Happy birthday MDL.
Maybe a good time to express once again gratitude to Deadman for having built that great ladder.
And a good time as well to invite people to join it :
Whether you are in a competitive mindset, or willing to improve, or just in the mood for a few extra casual MD games on cool strat settings, that shall be the place to go.
Casual players : sure Quickmatches are cool. But the matchmaking there is often disappointing and you may be fed up with people who leave without saying goodbye (good news, there is a boot filter on the MDL), or tired of getting farmed by Rufus/Timi/alex (good news : the matchmaking mechanism on the MDL is relevant), or, with all those bad non-strategic templates you've already vetoed, you are starting to get bored of the same 10 templates you're playing (good news : all of the 47 templates on MDL are strategic and you even have a few vetoes if you are allergic to MA). So just join that :
http://md-ladder.cloudapp.net/Willing to improve : maybe you have already found one of those formidable tutors in the community (there are a few, and they are doing a great job) and you are having a nice run on the 1v1 ladder. Maybe you have teamed up on the 2v2 ladder with a clanmate who delegates to you the task of counting. Maybe you have already heard about the MDL and had a look at it but were displeased to see it includes WR, or thought that it was too much of an effort to
learn so many templates. Well I think you should think twice about it :
joining the mdl will certainly not hurt you : who cares about a few initial defeats and a disappointing rating when starting ? Playing and losing is certainly the best way to understand a template. Once you've played it and got a feeling, you may have a look at a few games by good players (the website allows you to dive into more than 17,000 games if you want to)
it might make you discover and enjoy a bit of the depth of the game. 0% SR is fine and correctly counting the number of leftovers on the board can be satisfying, but Warzone is much richer than a super-sudoku puzzle (© 89thlap) : it is also about risk management, pattern recognition and metagaming; and most of the fun and skill is there.
it shall make you learn a lot and improve : playing non-standard settings will help you get a better understanding of those aspects of the game. Is the board brawly or expansionist ? How do I balance my picking strategy between early income and coverage ? How shall I behave in a brawl ? Will Rufus defend his bonus ? (hint : he probably will not)
So go there http://md-ladder.cloudapp.net/ and click on the Login button.
Competitive player : let's stop complaining about the flaws of Bayes Elo or QM rating inflation; Math Wolf and Deadman have crafted for you the rating system you have always dreamt of. Let's stop posting on boring threads about stalling and undeserved trophies; the only reason Rufus has been n°1 for 100 days is because you weren't there to kick him of his throne.
So you know what you have to do : go there http://md-ladder.cloudapp.net/, click the Login button, choose a number of simultaneous games and join the fight.
