With the caveat that I haven't tried this - either Vraska planeswalker might provide spot removal - and can add to B devotion. I'm not sure those are better than the Spine suggestion from Thijs1301, though. (Sidisi is pretty good for searching for silver bullets.)
Out of curiosity, what does your opponent play after sticking a Panharmonicon that makes you insta-lose?
As for recovering from (creature) board wipes - Demigod of Revenge is pretty resilient. (And someday, the cost of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet will come down - the card can help if you retain a presence if you aren't the only player with creatures when that Wrath hits.)
Not at all what you asked, but... Instead of splashing, I toss in Disks or O Stones or AiDs (I know this doesn't deal with most artifacts, but it deals with lots of enchantments) or Gate to Phyrexia.
From a pure power view it might be worse but I have so much fun playing it.
Yeah, I don't think this is a super powerful theme (but that's on purpose).
A million (or three, I forget) years ago, Prid3 suggested Destructive Force + 6/6 dragons + mana rocks + Amulets/Arches. And it worked, but... wasn't socially acceptable.
I couldn't get the Crux of Fate version to work. Doesn't mean it can't work - just didn't work for me at the time.
So I'm on current iteration of creature ramp. [I can't stop thinking about how this SHOULD be worse than enchantment ramp + mass removal version also suggested by Xyx - I must have done something wrong.]
In any case, back to theme: when opponents are on Purphoros, Waste Not, and Lurking Predators, well... the outcome is predictable.
Oh, no, I'm not losing 12 card slots to ramp, I'm losing 16 card slots to ramp! [25 land, 16 ramp/fix, 5 draw/tutor, 15 toolbox threats. Yes, the 61st card is an extra land. I'm trying it out. Don't judge me.]
The dwagons enter play on turn 3 (sometimes) or 4 (mostly).
[Actually, I could do that with just 12 slots - Dragon Arch is the worst card in the deck - but it's, like, an Arch. For Draaaaagons. So it clearly needs to stay.]
I'm having trouble visualizing how less ramp but more card draw and ETBT lands is going to work expeditiously.
If I have only, say, 6 ramp slots, then best case I'm casting Syphon Mind on Turn 3, then 2nd ramp on Turn 4, then dragon on Turn 5. And that's if I DON'T hit an ETBT land on turns 3-5 and pick up 2 of 6 pieces of ramp (or 1 Skyshroud Claim). Standard case is probably more like Turn 6, but there is also the possibility that I'm casting that dragon on Turn 7 (after the 6th land ETBT on Turn 6). I also have had an open board, so by the time the first dragon is born, I've been smacked often enough that someone can deal with it by just killing me.
I think what I'm trying to say is: Did you have a decklist in mind?
I haven't tried Xyx's excellent Wild Growth/Utopia Sprawl/Fertile Ground suggestion - will need to see if I can get the colors consistently. (That's one drawback of a dragon deck where each dragon might require a different combination of 3 colors to cast. I haven't found much use with Dragonspeaker Shaman + ilk - I don't need LESS colorless, so much as I need MORE colored. I could go back up on Lanterns & Quarries and such...)
I've been trying to get this to "work" for a while.
I didn't like ETBT lands since it's slow enough as it is - would hate to wait an additional turn for action. Landed on the following - there's probably a better way.
Essentially a Green creature-based ramp package, plus some color fixing.
Want something like 14 Green lands to have a 90% chance of having one in the opening hand to cast a dork. Mana dorks can fetch missing lands and/or chump in a pinch. Crystal Quarry/Chromatic Lantern fix colors (Crystal Quarry can also slow you down by a turn, but it at least taps for colorless, so it doesn't HAVE to slow you down if you have the colors needed through other means).
I tried Kaalia back in the day before she was $120/playset, but liked being able to hardcast dragons on turn 4 even more - replaced those slots with Captain Sisay and liked the deck a lot more.
The fatal flaw in this deck is that a single 6/6 dragon LOOKS scary and folks think is THE THREAT (even if a 6/6 with 3 opponents at 20 life each isn't REALLY scary) and so the deck typically flames out quickly (dragon gets Controlled, Pathed, etc.)
I love to play the deck, but don't think I've ever won a game with it - which might mean you should ignore any of the advice above.
Those who take part in “geeky events” are more likely to have an “elevated grandiose” level of narcissism, according to a study conducted by the University of Georgia.
Psychologists examined the personality traits of those who turn to “geek culture”, developing a Geek Culture Engagement Scale and a Geek Identity Scale to help quantify the figures.
It was found that those who scored highly on both scales were more likely to narcissists.
For anyone (like me) unfamiliar with grandiose narcisism - Wiki writes:
Grandiosity refers to an unrealistic sense of superiority—a sustained view of oneself as better than others that causes the narcissist to view others with disdain or as inferior—as well as to a sense of uniqueness: the belief that few others have anything in common with oneself and that one can only be understood by a few or very special people.
What do you think - do you see grandiose narcissism in the MTG community?
Thanks for the idea - this looks interesting! I feel like if I was going to play this deck that I would also go 5-color.
Big Game Hunter might be Dictate of Erebos/Grave Pact for the (almost) same effect (though I saw you were trying to avoid that).
Lifeline could certainly be abused by this deck - if you didn't think your opponents would do even worse. For one-sided effects, there is also Cauldron of Souls or Twilight Shepherd.
My own version of this deck (no manifest theme) had a Infinite reflection / mirrorweave theme to turn all the walls nobody cares to touch into the biggest thread on the board and do a massive alpha strike with it
Fun!
I wish the Worldspine Wurm put the 3 5/5s into play every time it left the battlefield, instead of only when it dies. I had tried a couple Colossus of Akros in there over Tree of Redemption as big dumb finishers, but I hated that the Monstrous disappeared - I also hated seeing them in the early game.
The cantrip walls feel like they compete for the same slot as Abzan Beastmaster - I like that they immediately replace themselves.
I'm definitely going to include an Sterling Grove (the one free copy I have) over an Assault Formation (I had gone up to 4 after I went a couple games without seeing one).
Fascinating to see a Miracles deck (top Legacy deck) mixed together with a Vicious Shadows deck (about as far on the other side of the competitive spectrum as possible).
For Miracles, I'm pretty sure you could port over a Legacy version (except perhaps with the full Entreat playset). Though there is this copy of Scroll Rack + Land Tax Miracles floating out there.
1) I'm pretty sure it would be possible for a study to show that females make more than 100% of male salaries, as adjusted. i.e., high school grads make 50% of college grads - if females were predominately HS grads and males were predominately college grads and females made more than the predicted ... (let's round down to) 50%, then that might be above 100% of expected wages.
2 & 3) I'm not sure what other proof could be produced. There are real-life studies that show the total effect, lab studies that demonstrate that some bias exists at all stages of the hire/negotiation/promotion life cycle, and a real-life catalog of complaints of bias. I'm inclined to believe that a corporation that is willing to pay $29MM to settle a claim of gender bias probably doesn't have a great defense. [Granted, there are other factors involved - corporations never want to go to jury trial since juries root for the underdog. But to assign a weighting of zero to the successful complaints...? That doesn't seem right.]
6) There's some work on this. Example: Dweck's articles on mindset. Abbreviating, girls and boys perform on par at math until 5th grade, then girls fall off (which she attributes to gender roles - not without some justification - i.e., there have been studies that show how teachers react differently to male/female students). She found that girls had a tougher time being called smart or clever - i.e., when they struggled with math (as everyone does eventually at some point), the girls figured they weren't smart at math and accordingly performance fell. In response, they demonstrated an intervention where they showed the girls how one can become better with practice; the group who received that intervention tracked with the male math scores through HS.
I'm mostly self-interested - by the time my 4-year old daughter is making career choices, I hope she doesn't have to choose between friendly/nonlucrative and unfriendly/lucrative (wild simplification of available choices).
7) The public is starting to hold the local tech firms (I'm in SF) accountable for having a somewhat homogeneous work force. This is requiring that they go upstream to encourage talent development - in total, the firms can't hire more than 20% females if only 80% of grads are male.
In other words, each little piece of the puzzle needs to be researched for cause, hypotheses tested, then effective hypotheses implemented over time.
I certainly hope that there are also folks researching why 10% fewer male HS grads go to college (61% vs. 71%) and are more likely to drop out (6-year graduation rate of 56% for males vs. 62% for females) and working on a fix. Counter-intuitively, females may benefit from inequality - i.e., females w/o college degree have worse wage prospects than male counterparts, so are incentivized to enroll and graduate in higher proportion.
@TerrorKingA - I liked the essay. Was the rumor of toy discontinuance ever substantiated?
It may not be as flavorful, but I might take a look at the Eldrazi primer posted by Prid3.
As to 12 Post vs. Tron - you can goldfish a lot of times to try it out, but I found that I rarely had 7 available on Turn 3 with either. Turn 4 is more realistic to get going. Once they get going, 12 Post tends to be a lot stronger. Also note that 'post is banned in Modern while Tron is not. YMMV.
Thanks - I'm very clear on your perspective. I was interested in newshadow23's perspective. I know that there COULD be another explanation, I was asking newshadow23 whether s/he BELIEVED that there was another explanation.
Edit:
I would be interested in whether there is anything that would convince you that there is an issue with female compensation. There are research studies behind all of these statements.
We have a history of sexism as a country. These beliefs are still held today by a minority of individuals.
We have a history of wage inequality. We have current studies that are unable to fully explain the wage gap (and those studies even include gender in the industry/occupation as one of the explanatory factors). There are studies that show that traditionally female occupations pay less than traditionally male occupations. There are studies that show that equivalent work (i.e., administrative) offers higher wages in a traditionally male industry than a traditionally female industry.
There are studies that find that identical performance by a male is more likely to end in a job hire.
There are studies that show that identical resumes with male vs. female names at the top result in higher offered compensation for the male names.
There are studies that show that performance reports treat males more favorably than females. There are studies that show females are promoted at a lower rate than males.
There are studies that show that females are more likely to experience negative consequences when negotiating for higher wages.
We have ongoing lawsuits that demonstrate wage inequality. And this is despite the fear of retaliation (which currently happens to be the #1 EEOC complaint).
The approach taken is always: observe gap, add covariates, see if gap disappears. This is a fundamentally different argument than observe gap, measure discrimination, see if gap disappears. In the former case we are seeing if extraneous things (not sexism) potentially explain the gender pay gap, and then when they don't inferring sexism. In the second case, we are actually measuring directly if discrimination is causing the gap instead of inferring from absence.
Thanks for the explanation.
I appreciate that it's difficult to measure with the tools we have. Let's say that the wage difference is actually zero in the real world. Do you have any thoughts on why so many (all? nearly all?) of the studies point to the same result? I might have thought that if the actual number was zero, that we'd see studies with a range from (let's say) 90-110%, with a cluster near 100%?
I'm also curious on how you look at the explained differences that potentially be construed to have a component of discrimination. i.e., some of these studies use % of females in the occupation as a factor (with more females = lower wages)?
Side Note: Law suits don't prove truth, at least in terms of a scientific point of fact.
Are you making the technical point that settled lawsuits differ from research studies, or are you suggesting that wage discrimination did not actually occur in the settled lawsuits?
Out of curiosity, what does your opponent play after sticking a Panharmonicon that makes you insta-lose?
As for recovering from (creature) board wipes - Demigod of Revenge is pretty resilient. (And someday, the cost of Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet will come down - the card can help if you retain a presence if you aren't the only player with creatures when that Wrath hits.)
I see - could be fun - blockers and something to do in the middle if a Dragon isn't available. Thanks!
Yeah, I don't think this is a super powerful theme (but that's on purpose).
A million (or three, I forget) years ago, Prid3 suggested Destructive Force + 6/6 dragons + mana rocks + Amulets/Arches. And it worked, but... wasn't socially acceptable.
I couldn't get the Crux of Fate version to work. Doesn't mean it can't work - just didn't work for me at the time.
So I'm on current iteration of creature ramp. [I can't stop thinking about how this SHOULD be worse than enchantment ramp + mass removal version also suggested by Xyx - I must have done something wrong.]
In any case, back to theme: when opponents are on Purphoros, Waste Not, and Lurking Predators, well... the outcome is predictable.
The dwagons enter play on turn 3 (sometimes) or 4 (mostly).
[Actually, I could do that with just 12 slots - Dragon Arch is the worst card in the deck - but it's, like, an Arch. For Draaaaagons. So it clearly needs to stay.]
I'm having trouble visualizing how less ramp but more card draw and ETBT lands is going to work expeditiously.
If I have only, say, 6 ramp slots, then best case I'm casting Syphon Mind on Turn 3, then 2nd ramp on Turn 4, then dragon on Turn 5. And that's if I DON'T hit an ETBT land on turns 3-5 and pick up 2 of 6 pieces of ramp (or 1 Skyshroud Claim). Standard case is probably more like Turn 6, but there is also the possibility that I'm casting that dragon on Turn 7 (after the 6th land ETBT on Turn 6). I also have had an open board, so by the time the first dragon is born, I've been smacked often enough that someone can deal with it by just killing me.
I think what I'm trying to say is: Did you have a decklist in mind?
I haven't tried Xyx's excellent Wild Growth/Utopia Sprawl/Fertile Ground suggestion - will need to see if I can get the colors consistently. (That's one drawback of a dragon deck where each dragon might require a different combination of 3 colors to cast. I haven't found much use with Dragonspeaker Shaman + ilk - I don't need LESS colorless, so much as I need MORE colored. I could go back up on Lanterns & Quarries and such...)
I didn't like ETBT lands since it's slow enough as it is - would hate to wait an additional turn for action. Landed on the following - there's probably a better way.
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
2 Crystal Quarry
2 Chromatic Lantern
1 Plains
1 Swamp
1 Mountain
1 Island
9 Forest (or more)
4 Dragon Arch (Quicksilver Amulet is better - comes down a turn sooner - but this is on-theme)
+Check Lands / Exotic Orchards / Unclaimed Territory / Havens (to taste)
Essentially a Green creature-based ramp package, plus some color fixing.
Want something like 14 Green lands to have a 90% chance of having one in the opening hand to cast a dork. Mana dorks can fetch missing lands and/or chump in a pinch. Crystal Quarry/Chromatic Lantern fix colors (Crystal Quarry can also slow you down by a turn, but it at least taps for colorless, so it doesn't HAVE to slow you down if you have the colors needed through other means).
When reprinted, grab a playset of Captain Sisay a copy of the legendary lands (Minamo, Shinka, etc.) and a Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth.
I tried Kaalia back in the day before she was $120/playset, but liked being able to hardcast dragons on turn 4 even more - replaced those slots with Captain Sisay and liked the deck a lot more.
The fatal flaw in this deck is that a single 6/6 dragon LOOKS scary and folks think is THE THREAT (even if a 6/6 with 3 opponents at 20 life each isn't REALLY scary) and so the deck typically flames out quickly (dragon gets Controlled, Pathed, etc.)
I love to play the deck, but don't think I've ever won a game with it - which might mean you should ignore any of the advice above.
What do you think - do you see grandiose narcissism in the MTG community?
Big Game Hunter might be Dictate of Erebos/Grave Pact for the (almost) same effect (though I saw you were trying to avoid that).
Lifeline could certainly be abused by this deck - if you didn't think your opponents would do even worse. For one-sided effects, there is also Cauldron of Souls or Twilight Shepherd.
I don't think Lifeline and Door of Destinies interact the way you hope they might - Door of Destinies gets charge counters only when you cast spells.
I wish the Worldspine Wurm put the 3 5/5s into play every time it left the battlefield, instead of only when it dies. I had tried a couple Colossus of Akros in there over Tree of Redemption as big dumb finishers, but I hated that the Monstrous disappeared - I also hated seeing them in the early game.
The cantrip walls feel like they compete for the same slot as Abzan Beastmaster - I like that they immediately replace themselves.
I'm definitely going to include an Sterling Grove (the one free copy I have) over an Assault Formation (I had gone up to 4 after I went a couple games without seeing one).
For Vicious Shadows, cards to consider might include Awakening Zone, Sprouting Thrinax, Dingus Staff, From Beyond, Mitotic Slime, Mycoloth, and Phyrexian Altar.
For Miracles, I'm pretty sure you could port over a Legacy version (except perhaps with the full Entreat playset). Though there is this copy of Scroll Rack + Land Tax Miracles floating out there.
I have no idea how to combine the two.
Do they make more money than you?
w/r/t Slave Leia - y'all were probably aware of this, but there's a wide range of toys.
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Princess-Outfit-Figure/dp/B00CFELUZS (creepy!)
http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Outfit-Figure-Vintage-Collection/dp/B0085XPF5O
http://www.amazon.com/Kotobukiya-Princess-Leia-Slave-Return/dp/B000FQ9X6G
http://www.amazon.com/Star-Wars-Princess-Jabbas-Deluxe/dp/B000IO6P2K (I don't recall this pose in the movie)
1) I'm pretty sure it would be possible for a study to show that females make more than 100% of male salaries, as adjusted. i.e., high school grads make 50% of college grads - if females were predominately HS grads and males were predominately college grads and females made more than the predicted ... (let's round down to) 50%, then that might be above 100% of expected wages.
2 & 3) I'm not sure what other proof could be produced. There are real-life studies that show the total effect, lab studies that demonstrate that some bias exists at all stages of the hire/negotiation/promotion life cycle, and a real-life catalog of complaints of bias. I'm inclined to believe that a corporation that is willing to pay $29MM to settle a claim of gender bias probably doesn't have a great defense. [Granted, there are other factors involved - corporations never want to go to jury trial since juries root for the underdog. But to assign a weighting of zero to the successful complaints...? That doesn't seem right.]
6) There's some work on this. Example: Dweck's articles on mindset. Abbreviating, girls and boys perform on par at math until 5th grade, then girls fall off (which she attributes to gender roles - not without some justification - i.e., there have been studies that show how teachers react differently to male/female students). She found that girls had a tougher time being called smart or clever - i.e., when they struggled with math (as everyone does eventually at some point), the girls figured they weren't smart at math and accordingly performance fell. In response, they demonstrated an intervention where they showed the girls how one can become better with practice; the group who received that intervention tracked with the male math scores through HS.
I'm mostly self-interested - by the time my 4-year old daughter is making career choices, I hope she doesn't have to choose between friendly/nonlucrative and unfriendly/lucrative (wild simplification of available choices).
7) The public is starting to hold the local tech firms (I'm in SF) accountable for having a somewhat homogeneous work force. This is requiring that they go upstream to encourage talent development - in total, the firms can't hire more than 20% females if only 80% of grads are male.
In other words, each little piece of the puzzle needs to be researched for cause, hypotheses tested, then effective hypotheses implemented over time.
I certainly hope that there are also folks researching why 10% fewer male HS grads go to college (61% vs. 71%) and are more likely to drop out (6-year graduation rate of 56% for males vs. 62% for females) and working on a fix. Counter-intuitively, females may benefit from inequality - i.e., females w/o college degree have worse wage prospects than male counterparts, so are incentivized to enroll and graduate in higher proportion.
@TerrorKingA - I liked the essay. Was the rumor of toy discontinuance ever substantiated?
As to 12 Post vs. Tron - you can goldfish a lot of times to try it out, but I found that I rarely had 7 available on Turn 3 with either. Turn 4 is more realistic to get going. Once they get going, 12 Post tends to be a lot stronger. Also note that 'post is banned in Modern while Tron is not. YMMV.
Edit:
I would be interested in whether there is anything that would convince you that there is an issue with female compensation. There are research studies behind all of these statements.
We have a history of sexism as a country. These beliefs are still held today by a minority of individuals.
We have a history of wage inequality. We have current studies that are unable to fully explain the wage gap (and those studies even include gender in the industry/occupation as one of the explanatory factors). There are studies that show that traditionally female occupations pay less than traditionally male occupations. There are studies that show that equivalent work (i.e., administrative) offers higher wages in a traditionally male industry than a traditionally female industry.
There are studies that find that identical performance by a male is more likely to end in a job hire.
There are studies that show that identical resumes with male vs. female names at the top result in higher offered compensation for the male names.
There are studies that show that performance reports treat males more favorably than females. There are studies that show females are promoted at a lower rate than males.
There are studies that show that females are more likely to experience negative consequences when negotiating for higher wages.
We have ongoing lawsuits that demonstrate wage inequality. And this is despite the fear of retaliation (which currently happens to be the #1 EEOC complaint).
I appreciate that it's difficult to measure with the tools we have. Let's say that the wage difference is actually zero in the real world. Do you have any thoughts on why so many (all? nearly all?) of the studies point to the same result? I might have thought that if the actual number was zero, that we'd see studies with a range from (let's say) 90-110%, with a cluster near 100%?
I'm also curious on how you look at the explained differences that potentially be construed to have a component of discrimination. i.e., some of these studies use % of females in the occupation as a factor (with more females = lower wages)?
Are you making the technical point that settled lawsuits differ from research studies, or are you suggesting that wage discrimination did not actually occur in the settled lawsuits?