Kasimir

It is but there's only so long I can watch zero pressure being applied to that player bracket before I snap with exasperation and while it's dramatic, the red bold should grab attention and make my thoughts clear. Sart's Elim game is solid IMO. He won that QF as Hoid and ever since that game, I've refused to let Sart get away with minimum showing up in thread and no ability to form much of a read on him. IIRC he was very much under the radar and a lot of players formed a shooting gallery. I was riding shotgun with Wyrm, Meta, and...Ren? Was it Ren? that game so I remember. He's too lethal for me to be ok with that. Oh, and no disagreement with Archer about Araris being very under the radar. Good luck!

So how are they going to find each other when there's...so many Shardworlds? You'd think the obvious answer would be they'd hightail to Roshar given the advertisement, but it's just me there. They're better off getting/trying for Prudence and PMing players they believe are likely to be candidates for Elims, because there's no chance of having a Villager see this there. The bolded assumption is still very strong, because hello, more of the team trying for a Shard >>> less of the team. Your odds are better that way, especially since you can coordinate and N0 showed there was a copious lack of Village cooperation. I'm not objecting to the idea that it may be revealing, and I think it's worth pointing out Alpha and Stink both claimed to have worldhopped. I'm objecting to the idea that this doesn't seem to have very much basis as an operating assumption. Edited to add: Furthermore, suppose your theory is right. If all Villagers stay put, isn't it functionally the case that the Elims are simply not going to claim to not be on Silverlight? Who's going to rat them out as lying? So then what's the point of your theory? Edited to add 2: TJ's willingness to retract fundamentally a good look IMO. Weak but there you have it. Not seeing signs of awareness that Hoid and Khriss and Bavadin start with 4 charges. Weak because TJ rules derp is normal. Not sure I'm fond of TBB's assertiveness - feel E!TBB tends to be more willing to be a bit more decisive about his reads. Comparing how much he waffled in LG94 to LG90 (Araris's E!TBB game I think.) Extremely unfond of how Sart has slipped under the radar. Sart should not be getting away with this little public thought into the game - I remember he was a very lethal overlooked Hoid in QF4 (no one @ me I know I'm decrepit). Not seeing anything at all indicative of Hoid's V meta. Slight squintingly + on Alpha for QF66 'one SP' issues - Alpha's claim had that sort of vibe, but I'm taking it back for a lack of willingness to solve, so it washes out. (Yes hypocritical I know.) Elan / Fifth / Drake / Xino et al peripherality not good - yes Fifth, I know and get it, but I also can't simply remove you from PoE that way. Don't disagree with Archer's Turtle read, there's probably something instructive with going back to LG90 and LG91 to re-read (I think? There's a good V/E Turtle comparison to be had) but CBA to do, I'm at a highstorm rave. MR56 vibes from STINK. Don't really feel have a good handle on STINK one way or another, but that's STINK for you. Don't fully disagree with the Mat reads but think the correct comparator here is Mobborn!Mat and I don't really recall how Mat played in that game. Mat keeps emphasising this is a faction game which is a bit hmm given the set-up of the Village wincon functionally and I think comparing his play to LG94 is just fundamentally a mistake because his Mobborn game is probably a better comparator if he's Hoid/Khriss/Bavadin i.e. not Village. Also CBA to do, I'm chilling. I hate doing this but good vibes from JNV because Village meta #why Withholding Archer read pending further confirmation. Look no one said I told you so I CAN'T LIVE LIKE THIS OK JUST LET ME SAY A BIT AND THEN I'LL TRY TO BE GOOD AND STOP TRYING TO THINK ABOUT THIS GAME OK. Ok back to highstorm raves. Edited to add 3: Oh right, Szeth. Noticing marked deviation from LG91 V!Szeth and QF66 V!Szeth. Probably MR61 as well but my memory of that is less fresh. Considering potential E!Szeth world.

Yeah my bad, it's been a very good rave With recreational substances and that thumpin' bass line! Well, they humoured me and did that Freddie Mercury-David Bowie vocals from Under Pressure which is also a pretty good rave song if dated. Tempted to ask if VOCALS can do that DotA song :eyes:

Actually, this is an interesting hot take. As you can tell, most people did not worldhop. And this is a Shard game with Intent Conversion. I don't for a second believe it's not remotely anticipatable that most people who signed up for this game would want to try very hard for a Shard and Intent Convert since that's kind of the whole point. I do think sitting on the Shards is better for Village because of SD, but let's face it, it was never a psychologically reasonable expectation. Anticipating that there's any worthwhile networking to be doing when there are still fifteen Shards to be claimed is a prediction so weird I'm wondering what mindset you're approaching this game from. Wait. What am I doing. I am not supposed to...grrrr.

VOCALS just said they were there to join the party doc, given how much I was advertising going there to chill and inviting everyone along, but I wouldn't be terribly surprised that/if Autonomy just didn't want There's a chance Autonomy might've wanted to see what was happening in case there was game-relevant discussion on Roshar. But I'm just chilling at the highstorm raves so I've not really bothered antagonising VOCALS and am not in the mood to do so/try to solve for their identity. In my view, if you get a bunch of them, hop to somewhere like Scadrial or Braize ASAP and burn. Sel not a bad shout either - Scadrial lets you burn two at once, Braize lets you burn three (!!!), and Sel lets you do a swap so the net effect is a differential of 2. The one worry I have and the reason I mention the worlds is because technically if Autonomy is gunning for this, they can probably outproduce your burn rate. But not sure.

Yeah. There, you have some of the basics. But again, tbf, I might be biased - back when I was training, my first instructor was not a fan of theory. He had one job and that was to train a team to win at the upcoming tournament so he more or less drilled us in certain openings and responses and insisted we memorise them. Which kinda took the fun out of it. I did pick up some of the theory by osmosis and reading on my own, but also when I was called for nationals, I think they were better about teaching theory though anyway I was never very good. Got beaten by a preschooler lol. And there ended my dabbling in chess because I had exams :| Edited to add: Fifth and Devo curbstomp me Tbh I'd be so interested to see Drake take on Fifth as I think it would be an epic matchup.

Because Stockfish isn't really a substitute for a solid grasp of the basics, though I guess I dunno how strongly I feel about this. Position play, trade value, opportunities, all of that I think needs to be something you grasp. Opportunities, e.g. can you open forks? Can you force zugzwang? Can you set up an x-ray/pin/skewer? Off the top of my head, for instance: any move that puts a knight on a or h file had better have a pretty good justification, because sidelining a knight usually is a pretty bad move positionally. But maybe doing so paves the way for an attack on a weakly-developed side of Black's game, which is where the opportunities weigh in. Stockfish helps you assess what the options are. But then the other downside to Stockfish is that people don't usually really play the way the machines do I guess. Stockfish will give you a number to weight how good a move is for white and black but it won't really tell you why the rating is the way it is, and it'll change with Stockfish depth. IDK I've found it less helpful than the books at this juncture but I usually tend to prefer theory anyway, I know.

Meme Version #2: Not much of an artist, for sure, so I'm shrugging this off as a quick paint job

Artistically lacking but One Premium Meme(TM) with all the ducks I'm not giving @DrakeMarshall:

RIP, all the best with RL bhai. IDK bro, I'm on vacation, everything's peaceful ^^

I feel like Stockfish's reaction would be 'wtf is this.' It's definitely nowhere near a by the book game >>

Do you think you could give an example of some games you like? It's difficult to make a recommendation without knowing.

There's at least a profile match, even if I'm not fully convinced of V!TBB.

How about a metalhead :eyes:

I don't really find myself fully believing Hoid and Khriss* were front and centre D1. I think they had better incentive to look contributory but not do anything too noisy and controversial because if they get exed, their factions are in trouble. They want to be under the radar but not obviously inactive. So to Fifth's new wagon comment, well, yes, but despite my reservations, List B is basically anyone who fits that criterion. It's not a suspicions list, just a list of any player who has been slouching. There's meta reasons to favour certain players on the list over others as places to apply pressure but that's more helpful/game-on than I wanna be rn. List A is something else entirely. *I could say the same of Bavadin and I actually believe this is true of Bavadin as well but I also don't want to make VOCALS mad at me as we're having a concert at the rave so I'm not gonna add Bavadin there for the moment. Edited to add: Having a highstorm rave with VOCALS on Roshar smh why didn't you join do u have something against party culture

This Is Not A Reads List: TJ Mat Archer(?) Like, yeah, no crem? I know some of this is definitely on me for being around at EoD and deliberately disengaging, and I'm not very sorry for that, but it's a strange comment to make given no effort from either to make own wagon. I also think it's sort of clear that Hoid and Khriss at least as holders of faction converts are more likely to hide in mid-tier activity while not getting enmeshed in anything seriously controversial. I'm not ruling out Archer and TBB having been 'caught' early on (I have reservations about TBB) and having to talk their way out, but otherwise an ideal D1 for Hoid and Khriss is fundamentally Toucan. And this is as helpful as I feel like being tonight, not sorry. This Is Also Not A Reads List: Sart (!!!) TJ Fifth Fadran Wiz Szeth JNV Xino STINK Elan Alpha Turtle Drake Araris

I mean.