Hall of Shame Nominations: Tempest

[Melkor]

Well, I'm perfectly happy with my nomination going in. Just out of curiosity, what is your defense for Thumbscrews, Spiderman? Not really awful, just weak?

 

[Ransac]

Um..... can we just vote on this already?


Ransac, cpa trash man

 

[Spiderman]

Melkor: Yeah, I mean, it's basically Black Vise but with you being the condition instead of your opponent. And in that case, it's just like Ivory Tower. And there's plenty of reasons to keep a near-full hand - to draw off Library of Alexandria, for one. And I've used both in my Manabarbs deck, back before formats came along, so I know it's not Hall Of Shame worthy. If I had Thumbscrews, I might have thrown it in just to see how it performed.

Ransac: The voting thread is already up in Voting...

 

[Melkor]

Yes, but there is a huge difference between 1, 2 , or 3 damage (or to lesser extent life) and 1, always. I think I just hate it because it is just so obvious that it is too weak to ever get played and its effect is completely uninteresting so it doesn't have that going either and yet R&D still made it and put in the rare slot.

 

[Oversoul]

And then you remove it...

You're relying on being able to repeatedly clear away all of the opponent's creatures? Yes, in that situation, Mogg Squad can kill someone. I guess I forgot about the deadly Panoptic Mirror + Plague Wind + Mogg Squad combo.

Even in such a situation, Mogg Squad is only as good as any other vanilla 3/3. Actually, it's still worse, because you can't use other creatures alongside it and your opponent can still kill it if he can play three creatures in one turn. This is like Opalescence + Melting combos or other expensive methods to make normally useless cards work about as well as other cards already work. By this line of reasoning, no card in the history of the game is worthy of the hall of shame.

You underestimate people.

No, I don't think so. But if you actually knew that I was, you'd be able to give an example. Since you're the person arguing that Mogg Squad isn't total crap, I think it's fair to put the onus on you here. I'm going to dismiss the existence of some nebulous "people" somewhere who have found a way to make Mogg Squad practical. If you can show me, then fine. If not, I find no reason to assume that some little-known Mogg Squad tech exists.

But saying "if someone has used Mogg Squad successfully, I want to know about it", that's where you'll find it. Not here with 10 people, which is hardly a real sampling of Magic card usage. Yeah, you might get lucky and find someone here who's used it, but NOT having anyone say they've used it and/or successfully isn't a reason to conclude that it's no good.

Alright, just to make this perfectly clear, I wasn't requesting information. I mean, I would be perfectly happy to receive it. But what I was actually doing was asserting my confidence that the information in question doesn't exist. That's why I wouldn't look for it. I don't believe anyone has ever found a way to make Mogg Squad a good card because I don't believe there is such a way and I don't believe people can find things that don't exist. I'm not impelled, not even a little bit, to go on other sites and ask about this any more than I am about past hall of shame cards. Why would I be?

Because people are still saying stuff. Why are you posting in the thread when you've already given your reasons why you think the cards are bad?

Because you used to nominate cards with the rest of us and now you've inexplicably switched to saying that none of the cards in the set are bad enough. It seems like it would be petty to go back and review your past nominations, but I could do the same thing for them (contrive silly scenarios in which they're as good as other cards are by themselves) as you're doing for the cards in this set. I don't see the point.

And you misstate my position: I said I don't think there are any Hall of Shame-worthy cards in the set, not bad cards in general.

The standard I've been applying this whole time is to vote for the card that I believe is the worst in the set. The only other standard I can conceive of that would make still make sense would be a modification of this, such as choosing what one thinks is the worst card in the set, but giving special weight to rares. You're apparently going by some other metric, but all I know about it so far is that it seems to involve rejecting cards if one can imagine a situation where the card accomplishes something, but that would eliminate every card.

 

[Spiderman]

Dude, the whole point of Mogg Squad is that it's cheaper than other vanilla 3/3's at that time. So yeah, it has a drawback. Big whoop. It's not enough to make it Hall of Shame worthy.

I think saying that Mogg Squad is total crap and then dismissing any possibility that someone out there, among the thousands of Magic players past and present, found a "way" of making it work is just lazy. I'm not asking you to MAKE it into a decent card or give an example where it works. I'm just saying that there IS a way of making it work and as such, it isn't the worst card in the set.

Because you used to nominate cards with the rest of us and now you've inexplicably switched to saying that none of the cards in the set are bad enough.

To be frank, I've always thought from the beginning that this whole Hall of Shame idea isn't that hot (no offense to BigBlue, who I think brought this up). I think there are maybe a handful of cards in the entire Magic existance that really belong to it - certainly not one from each expansion. That's why I let you guys do this whole card nomination thing as opposed to me doing it like I did with the Hall of Fame.

So I nominated some cards in the early sets because I did think they were bad (although some were just so one or two weren't the only nominees) and some I missed because I meant to look at the card lists but missed the deadline. This set is the first where I actually think there aren't any deserving cards. So sue me.

 

[BigBlue]

No offense taken - I understand your stance... I was making the Ying to the Yang of the HoF... and it was also in response to an old article I found elsewhere listing the worst 250 cards of all time...

 

[Oversoul]

Dude, the whole point of Mogg Squad is that it's cheaper than other vanilla 3/3's at that time. So yeah, it has a drawback. Big whoop. It's not enough to make it Hall of Shame worthy.

Yes, it is cheaper than "other" vanilla 3/3's. The use of "other" is questionable, though, since Mogg Squad is more likely to be a 1/1 or a 0/0 even if it's the only creature you are playing. You have to either rely on your opponent not playing any creatures at all or be able to repeatedly sweep away all creatures on his side of the board in order for this card to work. That's bad. One might even say it's shamefully bad.

I think saying that Mogg Squad is total crap and then dismissing any possibility that someone out there, among the thousands of Magic players past and present, found a "way" of making it work is just lazy.

I'm not about to dedicate the rest of my life to finding a use for Mogg Squad. That's partially because I have other things to do, but it's also because that's not how discourse works. When one party makes a claim, it's not up to others to go hunt for substantiation for that party's claim. The onus is on the person making the claim. You think people have found a way to make Mogg Squad practical. I say show me the evidence. I suppose it is dismissive, in a way. I'll dismiss it until I see the evidence. Is that lazy? I think it's more akin to empiricism or just going about things in a sane way. But if you want to call it laziness, then fine. I guess I'm lazy. Viva laziness.

I'm not asking you to MAKE it into a decent card or give an example where it works. I'm just saying that there IS a way of making it work and as such, it isn't the worst card in the set.

There is a way of making it work in the sense that a scenario can be contrived in which it does something? That can be said of any card, so it's certainly a poor justification for saying it's not the worst card in the set.

To be frank, I've always thought from the beginning that this whole Hall of Shame idea isn't that hot (no offense to BigBlue, who I think brought this up). I think there are maybe a handful of cards in the entire Magic existance that really belong to it - certainly not one from each expansion. That's why I let you guys do this whole card nomination thing as opposed to me doing it like I did with the Hall of Fame.

That seems perfectly fair. Not everyone is going to want to participate in everything. If you don't care for a hall of shame, you don't care for a hall of shame. That's no crime.

Whatever happened to the hall of fame anyway?

 

[Spiderman]

When one party makes a claim, it's not up to others to go hunt for substantiation for that party's claim. The onus is on the person making the claim.

True dat. But I'm going to be lazy here, because I don't have the time nor the inclination either to go look for a viable Mogg Squad deck. You're making the claim that there's no way Mogg Squad can be used in a decent deck. So you ought be looking too. Since we're both not gonna, I'm gonna go with the law of probability and say my claim is more likely than yours.

There is a way of making it work in the sense that a scenario can be contrived in which it does something? That can be said of any card, so it's certainly a poor justification for saying it's not the worst card in the set.

Again true. But looking at Mogg Squad in its entirety, I don't believe it's the worst card. If it was 2RR, sure. If it was 2R, maybe. But for 1R, it's reasonable.

Whatever happened to the hall of fame anyway?

We finished it for the expansions released at the time. I think we give new sets a year before voting again; not sure if that's passed for whatever set that's next.

 

[Oversoul]

True dat. But I'm going to be lazy here, because I don't have the time nor the inclination either to go look for a viable Mogg Squad deck. You're making the claim that there's no way Mogg Squad can be used in a decent deck.

I actually haven't made that claim. I've claimed that it isn't practical. I've claimed that it's one of the worst cards in the game, although certainly not the worst card in the game. It is possible to use it in a decent deck (I suppose anyway, depending on what counts as decent). But I don't believe that it's possible to use it in a decent deck in which another creature wouldn't be a better choice. Being strictly inferior to something else doesn't necessarily make a card bad. I think Time Warp is a fine card and it's strictly inferior to Time Walk. Shock has been useful to a lot of people and it's strictly inferior to Lightning Bolt.

Mogg Squad isn't just in the situation of being strictly inferior to one card. It's much worse than that. Being a cheap red goblin with high power and toughness, the normal use for it would be in aggro (and goblins specifically). But it can't really be used in aggro because one would be using other creatures alongside it. Because other creatures can't be used alongside it, the obvious way to use it would be to use it like Steel Golem (most decks that use Steel Golem aren't red as far as I remember, but it's certainly possible to have this sort of deck). And if it worked like Steel Golem, it would be fine. For example, if it only became weaker with your own creatures, there would be no way I'd vote for it. But it also becomes weaker with opposing creatures. Just one other creature will make it a 2/2, but two other creatures in play means that it's a 1/1, and even the smallest creature your opponent has can kill it. If your opponent manages to get three creatures out, which as you know from playing Magic happens all the time, Mogg Squad dies. It can even die as a side effect from something if your opponent is using certain cards like Deranged Hermit, Sengir Autocrat, Living Death, etc.

The best I can think of is to use Mogg Squad in some way such that it's the same as any other vanilla 3/3. If you completely lock your opponent out of being able to play creatures and you're not using any creatures yourself, Mogg Squad's drawback is completely negated. The fact that it only costed two mana and is therefore cheaper than other 3/3 creatures doesn't really sway me because I would need multiple other cards in order to make the drawback go away.

So you ought be looking too. Since we're both not gonna, I'm gonna go with the law of probability and say my claim is more likely than yours.

I ought to? In that case, anyone who nominates a card should be researching intensively to make sure they're not missing anything. That's not how I've operated and as I understand it, that's not how anyone else has been nominating or voting on cards for this hall of shame. I don't see why Mogg Squad would be the one special case where people would have to do this.

Also, there isn't just one law of probability. There are several (not sure exactly how many and what counts as a law of probability might vary depending on who you ask). I don't know which one you think applies here, but I'm not seeing it.

 

[Spiderman]

Being a cheap red goblin with high power and toughness, the normal use for it would be in aggro (and goblins specifically). But it can't really be used in aggro because one would be using other creatures alongside it.

You should be looking at Modus's deck in the BYOS then. Because Mogg Squad is a perfect candidate for it. So far, the only creatures he's played is one Mogg Fanatic and everything else has been burn. And the Fanatic is easy to get rid of if you want to put out the Squad, and the burn takes care of anything else.

In that case, anyone who nominates a card should be researching intensively to make sure they're not missing anything. That's not how I've operated and as I understand it, that's not how anyone else has been nominating or voting on cards for this hall of shame.

I agree, but neither has anyone else been strenuously defending their nominees or anyone else's for this long. The point of the Hall of Shame is for people to nominate what *they* personally think is a bad card. It's all opinions. Then I come along and say *I* don't think there's any bad cards to nominate and you feel the need to expound on the "virtues" of most of the nominated cards. Dude, it's all opinion.

And the law of probability I'm talking about is that somewhere among the many thousands of Magic players, past and present in the past 10 years or so, someone (and probably more than one someone) has found Mogg Squad to be a "decent" card. Certainly enough not to make it Hall of Shame-worthy.

 

[Oversoul]

You should be looking at Modus's deck in the BYOS then. Because Mogg Squad is a perfect candidate for it. So far, the only creatures he's played is one Mogg Fanatic and everything else has been burn. And the Fanatic is easy to get rid of if you want to put out the Squad, and the burn takes care of anything else.

I've used Mogg Fanatic in red burn decks, sometimes as the only creature. It's useful in that regard because it can attack slower decks if it's your opening play and get one or two attacking damage in before a blocker hits the table, ping utility creatures that might make your burn spells less effective, block to shield you if you're being outraced by another aggro deck, and most importantly always get one damage through no matter what blockers the opponent has.

Mogg Squad would only work alongside it if the opponent is using a creatureless deck. And unless Modus has my sideboard-building skills, he's not going to include it there either (which is good, because none of us is using a creatureless deck). Even then, among our relatively small cardpool, there are probably some better choices.

I agree, but neither has anyone else been strenuously defending their nominees or anyone else's for this long. The point of the Hall of Shame is for people to nominate what *they* personally think is a bad card. It's all opinions. Then I come along and say *I* don't think there's any bad cards to nominate and you feel the need to expound on the "virtues" of most of the nominated cards. Dude, it's all opinion.

Strenuously? I can only assume that you're talking about Mogg Squad in this case, which wasn't my nominee. I have always defended my own nominations to some extent and sometimes defended the nominations of others as well. The only reason I've defended Mogg Squad as a candidate this time was because of your comments.

And no, I don't think it's all opinion. It's certainly subjective, but there's more than opinion to this.

And the law of probability I'm talking about is that somewhere among the many thousands of Magic players, past and present in the past 10 years or so, someone (and probably more than one someone) has found Mogg Squad to be a "decent" card. Certainly enough not to make it Hall of Shame-worthy.

Yeah, like I said, that's not a law of probability. Also, it's another thing you're applying to Mogg Squad specifically that could be applied to any card in the game. That's not why I think it's wrong actually, but it's easier to articulate and just as problematic. By this line of reasoning, every card has been made "decent" somewhere and no card is ever worthy of the hall of shame. There's also a problem with that as a standard for "shame-worthy." If your standard is unreachable, why not "raise" (lower?) it? If a card has to be impossibly bad to make it into the hall of shame, why would that be? Why couldn't merely bad cards make it in? Sure, setting the bar anywhere is at least somewhat arbitrary, I guess. But it seems that the point of having a hall of shame is to put cards in it and not to have it sitting there empty.

Anyway, the real problem with your "law of probability" argument is that it assumes that the card in question is useful when that is the point of contention. In other words, you are begging the question. The card has to be useful in order for someone to find a use for it. Even with infinite Magic players and infinite time, if Mogg Squad is a very bad card, they will never discover a good use for it. Appealing to the 10-year time frame and many thousands of Magic players that we actually have runs into the same problem. I agree that if there was a good use for it, someone somewhere would probably have found it by now, but that's not an argument in favor of there being a good use for it.

 

[Melkor]

You know, if you search for Mogg Squad on Google, this thread is on the second page. It is the first entry about Mogg Squad that is not an attempt to sell you one (or 4!).

As for a Hall of Shame metric, I just generally use the "If I were to buy a booster pack of this set, what card in the set would I be most disapointed to pull in that pack?" Which is why it is generally difficult for a non-rare to win this for me. The other thing that kills me is when a card is a completely obvious failure from the moment it is printed. When a card is clearly too weak to ever see play, I just wonder what R&D was thinking? But enough about Mercadian Masques.

 

[Oversoul]

As for a Hall of Shame metric, I just generally use the "If I were to buy a booster pack of this set, what card in the set would I be most disapointed to pull in that pack?" Which is why it is generally difficult for a non-rare to win this for me. The other thing that kills me is when a card is a completely obvious failure from the moment it is printed. When a card is clearly too weak to ever see play, I just wonder what R&D was thinking? But enough about Mercadian Masques.

Yeah, if you give extra weight to rares, which is legitimate but I'm not inclined to do it much myself (it's a "booster pack" approach to things and I haven't bought a booster pack for a long, long time), then I too would go with one of the other cards over Mogg Squad.

 

[Shabbaman]

You know, if you search for Mogg Squad on Google, this thread is on the second page. It is the first entry about Mogg Squad that is not an attempt to sell you one (or 4!).

That makes me ashamed I brought that card up. It's unmentionable crap.

 

[Spiderman]

Mogg Squad would only work alongside it if the opponent is using a creatureless deck.

*Or* if you prevent creatures from coming out and/or burn them get rid of them before they drop the Squad's toughess to 0. Which is what a burn deck/Modus's deck is designed to do.

Strenuously? ... The only reason I've defended Mogg Squad as a candidate this time was because of your comments.

Mogg Squad is one example, but the whole "defending" period. One shouldn't have to defend their nominees; you nominate a card and let the people vote. I don't think someone's opinion is going to change from further comments because they either nominated another card that they think is bad or they made a comment on why a nominee *isn't* bad, which is why there's "defending" in the first place; the person has already made up their mind. Further defending is useless.

And no, I don't think it's all opinion. It's certainly subjective, but there's more than opinion to this.

Among a handful of people participating? It's opinion.

By this line of reasoning, every card has been made "decent" somewhere and no card is ever worthy of the hall of shame. There's also a problem with that as a standard for "shame-worthy." If your standard is unreachable, why not "raise" (lower?) it? If a card has to be impossibly bad to make it into the hall of shame, why would that be? Why couldn't merely bad cards make it in? Sure, setting the bar anywhere is at least somewhat arbitrary, I guess. But it seems that the point of having a hall of shame is to put cards in it and not to have it sitting there empty.

Which goes back to my statement a couple of posts ago where I (think) I said I don't think *any* cards are really Hall of Shame worthy, except for a handful. I don't see why I have to raise/lower my standards for a Hall; if it's a Hall, the card has got to be bad, like so bad it remains bad after 15 years of Magic. That's why it's the Hall of Shame, not the Hall of Bad Cards. I don't think it should be artificially filled with cards just to say there's a card from each expansion.

The card has to be useful in order for someone to find a use for it.

You're missing the point and somehow making "useful" and "Hall of Shame-worthy" as opposites. I've said it before, I'm not saying Mogg Squad is a great card. I'm not even saying it's an average card. It *is* a bad card and there are certainly better options. But it's NOT bad enough to make it into the Hall of Shame, because there are enough possibilities/uses to prevent it from being truly crap.

You know, if you search for Mogg Squad on Google, this thread is on the second page. It is the first entry about Mogg Squad that is not an attempt to sell you one (or 4!).

That's funny. Maybe it'll draw some new people here

That metric is pretty good, although I would take it a bit further and say opening a booster box and seeing what cards are "useless" and can't be put into a deck.

That makes me ashamed I brought that card up. It's unmentionable crap.

Heh, have you been reading the thread the whole time and letting Oversoul make the arguments?

 

[Oversoul]

*Or* if you prevent creatures from coming out and/or burn them get rid of them before they drop the Squad's toughess to 0. Which is what a burn deck/Modus's deck is designed to do.

So you kill every creature that your opponent plays and beat him to death with Mogg Squad. It wouldn't work marvelously, but it could potentially work. You know what would work better? Just burning your opponent with the burn spells. Or using another creature that does more damage (yes, most of them cost more, but when its your only creature, it's probably worth having an actually good ability although I suppose you could still just play Slith Firewalker or something else that's two mana and much better than Mogg Squad).

Modus's deck reminded me, if anything, of Ankh Sligh, a deck in which I never saw Mogg Squad once. Ankh Sligh deck tended to use Mogg Fanatic and Jackal Pup. Now there's an example of a creature with a drawback that still works.

Mogg Squad is one example, but the whole "defending" period. One shouldn't have to defend their nominees; you nominate a card and let the people vote. I don't think someone's opinion is going to change from further comments because they either nominated another card that they think is bad or they made a comment on why a nominee *isn't* bad, which is why there's "defending" in the first place; the person has already made up their mind. Further defending is useless.

Ah yes, my posts are an exercise in frivolity because people's minds are made up, but yours are relevant somehow.

Also, I have changed my mind with at least one of these in the past because of something someone said.

Among a handful of people participating? It's opinion.

Why is the number of people relevant to what I was saying? I don't think it's all based on opinion because the cards are being evaluated on things that have meaning in a game with rules and structure, as opposed to say, artwork. People voted for Rakalite because it costs six mana and doesn't really do much. It's overcosted. I wouldn't say that's opinion. I'd say someone who claims Rakalite is undercosted or appropriately costed is dead wrong. That's not to say opinion doesn't play a role. It plays a huge role. Rakalite has no real similarity to Coral Helm in terms of what it does. Which one is worse comes down to how much people value the in-game effects the cards generate weighed against the costs. Comparing damage prevention to creature-pumping is certainly highly subjective and I'm sure all of our decisions when it comes down to something like that are informed by our opinions. But it's not all opinion. It wouldn't be if there were 500 people participating and it wouldn't be if there were only one person participating. What's magical about the group size we currently have?

Which goes back to my statement a couple of posts ago where I (think) I said I don't think *any* cards are really Hall of Shame worthy, except for a handful. I don't see why I have to raise/lower my standards for a Hall; if it's a Hall, the card has got to be bad, like so bad it remains bad after 15 years of Magic. That's why it's the Hall of Shame, not the Hall of Bad Cards. I don't think it should be artificially filled with cards just to say there's a card from each expansion.

Think about what you're saying and think about the format for this hall of shame as we've set it up. We're approaching this by set in chronological order, nominating the cards we think are worst and then holding a vote on which card goes in. So the point of a hall of shame is to put bad cards in it, and we're also doing it in a way that gives each set representation. We could instead be nominating and voting from the entire pool of cards or breaking cards up into categories like "worst creature" or "worst enchantment." But we're not. I really think that says something about the vision of how this thing is supposed to work. In contrast, your vision as I've seen it from what you just said is of an empty hall with Spiderman standing at the entrance guarding it against the merely mediocre cards that don't deserve entrance. When, oh when will we find a champion wretched enough to make it past the keen eye of the bouncer?

This is different from saying that we shouldn't have a hall of shame in the first place. You seemed to indicate that you thought this earlier and if that's what you mean, I have nothing else to say other than suit yourself. Not everything will interest everyone.

But now it looks more like you're arguing for an empty hall of shame because almost nothing is bad enough to go in. Why? The way we've set it up, giving each set equal representation (not all sets have the same share of bad cards) says to me that the worst card from each set should go into the hall of shame. Why set the bar impossibly high (low)?

You're missing the point and somehow making "useful" and "Hall of Shame-worthy" as opposites.

Not at all. The part you quoted wasn't about the hall of shame. It was about your claim that because there are so many Magic players, some of them out there somewhere must have found a use for Mogg Squad.

I've said it before, I'm not saying Mogg Squad is a great card. I'm not even saying it's an average card. It *is* a bad card and there are certainly better options. But it's NOT bad enough to make it into the Hall of Shame, because there are enough possibilities/uses to prevent it from being truly crap.

Out of curiosity, what card do you think is worthy of the hall of shame?

 

[Spiderman]

So you kill every creature that your opponent plays and beat him to death with Mogg Squad.

Perhaps, if your opponent is (un)lucky enough to get rid of it. Which is highly unlikely, but the point is, the Mogg Squad fits the 2 cc mana slot. So you put him out, tie up your opponent's mana somehow and get rid of his creatures. What's so difficult to understand?

Ah yes, my posts are an exercise in frivolity because people's minds are made up, but yours are relevant somehow.

Did I say that? You love putting words in other's mouths, don't you...

Why is the number of people relevant to what I was saying?... It wouldn't be if there were 500 people participating and it wouldn't be if there were only one person participating.

I can't believe you can't see why size matters. If you have a (too) small pool of people, their statements on the merits of a card is opinion. I'm not talking about characteristics that *are* measurable, like effects to casting cost. I'm talking about whether a card is bad enough to belong in a Hall of Shame and/or whether a card is usable in a deck. One person declaring a card belongs in a Hall of Shame? That's opinion. 500 people agreeing a card belongs? I'm not sure of the right word, but yeah, it's not so much opinion anymore as something must be "wrong" with the card to have 500 people see it.

In contrast, your vision as I've seen it from what you just said is of an empty hall with Spiderman standing at the entrance guarding it against the merely mediocre cards that don't deserve entrance. When, oh when will we find a champion wretched enough to make it past the keen eye of the bouncer?

<sigh> Once again, you've muddled the picture and are putting words into my mouth. I'm not saying, nor have I *ever* said, that my vision should be the one that the rest of the CPA should follow and the hell with the rest of you. I've just stated what I personally think the Hall of Shame should be and why I haven't fully participated in the process, which was in response to one of your other inquiries.

On the flip side, what I'm getting from you is that I shouldn't even participate because
"I'm not following the crowd" and finding any bad cards in the set - in fact, I should just keep my mouth shut and let "you experts", especially you, decide what should go in the Hall because you clearly can tell bad/non-useful cards from good/useful.

It was about your claim that because there are so many Magic players, some of them out there somewhere must have found a use for Mogg Squad.

I didn't bother quoting the rest because I already stated my opinion on it. You *can* find a use for it and I bet people have.

Out of curiosity, what card do you think is worthy of the hall of shame?

For Tempest? I already said, none of them.

 

[Oversoul]

Perhaps, if your opponent is (un)lucky enough to get rid of it. Which is highly unlikely, but the point is, the Mogg Squad fits the 2 cc mana slot. So you put him out, tie up your opponent's mana somehow and get rid of his creatures. What's so difficult to understand?

The part where it actually ties up the opponent's mana at all. He can hit it with a removal spell like any other creature, play something that can block it that you can't kill, play three creatures and have Mogg Squad die automatically, or do nothing for some reason (outrageously mana-screwed or maybe just a really terrible deck). None of those ties his mana up.

Did I say that? You love putting words in other's mouths, don't you...

No, I suppose you didn't. I sometimes assume that people aren't trying to be hypocrites, but it's an unwarranted assumption. My mistake.

I can't believe you can't see why size matters. If you have a (too) small pool of people, their statements on the merits of a card is opinion. I'm not talking about characteristics that *are* measurable, like effects to casting cost. I'm talking about whether a card is bad enough to belong in a Hall of Shame and/or whether a card is usable in a deck. One person declaring a card belongs in a Hall of Shame? That's opinion. 500 people agreeing a card belongs? I'm not sure of the right word, but yeah, it's not so much opinion anymore as something must be "wrong" with the card to have 500 people see it.

At first I thought you believed there was something magical about group size that made opinion transform into fact and I was going to make fun of this, but now I'm wondering if you're thinking of statistics. Still, it doesn't work that way. A large group of people can still vote on something and show the influence of opinions. It's no different from a small group. The important difference is in the weight an individual opinion has. Right now, there are six votes for anything in this round of the hall of shame. Suppose we had a group that size voting on what was the best kind of pizza and one person really loved peanut butter pizza, so he picked that. It would look like 1/6 of people prefer peanut butter pizza, but our one guy who voted for it might be one of a handful of people on the planet that actually like the stuff. This problem is called small sample size. Conversely, a large sample size (lots and lots of people) is more likely to give us a better representation of how how people would select something on this. The best sample size would be literally everyone (or all Magic-players, in this case), but that's unfeasible, so statisticians set out to determine when a sample size is appropriate and when it's too small. And sample size isn't the only issue. If a large sample isn't random enough (like if we purport to be surveying the pizza preferences of the whole world, but don't ask anyone outside the United States and 3/4 of the people we ask are in the Midwest) that biases things too.

But such statistical techniques aren't in place to take opinion out of the equation. Even if we did get answers from the entire world, we wouldn't then be showing which pizza is objectively the best. A large number of people can have the same opinion, you know. It won't stop being opinion just because it's corroborated by others. This is important in some areas. Take elections, for example. Just because the majority of the votes in a state come down one way doesn't make the people who were in the majority right and the minority people wrong (although the majority people might like to think so sometimes).

I contend that with people voting on anything at all, there are multiple possible variables that influence their decisions. These will change depending on the nature of the items in question. If they vote on what the sum of two integers is or whether ice floats or sinks in water, opinion will probably have little weight. If they vote on the best pizza, opinion will have massive weight. If they're voting on the worst card in Tempest, the weight of opinion is probably somewhere in-between. But were we able to quantify these variables (I know of no attempt in psychology or sociology to do so comprehensively, but it seems, in principle, possible), the weight of opinion wouldn't be likely to change much from a small sample to a larger one. It certainly wouldn't vanish completely.

<sigh> Once again, you've muddled the picture and are putting words into my mouth. I'm not saying, nor have I *ever* said, that my vision should be the one that the rest of the CPA should follow and the hell with the rest of you. I've just stated what I personally think the Hall of Shame should be and why I haven't fully participated in the process, which was in response to one of your other inquiries.

On the flip side, what I'm getting from you is that I shouldn't even participate because
"I'm not following the crowd" and finding any bad cards in the set - in fact, I should just keep my mouth shut and let "you experts", especially you, decide what should go in the Hall because you clearly can tell bad/non-useful cards from good/useful.

Well, that's not what I meant. In retrospect, I can see why you'd get that impression. I wasn't prescribing a course of action for you. I was saying that I didn't understand why you, given what you've said about your disagreement with the system, were arguing over the product of the system. By that I do not mean that you shouldn't. I think I wouldn't, but that's not to make a recommendation or anything. In fact, I welcome it.

Have you considered trying to change the system? I mean, I think I'd come down against that because I'd probably prefer the setup we're using now, but maybe others would like your way better. I ask because I don't think anyone's brought it up, but if your grievance is more with the system than the details in this one instance, well, that seems more pertinent.

Also, in reference to me supposedly putting words in your mouth, I used the exact phrase, "your vision as I've seen it from what you just said."

I didn't bother quoting the rest because I already stated my opinion on it. You *can* find a use for it and I bet people have.

That's fine as an opinion, but certainly lacks persuasive power. I mean, you wouldn't use it with something important, would you? Like, uh, "You can find the Higgs Boson, and I bet people have."

For Tempest? I already said, none of them.

I didn't say for Tempest.

 

[Spiderman]

You're right about the "sample size" explanation, that is what I was trying to convey. I'm assuming we all have equal weight, but for our very small sample size, it's not really indicative that a card belongs in the Hall of Shame. I mean, you can have 4 people vote for four different cards and two people vote for the same card and that card makes it? Yeah, technically it won, but honestly, is that really a Hall of Shame card? It's the same reason why we've stopped the CPA Notables - there's not enough of us to really vote on a "winner".

Have you considered trying to change the system?

Not really, because of two reasons. One, which I've already stated, I'm not really sure of the whole Hall of Shame concept. Two, since I'm not sure, I'm not gonna ask others, who DO seem to be behind it more, to change it just because I have a different vision that they do.

Also, in reference to me supposedly putting words in your mouth, I used the exact phrase, "your vision as I've seen it from what you just said."

Then you mis-saw it, as there's nothing I said before than indicated that I'm the "sole gatekeeper guarding the path to the Hall of Shame".

I didn't say for Tempest.

Hence my question "For Tempest?". I was trying to clarify since you didn't specify.

If it's for the entire Magic set of cards, I have no idea, that's 10,000 cards to consider. I certainly haven't taken the time to consider the merits of each one.