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The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

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Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#71

Post by overcast »

r00fus wrote: post #53
overcast wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played daily since beta, and stopped about a year ago. The problem with Hearthstone is that they traded mana RNG for effect RNG. The fate of every match revolves around how well a card randomly targets an enemy. Far too much is decided by a coin toss in that game, because it makes for funny youtube videos.

I also liked in MTG how much more responsive the game was due to instants/interrupts & triggers - was far more complex and nuanced. In HS it's simplified - with few exceptions, your stuff happens only on your turn, very little targeting of the player (ie, no discard). The strategies are limited. I still like it, but ... it's definitely not up to MTG richness.

They addressed the instants, far too difficult to direct flow of the game online like that. Look at MTG online, it flows like a pig. The game is constantly interrupted for each phase. Their answer was secrets basically.

Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#72

Post by bena »

r00fus wrote: post #53
overcast wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've played daily since beta, and stopped about a year ago. The problem with Hearthstone is that they traded mana RNG for effect RNG. The fate of every match revolves around how well a card randomly targets an enemy. Far too much is decided by a coin toss in that game, because it makes for funny youtube videos.

I also liked in MTG how much more responsive the game was due to instants/interrupts & triggers - was far more complex and nuanced. In HS it's simplified - with few exceptions, your stuff happens only on your turn, very little targeting of the player (ie, no discard). The strategies are limited. I still like it, but ... it's definitely not up to MTG richness.

The game is probably more "responsive" now. Instants and Interrupts were a mess. Batching and determining which had to be resolved LIFO and which FIFO and the various corner cases were an unnecessary labyrinth to navigate.

The stack is much better and I'd say more nuanced. Now you can target things on the stack specifically. There's more bluffing and playing with the fact that there is incomplete information.

Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#73

Post by bena »

mbunch wrote: post #36
brandnewlow wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's secretly a feature, not a bug. Due to mana screw, even the best players lose 30-40% of the time.

It is my least favorite part of the game (really the only part of it that I dislike), but you're right. I don't know if it was quite what Richard Garfield had in mind, but at this point it's 100% an intentional part of the design philosophy.

He actually wanted to decrease the consistency a bit. If the games are too consistent, you run into the problem of there just being a "best deck". Especially if you can count on your mana like in Hearthstone or with the suggestion of the "mana deck".

As it stands, it's something you have to consider and something you have to realize affects your opponents just as much as you. You can mitigate mana issues by playing a deck with low casting cost cards or by playing more land than normal, etc. There are also cards to search out land or can be used in a similar manner to land.

Yes, there is some variance, but poker has a ton of variance and no one would say that it detracts from the game.

Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#74

Post by bena »

stephengillie wrote: post #42
BookmarkSaver wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not talking about mana burn, that was never really a problem except for extremely niche combo decks. He's talking about when you draw lands/mana producers for 5 turns in a row after starting with a heavy mana hand. That is "mana flooding".

Oh, that's either an issue of an unbalanced deck, or insufficient randomization. My best decks started with the "rule of 1/3", and added/trimmed 1-2 lands to optimize. The "rule of 1/3" is that 1/3 of the deck should be lands, for best land draw. So a 60 card deck would start with 20 lands, and maybe swap 1-2 forests for elves in an elf deck. And from a recent card randomizing thread, it takes 7 "riffles" to fully ra…

That's for a 52 card deck. The numbers would be different for decks of smaller and larger sizes.

Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#75

Post by mikeevans »

chimeracoder wrote: post #10
mox1 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still going strong, probably more popular than ever. There is now 2 distinct ways to play the game online Magic Arena, and MTGO (Magic The Gathering Online). Full rules enforcement, matchmaking, drafting, etc. etc. "Paper" Magic is still very popular, with a big 1000+ tournament happening throughout the US (and the world) every weekend. The cost has unfortunately gone up, its pretty rare to find a $5 entry fee anymor…

> The cost has unfortunately gone up, its pretty rare to find a $5 entry fee anymore. The entry fees where I live for constructed formats are around $5 or not much higher, and that's for New York City. Limited was around $20-25, last I checked, and the bulk of that is the cost of the cards you're purchasing as part of the event.

Where are you finding constructed events for $5 in NYC? Most places I know of are at least double that.

Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#76

Post by r00fus »

bena wrote: post #72
r00fus wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also liked in MTG how much more responsive the game was due to instants/interrupts & triggers - was far more complex and nuanced. In HS it's simplified - with few exceptions, your stuff happens only on your turn, very little targeting of the player (ie, no discard). The strategies are limited. I still like it, but ... it's definitely not up to MTG richness.

The game is probably more "responsive" now. Instants and Interrupts were a mess. Batching and determining which had to be resolved LIFO and which FIFO and the various corner cases were an unnecessary labyrinth to navigate. The stack is much better and I'd say more nuanced. Now you can target things on the stack specifically. There's more bluffing and playing with the fact that there is incomplete information.

I agree, though I still regret they ended up overpowering counterspells by allowing them to target any previous spell in the stack (interrupts could not do this - they had the interrupt stack).

However Hearthstone has no such interplay - likely because it allows an easier functioning AI and interplay in a normatively turn-based game online is difficult.

I think we agree?

Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#77

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

brandnewlow wrote: post #41
mbunch wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is my least favorite part of the game (really the only part of it that I dislike), but you're right. I don't know if it was quite what Richard Garfield had in mind, but at this point it's 100% an intentional part of the design philosophy.

I think it was unintentional but has played a crucial part in the game's appeal. When you get mana screwed, you feel the same emotional devastation as seeing the house win big in Blackjack. I think that low feeling drives players to try again and again.

Oh, I don't know about that. You really get used to how decks work. I've loset tournament games (Regionals and PTQs - though I never qualified :) to mana screw/flood and it didn't sting as much as when I made a stupid mistake that I immediately realised was a stupid mistake.

The problem with having to add lands to power up your deck for me is that it means I can't throw in the kitchen sink, as I'm wont to do if left to my own devices. A deck design must first of all work - and that's 50% getting the manabase down pat, which includes tough decisions (should I trim out a basic land for one more copy of OP sleeper rare I'm sure shreds the deck-to-beat to pieces? Hint: no). So you have to build a deck while respecting some constraints (minimum deck size, enough mana for your spells, sharp strategic focus etc). But that's like, all the fun in deckbuilding (which is all the fun in the game, for me :).

In fact, I know this will sound eminently silly but I believe that playing M:tG and in particular bulding decks has taught me important lessons that I took with me in my career as a programmer. The most important of which is: don't ever waste resources.

Perhaps a more esoteric lesson is this: you can still have infinite variety even without absolute freedom. Even with the burden of having to include land in your deck and risk mana screw/flood, you can still design any deck you want and have a lot of fun while at it.

Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#79

Post by lsiq »

xeonoex wrote: post #6
claudiulodro wrote: post #2

How is the MTG scene these days? I spent my childhood through high school obsessively playing the game, reading these sorts of breakdowns, and spending all my money. Then life got in the way and I haven't played in about 10 years. I remember Friday Night Magic used to be a wholesome way to spend a Friday evening, and you got a lot of entertainment for the $5 entry fee.

I haven't been played much for a few years now, but the game is doing well. I think the community is larger than ever. The game itself is in a bit of an odd spot. Standard (aka type 2) has been very unbalanced in recent years with many cards being banned, and sometimes emergency banned. Many players are opting to play modern rather than standard, since standard has had it's problems. The sets themselves actually look…

I would look into Hex: Shards of Fate, you can play in your underwear at home and so it doesn't require as big of a time investment. Unlike Magic Online, it actually has a great client that doesn't look like it's from the 90s and unlike MTG Arena, it's not overly Hearthstoneized and retains the TCG over the CCG model.

It's very, very similar to MTG in terms of mechanics and skill cap, and it is not bound by a paper-compatible limit on mechanics. It's all I play these days.

Re: The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

#80

Post by [deleted] »

yanowitz wrote: post #23

Any discussion of Magic: the Gathering on Hacker News should come with an ObLink to how it's Turing complete https://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/HowItWorks.html For more accidentally Turing complete systems, see http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/articles/accidentally_turing_complet...

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