I dunno, did you shuffle your deck really thoroughly? I think it's very common to pick upp lands from last game and accidentally create pockets of them in your deck even if you shuffle a bit
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I made some assumptions (you kept a 2 land hand and didn't mulligan) but based on hypergeometric calculations the chance of this is 0.04%.
My personal view is that this is the cost of playing magic, and games that have tried to "solve" the mana system are less satisfactory.
My favourite resource system in a CCG is probably netrunner, where 1 action = 1 card = 1 credit, except that isn't really true. You are still at the mercy of the order in which you draw your cards, but have built-in agency in terms of how you use the opportunities each turn provides.
My personal view is that this is the cost of playing magic, and games that have tried to "solve" the mana system are less satisfactory.
My favourite resource system in a CCG is probably netrunner, where 1 action = 1 card = 1 credit, except that isn't really true. You are still at the mercy of the order in which you draw your cards, but have built-in agency in terms of how you use the opportunities each turn provides.
Maybe Doctor Otto Octavius, Lex Luthor or Tywin Lannister will find your interest (Come back in 3 years and see all these actually work with Scryfall)
Chris Taylor
Contributor
Yeah you can play more brainstorms and more cycling cards but that is so far beyond the normal range of expected values you just shuffle up and play another
Every game's got variance (well at least the ones I wanna play) and that just means sometimes you hit these
Every game's got variance (well at least the ones I wanna play) and that just means sometimes you hit these
You know, A Song of Ice and Fire would be an UB set that would work for me. Also, the Elder Scrolls. Heck, even Harry Potter. I would prefer all of these over the next paper thin feelin' hat set (all your favorite characters dressed as detectives/cowboys/racers ...).
For me, Avatar the Last Air Bender might be the second most interesting set after Tarkir this year.
Onderzeeboot
Ecstatic Orb
I have no interest in any of the UB sets this year, because artistically they clash so hard with regular Magic.
Yeah
The Lord of the Rings
A Song of Ice and Fire
Dungeons & Dragons
The Elder Scrolls
Real fantasy vibes UB is actually acceptable to me. But I still have a problem with legendary named characters like Hagrid, Beloved Friend even if setting is acceptable fantasy vibe.
Can’t wait for Order of the Stick Secret Lair.
The Lord of the Rings
A Song of Ice and Fire
Dungeons & Dragons
The Elder Scrolls
Real fantasy vibes UB is actually acceptable to me. But I still have a problem with legendary named characters like Hagrid, Beloved Friend even if setting is acceptable fantasy vibe.
Can’t wait for Order of the Stick Secret Lair.
That's Magic, the good and the bad. The same system that can screw/flood is also one that allows players/drafters to fully customize the decks they're building. I'd be cautious of trying to tinker with it too much.
That said, I think you're on the right path. The landcyclers and cantrips keep cards moving, which helps to mitigate the problems. You could also try introducing the EDH mull, but I'd only do that with a trusted playgroup. With a 40 card deck it'd be easy to abuse.
I only run D&D and LotR in my main cubes for the same reason. I like keeping things thematically consistent.
That said, I'm in the brainstorming phase of an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny cube. Giving Cap Ash's Shovel to help get past Optimus Prime tickles a spot in my brain that hasn't been activated since I was a kid in the schoolyard.
That said, I'm in the brainstorming phase of an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny cube. Giving Cap Ash's Shovel to help get past Optimus Prime tickles a spot in my brain that hasn't been activated since I was a kid in the schoolyard.
Surveil and scrylands like Miticulous Archive or Temple of Epiphany.
Double-faced spell/lands like Bala Ged Recovery or Sink Into Stupor.
Cantrips like Preordain or Brainstorm.
Lands that can do something if you flood like Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire or Castle Vantress or Junktown or Restless Anchorage or Fetid Pools.
Spells that can do something if you screw like Weathered Wayfarer or Land Tax.
Spells that can be cast for a cheap or an expensive mana cost like Cyclonic Rift or Dwarven Reinforcements. Or the more extreme variant like Fury or Force of Will.
Colorless cards like Campus Guide or Fountainport Bell. Low mana value colorless cards is also a way to avoid non-games because sometimes the problem is not the player drawing too many or too few lands but simply the wrong color of lands compared to spells in hand.
Fetch lands that empty the library for lands like Flooded Strand or Grasslands or Escape Tunnel or Riveteers Overlook.
You can also give the players something to do with their mana if they have too much of it. You can run companions like Yorion, Sky Nomad or have commanders implemented in your cube so everyone has a commander they can cast from the command zone.
Double-faced spell/lands like Bala Ged Recovery or Sink Into Stupor.
Cantrips like Preordain or Brainstorm.
Lands that can do something if you flood like Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire or Castle Vantress or Junktown or Restless Anchorage or Fetid Pools.
Spells that can do something if you screw like Weathered Wayfarer or Land Tax.
Spells that can be cast for a cheap or an expensive mana cost like Cyclonic Rift or Dwarven Reinforcements. Or the more extreme variant like Fury or Force of Will.
Colorless cards like Campus Guide or Fountainport Bell. Low mana value colorless cards is also a way to avoid non-games because sometimes the problem is not the player drawing too many or too few lands but simply the wrong color of lands compared to spells in hand.
Fetch lands that empty the library for lands like Flooded Strand or Grasslands or Escape Tunnel or Riveteers Overlook.
You can also give the players something to do with their mana if they have too much of it. You can run companions like Yorion, Sky Nomad or have commanders implemented in your cube so everyone has a commander they can cast from the command zone.
I would like to try that cube!
I mean. Then it’s probably just bad luck. Luck cannot exist in a game without there being variance. And sometimes that means people can have incredibly much of the bad luck or incredibly much of the good fortune. Sometimes you open Slay the Spire and start with Hand of Greed. Other times you get no cards you want what so ever.
You can give players more breathing room to recover their games. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer, Luminarch Aspirant and random planeswalkers are going to singlehandedly punish you much harder for stumbling than almost anything in my list.
I gave that some thought, but this was in DSK retail draft and I don't think I'd go lower power than that.
Ragavan is an abomination (but cute).
I've played thousands of games of Yu-Gi-Oh and only ever had one nongame (due to a poorly constructed deck). The way lands work in MtG definitely adds a significant amount of variance and it's a shame.
Dom Harvey
Contributor
A key role of the land system is to give players something to blame for losses. I've played games that have 'every card is basically a land/spell DFC' or similar resource systems and a lot of losses there involve decision paralysis with every card, fewer distinct types of low/high-resource games, and then the puzzled loser finding some other outlet for their anger at (perceived/) variance. For as much as people complain about many design trends, there are so many ways to mitigate flood in modern Magic between lands with spell-like effects, flexible mana sinks up and down the curve, and a lot of ways to keep cards flowing. It's not perfect but it gives games a distinct feel and rhythm that other TCGs have to capture in their own ways.
Also... lands are cool! The core worldbuilding is often more visible on the lands than the spells and a ton of the most iconic Magic art (/for me) is lands (I basically was hooked for life as soon as I saw the preview piece for OG Temple Garden, which is now on my wall). If I ever hang up my cleats and just become a collector, a big binder of nonbasic lands would be my main collection goal
Also... lands are cool! The core worldbuilding is often more visible on the lands than the spells and a ton of the most iconic Magic art (/for me) is lands (I basically was hooked for life as soon as I saw the preview piece for OG Temple Garden, which is now on my wall). If I ever hang up my cleats and just become a collector, a big binder of nonbasic lands would be my main collection goal
I've also heard that it's beneficial for giving beginners the chance to win even when their skill level is very low.
The flipside to that is that I see bad players blame a loss on drawing a couple lands in a row rather than considering they may have misplayed. I've had an opponent complain that they lost due to flooding, even though I'd drawn more lands than them in my 16 land aggro deck.
I think bad players tend to have the mindset of "how did I get screwed over?" rather than "how could I have improved my play?" Goals oriented vs results oriented, I suppose.
I think that every card being some variant of a MDFC would be overwhelming, but I'd happily welcome more MDFC/Channel lands. Even just running a few has felt great in my test drafts.
WotC's hands are a little tied on that front. If they make too many good ones, it'll really impact Modern and older formats.
Definitely hoping to play my cube with these things in place rather than the things we've draft the last few get togethers. On top of the land variance, I played a couple games that were decided by mythic rares, too.
Something to keep in mind is that players always have less breathing room than you think they do, thanks to the extra variance added by the drafting process.
(I was going to go on a bit of a rant about people talking about "high power" when they really mean "high pressure" and how constructed formats are a bit weird to take cues from because they have a different overall structure and set of incentives, but I couldn't make it coherent because I'm sleepy and foolish.)
I have been thinking the last few years that I would like Wizards to test out a new system for this. I was thinking they could either add a logo somewhere on the card type line or in the card name line or even at the bottom line below p/t. Or they could add a keyword.
The purpose would be to have an indicator on the card that could explain to the players what formats this specific card is legal in (or not lethal in. Either way could probably work.) The best example I can come up with is this. If there’s a small golden crown on the card, then it means the card is legal in Commander only.
It’s an idea I think Wizards should at least test out internally. Obviously they should never print it unless it passes their internal tests over a longer period of time. And only if they can find an elegant way of doing it.
The problems it would solve is obviously if they want a card that is strong against 3 opponents with a total of 120 life but they don’t want the card to be legal in Legacy or Vintage or even Duel Commander then they can now do so. It also solves other problems. You get the idea.
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Chris Taylor
Contributor
Spoken like a TRUE amulet pervert
Pokemon TCG has a legality code printed on the card in the same corner as the rarity and set symbol and artist and collector number. Their version of Standard is defined as "all cards with codes E, F, or G" or whatever they're currently on at the moment:
They've only had it for five years but it certainly seems to be working for them and it was intuitive to me when I briefly played that game because it mostly correlated with Standard rotations (they'll print E for a year, then F for a year, etc etc). Of course, they also reprinted old cards more often, so people were used to looking for the symbol and playing older versions that lacked it, idk if that'd work as well with Magic's lower reprint rate, who knows.
Bad players make up a majority of the market for TCGs, so letting bad players think they’re better than they are is a competitive advantage.