"Card Disadvantage" and the Graveyard

[AngryTroll]

The recent discussion on Extirpate, Tormod's Crypt, and other graveyard hate all being card disadvantage all strike me as problematic. Similarly, this comment comparing Fact or Fiction to Intuition:


Generating actual card advantage is a more reliable way to win games than setting up a way to generate virtual card advantage.

Strikes me as at least incomplete.

Intuitioning for three Force of Will, or three Pernicious Deed, clearly does not generate any card advantage (of course, Deed or Force might, but not the Intuition). On the other hand, Intuitioning for Life from the Loam, Wasteland, and a Cycle land, or Gifts Ungivening for Life from the Loam, Cycle Land, Fetchland, and Wasteland generate more than a simple +1 card advantage.

When Survival drops a Genesis, Anger, and Squee into the graveyard and fetches a Goyf, that is clearly not just card selection. Even the +1 of Squee coming back to hand leaves out Genesis and Anger. Both of which act almost like Enchantments that cost zero and cantrip.

Although in all of these cases, no actual card advantage is generated, the "Virtual Card Advantage" is very real, and should in some cases treated as significantly as real, cards-in-hand advantage.

Thoughtseizeing an opponent to discover that the only card you can take is a Genesis or Life from the Loam certainly doesn't feel like Card Advantage...in fact, it almost feels like Card Disadvantage. On the other hand, Cremating a Life from the Loam while the opponent is tapped out certainly doesn't feel like card parity; it's obviously card advantage, even though hand sizes didn't change.

Finally, Ichorid is an extreme example of this. Dropping a hand to LED to Breakthrough and Deep Analysis results in zero cards in hand, but a graveyard full of spells that can be played and creatures that can attack. Again, traditional models of card advantage don't apply at all to this scenario, but the Ichorid player has at his disposal five, ten, or fifteen cards that he can play, as if they were all in his hand.

Discussions lately about Intuition, Gifts Ungiven, Fact or Fiction; and graveyard haste like Tormod's Crypt, Extirpate, and friends all seem to overlook this in favor of a strict focus on Card Advantage. As graveyard strategies continue to grow in popularity and strength, shouldn't "virtual card advantage" be at least as important as cards in hand?

The notion of "Card Advantage" is certainly still true in almost all matchups, but clinging to in against decks like AggroLoam strikes me as wrong and outdated.

Can Tormod's Crypt generate card advantage?
Do decks like Loam and, to a lesser extent, Survival, cheat card advantage by using the graveyard as an extension of their hand?
Is it just me, or are comments that Extirpate and Crypt are always card disadvantage, and never influence the board position, rather incomplete?

[Benie Bederios]

What excactly is virtual cardadvantage?

Survival for Squee-> Tarmogoyf is just actual cardadvantage right??? You start with 1 card in hand( Squee) and end with 1 card in hand and a creature in play. That looks alot like +1 card.

Intuition for Loam/Cycling Land is CA too. I mean next turn you play Loam, and have 3 additional card in hand. 1 cycles into a random card. Why isn't this real cardadvantage??

I was under the assumption that virtual cardadvantage was, that your opponent had dead cards in his hand. For example removal against Burn/combo or Slivers with a Crystaline out, WoG against Manlands or Duress against aggro or ofcourse Meddling Mage.

In other words, neither player looses a card, but one player can't use cards in his hand... So has a virtual disadvantage of 1.

Can you explain, what virtual cardadvantage precisly is?

BB

[4eak]

"Virtual card advantage" is really a product of Card quality. Whether we are counting "dead cards" in someone's hand (as in: they lack value or card quality), or we are setting up an Engine to draw more cards, or Extirpating cards out of a library to lower its average card value (if you hit a card above average), we should just realize that these are all Card Quality concerns.

So Kira, Great Glass Spinner might make targeted removal half as good. It is virtual card advantage, or a calculation of Card quality, because we don't physically see a difference in hand sizes, we only see a difference in the value of certain cards that might be in our hands.

The bigger issue at hand:

Card Advantage and Card Quality are actually measures of the same thing in the end. There is always some ratio by which the value of one can be converted into the value of the other in any circumstance, match, or metagame (although, we can make the same argument about a lot of things).

Perhaps we should be asking about what is the average ratio for conversion? The answer to that would justify arguments for or against the use of FoF over Intuition and vice versa.



peace,
4eak

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

This is falling into "Every Card is a Time Walk" syndrome, i.e., greedy reductionalism. Armadillo Cloak has a tangible and beneficial effect on the game, but we can't call it card advantage, or pretend that losing a creature so Enchanted isn't card disadvantage, without losing all coherence and thus all usefulness for the terms.

It's simplest to say that Force of Will is card disadvantage, but that that disadvantage is worth it. Or even to say that Intuition is card selection that can get you a card advantage engine (Life from the Loam + whatever), and so on. Keep the math clean and then talk about the pros and cons beyond that, otherwise you're going to end up in a primordial soup of meaningless gibberish.

[4eak]

This is falling into "Every Card is a Time Walk" syndrome, i.e., greedy reductionalism
+


It's simplest to say that Force of Will is card disadvantage, but that that disadvantage is worth it...Keep the math clean

=

Irony

It sounds like you are taking part in the greedy reductionism.

I'm surprised by your answer. How is it is somehow not good to quantify the game as precisely as possible, instead of, you know, reducing it to simplicity and not attempting to capture the reality of what is happening (even if it does appear small and difficult to consider)?

Perhaps it isn't a practical pursuit to you, but the answer to the question wouldn't be meaningless gibberish. I'll agree that we may never find the exact mathematical answers, but digging deeper into the theory of the game hardly seems "useless".

The OP's questions directly relate to our lack of information regarding the relationship between card quality and card advantage. Good answers to those questions are not going to be simple ones.



peace,
4eak

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Reductionism would indicate a belief that reduction occurs. Reductionalism indicates a belief that reducing is something that should be done. I don't care which is more common, reductionalism makes more sense. Fie on your pretentious halls of academia and so-called "experts".

As for the matter at hand, while it may seem an exciting adventure, I'm reminded of the adventures of three little boys named Joe, Leon, and Vlad. They decided that quantity of something (human life) was less important than the quality of that something. Who decided what the quality of that thing was? Well, umm, for lack of a better answer, they did. A hundred million dead souls later, we learned that this kind of thinking was generally a bad idea.

It may seem like a fun idea at first, but simply put, we can't measure card quality. We can measure card quantity. We can't measure value, only the value judgments people make. We can track how much people pay for Magic cards, but we can't say that they make good or bad judgments. Apparently, to some people, Serra Avatar is worth $22.50. Maybe they know something I don't. I can say that I don't value the card that much, but that's my judgment. Other people are free to think differently. But any attempt to put hard and fast meanings on card quality are doomed to failure. Value really is in the eye of the beholder.

No discussion is necessary because it takes about thirty seconds to work this out to it's logical conclusion internally.

http://www.penny-arcade.com/images/2008/20080808.jpg

[AngryTroll]

I guess the question is, when you Intuition for Life from the Loam, Wasteland, and a Fetchland, is it +0 card advantage, or +2?

Clearly, when you cast Life from the Loam the next turn, you get plus two, but those cards are now available for you to use. Whenever my opponents cast Intuition or Gifts for piles containing Life from the Loam, I get the distinct feeling that they just got a 3- or 4- for 1 and that I am now pretty far behind on cards, even though they don't actually put those cards into their hand until they cast Loam.

[Nihil Credo]

I guess the question is, when you Intuition for Life from the Loam, Wasteland, and a Fetchland, is it +0 card advantage, or +2?

That's a terrible question. What is card advantage?

[AngryTroll]

That's a terrible question. What is card advantage?

That is my entire thread. If you strictly count cards in hand, that isn't card advantage. But it is clearly not just card parity like you get with Ponder.

Similarly, is Tormod's Crypt against that player -1CA, or +1CA?

The definition of Card Advantage that is used (especially when arguing Fact or Fiction vs Intuition, as quoted in my opening post) or when arguing about graveyard hate (see the Extirpate thread) does not apply to cards like Life from the Loam as it does to more traditional strategies.

[Volt]

.

[FoolofaTook]

The definition of card advantage is really simple:

1. You have more relevant cards in hand than the opponent at any critical moment in the game when other elements in play are equal or better.

Or

2. You have more relevant elements in play than the opponent at any critical moment in which cards in hand are equal or better.

How you get there is another question, however the basic definition of the state is pretty clear, you have more relevant resources at your disposal than the opponent after equal opportunity to acquire those resources.

Note that cards that don't look remotely like card advantage, like Moat for example, can actually be savage card advantage in the right situations.

[AngryTroll]

1. You have more relevant cards in hand than the opponent at any critical moment in the game when other elements in play are equal or better.

How you get there is another question, however the basic definition of the state is pretty clear, you have more relevant resources at your disposal than the opponent after equal opportunity to acquire those resources.


But my entire argument is that having resources available and the number of cads in your hand are often not the case. Your example of Moat is kind of the opposite: even though you have cards in play or in hand, they are not relevant because of Moat. When you have cards in the yard, they are relevant even though they aren't in your hand and shouldn't be simply overlooked when counting cards.

[DragoFireheart]

Card Advantage is meaningless.


If you have a Tarmogoyf in play with a Counterspell in hand, while I have no opposing creatures in play but 7 basic lands in hand, does card advantage really matter?

What matters is Board advantage. Card advantage means nothing if you are holding all basic lands in your hand. This is why we use Force of Will to counter a spell that will start a combo: it gives us board advantage. This is why we use cards like Crypt to cripple Dredge: it gives us board advantage.

If we are comparing trades of equal quality, card advantage becomes relevant. However, card advantage is simply another strategy that a deck can follow for the purpose of gaining board advantage.

[DragoFireheart]

As for how cards in the graveyard pertain to card advantage, that gets tricky. I would say that when you Crypt your opponent's graveyard, you're typically taking a -1 CA hit to prevent your opponent from getting +n FCA (Future Card Advantage), which means you're coming out ahead +n-1, with n being an unknowable (but probably biggish) number.


Does losing CA of 1 generate board advantage?

In the case of use Crypt against Ichorid Combo? Hell yeah.

[blacklotus3636]

The question seems a bit ciruculor(not sure if I spelt that right) to me.
Is 1 card that you get to choose better than 3 random cards you don't. I would contend that it depends entirely on the situation because sometimes in some decks having a certain card will win the game while 3 random cards may not and vice versa. In combo like ANT having a tutor to get AN is usually game while in a landstill deck it may not be. So that means you have to make that decision based on the decks overall strategy. The more controllive the deck is the more card advantage matters whereas in a more aggressive deck card quality matters more. I think the whole idea of card disadvantage as being universally bad has really gotten carried away especially when you talk about cards like mystical tutor. I sincerly hope that over time we can learn to apply the idea of card advantage and card quality to the correct archetypes instead of the one size fits all rule we have now.

[Forbiddian]

The term "card advantage" has been and always will be a lazy shortcut. Like Chemistry. Or like Physics. Or like anything less than Mathematics (which is a lazy shortcut for getting a real job). It has been in the past an analogy to show why Ancestral Recall should be on the restricted list and conceptualize why it is so powerful. Now the concept has blossomed and it has a cult following that refuses to see the roots and the history of card advantage and hold the +1 as the end all be all of Magic: The Gathering.




Card/Board/Game Advantage = # cards in a zone * card relevance in that zone.

This explains some common things that straight up Card Advantage does not:
Casting a Tarmogoyf provides Board Advantage because the Goyf moves from your hand to play (where it's more useful).
Crypt Ichorid is great because it moves cards from a useful zone (the GY) to RFG.
Mindtwist Ichorid is horrible because it moves cards from a useless zone (their hand) to a useful zone (the GY).

Seems like a lot of people were forgetting to multiply by relevance.

[frogboy]

1. You have more relevant cards in hand than the opponent at any critical moment in the game when other elements in play are equal or better.

Or

2. You have more relevant elements in play than the opponent at any critical moment in which cards in hand are equal or better.

I stopped really caring about the number of physical pieces of cardboard I or my opponent had a while ago, but if I had to actually quantify why this is how I would start. Decks try to execute a strategy, and sometimes that strategy is advanced by cards like Fact or Fiction (in the case of decks that are more attrition-based) and other decks are trying to get into the mid or late game and blow their opponent out with something insurmountable. Sometimes that's CB/Top and sometimes it's Intuition for something graveyard-based. In both cases, some cards are more relevant than others.

The attrition deck wants to draw more ways to trade and get ahead on cards, but is pretty fucked if it draws cards that don't affect the board. The deck that does things with the yard is usually doing Loam tricks to set up something like Witness recursion or Demigod of Revenge or Genesis or whatever, and is usually leaning on that strategy to win. Therefore, you want cards that kneecap the other guy's strategy. Crypt breaks up graveyard strategies and forces the Loam guy to either restart it's engine or win without relying upon it's primary plan. Grip lets you get through the CB lock and forces your opponent to go back to trading one for one (or shuts off their Tome that is getting them all the extra one for ones)

If the other guy has lethal, end step Mystical Tutor for Wrath is a lot better than end step Fact or Fiction hoping to find a Wrath. (this is assuming that once you Wrath you will win, which isn't always true but w/e) For most control decks that play Goyf, matchups tend to vary dramatically based on whether or not they have turn two Goyf or not. Ostensibly, this is because Goyf usually trades for a guy and a burn spell or something, but it's actually because it furthers the control deck's strategy of getting to the midgame and doing something awesome while the aggro deck is dealing with that Abyss.

Another way of thinking about it is: if someone draws all their Tarmogoyfs or sweepers or Counterspells or whatever, you call them an asshole, but if they draw all their Birds of Paradise, you compliment them on their deck.

[Tosh]

I don't think that is entirely relevent to the proposed "Intuition vs FoF/Standstill" question that spawned this thread. The important thing to note is that you get 3 random cards (not necessarily 3 relevent cards) into your hand with FoF/Standstill whereas you get 1 semi-relevent card into your hand and 2 relevent cards into your graveyard that will shortly be in your hand (with some additional mana requirements and usually a turn or two) with Intuition. I don't think that you can compare the two straight up since they belong in different decks.

[FoolofaTook]

Another way of thinking about it is: if someone draws all their Tarmogoyfs or sweepers or Counterspells or whatever, you call them an asshole, but if they draw all their Birds of Paradise, you compliment them on their deck.

In the first case they likely have card advantage since they drew relevant cards to the game state, in the second case they didn't have card advantage because in the absence of Survival on the board or Cabal Therapy in the hand or the yard they drew dreck.

Somebody up above said something about how you could have 7 lands in hand and all that card advantage meant nothing if the opponent had a win on the board. The point I was trying to make is that cards that aren't worth anything to the game state aren't card advantage they're just extra cards.

That's why I used relevancy to the game state in my two cases for card advantage. There's actually a third case that I left out. That case is when the draws that your opponent is likely to get have less relevance to the game state than the draws you are likely to get. This is how creatureless decks gain a virtual card advantage in game one of many matches, they make the opponent's creature removal of no value and thus bolster their likely overall card advantage in the match.

[DragoFireheart]

That's why I used relevancy to the game state in my two cases for card advantage. There's actually a third case that I left out. That case is when the draws that your opponent is likely to get have less relevance to the game state than the draws you are likely to get. This is how creatureless decks gain a virtual card advantage in game one of many matches, they make the opponent's creature removal of no value and thus bolster their likely overall card advantage in the match.

There is also a luck factor, though that is a different discussion.


To clarify, when I said board advantage I did not strictly mean the actual cards on the board. What I meant was who has the greatest advantage in the entire round. This includes cards in hand, library, graveyard, spells/abilities on the stack, etc.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Holy flaming Moses.

Look, again, the terms "relevant" and "quality" are intangible and thus, ironically, irrelevant to card advantage.

There are two scenarios. In scenario one, you cast Ancestral Recall and draw a Yawgmoth's Will, a Time Walk, and a Black Lotus. In scenario two, you draw two forests and a Wall of Wood. One is clearly better than the other, but either way it's still functionall +2 CA. Now, Yawgmoth's Will, when you cast it later, can gain you further CA, but attempting to redefine CA to include concepts like usefulness or what the other cards you draw into later are going to do later is silly because we can't measure it. All you do is muck up a perfectly useful concept, which is basically card counting.

The rule of card advantage, from days of yore, has been;

"The person who sees the most cards tends to win, as long as those cards do something relevant."

We acknowledge that potency of cards exists in levels other than CA, but CA is a useful property by itself that's clearly measured. There's no reason to mash concepts together; in fact, it's detrimental. If you want to attempt to categorize card quality somehow, that's fine, but don't try to fuck up existing terminology by jamming it in with CA.

[Nihil Credo]

I think at this point I must link to my favourite article series on Card Advantage (by Geordie Tait, so it's also entertaining to read):


Pure Card Advantage (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6374)

Virtual Card Advantage (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6432)

Effective Card Advantage (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/6631.html)

[Omega]

Perhaps, we should restrict see as card advantage every cards that generate cards for Hand. However, cards advantage must asolutely separated from Cards Quality. Cards Quality is what is relevant at a certain moment of the game. Obviously, the more you draw, the higher are your chances of drawing into a relevant card. Thus, maybe, the false link we do between cards advantage and cards quality. Luck must never be forgotten


Card disadvantage, in my sense, is a term that should be banned from discussion. No cards generate cards disadvantage. I gave the stupid example of a cad that make you lose all cards in hand and make you sacrifice it when comes into play. That is disadvantage. But no serious player play such cards. Cards disadvantage would be a card that when played, instead of having a positive impact on the game, has a negative one. This definition alone prevent all players from playing bad cards.

Some cards do generate advantage (not by giving cards in your hands, but by turning situations upside down), but are more situational. A wrath of god requires opponent to have creatures for it to create an advantage. Armageddon, to create an advantage, requires that you are leading on the board, or requires a specific strategy. I think Extirpate can be seen in that category. Extirpate if played wrongly, does nothing or little. Wrath of god, if played wrongly does nothing or little, etc.

Seeing things this way, and i hope i made myself clear, perhaps we can accept the fact that graveyard removal are useful, and can be useful, can generate advantage, not in the sense of cards advantage, but in the sense that they can change the game. (Yes, extirpate can change thegame. It has been said many times, but you can disrupt opponent's long term strategy with it)

Robert

edit : too slow. Nihil posted a good link :)

[frogboy]

I think at this point I must link to my favourite article series on Card Advantage (by Geordie Tait, so it's also entertaining to read):


Pure Card Advantage (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6374)

Virtual Card Advantage (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6432)

Effective Card Advantage (http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/article/6631.html)

I'm pretty sure there was like a month and a half of several different authors having flame wars as a result of these articles. FWIW.

edit: and One With Nothing was in a couple sideboards at PT Honolulu.

[Obfuscate Freely]

I guess the question is, when you Intuition for Life from the Loam, Wasteland, and a Fetchland, is it +0 card advantage, or +2?
Intuition does not result in a net gain in cards. It gives you +0 CA. However, the Loam that you get with Intuition is capable of generating card advantage. The distinction is important because you still have to resolve the Loam before you are ahead in cards (at which point, you still have to convert the extra cards into a W), and because Loam is obviously limited in what kind of cards in can "draw" for you.


That is my entire thread. If you strictly count cards in hand, that isn't card advantage. But it is clearly not just card parity like you get with Ponder.
It clearly is card parity, or the terms lose their meaning. Even if you Ponder into Predict, Swords, Tarmogoyf, the Ponder itself is still +0 CA.


Intuition is a 1-for-1 tutor that can be used to find Life from the Loam, which generates card advantage by recurring multiple lands at the cost of a single card. When Intuition finds Loam, it can incidentally set it up, by stocking the graveyard with a couple lands to recur. However, the value of those cards as a resource is completely contingent on Life from the Loam, which is, after all, the actual engine. Thus, we cannot count Intuition as anything but card parity in this case.

Now, if Intuition was getting cards that have some intrinsic value while they are in the graveyard (think flashback spells), things would be different.

[Xenos]

"Card Advantage" is a very basic concept that provides a very general guideline.


What really matters however is not "card advantage", it is "power advantage". How much power you have compared to your opponent. Having more cards doesn't necessarily mean you have more power than your opponent. Power is judged based on the ability to sustain an initiative to win.

In short, "card advantage" is just a means to an end, not the end itself. And the end being the amount of power achieved with those cards.

[Obfuscate Freely]

No, what really matters is "match win advantage," which is how many more matches you have won than the other competitors in a tournament.

...

Card advantage theory obviously isn't the only way to explain how to win games of Magic, but it has withstood the test of time better than most, especially when it comes to decks that aim to win via attrition.

[Xenos]

Or in better words, I should say card advantage is only relevant to the quality of those cards.

Card advatage is to me what material advantage is in chess. If all things are equal, then it matters most, when there are positional imbalances, it matters less. And in Magic there are tons of imbalances, unlike chess.

card advantage is just hyped up because it's the easiest concept we can grasp. It's easy to count cards but it's not as easy to measure initiative of deck builds.

[Obfuscate Freely]

Or in better words, I should say card advantage is only relevant to the quality of those cards.

Card advatage is to me what material advantage is in chess. If all things are equal, then it matters most, when there are positional imbalances, it matters less. And in Magic there are tons of imbalances, unlike chess.

card advantage is just hyped up because it's the easiest concept we can grasp. It's easy to count cards but it's not as easy to measure initiative of deck builds.
You haven't come out and said it, but your heavy use of pejorative terminology implies that you believe card advantage to be somehow useless, or outdated, which I think is wrong.

As you point out, card advantage is something that we can easily measure, which sets it apart from other, more nebulous concepts. Many, many games of Magic are won by the player who is able to gain a mathematical, definitive advantage in cards over his or her opponent, and it is precisely because we can measure this advantage that the idea is worthwhile.

Counting cards is highly useful when building decks, evaluating individual cards, and even when making play decisions within a game. This is all because of the simple fact that putting yourself ahead of your opponent in cards is a proven (and intuitive) way to increase your chances of winning.

[Forbiddian]

Not that traditional card advantage isn't useful anymore (it's very useful, especially in limited), but it completely fails at demonstrating how decks like Burn, Combo, and Aggro in general ever win matches. Virtual Card Advantage is a better model.



The Bohr model is a great model of an atom to teach to an elementary school student, but eventually you need to grow up and use the quantum model.

[Tosh]

I think the problem I have with the term "card advantage" and its history thus far is that people think (or come off to think) that only card advantage matters. It seems to me there is often a mentality that card advantage > card selection which is not always the case (I in no way propose that it's never the case). I stand by what I said before. It depends on the style of the player to construct a deck that takes advantage of the strengths of either card advantage or card selection and for that particular style of play, it is optimal and it works. There is no rule that says one trumps another and there shouldn't ever be.