Guest posts by Mntoothpick

1

Politics / Re: An analysis of the recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision.

« on: June 28, 2011, 08:35:49 pm »

Thread now locked @ Kongregate.

http://www.kongregate.com/forums/9-serious-discussion/topics/180972-i-remember-when-there-were-no-violent-video-games

Guess I'll be playing Elements through the main Elements portal now instead of Kongregate.

2

Politics / An analysis of the recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision.

« on: June 28, 2011, 05:53:08 am »

You can find my discussion here (http://kommune1541.blogspot.com/2011/06/i-remember-when-there-were-no-violent.html)

3

General Discussion / Re: Here's a tip for elements!

« on: January 10, 2011, 09:28:28 am »

It's not that generous.  A kred is about a dime, so it is only like $2.50.  It is a tip jar, after all.

4

General Discussion / Here's a tip for elements!

« on: January 10, 2011, 03:05:57 am »

I enjoyed playing Elements a lot last year.  So here's a tip for Elements!  Happy New Year.

5

Politics / Judge dismisses dollhouse flyer case.

« on: October 18, 2010, 03:19:23 am »

Regulars know, I have been running a blog to save Dollhouse for Eliza Dushku, who I love.

In an attempt to save Dollhouse, I often handed out fliers to people I came into contact with. I also took photographs of a variety of events that I participated in.

I sought a legal order to enjoin them from preventing me from conducting outreach to save Dollhouse and allowing me to continue to take pictures.  ( I tried to take photographs of people playing Madden 2010 on a Playstation 3 for a second time at Branch 3 and was again told no.)

You can read the decision here.

http://digg.com/news/offbeat/case_dismissed_tore_simonsen_loves_eliza_dollhouse

It includes a lot of Minnesota political figures, athough Margaret Anderson Kelliher lost her bid for governor.

6

Deck Help / Re: Currently working on "Dollhouse" Deck: 1 Purple Nymph for FG farming.

« on: September 11, 2010, 10:09:53 pm »

The deck can win against FG, but I wouldn't say its an FG killer yet.  It does better against some FG's than others.  I still lose a lot of rounds with it, esp. when the mingates/shards get destroyed.  Over time, you'll find that the deck does not have a great win/loss % in my experience (I think I put it at 25-30%), but if you draw the right FG it certainly has a pretty good chance. 

As I stated, try the deck out in the trainer.  It's a lot of electrum to spend and there are plenty of alternatives.  For me, it's an interesting idea and I consider at "concept" deck.

It's more for people who want to play around with a deck idea.  I recommend building it in the trainer rather than spending the electrum.

7

Tournament Archive / Re: Western tournament - 11 September - Unupgraded

« on: September 11, 2010, 06:36:04 pm »

Mntoothpick 2-1 Samong2

8

Tournament Archive / Re: Western tournament - 11 September - Unupgraded

« on: September 11, 2010, 06:09:34 pm »

Mntoothpick 1-o Schwartzer Ritter

9

PvP Tournaments / Re: Tournament Feedback

« on: September 07, 2010, 12:16:43 am »

I think tournaments are a good idea to bring people together.

A few quick thoughts:

I do think that organizers should never compete in the tournament they are organizing (otherwise the entire thing loses its perceived legitimacy).

I think the organizers should receive some standards compensation for their time (such as electrum) in light of not being able to participate. 

(It may also be that a just for fun round could be reserved at the end of the tournament in which the organizer is allowed to play the tournament winner in a no stakes round so that the organizer gets some play time.)

Participating in the tournaments takes a great deal of time and preparation.  Unfortunately, preliminary rounds reduce the opportunity to test many of the decks people may make and hence reduce the incentive to build a lot of decks.

Maybe create a losers bracket for people who want to play their decks out a few more rounds in case of early elimination.  After all, if you have 5 decks and only get to play one of them, its rather disappointing.  You can't help but think you should have gone with deck 3 instead of deck 1, but you'll never really know.... LOL.

My guess is problems with desyncing would "mysteriously" disappear if competitions were not for actual rewards.  Unfortunately, electrum/special prizes might bring out the worst in people.

It's hard to solve this problem.  For me, the competition is "something to do."  Although I have two somewhat modest 4th play finishes, I have never taken the time to actually cash my prizes. 

I suppose you could at least see what happens if you hold a tournament without prizes.  If turnout is too low, you can always switch back.  I keep focusing on the social aspects of the tournament rather than the actual prizes.  I enjoy the competitions and seeing what great ideas people come up with.

You could also create stage "eligibility requirements" in which your stage gives you some additional bonus which is modest.  So if you go from stage 1 to stage 2, you qualify for an extra oracle spin or something like that, but something that applies broadly but is not a huge incentive.

Anyway, just some thoughts.

10

Deck Help / Re: Currently working on "Dollhouse" Deck: 1 Purple Nymph for FG farming.

« on: September 06, 2010, 10:34:39 pm »

I'm not sure why the cards are hidden.  The easiest way to get the deck codes is to go to the elements trainer if you need to see them and copy and paste the code.

http://www.elementsthegame.com/trainer.html

The hidden cards are usually the new cards like mindgate and pendelums.

My experience in getting the nymph out is quite good, but the key for me, since I only have 1 pn is to keep the deck size fairly small to increase the odds.  The real challenge is to get the shard of readiness + quint on the nymph but it happens more often than you think.  (In one variation, I even tried to add momentum as well to overcome fireshields and caraprice).

The shields/shards provide a significant amount of stall time.  So usually I try to play as long as I can without using shields if shards allow for it. 

Again, the win % is not great with this deck against FG but as I made clear it's a concept deck.  Because of mindgate, there is much less need to pack your deck with creatures imho.

I keep trying to find different ways to try to decrease deck size but with FG its hard because they want to engage in creature and permanent control.  If you lose the mindgates, the deck is dead- but if you add protection for your artifacts, the deck size increases too much to draw the nymph so its a very narrow window of trying to balance needs.

I think there is already a deck with 2 purple nymphs on the wiki that was posted before the new cards.

(One thing holding me back from upping the nymphs is the weekly tournament.  It usually allows for unupped cards only, so if I want to ever use my nymphs in those, I can't up them.  OTOH, I prefer the unupped to upped tourney format.  Otherwise, I'd up my nymph.)

I mean you could try to build an entropy centric deck with quanta towers and a few creatures.  I would say 2 mindflayers, 1 anubis, 1 maxwells demon, and 1 p/n. 

Unupped mindflayers would allow for butterfly effects, anubis would immortalize, mindflayers would lobotomize, and pn would antimatter, but in practice the bulk of the deck might then work against it.  Besides, as I explained I'm working on a concept.

11

Game Suggestions and Feedback / Would you play Elements more if the cost of upgrades were lower?

« on: September 06, 2010, 10:23:47 pm »

Lot of people grind just to get upgrades, but a lot of people play because they enjoy the deck building and exploring new cards.  I sometimes wonder if people would play more if they had access to more cards.  Grinding to up pillars is a bit time consuming and there are a lot of elements cards to be upgraded anyway with new cards being added.  Players seem to like new options and upgrading cards gives them new options.  High upgrade costs seem to reduce options.   I wonder if people would play more if upgrades cost less, so I'm putting it to a poll to find out.

12

Deck Help / Re: Currently working on "Dollhouse" Deck: 1 Purple Nymph for FG farming.

« on: September 05, 2010, 06:08:07 am »

I guess I see this as more of a challenge to try to improve the winning % while using only the purple nymph.

So far, the biggest problem is the total vulnerability to FG's with strong permanent control aspects.  I'm about to test out a new version with more permanent protection.  At the very least, it's probably a good idea to protect 1 mindgate (otherwise no way to steal creatures) and the eternity.  But having a protected lobo could be very helpful.  Early on, the shards make a difference.

The problem is the more cards I add, the harder it is to get to the nymph.

Anyway, I beat Incarnate with this variation, but obviously a deck like Eternal phoenix owned this version so it is back to the drawing board.

http://imageplay.net/img/m7Gbd84937/incarnate.jpg

Code: [Select]

4vo 500 55q 5rj 5rj 5t2 5t2 5t2 61q 61q 61q 61q 6qq 6qq 6qq 6qq 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rn 6rq 6ts 6ts 6ts 6u7 6u7 6ve 6ve 6ve 74a 7q0 7q5 7q8 7ri 80e 80e 80j 80j
Again, my guess is the deck could easily incorporate other cards, like Elite Anubis & Mindflayer and do very well against FG, but I'm trying to build with just PN. 

Another thing this demonstrates is how a single purple nymph can probably change everything.  It's odd that such a card is so hard to obtain....