I know it has been a while since the last set of cast but with cards flooding into the M11 Visual Spoiler page on the mothership Mike and I got together, with a special guest appearance from the hirsute Steve Sadin, to discuss Conundrum Sphinx and his spoiled friends from M11. It was a fun set of ‘casts to record as the three of us have not done anything together in quite some time and there were plenty of exciting cards to discuss. Topics of discussion included the tournament worthiness of Sphinx of Jwar Isle, which cards will win the most money for the rest of the year, and which cards seem like they are being overrated (Hint: It rhymes with with Rhyme Dispersal).

Make sure to check the Visual Spoiler page and the various weekly columns for the rest of this week and next as more cards are revealed every day. And of course, don’t forget to make your plans for the M11 Prerelease in a little over a week.

Sphinx or Sub-Sphinx? Part 2

I know it has been a while since the last set of cast but with cards flooding into the M11 Visual Spoiler page on the mothership Mike and I got together, with a special guest appearance from the hirsute Steve Sadin, to discuss Conundrum Sphinx and his spoiled friends from M11. It was a fun set of ‘casts to record as the three of us have not done anything together in quite some time and there were plenty of exciting cards to discuss. Topics of discussion included the tournament worthiness of Sphinx of Jwar Isle, which cards will win the most money for the rest of the year, and which cards seem like they are being overrated (Hint: It rhymes with with Rhyme Dispersal).

Make sure to check the Visual Spoiler page and the various weekly columns for the rest of this week and next as more cards are revealed every day. And of course, don’t forget to make your plans for the M11 Prerelease in a little over a week.

Sphinx or Sub-Sphinx? Part 1

Based on the comments on the podcasts and tweets I have seen, it looks like people are really missing the point of this Unified Theory thing. The goal of this post is to try and crystalize the ideas from our (myself, mike j, and others) discussions (both recorded and not) to the best of my abilities.

For as long as I have played Magic, there has always been language to try and quantify the events and outcomes of a game. This is understandable since the hobby of Magic is, in many ways, a science. All sciences require an established language through which discovery and collaboration can occur. In Magic, the most commonly used unit (up until now, at least) is “the Card.” It is very easy to describe some events using the Card e.g. playing spells that draw you cards and/or make your opponent discard cards. Most game events that literally involve cards work great. Attempts to describe more nuanced events in the language of Cards has always been tricky. If I attack you for 1, is that worth a Card? Is it worth a fraction of a Card? What fraction is it worth? How many Cards is it a Stone Rain worth on turn 2? What about turn 12? How many Cards is Dredge 6 worth?

The problem with the Card, as a unit, is that it does not have an easily applicable size (or even a well defined size, for that matter). It is too large of a unit to describe many of the events that take place over the course of a game.

I think what we are talking about with the Unified Theory is a new way of measuring game events. This is not a new theory, because its not changing anything about the game yet. The rules and tactics stay the same. What changes is the way we look at them. Thomas Kuhn wrote a book about this called the Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Read it!). What we have on our hands right now is a paradigm shift in magic.

What this Mana “theory” provides us with is a metric for measuring game events in a way that is magnitudes more precise than was available previously. Its not different from Card Advantage, its just more precise. It is an improvement, and over time it should completely replace the previous paradigm. Our job is to convince the community that what we have is better than the existing paradigm/standard of measurement.

What makes the Mana Theory a “Unified Theory” is that we can account for many many more game events, if not all game events, with much greater precision. The unit of Mana (not going to get into the “different colors of mana have different values” discussion here) is sufficiently small that, possibly, we can describe all game events with this system. What makes it the Unified theory is not that it replaces Tempo, Card Advantage, the Philosophy of Fire, or any other theory… It just gives us a better common language for discussion.

I want to take a moment here to say that I don’t blame anyone for missing the point based on the Victory Bacon podcast. None of this was explicitly said, and it was at best loosely implied by a few passing remarks. We spent most of the podcast focusing one application of the theory (Card evaluation), and not the theory itself. I think that card evaluation discussions are the easiest way to illustrate the value of the new system, but not the most valuable use of it.

On that note, the discussion of card values on twitter I think is distracting from the magnitude of this system, to the point where it has become confused with the theory itself. Essentially, it is not important to come to a consensus about what a card is absolutely worth. The game of Magic is dynamic and subject to many different frames of reference. As we have said, card value change based on format and game state. Basically, everyone is right when they say “Card A is worth X mana,” so its not really something to be wasting too much time on outside of a framed theory discussion.

So while card values change, what isn’t changing is the way we are measuring it. Thats the take-away here.

Assuming the new paradigm takes hold, there are two tasks at hand:

1. Apply the new system to what we already know. (This is what we are doing now)
2. Develop new theories that could not/did not exist under previous systems (easier said than done)

Hopefully this has been a bit easier to follow than the Podcast. As you can probably tell, we don’t script anything or even necessarily go into the process with a plan for what we are going to talk about. Usually that isn’t an issue (except when BDM and Flores go off on Basketball), but sometimes the big ideas get lost in the noise. As usual, I invite discussion in the comments (or @ me or mike on Twitter).

~WillPoP

Top8Magic is proud to present our exclusive Worldwake preview card, Spell Contortion. Michael J. Flores, Will Price, and I talk about this card and all the cards presented thus far on the Wizards website in the following podcasts. Enjoy!

When Mike and sat down to podcast about spoiled Zendikar cards the other night we spent a disproportionate amount of time talking about Lotus Cobra — a card that we both felt is sure to be one of the most coveted rares in the set — which would not get revealed until midnight the next day in Mike’s column. While we recorded our Zendikasts, which would go up shortly after Mike’s preview on the mothership, we teased the card on Twitter and Facebook where I said that the card was the first card to leap this far off of a spoiler list at me since I got an advance peek at Mind’s Desire.

There has been some backlash to the level of hyperbole around the card but everyone seems to agree that the card itself is awesome. Not everyone agrees with Mike’s position that Lotus Cobra is not only comparable to but exceeds other all-star 2-drops such as Meddling Mage or Dark Confidant. Understandable. At this point and time we have no frame of reference for how good this card could be when it has as many miles on it as those previously mentioned all-stars. Having done a small amount of testing with the card in the past few days I can confidently say that playing with this card feels unlike any other card I have played with before. Yes it dies to Doom Blade… and Lightning Bolt…and Path to Exile…and Volcanic Fallout but what happens if it lives.

Here is the updated version of Ob Obv — a deck that attempts to win with Ob Nixilis, the Fallen and Warp World — that I have been playing with that includes Lotus Cobra.

Ob Obv.2
4 Lotus Cobra
4 Rampaging Baloth
4 Siege-Gang Commander
4 Ob Nixilis, the Fallen
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Khalni Heart Expedition
3 Oracle of Mul Daya
4 Trace of Abundance
4 Warp World
4  Green-Black fetch land
4  Scalding Tarn
2  Misty Rainforest
7  Forest
7  Mountain
1  Swamp

The deck remains quite raw but is still capable of powering out Warp Worlds with the number of permanents approaching the mid-teens. The combination of ob Nixilis and Warp World is definitely powerful and with Lotus Cobra you just get there that much faster. Whenever you play a fetch land you end up with three mana in your pool — basically a free Dark Ritual for up to three colors of your choice. When you fetch a Trace of Abundance is essentially a free permanent that enchants the land you search up. Even lands that come into play tapped like the ones that you search up with the Heart Expedition are productive members of your mana pool when the Lotus Cobra is hanging around.

Mike and I were talking about the card again today and I posited a scenario where you are playing green black and lead off with a Duress for that pesky Lightning Bolt and, with the coast clear, follow up with Lotus Cobra. Your opponent fails to top deck a removal spell — or, you know, isn’t playing a deck with a lot of spot removal and is planning on Day of Judgement — and you untap to play a fetch land, fetch, Harrow that land away and tap six mana for Mind Shatter for 4. Seems good, right?

“I am not impressed with that,” said Mike, who has been talking about third turn Violent Ultimatums. “Isn’t Identity Crisis still in Standard for another year? That would be impressive.”

Third. Turn. Identity. Crisis.

That doesn’t even seem that far fetched to me. Then again the third turn Ultimatum did not seem that far fetched in the first place. I know I am regularly making Siege-Gang Commanders on turn three with little more than a Lotus Cobra and a fetch land to power it out. By the time Cobra rotates out of Standard I don’t know where it will rank among 2-drops all time but I am pretty confident it is a card that will have had an impact on the format even if that just means everyone plays 4 Lightning Bolt and 4 Doom Blade for the next 2 years.

Duels of the Planeswalkers is a unique product. It does some things spectacularly right, and does other things spectacularly wrong. The things it does right represent some great work and show a lot of promise for other, better projects in the future. The things it does wrong range from places where I think priorities were misplaced, to places where we will need more time to improve the product to places where the game is intentionally being held back for reasons both good and ill. Overall, this is a great game at its absurdly low price point that has the promise to mature into something far greater.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Zvi, Will “Price of Progress” and Matt Wang discuss M10

Zvi Cast about M10 - Part 3

The Zvi, Will “Price of Progress” and Matt Wang discuss M10

Zvi Cast about M10 - Part 2

The Zvi, Will “Price of Progress” and Matt Wang discuss M10

Zvi Cast about M10 - Part 1

Editor’s note: Sam Stoddard is a PTQ and PT veteran who has done some terrific writing about Magic, most notably Creating a Fearless Magical Inventory. He has been one of the few advocates from the Pro side of the Magic community to embrace the rules changes in M10 and has posted as such on Twitter and his own blog. He has graciously granted us permission to include the following from his own blog for the Top8Magic readership to chew on.)

Posted this a few places, so might as well post this here:

I’ll admit it, I freaked out when I first saw the rules announcements. 1-4 and 6-7 seemed fine, but #5 seemed like the point where Magic stopped being Magic and became something else - WoW or Pokemon. After talking to people and thinking about it more, I’m excited about the change, and I’m ready to see stacking combat damage go.

We’ve been far too complacent for too long in abusing damage on the stack tricks to win our games for us. In talking with people, many people believe that removing this ability will dumb the game down. How much are we relying on these tricks to succeed in magic? Damage on, sac, bounce, champion, pump, whatever, it’s an easy way to gain an advantage against opponents who don’t know the tricks.

If you show up at an FNM or a PTQ and know all your damage on the stack tricks, you have a huge advantage over an opponent who doesn’t understand that just by using these tricks. There isn’t as much incentive to mulligan properly, work on mana bases or otherwise playing better when knowing one trick can get you by. This doesn’t mean that there will be no way for a more skilled player to win, it just means that It’s going to require new and different strategies. I truly believe that you learn more in a draft where your deck trainwrecks and you have to fight every second of every game to pull anything out than one where you end up with a constructed deck. The constructed matchups where you go in as a dog and mulligan to 5 and are forced to make every play perfectly teach you more than a series of great matchups with god hands. Winning does not make you better at magic. Working for your wins, and even your loses, makes you a better magic player.

Under 5e rules succeeding at tournament magic was largely about being one of the 3 people in the room (judges included) who actually understood how the batch and damage prevention stops worked and knowing how all the mish-mash of awkwardly templated cards in your deck actually read. When they released 6th edition rules, there were hundreds of complaints by players who couldn’t fathom wining in a world where you couldn’t cast balance, know it wouldn’t get countered, then sac all your lands to Zuran Orb. Or why people weren’t being punished for not understanding how to use damage prevention step correctly or how to pump your pestilence so that 4 damage happened all at the same. Magic playskill was as much about knowing the rules perfectly as it was about making good decisions.

Ten years later, with the crutch of rules-lawyering somewhat behind us, tournament players have gotten much better. They were forced to learn every other aspect of the game twice as well to get half as much return, but when they did, those gains compounded. While no single aspect of the game was as powerful as tricking your opponent into giving you permission you to cast a lightning bolt (which you didn’t want to, but thanks for passing the turn), exploring other avenues to gain advantages has led to a massive improvement in the quality of professional and non-professional play.

Damage on the stack is gone, and we are going to have to evolve or die. A lot of cards we love are no longer good. That’s a good thing. Things are going to be really rough at first. Everyone’s card valuations are going to be way off for a while. Combat tricks are going to be riskier. Bounce spells will need to be used offensively rather than just to gain card advantage in blocking. People who want to compete at any level are going to have to find new ways to gain advantages in games. The people who do will succeed, and those who don’t will blame the dumbing down of the game. New strategies will emerge and everyone is going to work harder on previously ignored aspects of their game in order to improve.This is going to be a hard and painful process, especially for those of us who are so set in our ways, but we will be better players for it.