Heads Up

Hey All. tekupgrade.wordpress.com is the new Vs love blog. This has been reclaimed for the Scorpion, and my general gaming ramblings.

Passing on Breakfast

A point was made that I haven’t really touched on Vs much lately. Not Vs proper, more like morality and philosophies I consider related. I’m going to keep doing those, but I do agree. On to tek. For the sake of making it known, I agree that my language and subject matters are nowhere near polite enough for any corporate standards and practices office… so this isn’t an integrity destroying act of apology. It’s just a change of pace back to what I MEANT this blog to be in the first place.

One thing that never ceases to amaze me is how every time I get a promotion I get excited then two weeks later settle in andi’s as if nothing’s changed. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud of my promotion this month, but the additional duties and responsibilities it conferred are things I was assigned the month before I got the rank. So it’s really just business as usual again. And none the less, the rank is still in action. It just doesn’t change a lot day in and day out.

The same problem is seen in curve decks. For instance: Wolverine, Logan is GODLIKE on turn 3. He’s more or less max stats for loyalty-reveal. The problem is that 6/6 doesn’t strike too much fear into your opponents on turn 4 when they play curve. He’s great when he hits, then becomes an atk pump target, then on 5 he becomes a liability. Standard Curve at its basest  is a series of crescendos in the attempt to out shout your opponent. What’s new and exciting turn 3 becomes a target two turns later. So to make up for this we accept the pain of counter stuns and run atk pumps.

The thing I’ve been looking at for the longest time is maintaining the curve. Between my Doom Patrol, Horsemen, and X-Men assemble ramblings I think that’s clear by now. There’s a reason. Call it a moral reason. I’m a firm believer that no matter how humble your origins you can become whatever you dedicate yourself to. I firmly believe that there’s no reason The Penguin, Gentleman of Crime should be considered incapable of mayhem on the level of the likes of Superman, and Doomsday(Other than the obvious ‘He’s a fat guy with an umbrella’ not a genetically engineered death machine or superpowered alien.).

And so I find myself looking at BYOS. I’m looking at DCL, and I’m looking at my Tuna Mediator deck(JLA/TT focuing on Aquaman and Beast Boy). The problem is that of card draw. When you think about it, though, everything’s a problem with card draw. If you could play any card from your deck at any time a LOT of the challenge would go away. Not useful for kitchen table, but extremely fortuitous when DCX cards hang helplessly in the balance.

The idea is that on turn 3 Beast Boy, Garfield Logan comes into play and starts growing. Aquaman comes down on orders, and stays safe and protected behind our boy Garfield. That makes garfield the only target they can hope to deal with. Superman, Metropolis Marvel comes into play on 5, meaning that two massive meat walls stand between your opponent and your endurance total. On 6 Flash, founding member drops it in a manner some would not unreasonably misconstrue as hot. Flash softens their defenses, Superman throws a jab, and Garfield tests them for Glass Jaw Syndrome.

The over arcing concept is that by maintaining a full on board with characters who are all capable of rolling with the curve and surviving. This leads to superior board presence and by extension larger over all comparable damage potential.

The problem comes in that I can do this with 3.5 affiliations(X-Men, Horsemen, Doom Patrol and kinda Teen Titans). Hidden makes up for some problems, and thus heavy hidden groups(like both Knights teams) don’t need to concern themselves as much with it. What do I do with Team Superman, though? Protection only works if my opponent runs no flight and/or has a debilitating speech impediment that coincidentally declares the attacks or defensive actions that are least fortunate for them. I have yet to run into such an impediment.

Tomorrow I begin my new crusade: Wild Pack, and the breaking thereof. That’ll kick my counter addiction.

A Booster Shot for Friendship

Wow. It’s done. I get internet back home, complete with regular blog updates, Tuesday. Huzzah. My apologies for the lack of updates.

My best friend in the whole world, a man I think of as a brother, I met about 7 years ago. He was dating a really good friend of mine, and I wanted to see if he had the intestinal fortitude to be worth the while to get to know. So as we were going about the night playing pool I licked his ear. I was messing with him, I told him I was going to do it. I don’t think he believed me. After the event he just shrugged, turned his head to look at me and informed me that what I just did was wierd. He didn’t freak out, he was pretty calm. He passed.

A few months later she moved back home, with her new man in tow. After a night of discussing the political impact of Rommel’s assassination attempt going off, the morality of war, and the redeeming literary value of cereal boxes. Our young friendship was the one to establish the Vodka Rule. Most of the night was spent enjoying Kettle One Vodka, and our agreed agreeability was sealed by sharing shots and switching toasts.

The Vodka Rule: One can be a friend, but one can only be a Friend once they’ve shared a shot of vodka with you. There are caveats, etc, but the general rule holds true. If I’ve knocked back vodka with you, it’s a safe bet I’ve got your back so long as the shot was done under the auspices of the Vodka Rule. I do not share Vodka lightly so odds are that was the intent.

It’s a strange rite of initiation with my friends, but it’s never let me down. Only one person I’ve ever shared vodka with has betrayed me to the point where I no longer deal with them.

And this rather reminds me of our game Vs. We have strange rules. My personal rules include, but are not exclusive to:

 -I maintain a personal banned list of cards I won’t play with for fear of being just another *.dec.

-I don’t cut decks at tourneys. If the prize is worth more than your integrity then so be it. Far be it for me to interfere with something so valuable.

-If someone makes a play mistake and they catch it before their next action they can take it back. There’s no reason to sabotage my opponent, and the round by preventing the game from being played to its fullest.

-The most important trade factor is necessity. If you NEED a card and have nothing I want I’ll probably trade you anyway for whatever strikes my fancy, or I’ll trade for an IOU(fun fact: I’ve called in an IOU like, twice and both times they were with friends I played with everyday).

That’s not an exhaustive list, but those are the big ones. It’s personal morality. We all carry them. They make each of us who we are. It’s interesting to go to a tourney and watch others players to discern the rules they live by. Look out for it some time. It’s always interesting to see what it leads to.

Wrath, and the Key to Inciting it

Ok, this is going on here because 1) It’s the only Blog I run right now, and 2) It originates from an off topic thread on VSR.

 Teachers are some of the most over worked, under paid, under appreciated people in the US. They take our kids from us and turn them into functional adults. They teach them to read, write, do math, and think independantly. And yet our education system is an afterthought. Kids skip class and ignore the gift they’re being given. Why? Because Supply greatly outstrips demand, and thus the product is devalued. Education is mandatory so we’re rarely sitting face to face with the results of no education.

Voting is the same way. Few if any of us have every outright been denied a vote. Since everyone has one they can’t mean much, right?

There are Afghan families going to inhuman lengths to get their children even a meager education. People die because they believe they should be allowed a voice for thsemselves. And here we sit ‘too lazy to pay attention’. No offense meant to the person who said that. I respect their honesty and like them personally. But there’s a goddamn line. That line comes when the price of freedom isn’t deemed sufficient enough to make it valuable, and it’s traded back to corporations and the already powerful in exchange for another 15 minutes of Halo 3 tonight.

I’m not saying vote without thinking. I’m saying 15 minutes during a coffee break isn’t too much to ask to learn what’s going on and become an informed voter. There is no excuse.

Mr. Cleary would be so disappointed

        Sometimes you have a great idea on paper that turns to complete and utter crap when it’s brought into the real world. A few examples from my own life:

-Going to College. Everyone needs education, and I think everyone should do what they need to in order to achieve at least a Bachelor’s degree. unfortunately, my college experience would’ve been better suited two years earlier, or could’ve waited until now.

-Making jokes about C-Span. As a Kid I would oft remark ‘This is so boring… I’d rather watch C-Span.’ My father one day said that it’s not that bad and one day I’d understand. I remembered that one day in college and sat down to see if he was right. *sigh* He was now I’m hooked.

-Moving the way I did. I thought pizza would be cheaper to buy for my friends with trucks than renting a U-Haul. I hate driving those things, so I thought it was two birds/one stone style. Yeah. Two days of moving and a day left later… I think the U-Haul would’ve been better.

We plan things out on paper, then boots hit the ground and we find ourselves in a situation wherein a facet we assumed things about turned out to be problematic. There are details we assume are squared away by virtue of they either didn’t occur to us, or they’ve never been a problem before. And then we find out the hard way: Paper doesn’t necessarily translate into real life.

This is a problem I ran into last week. After the Et Tu Bruce Tourney I found myself the proud own(finally) of a full playset of Hatywires to test out my Pesto Power deck. No extra New and Improved, but Straight to the Grave and Black Manta/Floronic Man will take care of that until I can properly procure the cards. Still, I built the deck, patted myself on the back, and sat down to solo test it before bringing it to the unforgiving hands of my wife and the Robber Barons.

I realized something that didn’t occur to me on paper: You draw 4 cards initially. Then 2 per turn until the end of the game, barring playing an IG opponent or running card draw. And now we have a problem: If I’m to jump the curve like the deck is SUPPOSED TO BE designed to do I have to run 30 recursion cards at least, probably more would be advisable. Why such a massive, stupid amount of recursion? Because on turn 4(The turn it should kill on) I would have drawn 12 cards. One of them needs to be New and Improved, one needs to be Haywire, and a Team-Up. That leaves me 9 cards. 5 of them have to be recursion to jump the curve. To hit the curve, I need one Haywire/Recursion card at the beginning of each turn. In addition, the kill combo has to be achieved in the opening draw. This never occured to me. The unrelenting, unforgiving, hard numbers of the combo are so terrible I can’t bring myself to look at Pesto Power. I now know what macnamera felt like in the early seventies.

The design is going to have to rock out S/B Robo. He’s guaranteed to be on curve, allowing New and Improved to help him jump the curve instead of desperately trying to reach it. More to come when we figure out how to make the numbers dance like the tiny dancers they are.

Hal Jordan’s Always in Proper Attire

Happy St. Patty’s Day. The last week has been crazy. I’m moving, and I have a lot going on at work. While you’re waiting for the first real post in 5 days, I will leave you with a simple algebra problem to solve:

Kenpachi is beginning to feel IG is a crutch for his deckbuilding. After seeing it in a functional, tourney environ he’s too drawn to it’s power. Kenpachi needs to break the IG dependancy.  Injustice Gang:Heroin as X:Methadone. Solve for X.

She’s Handi-Capable

Wow. new players in the Vs Tourney yesterday. Veggie power crapped out, leaving me with an 0-4 record. Eff you, X-men. I’m going home. In Modern I fared much better. It seems I do best with the smallest possible card pool. Anyway, I’m not going into the rounds. In Silver I lost to Darkseid, Robber Barons, Secret Society, and something else. Ron took home story deck with a Batman/Darkseid deck from Justice League Unlimited, Justin Drove two hours to walk away with Farthest Traveled, and despite everyone trading votes(Seriously… If person A said Person B was best sportman, Person B said player A was) Lee walked away with the Best Sportsman prize. I hafta say, it was a tough call between Justin and Lee, but I went with Justin in the end. Still, glad to see Lee walked away with it. To any other TOs, I firmly support the concept of rewarding players for more than just their ability on the table. If UDE is reading, I think a farthest traveled, and best sportsman card should be packed into each tourney kit. Even if it’s just leftover cards from the previous month’s kit, I think excellence should be rewarded regardless of what kind of excellence.

Modern was where I shone. After a day of trading I had not only a founding member(squeeee!!!!!) and megalomaniac(Also SQUEEE!!!) but also another From the Darkness(need I say it a third time?). A terrible draw round 1 spelled certain doom, but Nikki thought I had a better chance of going T4 so she conceded once she beat me. my official record was 3-1(Lost to SinSyn rush round 3, and we split prizes instead of playing the final round. I’d like to believe I’d have gone 4-1). Joker, Headline Stealer+Lex Luthor, Metropolis Mogul=hillarity. Batman to maintain lockdown allows me to stall out until I get my kill condition(40+ in ATK pumps). The best one? Scotty was playing Beastboy counter abuse. I think beastboy was a 20/20. I rocked out an Evil Genius, we both drew 8 cards and he whittled himself down to 15 by the end. Anyway, Card Draw Barbie swung into Beastboy. My measly 3/3 went into a 20/20… I’m not sure what Scotty thought I was doing. He looked almost amused when I declared the attack. So I believe what I said was along the lines of ‘The thing about Card Draw Barbie is she’s also crack whore barbie(I drop Crackshot), and BOY does she love crack(Another), the best thing is that it makes her all too easy(Drop said card), I mean REALLY easy(drop another one), but remember when you pull out you have to make sure you’re taking aim(discarding all 4 cards) or you’ll get it in her eye. Make sure your take reaaaly careful aim(Another with another 4 cards) or she’ll get angry even if she is a crack whore.” He had 13 cards in his hand, so the final equation: 3+3+13+13+8+8+3(barbie’s natural attack)=51 from a 3/3 card draw engine into a 20/20 counter monster. He ended up, sadly, only taking 34 from all of that. Still, how often do you see a cripple with nothing but an internet connection taking down a shape shifter?

Anyway, more to come later. All in all it was a great day with a bunch of fun guys to play with. Huzzah

Run of the Mill is Rampant, but Great is Rare

A Little more back story on me: I was raised in books. When I was 4 my mother sat my sister and I down every night and read to us before we went to sleep. Even before I’d gone to kindergarten I knew the whole history of Narnia, from its birth to its death. Aslan has been a dear friend since before I can accurately remember. This love of reading and stories has stayed with me throughout my life. It’s a gift I can’t thank my mother for enough. And your first love is always your deepest. C.S. Lewis has had an impressive impact on me. From his Narnia Fairy tales, to his personal vision of the myth of Psyche, to his philosophical works like (My personal favorite) The Abolition of Man, he’s had a deep, unshakable impact on me as a person.

One of my favorite works of his has to be Screwtape Proposes a Toast. It’s undersecretary of Hell Screwtape proposing a toast at a tempter’s college. He discusses the state of their profession, and in a related note the state of humanity. A line that rings true for me:

The “great” sinners, those in whom vivid and genial passions have been pushed beyond the bounds and in whom an immense concentration of will has been devoted to objects which the Enemy abhors, will not disappear. But they will grow rarer. Our catches will be ever more numerous; but they will consist increasingly of trash — trash which we should once have thrown to Cerberus and the hellhounds as unfit for diabolical consumption

Translation outside of context: In our age, true greatness is on the decline but the number of participants in any given event is growing. It’s not even that there can only be so many ‘super stars’ of a given thing. It’s that people feel more comfortable going along with a crowd than kindly telling the crowd where it can go, and going a different direction. We need the ego mass to justify our own existence in a sense. Atman and Brahman in perpetual struggle… but Brahman always wins because Atman is temporary.

This relates to, believe it or not, two things in Vs. One thing, very near and dear, is the announcement that came recently that June 10th is the day MVU hits the streets. This pains me. This pains me because as an Artist, I want as many colors with which to paint as possible. UDE has on its computers, and in the hands of their playtesters, a whole new spectrum from which I can draw. And I don’t get it for another 2 and a half months. And yet, it gives me hope. This isn’t me trying to spin the situation. Here’s how I look at it:

I want a great sinner to feast on. I want a balanced, well designed, flavorful, exciting set for so epic a confrontation as Civil War. Could it be hitting shelves soon? Sure. But as a 150 card set… with maybe 2 legends, 3 cards worth getting, and as much flavor as a wet vanilla scented dish rag. Don’t get me wrong. We have a great design team working for us, but I think civil war is a little too… massive… to be done in 90 days. As soon as we start sacrificing quality for that new card smell, we sacrifice our art for immediate gratification. Nothing worth anything comes easy, even more so when it comes to Art.

That being said, if UDE doesn’t get off its hindquarters and reprint MVL and DCL by the end of April I’ll be sorely disappointed. AEG is releasing Samurai Edition: Banzai in April… with 2 rares per pack(The extra rare? A hard to get card from a non SE expansion. Go AEG). Only a dozen people draw paychecks from AEG and they still managed to not only rerelease a base set, but improve upon the original. Come on UDE, are you going to say you can’t do the same?

Back on topic: The other thing that whole part of the story brings up is perpetuation without evolution. The masses get bigger but the number of stand outs becomes smaller. We all try to teach people Vs. We all show our friends, our wives, some of us even show our siblings. But how often after you teach someone how to play do you teach them how to perfect their Art?

My wife mops the floor with me. Not only is Robber Barons disgusting, but I took the time to teach her how to play. The first few weeks(Even now sometimes) she’ll make a play mistake and I’ll stop the game to correct it. This has become rather infrequent lately. After taking the time to show her why a card would or wouldn’t be played at a certain time, She’s learned the game and through it her own path. Would I make the same plays she does? No… but that’s an Artistic difference. It’s not forgetting to PA Galactus 9 Drop’s entering play effect.

When you teach someone new, teach them. It’s an Art, and Art is always a learning process. We all know that but we also make sure it’s always a teaching process as well. When we do that Great Players are born.

I Thought it was a Joke, I Even Wrote it In Down in my Journal

Make it June 10th… NOW! *twitch*

So a further look at Jank as a lifestyle. I had a wonderfully terrible idea: Any given marvel knight before turn 4.  Wolverine, Age of Apocalypse.  Adrian Chase on 5 with a Steel Girder. Flip Neighborhood watch naming X-Statix, and then flip O-Force. Adrian Chase targets Wolverine who is the only visible character you have. To get to you they have to go through him. And they have to go for you. Anyway, as the source of stun is Adrian Chase, he stunned them, which should activate steel girder’s ability. Thusly, their whole board is cleared on 5, given sufficient supply of Healing factor and spare wolverines… maybe adamantium claws? Anyway, the meat wall cometh.

So I got this idea from Poppy the Cat’s MK deck. As always: Go to him, vote for him.  And this isn’t the first time I’ve taken an idea someone had and made it my own. Be it through a revisioning of their idea, or taking the basic concept and applying it with my own style infused deliciously. For true, right now I’m in the middle of a deckbuilding struggle with Ra’s Al Cool because our decks seem to be inspired at the same time and follow some basic mechanical considerations. I’m beginning to doubt my ability to have an original idea.

And then we’re faced with the problem of any Artist: Everything we do is an imitation. Every repost is a repost of a repost. And yet… it’s ours. We’re all given the same pool of cards, the same tech and combos exist for all of us(In theory). It’s in this unity of origin we find the joy of individual expression. Joe uses the marvel knights team and a steel girder to clear his opponent’s field. I’m using the marvel knights team and a steel girder to clear my opponent’s field.

There are similarities. There ought to be, as his tech inspired mine. The differences, though, are where an artist truly expresses himself. He is establishing an early game lock down, letting his opponent have no chance to counter. I’m leaving an open swing to my face, then establishing a challenge. They won’t make it past Wolverine, and they’ll all die trying. Joe is showing he prefers control, whereas I’m throwing down a gauntlet to my opponent. He is winning through precise control and machanation. I’m winning by cutting them with the knife that wounded me. These two decks, family by deckbuilding standards, still show much about the Artists that crafted them.

You’ll notice I don’t post decklists anymore. That’s because the decklist is yours, and at its heart, any tech people take from me becomes theirs. It’s their vision of the tech, their hands that build and play the deck. We teach each other. As Artists we build from the Art of others. I can safely say I’ve never had a randomly generated tech idea. It’s all come from a source. By expressing our Art as a community, we serve as a source for other Artists.

Next time you’re flipping through your cards and you see some jank, or tech you’d never thought of take it to VSRealms, go to the strategy and tactics and let the rest of us know. Your jank may inspire others, and thus the community is made stronger.

Buy Them Coffee Afterwards.

People are generally evil. I don’t mean this is a pessimistic way, it’s a statement of fact. We’re born knowing nothing but want. We don’t have the cognative capacity to accept others, we only are able to know that we’re missing something. Kindness, while a distinctly human quality, is something we learn. I’m not saying people are incapable of good, I’m saying we’re predisposed away from it. We’re not naturally good. It’s a learned skill like Math, Science, Reading, or Cooking.

I find myself taking on the ‘Happy Go Lucky Cynic’ label. Those that love you will hurt you. After all is said and done, the card is right. Only a friend can betray you. My best friend has let me down and left me hanging so many times I’ve lost count. Then again, he can say the same for me. We fail each other, we fail ourselves. No ones perfect, and those imperfections can cut really deep at times.

As with all things, there’s a dichotamy that must be observed. I love mydaughter more than anything. It’s a statement no one who doesn’t have a kid can fully comprehend. I would gladly lay down my life if it meant her safety. That doesn’t mean she doesn’t grate my nerves when she gets colicky. That doesn’t mean I haven’t let loose an expletive in abject horror and shock and what she’s left for her father in the confines of her huggies. I love who and what she is, I sometimes hate the acts I must perform to keep her healthy, happy, and safe.

I bring this up because of Risk Vs. Reward yesterday. A line, if you would:

 People can be cruel, and superheroes give us a way to cope. By exaggerating the extremes of real human wickedness into the realm of mythology, we can examine it from a comfortable distance.

Wise words. They ring true. Human cruelty is a sickness some people not only possess, but espouse in others. It’s a terrible condition. And yet, with all things, cruelty is a corruption of something I consider to be good: competition.

You build muscle by destroying what you have and your body rebuilding it stronger. A marriage, a good marriage, is made stronger and the commitments deeper by the trials and tribulations it faces. Even in raising a child, it’s recommended that if a child get time on their stomach to get their body’s less used muscles time to develop. Mara hates tummy time, but it’s necessary. It makes her uncomfortable and yet I find myself forced to deal with her cries of protestation. She has to suffer to become stronger. It’s Darwinism in motion. Only by undergoing that which is painful do we learn to move past it and become better people.

This isn’t a sadistic mindset, but an honest one: We grow through adversity and trouble. Some of the greatest leaders knew and embraced this. It’s how we react to conflict that defines a part of us. Do we hang tight to our principles and persevere? Or do we give in to baser thoughts of violence or outright capitulation? It is in the fires of adversity that we are formed. Apocalypse takes this too far and corrupts it into cruelty.

This is seen at tourneys(Yes, this morality rant does relate to Vs). You may have read my post ‘Divorce isn’t Cheap’ about my wife shutting down my poorly thrown together Quickfate deck with her Hidden Heralds jank. 1 point is a hell of a loss to take. But it was in that conflict, good natured and an extension of a strong marriage, that joy was wrought. It was the loss that excited me. The rush of coming so close, and still faltering. The failure made the journey worthwhile. Don’t tell her, but I love my wife as much for the conflict we share as I do the peace. Side note: My wife and I have had 1 argument in the 3 years we’ve been together. My family calls her ‘The Lion Tamer’ because she’s a master at cooling off my usually boiling blood. She’s a dream, and she’s wonderful. I could not be luckier than to have met and married that beautiful woman.

Still, marital bliss aside, we find ourselves in conflict at tourneys. Statistically, we’re all going to be losers. There’s only ever space enough for 1 at the top of the heap. We have two options:

-Embrace the conflict, and loss. Learn from it. Thank our opponent for leaving it all on the table and holding nothing back. Every player who beats us deserves not only our respect, but our gratitude for making the conflict worth our time by bringing his full force to bear against us. As a sign of respect to us, they approach us as equals. Savor the bittersweet taste of a loss, and enjoy the moment of for what it is: Another in a long list of Acts of Life.

or

-Become angry. Hate our opponent for proving themselves our better. Hate ourselves for being so weak as to lose. Regret spending the entry fee, and feeling jealousy and hate towards the one who takes Alan Scott home. We do not respect the conflict. We don’t embrace growth. We care only for the material, and what we’ve paid to recieve participation prizes.

The first creates a positive atmosphere. When one can honestly take their Art to another, and find themselves on the losing end without malice or negativity, they have given themselves and opportunity to grow and others an example of how to conduct themselves. They become mentors to those that see the match, the struggle, and the failure without contempt or anger. The second one creates an environment where the material and the final outcome destroy the Art and Comraderie that define the Vs community. It makes it about what you walk away with in hand, not in heart.

I have never won a major tourney. Ever. Not in L5R, not in Vs, or WoW, or Naruto. No regionals, nationals, worlds, or like sized events. And yet as I drive 4-5 hours to a probable defeat, I’m given so much. The car ride with old friends, the matches with new friends, the smoke breaks and the random conversation. Trades, tech talk, and brotherhood are the main draw for me. Someone else has invariably walked away with the product, the swords, and the story choice. But I walk away with new friends, new cards, and an experience that I have not tarnished by an lack of appreciation.

I appreciate the conflict, the growth it allows me. After a differing view in my younger years, I’ve resolved myself never again to let such a wonderful thing as conflict be ruined or destroyed by the fact that I may lose. Those moments of tension where the game hangs in the balance are part of the reason I love Vs. I constantly strive to live up to my ideal: I will not be robbed of growth and joy by my own greed for cardboard. I implore each of you to strive for the same. I will not let the growth of conflict be corrupted into the selfish atrophy of cruelty. Any prize you can win can be bought on eBay. The memories of a good time, free of anger, can’t be bought at any price.