QUOTE (Hags888 @ November 14, 2007 07:23 pm)
I am completely flabbergasted that you would consider those elements "irrelevant" to a deck design.  I definitely do not understand the statement "Irrelevant if we're not assuming we're designing a strong deck."  I'm not assuming Vader's deck has to be strong at all.  I'm only assuming that the cards should work well together and that the PtV be well supported.

I was with you until you once again made that assumption, which is equivalent to assuming the deck should be strong. The better-supported a PtV is, the more likely that PtV will pay off, resulting in victory -- PtV is the path to VICTORY, after all. Cards working together also makes a stronger deck than cards working against one another. Maybe an example will help: I have this deck, and it's too strong. What can I do to make it weak? I can make the cards work against each other and take away support for the PtV. It is a very effective way to design a weak deck -- what better, in fact? After all, if you simply weaken the cards themselves, even the perfect draw is weak and doesn't guarantee victory. It's only bad design for the cards to work against each other and the PtV to be insufficiently supported if the deck is supposed to be strong, because otherwise the design does exactly what it's supposed to do, which is precisely how I see Vader's deck.
QUOTE (Hags888 @ November 14, 2007 07:23 pm)
A red deck is not the right deck for an "attrition" path IMO. An attrition path requires a long game, which requires a lot of staying power. So, in that regard, Green is the right choice, or even Blue.

You might consider thinking about how Vader's deck would play with a basic Blue or Green; with Blue, he is weaker against everyone except Yoda and arguably the shooters, and with Green he is weaker against everyone except Yoda. How do you think he would kill anyone? The attrition PtV is absolutely dependent on the red deck's multiple 5-attacks which each do a bit of damage (against non-PowerD)
QUOTE (Hags888 @ November 14, 2007 07:23 pm)
The deck has some cards that make up the "Path to Victory" and the other cards that are support for said path.

Not by my reading: "A Path to Victory is a strategic combination of cards that when played in the right order serves to gain you an advantage over your opponent." (from DT! #8)
QUOTE (Hags888 @ November 14, 2007 07:23 pm)
I absolutely cannot concede that the deck design is "good", and that the PtV is "well" supported.

*sigh* I just wish you would stop linking these two. Not once have I made the claim that his PtV is "'well' supported" -- as noted above, this has nothing to do with the quality of the deck design.

QUOTE (fishfleas2000 @ November 14, 2007 06:04 pm)
If you don't fear ATE then I'ld love to play you sometime...

Amen, brother. I pull off ATE all the time against those daring souls who come at me without enough cards. I even won via ATE to clinch the EOtQ tournament in my tiebreaker match.

In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace. And what did that produce? The cuckoo-clock.
- Orson Welles