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Duo-Decks / Re: All Hail Gl1tch! The trials winning deck.
« on: May 19, 2010, 11:51:41 pm »I have 6 nymphs I all need to give nymphs toYo dawg, we heard you like nymphs....
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Rainbow Decks / Re: Acelink's God Killer
« on: May 16, 2010, 12:28:36 am »
I'm with Seravy. I've played about 10 games and came away with the feeling that this deck would never win a game. I didn't get the double-golem wunder draw more than once or twice, but even if I had, some gods wouldn't have any trouble handling it.
(BTW, Decay, the one you said sounded beatable, triple siphons your first golem, then siphons every creature you play after that. It was a blow out.)
(BTW, Decay, the one you said sounded beatable, triple siphons your first golem, then siphons every creature you play after that. It was a blow out.)
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Deck Help / Re: Which NON-Rainbow FG deck?
« on: May 15, 2010, 01:41:54 am »
39% seems a little low to me. (FYI, I use 3 SoG, 3 Electrocutor, 3 upgraded Hope.)
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Issue Archive / Re: Devourer Bias
« on: May 13, 2010, 04:52:09 pm »danieldubois couldn't understandExcuse me? I said I couldn't figure out how to get the area under the curve, i.e. the integral of that function over a range. I never said I didn't "understand" anything.
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Issue Archive / Re: Devourer Bias
« on: May 13, 2010, 05:18:23 am »
Game #3: 15 aether drained, 39 light drained.
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Issue Archive / Re: Devourer Bias
« on: May 13, 2010, 01:28:11 am »
I did it again to drive the point home, and because I have more time than sense:
turn aether+gain(b->e) white+gain(b->e) devos aether-loss(b->e) white-loss(b->e)
1 1->5 0->3 0 5->5 3->3
2 5->9 3->6 0 9->9 6->6 he kills all three of my RoLs - Oops!
3 9->13 6->6 1 13->13 6->5
4 13->17 5->5 1 17->16 5->5 got another RoL, but I'm waiting for him to fractal 1st, for science
5 16->20 5->5 1 20->20 5->4
6 20->24 4->4 2 24->23 4->3
7 0->4 3->8 2 4->4 8->6 bah, not waiting any longer
8 4->8 6->10 3 8->8 10->7
9 0->4 7->14 4 4->4 14->10
10 2->7 2->8 4 7->5 8->6
11 6->12 6->12 4 12->11 12->9
12 0->6 9->20 6 6->5 20->15
13 5->11 2->14 6 11->8 14->11
14 8->14 12->25 6 14->11 25->22
15 0->6 9->22 6 6->3 22->18 7 is getting drained now?!?
16 3->9 5->18 6 9->7 18->13 off-screen devourer?!?
17 7->13 0->13 6 13->12 13->7
18 0->6 7->22 6 6->4 22->17 trading in last fractal for two rols, since my 13 white per turn is more like 8
19 4->10 4->18 6 10->7 18->14
20 8->15 1->15 6 15->12 15->11
21 13->21 11->25 6 21->19 25->20
22 19->26 0->13 6 26->22 13->10 (I went for thudnerbolt/miracle here, instead of dragon #5, 3 misses on dusk /sad)
23 23->32 10->22 6 32->29 22->18 (crap, 3 misses again, I'm going to get decked)
24 29->38 5->17? Whew, no super Dusk with 0 cards left in deck!
So 35 aether drained, 66 light drained. Again, I'm a bit suprised it was that "close". Apparently, I was under the influence of some cognative bias myself, more inclined to notice the laege imbalanced 6:0 turns, and less inclined to notice the common 3:3, despite being aware of the tendency to do just that.
Nevertheless, notice as in my previous trial, aether "won" over life (was drained harder) precisely twice out of >17 turns, whereas light 24 times. That's like flipping a coin 26 times and only seeing two heads. Or, if you prefer to look at each individual drain event, rather than on a per turn basis (which is probably a better idea as this gives a better sample size), it was 43 versus 88.
Wikipedia has an article on checking whether a coin is fair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checking_whether_a_coin_is_fair). We'd have to plot the curve of
f(r) = 131! / (43!*88!) * r^43 * (1-r)^88
between r's of .45 or .55, and then find the area under it. I can't figure out how to do that, but a rough guess would be to assume a straight line between f(.45) and f(.55), and get the area of the trapezoid
Using http://www.math.sc.edu/cgi-bin/sumcgi/calculator.pl:
f(0.45) = 131! / (43!*88!) * r^43 * (1-r)^88 = fac(131) / (fac(43)*fac(88)) * 0.45^43 * 0.55^88 = 0.00131392106344201
f(0.55) = 131! / (43!*88!) * r^43 * (1-r)^88 = fac(131) / (fac(43)*fac(88)) * 0.55^43 * 0.45^88 = 1.57329936547103e-07 = 0.000000157329936547103
A = 1/2 * h * (a+b)
A = 1/2 * (0.55-0.45) * (f(0.45)+f(0.55))
A = 0.5 * 0.1 * (0.001314) = 0.0000657
Odds of this being a fair coin are about 0.00657 percent. Better than one in a million, but not by much!
PS: I win a Pest and a Drain.
turn aether+gain(b->e) white+gain(b->e) devos aether-loss(b->e) white-loss(b->e)
1 1->5 0->3 0 5->5 3->3
2 5->9 3->6 0 9->9 6->6 he kills all three of my RoLs - Oops!
3 9->13 6->6 1 13->13 6->5
4 13->17 5->5 1 17->16 5->5 got another RoL, but I'm waiting for him to fractal 1st, for science
5 16->20 5->5 1 20->20 5->4
6 20->24 4->4 2 24->23 4->3
7 0->4 3->8 2 4->4 8->6 bah, not waiting any longer
8 4->8 6->10 3 8->8 10->7
9 0->4 7->14 4 4->4 14->10
10 2->7 2->8 4 7->5 8->6
11 6->12 6->12 4 12->11 12->9
12 0->6 9->20 6 6->5 20->15
13 5->11 2->14 6 11->8 14->11
14 8->14 12->25 6 14->11 25->22
15 0->6 9->22 6 6->3 22->18 7 is getting drained now?!?
16 3->9 5->18 6 9->7 18->13 off-screen devourer?!?
17 7->13 0->13 6 13->12 13->7
18 0->6 7->22 6 6->4 22->17 trading in last fractal for two rols, since my 13 white per turn is more like 8
19 4->10 4->18 6 10->7 18->14
20 8->15 1->15 6 15->12 15->11
21 13->21 11->25 6 21->19 25->20
22 19->26 0->13 6 26->22 13->10 (I went for thudnerbolt/miracle here, instead of dragon #5, 3 misses on dusk /sad)
23 23->32 10->22 6 32->29 22->18 (crap, 3 misses again, I'm going to get decked)
24 29->38 5->17? Whew, no super Dusk with 0 cards left in deck!
So 35 aether drained, 66 light drained. Again, I'm a bit suprised it was that "close". Apparently, I was under the influence of some cognative bias myself, more inclined to notice the laege imbalanced 6:0 turns, and less inclined to notice the common 3:3, despite being aware of the tendency to do just that.
Nevertheless, notice as in my previous trial, aether "won" over life (was drained harder) precisely twice out of >17 turns, whereas light 24 times. That's like flipping a coin 26 times and only seeing two heads. Or, if you prefer to look at each individual drain event, rather than on a per turn basis (which is probably a better idea as this gives a better sample size), it was 43 versus 88.
Wikipedia has an article on checking whether a coin is fair (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checking_whether_a_coin_is_fair). We'd have to plot the curve of
f(r) = 131! / (43!*88!) * r^43 * (1-r)^88
between r's of .45 or .55, and then find the area under it. I can't figure out how to do that, but a rough guess would be to assume a straight line between f(.45) and f(.55), and get the area of the trapezoid
Using http://www.math.sc.edu/cgi-bin/sumcgi/calculator.pl:
f(0.45) = 131! / (43!*88!) * r^43 * (1-r)^88 = fac(131) / (fac(43)*fac(88)) * 0.45^43 * 0.55^88 = 0.00131392106344201
f(0.55) = 131! / (43!*88!) * r^43 * (1-r)^88 = fac(131) / (fac(43)*fac(88)) * 0.55^43 * 0.45^88 = 1.57329936547103e-07 = 0.000000157329936547103
A = 1/2 * h * (a+b)
A = 1/2 * (0.55-0.45) * (f(0.45)+f(0.55))
A = 0.5 * 0.1 * (0.001314) = 0.0000657
Odds of this being a fair coin are about 0.00657 percent. Better than one in a million, but not by much!
PS: I win a Pest and a Drain.
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Issue Archive / Re: Devourer Bias
« on: May 11, 2010, 09:53:43 pm »
To a casual observer with experience in studying human psychology, what you have hypothesized sounds very probable, i.e., that this is a cognitive bias. People are intuitively terrible with randomness, the brains sees patterns where one does not exist, occum's razor, etc. If I were programmer and people came to me with these complaints, I would roll my eyes and just assume exactly what you have.
That said, anyone who plays fractal/hope versus Decay can easily see something is amiss.
I took the trouble to document my latest game of that matchup just now. It was very disappointing because Decay filled up his board with RoL tokens, and never put more than 2 devourers into play, but it was still results I expected to see. BTW, usage of that word is notable. To be random means it defies predictability.
Column 1 is which turn it is.
Column 2 is the aether quanta I had at the end of the turn before clicking done, and the amount of aether quanta I gained from end of turn, separated by an arrow.
Column 3 is the light quanta I had at the end of the turn before clicking done, and the amount of light quanta I gained from end of turn, separated by an arrow.
Column 4 is the number of devourers Decay had at the end of his turn.
Column 5 is the aether quanta I had at the end of Decay's turn, and the amount of aether quanta I had after he did his end of turn drain effects, separated by an arrow.
Column 6 is the light quanta I had at the end of Decay's turn, and the amount of light quanta I had after he did his end of turn drain effects, separated by an arrow.
turn aether+gain(b->e) white+gain(b->e) devos aether-loss(b->e) white-loss(b->e)
1 3->8 0->1 1 8->8 1->0
2 0->5 0->10 1 1->0 10->10
3 1->6 10->20 2 6->6 20->18
4 6->11 18->27 2 11->10 27->26
5 10->15 26->35 2 15->13 35->35
6 13->18 27->35 2 18->18 35->33
7 0->5 33->48 2 5->5 48->46
8 5->10 46->60 2 10->9 60->59
9 6->10 59->72 2 10->10 72->70
10 10->14 70->83 2 14->14 83->81
11 14->18 81->94 2 18->17 94->93
12 17->21 93->106 2 21->21 106->104
13 21->25 104->118 2 25->25 118->116
14 25->29 116->129 2 29->28 129->128
15 28->32 128->140 2 32->32 140->138
16 32->36 138->149 2 36->36 149->147
17 36->40 147->157 2 40->39 157->156
So, in this game 8 aether quanta was drained. And 24 light quanta was drained.
I'm not well-versed enough in confidence intervals and standard deviation to conclusively say how wrong this is, but I believe it to be statistically significant.
In my experience, this was actually slightly atypical. Normally the ratio of light mana drained goes much larger. In games where more devourers get into play, I will commonly see 5-1, 6-0, etc. turns. I don't see vice-versa. I think with a bigger sample size, the results would be even more glaring.
If I get a chance and I'm at home, and this matchup comes up, I'll pull up camtasia and stick a video on youtube, and I expect to see similar bias.
PS: For the sake of science I probably should have held off on my RoL/Fractal until he did his first fractal, but hey, I wanted to win!
That said, anyone who plays fractal/hope versus Decay can easily see something is amiss.
I took the trouble to document my latest game of that matchup just now. It was very disappointing because Decay filled up his board with RoL tokens, and never put more than 2 devourers into play, but it was still results I expected to see. BTW, usage of that word is notable. To be random means it defies predictability.
Column 1 is which turn it is.
Column 2 is the aether quanta I had at the end of the turn before clicking done, and the amount of aether quanta I gained from end of turn, separated by an arrow.
Column 3 is the light quanta I had at the end of the turn before clicking done, and the amount of light quanta I gained from end of turn, separated by an arrow.
Column 4 is the number of devourers Decay had at the end of his turn.
Column 5 is the aether quanta I had at the end of Decay's turn, and the amount of aether quanta I had after he did his end of turn drain effects, separated by an arrow.
Column 6 is the light quanta I had at the end of Decay's turn, and the amount of light quanta I had after he did his end of turn drain effects, separated by an arrow.
turn aether+gain(b->e) white+gain(b->e) devos aether-loss(b->e) white-loss(b->e)
1 3->8 0->1 1 8->8 1->0
2 0->5 0->10 1 1->0 10->10
3 1->6 10->20 2 6->6 20->18
4 6->11 18->27 2 11->10 27->26
5 10->15 26->35 2 15->13 35->35
6 13->18 27->35 2 18->18 35->33
7 0->5 33->48 2 5->5 48->46
8 5->10 46->60 2 10->9 60->59
9 6->10 59->72 2 10->10 72->70
10 10->14 70->83 2 14->14 83->81
11 14->18 81->94 2 18->17 94->93
12 17->21 93->106 2 21->21 106->104
13 21->25 104->118 2 25->25 118->116
14 25->29 116->129 2 29->28 129->128
15 28->32 128->140 2 32->32 140->138
16 32->36 138->149 2 36->36 149->147
17 36->40 147->157 2 40->39 157->156
So, in this game 8 aether quanta was drained. And 24 light quanta was drained.
I'm not well-versed enough in confidence intervals and standard deviation to conclusively say how wrong this is, but I believe it to be statistically significant.
In my experience, this was actually slightly atypical. Normally the ratio of light mana drained goes much larger. In games where more devourers get into play, I will commonly see 5-1, 6-0, etc. turns. I don't see vice-versa. I think with a bigger sample size, the results would be even more glaring.
If I get a chance and I'm at home, and this matchup comes up, I'll pull up camtasia and stick a video on youtube, and I expect to see similar bias.
PS: For the sake of science I probably should have held off on my RoL/Fractal until he did his first fractal, but hey, I wanted to win!
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False Gods / Re: What's the current false god killer deck?
« on: May 11, 2010, 08:25:49 pm »
Every time I drew Luciferin, I absolutely hated it. It's only good after "fractal->rol, fractal->rol, fractal->dragon, cast 2 dragon", and just clogs the hand before then.
Maybe it's necessary for a couple of false gods that use Feral Bonds? Otherwise I'd muuuch rather have a pillar.
Maybe it's necessary for a couple of false gods that use Feral Bonds? Otherwise I'd muuuch rather have a pillar.
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Rainbow Decks / Re: PuppyChow's FG Rainbow
« on: May 11, 2010, 04:49:28 am »
I'm not even sure two Hourglasses belong in the deck. Yeah, it's great when you turn 2 double-nova hourglass and actually roll a time quanta or three with towers (and it doesn't get destroyed!), but how much often does that really happen? And how much less often would it happen with 1? Playing a second is nearly verboten barring really unusual randomness, and often I find my self cutting off usage after ~4 turns anyway. Really, what's the point of having it if you can't use it? Dodging that triple yellow card draw has a lot of value.
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Archived Decks / Re: RoL-Hope Unionruler Variation
« on: May 11, 2010, 04:14:18 am »
Against which decks do you cast the Luciferin ASAP to get that PoS out of your hand so it doesn't interfere with the quality of your Fractals, and which decks do you hold onto it?
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Rainbow Decks / Re: PuppyChow's FG Rainbow
« on: May 04, 2010, 02:06:41 am »Not having entropy mark = very clogged hands, since you *usually* draw 2+ supernovas.At 34 cards (the barest minimum) six supernova is 1 per 5.667 cards, so on average you'll see your second supernova around the 11th card, i.e. 4th-5th turn. You'll have zero supernova in your first 8 cards 17% of the time, and you'll have one supernova in your first 8 cards 39% of the time, so two or more is only 44%. It's actually worse than that though, because one of those cards is almost certainly a tower due to the mulligan rule. If you increase the size of the deck with a protect artifact or 3rd quint or whatever, it gets even more unlikely to have 2+. Anyway, I can't agree with your characterization of "usually".
the point of them is to provide a jumpstart on quanta on turn 2-3 but if you can't play them until turn 5, for instance, they don't do anythingOn average you'll be hitting two entropy right around the same time you'd be hitting two time or two fire or two death. Boosting any of those colors from "around two" to "around four" is exactly the sweet spot for which they most need a boost. I would counter that it doesn't "do anything" to boost your time quanta from zero to two, or your fire quanta from one to three.
Obviously variance is an issue. Getting that supernova off boosts all your quanta, both your highest and your lowest. You're less likely to be pushing 2/2/2/2/2/... up to 4/4/4/4/4/.... It's going to be more like bumping 2/0/3/1/4/... up to 4/2/5/3/6/... which might increase your chances of being able to cast "something, anything, please!", since while your growth is randomly scattered, your costs all hover around the 5-ish. But I think my point is still valid.
I know we'll get Entropy-screwed sometimes this way, but I'm not sure it will be any worse than the quanta-screwed I'm getting as it is. There's just too many games where I play one land, cast
nothing but a shard for five turns and die.
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Trio & Quartet / Re: Fast Pillarless Golem Rush
« on: May 03, 2010, 10:05:42 pm »
You make a compelling argument for Precognition instead of off-color stuff, but I'd guess it would still be better to substitute one or two Minor Phoenix in there instead of one or two Precogs. Minor Phoenix does several things for you:
1) Allows you to jump start an opening hand that has no free creatures if it instead has double nova,
2) Lets you 'cycle' Cremations into mana when you draw too many relative to 0-cc sacrifice targets,
3) gives a little long-term recurring damage against creature removal,
4) baits creature removal from the AI, potentially allowing top-decked Destroyers to survive,
5) uses your extra red mana (your listing generates 60 but only uses 30),
6) beats for 4.
Anyway, I've abandoned this deck, because it still loses to rainbows with fast Oty's/Firestorms too often. Some form of Elite Charger deck is better for farming Top50.
1) Allows you to jump start an opening hand that has no free creatures if it instead has double nova,
2) Lets you 'cycle' Cremations into mana when you draw too many relative to 0-cc sacrifice targets,
3) gives a little long-term recurring damage against creature removal,
4) baits creature removal from the AI, potentially allowing top-decked Destroyers to survive,
5) uses your extra red mana (your listing generates 60 but only uses 30),
6) beats for 4.
Anyway, I've abandoned this deck, because it still loses to rainbows with fast Oty's/Firestorms too often. Some form of Elite Charger deck is better for farming Top50.