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How you play Spades is how you play life

pudding.cool

111–120 of 127 posts

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#111
The slide about learning the game is a bit shocking.

25% of players would not teach you the rules unless you convince them. only 55% would if you ask.

Can somebody comment on the reasons?

I have been asked few times in my life to teach chess and that was always a great boon. 'Someone wants to get into my hobby and I can be the one to show them the ropes' was always my though.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And who defines "interesting"? Mentioning what ratio of comments are traceroute66's has no value either.

The people who wrote the guidelines define what’s interesting.

pg and the mods need to approve every comment then?

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#113
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another genre is "deckbuilding" where all the cards are in a shared pool and you construct a deck during the gameplay by various means.

that event type sounds interesting - I think it would be fun.. a more common and similar version where your deck is not pre-built (usually at home) - that is/was played a lot around thee parts is/was 'draft' although it's official nomenclature may be 'sealed' ( https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/formats/seal... ) so it's a pool of packs you get, and you get to choose a card then pass.. so it's not totall…

Your parent is referring to a different kind of game, i.e. deckbuilding games, like Dominion. They share some aspects with MTG but they are more like traditional board games. Many of those games are absolutely wonderful but you won't find a MTG-like experience.

> although it's official nomenclature may be 'sealed'

Sealed and Draft are two different formats.

Sealed = You open six boosters, make a deck from those cards.

Draft = 8 players around a table, each one opens a booster, picks a card, passes left, until all cards have been picked. Repeat again, this passing right. Repeat a third time, passing left again.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#114
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another genre is "deckbuilding" where all the cards are in a shared pool and you construct a deck during the gameplay by various means.

that event type sounds interesting - I think it would be fun.. a more common and similar version where your deck is not pre-built (usually at home) - that is/was played a lot around thee parts is/was 'draft' although it's official nomenclature may be 'sealed' ( https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/formats/seal... ) so it's a pool of packs you get, and you get to choose a card then pass.. so it's not totall…

Check out Thunderstone and Ascension: Chronicle of the Godslayer

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#115
post #78

I find it funny when people assume that something that is common within their subgroup is unique to their subgroup. I liked that this article called out spades’ role in African American culture. But the game isn’t unique to US African American culture. So it’s interesting how it’s presented as unique or special to a particular culture or subgroup. It would be like if I grew up in Iowa and everyone played spades, and…

Where do they talk about it being unique to African-American communities? Talking about something and it's place within a community is not the same as saying it's unique to a community.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#116
post #86

Geezus, now card games are being ruined by racial narrative, too. I and many other people grew up playing Spades, and this is the first whiff of any such historical rewriting that I've encountered (though I shouldn't be surprised). I have no doubt that blacks as a group developed an affinity for the game -- but this piece tries to claim what is otherwise a unifying game is really all about black history. This is righ…

But US policing does have roots in slave patrols. Unless it is your belief that the American Bar Association is rewriting history.

https://www.americanbar.org/groups/crsj/publications/human_r...

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#117

Apparently no mention of the variant that, in my experience as a kid, was by far the most common: no bidding, 1 point to the winning team, or 2 if you win 10 books. Commonly, you bet 5 or 10 as a team and won for being first to the amount bet. I played or watched probably thousands of games in middle and high school and I don't think I ever saw anyone play the formal way.

I've never heard of no-bidding. One of the nice things about bidding is that it allows you to infer information about the hands that are being held by the various people at the table. If you don't have any bidding, then you are playing a weird version of the card game War.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#118
post #103
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've demonstrated that only the rich can compete; not really refuting the point, is it? But limiting our attention to strictly pro-level play is a bit silly, as it ignores the overwhelming majority of players. When I was in high school, two of my friends had a lot more money than the rest of us. We'd get a few boosters of a new expansion, they'd get a case. Consequently, their decks were nigh unbeatable.

> You've demonstrated that only the rich can compete; not really refuting the point, is it? You are moving the goalposts now. But anyway: - The entire argument doesn't even apply to 50% of Magic. - Even only considering constructed, it's objectively not the case that more money = more results. Sure, if you want to play competitively you have to dump ~1k/yr in it, but that's not unusual for games/sports. If you are no…

OC> And richer players have access better to cards that poorer payers can never hope to be dealt.

>> You've demonstrated that only the rich can compete; not really refuting the point, is it?

> You are moving the goalposts now.

Am I? Was it you who set the goalpost wherein Magic is only about tournament-level play and not a casual game? Or does it seem to you that the OC's comment might be a statement about the economic situation in the broader cultural context that the game exists in?

I like how you say "almost competitive decks." Granted, I haven't played for over a good decade, but through the ~15 years that I did play, powerful rares were typically between several dollars and tens of dollars. The decks of my richer friends were stuffed to the gills with such cards -- it adds up, and a good deck can cost a couple hundred bucks. That might be spare change for you, but it isn't for a lot of magic players. And like, a draft game is fun but at a cost of 4 boosters per player, that's not pocket change. We'd use rules like "all commons" to level the playing field.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#119
post #118
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You've demonstrated that only the rich can compete; not really refuting the point, is it? You are moving the goalposts now. But anyway: - The entire argument doesn't even apply to 50% of Magic. - Even only considering constructed, it's objectively not the case that more money = more results. Sure, if you want to play competitively you have to dump ~1k/yr in it, but that's not unusual for games/sports. If you are no…

OC> And richer players have access better to cards that poorer payers can never hope to be dealt. >> You've demonstrated that only the rich can compete; not really refuting the point, is it? > You are moving the goalposts now. Am I? Was it you who set the goalpost wherein Magic is only about tournament-level play and not a casual game? Or does it seem to you that the OC's comment might be a statement about the econom…

> Was it you who set the goalpost wherein Magic is only about tournament-level play and not a casual game?

It's either a competitive game, and therefore comparable to other competitive games and sports, that can cost you similar amounts, or it's a casual game, where you are not after 100% efficiency.

> I like how you say "almost competitive decks."

https://www.mtggoldfish.com/decks/budget/standard#paper

Help yourself. Most of those decks are underpowered when compared to tier-1 competitive decks, but can definitely steal games. None of them are anywhere close $200, and that's at standard-legal prices. Rotated cards are effectively $0.

> We'd use rules like "all commons"

https://magic.wizards.com/en/game-info/gameplay/formats/paup...

> And like, a draft game is fun but at a cost of 4 boosters per player, that's not pocket change

If you're going to the store to draft, you're paying $12-$15 for a tournament that's going to last several hours, played in the exact same format they're playing at the Pro Tour, and with prizes. That's the price of a movie ticket.

I understand that's still a lot to many people, but it's a far cry from "only the rich can compete". The prices are high and they could be lower, but they're not marginally higher than those of many other sports/games/activities.

Also, there's online play. If you're good at the game, you actually NET money.

Re: How you play Spades is how you play life

#120
post #95
post #78

I find it funny when people assume that something that is common within their subgroup is unique to their subgroup. I liked that this article called out spades’ role in African American culture. But the game isn’t unique to US African American culture. So it’s interesting how it’s presented as unique or special to a particular culture or subgroup. It would be like if I grew up in Iowa and everyone played spades, and…

It doesn't have to be unique to the group to be special to the group.

Yes, that’s true. But this article presents it as if it being special to the group is unique. So the context of “this is special to my group because Xxx” to help readers understand how it’s unique.

Not in this article, but I read an account how someone’s childhood includes a tradition/habit/whatever of parents forcing their child to pick a switch to then use for beating and how it was unique to their subpopulations and region. I remembered it because I thought everyone did this and I was in a different region and subpopulations. I don’t have a chance to talk with the author, but I wonder if what they thought was unique to their family and group was actually more common.

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