(Aether) (Point) EvaRia 2 - (Light) kirchj33 0

[Scaredgirl]

the true question is was it worth giving the free win to aether when you could have put up a fight and stopped them from winning with there point therefore epically hurting them? and then giving the free win to a diffrent element but i guess you guys made the choice so whatever.

they didnt know who the point was

Sevs is correct. Had we known we were fighting the point we obviously would've changed our strategy and along with it our suicide deck.

Yes, but you knew it was a possibility.

We simply made the best choices we could and hoped that our strategy would work.

A slight correction. You might have made the best choice that has the highest chance of giving you the most wins during this round, but you didn't make the best choice if you want to actually win the War. No matter what the situation is, you should never give free wins to teams that are winning because that will only strengthen them, making it more difficult for everyone to beat them, your own team included (if you reach the top2).

It's a short-sighted strategy I like to call "playing not to lose", when you should be "playing to win". Instead of suiciding against the strongest teams (which might sound like the best strategy at first), you should do the exact opposite and fight the strongest teams with your best deck. Sure it might backfire and you drop out from the event event a bit sooner, but at least you went out with a bang. If you want to win, you need to take out the strongest teams, not give them free wins.

I'd also like to add that mistakes do happen and they shouldn't be made a big deal. But if Team thinks this was not a mistake, and will do the same exact thing again, then that is a bigger problem.

[SnoWeb]

We simply made the best choices we could and hoped that our strategy would work.

You might have made the best choice that has the highest chance of giving you the most wins during this round, but you obviously didn't make the best choices in managing your vault. The 24 card conversion was made to allow more flexibility and avoid suicide decks. Being "obliged" to suicide so early is kind of surprising, IMO. Moreover, as your deck is illegal you will most likely have a penalty out of it. I am quite sure you could have made a legal but crappy deck (part playable deck, part discard). Kirchj33 would at least have been able to battle, kind of a suicide with panache ...

[Higurashi]

*drools* Mm, dem salvages..

I've known from Round 1 that Team Light's vault wasn't very well built (they told me), which makes their success in War more impressive. While I agree one shouldn't suicide against a top team (because I want an even War), I can't blame them. As RootRanger said, we would've most likely won anyway, but it's too bad we miss out on an exciting duel. Either way, I wish Team Light good fortune. You've always been polite and mature, making for one of my favourite opponents.

[Bootsza]

Urgh... It is sorry to see this

[coinich]

the true question is was it worth giving the free win to aether when you could have put up a fight and stopped them from winning with there point therefore epically hurting them? and then giving the free win to a diffrent element but i guess you guys made the choice so whatever.

they didnt know who the point was

Sevs is correct. Had we known we were fighting the point we obviously would've changed our strategy and along with it our suicide deck.

Yes, but you knew it was a possibility.

We simply made the best choices we could and hoped that our strategy would work.

A slight correction. You might have made the best choice that has the highest chance of giving you the most wins during this round, but you didn't make the best choice if you want to actually win the War. No matter what the situation is, you should never give free wins to teams that are winning because that will only strengthen them, making it more difficult for everyone to beat them, your own team included (if you reach the top2).

It's a short-sighted strategy I like to call "playing not to lose", when you should be "playing to win". Instead of suiciding against the strongest teams (which might sound like the best strategy at first), you should do the exact opposite and fight the strongest teams with your best deck. Sure it might backfire and you drop out from the event event a bit sooner, but at least you went out with a bang. If you want to win, you need to take out the strongest teams, not give them free wins.

I'd also like to add that mistakes do happen and they shouldn't be made a big deal. But if Team thinks this was not a mistake, and will do the same exact thing again, then that is a bigger problem.

SG hit it on the head; its a shortsighted answer to a long term problem.  It helps noone but perhaps our immediate chances, and so far that hasn't even proved true.  Of course it was a mistake, but sometimes we have to judge which mistake to make when we know something will go wrong.  I clearly understand what you're saying about matching up the strongest vs strongest, but at this point, my goals aren't winning War the most efficiently as possible.  I want my team to enjoy it in the process; this is a game!  We all agreed this was the best short term option to hopefully keeping my teammates in the War, which frankly I view as more important than winning at this point.  Its not that we don't have the drive to win, its just that the odds are tremendous.  I rather increase our playing time with these short-sighted maneuvers and keep more of Team intact than go out with a bang that will only benefit me and ak when we are the only two left able to even play.

I do understand what a suicide does to a team; I've had to suicide myself at least once or twice in the past two wars, and I've seen my teams suicide and then drastically lose in the next few rounds.  I know that suiciding, especially to the strongest team, is a horrible way to win the War.  SG hit it on the head saying that perhaps we've even adopted the wrong attitude of trying not to lose instead of trying to win, but at this point in War they are the same in every other match.  With the stakes so high, and my personal goals oriented to keeping us in War, I made the choice to ask kirch to take one for the team.  I hope to never do that again.

Obviously this sounds like a cop-out answer here, and I understand that.  To some, suicide is surrendering, which I agree.  I felt that the tactical and strategic considerations for Team warranted the situation (of course we didn't know Eva was point), and I stand by my logic in reaching the decision.  If you still feel I did something stupid, of course you're free to agree, and I'll of course take messages or answer in chat.  I just hoped I could explain our actions a bit better here.

[The_Mormegil]

Both sides have a point here. But Zeru said it, and I repeat it: this is going to be the blow that does it for Aether. It's been leading since the first round, and they're doing just great, but this match alone is worth 91 cards. Enough said.

[kirchj33]

We all agreed this was the best short term option to hopefully keeping my teammates in the War, which frankly I view as more important than winning at this point.

Everyone except the sacrificial lamb agreed.  I made my points clear in chat, forum pms, and in private message boards.  Those which I mentioned were almost to a tee what SG stated.  I felt we were doing others a disservice and the penalties for suiciding far outweighed the potential benefits.  I believe they went largely ignored because it is hard not to view it as a personal complaint when I was the one chosen to be the kamikaze bomber.

I believe Boingo stated best for us, retrospective analysis always gives easier clarity of results.  I urge the community to go "lightly" on team  with this one.  We were left with no formal leadership on day 1, a poor vault, and seeing the process of deckbuilding as a democratic one, I could see I was clearly outnumbered on this one.  The team has done a fantastic job of bonding together to figure out how we can make the best of what we've got.  We have been airing this out internally, and I believe that is where it should remain from this point forward.

If it makes others feel better, I was basically chosen to suicide against in round 2 on a weekend of deckbuilding where I was out of town for a wedding.  I guess we just need to suicide vs. 10 other teams to even things up.... forgive me if this war has somewhat soured my experience and my jokes are poorly chosen.

[Bootsza]

I believe Boingo stated best for us, retrospective analysis always gives easier clarity of results.  I urge the community to go "lightly" on team  with this one.  We were left with no formal leadership on day 1, a poor vault, and seeing the process of deckbuilding as a democratic one, I could see I was clearly outnumbered on this one.  The team has done a fantastic job of bonding together to figure out how we can make the best of what we've got.  We have been airing this out internally, and I believe that is where it should remain from this point forward.

kirchj33: I have a lot of sympathy for the position Team Light found themselves in and a lot of respect for the way you guys have picked yourselves up from that position, I really do.  Pull the suiciders back to the "light" and enjoy the rest of War.

Good luck!

[truddy02]

Suicide strategy is more complicated than some people are making it out to be.  I don't know the situation that light is in with their vault and everything so it is hard to judge a single decision with incomplete information.  In general it is not wise to give a win to the top team but the burden of giving a win to the top team doesn't fall solely on team light but on all teams competing to win.  In economics terms, it is an externality.  Light is only concerned with how their strategy effects themselves, as they should be.  This strategy is inefficient for all teams involved in war, but light only bears the burden of part of the inefficiency.  When a team gets in bad vault position and is forced to suicide, part of a good strategy is to try to win as many matches as possible and win matches with potentially better salvageable cards.  It is usually a time when the team needs to regroup a bit and work back into a good position.  Sometimes this means suiciding to the strongest team, sometimes not.  It is not cut and dry that suiciding to the strongest team is not always a bad decision (or always a good one).  Is it playing not to lose?  Absolutely.  But sometimes you get in a situation where playing not to lose now is a wise decision so you can regroup and get in position where you can play to win.  Without knowing exactly how light stands in this situation, it is not possible to say whether it was best for them or not.

[mrpaper]

suicide decks will always brings some drama which is why we wanted to avoid seeing those as much as possible, while I agree it's best to put youre best deck against theirs.. it's pointless if you know this deck won't stand a chance anyway so I perfectly understand team light here.  Then again the question remains... did they really had no chance??... only them know for sure!

[MrBlonde]

Short sighted maybe but i don't begrudge Coinich at all for what he did. Being a general means making decisions whether they be right or wrong. I myself have made plenty of bad decisions. As long as these decisions are not overt or have any collusion involved I have no issues with it.

And Coin readily admits it wasn't the right decision in the overall scope of things. If i was in his shoes i might have done the same thing.

[Boingo]

I hesitate to say anything at this point, other than to admit I have the dubious honor of being on the team with the 2 most controversial suicides in the past 2 Wars.   Seeing as this is only on page 3 so far, I gather this is the lesser mistake. 

But let's put this into a bit of perspective:  Up till this round, our team has faced Aether once.  We played its general and lost, the same round where we faced 2 teams with +2 upped card advantage (one being a general, who we beat.)  We contributed 1 win (6 cards) in total to Team Aether prior to this round.  That leaves the rest of the teams collectively, and all their collective losses and card giveaways to explain how Team Aether came to be in a strong position.  Of all the teams (except UW) Team Light had the least to do with the current state of affairs.

As for this round, we were faced with 2 generals from teams against whom we have been winless ( ) and a strong team with a fresh secret vault and plenty of intel on our own vault ( .)  Looking at our vault, we felt we had a strong counter for one of the generals (and we were right) and a possible gamble to beat the UW deck (where we were wrong), but no strong decks vs (possibly could have beaten the deck they brought.)  It had nothing to do with their standings.  We beat 1 point, lost to a strong non-Point and forfeit to another Point.  We had no ability to determine who was Point other than on our own team, (and we made a good choice there.) 

Anyone who suggests a 6 card pickup from our deck in Round 5 somehow gives Team Aether a winning position they didn't already earn has not been paying attention.  You'll all be able to see the vault situation in due time and can come to your own conclusions, but let's not belabor the point--we didn't want to suicide but had limited options if we wanted to win other matches.  A 6 card pickup vs Aether at the expense of 25-75 cards elsewhere is just not practical no matter how you spin it.