Opening. A (good?) suggestion for S/W vs D/P.

[BioLogIn]

A "standard" opening versus D/P offers us:

DP
PS

SP
WW

ExDeath in a nearby topic already shown that this leads to D/P player's advantage.

Hovewer, I think the following option is much better for S/W player:

DP
PS

SW
WW

Now S/W player has Fear in left hand instead of Anti-Spell he will never have a good chance to cast anyway.

Option "a" - both players stick to their strategies. This involves some mind-game with two Enchantment Spells:

DPP
PSD

SWD
WWP

I don't want to examine all 4 (actually, 3) possibilities here, but as you can see, second player now is also at D/P position.

Hovewer, a S/W player has another interesting option "b":

DPP
PSD

SWF
WWP

of abandoning Fear (and thus eluding two enchantment spells minfgame) in favor of anything resistant to Amnesia (in above example it is a Paralysis).

On the other hand, D/P players could try to avoid
Fear in a sumilar fashionl, but this option ("c") also doesn't give him any advantage, because:

DPP
PSW

SWD
WWP

And WPP will counter Ogre as well.

=========================

And an example of this strategy in my game versus xade (mix of options "b" and "c", since he opted to evade my Fear, but I decided to cancel Fear to Paralysis to evade his Amnesia, and then opted for Invis instead of 1-turn Paralysis):

xade
DPPWSD
PSFWS?

biologin
SWFFWS
WWPPWS

And on 7th turn I'm 1 hit behind, but have 1 invisibility turn more then the opponent, which is not bad imo.

==

Sorry if all this is already known, I did my best to read this forum before posting this.

[xade]

2 things...

1 - had my F been a D, I would have been threatening a Delayed "something"...
2 - That rather nasty DS/PW option.... instead of the classic DP/PS, has a tendancy to lead to a rather nasty paraFOD senario...

[taliesin]

biologin said:

A "standard" opening versus D/P offers us:

DP
PS

SP
WW

ExDeath in a nearby topic already shown that this leads to D/P player's advantage.

Hovewer, I think the following option is much better for S/W player:

DP
PS

SW
WW

Yes, this is the standard S/W opening, and was a strong mainstay of top Warlocks for a number of years until the DSF/PWP opening tore a hole in it. SP/WW was never in vogue among better players. It was however generally more potent against DSF/PSx than DPP/PSx.

[BioLogIn]

2xade
1) yep, but I could as well not to sway from SWD, and got the same "delay threat" after letting your amnesia hit me:
SWDD
WWPP
So there is no disadvantage for S\W player here again imo.

2taliesin
thanks for your comment, master. It is good to know I haven't introduced anything stupid after all (although haven't invented nothing new as well, but that would be really strange after 4+ years of this game development... bla-bla)

But then another question arises - where should a (relatively) newbie player search for articles on game theory, openings, etc.? A thread with links stickied to the top of this forum could also be of great help...

[Rycchus]

minmax.ermarian.net/refuge/
Slartucker's Refuge. It's also linked in his profile.

[Derfel]

I'd love to see that linked somewhere on the main forum page.

[vermont]

I put it in my own profile so I can always find it

[Rycchus]

Oh btw when I said Slarty's profile, I meant his profile on here, although it's also linked on his Warlocks profile.

[BioLogIn]

Ryccus
Thanks.
I even saw this page once, but forgot a link to it on a next day.
A stickied thread would have made much more use, especially considering some buzz this forum had lately.

[Slartucker]

There was a stickied thread for about 18 new members worth, but I destickied it just before you joined as I figured it had served its purpose. I can't seem to get a link on the main page, unfortunately. I can put one on EVERY page, but it refuses to do it without using about 4 lines of space for it, so it's both ugly (which I dislike) and uneconomical with space (which I detest).

[Rycchus]

You can make banners on the main page (I think it's called "news" or something) but I'm not sure if you can make them linky. You can at the least write out the address, which people could copy and paste, not sure if you'd want to do this though.

Anyway, people, you can just Google 'Warlock Refuge', 'Slartucker Refuge', etc., and it'll come up. Then bookmark if you're gonna use it often