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The mathematics of Magic: the Gathering (1999)

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

#11

Post by brandnewlow »

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.

The latest set, Dominaria, is the best in years. Richard Garfield worked on it.

Magic: Online is slowly being bled out by Wizards in favor of their new Hearthstone-like digital client.

That said, the best way to play today is Vintage Cube drafts on Cockatrice. Free. High level of play. The best cards. There’s almost always a game going.

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

#12

Post by pimmen »

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.

If you want a good deck, we're talking a lot more cash than 10 years ago.

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

#13

Post by apocolyps6 »

thenanyu wrote: post #3
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 dip my toes in every once in a while, I'd say the scene is a whole lot more vibrant I because of the ecosystem of online publications, youtube videos, and podcasts. Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock.

> Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock.

Creatures have steadily grown in power while non-creature spells have fallen in power quite a bit. The designers of the game concluded that making the game more creature-centric lead to more interesting gameplay decisions. Power level overall has been trending downwards if anything.

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

#14

Post by shiado »

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.

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

#15

Post by freeone3000 »

apocolyps6 wrote: post #13
thenanyu wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dip my toes in every once in a while, I'd say the scene is a whole lot more vibrant I because of the ecosystem of online publications, youtube videos, and podcasts. Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock.

> Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock. Creatures have steadily grown in power while non-creature spells have fallen in power quite a bit. The designers of the game concluded that making the game more creature-centric lead to more interesting gameplay decisions. Power level overall has been trending downwards if anything.

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, and into the roil main, with the option of getting disenchant, rule of law, and electroylze out of the side... as humans. It's effectively made spells obsolete, since the spell you want is probably a creature now.

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

#16

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

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.

But that affects both players equally, as in general the luck factor. My experience is that while you might lose a few games stupidly because of mana screw/flood, in the long run luck balances out and skill makes the difference.

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

#17

Post by lozenge »

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.

I haven't played magic but this must be why Epic gives you one mana every turn, with every card costing 1 or 0 mana to play (or rather, put down)

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

#18

Post by brandnewlow »

freeone3000 wrote: post #15
apocolyps6 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Power creep is real. If you remember the days when Savannah Lions was highly efficient, you're in for quite a shock. Creatures have steadily grown in power while non-creature spells have fallen in power quite a bit. The designers of the game concluded that making the game more creature-centric lead to more interesting gameplay decisions. Power level overall has been trending downwards if anything.

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

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

#19

Post by brandnewlow »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #16
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.

But that affects both players equally, as in general the luck factor. My experience is that while you might lose a few games stupidly because of mana screw/flood, in the long run luck balances out and skill makes the difference.

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

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

#20

Post by nlawalker »

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.

Have you ever looked at Hearthstone? I tried it briefly, and I think it's got its share of problems but I thought that the way they designed around this was really cool.

https://hearthstone.gamepedia.com/Mana covers it in detail, but the gist of it is that mana is generally an automatic thing, and it's granted per-turn at an increasing rate throughout the game, meaning that most games follow a natural power curve that is immune from flood/screw.

There are still actions that affect mana and strategies around those, and some neat concepts like The Coin, the special card always given to the player who goes second that gives you one extra mana for one turn, to help with the disadvantage. But overall it beats what I consider to be a really annoying flaw in MtG.

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