#and outlived by Sima Yi

[j-august]

Things people have said about Zhuge Liang: "The Prime Minister's calculations are divine and incomprehensible." "O Governor, you are the sport of one of Zhuge Liang's wiles." 'Sima Yi felt sad at having been tricked. "Zhuge Liang is a cleverer man than I am," said he with a sigh of resignation.' "Zhuge Liang's vile tricks are innumerable." '"The man appears like a god and disappears like a demon. He is too much for me," sighed Sima Yi.' '"His comings and goings are not human," said Sima Yi sadly.' '"While he lived, I could guess what he would do; dead, I was helpless!" said Sima Yi.' 'The people had a saying that "A dead Zhuge Liang can scare off a live Sima Yi".'

Luo Guanzhong, Romance of the Three Kingdoms (trans. C.H. Brewitt-Taylor)

[the-archlich]

Who do you think is the most tragic loss in terms of skill? Basically asking... Who had a lot of potential to make waves (or was in the process of doing big things) but died way too early. Someone who might of impacted the overall course of Three Kingdoms. (Something like Guo Jia still being alive resulting in Cao Cao victory @ Chibi as an example, Sun Ce never dying means he'd of taken Xuchang, w/e)

Two answers:

Early years, absolutely Sun Ce. I think the idea that he would actually attack Xu is ridiculous (logistically it doesn’t work out. I’m sure the idea was kicked around but I doubt they would have tried to go through with it), but he was much more aggressive than Sun Quan and proved to be a better front-line commander than almost anyone you can name. He also had the same talent Sun Quan did for putting the right people in the right places and knowing when to listen to advice. I believe that if he lived longer, it would have been a genuine game changer.

Later years, Cao Rui. His death at an unexpectedly young age left Wei in chaos. He’d made some preparations ahead of time (like adopting two sons) but they were too young when he died, and the preparations he did make, he did while he was ill and not entirely cognizant. If Cao Rui lived another dozen years or so (particularly if he outlived Sima Yi), I’m confident that the Cao would have retained the throne. Cao Rui’s death created the power vacuum that allowed the likes of Sima Yi and Cao Shuang to start seizing authority. Without that circumstance, there’s no clear evidence that someone would have attempted what the Sima accomplished, or that it would have been successful. With a different family in power, the whole situation that resulted in Western Jin’s implosion might not have even existed. That would have more long-term consequences than any battle fought during the time.

[lizzymayi]

The Advisors Alliance 2

Episode 27

The build up to Mama’s-Boy-Cross-Dresser Emperor’s death was so freaking tense!  That Devil Eunuch constantly pushing for Sima Yi’s death and the Emperor’s fervent wish to outlive Sima Yi and rule without his presence for once had me on the edge.  Sima Yi rides all night after the summons knowing his life is in danger and his sons prepare to rebel to avenge their father. Sima Yi shows up as the emperor is dying with armed soldiers waiting for a signal to execute him...

Then the comedy kicks in.  I was DYING with laughter as I was dying from the tension.  And it worked.  I would burst out laughing then the scene would tense up again.  Then the gag repeats.  More comedy.  As I’m laughing my ass off, Emperor dies in a quite moving scene (that actor is very good) and it’s hella serious again.  You’d think the funny bits wouldn’t work in such a pivotal and unexpectedly emotional scene, but they were both worked!  I laughed and I was moved!  

I really like this drama.  Omg, why is Cao Shuang so dumb.  Even dumber than his dad.  

[simayeeet]

Cao Pi believed in the Daoist magic sex stuff and how it will ensure a long life, but he died at like 38-39 and he had 13 kids. Looks like it didn’t work for him.

Now, let’s see one of his friends who outlived him, Sima Yi. He had 11 kids and he got to live up to be 70. 

Looks like it worked for him, that lucky bastard. 

[radramblog]

Every Mono-Black Commander Part 1: Oh right, old magic design

A while back, I did a couple of articles regarding every single (at the time) Boros legend available to helm one’s commander deck. It was a long, slow process, but it’s a color combination I care about a lot, so I think it was worth the while.

I kinda felt like doing this again, so I was wondering what colours would be best to do this about. And it turns out the colour combo I care about the most after Boros is…mono-black. I mean, I have 2 mono-black decks at time of writing with a third half-built, so it stands to reason that I’m clearly an expert in this field.

Now…this might be a mistake. This might take a while. Because as it turns out, there are almost 3 times as many B commanders as RW ones. But, we’ll figure it out as we go. This is: Every Mono Black Commander. Part one. Of I don’t know how many. Once again I’m not including the partners because that’ll take too long, but to be fair, it’ll be a hot minute until we get there.

Baron Sengir (12 decks, 88th most played)

Oh right. Homelands. Part of the upside with doing Boros last was that I got to skip this entire phase of Magic’s design, since Enemy colour pairs weren’t allowed to have cards until, like, Apocalypse. There wasn’t a Boros commander until Ravnica, so the cards I was talking about were at least functional.

Baron Sengir is an old, old classic at this point. The original Vampire tribal commander, it’s an 8-mana flyer with two basically shite abilities and has been pretty heavily outdone by, among other things, himself. But, he’s still Baron fucking Sengir, so you can’t help but appreciate him. Just read that flavour text, it’s so unbelievably edgy but still so cool.

 Grandmother Sengir (4 decks, N/A)

For some reason, EDHREC doesn’t list anything below a card we’ll get to later on the list, so I don’t know how Grandmother Sengir stacks up against such powerful competition. Look, she’s an overcosted creature with a bad ability, I know I love jank but this is just uninteresting. Next.

(Also if she’s part of the Sengir family why is she a Human not a Vampire?)

 Ihsan’s Shade (32 decks, 69th most played)

If I had to guess, Ihsan’s Shade has such a nice position on account of its reprint at Uncommon in Masters 25, letting it be one of the 15 commanders available for the colour identity in Pauper commander- though most of those are fairly new cards, so for a while the Shade was probably one of the better options. And that’s just sad. But hey, still dodges White removal and most of Red’s, so eh. He’s the only Legendary Shade (barring changelings), so I guess he’s got that going for him if you want to build that deck.

 Irini Sengir (6 decks, 102nd most played)

Legendary Creature- Vampire Dwarf is a fun typeline, but that’s about the best Irini has going for her. I guess she’s a Black card that messes with Enchantress, so if you’re really struggling with like, 4 Estrid decks in your meta, why not. Or just play a deck with Fracturing Gust.

 Veldrane of Sengir (9 decks, 94th most played)

…holy shit this card is just awful, isn’t it? Looking at what’s below it on the decks list, some of these cards are a lot more interesting and I have no idea why you’d play this idiot over any of those. I’d rather build Irini, man.

Aight are there any other Sengirs I should know about? No? Good, thank fuck.

 Purraj of Urborg (3 decks, N/A)

Well we’re through Homelands, but it’s still early Magic design. Purraj at least does A Thing, where she gets bigger if you cast black spells. I can actually envision a decklist built around Purraj in a way that I couldn’t with half of these Sengir dorks. She’s still comically underpowered, and I of course understand why people wouldn’t build her, but you could do something here.

 Shauku, Endbringer (16 decks, 83rd most played)

Shauku is the first of these cards that is like, actually kickass. It’s kind of unfortunate that she’s been overshadowed somewhat by similar murder commanders, but she’s still the original. Not only that, but she exiles things too, which is honestly a pretty decent effect in the zone. Shame about that drawback, though, because you’d love to attack with your big flier. Oh well, guess you have to keep exiling things.

Oh right, 7 mana. Yeah ok fair enough moving on.

Spirit of the Night (16 decks, 82nd most played)

Spirit of the Night has the same number of decks as commander as Shauku, but I assume its slightly higher because more people are playing it in the 99? Either way, here’s your first Big Daddy Demon to ramp out. 9 mana, huh? It’s one of the first Keyword Soup cards, and it’s art is absolutely phenomenal- gotta be one of the genuinely scariest pieces of art from that era of Magic, maybe all eras- but it is kinda let down a bit by the statline. Legitimately, if this card had 1 more power (and therefore could 3HKO people with commander damage) it would see so much more play.

 Gallowbraid (5 decks, 106th most played, the bottom of the list)

This is the card I mentioned earlier, the lowest thing that EDHREC has deigned to put on its list. I can see why people wouldn’t want to run it, though. Not only is it basically a French vanilla creature, it also actively hurts you for playing it. No one likes cumulative upkeep, and I cannot imagine wanting it on your Commander. This thing isn’t worth the skin it’s made of, apparently.

 Morinfen (11 decks, 92nd most played)

It’s Gallowbraid but it traded the Trample and a point of toughness for Flying, making it substantially better and yet still completely useless. Next.

 Commander Greven il-Vec (4 decks, N/A)

I’m… actually surprised to see Greven below Gallowbraid, I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the case a couple years ago. Don’t ask me why I remember these things. Considering, however, that his only real claim to fame is his story presence, and people who like him now have a better card with his face on it, I guess it isn’t much surprise his numbers would drop off a bit. He’s at least got some flavour, I guess, considering he’s apparently a very outlived-your-usefulness kinda leader, but that’s not going to make up for being yet another overpriced card with a downside and a mediocre evasive ability.

 Crovax the Cursed (7 decks, 97th most played)

Hey look, they spent an entire line of text on this guy making sure you know he’s a Vampire because Summon Legend Vampire was to complex a technology for 1998. Wait, 1998? I thought Stronghold was way older than that, huh. Regardless, like a bunch of these cards so far, Crovax pretty much just a dude, except he has to eat other dudes to stay relevant. Can’t relate, frankly.

 Cao Cao, Lord of Wei (33 decks, 66th most played)

Oh fuck, we left the Homelands zone and ended up in the Portal: 3 Kingdoms zone. For the unaware, P3K was the third “starter” set Magic released, this time targeted towards the Asian market- hence the whole set is a reference to the famous historical novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  Considering the book in question, a lot of these cards were probably real people at some point, which just makes me feel weird.

Anyway, Cao Cao is actually one of the more interesting ones. He’s the first Discard commander on this list so far, and tapping to Mind Rot is actually pretty solid. Cao Cao walked so Tinybones could run. He’s also one of the less expensive ones, owing to having been reprinted in From the Vault: Legends, but the price tag he commands is still comical for the card you’re getting. It’s fine.

 Cao Ren, Wei Commander (5 decks, 105th most played)

Oh horsemanship. Literally just flying but for the historical fiction set where things aren’t allowed to fly. Cao Ren is literally just a draft common, man. I’m not paying $200 to put a draft common in my deck.

 Sima Yi, Wei Field Marshal (5 decks, 104th most played)

Sigh. Wait, this might have been the biggest Human creature in Magic for a while, that it’s this random old strategist is kinda hilarious.

 Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed (77 decks, 53rd most played)

Wait, this guy is the most played so far? Xiahou Dun? I mean, I know he was in the MTGO cube for a bit, but really?

Ok alright fine. He’s probably the least bad of the P3K commanders (at least in black) because he can replace himself with a card or just swing in, his stats aren’t completely unreasonable. But still, this is silly, there are some genuinely bonkers cards that are seeing less play than Xiahou. What am I missing here? I just don’t know.

 Xun Yu, Wei Advisor (2 decks, N/A)

I distinctly remember once looking at the total commanders on EDHREC with no decks. I don’t remember if I saw this guy. I do remember actually being able to see the bottom of the list, so what the hell man maybe I want to build Zuo Ci.

…someone has actually built Zuo Ci, now, huh. Anyway point is Xun Yu is both bad and boring so next.

 Zhang He, Wei General (3 decks, N/A)

…he’s better than Xun Yu, at least? He’s still a hundred-ish dollar bad card, but you know. Technically speaking, you could do worse.

 Zhang Liao, Hero of Hefei (1 deck, N/A)

While a lot of P3K cards are just reflavoured vanilla magic cards, in this case they decided to just take flying off Abyssal Specter and…not put Horsemanship back on it. Shoutout to the one guy apparently playing this deck, but I’ve got to ask why.

I don’t know if there even are any 0-deck commanders left at this point. I should look into that…

 Ascendant Evincar (34 decks, 65th most played)

Finally free of P3K, we’re closing off today with yet another meh card that has been overshadowed by newer ones, great. Shrinking your opponents stuff down one is a super good effect in limited, not so much in Commander- two, of course, is nuts, Elesh Norn is a very good card, but -1/-1 just isn’t worth your time most of the time. And you can’t even really abuse it on your own stuff. I guess he’s aight with Heartless Summoning? I’m really grasping at straws here!

 Okay, so, that’s the first 20. Sick. Now at this pace, I’ll be done after another….5 articles? Holy shit, I forgot how many bad magic cards WOTC has put out, didn’t I…

Next time (whenever I continue this series), we enter a substantially more interesting, if longer, zone- the Kamigawa Zone. Ta-ta for now.

[seesideways]

When Cao Rui is upon death’s door, he summons Sima Yi to the court for the first time in years. Cao Rui tells Sima Yi that he always thought he, the younger man, would outlive Sima Yi, but that was not meant to be.

Instead, Cao Rui asks Sima Yi to support the crown prince. Having been at the battlefront for years, Sima Yi has seen neither of Cao Rui’s two young sons. So he asks the emperor which of the two sons present is the crown prince.

Sickly and barely functioning, Cao Rui suddenly questions Sima Yi which son would be better as crown prince. Cao Fang is chosen rather arbitrarily.

On screen, the first request Cao Rui makes of his son Cao Fang is to hug Sima Yi.

The character, Cao Rui, may not be close to the real Cao Rui, but I find his portrayal much more interesting than I expected.

[the-archlich]

Sun Quan wasn't a bitch though, he was a ruler who was said to be comparible to Yao and Shun and created an empire that outlived all the other factions. Sima Yi dedicated his life fighting to keep the empire his best friend and sons created safe from both internal and external threats.

Why are you telling me instead of Dao? He’s the one you want to argue with. 

What I said was a basic statement about the difference between being neutral and being objective. It wasn’t about Sima Yi and Sun Quan. And I have a much higher opinion of both of those people than he does.

[lizzymayi]

The Advisors Alliance 2

Episode 25

HOLY SHIT.  The Emperor.. wow.  He is much more irredeemable than I had thought.  And deranged.  Boy, your DAD killed your mom.  Your stepmother (and Sima Yi) saved your worthless life.  

That play he enacted for Sima Yi.  I was so enraged I almost spit up blood, so I can understand Sima Yi’s collapse.  Okay, now Sima Yi is beyond pissed.  Emperor, boy, hope you’re ready for what comes next.  Because even though I don’t know any Chinese history, I know you’re not the hero of this story.  Sima Yi outlived and beat all his rivals.  You’re next, fool!  And your demon eunuch is going to suffer right there with you.  

[the-archlich]

Did Sima Yi and Cao Cao/or maybe Cao Pi met face to face? What about Dowager Bian, what was her opinion on Sima Yi? Since she did outlived all three generations of the Caos before passing away.

Of course they met face-to-face. Sima Yi had a close personal relationship with all of them.

Sima Yi spent several years as one of Cao Cao’s staff officers - from his registrar to his major. They worked very closely together and Sima Yi was something of a protégée to Cao Cao.

Sima Yi also worked closely with Cao Pi. He was briefly one of Cao Pi’s personal assistants in 217. When Cao Pi became emperor, Sima Yi again became one of his attendants, as well as a supervisor in the Secretariat.

Empress Bian died in 230, during Cao Pi’s reign. Given Sima Yi’s close working relationship with her husband and son, it’s safe to say she knew him quite well.

[the-archlich]

With the inclusion of Xun You, how would you now divide the responsibilities between him and other Wei advisors given that you previously assigned a particular function to each of them when carrying out a strategy such as Xun Yu choosing personnel?

It’s all about division of labor.

First, there’s no need to bring everyone to every battle. Particularly Xun Yu, since he spent a lot of his time hanging out at the capital, running things while Cao Cao was off. We can always get away with leaving someone behind to take care of the home front.

Second: give multiple tasks. Have multiple units carrying out different parts of a plan, with a different strategist attached to each group to help pull it off. Send Cao Ren and Guo Jia off in one direction, Xiahou Yuan and Xun You in another, while Xiahou Dun and Jia Xu guard the center and respond to unexpected changes. Cao Cao and Xun Yu remain in the main camp supervising everything.

Third: Just pay attention to who is getting how much screen time. That really shouldn’t be too hard to juggle. Just make a bit of an effort to ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak.

Lastly, use history to your advantage. We know a lot about what campaigns these guys went on and what they proposed. Draw from that, it’ll help give them specific tasks and keep them separate. Also use the timeline to advantage. Xun Yu came first, so he can have a few stages all by himself. Then came Guo Jia and Xun You (at the same time, more or less), so Xun Yu can take a step back from doing the detailed work. By the time Jia Xu joins in, Xun Yu can be pretty hands off. And since he and Sima Yi outlive all the others, it’s fine for them to get their glory later, when the others are all gone.

All it takes is a little forethought and planning.