobue. Day 2, you posted this:
I took a look at Harsh's posts to see why the mafia killed him, and didn't really come away with anything. This was his first game, and I didn't see anything that looked like a PR crumb/slip.
Kind of a small thing, but I'm not sure I see scum!Blues going "you've got until this exact time before I hammer/vote you." That, and accusing Grape of being scum for defending her. I think scum arguing that someone else is scum for knowing their alignment is preeetty ballsy and doesn't seem like her style. Alsoooo I found a Thing that makes me very very disinterested in lynching her.
---
tom, do you think your posts in this game have helped you further your wincon?
The bolded part is particularly interesting - you said you found something that made you disinterested in lynching me. I asked you in #169 to elaborate on what this thing is - you never responded to that part of the post, even when you acknowledged my correction on the gender issue. I'm more curious now, because I know there's no mechanical thing you could have found - the only PRs possible in the game based on Grape's flip are a town Doc, or a town BG and 1-shot Vig pair. So what is this 'thing' that you found, and what has changed to make it no longer apply?
And starting toDay, you were looking at Rhand or Omnom as the likely options for Grape's partner, while putting up a minor defense for me - and then, you somehow convince yourself that I'm scum because I started the wagon on Grape, and put me at L-1 'to encourage activity'.
...Yet, I'm still alive. Which tells me that one of the votes on me comes from scum, barring the outlying possibility of Omnom being scum and lurking.
If Rhand were scum, he could've easily hammered me when he posted, and gotten by without much comment - he also could've killed Omnom himself to try and pit Vaimes and Tom against each other. I'm willing to townlock him at this point, since I don't see any value for scum!Rhand to not hammer me with his last posts.
Omnom popped in to post, and likewise could've easily hammered me if he were scum. And again, I'm seeing no reason for scum!Omnom not to hammer me at that point. So I can townclear him.
All three days, I've had people looking at me as a lynch target. Tom has been consistent on that wagon, and has generally been the first one to push it. Vaimes, on the other hand, has made an interesting swing around to seeing me as scum toDay. So the question is whether Tom is tunneling or not. And based on rereading everyone (both in ISO and as a whole), I am thinking that Tom... actually may be town.
Unvote Vote: Vaimes
If Vaimes were to flip town, then I would absolutely have to lock Tom as scum in that case. But after the rereads, Tom has at least been consistent, while Vaimes's turnaround on my position within the past Day - and the unanswered question of what he supposedly found to make him uninterested in lynching me Day 2 - makes me think that he's scum trying to bring me down.
Yeh this is weird. @tom, Vaimes: if one if you is scum, can you promise to kill omnom toNight if we lynch Blues and he flips town? Then we can have a real conversation in final 3.
So, what happens in that case if Omnom flips town? Do you have a plan from there, or an idea on who is scum between Vaimes and Tom? Because I'm going to flip as VTown, and I'd be surprised if Omnom does die toNight (TBH, I'd expect scum!Vaimes or scum!Tom to probably hit you first, just based on who is the strongest player still alive at this point).
Mind you, I'm asking this with the full expectation that I won't be alive come the night, since it seems like the consensus is to lynch me, see my flip, and go from there. But I still want to see a town win, so where do you go in the event that Omnom flips town when I do, or where would you suggest for town to go if you die?
IcariiFA - Character Creation - I like the concept behind the card, but it doesn't particularly feel white - I can't help but think that costing this at 3GG, or possibly even 2GG, would have been appropriate. It's a solid card as well, and I could potentially see it being built around in a deck that wants to just keep dropping massive creatures (Emrakul, the Aeons Torn would love this). It's a solid design, but the white seems just... there. Flavorwise, this one gets top marks - I can't count the number of times I've had to create a new character for a D&D game when the last one died, and this represents the concept rather well.
void_nothing - Unified Drive - This is an interesting design, and one that seems broken at first glance - but upon reflection, I realize that it's only going to be that way if you've got significant numbers of creatures. It'll break a stalemate, and can give a bit of threat to your zero-power attackers (meaning another way to kill people with Birds of Paradise). It's certainly going to complicate combat math quite a bit, and could shift priorities for removal. With more than a handful of creatures in play, though, it completely negates toughness in combat, can make trample exceptionally good, and means that the person who has more creatures on the field will likely win due to overwhelming force, barring a board wipe. It really seems like this one should have an additional color - red would probably be the most fitting, with green a close second. From the flavor standpoint, if you give me this card alone, my thought would be more along the lines of football than baseball - I don't think of baseball as a game where you've got multiple people jumping on a single player on the other team, after all.
Raptorchan - Far-Reaching Project - Even with being legendary, and being three-colors, this card is undercosted - look at Future Sight for comparison - 5 mana and still triple blue, and it only gives you access to the top card of the library rather than the top 4. Also, does it count the top card of the library as 0 or 1 when determining how much more would need to be paid? Otherwise, it's an interesting card, but doesn't really evoke the Tetris flavor, other than involving the number 4.
This is certainly an interesting one. We'll see if this design can cut it - the Diablo series is pretty straightforward when it comes to flavor, after all.
The Lord of Destruction3BBRR
Legendary Creature - Demon (M)
Indestructible
Whenever another creature is dealt damage, that creature's controller sacrifices it.
If a player would lose life, that player sacrifices a permanent instead. If they can't, they lose the game.
When The Lord of Destruction dies, it deals 20 damage to you.
7/7
@Rhand: Yes, I'm posting less frequently and less wall-of-text style than I did in Maelstrom. Honestly, maintaining that was just taking too much of my time now that things have picked up at work (I don't have time between calls where I can sit down, read, and put together posts). I'll probably be stick with my current habit of posting, just to make things easier on myself.
Regarding the state of things so far:
Tom's voting me up again - it's interesting to note that his votes have consisted of the following:
RVS votes
Day 1 vote on me
Day 2 vote on me
Last-minute change to hammer Grapefruit
Day 3 vote on me
He's been consistently on me, except for his sudden move to hammer Grapefruit. From what I can tell, he hasn't given any reasoning for the swap to Grapefruit - though again, the gimmick posting hurts here because it makes me want to avoid his posts altogether, so I may be missing something of substance. And Osie has proven that a gimmick doesn't necessarily equate to scum. My gut tells me that I should be pushing him as scum, though, and that the sudden shift he made in his vote to quickhammer Grapefruit - despite it being an objectively correct decision - seems off to me.
Vote: tomsloger
That being said, I'll still be doing some in-depth rereads over the next few days, and seeing what I get from everyone else.
I also want to remind everyone that there are no scum PRs left, according to the grid - we've either got a town Doc, or BG/1-Shot Vig combo. Worth keeping in mind if we need to get claims from people.
No worries - Excel errors happen, and they are very easy to miss. (I am the kind of person who designs spreadsheets for anything and everything, so I know how it can be.) That said, I appreciate the extension!
A better option would be to use the capsule on your creature in response to their removal spell (or on Shimmer Myr, if you must), to put it in the graveyard and make it a valid target for one of the Glissa triggers (and the creature that just died another valid target, as long as it's an artifact creature). Then flash your creature and the capsule back out, and you can repeat the process, with both the artifact creature and capsule being put back in your GY each time to be picked up by the new set of Glissa triggers generated by your creature dying, so long as you have mana to keep recasting the creatures and activating the capsule.
(I am male, BTW, and am entirely uncertain where any opinion to the contrary came from. On the other hand, I work in a call center, and am quite used to people mistaking my gender, so... meh.)
@Grape: One of my big concerns with you is not that you made the random vote on Arcwind. It's that you did so when we were already out of RVS, and when you had just mentioned getting scum vibes off of Tom - you opted to make a completely random vote instead of going for the person you said you suspected as scum.
As for Omnom, I'm certainly not townreading him - I still feel that claim of his is suspicious, but he's been pretty quiet, so I don't have much more to base a read off of yet. However, to say that this play is overwhelmingly town is something that I can't agree with.
@Vaimes: Seriously, when did I get a sex change, and how is it I'm only now learning of this fact? (Really, when did you get the idea that I'm female, when as far as I can recall I've never clarified my gender here - nor had any real confusion over it?)
More importantly, you mentioned in #148 that you found a Thing that makes you disinterested in lynching me. I find myself exceptionally curious as to what this Thing is, and how you found it.
@Osie: This gimmick? This I like. I can understand the points you're making without any issues, but it still gives your posts some more personality. That said, regarding some of your concerns:
#143, you say that 'it's like he pretends he's himself'. Clearly, you're thinking that I'm scum trying to force myself to maintain the normal posting patterns I'd have as town. But I'm not really doing anything different from what I've done in the other game I've played here. Which makes sense, given that I'm town both here and there.
As for fearmongering, I'm not trying to do so. My issues with Tom's posts are as I've clearly stated - there just isn't enough content there for me to really get anything relevant from them, and it honestly is not a fun gimmick for me to play against. I do better with more to analyze and try to find patterns with than I do short statements. And my concerns with Grape have already been laid out - I'm not going to go into further detail there. If you decide that I'm the best lynch, I'm fine with it, so long as you then look very closely at Grape. I don't feel I'd be the best lynch (and I would prefer not to die, thank you), but so long as my death helps the town it's all good.
And yes, I'm okay in tempest land - thank you for your concern!
If you take requests,
More haiku would be quite nice.
Poetry is hard.
Ajani, Pride Leader 1WW
Legendary Planeswalker - Ajani (M)
+1: Up to one target creature gains first strike until your next turn.
-1: Create a 1/1 white Cat token with lifelink.
Creatures you control get +X/+X, where X is the number of loyalty counters on Ajani, Pride Leader.
(1)
I doubt the balance is anywhere near what would be expected, but that's the general idea.
I'm going to have to spend some time to figure out exactly what's going on here.
Because you need to produce some higher-quality videos if you're going to use those as part of your posting gimmick.
Huh. Something I'll have to keep in mind, at least, then.
Honestly, the gimmick just was not fun for me to play against. It pretty much gave him a pass on posting actual content, since he just needed to come up with a short quote that was vaguely applicable to the situation at hand - the only reason I didn't push early for a lynch on him is because there was no way for me to get a scumtell from the little bit he was posting.
It was still a fun game, though, and I will definitely look forward to the next one.
As far as Rhand's massclaim suggestion goes, he's got something planned - I'm interested to see what he's thinking of. I've already claimed (back on page 2), but I'll restate it here - I'm Vanilla Town.
First, regarding Tom. So far, as I've mentioned above, he has been consistently focused on me - barring his decision to quickhammer Grapefruit. From the best I could tell, he didn't give any indications of suspicion on Grapefruit previously, but I've already expressed that his posting style is not something that I can actually work with. At all. So if I'm missing something here, feel free to point it out for me. With him hammering as quickly as he did, though, and with no logic to indicate suspicion of Grapefruit beforehand, it seems (to me) to be more of an attempt to be seen more as a bussing attempt - he wants to be seen trying to lynch scum so as to secure himself as town, since most of you have been quite willing to just give him a pass based on his 'content'.
Second, regarding Omnom. Again, I'm resigned to my own death at this point. And I think I've made it pretty clear that I feel Tom should be the one looked at next - I wasn't aware that I needed to spell that out. Omnom... I'm not at the point where I'm willing to townclear him, but I also am not at the point where I'm willing to push him as scum. He has very few posts to derive any information from. His comment from his vote on Grape, that he still felt we should give Grape time to defend himself, makes me think of town. Yet I still have reservations from his initial 'claim', particularly now that we can mostly pin down the roles in the game. In particular, there is only one Mafia PR (the Roleblocker) possible based on the grid, meaning that Omnom's claim of not being 'roled' could be seen as true regardless of whether he's town or scum, as the Mafia Goon would be considered the scum equivalent of the Vanilla Townie. At this point, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but admit that he may still be scum.
I do believe that Rhand is town - there's just too many steps that have to be followed for me to see his actions here as scum, given his play up to this point. I also don't believe that Rhand thinks Omnom is scum - but as I've stated, I don't see scum actually taking the shot on Omnom over Rhand, so it makes sense to get an opinion from him of where to go next in the event that he does get killed.
So, that leaves Vaimes. And the progression here is interesting. On day 1, you had displayed no interest in me whatsoever, first putting a vote on Rhand at the close of RVS before putting the L-1 vote on Nobue. Day 2, you posted this:The bolded part is particularly interesting - you said you found something that made you disinterested in lynching me. I asked you in #169 to elaborate on what this thing is - you never responded to that part of the post, even when you acknowledged my correction on the gender issue. I'm more curious now, because I know there's no mechanical thing you could have found - the only PRs possible in the game based on Grape's flip are a town Doc, or a town BG and 1-shot Vig pair. So what is this 'thing' that you found, and what has changed to make it no longer apply?
And starting toDay, you were looking at Rhand or Omnom as the likely options for Grape's partner, while putting up a minor defense for me - and then, you somehow convince yourself that I'm scum because I started the wagon on Grape, and put me at L-1 'to encourage activity'.
...Yet, I'm still alive. Which tells me that one of the votes on me comes from scum, barring the outlying possibility of Omnom being scum and lurking.
If Rhand were scum, he could've easily hammered me when he posted, and gotten by without much comment - he also could've killed Omnom himself to try and pit Vaimes and Tom against each other. I'm willing to townlock him at this point, since I don't see any value for scum!Rhand to not hammer me with his last posts.
Omnom popped in to post, and likewise could've easily hammered me if he were scum. And again, I'm seeing no reason for scum!Omnom not to hammer me at that point. So I can townclear him.
All three days, I've had people looking at me as a lynch target. Tom has been consistent on that wagon, and has generally been the first one to push it. Vaimes, on the other hand, has made an interesting swing around to seeing me as scum toDay. So the question is whether Tom is tunneling or not. And based on rereading everyone (both in ISO and as a whole), I am thinking that Tom... actually may be town.
Unvote
Vote: Vaimes
If Vaimes were to flip town, then I would absolutely have to lock Tom as scum in that case. But after the rereads, Tom has at least been consistent, while Vaimes's turnaround on my position within the past Day - and the unanswered question of what he supposedly found to make him uninterested in lynching me Day 2 - makes me think that he's scum trying to bring me down.
Mind you, I'm asking this with the full expectation that I won't be alive come the night, since it seems like the consensus is to lynch me, see my flip, and go from there. But I still want to see a town win, so where do you go in the event that Omnom flips town when I do, or where would you suggest for town to go if you die?
void_nothing - Unified Drive - This is an interesting design, and one that seems broken at first glance - but upon reflection, I realize that it's only going to be that way if you've got significant numbers of creatures. It'll break a stalemate, and can give a bit of threat to your zero-power attackers (meaning another way to kill people with Birds of Paradise). It's certainly going to complicate combat math quite a bit, and could shift priorities for removal. With more than a handful of creatures in play, though, it completely negates toughness in combat, can make trample exceptionally good, and means that the person who has more creatures on the field will likely win due to overwhelming force, barring a board wipe. It really seems like this one should have an additional color - red would probably be the most fitting, with green a close second. From the flavor standpoint, if you give me this card alone, my thought would be more along the lines of football than baseball - I don't think of baseball as a game where you've got multiple people jumping on a single player on the other team, after all.
Raptorchan - Far-Reaching Project - Even with being legendary, and being three-colors, this card is undercosted - look at Future Sight for comparison - 5 mana and still triple blue, and it only gives you access to the top card of the library rather than the top 4. Also, does it count the top card of the library as 0 or 1 when determining how much more would need to be paid? Otherwise, it's an interesting card, but doesn't really evoke the Tetris flavor, other than involving the number 4.
The Lord of Destruction 3BBRR
Legendary Creature - Demon (M)
Indestructible
Whenever another creature is dealt damage, that creature's controller sacrifices it.
If a player would lose life, that player sacrifices a permanent instead. If they can't, they lose the game.
When The Lord of Destruction dies, it deals 20 damage to you.
7/7
Regarding the state of things so far:
Tom's voting me up again - it's interesting to note that his votes have consisted of the following:
RVS votes
Day 1 vote on me
Day 2 vote on me
Last-minute change to hammer Grapefruit
Day 3 vote on me
He's been consistently on me, except for his sudden move to hammer Grapefruit. From what I can tell, he hasn't given any reasoning for the swap to Grapefruit - though again, the gimmick posting hurts here because it makes me want to avoid his posts altogether, so I may be missing something of substance. And Osie has proven that a gimmick doesn't necessarily equate to scum. My gut tells me that I should be pushing him as scum, though, and that the sudden shift he made in his vote to quickhammer Grapefruit - despite it being an objectively correct decision - seems off to me.
Vote: tomsloger
That being said, I'll still be doing some in-depth rereads over the next few days, and seeing what I get from everyone else.
I also want to remind everyone that there are no scum PRs left, according to the grid - we've either got a town Doc, or BG/1-Shot Vig combo. Worth keeping in mind if we need to get claims from people.
*looks down*
When did I become a girl, exactly?
(I am male, BTW, and am entirely uncertain where any opinion to the contrary came from. On the other hand, I work in a call center, and am quite used to people mistaking my gender, so... meh.)
@Grape: One of my big concerns with you is not that you made the random vote on Arcwind. It's that you did so when we were already out of RVS, and when you had just mentioned getting scum vibes off of Tom - you opted to make a completely random vote instead of going for the person you said you suspected as scum.
As for Omnom, I'm certainly not townreading him - I still feel that claim of his is suspicious, but he's been pretty quiet, so I don't have much more to base a read off of yet. However, to say that this play is overwhelmingly town is something that I can't agree with.
@Vaimes: Seriously, when did I get a sex change, and how is it I'm only now learning of this fact? (Really, when did you get the idea that I'm female, when as far as I can recall I've never clarified my gender here - nor had any real confusion over it?)
More importantly, you mentioned in #148 that you found a Thing that makes you disinterested in lynching me. I find myself exceptionally curious as to what this Thing is, and how you found it.
@Osie: This gimmick? This I like. I can understand the points you're making without any issues, but it still gives your posts some more personality. That said, regarding some of your concerns:
#143, you say that 'it's like he pretends he's himself'. Clearly, you're thinking that I'm scum trying to force myself to maintain the normal posting patterns I'd have as town. But I'm not really doing anything different from what I've done in the other game I've played here. Which makes sense, given that I'm town both here and there.
As for fearmongering, I'm not trying to do so. My issues with Tom's posts are as I've clearly stated - there just isn't enough content there for me to really get anything relevant from them, and it honestly is not a fun gimmick for me to play against. I do better with more to analyze and try to find patterns with than I do short statements. And my concerns with Grape have already been laid out - I'm not going to go into further detail there. If you decide that I'm the best lynch, I'm fine with it, so long as you then look very closely at Grape. I don't feel I'd be the best lynch (and I would prefer not to die, thank you), but so long as my death helps the town it's all good.
And yes, I'm okay in tempest land - thank you for your concern!
If you take requests,
More haiku would be quite nice.
Poetry is hard.