Post by ExDeath on Jul 15, 2007 22:35:44 GMT -5
I wrote this out for a PM to Toyotami, but in the end I think it serves more educational value for the masses. I don't like showing anyone how I play so this will probably be the first and last time.
games.ravenblack.net/warlocks?num=58247&full=1
Ok...here goes:
Turn 1, of course, puts you on the back foot from the beginning, giving me a 25% chance to win and a good position even if I fail.
Turn 14 I don't feel the W does enough for you. The only thing you can hope to be countering on 16 is a mind spell, and a DSF from me renders WWPP impossible. You were in a bad place regardless of what you did, but I think there were better gestures.
Turn 17 you did a "half-guess". One of your hands guessed one way while the other guessed another way. This style of hedging your bets only works when you're already leading, which you're definitely not here. If you think I'm shielding then you should counter me, if you don't then you should counter yourself and magic missile my goblin. What you did basically assured that no matter what gestures I inputted, you would still be in a losing position.
Turn 18: I don't like the missile, it should be obvious that I'm shielding my goblin since you have one coming out and P/S or W/P are both reasonable lines for me to take.
Turn 19: I don't understand what the cure achieves. A shield on yourself would accomplish the same without setting you back a gesture, and a DSF would get you way better tempo. To your credit, you outguessed me every turn by not attacking my goblin, but this is again a situation where guessing correctly doesn't give you the lead and so your risk is higher than your reward. You're now several gestures behind my weave.
Turn 20: I made a mistake, since I'm leading there's no reason not to split my gob and missile.
Turn 22: This is where the game goes south for me. For some reason I thought there was 0 chance you would put W on one of your hands, and so I opted for the potential lightning bolt. What this left me with is no potential spell for 3 whole turns. LH S would have been far superior.
Turn 23: My next huge mistake, I thought about it for a long time and never figured out the correct play until several turns later. F/W would have been a convincing FoD since I would lock your LH on 23, force you to counter yourself on 25, and then I would para/cause heavy you on 26 for a certain advantage. Or go for the 25% kill, but unlike the previous case, this would leave me at a disadvantage if it failed. Likely I should've spent more time analyzing these turns.
Turn 29: You outguess me again, or maybe just walked into the right play. I thought you would put RH W. At this point I'm facing danger on many levels, and I have to decide whether to continue my fireball or counter your ogre and make a goblin. Your LH P baffled me a little bit on 30, and I think you would've shot yourself in the foot with it if I had gone with the more safe play of countering/summoning. But again your high-risk low-reward gamble sets me back slightly.
Turn 32: The only time I actually guessed correctly all game, I knew if you had LH F I'd be screwed, but I didn't figure you'd do that.
Turn 33: I didn't expect this at all, and honestly, I don't think there's any way you could have expected the stab. This is the only possible scenario where my stab is incorrect, and again I feel frustrated that you just "walked into" it. If I had done anything other than a LH stab, your play would have been very wrong, as DSF/xxW or DPP/PSx are more conventional and both wreck your tempo. Maybe you thought I would amnesia myself, but that would've been another high-risk low-reward play on my part.
Turn 36: Outguessed again, and though I don't necessarily disagree with your guess here, you again failed to capitalize on the chance you had. Although you correctly guessed that I would not counter myself, you didn't set yourself up to deal with what I did instead. LH D instead of the passive W would have been game over, as would charming my LH to P the subsequent turn (but you knew that).
Turn 39: Despite everything, I am now in control of the game. Turns 40-42 I did DSF/PSD, expecting you to prot your goblin and be unable to defend the charm. It worked out about the same but the RH S left you with a magic missile opportunity. I think your best play here is charm monster on my left hand, magic missile my right hand, leaving us roughly even. The actual result just left us counting down to your surrender...
In summary, it's not that your guesses were unfounded or wrong (although I think turn 33 was very much so), it's that you didn't put yourself in a position where guessing correctly would win you the game. I gave you many many opportunities to guess wrong and dig an insurmountable hole, and to your credit, you didn't. I made a few small mistakes and was obviously outplayed in the technical sense of the word, but my risks were much smaller than yours and in the end that is why I won, with strategy defeating tactics.
Edit: Also, although Toyotami mentions double-killing us in the game, he realized later that this was not actually possible since I was going for cure heavy.
games.ravenblack.net/warlocks?num=58247&full=1
Ok...here goes:
Turn 1, of course, puts you on the back foot from the beginning, giving me a 25% chance to win and a good position even if I fail.
Turn 14 I don't feel the W does enough for you. The only thing you can hope to be countering on 16 is a mind spell, and a DSF from me renders WWPP impossible. You were in a bad place regardless of what you did, but I think there were better gestures.
Turn 17 you did a "half-guess". One of your hands guessed one way while the other guessed another way. This style of hedging your bets only works when you're already leading, which you're definitely not here. If you think I'm shielding then you should counter me, if you don't then you should counter yourself and magic missile my goblin. What you did basically assured that no matter what gestures I inputted, you would still be in a losing position.
Turn 18: I don't like the missile, it should be obvious that I'm shielding my goblin since you have one coming out and P/S or W/P are both reasonable lines for me to take.
Turn 19: I don't understand what the cure achieves. A shield on yourself would accomplish the same without setting you back a gesture, and a DSF would get you way better tempo. To your credit, you outguessed me every turn by not attacking my goblin, but this is again a situation where guessing correctly doesn't give you the lead and so your risk is higher than your reward. You're now several gestures behind my weave.
Turn 20: I made a mistake, since I'm leading there's no reason not to split my gob and missile.
Turn 22: This is where the game goes south for me. For some reason I thought there was 0 chance you would put W on one of your hands, and so I opted for the potential lightning bolt. What this left me with is no potential spell for 3 whole turns. LH S would have been far superior.
Turn 23: My next huge mistake, I thought about it for a long time and never figured out the correct play until several turns later. F/W would have been a convincing FoD since I would lock your LH on 23, force you to counter yourself on 25, and then I would para/cause heavy you on 26 for a certain advantage. Or go for the 25% kill, but unlike the previous case, this would leave me at a disadvantage if it failed. Likely I should've spent more time analyzing these turns.
Turn 29: You outguess me again, or maybe just walked into the right play. I thought you would put RH W. At this point I'm facing danger on many levels, and I have to decide whether to continue my fireball or counter your ogre and make a goblin. Your LH P baffled me a little bit on 30, and I think you would've shot yourself in the foot with it if I had gone with the more safe play of countering/summoning. But again your high-risk low-reward gamble sets me back slightly.
Turn 32: The only time I actually guessed correctly all game, I knew if you had LH F I'd be screwed, but I didn't figure you'd do that.
Turn 33: I didn't expect this at all, and honestly, I don't think there's any way you could have expected the stab. This is the only possible scenario where my stab is incorrect, and again I feel frustrated that you just "walked into" it. If I had done anything other than a LH stab, your play would have been very wrong, as DSF/xxW or DPP/PSx are more conventional and both wreck your tempo. Maybe you thought I would amnesia myself, but that would've been another high-risk low-reward play on my part.
Turn 36: Outguessed again, and though I don't necessarily disagree with your guess here, you again failed to capitalize on the chance you had. Although you correctly guessed that I would not counter myself, you didn't set yourself up to deal with what I did instead. LH D instead of the passive W would have been game over, as would charming my LH to P the subsequent turn (but you knew that).
Turn 39: Despite everything, I am now in control of the game. Turns 40-42 I did DSF/PSD, expecting you to prot your goblin and be unable to defend the charm. It worked out about the same but the RH S left you with a magic missile opportunity. I think your best play here is charm monster on my left hand, magic missile my right hand, leaving us roughly even. The actual result just left us counting down to your surrender...
In summary, it's not that your guesses were unfounded or wrong (although I think turn 33 was very much so), it's that you didn't put yourself in a position where guessing correctly would win you the game. I gave you many many opportunities to guess wrong and dig an insurmountable hole, and to your credit, you didn't. I made a few small mistakes and was obviously outplayed in the technical sense of the word, but my risks were much smaller than yours and in the end that is why I won, with strategy defeating tactics.
Edit: Also, although Toyotami mentions double-killing us in the game, he realized later that this was not actually possible since I was going for cure heavy.
