@all contestants : do you consider yourself the best possible master for your element? If so, why. If not, who is in your eye, and why?
Yes. My PvP results are consistently fairly good, and I'm willing to put great amounts of time into the work necessary. However, I will note that elements is not an extremely high priority in my life, and there are several things that will take precedent over it. Despite this, I have made efforts to complete matches at inconvenient times should my schedule be too busy. If you find this an issue, then I'm afraid I can't do much to convince you otherwise.
My leadership skills are also strong, and I'm friendly with almost everyone. I readily admit to being short with those who are not serious about their responsibilities and people that are excessively immature, but I won't apologize for it. I was successful in organizing a war team spanning many different time zones, and had everything done on time and thoroughly discussed beforehand. Everyone was involved in said discussion, and I like to think that everyone left happy.
As I said above, my second choice besides me would be ji412jo. He's a good personal friend and a very capable leader. I am confident that he would do an excellent job should I lose to him.
(separate question) Name one song that represents your element in your eye.
Nothing comes readily to mind. I'll answer this one later on.
Time to get these question out of the way:
Do you plan to general your element for war?
Yes.
If nothing changes, do you plan to attempt to lead your element in brawl?
This is a much harder question. I suppose I'll try to, but if it's going to cause a conflict with anything semi-important in my life (e.g. if it happens during competition season) than I have to say no. ji412jo would be my first choice for a replacement in that case.
To all Trialing:
What is your favorite deck, including your element, and for what reason has this deck become
so important to you?
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595 595 595 595 595 595 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 5uk 606 606 7ta 7tb 7td 7td 7td 7td 7td 7tf 7tf 7tf 7tf 7tf 8pmThis deck and its many related variants appeals to me greatly. It's such a simple concept, yet it's incredibly effective. It's also extremely versatile, with options ranging from liquid gargoyles to just spamming creatures to even replacing the BBs with RTs (even lightnings) and using some nightmares (similar to ghostmare).
It's brought me many important victories, including a key win in the master's tournament against deuce22 that brought home the match win. My first trials (Trials 5) saw me using this deck several times (with RT and lightning variants) with great results, leading me to a phase 2 win and subsequent title challenge. The lightning version also brought key wins against Annele in my first successful master bid.
To all:
Describe your plan for coordinating efforts among your team across global time zones.
I've done this successfully in the past. I've done this successfully in the future.
brownie points for getting the referenceMore seriously, the same as I have previously done. Obviously when there's a small team among lots of time zones, it's not so easy to communicate. However this effect can be mitigated by keeping careful and relevant records, and summing up the main points of "live" discussion when they occur. Should I be leading a team with even worse time differences, there are several possible options including a "voting" system in which each member contributes to a discussion and then a not-necessarily-live vote occurs.
Bogtro: Are you ever gonna fix the foot?
For some reason I can't explain,
once you'd gone there was never, never an honest word whenever I've tried to do this in the past (and I've tried on at least 3 separate occasions) it just didn't work. I got the picture down perfectly, saved it, uploaded it to imgur, but every time I tried to save it to my profile I just kept on getting that backwards foot. I might make another attempt soon but it's a low priority.
Let's make them throw some mud,
@All trialers with 3 or more people in their trials element: Which of your competitors deserves the Master title the least?
*makes some popcorn and sits back*
I really don't want to have to leave a question unanswered, but this is really something I was hoping to avoid getting into. I had to debate whether this was a question worth answering. Eventually I decided that answering the question is better, but I'll do so in a very measured way. I will stress that all of the competitors are quite capable and all would probably do just fine as masters. Obviously, I personally think that I would do better than the rest of the competitors, but I find it fortunate that there are 4 competitors who could all take Darkness quite far.
Since I have to choose a person, I will have to choose Annele. Mastership is still primarily a PvP title (though this is slowly changing) and an organizational one. I have to say that I'm not as confident in her PvP skills as I am in ji's and Odii's. Both of the latter two have shown their PvP prowess on several occasions, including against me, while as far as I've seen Annele has few accolades besides her great Phase 2 performance in the last Trials.
Her lack of activity also concerns me, though it is true that I'm not in much of a position to complain about it. However, I don't know enough about her to conclude whether or not she'll be able to be active when it matters, and that makes me a bit uneasy.
Again, this is not to say that Annele is a poor candidate. She does a great job with the jobs she has/had, and has demonstrated a great commitment to the community. I'm just not sure that master is the appropriate job for her.
To all Trialists:
Would you rather have a master well-versed in the forum only or well-versed in Elements the Game only?
Explain.
You'll have to clarify what this means. As it stands I don't really understand the question at all.
Chirp? Chirp chirp trill chirp?
Yes, of course.
To all Trialists:
How and where are you connected to the Element you are trialing for outside of Elements the Game?
I'm not very sure what this means. Apologies if my answer does not meet what you are looking for.
I'm just generally a night person, up very late almost every night and don't wake up early whenever it can possibly be avoided. I prefer nighttime anyway - it gives me more a sense of quiet and peace (not sure if this makes a whole lot of sense). I prefer to work more or less alone and on my own schedule. I don't trust easily, but I am extremely loyal to friends and would rather lose important opportunities than do something particularly dishonest or outside of the spirit of something (I know the last part more or less appears to contradict Darkness, but I don't think so). This isn't just talk - I have actually done so on multiple occasions. You can see minor examples of this on here such as refusing to claim wins for illegal decks that are a meaningless change away from being legal.
I'm naturally suspicious of people and their intentions, and I have little sympathy for what others often consider to be heartthrob-type stories. I have a different sense of "fair" than seems to be the generally accepted definition, and I strongly feel that you get out what you put in and face the consequences otherwise. Ethical dilemmas are often clear-cut to me, usually taking the dissenting opinion. Acts that other people find repulsive I find to be completely logical, and vice versa.
Despite all this, I have a strong sense of sportsmanship and honesty and hold others to the same. I tend to be short-tempered with those who don't meet those standards, and hold the intent of a statement/rule/law/etc. to be of much greater importance than the wording. I expect that people take initiative in their lives, work hard, develop interests, and pursue them with all the effort necessary for success. I have a strong dislike for those who don't, yet expect the same results as those who do. I know many people like this.
This is beginning to get run-on and not really related to the question, so I'll cut it off here. I hope that I answered the intent of your question.
@All Trialists/defending masters:
If your first choice element was full, would you switch to another element? If yes, what element and why. If no, why?
I'm not sure I get what you mean by switching to another element, but if I'm interpreting it correctly than most certainly not. I see extremely little reason for a master to abandon his/her title and switch to another element immediately. I find defending a title if possible to be part of the duties of mastership.
Besides this, there really isn't another element I'd be particularly interested in joining. I still quite like Time, with Fire and Death close behind, but not nearly the same way that their proponents (particularly in Time there are several obvious examples) really love them and are dedicated to them. It would be a little weird for me to think of myself as "Master of Time". Darkness is and probably always will be my favorite element.
bogtro: Evaluate your Master-ship after war. What will you do differently, how is it a poor example of the way you plan to Master darkness this time?
Well, I left essentially right after War so there isn't that much to evaluate. Unfortunately I'll have another hiatus with limited (but not no) access from June 30-July 20, but should easily have sufficient access to manage my duties until I return. After that there's not a whole lot stopping me besides my own motivation, and there's little chance that I'll be quitting again in the near future.
Last time I, frankly, got a little lazy with war. I had intended to test something around 900 matches (which seems ridiculous, but was doable since I had quite a long time to finish). Unfortunately procrastination set in, partially as a result of other real life commitments but also partially because of laziness, and I only actually completed about 130. During war I didn't take quite as much time as I should have, and there were (iirc) 2 rounds where I did inexcusably little work due to being away.
This war should not conflict with anything major in my life, save a few weekends when I'll be away with access, and my motivation is quite high after having returned. I am confident that this War would be better than ever under my leadership.
But war is not the only part of being a master, nor the only part I hope to change. Schedule permitting, I do intend to lead the "darkness team" into brawl this time around (though I won't promise this). I also hope to become active in guilds, but the entire project seems to be more or less stagnant.
There are some things I felt I did well with and won't change - I still plan to be approachable with ideas and the like, and to emphasize having fun over results in all these events. As I mentioned in my above answer, I will still be placing a strong value on sportsmanship and honesty, and my team is held to an even higher standard. I don't take responsibilities lightly and I make my best effort to meet them (though I do sometimes need to prioritize).
bogtro: 'Darkness is merely the absence of light.' Evaluate this statement.
I strongly disagree. Darkness encompasses, in one word, the concepts of fear, happiness, relief, pain, suffering, peace, calm, and so on. All of these have one thing in common - they are all human constructs. Thus, Darkness sums up in one word the human spirit. It demonstrates what makes people human.
You are to ask yourself a question you can't answer. What do you ask yourself?
Note, saying "Is this question an acceptable answer to itself?" is not an acceptable answer to this question.
I'm not sure I get the question. Is "Am I lying" not the type of answer you are looking for?
To all Trialists:
Reveal to the voters your current maximum lift on the bench press.
*Edit: added a word. 
I have absolutely no idea. I'd guess something like 85?
To all 
trialers:
Which EtG card (from any element) represents the darkest thing in real life ?
Nightfall, of course
Seriously though, nightfall encompasses basically the same things that Darkness does. Steal is also a close second but not quite as good for illustrative purposes.
Poll
