Pro Level Changes

NOTE:  These are not including the points from PTDM, so this list will be updated soon.

Yuya Watanabe went from Platinum to Platinum Ben Stark went from Gold to Platinum Josh Utter-Leyton went from Platinum to Platinum Tom Martell went from Platinum to Platinum Shahar Shenhar went from Platinum to Platinum Eric Froehlich went from Silver to Platinum Willy Edel went from Gold to Platinum David Ochoa went from Platinum to Platinum Shuhei Nakamura went from Platinum to Platinum Stanislav Cifka went from Platinum to Platinum Martin Juza went from Platinum to Platinum Owen Turtenwald went from Platinum to Platinum Brian Kibler went from Platinum to Gold Shi Tian Lee went from Nothing to Gold Tzu-Ching Kuo went from Platinum to Gold Gerry Thompson went from Gold to Gold Reid Duke went from Gold to Gold Conley Woods went from Platinum to Gold samuele Estratti went from Platinum to Gold Joel Larsson went from Gold to Gold Jon Stern went from Nothing to Gold Ivan Floch went from Gold to Gold Luis Scott-Vargas went from Platinum to Gold Kelvin Chew went from Silver to Gold Melissa DeTora went from Silver to Gold Matthew Costa went from Platinum to Gold Samuel Black went from Platinum to Gold Christian Calcano went from Silver to Gold Paul Rietzl went from Platinum to Gold Shota Yasooka went from Platinum to Gold Jacob Wilson went from Nothing to Gold Raphael Levy went from Platinum to Gold Alexander Hayne went from Platinum to Gold Lukas Jaklovsky went from Platinum to Gold Ari Lax went from Nothing to Gold Patrick Cox went from Gold to Silver Dave Shiels went from Silver to Silver Harry Corvese went from Nothing to Silver Alex Majlaton went from Silver to Silver Dan Jordan went from Gold to Silver Gaudenis Vidugiris went from Gold to Silver Stephen Mann went from Nothing to Silver Makihito Mihara went from Gold to Silver Jon Finkel went from Platinum to Silver Thomas Holzinger went from Platinum to Silver Paulo Vitor Damo da Rosa went from Platinum to Silver Tomek Pedrakowski went from Gold to Silver Miguel Gatica went from Nothing to Silver Ken Yukuhiro went from Platinum to Silver Samuel Pardee went from Nothing to Silver Eduardo Sajgalik went from Silver to Silver Maksym Gryn went from Nothing to Silver Robin Dolar went from Nothing to Silver Elias Watsfeldt went from Gold to Silver Lucas Siow went from Nothing to Silver Denniz Rachid went from Platinum to Silver David Sharfman went from Nothing to Silver Bo Li went from Nothing to Silver Gabriel Nassif went from Nothing to Silver Jeremy Dezani went from Nothing to Silver Satoshi Yamaguchi went from Nothing to Silver Brian Demars went from Nothing to Silver Matthew Nass went from Gold to Silver Sebastian Denno went from Nothing to Silver Felipe Tapia Becerra went from Nothing to Silver louis Deltour went from Nothing to Silver Brock Parker went from Nothing to Silver Brad Nelson went from Silver to Silver Andreas Nordahl went from Gold to Silver Hao-Shan Huang went from Gold to Silver Roberto Gonzales went from Nothing to Silver Matteo Versari went from Nothing to Silver Ben Friedman went from Gold to Silver Joe Demestrio went from Nothing to Silver Gerard Fabiano went from Silver to Silver Justin Cheung went from Nothing to Silver Michael Majors went from Nothing to Silver Marc Lalague went from Nothing to Silver Andreas Ganz went from Gold to Silver Jonas Koestler went from Silver to Silver José Francisco Silva went from Nothing to Silver Andrejs Prost went from Gold to Silver Craig Wescoe went from Platinum to Silver Wenzel Krautmann went from Nothing to Silver Chris Fennell went from Nothing to Silver Vidianto Wijaya went from Nothing to Silver Juan Carlos Adebo Diaz went from Nothing to Silver Tyler Lytle went from Nothing to Silver Tamas Nagy went from Gold to Silver richmond Tan went from Nothing to Silver Matthew Sperling went from Silver to Silver

Who fell off?: Richard Bland went from Platinum to Nothing Jesse Hampton went from Platinum to Nothing Robert Jurkovic went from Platinum to Nothing Jeremy Neeman went from Gold to Nothing Vincent Lemoine went from Gold to Nothing Lukas Blohon went from Gold to Nothing Chikara Nakajima went from Gold to Nothing Allan Christensen went from Gold to Nothing Ali Aintrazi went from Gold to Nothing Kenny Oberg went from Gold to Nothing Patrick Chapin went from Gold to Nothing Alessandro Portaro went from Gold to Nothing Alexander West went from Gold to Nothing Jelger Wiegersma went from Gold to Nothing Sveinung Bjørnerud went from Gold to Nothing Bernd Brendemühl went from Gold to Nothing Ruben Snijdewind went from Gold to Nothing Marc Anderson went from Gold to Nothing Matthias Hunt went from Gold to Nothing Marcello Calvetto went from Gold to Nothing Andrew Cuneo went from Gold to Nothing Ryota Endo went from Gold to Nothing Junya Iyanaga went from Gold to Nothing daniel Royde went from Gold to Nothing Jackie Lee went from Gold to Nothing Ryuichiro Ishida went from Gold to Nothing Mamoru Nagai went from Gold to Nothing Max Sjoblom went from Gold to Nothing

PT Team Preview

Going purely based off Lauren's team rosters which you can find here

Team Australia

The team has fomrer PT start Jeremy Neeman (he took time off form the game for his studies iirc) and small child prodigy Zen Takashi who has three PT qualifications before he turned 16.  I don't know how much they tested, but the overall tea composition is mostly people not used to the testing process for a PT and, combined with the jetlag from travelling, I sadly don't see a great level of success coming from this team.

Predicted members in the T16:  0-1


Team Channel Fireball

One of the "big two" teams of Magic, the CFB roster for this PT has expanded dramatically with the addition of GerryT, Matt Nass, and Shahar.  CFB consistently performs well in the limited portion of the event (I assume this is due to the contributions of BenS and EFro), but has struggled in some recent constructed formats.  This struggle is further amplified by the two star players having a huge slump this year.  Hopefully PTDM allows PV and LSV to hit platinum, but I think it requires about a T8 for either of them to do so.  But I expect the team to do quite well at the PT (anyone not picking EFro in your fantasy PT drafts is committing a serious error).

Predicted number in the T16:  4

European Union

The third strongest team in the tournament, headlined by the second best player of all time.  In addition to the juggernaut, the team also includes the extremely underrated Jurkovich and Floch.  I expect this team to compete with team SCG for the best constructed performance overall, but the limited portion of the event has been the downfall of previous iterations of this team.  Time will tell if they're better prepared for PTDM.

Predicted number in the T16:  3

Team Luxurious Hair

The team most likely to find some off-the-wall aggro deck thanks to the combined powers of Wescoe and Ari Lax.  If the deck they find isn't good, they won't perform well, but otherwise should put up some above average numbers.

Predicted number in the T16:  0-1

Team Rourix

The Brazilian team is much better than anyone will give them credit for.  The combination of Edel and Kaoz_zeh is pretty lethal in a format where midrange green decks are good, so I expect them to surpass everyone's (even my own) expectations for them.

Predicted number in the T16:  1 (it's a small team)

Team Starcity

The other "big two" team and a 17-member power squad.  Sam Black and Zvi are known for creating decks to beat the PT meta and have had an incredible level of success doing so in the past so nothing different should be expected here especially when combined with Chapin's theorycrafting power now (I think he was part of CFB for the last PT).

Predicted number in the T16:  4

Wilson Gone Wild

The team that's the biggest wildcard in the event.  If they put actual work into testing, they'd perform solidly, but I don't think they'll do so.  This is the team most likely to get wasted the night before the event, make a brew, write "YOLO!" on their deck boxes and jam it the next day.  Possible I'm very wrong on this one, but meh.

Predicted number in the T16:  1

None of the other teams listed really got my interest/hopes of a strong performance up.  This is just unfiltered thoughts so don't judge me and I could be wildly wrong here.  :P

Let's Make a Team of PTQ Grinders!

A few years ago I had the opportunity to be a member of Gavin Verhey's Team Unknown Stars, which is probably the first "turning point" of how I thought of Magic.  At the time my results were awful (a lot of PTQ T8s, but never won a quarterfinals match), but I was lucky to be accepted thanks to having a lot of friends already on the team who thought I had potential.  While on the team, I still never won a PTQ (that wouldn't be until turning point #2 upon getting back from New Zealand), but my results improved, I played a large part in the design of the UB Mannequin deck, and I got to network with tons of amazing players who ended up "breaking through".  So, since I've been out of Magic for around a year now I'm going to try forming something similar to the old Team Unknown Stars.  Looking for 10-15 people to start and will start as a mailing list/Skype group, but maybe a forum will be in the near future.  The goal is to foster a discussion of the current PTQ format and get members on to the Pro Tour.  TO foster this goal, I'm going to be rather strict about who gets to be a part of this and am requiring an application.  If you're interested in joining fill out the following application (mostly stolen from the old TUS forum) and e-mail me at chrism315 at gmail dot com with the subject "Team Application":

-Your Name and age

-Your Magic accomplishments

-The last three major tournaments you attended and your record at each of them (Major tournaments are considered to be large events such as PTQ's, Regionals, Champs, Nationals, the Pro Tour, and other events on those levels or higher.)

-Why you play competitive Magic

-What your main reasons are for wanting to join the team

-What you think you would bring to the team that makes you stand out above other applicants

-What your strengths as a Magic player are

-What your weakness as a Magic player are

-What the main formats that you play and focus on are

-Which format you think you're most proficient in

-How much modo do you play?  What's your screenname?

-Do you have a blog or write for a site?  If so, link to your work.

Worst of 2012

On the other hand there are tons of articles produced this year that probably shouldn’t exist.  Wes Wise’s Magic 8-Ball article (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/finance/23516_Wise_Buys_Are_You_Smarter_Than_A_Magic_8Ball.html) is one of the most out-of-place pieces of financial writing ever and I don’t really know what to say about it.  Read it at your own risk.  Ben Bleiweiss’ DKA set review (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/finance/23507_The_Financial_Value_Of_Dark_Ascension.html) was super misleading given his past results and I even wrote a blog post about it (http://yourarticleisbad.blogspot.com/2012/01/financial-value-of-dark-ascension.html). 

My article, Chasing Kate (http://www.gatheringmagic.com/chrismascioli-chasing-kate-why-and-how-i-qualified-for-pro-tour-dark-ascension/), unfortunately also ends up here.  Jesse Mason and Jon Corpora warned me not to publish this and boy, should I have listened.  I don’t really know what to say about this one and it probably would have ended up as my worst article of 2012 had it not been for one very special gem by Jon Agley (http://www.starcitygames.com/magic/standard/23602_Grinding_A_Question_Of_Values.html), described by none other than Pat Chapin as:

https://twitter.com/thepchapin/status/169850113202720768

Sandy Hook and the Stigma of the "Other"

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shooting a lot of media focus has been on mental care in the US, and not in a good way. The focus has been making punitive measures against those who would dare to have something be "not right" with them and ensuring that they lose even more of their rights. The same thing happens almost every major act of violence, the first step is to assign a sense of "otherness" to the assailant: he was a gang member, he was Islamic, he was mentally unwell, etc. Once this blame on some "issue" has been placed the media sets its fucking sights on this minority culture and finds every way possible to blame every world ill on it: how welfare creates a criminal class, how we "apologize" to Islamic nations, how psychological treatment is not reals, any attack on what our culture sees as an "entitlement". Of course this is bullshit and just a refusal to see that the real entitlements go to selfish SAWCSMs (Straight, Ablebodied, White, CiSgendered, Male): Rather than acknowledge that everyone is ENTITLED to a decent life, we make sure to vilify the poor as lazy; rather than let everyone be ENTITLED to their own religious beliefs we find the most extreme elements of other belief systems and attribute it to the whole group; rather than let everyone be ENTITLED to some basic feeling of happiness, society tells us we have nothing to be upset over and to just "go out into the world". While mental health does suck in the US, this is all simply a derail to avoid confronting a culture that feels entitled to guns and a culture that affirms a definition of "manliness" defined by power and violence towards others and this needs to change. Of course any attempt to change the culture is seen as (lol) misandry (just look as seminars telling people to not rape is "labeling all men as rapists") and there's no way to change this unless we are relentless in sending messages out to change.

As a personal note for the last 10 years I was conditioned to seeing my depression as a problem, I had to deprecate myself to fit in while being left to fight my personal demons and daily thoughts of self-harm/suicide alone. Last week I finally sought treatment as a last resort and I have literally never felt more free than I do now. So a huge FUCK YOU to everyone who marginalized and belittled me and I don't want anyone else to go through what I have and labeling anyone with a mental health issue as a future killer sure as fuck won't help.

Do You Feel Like a Hero?

Do You Feel Like a Hero?  - My (Belated) Spec Ops:  The Line "Review"

[SPOILER WARNING!!!]  

With the exception of the original Ghost Recon, I have avoided every game that falls into the category of a "modern military shooter" for a few reasons:
1)  I don't really find running around the Middle East and killing terrorists particularly engaging or fun.
2)  I play video games partially for an escape and a lot of gunshots, blood, and death doesn't exactly do that.
3)  I value my video game time as a solitary experience and generally dislike multiplayer which is the main reason the genre exists.
So when Spec Ops:  The Line was released earlier this year I didn't even give it a second look due to its genre.  Luckily for me someone whose opinion I respect when it comes to writing/storytelling (Jesse Mason, @killgoldfish) convinced me to play the game.

Gameplay

"Yes, there is darkness to come.  But take heart, the storm will soon break"
-Konrad's final orders to the 33rd

We'll just get the actual gameplay out of the way first:  it's passable, but nothing exciting.  The only new mechanic they introduce is the use of breaking windows to "drown" your enemies in sand, but the execution is super confusing and you only have to make use of it around three times throughout the entire course of the game (these sand sections were the source of the majority of my deaths, :().  Otherwise, it's just a very ordinary third person shooter (with a slightly buggy cover system that sometimes doesn't do what you expect).  The game is not worth playing for the gameplay alone and if it didn't come so highly recommended I would have quit at around the two hour mark since the game takes time to pick up and the first 50% or so of playtime is your generic MMS (this is on purpose though, as will be addressed later).

Story 

"And yet, they still take time to smell the dying roses"
-Radioman, intel on the citizens of Dubai

The game's story is also pretty mediocre.  It's obviously supposed to be a "contemporary" (but alternate timeline) take  on Conrad's Heart of Darkness, but has nowhere near the power of the original text or the other famous contemporary take on the story, Apocalypse Now.  The story, at times, seems like it has a lot of potential, but then the heavy-handedness of the developers shows up and dashes any hope of that.  The developers want you to know that war has consequences and people die.  They want you to know it so much that they make you walk (they don't let you use the run command in these portions of the game)  through corridors of dead bodies at least four times (I honestly lost count) as well as a few hallucinations where you see enemies looking like your team members (but kill them anyways).  On top of the heavy-handedness of the overall message, the ending is basically as cliche as you can get with the major revelation that the antagonist was dead the whole time and you've been carrying around the phone Rick uses to talk to Lori while a number of the events you've gone through in the game have been an illusion  (which makes no sense given how your team members reacted to the events, especially when you had to pick which prisoner to execute, unless that was all also an illusion) which is the most intellectually unsatisfying ending imaginable.  The story is still a drastic improvement compared to the usual privileged white American male fantasy of killing thousands of Brown people so it's not a complete flop, just not as good as it should be.

There are still a number of things the story does well though.  The voice acting is top notch and the characters are well developed as things spiral more and more out of control.  While walking through bodies multiple times dampens the emotional impact, there is one point where the player is given control of essentially a drone to bomb your enemies with white phosphorous (you have to kill every dot on the map or else you fail the mission) to then have to walk through a street of burning corpses only to discover that over half of the casualties you caused are civilians.  Another powerful scene is the point outside the radioman's base where the radioman tells you a small bit of backstory about every soldier killed (relevant xkcd).

Why the Game is Incredible

"Where's all this violence comin' from man?  Is it the video games?  I bet it's the video games"
-Radioman

While the gameplay and story of Spec Ops are nothing special, the game is simply groundbreaking in how it interacts with the player.  Contemporary video games, much like premodern paintings, act as a "window" into the world of the game with the intent of placing you in the "shoes" of one of the characters.  Impressionism, just like Spec Ops  was a completely uninspiring movement in terms of the quality of the final products (people who have Monet's Water Lillies as their favorite painting have no taste), but it was the first movement to embrace the medium:  they shattered the view of a painting as a window and instead embraced the canvas as a flat space.  Rather than use optical tricks to present the painting as a representation of something physical, the movement chose to purposely "flatten" the image onto the canvas.  The depth previously created by using perspective techniques was instead replaced by taking advantage of the physicality of the medium itself:  if something was supposed to be thick, you just used more paint.  Spec Ops then is the first game to take advantage of being a game (plenty of other games, just like many premodern paintings, broke the 4th wall and acknowledged the medium).

Spec Ops take on the morality/choice system is the most obvious example of this:  in the beginning of the game your choices simply do not matter and the game goes out of its way to show this to you.  The most jarring example is when you are presented with the choice to save someone who has important intel or to save two civilians (after watching a third be executed).  No matter which path you choose (the game took me an extra few hours because I chose to replay each choice multiple times to confirm my suspicions) everyone ends up dead and you end up with no intel.  While having choices that don't really matter is nothing new (not hiding the fact might be novel, but that's not a huge deal), it's what the game does starting at around the three hour mark that is:  it presents choices where there is only one allowable decision.  This is not the same thing as having no choice though, it's very obvious to the player that at any point the team could have just walked away from everything, but that choice was never yours to make since the choices are made by the characters in the game.  This removal of choice therefore serves a very important purpose in that it removes you from the position of a character and instead puts you in the position of observer making the game function as interactive fiction in the truest sense and, with this realization, all the game mechanics that originally seemed odd or quaint suddenly fit perfectly.  The third person perspective wasn't implemented just for the cover-based combat, but was to show that you're just along for the ride and function as an "invisible" party member.  The lack of an in-game soundtrack which is instead replaced by a radio station blasting across Dubai is suddenly the only way to implement music in the game while keeping the 4th wall intact.  Even the beginning credits, which cast you as a "special guest" along with your Steam username, play a role in establishing your role in this game as the aforementioned observer.

Spec Ops knows this reveal is a big deal and sets it up beautifully.  For the first few hours of the game the player can see themselves as the protagonist as he's the "hero" traditionally associated with the MMS genre.  It is only after the killing of a large number of civilians that the player realizes that he is not anywhere close to a hero and they're going to be dragged along for the ride.  The irony of Walker continually claiming to have had "no choice" but to do what he has done coincides with the player having less and less choices and the realization that Walker has had every chance, every opportunity to just leave and go home that frustrates the player as they wish more and more they could make it for him.  Instead, the player must endure hours more of senseless killing as they step further and further out into Macbeth (literal) river of blood.  In one mission your sole objective is just to "obey", if there was ever any doubt of how much the game cared about what you wanted.

The player is given one choice that affects how the game plays out, but I think it was inserted as a test to whether the player correctly understood their role in the game.  In the final scene the player is given the choice to observe as Walker kills himself as a consequence of all his decisions or to take responsibility for Walker's choices and shatter the mirror (also significant as without the person in the mirror to blame, the only person Walker can place the burden on is you).

Conclusion

"No matter what, endure.  Be ever vigilant.  Hold the line"

In the end, Spec Ops is not just an MMS, but instead an examination of the player/character relationships in traditional game design.  The antagonist being named Konrad (phonetically identical to Conrad, the author of Heart of Darkness) again lends itself to the idea that you are an observer (or reader, in this case) and not an active participant being told a story by others.  The title of this post comes from a question asked to you during a loading screen and the game makes sure that you answer it with a resounding "No".

Chris Tries to Play Poker, Post 1

https://pkrsess.com/h/zd
Random $7 6max hyperturbo. The guy to my left when 6-handed was xartist, who is on the leaderboard for the stakes and the rest are randoms

Hand 3 I should have just raised over shove, but to how much? Thinking 80-100, but no idea.

Hand 19: How would you play it there post flop?

Hand 24: His call was disgustingly bad, :(

Hand 28: If your BB, what's your calling range here? Can you ever call with anything less than KK, AA even if you know villian is shoving ATC. Both other stacks are corpses.

Hand 31: Was this a bad call?

Hand 34 was a misclick, meant to shove, but wrong hotkey.

Hand 35: Should I have just called instead of keeping SB out of the hand? Should I have been in this at all?