Favourite opening (in Maladroit, ParaFC)

[Slartucker]

D/P has long been considered the "default" opening. But is this still the case? S/P has been popular for a long time, and lately I've noticed many warlocks using S/W, an opening which was once only used by Taliesin and myself. There are plenty of other viable openings as well. Which do you prefer?

[Dubber]

For ParaMal I use either D/P or S/P, depending on the opponent's usual recent openings. It's more art than science - but D/P is becoming my fave again. S/W is nice, too, but I'm not capitalizing on it very well.

[Slartucker]

Bump! Have a vote, folks.

[k]

S/W for me, but I haven't tried D/P on a regular biasis yet

[taliesin]

I voted S/W, naturally, since it's the one my name is most often associated with. However, in practice I've played all kinds of openings.

D/P is probably the commonest opening among clueful players, and for good reason. It's straightforwardly aggressive. Far too often however it's played as it ought to be in Confusion, and people enter into DSF/PSD when DPP/PSx would be vastly stronger. This is the standard opening I would recommend without reservation for most players under, say, 1850 ELO. No matter what you're facing, tactics don't change much. I played this a lot.

S/W is different. While it's very strong against openings without a P, thanks to SFW/WWx, it needs a subtle touch against D/P or S/P, where it appears to deliberately sacrifice initiative as it devolves into counter play, gambling that the opponent cannot maintain a credible attack without running out of steam. It works surprisingly often, particularly against the DSF/PSx line, but only if you know how to handle it; attempting SPFP or summoning against a P opening is usually disasterous. I think it's too easy to trip yourself up with until you've really mastered defensive spellflow, however, so I never like to recommend it too generally these days. I played this a lot.

F/P can also be strong, but it's pretty boring. It's worth investigating every now and then as it's stronger against D/P than most things. It's not generally worthwhile to go for the FoD in ParaFC, in my experience, but the threat keeps people guessing. I played this more occasionally, but often when I did it was when I was facing a difficult game; it's a grind-out-a-win opening to hit a D/P player with.

S/P is really quite horridly weak against D/P, though it's reasonably good against many other openings. One problem lies with the SWD vs DSF face-off - if the DSF player targets himself, the SWD player will find it hard to find an advantage given the Disease threat. DPP vs SWD is similarly advantageous for D/P if not even more so. While I played this a bit, I played it less latterly, viewing it as a weaker choice.

S/D isn't as strong as S/W, though it needs to be played similarly; however, it can be a little more aggressive, and the advantage of occasional novelty is not to be underestimated. I played this quite frequently, but fairly rarely in serious matches. Learn its tricks, by all means, but think of it as a more rarely used tool.

W/P I almost never used, and didn't have a lot of respect for. It seems too vulnerable to dummying to me, as it doesn't have any kind of third turn threat.

S/S isn't awful, and has some decent lines against D/P, but is fairly weak against S/W and is probably inferior to S/W generally. I still played it from time to time, but not often in serious matches.

I've occasionally played other things, like C/C, but mostly as gimmicks, not seriously.

Taliesin

[vilhazarog]

I played xade once and he opened with a W/P, and it went like this:

me:
PSD?
DPP?

xade:
PSDD
WFPP

Ultimately I think I just opted for D/P on turn four and then the rest played out like a D/P vs D/P except he was up two points. Every other option seemed to leave me in a mess so I took the safe route (the route I knew), but what should I have done?

[taliesin]

Why on earth D/P on turn 4?

PSDPP/DPPSF would have got you an ogre up and him in a mess. PSDPP/DPPSD would've given you double charm prospects. PSDWS/DPPWS would have given you a D/P Invisibility - and if it's a Delay Effect Invis, going in first is a noticeable advantage. Even PSDF/DPPD would have given you a Lightning Bolt threat and a means via PDWP to remove his potential Invisibility. Heck, even if you switched hands and played P/D it would have been better than what you played (PSDPP/DPPDW). Another cutesy but slightly lower-percentage thing to do would have been PSDSP/PSDFx, charming him on an attempted entrance to Invis and then hitting him with Time-Stopped Antispell, or Time-Stopped Fireball.

Don't let him pull that nonsense next time, y'hear?

Taliesin

[vilhazarog]

Ah, I often forget to think about remove enchant.

At the time I knew I was making a bad move but I guess I don't have the patience and experience to consider them all.

One question though, why is it an advantage to go into delay/invis first when usually it's a disadvantage to go into invis first?

[taliesin]

Because Delayed Antispell is so hugely powerful, and doesn't require you to target a visible opponent.

If I go Invis first normally, and my opponent follows me into Invis a turn later, I can't direct spells at him and am on the defensive, since on my first visible turn I'm ripe to be Antispelled. However, if the Invis I go into is a Delay Invis, I can bank Antispell on the turn he hits me with an Antispell, and can use it to turn things to my advantage in the upcoming turns. No matter what he does, if he's followed me into Invisibility, he's going to be disadvantaged against the Delayed Antispell - he can't summon enough or damage me enough from that double S to get ahead.

What if he also goes for a Delayed spell though? Well, on the turn his Antispell is being banked, he's visible for the first time, and my second Antispell will hit him. I progress into overlapping Permanencies, he has to use his banked spell early, and I'm a banked Antispell to the good.

[spamwise]

I'm pretty addicted to D/P. I'd like to branch out, but it's just so easy to stick with what I know. I have been playing a few VF's vs. spez and have decided to "get crazy". (Though, I misremembered which opening to try and thought it was S/S that was powerful in the hands of a skilled player. Turns out I was thinking of S/W.)

[Slartucker]

S/S can be powerful in the hands of a skilled player, particularly in a VF where you might be inclined to take risky moves. S/W is generally preferable, but S/S has some neat and rarely exploited variations.

[spamwise]

"S/S can be powerful in the hands of a skilled player"... yeah, that's what I recall hearing. So maybe I did remember correctly. I consider myself a (moderately) skilled player, and I did manage to win my VF match with that opening, but I think a bit more may be needed. (The mere existance of a skilled player and an S/S opening does not assure a strong match.)

I'm guessing the necessity of a skilled player stems from it not being a "cookie cutter", blindly proceed until turn X opening (much like Dpp/Psd tend to be, the exception, of course being against P/F where attetion is immediately required) and/or that it requires the ability to get out of some "sticky situations" or be clever with feints and "odd targetting".

Without a full disertation, can you provide any other insights into S/S? (Or, might I be better served trying my hand at S/W for a while?)

[Slartucker]

Even cookie cutter D/P is better in the hands of a skilled player, obviously. There are LOTS of cases where proceeding DPP/PSD is not optimal.

S/W relies on skill more than D/P because it has numerous good branches almost every move. Against many openings it's safe to go SW/WW, but at that point you have a number of options, and each of those in turn gives you a number of different options on upcoming turns. Generally speaking, it takes a lot of experience to be able to crunch all those possibilities and see your way through to the most useful moves without going crazy.

(I've seen players, even ones as good as Surial, open SWD/WFP. I hesitate to even count that as a real S/W opening, as opening WFP is quite solidly rubbish...)

S/S is similar in that it provides many different possibilities (some of which are very nearly the same as the corresponding S/W lines: SWD/WWP and SWD/SWP, for example). But whereas the other S/W lines are both obscure and multiplicious and require skill to crunch them, the other S/S lines tend to be equally obscure but with fewer opportunities for advantage, and great potential for crap if used without discretion -- they have narrow utility, basically. SD/SW can actually be an effective (although risky) answer to D/P, for example. Not really a line I'd recommend, but an interesting and playable one.

[freesoul]

I think i used P/S for about a year, until I played someone like Taliesin, who ripped it apart everytime, and then opted for the standard P/D. Can't really say i look at the openings in as great as detail as everyone else. I just go with the flow probably what keeps me average

[justix]

There will be no surprise for those reading stats about how I play to learn that I prefer D/P. In fact, it is almost a weakness I have since I always open in that way, so any player who want to beat me can start his spellflow with an opening specially planned to beat mine.
That said, my records so far tend to prove that D/P can be quite reliable, and with time I have thought of some tricks with it (some of which are rather obscure, and very rarely used by me, so as to keep some surprises when truly necessary).
As long as nobody proves me the weakness of D/P by beating me reliably with some other opening I think I'll stick to that one.