Just as an FYI, the boats right around the bend in Indiana are FAR better than the ones in Illinois if you're a poker player.  The Horseshoe is sweet (where was that puppy in 2001).  Actually, they're better for any table games since you're a quick hop from downtown/northside hangouts rather than a bajillion miles away in Elgin or Aurora.

If you like pizza and are anywhere near Lincoln Park/Wrigleyville, get pizza from Nancy's (deep dish or this crust, both awesome).

Orcish Oriflamme was on early/original lists for awhile because the Alpha version had a misprint in the casting cost - only 1R instead of 3R.

While that may be true for all the original artists, one of the reasons all the old school artists left (e.g. the artist who did the A/B/U and early set art) is that WoTC wanted them to come on as employees who made salary/hourly for their time (and WoTC controlled all the art), rather than the commission method the first batch of artists operated under.  I'm not sure what the legality of it is now in terms of who owns/controls the art, but I remember being disappointed when the whole slew of original artists left and one of them explained it briefly at a Con way back.

you must have not been a Yahoo investor.  Great founder, bad CEO.  Really highlights the difference between entrepreneur and effective executive.

When Jason and I played a couple weeks ago, this was exactly true - if he didn't have minimum 2 lock pieces out turn 2, he wasn't going to win.

sorry, ill be tailgating

Ben, I don't think most people will begrudge a lower guaranteed prize pool that slides up with attendance.

Loan sharks are illegal because there are laws in place that don't allow you to loan money/charge interest unless you do things X,Y,Z, which the loan sharks don't do.  Subprime mortgages were legal.  There are specific regulations for income to debt ratios.  All the mortgages sold that fell under those regulations (assuming proper income reporting - more on that below) were legal.  The issue is that the income to debt ratios were out of whack (because people felt that "owning a home is good, even if you can't afford it in the traditional sense" - see the post above for more info)

You can't expect a business to act morally or ethically - it's going to do what's allowed by law and regulations to make money.  If the majority feels something is unethical or immoral, then it's up to legislature or regulators to change the laws/regulations.  To expect a for-profit business to take anyone but itself into consideration is just not realistic.  That doesn't mean that all business owners are looking to squeeze every penny out of every brick and every minute out of every employee, but if something is legal, then it's a valid way to make money.

For example, although I'm a business owner, I think executive pay at public companies is way out of whack.  but it's the board of directors of those companies, not Congress, that I feel need to get their act in gear and serve their companies a little better.  That being said, I have no problem attaching strings such as limitations on exec compensation to firms that accept the bailout money.

It's when a business is deceptive and/or lies that it's illegal and predatory (and obviously if they just straight-forwardly break the law).  Also illegal is knowingly allowing the applicants to lie about their income or help them lie/overstate their income - obviously that is illegal they should all be prosecuted fully.

In summary - it's up to the government(s) to set the rules and then for businesses to play by those rules.  I'll bet 95%+ of the mortgages that are in trouble were completely legal (not smart or wise, but legal).

Steve - yes, they are all types of investments but you were comparing two different timelines and saying that by my logic, people shouldn't invest their retirement in the stock market because of the fluctuations.  I was simply pointing out that by comparing a 2-3 year investment in something that is not liquid (e.g. a house) vs something that is a 30-40 year liquid investment like a stock or mutual fund, it was comparing apples to oranges when drawing similarities.

The risk of 2-3 year investment in real estate (and I don't mean people who fix up houses to flip, they're putting actual work and value into a house by improving and upgrading it, I'm talking about people who buy, hold for 2-3 years, then sell hoping to make a profit [and there's nothing wrong with that mind you]) is FAR greater than the risk of buying an index mutual fund and holding it for 30-40 years.  Take any 40 year period in the modern era and if you bought the equivalent of an index fund and held it you'd get a good return over that 30-40 years, even weathering downturns and recessions worse than what we've seen the last 18 months .  However - there's a reason that as you near the end game - when you're approaching the time where you're going to start eating into the principle of the investment as you retire - that people move into a higher ratio of bonds-to-stocks: to protect against short-term fluctuations.

The problem with comparing housing to a stock holding is

1. if the market turns, you can't just sell a house by offering it on an electronic index where thousands or millions of people will buy the stock/fund.  You have to find an individual (for the most part) who has to come out and view your house, inspect your house, get their own financing, etc.  For the most part, whoever buys your house, it's going to be a major decision for them.  Even if you have $250,000 in stocks or mutual funds, selling on the open market isn't going to be a major decision for anyone, since more than likely hundreds or thousands of different people will buy the stocks.

2. There's a sociological impact with losing your house that isn't the same as losing a stock fund or savings account.  You literally have no place to live.  For the most part this would now mean relocating, probably in a different area or town altogether which means uprooting from families, pulling children out of schools away from their friends and their non-family networks, etc.  Nothing is as psychologically devastating as having to pack up all your shit and move out.

But in terms of the average person being able to define an asset/wealth properly, no doubt, most people are morons.  It's only an asset if it generates more money than you put into it OR if you can readily sell it to someone for more than you owe on it in total.

that's why for most people, their vehicle is the biggest financial waste they will ever have and they don't even know it.  Your car can never be an asset (minus some collectible type items) over the life of the vehicle outside of some weird circumstances - the goal should be to identify a feature set you want vs a budget range and then mercilessly drive the total cost down over the life of the vehicle.  A vehicle is about minimizing loss as it will always be a liability over total life of the vehicle, but the fact is, most people need a vehicle to live their life.

It's the same with a house - unlike a simple financial investment, the house serves a basic life animal need of shelter (and somewhat security) out of the 3 basics (shelter, food, security) that a living being needs before they can move up the intellectual food chain.

Yes, I realize that was somewhat all over the place.

Seriously, that's the worst comparison I've ever seen you make in the years we've been posting on these boards.  The timeline on retirement for most people (measured in decades) allows for the smoothing out of downturns so you can take advantage of the AVERAGE gains and compound interest.  The recent (last 18 months or so) downswing in the stock market has happened plenty of times before and it works itself out.

In the situation you described the timeline for the "investment" was 2-3 years and in an investment like real estate, if you can only afford to hold the investment for 2-3 years (without a refinance) and it takes a downturn in month 26 or so, you won't be able to wait for the upturn.

Also, part of the housing issue was VERY similar to Enron - Enron was using its stock during most of its dubious investment bank deals and everyone was banking (literally) on the fact that the Enron stock would go up - and all the illicit money the IB's pumped into Enron helped keep the stock up (I say illicit because of the illegal arrangements the IBs made with Enron where they would buy assets and hold them with the verbal understanding Enron would buy them back in the short term after the stock went up).  Once the Enron stock slipped a little, it started a cascade of things unraveling.

I see the housing market as the same - you had people making investments that they couldn't afford unless the value of the asset dramatically increased in the short term and because of massive amounts of "loose" cash being pumped into the system (e.g. basically all loans were approved), it was driving the price up because of increased demand and being able to buy "more for the money" - which also led to people buying "beyond their means" - meaning they could only afford the place IF it went up in value and could be refinanced.  Once the market took a bit of a downturn and the economy stalled a little, it created a spiral, similar to Enron where the housing price (stock price) went down, so people couldn't refinance (get cheap cash based on Enron stock price), etc etc.

Part of the problem is that industry and corporations typically have one goal - make as much money as fast as possible and use that money to then make more money.  Unless a company has a strong board of directors that will focus on long-term goals, most public companies will fall prey to the "this quarter's stock price/earnings" syndrome.  Given the typically executive team compensation packages, it's not in the executive team's best interest to focus on anything beyond the short-term.  This is exaggerated in the financial services industry, particularly futures and options trading.  As a trader/trading manager if you/your team makes $10 million in profit one quarter and loses $10 million the next quarters, most compensation packages have you making a huge bonus the first quarter and then having some penalty second quarter, but not enough to offset the first quarter bonus.  So while your company had a net zero return, the trader/trading manager makes out nicely.  This leads to a culture that rewards big risk home-runs without equal negative penalty for swing-and-a-miss strikeouts.

His first body was killed at the end of RotJ.  The story of Palpatine continues in a series of comics.

I assume you mean soly...I had 4 gatorades though.

That's for sure, that was a nice wife beater you had on for this one.   

Actually this is not correct - the end result is that because the Aura never attaches to Akroma due to Pro: Black, it never "falls off", and Akroma stays in play.

There's a thread here http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=30025.0 that came out right after the Animate effects were changed to Auras.

The relevant parts are this (and note the difference between Protection from Black and untargetability from something like Simic Sky Swallower):

unstickied since it's past.

Just to note that Goblins recently split for 1st in a 315 person tournament in Italy.

http://www.themanadrain.com/index.php?topic=36116.msg508183;boardseen#new

Twice it was UBg, once 5 Color.

I've always had insanely good matchups with Dragon vs Drain decks - in 3 tournaments including a Worlds and a SCG Chicago, I was 8-0 vs Drain decks (3cc, Slaver, Gifts).  The losses all came from mana denial decks (Steve's 2004 monoblue with 5 strips and Back to Basics, UR Fish, workshop, UB Fish).

I think most of us understand your argument - A tempo-oriented strategy is superior to a Drain-based strategy.  You just haven't convinced anyone, that's all.  All you've basically said is "here's a million cards that can be played before you have drain mana up that can mess with mana drain and thus because I can play those cards, Mana Drain is ineffective".  I think it would help your argument if you defined EXACTLY what strategies you feel are outdated - not generically like "drain strategies", but specifically such as decks (e.g. Slaver).

Also, you should probably define tempo because almost none of the things you listed I would really consider a "tempo-based strategy" - Ichorid is just fast, according to you Painter is just faster than any drain-based deck, Workshop decks will always spit out spheres and chalice/wastelands before you have UU, etc.  The only tempo deck listed anywhere in this thread is the BUG deck, which has been relatively untested (or at least un-reported) in tournament play.

Again, given the strong results of decks playing 3-4 drains (see Slaver, Painter, and Drain Tendrils) in high-level tournaments in the past month or two, your claim that "tempo decks" have rendered Mana Drain obsolete, to me, is both untrue and not proven at all by your arguments here - which don't seem structured or organized.  All you've said is that "there are a ton of playable cards that all WILL definitely hit play before mana drain".

as for this:


I'm sorry if you didn't like the somewhat sarcastic way I summarized your main argument for your theory (and that is basically all you've said in this thread), but it wasn't an immature attack on you, just a sarcastic way of showing your argument was weak and lacking evidence.  Pointing out a weak argument is not a personal attack.

I'm going to quote from the "What TMD is All about" thread


My main issue with the theory you propose is that:

1. your arguments are often times not specific enough
2. you take best case scenarios from other decks (turn 1 spheres and null rods, turn 1 rebs, turn 1 painter's servant) vs a normal opening of turn 2 drains (and you seem to always assume the drain deck is on the draw not the play)
3. you seem to misuse the concept of tempo
and last of all
4. The tournament results in the post-restricted Gush, BS, and Scroll so far don't support your hypothesis.

I have no real ties to Mana Drain either, I usually play some weird deck, so don't take it as me defending my "pet" deck, since if I had a pet deck it would be WGD.

cheers,

Dante

What are you talking about, Mana Drain hasn't been unrestricted - it wasn't restricted in the first place.


It shines from turn 2 to the end of the game where you say "no" to whatever spell you want and then use the mana to advance your own plan.


They are great because they are winning.  CC=2 is not slow.  I like in your example how you say that people could cast Painters Servant (not disruption) along with a slew of other 2 cc cards and even cards like Negate, which is also a 2 CC reactive counterspell.

Congratulations you figured out that 1 Mana cards cost less than 2 Mana cards. 


You realize that three times means "3x" or "300%" not +3 right.  Let's see TPS disruption = 4 FOW + 4 Duress, Grim Long = Some Duress effects, not exactly kicking it with the disruption.

Also, since you're claiming Painter and Oath among tempo decks that "beat up" on mana drain decks (forgetting that both of these decks typically use mana drain), what "obsolete Mana Drain" decks are you talking about?  It seems like just Slaver.

As long as decks keep doing well, people will play them.  That's the great thing about results, they speak for themselves. (Yes I realize it's not 100% true, but for the most part, bad decks go 0-2 drop and good decks take home prizes).

You do realize that the entire metagame is slower now than it has been in the past year (or whatever it was when Gush was unrestricted)?

The large amounts of Slaver and Painter decks that have Top8'd and won tournaments would like to disagree with you.

If you define "early game" as "turn 1", then yes it's too slow, but turn 2 is pretty early.  Like Phil said, don't underestimate a 1-card hard counter.

How can you say that Null Rod can be played early but Mana Drain can't.  You're talking about a small percentage of the time that you get a piece of acceleration and the null rod for a turn 1 null rod.

Yes, but the transaction hasn't been completed - you haven't taken ownership of the product yet.

This sort of thing happens all the time (or can) with technology hardware distributors.  My company sells Cisco products.  We can look online at our distributors inventory that is more or less real time.  Let's say Ingram Micro (one of our distributors) has 452 Cisco 2811 routers in stock.  We could place an order online for all of them and even "pay" for them (we have a big line of credit).  But the fact of the matter is that Ingram Micro will never let that whole order go through, regardless of the fact that we "ordered and paid" for them, because it would be so detrimental to their business with their other 1000's of customers who routinely need to purchase that product (because it would drive those customers to competing distributors).  And there isn't a vendor alive who would try and complain about it being unfair that they couldn't purchase Ingram Micro's entire national stock of Cisco 2811 routers, even though they were "ordered and paid for", much less try and involve anything legal.  Talking to our Ingram Micro rep, he's told us about times where customers tried to grab all of a particular type of product (even in a bunch of orders, being more devious), it happens about once per month or so (at least the point that he was aware of).

So I can see vendors retroactively limiting the quantity of an order or item if there would be a significant risk to the business that would drive its clients/customers elsewhere because it happens or can happen all the time in other industries.

That being said, limiting the quantity to 0 (e.g. canceling the order completely) is crap because 1 is the minimum you can order.

Grocery Stores do this all the time - an add in the paper is misprinted (instead of buy 2 get 2 free it says buy 2 get 20 free, or something like a misplaced decimal point) and they have signs at the checkout counter advising people the ad was misprinted and showing the intended price/sale.

Ben, yes you got the picture of me labeled correctly (Bill Dicks), although you did manage to catch me in my one semi-pissed moment (they took FOREVER to cook my chicken sandwich, I had to remind them to actually throw it on the grill).

That was the only knock on the venue (and a small knock at that) was that they didn't quite seem ready for the food and alcohol binge at 1:30pm on a Saturday and were understaffed in the kitchen area...

No, no, no!  Null Rod is a lynch-pin of the whole deck - you want to see it early and make sure it sticks early.  Whoever came up with that deck building guideline of "well if it's redundant in multiples you should only run 3 not 4" should be shot.  Just like Landstill, this deck wants the Null Rod to hit play turn 1 or 2.  Running 3 drastically reduces your odds of getting Null Rod IN PLAY - the other decks will be playing Duress, counterspells, etc, so in addition to seeing it more often, you'll see multiples, which isn't a bad thing! 

Either your null rod sticks early and you have a redundant card in hand (but you've accomplished one of your deck's primary goals!) OR your first null rod gets dealt with and you have the second one to play.  I like both of those options better than running 3, getting your first dealt with (or not seeing it in the first place) and not seeing another one for awhile (yes you can tutor for it, but you'd have to waste an early turn tutoring and probably won't have mana to play it the same turn as tutoring for it.

In a deck like this or something like Landstill, where Null Rod in play is a primary ingredient for your deck winning (as opposed to something like ICBM Oath which can run a couple to help compliment its plan), the only correct number is 4.

Dante

Yes that's it - I only weigh 185, so it's still 1.5 x bodyweight, but I've only been deadlifting and olympic weightlifting about 15 months.  I would like to see it more in the 360 range by next year.