[The Weekly Wars] The Goal Of The Game

[Jonathan Alexander]

This time with a free decklist and some nice music: Article. (http://theweeklywars.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/the-goal-of-the-game/)

[tsabo_tavoc]

Nice article. What a natural flow from casual Commander to tournament plays, from deck choices to motivation:smile:

However, most Legacy players play for fun rather than prizes (although they are desirable). The meta is so wide open that it is extremely difficult to justify any list as the optimal choice. It is true that Tempo Threshold, Stone Blade, Maverick, Storm, and Dredge cover more than half of the fields, you will still expect a round two Affinity, a round three Elves, a high table Enchantress opponent, or someone Show and Tell.

Grinding Station is indeed an ideal choice for the meta by having an upper hand against Stone Blade (control in general), Maverick (midrange and aggro in general), and not bad against Tempo decks and other combos. However, part of the success owes to that many people don't know the right way to beat it as it is so new a deck; and even if they do, their 75 are not prepared, as it is so rarely piloted. Playing a deck opponents don't expect, or even better, they don't know how to play against, is a crucial advantage in tournament plays. Dredge decks also exploit that, and so does Steel Stompy I was playing.

That said, it is easy to justify a good choice, but not the optimal one. Whenever a deck starts to excel and rises in popularity, people start to prepare and the novelty advantage is lost. That is why legacy top tier is so dynamic. It takes a few more top 8s before Grinding State will lose the advantage:laugh: Keep on your good work.

[Fossil4182]

I view Magic as a hobby, an intellectual exercise, and an outlet for my competitiveness. Basically, I see Magic as a means, not an end/part of my life in a defining way. If I was not playing Magic, I would find another outlet that satisfies what Magic provides me (likely Chess). I also see value in the social aspect of the game as well. Regarding how I play, my goal is to always play optimally as opposed to playing to win. It may appear to be a nuanced distinction, but winning and loosing do not impact the decision calculus to determine if the day was successful or not. While I may be disappointed when I lose, the loss is incidental because most of the time it was the result of poor playing on my part which is actually what I'm upset about.

Steven Menendian's article on Bobby Fischer (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=1986) provides a framework of how one can "play to win" without going off the deep end sort to speak. The first two suggestions are especially good for those looking to "play to win" as they tend to illustrate two fundamental mistakes most players make. Additionally, the third point illustrates the final thing that most aspiring players lack which is the sacrifice necessary to make it to the top levels. However, the article also discusses the cost of that sacrifice and that tends to be the reason I prefer to avoid "playing to win" at the higher levels. I'm not sure I would even be successful if I tried, but I don't find Magic that important relative to even my other hobbies.

[boneclub24]

We only have small legacy tournaments around here, and almost everyone uses the same deck they always have. It's way too expensive to own all the staples and move from deck to deck.

When you only have 8-16 man tournaments, I'd hardly say we play to win.

[Jonathan Alexander]

I view Magic as a hobby, an intellectual exercise, and an outlet for my competitiveness. Basically, I see Magic as a means, not an end/part of my life in a defining way. If I was not playing Magic, I would find another outlet that satisfies what Magic provides me (likely Chess). I also see value in the social aspect of the game as well. Regarding how I play, my goal is to always play optimally as opposed to playing to win. It may appear to be a nuanced distinction, but winning and loosing do not impact the decision calculus to determine if the day was successful or not. While I may be disappointed when I lose, the loss is incidental because most of the time it was the result of poor playing on my part which is actually what I'm upset about.

Steven Menendian's article on Bobby Fischer (http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=1986) provides a framework of how one can "play to win" without going off the deep end sort to speak. The first two suggestions are especially good for those looking to "play to win" as they tend to illustrate two fundamental mistakes most players make. Additionally, the third point illustrates the final thing that most aspiring players lack which is the sacrifice necessary to make it to the top levels. However, the article also discusses the cost of that sacrifice and that tends to be the reason I prefer to avoid "playing to win" at the higher levels. I'm not sure I would even be successful if I tried, but I don't find Magic that important relative to even my other hobbies.

I agree with this. The things you stated are the reason I'm personally playing to win. Finding that small window of opportunity in a close games is a super good feeling. Also, I enjoyed Menendian's article a lot when I read a few months ago, I can only recomend it to anyone.


We only have small legacy tournaments around here, and almost everyone uses the same deck they always have. It's way too expensive to own all the staples and move from deck to deck.

When you only have 8-16 man tournaments, I'd hardly say we play to win.

I'm not sure if it's neccessarily too expensive, it just takes time to build a proper card pool. It takes at least one year of playing to really get good anyway and over that one year or two you can build up your cardpool bit by bit. You can also trade up quite easily and finishing on the prizes in a few tournaments helps as well.
Also, just do a lot of drafting. The way I see it drafting is the most profitable thing you can do as you both learn to play and can get good (easy to sell) cards rather cheaply.

Also, Siyuan, thanks for the kind words. I thought the article was super messy when I first published it and to be honest, I still do. There's a lot of things I articulated rather poorly and some stuff I wanted to mention that I simply forgot to. For example I initially wanted to write that I tried to look up what the goal of the game is about (in a description of the game, coming from Wizards or wikipedia) but I couldn't find anything. The only thing I could find was how one wins the game. I found this pretty interesting, but sadly I just forgot it.