| Forum Index > The Shopkeeper′s Inn |
|
Ketara
United States15065 Posts
On January 20 2018 03:58 Numy wrote: I still don't really get how the government can keep shutting down. That just doesn't sound like a very smart system... It's not SUPPOSED to. "Hey, lets keep paying people to do their jobs." is supposed to be a pretty normal thing that generally everybody can agree on. | ||
|
Gahlo
United States35150 Posts
On January 20 2018 03:58 Numy wrote: I still don't really get how the government can keep shutting down. That just doesn't sound like a very smart system... It's designed so if people that can actually govern half decently are elected that it just keep going. When elected people are pants on head, it doesn't. | ||
|
zer0das
United States8519 Posts
On January 20 2018 03:58 Numy wrote: I still don't really get how the government can keep shutting down. That just doesn't sound like a very smart system... Republicans got so good at obstructing everything they started obstructing themselves. Also CNN unironically using ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ in a headline xD | ||
|
red_
United States8474 Posts
On January 20 2018 04:35 zer0das wrote: Republicans got so good at obstructing everything they started obstructing themselves. And just enough people cling to Fox News and similar radio news hosts that they can convince themselves it's still everyone else's faults. | ||
|
Ketara
United States15065 Posts
| ||
|
Gahlo
United States35150 Posts
On January 20 2018 05:10 Ketara wrote: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ is a pretty good term for the Trump government. Not enough parenthesis and too many moon runes. | ||
|
Alaric
France45622 Posts
Also draft. 12-man pod because more of us wanted to see more cards and stuff than wanted smaller pods. + Show Spoiler + Ended up UR pirates. Early Golden Demise made me think about UB but I want Moments of Craving and stuff before I really start drafting more defensively from the looks of this format. B dried super fast and my neighbour "pushed" me to R (or so he thought, P1P1 Tendershoot Dryad but he still passed me some good G cards and a ton of them quantity-wise, I just liked my R more than dinos and there weren't that many merfolks to speculate). I did some dubious picks on purpose like P1P1 Pirate's Hook and late pack 2 Protean Raider (the clone) over Expel from Orazca which my deck really wanted more, because I wanted to use the opportunity to test the cards. Deck could be summed up this way: 3x Kitesail Corsair, 2x Goblin Trailblazer, 1x Storm Fleet Aerialist, 1x Fathom Fleet Firebrand, 2x Buccaneer's Bravado + Show Spoiler + Match 1 vs BW vampires He's got a Forerunner and decent creatures on the curve, but lacks tricks. It'd hard because I'm not drawing my tricks and 2/3 flyers actually block a lot of stuff, while the Forerunner gives him a good clock if we race. I have to bounce it to prevent lifegain (Fanatical Firebrand blocks, then sacs itself to ping a 1/1) and really feel buried in CA, esp. since I mulled on the play and he played a t2 Zealot. Game 2 looks like a race too, tight because of Forerunner again and me playing a t3 Brute rather than Swaggering Corsair so I can't really try to use my removal on flyers and get hits in while trying to set up lethal. I win game 1 because my opponent miscounts his own damage (6 unblocked, I'm at 6) and tries to cast a trick so I bounce the target and drop to 2; on the crackback Buccaneer's Bravado + Sure Strike on a Trailblazer vs a single blocker nukes him. I win game 2 off One With the Wind on Brute so my whole board is flying, and Waterknot on his own flying blocker. In either game I'd have lost on the crackback, and a single resolved Moment of Triumph (or of Craving, but that one's obvious) would have changed the game. Match 2 vs BR mish-mash Game 1 I mull to 5 on the draw and he goes t4 Phoenix so we move on. Game 2 he goes t1 Fanatical Firebrand, t2 Moment of Craving on a creature during my t3, t3 3/2 dino and sac Firebrand to get rid of my remaining raid enabler, t4 Phoenix, t5 Storm Fleet Pyromancer after attacks to remove my last blocker. So yeah, bomb + variance + perfect curve, let's chalk it up and move on. Match 3 vs BW vampires Again. This one was a fight of auras, as he had pacifisms and I have some enhancements while I also needed to get rid of his Squire's Devotion asap. The lifegain on Pious Interdiction was very relevant, and seeing how I hadn't drawn very well (I kept a land with no 2-drop figuring that the fact I've got 7 of them would help, I had to go Mogg Pirate -> Swashbuckling -> Lightning Strike in response to the trick on his blocker -> 2/3 ascend flyer after Pious Illumination on Mogg) resource management was super tense. I raced game 1 because I had almost nothing and 2 of my creatures got an aura from me, then my opponent and if I started topdecking lands or 2-drops vs bigger creatures or lifelinkers I was done. I hit him for exactsies in the air with ascended serpent + sure strike right after he tutored Kitesail Freebooter as a flying blocker with Forerunner of the Coalition. Game 2 was me playing Trailblazer, he tries to race rather than keep 2 blockers so I play Protean Raider... copying my 2-drop. Things go fast but I figure with my tricks I can burst him, although his clock his faster every turn. Captain's Hook on Trailblazer is "4 mana for +2/+0 aura" basically, and in the end a combo of Sure Strike, Lightning Strike, Waterknot, and topdecking Mogg pirate means that no matter what he played, I could get him for exacties (I could leave him with 1 blocker and still deal lethal even if he kept all his creatures back including the lifelinker). The games were very close and even though I was pretty much attacking every turn and rarely threatening to block, sequencing my tricks and creatures, deciding what to hold, etc. gave me a bunch of decisions, although considering Moment of Craving would have single-handedly destroyed my plan and won the game at any time, I also left a lot in the hands of fate (and whether my opponent had drafted it, since 3 people were BW at the table and at least 2-3 more played B). Match 2 doesn't count and I mulliganed all but one game, so it's hard to get data, but here's what I got so far: - I passed Dive Down for Run Aground P3P4 or P3P3, I hesitated at the time and considering my deck's plan and how timewalking when a bunch of decks are aggro and others are enticed to race anyway, I think I'll pick Dive Down pretty damn high. - I thought "I'm dead if he's got Moment of Craving" so often. The "gain 2 life" rider on both Moments and Pious Interdiction is absurdly relevant. - Dual Shot would be a 2-for-1 against me, Shake the Foundation make me scoop, basically. - Conversely, it felt like there was interaction in the games. But the pressure from races, and small drops starting them early, was so high that you really wanted to do 2 things in a turn to really clinch tempo in your favour. Waterknot looks like a very good card and it still felt too expensive for me unless I had 5 mana for it + another spell (and 5th land in a 16-lands deck is slow). On the contrary Lightning Strike made or broke games, not because of the 3 damage but because of its cmc, allowing me to fit it. - Fanatical Firebrand did some work: sacrificing itself after blocking a lifelink creature, or when Pious Interdiction was used on it + Swashbuckling I kept it around for ascend, then sacrificing it when that 3/3 vampire would have given a counter to a lifelink token. With an aerialist in my deck I actually wanted one more 1-drop if I could. I'm really not that drawn to G from what I've seen of it. B has great cheap interaction, both aggressively and to allow stabilising with the life gain, and R has both an aggressive curve and cheap removal/tricks, so I instinctively want to be BR or BW to be the aggro-est thing around or be the one who aggro crashes against. I liked that despite the races it felt like tricks and interactions were important and we had decisions to make, on the other hand it was a 12-man pod and with less experienced people (the 2nd place had a 3c deck and went to time twice against much softer opponents/decks than the other 3-0 contenders, for example, who all had quick games), as the format progresses I expect it to shape differently because there won't be nearly as much cheap interaction available anymore. Also people need to learn that instead of complaining about blocking, they should remember that blocking is only one of the ways to handle aggro, just like in Amonkhet. I'm not saying there isn't a tendency/issue, just that it's overblown. | ||
|
Ketara
United States15065 Posts
But I have to apply for her on her behalf. We made the application back in July, with the USCIS office. It's supposed to be processed there, then sent to the National Visa Center, then to the embassy here in Malaysia, who will schedule her for the interview and then give her the visa. But it's still sitting at the USCIS office. It hasn't even been reviewed yet after 7 months. This time last year USCIS was taking 3 months average to process these visas. Now it's taking an average of 9. The visa type we applied for hasn't been altered by legislation in any way since trump took office, Malaysia isn't on any of the spooky evil terrorist country lists, fiance isn't a Muslim. USCIS is getting the same number of applications they got under Obama and they're approving about the same percentage of them, and yet the wait times have tripled seemingly without cause. And on top of all that, there's seemingly going to be a government shutdown over Immigration reform. Luckily USCIS doesn't close because it's paid for by the application fees (the application was about 1000$, more than an entire months salary for her), but it will obviously delay things because surely they have to work with other departments as part of their review process that will be shut down. It's just fucking unconscionable. She's a well educated woman with all sorts of good qualitiies she can bring to America, who spent the last 8 years working for American companies here in Malaysia. She's from a heavily Catholic anti Muslim family. Trump blathers on about doing merit based immigration reform. She's the exact sort of immigrant a republican administration would want. But now she has to put her entire life on hold while we wait for the government to unfuck itself. We did everything by the book to get her to USA. We had a consultation with a lawyer who gave us a timeline back in July. He said she would definitely have a visa by the end of December. We made a plan to go together in February, giving them waaaay more than enough time. Now she's already left her job and may have to wait until, by our new best estimate, June, which is assuming the situation doesn't get even worse. Meanwhile I have to go home because I have life shit to do that can't be delayed any longer. So we've reached a situation where directly because of all this crap we will be separated by the entire Pacific ocean for 4+ months. Meanwhile her finances have gone completely to shit because of how much this has fucked her over. She's gonna have to go live with her parents again at 29 while she just waits. Meanwhile we aren't even allowed to get married because one of the conditions of the visa application is that we have to get married in USA, and if we do it in Malaysia beforehand that will cancel her application. And on top of all that, once she does get to USA, whenever the fuck that is, we have to get married within 90 days. So because of all this uncertainty I can't give a date to her relatives, who all have to get their own visas to come to the wedding, which means it's entirely likely that her family won't even get to come because they won't be able to get visas and plane tickets within the 90 day time limit. It's complete horse shit. She's getting more and more agitated and is starting to say things like she doesn't feel like America wants her there and she's not sure if she will be comfortable or safe there. She's worried about going to the wrong place and getting lynched. I really can't blame her for feeling like that given everything she sees on TV. Trump has made the entire country look like a white supremacist hate rally from her perspective. Shit makes me so mad. If anybody here voted for Trump, this is the sort of thing you voted for. He was pretty clear in campaigning that this was the kind of shit he wanted to do, and he's doing it. I told all this to one of my few remaining right wing friends yesterday and he told me that he had to wait a while to buy a gun recently and that was worse because he has a right to own a gun and my fiance doesn't have a right to come to America and my priorities were all wrong. Fucking Americans. | ||
|
Scip
Czech Republic11293 Posts
 I hope it all goes well and fast man | ||
|
Ketara
United States15065 Posts
There's a scale of how much you can be fucked by governments apparently. At least they're not rounding us up and shooting us. | ||
|
phyvo
United States5635 Posts
Given that Trump's approval rating has been below 40% for a historic period of time, that he didn't even get the typical "honeymoon" approval period, and that there are vastly more people who intensely dislike him compared to intensely like him (all according to polls), I think it's fair to say that us USAians are experiencing quite a bit of angst and/or regret. And that's based on polls taken during a pretty strong economy with low unemployment. | ||
|
killerdog
Denmark6522 Posts
Also, places are saying the bill was defeated 50-49. Does that mean they were 1 vote away or 10? Some places were citing 60 votes required to avoid filibuster or something. | ||
|
Ketara
United States15065 Posts
Sad part is that not every republican voted yes. They needed 9 democratic votes, and there are 7 Democrats up for re election in states trump won who have a political reason to pander to conservatives. So realistically they only needed to sweeten the deal enough to pull over two people. But not only could they not even do that, six republican senators didn't vote Yes. More republicans didn't vote for it than Dems who did. Trump's government is a joke. | ||
|
red_
United States8474 Posts
On January 20 2018 12:52 Ketara wrote: And on top of all that, once she does get to USA, whenever the fuck that is, we have to get married within 90 days. So because of all this uncertainty I can't give a date to her relatives, who all have to get their own visas to come to the wedding, which means it's entirely likely that her family won't even get to come because they won't be able to get visas and plane tickets within the 90 day time limit. Honest question/suggestion: can you not get married before an official for the legal purpose of her visa requirement, and then have your actual wedding whenever? I know that's not ideal, but clearly ideal left the station ages ago, and it allows you/her to have the wedding you want(not rushed to accommodate the time frame) with the attendees you want. | ||
|
Ketara
United States15065 Posts
She's upset we aren't married already. | ||
|
zer0das
United States8519 Posts
On January 20 2018 13:46 Ketara wrote:At least they're not rounding us up and shooting us. Yet. Also I do think your fiance's concerns are well founded. I doubt your average racist American can figure out where your average brown person comes from or their religion. Plenty of videos of people berating Sikhs for being Muslim... I doubt 90% of America has even the vaguest idea of what a Sikh believes. Or that they even exist. I've also seen someone spraypaint "Go home coons" at the crossroads near my work place. The slightly unhinged people (like your friend complaining about the waiting time on a gun over general human welfare) seem to be rather emboldened lately. I wish I lived in more enlightened times. | ||
|
phyvo
United States5635 Posts
I mean, it could definitely *get* worse, but statistically speaking I just don't think there's much to fear. | ||
|
Ketara
United States15065 Posts
But I can't blame her for feeling that way. When you don't live in USA and all you know about it is movies and news, it seems like the entire country is racist rednecks carrying Glocks and AKs around and trying to do their best Samuel Jackson impression. Then your very first impression of working with the country is basically the government telling you to go fuck yourself. It's not surprising you'd be paranoid and anxious about moving there. | ||
|
Numy
South Africa35471 Posts
| ||
|
AlterKot
Poland7525 Posts
That said bureaucracy sucks no matter whether its because of a policy or inefficiency, I feel for you fam | ||
| ||
StarCraft 2 StarCraft: Brood War Britney Stormgate  53065EffOrt  5302Bisu 3986Shuttle 2071Mini 926Soulkey 669ggaemo 493Snow 410ZerO 279Soma 230[ Show more ] Dota 2 Counter-Strike Heroes of the Storm Other Games singsing1709 hiko945 crisheroes406 Beastyqt365 Hui .335 KnowMe314 RotterdaM252 DeMusliM250 Fuzer  200ArmadaUGS86 QueenE65 ZerO(Twitch)20 |
|
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
DaveTesta Events
The PondCast
WardiTV Summer Champion…
Replay Cast
LiuLi Cup
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
RSL Revival
RSL Revival
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
[ Show More ] |
|
|
EPT
