[Article] A timely response

[Cthuloo]

By Christopher Walton (http://www.mananation.com/timely-response/), Master Shake here, IIRC.

The article is a long response to the (in)famous video of Bill Stark about Legacy players. Although I think the point of pros winning Legacy GPs could have been investigated further (and I have my opinion on the issue, that I stated in the original thread about the video), I find the article goes really in-depth on the subject and contains some interesting considerations about game theory in general.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

This is probably the best Legacy article I've ever read. Although it's really more of an examination of the game as a whole/deconstruction of a pretentious asshat that misuses terms and logic.

[pippo84]

That article was really long!!!

It was kind of a strange article, but I enjoyed it.

My thoughts haven't changed from my answer to Stark's vid so I won't comment further.

Anywasy I suggest reading the article, but it will take much more than the articles you are used to.. Looooooooong!!!

[Cthuloo]

That article was really long!!!

It was kind of a strange article, but I enjoyed it.

My thoughts haven't changed from my answer to Stark's vid so I won't comment further.

Anywasy I suggest reading the article, but it will take much more than the articles you are used to.. Looooooooong!!!

Well, Walton's article are indeed very long, but what else could you expect from a control player? ;)

Anyways, I like his writing style, it's rarely boring and he's always very clear in detailing his arguments.

[JamieW89]

Definately an interesting article, I agree on most important points.

[rockout]

Does anyone have a link to the stark video that the article mentions?

[death]

He actually has a link in his article. Here is the video.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uu1L5X727aw

[Gui]

Pretty good article, really well written and well grounded.

[Michael Keller]

By Christopher Walton (http://www.mananation.com/timely-response/), Master Shake here, IIRC.

The article is a long response to the (in)famous video of Bill Stark about Legacy players. Although I think the point of pros winning Legacy GPs could have been investigated further (and I have my opinion on the issue, that I stated in the original thread about the video), I find the article goes really in-depth on the subject and contains some interesting considerations about game theory in general.

I really don't think there is much more to discuss about "professional" Magic players winning large events (such as the Grand Prix). Tomoharu Saito just did it at Columbus to prove that point even further. These people understand the level of competition and practice incessantly to win these large events by surrounding themselves constantly with people as good as they are.

You only get better by standing up to and testing (and or playing) against exceptional players. And, in their case, they do it all the time. That's not to take away from their talent of being able to formulate ideas while creating and piloting a deck through a field of thousands of players, because that is just an intangible simply defined by: Rules comprehension, game mechanics, little to no mistakes, clock management (*cough* Saito), side-boarding strategy, and taking advantage of players' miscues as far as in-game mistakes are concerned. These players feel right at home in events like these while others get nervous and make errors against them. It could be a multitude of different factors.

I do, however, disagree with the video's perspective that Magic as a whole is a more general way to view format intricacies, because that is just absurd. Someone who exclusively plays Limited can very rarely pick up a Legacy deck and pilot it through a field of experienced players and Top Eight a large event with it. The mechanics of Magic might remain the same, but experience and familiarity with the format you're involved in goes a long way in how effective your game is against a gauntlet of skilled and experienced players.

[Cthuloo]

I really don't think there is much more to discuss about "professional" Magic players winning large events (such as the Grand Prix). Tomoharu Saito just did it at Columbus to prove that point even further. These people understand the level of competition and practice incessantly to win these large events by surrounding themselves constantly with people as good as they are.

You only get better by standing up to and testing (and or playing) against exceptional players. And, in their case, they do it all the time. That's not to take away from their talent of being able to formulate ideas while creating and piloting a deck through a field of thousands of players, because that is just an intangible simply defined by: Rules comprehension, game mechanics, little to no mistakes, clock management (*cough* Saito), side-boarding strategy, and taking advantage of players' miscues as far as in-game mistakes are concerned. These players feel right at home in events like these while others get nervous and make errors against them. It could be a multitude of different factors.

I do, however, disagree with the video's perspective that Magic as a whole is a more general way to view format intricacies, because that is just absurd. Someone who exclusively plays Limited can very rarely pick up a Legacy deck and pilot it through a field of experienced players and Top Eight a large event with it. The mechanics of Magic might remain the same, but experience and familiarity with the format you're involved in goes a long way in how effective your game is against a gauntlet of skilled and experienced players.

This is basically what I said at the time:




So, pros win the legacy GPs because they spend a lot more time in playing magic then common legacy players, and are overall better players because, well, they're pro. Legacy is mostly an amateur format. I spend probably more time reading forum posts than playing magic. I attend a tournament every two or three months and play with friends once a week (including casual) and I guess something similar is true for most people here. I'm an average player because I've got no time to get better, but play legacy because I love it. If I were to attend a GP my preparation will probably consist in a handful of evening playtesting, while IIRC, some time ago Cedric Phillips (might be wrong on the man, but it was a SCG writer) stated that he spent 8 hours a day for one month playtesting dredge before making top8 at a Pro Tour.


I just felt it was something worth pointing out, for how obvious it might be.

[Michael Keller]

I just felt it was something worth pointing out, for how obvious it might be.

I totally agree with you; I was just reiterating the point how I felt about it. Magic is like homework: do it and you'll get an "A" when the semester is over.

[GGoober]

Wow Shake, that was intense O_O

Nice to learn some Street Fighter history and competitive tourney scene. I know quite enough about Legacy so the analogy to Street Fighter didn't improve my Legacy awareness but allowed me to see the Street Figther side of things. It just annoys me greatly that whoever-this-Bill-Stark-guy-is (sorry I don't follow Hall-of-fame players, I just read about them on articles/Source etc, I play my own game with my local scene and don't give a shit about names) as well as Evan-Erwin-peeps think they have the absolute correct opinions about the format. Legacy sucks? Survival over-powering? Go fuck yourself and play the format and stop opening your mouth to say something that you have no knowledge in.

It pains to see the online channels/media/articles spreading false information within the M:tG community when in bare facts, we know that the format has surprisingly picked up greatly in popularity recently. Go on many M:tG boards (MTGS etc) and you'll see Standard people whining about Standard etc and how people mention they want to get into Legacy. There's a lot of people recently saying "I want to get into Legacy". People spreading malignant false information does not help this, and it does not help the M:tG community as a whole to find out that these dumbasses exist. (Sorry for the hating tone, haven't been hating in awhile and recent articles/voices have pissed me off quite enough).

Regarding the topic of scrubs: If you play a degenerate Legacy deck against casual decks, you deserve to be a Scrub, just like picking Akuma and killing everyone who is new to Street Fighter (actually that brings back old memories where my friend would always pick Akuma and raped us all the time). I used to do that with my M:tG playgroup: play Legacy decks against their casual decks. Eventually people complained, and I risked losing some friends so I decided to make fun casual decks. But when it comes to competitive play, e.g. Legacy/Standard scene. A scrub is really someone who is immature and rude (perhaps me posting hatingly). In a competitive scene where all cards have been banned/restricted pre-tournaments, there is really no excuse for powerful decks not to be played. You play to win. Everyone has EXACTLY the SAME environment (banlist) to work with their decks, pick their choice of metagame deck. This is the same in Standard, Extended, Legacy, Vintage.

It's a common recurring topic where new-Magic players complain about netdecks and not having money to build powerful decks, and they scream out "I like making my own decks, and I don't have money like you guys to make good deck, yet I want to play competitively". Magic has become such an expensive game (thanks WotC) that the common statement mentioned earlier is now almost 100% an oxymoron. You cannot build a competitive deck if you're not willing to invest in the game, yet better invest your time to understanding the format (right Erwin and Bill?) I don't see how Legacy people playing with more powerful cards in their format is considered more scrubby than Standard player playing with powerful cards within their format. Each format has their own banlist and restriction list for a reason. There are no cross-tournaments (standard v.s. Legacy) as far as I know, so all's fair, what's Bill Stark ranting about? Maybe he's one of those losers that whine "I don't have the time/money to invest in this format so I'm going to diss it since I don't play it, and come up with all kinds of wild excuses to make others not play it". I think it's more Scrubby to compare other formats because there's really no reason to? I casually talk about how Vintage is broken when I play some Vintage list but that's because I'm comparing it to Legacy. Are we really playing Vintage v.s. Legacy? No. Vintage is as fair it is to Standard in their own format. It's the same fallacy that Legacy people complain "Standard is too boring", but most of us say this without spreading bad information about the Standard format, we are merely stating our opinions contrasting Standard v.s. Legacy. Bill, however, seems to want to spread information that the format itself is scrubby, ie he wants to say something about the format (and not comparing against Standard). The inherent nature of every format is going to be the same, but people have their opinions based on how much they've been exposed to the format.

And to say that Legacy players aren't competitive at all has been the biggest joke I've heard since I played this game. Maybe he's just a Standard player excelling in his format and doesn't try other formats? (sense the hypocrisy when he's aiming at Legacy players only playing Legacy?). I think his opinion of Legacy is probably casual because most casual decks/formats (EDH) use a Legacy card pool, so kudos to him for his casual Legacy decks. And Standard players don't see a lot of interactions that are outside of Standard e.g. Shake's Tectonic Edge v.s. Tectonic Edge using U/W Tempo tricks is a good example, but there are quite a few others to name.


@Mana-screw issues: Go ask my playgroup, how a 16-land combo/reanimator deck or a 20-land deck can make consistent landdrops while my 24-land Landstill deck gets mana-screwed 30% in games outside of Wasteland. I swear it's depressing that Landstill hates me but I do play with 4 Brainstorms. Mana-screw is less of an issue in Legacy but still exists outside of Waste-effects. Because the format is so dense in cards and interactions, players often get greedy to squeeze more powerful cards in at the cost of cantrips and landcount. Standard has an average of 25-26 lands in a control deck. That's a lot, but don't forget the fallacy of comparing different formats. We should not compare across formats, so look at why Standard control decks run 25-26 lands. They don't have cards like SDT and Brainstorm, so they have to naturally up their land count in order to avoid mana-screwing. Also, control decks in Standard have win-cons with 6cmc (Frost Titan, Wurmcoil, Sun Titan) whereas Legacy control win-condition usually cap out at Jace 2.0.


Bill Stark's theory:



Playing Standard, Extended or Limited = Magic

Playing Legacy = Magic

Ergo:

Skills from Standard, Extended, Limited > Skills gained of playing Legacy


How about:
Playing Legacy, Vintage, Extended = Magic
Playing Standard = Magic
Ergo:
Skills from Legacy, Vintage, Extended > Skills gained of playing Standard

Or
Playing Legacy, Vintage, Standard = Magic
Playing Extended = Magic
Ergo:
Skills from Legacy, Vintage, Standarded > Skills gained of playing Extended.

What kind of a tard is this guy seriously? Who's this Bill Stark again? A Pro-player?




is my opinion that Standard is an artificial creation which has the obvious purpose of generating income – which is fine, the purpose of Magic is to generate a stream of revenue for Hasbro, Inc. I accept this. What this does is create a player base for formats that I’m skeptical there would otherwise be one for, such as Standard, Block and new Extended. It is most common to have high prize events for those formats that are constantly patched and closely monitored because they can generate the sales of new product more efficiently than older formats. However, it presents an environment where the incentive to hone lasting skills is diminished by the ever-changing landscape.

This is the heart of the issue I think most people see the game but can't find the words to express it. Well said Shake.


@Peacekeeper: glad to see he/she being awesome! I have 3 copies myself!

[CorpT]

One thing I keep noticing in articles like this:

1) Primarily Standard/Pro player writes an article about Legacy: it tends to be poorly written and ill-informed.
2) Primarily Legacy player writes an article about legacy: it tends to be well written and well informed.

Part of this may be my bias for Legacy, but it seems to happen fairly often. Look at the Ari article, the Ally player's article, or the Bill Stark article and compare them, just on writing skill, to something like this and the difference is, well, stark. I don't know if that is a coincidence or what, but it seems to happen most of the time.

*The exception seems to be Cedric. His Legacy articles tend to be well written and well informed. But I also think that he really like Legacy and doesn't just play it when he has to.

[zalachan]

Nice article!
It may be longer than some other articles, but i like the narration and the point of the article is well presented.
I never played enough SF to really find out who that Akuma guy really is, but if you guys compare him to Tendrils, well.. i get the point;)

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Also, the Pros with 3 round byes at Legacy GPs tend to outnumber the Legacy players with 3 (or even 2) round byes by a whopping margin.

True pros are certainly skilled at the game, but it's not all skill either. GPs are specifically set up to reward those on the gravy train.

[Baumeister]

Bravo, sir. Excellent article. It was well written, informative, and it flowed very nicely. I appreciate the generous amount of time explaining Street Fighter - a lot of the time, those things are more relevant than most people think.

[Moosedog]

Bravo, sir. Excellent article. It was well written, informative, and it flowed very nicely. I appreciate the generous amount of time explaining Street Fighter - a lot of the time, those things are more relevant than most people think.

+1. Great Read.

[redferne]

Nice read.

[Phoenix Ignition]

Great article, but this would have helped the argument as well:


Also, the Pros with 3 round byes at Legacy GPs tend to outnumber the Legacy players with 3 (or even 2) round byes by a whopping margin.

True pros are certainly skilled at the game, but it's not all skill either. GPs are specifically set up to reward those on the gravy train.

I got beat by some pro at the GP in round 6 who was playing burn (we were both 5-0 going into it) by getting the nuts burn hands you hope for. He day 2ed, while I grinded away with no byes. I'm fairly certain I'm still better at Legacy than he is, but it turns out you get a great chance at day 2 if you come in with 3 byes.

[Master Shake]

Thanks to all for the comment and considerations.

I know the piece is quite long, perhaps better than anyone but when you're trying to make sense of something that is seemingly purposefully misleading, you have to work through it piece-by-piece, and that is what I tried to do, explaining why his points and examples failed to prove his thesis.

For those of you that will keep reading them, I'll keep writing them.


Also, the Pros with 3 round byes at Legacy GPs tend to outnumber the Legacy players with 3 (or even 2) round byes by a whopping margin.

True pros are certainly skilled at the game, but it's not all skill either. GPs are specifically set up to reward those on the gravy train.

This was something I had considered early in the planning for this article, but I have to admit that I simply forgot to include this argument.

It's actually baffling to me that players who have established themselves as above-average are permitted to simply walk past the first 1-3 rounds. Perhaps it is just me, but I want these plays to continue that they are superb by competing in the ranks for as many rounds as possible. It seems to me that players should actually receive byes for one of two things. 1. Being awarded byes from a qualifier or trial or 2. Having an incredibly low DCI ranking. It's seems like handicaps should be given to players that have either won them through specific events or actually need a handicap as they are less likely to win. For example, I play in my weekly Legacy event with two players that have among the lowest Eternal and Total rankings in the world, why can't they be given a chance to get a bye to round two? They need all the help they can get, but my theories on this may be flawed so I won't stick to them too strongly.

So you're correct, of course pros are going to do better when they are only required to win two or three fewer rounds than their non-professional opponents and additionally get better tiebreakers from the fact that you're not playing against anyone who could have possibly lost the rounds before you entered the event.

[Purgatory]

It's actually baffling to me that players who have established themselves as above-average are permitted to simply walk past the first 1-3 rounds. Perhaps it is just me, but I want these plays to continue that they are superb by competing in the ranks for as many rounds as possible. It seems to me that players should actually receive byes for one of two things. 1. Being awarded byes from a qualifier or trial or 2. Having an incredibly low DCI ranking. It's seems like handicaps should be given to players that have either won them through specific events or actually need a handicap as they are less likely to win. For example, I play in my weekly Legacy event with two players that have among the lowest Eternal and Total rankings in the world, why can't they be given a chance to get a bye to round two? They need all the help they can get, but my theories on this may be flawed so I won't stick to them too strongly.

I don't quite agree with you here - let's say for example that this is how the system works and I am the absolute worst competitive Legacy player you have ever seen - so I get a bye round 1. Great, I'm 1-0 for the first time in my life. However, since I'm still not any better at Legacy than I was before round 1, I'm surely going to lose round 2, 3, and 4 and end up at 1-3 after a bye instead of 0-3 after round 3 with no byes. Out of contention, for sure, only one round later.

Skipping playing Magic will not make anyone better at the game. I do agree that it is unfair that the best players in the game are getting the benefits of the handicap system, but I don't think the right thing to do is to give byes to bad players instead. It's bad for the players themselves, it's bad for the pros, and ultimately bad for the community (why would I want to strive towards getting a better eternal rating when I'm getting free wins with my 1250-record?)

In any case, thanks for the article, it was a great read and a good rebuttal to Stark. I don't think the length was an issue, I actually prefer longer and more in-depth articles.

[GGoober]

How many byes do pros get? I think getting up to 3 byes is a little TOO much. The byes are huge not just in terms of playing less matchers (therefore securing better win % to make top 16), but also in Legacy, getting the initial byes will free you from playing jank decks etc, and play with the tuned decks that are meant to be represented i.e. you tend to ignore the random decks that get killed out and you are playing the deck that you picked against the meta without having to play against non-meta random surprise decks that you might lose due to metagame choices.

So I've heard about the Starkington Magic thing before, never watched/follow it. Bill Stark does these videos? Who is he exactly? The videos seem to be 'entertaining' but in all seriously really just for the Internetz people who just want to laugh and watch things without thinking too much. Just saw his video yesterday and they look pretty bad, not a particularly good narrator/commentor too (not that I can do any better lol).

[android]

I was going to mention the same thing about byes. I mean I understand they don't want their golden boys getting eliminated by random scrubs in the first few rounds and that they have somehow earned the right to come in fresh against the higher caliber players who make it into the later rounds but still, there is somewhat of a contradiction in giving the "better" players a tactical advantage.

Another point I wanted to mention about pros who normally don't play Legacy exclusively but can come in and win a competitive Legacy event, is this; for those of us who primarily call this format our home, it's like we're on this wide open ocean, riding the waves of the metagame that are continuously evolving and changing. For people who have a solid grasp of Magic mechanics, one might argue that they are able to enter the format, absorb the current metagame (free from any distractions) and instead of stepping onto the deck of a rocking ship, they are stepping onto a frozen lake. If the analogy makes any sense to you, you can see what I'm getting at. You're almost at an advantage to come in during a moment in time where the metagame exists in a static plane. If you're skilled, you can pretty easily make the metagame call, have a mistake free round 5 and be right into the top 8. Now obviously we should be able to do the same thing but there is something about habits and how when you are neck deep in something, it's hard to get a good perspective.

I hope that kind of makes sense because it always sounds a lot better in my head than when I read it back off the page.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

I was going to mention the same thing about byes. I mean I understand they don't want their golden boys getting eliminated by random scrubs in the first few rounds and that they have somehow earned the right to come in fresh against the higher caliber players who make it into the later rounds but still, there is somewhat of a contradiction in giving the "better" players a tactical advantage.

Another point I wanted to mention about pros who normally don't play Legacy exclusively but can come in and win a competitive Legacy event, is this; for those of us who primarily call this format our home, it's like we're on this wide open ocean, riding the waves of the metagame that are continuously evolving and changing. For people who have a solid grasp of Magic mechanics, one might argue that they are able to enter the format, absorb the current metagame (free from any distractions) and instead of stepping onto the deck of a rocking ship, they are stepping onto a frozen lake. If the analogy makes any sense to you, you can see what I'm getting at. You're almost at an advantage to come in during a moment in time where the metagame exists in a static plane. If you're skilled, you can pretty easily make the metagame call, have a mistake free round 5 and be right into the top 8. Now obviously we should be able to do the same thing but there is something about habits and how when you are neck deep in something, it's hard to get a good perspective.

I hope that kind of makes sense because it always sounds a lot better in my head than when I read it back off the page.

I don't think any Pros are doing the innovating in this format that they are doing in other formats. As far as I know, none of the pros constructed a completely new deck or archetype or even introduced a radically different interpretation of any existing deck in any of their GP wins. They just made the meta-call and went with the decks they thought would beat the meta. The evolution and change of this format is still being fueled by the players rather than the pros.

This is why its even further advantageous to the pros to possess byes. By being at point where tier-2 and tier-1.5 decks are less likely to be represented, they are less likely to be surprised by unforseen format roadbumps. Stax, 43 Lands, Belcher, and Enchantress are probably not archeytpes that have any equivalent outside of the Legacy meta, and to allow pros to play against a diminished metagame diminishes the amount of preparation and attention paid to the format. The depth and diversity of this format requires additonal prep-time if you do not know what the actual representation of archetypes in a given meta. But being able to play in a much more restricted meta (ie "the top decks") you can limit your playtesting and practicing.

[morgan_coke]

Brilliant.

Thanks for writing that.

[Phoenix Ignition]

I don't think any Pros are doing the innovating in this format that they are doing in other formats. As far as I know, none of the pros constructed a completely new deck or archetype or even introduced a radically different interpretation of any existing deck in any of their GP wins. They just made the meta-call and went with the decks they thought would beat the meta. The evolution and change of this format is still being fueled by the players rather than the pros.

This is why its even further advantageous to the pros to possess byes. By being at point where tier-2 and tier-1.5 decks are less likely to be represented, they are less likely to be surprised by unforseen format roadbumps. Stax, 43 Lands, Belcher, and Enchantress are probably not archeytpes that have any equivalent outside of the Legacy meta, and to allow pros to play against a diminished metagame diminishes the amount of preparation and attention paid to the format. The depth and diversity of this format requires additonal prep-time if you do not know what the actual representation of archetypes in a given meta. But being able to play in a much more restricted meta (ie "the top decks") you can limit your playtesting and practicing.

Which can even lead to hilarious mistakes, like most pros playing Aluren in the GP and not getting very far with it.

[Ubiquitous Druid]

Which can even lead to hilarious mistakes, like most pros playing Aluren in the GP and not getting very far with it.

I would laugh long and hard about that, please tell me that was from real experience.

[Neuad]

I would laugh long and hard about that, please tell me that was from real experience.

A bunch of pros did take Aluren to Columbus and scrubed out early.

[Amon Amarth]

Good article. The second point you bring up is interesting. Well, mostly because of how much sense it did not make. Like, Stark was comparing apples to antelopes. I mean, I just didn't get what he was saying at all. Honestly there is so much... stuff wrong with what he posted I still can't make a lick o' sense of it still. Anyways, good breakdown. And I like long articles.

[dschalter]

Pros have byes because Wizards actually want pros to, you know, come to Grand Prixs. One of the biggest draws of GPs is that it is where anyone can come in and play against the best if they do well- if pros didn't get byes, you would see a lot less of them- in particular you wouldn't see nearly as many people traveling around the world, which is a big part of the "Play the Game, See the World" marketing campaign.

Also, byes aren't that uncommon in competitions. The idea that someone higher ranked should be able to skip the first part of an event/tournament/playoff is not unique to magic.

[freakish777]

Pros have byes because Wizards actually want pros to, you know, come to Grand Prixs. One of the biggest draws of GPs is that it is where anyone can come in and play against the best if they do well- if pros didn't get byes, you would see a lot less of them- in particular you wouldn't see nearly as many people traveling around the world, which is a big part of the "Play the Game, See the World" marketing campaign.

Also, byes aren't that uncommon in competitions. The idea that someone higher ranked should be able to skip the first part of an event/tournament/playoff is not unique to magic.

Yeah, byes aren't in there to make things fair. They're in their for marketing.

A) You're a random player? Want 3 byes? Just win this 32 person grinder that costs $30 the night before (and has Standard packs as prizes).
B) You're a decent player with an 1825 rating? Just play a couple more tournaments before the GP to get your rating up so you can get that well earned bye in round 1.
C) You're a pretty good player who's T32'd a couple times this season already? Here's some Pro Points, you have 2 byes at all GPs, better make use of them and take your game to the next level.
D) You're a Pro player, you can actually make some reasonable supplemental income at this game, and basically get free vacations. We want to market you (your story/personality) in order to sell the game.


Do you know how much more infinitely boring Pro level event coverage would be if round after round it was people you weren't familiar with? People you had no clue who you like and who to cheer for?

I mean, whenever Jupiter games has an event and I can't make it, and one of the Hatfield's is playing the feature match, I'm cheering for them. Same is sorta true I guess of Nassif. Obviously, I've actually met the Hatfields, so it's quite a bit different, but still if you didn't recognize anyone you wouldn't care about the coverage because "seriously yawn who are those dudes, this is boring, I couldn't care less that the guy drafted the stone cold nuts, I mean cracking your pack and flipping to a planeswalker isn't skill blah blah blee blah."

Byes are a good thing for the game. But not in any strategic way. From a marketing perspective. Basically you're rewarding those who work hardest at the game (the best people at this game tend to also be the one's who put in the most time).







Side note: If Magic the Gathering let you put any card in your hand facedown and upsidedown (to distinguish from morph creatures) as a basic land of your choice and eliminated mana screw, the game would be more skill intensive. Not less. Anything that takes chance out of the game would make it more like chess (all skill) and less like poker (some luck, some skill). Not saying that's a good thing for the game, but I'm not really sure where Bill Stark's comment about mana screw was headed. Essentially if you and your opponent never have to worry about your deck mana screwing you (and only your opponent doing so), the game actually becomes more skill intensive (not less so), because you don't have a player randomly not drawing lands and not being able to play spells and interact with their opponent. In games with no mana screw, you have to out play your opponent, you're not awarded free wins because your opponent couldn't cast spells (that said, this is why I enjoy playing mana denial decks, because I'm not above "free" wins).

[ScatmanX]

Side note: If Magic the Gathering let you put any card in your hand facedown and upsidedown (to distinguish from morph creatures) as a basic land of your choice and eliminated mana screw, the game would be more skill intensive. Not less. Anything that takes chance out of the game would make it more like chess (all skill) and less like poker (some luck, some skill). Not saying that's a good thing for the game, but I'm not really sure where Bill Stark's comment about mana screw was headed. Essentially if you and your opponent never have to worry about your deck mana screwing you (and only your opponent doing so), the game actually becomes more skill intensive (not less so), because you don't have a player randomly not drawing lands and not being able to play spells and interact with their opponent. In games with no mana screw, you have to out play your opponent, you're not awarded free wins because your opponent couldn't cast spells (that said, this is why I enjoy playing mana denial decks, because I'm not above "free" wins).

That would make Wasteland and co. really bad...

[Crysthorn]

A bunch of pros did take Aluren to Columbus and scrubed out early.
With all due respect to those pros, but the current high-leveled professionals (I mean lvl 7-8) either didn't play in Columbus at all or played something completely different than Aluren (namely 3x CounterTop, 2x Merfolks and 1x WBg Deadguy Ale).

[Ubiquitous Druid]

Side note: If Magic the Gathering let you put any card in your hand facedown and upsidedown (to distinguish from morph creatures) as a basic land of your choice and eliminated mana screw, the game would be more skill intensive. Not less. Anything that takes chance out of the game would make it more like chess (all skill) and less like poker (some luck, some skill). Not saying that's a good thing for the game, but I'm not really sure where Bill Stark's comment about mana screw was headed. Essentially if you and your opponent never have to worry about your deck mana screwing you (and only your opponent doing so), the game actually becomes more skill intensive (not less so), because you don't have a player randomly not drawing lands and not being able to play spells and interact with their opponent. In games with no mana screw, you have to out play your opponent, you're not awarded free wins because your opponent couldn't cast spells (that said, this is why I enjoy playing mana denial decks, because I'm not above "free" wins).

That would be busted. There would never be a reason to play anything but non-basics simply on that fact that you could pack all-buisness, all day. Imagine the busted-ass hands Goblins could have by just deciding which was the weakest goblin in hand saying, mountain, aether vial, go.

[Tacosnape]

Pros win because, in addition to all the byes and the great playskill, they are gods of the clock. It's an aspect of the game I hate, but it's an aspect of the game that exists nonetheless. Pros make a three turn span last between 4 and 10 minutes depending on benefit. And they're always aware of the situation.

EDIT: They also don't play on like 1 hour sleep and play like utter shit late in the day. Not calling any names, me.

Also, as far as format skill goes, I personally think Legacy's the second most skill-intensive format behind Limited, followed by Vintage, Standard, and Extended.

[freakish777]

That would be busted. There would never be a reason to play anything but non-basics simply on that fact that you could pack all-buisness, all day. Imagine the busted-ass hands Goblins could have by just deciding which was the weakest goblin in hand saying, mountain, aether vial, go.

No, it wouldn't be busted, because everyone would do the same thing. And it would make the game far more skill intensive.

When would you stop making land drops?
Which lands would you actually put in your deck?
If fetchlands were still good (they would be, due to Top and BStorm interactions), would you still run a 1 of basic or not (I'm guessing no)?
When you get to the top of your curve and have 2 cards left in hand in Limited with 4 lands, and one is an ok 5 mana creature and one is a 6 mana bomb, which do you play as the land given your current board state?


In short eliminating mana screw means the better player wins an even larger percentage of the time. The best players would know when to put Goblin Lackey face down as a land, and when not to.


Our interpretations of the word busted must be different, because my interpretation is essentially "So powerful that it doesn't require much/any skill to win with the deck/combo/card/etc." Think Pro Tour Tinker with 7 decks in T8 packing 4 copies of Tinker.

[dontbiteitholmes]

In short eliminating mana screw means the better player wins an even larger percentage of the time. The best players would know when to put Goblin Lackey face down as a land, and when not to..

Because making your first land drop = never being mana screwed how?

-edit- By the way I agree that in an ideal world luck would be less a part of magic, but it obviously is far from Poker. The game was designed the way it is, there is little anyone can do at this point that change that part of the game without throwing things into chaos. Skill and deck building and metagaming are much more important than luck as far as deciding who wins the match overall. This is why the same people tend to top 8/16 most tournaments.

[ScatmanX]

That would be busted. There would never be a reason to play anything but non-basics simply on that fact that you could pack all-buisness, all day. Imagine the busted-ass hands Goblins could have by just deciding which was the weakest goblin in hand saying, mountain, aether vial, go.

0-land Belcher would be very nice too...

[Bardo]

Fantastic article. Nicely stated. I particularly loved the lengthy sidebar on Sirlin and Street Fighter. I'm pretty sure I've used him in one of my past articles -- though not as well.

About the Stark video, it's been awhile since I've seen it, but I remember it being intentionally provactive (nothing wrong with that) and generally boiling down to "Legacy players would be better players if they played other formats." I believe this conclusion to be true for similar reasons that Hollywood mentions above: Magic players get better by playing players better than them.

I mean, there are only so many truly talented players playing in Legacy events regularly. Panty-bunching aside, it's a pretty small universe of players in the scheme of the rest of the game. By virture of prize support, marketing, card access, etc. there are far more players that more routinely play other formats. While the average non-Legacy player is of generally equal skill to the average Legacy player, there are so many more expert Magic players playing non-Legacy formats just by the numbers involved. It should go without saying that if you're going to do well in a Legacy tournament, you'll still need to do your homework, test, tune, etc.

So, I would have expanded on Stark's thesis by saying: get better by playing the best players you can find; as those players are most likely not playing or caring about Legacy in any meaningful way, you'll get better at Magic by playing non-Legacy formats.

Overall, you did an excellent job pulling this together and making it shine. I appreciated how you didn't lambast Stark when you could have done so, agreed when he made a reasonable point and approached the material with a fair and open mind.

Again, cheers and well done.

[dontbiteitholmes]

I don't think any Pros are doing the innovating in this format that they are doing in other formats. As far as I know, none of the pros constructed a completely new deck or archetype or even introduced a radically different interpretation of any existing deck in any of their GP wins. They just made the meta-call and went with the decks they thought would beat the meta. The evolution and change of this format is still being fueled by the players rather than the pros.
I don't know about the other GPs but Saito made a pretty significant change to the way Merfolk was played.

[Bardo]

I don't know about the other GPs but Saito made a pretty significant change to the way Merfolk was played.

Agreed. Splashing back to run Perish in E Plague in the board (to fight Gobs and Zoo/G-based creature decks) is something that seems so obvious, but I don't recall ever seeing in a serious tournament (or really any for that matters). Tech.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

I understand the argument for the bye system. I'm just saying it removes certain bragging rights.

Each round in a tournament represents a twofold increase in attendance size. Someone with 3 round byes is effectively playing in a tournament with 1/8 the attendance, then, of someone with 0 byes. The competition is stiffer at that point, but then you also don't have to worry as much about the random decks that can knock out a finely tuned meta-deck.

It's pretty stupid, then, to brag about how pros tend to win where the system is set up to give pros the edge.

It's not as important a point for the purposes of this article, but I'm also going to question how much the pro gravy train actually matters in terms of affecting GP attendance and magic card sales. I think those at the highest levels of organized play, who are intimately familiar with everyone on the pro circuit, tend to over-estimate how much the other 99.9% of players either know or care about the "big name" pros, as perfectly illustrated by the pro player cards fiasco.

[Bardo]

It's not as important a point for the purposes of this article, but I'm also going to question how much the pro gravy train actually matters in terms of affecting GP attendance and magic card sales.

Overwhelmingly the PT and Organized Play (in general) is a large marketing expense. I'm sure it peripherally keeps $$ coming in to TOs and the assorted machinery of Organized Play, but the main purpose is marketing: creating stories, personas, things for new / potential players to latch onto, buy product and care. That's the naked reality of it: business. Not a big deal.

On the bye system, I think you're right on the numbers, but don't think you're seeing it as benefit of being sort of hoisted up by the marketing machinery of OP. The most immediate thing that comes to mind is a retirement benefit (and I don't mean Social Security) -- where if you pay into this thing, you eventually get to take something out of it -- more than those that haven't put into their own IRA. In this case, you put in your time, energy and talent and get some byes, maybe some airfare and travel $$ if you're really good. Seems like a okay trade-off to me. Edit - A better analogy is that of sports endorsements / marketing contracts.

Also, it's possible too that I'm way off on this, but that's how the whole topic strike me.