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Post by BioLogIn on Sept 12, 2008 15:12:43 GMT -5
ExDeath I didn't mean to dish you or your analysis in any way, and I'm sorry if I accidentally did. But sorry, I just can't trust only to you word, if my experience tells me otherwise. Unless you're willing to paste your analysis on these forums, everybody else will have to make their own analysis... and\or learn from their experience.
Neither did I think I 'invented' a 'new opening', be it F/P or F/S - this game has only 16 relatively sane openings (all non-'>C-' + 'C/C'), clearly not enough to leave any 'undiscovered' after so many years. However, while openings remain, game understanding changes and becomes deeper. Opening analysis from 7 years ago is of no use now, it was confusion era after all. Analysis from 5 years ago? Possibly some good, but didn't Taliesin said that period everybody was 'playing by book' and got busted by Prioli risks? Analysis younger then 2 years, after Masters era, is a treasure... do post it here, come on, improve this game. No need to keep it to your cupboa... err, whiteboard.
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Post by ExDeath on Sept 12, 2008 16:32:24 GMT -5
It's not in my cupboard, these discussions have taken place on this forum many times in the past. You only need to look. Page 4 in particular of the Warlocks forum has a lot of discussions regarding openings. Am I going to spell it out and go through every decision point? Not likely, considering I worked hard on those details, and it would be a disservice for me to share everything openly with those whom I'm competing with. But it's not that complicated, either you end up with an Ogre, or you end up with some vague FoD threat, or you end up way way behind in initiative with (literally) both hands tied. It's a risky opening that provides good chances vs superior opponents, but it is clear that the times D/P comes out ahead are very hard to recover from, and that is why I give the advantage to D/P.
And I should also mention that while I haven't tested it as much vs other things, it does seem to be pretty suboptimal against non-D/P openings. So even if I gave you credit for F/P having a 50/50 shot with D/P, it's obviously a better idea to just play D/P anyway.
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Derfel
Ronin Warlock
Did I Do That?
Troublemaker
Posts: 283
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Post by Derfel on Sept 12, 2008 16:56:11 GMT -5
Wait - C/> isn't a sane opening?
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Post by nawglan on Sept 12, 2008 17:09:20 GMT -5
Wait - C/> isn't a sane opening? nope, but >/C is. Open up a ladder match and I'll talk you through the opening...
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Post by Slartucker on Sept 12, 2008 19:51:01 GMT -5
ExDeath, that was a little harsh. D/P has been dominant for a very long time, but not unshakably so until a year ago (a year and a half?) which I suppose is a long time, but not that long in terms of the history of reasonably competitive play. There were listservs before the forums and openings were discussed on them; the last word, or the last surviving word anyway, was Taliesin's, asserting in an essay that D/P was not the strongest opening.
He was of course the first "upstart" claiming his opening was better than D/P, and he went on to have, with S/W in those early days, one of the strongest seasons of dominance of any warlock.
I haven't done out D/P vs F/P very completely (and you implied in this thread, btw, that you hadn't either, which I think is where bio's comment came from), but what ExDeath says is true: F/P does not garner any significant advantage over D/P, and it has weaknesses against other openings that D/P does not. D/W is in a similar position. Additionally, neither opening has the pleasure of being less annoying than D/P with its potential to loop, as F/P has the potential to parafod and D/W leads to luck-heavy (and therefore skill-low) 50-50s. (And D/W I *have* done all the analysis on.)
Here's an open question: what do people actually open these days? Is it just D/P among the very top and D/P or F/P among the second tier?
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Post by awall on Sept 12, 2008 20:09:17 GMT -5
I try very hard to avoid opening D/P, because I despise the D/P loop even more than I do paralysis. I totally admit that D/P is the strongest and most robust opening in the game, but I want to experiment with other openings to see how they feel. Currently I'm on an F/S kick, but previously I played around with F/P and even F/D (a fun opening that gives you a lot of options, but none of them are really that threatening).
When the league rule allows it, I prefer to run with S/P, S/W, or some more esoteric openings (by "allows it," I mean "prevents D/P from walking all over them").
Edit: Perhaps my reluctance to open D/P contributes to the fact that I'm always floating around just below the top tier?
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Post by Slartucker on Sept 12, 2008 21:07:08 GMT -5
The fact that you are always floating around just below the top tier still confuses me, because the things you say tend to make a lot of sense.
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Post by ExDeath on Sept 12, 2008 21:18:32 GMT -5
The fact that you are always floating around just below the top tier still confuses me, because the things you say tend to make a lot of sense. I wouldn't say that, the top tier to me is pretty much any player rated consistently over 1900. Some of them get on hot streaks and approach (or break) 2000, but I'd say they're mostly very equal.
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Post by Slartucker on Sept 12, 2008 21:27:09 GMT -5
Fair enough. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say "the fact that you haven't yet broken past the top tier." Particularly after last fall, when Awall won the tournament while smashing up d-1337 and the league and still found time to say insightful things here.
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Post by awall on Sept 12, 2008 22:15:36 GMT -5
Semantics of "top tier" aside, what I meant is that I feel that I often have a tendency to start games off on the back foot. Against many players, I'm able to defend whatever they do and then take initiative back as soon as I see an opening (I'm rather fond of careful, defensive play, which is one of the reasons I like S/W so much). However, I recognize that my two biggest weaknesses are 1) Good players who use a more aggressive opening and don't make mistakes; and 2) People who spam para (because even if they do make a mistake, it's not always possible to punish them for it)
The reason I consider myself "just under top tier" is because my wins in matches like these tend to come from me setting up a decision point and then guessing well. Meanwhile, when I lose, I tend to have been led around by the reins all game. This seems to suggest to me that I need to take a more aggressive tack to avoid giving up initiative in the early game.
I tried S/P for a bit, but gave up on it a while ago after Bio landed me on my butt with DPPWPF/PSDWFF vs. SWDDC/PSDDC. If one of the para replacements made this weave less deadly, I'd probably start favoring that opening again.
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Post by vermont on Sept 15, 2008 23:42:40 GMT -5
I'm finally reading this thread and noticed that Toyo asked me to comment on my style. Probably the biggest indicator that I have much further to go than the other 1850+ warlocks is that I really don't even have a clue what my style is. I just look at the game in progress and try to analyze in my head what the best option is.
I've had less than five games where I've actually tried to really analyze the play. (Xade, one was against you in our tourney match last year - probably the only game I've ever tried diligently to focus on, especially early on.)
I think I've played Tali, xade, dubber and Rasper the most; maybe they have a comment. But to be honest, I really shouldn't be mentioned in the same discussion with any of these other players who really understand the game and tend to generally beat me soundly.
[Hmm. I suppose I should clarify. I did have an early strategy, which consisted of "whine a lot when I died from FoD." Slarty sort of bluntly put me in my place about that.]
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Post by ExDeath on Sept 16, 2008 2:33:29 GMT -5
I'm finally reading this thread and noticed that Toyo asked me to comment on my style. Probably the biggest indicator that I have much further to go than the other 1850+ warlocks is that I really don't even have a clue what my style is. I just look at the game in progress and try to analyze in my head what the best option is. Luckily for you, this is the best style. Keep working at it.
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Post by succat on Sept 18, 2008 0:57:46 GMT -5
I don't see many players using F/W... I like it, it's not perfect, but I've gotten to my highest Elo mostly by opening with it. D/P is far too traditional. It's powerful, as xade recently demonstrated in a flurry of games in which I thought I had the answer against D/P and didn't, but I dont mind taking a sound beating or 12 before I figure it out and force the other guy to change his stance ) I applaud pegster and Tchichi for the newSchool look I've seen from them in our games; it's been pretty fun throwin' around some F's with a couple/one OldTimer(s)!
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Post by xade on Sept 18, 2008 1:04:08 GMT -5
yeah, it took a few games, but you finally figured out why I was smashing you with D/P again. Now I need to find a new loop hole in your relentless para-logic.
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Post by succat on Sept 18, 2008 1:05:40 GMT -5
what can i say... im a slow learner )) All Hail the Para
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