Information Plynx's Beginner's Guide Now that we have covered some of the often overlooked minimum elements in a successful strategy for gameplay, we can turn our attention to the opponent. Of course, the first consideration in regards to our opponent is what options they may or may not have available to them. Spectromancer has a very rich information game, due to the fact that players receive their cards from a shared "deck" subject to certain conditions. You don't know what cards your opponent has entirely, at least not a first, but you can make some very good educated guesses that improve to near-certainty over time.
The method for doing so is very straightforward, but for some reason I haven't found anyone else doing this. On the forums there are banned card combo lists and some mechanics of the draw, but no explanation as to how to handle this information in a way that doesn't exceed the limits of the brain. I am going to present a beginner's guide to actually managing the information game without having to do complex logic/memorization, including some practice materials and worksheets to bridge the gap until you can do it all in your head.
Getting started Here is a graph that shows all the most important connections between the cards, excluding some of the special card bans for the class cards.
You can use this graph to represent all the possible cards your opponent can have. The groupings above represent the draw rules for a Spectromancer hand. You are dealt at least one card in each group. In the elemental houses, you are dealt one additional card which can be in any of that house's three groups. The lines are for the bansâif you ever determine that your opponent has one of these cards with a line, you automatically know they don't have the other. (The lines for the special house isn't drawn above, as they change depending on the class your opponent is playing). Of the colored squares, you must have only one purple, only one blue, at least one but no more than two pink, and at least two green, but no more than four green.
The way this works is, you can X out any cards you know your opponent doesn't have, and circle any cards you know your opponent does have, then work through some simple deductions, in addition to the ones about the colored squares and ban lines: - Everything to the left of the first slot gets an X.
- Everything to the right of the last slot gets an X.
- Everything in between two consecutive slots gets an X.
- Only one group in a house can have two circles, the others, only one.
- Circle the last card in a group if all the others get an X.
- Circle the last two cards in a group if you know that group has two cards.
- If you know a group has only one card in a house (you already found the group in that house with two cards), and you find that card, you can X out everything else in that group.
- You can put an X to the left and right of any circled card to represent the 99% rule, except fire 1-7 and 9. (if you want to remember it, you can to the right of fire 8, to the left of fire 9, to the right of fire 10, and the rest are normal).
Let's play through a sample game and see how this works in practice.
On the above board, are you already thinking, my opponent has Chain Lightning? If not, let's go through the steps.
[Note: right now the ban lines on the graphs below are wonky. I'll fix them later]
The first step is to X out any card that you have on this graph, right at the start of the game. Your opponent cannot have those cards. You can also X out any of the blue squares that your opponent isn't able to cast naturally on their first turn, although this is fairly uncommon. Now try to infer things from the colored squares. Your opponent has only one of the purple squares and at least one of the pink squares. Chain lightning is unique in that it is both purple and pink. Your opponent cannot have fire 9 because if they did, that would X out fire 11 through the ban line, forcing them to have two purples. That means, no fire 9, and they must have air 8. We can circle air 8. We also know that it's going to be in the second or third slot clearly from looking at the chart.
Since we know they have air 8, we also know they 99% likely don't have air 7 or air 9. We can X those out as well, but for this you use a smaller X. Later on if you find stronger evidence that they don't have the card you can enlarge the X.
That's all the information we can get for now. So let's start to play. If you want to, before reading further, think about the above board and what your opening move and general plan would be, then you can compare your thoughts to the following analysis.
Now that you've thought about it, compare it to the temporal projection, and see where you will be in 3 or 4 turns:
Mana gapsâbig gap in fire, low mech and high air are fully reactive.
House alignment: two holes in our time projection.
We are already about 2 turns behind our opponent, because our cards are in disarray. Our fire house is stranded: there is a large distance between 1 and 6, and our mana is right in the middle. Our only way to get through weak throughput turns in our other houses somewhat cleanly is fire 1, but that smothers the house from development. We can play water 3 to fix our fire house, possibly going to fire 10, but water is our house with the highest mana and highest throughput. Plus, playing two weak plays to fix fire "spends" about half our life in temporal reserve. Any number of strong goblin lines would destroy us (goblin, fire 7, earth 7 being the opening of a weaker example), and fire elemental won't save us from that because it's too slow. Similarly you can dismiss any line with water 5 for the same reason: it accelerates into purely reactive plays in air, has low temporal throughput, destroys our water mana advantage. However, most beginners would probably make one of these last three plays in my experience, because they think card by card and not house by time.
Of the three remaining houses, air is the only one we can't mess up, since the top is reactive only. Tornado is uselessâdilation is suicide right now. Lightning Bolt is a long way off. Mech's overtime may be needed, but not nowâusing it now confers no benefits in the next two turns that we wouldn't get from playing it later. Because of inertia, in a queue, stronger plays should come first if order otherwise doesn't matter. We have no choice but to dip into our temporal reserve just to fix the alignment of our houses and we're going to need 2 turns to do so. Thus, we started two turns behind. That's like starting at 20 life, if you remember the section on time.
So we open with air 2, so that our houses can start to unravel while at least putting some pressure on the opponent. Were we playing a human, this might also be a powerful psychological moveâit seems aggressive and it certainly positions us to beâwe are playing it as a stop gap to save us from the blazingly fast line we expect our opponent to have and we need to prepare for that, but that may or may not actually happen. Their houses may also be in extreme disarray, and playing air 2 at least gives us a chance to take advantage. Afterwards we're going to have to make weak plays, unfortunately. Those can be in a variety of formsâbut I'm looking at the early mech cards as a low impact way to take our temporal medicine.
Well, Archmage played Elf Hermit, their mana generator. Curiously, this means that they don't have Rescue Mission (I don't draw the class card bans on the chart because they vary, but feel free to draw them yourself at the start of a game against a certain class). That also means that they do have goblin hero, which would seem to be a better play, so I immediately start thinking about Acidic Rain. We also know they don't have Fire 3. Once you circle a blue square, the others are all X's (and vice versa). If you want to make a note on the chart about which slot the card is in, you can, but in Earth 5's case, you don't need to checkâit's always in slot 2, because of the draw rule that says Earth 5 automatically comes with two other 7+ cost earth cards. The other one is cost 1-4, as indicated on the chart. If Earth 6 weren't X'd out already, you can put a big X on it whenever you see Earth 5. We also put a little X on Earth 4. There's nothing else we can learn from this first play.
With such a weak opening (a temporal hedge), we were just given half a turn unexpectedly. There are certainly things we can do with that half a turn now to take advantage, but we also need to be conscious of pinning, like the possible Water 8 I mentioned before. Despite opening with Air 2, we really are in no position to become aggressive without taking huge risks. Other than Water, our houses are still in disarray. So it's better to give that half turn back and stick to our original plan. In this case I play Mech 3 across from the Earth 5, matching temporal hedge with temporal hedge.
The archmage responds with the Fire 7. This is a lot less scary with Earth 7 pushed back two turns, but it's still a threat with goblinsâgoblin 6 might be available then too. I am sometimes tempted to conclude from someone's line of play that, for example, they don't have Earth 7 because why would anyone stack them to arrive on the same turn as goblin 6 if they were going to play a Fire 7, right? But this kind of thinking almost never works out for me. The opponent is usually thinking in some other way. Mech 7 and Mech 8 are powerful deterrents, and although they wouldn't really save us, our opponent doesn't know thatâwe've revealed nothing in fire, water, and earth, so they don't know that we are in such a poor position.
Back to the information gameâknowing the opponent has fire 7 doesn't do anything but let us circle fire 7. Disappointing, I know. It's in the third slot, as you would expect. If it were in the second slot, it would reveal a super rare Armageddon and Dragon hand and let us X out Fire 5, revealing almost the entire fire house and narrowing the first card down to Fire 2 or Fire 4.
Let's get to paying off our temporal deficit by spending that temporal reserve, by asking our dwarves to work overtime. We won't see the effects right away, but mentally, just subtract 20 life. (If you want to be super technical, you can subtract only 16, but it's easier just to work in units of time).
AhâGoblin Looter! Now the Water 8 suspicions are starting to look really good, and it's good that we didn't play a weak creature last turn. So now we are pinned by both Acidic Rain and Astral Guard, and we must not spend Water mana. Considering how concerned we are about Water 8, a common mistake made here would be to play Mech 5âbut that's the single worst possible move we could make. Our houses are not yet aligned and we can't afford to give up another turn, so we need to synchronize our opponent's board. By playing below average temporal moves, we committed to playing superlative temporal moves in the future to make up for it. We can't just start putting down average moves and hedges (unless our opponent lets us by making a string of weak plays of their own). We are living on the edge right now and there are several strong lines our opponent can play to sink us. Let's do some midgame analysis:
 Once you get the hang of doing this in your head, it's easy to use the same mental overlay to project your opponent's future turns.
Let's also project our own, and see that things are starting to shape up for us, but we're not quite there yet:
We can't rule out play series from our opponent that are very strong, and although we can't know for sure that our opponent isn't going to flounder, we don't want to bet on it. Therefore, as planned, our second turn of spending from our temporal reserve, leading us into our own high throughput line: Mech 8->Water 11->Fire 10->Earth 11 with Air 10 becoming available at the same time. This strong series of back-to-back plays is well above the average temporal average per turn and we hope to overwhelm our opponent with them, making back at least 2 turns of advantage and hopefully gaining some momentum that takes us even further.
After playing Overtime, the opponent has used Chain Lightning (behold my action screenshot), presumably to get in the immediate 15 damage and synchronize what's left of our board, while gaining a random point mana.
This move only barely breaks even temporally. As such it's not particularly troublesome to us, as we already "spent" the temporal advantage in our mind that the opponent is taking by getting ahead on the board and life like this. This also cuts the top off any high throughput chain that might be sent at us in the future. Let's also see what point of mana they got.
They got water, which threatens Astral Guard, but since we were already pinned in water, that changes nothing. Now let's get to hitting back, playing Steam Tank, killing the Earth 5 before we would have to face Earth 12, also synchronizing the opponent's board for another turn pickup. We are now only one turn behind the opponent (it's ok to count this temporal advantage later if you don't know how to spot synchronization, since at the present time, I have yet to write that section of the guide)
We didn't do anything with the information game this turn, because we already knew the opponent had Air 8. Whenever the opponent plays a card you already knew they had, you don't have to do anything but check the slot number if it matters. In this case we already know it's 99% likely to be in slot 3, and it isâI actually usually don't bother checking this, so don't feel bad if you don't too.
The archmage has responded with Earth Elemental. Elementals usually survive 5 turns in Spectromancer, meaning they can often be accounted for as a 5 mana creature that is slightly better than a standard temporal play, but not overwhelming. Earth Elemental, in particular, has no special effects other than having more health, so you can generally think of it as a 5 mana 5/25 creature on average, with hedging properties. In other words, unless I have already been beaten in some other way, or am completely unable to keep up temporally, elementals are just going to be like a normal 5 mana play.
On the information front, this earth elemental is in slot 3, revealing that the final card must be Hydra. The only house left to play for the archmage is Water, and it's looking increasingly unlikely that it has Water 9, but we still can't bet on it. Let's play our Mind Master across from the Fire 7, to preemptively dash any opportunity for Astral Guard to slow us down, and continue our plan.
The archmage has played Astral Guard in response, even though it's suicide to do so. It's a play far below the temporal average, costing me only about a third of a turn per turnâif I didn't already have Mind Master. The archmage has given up a striking one and a half turns with this play, by playing 2.4 turns of mana for essentially no effect other than drawing even with the side effect of the mind master (and not even its attack). And the future doesn't look bright eitherâhaving played Fire Goblin Air Earth Water over the last few turns to no effect, it has no high throughput turns left to make. Information wise, astral guard only lets us circle water 12 (not shown). We are unlikely to get any more information this game.
We could still play Fire Elemental and it would be a good play. But even better now is to play Bargul and pick up our first turn of advantage in our favor (by clearing the minotaur and looter at the same time while playing a high throughput creature, a full turn ahead of the norm). It also sets up Earth 6 faster than other plays would.
The archmage responds with the highest throughput play it can manage with the help of Goblin Looter, another Fire 7. At this point almost anything we do wins, except for using Tornado on the Astral Guard, which is a move that seems demanded by the terms of "mana efficiency", but actually guarantees a quick loss.
We can compete on the board or do many other things, but our temporal advantage tells us we are 1.5 turns ahead with another turn to come easily (since we are only halfway through our plan), and the opponent is only at 30 life, which puts them in striking range of death, and we have also banked a lot of damage in Earth and Air. Checking on the information chart, we see that the opponent can only have Earth 1 and Earth 2 available to stop us, Water 6 might have been there but it's out of range. Therefore, any combination of damage dealing with Earth 6 wins, even though they are punched in below 20 damage each, due to inertia from before.
Here's one of themâplaying the Earth 6 sacrifices a little more of our temporal reserve, but it doesn't matter now. The archmage responded with another goblin looter. Note where our life is just as we produce the finishing blow.
Modified by Plynx on 2015-02-19 14:19:09 Wow, these things take a while for me to produce.
I wanted to get this out there even though it's not quite finished; there are also subsections on "reverse information and bluffing", "guessing", and "how to hide information" that will appear above, as well as a pdf you can print out, but since the above section included a helpful step-by-step sample game, I wanted to share it now.
Modified by Plynx on 2015-02-15 18:36:08 | GrimJ0ker | 2015-02-15 21:30:55 |
you must have only one pink, only one blue, at least one purple, and at least two green, but no more than four green.
Plynx, correct here. Only one purple, at least one pink. PS: excellent post, probably this will be the most useful section for low-medium lvls.
Modified by GrimJ0ker on 2015-02-15 21:31:59 you must have only one pink, only one blue, at least one purple, and at least two green, but no more than four green.
Plynx, correct here. Only one purple, at least one pink. PS: excellent post, probably this will be the most useful section for low-medium lvls.
and no more than two pink.
my index finger is getting tired from increasing your karma  hehehe
Modified by filip on 2015-02-16 21:10:14 | YourLuckyGame | 2015-02-16 23:04:59 |
Thanks for a perfect gameplay example. I didn't get your words about "synchronizing opponent's board"... what is about? | HeadphonesGirl | 2015-02-16 23:06:23 |
This is really good.  I have sometimes thought about trying to map out a guide like this where things can be ticked off to keep track of the information game but I never had the patience to attempt it. This is so nicely put together. Thanks for all the effort. | YourLuckyGame | 2015-02-17 08:26:38 |
ÐеÑевод Ð³Ð»Ð°Ð²Ñ Ð½Ð° ÑÑÑÑкий ÑзÑк на пÑоÑпекÑÑо http://www.prospectro.net/plynx/404-informaciya.html(полнÑй ÑекÑÑ Ð´Ð¾ÑÑÑпен ÑолÑко Ð´Ð»Ñ Ð·Ð°ÑегиÑÑÑиÑованнÑÑ
ÑÑаÑÑников, пÑиÑоединÑйÑеÑÑ!) you must have only one pink, only one blue, at least one purple, and at least two green, but no more than four green.
and no more than two pink.
Thanks Grim and SoAid, nice catches. I added the info above. On the pdf it has a short legend.
By the way Grim, do you mind if I use any of our games as a further example?
Thanks for a perfect gameplay example. I didn't get your words about "synchronizing opponent's board"... what is about?
Sorry I couldn't get you one sooner. I still haven't caught up on my schoolwork since falling behind when I was preparing for the tournament, and this week is midterms. I feel like I wrote the above like one paragraph a day.
Synchronizing the board is going to get its own topic (you can see the outline under "Beginner's Guide") but roughly speaking synchronization is the state where you produce the opportunity to either kill creatures by exact damage (or close) without overkill, and/or carefully distribute board damage through blocks and spells such that you are able to clear multiple creatures at once, creating a temporal advantage.
Rather than being haphazard with blocks, it's good to consider trying to get the health of the opponent's creatures to be synchronized, so that many turns in the future you can kill them all at once.
| GrimJ0ker | 2015-02-18 14:40:01 |
Thanks Grim and SoAid, nice catches. I added the info above. On the pdf it has a short legend.
By the way Grim, do you mind if I use any of our games as a further example?
Of course.
Modified by GrimJ0ker on 2015-02-18 14:40:52 | Wavelength | 2015-02-18 15:31:27 |
I really, really like this chapter and the wisdom behind using the
mental setups introduced in "Thought" are becoming extremely clear now. A lot of people miss the importance of lining your plays up in a way that you can play cards with impact turn after turn after turn... I've spoken to this a couple of times, but on reading your guide, I think I significantly undervalued it.
I'm still somewhat confused about the math behind Temporal Advantage. Is this something you're going to explain how to do in a later chapter or should we already know how to do it by this point? Also, does TA need to be calculated at a contextual level (where, e.g., Rejuvenation gives you more TA if both players are under life pressure) or is it possible to lose a game while far ahead in TA?
On a more pedantic level, are you guys sure that a hand can't start with three pinks (direct damage cards)? I thought that it was only restricted by the fact that your opponent also needs a pink, and since there are four, that would allow you to start with 3 (e.g. F11, A6, E6 vs. A8).
Keep up the great work! Looking forward to more.
| GrimJ0ker | 2015-02-18 16:14:48 |
Yes Wave, we are sure. Not more than two pinks.
| Wavelength | 2015-02-18 20:56:29 |
Yes Wave, we are sure. Not more than two pinks. That one was actually totally new to me. Thanks!
| YourLuckyGame | 2015-02-18 21:46:30 |
Ok, of course we will wait part about synchronizing. I only wondered if you had already explained it somewhere.
| Ruby456 | 2015-02-18 22:44:31 |
WoW this is Good !! CLever, butt i must Read SLownLy aLL this Things ... How much time Tack's U to do this aLL ? One day 3 Houres ? OMG ...
I'm still somewhat confused about the math behind Temporal Advantage. Is this something you're going to explain how to do in a later chapter or should we already know how to do it by this point? Also, does TA need to be calculated at a contextual level (where, e.g., Rejuvenation gives you more TA if both players are under life pressure) or is it possible to lose a game while far ahead in TA?
Yes, totally understandable. There is some math behind it (the 20 life cost for passing a turn, for example, has surprising accuracy), but it also takes insight (and practice). The idea is to get in your mind the average amount of work you need to do in a turn, and compare what you are doing over n turns to that (times n) to see if your plan "keeps up" (or hopefully, actually gets ahead). There are some guideposts in the section on time, such as using a generic 5 mana creature, but there are many things that might provide temporal advantage, such as synchronizing your opponent's board, that I will cover one by one later,
It should not be possible to lose a game while you are far ahead in temporal advantage, since it should be a comprehensive analysis as best as you can make it. For that reason, in the next section on analyzing an opening hand, I'll try to explain ways you can come up with an initial estimate. During the first tournament of the year (the blitz), I was not too familiar with the new cards, so I kept an extra turn in reserve to deal with surprises. Regardless of whatever the surprising interactions with new cards were in the special house, their temporal impact would be limited hopefully to gaining one turn on me. I think Priestess of Moments surprised me beyond that threshold, but for the rest of the tournament that approach worked pretty well.
Modified by Plynx on 2015-02-19 11:43:33 | minhtuan | 2015-03-13 13:07:47 |
These insights have made me understand why I lose, and suddenly I lose less often. Thank you Plynx for sharing your knowledge in a very comprehensive format.
For those who struggles to remind cards by their numbers: Simply X out things by editing the pic during the duel, then restore it. The Quoted Text explains it well.
Btw, Image attachment feature is not working.
You can use this graph to represent all the possible cards your opponent can have. The groupings above represent the draw rules for a Spectromancer hand. You are dealt at least one card in each group. In the elemental houses, you are dealt one additional card which can be in any of that house's three groups. The lines are for the bansâif you ever determine that your opponent has one of these cards with a line, you automatically know they don't have the other. (The lines for the special house isn't drawn above, as they change depending on the class your opponent is playing). Of the colored squares, you must have only one purple, only one blue, at least one but no more than two pink, and at least two green, but no more than four green.
The way this works is, you can X out any cards you know your opponent doesn't have, and circle any cards you know your opponent does have, then work through some simple deductions, in addition to the ones about the colored squares and ban lines: - Everything to the left of the first slot gets an X.
- Everything to the right of the last slot gets an X.
- Everything in between two consecutive slots gets an X.
- Only one group in a house can have two circles, the others, only one.
- Circle the last card in a group if all the others get an X.
- Circle the last two cards in a group if you know that group has two cards.
- If you know a group has only one card in a house (you already found the group in that house with two cards), and you find that card, you can X out everything else in that group.
- You can put an X to the left and right of any circled card to represent the 99% rule, except fire 1-7 and 9. (if you want to remember it, you can to the right of fire 8, to the left of fire 9, to the right of fire 10, and the rest are normal).
Modified by DKill on 2015-06-05 16:17:49 For those who struggles to remind cards by their numbers: Awesome work DKill.
One thing to try while learning that critical ability to match numbers to cards is what finally worked for me. I made a habit of each turn looking at my opponent's mana +1 (or whatever their mana would be next turn in the case of mana generating creatures) and force myself to remember the name of each card the opponent would newly be able to play on the next turn, before I decided on a move. That not only helps with learning the numbers, but it also develops the ability to play around the possibilities of your opponent's next move, teaching you to get in the habit of thinking of the opponent's hand at least as much as your own. | Cooler | 2015-06-06 19:57:47 |
Btw, Image attachment feature is not working.
Fixed! (actually it worked but with 128K file limit)
| GrimJ0ker | 2015-06-07 12:33:31 |
Earth 5 - Earth 6 is a 100% banned combination too. It requires a big X.
Earth 5 - Earth 6 is a 100% banned combination too. It requires a big X.
I did use a big X in the images above, and explained whyâwere you posting a correction? It's true that these never occur together, but it's not because it's a banned combination. If it were just that Earth 5 and Earth 6 were a banned combination, then you could get a hand like Earth 1 3 5 10 (but you can't).The rule is Earth 5 comes with two 7+ cost earth cards (maybe because otherwise it would be a raw deal for a mana generator). That means your wildcard for Earth will be in the middle or high range, and cannot be in the low range. The logical consequences are that Earth 5 is always in the second slot if present, only one card is dealt from the low range, and the two cards above Earth 5 (since they both must be cost 7+) cannot include Earth 6. | CyberneticPony | 2015-06-07 14:28:43 |
I like this chapter because this is something I personally spend the most time trying to do in my games. One thing that came in handy though was noting how Plynx uses the concept of temporal advantage in his deductive method, which is something I tend to only do in the short term and not the long term, which is pretty impressive on Plynx's part. I wasn't sold on the thought chapter, but this information chapter is awesome. Modified by CyberneticPony on 2015-06-07 23:02:38 | GrimJ0ker | 2015-06-07 15:35:57 |
...
I did use a big X in the images above, and explained whyâwere you posting a correction?
It's true that these never occur together, but it's not because it's a banned combination. If it were just that Earth 5 and Earth 6 were a banned combination, then you could get a hand like Earth 1 3 5 10 (but you can't).The rule is Earth 5 comes with two 7+ cost earth cards (maybe because otherwise it would be a raw deal for a mana generator). That means your wildcard for Earth will be in the middle or high range, and cannot be in the low range. The logical consequences are that Earth 5 is always in the second slot if present, only one card is dealt from the low range, and the two cards above Earth 5 (since they both must be cost 7+) cannot include Earth 6.
These are points of view, earth 6 can come in the third slot of earth house, so in my mind I would consider it a banned combination (just because it respects the 100% impossibility of occurence) in the same way that the number 2 is considered a prime number .
All primes are ODD except 2, which is the ODDEST of all.  Modified by GrimJ0ker on 2015-06-07 15:50:49 | Wavelength | 2015-06-09 09:55:48 |
The rule is Earth 5 comes with two 7+ cost earth cards (maybe because otherwise it would be a raw deal for a mana generator).
I agree with GrimJoker. This explanation seems like the equivalent of adding together 2 and 2, then subtracting 1, to get 3, when you can simply add the 2 to the 1 and get the same answer. Earth 5 is limited to the second slot (all cards are limited to some range of slots), and Earth 5 + Earth 6 is a banned combo. Though I've never confirmed this, I would bet dollars to donuts that it was not implemented as "Earth 5 must appear with two 7+ cards" in either the design nor the algorithm itself. It's the tiniest of niggles, of course. Please keep up the awesome work with your guide. :)
| MikeBnDe | 2015-06-11 16:33:53 |
i dont get the logic here. It seems i dont know all the rules.
Is 'Earth 5 must appear with two 7+ cards' the only rule?
Then 5,6,7,8 would be possible. So there must be something else in the rule set
i dont know. what is it?
| Wavelength | 2015-06-11 17:20:11 |
i dont get the logic here. It seems i dont know all the rules.
Is 'Earth 5 must appear with two 7+ cards' the only rule?
Then 5,6,7,8 would be possible. So there must be something else in the rule set
i dont know. what is it? Only certain cards can appear in certain slots. For example, in Water, I believe the distribution is 1-3 in the first slot, 2-8 in the second, 4-10 in the third, and 9-12 in the fourth. These are not constructions formed by 1% rules and banned combos; they are hard rules that are always followed. This is why (in my mind at least) it is much simpler and much more likely to assume that Earth's distribution is 1-3, 2-9, 6-10, 10-12, and that 5-6 is a banned combo, rather than assuming E5 is subject to some kind of unique "must appear with two 7+ cards" rule. By the way, the allowed distributions in the Earth class (and a couple other classes I think) changed at some point. In the early versions of the game, it was very possible (although relatively uncommon) to have E4 as your low card, or E9 as your high card.
| MikeBnDe | 2015-06-11 19:04:48 |
Ah, ok. Thanks!
I explained it in the original post, but maybe I could have been more clear. When you are dealt a hand, you are given four cards in each elemental house. The elemental houses are divided into three ranges, a low, medium, and high range (see the chart above for the ranges for each element). You get one low cost card, one medium cost card, and one high cost card, and your last card is a wildcard that is drawn from the leftover cards in that house.
Slots do not figure into the deal. They are only come into play after your hand is dealt. Wavelength's explanation is the one I saw on here earlier in another thread, but while it's not wrong (as a result of the above rules certain card ranges are epiphenomenally bound to appear in given slots), it's also not sufficiently correct. If cards were dealt to slots by dent of each slot having a "range", you could get a hand like Water 3 2 10 9, but of course that's impossible. Using the slot way of thinking also prevents you from making stronger deductions about your opponent's hand. Once you find the wildcard in a house, the ranges of cards that could be in the remaining slots narrows; i.e. when you know someone has fire 1 and fire 3, the remaining cards are one in the mid range and one in the high range, i.e. 5-9, 10-12. The third slot ceases to have the possibility of being 10 or 11. When you think of it the way I've presented above, you won't have that problem.
On the oher hand, when thinking about Earth 5, you may as well think of it how Wavelength describedâthey are logically equivalent. Although the deal does not take slots into account, in the information game you will be given the free information every time that earth 5 is in the second slot, so all the deductions about the wildcard are made for you and just marking a big X on Earth 6 is fine (not even a 1% chance). Similarly if you see Earth 6, you can rule out Earth 5 as well. This is in fact how I think of it when playing, but the draw rule regarding earth 5 is a very old one that I figured out before anyone had even compiled the basic banned combos, and has remained true. | mamoulian | 2015-06-12 06:05:21 |
In the early versions of the game, it was very possible (although relatively uncommon) to have E4 as your low card
It's still possible isn't it? ... It's still possible isn't it?
Yes, but it's no longer true for Water and AirâWavelength has been playing long enough to remember the ranges for the three groups have changed (perhaps multiple times). In the distant past, the elemental houses were all split evenly in groups of four. | CyberneticPony | 2015-06-12 09:08:36 |
I explained it in the original post, but maybe I could have been more clear. When you are dealt a hand, you are given four cards in each elemental house. The elemental houses are divided into three ranges, a low, medium, and high range (see the chart above for the ranges for each element). You get one low cost card, one medium cost card, and one high cost card, and your last card is a wildcard that is drawn from the leftover cards in that house.
Slots do not figure into the deal. They are only come into play after your hand is dealt. Wavelength's explanation is the one I saw on here earlier in another thread, but while it's not wrong (as a result of the above rules certain card ranges are epiphenomenally bound to appear in given slots), it's also not sufficiently correct. If cards were dealt to slots by dent of each slot having a "range", you could get a hand like Water 3 2 10 9, but of course that's impossible. Using the slot way of thinking also prevents you from making stronger deductions about your opponent's hand. Once you find the wildcard in a house, the ranges of cards that could be in the remaining slots narrows; i.e. when you know someone has fire 1 and fire 3, the remaining cards are one in the mid range and one in the high range, i.e. 5-9, 10-12. The third slot ceases to have the possibility of being 10 or 11. When you think of it the way I've presented above, you won't have that problem.
On the oher hand, when thinking about Earth 5, you may as well think of it how Wavelength describedâthey are logically equivalent. Although the deal does not take slots into account, in the information game you will be given the free information every time that earth 5 is in the second slot, so all the deductions about the wildcard are made for you and just marking a big X on Earth 6 is fine (not even a 1% chance). Similarly if you see Earth 6, you can rule out Earth 5 as well. This is in fact how I think of it when playing, but the draw rule regarding earth 5 is a very old one that I figured out before anyone had even compiled the basic banned combos, and has remained true. This conversation feels like Galileo vs the Catholic Church. The observations are the same, but the model is different.
Modified by CyberneticPony on 2015-06-12 09:09:00 | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-12 19:23:37 |
Sorry, should have reread the whole thread before asking my question. Ok, so obviously 'Range Rule' [RULE1] AND 'E5 comes with two 7+ cards' [RULE2]----> E5 + E6 cannot appear together So if the algorithm uses this 'system of rules' it obviously is not necessary to program an explicit banning, But the weak point in that is the strange RULE2. Where does that come from? Did you derive it based on observation only or did the programmers say that they used this criteria when determining the cards for a player? . Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-06-13 16:41:24 | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-13 16:56:26 |
Sorry, should have reread the whole thread before asking my question.
Ok, so obviously
'Range Rule' [RULE1]
AND 'E5 comes with two 7+ cards' [RULE2]----> E5 + E6 cannot appear together
So if the algorithm uses this 'system of rules' it obviously is not necessary to program an explicit banning,
But the weak point in that is the strange RULE2. Where does that come from?
Did you derive it based on observation only or did the programmers say that they used this
criteria when determining the cards for a player?
.... And b Range Rule i dont mean the slots but the groupings like in plynxes pic
But the weak point in that is the strange RULE2. Where does that come from?
Did you derive it based on observation only or did the programmers say that they used this
criteria when determining the cards for a player?. I don't find that rule strange, and I guess I'm confused as to why anyone would think so.
What's stranger? "Earth 5 must be your numerically second highest earth card" (for what purpose?) and "earth 5 and 6 are hard banned, even though they normally only have a 1% chance of appearing together" (why?) On the other hand, protecting you from having only one (potentially inappropriate to the game) thing to play along with Earth 5, something that would make your mana generator much worse than your opponent's, seems quite reasonable to me. Also keep in mind that when the rule was created, the high range in earth was 9-12. Seeing hands like Earth 1 5 6 9 probably got old, so they made the rule.
However, for purposes of the information game, it's easier to think of this rule like a hard ban, and know that the wildcard cannot be low, or (frankly) to not think of it at all. Sure, you can rule out a Forest Sprite in some situations based on someone's water plays by using this information, but I wouldn't call that a coup in the information war, so I can safely recommend ignoring the rule entirely in favor of getting the basics down, or use it just to save yourself a couple of clicks. There are more complicated rules in the game, and some of those actually have crucial information to give away. | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-14 09:21:53 |
Well, i find that rule strange, because the output for the drawn card pool would be the same in 99% of the cases if you would modify it to 'E5 must always come with two 6+ cards' (or more naturally phrased: 'E5 must always come with two higher casting cost cards'). The only difference between this rule and 'your' rule is the additonal 'banning' ;-) of E6 (which only has an 1%-impact) Why forbid a (rare) draw like 1,5,6,10 (Boost E10 with E5 and kill with E6) but, for example, allow these weired Fire-Draws (F9 in second slot or what was it?) and allow 'healing screws' (PS: i wrote 'additional' because the lowest range for the wildcard is banned if E5 is drawn, probably because of the reason Plynx said, Player must not get too many low cards when E5 is drawn). Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-06-14 11:00:41 If the number 7 is what bothers you, consider that 7-12 represents the upper half of the Earth house. Why forbid that draw and not others? Remember that the rule predates 10-12 being the high range, without the rule, you could draw 1 3 5 9 easily. Healing screws are addressed by a rule, in 1.0 I think you were only guaranteed one healing card; now it's two. If it were me, I would make different rules, like some addressing card proactivity/reactivity ratios. But I don't make the rules, I'm just describing a way people can more easily think about them when making deductions.
| MikeBnDe | 2015-06-14 12:19:40 |
The way you describe the rules is very good, its not about that. I am fine with the programmers 'banning' of the the low range (1,2,3,4) for the wild card when E5 is drawn for the reason you described Additonal 'banning' of E6 when E5 is drawn seems unnecessary to me, because a) it would only happen 1% of the time b) the additonal draws that it would allow dont seem so awful to me (1,5,6,10), (2,5,6,10), (2,5,6,11) and so on. But i guess thats just personal taste. Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-06-14 12:26:09 I am fine with the programmers 'banning' of the the low range (1,2,3,4) for the wild card when E5 is drawn
for the reason you described
Additonal 'banning' of E6 when E5 is drawn seems unnecessary to me, because
a) it would only happen 1% of the time
b) the additonal draws that it would allow dont seem so awful to me (1,5,6,10), (2,5,6,10), (2,5,6,11) and so on.
But i guess thats just personal taste. It's true there are multiple things under discussion here (a) what the developers did to balance hands and make for a higher likelihood of relatively fair, balanced games, and what we think of them (b) how to use those rules in reverse to make deductions about your enemy's hand
As for (a), Sure, the E5 rule could be something slightly different with little impact on its effectiveness, especially now that the high earth range is 10-12. As far as I know, it predates the 1% rule and many other ones. Hands like 4,5,6,9 might have been possible and even common at one point. Saying you have to have two higher end cards if you drew earth 5 seems like a reasonable rule. The developers might not have even realized they were "banning" earth 6 with earth 5 at the time. It's a few logical steps removed, and not immediately obvious. And of course the 6,9 draws would still be problematic, so maybe they didn't mind the side effect of 6 being ruled out.
As for (b), remembering Earth 5 is always slot 2 and put a big X on earth 6 and vice versa is all you need to know/do (you can occasionally deduce mana generators through damage dealing spells and vice versa this way, and if you ever deduce earth 5 is their mana generator without them playing it, you know the slot automatically as well and may be able to make some additional deductions) | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-14 19:19:28 |
@Plynx. Yes, i agree with your points in your last post.
Btw, gratulations to your last tournament. What is it, 4th win? Unbelievable :)
Btw, what i always wanted to ask the community: Isn't there one
of the programmers present on this board from time to time I would love
to hear their thought processes on various rule choices.
Although i played millions of games, i was always too lazy to throughly
study all rules and read every post here, so i dont know what
the communitiy knows about these things. Can anyonone
tell me (or direct me to a post) where the 1% rule comes from
what the idea behind it is and why this rule is not valid for Fire?
That would be great thanks.
tell me (or direct me to a post) where the 1% rule comes from
what the idea behind it is and why this rule is not valid for Fire?
That would be great thanks.
This is Best what I found on forum by searching. Follow wavelength's link on this page.
And this Why its not applied to Fire?! | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-15 10:11:24 |
Thanks, DKill.
So there is no programmer of Spectromancer around here?
| GrimJ0ker | 2015-06-15 10:46:05 |
It would be too easy to know the opponent fire house because there are too restrictions with fire cards: e3-f5 , f6-f9, ill4-f11, dem8-f11, f6-a8, f9-a8, f3-e5, f3-w5, f9-f11 and 1% f8-f9...try to add 1% rule: f1-f2, f2-f3, f3-f4 etc...
Modified by GrimJ0ker on 2015-06-15 10:47:34 | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-16 18:10:30 |
Question to the higher-ranked players (35+): Do you really try to deduct as many cards as possible of the opponent? As far as i am concerned, i never do that. In most games, alll i do is trying to figure out - what kind of sweep does he have - what kind of direct damage he has - whether he has E4 or not - whether he has E9 or not. - whether he has w8 or not Are the other informations really that important? Is it really important, for example, to deduct that opponent has F1 or F2? Cant you simply wait till he plays one of them? Of course its probably possible to construct some game scenario where one of these seemingly unimportant kind of infos are crucial, but aren't the criterias above enough in 95% of the games? Or am i seriously underestimating the benefit in high-level-play? Waht do you think, level35+ players/plynx?? Edit: Of course, not only 35+ players can voice their opinion ;-) Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-06-16 18:37:30 | Tendou | 2015-06-16 19:02:25 |
Question to the higher-ranked players (35+):
Do you really try to deduct as many cards as possible of the opponent?
As far as i am concerned, i never do that.
In most games, alll i do is trying to figure out
- what kind of sweep does he have
- what kind of direct damage he has
- whether he has E4 or not
- whether he has E9 or not.
- whether he has w8 or not
Are the other informations really that important? Is it really important, for example,
to deduct that opponent has F1 or F2? Cant you simply wait till he plays one of them?
Of course its probably possible to construct some game scenario where one
of these seemingly unimportant kind of infos are crucial, but aren't the criterias above enough in 95% of the games?
Or am i seriously underestimating the benefit in high-level-play? Waht do you think, level35+ players/plynx??
Edit: Of course, not only 35+ players can voice their opinion ;-) I think w6 is definiately a key to rush if you have it or your opponent doesn't have it, when i know either of those informations and the board is neutral in power than mostly it is the time i start hitting opponent hard with anything i have. In the worst case scenario he/she might defend but still has to make some suboptimal healing moves and surely lose momentum if i am doin git right. Most of the time i try to listen to any threat the opponent might come up and i ll have to preaper for (like a9 or w11/12 with high starting manas). Also when i am attacking or trying to make moves the opponent can't handle then i take every possibility into account. E.g. if i have both acidic rain and e1 then i may easily go goblin1 without the fear of easy handling from the opponent. I hope i could help ;).
Modified by Tendou on 2015-06-16 19:03:30 | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-16 20:57:52 |
I think w6 is definiately a key to rush if you have it or your opponent doesn't have it, when i know either of those informations and the board is neutral in power than mostly it is the time i start hitting opponent hard with anything i have. In the worst case scenario he/she might defend but still has to make some suboptimal healing moves and surely lose momentum if i am doin git right. Most of the time i try to listen to any threat the opponent might come up and i ll have to preaper for (like a9 or w11/12 with high starting manas). Also when i am attacking or trying to make moves the opponent can't handle then i take every possibility into account. E.g. if i have both acidic rain and e1 then i may easily go goblin1 without the fear of easy handling from the opponent. I hope i could help ;).
Interesting principles. Your playstyle is very aggressive anyway. I had hardly time to breathe when we played today ;-)
Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-06-16 20:58:16 ...
most of the times i cannot be bothered to do it properly  and that's probably one of the main reasons i cannot progress to higher levels
Modified by filip on 2015-06-16 21:43:23 | GrimJ0ker | 2015-06-17 17:05:27 |
In my opinion, thanks to my personal experience, I can say about these groups:
Levels 1-5 don't care about opponents cards.
Levels 5-10 care about e4,f11.
Levels 10-15 care about e4,f11,e9 and try to kill opponent mana generator (usually also spending much more than they should).
Levels 15-20 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6 and try to play some combo or sinergyc hand. (most aggressive players)
Levels 20-25 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6,f6,f9,a8,f10 and try to play combo spells, good use of tornado, armageddon, hiding e4 and using it only when they have to.
Levels 25-30 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6,f6,f9,a8,f10,a9,w6 and good calculations to close a game, try to do the biggest damage before w6 coming to kill the opponent in the next turn, good deduction to understand what are the key slots in the game. My opponent could play a9 in 2 turns, or just in 1, i don't play my spells and i absolutely don't play the good countering creature before a9, I have to play in mirror slots to avoid a9 in front of weak creatures. Good knowledge of banned combos.
Levels 30-35 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6,f6,f9,a8,f10,a9,w6,w11,w12,f12,w8 and nice calculations to close a game summoning the exactly potential damage with a creature in front of empty slot, good calculations in two,three turns, like double opponnets e4, good calculations to stay off from the lethal damage of the opponent (double a6 is 27 damages, i have 25 so i need to play e1 to avoid the checkmate in the next turn), good prediction to understand if a game will be long or short (play a11 or charging air mana for a6). I know my opponent can play f12 so i have to be careful for possible spells and thinking how to counter his schema. I have to save my spells or my big creature to kill w11 or w12 as fast as possible.
Levels 35-40 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6,f6,f9,a8,f10,a9,w6,w11,w12,f12,w8,f2,e2,a3 and all nice calculations for the board control( w8 + f2 could kill a9 in two turns, because i have e2, the opponent can't have death1,forest5,sorcery5,sorcery1,holy4,holy8 etc...), the opponent could play a8,f6,f9 and my important creature will have 7 of hp, he can't kill it in the next turn so i don't play e2 in this turn but i summon a creature in front of empty slot to gain an advantage or e1 in a not killing position to recover hp, nice bluffs ( opponent played f10 so i can bluff f11, opponent has e1,e3 so i can bluff e4, if I summon this creature i could create a check situation with a e6,a6 which i have not. Nice decisions on the slots in detail ( I have f1 so i don't play mana generator in 2nd and in 5th slot), I can play around a10 playing a sacrificing creature, especially an elemental because in the worst case i will have a turn forward for my elemental. I have to force my opponent to show me an healing card to know 2 of its and maybe to risk something.
Levels 40-45 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6,f6,f9,a8,f10,a9,w6,w11,w12,f12,w8,f2,e2,a3,e8,w9,f8, I watch his cards each time my opponent plays a card to avoid surpries like f10-f11.Can I play in front of empty slot already from the start? My mana generator could survive a good number of turns to have a good mana efficience? I know my opponent could play w9 in the next turn so i play my important creature in the 1st or in 6th slot to spoil w9 sinergy, my opponent could play e8 or f8, if i want to play e9 i need a1,mech4,etc... my opponent could force me to play e4 next turn and i could play an important card exactly in that turn so i play e4 now, nevermind about +2 or +4 hp losses. My opponent could kill me in 2 turns if i don't play an healing card or a griffin to force him to play an healing card and then play a spell before he played it to create a win-win situation. I can see 3 turns after this and if I play this card in front of his weak creature i could create an advantage of 2 or 3 free creatures. I have in my mind these 2 cards played in a row, so i have to calculate the exact amount of damage that i will suffer possibily avoiding a situation of forced move.
Levels 45-50 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6,f6,f9,a8,f10,a9,w6,w11,w12,f12,w8,f2,e2,a3,e8,w9,f8,a5,w7,f5,a12,e7 If I play w2 like first move, I have to know if my opponent has a5 (6 damages each turn is 10% of the total and it's really dangerous from the start), when i play w7 i have to think that i'm giving an important information to my opponent, i have not w6, w5 is definitely a more acceptable move in many cases, w7 is rarely really necessary, my priority is to play passive cards like w7 in passive function and proactive cards in proactive ways when i can/have to. If my opponent can play e12,a9,dem7 i have to think to counter also the near slot for f5, if I play f2 in front of a 5+ attack creature I can obtain only an immediate effect, if i play f2 in front of a 5- attack creature i can obtain an immediate effect and a possible "free card" to play and then summon the most appropriate creature/spell. I have to remember the exact starting mana in fire,earth or water house, in rare cases it could be useful knowing the mana generator which is not played by the opponent, especially for e5, i would know he has not e4-e6. e10 is the most important elemental, if i have e4-e10 i need to play it knowing my opponent can't force me to play e4 on 4 or 6 earth mana. If i have to play an important creature and my opponent could play the titan i have to play in front of an opponent creature (e11 is the best card to play in front 3,4,5 attack creatures), killing golems is usually an important priority, spells are useless so you can exactly calculate when the golem could die or when the opponent will have to play a card to defend him. Create a comprimse: if you know the opponent will play tornado,inferno,a8 etc...you can play an important card in that moment to do more damages, don't play e5 with 5 of mana vs beast2 or death3 without e2, it's really devastating. when i have an advantage of a slot on my opponent it means i have to play the next card, to keep that advantage i have to play my creature in front of empty slot, if my free creatures are unkillable creatures for next turns i can exactly calculate the amount of damages i could do turn by turn, the creature with worst attack is my least common multiple. If my opponent can play e7 i have to think where slots i have to cover, in offensive mode i have to play around it and in defensive mode usually i have to play in front of the coming giant spider.
Levels 50-55 work in progress, i'm learning.
Levels 55-60 ask to Plynx.
This is only a part of the whole. There are a lots of things which are really hard to explain in words, especially not in my native language.
Modified by GrimJ0ker on 2015-06-18 12:55:35 | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-17 18:36:42 |
Thanks a lot, Grim, that was really interesting.
I only wish you would have explained L 45-50 as well ;-)
Now i realize why my highest level was 32 only ;-)
I wonder how high i could climb if i wouldn't play the game by ear only.
Awesome notes there Grim, Thx.
| MikeBnDe | 2015-06-21 08:37:27 |
Thanks for adding your thoughts for level 45-50, Grim. I think your notes are a very good addition to Plynxes guide, it adds concrete examples to his more (and excellent) concept-based guide.
Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-06-21 08:37:48 So there is no programmer of Spectromancer around here? As far as I know the programmers have never commented on the draw rules. It's all derived from observation.
Question to the higher-ranked players (35+):
Do you really try to deduct as many cards as possible of the opponent?
As far as i am concerned, i never do that.
Are the other informations really that important? Is it really important, for example,
to deduct that opponent has F1 or F2? Cant you simply wait till he plays one of them?
Finding out F1 or F2, as in your example, is something I would consider crucial. Not just kind of useful in a rare game circumstance. I think most players play this game extremely tactically when they need to be thinking strategically, and you can't think strategically if you can't spot holes and openings in your opponent's hand. F1 is a very strong card for filling temporal holes. F2 is a potent defensive and synchronization weapon at the same time. Plus, your opponent can easily have both. Ruling both out (say your opponent plays F3 from slot 1) tells you a lot about what strategies your opponent can endure. In particular, a hand with no or few skirmishers (creatures with attack 3+ virtual cost <=2) is extremely vulnerable to pinning in whatever house has the skirmisher. So if you can rule out skirmishers in a house, you want to do it as soon as you can. Instead of looking for the presence or absence of specific cards, it's more important look for patterns in your hand and your opponent's hand. To do that, though, you want to track all the cards or your ability to spot a pattern will be crippled.
People are acting like this is hard work, but in my opinion it's not, at least compared to the alternative. Thinking of every card one by one is what is hard. Ruling out cards so you don't have to think about them any more is easy, and thinking in patterns is easier than that.
Levels 1-5 don't care about opponents cards. Levels 5-10 care about e4,f11. Levels 10-15 care about e4,f11,e9 and try to kill opponent mana generator (usually also spending much more than they should). Levels 15-20 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6 and try to play some combo or sinergyc hand. (most aggressive players) Levels 20-25 care about e4,f11,e9,a6,e6,f6,f9,a8,f10 ... Levels 50-55 work in progress, i'm learning. Levels 55-60 ask to Plynx.
These are interesting to me, because I am always wondering how other people see the game. I've known for a long time that Grim is an extremely tactical player, focusing a lot on the information game, hiding and bluffing information, and counting damages by exact amounts, and thinking about just about every card on his list like above, every single turn. However, I don't think this is the only way to progress. (Also don't be fooled, Grim doesn't think only of the stuff in the list above)
I do remember when I first played the game I plateaued at level 10 or so and at that time I did think of earth 9, air 10 and Fire 6/Air8/Fire 9, and Fire 11 a lot, and virtually nothing else except what was in my own hand. Then I started looking for patterns instead, at first noticing terrible inconveniences in my own hand (and why), and later how to spot them in my opponent's hand and skewer them on it. These aren't things like "opponent has earth 9, watch out for playing weak creatures into it" but "opponent can only react in earth, but this is also the only house that can fast heal". How do you take advantage of that? "Therefore the opponent must choose to react or heal, therefore if I can arrange direct damage and a set of at least 2 proactive plays at the same time, opponent must fail to react, giving me a progressive advantage, or react and lose the ability to healâI have dd and proactive plays in my fire, therefore I need to line up, my only other proactive house, but it also has my only skirmisher, therefore I need to meditate NOW to skip the temporal hole, etc. etc." | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-21 19:00:39 |
@Plynx: could you explain what you mean by 'pinning'? I don't know that word and the german translation is somewhat unclear. And could you give an example for virtual cost not equal casting cost? Thanks!
Modified by MikeBnDe on 2015-06-21 19:01:26 @Plynx: could you explain what you mean by 'pinning'?
Pinning means that something can't move (even if you would want it to); it's held in place by something. In Spectromancer, you might want to be able to play something in air, but you can'tâbecause you need to save your air mana for a tornado so that you will have it by the time an important threat comes up, because that's either your only viable response to that threat or the only one that will be ready in time. In that case, you are pinned in air and can't do anything else you could have done with air. You can be pinned in other ways as well.
And could you give an example for virtual cost not equal casting cost? Thanks!
Sure, just imagine Water 3, Fire 3, Holy 7, etc. | MikeBnDe | 2015-06-22 06:53:07 |
...
Pinning means that something can't move (even if you would want it to); it's held in place by something. In Spectromancer, you might want to be able to play something in air, but you can'tâbecause you need to save your air mana for a tornado so that you will have it by the time an important threat comes up, because that's either your only viable response to that threat or the only one that will be ready in time. In that case, you are pinned in air and can't do anything else you could have done with air. You can be pinned in other ways as well.
...
Sure, just imagine Water 3, Fire 3, Holy 7, etc.
Thanks Plynx. Pinning is clear now and the other thing was what i expected, but i wanted to be sure. I will reply to your long post later on.
| MikeBnDe | 2015-06-22 19:54:38 |
... In particular, a hand with no or few skirmishers (creatures with attack 3+ virtual cost <=2) is extremely vulnerable to pinning in whatever house has the skirmisher.
Sorry, Plynx, i dont get that. Lets say player A has no or few skirmishers. Which house of which player(A or B) is vulnerable to pinning and why? Could you elaborate on that some more? That would be great, thanks.
| Tendou | 2015-06-22 20:36:56 |
...
Sorry, Plynx, i dont get that. Lets say player A has no or few skirmishers.
Which house of which player(A or B) is vulnerable to pinning and why? Could you elaborate on that some more?
That would be great, thanks.
I think what he means is that actually there is no flexibility in a house where there is no useful aggressive low cost cards because the cards are only good in specific situations(like meditation or fire wall). If you have skirmishers you can just simply make those plays without the fear that you won't be able to access an important card. Essentially in other words what it says is that higher cost cards require higher commitment, while low cost cards especially skirmishers do not. For the sake of example let's say you play a phoenix, you have exactly 10 fire mana and you do not want to lose your phoenix for couple of turns and you want to use a fire card as soon as possible. If you have a priest of fire in slot 1 then it takes 3 turns to get it, and it is not as useful in board control as a goblin berserker which you can play in the next turn coming and all other turns because it only costs one mana and you get one every turn, therefore your fire house is not "pinned" in this regard. Also goblin is much better in this scenario as a possible play because it is the best skirmisher in such case, it can block a lot of damage and if you place it next to a phoenix then the damage it deals to the phoenix becomes irrrelevant as long as you don't use any more fire mana than 1 per turn.
Modified by Tendou on 2015-06-22 20:38:15 Only certain cards can appear in certain slots. For example, in Water, I believe the distribution is 1-3 in the first slot, 2-8 in the second, 4-10 in the third, and 9-12 in the fourth. These are not constructions formed by 1% rules and banned combos; they are hard rules that are always followed.
Conformance of a very rare thing. Ice Golem on 3rd slot. But 1-3-4-12. Doesn't it seem very bad water hand?  | GrimJ0ker | 2015-06-24 12:14:17 |
Not much rare than others adjacent cards. Anyway w11 can appear also in third slot, it happened to me. Modified by GrimJ0ker on 2015-06-25 17:12:49 Conformance of a very rare thing. Ice Golem on 3rd slot. But 1-3-4-12. Doesn't it seem very bad water hand?
To get ice golem in the third slot requires your wildcard be low (two cards in the 1-3 range) and at least one numerically adjacent card (1% chance). 1-2-4, 1-3-4, 2-3-4 are possible, but all are very rare. (I think it's a great draw, by the way).
The slot ranges only tell you what you already know, because the hand is sorted low to high. Your draw, including the wildcard, will be one of the following:
Slot 1 2 3 4 L L M H (wildcard low) L M M H (wildcard mid) L M H H (wildcard high)
Because you get at least one low card, the first sorted card must be in the low range (either your low card or a low wildcard). Therefore the first water slot must be 1-3. The final slot must be in the high range for the same reason (9-12). The second slot can be a middle card or a low card, and the third slot can be a middle card or a high card. But the second card can't be a 1, for the obvious reason that it would be the lowest card (and therefore in slot 1), and similarly 12 can only be in the last slot. So the ranges for water in this case are 1-3, 2-8, 4-11, 9-12. The same is true for the other elemental houses. Those are huge ranges and not incredibly useful. That's why I recommend not thinking of ranges for each slot and instead just think of the low, middle, and high ranges, keeping in mind that in each house one of the ranges has two cards in it, and the others, one each. | soldat12 | 2015-08-23 15:11:33 |
Hey Plynx. Awesome read, I really like to see into the depth of pro thinking. Really would love to see some other few game analysis like this.
Also would like to see other top10 players thought process, that would be really helpful.
As for the theory in the article: do you use any tools or paper (or used early) to perform that kind of calculations? I suppose you are able to perform that calcs in your head without problems currently, or not? | minhtuan | 2015-08-24 06:32:11 |
Clearly Plynx and a lot of top players can think and calculate inside his head, just like chess players. The deeper the analysis, the higher the probabilty to win. Thanks to his in-depth analysis, I now can think ahead 1 or 2 moves, and sometimes guess which cards my opponents are about to use, and anticipate accordingly.
Modified by minhtuan on 2015-08-24 06:32:52 I don't get the strategic approach, in 90% games I have high creatures in every house so to me it looks like "card by card" ("great synergy", rush, "keep mana for response vs dangerous opponent cards", "check threats", "try to field high health creatures eventually" etc.) is still the only possible way to go in those games.
| Tendou91 | 2017-07-27 09:07:26 |
Please clarify the question. In my mind checking the mana distributions of houses both for you and the opponent is one of the best ways to predict outcomes regardless which cards you have. In informing you about what to use and when, I would say you 90% of the time need an early game with small creatures, mid-game with some mid-creatures or rather spells to support your early game and a late game option with big creatures. For each phase you might need 1-2 houses devoted to that stage in which case an ideal setup is that you through threats out of a single or 2 houses supported with spells by a third, and generating mana for other 2 for big creatures. Of course as a general rule you want to preserve mana and house cards as long as possible, but usually what I have outlined one sentence eariler is what usually happens(has to happen).
Thank you, Tendou! It looks like I misunderstood the article. My understanding was that player should build strategy on going for high cost creatures (this is what is described in Plynx' example: air has no high creatures so we use the house early) but in 90% games we have high creatures in every elemental house (e10-12 are creatures, w9-12 are creatures, 2/3 of f10-12 are creatures and 3/4 of a9-12 are creatures). Modified by Sandu on 2017-07-27 14:15:37 | Tendou91 | 2017-07-27 15:11:05 |
Thank you, Tendou! It looks like I misunderstood the article. My understanding was that player should build strategy on going for high cost creatures (this is what is described in Plynx' example: air has no high creatures so we use the house early) but in 90% games we have high creatures in every elemental house (e10-12 are creatures, w9-12 are creatures, 2/3 of f10-12 are creatures and 3/4 of a9-12 are creatures).
My point is that there are no contradictions in what you state and what Plynx has written down. You should aim for high cost creatures and high cost spells..whatever, but the actual point is that most of the time you might not have the time to summon them. Also you might want to force the opponent to reconsider such strategy when you can intervene. Let me give you one example: Many times trying to summon a fire elemental fast is very handy if you can support, but one of the most devastating ways I saw that strategy being stopped was with the usage of demon3 being used on a w3 when the player going for the fire elemental tried to generate mana with w3. As a consequence fire elemental summoning can be stopped depending on the mana distribution of course and also 2 houses may be demolished this way as you know that the best option for the opponent was to summon fire elemental as soon as possible.
I see, so strategy can be stopped with tactics but it does not mean that strategy is obsolete or that tactics should not affect strategy, both are quite important.
Modified by Sandu on 2017-07-27 18:25:39 |
