I've been playing Magic drafts semi-regularly since 2/8, when I went to a pre-release event for the new set. Since that time, I've steadily lost confidence in myself and my ability to make good decisions. I'm starting to dislike myself a lot. This is why I quit the game in the first place.
Knowing this, I kept at it to see if I could work through some of these issues; they come up in other areas of life, too. So far they seem insurmountable–I may be at my cognitive limit. That really scares me.
I do want to be clear about one point: this isn't about losing a game in a general sense. Variance is a real thing–I don't expect to win. When I review game logs after the fact to see how I can improve, I notice decisions I made that don't make sense given the information I have: I didn't notice, couldn't pay attention, or did the math wrong.
I don't think that I'm stupid (except in my darkest moments, maybe), but if I can't focus and make good decisions, what is the practical difference there?
We have reached December in Pandemic Legacy: Season One, which means we have one or two games remaining in this campaign. We started playing it in 2016.
I'm going to play in a Magic Prerelease event on Thursday for the new set, "Murders at Karlov Manor." I love detective fiction and the theme pulled me in! (I laughed out loud at "Case of the Gateway Express.")
It's been years since I've played at all, so I'm a bit nervous... but I've reviewed the mechanics and I think the sealed deck format will help me avoid any drafting mistakes.
If you went to an MKM Prerelease, any advice? What surprised you about the format?
@tailsy I played a 2v2 sealed event and had a blast!
Two things that I found important for this limited environment:
1/ disguised creatures (face down) are 2/2 and numerous, so having a 3/3 or a 2/4 is a big deal.
2/ a concept that was brought from the time of the morph ability: to flip a creature with stats that would eat an opposing 2/2 creature without dying, the mana cost is always at least 5. So if your opponent has less than 5 mana open, worst could happen is that the creatures trade.
@tailsy I played one last week and played a BRG list featuring Incinerator of the Guilty, but saw I could have built a RW deck as well. One thing I noticed was that I got a lot of multicolour cards in my pool and I would recommend considering those last unless you get something that really makes you want to play those colours.
Otherwise, your preparation is plenty! Go in, see what looks fun to you and jam some games!
We should probably think twice before sharing personal data with sites named things like "Spoutible." I'm not giving any useful (meaning "accurate" or "true") information to "ThirsteeShare" or "AttentionSlut" or whatever.
Please don't share information you can't afford to lose with web companies. It will get out.
To summarize, a useful method for composers is to think about harmonizing each note of your melody by asking, "is this the root, third, or fifth of a major or minor chord?" This itself is limiting, so you can also extend it by treating the melody note as the 9th, 11th, 13th, b9, etc.
The video plays an example of harmonizing the note C with all options in this strategy. Listen to the different colors. 🎵
I get the impression from social media (not a great place for impressions, to be fair) that retrogaming is 10% playing old games and 90% "hey, look what I have!"
This bums me out: I really don't need a hobby that values positional goods above experiences. I understand the feeling of "now that I'm an adult I can buy all the things I missed out on when I was a kid," but it's much harder to buy the experiences you missed out on when you were a kid–especially if you don't play the games.
Twice so far this month I've wondered what it would take to apply to/register for something, only to discover when I look into it that the application deadline is the very next day. 😅
(In neither case was one day enough time to actually apply/register for the thing.)
I forgot how much body horror there is in the first part of “The Matrix,” and I wasn’t ready for it on the big screen! Still a fun watch. It had been many, many years since I last saw it, even though it was one of those DVDs that everyone owned in the 2000s.
We played the one-shot RPG “Alice is Missing” tonight, and wow. What an experience. I don’t think it’s for everyone, but our group had a powerfully emotional evening that I think I’ll be processing for a while. I’m grateful for it. Woof.
Our cat Tyson is not feeling well tonight, and I’m worried about him. I don’t feel well. No distractions are distracting enough. We went through this last month, too.
Right now he’s resting, but I don’t know. You never know, I guess. ❤️🩹
Tyson is doing better this morning. He hasn't eaten much today, but his behavior is back to normal. I still don't want to be far from him for very long.
I tried playing "Eagle Eye Mysteries," but it crashed with "decompression error!" when I went to accuse someone of robbing a bank–twice, in the same place. I'll figure it out... I guess the culprit hacked me from inside the game, thirty years ago!
In the meantime, this has got to be the coolest tree house I've ever seen. It certainly beats the treehouse in "The Adventures of Willy Beamish." So jealous.
After some "research" (very quick survey of games I already know) into detective game deduction interfaces, I found two excellent videos on the topic from GMTK. (They're five years apart, notably separated by the release of "Return of the Obra Dinn.")
Of course they're "excellent" because they confirm my biases: too many interfaces cheat the player out of genuine deduction through prompting.