Take It, Part 3

They Can Take It, But Not Dish It Out: Toughness and Magic 2014 (Part Three)
an MTG article by: CML

6. Wall of (Bored to) Tears

Last week, I presented these ideas:

-M14 has no aggressive strategy.
-This results in an inbred metagame, where it’s almost always correct to try and “win the control mirror” by first-picking Opportunity and even Divination.
-Blue is therefore too strong, for maybe the first time since the days of Caw-Blade and Magic 2011.

Preordain
“The best Core set original printing, ever. You’re welcome.”

7. Build a Wooden Wall

This is bad. New players’ Magic experiences are centered around the combat step. Limited games are centered around the combat step. Much of Standard and Modern are based around the combat step. Trivializing it can bring neither critical nor commercial success.

I’m surprised R&D didn’t consider the power and toughness metrics when designing Magic 2014, as it’s simple and intuitive and predictive of the environment’s deficiencies. I imagine the set would be much better with a few easy adjustments — Pillarfield Ox into Silvercoat Lion; Minotaur Abomination into Minotaur Aggressor — and M14 begs that common question: “If R&D is so good at their jobs, which they are, then why do they release sets like this?” Make no mistake — R&D is good at their jobs; but that topic is outside the scope of this article.

Armored Cancrix
“My last draft deck had so many crabs, they called me the Governor of Maryland.”

The same casual-competitive guy later told me, “Last night I played against a guy who Doom Bladed my best two creatures. I remember thinking, ‘This seems so unfair.’ But then I remembered that it’s exactly what should happen in Limited. It just felt unfair because I couldn’t do it to him — I was just staring at his 2/4 with a Shock in my hand, feeling dumb.”
Another friend put it this way: “M14 is a very old format — you’ll gunk up the ground, then draw four cards and win the game.” I’m reminded of the old cliché, “end-of-turn Fact or Fiction, you lose” — only this time, it’s “end-of-turn Opportunity.” It speaks tomes to the quality of Magic 2014 that it can be so easily pigeonholed.

Warden of Evos Isle
“For the birds.”

8. Illusionary Wall

What does this mean for Cube design? The connection is almost too easy. A format with bad threats, no pressure, skewed archetype balance, a high curve, too much card draw, too much removal, and one where Blue is just a little too powerful? It’s almost like we’re drafting the Modo Cube.

Jace, the Mind SculptorEthersworn CanonistBeacon of Destruction
“One of these things is not like the other …”

At the risk of sounding like I have the same solution for everything, I offer this advice:
-Stuff your Cube full of one-drops, and improve the density and power of the fixing.
-Vary the function, if not the quality, of your removal. For example, Red should have Lightning Bolt, but also Firebolt. White should have Swords to Plowshares, but also Condemn and Prison Term. Stock up on cards like Vindicate and Maelstrom Pulse to get rid of problem permanents. In Black, I’ve often thought of a “removal curve” — at one, I have Innocent Blood and Darkblast; at two, Shriekmaw and Chainer’s Edict; at three, Liliana of the Veil and Bone Shredder; and at four, Seize the Soul and Damnation. Even within a single color, the removal excels against certain kinds of threats, while sucking against others.

Liliana of the Veil
Cloudgoat Ranger? That’s awkward.”

9. Capstone

When I was first getting back into the game, I drafted a lot of Magic 2011 with another friend. He told me, “I like M11 — it feels like old-school Magic.” He meant the childhood experience of playing MtG, rich in fantasy and role-play and grisly creature fights and impromptu deck-building. M14 feels more like playing against the fifth unbeatable draw-go Blue dude in a row. And isn’t that the kind of “old-school Magic” you and I and Wizards are trying our best to forget?

Thanks for reading!
CML
@CMLisawesome on Twitter

Chatcast #2

By: Eric Chan

On Saturday, Jason and I recorded the second episode of our live RiptideLab cube chatcast (that’s a mouthful), where we pulled a number of questions from the forums for discussion, many of which were well thought out. If you didn’t tune in live – or even if you did! – grab the audio recording, or watch the archived Twitch stream.

We’ll probably do another one of these in the near future, so if you have any topics you’d like to hear discussed, don’t hesitate to let us know in the forums.

ChannelFireball: Eldrazi Domain

By: Jason Waddell

My latest ChannelFireball article has hit the web, giving an overview of the design of my Eldrazi Domain cube! This cube has been a joy to work on, and has really opened my eyes to some hidden lessons in Magic and game design.

As always, you can visit the forum thread to contribute to or provide feedback to the design, or give it a go on CubeTutor. One forum member is going so far as to assemble the cube for him and his playgroup to enjoy.

Take It, Part Two

They Can Take It, But Not Dish It Out: Toughness and Magic 2014 (Part Two)

by: CML

 

4. From the Window to the Wall

Last week, I presented these ideas:

Magic history is biased towards creatures with greater toughness than power (1,183 with power > toughness, and 1,587 with toughness > power, for a ratio of .745).

-New World Order has put the focus of MtG on the combat step, and good attacks can’t happen when your guys just bounce off each other, so I expected that ratio to be trending closer to one. This was true in sets like Alara Reborn and Modern Masters.

-But in recent sets, such as Gatecrash and Dragon’s Maze, the ratio has been less than the historical .745. This is taken the furthest in Magic 2014, where there are 16 power > toughness creatures and 27 toughness > power dudes, for a ratio of .593. (This analysis doesn’t take into account the cards’ rarity, or “as-fan”  in R&D lingo.)

Wall of Frost

I’d say it’s a little … underpowered.”

Now I want to explore how having more “tough” creatures affects the Limited format, and consider the implications for set design and cube design.

 

5. The Walls Are Closing In On Me

As Gatecrash shows, the set’s power to toughness ratio alone cannot predict how a format’s combat step will feel: that set had a low ratio, and yet it was a very fast format. However, my playgroup’s observations about M14 Limited all fall into place when you consider its own ratio of .593:

Pillarfield Ox

How now, purple cow?”

-One of our more casual players said: “In M14 it just feels like every game results in a bunch of Giant Spiders and Pillarfield Oxen staring each other down, until somebody finally draws their 4/4.” This kind of design results in board states that are superficially complicated, but where there are no good attacks — a metaphor for how Magic can be a frustrating game, and a recipe for low player turnout. M14 has not sold well.

-The same casual-competitive player has echoed Ben Stark et al. in praising Regathan Firecat, and its ability to force trades with its 4 power and 1 toughness must be why. (In his excellent piece on SCG, Sam Black identifies the vanilla 4/1 as an archetype unto itself!)

 

-Though M14 isn’t all that rich in bombs (compared to, say, Scars of Mirrodin), the games end up going long enough that the bombs will always make an appearance. This kind of design invalidates not only the play decisions, of which there are few, but the drafting decisions too. Just take the bomb.

 

Goblin Bomb

Someone set us up …”

-Another way to break through these board stalls is to play auras. (I hate enchantments — they’re the least-interactive card type — and the rise of Standard Hexproof and the branding of Theros as an enchantment block both vex me). Buffing auras (and “all-upside mechanics” like Soulbond) are especially problematic in that they make WotC reluctant to print removal. Sadly, M14 validates this parsimony, as it has an absurd amount of all-purpose removal — making “bad” auras like Illusionary Armor a necessary gamble, but one that rarely pays off.

-The dearth of removal was quite fatal to Avacyn Restored and Magic 2012. M14 has the opposite problem. The overabundance of removal makes M14 play more like Scars of Mirrodin block, NWO’s other notable failure, and not Innistrad, Magic 2013, or Rise of the Eldrazi, its biggest successes. Stocking a set with both removal and powerful creatures is the New-World-Order way of creating a tense and dynamic game. (For an alternative, imagine Rise with all the Artisan of Kozilek and Ulamog’s Crusher, but no Guard Duty or Narcolepsy — that’s AVR or M12. Now imagine it with Guard Duty and Narcolepsy, but no efficient beaters — that’s M14.)

 

Flesh Allergy

I can’t wait for Doom Blade to be reprinted.”

 

-The dude-versus-removal tension lets NWO sets achieve strategic richness without overdoing on-board complexity. In fact, the “success” of recent formats is highly correlated with the amount of high-quality removal they offer. Jason Waddell has applied this idea to his Cube, lowering the concentration of sweepers and increasing that of spot removal. I believe M14’s principal design error was taking this idea too far, and forgetting to balance it with enough cards like Garruk’s Companion or Stormfront Pegasus.

 

Infantry Veteran

After blockers, before damage …”

-The lack of activated abilities on creatures (like Gideon’s Lawkeeper) makes it hard to fight through stalls without the benefit of a removal spell, a bomb, or an aura.

 

Air Servant

How I learned to stop worrying …”

-So, in M14 — how to find your removal spells, bombs and auras? Draw cards — you have all the time in the world. Opportunity is a strong card in a vacuum, but in a set like M12 it wouldn’t have been that great. Yet here, it’s the best draft uncommon in the set by an enormous margin. Blue is often going to be very good in such formats, in the same way that it’s been the best color across Magic history — not because the creatures suck, but because the combat step is not as important as it ought to be. Cube designers, take note: though I’m a proponent of flattening the power curve for individual cards, it’s much more important to flatten the power curve of archetypes.

 

Balance

Not the most self-descriptive card.”

Next week, we’ll look at the broader implications for environments with the same design flaws as M14.

 

Thanks for reading!

CML

@CMLisawesome on Twitter

Discuss this article in our forums.

Inaugural ChatCast

By: Jason Waddell

Today Eric and I sat down to record the inaugural RiptideLab Cube Cast, a live call where we discuss a number of user-submitted cube topics. If you missed the live stream, you can catch the complete Twitch.tv recording here.

Alternatively, listen to an audio-only version here.

These recordings are pretty informal, and mostly just record the types of Skype calls that Eric and I were having anyways. If you have ideas for improvement, please let us know in the forums, or tune in live for the next recording!