Magic: the Gathering: the Thread

[Biomega]

Yeah, online play defaults to optimization because there's a lot less of a social pressure to have everyone on the same page. The bracket system was obviously designed for paper Magic; online will always be a clown fiesta unless very heavily regulated and I doubt that would be an improvement. As much as Magic players dislike poor balance, they'd hate having the firm hand of Wizards telling them "you'll play this and only this for balance's sake" even more.

Coming from a background of playing Warhammer, playing Standard magic at first was an incredible culture clash. Warhammer players are (on average) keen to play the models they like the most and are touchy about regulating what's being played; nobody wants to take their fun fluff list that is halfway made of units that the person finds cool but don't interact with each other super well, and put it up against a well optimized list that pounds them into dust turn 2 no questions asked because it spams the best units and supporting rules available. When I play with my friends we more often than not have conversations before I set out from home so everyone knows if the other person has something solid or more fun-and-fluff based. It's hardly foolproof in terms of results, and it doesn't apply to everyone as some players are a lot more ruthless, but again I speak on average. The ones that try harder are usually found in actual tournaments and that's more than understandable. And even then the majority of players there are still playing beer league with their favorite armies and slamming drinks in between every match.

Standard Magic... wasn't that. If you weren't following the meta and playing to win, what are you even doing here? You're not here to express yourself, you're here to beat the opponent. I play exclusively Commander now precisely because people are a lot less of a bunch of metaslaving tryhards. If optimization at all costs is what makes other people tick, that's fine for them, but my idea of a tabletop game is one where everyone can express themselves, not one where a player does their moves while the other sits there and takes punches because that's how the former has fun. If I want that I'll play a single-player game, the AI in Baldur's Gate 3 cannot give a fuck if I wipe it in one turn.

Expectations-mismatch is a core problem for many games, yeah. As soon as the people involved don't want the same thing is when the trouble starts; and if there's a lack of moderating mechanisms to coordinate people's expectations, that can quickly get out of hand.

That's kind of how Commander came to be, really - I was fortunate enough to play with some of the OG crowd of WotC employees like Ron Foster, and it was really about a different gameplay paradigm. Winning... doesn't matter. That's not easy to reconcile with the concept of "game" and it's part of why WotC was so reluctant to officially jump in on Commander. They weren't sure people could grok that properly. Turns out it's now probably more popular than the "real" game so there's that.

Video games work like that, too. WoW has its share of mismatch problems, many other games do, too. They need aggressive segmentation to get things sorted properly and pair like with like, or it gets toxic REAL fast these days.

Me personally, I don't want to deal with this shit. I'm almost exclusively playing single-player video games now. And in Magic, I've stopped playing multiplayer entirely and only play competitive formats where I don't have to argue all the time about what unspoken social expectation someone may have stepped on now. I'm too old for that shit.

[Fencers]

INo - because I don't get to learn anything.

Playing the game and learning something are not necessarily the same thing.

If you fail to learn from your play, then that is a personal shortcoming. There is always something to reflect on.

I played a game earlier today that ended on turn 2. My opponent scooped. What did I learn? The current boros shell around Firebending Student is using Piggy Bank in place of Charming Scondrel and Sunspear.

That was a lesson. Now I have a better idea of what they are trying to do when I see Piggy Bank in that shell or what to isolate when I hit them with Duress or Thoughtsieze, discard, etc.

I learned again when I played against a Azorius shell with Leyline/Hope using Gran Gran. It faked me out on Izzet, with Gran Gran, but locked me into a mill chain.

Now, I will consider that later turn Gran Gran drop and Leyline in the Azorius shell. Normally, you wouldn't consider that card too highly in U/W.

Its up to you to reflect on your games.

One can know the rules of the road, know physics and still be unable to ride a bike.

Are you physically unable to play Orzhov or Azorius?

This doesn't really make sense to me. This seems like you dont know how to play Magic- which can be easily remedied.

The key point here is that no matter how many guides, videos and things I read - i don't understand how to do some things, and there is no way to find out what it is I don't understand.

I've watched hundreds and hundreds of hours of brawl and B01 and B03 60 card videos - and I'm always going "wow - why does that work" followed by "well - I'll never know".

Yeah, this seems like you don't know how to play Magic.

By chance, did you learn Magic via the MTGA client, a friend, or by reading the actual rules?

MTGA's presentation doesn't truly communicate the rules as they are written. Especially as concerns the Stax and the way Sorceries and Instants can seem to be placed on the table (this isn't actually possible IRL).

If you learned from a friend- they might not have done a good job teaching rhe game. It is deeply complex game design, to be fair. But that can be supplemented by reading the rules.

There is a great sub-reddit for MTG, MTGO, and MTGA where people ask questions on priority, the Stax, and triggers all the time.

If you are playing Brawl and don't have a good command of the rules and at least the last 10 years of cards- my friend, you are making a serious mistake.

Brawl uses cards from many different sets throughout the years AND Alchemy cards. Alchemy cards only exist in MTGA.

Not knowing the huge potential of cards your opponent can put in play in a Brawl match that span 30+ years before accounting for the NEW seasonal cards that also can be played along side 30 years of cards, places you are at a huge disadvantage.

Icetill Explorer didnt even exist till a few months ago. Yet it interacts with cards from 1998, 2001 2018, 2022, and cards TWO entirely new sets released in then last 4 months and another brand set about to drop in 8 weeks.

And thats just for a common like Icetill.

If one doesn't know the rules and the decades of cards in play in Brawl; it would make a lot of sense why one might not understand how Glen Elandra's Answer, Ultima, Howling Mine and Snapcaster Mage would interact on the Stax. Or someone conjures the power nine or some other alchemy BS like choirs.

[Jastall]

Expectations-mismatch is a core problem for many games, yeah. As soon as the people involved don't want the same thing is when the trouble starts; and if there's a lack of moderating mechanisms to coordinate people's expectations, that can quickly get out of hand.

That's kind of how Commander came to be, really - I was fortunate enough to play with some of the OG crowd of WotC employees like Ron Foster, and it was really about a different gameplay paradigm. Winning... doesn't matter. That's not easy to reconcile with the concept of "game" and it's part of why WotC was so reluctant to officially jump in on Commander. They weren't sure people could grok that properly. Turns out it's now probably more popular than the "real" game so there's that.

Video games work like that, too. WoW has its share of mismatch problems, many other games do, too. They need aggressive segmentation to get things sorted properly and pair like with like, or it gets toxic REAL fast these days.

Me personally, I don't want to deal with this shit. I'm almost exclusively playing single-player video games now. And in Magic, I've stopped playing multiplayer entirely and only play competitive formats where I don't have to argue all the time about what unspoken social expectation someone may have stepped on now. I'm too old for that shit.

I'd argue the concept of a game played more for its own sake than to win is fairly easy to reconcile with most tabletop games. D&D is all about the journey and experience rather than the endpoint for a lot of players, same for similar party-based games. A lot of other board games are played occasionally rather than as dedicated hobbies, so no meta really develops among a playgroup and it's more about spending time doing something enjoyable with people you like. Dedicated wargames always have a casual slant to them in part due to their narrative elements but also due to the hobby side; it takes a lot longer to put a Bolt Action or Warhammer or Marvel Heroes or whatnot list together than it is to just make a deck of cards. All that snipping, gluing and painting doesn't do itself.

Card games being focused on the 1v1 match are more of an exception to this, if you ask me. Games are played fast, you only need 1 other player, and easy repetition means a meta quickly forms, even in a bottle. So naturally self-expression will trend towards optimization, just like in chess which has a broadly similar bedrock.

It's no surprise Commander is this popular, especially among women. It recreates the social dynamics of a board game, rather than a 1v1 card game. Whether that's a good thing is obviously up to preference. I'll personally take 2 minutes of pregame conversation over hours of unfun gameplay caused by mismatched expectations. That doesn't mean I don't want to win, I like winning, but not at the cost of the rest of the experience. Stomping people isn't fun.

[Fencers]

D&D is all about the journey and experience rather than the endpoint for a lot of players, same for similar party-based games.

This is a corruption, fwiw.

[Biomega]

I'd argue the concept of a game played more for its own sake than to win is fairly easy to reconcile with most tabletop games. D&D is all about the journey and experience rather than the endpoint for a lot of players, same for similar party-based games.

For sure, but Magic was specifically designed not to be like that. It was designed to be a compact, self-contained, A-to-B journey. Of course it's no coincidence something like Commander eventually emerged, many of the OG crowd were big into D&D etc. after all. But that's effectively a backwards journey: MtG went from D&D's open-ended, vague, the-journey-is-the-destination setup to a contained, rules-confined, win-the-game strategy objective. Heck, it originally had gambling in it! You would literally win your opponent's cards! And it was tricky to reverse all that and go back to the D&D mindset.

It's no surprise Commander is this popular, especially among women. It recreates the social dynamics of a board game, rather than a 1v1 card game. Whether that's a good thing is obviously up to preference. I'll personally take 2 minutes of pregame conversation over hours of unfun gameplay caused by mismatched expectations. That doesn't mean I don't want to win, I like winning, but not at the cost of the rest of the experience. Stomping people isn't fun.

Well, that's just another filter mechanism. People play cEDH, too. To each their own. Commander is fine, and largely self-regulated. And in proper social settings with people that have similar mindsets, it works really well.

It just so does not work online. Like, damn, does it not work.

[Jastall]

For sure, but Magic was specifically designed not to be like that. It was designed to be a compact, self-contained, A-to-B journey. Of course it's no coincidence something like Commander eventually emerged, many of the OG crowd were big into D&D etc. after all. But that's effectively a backwards journey: MtG went from D&D's open-ended, vague, the-journey-is-the-destination setup to a contained, rules-confined, win-the-game strategy objective. Heck, it originally had gambling in it! You would literally win your opponent's cards! And it was tricky to reverse all that and go back to the D&D mindset.


Well, that's just another filter mechanism. People play cEDH, too. To each their own. Commander is fine, and largely self-regulated. And in proper social settings with people that have similar mindsets, it works really well.

It just so does not work online. Like, damn, does it not work.

Ante is such a weird concept. I didn't live it as I started Magic only a couple years go, but looking at the cards and speaking to a couple oldheads make me a bit incredulous. The very idea of your opponent flipping a land but you flipping one of your most treasured cards to just give away if you lost sounds like madness. Of course in context it wasn't that, the idea was that the playgroup would pass cards around and such, and TGCs in general were such untrodden ground back then that some bizarre experiments being attempted isn't too surprising, but still.

Commander can work in an online environment such as Tabletop Simulator, where all players know each other in advance and can talk about what type of game they want. But yeah, trying to make it work as queueable format or anything of the sort is pretty much fruitless.

[Fencers]

It just so does not work online. Like, damn, does it not work.

It's simply because you can't talk to people. Brawl isn't bad as a concept, MTGA is working on 4P EDH, for a digital platform.

And there is a big difference in game quality between Standard Brawl and Historic Brawl on MTGA. The former works the best because the speed & format pool allow for 1v1 with minimum communication.

In concept, it can work. To a degree at least. But as long as you can't openly converse with other people, I have no idea how they intend to make 4P EDH work on MTGA.

[Biomega]

It's simply because you can't talk to people. Brawl isn't bad as a concept, MTGA is working on 4P EDH, for a digital platform.

And there is a big difference in game quality between Standard Brawl and Historic Brawl on MTGA. The former works the best because the speed & format pool allow for 1v1 with minimum communication.

In concept, it can work. To a degree at least. But as long as you can't openly converse with other people, I have no idea how they intend to make 4P EDH work on MTGA.

In part, but that's also a problem - a lot of people when playing online don't want to talk to people. They want hit button play game functionality, not hit button discuss for 10 minutes whether maybe everyone is on the same page adjust decks for 10 minutes until people are somewhat satisfied... then play. That works IRL because you're all in a fun, social setting, people are chatting away, there's vibes, etc. Online, that only becomes a massive pain in the ass and turns off many people.

So even if they facilitated chat, it doesn't actually get at the core problem of ad-hoc random play, which fundamentally clashes with the concept of Commander. But unfortunately, online play is a huge chunk of Magic now.

[Fencers]

In part, but that's also a problem - a lot of people when playing online don't want to talk to people. They want hit button play game functionality, not hit button discuss for 10 minutes whether maybe everyone is on the same page adjust decks for 10 minutes until people are somewhat satisfied... then play. That works IRL because you're all in a fun, social setting, people are chatting away, there's vibes, etc. Online, that only becomes a massive pain in the ass and turns off many people.

So even if they facilitated chat, it doesn't actually get at the core problem of ad-hoc random play, which fundamentally clashes with the concept of Commander. But unfortunately, online play is a huge chunk of Magic now.

Yup. This is it exactly. I have no idea how they intend 4P to work with the useless emoji system they have now.

[Fencers]

Okay, I am tired of Superior Spiderman blowing up the board on turn 4 each time. It was cool tech, but holding on to a counterspell for 4 turns is annoying. Especially with the collector's vault tech.