Do you play to win?

Do you play to win?

Yes, and I'd also like to do it with something that is competitive but isn't "run-of-the-mill". I value innovation AND winning. Potentially, I end up valuing innovation more, but that's me being bitter about my recent tournament experiences.

Absolutely and at all times. However, I may be one of the few people out there that thinks innovation might be over-rated. Is it an awesome experience to see something completely new work? Of course it is, that being said, I hold no disdain for anyone of any calibur showing up with whatever deck they think may be successful - as long as they are prepared to compete.

I play to win whenever I sit in a table.

I don't win because of poor playing, usually by making bad decisions and sometimes because my deck has been in the losing end anyway. But that's V:tES after all.

I believe, that all players sit to table and try play to win. Everybody likes winning, after all. But V:tES is a mind game as well as CCG. That means, even if you play well and make no mistakes, there is always someone who's mistakes cost them and you the GW. And why's that? Only, because at round X you may look too strong for everybody else in the game. Other experienced players may trick inexperienced players to make mistakes or just make the mistakes themselves to keep you in short leash. And, that's ok, since if they weren't, they would not be playing to win since you would win.

No V:tES game is the same, everybody learns and most try to have fun and win at the same time.

In my point of view, Play to Win rule has been invented to get rid of table split deals, which end up one guy losing and one winning. Other than that, you can't enforce anyone to play aggressively or stupidly just by saying that they are not playing to win - there are same amount of play styles as there are players.

It's more fun to play a game of V:tES and see if you can win rather than whine about someone not trying to win just because others play differently with different types of decks.

Dorrinal wrote:

TryDeflectingThisGrapple wrote:

I read Sirlin's articles a long time ago. I decided he and I are radically different people.

He would still be playing a Malk'94 variant in every tournament. It's pretty clearly the most broken 2-discipline combination in the game. It largely reduces the 5 player game to a series of 1:1 duels with your prey, peppered with "I [insert Wake effect] and Deflect." Same deck, 15 times in a row at WoN, for 18 years straight.

Thank God I'm not Sirlin - it might be worse than being Sklansky.

If that's your conclusion, I don't think you comprehended Sirlin's articles. Reread them. Seriously, not trying to be flippant.

"Notice that the good players are reaching higher and higher levels of play. They found the "cheap stuff" and abused it."

"They won't find the most effective tactics and abuse them mercilessly. The good players will. The good players will find incredibly overpowering tactics and patterns."

"Doing one move or sequence over and over and over is another great way to get called cheap. This goes right to the heart of the matter: why can the scrub not defeat something so obvious and telegraphed as a single move done over and over? Is he such a poor player that he can't counter that move? And if the move is, for whatever reason, extremely difficult to counter, then wouldn't I be a fool for not using that move?"

Sounds like Darby is EXACTLY right.

I think Darby (the original blog) means that:

Malk '94 is powerful. Always has been, always will be because it has:

1) High Payload (Dominate tends to bleed for the most)
2) High Delivery % (Of any discipline, tends to get its actions unblocked)
3) Strong Defence (Nobody disputes that flick is one of the strongest defences)
4) High Card Efficiency (Usually 5 cards will result in a 3+ bleed unblocked)
5) Reduced Minion Cost ( allows for discounted minions via Govern the Unaligned)

So, basically, if you are ever not sure what to take to a major tournament... Grab Malk '94. If you aren't convinced, grab Weenie and go for gold.