In this blog I record my thoughts on various hobbies like the card game Magic: the Gathering, tabletop roleplaying games, and puzzles. I also post the occasional short exposition on mathematical diversions.
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In Magic, a party consists of four creatures, one of which has the type Cleric, another of which has the type Rogue, and the same for Warrior and Wizard. While tuning a deck of mine based on the party mechanic, I wondered what the optimal distribution of creature types might be. To that end, I put together this calculator that computes for you probabilities based on the distribution of creature types in your deck.
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Ever since first encountering them in Pokémon Battle Revolution, I have loved the idea of little cup battles. In this format, you are allowed only to use Pokémon that are able to evolve and they must be at level five. My partner introduced me to random battles on Pokémon Showdown in which your team is randomly selected from a pre-determined list Pokémon and movesets. Naturally, I wanted to try to play some random little cup battles with him, so I put together this tool.
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I am lucky to have only rarely encountered rodents as pests in my home, meaning I think of rats only as intelligent, curious, and playful creatures; In other words, they make for a perfect puzzle game mascot. I’ve played two such games recently—Squeakross and BIT RAT Singularity—having very different vibes but united in the presence of these cute little rodents.
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When it comes to building commander decks, I lean toward the esoteric. I think of each deck concept as a puzzle and each game as an opportunity to show off a hard-won solution. With this project, I wanted to deconstruct the very concept of a deck a little—what if a deck could actually be ten decks?