I love in-game politics, the "pillow fort" strategy, and control decks. Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer is a great commander that combines all three! Currently, this deck runs 20 creatures (including the commander), 40 noncreature spells, and 40 lands. I find the approximate 20-40-40 ratio works well for control decks in Commander.
The strategy of this deck is fairly straightforward:
1) Play walls and pillow fort spells to discourage opponents from attacking you.
2) Police the table with utility creatures and removal, counter, and defensive spells.
3) Play big creatures and theft spells late game to win. Working the in-game politics is key to winning with this deck.
These are cards I included in the deck because they create fun political interactions with opponents:
Wall of Shards - A nice big wall that can block almost anything. It's also political because you can hand out life for good behavior or favors. You can turn it off at any time by refusing to pay the cumulative upkeep.
Sleep - If one player is getting too powerful, Sleep is a great way to encourage the table to beat on him for one or two turns.
Prison Term - This accomplishes everything Arrest does, except that you can move it onto future creatures. Choosing whether or not to move it is a useful political weapon.
Captivating Glance - This card allows you to take a creature away from an opponent, give it to yourself or another player (depending on the clash), and filter the top card of your library each turn--all for 3 mana! It's deliciously political.
Trade Secrets - Using this to help a weak player get back into the game will buy you a lot of good will (and card advantage). Every once in a while someone will want to do an insane draw, which can be hilarious or terrifying.
Unbender Tine - Such a simple ability, yet such a vast array of options: untap a land for more mana, a card which enters the battlefield tapped, a tapped creature so it can block, another permanent with a tap ability so it can be activated twice, etc. So many ways to help yourself and other players.
Coming Soon
This deck is a work in progress, so any suggestions are welcome!
Too often Chain Reaction wasn't getting the job done. Now I'm running Dissipation Field, because it fits the pillow fort theme (psychological deterrence and tempo disruption).
I've always loved damage deflection spells. This one is the best, being able to protect multiple targets (including planeswalkers). Mimic Vat sometimes made me too much of a threat, hurting my pillow fort strategy, so it's out.
I'm pretty sure you are the one who has forgotten why it exists (hint: it's the thing about love).
Quote from Blinking Spirit »
Actually, it sort of is. You're assumed to have a special commitment to your spouse's best interests, and so you can be afforded special privileges to do with your spouse's finances and medical care and so on.
To say that the primary purpose of marriage is to formally recognize the romantic bond between individuals is intellectually naive and factually false. People have criticized my position by saying, "Does the government require married people to have children? No? Well, then children have nothing to do with it." Guess what? I can do the same thing: "Does the government require married people to love each other? No? Well, then love has nothing to do with it."
This whole idea that marriage exists to formalize loving relationships is a Hollywood fantasy. If you look at the history of the institution, you'll see that this isn't the case. Marriage exists to secure familial, social, and economic stability. Why? Because it is necessary for the perpetuation of society. Traditionally, marriage existed for the sake of children--to regulate their creation and establish an optimal environment for them to be raised in. But today, some people want to redefine it for the convenience of adults; to make it some sort of unintelligible contract between individuals who "love each other". The problem with that, is that it doesn't make any sense. Why should the government give benefits to a couple just because they love each other? It's an absurd waste of resources.
Maybe one day you folks will take a look at history and understand the real reasons for why the institution of marriage exists. Until then, there really isn't much more for me to say. Indulging this delusion any longer would be a waste of time.
Yeah except for the part where WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT HOLDING DOORS OPEN FOR PEOPLE. That is more than a bit important.
I was using the example to illustrate my point about appealing to tradition in simpler terms. I am not suggesting that holding doors for people is of equal importance to the tradition of marriage.
Quote from Frostshock! »
Is there a law or otherwise a bit of government legislature that requires a marriage to be valid only in the case that the party involved has a child or multiple children? Yes or no. Because if it's no, you're whole argument, as so many others have eloquently shown, is not valid.
You don't seem to understand the difference between the purpose of a thing and the use of a thing. I know it's a hard concept, so I'll try to break it down for you:
If I create a chair for the purpose of sitting on it, and then one day use it to stand on, to place a book on my bookshelf, I am not fulfilling its purpose. But that doesn't mean the chair does not have a purpose. Nor does it mean that my use of it causes its purpose to no longer exist or have value. In fact, I could argue that that particular use of the chair is improper, perhaps because the chair is not as structurally sound as a step ladder. And if I saw everyone standing on chairs, I might argue against doing so, because that is not the purpose of chairs.
It is the same with social institutions, like marriage. Marriage was created for the purpose of creating new families (i.e. the union of man and woman with the expectation of reproduction and child rearing). In many ways the institution exists for the sake of children. That is its purpose and that purpose has value. In practice, people might use marriage for other reasons, but as long as their uses are within the basic framework of the institution, they do not threaten its purpose. Legalizing gay marriage would redefine the institution--namely, by no longer limiting it to heterosexual couples, which in turn removes the expectation of reproduction, which in turn does not result in family creation. If society does this, it rejects the purpose of the institution. And that, many conservatives believe, will have negative social consequences.
The institution of the family is already weakened, in the West, because, as your posts have demonstrated, many people have forgotten why it exists. Legalizing gay marriage would only harm it further (by making traditional marriage and family creation less of a social norm).
No. The civilizing aspects of society are justified by non-fallaciously demonstrating that they have specific desirable consequences. If it can only be justified by a fallacy, then it cannot be justified.
Take the tradition of a man holding a door for a woman. There's no way to "demonstrate the specific desirable consequences" of it, because in the end it's just a polite custom. It's not logically necessary. Yet, if one defends such a custom--with an appeal to tradition--there is nothing wrong with that. That's what I'm talking about.
Quote from Blinking Spirit »
The purpose of marriage is the formal recognition of a new family unit created by romantic partners cohabiting for what they intend to be the long term...society has an interest in such recognition because it allows public and private entities to extend special benefits to members of the same family that would not be appropriate to extend to random people.
1) People get married for unromantic reasons every day. Romance, while ideal, is not necessary for marriage.
2) Why does the government extend benefits to families? It's not because of romantic commitment, that's for sure. And the government certainly doesn't care about roommates cohabiting for economic convenience. It's because of children. Children (and to a certain extent, older relatives) are expected to be the dependents in families and that is why most of the benefits exist. That, and the orderly transfer of property ownership after deaths in the family.
So any argument you make based on reproduction is going to apply equally to infertile couples and to homosexual couples. You can't just wave your hand and say that one couple "upsets" the purpose and the other "does not achieve" it.
Did you read my response or are you deliberately being obtuse? As I mentioned a few posts back, it would be an invasion of privacy to inquire whether couples were infertile or had a desire to reproduce before getting married. Thankfully, we don't live in a totalitarian society where such theoretical purity is demanded. Limiting marriage to man and woman is consistent with the purpose of the institution without requiring the fulfillment of that purpose. Expanding marriage to homosexuals contradicts the purpose of the institution (because of the nature of homosexuality) and thus redefines the institution. If you can't understand that difference, than there is no point in continuing the debate.
Quote from Blinking Spirit »
All of which is, in fact, fallacious. Sometimes things exist for a long time without having a real positive purpose. And the fear of unforeseen consequences applied consistently, can only lead to paralysis, because anything at all can have unforeseen consequences. No. If you want to make an argument, state outright the positive purpose of the thing you're defending and also state the negative consequences of getting rid of it. Don't expect people to just assume the purpose and the consequences must be there, because they mustn't. And don't call it prudence, because it isn't.
I never claimed an appeal to tradition wasn't a logical fallacy. I simply claimed it wasn't wrong. Some people appeal to faith. That too is a fallacy, but not necessarily wrong. You know, there is more to life than cold hard logic. Some of the most civilizing aspects of society are justified by logical fallacies. Often it is more prudent to stick with a working, successful tradition than to turn everything upside down for the sake of ideological purity. The truth is, you really have no idea what the consequences of redefining marriage are and "let's change it and see what happens" is hardly a prudent policy.
And I find it very telling, that no liberal has yet explained what he thinks the purpose of marriage is (since my definition is so obviously wrong).
Why do you think that marriage, according to your appeal to tradition (an argument which you failed to address, by the way), should maintain its now oft-useless tradition?
1) Just because an institution has changed, does not mean that is has changed for the better. I'm not arguing that traditional marriage is perfectly practiced in modern society. I'm arguing that it is worth practicing and worth defending.
2) There's nothing wrong with an appeal to tradition. Traditions contain practical knowledge that is only truly understood by experiencing them. When someone says, "We should do X because X has been done for a thousand years" it is a shortcut for saying, "There must be some purpose for X because it exists and has lasted for so long, and doing away with X will have unforseen consequences, some of which may be negative."
It's dishonest to claim that redefining a millenia-old institution will have no social consequences and that none of those consequences will be negative. You may not agree with the conservative position, but it is a prudent position.
Quote from azmod »
The government regulates marriage because it gives married couples extra benefits and privileges. It gives out those benefits and privileges because people living in stable family units can support each other better than if everyone lived on their own.
Yes, and why does the government give married couples benefits and privileges? You answered it yourself: because it expects them to create a family unit. Family creation is the only reason the government cares about marriage, and heterosexual reproduction is the natural and normal mode of family creation.
This is the part where you torpedo your own argument. A same-sex marriage is a "particular case" just as an infertile heterosexual marriage is.
No, it's not a torpedo. This is the part you folks can't seem to understand. Traditional marriage expects, but does not require, heterosexual reproduction. Infertile heterosexual couples do not upset the purpose of the institution (the framework of one man, one woman is maintained)--they are simply a case in which the purpose is not achieved. This could even happen with fertile couples (like when a spouse dies before having children).
Homosexual couples, on the other had, cannot ever reproduce with each other. So to allow them to marry would obliterate the expectation of reproduction and fundamentally change the social purpose of the institution. It would be to say that reproduction is not the primary purpose of the institution, when, for thousands of years, it has been the purpose.
And if reproduction is not the primary purpose of marriage, then what is? And why should the government regulate it? And does this new purpose make sense given the nature of man, society, and the historical development of the institution? Liberals always struggle to give realistic answers to these questions.
1 Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer
Big Creatures (6)
1 Iona, Shield of Emeria
1 Blazing Archon
1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
1 Baneslayer Angel
1 Stormtide Leviathan
1 Sphinx of Uthuun
Wall Creatures (6)
1 Wall of Reverence
1 Wall of Shards
1 Wall of Denial
1 Gomazoa
1 Guard Gomazoa
1 Fog Bank
Utility Creatures (7)
1 Sunblast Angel
1 Windborn Muse
1 Aven Mindcensor
1 Intrepid Hero
1 Grand Abolisher
1 Azorius Guildmage
1 Clone
Pillow Fort Spells (5)
1 Martyr's Bond
1 Soul Snare
1 Ghostly Prison
1 Propaganda
1 Dissipation Field
1 Congregate
1 Dawn Charm
1 Pollen Lullaby
1 Holy Day
1 Sleep
Removal Spells (12)
1 Akroma's Vengeance
1 Austere Command
1 Day of Judgment
1 Prison Term
1 Swords to Plowshares
1 Path to Exile
1 Condemn
1 Spin Into Myth
1 Oblation
1 Oblivion Ring
1 Return to Dust
1 Relic of Progenitus
Counter Spells (4)
1 Arcane Denial
1 Counterspell
1 Deprive
1 Negate
Theft Spells (4)
1 Blatant Thievery
1 Volition Reins
1 Mind Control
1 Captivating Glance
1 Future Sight
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Rhystic Study
1 Trade Secrets
1 Staff of Nin
1 Crystal Ball
Mana Artifacts (4)
1 Unbender Tine
1 Darksteel Ingot
1 Armillary Sphere
1 Azorius Signet
Lands (40)
1 Mystifying Maze
1 Prahv, Spires of Order
1 Ghost Quarter
1 Tectonic Edge
1 Celestial Colonnade
1 Temple of the False God
1 Glacial Fortress
1 Sejiri Refuge
1 Azorius Chancery
1 Command Tower
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Secluded Steppe
1 Lonely Sandbar
13 Plains
13 Island
1) Play walls and pillow fort spells to discourage opponents from attacking you.
2) Police the table with utility creatures and removal, counter, and defensive spells.
3) Play big creatures and theft spells late game to win. Working the in-game politics is key to winning with this deck.
Wall of Shards - A nice big wall that can block almost anything. It's also political because you can hand out life for good behavior or favors. You can turn it off at any time by refusing to pay the cumulative upkeep.
Sleep - If one player is getting too powerful, Sleep is a great way to encourage the table to beat on him for one or two turns.
Prison Term - This accomplishes everything Arrest does, except that you can move it onto future creatures. Choosing whether or not to move it is a useful political weapon.
Captivating Glance - This card allows you to take a creature away from an opponent, give it to yourself or another player (depending on the clash), and filter the top card of your library each turn--all for 3 mana! It's deliciously political.
Trade Secrets - Using this to help a weak player get back into the game will buy you a lot of good will (and card advantage). Every once in a while someone will want to do an insane draw, which can be hilarious or terrifying.
Unbender Tine - Such a simple ability, yet such a vast array of options: untap a land for more mana, a card which enters the battlefield tapped, a tapped creature so it can block, another permanent with a tap ability so it can be activated twice, etc. So many ways to help yourself and other players.
- Viashino Heretic
- Relic of Progenitus
- Mystic Retrieval
- Divine Deflection
+ Clone
+ Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs
+ Wildfire
+ Destructive Force
Clone is a poor man's Phyrexian Metamorph. It's a versatile card and a great way to remove hard-to-kill commanders (via the legendary rule). Kazuul, Tyrant of the Cliffs adds to the pillow fort strategy (as recommended). Wildfire and Destructive Force synergize with Numot, the Devastator: Numot survives the burn, and the mass land destruction helps him control opponents' mana bases.
Unfortunately it has garbage art. (Nils Hamm strikes again!)
IN: Grand Abolisher
OUT: Aven Mindcensor
Grand Abolisher is awesome. You don't really get a sense of how good he is until he's used against you. No more funny business on my turn!
IN: Dissipation Field
OUT: Chain Reaction
Too often Chain Reaction wasn't getting the job done. Now I'm running Dissipation Field, because it fits the pillow fort theme (psychological deterrence and tempo disruption).
IN: Divine Deflection
OUT: Mimic Vat
I've always loved damage deflection spells. This one is the best, being able to protect multiple targets (including planeswalkers). Mimic Vat sometimes made me too much of a threat, hurting my pillow fort strategy, so it's out.
For me, Nils Hamm's work has always been hit or miss. Maybe this will look better on a real card...
The artwork is awful.
Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that. Totem Armor is cool.
To say that the primary purpose of marriage is to formally recognize the romantic bond between individuals is intellectually naive and factually false. People have criticized my position by saying, "Does the government require married people to have children? No? Well, then children have nothing to do with it." Guess what? I can do the same thing: "Does the government require married people to love each other? No? Well, then love has nothing to do with it."
This whole idea that marriage exists to formalize loving relationships is a Hollywood fantasy. If you look at the history of the institution, you'll see that this isn't the case. Marriage exists to secure familial, social, and economic stability. Why? Because it is necessary for the perpetuation of society. Traditionally, marriage existed for the sake of children--to regulate their creation and establish an optimal environment for them to be raised in. But today, some people want to redefine it for the convenience of adults; to make it some sort of unintelligible contract between individuals who "love each other". The problem with that, is that it doesn't make any sense. Why should the government give benefits to a couple just because they love each other? It's an absurd waste of resources.
Maybe one day you folks will take a look at history and understand the real reasons for why the institution of marriage exists. Until then, there really isn't much more for me to say. Indulging this delusion any longer would be a waste of time.
I was using the example to illustrate my point about appealing to tradition in simpler terms. I am not suggesting that holding doors for people is of equal importance to the tradition of marriage.
You don't seem to understand the difference between the purpose of a thing and the use of a thing. I know it's a hard concept, so I'll try to break it down for you:
If I create a chair for the purpose of sitting on it, and then one day use it to stand on, to place a book on my bookshelf, I am not fulfilling its purpose. But that doesn't mean the chair does not have a purpose. Nor does it mean that my use of it causes its purpose to no longer exist or have value. In fact, I could argue that that particular use of the chair is improper, perhaps because the chair is not as structurally sound as a step ladder. And if I saw everyone standing on chairs, I might argue against doing so, because that is not the purpose of chairs.
It is the same with social institutions, like marriage. Marriage was created for the purpose of creating new families (i.e. the union of man and woman with the expectation of reproduction and child rearing). In many ways the institution exists for the sake of children. That is its purpose and that purpose has value. In practice, people might use marriage for other reasons, but as long as their uses are within the basic framework of the institution, they do not threaten its purpose. Legalizing gay marriage would redefine the institution--namely, by no longer limiting it to heterosexual couples, which in turn removes the expectation of reproduction, which in turn does not result in family creation. If society does this, it rejects the purpose of the institution. And that, many conservatives believe, will have negative social consequences.
The institution of the family is already weakened, in the West, because, as your posts have demonstrated, many people have forgotten why it exists. Legalizing gay marriage would only harm it further (by making traditional marriage and family creation less of a social norm).
Take the tradition of a man holding a door for a woman. There's no way to "demonstrate the specific desirable consequences" of it, because in the end it's just a polite custom. It's not logically necessary. Yet, if one defends such a custom--with an appeal to tradition--there is nothing wrong with that. That's what I'm talking about.
1) People get married for unromantic reasons every day. Romance, while ideal, is not necessary for marriage.
2) Why does the government extend benefits to families? It's not because of romantic commitment, that's for sure. And the government certainly doesn't care about roommates cohabiting for economic convenience. It's because of children. Children (and to a certain extent, older relatives) are expected to be the dependents in families and that is why most of the benefits exist. That, and the orderly transfer of property ownership after deaths in the family.
Did you read my response or are you deliberately being obtuse? As I mentioned a few posts back, it would be an invasion of privacy to inquire whether couples were infertile or had a desire to reproduce before getting married. Thankfully, we don't live in a totalitarian society where such theoretical purity is demanded. Limiting marriage to man and woman is consistent with the purpose of the institution without requiring the fulfillment of that purpose. Expanding marriage to homosexuals contradicts the purpose of the institution (because of the nature of homosexuality) and thus redefines the institution. If you can't understand that difference, than there is no point in continuing the debate.
I never claimed an appeal to tradition wasn't a logical fallacy. I simply claimed it wasn't wrong. Some people appeal to faith. That too is a fallacy, but not necessarily wrong. You know, there is more to life than cold hard logic. Some of the most civilizing aspects of society are justified by logical fallacies. Often it is more prudent to stick with a working, successful tradition than to turn everything upside down for the sake of ideological purity. The truth is, you really have no idea what the consequences of redefining marriage are and "let's change it and see what happens" is hardly a prudent policy.
And I find it very telling, that no liberal has yet explained what he thinks the purpose of marriage is (since my definition is so obviously wrong).
1) Just because an institution has changed, does not mean that is has changed for the better. I'm not arguing that traditional marriage is perfectly practiced in modern society. I'm arguing that it is worth practicing and worth defending.
2) There's nothing wrong with an appeal to tradition. Traditions contain practical knowledge that is only truly understood by experiencing them. When someone says, "We should do X because X has been done for a thousand years" it is a shortcut for saying, "There must be some purpose for X because it exists and has lasted for so long, and doing away with X will have unforseen consequences, some of which may be negative."
It's dishonest to claim that redefining a millenia-old institution will have no social consequences and that none of those consequences will be negative. You may not agree with the conservative position, but it is a prudent position.
Yes, and why does the government give married couples benefits and privileges? You answered it yourself: because it expects them to create a family unit. Family creation is the only reason the government cares about marriage, and heterosexual reproduction is the natural and normal mode of family creation.
No, it's not a torpedo. This is the part you folks can't seem to understand. Traditional marriage expects, but does not require, heterosexual reproduction. Infertile heterosexual couples do not upset the purpose of the institution (the framework of one man, one woman is maintained)--they are simply a case in which the purpose is not achieved. This could even happen with fertile couples (like when a spouse dies before having children).
Homosexual couples, on the other had, cannot ever reproduce with each other. So to allow them to marry would obliterate the expectation of reproduction and fundamentally change the social purpose of the institution. It would be to say that reproduction is not the primary purpose of the institution, when, for thousands of years, it has been the purpose.
And if reproduction is not the primary purpose of marriage, then what is? And why should the government regulate it? And does this new purpose make sense given the nature of man, society, and the historical development of the institution? Liberals always struggle to give realistic answers to these questions.