Comments on: Limited Resources: Four Is the New Six

By: Suedars

Suedars — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 23:09:27 +0000

@Ryan,

I agree with you about the Serpent->Hellkite->Titan play, but I think you’re overvaluing being able to immediately Cloak the Titan. Being able to Equip the turn you cast it is only advantageous in two situations: If your opponent has Doom Blade, but is tapped out, or if your opponent doesn’t have Doom Blade but will topdeck it on his turn. Otherwise if he has it, he’ll just cast it in response to your equip and take your Titan out. Those possibilities are worth taking into account, but I don’t think they’re usually worth sandbagging the Titan for.

That said, the Serpent->Hellkite->Titan is the right play there, since the Titan is so much stronger than the other two creatures that it’s the one you really want to stick. The Hellkite is going to force Doom Blade if he has it, clearing the way for your Titan.

By: JMatz

JMatz — Sun, 12 Sep 2010 15:08:12 +0000

I’ve never had the pleasure of captaining an Inferno Titan in a limited format, but it sure looked like a lot of fun. I keep hearing how fast the 30 card decks play, but the games were still going long enough to hardcast your Hellkite. Thanks for the videos and keep them coming. If you get the chance, check out Draft Beer over at http://www.generationd20.com for some more limited goodness.

By: Excalabur

Excalabur — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 18:13:51 +0000

s3lv: You’re making the classic mistake from the Monty Hall problem. He has information about the cards that you don’t, which changes the odds. Godot is correct, absent strategic considerations.

Consider: if Evil has tapped out every turn and thus not had a chance to play the Cancel in response to you, then it’s obvious that his chances of having it in hand is just the number of cards drawn/size of deck.

Evil of course leaks information about if he has it or not if he hasn’t tapped out and not cancelled things.

By: s3lv

s3lv — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 05:02:25 +0000

Without any strategical thinking: every card has the same chance to be a cancel. 14 chancen in the library, 6 in hand. The revealing changes definately the odds calculation. Please inform yourself because I don’t wanne talk about that, I have to deal enough with that in my study.

But the fact that it’s not a coinflip is relevant, because if you say he wins if he has the cancel, he wins in 30% of the games, that’s less than a third. you need 2 of 3 games win to win the entire game, so you should play it.

By: Godot

Godot — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:36:51 +0000

@cotd: He’s drawn 16 cards in his 30-card deck; the odds that one of those 16 is a Cancel are 16 in 30. His revealing some set of those 16 cards doesn’t change the overall odds. While you can make some adjustments to that estimate based on strategic precepts (“He would have used it to counter that spell three turns ago if he’d had it in hand”), from a pure probability standpoint, the odds that he has it are 16 in 30, or roughly a coin flip.

If you disagree, I would be happy to play a wagering game with you based on this scenario. I pull 16 cards from a 30-card deck containing a single Cancel, reveal 10 of them to you, and then you bet $14 to my $6 that the Cancel is in those final 14 cards. We can do that as many times as you like…

By: Zage

Zage — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 22:51:40 +0000

Well I’m glad we can agree about throwing down a threat instead of the Serpent in that particular scenario

Looking at the hand again I definitely agree with you that the best play would be playing and equipping Water Servant. But between Titan and Serpent, I’d say Titan every time for the reasons mentioned earlier.
I don’t think having extra creatures for Titan to kill with his ETB ability is really that big a bonus, because he can kill those creatures just fine when he attacks. It’s not like he needs the ETB value to be good :p
Having either the Hellkite or the Titan in play equals a win if he has no removal. I don’t think it’s very important that the Titan survives rather than the Hellkite. Sure the Titan has a 1-turn faster unopposed win, but Hellkite is no slouch. Either of them being Doom Bladed is no big deal as long as the other survives, I think.

Allright that’s enough overanalyzing for my part. Thanks for the vids and see you next week

By: Oraymw

Oraymw — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 22:36:37 +0000

As for the “win in two turns” option, you can attack, and if he doesn’t play anything, you can play Water Servant, play Act of Treason on it, and win the game.