What follows is our (long) conversation.
Ancestral Recall, other power.
This will be short. I just want to get this down for posterity. A couple hours ago, I made the finals of a tournament where first prize was an Ancestral Recall. I wound up getting the Recall. It was a Grand Prix Trial, for a GP I don't plan on going to, and second place was 24 packs. My opponent wanted the byes, and since you are not allowed to split with anything other than the prizes in the prize pool, the $400 card was going to be hard to split up. Fortunately I knew the guy somewhat and was sure he would not screw me, so I conceded to him and we worked out a split after the tournament was over. We each got 12 packs and half the recall, which the store valued at $250 (it's pretty beat), so I owed him 125 cash and I got the card. I wound up selling the store my 12 packs @ $2.50 each and 12 new fetches(8 marsh flats and 4 arid mesa) for 8 apiece.
Also, Vroman won a mox ruby last week at the monthly Lindenhurst power tourney, he valued it at $260, and I traded it off him for 1 verdant catacombs(12) 3 oath of druids(12 each) 2 underground sea(45 each) 1 tundra(30) and 80 cash.
Also, one month before that, I won the Lindenhurst monthly power tourney and got a mox pearl. I have been playing magic since eighth grade, that's 14 years, and it was my first piece of the power nine. Less than two months later and I now have three.
(originally posted here:http://zaxec.livejournal.com/44430.html)
Categories: Uncategorized
Leave a comment
Ancestral Recall, other power.
This will be short. I just want to get this down for posterity. A couple hours ago, I made the finals of a tournament where first prize was an Ancestral Recall. I wound up getting the Recall. It was a Grand Prix Trial, for a GP I don’t plan on going to, and second place was 24 packs. My opponent wanted the byes, and since you are not allowed to split with anything other than the prizes in the prize pool, the $400 card was going to be hard to split up. Fortunately I knew the guy somewhat and was sure he would not screw me, so I conceded to him and we worked out a split after the tournament was over. We each got 12 packs and half the recall, which the store valued at $250 (it’s pretty beat), so I owed him 125 cash and I got the card. I wound up selling the store my 12 packs @ $2.50 each and 12 new fetches(8 marsh flats and 4 arid mesa) for 8 apiece.
Also, Vroman won a mox ruby last week at the monthly Lindenhurst power tourney, he valued it at $260, and I traded it off him for 1 verdant catacombs(12) 3 oath of druids(12 each) 2 underground sea(45 each) 1 tundra(30) and 80 cash.
Also, one month before that, I won the Lindenhurst monthly power tourney and got a mox pearl. I have been playing magic since eighth grade, that’s 14 years, and it was my first piece of the power nine. Less than two months later and I now have three.
Categories: Uncategorized
7 Comments
Jailhouse Barack
[This post was originally written for my employer’s blog, Show-Me Daily.]
According to an article over at the Springfield News-Leader, the Missouri prison population has inexplicably reached an all-time high. On a related note, I’d like to take this opportunity to commend President Barack Obama for scaling back the police state milieu slightly with his recent announcement that federal authorities will no longer pursue users and suppliers of medical marijuana, provided that the individuals and businesses in question conform to state laws.
How are these related? Well, during 2005, 20 percent of the state prison population in the United States were nonviolent drug offenders. The policy issue here is: “How should our limited tax dollars be spent? In particular, how much should go to incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders?” Obama has recognized that deprioritizing the pursuit of certain nonviolent drug offenders will alleviate some of the fiscal burden caused by funding for enforcement and incarceration. Similarly, and especially given the sea change in federal policy, there is an opportunity here to relax some of the tax burden for Missouri citizens involved with putting nonviolent drug users away for a decade or two. Let me spell it out: Legalized medical marijuana in the state of Missouri would simultaneously help many people who are ailing and reduce the tax burden that comes from incarcerating users.
For what it’s worth, I also commend Obama’s move insofar as it is a nod to increased state sovereignty. A government by and for the people is easier to manage when fewer people need to agree on how to proceed, so sovereignty at lower levels is highly encouraged. For more on that, see my post about Charles Tiebout and the blessing of prioritizing local governance.
Categories: Economic Freedom, Government Spending, Health Care, Taxes
4 Comments
Icon 2009 report – split first in vintage
I’m going to try and toss this off as fast as possible so I can get back to heatsealing my apt. for wintertime.
Legacy:
I played goblins, basically the list I posted on these forms previously, though the SB was 4 (relic, pyrokinesis, krosan grip) 3 mindbreak trap
rd 1 UG threshold
My opponent had a borrowed deck and BMI of ~45. I noticed that he took a while to make most decisions, but was forgiving because he kept repeating how he doesn’t play legacy and had never played the deck before. Unfortunately for both of us, we went to time. If the clock hadn’t run out, I almost certainly would’ve won the third game.
0-0-1
rd 2 UB combo
This was the guy Vroman beat rd one. He really did seem to know what he was doing and was not scared of either of my turn one lackeys. game one he cast doomsday with top in play and mana available, winning that turn. Game two he went off turn one with ritual-ritual-ad nauseum. the three mindbreak traps that came in from the side did all they could be expected to and didn’t show up for work.
0-1-1
rd 3 Lalo with embarassing mono U combo
NotMeJosh was suitably unimpressed with his own deck “choice” — borrowed from Jason, also in our car, solely so he could add value to what was basically a vintage tournament trip for him. I don’t remember our games that well, but I’m pretty sure they were not close.
1-1-1
with the hat trick of match result possibilities under my belt, I dropped and decided to check out what trade possibilities Icon had in store while the rest of the legacy event played out. I proceeded to make some of the most lopsided (in my favor) deals I’ve ever done in ~13 years of magic playing. then I ate some chicken strips (like a boss).
Vintage
I had almost the same list as I played when I won the mox, only now I had maindeck 3 mindbreak traps, 1 extirpate(mainly for bloodghast, though good in other situations) and two super sneaky Tgoyfs. SB was also a little different, but nothing impressive. List forthcoming.
rd 1 100 card standard-legal white weenie.
It was basically like this.
I FoW’d a celestial purge on my Welder game one and assembled vault-key on like turn 3, then explained to him how it worked and that I would just attack 20 times with my welder. He scooped. Game two took me longer to assemble the combo, so when I did I had Goyf and Sphinx in play, and once he realized it was same song, second verse, he scooped again. But he did try to Solemn Offering my key on my turn, so I explained that you can’t play sorceries on other ppl’s turns, so instead he pitfall trapped my goyf, which I drained.
rd 2 Jaker with Stax
Jaker has repeatedly throughout the day shown his willingness to make mistakes, though I don’t remember any obvious ones from our match. I think I scooped game two to overwhelming board-lock. Game three went to me. I seem to recall goyfs, but I am probably misremembering.
rd 3 Colin with stormdrain
with 14 players total, despite the two draws already in the tourney(one player drew both of the first two rounds and wound up making T4) if Colin and I had IDd we’d both pretty much have to win the next round, so we fought, and he won. I always felt like I was behind, but after the match I chalked it up to my draws.
rd 3 sean mcgonigal with very outdated odd-ball combo. I’m talkin Platinum angel, diminishing returns and no counterspells.
I wasn’t afraid of the deck so much as I was worried that he would be a jerk while lucksacking me out. turns out neither of those things happened. While this guy def came across as a jerk earlier I basically established that while he is an ignorant loudmouth, he’s a nice guy when you get to know him. after I beat him we played some pickup games with his vintage goblins against my tournament deck. These games were suitably easier for me than our tourney match.
The top 4 was basically determined at the start of rd 4 – Vroman and cole drew in, while the winner of me vs sean and jason vs two-draws-guy finish out the top 4. Since I won my match, all that was needed was for jason to pull it out to have an all StL top 4. That didn’t happen.
However, Vroman had no trouble dispatching Hombre de Dos Draws, and StL finished well in the black. Oh yeah and I beat Cole in the semifinals, thus vindicating my earlier defeat at his hands.
Categories: mtg
Leave a comment
High Time for a Change in Higher Education
[This post was originally written for my employer’s blog, Show-Me Daily.]
Aristotle said that “Education is the best provision for old age,” and I believe that this insight applies to both of the common purposes for pursuing a college degree: investment in human capital and personal enrichment.
This piece in the Post-Dispatch discusses the gap in higher education completion between St. Louis and other metropolitan areas, as well as what is to be done about it. The St. Louis area is well below average, apparently, and this is unquestioningly seen in the article as a problem not of individual motivation, but of institutional provision for the disadvantaged. I will propose a third option not discussed by the author or likely considered by most readers of the piece: too many people are going to college with the intention of getting a bachelor’s degree.
This unpopular sounding idea consists of three insights, all of which are championed by Charles Murray, so I’ve embedded a video of him explaining his stance at the end of this post. The first insight is that you don’t need four years of coursework for any occupation — even doctors spend much of medical school in an internship. The second is that the one-size-fits-all approach of the four-year B.A. is remarkably inefficient in terms of adding value to individuals who are looking to invest in their employability by adding skills/knowledge that will signal to future employers their capabilities. The third is that the two common purposes for pursuing a B.A. should be, but typically are not, treated separately. Personal enrichment is a luxury that many — if not most — high school graduates cannot afford. On the other hand, investing in their own future productivity is great for virtually every high school graduate — so an option other than the four-year degree is called for.
Again, Charles Murray is the main proponent, in terms of visibility, of the idea I am putting forth here. However, I have not read or heard him discuss one major problem with the present scenario: It will be difficult to implement change, given that the B.A. at present is an established signal from applicants to employers, and a systematic change would be required to eliminate this well-socialized practice as the standard signaling mechanism and instead move toward a more efficient alternative. The best news on this front comes from the high-tech sector: For many years, there has existed a plurality of independent certifications — in networking, programming, and other tech-related fields — that are recognized by employers as acceptable signals, in lieu of a degree. If something like this could catch on in other fields, it would be a boon to anyone trying to get into those fields who is not well-suited — financially or otherwise — to pursue a B.A.
I agree with the Post-Dispatch piece that a change is needed. I strongly disagree that the change needs to entail sending more kids into B.A. programs that many or most of them simply can’t reasonably complete.
For a cogent summary of the problems with the pervasiveness of the B.A., here’s author and public policy advocate Charles Murray:
Categories: Education
3 Comments
Intellectual Property Vs. Clever Parody
[This post was originally written for my employer’s blog, Show-Me Daily.]
The Post-Dispatch has a story about a college freshman from Ladue and the very small clothing line he came up with two years ago as a parody of “The North Face.” Apparently, the legal department at The North Face is taking issue with his business all of a sudden.
Certainly, there is a trade-off between protecting intellectual property and permitting free expression. Absent any copyright protection, an entrepreneur can spend an entire life building good faith in a brand only to have fly-by-night startups capitalize on it by selling under the trusted name. However, the case of Jimmy Winkelmann — the parody clothing line’s creator — is clearly not in need of the intellectual property adjuvant. Even if each respective clothing line were displayed on adjacent shelves at Macy’s, I doubt anyone would confuse the brands “The North Face” and “The South Butt,” despite the obvious satirical similarity.
But they aren’t even on adjacent shelves. According to the article, the Ladue Pharmacy on Clayton Road is the only store that stocks the clothing. We don’t need intellectual property rights to protect The North Face from a joke competitor. In fact, I tend to agree with Al Watkins, attorney for “The South Butt,” when he says of “The North Face” (quoted in the article):
“I don’t think they have any grounds to stand on,” Watkins said. “They’re just being bullies.”
Categories: Courts, Economic Freedom
3 Comments
Taxinomics: How Not to Run an Industry
[This post was originally written for my employer’s blog, Show-Me Daily.]
There’s an article in the Chicago Sun-Times about the state of the taxi industry in the Windy City, and how cab drivers are presently working to change it. Rates are capped there by the city, and any rate hike requires prior approval by the City Council. The last such hike happened in 2005, when rates rose by 11.7 percent. Drivers are currently petitioning for a hike of 22 percent, as well as requesting a $1 fee for each additional passenger, $1 for trips dispatched over the phone, a $1.50 credit card “convenience” fee, and a $50 fee for “clean-up” in case a cavorter gets sick in the back of a car.
The additional passenger fee is an industry standard; I’m surprised they don’t charge this already. The other fees seem like ways to internalize the cost of doing business. That is, the cabbies will have to pay for these things anyway, in the form of cell phones, fees to a credit card company for having access to credit card billing machines, and professional cleaning services. They either take a hit when these types of situations arise, and are thus marginally less likely to provide service to those sorts of customers (credit card users, people who order by phone, and the inebriated), or else they lobby to raise their rates even higher, thereby dispersing the costs onto customers who don’t force the cabbies to bear them (those who pay in cash and hold their liquor). The legislators who are voting on the cabbies’ petition profess to have a sympathetic ear for the working drivers, but aren’t sure if cab riders can face the increased costs, especially what with “this recession that we’re in.”
Perhaps it is the case that taxicabs should be licensed by someone — I would argue that this should be a private, professional agency like the AICPA (which certifies accountants) rather than a local or state government board — but even if we grant the necessity of things like a criminal background check and a driving competency rating (perhaps this is what a driver’s license is for), why regulate the amounts that can be charged? The “moral” and “social” arguments for limiting what drivers can charge are endless, as well as baseless. What would happen in the total absence of taxi rate regulation in a large city?
First, let’s see what happens when prices are regulated. Economics 101 tells us that if regulators set the prices too low, there will be a shortage of cabs; more people will want a ride at that price than there will be drivers willing to take them. Similarly, if regulators set the price too high, there is a possibility that the market will approach equilibrium, but the restriction on supply brought about by the presence of limited “taxi licenses” will likely result in increased revenue for cab drivers above market levels, and fewer people riding in taxis than would do so in the absence of such a limited number of licenses. In addition, there are other adverse effects that such restrictions have on the market, similar to the negative effects of rent control, such as a decreased incentive to improve product quality, or to distinguish your company or cab as having better quality, through branding or other similar behavior.
In the absence of price controls, some cabs would charge more, but there is every reason to believe that many — or even most — would charge less. Competition drives down prices and improves quality, because customers demand low prices and high quality. Sufficiently competitive circumstances allow the best to rise to the top. Restrictive licensing and legislating the rates that taxis can charge are both bad ideas for Chicago, and they’re also bad ideas right here in Missouri.
Categories: Economic Freedom, Regulation, Transportation
2 Comments
Vroman made me do it: Tourney Report from 9/20 Mox event
At 6am on Sunday, Vroman, Josh Lalo and I departed from Vroman’s apartment in the U-city loop to drive 5+hours to a Vintage tournament a little ways north of Chicago to compete for a Mox Pearl.
The night before the event, I went to a birthday party for a friend of my girlfriend’s. It was Ninja/Zombie themed and Mary did my makeup beforehand. Sadly a pic of ZombieJosh is unavailable, but I found out later I still had some red stuff coming out of my nose, so try to picture that when I’m describing my games later. Also I was on about 4 hours of sleep.
I have played in a number of power tourneys before, but never even come particularly close to walking away with magic cards valued in the triple digits — largely because I get super skiddish once I make any kind of cut (top8, top4) and want to organize a split, because I don’t like variance and my expected value is basically fixed once the cut happens (or so I think). Or maybe I am just not confident enough in my ability to beat other magic players in a top 8.
Anyway, we arrive at Xtreme Games at approximately 11:15, in plenty of time for the noon scheduled start. The dozen or so people milling around as noon approaches don’t look particularly threatening, but what do I know? I’m sure I looked like a typical beard in a bright green t-shirt. I did notice one fella wearing a black t-shirt with the elegantly silk-screened
FUCK
TEZZ
on the front in large white letters. “What a classy fellow,” I remember thinking. I also remember thinking I hope I don’t play that guy. More on that later.
When round one starts, 16 players sit down for four rounds, cut to top eight. I didn’t write down any names, so I’ll have to identify my opponents by their deck. Here’s what I sat down with:
4 Force of Will
4 Mana Drain
1 Ancestral Recall
1 Ponder
1 Brainstorm
1 Lim-Dul’s Vault
1 Merchant Scroll
1 Mystical Tutor
1 Demonic Tutor
1 Vampiric Tutor
1 Gifts Ungiven
1 Fact or Fiction
1 Fire // Ice
1 Rebuild
1 Tinker
1 Transmute Artifact
1 Intuition
1 Time Walk
1 Timetwister
1 Sphinx of the Steel Wind
1 Regrowth
1 Recoup
1 Yawgmoth’s Will
1 Ancient Grudge
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Goblin Welder
1 Empty the Warrens
1 Memory Jar
1 Time Vault
1 Voltaic Key
1 Black Lotus
1 Lotus Petal
1 Tropical Island
1 Tundra
1 Tolarian Academy
1 Island
1 Sol Ring
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Pearl
1 Mox Sapphire
1 Mox Jet
1 Mana Crypt
1 Mana Vault
3 City of Brass
2 Flooded Strand
2 Polluted delta
2 Underground Sea
1 Volcanic Island
SB:
4 Leyline of the Void
1 Helm of Obedience
2 Pyroblast
1 Sower of Temptation
1 Balance
1 Seal of Cleansing
1 Crime // Punishment
1 Trinisphere
1 Shattering Spree
1 Tormod’s Crypt
1 Echoing Truth
RD 1 Workshop aggro? 2-0
I lose the roll and force his turn one thorn of amethyst (off workshop) because it made my hand of two lands, mox, tinker really clunky if it resolved. After my uneventful reply turn one of land, off-color mox, go, I was sweating bullets when he cast crop rotation off of basic forest. What would he get? Strip mine to ruin my day? Wasteland to do the same? Maze of Ith to make my tinker useless? Bazaar to quickly win the card quality competition? Imagine my relief when he retrieved a second ‘shop and cast Triskelion. No need for a counter, I can race that. On my turn I tinker for sphinx of the steel wind, and he plays nothing meaningful for the rest of the game, though I was worried a Duplicant might hit play.
SB:
-1 timetwister
-1 empty the warrens (I like to side this out against stax, since if they succeed at all in their plan, multiple spells per turn are out of the question)
-1 regrowth
+1 echoing truth
+1 seal of cleansing
+1 shattering spree
Game two was even more lopsided. He plays turn one welder, turn two ATTACK, miss land drop, thorn of amythest off lotus petal. I decide that if he isn’t going to play lands and is going to attack with the best creature in type one, I can afford to allow the thorn. As predicted, the thorn was mostly in his side as he attacked with welder for about four straight turns while was making land, mox and sol ring drops. I added a seal of cleansing to the board pretty quickly but saw no reason to even use it right away. He added a second welder off his eventual second land, so I echoing truthed the welders to gain some tempo in what felt like an unloseable game. Eventually I realized the thorn was hurting me slightly more, as I was the only one playing spells, so I popped it and Fact or Fictioned into time vault with a tutor for key in hand. He wanted me to play it out, so I did. He conceded when I tutored for tinker for sphinx.
RD 2 Dredge 2-0
My memory of this match is particularly bad, but I know that I got vault key on turn two or three in game one, and started game two with a leyline. I drew the helm of obedience pretty early on and brainstormed or something into mana vault + voltaic key. This poor man’s vault key gave me the mana i needed to cast and activate the illustrious helm.
RD 3 Don’t know ID
I sat down for this round and immediately started making a chart to see if all the talk last round about “anyone with six points can draw in” had any merit. Here’s a tutorial for those interested, feel free to skip if you don’t care.
ASIDE
The horizontal rows are the round numbers. The vertical columns are the number of players with a particular number of points after whatever round(row) they are in. We assume away draws, because draws only reduce the total number of points and on net, can only make worse the record required to make the cut. That is, when draws are present in the results, people with worse records tend to make it in.
—- 0 — 3 — 6 — 9 — 12
0 — 16 ——————- (before rd 1, everyone has 0 pts)
1 — 8 — 8 ————— (after rd one, half the people win and half the people lose)
2 — 4 — 8 — 4 ———- (in this rd, half the people with zero pts (four of them) lost, and half won, same for the 3 pointers)
3 — 2 — 6 — 6 — 2 —- (same rules as before, half win in each pt bracket and stay where they are, and half move up)
4 — 1 — 4 — 6 — 4 — 1 (note that these numbers are abnormally easy, owing to the power of 2 number of players(2^4=16). There are no odd numbers until the last round. Normally you have to make assumptions or make separate charts to deal with the event of an upset (a paired down player loses) which can only happen with an odd number of people in a given point bracket)
So in the absence of any draws, the undefeated player makes the cut, and so do all the 9 pointers, but that’s only five people. so 3 of the 6 pointers make top 8 on tie breaks. Since you need at LEAST 6 points to make the cut in the max points (no draws) scenario, and there aren’t more than 8 people with at least six points in RD 3, this means that anyone with more than six points must make the cut whether they have draws or not.
/ASIDE
I explained to my opponent using a chart much like the one above that if we drew we were guaranteed to make the cut. Who says no to that? Thankfully not this fellow, and I spent the rest of this round watching Spiderman 3 on the bigscreen in the adjacent room. Vroman lost RD one as well as this round so he was out of contention. Lalo was 2-0, so he ID’d also.
RD 4 Josh Lalo ID
It was a hard fought battle. Knowing we were both guaranteed in made it hard not to scoop to my car-mate/name-a-like. In the end, I accepted the handshake and watched more BugmanIII.
Suddenly I found myself struck with an overwhelming desire to learn all about the prize structure. Here’s what I learned
1.mox pearl
2.FTV:E
3-4. “a dual land each”
5-8. a draft set
Now I am getting visions swirling in my head of sacrificing 17 hours of my life and $25 for a draft set, but the total prize pool was so small I just wasn’t really comfortable with an eight way split, never mind the logistics of actually organizing such a thing.
TOP 8
Quarterfinals mono U 2-0
I am told that the guy I played is quite good, and never did he make a mistake that I noticed, apart from the obvious one everyone has likely noticed by now, namely: playing mono U. I could describe in detail about how I agonized over every play, always feeling slightly behind and worrying over every counter, even down to merely one card in his hand. I could do that, but the best way to describe this match is to say that in both games he went first, playing ancestral visions off an island, and he never removed the last counter. I managed to kill him in three turns, two games in a row. Ok, technically the last game it took me four turns, but one of them was a timewalk turn. I started that game with turn one tinker for sphinxer, and he forced or fetched his way to a three-swing kill. Game one I believe he scooped to vault-key.
My top four match was one of the first two to finish. The other to finish quickly was won by none other than FUCKTEZZ, who would be playing the winner of Lalo’s quarterfinals match. My semi-finals match would be the winner of the Jason Jaco(I think that was his name) vs Very Geeky Looking Guy With R/G LD. This latter fellow folded to Lalo in RD 2, but bested Vroman in Rd 3, giving V his second match loss, making it impossible for him to draw into the cut. I was sorta hoping to face LD guy in the semis, partly because his deck was lacking things like Null Rod and seemed like a pushover, but mostly because his opponent seemed way too competent. I did not get my wish.
The top 4 wound up being two Joshes (way to take it down Lalo!), Jason Jaco, and FUCKTEZZ. I immediately wanted to organize a split. Since the dualland prizes for 3-4 were non-blue, I valued them at about $30, the FTV:E at $100 and the mox at $250. This meant that each person would get around $100 in the event of a split, with whoever got the mox paying $70 to each of the dualland recipients and the last person getting the FTV:E outright. This sounded just fine to me and Jason Jaco (we both wanted to leave asap), but Josh Lalo wasn’t hearing it, and neither was FUCKTEZZ.
I tried to reason with FUCKTEZZ first, since Lalo was still playing, explaining to him how nobody wanted to get only $30 when they could get $100 guaranteed, and we drove a long way and want to leave. Here’s an example of the type of replies I got:
“I give a fuck about the money”
“I just came to play some magic”
“I play poker for a living so I could give a fuck about the cards, I just wanna win”
“I lost 2400 dollars this week so I give a fuck about a hundred dollars”
These last two struck me as peculiar. I know that poker has high variance, but how much longer can someone who “plays poker for a living” continue to do so when he is losing over a grand a week? Moreover, you’d think that he would A)try to stem the tide by maximizing his return on this event and B) face a high opportunity cost of playing the silly magic game, when he could be pokering to recoup his losses.
Either way, the split was obviously not happening, and after beginning to set up and then moving twice, Jaco and I sat down for what was the most fun match of Type 1 I think I’ve ever played (or maybe just the most fun one that didn’t involve turn one Phyrexian Negator).
Semi-Finals Jason Jaco 2-1
He seemed like a nice guy, and this was for quite a bit of money, so I chatted him up as we shuffled and began to play. I never do this with magic opponents, though I may do it more in the future and highly recommend it for anyone. The people are the most important reason to play this game, IMO.
I scouted quite a bit in the quarterfinals, going so far as to watch him resolve a tutor, so I knew what he was playing rather well and didn’t like my odds. He had inkwell to my sphinx(shroud is too good) and confidants galore, so I was not likely to win the long game.
I remember that these games were epic, but that’s about it. The only game I remember well is the last one, where I managed to put 14 goblins on the board with him at 16, and pass the turn with no cards in hand. He took a LONG time thinking about ways out over the next couple turns, so long in fact that I pulled out my rubik’s cube and solved it repeatedly while waiting. In the end he found no answer to my goblin offensive(not the card, the attack, and they certainly are) and I was headed to the Finals.
At this point I was satisfied with any prize as I had shown my willingness to split for just $100 which I had valued the FTV at earlier, so losing wouldn’t’ve been so bad. Except that my opponent was the abrasive FUCKTEZZ. I had gotten to the point where this guy’s attitude and swagger were really pissing me off, plus he had just beaten my boy Lalo, so I felt I had to take him down. This one was for all the honor.
FINALS FUCKTEZZ 2-0
As we sat down he refused the split once more, and made comments to the effect of “I don’t even know what a from the vault is.” I explained in some detail exactly what it is, to which he replied “Well, I don’t even know what a from the vault is.”
. . . ok then.
Game one involved an unanswered turn one welder, getting time vault in my hand off a fact or fiction, then resolving gifts for lotus, mana vault, mana crypt and voltaic key with no mana up but a sol ring in play. Yeah, can’t lose that one. He thought about it for a while then gave me mana vault and key, so I welded in lotus and played it all, took my first free turn, welding out mana vault during my upkeep so as not to lose on damage, took a couple turns just drawing some cards, then began to swing with Goblin of the Weld, at which point he scooped.
Game two I mulliganed and he turn one duressed, taking the balance out of my one land two mox, demonic tutor, sol ring, balance hand. I’m drawing a blank on the details, but somehow I didn’t lose this game either.
During the match, Jaco, perhaps recognizing the jerkitude of the fellow before him, offered to play FUCKTEZZ for money or even “the mox if you win it.” Downcast gazes and hasty excuses about needing to meet up with his “babymama” stayed his hubris’s execution. This made me think of something else, which Vroman pointed out on the ride home: if you have a child you REALLY can’t afford to lose a couple grand a week at poker. Too each his own, I suppose.
I offered to buy his FTV:E for 70 cash which I had on me to buy Drew Idoux’s copy the next day as planned (I would be willing to pay that much for two, I guess), but he declined saying that he already had an offer for more. Hopefully not too much less than the $100 or so he stood to gain from the split he refused all the way to the finals.
In order to piss off Vroman, I am reviving the Props and Slops:
Props
-Vroman for driving and being the orchestrator of my attending the event
-Lalo for manning up and making the trip, not to mention top fouring
-Xtreme Games for putting up the mox and running the event so well
-That guy from Wings for beating the hell out of tobey maguire
-my deck for serving up game after game of turn two or three vault-key
HUGE PROPS
-FUCKTEZZ for not only refusing the split and thus adding value to my tournament winnings, but making my win that much sweeter by acting ignorant all the way.
Slops
-Gregg for deciding to stay home at the absolute last minute. Surprise, last minute, short-deadline project for work = nut low.
-the mexican cafe down the strip from XG for not being able to make a decent hotdog
-me if I spelled anything wrong and for not remembering more details. I have taken decent notes at so many tournaments I’ve scrubbed out on — why not this time?
My only regret is that I didn’t make the TGalbs victory speech:
“I’d like to thank so many people for my win today. I’d like to thank my parents for raising me, my opponents for being courteous as well as not out-drawing me. I’d like to thank my playtest group and the guys I traveled with for making this all possible. And most of all, I’d like to thank God Almighty for helping me to win today.
“I’d like to thank all those people, but I can’t, because I DID IT ALL. That’s right I have no one to thank but myself for being the greatest.”
PS. Vault-key is completely busted, if you haven’t heard.
Categories: Uncategorized
1 Comment
Missouri’s Ticking Pension Time Bomb
[This post was originally written for my employer’s blog, Show-Me Daily.]
The front page article in today’s Post-Dispatch is about the underfunding of Missouri’s public employee pension programs. This is a serious issue that deserves more attention, and the Show-Me Institute is happy to oblige. Check out our full policy study on the matter, as well as this op-ed by Joe Haslag, who is quoted in the P-D article.
The main problem with Missouri’s public employee pension plans, as discussed in both the P-D article and our policy study, is that they use an outdated system of defined benefits. This plan is generally less expensive for the employees (who is likely concerned about retirement savings, at least somewhat) and more expensive for the employers (who have to pay the difference when the amount they set aside in anticipation of payouts turns out to be insufficient because of changes in valuation, such as stock market fluctuations).
The economics of this arrangement can be simplified as follows (pardon if this is too abecedarian): Employees accept a certain wage and benefit package when choosing between employers. It is common for employers to compete for employees by offering different combinations of wage and benefit packages. When viewed in context of the prevailing type of plan offered by employers, the Missouri public employee pension plans are more generous to the employee and more expensive for the employer. It may be the case that in order to attract the number and quality of employees that the various state agencies desire, a less attractive benefits package with a less generous pension plan would need to be balanced with increased salaries.
As I see it, this is a very good thing. The costs of retirement benefits are only fully realized in the future, when market fluctuations may cause a plan to become underfunded — a situation that is likely to happen only with defined benefit plans. One reason these plans are popular, however, is because the nature of political incentives means that politicians have a much greater chance of enacting a plan with benefits that can be realized today and costs that are paid for tomorrow. If government agencies in Missouri were forced to compete with private companies based on salary rather than benefits, this would lead to increased immediate costs for public employees, which would also mean higher taxes. I think that Missourians would be more likely to vote for less public spending if the spending had to be paid for here and now, rather than after the lifetime of the employee’s career.
As Richard Dreyfuss points out in his Show-Me Institute policy study, defined contribution plans would not only level the playing field between public and private employers pursuing potential employees, it would put the Missouri pension plans on firm ground, economically — defusing the time bomb of underfunded employee pensions.
Categories: Government Spending, Taxes
Leave a comment