I solved mana screw and created a handicap system for MTG
General forum
Posted on Oct. 2, 2022, 8:56 p.m. by estoner
Original idea, discarded: "Both players randomly mix in the same number of Wastes to their lands and put the combined pile in a zone called the Manabase. In the draw step, a player could choose between drawing from his library or from his own Manabase. Then instead of being screwed by having no lands at all, you would only be screwed off certain colors.
As an optional handicap system for casual play, the stronger player could be forced to have more Wastes in his manabase. A player's ELO would dictate how many Wastes are added to their manabase. A newcomer would be a zero Wastes player, while a pro may have a Ten Wastes handicap. Professionals would have to maindeck generic artifacts to counterbalance the fact that they may never even draw colored mana."
Newest update: What about making matches best 3/5 and removing mulligans? Instead, before the game, players can look at their opening hands and the person going second can either check, (match continues as normal), double down (game would count as two games in the match), fold (concede but continue with the set), or all-in (losing that game loses the match). The person on the play would have to agree to the same stakes dictated by the player on the draw or forfeit the round. There is probably a better way to codify exactly how this would work, but you get the idea.
Edit 2, putting lands back in deck and removing Wastes idea: Both players have to keep opening 7, but draw player starts with the doubling cube and during the game can double the stakes then turn player has to accept odds or concede the game then receives the cube himself. The all-in/call/fold poker stuff is too complex, it's easier to just use the cube and 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64 like in backgammon.
I really like this in concept, but I feel as if a tournament standard number would need to be enforced. It’s also in extreme favour of combo decks, given that they can waver the land ratio as much as they want whilst still drawing nonlands.
October 2, 2022 9:36 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #4
As Caerwyn said, this would fundamentally change the game; and I'm not sure it would be for the better. If you and your friends enjoy playing like this, have fun. I personally have found screw/flood much less of a problem then online discourse would make it seem. Then again I have heard a good deal of discourse both online and in person that doesn't align with my experience for various aspects of the game.
October 2, 2022 9:51 p.m.
The banlist would have to be reevaluated for stuff like Charbelcher and Abundance, as you say. But the advantage of a Chess-like ELO system and handicap would be limitless.
MTGO already has a constructed and limited ELO value for every player. You could convert this to the number of Wastes to add to a player's manabase with a simple table.
The advantage is that every tournament could dictate different manabase rules. Maybe an event randomly adds extra Contested War Zone or Zoetic Cavern.
Think about it: the point of the game is that there are five colors that do different things. The existence of Generic Mana is a mistake. By changing the binary state of mana screw/flood to a gradation of how much of each color you have versus how many colorless sources you have, deckbuilding's skill ceiling becomes infinite.
October 2, 2022 10:08 p.m.
wallisface says... #6
I’m sorry but this really feels like the most messy/complicated way to solve a problem that barely exists. It’s a hard pass from me.
Not to mention, it doesn’t even seem to help with mana screw at all. Lets say you draw 3 cards from the “land” pile for your opening 7 cards. Assuming 50% Wastes, 1-in-8 of those draws (12.5%), they’re going to be all-Wastes, forcing a mulligan unless you’re a colourless deck.
In any case, players will probably never want to draw from that land deck again after an opening hand… the odds of misery is too high. So the games will become heavily favoured towards whichever player didn’t get land-screwed by their opening hand.
I really don’t think this concept has been properly thought out.
October 2, 2022 11:47 p.m.
I actually just playtested with old New Phyrexia commons. Barring edge cases, all it feels like is that both players start with an Abundance in play. The color screw just increased skill in mulligan decisions and sequencing. There were absolutely times where I knew that even if I drew from my Manabase and hit a Wastes, I would still be able to cast two spells in the same turn and come out ahead on tempo.
The exact number of Wastes to add to the manabase is worth debating. I started with 24 lands in the manabase and 12 Wastes, but 12 Wastes was way too high and made casting spells impossible.
Also, logistically, you would want to sleeve your manabase and your library in different sleeves so they don't get mixed up between games.
Overall, though, the game was much more fun, even though I was just playing with jank commons. I was actually relieved to draw a Wastes one turn just so I could cast an Air Elemental on turn 5. It felt really fresh and interesting
October 2, 2022 11:56 p.m. Edited.
PookandPie says... #8
Ah yes, fix mana screw by making color screw worse.
Gotta agree, this seems half-baked and completely ignores the value and skill in mulliganing.
October 2, 2022 11:58 p.m.
If you think about it, why do we have both mana screw and color screw? If you want variance, only one would suffice. Having both just makes the game into Blackjack
October 2, 2022 11:59 p.m.
PookandPie says... #10
If you think that mulliganing and player skill in handling variance is blackjack
then that's a skill issue, homie.
October 3, 2022 midnight
Color screw plays on the game's strengths, where you need to balance which spells you run and how easy or difficult they are to cast. Land screw means you're not even playing a game. If anything, Magic should have MORE color screw, like Rishadan Port and Icy Manipulator, and no land screw at all.
October 3, 2022 12:04 a.m.
wallisface says... #12
estoner I know you're really amped for your concept, but I think you need to have a listen to what everyone else is saying here also - if you intend for this concept to grow into something usable then you need to take these criticisms on-board and realise the fundamental flaws your concept currently has. Currently the conversation is pretty heavily-steering against your concept - maybe there's good reason for that, and this isn't the "best-idea-anyone's-ever-had"
There's nothing to gain from starting a thread if you intend for it to only serve as an echo-chamber, or if you have no intention of taking-on feedback.
October 3, 2022 12:17 a.m.
I agree. I'm certainly interested in anyone's ideas about how to implement this or something similar. The game is at its best when there is a sharp distinction between colors and usually at its weakest when everyone is running five-color goodstuff. Being forced to play colorless lands seems like an interesting way to reduce power creep and potentially increase the skill ceiling.
Like I said, I'm not sure how this would work with mulligans or starting hands. In testing I returned the mulliganed cards to the bottom of their respective decks in a random order, but I don't know how many cards of each deck you should start with or how that should be determined.
Obviously aggro will want to draw from the spell deck and control will want to draw from the manabase, but the color screw should affect both comparably.
October 3, 2022 12:27 a.m.
“The advantage is that every tournament could dictate different manabase rules. Maybe an event randomly adds extra Contested War Zone or Zoetic Cavern.”
That is not an advantage in the slightest—for reasons that are fairly obvious. Magic is a game where building a deck is just as important as playing it… and where building a deck can be incredibly expensive. Having to reformulate your deck for each tournament because the tournament organiser has their own rules for lands is terrible game design. Not only does this mean there is not a “default rule” for the most popular playspace (kitchen table), it means you cannot reasonably expect to pick up the deck you spent hundreds, of not thousands, on without needing to retool it and have a potentially significant substitution board just to deal with whatever land system rules the particular tournament put into place.
October 3, 2022 12:39 a.m.
wallisface says... #15
But I think that's where the whole thing falls apart. In this concept players are incentivised tp play as aggressively as possible, to avoid dealing with the chaos and unpredictability that is the land-pile. Burn decks will be able to just start the game with 2 lands, 5 nonlands, and then reliably never draw another land again... when every single one of their draws are a threat to life-total, I don't see how many decks can stand-up against that (certainly not if they're having to gamble every turn to try and draw another coloured land). And even then, the burn deck will fail to draw a red-course 25% of the time - but who care's if it's pretty-much guaranteed to win the other 75%? With it guaranteed to draw a burn spell every turn, it gives the opponent no room to breath or establish any real form of countermeasures, especially when their own landbase is also rigged against them.
What I see this concept creating is:
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A massive upsurge of colourless decks. The only way to mitigate all these messy odds is to avoid gambling against them altogether, and just avoid colours. There'll probably be a big uptick in Affinity, HardenedScales, and some form of Colourless-Eldrazi.
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Decks will want to be playing as low-to-the-ground as possible, because it will lessen the amount of time they have to spend being anywhere-near the land-deck. I don't see any cards being played over 3 mana, unless they're colourless (or have a very low pip-count).
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People will play with something like a 50-land deck. This will all-but guarantee they can draw the "nuts" from their remaining 10-card pile of non-land cards. Games will become incredibly geared towards 2-3 turn wins.
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Basic lands never get played again. If you can't reliably draw an actual useable land, when you do draw one you're going to want it to cover all the colours you're playing. The game just becomes one of fetches and triomes. Deck prices soar and the game becomes harder to get into (both financially, and also now because it's become needlessly complicated)
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Based off the commentary above, as well as my own suspicions, people would just stop playing magic. This new concept just doesn't feel fun at all - turning the game into a maths-spreadsheet while not actually solving any kind of mana-screw-issues (just re-working them to be even more annoying).
October 3, 2022 12:41 a.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #16
I think the main issue that I see that noone's really pointed out yet is that it would inherently make colorless and mono-color much more powerful than they already are. Guaranteed land drops would make the game streamlined, yes, but it would also better benefit certain decks over others.
Specific ones that come to mind are Tron and non-Omnath Landfall, but I just know that The Gitrog Monster would love this idea. You always choose to draw from your Manabase for the draw step, then you just get value off of everything else you draw. Combine that with traditional Gitrog shenanigans like Ramunap Excavator and you've got yourself a major issue.
Also, would cards like Rampant Growth just repurpose themselves to search your Manabase?
October 3, 2022 9:58 a.m.
Colorless cards are already supposed to be weaker than colored spells because they are easier to cast, in theory. So there would still be an incentive to play colored spells.
In playtesting, I mentally replaced "search your library for a land" with "search your manabase." You could probably put a line in the comp rules that states your manabase is technically part of your library.
I think the gameplay does become better with this change, although some older cards may no longer function properly.
October 3, 2022 10:01 a.m.
Magic is a 30 year old game that has been built around the variance of the quantity and types of your resources being randomly distributed through your deck, and has thrived. It's not even alone in this regard, the Pokemon card game has been doing just fine with its Energy system. I don't think your idea is completely without merit, however if you really believe in this idea you should build a new game around it. Magic's mana system and the need to figure out your lands is not a fundamental gameplay problem that needs to be fixed. Being able to feel out what your manabase needs to be is a part of learning the game. And while it never feels good to lose to screw or flood, you're still losing to bad draws and bad draws could be anything. You draw all removal spells, or no removal spells, or all your expensive cards too early, or anything could happen.
October 3, 2022 10:31 a.m.
I noticed in playtesting that I was making more important decisions than in regular Magic. Normally, you just play your cards in order from lowest to highest mana cost. With this change, suddenly you have to plan which color you are going to play and when, while still trying to curve out. It struck me as far more interesting, although I haven't gotten the exact numbers and rules down yet.
October 3, 2022 10:34 a.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #20
Another thing to consider is that it would necessarily speed up certain decks, as having access to a land drop every turn with a full hand of 7 nonlands will enable much more consistent development in those decks.
I know my Storm deck could definitely benefit from a consistent t4 combo drop, and a 10% consistent t3 combo drop. And the color doesn't matter at all to the deck playing.
October 3, 2022 10:36 a.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #21
Testing and a new issue that I did not think about arose.
Now there is literally no way for my deck to fizzle without dealing lethal once the storm combo is out. Storm decks often struggle to deal with land cards as they tend to break the chain, but now I can consistently draw into my nonland cards, each of which is refined to advance my win condition while preserving my resources, essentially meaning I'll always be going for lethal.
While the argument could be made that this could just be a natural evolution from this rule, it's worth noting that the rebalancing of lands, which are often a lag force on decks that try to overexert themselves, might just end up enabling these kinds of decks to do even better.
October 3, 2022 10:50 a.m.
“Normally, you just play your cards in order from lowest to highest mana cost. With this change, suddenly you have to plan which color you are going to play and when, while still trying to curve out.”
Neither of these sentences are accurate.
For the first, no, folks don’t just play in order from lowest to highest mana cost, other than maybe new players. I know I will often hold a 3 drop even if I have three mana, because it would be more advantageous to play it later. Or I might play a 2-drop when I could play a 4-drop, because the 2-drop will have a greater long-term impact on the game.
For the second, players already have to think about what pips they are playing. That choice factors critically into mulligan decisions, what to grab with fetch lands, etc. Your idea actually decreases the tactical choices—at high levels of play - your idea essentially forced high level players to sidestep wastes by minimising the number of coloured pips on their spells, playing cards that only have one coloured mana symbol and the rest generic mana coats, since that provides the best chance of always being able to cast the spells.
Which speaks to a point I made earlier that you ignored - your idea fundamentally makes it impossible for someone to keep their deck as they advance through play, and even possibly as they stay at the same level but go to different organisers. Not only is that bad game design - players should be able to tune and perfect their skills with their favourite deck - it is unfair to players who have to make major financial commitments in retooling their deck for different handicaps. One could not, for example, play Tron at higher levels - the Wastes would make drawing your Urza’s harder. Do you honestly think it is good game design to tell a Tron player “Congratulations! You have been good at piloting that deck you like! In fact, you did so well with it that you cannot play it anymore!”?
October 3, 2022 11:02 a.m. Edited.
I agree, that is an issue. Maybe every draw after your first draw per draw step is forced to be from your manabase or something similar.
A consequence of this change is that you could make cards that specify which deck to draw from, like Blue getting cantrips that specify to draw a card from your library while Green might get a spell that draws a card from your manabase.
One important thing is that Storm Combo and Ad Nauseam etc. should all be impossible when you only have access to colorless mana. Color screw is extremely important for balance, but with the current rules, it never comes up. I've never seen someone play Convolute over Cancel for instance. Why is that? It would be far more interesting to have reasons to play cards that rely on generic mana instead of always playing the maximum number of colors.
As for Tron, one advantage of this system is that by diluting your manabase with generic lands, the strength of cards like Tolarian Academy or Gaea's Cradle goes down since you can no longer rely on having access to them all the time, so they could possibly be removed from ban lists or reprinted.
October 3, 2022 11:04 a.m. Edited.
Your post exemplifies my point - certain decks would not be playable with the handicap, but would be playable at lower tiers of play. You are essentially creating a system where powerful decks win players games and increase their rank - only to force them to play a less powerful deck at higher levels of play because their preferred style would “be impossible”, to use your words.
That is bad game design - decks should grow and get better as you the player get better. Surely you can see that designing a game where your decks get worse the better you become as a player would be bad design?
Also, just as a note, neither of those lands could be reprinted - they are both on the Reserved List and therefore Wizards cannot reprint them.
October 3, 2022 11:15 a.m.
I meant in terms of balance Cradle and Academy should be acceptable, legal issues notwithstanding.
The ELO/handicap system would be optional. It's not like anyone forces a Go player to have a stone handicap against his opponent: it just makes the gameplay better when players are at vastly different skill levels. And drawing a Wastes is still better than drawing no lands at all.
Everyone has an ELO anyway, regardless of whether or not that number is public. I'm sure that your win/loss record was tied to your DCI number at some point. MTGO certainly keeps track of that information.
The good point of this change is that it would incentivize people to play 60 card formats again, instead of letting formats like Commander take over and make any card that isn't Vintage-playable or multiplayer-focused redundant.
October 3, 2022 11:22 a.m.
Also, a handicap system would enable you to play decks from different formats against each other, which is something that has historically not been possible
October 3, 2022 11:28 a.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #27
I think it would honestly have the opposite effect on 60-card formats. Since the rule isn't applicable to Commander (from what I understand at least), and the handicap system so systematically obliterates tournament play, I would expect non-handicapped formats to surge in popularity more than they already have.
October 3, 2022 11:41 a.m.
The fact that you keep getting the name of the system you want implemented wrong does not inspire much confidence in your design.
That said, you are again ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of play is kitchen table and not tracked. There is not a good system for tracking that kind of play - nor should there be.
And you are again ignoring that having a different land system for causal play and competitive play would be bad for the game.
And again ignoring that handicaps in other games do not cut to the fundamentals of the game itself. Here, with your idea, the handicap does not just make it harder for the better player - it might make it impossible to play the very deck that won them their higher rank. You have to fundamentally adjust your deck to offset the handicap, in a far more intrusive way than you would have to adjust to a handicap in other games.
October 3, 2022 11:43 a.m.
As an addendum to some of my snark - evidently Wizards also uses ELO in all caps when discussing the system - which does not make it correct, but does a solve OP of what otherwise might appear to be ignorance - for that I apologise for the snide comments, and want to retroactively redirect them at Wizards, who apparently does not know the difference between a person’s name and an excellent 70s rock group.
However, it is worth noting that Magic once used the Elo system for competitive play, and it was an utter disaster. Folks were doing as one might expect - they were avoiding small tournaments to artificially keep their ranks higher for big tournaments. Wizards found that many, many players were manipulating the Elo system to get ahead, and that it just did not work for their game. This is why Planeswalker Points were introduced - a new system without the pitfalls of the Elo system was having.
Under your version, there would be the opposite problem - folks would be incentivised to enter lots of smaller ranked tournaments with low entry costs and small prizes… so they could lose games to drop their ranking, so they could play better decks at the tournaments where there were significant prizes on the line.
October 3, 2022 12:03 p.m.
In tournaments every player would obviously have the same number of Wastes in their manabase. The purpose of the handicap rule would be to allow players of different skills and deck strengths to still be able to play 60-card games against each other in a casual setting. For example, if someone had Legacy Delver and someone else had a Type 2 deck, perhaps the Delver player could be forced to play additional Wastes in his manabase.
I will try to record a playtest of this mana system with a game between Duel Decks on a simulator as an example. Which Duel Decks should I use?
October 3, 2022 12:08 p.m.
And now you see - or should see - another problem. “Here is a system for casual games (please ignore that I have talked about pro players and tournaments in prior posts) that is based on a system that will not track casual games.” You cannot have such a system in casual games - few playing kitchen table Magic will track their record. Do you really think players would welcome administrative busywork in their casual sit down games?
As for your question, as someone who collects Dual Decks, I would say none of them - Dual Decks are not representative of actual play.
October 3, 2022 12:17 p.m.
So just like force of will then? And we all know how well that game worked out
October 3, 2022 1:38 p.m.
estoner are you a child? And have you recently started playing mtg?
October 3, 2022 1:55 p.m.
TheOfficialCreator says... #34
shadow63 don't be condescending, please. There's no reason to approach the matter with belittling or hostility.
October 3, 2022 2:07 p.m.
I'll post some gameplay I recorded earlier. It was very difficult to record while also playing as my opponent, so I'm sure I made some mistakes or tapped wrong somewhere. The actual outcome of the game was irrelevant anyway: it was just supposed to be a demo of how the mana system would work
October 3, 2022 2:08 p.m.
The gameplay is abysmal and I assume I made mistakes since I was taking both turns live, so I apologize:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uo7uJPkbNI
October 3, 2022 2:59 p.m.
marco-piatti says... #37
As much as i tend to hate the fact that is a given that to perform well you need certain type of lands that, since they are far more efficient, are super expensive, i won't ever want this system to change.
The reason in simple: The whole mana cost system is the main balancing system inside the game. Cardgames that don't have a well conceived balancing system, like for instance Yugi-oh, become soon or late completely degenerate and way far from what they was supposed to play out like.
So yeah, i hate the fact that if i wanted a perfect optimized deck i should spend a lot of money on lands but that's what this game is like. I guess is easier to conceive that a powerful non-land card can be worth a lot of money compared to a land that on its own doesn't seem to contribute as much as the main game plan. But looking at the bigger picture the fact that best lands cost a lot gives you an idea of the fact that they are not less important.
Last considerations: why would an experienced player would want such an handicap, and what if the experienced player is using a lowered power deck? I mean why if i'm more experienced but playing a 7/10 power level deck would i have an handicap against a new player with an expensive 8/10 power level deck? How would you set how the handicap is assigned? how do you decide if someone is more or less experienced? And what about power level of the deck?
October 3, 2022 3:06 p.m.
The problem with the current system is that there are certain opening hands that are literally impossible to win with. If we adopt color screw over mana screw, you could run previously unplayable cards like Prismatic Lens or Prismite to mitigate bad luck. Good players will be able to use Skycloud Egg or even Terrarion while bad players can just play their regular lands and tap out every turn as usual.
Like I said, I'm not sure how to implement this in the rules, but it seems like an interesting variant. If you ever played the video game Shandalar and had to play bad colorless cards because you didn't have enough playables, it feels very similar. It's better to play a mediocre artifact than nothing at all
October 3, 2022 3:12 p.m.
wallisface says... #39
estoner, As someone who’s designed a fair-amount of games, I think the following questions may be helpful:
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What are your current thoughts on the responses to your concept this far? They can’t be particularly inspiring.
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What are your plans for getting people on-board with your design? If a high-level concept doesn’t inspire or captivate people this is a pretty bad sign - so what changes are you thinking of to get people more interested in this idea?
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What argument (if valid) would persuade you that this is a bad idea? So far a lot of peoples points here have been largely ignored, so what points (if true) would change your current thinking?
October 3, 2022 3:30 p.m.
The problem with the game right now is that it's binary: you either make a land drop or you don't. By switching to color screw by adding Wastes, the game becomes analog. Suddenly there is an infinite number of degrees of gradation: you could have anywhere from zero blue sources to twenty-four, or more.
Although this variant sounds boring, what it really does is make you feel a sense of accomplishment when you finally hit two or three of the mana sources required to cast a spell. Look back at why R&D thought Sol Ring was a fair card. They assumed that colorless mana was inferior to colored mana.
You should have to build up from colorless to colored mana just like you have to create card advantage and tempo. There's a whole axis of the game that is just not present under the default ruleset.
You don't necessarily have to use Wastes, either. Any sufficiently bad land to dilute your manabase would work. I think taplands would be too weak, but you could use anything.
I think it's worth playtesting and ironing out the numbers. From the games I played with these rules, they were far less demoralizing than games I've played where I got mana screwed, and I felt like I always had control of whether I won or lost instead of being at the mercy of the top of my deck.
October 3, 2022 3:38 p.m. Edited.
“The problem with the current system is that there are certain opening hands that are literally impossible to win with.”
That is not a problem, but a feature - and a feature that is good for the game.
It means you have to think about your opening hand when deck building, and weigh long-term strategy against the risks of having a difficult opening hand. That leads to important strategic decisions during the deck building process which make deck building choices critical.
It means you have to weigh whether you want to mulligan or not, taking the risk of a smaller hand against the playability of what you received. This is even less of a risk now, given the much more generous modern mulligan rule (which goes a long way toward fixing mana flood/screw in a manner that does not change the fundamentals of the game). That is another tactical choice your idea would eliminate.
Then there is the fun of “huh, so this is my hand? How do I make this work?” Even an “impossible” hand can become winnable - choices made in deck construction influence odds of drawing out of a bind, and resource management by a skilled pilot can turn the impossible into a victory. That is one of the fun elements of Magic - clawing your way back up to a win because you overcome setbacks.
“The problem with the game right now is that it's binary: you either make a land drop or you don't.”
Constantly changing “the problem with the game” you are trying to address really gives the impression you have a solution in need of a problem, not a solution to a real, tangible problem.
But, even ignoring that, no, this is not a problem, but again a feature. This again speaks to decisions on deck building - do you run higher cost cards and more lands, ensuring you hit your land drops, at the risk of topdecking lands you do not want? Or do you run fewer lands and a lower curve, sacrificing consistency in land drops for greater odds of drawing spells? Do you run card draw or ramp to compensate? What other synergies can you run to make your lands work? Even during the game, there are choices to be made - Do you play the cards to make your mana work better long term, or do you play something with a more immediate impact on the game?
You are only looking at the gameplay, but not at the deck building part of a deck building game. This is hardly a “binary” situation - lands in the deck produce myriad complexities both in deck building and in how the deck is piloted during the game.
Edit: You should not use Alpha cards as examples of “fair” design. Alpha was not designed to be “fair” in the way that modern sets are - it had a whole different set of design parameters which undermine the point you are trying to make with Sol Ring.
October 3, 2022 3:52 p.m. Edited.
wallisface says... #42
estoner that doesn’t answer anyones questions/concerns.
Do you feel up to answering the three questions i just posted before? I think it would give a lot of insights to both sides on where-next to steer the conversation.
October 3, 2022 3:55 p.m.
This actually makes the deckbuilding more interesting, not less. You now want to run spells that have exactly the amount of colored symbols you have access to, not more. This means you can't just run the best cards all the time. The difference between Underworld Connections and Read the Bones becomes compelling. Maybe you run Arrest over Detention Sphere because you want to be guaranteed a removal spell on turn 3, and you can no longer count on having perfect mana all the time.
The mulligans become more interesting with random Wastes, not less. Suddenly instead of seeing you have one land and six spells and shipping it, sometimes you will see two Wastes and one Island and have to actually study your hand and figure out if you can still cast your spells, and what the odds are that you draw into your other colors.
I dislike the current Mulligan rules, but it's possible that if we adopt a manabase system and dictate how many cards from each deck you start with in your opening hand, we may not even NEED mulligans at all. This fixes best-of-one as well, because now you can't just auto-lose because of your opening hand.
What are your current thoughts on the responses to your concept this far? They can’t be particularly inspiring.
If you just read the Magic comp rules, you wouldn't feel particularly inspired, either. You have to actually play a game to know if it's fun.
What are your plans for getting people on-board with your design?
I think it's an interesting thought experiment, if nothing else. People could test it with cards they have lying around and let us know what they think.
What argument (if valid) would persuade you that this is a bad idea?
Probably if too many cards in eternal formats would have to get banned for it to work, it may not be worth the effort to change the rules. It comes down to how much people want an Elo system, possible handicap rules, and a more skill-intensive game. Personally I think that adding incentives to play mono-color and more artifacts is exciting and would increase the amount of cards seen in all formats, plus the best players would actually be rewarded for playing commons and uncommons that are easier to cast versus splashy bombs that have high color identity.
October 3, 2022 4:05 p.m.
Once again, if you believe in this idea, build a new game around it. You'll never be successful in adapting 30 years worth of cards designed to work under one consideration of deckbuilding and forcing them to fit another consideration of deckbuilding. Wizards isn't going to put you in charge of Magic R&D, and you'll probably just be playing by yourself forever. You may not like the variance of how Magic handles lands, and I'm not saying you have to enjoy the non-games, but the variance is part of what makes Magic great. It is not a problem that a struggling game needs to solve to be successful.
In addition your premise is still flawed. You are not reducing variance by randomly replacing a player's basic lands with Wastes, you are increasing it. Instead of a non-game happening because you were flooded or screwed, you drew more Wastes than your opponent.
October 3, 2022 4:18 p.m.
wallisface says... #45
Thanks for answering my questions, though I must say, I’m incredibly worried by your responses to them. They all indicate that you’ve dug your head into the sand:
“If you just read the Magic comp rules, you wouldn't feel particularly inspired, either. You have to actually play a game to know if it's fun.”
- This isn’t a fair comparison. Nor does it address the underlying issue. I think you need to reflect more on why there is such a big pushback against your idea, and understand the problems with it people are trying to illustrate to you.
”I think it's an interesting thought experiment, if nothing else. People could test it with cards they have lying around and let us know what they think.”
- I agree it’s an interesting discussion point, but that doesn’t mean the concept itself is worthy of anything more than that. People have already let you know what they think, and that seems to have fallen on deaf-ears.
”Probably if too many cards in eternal formats would have to get banned for it to work, it may not be worth the effort to change the rules. It comes down to how much people want an Elo system, possible handicap rules, and a more skill-intensive game. Personally I think that adding incentives to play mono-color and more artifacts is exciting and would increase the amount of cards seen in all formats, plus the best players would actually be rewarded for playing commons and uncommons that are easier to cast versus splashy bombs that have high color identity.”
- this response worries me the most, as it illustrates a deep lack of understanding of what problems could arise. There HAS to be more points of failure than just cards being banned - for example there must be various playpatterns which should be cause for alarm/backtracking. The fact that you haven’t considered these edge-cases and concept-failure-scenarios really worries me, and solidifies in my head that this idea doesn’t have any real reason to do well.
You need to be able to look at a concept from all angles - it currently can’t hold up to scrutiny, and that should be a massive cause for concern. I think you’re only analysing this concept from a perspective of the idea-itself being inherently good, which is setting yourself up for failure
October 3, 2022 4:26 p.m.
If the situation were reversed and the default MTG rules were to use a manabase diluted with Wastes and my suggestion were to shuffle the lands into the deck instead, you would say my idea can't hold up to scrutiny
Magic's rules are inherently bad and the game only became successful in spite of them
October 3, 2022 4:28 p.m.
Part of engaging in conversation is remembering what others have said. For example, your point about making deck building more interesting is “people have to play worse cards, making them make suboptimal choices!”
Not only is that an incredibly silly point to begin with, it flagrantly ignores a problem already raised in this thread - that the higher ranked players (and thus those who have more wastes) need to play worse decks, not better. They are getting doubly screwed by your plan - they get worse land based and have to run worse cards. You are creating a system where success is punished twice, creating a system that rewards failure and is likely to drive away the best players. That is an objectively terrible way to set up a game.
You need to start thinking not only about mechanics, but the actual consequences of this change. You have brushed aside the fact it would mechanically invalidate hundreds of cards and completely ignored the actual implications it would have on player psychology (supported by the evidence of what happened last time Wizards tried to use the Elo System) - despite both issues being raised multiple times.
Just as an aside, personally I feel quite inspired reading the Magic Comprehensive Rules. As someone who professionally reads, interprets, and writes rules, Magic’s are the most beautiful I have ever seen, and I wish legislatures were a third as good at writing laws as Magic’s staff are at writing the Comprehensive Rules.
October 3, 2022 4:36 p.m.
wallisface says... #48
estoner again, your response both dodges any critical thinking about this concept, while also being a statement that is clearly false. I’ve tried, but I really feel like you’ve backed yourself into a corner here.
October 3, 2022 4:44 p.m.
It's not a silly point. I mean that as-is, there is no reason not to play the strongest card at every CMC. There is never a scenario where you would play a weak spell that costs 2(U) over a better card that costs 1(U)(U). Unless you're in four or more colors, the extra pip is essentially flavor text.
By polluting your manabase with colorless mana, suddenly there is a reason to play Angel of Light occasionally instead of Serra Angel. Maybe you are playing a control deck, and the slightly longer clock is less relevant than the possibility of missing WW because you drew some Wastes. This adds more depth, not less.
October 3, 2022 4:50 p.m.
I know it was asked before, but are you new to Magic? Your examples - from saying they could reprint RL cards, to citing Serra Angel as a “good” card, to not knowing that Alpha was not subjected to the same R&D system as modern sets, to your thinking Dual Decks or bulk from a single set are an acceptable sample for real games, etc. all indicate you are either a new player, or a player with very limited experience outside of a home setting.
I do not say that to be insulting - everyone has to start somewhere, and I have been a firm advocate of kitchen table players throughout the entire thread - but to better understand where you are coming from with your design. You are clearly having a disconnect with the totality of other TappedOut users, and I expect that might be the result of an experience gap.
Caerwyn says... #2
This would not be good for the game. Though mana screw is annoying, planning around potential mana issues and trying to build the ideal mana base is an important part of deckbuilding. It inform your curve, it informs what mana symbols are on the cards you are playing, and it informs whether you keep or mulligan. The simple reality is, as much as we love to complain about mana screw/flood, their existence in the game makes for a better experience in a deckbuilding game.
Your solution to a superficial problem would inexorably change the way players make basic decisions in the game and how players design decks. This would not be a change like the removal of Mana Burn or Damage on the Stack--both of which were removed without too much in the way of gameplay alteration--this would cut to the very core of what Magic is and make the game unrecognizable from its present form.
And that is not even to mention the fact your entire idea is predicated on building a completely new system for ranking players, all the way from casual kitchen table up to pro tour that (a) does not exist and (b) could not exist. What you propose is not like chess--while chess uses the Elo Ranking System, the game is still the same game mechanically no matter where you play it. (Just a quick sidebar: It is "Elo", lowercase--it's named after Arpad Elo. ELO in all caps is the Electric Light Orchestra, whose music rocks, but who are not really relevant to this conversation).
What you have here would mean a player of Rank X would be playing a fundamentally different type of deck than a player of Rank Y. That means they would have to know their ranking to build their deck... which simply is not going to be possible due to the fact the overwhelming majority of players are kitchen table players (per WotC data) and would not be in a position to really know there rank. That means that that, in order to partake in the game, they would have to know their rank, but to know their rank, they would have to play in a different manner than the majority of players actually play.
All around, your system would create more problems than the relatively minor (yet fundamental and fairly important to the game's health) problem it would solve.
October 2, 2022 9:34 p.m.