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Thread: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

  1. #161

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by silkster View Post
    Sorry for the delay. Hopefully people were able to brainstorm over the past few days and won't have issue submitting in just a ~36 hour window.
    That is a long time to resolve Brainstorm.

    (Also, I can't believe this thread isn't called the silkster Saga.)

  2. #162

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by Wrath of Pie View Post
    That is a long time to resolve Brainstorm.

    (Also, I can't believe this thread isn't called the silkster Saga.)
    Hah! My first thought is an upkeep brainstorm before using sylvan library, but then it would be the library trigger that could take forever.

    On a side note, if anyone's deck uses an obscure rule or a complicated line, feel free to include it with your submission and I will post it right after the decklists (probably in a separate post so that replying to the decklists post doesn't come with a bunch of other text).

    This will hopefully save some confusion. This is inspired by FTW's plan to hide Ertai on the stack last round, which I totally missed but accidentally ended up with the right result anyway.

  3. #163
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    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by silkster View Post
    for fun I made a salted hash at https://emn178.github.io/online-tools/sha256.html which is 7e96d12c0a0eadb6cbc9b029241eaf284aca66d3eb2a2131e8dbbf765b472d81
    Given that you make the effort to make something every week, and that you said it is fun, I should ask what this it rather than keep ignoring it?

    I tried the url, even putting the long string of characters in what was referred as input, which gave a different long string of characters as an output, but I didn't become any wiser for it.

  4. #164

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by dte View Post
    Given that you make the effort to make something every week, and that you said it is fun, I should ask what this it rather than keep ignoring it?

    I tried the url, even putting the long string of characters in what was referred as input, which gave a different long string of characters as an output, but I didn't become any wiser for it.
    It's a hash: he puts in his list, and a secret (round one, it was "unicycle". This secret is known as a salt. Get it? You're adding salt to your order of hash?) and then the hashing algorithm spits out this random-looking string.
    The idea is that while it's easy to create the hash it's impossible to work backwards from the hash to get the original input. Which means every round we can confirm the list they submitted by taking the list and the secret they post at reveal time and it will create the same hash they posted when the round opens.
    So you can't do it yet for this round, but if you take their lists from earlier rounds you should be able to see that they didn't cheat and change their list.

  5. #165

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    I once took a grad class on cryptography despite having almost no background in computer science, though I had a stronger background in abstract algebra than any of the comp sci students). I learned about RSA and one-way functions and I've never been able to engage with any of it directly, so I'm greatly amused by the opportunity. I expect most people will ignore it, but one or two might be amused. After all, this thread is all about amusement!

  6. #166
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    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    OK, thank you both for the explanation!
    Will definitely not check it out :)

  7. #167

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    We're up to 9 entries now (including my own). Two were illegal, one was corrected just 20-some minutes later, and PM sent to the other. (Technically I sent two PMs to each cause I'm bad at the messaging interface and also because I misread something else.)

  8. #168

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Sent

  9. #169

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by Reeplcheep View Post
    Sent
    Nice. Just missing one regular and hopefully one update of an illegal entry, but still over 4 hours to go.

  10. #170

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by silkster View Post
    We're up to 9 entries now (including my own). Two were illegal, one was corrected just 20-some minutes later, and PM sent to the other. (Technically I sent two PMs to each cause I'm bad at the messaging interface and also because I misread something else.)
    Please stop assuming I am playing the good and banned card, TY

    E also I changed my list again, sorry.

  11. #171
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    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by FourDogsinaHorseSuit View Post
    It's a hash: he puts in his list, and a secret (round one, it was "unicycle". This secret is known as a salt. Get it? You're adding salt to your order of hash?) and then the hashing algorithm spits out this random-looking string.
    The idea is that while it's easy to create the hash it's impossible to work backwards from the hash to get the original input. Which means every round we can confirm the list they submitted by taking the list and the secret they post at reveal time and it will create the same hash they posted when the round opens.
    So you can't do it yet for this round, but if you take their lists from earlier rounds you should be able to see that they didn't cheat and change their list.
    I feel like this explains it really well, but I had to read it like three times before I somewhat understood what you said.

    But I'll try it. See if I pass this computational thinking exam.

    EDIT: I passed! I got the same string from the hash and I now know what it DOES.
    Still don't really know what a hash IS though.
    Join the 4 Card Blind competition!

  12. #172

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by Asthereal View Post
    Still don't really know what a hash IS though.
    A hash is basically a consistent abbreviation.
    A hashing algorithm is how you do that.
    A good hashing algorithm makes things smaller, can't be undone, and is collision avoidant. A collision is when two different inputs create the same output. It is, of course, inevitable that some collisions will occur, The only way to have that not happen is to do nothing to the inputs, or transform the inputs in such a way that we can work backwards.

    Like a simple hashing algorithm would be to take only the first letter of each cardname.
    Which means the list of Forest Island Lightning Bolt Guilded Goose would produce a hash of FILG. It will do this every single time, so anyone can take those four cards and come up with FILG infer the card names, but you can't decide what the original four were. It's also a bad algorithm because you could easily create a collision with any four cards that began with F, I, L and G.

    Now to get further into the weeds, because we know how FILG are determined we could actually, using brute force, test every possible configuration. there's only what, a few trillion possible results? (Thousands times thousands, times thousands times thousands?) A machine would eventually figure it out.
    But the hashes you actually use are so complicated that figuring them out would require more time than exists before the heat death of the universe.

  13. #173
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    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Now I am very happy I (or we with Asthereal) asked!

    Nice and clear explanation about things we hear about since quite some time :/

  14. #174

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    And to add to that, the salt is an extra random string to make it less predictable - without it then I could try to predict what cards silkster might be playing, or even brute-force many different combinations, put them into the hashing function, and see if the results match their string. Then if they do I'd know what they're playing and maybe try submitting a deck that beats it. But because there's also the salt, an extra random phrase that isn't a card name, I can't actually do that.

  15. #175

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    In theory, there are only so many decks that I might play and you might be able to guess it, so that's what the extra random words at the end are for. Actually, even without that it would still be very difficult and impressive to guess it. Each week I think of about 5-10 decks that feel at least somewhat playable to me, and I don't think I've seen an exact four yet. (And you'd have to get the right order too.) For round 3, I could think of five win conditions that people might play, and I figured that they would account for about half the field. All together, one person played one of them, and not a single other card in that deck had been on my radar. I know to expect a few surprises each week, but this season it had been almost all surprises.

    I received a legal update and one new submission, but I had misremembered how many decks I should have been expecting (I remembered 11 matches, but that means 12 total entries), so we're still off one at the moment. I know that was me last season, so I certainly understand. 🤪

    It's a few minutes past time and still one regular short. I'll probably on the fence about what to do for a little while and then post the lists I have.

  16. #176
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    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Who's short and do they know? Maybe they/I messaged dte or Asthereal instead!

  17. #177

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by FTW View Post
    Who's short and do they know? Maybe they/I messaged dte or Asthereal instead!
    Ooh, good point. Or maybe they replied to the message from Round 3 thinking that it would go to me but instead went back to themself. I made the same mistake the first time I tried to update a deck. It's Dooey, and I've sent a message. Maybe wait an hour or so?

  18. #178

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Asthereal sometimes waited a whole day, but not always, I think. I'm going to go for it and post in 20 minutes.

  19. #179

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Season 14: Round 4 Lists

    1. silkster: Induced Amnesia, City of Brass, Mirrorshell Crab, Reanimate
    2. dte: Imp's Mischief, Show and Tell, Summoner's Pact, Hive Mind
    3. Asthereal: Karakas, Mishra's Factory, Leyline of Singularity, Memory Lapse
    4. FourDogsinaHorseSuit: Leyline of Singularity, Leyline of the Void, Forest, Nullhide Ferox
    5. jfb1337: Devoted Druid, Swift Reconfiguration, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Walking Ballista
    6. Symbi: Balance, Talisman of Unity, Turn the Earth, Crashing Footfalls
    7. GoblinSmashmaster: Overmaster, Balance, The Rack, Crashing Footfalls
    8. FTW: Meddling Mage, Dark Deal, Force of Will, Snapback
    9. Wrath of Pie: Geier Reach Sanitarium, Sol Ring, Unburial Rites, Iona, Shield of Emeria
    10. RoosterCocoa: Balance, An Offer You Can't Refuse, Autumn's Veil, Keldon Halberdier
    11. Reeplcheep: Tourach, Dread Cantor, Chancellor of the Annex, Solitude, Prismari Command

    Hashed entry: Induced Amnesia, City of Brass, Mirrorshell Crab, Reanimate, still too many choices

    Link to Round 4 in the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...#gid=141673843

    Note: Balance resolves in the order the steps are on the card, so if an opponent has Nullhide Ferox, they discard it, put it into play, then it gets sacrificed.

  20. #180

    Re: 4 Card Blind: The Silkster Seasons

    Quote Originally Posted by silkster View Post
    6. Symbi: Balance
    7. GoblinSmashmaster:Balance
    10. RoosterCocoa: Balance,
    Note: Balance resolves in the order the steps are on the card, so if an opponent has Nullhide Ferox, they discard it, put it into play, then it gets sacrificed.
    I quit

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