Thursday 17:44
Friday 19:38
Saturday 12:30
I think that's a personal best for Saturday, at least without outside assistance, and compare the times for Thursday-Friday. I couldn't really tell if this was a hard puzzle or not but 1-Across was a nice long gimme ("Woman who spends money on a younger lover, in modern slang" SUGARMAMA. (Is there old-timey slang for this? "Sugar Daddy" wouldn't be considered modern, would it?)). Saturday usually has fewer straightforward things, but there was nothing too terribly misdirecting, which I would rather see, even if it takes longer. Clever clues for regular words make me smile, Will Shortz has said the best puzzles could be Monday OR Saturday, differing only in clues. But clearly, that's not actually a standard they use. Friday-Saturday are always lower word count (remember, lower word count means longer answers and more white space, so harder) than earlier days.
Saturday, June 29, 2019
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Sunday 42:53 (themeless)
A themeless Sunday. Why do you do this? If it weren't for the diagramless (which was ok, but a little easy despite the asymmetry and the theme was sparse), the puzzle weekend would be wasted. Friday and Saturday are your times for themeless things, don't waste your premier day on this. It's not a horrible puzzle (although SERENE and SELENE in the same grid is unattractive), just not fun for the time it took. No aha! moments, yet not hard enough to feel accomplished for finishing it. It was just work.
A themeless Sunday. Why do you do this? If it weren't for the diagramless (which was ok, but a little easy despite the asymmetry and the theme was sparse), the puzzle weekend would be wasted. Friday and Saturday are your times for themeless things, don't waste your premier day on this. It's not a horrible puzzle (although SERENE and SELENE in the same grid is unattractive), just not fun for the time it took. No aha! moments, yet not hard enough to feel accomplished for finishing it. It was just work.
Friday, June 14, 2019
Friday 20:57 (2 Google)
Toughie.
So the last professional Magic event was won by Jeskai control, a deck I very much wanted to play. It was a large player shortly after Guilds of Ravnica was released, and I built it, but it had fallen out of favor with the new tools in Allegiances, and the deck was supplanted by Esper Control, or its sister Esper Hero. With War of the Spark, some people looked back to Jeskai, and built a planeswalker-heavy deck. Sarkhan, Saheeli, T3feri, T5feri, Narset, and more. But I like to counter spells. I want Absorb. I got lucky early in War of the Spark, and opened several copies of Teferi. I actually spent almost $40 and a lot of store credit to get the last cards I needed, and I felt like Thanos acquiring the last Infinity Stones. This deck seemed like just what I wanted - tight control with a combo finish (Ral, Storm Conduit and 2x Expansion/Explosion. It seems like that's unlikely to happen, but it does. If not, copying Banefire, or just burning them out with other spells and Ral's static ability, going ultimate with Teferi usually prompts concession). You know what other deck played like that? Zevatog, possibly my favorite deck ever.
I've played the deck in a few events since. I can't win. Or at least, I'm not winning enough. And I'm losing to completely unlikely situations, or I'm losing to my own mistakes, and losing to the very people I cannot stand losing to, at least one of whom made the same mistake multiple times. I know the deck can win. It has horrible game against mono-blue, but nobody plays that anymore, right? No, some guy won't give it up. My Gruul deck owns the fuck out of that, but can't really hang with the rest of the metagame anymore. There are new Gruul decks, and maybe I should just find one of those, but I really worked hard to make Jeskai, and I want it to do well. I don't know how to sideboard correctly, although I at least mostly know what I want in
I should play the deck more on Arena, but man it is a pain in the ass to play there. There is no way to make this any good in best of 1, since the sideboard is transformational based on match-up, so you have to play bo3, and matches take forever. Plus, I'm not entirely sure how to execute the combo correctly with full control active. They say you should never make a pet deck, but this isn't a pet deck. The meta has shifted a little but, but this is still well-positioned against most of the field. Maybe I just need Niv-Mizzet main. I board it in every single match, and it really is curtains a lot of the time.
Toughie.
So the last professional Magic event was won by Jeskai control, a deck I very much wanted to play. It was a large player shortly after Guilds of Ravnica was released, and I built it, but it had fallen out of favor with the new tools in Allegiances, and the deck was supplanted by Esper Control, or its sister Esper Hero. With War of the Spark, some people looked back to Jeskai, and built a planeswalker-heavy deck. Sarkhan, Saheeli, T3feri, T5feri, Narset, and more. But I like to counter spells. I want Absorb. I got lucky early in War of the Spark, and opened several copies of Teferi. I actually spent almost $40 and a lot of store credit to get the last cards I needed, and I felt like Thanos acquiring the last Infinity Stones. This deck seemed like just what I wanted - tight control with a combo finish (Ral, Storm Conduit and 2x Expansion/Explosion. It seems like that's unlikely to happen, but it does. If not, copying Banefire, or just burning them out with other spells and Ral's static ability, going ultimate with Teferi usually prompts concession). You know what other deck played like that? Zevatog, possibly my favorite deck ever.
I've played the deck in a few events since. I can't win. Or at least, I'm not winning enough. And I'm losing to completely unlikely situations, or I'm losing to my own mistakes, and losing to the very people I cannot stand losing to, at least one of whom made the same mistake multiple times. I know the deck can win. It has horrible game against mono-blue, but nobody plays that anymore, right? No, some guy won't give it up. My Gruul deck owns the fuck out of that, but can't really hang with the rest of the metagame anymore. There are new Gruul decks, and maybe I should just find one of those, but I really worked hard to make Jeskai, and I want it to do well. I don't know how to sideboard correctly, although I at least mostly know what I want in
I should play the deck more on Arena, but man it is a pain in the ass to play there. There is no way to make this any good in best of 1, since the sideboard is transformational based on match-up, so you have to play bo3, and matches take forever. Plus, I'm not entirely sure how to execute the combo correctly with full control active. They say you should never make a pet deck, but this isn't a pet deck. The meta has shifted a little but, but this is still well-positioned against most of the field. Maybe I just need Niv-Mizzet main. I board it in every single match, and it really is curtains a lot of the time.
Monday, June 10, 2019
Monday 5:27 (gofast, pretty lifted)
Rex Parker marked this as medium-challenging (for a Monday), so I determined to focus hard. Did the Blue Dream help? Unlikely, yet Rex was only two minutes faster than me (the margin between us by percentage is usually much larger). There were a few weird things like SLUE but I got it all from crosses. Didn't bother with the theme until I was done, since the clues were all normal, and the reveal answer was 4/5 done before I even looked at the clue. There was an odd clue "Letter you don't pronounce in'jeopardy' and 'leopard'" for THE O. Not enough famous Theos (for a Monday) I guess. You used to get the character from the Cosby Show, but that's a name I'm fine with avoiding in crossword puzzles. There's what they call the "breakfast table rule," which states that no puzzle should include anything you wouldn't discuss over breakfast. No "adult" things like porn, heroin, rape, incest, etc. in clues or answers. Murder could be clued as a group of crows; anal is only ever clued as "excessively neat."
Rex Parker marked this as medium-challenging (for a Monday), so I determined to focus hard. Did the Blue Dream help? Unlikely, yet Rex was only two minutes faster than me (the margin between us by percentage is usually much larger). There were a few weird things like SLUE but I got it all from crosses. Didn't bother with the theme until I was done, since the clues were all normal, and the reveal answer was 4/5 done before I even looked at the clue. There was an odd clue "Letter you don't pronounce in'jeopardy' and 'leopard'" for THE O. Not enough famous Theos (for a Monday) I guess. You used to get the character from the Cosby Show, but that's a name I'm fine with avoiding in crossword puzzles. There's what they call the "breakfast table rule," which states that no puzzle should include anything you wouldn't discuss over breakfast. No "adult" things like porn, heroin, rape, incest, etc. in clues or answers. Murder could be clued as a group of crows; anal is only ever clued as "excessively neat."
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