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.

[mathman101]

For those interested, these are my Phase 1 Tasks.


Ask whatever questions you want if it will help you make your decision on choosing the best candidate for the Mastership title.

I will update this post with answers to questions as they come in.



In-Element Questions:

Spoiler for ji412jo:

to all : do you think you can do a better job as a master than the previous ones? and why

When I look at the previous Masters for Life the big achievements I see from them are:
3rd Master killsdazombies - Placed 4th in War (Life's Highest Ranking)
5th/6th/7th/11th Master willng3 - 4 time Life master (3 were consecutive titles)
9th/10th Master dawn to dusk - He started a few threads in Life section to showcase Life's strengths and weaknesses.

I believe that with time, patience and experience I can also be a 4 time Life Master, as well as help bring Life up tp 4th place again in the War standings. I also feel that I have the knowledge to help showoff Lifes around the forum in both PvP and non-PvP event.

Spoiler for Aves:

Refute the following:

"Life is not an element."

With less exaggeration of the above, do you think life has a chance at a strong finish in this war, given its record?

I cry everytime I see those 5 words together 

But honestly I think life will have a chance at some point, however it may take a bit more tweaking of the current rules to level the playing field before we can be on equal footing as the top teams. For this upcoming war, yes I think life has a chance of being in the top 6. War is continually being tweaked and modified each year to lessen the gaps between top tier and bottom tier teams, and I think life has a chance of making that top spot one day.
#nevergiveup

Spoiler for Absol:

To all: Make a better damage formula for Adrenaline. As "better" is subjective, i'll leave that to your individual judgment.

Currently on the large scale I see nothing wrong with the current Adrenaline calculation, it allows small hitters to have just as big an impact as large hitters. Maybe a slight adjustment to the current formula would be nice, and I was thinking something like this:

Attack	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
1st Attack	0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15
2nd Attack	0	1	2	3	3	4	4	5	6	4	4	4	5	5	5	6
3rd Attack	0	1	2	3	2	2	2	3	4
4th Attack	0	1	2	3
5th Attack	0	1	1
Total Damage	0	5	9	12	9	11	12	15	18	13	14	15	17	18	19	21

Whatever is highlighted in green is changed from the original table/formula.

This would allow a slightly bigger impact on lower attack creatures, but still not break the total damage output as most 1-2 DR shields would easily slow/stop those low hitters. Also this allows for faster quanta generation from low atk creatures like gnomerider, photon, ash eater, etc. aiding in the early game which is where Life rushes accel best. Also this allows for a slightly higher value at the "sweet spots" to give that extra bonus for building your deck around a creature with an attack at the sweet spot value.

Spoiler for ValerianFlame:

Willng3 was a good master, but, like Root, he was very inactive, especially during and after war. In Life's case, do you think that activity is part of skill and why?

I believe with any element the more activity you have the more experience you will gain and the better you will become. In the instance of willng, yes this most recent term as master he became very inactive midway through war, but during his previous terms as master he was very active and did many things for the community to support and drive the love of the life element.

All-Element Questions:

Spoiler for kaempfer13:

@ 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, I think that I would be able to build a team to lead to victory in both War and Brawl. The more I play this game, the more experience I have gained and the better I have become at building decks and thinking up ideas for PvP matches. Mindgating may not be my strength for deciding on what deck to bring to what game, but I like to think I am not horrible and if needed teammate are always good at bouncing ideas off of each other for tactics. I have never been a War General, but I have been a Brawl Boss and from that experience I have come to better understand the strengths it takes to draft a good team. Motivation is key in a team and good communication between the team can help keep their spirits up when the scores are low, I think I would be able to give everyone the needed cheer booster to keep the inspiration high for making it to the next round in both War and Brawl. If chosen as Master and had the opportunity to be both the General for War and Boss for Brawl, yes I would give whatever time I had available to it for both events. Depending on when they occur, and what is going on in RL it may only be 1-2hrs per week or it could be 2-3hrs per day, but I would give all my free time available for it

Spoiler for DoubleCapitals:

@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?

My understanding of what it means to be a Master is to be someone who both showcases their elements in events like War, Brawl, and then again the following Trials, and has the knowledge and skill to use the full potential of their element. As a Master I would plan to lead a team for both War and Brawl regardless of RL commitments, should RL become overly busy at those times though I would indeed be looking for a strong Lt. to aid with the team when I was unavailable.

Hmm not sure what character would be a good personification of myself, but maybe if I describe some of my traits you can think of a character that fits them. I have a good sense of humour, I can be a leader when it is called upon me, I feel that I have good communication skills with those around, I am loyal to my friends.

This is my 4th Life trials, and I have never trialed for another element, so I will disregard your final question. 

Spoiler for CleanOnion:

@all Please take a photo of something you dislike.

Hmm...Something I dislike?
Would either of these work for you...



My Booze is all empty!

Spoiler for Zawadx:

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?

For Higu's quoted question, what I answered during that trial is still mainly true. For What I answered to Jenkar has a few slight differences due to a batter performance this year.
Higu questions from 9th Trials:

To me life represents everything around me in my everyday life. From the laughter of my coworkers and family members, to the smells of the fresh cut lawn and flowers in my yard. Life is what makes a person want to get up in the morning and go do something other then just stay in bed and sleep all day.

Life has helped me gain a better understanding of my place in the world and in society, it has helped me gain a more positive attitude to the work that I do and the amount of time I should spend with my family and friends both online and offline. As a Master I believe it is not what can I do for Life, but what does it need from me. If players (new or old) need advice on Life's strategies or tactics, I would have to share what knowledge I have of it. If Events like War or Brawl are in need of a Leader of Life, then I would lead a team for Life.

Jenkar Question from 10th Trials:

In Phase 1, I looked at and analyzed some of the current cards in "Task #1 Mastering the Cards", I suggested a potential tournament idea in "R=Task #8 Starting Your Own Little War", and I battled in out with my opponents in "Task #7 Waging War against your Enemies". I feel that my card explanations were complete as I looked at 1 of each creature, spell, and permanent, and did my best to explain as much as I could about each and a few key synergies that they each have. Regarding the tournament idea, I fell it was a nice idea, and the life based deck was a nice one showing off one of Life's key duos ( utilizing Forest Spirits).

For my Phase 2 battles, I think I did ok, but definately have done better! My element choices were ones that I knew had strong synergies with Life, and that I felt strongly about making decks for regardless of PC or CC. I know that I still have to work on my mindgating as a few of my decks would have worked well against other decks but I had just chosen the wrong time to use them. The main thing I am happy with is that I am slowly becoming better every trials as I did much better this time than I did last time; Trials 9 = 8-16 (33% win rate), Trials 10 = 10-14 (42% win rate). [still not great but ever so slowly improving]

     Phase 1 this time included the lazy effort of picking the Warrior task, even though looking back it meant moving the workload from Phase 1 to Phase 2 with the extra matches. The story I made was one that just felt fun and exciting. The choice for the creative task was both due to knowing it would be something I could do moderately well at, as well as partially strategic since I could not gain air or death as an unlock from any of my opponents task unlocks. Both Air and Death have strong synergy both with and against life, which is why I really wanted these elements.
     For the Phase 2 portion, I feel that my improvements from last Trials are definitely showing through as I won 3 of the 4 matches(6 if you count phase 1 warrior). I think that I am slowly picking up on the tricks for trials meta, as I made a few more strategic bans that I had not thought of last trials. example: I specifically banned mitosis instead of adrenaline vs kdz, expecting lots of adrenaline decks and played Thorn Carapace/SoG heavy decks vs him. Also caught him off-guard for Game 1 as he brought a mitosis deck by mistake since most of his other opponents banned adrenaline for him. To gauge vs my previous scores, here are this years scores: 9 - 7 (56.25%) or 12 - 13 (48%) [if counting the Phase 1 warrior matches] both of which are improvements from the previous trials.


When looking at what could have been done differently this trials, not much should be changed as it is fairly similar to previous trials but still enough new stuff to make it fresh. The only thing I would have liked to see (and still want to see) is the reasoning for point amounts in Phase 1.

To become a Trails Overseer would require a large amount of time dedication and attention to the small details. I think I could do ok in this postion should RL give me the time to do it properly. With finishing my college career and starting in the working world at the end of Dec 2017, I am not sure I will have the time to properly dedicate to the TrO position anytime in the near future (1-2yrs). Maybe if RL settles down and allows for excessive online activity time, and there is a staff opening for Trials 14+, maybe I'll give it a shot.

Spoiler for Basman-1453:

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'.

For everyone that Trials not for their favourite element:

• What is your favourite element?
• If you end up not becoming a Master for the element you're Trialling in, will you consider an approach from WMs to General your favourite 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'.

(Edit: You will want to indicate somewhere whether you're Trialling for your favourite element. Ways to indicate that include quoting only the relevant question for your situation, saying whether you're Trialling for your favourite element after the full quote ... anything goes, really, as long as ppl can know, at the very least implicitly, whether you're Trialling for your favourite element without checking your Forum profile )

Indeed I am trialing for my favorite element, so I will only answer the relevant questions for that section.

My second favorite element would be death, as it was the first element I started the game with.
If I were to not become Master of Life and still asked to General another War team(any of the 11 others), I would feel honored that another Master thought I had enough leadership and skill to properly represent their element in a such a large event like War. I would happily do so, but would then need to make sure I had a strong player familiar with the element as my Lt.

Spoiler for Zyardran:

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

My reasons for joining Life Trials are that Life is my favorite element and I plan to hopefully one day achieve the title of Master of Life at some point in time (regardless of if it is Trials 11, or Trials 50) and lead team Life in War, and also so that I can give back to the community helping show the many strengths of Life.

Possible Plans I have for War if I was Master include:
 - Gaining a Strong team in Auction (at least 1 Life Loyalist, at least 1 Strong PvP player)
 - Building a Strong Starting Vault (Common Deck Staples like in past Wars, and underused cards to build surprise decks)
 - Bring good cheer and humour to the team to keep activity high, and deck testing at a peak if possible.

Possible Plans I have for Brawl if I was Master include:
 - Think of a humourous Team name
 - Bid on a strong active team (For this I would look at past brawls to see which players have done well, and which have stayed active)
 - Bring good cheer and humour to the team to keep activity high, and ideas fresh and submissions at a peak if possible.

[MyNameIsJoey]

to all : do you think you can do a better job as a master than the previous ones? and why

[Mr Muffin]

I like the way mathman101 did this so I'm copying him.



In-Element Questions:

Spoiler for ji412jo:

to all : do you think you can do a better job as a master than the previous ones? and why

No. (ish) Mostly because I have literally no experience with war and I don't do many events in general. Although the last life master did drop out of war... So probably yes in terms of war due to being here and no to other stuff.

Spoiler for Aves:

Refute the following:

"Life is not an element."

With less exaggeration of the above, do you think life has a chance at a strong finish in this war, given its record?

Seeing it once got third I know it has some chance at a strong finish but to be honest I don't expect it to any better in this war than in the other wars. Life's best spot in war besides 4 is 6 so yeah. (Out of 10 wars it averaged the worst.)

Spoiler for Absol:

To all: Make a better damage formula for Adrenaline. As "better" is subjective, i'll leave that to your individual judgment.

I like how it is now. How it goes negative on attack 3 with overdrive on creatures starting with 0, 1, and 2 attack and negative on attack 3 with acceleration on creatures starting with 3 or 4 attack is weird but I'm fine with it. Yep I can be lazy. I don't care to make a new formula when I'm content with the current one. If it's not broken don't fix it.

Spoiler for ValerianFlame:

Willng3 was a good master, but, like Root, he was very interactive, especially during and after war. In Life's case, do you think that activity is part of skill? Explain.

No. I don't think activity makes you any less skilled in pvp and other things when you are active. If you meant skill as in things like valuable player, high ranked player, (not sure how to define high ranked player) then I would give you a different answer.

All-Element Questions:

Spoiler for kaempfer13:

@ 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 don't know if I could build a team that I can lead to victory. Absolutely no experience here with that.
I like to think that I'm a decent deckbuilder but I don't know.
Not being in war before I don't know how predictions and countering works but so far I do very little predicting and countering.
I doubt I'd know who to pick to cover my weaknesses.
This inspiration thing you speak of. I don't do it.
I'm not an enthusiastic person to begin with and if I have it I don't think I could give others my enthusiasm.
Will I put the necessary time investment in all these things? Yes. Problem is I often don't know what I'm doing so I might do some stuff then be like, "uh...what now?".

Spoiler for DoubleCapitals:

@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?

For me being a master means being skilled at using the element you are a master of and leading it in war. I don't see myself as particularly skilled at using life and don't expect to become master. I'm just doing trials for experience for when I'm a better player. On the off chance I do become master I will try to use life well but may not succeed and will probably hand the role of general to someone more skilled than me.

I choose the character Mr Muffin perhaps you've heard of him. Why I think he personifies me is because I know him very well and we have a LOT (everything) in common.

I of course haven't trialed for anything before so the last question doesn't apply to me but yes life is my favorite element.

Spoiler for CleanOnion:

@all Please take a photo of something you dislike.

Yep, this is a totally relevant thing to ask of the trialists. I'm going to find something on google images and screenshot it because I don't know how to put camera stuff on computers. This is the first thing that came to mind when I was thinking of things I don't like and this is the first image I saw of this.

Spoiler for Hidden:

Spoiler for Zawadx (and others):

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?

For Higurashi's question: So do I describe what my life means to me and what it represents? What it represents might be a somewhat stereotypical introvert who spends a lot of time on online games and has no (and desires no) social life. What it means to me is, "I'm alive. Good." except when bad stuff happens then being alive isn't like yay life is so great.

For Jenkar's question: I don't think anyone will be able to answer this in four hours with it being asked in 2016. I'll answer it anyway. For phase one I like the score I got and don't know how I would have done it differently to strive for a perfect score. I went right by, I don't know, saying lots of stuff? I went wrong by not knowing exactly what to do. I knew the objectives and all but didn't have any ideas to get the illusive perfect score. Would I change anything from my phase 1 submission? Certainly not. I'm quite happy with what I got, and haven't thought of anything I would rather had done differently. For phase 2 some could say I got lucky. My luck in the match with killsdazombies was definitely in my favor, and I got an automatic 3-0 win due to things. In my matches with mathman101 and godisnowonline I felt it was all legit. I went right by making what I think were good decks and playing them in (what I think was) an unpredictable manner. I went wrong by maybe I shouldn't have tried that stall thing in the last game against mathman. Other than that I think I did my best. If I could change something I would have tried a different deck than that aforementioned stall. Also, if I could change things knowing what I know now I could have countered the opponent every game.

I would have had to be a trials organizer at one point to know what things I would have done different. As a bystander I don't have any complaints about how things were done. I don't particularly wish to be a TrO at this point in time.

Spoiler for Basman-1453:

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'.

For everyone that Trials not for their favourite element:

• What is your favourite element?
• If you end up not becoming a Master for the element you're Trialling in, will you consider an approach from WMs to General your favourite 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'.

Probably earth.
I don't particularly wish to be a general of any element at this point in time. If I did it would be like, "First war ey? Well congratulations you're a general, you better do a good job.".

Spoiler for Zyardran:

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'm trilling to get trills experience. Becoming a master would be ok but that's not really why I'm here this time.
If I become a master my plans for war would probably be to give the title of general to someone better for the job. I don't have any plans for brawl. I would just join brawl as I did the last brawl I was in if I join brawl.

Phase 1 thing. http://elementscommunity.org/forum/trial-of-life/11th-trials-challenger's-entrance-64323/msg1261686/#msg1261686

[killsdazombies]

Answer post

Spoiler for ji412jo:

to all : do you think you can do a better job as a master than the previous ones? and why

He went AFK mid war, though he was a good player, thats a bit of a sour taste. I believe any of the candidates could,
 and would, do better, so long as they dont drop in similar fashion.

Spoiler for aves:

Refute the following:

"Life is not an element."

With less exaggeration of the above, do you think life has a chance at a strong finish in this war, given its record?

You can look at literally any element, theyve all at one time or another, placed well. Water is the most recent example, usually right down with life, scored really high this war, light in war past got second, and so has life. To say an element doesn't have a chance at a strong finish is to completely miss the point of war. You deal with the hand your dealt. You either build deck, and predict well enough to advance, or you don't. Its true for every team. Yes, some have advantages, but if you fall back on "Aether has fractal of course they'll win against *Insert element here*" Or other similar statements, youre not fighting war right.

Spoiler for Absol:

To all: Make a better damage formula for Adrenaline. As "better" is subjective, i'll leave that to your individual judgment.

There isn't a better damage formula, any change made would either make creatures with lower attack even stronger (Rol producing 3 light, or scorps hitting 3 poison counters) Or would make it entirely better on stronger creatures. Right now it gives creatures with otherwise below average a real big buff, while limiting the benefit of that buff on bigger creatures. I wouldn't change it at all.

Spoiler for Val:

Willng3 was a good master, but, like Root, he was very inactive, especially during and after war. In Life's case, do you think that activity is part of skill and why?

Activity doesn't equal skill, but inactivity limits the use of any skill you might have. You could be a terrific mason, but if you only work 15 minutes a day, you aren't really accomplishing much. The same is true in war (which is what I assume you are getting at)

Spoiler for www3:

@kdz
Will you general life if you win?

I don't know. Yes thats a shoddy answer but its the truth. I really let myself, and my team down, last war. I misjudged my capabilities, and time to devote, coupled with disaster and uncertainty with the element, I wasn't the general the team deserved. I didn't do my part, and I don't want to be a burden on a team again, any team. So, before war starts, I'll sit down, measure my worth, and if I'm found wanting, I'll make the choice I think it best for team life.

[Aves]

Refute the following:

"Life is not an element."

With less exaggeration of the above, do you think life has a chance at a strong finish in this war, given its record?

[Absol]

To all: Make a better damage formula for Adrenaline. As "better" is subjective, i'll leave that to your individual judgment.

[ValerianFlame]

Willng3 was a good master, but, like Root, he was very inactive, especially during and after war. In Life's case, do you think that activity is part of skill and why?

[worldwideweb3]

@kdz
Will you general life if you win?

[killsdazombies]

Answers up, I'll be offline until voting is done, likely.

[mathman101]

All questions have been answered up to this point for both in-element and all elements. I can't guarantee I will be able to answer questions past this before the polls close, but if any more are asked I will still attempt to answer after the deadline if you so want it.