11th Trials - Phase 3: Community Vote

[Zawadx]

Phase 3 - Community Vote

It's time to vote for your favorite Master candidate!  Every community member may vote on as many of the candidates as he wishes. You can change your vote(s) at any time as long as there is still time on the clock.

Vote based on who you think would make the best Master of that element. Do not vote based on who is the best player or who you know personally. Try to pick someone who you think would help the community the most as THE representative for their element.  If you believe none of the Trialists should be Master, please select the "None Worthy" option. 

To help you make the best decision possible, feel free to ask the candidates questions.  Both challengers and defending Masters ought to answer the questions in this thread (and in the General questions thread) to help the voters make the best possible choice.  Please put all your answers in a single post (employing spoiler tags is recommended).  Also, challengers should include in that post a link to your Phase 1 submission post.


Questions and answers may begin now that this topic is posted.
Voting will begin when the polls are up at the official start of Phase 3.
Phase 3 ends when poll expires.

[deuce22]

 

Spoiler for kaempfer-ALL:

@ all, but especially the ones who will face STANDIN: Can you build a team that you can lead to victory? I believe this will have the following aspects: Can you yourselves build good decks to beat your opponents? Can you predict and counter them with your element? Can you draft a Team that is a capable of doing that whenever you cant? Will you be able to inspire your teammates to do all in their power to fight for the win in every game? Can you infect others with your enthusiasm for your element (if you have any in the first place)? And most importantly: Will you put the necessary time investment in all those things?

Yes

Spoiler for DC-ALL:

@All: What does being a Master mean? What kind of traits will you exemplify as a Master?

@All: Pick a character, real or fictional, to personify yourself. Justify your answer.

@Trialists who have previously competed in a different element: A wise woman once asked for this specific category of people to tell them, so she knows who not to vote for. (Well, actually she asked if you're trialling for your favourite element, but eh, it's a similar category. While I might not be as drastic as her, loyalty is an important aspect of being a Master for me. Why should we see you as a representative as the element you have chosen, rather than any others, that you have trialled for prior?

Being a master means you understand the nuances of your element better than any other player being able to succeed with your element regardless of PVP format. The traits I exemplify as a master are winning.

Dr Strange. He is a neurosurgeon and master of mystical/magical arts. Like him, I am a surgeon and master of aethereal arts.

Spoiler for CleanOnion-ALL:

@all Please take a photo of something you dislike.

Spoiler for Zawadx-ALL:

Some great questions from before:

What does your element represent and mean to you outside of the gameplay? What has it done for you, and what would you do for it as a Master?

@All : Analyse your performance in trials so far (both phases) in a critical manner. Where did you go right? Where did you go wrong? What would you change if you could? You have 4 hours. (if someone wants me to answer this, pm)

Also, if you were made a Trials Overseer this trials, what would you have done differently?

On that note, do you wish to ever become Trials Overseer?

I've answered the old questions previously, you can look at my previous responses.

If I was TrO, I would make the changes that I've outline in S&F.

I do not wish to become TrO, but I may entertain the idea in the future.

Spoiler for Basman-ALL:

For everyone that Trials for their favourite element:

• What is your second favourite element?
• If you end up not becoming a Master for your favourite element, will you consider an approach from WMs to General your second-fave/third-fave/what-have-you element? (Quite unlikely, but hey )
  For the sake of argument, assume that you are not a WM yourself, just in case you're thinking 'I'm a WM, there's no way the WMs will approach me to Gen'.

Gravity

This question does not apply to me as I will be general for aether again this war. However, I have entertained the idea of running for master of gravity in the past with the goal showing everyone gravity was not a weak element. Gravity has finally had a couple decent generals the last few wars and is finally realizing its potential. It is only a matter of time before gravity wins a war. Same thing can be said of water. So if I had to general another element at this time, I would probably pick since they have not had a strong active general in a long time.

Spoiler for Zyardan-ALL:

What's your reason for joining the element you're trilling for?
If you become master, what are your plans in war and brawl?

I have an obligation to defend my mastership. See old trials Phase 3 responses for why aether is my element.

As master, I will be aether general in war. Not sure about brawl, I have not participated in that event yet.

Spoiler for Zyardran:

Favourite aether related phrase/poem/story?

See Ninjaheart

Spoiler for JCJ:

Burning question to deuce: Assuming activity allows, do you intend to general?

Yes

Spoiler for ValerianFlame:

Aether is usually a very cunning element. I know both of you are very intelligent to be so great at pvp.

Anyways: Do you think some aether cards, other than the obvious ones (spark, lightning, possibly immortal, silence, and possibly phase spider), could exist in real life?

Parallel universe and lobotomizer

Spoiler for Aves:

@deuce22 You started W10 with a seemingly invincible 10-0 start. If you were in that position again, knowing how things went down, what early decisions would you repeat? What would you be most wary of?

The 10-0 start was a lot of luck. We had a lot of 3-2 wins that we probably should have lost. First 2 rounds are just a guessing game as you don't know much about your opponent's vault and if they have something new packed for you.

I don't think there is anything I would be wary of. I was only semi-active during first 2 rounds, then had almost no time at all thereafter. There were a lot of poor deck choices and poor deck builds in the subsequent rounds that would have significantly changed our standings. Regardless, we had no chance to win war 10 thanks to air's "one deck to rule aether".

Spoiler for jijo:

to all if you could use PU in real life and give a twin to someone, who would it be?

My dog because he needs another friend. My wife and toddler don't play with him as much as he would like, and I'm not home as much as I would like.

Spoiler for ian:

@deuce,

Out of all the participants that were previously and currently involved in Aether trials, which one would've made the final battle the most interesting for you?

What went wrong last war? Was it Shards? Was it market prices? Both? Something else?

Do you think you can bring Aether back to the top of the war standings if the rules remain the same?

What changes would you make to the War#10 rules?

Thank you for the good questions.

Most of my final battles have been interesting. Higu and UT really pushed me in my first 2, and I think RNG was the difference between winning and losing. Regy last trials even gave me a hell of a fight, but I think RNG hurt him in a couple of the matches. Most of my final battles could have ended differently, probably except for the one DANI. When you play with nearly a full deck of upgrades, RNG becomes more of a deciding factor. But to answer your question specifically, I would say Higu would be the most interesting to battle again. She is very crafty and comes up with very unique decks that often have a single card that can be a gamechanger.

Many things went wrong last war. The biggest thing was the terrible timing of the deckbuilding phase, I and the rest of my teammates were not available much during the week. I advocated for pushing the deadline back to Saturday mid-day, which would have helped a lot, but WMs didnt budge. Shards certainly hurt aether a lot. Everyone knows my affinity for SoFree... Market prices screwed aether as well, as we had a much smaller starting vault than everyone else even though I didnt spend the most in the auction. But if deckbuilding phase was at least partially over the weekend, we would have fielded better decks and finished higher in the standings.

Of course I can, but it will be extremely difficult if shards remain pretty unrestricted. It will also require my activity level to be better during deckbuilding.

While I would prefer to get rid of shards, the majority seem to want shards in war, but they need to be reigned in a bit. I think maybe allowing only 1 full set of each shard during vault building, and do not allow transmutation of shards either. This will limit teams to 1 or 2 shard decks depending on build, and once it loses in the mid-late rounds, they are unlikely to be saved. But a lot of this depends on discards each round, which I would also modify. Would possibly add that shards cannot be salvaged, and if lost then must be discarded.

Spoiler for Calin:

@Deuce: If you had a good counter to mono air, do you think you would have won the last war?

Not likely. Deckbuilding only occuring on weekdays was less than ideal for my team, none of us were active at that time each week. Even if we were more active, it would have still been difficult with all the shards.

[Zawadx]

So here we are. The Trials of Aether started out one of the busiest of them all, quickly reaching the maximum of 4 challengers. I was quite happy to see that. I had been out of sorts with the game for a long while, and it'd be fun to get back though healthy competition with such great players (I just hoped I didn't end up losing in a tie due to less phase 2 points for the 3rd time...). But as time wore on all had to leave, one by one each for their own reasons. And now I'm left all alone, staring down a giant.

Here's the blunt truth: if you don't want deuce to be general next war you're out of luck. As a Warmaster I will not be General next war, and if he's willing to at the time I will ask deuce to be general if I become Master. Of course you can vote for None Worthy in the hopes that it gets to 50%, hope deuce loses to the STANDIN, then hope council chooses someone other than him. Good luck with that.
(Note: I said that I'd pick deuce to be gen next war, if I won the mastership and he is willing to)

I will also not be a Brawl boss because I would suck at it and prolly be very busy at that time. I doubt deuce will be either.

Since the choice of a better war general or brawl boss isn't weighing you down, you can now choose for who you think will truly be the better Master. I advise you to ask all the questions you like, and find the choice that is perfect for you.

If you feel like my vision for Aether or activity would make for a better master, I'd appreciate your support through a vote. And if you are voting None Worthy for some reason, I'd really appreciate it if you voiced your thoughts on why neither of us would be a good Aether Master.

Phase 1 post. Now to answer the questions:

Spoiler for kaempfer13-ALL:

@ all, but especially the ones who will face STANDIN: Can you build a team that you can lead to victory? I believe this will have the following aspects: Can you yourselves build good decks to beat your opponents? Can you predict and counter them with your element? Can you draft a Team that is a capable of doing that whenever you cant? Will you be able to inspire your teammates to do all in their power to fight for the win in every game? Can you infect others with your enthusiasm for your element (if you have any in the first place)? And most importantly: Will you put the necessary time investment in all those things?

I believer I can lead a team that I could lead to victory. I know I can build good decks to beat opponents, as I exhibited in War #9. I can predict and counter them with Aether, that used to be my specialty. I also know my limits, and can draft a team to make up for those.

But after War #9, I'm not too sure if I can inspire my teammates to do all in their power to fight on for the win, or infect others with my enthusiasm. Of course real life was our worst enemy back then, and me and my active teammates did manage to suffer through a lot to end up very close to the top.

I would put the necessary time investment in all those things if I were a General, as they are all very important parts of War. But I will be WMing this war, so the point if moot.

Spoiler for DoubleCapitals-ALL:

@All: What does being a Master mean? What kind of traits will you exemplify as a Master?

@All: Pick a character, real or fictional, to personify yourself. Justify your answer.

@Trialists who have previously competed in a different element: A wise woman once asked for this specific category of people to tell them, so she knows who not to vote for. (Well, actually she asked if you're trialling for your favourite element, but eh, it's a similar category. While I might not be as drastic as her, loyalty is an important aspect of being a Master for me. Why should we see you as a representative as the element you have chosen, rather than any others, that you have trialled for prior?

Being a Master means being the perfect representative for your element - ensuring that the element is vibrant and growing through your participation in War, events, various parts of the forum and helping out the newer players. As a Master, I hope to remain active in all parts of the forum and exhibit my vision for Aether, to give it some more meaning than the hated OP element.

I've thought about the characters personifying me recently, and I found several that I managed to perfectly relate to as I watched them unfold on-screen. However, they only perfectly related to parts of me. Very core parts, yes, but not the complete whole. So I'll have to settle for the best fit. This one was first suggested to me by ZephyrPhantom (though at the time he said he was wrong in relating me to the character), and it's become a perfect image for me: Colonel Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Mustang is characterized by his huge ambition of rising to the top and fixing the system in his broken world, and that concept has been something I've aspired to myself. On the surface, he is selfish and narcissistic, arrogant and stubborn - which is what my exterior is like in real life as well. He's intelligent, witty and caring - traits which I try to exemplify.
Plus he can shoot fire with a click of his fingers. Replace fire with lightning and you have a perfect champion of Aether!

Spoiler for CleanOnion-ALL:

@all Please take a photo of something you dislike.

Here you go:

Spoiler for Hidden:

My face. And also how my glasses reflect the phone in a stupid way.

Spoiler for Discord:

Favourite aether related phrase/poem/story?

Haven't really found many stories/poems related to Aether in a concrete sense. If I had to go with one, I'd say the experiment that proved that Aether doesn't exist It's a really cool story though, because the experiment challenged our understanding of the world and led to Einstein developing his Theory of Relativity (yes, E=mc²)

Spoiler for ValerianFlame:

Anyways: Do you think some aether cards, other than the obvious ones (spark, lightning, possibly immortal, silence, and possibly phase spider), could exist in real life?

Fractals! btw, these aren't just pretty shapes, they have really awesome applications in mathematics and in technology (Fractals are often used to generate art for games or animation).

Lobotomy (might not be a very nice read).

Parallel Universe!! I love quantum mechanics.

Also, Psions (people who can use their minds to interact with the physical worlds) would be cool if they existed, and I like to be believe that people with psionic capabilities could be developed someday.

Spoiler for Aves:

@Zawadx What were the best qualities of the three challengers who did not make it to the this phase, and which (if any) of them would you entrust the Generalship to, ignoring activity concerns?

Theonlyrealbeef: His best quality would be pvp experience and a deep understanding. His suggestions for Trials were really valuable due to his expertise.

UTAlan: I like his devotion to Aether, coming back to the same old element after 5 trials.

Scibra: His quality would be the innovative ideas he's come up with for cards over the years. Innovation is one of Aether's traits, after all!

For Master I'd have picked UTAlan, since I believe affinity for the element (on UTA's level) is a better trait for a master to have. But for war General I'd pick torb, since he has much more pvp expertise. I'd like to see where he can take Team Aether.

Spoiler for ji412jo:

to all if you could use PU in real life and give a twin to someone, who would it be?

Myself. I'd love to have a twin, to have someone who's been through life beside me from the start and who I can be on the same wavelength as ^^

Spoiler for Zawadx-ALL:

What does your element represent and mean to you outside of the gameplay? What has it done for you, and what would you do for it as a Master?

Copy pasted question, copy pasted answer:
To me, Aether is all about surpassing the limits provided by the game (Fractal's card advantage, Dim's impenetrable defense, immortality), innovation (Spell Damage, Mindgate) and having the best coloring of them all . As I've said before, Aether represents the realm of imagination. Now the element of Aether in the game hasn't done much for me, yet. But in my troubled childhood, my only solace was in the realm of imagination. It helped me develop a sense of who I want to be, and even though right now I'm afloat on the drifting stream of adolescence ( :/ ), I'm positive my imagination will lead me to a better place.

So if I were to become Master of Aether, I would try my best to maintain it as the king of elements. Aether's OP cards are actually a great asset for beginners in farming, and I'd try to help beginners better with their aether-focused grinding decks. I would also like to develop a few articles about the ins and outs of Aether, and as master I'd post them in Aether's card section.

Additionally, another aspect of aether is how it is separate from all emotions. It's not cold and unfeeling, no, but truly lacking emotion since it's so static and bizzare. While Gravity elementals were clearly developed from off-world beings of some sort, I believe Aether elementals are the true aliens in the world of elements.
Now this has me thinking about how immortals are so weak because they let emotions get the better of themselves and confined themselves into the shackles of social polite custom. Then Psions are perhaps rogue immortals who found wisdom and eschewed immortality (they do have the same attack!). Nice to have these things pop up.

@All : Analyse your performance in trials so far (both phases) in a critical manner. Where did you go right? Where did you go wrong? What would you change if you could? You have 4 hours. (if someone wants me to answer this, pm)

Did a decent job on phase 1. I couldn't make it as refined as I would've liked, but I still think I did well.

Phase 2 had mixed results. The match vs torb went: Unfavored matchup but RNG helped me, Favored matchup and RNG helped me, he made a mistake and I capitalized on that (Nightmare duo doesn't really hold vs Zap MA, definitely not without Vagger. I think my experience with that helped out here). vs deuce the opposite happened: Favored matchup but RNG helped him, Unfavored matchup and RNG helped him, I made a mistake and he capitalized on that. My biggest mistake vs deuce was not double checking bans before starting, because I never played devtal (an almost sure win) being too scared of sanctuary (which I'd banned...). RNG was also unfair Game 1 where I predicted his deck perfectly but still got beaten by a 1 pillar draw.

Not gonna answer my own question since I am a TrO now.

Spoiler for Basman1453-ALL:

For everyone that Trials for their favourite element:

• What is your second favourite element?
• If you end up not becoming a Master for your favourite element, will you consider an approach from WMs to General your second-fave/third-fave/what-have-you element? (Quite unlikely, but hey )
  For the sake of argument, assume that you are not a WM yourself, just in case you're thinking 'I'm a WM, there's no way the WMs will approach me to Gen'.

My second favorite element is probably Fire. I did consider generaling Fire for War #9, but ultimately chose to be Aether general because Aether didn't have anyone else active at the time and Vang seemed like a better candidate for Fire. If I were approached by WMs and there was no one else betteer for the job, I'd do it.

Spoiler for Zyardran-ALL:

What's your reason for joining the element you're trilling for?
If you become master, what are your plans in war and brawl?

I joined Aether because it was special to me from when I started out in the game, and the concepts it follows resonated with me throughout life.

My plans for War include trying to rework Auction to fix its issues without decreasing the fun, rebalancing market, and trying to develop some innovative new mechanics and ECs. Of course, that doesn't really depend on whether I become a Master or not.

My current plan is to not participate in Brawl, since I'm unable to commit the time.

@Zawadx,

I see you are not entirely happy with deuce being general of aether (at least that's what I sense from your post, feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken). If that is the case, who would you like to see as general next war?

Why would I vote you instead of deuce if you will not be general next war? What do you think you can do as Master of Aether, other than perhaps winning war?

Seems like I made a wrong impression. I'm not unhappy at all with having deuce as general. I'd love to see what he does since he has set himself up to be the best war player of all time. And so what I said was that I'd pick deuce to be gen next war, if I won the mastership and he is willing to. My words were simply to poke a bit of fun at anyone who might vote in order to decrease deuce's chances of being a general in war for strategic reasons.

I can actually guarantee a win for Aether better than deuce can In all seriousness, I will try to be a more active representative of Aether all around the forums - trying to help people see it as more than that OP element. Of course there's nothing stopping me from doing these if I weren't a master, but if I become a Master these will become a responsibility to me.

Spoiler for Calindu:

@Zawa: Do you think the current voting system(allowing multiple votes) will net you more points than the usual voting system would?

Nope. The voting system shouldn't really make a point difference in elements having 2 or less trialists, unless a trialist was almost universally dislike. Since that isn't the case here, I don't think the new voting system will change point totals too much.

[Zyardran]

Favourite aether related phrase/poem/story?

[JonathanCrazyJ]

Burning question to deuce: Assuming activity allows, do you intend to general?

[ValerianFlame]

Aether is usually a very cunning element. I know both of you are very intelligent to be so great at pvp.

Anyways: Do you think some aether cards, other than the obvious ones (spark, lightning, possibly immortal, silence, and possibly phase spider), could exist in real life?

[Aves]

@Zawadx What were the best qualities of the three challengers who did not make it to the this phase, and which (if any) of them would you entrust the Generalship to, ignoring activity concerns?

@deuce22 You started W10 with a seemingly invincible 10-0 start. If you were in that position again, knowing how things went down, what early decisions would you repeat? What would you be most wary of?

[MyNameIsJoey]

to all if you could use PU in real life and give a twin to someone, who would it be?

[iancudorinmarian]

@deuce,

Out of all the participants that were previously and currently involved in Aether trials, which one would've made the final battle the most interesting for you?

What went wrong last war? Was it Shards? Was it market prices? Both? Something else?

Do you think you can bring Aether back to the top of the war standings if the rules remain the same?

What changes would you make to the War#10 rules?

@Zawadx,

I see you are not entirely happy with deuce being general of aether (at least that's what I sense from your post, feel free to correct me if I'm mistaken). If that is the case, who would you like to see as general next war?

Why would I vote you instead of deuce if you will not be general next war? What do you think you can do as Master of Aether, other than perhaps winning war?

[Calindu]

@Zawa: Do you think the current voting system(allowing multiple votes) will net you more points than the usual voting system would?

@Deuce: If you had a good counter to mono air, do you think you would have won the last war?