I'm leaving for Australia today. Needless to say, I don't think I'll be updating for quite a while until I get my Internet up there. Yes, I am moving to a new place. You'll get plenty of photos when the time comes. :D (Oh wow, short post.)
What Happened to the Randomness of Random Ideas?
If you remember the days of the old Random Ideas, it used to be really random. One day I'd talk about getting a new mousepad, the next day I might talk about Magic, one day it might be weird philosophy, another day it'd be an imaginary prophecy about the world ending. It was pretty random then. Now, it's probably hell of an easy thing to predict what I'm going to post. One day, it'd be about Magic, another day it be about a game, and near my exams or holidays - you'd see a hiatus announcement (which is usually followed by a real hiatus, or some more posts, actually). The length between posts then was most definitely random. Occasionally it'd be once a month, some months actually lack posts altogether (although that was really rare), there'd be periods where the post was 1 - 3 lines long for the whole month.
So what has happened since then? I've changed a lot since then. I now update more regularly (compared to then) - but I actually become more random with how long the posts actually are! With that being said, I beginning to now consider the name for the blog for replacement. Hopefully, what will follow after that will be a theme change of some kind to celebrate the new name!
u238 has posted photos of a messy desk! Click here. My post on 'cleanliness' is here.
Why You Should Not Go More than 60 Cards
A lot of new players have this tendency to go all gung-ho and put everything they think is good into their decks.This often results in highly inflated decks of about 80 cards and up. (I've seen crazy 150 card decks - I have no clue how the hell they plan to win besides decking you out.) Often, there actually aren't enough good cards to be seeing that many cards in one deck. The tendency is actually to become overprotective of your deck - meaning cards that should go into the sideboard, end up being maindecked. This results quite often in drawing a Disenchant against a creature-heavy deck, drawing your many 1/1, 1/2, 2/2 Elves when you need that big 6/6 Wurm (or Elf Mutant) to survive your opponents' army of Flanking or Bushido enabled creatures or even Pestilence/Pyrohemia. Does that mean it doesn't happen in a 60 card deck? No. However, in a 60 card deck - it is a lot easier to manage your deck. Tuning your deck is a lot easier than if it were in a 120 card deck. It's a lot easier to decide whether or not those 1/1 Llanowar Elves are helping your mana situation. Are those Wood Elves pulling Forests when you need them, or are they pulling Forests when you DON'T need them?
Tuning your mana is a lot easier if you conform to the 60 card deck. It is not only easier to predict what happens when, say, you remove one land from your deck - than removing one land from... a 120 card deck. If you are going to say it is just half the effect than in a 60 card deck, that is most certainly incorrect - since there is no way to determine half. It is immediately clear that the difference is not linear if you were to compare 22 lands to 24 lands in a Magic deck. Is 23 a halfway point? Most certainly not. The difference that happens in your shuffling and drawing makes 24 yield a very different mana experience than a 22 land deck.
Of course, this also means the effect of removing one card is far more predictable. That being said, in a 120 card deck, chances are you got there by not willing to cut anything - so let's assume your 120 card deck is quite full of 4-ofs. The truth is, while you might need those 4 Dark Banishings in a 60 card decks, you probably never need 4 Disenchants/Naturalizes in your main deck. You might need them in your sideboard, but not in your main deck. And those Legendary stuff, you don't need too many of them - drawing into a 2nd one when your 1st one is still kicking ass feels lousy - unless it so happens - that you think your opponenet will probably off your 1st one soon.
Putting cards in funny numbers may seem odd. You may even think it's stupid. What's the point of having 1 Indrik Stomphowler? What's the point of having 1 Maga, Traitor to Mortals? What's the point in having 3 Umezawa's Jitte? What's the point in having 1 Seed Spark? 2 Yosei, the Morning Star? 3 Kodama of the North Tree? What's with deckbuilders and this strange numbers? Yet when you happen to put the deck together - it happens to WORK. What looks like random combinations of numbers of powerful cards actually happens to work really well together - and in those strange numbers. Modifying those numbers can have dire consequences on the deck!
60 cards is the minimum limit. There's a reason why you should always use the minimum cards allowed. The most important is, of course, consistency. If Magic involved less than 60 cards - you'd be seeing plenty of 7 or 8 card decks in Vintage, I believe. It is an extreme example - but the less cards you have - the greater your chances of pulling that best hand you have in your deck. If you have a deck of 120 cards, you might find yourself saying - I didn't get a good hand - a lot more often than if you optimized it to a 60 card version.
Of course, there are always times when you need to break the variable card numbers rule. A highly simplified example would be that you rarely see less than 4 Llanowar Elves, 4 Sakura-Tribe Elders, 4 Gifts Ungiven, 4 Lightning Helix and so on. So - that means that there will actually be times when exceeding the 60 card minimum limit will actually be better - because sometimes there are cards you can't cut in number - and sometimes there are cards that you can't cut completely. However, that doesn't mean you should go and add all the way to 80 cards.
I'm still talking about a rather low limit. 61, 62, and maybe even 63. Why might you choose to you these stranger numbers? There are merits in choosing these stranger numbers - but that's a story for another day.
My Interest in PC Games is Waning
As time passes, I find my interest in computer games is weakening. I spend less time playing computer games than I've used to. Stuff like Counter-Strike: Source and DotA no longer hold much interest for me. I find this a rather disturbing change. When I sit at the computer, I no longer with to play some game, I intend more to sit there, lurk in a few forums and boards, lurk in MSN, then I decide to just go to sleep. Of course, there's me blogging and fooling around programming (be it a game or some arbitrary stupidity). I don't even post as often anymore. I know there was a time I posted every day, but that lasted about like two weeks. It's not that I couldn't sustain it, I could - but I didn't. The reason wasn't because I thought what I was posting was junk (in fact the part I thought my posting was horrible was somewhere last August). It was probably the beginning of me losing interest in blogging. Ever since then, I've been blogging in a more erratic manner, with a schedule closer to something like once in ten days. Although it never really is around there, and I am making up a schedule that doesn't exist, I'd say I'm close enough.
However, that being said, my interest in gaming hasn't changed. Either its because this year less good PC games came out, or I've actually switched sides. My vote is on the latter. I find myself more longing for my PSP when I feel like a good gaming session. I bought two 6th generation consoles when the first of the 7th generation came out. I am no sucker for punishment - I certainly bought the consoles because they were dead - but they were good consoles. They had good games on them that I wanted to play and in addition - I found them highly sufficient at filling my need for gaming. I now have both portable consoles - both a PSP and a DS.
Funnily, I bought a PSP more out of impulse - and the DS less so. Apparently, my impulse was right. If I had a DS, I would not have been gaming as much. I have no love of the killer app known as Nintendogs - and the touch screen is nothing new to me. There have been too many mediocre games being called sensational for use of the touch screen. They fail utterly to me. The best game on the DS I've played? Phoenix Wright - guess what? I don't need the touch screen. Best use of the touch screen? Most certainly Metroid Prime Hunters.
I believe my gaming tendencies have changed massively in the last year or two. I find myself moving away from PC games towards consoles and suddenly, software modding my gaming consoles is quite fun too. I find myself more fond of my PSP than my DS - funnily for games, not for the console since I actually game exclusively on the PSP - the media features I don't need. I suppose my mind is maturing and changing - and it's possible there will come a time when I stop PC gaming completely. Which now begs the question - should I buy a Wii or a PS3 first?
Boredom Overwhelming
I have reached the point where I regret not bringing back my XBox and GameCube back from Australia. I am now officially deathly bored. I have gotten so bored that I've:
- Replayed Halo.
- Replayed Star Trek Armada II.
- Updated my copy of Vista.
- Made an early alpha version of my Warcraft III map.
- Replayed Generals and its expansion Zero hour.
- Stopped playing Dark Crusade and Warcraft III.
- Begun programming useless arbitrary stuff again.
- Completed my research on the Wii and PS3.
- Learned how to unlock a HTC Hermes.
- Thought about getting a HTC Hermes.
- Been to Plaza Low Yat last weekend.
- Tried out Microsoft XNA Game Studio Express.
- Gotten bored of DotA.
- Update my PSP's firmware.
- Reorganised my hard drives and my storage system.
- Built a few more Magic decks. (IRL, of course, digital version coming soon if I manage to test it.)
- Slept 12 hours in a day for several days.
- Gotten sick of CS: Source.
- Been planning to bomb tmnet streamyx's office for not removing their traffic throttling despite 'restoration' of the undersea cables.
- Been posting plenty of shit on the blog. (be it private or public)