Bowl season is such a great time for College Football. Teams are in odd locales with opponents they would normally never be seeing. It also means there is a much higher level of variance in play, as coaches leave, players skip, and some teams just aren't excited to be where they're at. With all that in mind, here are the bowl picks for this year. I'll break down the Playoff games a bit more closer to the actual game dates.
Thursday, December 13, 2018
Wednesday, December 12, 2018
NFL Predictions Week 15 2018
Week 15. Do or die for several teams as the Ravens need t beat an up and down Bucs team to maintain their Wild Card hopes, while the Eagles are possibly without Carson Wentz as they travel to LA to take on the Rams. I'll be very interested to see if the Saints have shaken off their recent down play and can win big, or if the Panthers turn things around this week and pull the big upset.
Tuesday, December 11, 2018
NFL Power Rankings Week 15 2018
The regular season has just three weeks left and everything is tightening up. The Bears continue to look like they belong with that impressive defense, while the Steelers are most assuredly going in the wrong direction. The Saints dabbled with losing to the Bucs to continue a swoon, but righted themselves and pulled away pretty easily in the second half to remain the top team. The Seahawks have taken a big jump, being just barely into number 9 last week but into the top five with a decimation of the Vikings on MNF.
Monday, December 10, 2018
NBA Predictions Week Dec 10-Dec 16 2018
The inaugural week of predictions for the NBA. This methodology uses a similar formula to the NBA and College Football predictions, and I'll start posting these on Mondays.
This week we get some treats as the Raptors visit the Clippers Tuesday, Warriors on Wednesday, and on get a visit from the Nuggets. We also get on Wednesday the Pelicans and Thunder in what should be a tight matchup.
This week we get some treats as the Raptors visit the Clippers Tuesday, Warriors on Wednesday, and on get a visit from the Nuggets. We also get on Wednesday the Pelicans and Thunder in what should be a tight matchup.
Saturday, December 8, 2018
NBA Stats Heat Map 12/8/2018
The Weekly Heat Map is back. This week will be a little off because of when I needed to do this, but it will typically stetch from a Saturday to a Friday. Here its Saturday to Thursday night.
The Lakers, Pacers, Thunder and Grizzlies all had outstanding defensive weeks, while most offenses all hovered around the same mark. The Magic ran a lot this week, but they weren't hyper efficient.
The Lakers, Pacers, Thunder and Grizzlies all had outstanding defensive weeks, while most offenses all hovered around the same mark. The Magic ran a lot this week, but they weren't hyper efficient.
Friday, December 7, 2018
Keyforge Deck Analysis: The Terror that Purifies Togetherness
So I've fallen into the Keyforge trap. I played several games last Thursday with my friend who has purchased about 15 decks so far. There is a pretty large player pool here, so I decided to pick up a couple of decks. The big thing with this game is of course the random deck you get. That I think makes the analysis outside of playing the deck important as well, since you need to have an idea of what the deck wants to do before you can just try to pilot it.
The Terror That Purifies Togetherness
This is the first deck I purchased, and so far I've gone 3-1 with it.
Breaking down the deck, there are 12 creatures, 20 events, 4 artifacts and no upgrades. Being that light on creatures means the board presence in the deck is going to be small a lot of the time. This is further reinforced by the fact that a majority of the creatures have 3 or less power, making them a little susceptible to board wipes. Luckily though, this deck is pure gas when it comes to Amber creation. Thirteen separate cards generate Amber on play, and several more generate or steal on entering play (such as The Terror and Urchin). The two copies of Full Moon also will generate if you're able to get several Untamed Creatures into hand.
This deck has several combo plays that can quickly generate a lot of Amber. The aforementioned 3xThe Terror and either Gateway to Dis or Three Fates with Arise could very easily net you at least 12 Amber on a turn. Untamed has a similarly powered engine with Full Moon, Niffle Ape and Troop Call being able to get 8 on a turn. The Sting also pairs well with these combos above, give you potentially a huge Amber reserve, or with Lash of Broken Dreams and Murmook to force your opponent to spend more Amber than they potentially want to, to give to you. The 2xSilvertooth are also a nice piece to have with something like Pawn Sacrifice, since you can Reap with one and then possibly remove 2 creatures as well.
The one downside to this deck is that each House wants to have explosive turns, which means you have to get them assembled. There are not many set in play and let them generate value cards, since most creatures are small enough to get removed by a lot of potential Board control pieces. It can mean there will be some turns where you are making plays that you aren't really wanting to make, but that you need to clear a little hand space to get to your real combo piece.
The Terror That Purifies Togetherness
This is the first deck I purchased, and so far I've gone 3-1 with it.
Breaking down the deck, there are 12 creatures, 20 events, 4 artifacts and no upgrades. Being that light on creatures means the board presence in the deck is going to be small a lot of the time. This is further reinforced by the fact that a majority of the creatures have 3 or less power, making them a little susceptible to board wipes. Luckily though, this deck is pure gas when it comes to Amber creation. Thirteen separate cards generate Amber on play, and several more generate or steal on entering play (such as The Terror and Urchin). The two copies of Full Moon also will generate if you're able to get several Untamed Creatures into hand.
This deck has several combo plays that can quickly generate a lot of Amber. The aforementioned 3xThe Terror and either Gateway to Dis or Three Fates with Arise could very easily net you at least 12 Amber on a turn. Untamed has a similarly powered engine with Full Moon, Niffle Ape and Troop Call being able to get 8 on a turn. The Sting also pairs well with these combos above, give you potentially a huge Amber reserve, or with Lash of Broken Dreams and Murmook to force your opponent to spend more Amber than they potentially want to, to give to you. The 2xSilvertooth are also a nice piece to have with something like Pawn Sacrifice, since you can Reap with one and then possibly remove 2 creatures as well.
The one downside to this deck is that each House wants to have explosive turns, which means you have to get them assembled. There are not many set in play and let them generate value cards, since most creatures are small enough to get removed by a lot of potential Board control pieces. It can mean there will be some turns where you are making plays that you aren't really wanting to make, but that you need to clear a little hand space to get to your real combo piece.
Thursday, December 6, 2018
NBA Power Rankings December 6th 2018
Ah, the initial Power Rankings as the program now has enough data to make some sense of what's going on in this upside down NBA season. The Bucks and Raptors hold the top spots, but the West has six of the top 10, and 10 of the top 15. This top does not include the Rockets, who have been, to say the least a disappointment. I am hoping next week to start putting out predictions for the week, and have the NBA stats charts done over the weekends. But today the power rankings are a start.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)