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The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

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

#91

Post by bena »

r00fus wrote: post #76
bena wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Counterspells could target anything on the stack before. Interrupts could be cast in response to other Interrupts.

If anything, it nerfed them a bit as now Instants can be cast in response to cards that would have been Interrupts.

Interrupts used to work in a fashion similar to Split Second.

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

#92

Post by r00fus »

bena wrote: post #91
r00fus wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Counterspells could target anything on the stack before. Interrupts could be cast in response to other Interrupts. If anything, it nerfed them a bit as now Instants can be cast in response to cards that would have been Interrupts. Interrupts used to work in a fashion similar to Split Second.

Scenario: 1) I cast Armageddon/Wrath of God, 2) in response (instant stack) you cast/trigger effect that allows you to sacrifice (or return to hand) your permanents affected, 3) in response (adding to stack) I counter my own 'geddon/WoG.

How would this be possible when interrupts existed?

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

#93

Post by rcxdude »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #81
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...

I know this proof but I'm not happy with it. It goes out of its way to setup a Turing machine (though not a very obvious one) using M:tG cards- however, that doesn't prove that the M:tG _game_ is Turing-complete. It proves that the specific cards chosen can be used to create a Turing machine under a subset of the game's rules, which is not quite the same thing. For a more complete proof one needs to take into account…

For most MtG players, the game rules are the sum of the game rules and the set of cards which are legal to play. Including other potential card text is not relevant, or at least at that point you are playing an unofficial variant of the game. Also, I think constructing a turing machine just under the comprehensive rules with only ability text is a very simple exercise (even exluding trivial cases like an ability text which simply instructs you to evaluate a turing machine as part of the execution). You could probably print a set of cards to make a usable assembly language, no need for any turing tarpits, which is another reason why no-one is particularly interested in this interpretation of the question.

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

#94

Post by freeone3000 »

brandnewlow wrote: post #18
freeone3000 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's led to the recent trend of stapling the effect you actually want onto a creature with appropriate-stats-for-effect-level. Crucible of Worlds is a 3 mana effect. As a creature, it should be green. It should therefore cost 2G. A 2G creature is reasonable at 2/3. Therefore, Ramunap Excavator is appropriate. My modern deck plays entirely creatures, and entirely humans. It has duress, thorn of amethyst, nevermore, an…

Along with the radical power creep of creatures, Wizards has - increased the cost of blue spells that counter creatures, because new players get sad when their monsters get countered - started giving evasion abilities to many more creatures, since new players get sad when their monsters get blocked

Standard currently has Essence Scatter, Divest, and Wizard's Retort. It's not that counterspells have gotten cheaper, but graveyard recursion is fairly prevalant and "Can't be countered" clauses are on some pretty beefy finishers right now.

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

#95

Post by GuB-42 »

shiado wrote: post #14

I played Magic briefly as a teen and the thing that bothered me the most was how mana worked and the tendency to either get mana flooded or mana screwed. I even played a custom format with friends where you separated your deck and your mana into two decks and drew one from each every turn. It made the game much more enjoyable and consistent.

That's indeed a fundamental problem with Magic. Most modern TCGs have some form of mitigation.

You may look into "Force of Will" (the game, not the card). It plays a lot like Magic but mana is in a separate deck. Each turn, you have the option of playing a magic stone (same as a land in Magic) directly from that deck or do some other action instead.

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

#96

Post by anthonybullard »

brandnewlow wrote: post #34
lvspiff wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Vintage Cube drafts on Cockatrice What/where can I find this? never heard of it and never had much fun/luck with magic online but would love to be able to play online

https://cockatrice.us/ Install. Log on. Make a deck and join a game or jump into a draft. There's two Dominaria drafts filling up right now. There's no rules engine and it's a bit janky at first, but you can play magic against a real human 24/7 for free.

Is this basically the modern version of Apprentice? I spent a lot of time during tourney prep on Apprentice, it helped me figure out deck concepts really quickly and let me know what cards i needed to buy(as well as strategies to counter the most popular decks in the format). Apprentice was super basic, but the P2P gameplay really felt futuristic even on dial-up.

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

#97

Post by bena »

r00fus wrote: post #92
bena wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterspells could target anything on the stack before. Interrupts could be cast in response to other Interrupts. If anything, it nerfed them a bit as now Instants can be cast in response to cards that would have been Interrupts. Interrupts used to work in a fashion similar to Split Second.

Scenario: 1) I cast Armageddon/Wrath of God, 2) in response (instant stack) you cast/trigger effect that allows you to sacrifice (or return to hand) your permanents affected, 3) in response (adding to stack) I counter my own 'geddon/WoG. How would this be possible when interrupts existed?

Pretty much how you described.

You have the original Wrath of God spell.

The effect or spell that allows you to sacrifice or bounce those things would be in the Instant batch.

The counterspell would be in the Interrupt batch.

The big difference is that once that counterspell is on the stack, you can't cast any more Instants.

So let's say that instead of countering the Wrath, you counter the spell that's bouncing all of the things. With the old system, that's it. If I don't have any Interrupts, we need to resolve our batches. No one can cast an Instant until we resolve both the Interrupt batch, the Instant batch, then the original spell.

Counterspells were even better before. They were effectively the last word. The stack kind of depowered them, but it gave a lot more play to the game.

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

#98

Post by Fargren »

brandnewlow wrote: post #44
Fargren wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MTG Arena, a new online version of the game, is in closed beta and I like it quite a lot. If you want to see how Magic is like nowadays, joining when it goes into open beta may be a good idea.

What do you like about it?

The number one thing I like about it is that the UX when playing the game is very good. This is exactly why I didn't play MTGO. Other than the autotap sometimes making dumb decisions, it fells very good.

Other than that, my favorite game mode in MTG has always been drafting, and while drafting free to play is probably not possible right now unless you are amazing, you can draft a lot for little money. I have a win rate under 50% and I can play all the drafts I want to for about 20 dollars per month. If I was a better player, it would be even cheaper.

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

#99

Post by r00fus »

bena wrote: post #97
r00fus wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Scenario: 1) I cast Armageddon/Wrath of God, 2) in response (instant stack) you cast/trigger effect that allows you to sacrifice (or return to hand) your permanents affected, 3) in response (adding to stack) I counter my own 'geddon/WoG. How would this be possible when interrupts existed?

Pretty much how you described. You have the original Wrath of God spell. The effect or spell that allows you to sacrifice or bounce those things would be in the Instant batch. The counterspell would be in the Interrupt batch. The big difference is that once that counterspell is on the stack, you can't cast any more Instants. So let's say that instead of countering the Wrath, you counter the spell that's bouncing all…

IIRC, you couldn't counter the wrath once the instant is played (at least as of say 1998-ish rules interpretation).

I play Wrath. I can counter now, or let it resolve. You play instant effect. I can counter, but can't counter the wrath anymore. I'm pretty sure that's how it worked.

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

#100

Post by BookmarkSaver »

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…

No, it's a fundamental part of the game which forces a high level of variance. That is what OP was complaining about. Even the best decks are prone to mana flooding or screwing. Your brilliant "1/3" strategy is literally the first thing beginners learn about deckbuilding, and doesn't change the high variance of each game.

>And from a recent card randomizing thread, it takes 7 "riffles" to fully randomize a deck.

I don't think you understand what "randomize" means. It doesn't mean "you get proportional hands", it means that the state isn't predictable. It is still subject to variation in the amount of mana you draw.

Seriously, you are reciting trivially basic concepts, that everyone is aware of, and completely ignoring and/or misunderstanding what is being said and the real situation.

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