General Magic Tweaks

[Diakonov]

Even the most seasoned deck builders must sometimes mulligan their hand to oblivion to avoid getting mana screwed, and that is bad design. It doesn't happen very often, but ideally it should almost NEVER happen.

Nothing is less fun in a game than not getting to make decisions. I'd always rather play a close game where I knew I made every decision correctly (from an objective standpoint) but was destined to lose anyway, compared to getting stuck on two lands. Variance is good and exciting when it can provide a minor handicap, but bad and boring when it gets out of hand.

Approximately two-thirds of my cube spells cost 3 or less. I think it is reasonable to experiment with mulligan rules that make it significantly likely to hit your first three land drops. Past that point there is still a lot of variance, but at least now you are playing magic.

I won't pretend that it's a simple task. Many alternative mulligan rules can be abused somehow, so it would take some creativity. No matter what you do, it will change deck building simply through the implication that you will get your third land drop, but I don't see why that is necessarily a bad thing.

I might suggest trying CML's method next time we draft.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I
But if you introduce a mechanic that adds consistency across the board, that helps to level the playing field a little bit. Consistent decks may improve a little bit, but not by much. Fringe decks however get better. While on the surface this might appear to favor bad players who build poor decks. In practice, it is very unlikely going to play out that way. And that's because adding this mechanic increases decision density at all stages of the game. In other words, it increases the opportunity for bad players to do something wrong and for good players to capitalize and make smart plays. In short, removing luck from this game is going to favor the better player as a general rule. This really only isn't true if you are power-maxing, in which case your meta is broken anyway IMO.

Your cube in particular is heavily focused on synergy (it's a great list actually). Can you even build goodstuff.dec in your cube (and I mean one that actually wins)? Adding a mechanic that increased consistency would greatly reward those players that built more synergistic effects. I can't imagine bad Magic players doing well in your cube honestly, and I think they'd do even worse with an opt draw step or exile/draw.

Yeah, I just generally find that it dosen't play out that way. One of the obstacles we've had with the player in question is that he dosen't actually care about winning. Explaining curves to him, the idea of drafting the deck in your head, carefully thinking out your turns, all of these things basically mean nothing. He's a great guy and is there to have a good time, but he is a terrible player and drafter. I am fine with that as long as he dosen't make everyone else miserable by sitting there for 6 six turns, with his leashed rakdos cackler (in a control deck no less) complaining about how his two color deck "splashing" for three colors "won't give him his mana." Its imperative that he lose in that situation, rather than leaning on, say a house unlimited mulligan rule, to luck sack his way into a hand that can actually win.

We've had some people go into what I would consider the cube's version of a 4-5 color good stuff deck. It seldom end's well. However, with a new cube, new paths to mediocity usher us down their celebrated corridors. In our case, that is the "I want to play champion of the parish as my only 1 drop" humans deck, choked at 5-6 CC with every possible white "fattie" they can draft. Rewarding bad drafting with occasional explosive champion plays, an array of annoying pacifism effects, and a sequencing nightmare of haymakers that aren't really haymakers, it wins just enough to continue the madness.

I tried CML's mulligan rule tonight. It was good. Made the decision to keep or mulligan feel significant, but we didn't have anyone screwed because of a mulligan.

 

[ahadabans]

Honestly, I feel like if I lose to someone on or after turn six and the deck they beat me with is a completely cobbled together piece of garbage, I'm the one to blame there. Either for just not playing well or for building an equally crappy deck. Turn six is a lot of time and if the deck I'm playing really is garbage (and the player sucks), I should only need one or two good plays usually to get into the game (assuming I even get behind).

It is very rare that I lose to a bad player with a bad deck if I myself built a good deck and I'm playing to the best of my ability (unless I'm mana screwed or otherwise unable to play my deck).

I just don't see how adding consistency makes the bad deck you describe good enough to beat a good player piloting a good deck. If said bad player luck sacks into a turn 5 kill or unbeatable combo. Well, then maybe his deck and piloting skills are being underrated. Because IMO you really can't easily luck sack into that scenario against a good player if you are inept. This is especially true in cube where drafting is so important. If you draft a bunch of random haymakers, nothing to cast until turn 4 and a shaky mana base, you probably can't even goldfish a turn 5 win with the best possible card sequence (even with an unlimited number of exile/draw steps). Again, assuming you aren't playing a cube with turn two mind twists for 6 and other such GRBS.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

That was kind of an extreme example; but the issue is that his decks should be more consistent, but they arn't because he is a bad drafter. Certain house rules may forcefully make his decks more consistent, but in his case, the inconsistancy they are compensating for isn't just that inherient in the game, but the inconsistancy he engineered into his own deck (and the thing reducing his own win percentage).

He could make his decks more consistent himself, simply by drafting better: moving ponder up his pick order rather than prioritizing redundent fat. He has lots of tools available to him already within the game to improve his decks, and he should explore that cube space.

Now, he is slowly getting better, but he just needs to grow as a player, and I know that if I relax mulligan rules too much, it will stunt his growth. He'll just keep on drafting bad decks and using the rule change as a crutch to smooth out consistancy issues that he himself created.

And I guess thats the things, why not just add cards in the cube that directly address consistancy issues (cycling, cantrips ect.)? No need for surgery if a pill will solve the problem.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

Won't the alternate mulligan rule reward a better player much more than it rewards a bad player/drafter? I think you're putting too much emphasis on how this rule helps out the bad player in your group. I suspect the good players will actually have an easier time beating him, because their good decks will not fail them anymore. The bad player, however, still has a bad deck. He might not screw as much, but neither will his opponents, and they will actually have relevant things to do on turn 1-5, because their decks will let them sculpt a perfect hand.

 

[ahadabans]

No need for surgery if a pill will solve the problem.

And I think this is our fundamental disagreement. You see a problem that can be solved with a pill, while I think the pill is just masking symptoms of a bigger problem (like taking NyQuil when you have a cold - you might feel better but you aren't actually better). That goes back I think to the original post. The topic started just tweaking the mulligan rule because I think OP is in agreement with you that the core game doesn't need changing. I took it much further because I think there is a fundamental issue with the game from a variance standpoint that no amount of cycle/scry cards and drafting skills can fix.

 

[ahadabans]

Board gamers (folks who play Terra Mystica, Carcassonne, etc) are also exceptionally hostile to house rules. It's like, yo, this rule may or may not work out, but can we give it a fair shake once to ascertain whether or not it DESTROYS the game?[/qoute]

It depends on the board game and the group. My experience is that the non-hard core board gamers are totally fine with house rules. In fact, pretty much every game I play with friends and families develop house rules over time because there are always things in games that don't work well. Not that they are design flaws, just that for the group playing the game things could work better.

An example would be Trivial Pursuit. I realize that is not a board game you are really talking about. Depending on how elitist your position is on board games, your opinion on Trivial Pursuit could range anywhere from "fun family game" to "that's a pile of rubbish how could you play that when there are 10,000 better options". Not sure what side of that fence you fall on, but I'd bet half a million dollars that your view on house rules will coincide with which side of the fence you are on.

Back to the Trivial Pursuit example. If you are one of those guys that knows lots of random stuff, the game as written works fine. But if you are like most people who knows 1 in 5 questions, the game takes a thousand years. So we added a house rule that when you roll the dice, you can move UP TO the number rolled. That makes it so that unless you roll a one, you pretty much are always on pie spaces. And so the game actually ends before midnight. That's an example of a house rule that works really really well in certain circles but in Mensa clubs it's going to probably hurt the game (we also play that you can steal pies, but it will take some time to explain that).

[qoute]
Granted, your houserule is pretty intense, and I'd sooner work my way up to it with smaller, softer moves in that direction (like globally being able to pay for Scry 1 when you have mana to spare, etc).

My rule is less insane than you think it is. Try it and you'll see. I've played a dozen or so games with it and while there are some subtle changes to deck building (and more importantly cube card selection) that need to be made, it's not as drastic as you think. You may need to dial back removal just a touch (because this makes it easier to find). And you will likely need to watch for abusive cards and combos (in particular anything that stalls the game gets even more oppressive). Other than that, games just play better. You have more decisions to make and you tend to have more answers so you feel like you have meaningful choices. Games feel more interactive because they are a little less reliant on the luck of the draw (but that is still very much part of the game).

Now if you like the variance in Magic as it is now, you won't like this house rule obviously. If you think Magic can be a little too swingy, this rule dials it down a notch. But in no way does this turn Magic into Chess. Not even close.

On the rule you suggested (2 for Scry)… IMO it doesn't solve any fundamental issues in the game (at least not the ones I think need solving). Mana screw/flood is one of the biggest variance problems in the game. Your mechanic doesn't address it in the early game when it matters most because you need mana to get the benefit. This rule also IMO really benefits control (or at least decks with tons of mana), so it's inherently unbalanced between arch types.

I know one of the big arguments against exile/draw is that it doesn't punish bad deck building as much. Well, IMO that's a good thing. Why should the game be so heavily decided on how you build your deck as opposed to how you actually play it? Shouldn't decisions you make IN GAME be more important that the decisions you made before the game even started? If I wanted to play solitaire, I'd play solitaire. This goes back to the matchup debate - how much should match up determine the outcome of a match? IMO, zero. Of course that's not possible, but any changes that move more in that direction are all good in my opinion. And while drafting is fun, I certainly don't want cube to be all about drafting. I want to play Magic.

But the Almighty Game Designer has only one advantage over us regular Joes: playtesting. There's nothing magically superior about their rules as compared to house rules, it's just that those rules are a somewhat-refined version of whatever their original idea was.

There's another side to this coin though. Who's doing the play testing? A bunch of guys that live and breath Magic. And those guys/girls probably are much better at the game than your average casual group. So decisions they are making on what works and doesn't work isn't necessarily going to coincide with what works best for all skill levels. What I'm trying to say is one size doesn't necessarily fit all, and it's certainly possible for a group to house rule a game and add something that is better than what the designer spent months play testing. So I don't think the Almighty Game Designer really has all that much of an advantage.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

And I think this is our fundamental disagreement. You see a problem that can be solved with a pill, while I think the pill is just masking symptoms of a bigger problem (like taking NyQuil when you have a cold - you might feel better but you aren't actually better). That goes back I think to the original post. The topic started just tweaking the mulligan rule because I think OP is in agreement with you that the core game doesn't need changing. I took it much further because I think there is a fundamental issue with the game from a variance standpoint that no amount of cycle/scry cards and drafting skills can fix.

Thats fair enough, and the last thing I would want to do is get in the way of someone else's creativity. If you get a chance to try it, let us know how it goes--who knows, it could be great. I would be interested in knowing if (over time) your bad players start to use it as a crutch, and if your good players start to change their deck building to abuse it.

Edit: What is with my typing over the last couple days.

 

[ahadabans]

Thats fair enough, and the last thing I would want to do is get in the way of someone else's creativity. If get a chance to try it, let us know how it goes--who knows, it would be great. I would be interested in knowing if (over time) your bad players start to use it as a crutch, and if your good players start to change their deck building to abuse it.

I still need to convince one guy to try it. But he's really against it (he's my spike player). The others are pretty open to things and they are willing to give it a go. But my hold out is simply not budging, so I'm stuck at the moment. I'm not going to push harder because I'd rather play Magic without the house rules than not play Magic at all.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I still need to convince one guy to try it. But he's really against it (he's my spike player). The others are pretty open to things and they are willing to give it a go. But my hold out is simply not budging, so I'm stuck at the moment. I'm not going to push harder because I'd rather play Magic without the house rules than not play Magic at all.

You're giving him awesome, free cube drafts, and he doesn't want to humor you for a night? Nothing personal, but... What a jerk.

 

[FlowerSunRain]

I really can't see the "board gamers don't take kindly to tweeking" comment. Not my experience at all. Board game players are much more likely to make suggestions about addressing issues in a game on a holistic level then Magic players, who are much more likely to make commentary on specific game elements. It makes sense: magic formats are created by putting a bunch of specific game elements into a pool, then asking the players to parse them. If one element (card) spoils the pool (is broken), the simplest solution is to take that card out. Rewriting the whole system seems superfluous. Board games sometimes have specific elements that can be broken, but as most board games rely upon the manipulation of the system itself as the main language of communication, fixing problems usually involve changing the system.

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

I still need to convince one guy to try it. But he's really against it (he's my spike player). The others are pretty open to things and they are willing to give it a go. But my hold out is simply not budging, so I'm stuck at the moment. I'm not going to push harder because I'd rather play Magic without the house rules than not play Magic at all.

He doesn't seem much of a spike to me if he's not game for cracking a new meta!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

He doesn't seem much of a spike to me if he's not game for cracking a new meta!

If he's winning under the current rules set, there's absolutely no reason for him to be interested in changing that rules set, if he is indeed a spike. As a courtesy to his host however, who is trying to improve the experience of his cube for all drafters, he could try being a gentleman about it and simply play along for a night. What's the worst that can happen?

 

[Rasmus Källqvist]

Well that depends on if you are a spike that likes to overcome a challenge or just want to sign a slip.

 

[Chris Taylor]

Oh sweet Jesus this exploded!

Okay, thoughts:

Poker makes an interesting analogue in the consistency vs variance spectrum, but has one huge advantage over magic: Poker is not decided on a single hand, but over many. The difference between a shit poker player like me who's never played before and someone taking home millions is being about 10% better at winning, which adds up over millions and millions of hands throughout a tournament (Numbers entirely fudged here)
Magic has no such luxury: Say you cube 2-3 times per month, you don't always get the full 8 people, and that's all the magic/hearthstone/vs system you play (Since come on, cube is awesome. Why would I draft scars of mirrordin?)
That's not a lot of games, and as a result you're going to feel the impact of mana screw way more because it affects a huge percentage of your games. Say on a busy month you cube twice and get 6 people each time, that's what, 12 matches? ~2.5 games each, you've got a total of 30 games ever, and say you get mana screwed in only 3.

I don't think that 10% is anywhere near what the actual incidence rate of mana screw actually is, and god forbid they happen back to back because you didn't shuffle well or something. The salt will be infinite!

Just playing more magic really does help getting less pissed about the natural variance in the game, helping even out the bad streaks and reduce the feel bad that comes with horrible topdecks and color screw etc.

I really should apply this to hearthstone, but I have a different problem there, as the RNG has seen fit to reward me with 3 mythics ever: Two Deathwing and a Tirion Fordring waaaaaaaaay back in the day when paladin was like warrior but worse.
My face when I opened that second deathwing could have lit a fire.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I keep reading this thread title as "Magic Twerks". Damn you Miley!

 

[ahadabans]

If he's winning under the current rules set, there's absolutely no reason for him to be interested in changing that rules set, if he is indeed a spike. As a courtesy to his host however, who is trying to improve the experience of his cube for all drafters, he could try being a gentleman about it and simply play along for a night. What's the worst that can happen?

He's an old school player. And really got burned out on the game. The big appeal for him with the cube I build is it's highly nostalgic. And so I've kept out a lot of new cards because this really wasn't about bringing guys current with the game so much as just reliving it again. And then time passed and I started seeing new cards I wanted to try so I snuck them in there. And that's gone over pretty well because I continue to keep out things that are obviously an evolution (DFC and Walkers).

And yes, this player is very good at Magic and he enjoys being able to draw from his experience. And so to some extent he probably feels a little threatened by making changes to the rule set simply because he feels it could hurt his edge I guess.

I'm painting a bad picture here. This is a close friend and he's really cool. But he's highly competitive and so that is somewhat in conflict with the direction I sometimes go (for me Magic is much more casual of an affair). He's also not a fan of multi-player, so we don't typically do free-for-all anymore (it's attack left for two headed giant if we have exactly four), and we do also do two player just so he can get that competitive juice flowing (he typically clean house on that part of the night though I can beat him occasionally if I build a good deck which I usually don't do because I'm trying to test a fringe strategy I added).

 

[spicewitch]

I have to agree that rules which increase consistency aren't going to make a bad player become a winner, because the other players aren't static. If the rules are so generous that it becomes "your deck must be 50% haymakers to win", the better players are going to pick better, synergistic collections of haymakers, anti-haymaker cards with relevant side benefits, and good boring hoser cards that win games.

Your mechanic doesn't address it in the early game when it matters most because you need mana to get the benefit.

Spitballing. Anti-Flood Rule: If you have five+ lands in play, reveal two lands from your hand during your upkeep: scry 1. Anti-Screw Rule: If you have four or fewer lands in play at the beginning of your end step and you did not play a land this turn : scry 1.

Ideally, control decks can restrict their play to "abuse" rule 1, but aggro decks can abuse rule 2. Maybe rule 2 should be 3 or fewer.

That's not a lot of games, and as a result you're going to feel the impact of mana screw way more because it affects a huge percentage of your games.

QFT.

I forgot that our rule was never actually just "one free mulligan", it's always been "7 or 0 land hands are always a free mull, and you can take one at-will mull for free before observing normal Magic rules". And we still occasionally see non-games. Generally this is because even though both players started with good hands, one player proceeds to draw land 4 turns in a row and that's just too bad, Jack.

Do you folks track whether being on the play leads to a higher or lower winrate in your cubes? I just swung by Mirrodin goldfish and was shocked to see the how much better being on the draw is in that block:
Win % on the Play

45.7%​

Win % on the Draw

54.3%​

What the buns? I've always assumed that being on the Play is best. And in Theros, it is! Goldfish shows it being a whole percent better, similar to the first-move advantage in Chess.

If draw or play was notably advantaged in your cube, and you noticed it but loved your card pool as-is, what rules tweaks would you do to fix it? I might have to implement some sort of tweak temporarily because I just got my hands on a bunch of Scars of Mirrodin uncommons...

 

[ahadabans]

Spitballing. Anti-Flood Rule: If you have five+ lands in play, reveal two lands from your hand during your upkeep: scry 1. Anti-Screw Rule: If you have four or fewer lands in play, at the beginning of your end step, if you did not play a land this turn : scry 1.

Ideally, control decks can restrict their play to "abuse" rule 1, but aggro decks can abuse rule 2. Maybe rule 2 should be 3 or fewer.

This could work. It's a little more complicated, so would be an even harder sell to my group I think. What I like about the Opt Draw rule or Exile/draw step is that it's super simple to teach. But having tested exile/draw, there's a ton of depth to it that isn't initially obvious. You think going into it that taking an exile/draw step each turn is an obvious move. It isn't. There are times you do it and you make your hand worse, so you have to think about whether to take it at all and if you are going to take it what do you pitch. Because the exile happens first, this isn't necessarily going to be a net positive transaction. Sometimes it's stupid obvious (I have plenty of lands in play and a swamp in my hand… gee, wonder what I should do here). Other times though you have a fist full of goodness and there's nothing you really want to dump and you don't see any obvious land problems. Well, maybe you skip your exile/draw step then. I was really surprised at how much play there was to it.

Do you folks track whether being on the play leads to a higher or lower winrate in your cubes? I just swung by Mirrodin goldfish and was shocked to see the disparity between play and draw:
Win % on the Play
45.7%
Win % on the Draw
54.3

What the buns? I've always assumed that being on the Play is best. And in Theros, it is! Goldfish shows it being a whole percent better, similar to the first-move advantage in Chess.

Is there any context around those numbers? Because I would expect in slower environment, being on the draw is better (it's technically +1 CA), but in faster environments where tempo > raw CA, then being on the play is better.

Ideally, you craft a cube environment that is right in the middle speed wise, so it's a wash, but I've never kept stats so I have no idea how far off my meta is.

 

[Grillo_Parlante]

I have to agree that rules which increase consistency aren't going to make a bad player become a winner, because the other players aren't static. If the rules are so generous that it becomes "your deck must be 50% haymakers to win", the better players are going to pick better, synergistic collections of haymakers, anti-haymaker cards with relevant side benefits, and good boring hoser cards that win games.

I just want to plant a flag here and clarify: the symetrical impact of a rule dosen't really concern me, its the way a rule changes the nature and texture of the game.

My position is that there is a danger that both good and bad players will shift their drafting and deckbuilding approach to abuse a rule: bad players will abuse it to compensate for their own in-built inconsistancy, while good players will abuse it for strategic advantage.

Just so that you guys that are playing around with this know the kind of issues I'm (and I'm sure your players) will likely be concerned with.

 

[Eric Chan]

I have to agree that rules which increase consistency aren't going to make a bad player become a winner, because the other players aren't static. If the rules are so generous that it becomes "your deck must be 50% haymakers to win", the better players are going to pick better, synergistic collections of haymakers, anti-haymaker cards with relevant side benefits, and good boring hoser cards that win games.

And therein lies the crux of the problem, to me. On the one hand, we're saying that this is a very minor change to the game of Magic, something that really nobody should have any arguments against considering. On the other hand, we've already identified how drafting and deckbuilding will be warped, both by newer players who can get away with poor deckbuilding tendencies, and by veterans who'll adapt and manoeuvre to this new environment, whether that means including narrow answers, fewer lands, less fixing, more bombs, or some combination thereof.

To be clear, I have nothing against learning new games, new rulesets, new environments, or new expansion packs. But just bear in mind that when you invite people over to play Magic, chances are, they will have the expectation that they're going to play Magic.

 

[ahadabans]

You guys both hit on the crux of the argument. I have a different spin of course, which is why this conversation has gone 3 pages. It's been a great conversation though, I certainly haven't minded. So here's more...

I think you are both arguing to some degree that the rule change would warp the game - and the context of this is largely negative. I agree that the rule change warps the game but not in a negative way. While Grillo is using "abuse" as way to describe it, I would instead argue that the current rule of only getting one card a turn has warped the game to it's current state (which IMO is too dependent on variance). To me, the game is already being abused by overly efficient decks and leaving more fringe strategies obsolete. I'd also argue that in competitive circles (constructed in particular), more than 50% of the game is playing the meta versus actually playing the actual game of Magic.

To me that's all undesirable, and getting access to more cards in your deck would help change the game in a way that moved matchup/meta to a lower piece of the puzzle (that could definitely be made true in cube at least). It would provide more in-game decisions versus out of game decisions (through meta choices and side boarding, etc). I think playing the meta is a stupid concept that came into existence because Magic has flaws that forced it down that path. Not saying it isn't highly skill intensive, I just personally think it's unfun and lame.

So that's my spin on it. Obviously, I have not done enough testing to say that my feelings are accurate (even in a casual setting never mind on a competitive level). But again, I do not think for a second that you could introduce a rule like this and suddenly wind up with an unplayable game. Things would change sure, but it wouldn't suddenly make the game unplayable. You'd have different banned lists and some things taken for granted (like tried and true mana distribution) would likely shift slightly - say in limited 16 or 15 lands would be the sweet spot instead of 17, etc. But we aren't talking a complete unraveling of the game. Anyone arguing that is being an extremist.

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I'm painting a bad picture here. This is a close friend and he's really cool.

Even close friends can be unreasonable sometimes, and you're more likely to put up with it because you don't want to alienate them. You're close friends after all. That said, if I knew a close fiend of mine hated something about my cube I would try to work it out as well, and maybe just go back on the idea if it isn't that big of a deal. Anyway, in this case maybe you can explain the problem you want to address. He'll have to agree Magic in its current rules set leads to a few too many nongames caused by mana screws and mana floods, even with a well-built mana base. Explain that you're looking for an elegant, noninvasive solution, a small tweak to the current rules that, apart from reducing screws and floods, doesn't really impact deckbuilding and the way games play out. If he has a better suggestion, embrace it!

If the exile-draw rule or opt draw step is still too much for him after a thorough explanation (I'ld make him use good arguments though, a simple "I don't like it" isn't good enough, how could he know that if he doesn't try it out?), try something smaller first. Maybe partial mulligans, mulligan + scry, free mulligans if you don't have at least 2 land and 3 nonland cards?

Or, if fixing the "problem" of nongames due to screws and flooding isn't worht arguing over with a close friend, accept that you're not going to fix it and move on. That's also an option of course

 

[Eric Chan]

But again, I do not think for a second that you could introduce a rule like this and suddenly wind up with an unplayable game.

I don't think anyone has made the argument that a rule change of this nature would make for an unplayable game. If they have, I would also shoot down the argument as absurd. I believe what people are putting forward is that such a rule change would make Magic another game. A very Magic-like game in nature, granted, but a new game nonetheless.

 

[ahadabans]

I believe what people are putting forward is that such a rule change would make Magic another game. A very Magic-like game in nature, granted, but a new game nonetheless.

I don't think that is accurate either though. Both players are essentially starting the game with an emblem that says "Before your draw step, you may exile one card in your hand to draw a card". It certainly changes the game by improving card quality, but it's still Magic. I would argue this doesn't undermine any core fundamental.

It's basically a conspiracy card. And I'd argue Worldknit makes the game play less like Magic than opt/draw or exile/draw does.