Steven Stadnicki

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Software engineer and long-time dabbler in mathematics; 11th in the Putnams forever ago but I've long since atrophied.

	2,513 reputation	bio	website		visits	member for	1 year, 6 months
415 badges		location	Seattle, WA		seen	1 hour ago

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21h	comment	Does an exiled Aetherling come back into play untapped? Note that this is still affected by effects that indicate how permanents enter the battlefield; if your opponent controls a card like Urabrask or Blind Obedience which says that 'creatures [your opponents control] enter the battlefield tapped' then Aetherling will enter play tapped when coming out of exile and not just when played from your hand.
Apr 16	comment	Does the first spell from Possibility Storm go on the stack before being exiled? While this looks good overall (I haven't taken a close look yet), one small catch in the first example: Reiterate will also trigger Possibility Storm, unless you happen to find it in your library from casting some other spell in response to Lightning Bolt! Increasing Vengeance (out of the GY) might be a better choice for an example...
Apr 10	comment	After using Act of Treason and Cloudshift, does a creature re-enter the battlefield under my control? Not true: almost all 'flicker' effects before AVR specifically returned the card to play under its owner's control. Momentary Blink returns the card under its owner's control, as does Flickerwisp, as do Oblivon Ring and Fiend Hunter, as does Obzedat (returning itself to play under its owner's control). Avacyn Restored's flicker mechanics are the exception but definitely not the rule.
Apr 10	comment	Can I flicker Aurelia to get more than two attack phases? This is incorrect on several different levels. Firstly, the additional combat triggers when Aurelia attacks; you can flicker her any time between declaring attackers and end of combat, you don't need to do it with the ability on the stack or any such. Secondly, you can do it during the first combat phase's end-of-combat step (see section 511 in the comprehensive rules), so that Aurelia gets all the way through the first combat phase and is in play in plenty of time to attack during the second combat phase. (You could even do it during the second combat's beginning-of-combat step.)
Mar 31	comment	Can I flicker Aurelia to get more than two attack phases? +1 especially for the note that this doesn't work with Restoration Angel! It's amazing how many people forget that clause. Also, note that the fact that Aurelia untaps all creatures (and not just those that attacked) means it's theoretically possible to go infinite with e.g. a Breeding Pool and a couple of Arbor Elves.
Mar 27	comment	Must a player take a jump in checkers? I think you're mis-reading rule 9. If after the jump you choose there's still another jump available, you do have to take that additional jump - but you don't have to choose the multi-jump move in the first place in preference to some move that only offers a single jump.
Mar 26	comment	Types of EDH mana base Might be worth noting Aven Mindcensor as another search hoser as that's arguably less conditional than Leonin Arbiter and sees a fair bit of play (at least in the groups I've seen).
Mar 20	comment	Are Basic Lands (Mana) Block/Set Agnostic? Nitpickery: (1) Alpha corners aren't square; they're actually more rounded than 'normal' Magic cards. Square corners were used for the collector's edition (and neither is generally tournament-legal). (2) that Japanese Island is from Return to Ravnica, not Kamigawa. :-) Maybe you want to point to an Arabian Nights Mountain (magic.tcgplayer.com/db/…) instead?
Mar 18	comment	Is it better to start with M13 and splash in RtR and GTC when building a deck? One note of meta-advice (which could go on many of your posts, which is why it's a comment here rather than an answer): if your interest is to build a deck to be (semi-)competitive with at FNM, at some point you're acutally going to want to switch from buying packs to buying singles. Especially (counter-intuitively) outside of rares, singles make it much more cost-efficient to get the effects and cards you want, essentially without having to worry about which sets you're picking up. The singles market is another thing that's changed drastically (much for the better) since the 'old days'.
Mar 13	comment	Why does Wizards of the Coast print terrible MTG cards? "Imagine if every card in a pack had the same power level" - I think anyone who's cubed can empathize with this agony. :-) Which do you pick: Ancestral, Mox Ruby, Tinker, or Library of Alexandria?
Mar 9	comment	Playing Settlers of Catan with a D12 instead of 2D6 @JoeZeng Interestingly, that would lead to exactly the same odds (1 in 6) as in the 2d6 case...
Mar 3	comment	What is the term for a stalemate in Checkers? Small nitpickery: the correct term is 'draw' in Chess and Checkers. 'Stalemate' refers to a particular kind of draw in chess - namely, when a player is unable to move - that's all but impossible to achieve in Checkers.
Feb 26	comment	What's actually good against Jund? @Pablo The problem with 'attacking the mana base' at least vs. Standard Jund is that aside from Ghost Quarter (which seems like it's being underplayed in general right now, admittedly, but does have some issues - especially since most Jund decks still run a couple of basics to blunt its impact), there's no really meaningful land destruction in the format right now. By the time you're casting Demolish on the draw they've already played Arbor Elf/Farseek into Huntmaster/Olivia into Thragtusk.
Feb 26	comment	What's actually good against Jund? @AlexP True enough - but that's generally what the Azorius Charms and Supreme Verdicts are for. The point is that by taking that angle of attack you blank many of Jund's cards - Thragtusk is 'merely' a 5/3 that leaves a 3/3 behind; Abrupt Decay, Victim of Night, etc are near do-nothings (and Dreadbore is often virtally dead); etc.
Feb 22	comment	Multiple blockers with first strike @ikegami (Nitpicking: that order is chosen during the declare blockers step, well before creatures actually get to do combat damage - see rule 509.2. While it is irrelevant to the question as given, the attacker does still get the choice of how they want to order blockers.)
Feb 21	comment	Multiple blockers with first strike This answer is completely wrong on all counts except that the attacker chooses how to order blockers. It doesn't go 'first strike then normal combat per creature' - all creatures with first strike damage deal their combat damage, and then all creatures without first strike deal theirs. (See rule 510.5) Furthermore, the 6/6 is never a 6/3, despite what Duels of the Planeswalkers tells you - it's a 6/6 with 3 damage on it. (This can matter for effects that check a creature's toughness)
Feb 19	comment	Highest difficulty and creativity Sokoban map families @Bitlab For the record, I think 'what are the best ways of measuring Sokoban difficulty and what are the best puzzles by those metrics?' is an excellent question, and one that I wish there WAS an on-topic location for! This just, sadly, isn't it. But if you agree, I encourage joining the puzzling.se proposal at area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/45128/puzzling and posting the 'hypothetical' question as a sample question there.
Feb 19	comment	Highest difficulty and creativity Sokoban map families Unfortunately, there really isn't an appropriate spot on the StackExchange network right now for questions about Sokoban - they would fit well into the proposed Puzzles area, but that site is a long way from getting even to beta. Also, it would probably be appropriate in the question to disclose that the 'creativity' metric is one of your own devising, and not a standardized measure.
Feb 17	comment	Can I use a card with “Add one mana of any color to your mana pool” in any Elder Dragon Highlander (EDH) deck? In addition to the discussion of 'any color' below, I thought I'd point out that color identity only means mana symbols and not necessarily land names - so for instance, Verdant Catacombs is legal for your Animar deck because it doesn't provide black mana, it just has the phrase 'search for a swamp card'...
Feb 17	comment	What was the largest flop in board game history? @thesunneversets Saying that 'Sales did not compare to those of M:tG' isn't a sign that the game didn't meet expectations; it's just a sign that the game wasn't Magic. The game had an expansion, stayed in print for a couple of years and maintained enough of a cult following to get a license rescue - that's much, much more than can be said for most CCGs. Netrunner wasn't even as much of a 'flop' as several Magic sets were.