> > Yes, but for every card that you burn (cards not of their
> > choosing) in this manner is every card that they can't use
> > to attack their prey or defend against you.
> Unless you run them out of cards before you oust them, you
> are only demoralizing them.
Not true. You are eating away at their Offense and/or Defense.
> When you oust someone who still has a library, they leave the
> game with a certain number of cards unplayed.
Yes.
> It doesn't make a difference if you move some of those unplayed
> cards to the ash heap - they are still unplayed.
Indeed. However, it makes a huge difference. If the player discarded
any of those cards it was because that player felt that they weren't use-
ful at the particular time they were in hand. However, if DLS is what
caused the discard, it could have been something that would have been
very useful to that player at the time but will now not have the opportunity
to use it unless they happen to draw another.
> All DLS does is *randomly* rearrange which cards get played and
> which don't, which is effectively just shuffling their deck.
Not entirely true, but not untrue either.
> > I've seen it time and time again where cards that the person was
> > really looking for just ended up in their ashheap.
> But since you have no control over which cards you burn (do you?),
No. Just the top X cards of their library where X is the amount of the
bleed. This is why using Dominate with this card is essential. Plinking
1 card here and there won't have an overly detrimental effect.
> you don't know if you are getting rid of good stuff or getting rid of bad
> stuff and letting them draw their good stuff sooner.
Maybe, maybe not. Let's just take the following hypothetical situation:
My prey's deck includes 4, say, Freak Drives. FD is somewhat critical
to any strategy in that it allows vamps to take multiple actions per turn.
Having FD could allow a vamp to, say, 5th, FD, Bleed. For every FD
I eat away with DLS, that is one fewer action that can be performed
utilizing the same resources.
All cards are in a players deck for a reason unless they were just thrown
together. Each of those cards that goes unused (especially when it is not
of the players choice) is a card that cannot be used to further that players
position.
> They still draw the same number of cards before you oust them,
Yes, but not in the same order or the same consistency (?; not sure
if that's the right term) as they would have otherwise.
> so their odds of drawing a particular set of cards are exactly the same
> whether you use DLS or not.
Not true. The odds change depending on how many of a particular
card they include in the deck and how many DLS are used against
them during the game. If the above player includes 4 FDs in their
deck and I eat 3 of them with DLS, the odds of that player drawing
the 4th aren't overly great. And if I eat the 4th FD with another DLS,
then they just lost all of their FDs and it wasn't of their choosing.
Sorrow
---
I told the priest - don't count on any second coming. God got his
ass kicked the first time he came down here slumming. He had the
balls to come, the gall to die and then forgive us. No, I don't
wonder why, I wonder what he thought it would get us
On Wed, 10 May 2000, Sorrow wrote:
> > It doesn't make a difference if you move some of those unplayed
> > cards to the ash heap - they are still unplayed.
>
> Indeed. However, it makes a huge difference. If the player discarded
> any of those cards it was because that player felt that they weren't
> use- ful at the particular time they were in hand.
I didn't mean to include discarded cards in the set of unplayed cards. A
better term would be undrawn cards. When a methuselah is ousted there is
a set of undrawn cards. All random DLS does is blindly manipulate the set
of undrawn cards, putting some of them in the ash heap, without actually
changing the number of cards that go undrawn, and hence, without changing
a player's overall odds of drawing particular cards.
> However, if DLS is what caused the discard, it could have been
> something that would have been very useful to that player at the time
> but will now not have the opportunity to use it unless they happen to
> draw another.
Since you are ousting your prey before you run him out of cards, what if
instead of burning cards, DLS moved them to the bottom of the deck? They
will never draw those cards, so the effect is just as strong, stronger
even since they don't know which cards they are "losing" and can't revise
their plans accordingly. But does this affect their game? Of course not
- you are just blindly cutting their deck.
> > you don't know if you are getting rid of good stuff or getting rid of bad
> > stuff and letting them draw their good stuff sooner.
>
> Maybe, maybe not. Let's just take the following hypothetical situation:
>
> My prey's deck includes 4, say, Freak Drives. FD is somewhat critical
> to any strategy in that it allows vamps to take multiple actions per
> turn. Having FD could allow a vamp to, say, 5th, FD, Bleed. For every
> FD I eat away with DLS, that is one fewer action that can be performed
> utilizing the same resources.
But you have no conrtol over which cards get DLS'ed! That's why their
odds of drawing certain cards don't change - see my example below.
> All cards are in a players deck for a reason unless they were just
> thrown together. Each of those cards that goes unused (especially
> when it is not of the players choice) is a card that cannot be used to
> further that players position.
But there will always be cards which go unused if you are ousted with
library remaining - every card you didn't draw goes unused. DLS doesn't
make more unused cards; you still draw (are able to use) the same number
of cards in the course of the game. All the cards you don't draw always
go unused, whether DLS'ed or not.
> > They still draw the same number of cards before you oust them,
>
> Yes, but not in the same order or the same consistency (?; not sure if
> that's the right term) as they would have otherwise.
The order of cards is random - blindly rearranging them doesn't make them
any more or less random. The deck consistency *doesn't* change. The deck
is already inconsistent (having more Freak Drives on top than in the
middle or on the bottom.) You are just blindly manipulating which
inconsistent part they draw from. You are merely shuffling or cutting
their deck.
> > so their odds of drawing a particular set of cards are exactly the same
> > whether you use DLS or not.
>
> Not true. The odds change depending on how many of a particular card
> they include in the deck and how many DLS are used against them during
> the game. If the above player includes 4 FDs in their deck and I eat
> 3 of them with DLS, the odds of that player drawing the 4th aren't
> overly great. And if I eat the 4th FD with another DLS, then they
> just lost all of their FDs and it wasn't of their choosing.
It doesn't matter - if they still have a library, the overall odds of
drawing a Freak drive in the course of a game, DLS or not, remain the
same. Your odds of not DLS'ing a particular card combined with their
increased odds of drawing it exactly equals the original odds of drawing
that card.
Consider this hypothetical situation with a standard deck of
playing cards. Suppose we have a bet that I can shuffle the cards and
draw the ace of spades. We know the odds are of course 1/52. What are
the odds if you remove the top 26 cards before I draw? Half the time, you
will win right then and there, with the ace in your half. The other half
the time, the ace will be in the remaining 26 cards, so the odds of
drawing the ace from those cards is 1/26. Thus the overall odds are
1/2 * 1/26 = 1/52, exactly as before. In fact, you can remove between
zero and 51 cards and the odds of drawing the ace remains 1/52. The only
thing that changes is that we can know before I draw whether I have a shot
or not, which is why I claim that random DLS does nothing but demoralize
your opponent, without changing their chances of drawing what they want,
unless you actually run them out of cards.
-davey!
On Thu, 11 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> I didn't mean to include discarded cards in the set of unplayed cards. A
> better term would be undrawn cards. When a methuselah is ousted there is
> a set of undrawn cards. All random DLS does is blindly manipulate the set
> of undrawn cards, putting some of them in the ash heap, without actually
> changing the number of cards that go undrawn, and hence, without changing
> a player's overall odds of drawing particular cards.
I play Dirty Little Secrets and end up moving, say, Minion Tap, Majesty
and Aire of Elation to the ash heap. Your chance of drawing them is
reduced.
I may not be able to control which cards I do that to, but by virtue of
the fact that cards are no longer in your library, your chance of drawing
them is reduced.
--
James Coupe | PGP Key 0x5D623D5D
"But I don't have the right to be with you tonight, so please leave me
alone with no saviour in sight. I will sleep safe and sound with nobody
around me."
James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> wrote:
> I play Dirty Little Secrets and end up moving, say, Minion Tap,
> Majesty and Aire of Elation to the ash heap. Your chance of
> drawing them is reduced. I may not be able to control which cards
> I do that to, but by virtue of the fact that cards are no longer
> in your library, your chance of drawing them is reduced.
I think the point that David is trying to make is that most tournament
decks have a fair amount of redundancy built into them. Unless you plan
on bleeding them for 30+ pool (at which point you prolly should have
ousted them), odds are against you doing any significant damage to the
playability of the deck.
That's why I liked the Ani/Pro Seven Raptor deck idea better. You can
cycle their deck faster and send their vampires to torpor at the same
time.
Noal
--
"What you cannot enforce, do not command."
-- Socrates
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
On Thu, 11 May 2000, Noal McDonald wrote:
> That's why I liked the Ani/Pro Seven Raptor deck idea better. You can
> cycle their deck faster and send their vampires to torpor at the same
> time.
Oh, it's better, certainly. So much harder to set up though. Both have
merits.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On Thu, 11 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> I play Dirty Little Secrets and end up moving, say, Minion Tap,> Majesty and Aire of Elation to the ash heap. Your chance of drawing
> them is reduced.
Perhaps you should reread my post more carefully. Your chance of DLS'ing
them in the first place combined with my increased chance of not drawing
them is exactly the same as my chance of not drawing them had you never
played the DLS. By playing DLS, you are not changing my odds of drawing
particular cards any more than by not playing DLS -- *unless* you run me
out of cards, which is unlikely given DLS's mode of operation.
-davey!
On Thu, 11 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> Perhaps you should reread my post more carefully. Your chance of DLS'ing
> them in the first place combined with my increased chance of not drawing
> them is exactly the same as my chance of not drawing them had you never
> played the DLS. By playing DLS, you are not changing my odds of drawing
> particular cards any more than by not playing DLS -- *unless* you run me
> out of cards, which is unlikely given DLS's mode of operation.
Combine it with Steam Tunnels. A barrel of fun. It's what most people I
know who enjoy playing it do.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On Thu, 11 May 2000 16:22:33 -0500, davey!
<dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
>
>On Thu, 11 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
>>> I play Dirty Little Secrets and end up moving, say, Minion Tap,>> Majesty and Aire of Elation to the ash heap. Your chance of drawing
>> them is reduced.>
>Perhaps you should reread my post more carefully. Your chance of DLS'ing
>them in the first place combined with my increased chance of not drawing
>them is exactly the same as my chance of not drawing them had you never
>played the DLS. By playing DLS, you are not changing my odds of drawing
>particular cards any more than by not playing DLS -- *unless* you run me
>out of cards, which is unlikely given DLS's mode of operation.
Missing the point slightly, I believe.
It's not that you have removed a significant portion of their blood
gain by dumping a Minion Tap in their ash heap. (although you may
have, if the deck only packs 5 Minion Taps.) You certainly can't
control which cards you get, but you CAN get lucky and get his good
ones. Good ones should be obvious - if an Awe and Dreams of the
Sphinx hit the heap, for example, the benefit is enormous.
It's that both your opponent *AND YOU* know that a Minion Tap is in
the ash heap and will NEVER be drawn. Your opponent may well be
completely demoralized and alter his style of play (he might know
there are only 4 in the deck, and with 1 in his hand and 1 in the
heap, he ain't likely to see more for a long time). You, however,
know that some of his blood gain is gone, and can alter your game
appropriately.
What if you see two Majesties vanish? That's information of a
different sort. Now he's out some combat defense. He may not be able
to recklessly bleed his prey as much, relying on Majesty to stop and
untap. He may not be able to multiple-block your bleeds with one or
two vampires since he can't untap as often anymore. You should alter
your game as much as you can (which may not be much given that you're
a DLS deck) to attack that weak point.
The purpose of a DLS deck isn't to run your prey out of cards, it's to
rob his deck of flow. If his deck is rolling well and suddenly you
jerk a few Bum's Rushes from the top onto the ash heap, he may not be
able to get into combat for several rounds. He might have been
waiting for the Rush actions which are now further down. A lot of
these things are "might"s, but don't ever underestimate them.
-- Derek
Deafness never kept composers from hearing the music.
It only stopped them hearing the distractions.
On Thu, 11 May 2000, Noal McDonald wrote:
> I think the point that David is trying to make is that most tournament
> decks have a fair amount of redundancy built into them.
No, that's NOT what I'm saying - redundancy is a related topic, but it's
not relevant to the argument AT ALL. Even if I include only one copy of a
key card in my deck, say a Misdirection, my odds of drawing it depend ONLY
on the number of cards I draw in the course of the game and the *initial*
size of my deck. DLS doesn't change the initial deck size, and it doesn't
change the number of cards I draw until I run out of cards, which is an
unlikely event because of how DLS works. Therefore, it doesn't change my
odds of drawing the Misdirection, or for that matter any other card.
James and Sorrow: you can say "If my Dirty Little Secrets hits your
Misdirection, you can't draw it" all day long - it doesn't matter. You
are failing to consider your chances of DLS'ing the Misdirection in the
first place. When you do, you'll see that my overall odds of drawing
misdirection are unchanged.
Consider this: bearing in mind that one typically has no way of knowing
which cards Dirty Little Secrets burns, and the prey of a heavy bleed deck
seldom reaches the bottom of their library, would DLS not be just as
effective if it burned cards off the bottom of their deck? If not, why
not? If so, then how does DLS change their odds of drawing particular
cards if you don't run them out of cards?
> Unless you plan on bleeding them for 30+ pool (at which point you
> prolly should have ousted them),
Exactly - you'll almost always bleed the methuselah out before running
them out of cards with DLS, and...
> odds are against you doing any significant damage to the playability
> of the deck.
...in fact, the playability is unchanged until you run them out of cards.
> That's why I liked the Ani/Pro Seven Raptor deck idea better. You can
> cycle their deck faster and send their vampires to torpor at the same
> time.
Raptors make a better case for this strategy - they mess with the
opponent's hand, not his deck, and the deck cycling can potentially run
them out of cards before ousting them through other means.
-davey!
On Thu, 11 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> On Thu, 11 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> > Perhaps you should reread my post more carefully. Your chance of DLS'ing
> > them in the first place combined with my increased chance of not drawing
> > them is exactly the same as my chance of not drawing them had you never
> > played the DLS. By playing DLS, you are not changing my odds of drawing
> > particular cards any more than by not playing DLS -- *unless* you run me
> > out of cards, which is unlikely given DLS's mode of operation.
>> Combine it with Steam Tunnels. A barrel of fun. It's what most
> people I know who enjoy playing it do.
Yes, this has a chance of actually doing something, but it's different
situation from Sorrow's deck.
On Thu, 11 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> James and Sorrow: you can say "If my Dirty Little Secrets hits your
> Misdirection, you can't draw it" all day long - it doesn't matter. You
Of course it does. I DLS the <whatever> you can't play it. It can
happen, and it does happen. Probability is another matter.
You are failing to take into account possibilities, being blinded by
probabilities.
[ quoted text not captured ]
"davey!" <dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote in message
news:Pine.SOL.4.10.100051...@harper.uchicago.edu...
>
>
> On Thu, 11 May 2000, Noal McDonald wrote:
>
> > I think the point that David is trying to make is that most tournament
> > decks have a fair amount of redundancy built into them.
>
> No, that's NOT what I'm saying - redundancy is a related topic, but it's
> not relevant to the argument AT ALL. Even if I include only one copy of a
> key card in my deck, say a Misdirection, my odds of drawing it depend ONLY
> on the number of cards I draw in the course of the game and the *initial*
> size of my deck. DLS doesn't change the initial deck size, and it doesn't
> change the number of cards I draw until I run out of cards, which is an
> unlikely event because of how DLS works. Therefore, it doesn't change my
> odds of drawing the Misdirection, or for that matter any other card.
Actually, if the DLS doesn't hit the Misdirection (to use your example) then
the odds of your drawing the Misdirection are increased. However, the point
of DLS isn't that it changes the odds of you getting one card or another.
The point is that DLS precludes you from drawing the cards it ashes. Whether
or not that is significant is determined by the construction of your deck
and the environment of the game you're in compared to the cards that are
lost to DLS.
On Thu, 11 May 2000, Derek Ray wrote:
> Missing the point slightly, I believe.
>
> It's not that you have removed a significant portion of their blood
> gain by dumping a Minion Tap in their ash heap. (although you may
> have, if the deck only packs 5 Minion Taps.) You certainly can't
> control which cards you get, but you CAN get lucky and get his good
> ones. Good ones should be obvious - if an Awe and Dreams of the
> Sphinx hit the heap, for example, the benefit is enormous.
That *IS* my point - you can be lucky, but your odds of being lucky and
burning something good when you play DLS are exactly the same as your odds
of being lucky and having your opponent's good cards on the bottom of his
deck when you don't play DLS. Hence the original question - why play DLS?
> It's that both your opponent *AND YOU* know that a Minion Tap is in
> the ash heap and will NEVER be drawn. Your opponent may well be
> completely demoralized and alter his style of play (he might know
> there are only 4 in the deck, and with 1 in his hand and 1 in the
> heap, he ain't likely to see more for a long time). You, however,
> know that some of his blood gain is gone, and can alter your game
> appropriately.
Oh, DLS certainly provides information on cards he will never draw, in the
same way as looking at the bottom few cards of his deck would. But this
information is certainly more useful to him than to you, and you have no
control of whether he will be demoralized or delighted by it. And however
useful it is to you, is it worth the card slot? Is it worth Clan
Impersonation? Is it superior to Pulse, Revelations or Aura Reading,
which could probably be included in Sorrow's deck, or to Owl Companion
which could fit in most Nosferatu-Antitribu decks?
> The purpose of a DLS deck isn't to run your prey out of cards, it's to
> rob his deck of flow. If his deck is rolling well and suddenly you
> jerk a few Bum's Rushes from the top onto the ash heap, he may not be
> able to get into combat for several rounds.
But it it doesn't interfere with the flow at all - you might hit something
good, you might make something good come up sooner. If you calculate the
odds, the chances of his next card being what he wants are unchanged by
playing DLS.
> He might have been waiting for the Rush actions which are now further
> down. A lot of these things are "might"s, but don't ever
> underestimate them.
That's my point - I'm not underestimating them or overestimating them -
I'm precisely calculating them! And the odds are not changed by blindly
playing DLS!
James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> writes:
>On Thu, 11 May 2000, davey! wrote:>> James and Sorrow: you can say "If my Dirty Little Secrets hits your
>> Misdirection, you can't draw it" all day long - it doesn't matter. You>
>Of course it does. I DLS the <whatever> you can't play it. It can
>happen, and it does happen. Probability is another matter.
I think he's just making the point that chances of burning a single copy
of some particular card (e.g. Misdirection) and thus making it impossible
to draw precisely cancel out the increased chances of drawing that card
if it burns only other (non-Misdirection cards). That is, if you have
10 cards left in the deck and one Misdirection, the chance of drawing
it on your next draw is 10%. But if you burn 5 of the cards first,
there's a 50% chance you'll burn the misdirection. If you fail to do
so, however, you've increased the chances of of his drawing the
Misdirection to 20% as it's now one in 5. So 50% X 0% (you burned the
Misdirection and it's gone) plus %0% X 20% (you failed to burn
the Misdirection) works out to 10%, the same thing he started with.
I doubt I had to spell this point out like this except to say that
I'm pretty sure you two are somehow talking past one another.
>You are failing to take into account possibilities, being blinded by
>probabilities.
I'm not sure why that would really make a difference. I suppose if
your position was such that you could hold out in a game until you
drew one card and you knew you'd sweep the table after you drew but
you also you lose if you couldn't draw it and noone was going to get
ousted in the interim, somethig like DLS is the only way your opponents
could beat you. But this would be a very strange situation. For the
most part, it looks to me like DLS only matters if it affects your
game by running you out of cards before you were ousted or won. Maybe
if you were the type to become unnecessaily despondent by looking at
your graveyard?
Fred
lor...@yahoo.com (Derek Ray) writes:
>The purpose of a DLS deck isn't to run your prey out of cards, it's to
>rob his deck of flow. If his deck is rolling well and suddenly you
>jerk a few Bum's Rushes from the top onto the ash heap, he may not be>able to get into combat for several rounds. He might have been>waiting for the Rush actions which are now further down. A lot of
>these things are "might"s, but don't ever underestimate them.
Sheesh, I'm flow-blown *confused* at this argument. You have just
as much chance of burning the things that have been jamming
his hand for half the game and getting started when he was stuck.
I mean, you might get lucky and you might get unlucky but the two
cancel each other out totally leaving a big zilch for positive
benefit. This can not be the point of DLS (if there is one). Only
running your opponent out of cards.
Fred
On Thu, 11 May 2000 18:06:26 -0500, davey!
<dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>On Thu, 11 May 2000, Derek Ray wrote:
>>> Missing the point slightly, I believe.
>>
>> It's not that you have removed a significant portion of their blood
>> gain by dumping a Minion Tap in their ash heap. (although you may
>> have, if the deck only packs 5 Minion Taps.) You certainly can't
>> control which cards you get, but you CAN get lucky and get his good
>> ones. Good ones should be obvious - if an Awe and Dreams of the
>> Sphinx hit the heap, for example, the benefit is enormous.>
>That *IS* my point - you can be lucky, but your odds of being lucky and
>burning something good when you play DLS are exactly the same as your odds
>of being lucky and having your opponent's good cards on the bottom of his
>deck when you don't play DLS. Hence the original question - why play DLS?
If you get lucky, you can cripple someone's strategy. I have a
Tzimisce deck that will not last very long if it does not pick up a
Hungry Coyote eventually - it cycles cards quickly, so doesn't need
one on the first turn, but only packs 2 in the deck (not worth it for
more, not enough card slots). If a DLS gets through and burns one of
my HC's, I am likely to be very screwed and unable to sweep, possibly
unable to survive long enough to gain even one!
NEVER UNDERESTIMATE LUCK. If you don't include DLS, your opponent's
chances of drawing a Misdirection are 1/X. If you do include DLS,
your opponent's chances of drawing it are still 1/X... but he now has
odds of NOT drawing it, where previously they were 0/X.
I am creating a chance for good things to happen where previously
there were no chances. This cannot be anything BUT good for me.
>Oh, DLS certainly provides information on cards he will never draw, in the
>same way as looking at the bottom few cards of his deck would. But this
>information is certainly more useful to him than to you, and you have no
This information is more -informational- to him than to you, and not
even that in the early game when you haven't seen much of his deck
yet. To use the above example, if one Hungry Coyote gets DLS'd, he
knows that he has only one left and may need to change his style of
play to quit expecting one to show up. If both get DLS'd, he MUST
change his style of play, which can only be good for you.
Every little bit helps.
>control of whether he will be demoralized or delighted by it. And however
>useful it is to you, is it worth the card slot? Is it worth Clan
Of course, since you designed the deck to play DLS. Is it superior,
bleedwise, to Malkavian S&B? Doubtful. We should obviously all just
play Malks if we're going to play bleed decks, right? right? right?
It's a different angle, is all. Sometimes, having an unexpected angle
is worth everything. The Nossies are a lot less fragile than the
Malks.
>Impersonation? Is it superior to Pulse, Revelations or Aura Reading,
>which could probably be included in Sorrow's deck, or to Owl Companion
>which could fit in most Nosferatu-Antitribu decks?
Absolutely. Owl Companion is a retainer (requires an action) and
while its effect is very nice, it doesn't force your opponent to
change his style. Pulse at inferior is a laugher unless you've built
a deck to support it, and even then is too expensive. Revelations
requires a lot of defending. Aura Reading is just as good as Owl
Companion, but is transient.
>> The purpose of a DLS deck isn't to run your prey out of cards, it's to
>> rob his deck of flow. If his deck is rolling well and suddenly you
>> jerk a few Bum's Rushes from the top onto the ash heap, he may not be
>> able to get into combat for several rounds.>>But it it doesn't interfere with the flow at all - you might hit something
You cannot state an absolute in this instance. It MAY interfere with
the flow. I might hit six Flashes, when nobody is maneuvering away
from him. Oh well. I might hit his Bum's Rushes, and I bet that the
good-for-me effect of me stealing his Rushes is greater than the
bad-for-me effect of me stealing his Flashes.
>good, you might make something good come up sooner. If you calculate the
>odds, the chances of his next card being what he wants are unchanged by
>playing DLS.
The odds of what he CAN play do not matter. The odds of what he
suddenly CANNOT EVER play do. You seem to think they are the same.
You are wrong.
>> He might have been waiting for the Rush actions which are now further
>> down. A lot of these things are "might"s, but don't ever
>> underestimate them.>>That's my point - I'm not underestimating them or overestimating them -
>I'm precisely calculating them! And the odds are not changed by blindly
>playing DLS!
If blackjack players in Vegas relied on the odds, nobody would never
win playing blackjack - the house has an advantage in the odds. But
it is possible to win at blackjack, by going around the math. This is
exactly the same reason why the DLS deck actually is somewhat
effective - BECAUSE IT DOES NOT RELY BLINDLY ON THE MATH.
[ quoted text not captured ]
lor...@yahoo.com (Derek Ray) writes:
>NEVER UNDERESTIMATE LUCK. If you don't include DLS, your opponent's
>chances of drawing a Misdirection are 1/X. If you do include DLS,
>your opponent's chances of drawing it are still 1/X... but he now has
>odds of NOT drawing it, where previously they were 0/X.
The second sentence is simply false. He is simply drawing different
cards. There is no "chance of his not drawing" Misdirection that didn't
already exist. You are obsessing on the point that cards in a discard
pile cannot be drawn and ignoring the fact that cards too far down in a
library also cannot be drawn. By burning cards, you are preventing him
from playing the burnt cards but giving him the chances of drawing that
many cards further down in his library that much earlier - and changing
the draw schedule for the rest.
>I am creating a chance for good things to happen where previously
>there were no chances. This cannot be anything BUT good for me.
No. Because you are creating an exactly equal chance that bad things
will happen - you'll burn cards that were less useful for your opponent
allowing to get to the cards he really needed faster.
This is the Magic Millstone argument all over again. Playing against
a Millstone deck is can be unnerving as you watch your Disenchants
that you need to get rid of the Millstone turn up one by one. Or the
Serra Angels you desperatly need to block your opponent's flying creature.
But ultimately, they're pointless cards unless you deck your opponent
or have some other such means of using them to win. Milling useful
cards by itself ultimately does nothing productive. No player who's been
in the game very long would ever bother to use them for that purpose.
Fred
On Thu, 11 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> That *IS* my point - you can be lucky, but your odds of being lucky and
> burning something good when you play DLS are exactly the same as your odds
> of being lucky and having your opponent's good cards on the bottom of his
> deck when you don't play DLS. Hence the original question - why play DLS?
Against a good opponent, all cards are in the deck for a reason. Screw
his card flow, screw his deck.
[ quoted text not captured ]
ELDB Dave <eldb...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> But Fred, it seems that you are simultaneously getting it and not
> getting it...the main reason to play a DLS deck is exactly that it is
> unnerving. I have never, EVER played my DLS deck where I didn't piss
In this, then, a valid point is made.
Fred seemed to have been responding to the point that DLS actually
had some effect on the library in a statistical view. Fred "gets"
it right when he says that it does not.
> someone off by making them discard cards that they NEEDED. And that's
Cards that they were equally likely never to draw in the first
place (given the stated assumption that the player's library is
not exhausted by the end of the game).
> the whole point. You say that, "milling useful cards by itself
> ultimately does nothing productive." This is absolutely false. Here's
> why:
>
> When I use DLS I don't care what cards I force you to discard - the
> point is that I may have forced you to discard cards you need. Like
> the 2nd Tradition that you need to stop my next bleed, or the
> Deflection that you need to keep from being ousted.
The point is that these cards are just as likely to have been on the
bottom of the deck in the first place, and (since for this thread,
the player ends the game with cards still in her deck) that means that
you've accomplished nothing except:
1) unnerved her (maybe).
2) let her know which cards she won't be drawing.
(these two are directly related - they're just two ways of saying the
same thing - the "unknown" cards are now known).
In some corner cases, you've also:
3) hindered the effectiveness of Magic of the Smith or other
library-searching effects inasfar as the would-be-sought
card gets discarded.
4) increased the effectiveness of Whispers of the Dead or
other ash-heap-searching effects.
5) actively altered the composition of the remainder of the
library - this assumes that you had some knowledge of the
order of the library (Scrying Secrets, Steam Tunnels,
Tiberius, etc.) and purposefully chose to eliminate
certain cards from the library stock.
Without those three corner cases (which is what this thread seems to be
invesitigating), DLS has no effect other than the passing of knowledge.
(Again with the stipulation that the affected Methuselah doesn't run out
her library during the game).
That this is true is trivial: ask yourself "what would be the difference
if DLS burned the *bottom* X cards from the library instead of the top
X?"
--
Back to the direct quote above: sure you may have gotten lucky and
forced the discard of a card that was needed. But that card had just
as much of a chance to be in the forever-undrawn-bottom-portion of
the deck as it did of getting discarded by DLS.
If you insist on examining this favorable case (burned the needed card!)
in exclusion of the other statistically equal cases, then yes DLS might
be useful - see point 5 above. That flawed case can be equally twisted
to say: instead of "may force to to discard a needed card" you "may
bring a needed card closer to the top of the library - to be drawn in
time to save the player when she would otherwise have been ousted."
But since you (in general) do not know when you play DLS whether you'll
burn the needed card, the effect (of not playing it) is *just as likely*
to produce the "you'll never draw that needed card now" effect (barring
the corner cases of 3 and 4 above) - just as likely because the card
is just as likely to be in the never-drawn bottom X cards of the deck
as it is to be in the would-have-been-discarded top X cards.
> Of course forcing someone to discard 5 or 6 cards from a deck that has
> 50 copies of one card is pointless. The reality is that hardly anyone
> plays with that sort of deck. It is more important to realize that any
The number of copies of a given card has no bearing - the sum is:
DLS has the same effect as nothing (statistically) on a player's card
drawing unless that player runs out her library. All it does is
increase her information (regarding which cards she'll never draw)
and alter the library and ash heap searching.
You can say: If I DLS 3 of her 4 Freak Drives, she's less likely to
draw a freak.
That's right. But if those 3 Freaks that you DLS'ed had been in the
bottom X cards instead of the top X cards (both of which are
equally likely in a random deck), then she's just as less likely
to draw a freak - nothing has changed.
> card that you are forced to discard is a card that you cannot use to
> advance your deck's strategy. Isn't it clear that DLS therefore helps
> to dismantle your opponent's deck's strategy?
But, if you never empty your library, any card you don't draw in the
first place is a card that you cannot use to advance your deck's
strategy. Isn't it clear that not playing DLS therefore has the same
effect?
> Reread Derek's posts...he has been on the receiving end of the DLS
> deck and is stating the important points correctly.
The points about DLS's effect being equivalent to no effect (just a
different, and equally probable, ordering of the deck) have also
(previously) been stated correctly. The only effect of DLS is the
increases knowledge, in general. Only in special cases does it have
any real effect (3 4 and 5 above).
--
L. Scott Johnson (sjoh...@math.sc.edu) | Millihelen: The amount of
http://www.math.sc.edu/~sjohnson | beauty needed to launch
Graphics Specialist and V:TES Rulemonger | one ship.
[ quoted text not captured ]
ELDB Dave <eldb...@my-deja.com> writes:
>>> This is the Magic Millstone argument all over again. Playing against
>> a Millstone deck is can be unnerving as you watch your Disenchants
>> that you need to get rid of the Millstone turn up one by one. Or the
>> Serra Angels you desperatly need to block your opponent's flying>creature.>> But ultimately, they're pointless cards unless you deck your opponent
>> or have some other such means of using them to win. Milling useful
>> cards by itself ultimately does nothing productive. No player who's
>> been in the game very long would ever bother to use them for that purpose.>>But Fred, it seems that you are simultaneously getting it and not
>getting it...the main reason to play a DLS deck is exactly that it is
>unnerving. I have never, EVER played my DLS deck where I didn't piss>someone off by making them discard cards that they NEEDED. And that's>the whole point. You say that, "milling useful cards by itself
>ultimately does nothing productive." This is absolutely false.
Well, don't take my word for it. I've watched the Magic tournament
scene for years (thought I'm not that close to it any more, granted).
Millstone was printed in the second expansion, Antiquities. Yet
no one's ever created a serious Millstone deck *just* for the purpose
of milling useful cards. Millstone decks, where they exist, are
used *only* with the expectation of decking the opponent. Thousands
of tournament Magic players can't be wrong.
>Here's why:
>
>When I use DLS I don't care what cards I force you to discard - the
>point is that I may have forced you to discard cards you need. Like the
>2nd Tradition that you need to stop my next bleed, or the Deflection
>that you need to keep from being ousted.
Presumedly, you need every card in your deck. The fact that X random
of them move from your library to your graveyard alters nothing. You
can not put more than 7 of them in your hand at a time. Cards you need
are in your library, face down, where you can't have them or face up
in your graveyard where you can't have them. The only two differences
are that: 1) you can see the cards that are in your graveyard; and 2)
you can not speculate that you will someday draw them since they're
already in your graveyard. #1 is information and might affect the game
in that sense, I'll grant. But assuming you don't get decked by the
affect of DLS, #2 is of no account, moot, pointless, who cares? The
cards in your graveyard you will never draw simply replace the cards
too deep in your library to ever draw. That Deflection that you need
to keep from being ousted has *EX-ACT-LY* the ABSOLUTE IDENTICAL
chance of not being drawn because it's too far down in your library
if DLS is not used as it has of being placed in your graveyard and
becoming unavailable by that means of DLS if it is used. As the
Frenchman used to say on the Fleishman's Margin commerials, "No
Deeferance!"
>Have a good one,
You too.
Fred
ELDB Dave wrote:
>
> I am not arguing the statistics. All I am saying is that playing a DLS
> is better than not playing a DLS simply because I have a chance (rather
> than no chance) of forcing the player to discard cards that they may
> want/need to win the game.
You also have an equal chance of getting them the card they want/need to
win the game. Haven't you ever needed a card to not be ousted, not
gotten it, and then once you had lost turned over the top card and seen
exactly the card you needed? This is exactly the sort of thing that can
and does happen with DLS. What I think is more at play here is
selective memory- you remember the times you burned a deflection or a
minion tap and either forget or aren't aware of the times when you
helped your prey along.
-T
--
S'io credesse che mia risposta fosse
a persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma per ciň che giammai di questo fondo
non tornň vivo alcun, s'i' odo il vero,
senza tema d'infamia ti rispondo.
T.S. Eliot- "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
On Fri, 12 May 2000, Derek Ray wrote:
> On Thu, 11 May 2000 18:06:26 -0500, davey!
> <dhat...@midway.uchicago.edu> wrote:
>
> >That *IS* my point - you can be lucky, but your odds of being lucky and
> >burning something good when you play DLS are exactly the same as your odds
> >of being lucky and having your opponent's good cards on the bottom of his
> >deck when you don't play DLS. Hence the original question - why play DLS?
>
> If you get lucky, you can cripple someone's strategy.
Did you read what you're replying to? DLS doesn't make you any more
lucky, or more able to use your luck. The odds of you luckily crippling
your opponent with DLS are exactly the same as the odds of your opponent
having an equally crippling bad draw when you don't play DLS. No one's
arguing that being lucky is a bad strategy :) But even a lucky player
won't benefit from Dirty Little Secrets until he runs his opponent out of
cards...
> If you don't include DLS, your opponent's chances of drawing a
> Misdirection are 1/X. If you do include DLS, your opponent's chances
> of drawing it are still 1/X... but he now has odds of NOT drawing it,
> where previously they were 0/X.
How about let's actually do the math instead of just writing nonsense, eh?
If I have D cards left in my deck, the odds that I draw a particular card
are of course 1/D. What happens if you Dirty Little Secrets away X cards
at random first?
The revised odds of drawing the particular card =
(odds it was burned by DLS * 0)
+ (odds it was not burned * odds of drawing it from the reduced deck)
The odds it was burned is X/D
The odds it was not burned is thus 1 - (X/D) = (D - X)/D
The odds of drawing it from the reduced deck is 1/(size of reduced deck)
The size of the reduced deck is (D - X)
Thus my odds of drawing a particular card after you play Dirty Little
Secrets is: ((X/D) * 0) + ((D - X)/D * 1/(D - X)) = 0 + 1/D = 1/D
...exactly the same as if you never played the Dirty Little Secrets.
The only exception is when my deck is entirely gone; of course then my
chances of drawing the particular card are nil. But based on how DLS
works, this a highly unlikely circumstance.
> [Tzimisce deck with 2 Hungry Coyotes]> To use the above example, if one Hungry Coyote gets DLS'd, he knows
> that he has only one left and may need to change his style of play to
> quit expecting one to show up. If both get DLS'd, he MUST change his
> style of play, which can only be good for you.
1) The odds of you DLS'ing both Hungry Coyotes are LESS THAN the odds of
him never drawing them, DLS or no.
2) The odds of him not drawing a Hungry Coyote in the course of the game
are not changed by your playing DLS.
3) The change in playstyle you describe is actually BAD for you.
Remember that sometimes the Tzimisce deck will fail to draw a Hungry
Coyote on its own. This has nothing to do with DLS, it's just the way the
game is - including only 2 copies a certain card means that some games you
won't ever see it. A good player understands this and after waiting for
key cards for what seems long enough, he will begin to alter his playstyle
accordingly, knowing that e.g. the Hungry Coyote has failed to provide the
benefit intended by its inclusion. In other words, he realizes his
initial playstyle is inappropriate and hence is causing him a
disadvantage. You want him to realize this as late as possible to
maximize the effect of this disadvantage.
By playing DLS, you don't actually increase his odds of getting a
bad draw, but when he does have a bad draw, your DLS gives him information
as to what kind of bad draw it will be, before he would have reached such
conclusions himself. Thus he is able to adopt his inevitable change in
playstyle earlier in the game, which means less of his game is played
incorrectly! Adapting one's playstyle is something good players do to get
the most out of their decks. Burning cards with DLS allows your opponent
to do this more rapidly and more effectively, essentially making him a
better player, and meanwhile it does nothing for you. This is not a good
thing for you.
Put another way, if you have ever had a bad draw, and thought to
yourself "If only I had known a few turns ago that I wasn't going to draw
my Hungry Coyote," Dirty Little Secrets provides just that kind of
information.
> >And however useful it is to you, is it worth the card slot?
>> Of course, since you designed the deck to play DLS.
Playing the card and making use of the card are two different things...
> Is it superior, bleedwise, to Malkavian S&B? Doubtful. We should
> obviously all just play Malks if we're going to play bleed decks,
> right? right? right?
I'm not suggesting this at all - I'm just saying, why play a card that
basically does nothing for you? Why use it to gain information, when the
information revealed benefits your opponent more than you?
> It's a different angle, is all. Sometimes, having an unexpected angle
> is worth everything.
Playing with useless cards is certainly unexpected...
> >> The purpose of a DLS deck isn't to run your prey out of cards, it's to
> >> rob his deck of flow.
> >> >But it it doesn't interfere with the flow at all - you might hit something
>
> You cannot state an absolute in this instance. It MAY interfere with
> the flow.
Actually, I *can* absolutely state that flow is unchanged by blindly
burning cards with Dirty Little Secrets. It is a mathematical fact. If
you run him out of cards, that's a different story, but DLS isn't a very
good card to do that with...
> >If you calculate the odds, the chances of his next card being what he
> >wants are unchanged by playing DLS.
>
> The odds of what he CAN play do not matter. The odds of what he
> suddenly CANNOT EVER play do. You seem to think they are the same.
> You are wrong.
I can't imagine what you mean by this. Some cards will be drawn and some
won't. The odds of drawing or not drawing particular cards in the course
of the game both matter, but neither is affected when you play DLS...
> If blackjack players in Vegas relied on the odds, nobody would never
> win playing blackjack - the house has an advantage in the odds. But
> it is possible to win at blackjack, by going around the math.
This doesn't make any sense. The odds being against you doesn't mean you
always lose, it means you mostly lose, but necessarily sometimes win.
When you win, it doesn't mean you went "around the math"; you are in fact
still "well within the math." The odds of winning the game are by
definition the number of ways to win divided by the number of possible
outcomes. Even if the odds are ten-thousand to one, necessarily somebody
wins sometimes, and when she does, she's not "beating the odds," she is
fulfilling the odds.
-d!
ELDB Dave <eldb...@my-deja.com> writes:
>I am not arguing the statistics. All I am saying is that playing a DLS
>is better than not playing a DLS simply because I have a chance (rather
>than no chance) of forcing the player to discard cards that they may
>want/need to win the game.
The problem is, this is a not a true statement (taking LSJ's corner cases
into account). By this logic, one would have the same additional chances
of affecting the game the same way by, say, cutting 5 cards off the top
of the deck and putting them on the bottom of the deck - we're going
to assume the library is large enough (say 80 cards remaining) that the
player will never play his last 5 cards before the game is over. Except
for the fact that you don't know what 5 cards they are - unlike DLS -
you've had the exact same effect as a DLS modify of a bleed for 5.
If you were correct that you had some chance of doing something positive
and nothing negative, then it should be cumulative, right? So hell,
I'll let you do it 15 more times.
Can you see where I'm going with this?
If you can DLS for 80 and run your opponent out of cards, you've
accomplished something because he can't draw any more cards. If you
cannot however, then like the blind of the library above, all you've
done is change the particular members of the random pool that he
draws - which have the same chance of being good or bad draws as the
ones you burned. The fact that you (and he) can see which cards he
can no longer draw doesn't alter this.
I'll grant you psychologic effects. However, most good players
understand this point and just grin and bear it.
>Yes, what you say is roughly equivalent, the whole point of playing DLS,
>though, is to have the chance to get a player to discard cards that they
>may need to stop you or to oust their prey. Simply because I may also
>bring other needed/wanted cards closer to the top of the library is not
>a good reason not to play DLS.
I'm not sure why you say that. The second point exactly cancels out
the first, so if the first point was good reason to play it, the second
thing nullifies it and you're left with a card that does you no good -
at least, in and of itself.
Part of the problem here is that you keep saying you're not interested
in analyzing the statistics. But it's the statistics which prove the
thing you refuse to believe - that the benfit you thing you're getting
has been exactly canceled out by the downside.
>> Isn't it clear that not playing DLS therefore has the same effect?>
>No, it isn't, because playing DLS makes it more likely that you will
>empty your library. Forget the purely hypothetical case, here, Scott. We
>need to talk about the real world where tournament players have 90 cards
>in their library.
I have and (I think) everyone else will concede you this point. Just
like the Millstone deck in Magic, if you can deck your opponent, you'll
have done some good. In Magic, that's pretty much the whole point the
whole point of a Millstone. Unless someone points out and interesting
combination, I would say the same is true here as well.
>Perhaps we could say that early in the game when a player has near 90
>cards in his library the effects of DLS are not as severe. It is much
>more effective to play DLS when the player has fewer cards in his
>library, right?
All the cards count the same, whether you DLS 3 cards in the beginning
of the game or at the end. But you've only accomplished something when
the last card hits the graveyard due to DLS. And how effective the
DLS is depends on how quickly you get to that point.
Fred
On Thu, 11 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> On Thu, 11 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> > James and Sorrow: you can say "If my Dirty Little Secrets hits your
> > Misdirection, you can't draw it" all day long - it doesn't matter. You
>
> Of course it does. I DLS the <whatever> you can't play it. It can
> happen, and it does happen.
Since you've snipped off the reason why it doesn't matter, I'll repeat
myself: you are failing to consider your chances of DLS'ing the
Misdirection in the first place. When you do, you'll see that my overall
odds of drawing the Misdirection are unchanged. Hence, playing DLS
doesn't make a difference.
> Probability is another matter.
While you're busy saying that sentence all day long in hopes of it
mattering, pay attention to the first word, 'if'. 'If' has everything to
do with probability here.
> You are failing to take into account possibilities, being blinded by
> probabilities.
Alliterative nonsense.
-d!
On Fri, 12 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> On Thu, 11 May 2000, davey! wrote:
>> > That *IS* my point - you can be lucky, but your odds of being lucky and
> > burning something good when you play DLS are exactly the same as your odds
> > of being lucky and having your opponent's good cards on the bottom of his
> > deck when you don't play DLS. Hence the original question - why play DLS?
>> Against a good opponent, all cards are in the deck for a reason.
What are you trying to say? That against such a deck every card you DLS
is a good card? Who cares! Your opponent still gets to draw cards. Why
do you think the cards you DLS will be any better than the ones he draws?
Every card may be in your deck for a reason, but that doesn't mean that
you have to draw every card in your deck in order to win, or even that you
have to be able to draw every card in your deck in order to win. In fact,
in most games you *aren't* able to draw every card in your deck - the
cards on the bottom will never be drawn in most games. It doesn't matter
if I blindly rearrange which cards get drawn and which remain undrawn -
that's merely shuffling your deck. It doesn't matter whether I put the
undrawn cards in your ash heap or leave them in your deck - you were never
going to draw them, so who cares where they go?
> Screw his card flow,
not with blind Dirty Little Secrets you won't...
> screw his deck.
not unless you run him out of cards...
-d!
On Sat, 13 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> > You are failing to take into account possibilities, being blinded by
> > probabilities.
>
> Alliterative nonsense.
Bollocks (tm).
So, let's play a game where I DLS your Tomb. If it happens,
excellent. You may really have wanted it. Or whatever other card.
I am quite happy to acknowledge that this relies on luck. But then, so
does a lot of Jyhad. A lot of people put only 1 or 2 of a certain card in
a deck. Where's the point in that? It's not like you can guarantee
drawing it. People put cards in on the off-chance that they draw them and
that they're useful. That happens a *lot*. The probabilities aren't the
thing that people worry about, else why would I see so many decks with,
say, one copy of Arson in them - just in case?
[ quoted text not captured ]
On Sat, 13 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> > Against a good opponent, all cards are in the deck for a reason.
>
> What are you trying to say? That against such a deck every card you DLS
> is a good card? Who cares! Your opponent still gets to draw cards. Why
> do you think the cards you DLS will be any better than the ones he draws?
In a good deck, every card is there for a reason.
I do not want to lose any of the cards. The defence is there in the right
proportions. The attack is there in the right proportions. Masters are
there in the right proportions. Surprisingly, I don't actually want
someone to get rid of *any* of those cards. If I did, I just wouldn't
have put them in the deck (Except in the very unlikely circumstance that I
had a 55 card deck, and put in 5 cards of fluff - I can't remember ever
seeing that happen).
People discard the cards *I've* built the deck around. I can't use them,
now.
> > Screw his card flow,
>
> not with blind Dirty Little Secrets you won't...
Assuming a randomly shuffled deck, everything will come in nice flows,
with few batches. Batches are more statistically unlikely. So, I'll just
remove the bleed modifier and bleed action that got shuffled in here, and
he can go back to drawing stealth and masters for another couple of cards.
[ quoted text not captured ]
> I'll grant you psychologic effects. However, most good players
> understand this point and just grin and bear it.
Really? I have never seen anyone not regret having to discard ANY of the
cards that they lost to a DLS. Ever. Yes, DLS produces obvious
psychological effects and that is the point I am trying to make here. I
don't care about the statistics (partly because all of you guys are
making the mistake of assuming that the library will never run out of
cards), all I care about is gaining some advantage due to either 1)
forcing the player to discard a card that he needs/wants, or 2) scaring
the player into making mistakes. Either is good in my view.
> I'm not sure why you say that. The second point exactly cancels out
> the first, so if the first point was good reason to play it, the
second
> thing nullifies it and you're left with a card that does you no good -
> at least, in and of itself.
>
> Part of the problem here is that you keep saying you're not interested
> in analyzing the statistics. But it's the statistics which prove the
> thing you refuse to believe - that the benfit you thing you're getting
> has been exactly canceled out by the downside.
No. Cards are a finite resource in the game. If I make you throw away
some of those cards, then I have affected your game. It's just that
simple. I don't care which cards I make you throw away, and that's the
important point. I don't care that I may have brought cards that you
need/want closer to the top of the library, my next bleed will get rid
of those as well, more than likely.
Here is the black and white of it, as I see it. Players (i.e., good
players) make decks not by putting in cards that they don't need, but by
putting in cards that they do need. Given that, any card that you
discard will negatively impact the deck. DLS is just one way of making
an opponent waste his resources.
> I have and (I think) everyone else will concede you this point. Just
> like the Millstone deck in Magic, if you can deck your opponent,
you'll
> have done some good. In Magic, that's pretty much the whole point the
> whole point of a Millstone. Unless someone points out and interesting
> combination, I would say the same is true here as well.
Thank you. This is really the only point that I was trying to make. I
concede the fact that playing DLS is just as likely to bring good cards
closer to the top of the library as it is to burn good cards, but it is
always worth playing.
Okay, I'm done now.
[ quoted text not captured ]
James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> writes:
>On Sat, 13 May 2000, davey! wrote:>> > You are failing to take into account possibilities, being blinded by
>> > probabilities.
>>
>> Alliterative nonsense.>
>Bollocks (tm).
>
>So, let's play a game where I DLS your Tomb. If it happens,
>excellent. You may really have wanted it. Or whatever other card.
There's two possibilities for DLS: either it contributes to decking
the opponent sooner than he otherwise would have been decked or it
doesn't. If it does, I've always conceeded you've done some good.
If it does not, then it's the equivalent of moving cards from the
top of the library to the bottom except you don't get to see the cards
as you would if you put them in the graveyard. But either way, since
you're moving the cards to a place he'll never draw them (by definition,
since you wouldn't deck him anyway), it's the same thing.
You know, if you asked nicely, you could probably just cut my library
midgame for no reason? Any different from using a DLS in the non-decking
scenario? Not that I can see. Cut away and effectively "DLS" me as much
as you want! Heh!
Fred
ELDB Dave <eldb...@my-deja.com> writes:
>> I'll grant you psychologic effects. However, most good players
>> understand this point and just grin and bear it.>
>Really? I have never seen anyone not regret having to discard ANY of the
>cards that they lost to a DLS. Ever. Yes, DLS produces obvious
>psychological effects and that is the point I am trying to make here.
Really! Don't believe me, I don't care. It's still true.
>I don't care about the statistics (partly because all of you guys are
>making the mistake of assuming that the library will never run out of
>cards),
This is the problem with this argument. You're shutting your ears
(or in a print medium, I guess eyes) at too many critical moments.
Yes, decking the player is a good thing. I've said about 13,000 times
that it is the *only* good thing that DLS does. You seem to think it
does something else apart from decking or LSJ's corner cases (that is,
potential card combinations that have some synergy with DLS). If so,
you are wrong. If you use DLS in a game only on players who do not
run out of cards in the game, you have basically wasted deckspace and
hand space in which you bothered to hold the card. It averages out
to either discard a needed card or make him draw one that much sooner.
>> I'm not sure why you say that. The second point exactly cancels out
>> the first, so if the first point was good reason to play it, the
>> second thing nullifies it and you're left with a card that does you
>> no good - at least, in and of itself.
>>
>> Part of the problem here is that you keep saying you're not interested
>> in analyzing the statistics. But it's the statistics which prove the
>> thing you refuse to believe - that the benfit you thing you're getting
>> has been exactly canceled out by the downside.>
>No. Cards are a finite resource in the game. If I make you throw away
>some of those cards, then I have affected your game. It's just that
>simple. I don't care which cards I make you throw away, and that's the
>important point. I don't care that I may have brought cards that you
>need/want closer to the top of the library, my next bleed will get rid
>of those as well, more than likely.
You have "affected" my game in the same manner as cutting my library
unless you help deck me. (By "help deck me", I mean if I later
run out of cards due to the DLS, then it's had some effect.) Otherwise,
it's the exact same thing. So why would some players pass up the chance
to cut an opponent's library before a game if it's such a positive thing?
>> I have and (I think) everyone else will concede you this point. Just
>> like the Millstone deck in Magic, if you can deck your opponent,
>> you'll have done some good. In Magic, that's pretty much the whole point
>> the whole point of a Millstone. Unless someone points out and interesting
>> combination, I would say the same is true here as well.>>Thank you. This is really the only point that I was trying to make.
Sorry but that is absolutely *not* the point you have been making. You
keep going on and on about the chance of burning *good* cards out of
a player's library. If the only point of DLS is to deck your opponent
(and that is what I've been trying to say) then it matters not a whit
the quality of the cards you burn. That's all a big zero since it
amounts altering his draw in the exact same way cutting his cards does.
Fred
On Sat, 13 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> So, let's play a game where I DLS your Tomb. If it happens,
> excellent.
This is where your case is flawed. Your argument is like saying "If I win
the lottery, then I'll be rich! Therefore I should buy a lottery ticket.
I acknowledge my reasoning is based on luck." That is a valid argument
for buying a lottery ticket, because buying the lottery ticket actually
increases your odds of winning the lottery.
But what you are missing is that no matter how valid this argument
is, it does not even apply to DLS. Unlike buying the lottery ticket,
playing the DLS does not increase your odds of getting what you want. It
is as if you were saying "If I win the lottery, I'll be rich! Therefore I
should eat a pickle."
> I am quite happy to acknowledge that this relies on luck. But then, so
> does a lot of Jyhad. A lot of people put only 1 or 2 of a certain
> card in a deck. Where's the point in that? It's not like you can
> guarantee drawing it.
That *IS* the point - you put 1 or 2 cards in a deck because you DON'T
want to *guarantee* drawing it, you want a *chance* of drawing it. By
design, you don't want to draw it every game, otherwise you would have put
more copies in. Implicitly this accepts the fact that some games you
won't draw it. The point you are completely missing is that DLS doesn't
make this circumstance happen more often, it only informs you of when it
is happening.
> People put cards in on the off-chance that they draw them and that
> they're useful. That happens a *lot*.
Yeah, if by "a lot" you mean "for every single card in all but the most
unusual decks." Talk about understatement...
> The probabilities aren't the thing that people worry about, else why
> would I see so many decks with, say, one copy of Arson in them - just
> in case?
You put one Arson in a deck because they want to draw an Arson
*sometimes*. Because the chances of drawing the Arson and using it
effectively are greater than zero, and hence worth consideration as a
benefit over the cost of the deck slot. By putting an Arson in your deck,
you have acknowledged that you view this cost/benerfit ratio to be in your
favor. DLS does not alter this analysis.
-d!
On Sat, 13 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> In a good deck, every card is there for a reason.
This is not relevant. The reason a card is in your deck is to give you a
chance of drawing it. Playing DLS doesn't affect your chance of drawing
it.
> The defence is there in the right proportions. The attack is there in
> the right proportions. Masters are there in the right proportions.
Irrelevant, since DLS doesn't change the proportions, it only affects
which part of your deck you draw from.
> Surprisingly, I don't actually want someone to get rid of *any* of
> those cards. If I did, I just wouldn't have put them in the deck
Altering your deck construction by choosing cards to remove changes your
deck, but the situation is not analagous. That would be like DLS'ing the
same cards every game, which you have no way of doing.
> People discard the cards *I've* built the deck around. I can't use
> them, now.
You weren't using them before. They were sitting unused in your library.
There is going to be a set of unused cards at the end of your game,
randomly selected from your deck. This is a basic fact of the game. In
saying "DLS means he won't be able to use some of his cards," you are
forgetting the fact that this situation happens anyway.
> > > Screw his card flow,
> >
> > not with blind Dirty Little Secrets you won't...
>
> Assuming a randomly shuffled deck, everything will come in nice flows,
> with few batches. Batches are more statistically unlikely.
Not relevant. And if by "batches" you are referring to clumping, it's
also not even true.
> So, I'll just remove the bleed modifier and bleed action that got
> shuffled in here, and he can go back to drawing stealth and masters
> for another couple of cards.
Your example implies a selective removal of cards from his deck. That
would be good, like rebuilding his deck. Unfortunately, DLS removes cards
randomly. That's useless, like shuffling his deck.
-d!
On 13 May 2000, Frederick Scott wrote:
> You know, if you asked nicely, you could probably just cut my library
> midgame for no reason?
Were that done, I would appeal to the judge for a warning to be issued.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On Sat, 13 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> This is where your case is flawed. Your argument is like saying "If I win
> the lottery, then I'll be rich! Therefore I should buy a lottery ticket.
> I acknowledge my reasoning is based on luck."
There is a difference between several million to 1 (in Britain, it's just
under 14 million to one, for the jackpot) and a lot less to 1. And
against good opponents, every card I discard will be a loss to the
deck. And decks do run out of cards.
I carried a book over from where I live, last night, on the chance that I
would be able to give it to a friend. I relied on luck, since he doesn't
have a phone. I still did it though. And you know, it turned out fine.
> > The probabilities aren't the thing that people worry about, else why
> > would I see so many decks with, say, one copy of Arson in them - just
> > in case?
>
> You put one Arson in a deck because they want to draw an Arson
> *sometimes*.
Ah, so you're allowed to invoke luck, but no-one else is. Right. I get
you.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On Sat, 13 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> > In a good deck, every card is there for a reason.
>
> This is not relevant.
Of course it is. You have forgotten that cards do not flow
limitlessly. Decks run out. Most decks I see use at least half, probably
two thirds, of their library, if they don't get bled out really
quickly. If I can contribute to your not drawing cards, because your deck
has already gone, this is a Good Thing.
> > The defence is there in the right proportions. The attack is there in
> > the right proportions. Masters are there in the right proportions.
>
> Irrelevant, since DLS doesn't change the proportions,
From one perspective that you are using, refusing to see any other
possibility.
> > People discard the cards *I've* built the deck around. I can't use
> > them, now.
>
> You weren't using them before. They were sitting unused in your library.
And I was about to draw them. Now I can't.
> > Assuming a randomly shuffled deck, everything will come in nice flows,
> > with few batches. Batches are more statistically unlikely.
>
> Not relevant. And if by "batches" you are referring to clumping, it's
> also not even true.
There are more possible decks where cards do not clump than possible decks
where, say, I get 5 bleed modifiers in a row.
[ quoted text not captured ]
On Sun, 14 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> On Sat, 13 May 2000, davey! wrote:> > This is where your case is flawed. Your argument is like saying "If I win
> > the lottery, then I'll be rich! Therefore I should buy a lottery ticket.
> > I acknowledge my reasoning is based on luck."
>
> There is a difference between several million to 1 (in Britain, it's
> just under 14 million to one, for the jackpot) and a lot less to 1.
It doesn't matter what size the lottery is, the argument is still a valid
argument for buying lottery tickets. At the same time, the argument
doesn't apply to DLS, so don't bother using it, ok?
> And against good opponents, every card I discard will be a loss to the
> deck.
Unless you run them out of cards, this "loss" does not change the
performance of ANY deck, good or bad. This fact is mathematically and
experimentally provable.
> And decks do run out of cards.
Glad you mentioned this, since running a deck out of cards is the ONLY use
for blindly playing Dirty Little Secrets, as has been shown.
> > You put one Arson in a deck because they want to draw an Arson
> > *sometimes*.
>
> Ah, so you're allowed to invoke luck, but no-one else is. Right. I
> get you.
No, apparently you don't get me, since 1) I'm not invoking luck and 2) I
never said it was wrong to invoke luck. The flaw in your argument isn't
that you invoke luck, it's that you don't understand what DLS is doing
when you are lucky.
On Sun, 14 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> > And decks do run out of cards.
>
> Glad you mentioned this, since running a deck out of cards is the ONLY use
> for blindly playing Dirty Little Secrets, as has been shown.
Only potentially *reliable* use.
> No, apparently you don't get me, since 1) I'm not invoking luck and 2) I
> never said it was wrong to invoke luck.
But any arguments based around luck are dismissed as irrelevant by
you. I think the usenet acronym is PKB.
[ quoted text not captured ]
James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> writes:
>On 13 May 2000, Frederick Scott wrote:>> You know, if you asked nicely, you could probably just cut my library
>> midgame for no reason?>
>Were that done, I would appeal to the judge for a warning to be issued.
I suppose, in a tournament, you could. What good reason you'd ever have
to do so I can't fathom.
But you're evading the point. By cutting or by some means reramdomizing
my library, you've done "something" in the sense of affecting the game
but nothing positive or negative in terms of improving future draws.
Fred
On 14 May 2000, Frederick Scott wrote:
> >Were that done, I would appeal to the judge for a warning to be issued.
>
> I suppose, in a tournament, you could. What good reason you'd ever have
> to do so I can't fathom.
A number of cards allow you to look at crypts and libraries.
[ quoted text not captured ]
James Coupe <ja...@zephyr.org.uk> writes:
>On 14 May 2000, Frederick Scott wrote:>> >Were that done, I would appeal to the judge for a warning to be issued.
>>
>> I suppose, in a tournament, you could. What good reason you'd ever have
>> to do so I can't fathom.>
>A number of cards allow you to look at crypts and libraries.
Sure. But again irrelevent to reasons I'm talking about shuffling
an opponent's libraries as I was assuming that none of these combo
cards (what LSJ was referring to in some of his "corner cases") were
not coming into play. And I was assuming I you were making the same
assumptions.
Whether that's true or not or for whatever reasons, it sounds as if
you simply are not going to address my point.
Fred
On Sun, 14 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> On Sat, 13 May 2000, davey! wrote:> > > In a good deck, every card is there for a reason.
> >
> > This is not relevant.
>
> Of course it is. You have forgotten that cards do not flow
> limitlessly. Decks run out.
Firstly, this does not give relevance to your statement "In a good deck,
every card is there for a reason." Secondly, conceding LSJ's corner
cases, my claim is: "Unless you run them out of cards, DLS does not affect
their deck's performance." If you think I have forgotten that decks run
out, I suggest you reread the first seven words of my claim.
> Most decks I see use at least half, probably two thirds, of their
> library, if they don't get bled out really quickly.
Well then, by your own experience, DLS is not a very good card. Using two
thirds of a 90 card deck leaves 30 cards left to be DLS'ed before it makes
a difference. You can't DLS for more than you bleed, so for DLS to matter
you must bleed for at least 30 pool. Unfortunately, players who influence
vampires usually get ousted before you can bleed them for 30, i.e. well
before DLS would make any difference.
> If I can contribute to your not drawing cards, because your deck has
> already gone, this is a Good Thing.
That DLS is good when you run someone out of cards does not make it at all
useful when you *don't* run them out of cards. Given the scope of my
stated claim, I don't know why you even bring it up.
> > > The defence is there in the right proportions. The attack is there in
> > > the right proportions. Masters are there in the right proportions.
> >
> > Irrelevant, since DLS doesn't change the proportions,
>
> From one perspective that you are using, refusing to see any other
> possibility.
I find it amusing that you are referring to something mathematically
provable, akin to 1+1=2, as a "perspective." You can't justify your
position of mathematical relativism.
> > > People discard the cards *I've* built the deck around. I can't use
> > > them, now.
> >
> > You weren't using them before. They were sitting unused in your library.
>
> And I was about to draw them. Now I can't.
Irrelevant. Even though DLS makes some once-drawable cards undrawable, it
makes the same number of once-undrawable cards drawable (as long as you
don't run out -- see claim.) You draw the same number of cards from the
same *initial* pool of cards - thus you are equally likely to draw a
particular set of cards, DLS or no DLS. Just because you draw different
cards if DLS is played, the cards you draw aren't implcitly any worse or
any better. It's only as good as shuffling their deck. Hence the claim:
unless you run them out of cards, DLS does not affect their deck's
performance.
> > > Assuming a randomly shuffled deck, everything will come in nice flows,
> > > with few batches. Batches are more statistically unlikely.
> >
> > Not relevant. And if by "batches" you are referring to clumping, it's
> > also not even true.
>
> There are more possible decks where cards do not clump than possible
> decks where, say, I get 5 bleed modifiers in a row.
Think so? I challenge you to list even one 90-card deck where cards do
not clump. Furthermore, your example doesn't prove your assertion that
"Assuming a randomly shuffled deck, everything will come in nice flows
with few [clumps]." Statistcally, shuffling causes clumping, even though
you could say that the "average" draw is unclumped. But then the
"average" draw is not the same as the most likely draw, and it may not
even be among the set of possible draws...
In any case, your assertion is still not relevant :)
-d!
On Sun, 14 May 2000, James Coupe wrote:
> On Sun, 14 May 2000, davey! wrote:
> > > And decks do run out of cards.
> >
> > Glad you mentioned this, since running a deck out of cards is the ONLY use
> > for blindly playing Dirty Little Secrets, as has been shown.
>
> Only potentially *reliable* use.
It's not even reliable: methuselahs don't reliably have more pool than
library, and you can't DLS more than you bleed. Hence, you will oust them
before you run them out of cards.
Oh, and if you're implying that there are other uses for DLS, they
are only the unimpressive cases kindly outlined by LSJ. Your assertions
-- that blindly DLS'ing without emptying the opponent's library hampers
card flow[1], and "...against good opponents, every card I discard will be
a loss to the deck."[2] -- are provably false and do not represent a use
for DLS.
refs:
[1] http://www.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=622494920
[2] http://www.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/threadmsg_ct.xp?AN=623122940> > No, apparently you don't get me, since 1) I'm not invoking luck and 2) I
> > never said it was wrong to invoke luck.
>
> But any arguments based around luck are dismissed as irrelevant by
> you. I think the usenet acronym is PKB.
I freely admit to dismissing your arguments -- not because they are based
around luck, but because they don't even apply to the situation. This was
specificly stated in the message you quote, in fact in the very next
sentence. But of course you snipped it so you could feebly attempt to
discredit me rather than address my point. If cutting up my words and
pretentiously dropping usenet acronyms is your best means of supporting
your point of view, let's just end the thread now, ok?
-d!
Pardon me for bringing up a dead horse, but I've been in Vegas at a
pool tourney all week long, and now I got me an Ideer(tm).
If you don't know what an Ideer(tm) is, think "vile southern accent".
On 13 May 2000 01:19:20 GMT, fre...@netcom.com (Frederick Scott)
wrote:
>I have and (I think) everyone else will concede you this point. Just
>like the Millstone deck in Magic, if you can deck your opponent, you'll
>have done some good. In Magic, that's pretty much the whole point the
>whole point of a Millstone. Unless someone points out and interesting
>combination, I would say the same is true here as well.
I suspect that lack of one card loses you a game FAR more often than
gaining just the right card wins you a VP or game.
That said, an interesting combination would be Scrying of Secrets and
Dirty Little Secrets - both action modifiers, so could be played on
the same action in sequence. Night Moves/Spying Mission/Computer
Hacking would get you the bleeds of 3 or 4 that are appropriate in
this case - since you can opt *not* to play DLS if you see that a
Deflection is, say, five cards down in his library. Inferior AUS is
all that is needed for SoS, so skill cards work here, and Kendrick
comes with inferior AUS already (and Kendrick rules.)
I'll poke with it a bit, but I think it could be very well utilized to
deliberately burn GOOD cards.
-- Derek
Deafness never kept composers from hearing the music.
It only stopped them hearing the distractions.