So I decided to start out by playing in one of MTGO's recently added features - a competitive league.
It cost 80 play points to enter but even if you get zero wins they give you 10 back so I'm only risking 70 PP, equivalent to $7.
Match 1
My first game was against this guy: Janez_Veliki, a Magic player with a good track record and also an interest in Chess. His record was absolutely dominant 18 months ago, a really serious player. Yikes.
Game 1 he dropped a Warden of the First Tree and beautifully pumped it at exactly the right times, my attack petered out by about turn 7 leaving me with no cards or boards and him with an 8/8 trampling lifelink creature.
Game 2 I blew a Titan's Strength and a Zurgo Bellstriker killing his Warden but that left him open enough for me to pull out a win. My single Goblin Heelcutter did valuable work that game.
Game 3 I established a strong board and got him down to low life before foolishly forgetting his Shambling Vent. It's a land that can suddenly turn into a lifelinking creature. Worst of all for a rookie it hides amongst his lands presenting an apparently clean board. It killed one of my creatures and got him 2 life back but luckily I was able to kill him next turn with Atarka's Command.
I ended up taking the match 2-1 after losing the first game. This was against a genuinely good player, a strong chess player too according to google. Very pleased with that.
Match 2
Next I played Escarate, I think a rather newer player. He had a strong but slightly off meta deck, red aggro with lots of tokens rather than instant buffs.
Game 1 I flooded, got murdered.
Game 2 I won a close game.
Game 3 He utterly dominated. Then, with himself on 16 life and me on 5 life he used an Exquisite Firecraft spell to take me to 1 life instead of removing my only creature. Tapped out all lands all creatures, he passed the turn. I'm guessing he hasn't seen the Atarka Red deck much. My 1/2 Monastery Swiftspear rushed over as an 9/10 double striker and won me the game from nowhere.
I won this match 2-1 due to an opponent error.
I must admit it was a bit of a relief to play an opponent who wasn't perfect. I was getting the impression that all competitive MTGO players are years old veterans who own all the cards and who never make mistakes. Don't get me wrong, Escarate is a decent player, he's just human and not super-optimised.
This is such a scary format to start out in.
Match 3
I played against Gamsbart, another newish seeming player with an off-meta deck.
Game 1: He started pretty scary with an early Hangarback Walker. I again used 2 cards to kill 1 early threat, again to good result. Without the Hangarback I ran over him.
Game 2: I had 1 land so I mulliganed, got no land so I mulliganed again, got no land so I mulled down to 4. We then had a rather pathetic game where my opponent got stuck on 2 land while I beat him slowly do death with tiny creatures. Reviewing it I think I was too keen to trade, I should have kept things back for the big finish. Ho hum, got there somehow.
Another win, I'm 3-0 so far. I have earned enough prize to pay for another League entry already which is nice - a win or two in my last 2 games would put me well into the black.
Match 4
I played against JDDA3D, possibly another newish player, no results on the Google search. He played the same deck as me, Atarka Red, resulting in 2 very close games.
Game 1: I got a bit flooded and he out-resourced me, winning with a classic Atarka Red burst.
Game 2: I misplayed. A very tight game, I was one mana or one spell in the graveyard short of a Titan's Strength - Become Immense - Double Strike combo. I also had a Wild strike in hand and it occurs to me I should have cast it just to add a Delve card. I'm still learning the subtleties, or not so subtleties of this deck - blow everything except the killer combo seems like a fine way to play. On viewing the replay I realised I missed lethal, I could have used 1 mana to Wild Strike him for 2 damage, then the card would have been in the graveyard to pay for my delve spell. 2 damage would have been enough.
A loss, now I'm down to a more realistic 3-1 for the series. One match to go and I'm at least break even whatever happens.
Match 5
Played against a really good player called seriocomic. Google turned nothing up. His deck was Azban modified for the meta with the inclusion of counterspells. Key disruption of the pump spells and the use of solid creatures like Siege Rhino and Mantis Rider overpowered me.
Game 1: Hammered.
Game 2: I managed to set up my win condition but he used 2 counterspells to deny me.
Conclusion:
I still have some way to go learning the finer points of the incredibly complex interplay. I'm definitely playing the right deck as it's consistently brutal against anything not built to contain it. 3-2 is a fine result for my first competitive MTGO tournament and won me free entry into the next tournament.
Had the cards come out a little differently there was no one I faced who I couldn't have beaten. The deck is basically fine. At some point I may invest a little as I'm not quite running the netdeck version (3 cards different).
As for my opponents I feel there were 2 experienced players with very strong decks, one other newbie with a netdeck and 2 newish players with sub-par decks. So not totally offputting, there are people around I should beat more times than not.
Tuesday, 20 October 2015
Monday, 19 October 2015
MTGO: An EV based approach to starting competitively
A new set has come out for Magic: The Gathering and it's very fun and very interesting. With this set coming in and older cards rotating out I'm now at the point where every Magic card in the Standard ruleset was introduced while or slightly before I started playing in December. So I finally really know the cards well.
So I'm looking to play competitive Standard format Magic Online and I'm trying to strategise my best approach.
Goatbots do an Expected Value calculator. This tool allows you to determine how much value you'll get back at specific win rates for different formats.
Let's start by looking at 50% win rate.
The first thing that really stands out is that Limited is much more expensive than Contructed. Currently the cheapest Limited format is Khans Draft which will lose you on average $2.55 per go while Standard 2 player only loses you 25c per go.
Another way to look at it is by cost not per tournament but per match. We're seeing this as us needing to experience an amount of games to become practiced enough to be competitive. The best pick on this approach is playing a League which loses us 14c per game.
To play Constructed we will need a deck. To consistently win in Constructed we need a really good deck. The best decks are listed on sites like MtgGoldfish. Currently one of the best decks is Atarka Red which is also significantly cheaper than the other top decks and this is the one I decided to make. If you chose to netdeck you miss out on one of the more fun part of the game - constructing clever synergies but for a new player it's almost guaranteed to be more effective than coming up with your own strategies.
Magic is very good at showing you cards that inspire good ideas for decks. You see "this card gives all your Elves +1/+1" and your mind naturally goes towards thinking about an Elf deck. These synergies feel powerful and you get a sense of ownership of the idea, of personal cleverness. In truth every Magic player who saw that card had pretty much the same idea and the deck you're so proud to have created will have been tested by hundreds of people in dozens of variations and it isn't ruling the metagame.
So except for the top professionals we get to pick one: own our deck idea or decent win rate.
Atarka Red is a very quick somewhat gimmicky deck. You get some fast creature damage in then pump - preferably when your opponent is tapped out - for an explosive finisher. On a Prowess creature like Abbot of Keral Keep the pump cards Become Immense and Temur Battle Rage take it from a 2/1 to a 10/9 Double Strike trampler which is a straight kill on a clear board or more commonly a kill through a blocker against an opponent who has already lost some life.
Once we get to the stage where we have positive EV then a fast aggro deck like this particularly pays off as it allows us to churn through games very fast.
Let's now review the pieces we need to put together to be an effective competitive MTGO player.
- some natural aptitude for this type of puzzle-solving.
- knowledge of the current card set and meta.
- an expensive deck. (Subbing in less powerful commons for high impact rares will lower your win rate).
- experience.
So I've pretty much blown out my reserves putting together this deck and subsidised it by selling off most of the valuable cards I don't need (like an Ugin). My natural aptitude is what it is, by definition it's not something any of us can alter. The rest comes from experience, learning and understanding the plays and counterplays as one practices against other decks in the meta and decks that come from out of left field and do unexpected things.
The strength of Atarka Red is that it's so brutal it flat out beats decks that can't contain it. That is, if my opponent is focused on building his own strategy rather than removing my creatures or otherwise breaking my game flow I'm likely to win. It kills so fast left undisrupted and can cope with several removal spells and still go on for a win depending on the draws.
For Standard format the 8 player Swiss listed on Goatbot EV isn't an option so my choices are:
Standard Daily Swiss
Standard Single Elimination
Standard
Standard League
The Daily Swiss concentrates its payouts at the top. You play 4 matches and you get a ton of prizes for winning all 4, a good payout for winning 3 and nothing for winning 2, 1 or 0. This makes it a very punishing format for new players. This format actually is the first to become EV positive with rising win rate. At 52% win rate currently you are net positive. However that is heavily skewed towards the top end so 52% win rate with high variance is great but consistently scoring 2 wins - 2 losses is terrible even if it's around 50%.
The Single Elimination is much more accessible. Win one match and you win enough Play Points to enter another one. Win more than one and you get substantial rewards though nowhere near what a Daily winner gets. Even if you're really bad you will sometimes get a payout simply because your opponent got awful draws.
The Standard 2 player is the worst EV of the Constructed formats for good players but the best for bad players. Even if you never win (0% win rate) you still get some rewards in this format.
Standard League has the lowest EV loss per game which makes it a good choice at the gaining experience stage of our MTGO careers.
Now let's talk about rewards. I have a slightly different valuation on some of the rewards to the Goatbot calculator.
Play Points are valued at 0.10 which I agree with and forms a good base line. If you're a very good player you may find you win more Play Points than you could possibly spend at which point the value of these is zero until you run out and find yourself needing to build them up again. For a rookie you can always spend your Play Points. If you start to build up more than you spend grinding optimal formats like 2 players Standard then you can splash them on some events that are fun but really bad EV like Limited events and prerelease events. Only a pretty advanced player will not have a 0.10c value on a Play Point. In fact for a newbie I'd say Play Points are the best type of prize since you can just use them with no hassle trying to sell something to another player or bot.
Boosters are sellable to the bots for close to list price. At this stage in a set's life the value of boosters may be going down as people win more than they open. This was a terrible problem before Play Points were introduced a couple of months ago with some 4.00 boosters sinking to under 2.00 on the secondary market because of flooding caused by how much players won as prizes. It's very unlikely the current set will ever sink down to that level but in theory it could happen if not many people want to play Limited and the 8 or 16 man Constructed tournaments are paying out a lot of packs.
QPs are valued at 0 and I think they're worth a bit more than that. 15 QPs gives you a free entry into a MOCS season preliminary tournament where you probably won't win anything but it could be pretty exciting. You need 5 wins from 6 games to get into the next stage, there's no prizes except a Promo card in this tournament.
35 QPs or getting 5 or 6 wins in a Prelim puts you into a MOCS Final where there's very big payouts for the top 32 and even an invitation to professional tour for the first place winner.
QPs are worth nothing if under 15 are collected during the qualifying month, are worth a little to a new player, mostly for the fun of being in a higher level tournament if you have 15-34 and are definitely worthwhile if you have 35+ since a rookie could get lucky and finish in the top 32 or better.
Opened cards form part of the EV from Limited events and I suspect they're overvalued. You should be able to sell your premium cards but a junk card might be listed at 0.01c but no one will ever buy it off you.
I currently have 80 Play Points and 15 Event tickets so I'm going to try out some events and see how I get on. Hopefully I'll be able to keep going for some time before I run out of currency to enter events, maybe I'll even hit the magic number where I win more than the events cost.
So I'm looking to play competitive Standard format Magic Online and I'm trying to strategise my best approach.
Goatbots do an Expected Value calculator. This tool allows you to determine how much value you'll get back at specific win rates for different formats.
Let's start by looking at 50% win rate.
The first thing that really stands out is that Limited is much more expensive than Contructed. Currently the cheapest Limited format is Khans Draft which will lose you on average $2.55 per go while Standard 2 player only loses you 25c per go.
Another way to look at it is by cost not per tournament but per match. We're seeing this as us needing to experience an amount of games to become practiced enough to be competitive. The best pick on this approach is playing a League which loses us 14c per game.
To play Constructed we will need a deck. To consistently win in Constructed we need a really good deck. The best decks are listed on sites like MtgGoldfish. Currently one of the best decks is Atarka Red which is also significantly cheaper than the other top decks and this is the one I decided to make. If you chose to netdeck you miss out on one of the more fun part of the game - constructing clever synergies but for a new player it's almost guaranteed to be more effective than coming up with your own strategies.
Magic is very good at showing you cards that inspire good ideas for decks. You see "this card gives all your Elves +1/+1" and your mind naturally goes towards thinking about an Elf deck. These synergies feel powerful and you get a sense of ownership of the idea, of personal cleverness. In truth every Magic player who saw that card had pretty much the same idea and the deck you're so proud to have created will have been tested by hundreds of people in dozens of variations and it isn't ruling the metagame.
So except for the top professionals we get to pick one: own our deck idea or decent win rate.
Atarka Red is a very quick somewhat gimmicky deck. You get some fast creature damage in then pump - preferably when your opponent is tapped out - for an explosive finisher. On a Prowess creature like Abbot of Keral Keep the pump cards Become Immense and Temur Battle Rage take it from a 2/1 to a 10/9 Double Strike trampler which is a straight kill on a clear board or more commonly a kill through a blocker against an opponent who has already lost some life.
Once we get to the stage where we have positive EV then a fast aggro deck like this particularly pays off as it allows us to churn through games very fast.
Let's now review the pieces we need to put together to be an effective competitive MTGO player.
- some natural aptitude for this type of puzzle-solving.
- knowledge of the current card set and meta.
- an expensive deck. (Subbing in less powerful commons for high impact rares will lower your win rate).
- experience.
So I've pretty much blown out my reserves putting together this deck and subsidised it by selling off most of the valuable cards I don't need (like an Ugin). My natural aptitude is what it is, by definition it's not something any of us can alter. The rest comes from experience, learning and understanding the plays and counterplays as one practices against other decks in the meta and decks that come from out of left field and do unexpected things.
The strength of Atarka Red is that it's so brutal it flat out beats decks that can't contain it. That is, if my opponent is focused on building his own strategy rather than removing my creatures or otherwise breaking my game flow I'm likely to win. It kills so fast left undisrupted and can cope with several removal spells and still go on for a win depending on the draws.
For Standard format the 8 player Swiss listed on Goatbot EV isn't an option so my choices are:
Standard Daily Swiss
Standard Single Elimination
Standard
Standard League
The Daily Swiss concentrates its payouts at the top. You play 4 matches and you get a ton of prizes for winning all 4, a good payout for winning 3 and nothing for winning 2, 1 or 0. This makes it a very punishing format for new players. This format actually is the first to become EV positive with rising win rate. At 52% win rate currently you are net positive. However that is heavily skewed towards the top end so 52% win rate with high variance is great but consistently scoring 2 wins - 2 losses is terrible even if it's around 50%.
The Single Elimination is much more accessible. Win one match and you win enough Play Points to enter another one. Win more than one and you get substantial rewards though nowhere near what a Daily winner gets. Even if you're really bad you will sometimes get a payout simply because your opponent got awful draws.
The Standard 2 player is the worst EV of the Constructed formats for good players but the best for bad players. Even if you never win (0% win rate) you still get some rewards in this format.
Standard League has the lowest EV loss per game which makes it a good choice at the gaining experience stage of our MTGO careers.
Now let's talk about rewards. I have a slightly different valuation on some of the rewards to the Goatbot calculator.
Play Points are valued at 0.10 which I agree with and forms a good base line. If you're a very good player you may find you win more Play Points than you could possibly spend at which point the value of these is zero until you run out and find yourself needing to build them up again. For a rookie you can always spend your Play Points. If you start to build up more than you spend grinding optimal formats like 2 players Standard then you can splash them on some events that are fun but really bad EV like Limited events and prerelease events. Only a pretty advanced player will not have a 0.10c value on a Play Point. In fact for a newbie I'd say Play Points are the best type of prize since you can just use them with no hassle trying to sell something to another player or bot.
Boosters are sellable to the bots for close to list price. At this stage in a set's life the value of boosters may be going down as people win more than they open. This was a terrible problem before Play Points were introduced a couple of months ago with some 4.00 boosters sinking to under 2.00 on the secondary market because of flooding caused by how much players won as prizes. It's very unlikely the current set will ever sink down to that level but in theory it could happen if not many people want to play Limited and the 8 or 16 man Constructed tournaments are paying out a lot of packs.
QPs are valued at 0 and I think they're worth a bit more than that. 15 QPs gives you a free entry into a MOCS season preliminary tournament where you probably won't win anything but it could be pretty exciting. You need 5 wins from 6 games to get into the next stage, there's no prizes except a Promo card in this tournament.
35 QPs or getting 5 or 6 wins in a Prelim puts you into a MOCS Final where there's very big payouts for the top 32 and even an invitation to professional tour for the first place winner.
QPs are worth nothing if under 15 are collected during the qualifying month, are worth a little to a new player, mostly for the fun of being in a higher level tournament if you have 15-34 and are definitely worthwhile if you have 35+ since a rookie could get lucky and finish in the top 32 or better.
Opened cards form part of the EV from Limited events and I suspect they're overvalued. You should be able to sell your premium cards but a junk card might be listed at 0.01c but no one will ever buy it off you.
I currently have 80 Play Points and 15 Event tickets so I'm going to try out some events and see how I get on. Hopefully I'll be able to keep going for some time before I run out of currency to enter events, maybe I'll even hit the magic number where I win more than the events cost.
Thursday, 1 October 2015
TV: Orphan Black
I try to stick to MMO discussion here but I wanted to mention this particularly fine TV show.
Orphan Black is a dark funny contemporary sci fi show about human cloning. Because of the weirdness of the TV industry I've found a lot of people haven't heard of it as it's not particularly well promoted, especially in the USA.
It's a first class TV series, on a par with Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.
Season 1 and 2 are currently available on UK Netflix.
Season 3 is available for about a month on the BBC iplayer.
If you have access it's definitely one to catch if you like TV drama shows.
Here's a trailer:
Orphan Black is a dark funny contemporary sci fi show about human cloning. Because of the weirdness of the TV industry I've found a lot of people haven't heard of it as it's not particularly well promoted, especially in the USA.
It's a first class TV series, on a par with Breaking Bad or Game of Thrones.
Season 1 and 2 are currently available on UK Netflix.
Season 3 is available for about a month on the BBC iplayer.
If you have access it's definitely one to catch if you like TV drama shows.
Here's a trailer:
Thursday, 24 September 2015
My first day in Faction Warfare with Brave.
With much love and fond farewells I left Kite Co yesterday and joined
Peaceful.....erm..... Feely Wotsits or whatever our new FW standings
grinder corp is called (seriously the most forgettable name ever).
Yomato licked us into shape then handed the reins over to me and I took us offensive plexing. Oplexing is 65% about fighting and 35% about ticking over the timers to win capture points, the captures provide a nice stream of passive income when what we're actually doing is chatting and d scanning for customers.
I did a couple of hours last night with a gang that varied from about 2 to 6 active pilots. Each fight has a fair chance someone will die so we based out of Oshaima which has a good route to nearby Jita, is right near a load of very hot gallente systems has a market stocked by RvB who live there (as do our FW trailblazers, Kill Them With Kindness) and has the plus point that the police aren't constantly threatening to kill us.
We had a very good fight where we killed a jackdaw, thorax and something else and later an exciting assault on TMC streamer Lazarus Telraven where we all died heroically. We actually got his Thorax to half hull but being a dishonorabu goon he just had to batphone PL and was saved by Elise in a Vexor.
Today I soloed for a few hours while pretending to half ass some work and discovered I've become very rusty at frigate pvp in the plexes. There's a specific sequence you have to do as a brawler when a kiter comes in on you: preheat, set tackle mods flashy, approach, lock and I used to have it down pat but I messed it up this afternoon and lost 3 fights to kitey tristans. I cheered myself up by winning one against a Punisher though.
Then other people in the corp came alive and we got a gang going again. The place is so content mad I actually looked for quieter systems so we could secure a few lp before I welped us.
Our first action was a fight against a t1 hauler which was brutally beating up poor Yomato. Turns out he's not very good at fitting Hookbills as even with 3 of us dirty blobbing it it was still able to murderise him. Never come between a Badger and its goo!
We took a brave fight in Onatoh, we knew they were slightly outmuscling us but it's better to fight than to keep running off until you're sure. (interesting discussion btw on Asher's podcast about how no one in nullsec wants to have an even fight any more so it's not all roses there like some people are saying). We killed a thorax and nearly got another one before we all died. - 4 frigs, welp #1
We did some plexing, made some LP then took on another fight, this time against some posh faction frigs. We got a slicer for a few cheap frigs and a hookbill. Welp #2
We carried on exploring the zone and oplexing as the evening started getting busier and busier. CalMil took the crucial system of Heydelieles someone told me so it was a real ants nest around this corner of the zone with the Frogs knowing that we're poised to knock over the next lily leaf. It puts adding points to the silver control bar into perspective knowing that corps like Aideron Robotics could lose their home with us doing a bit to help that along.
We hooked up with a CalMil fleet trying to take a plex in Fliet with expensive ships. As we were in cheapass brawlers it made sense for us to sit on the beacon looking for scrams while the rich kids swagged about in their garmurs etc.
Gallente tried to pick us off with cormorants but we were too good and all of us made it past a camp they put on the novice plex. Gallente couldn't allow us to capture this so they reshipped into incursus, navitas and... wait, what's this???... a griffin. Caldari supremacy tacitly acknowledged!
in they came and meat shield did what meat shield does. We scrammed and killed a logi frig, then another, then that was it for me, turns out being in a ship that fights at 1000m does not a long life guarantee in frig brawls.
The others clung on and brawled a bit more with line fleet members very competently managing the fight until we died. Dunno what happened to our Caldari friends after we died - probably warped off and polished their killboards. Ho hum, the life of a peasant in a Merlin.
So that was #welp3 but each welp was a useful assault on an enemy that we inflicted pain to everytime.
All told I've spent about 8 hours of the last 24 doing FW and had really good fun. Of the 10 Merlins I brought down 8 are dead but I've got 7 kills and am the corp's top killer!
If other people in Brave want to be early adopters too come join us. And as for everyone else we'll see you in a couple of weeks when you can fly your Merlins and meatshield for us as we all swag around in our posh new Caldari Navy Hookbills. (Don't worry, you'll get enough LP for a Hookbill soon enough).
For people not in Brave join channel Brave Newbies and ask about the faction war corp, erm, Peaceful something something.
And for people who are frogs, watch out, the Newbies are coming!
Yomato licked us into shape then handed the reins over to me and I took us offensive plexing. Oplexing is 65% about fighting and 35% about ticking over the timers to win capture points, the captures provide a nice stream of passive income when what we're actually doing is chatting and d scanning for customers.
I did a couple of hours last night with a gang that varied from about 2 to 6 active pilots. Each fight has a fair chance someone will die so we based out of Oshaima which has a good route to nearby Jita, is right near a load of very hot gallente systems has a market stocked by RvB who live there (as do our FW trailblazers, Kill Them With Kindness) and has the plus point that the police aren't constantly threatening to kill us.
We had a very good fight where we killed a jackdaw, thorax and something else and later an exciting assault on TMC streamer Lazarus Telraven where we all died heroically. We actually got his Thorax to half hull but being a dishonorabu goon he just had to batphone PL and was saved by Elise in a Vexor.
Today I soloed for a few hours while pretending to half ass some work and discovered I've become very rusty at frigate pvp in the plexes. There's a specific sequence you have to do as a brawler when a kiter comes in on you: preheat, set tackle mods flashy, approach, lock and I used to have it down pat but I messed it up this afternoon and lost 3 fights to kitey tristans. I cheered myself up by winning one against a Punisher though.
Then other people in the corp came alive and we got a gang going again. The place is so content mad I actually looked for quieter systems so we could secure a few lp before I welped us.
Our first action was a fight against a t1 hauler which was brutally beating up poor Yomato. Turns out he's not very good at fitting Hookbills as even with 3 of us dirty blobbing it it was still able to murderise him. Never come between a Badger and its goo!
We took a brave fight in Onatoh, we knew they were slightly outmuscling us but it's better to fight than to keep running off until you're sure. (interesting discussion btw on Asher's podcast about how no one in nullsec wants to have an even fight any more so it's not all roses there like some people are saying). We killed a thorax and nearly got another one before we all died. - 4 frigs, welp #1
We did some plexing, made some LP then took on another fight, this time against some posh faction frigs. We got a slicer for a few cheap frigs and a hookbill. Welp #2
We carried on exploring the zone and oplexing as the evening started getting busier and busier. CalMil took the crucial system of Heydelieles someone told me so it was a real ants nest around this corner of the zone with the Frogs knowing that we're poised to knock over the next lily leaf. It puts adding points to the silver control bar into perspective knowing that corps like Aideron Robotics could lose their home with us doing a bit to help that along.
We hooked up with a CalMil fleet trying to take a plex in Fliet with expensive ships. As we were in cheapass brawlers it made sense for us to sit on the beacon looking for scrams while the rich kids swagged about in their garmurs etc.
Gallente tried to pick us off with cormorants but we were too good and all of us made it past a camp they put on the novice plex. Gallente couldn't allow us to capture this so they reshipped into incursus, navitas and... wait, what's this???... a griffin. Caldari supremacy tacitly acknowledged!
in they came and meat shield did what meat shield does. We scrammed and killed a logi frig, then another, then that was it for me, turns out being in a ship that fights at 1000m does not a long life guarantee in frig brawls.
The others clung on and brawled a bit more with line fleet members very competently managing the fight until we died. Dunno what happened to our Caldari friends after we died - probably warped off and polished their killboards. Ho hum, the life of a peasant in a Merlin.
So that was #welp3 but each welp was a useful assault on an enemy that we inflicted pain to everytime.
All told I've spent about 8 hours of the last 24 doing FW and had really good fun. Of the 10 Merlins I brought down 8 are dead but I've got 7 kills and am the corp's top killer!
If other people in Brave want to be early adopters too come join us. And as for everyone else we'll see you in a couple of weeks when you can fly your Merlins and meatshield for us as we all swag around in our posh new Caldari Navy Hookbills. (Don't worry, you'll get enough LP for a Hookbill soon enough).
For people not in Brave join channel Brave Newbies and ask about the faction war corp, erm, Peaceful something something.
And for people who are frogs, watch out, the Newbies are coming!
Saturday, 19 September 2015
AAR: BRAVE Frigate Tournament, winner's perspective 2015/09/18
Mikal has decided to organise a regular frigate tournament and the first of them started last night.
I won with a rail Tristan fit. The tournament limits drones to Tech 1 only but even with T1 Drones the Tristan is still a very strong ship.
I designed my fit to be a little deceptive. While it applies from range reasonably effectively peak damage is from quite close (probably 9km using Antimatter is my best distance after taking tracking issues into account).
I played the Tristan by using a simple beginning of Keep at Range 30km and peppering them with Spike (30 dps). From there I'd assess whether they were comfortable with long range in which case I would move in, web them and switch to antimatter or Javelin high damage ammo or if they couldn't hit me at that range just sit there plinking away.
Here's my fit:
[Tristan, Tourney]
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
150mm Railgun II, Spike S
150mm Railgun II, Spike S
[empty high slot]
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Hobgoblin I x5
My first game was super close. I played Jozzer. He used a rail Incursus which was doing decent damage at 30km while laughing at my pitiful rail dps. I decided to rush in which led to a nasty close range brawl where we both overheated everything and just hoped. He blew up just seconds before I would have, giving me a win in very low structure. https://zkillboard.com/kill/49126706/
Here's the bracket. http://challonge.com/bravefrigtournament Note that there's a mistake. After my match with Kal Nour his name was put forward but in fact he wasn't able to stay around for our game so I got a win in my second match by default and the name Kal Nour should read Callduron for round 3 onwards.
My next game was against Dsching who I consider to be a very strong player. It was Tristan v Tristan. I think however he misjudged his fit. He was running 2 armour reppers and a neut with no cap modules or rigs. I just don't think that can work. (By contrast I was running just one repper and still had a cap booster). I did my trademark plinking from 30km which forced him to send in his drones then I rushed in for a kill, keeping a little out of his optimal blaster range and got a pretty safe kill. https://zkillboard.com/kill/49128937/
My next opinion was minion Kanjus who brought a very respectable light missile Kestrel. I moved to 30km to test how he played and BLAM: I got slammed halfway through my shields in the first volley. However missiles do the same dps close as they do far and with him having only an afterburner I had total range control. I moved in close, webbed him, used Javelin high damage close range ammo and overheated everything for another win, albeit not as comfortable as I would have liked. In fact I got the pvp shakes quite badly in this from the adrenalin rush and was physically shaking a lot. Really good fight, Minion. https://zkillboard.com/kill/49129226/
And that was the end of the winner's bracket, I was the last remaining person with no losses yet. And so I watched a brutally competitive losers' bracket play out to decide who I would play in the final. I had the security blanket of knowing that if I played the final and lost it would go to a rematch between the same two finalists because of the double elimination rule - I couldn't be eliminated by a single loss, not even in the final.
The losers' bracket was superb with great skill being shown and a really diverse meta. Breachers, Executioners, Merlins, all kinds of ships in addition to the popular Tristans. The outstanding player was maydNNN who flew a very fast light missile Breacher. He faced quite a few opponents with drones and was simply too quick and skilful to even get touched by the lumbering T1 light drones. He won several matches by taking no damage and scoring some light damage on his opponent and getting the referee decision. He attracted some enthusiastic German support and went on to represent a strong German contingent of participants in the final against me.
Germany may be the land of crystal spun castles but sadly the final was no fairy story. I chased in to my opponent doing some light damage with spike as I approached and setting drones on him. Crucially I got a web on him which stopped him from doing his trademark kiting. However he scrammed me and was able to pull away using his mwd and got out of web range. I was a little slow reacting and he got to a good distance for him with the potential to apply very well from distance. Then he boundary violated ending what was turning into a close fought match, with possibly his advantage.
We were both pretty tired it being 2.30 am my time and 3.30 am his time. He had also had a long intense journey through the losers' bracket which I had been spared. So really I think I won by attrition.
Veteran tournament player that I am a win's a win and I'll happily take it. I won a Dramiel, free entry to the next tourney. In addition a prize had been donated of a fit up Cerberus but the player who got it decided to give it to the tourney winner so I got that as well.
Thanks to everyone who took part and to Mikal for organising it.
I hope a lot more people decide to give it a go next time, it's definitely worth 5 million isk to enter, amazing fun.
I won with a rail Tristan fit. The tournament limits drones to Tech 1 only but even with T1 Drones the Tristan is still a very strong ship.
I designed my fit to be a little deceptive. While it applies from range reasonably effectively peak damage is from quite close (probably 9km using Antimatter is my best distance after taking tracking issues into account).
I played the Tristan by using a simple beginning of Keep at Range 30km and peppering them with Spike (30 dps). From there I'd assess whether they were comfortable with long range in which case I would move in, web them and switch to antimatter or Javelin high damage ammo or if they couldn't hit me at that range just sit there plinking away.
Here's my fit:
[Tristan, Tourney]
Damage Control II
Small Armor Repairer II
Energized Adaptive Nano Membrane II
5MN Quad LiF Restrained Microwarpdrive
X5 Prototype Engine Enervator
Small Capacitor Booster II, Navy Cap Booster 400
150mm Railgun II, Spike S
150mm Railgun II, Spike S
[empty high slot]
Small Ancillary Current Router I
Small Processor Overclocking Unit I
Small Auxiliary Nano Pump I
Hobgoblin I x5
My first game was super close. I played Jozzer. He used a rail Incursus which was doing decent damage at 30km while laughing at my pitiful rail dps. I decided to rush in which led to a nasty close range brawl where we both overheated everything and just hoped. He blew up just seconds before I would have, giving me a win in very low structure. https://zkillboard.com/kill/49126706/
Here's the bracket. http://challonge.com/bravefrigtournament Note that there's a mistake. After my match with Kal Nour his name was put forward but in fact he wasn't able to stay around for our game so I got a win in my second match by default and the name Kal Nour should read Callduron for round 3 onwards.
My next game was against Dsching who I consider to be a very strong player. It was Tristan v Tristan. I think however he misjudged his fit. He was running 2 armour reppers and a neut with no cap modules or rigs. I just don't think that can work. (By contrast I was running just one repper and still had a cap booster). I did my trademark plinking from 30km which forced him to send in his drones then I rushed in for a kill, keeping a little out of his optimal blaster range and got a pretty safe kill. https://zkillboard.com/kill/49128937/
My next opinion was minion Kanjus who brought a very respectable light missile Kestrel. I moved to 30km to test how he played and BLAM: I got slammed halfway through my shields in the first volley. However missiles do the same dps close as they do far and with him having only an afterburner I had total range control. I moved in close, webbed him, used Javelin high damage close range ammo and overheated everything for another win, albeit not as comfortable as I would have liked. In fact I got the pvp shakes quite badly in this from the adrenalin rush and was physically shaking a lot. Really good fight, Minion. https://zkillboard.com/kill/49129226/
And that was the end of the winner's bracket, I was the last remaining person with no losses yet. And so I watched a brutally competitive losers' bracket play out to decide who I would play in the final. I had the security blanket of knowing that if I played the final and lost it would go to a rematch between the same two finalists because of the double elimination rule - I couldn't be eliminated by a single loss, not even in the final.
The losers' bracket was superb with great skill being shown and a really diverse meta. Breachers, Executioners, Merlins, all kinds of ships in addition to the popular Tristans. The outstanding player was maydNNN who flew a very fast light missile Breacher. He faced quite a few opponents with drones and was simply too quick and skilful to even get touched by the lumbering T1 light drones. He won several matches by taking no damage and scoring some light damage on his opponent and getting the referee decision. He attracted some enthusiastic German support and went on to represent a strong German contingent of participants in the final against me.
Germany may be the land of crystal spun castles but sadly the final was no fairy story. I chased in to my opponent doing some light damage with spike as I approached and setting drones on him. Crucially I got a web on him which stopped him from doing his trademark kiting. However he scrammed me and was able to pull away using his mwd and got out of web range. I was a little slow reacting and he got to a good distance for him with the potential to apply very well from distance. Then he boundary violated ending what was turning into a close fought match, with possibly his advantage.
We were both pretty tired it being 2.30 am my time and 3.30 am his time. He had also had a long intense journey through the losers' bracket which I had been spared. So really I think I won by attrition.
Veteran tournament player that I am a win's a win and I'll happily take it. I won a Dramiel, free entry to the next tourney. In addition a prize had been donated of a fit up Cerberus but the player who got it decided to give it to the tourney winner so I got that as well.
Thanks to everyone who took part and to Mikal for organising it.
I hope a lot more people decide to give it a go next time, it's definitely worth 5 million isk to enter, amazing fun.
Wednesday, 9 September 2015
How could Eve build up tournament play - the mini-leagues plan
I've been bitten by the tournament bug as have a lot of the players who tried tournament play for the first time in AT XIII. I'd love to play more as would members of my squad but the next tournament is a year off so instead we have nothing to do. Most AT squads simply disband at this stage.
For tournaments, for e-sport, to become a more significant part of Eve two things need to happen. Tournament play needs to be year round and it needs to be trivially accessible even to quite casual players.
Here's my proposal: the Eve Mini-Leagues.
Any alliance can enter one team and no more. Most AT rules apply such as the rules on collusion. When teams enter they are initially assigned a league based on order of entry. League size is up for discussion but we'll say 8 to start with. It probably should be a multiple of 4 so that a league can easily be used as the basis for knockout tournaments, notably the AT itself. League duration is a calendar month.
So month 1 and we get 21 alliances sign up. That's enough for 2 leagues of 8 with a waiting list of 5 teams. Each team has 7 possible matches to play over a month period - they don't have to play all of them but only get points from results. Say League 1 sees its weakest team only play 3 matches, losing 2 and winning 1. That team gets relegated to League 2 and the weakest team from League 2 gets relegated to the bottom of the waiting list with whoever's been on the waiting list longest taking their place.
If 7 matches a month seems too much we could do leagues of 4 which would also have the beneficial effect of reducing the waiting list. The problem with this is that it might make the top league just PL, Warlords Camel and whoever is about to get relegated.
A match is considered "played" if it conforms to tournament rules (based on latest AT rules), is not interrupted by a third party and a youtube link of the action is provided. I'm thinking that matches should be streamed or at least frapped because we want this to attract a viewer base and build a viewer base for the AT.
The unscannable zones added to sisi for the benefit of AT teams should be perfectly adequate to allow teams to play matches when hostile third parties are trying to screw them up.
The beneficial effects of this minileague system will be as follows:
- year round tournament gameplay which adds to the sandbox, the options to choose from for players.
- adds spice to alliance rivalries
- newbie and casual friendly as these are low stakes tournaments which can be infinitely extended to accomodate every alliance that wants in.
- a wonderful opportunity for streamers and people who make Eve content.
- the chance for Eve presenters and commentators to improve. The presentation of AT XIII was good but there's no question that it could be better and I think it would be if there were constant iteration and feedback throughout the year.
- an opportunity for Eve organisations like Eve Bet to gain publicity and traffic by sponsoring prizes.
- the building of an enthusiastic dedicated interesting following for Eve Sports.
I'm thinking this could be hooked in with current out of tournament gameplay like the player tournaments arranged at Eve events. Maybe at Eve Vegas PL might arrange to play a league match v Camel and that would be part of the event, with some of the team members playing in person at the event, hooking up with colleagues who can't attend. It might also fit with Eve-NT if the rules allowed for smaller sides format to be a legal way to play matches. (Or maybe the leagues could be 5-a-side, it's not a dealbreaker).
Is this a huge undertaking?
Not at all. People already scrim on sisi or run in-house tournaments, it's really just a formalisation of stuff players already do. The big change is that there's a competitive element to it and that matches will be streamed, broadcast and commentated on. (As a matter of fact we recorded our practice scrims when Brave prepared for AT XIII and those videos are very entertaining to watch).
We don't need much from CCP although we'd like this to become a supported element of the game, just as gas mining or high sec ganking is.
Success would be driven by how many people get involved but in my opinion there's a huge hunger for the tournament playstyle, that hunger is highest - pardoxically - at the end of the AT when no one really does any tournament stuff.
Benefits for Eve
E Sports are a hobby and like any hobby they are part of people's lives. You can't really have Eve Sport as a hobby when it's only on 3 weeks a year. If you could watch tournament play all year round then people would get into it and stay into it as their appreciation and understanding of small nuances of piloting skill grows.
People like watching gaming streams so they can improve. With good commentary streamed or youtube league matches would show off the skills of some of the best players in the game, all pushing each other to excel by competing.
It adds stickiness to Eve Online as a whole as alliances and pilots work out grudges on the grid and trigger new vendettas.
People like the soccer world cup because they can relate to it. At one time Pele was a scruffy kid kicking a can around the street. Set up tournaments so that anyone can try it and the people that tried it are more receptive and enthusiastic about the main event because they can picture themselves in the finals making the critical plays. The AT will be a much bigger deal if we become a tournament-playing community instead of leaving it as a once-a-year perk for a handful of elite players.
People will be drawn into Eve because of the Eve Sports buzz.
New players can be steered towards socialisation, risk and fun by the addition of a new Opportunity - join an alliance and play a league match for them.
Constant iteration on the tournament "little things" that would over time create a much better project.
An Eve sport element to the game that is integrated into regular production instead of being something that staff have to come in on their weekends to make work. Because work would happen throughout the year there would be a lot less "crunch" during the three weeks of the actual AT for CCP staff.
Potentially the leagues could provide a qualification system for the AT that generates a better and more conpetitive strucure than simply drawing competitors out of a hat. (I think it really hurt Eve Sports that alliances like Goons - the largest alliance in the game - had no stake in this year's AT because they got unlucky in the random draw).
For tournaments, for e-sport, to become a more significant part of Eve two things need to happen. Tournament play needs to be year round and it needs to be trivially accessible even to quite casual players.
Here's my proposal: the Eve Mini-Leagues.
Any alliance can enter one team and no more. Most AT rules apply such as the rules on collusion. When teams enter they are initially assigned a league based on order of entry. League size is up for discussion but we'll say 8 to start with. It probably should be a multiple of 4 so that a league can easily be used as the basis for knockout tournaments, notably the AT itself. League duration is a calendar month.
So month 1 and we get 21 alliances sign up. That's enough for 2 leagues of 8 with a waiting list of 5 teams. Each team has 7 possible matches to play over a month period - they don't have to play all of them but only get points from results. Say League 1 sees its weakest team only play 3 matches, losing 2 and winning 1. That team gets relegated to League 2 and the weakest team from League 2 gets relegated to the bottom of the waiting list with whoever's been on the waiting list longest taking their place.
If 7 matches a month seems too much we could do leagues of 4 which would also have the beneficial effect of reducing the waiting list. The problem with this is that it might make the top league just PL, Warlords Camel and whoever is about to get relegated.
A match is considered "played" if it conforms to tournament rules (based on latest AT rules), is not interrupted by a third party and a youtube link of the action is provided. I'm thinking that matches should be streamed or at least frapped because we want this to attract a viewer base and build a viewer base for the AT.
The unscannable zones added to sisi for the benefit of AT teams should be perfectly adequate to allow teams to play matches when hostile third parties are trying to screw them up.
The beneficial effects of this minileague system will be as follows:
- year round tournament gameplay which adds to the sandbox, the options to choose from for players.
- adds spice to alliance rivalries
- newbie and casual friendly as these are low stakes tournaments which can be infinitely extended to accomodate every alliance that wants in.
- a wonderful opportunity for streamers and people who make Eve content.
- the chance for Eve presenters and commentators to improve. The presentation of AT XIII was good but there's no question that it could be better and I think it would be if there were constant iteration and feedback throughout the year.
- an opportunity for Eve organisations like Eve Bet to gain publicity and traffic by sponsoring prizes.
- the building of an enthusiastic dedicated interesting following for Eve Sports.
I'm thinking this could be hooked in with current out of tournament gameplay like the player tournaments arranged at Eve events. Maybe at Eve Vegas PL might arrange to play a league match v Camel and that would be part of the event, with some of the team members playing in person at the event, hooking up with colleagues who can't attend. It might also fit with Eve-NT if the rules allowed for smaller sides format to be a legal way to play matches. (Or maybe the leagues could be 5-a-side, it's not a dealbreaker).
Is this a huge undertaking?
Not at all. People already scrim on sisi or run in-house tournaments, it's really just a formalisation of stuff players already do. The big change is that there's a competitive element to it and that matches will be streamed, broadcast and commentated on. (As a matter of fact we recorded our practice scrims when Brave prepared for AT XIII and those videos are very entertaining to watch).
We don't need much from CCP although we'd like this to become a supported element of the game, just as gas mining or high sec ganking is.
Success would be driven by how many people get involved but in my opinion there's a huge hunger for the tournament playstyle, that hunger is highest - pardoxically - at the end of the AT when no one really does any tournament stuff.
Benefits for Eve
E Sports are a hobby and like any hobby they are part of people's lives. You can't really have Eve Sport as a hobby when it's only on 3 weeks a year. If you could watch tournament play all year round then people would get into it and stay into it as their appreciation and understanding of small nuances of piloting skill grows.
People like watching gaming streams so they can improve. With good commentary streamed or youtube league matches would show off the skills of some of the best players in the game, all pushing each other to excel by competing.
It adds stickiness to Eve Online as a whole as alliances and pilots work out grudges on the grid and trigger new vendettas.
People like the soccer world cup because they can relate to it. At one time Pele was a scruffy kid kicking a can around the street. Set up tournaments so that anyone can try it and the people that tried it are more receptive and enthusiastic about the main event because they can picture themselves in the finals making the critical plays. The AT will be a much bigger deal if we become a tournament-playing community instead of leaving it as a once-a-year perk for a handful of elite players.
People will be drawn into Eve because of the Eve Sports buzz.
New players can be steered towards socialisation, risk and fun by the addition of a new Opportunity - join an alliance and play a league match for them.
Constant iteration on the tournament "little things" that would over time create a much better project.
An Eve sport element to the game that is integrated into regular production instead of being something that staff have to come in on their weekends to make work. Because work would happen throughout the year there would be a lot less "crunch" during the three weeks of the actual AT for CCP staff.
Potentially the leagues could provide a qualification system for the AT that generates a better and more conpetitive strucure than simply drawing competitors out of a hat. (I think it really hurt Eve Sports that alliances like Goons - the largest alliance in the game - had no stake in this year's AT because they got unlucky in the random draw).
Wednesday, 2 September 2015
Brave strikes back
From Capri's address to Black Legion we learn that one of the most divisive moments was when Elo formed a CTA fleet to retake Y-2ANO. We learn from the Soundcloud (Capri's @ 10.50) that this CTA ended disastrously and caused deep and divisive drama after Elo arranged it then failed to show up to his own op.
Apparently this mayhem was the result of the actions of a single mischievious interceptor pilot.
Oops.
I think that's the first alliance I've killed, pity it doesn't show up on my killboard.
Apparently this mayhem was the result of the actions of a single mischievious interceptor pilot.
Oops.
I think that's the first alliance I've killed, pity it doesn't show up on my killboard.
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