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

If you like to gamble, start playing with this deck:

Crypt Combo AKA “Crabs”

4 Crypt of Agadeem
4 Drowned Catacomb
4 U/x Fetch Land
2 B/x Fetch Land
5 Island
2 Swamp

4 Hedron Crab
2 Kederekt Leviathan
2 Fatestitcher
4 Extractor Demon
4 Rotting Rats
4 Architects of Will
4 Viscera Dragger
4 Monstrous Carabid
3 Corpse Connoisseur

4 Grim Discovery
4 Traumatize

Sideboard:
4 Duress
4 Blister Beetle
4 Disfigure
3 Pithing Needle

I haven’t played the sideboard listed here, but its what the people who are placing in MODO events are playing so it must be good!

If you don’t know how this deck works, its pretty simple: mill yourself with Crab and/or Traumatize, mise a Crypt somewhere in the first 4 turns, then make a bunch of mana with at least one crypt activation and Unearth FTW. If your opponent has infinite life, then you just mill them out via Extractor Demon triggers.

Of course it is not always that simple, because rarely is your hand the right combination of Crypt/Crab/Traumatize/Grim Disco. The nut draws with this deck easily win turn 4, but the sub-nut draws have you mulliganning to 5 and hoping to get there on Cycling.

Because of the inconsistencies (I have played somewhere in the range of 100 games with this deck, that’s how badly I wanted it to be good) the matchup against any deck that can goldfish a turn 4 win is pretty bad. Red Deck Wins is virtually impossible (although i have not tried the Disfigures). Against Boros you can get there off a heavy Rotting Rats draw and chump blocking until you can systemagically set up your graveyard. Jund is a favorable matchup, especially if they do not have main deck Jund Charms, and double especially if they don’t have Goblin Ruinblaster main. Mono-Green is also favorable since they do not get nearly as fast a start as any of the decks mentioned previously. Against both Jund and Green, Unearthing (or even hard casting!) a Leviathan turn 4 or 5 will give you more than enough time to complete your kill.

You can’t really beat any deck that has Goblin Ruinblaster, Ajani Vengeant, Acidic Slime, or any of the blue enchantments that turn your land into something other than Crypt of Agadeem.

Against control decks (if you manage to spot one online, which is very rare) you are practically a lock game 1 because they can’t interact with you at all while you goldfish your win. Post board you can just side in your duress/negate and take your time. Set up your graveyard and you can even make them discard their whole hand via rats if you want before you attempt to go off.

In essence, this deck is a total crap shoot against the format. If I were to run it at states tomorrow, I would predict a 5-3 finish, probably good enough for like, 6 packs. I do think this is a deck to keep an eye on, however, should the format slow down at all. If any kind of control deck emerges from Worlds (happening this week for anyone who didn’t know), or if for whatever reason the red decks fall from popularity, then it is possible that Crypt Combo could be very well positioned for states. I am certainly going to keep it in mind, but in the meantime, there are quite a few other decks that have caught my eye, which I will write about as I get the chance to play with them.

As a side note: I have finally returned to Magic, and intend to start posting here again regularly! I have been pretty busy with a lot of other stuff the past few months and had to put the game on the back burner. In addition to having time to play, I have installed Windows on my Mac, and can now play MODO, which is absolutely insane. If you feel like playing some games, chat me up in game (my name is sloppystack, just like Twitter! PS: Follow me (and top8games, fivewithflores, and mattwang97) on Twitter!).

~WillPoP

Fans,

Mike was just interviewed at Moxes, a Spain-based Magic website. Check out his interview:

http://www.moxes.com/2009/06/from-top-mike-flores.html

Best

Matt Wang

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.

Magic always has been, and always will be ruined forever. That’s part of what makes it such a great game. The cards and occasionally even the rules are constantly changing, presenting the players with new challenges. If Magic didn’t live on the edge where cards risk being broken and there are difficult trade-offs to be made between casual and hardcore, between Timmy, Johnny and Spike, between tradition and innovation, between online and offline then that means the decisions are tilted too far in one direction. That doesn’t mean that every change is for the better, as we shall see, but change is good and change is necessary. Change is Magic’s only constant.

Let’s go over the rules changes in order, with the details to be found here:

Change 1: Simultaneous Mulligans

Summary: Everyone mulligans at the same time.

Pros: It’s faster and only sticklers at tournaments waited around anyway.

Cons: A marginal decrease in dramatic tension. I had to stretch to come up with something.

This change is nothing more than common sense. Making the other players wait costs time and that time could be better spent playing Magic rather than waiting around for other players. This one is long overdue, a small but pure win with no real downside.

Change 2: Terminology Changes

When you play Terminology Changes, counter any number of target Old Terminologies that have been played, play with the new wordings and then put those wordings directly into play so that others can play with them. Old Terminologies can’t be played while playing. Or are we just playing with you?

Change 2A: Play is now The Battlefield.

Pros: New wording is flavorful, clearer and more precise.

Cons: Having to constantly use the word Battlefield, transition costs.

Magic, like love, is now a battlefield. My issue with this change is that battlefield is a mouthful and requires a definite article, which slows down speech and requires more text on cards. I agree that the word play was severely overloaded. We were using it for a zone and as the way cards are used, including multiple ways in which cards are used, which is confusing, and either change individually is pretty much a no brainer. Battle can be used as short for battlefield, and play has been reduced to one meaning.

Change 2B: You cast spells and activate abilities, but you still play lands.

Pros: New wording is flavorful, clearer, intuitive and more precise.

Cons: Transition costs, some cards will now have ugly wordings.

By unifying the playing of spells with the casting of spells, we were allowed to say “When you play X” or “When a player plays X” or “Players can’t play X” now all such things will need to say “play or cast” if they are to retain the same meaning. We also get gems like “Activated abilities can’t be activated” but that does make sense. There will be some awkwardness, but the long term result will be a strategic shift that is probably a wash. Besides, we were all saying we were casting spells anyway. That’s what makes them spells!

Change 2C: Removed-from-game is now the Exile zone.

Pros: Shorter, more flavorful and accurate.

Cons: When you wish upon a star.

The name is a great idea, but the functional change could have been mitigated. It’s not a huge point since such cards are rare and old but I think we can all agree that getting back removed cards this way is strategically interesting and fits the Rule of Cool so we should errata the Wishes and other such cards to retain their old functionality. There isn’t anything stopping us. This is a minor quibble in any case.

Change 2D: The end of turn step is the end step, and we now say “At the beginning of the end step” rather than “At end of turn.”

Pros: Players can now tell what the heck is going on.

Cons: Players can now tell what the heck is going on.

I weep for you rules lawyers who tried to trick your opponents with this one, I really do, but it is time to move on. Good change all around. Read the rest of this entry »

Whenever a new set comes out there are usually 3-5 cards that I really want to try and build decks with. I think there are a lot of really strong, constructed playable cards in this set, but I have a gew clear favorites. Here is my short list for Conflux cards that I want to build with:

Master Transmuter
Nyxathid (aka Handogoyf)
Knight of the Reliquary (aka Landogoyf)

Nyxathid looks like it is playable in both extended and standard. He seems like a natural fit in the rock decks that play Raven’s Crime and Life From the Loam. There is a good amount of hand disruption in standard right now as well: Thoughtseize, Ravenous Rats, Distress, Mind Shatter, Scepter of Fugue, Rotting Rats, and of course Raven’s Crime. Nyxathid could also give Cunning Lethemancer, a card that has never quite been good enough for competitive play, a chance to shine. Nyxathid looks like it could be great in some kind of mono-black aggro deck or a BG aggro-rock deck. Mike was always a big advocate of taking the The Rack out of Black Rack, so maybe now would be a good time to revisit that strategy,

Master Transmuter isn’t normally the type of card I would want to build around. I think this lady is too fine to ignore, and Master Transmuter could be the cornerstone of a really good artifact deck in block or standard. There are some really interesting synergies with Transmuter and comes-into-play effects. BDM has been mentioning for a while that comboing Transmuter with Tidehollow Sculler could allow you to RFG 1-2 cards from your opponent’s hand a turn. Transmuter can also sneak something big into play, like a Platinum Angel or a Sharum. I could definitely see some series of plays like this during block season: Transmute Sphinx Summoner into play, Tutor Sharum into hand –> Transmuter the Summoner back to hand, windmill slam Sharum into play (reanimating something) –> Transmute Sharum back to hand, putting Summoner into play… repeat until your opponent concedes.

Knight of the Reliquary is the card I like the most from the set. In the early game he can fix your lands and accelerate your mana. Late game, he is an undercosted win condition. I thought building a deck with him would be pretty easy, but every time I try to draw up a list I keep getting hung up on the lands. His second ability is not that stellar when you want to be three or four colors. The best thing I could figure to do with him was to put him into the GW little kid deck that was somewhat popular during block. That deck ran enough basics to make his ability worth while, and using him to fetch out some Treetop Villages seems pretty awesome. The other card I think would be awesome in the GW deck is Lapse of Certainty, which would give the deck a way other than Gaddock Teeg to combat a Wrath of God. Knight of the Reliquary seems like it could also work in a GW big mana deck, maybe something that plays a lot of lifegain (Primal Command and Feudkillers Verdict in the same deck!). This is the type of deck I will likely try to work on for the next PTQ season.

Anyone else have any pet cards from the new set? Working on any new deck lists? Lets hear about your impressions in the comments! I will be working on building a Nyxathid deck this week, so I will post again in a few days with a list and some early results.

~WillPoP

Will Price: I think I have a good T2 deck for Worlds/the Philly 5k.
Julian (Levin): O yeah
Julian: Ship it

Greedy Grixis
4 Bitterblossom
3 Grixis Charm
4 Cryptic Command
4 Makeshift Mannequin
3 Ajani Vengeant
4 Fulminator Mage
3 Sower of Temptation
4 Mulldrifter
3 Siege-Gang Commander
2 Shriekmaw
1 Reveillark

4 Reflecting Pool
4 Sunken Ruins
2 Rugged Prairie
1 Fetid Heath
1 Mystic Gate
2 Cascade Bluffs
1 Graven Cairns
2 Underground River
1 Shivan Reef
4 Crumbling Necropolis
3 Arcane Sanctum

Julian: What has this format come to.
Julian: I dunno what kind of criticisms I can give having never played a game with Shards.
Will: Don’t criticize, just praise.
Julian: Best deck I’ve ever seen.

Hey everyone, my name is Will Price, and I am a new member here at Top 8 Magic. You may recognize me from one of my several appearances on the podcast, or if you frequent Neutral Ground or PTQs in the New York area. I have been playing Magic semi-seriously the past few years (semi-serious in that I go to tournaments, just never win) and have always wanted to write about it. Hopefully through posting here I can motivate myself to take the game a bit more seriously and perform better in the tournament scene.

T2 is my favorite format. As such, I live for States (which thankfully returned) and Regionals, and the rare T2 PTQ season. Despite scrubbing at States (a story for a different post), there is still reason to play T2. There is a 5k event in Philly the first weekend of December, and Worlds the weekend after which I am hoping to attend.

This deck has been my project for the past two weeks, and I am currently of the opinion that it is quite strong. Let’s call it a Contender. Against a control deck, you play the pseudo-tempo game. Do your best to disrupt them early with Fulminator Mage and/or bouncing Vivid lands with Grixis Charm (or Cryptic if you want to get greedy). Once they are behind on lands your goal is to stick a threat and protect it. Use Mannequin aggressively on their EOT so you can resolve your big spells on your turn. They usually can’t beat an Ajani or a Bitterblossom. Against aggro you are the control deck. Fulminator Mage can often 2 for 1, trading with a guy and a man-land. Sower and Shriekmaw are insane, especially since you have Mannequin. They also can’t beat an Ajani. Or a Bitterblossom. Noticing a trend?

As for specific matchups and sideboarding, that data is not in yet. I have not done enough focused testing to certify this deck a winner. I see a lot of potential with this list and will be posting a lot about it between now and Worlds (maybe I can trick someone who is playing in the event to run it? I’m looking at you Fabiano). More explanation will come as I start heavy testing against real T2 decks (read: RDW, Kithkin, 5c, Faeries). Until then, I am inviting everyone who reads to test it, tweak it, and make suggestions. Here are a couple of things to think about:

Is Grixis Charm that good? It has a ton of utility, and the Overrun effect has won me a lot of races given the amount token production. Is it just a “win more,” or is it the real deal?

Am I crazy for not running more Reveillark?

Is the mana awful? I am not exactly an expert at building a land base. So far it has been fine, although I have had more than one game where Ajani is sitting in my hand because I am missing either red or white.

That’s it for now. Let me know what you what you think with comments!

Shards and New Website Part 2

Shards and New Website Part 3

Shards and New Website Part 4

Shards and New Website Part 5

Shards and New Website Part 6