[Article]Eternal Europe: Stealing From Starcraft

[Mon,Goblin Chief]

Something theory-based this time, trying to cross apply some concepts and terms:

http://www.starcitygames.com/article/29514_Stealing-From-Starcraft.html

Enjoy and let me know what you think :)

[Zombie]

Fairly unremarkable. It's true that you can learn valuable lessons from other games, and the more games/genres you go through (as I did when trying to find a backup to Magic) the more you see parallels between very different games. Basically, Sun Tzu was right :P

The problem with the article is that though the parallels are many, and many of those are valid, there is no sense in trying to force everything to fit, because often they just can't. Magic, for example, is strategically similar to games about controlling armies, there are parallels to economic concepts in Starcraft - RUG Delver is similar to earlygame pushes that want to cripple the opponent's economy for example. But some decks are much more about the fundamentals of the duel - combo decks and maybe some prison decks come to mind. They utilize the game rules equivalent of body mechanics to wrestle an opponent into submission (or as some feel win by a technicality), and go for position and openings much more like a real-life duelist or a fighting game character than an army in Starcraft does. (On the strategic scale anyway, armies obviously jockey for position prior to an engagement, especially in SC2 where one engagement often decides the game)

Furthermore Magic does a somewhat poor job of emulating an RTS battlefield because everything is in a single blob (or lane, if you like the MOBA analogy) - that means it's really hard to be in the wrong place like you can be in an RTS. You can't overextend and have a natural consequence to it in quite the same way - the primary check to overextension in our game being sweepers, not the opponent pooling his resources and concentrating his attack in one place. Netrunner does a far better job at that than most Magic-alikes because it has servers as an analog to RTS bases/resource nodes and you have to allocate defenses for them in advance instead of freely reacting.

To get back to the point, trying to force Starcraft terms to fit into Magic isn't really fruitful, because each game's terminology is born for the needs of that specific game. You might use more Starcraft terminology in the context of specific matchups - RUG Delver vs. Shardless BUG transfers over to Starcraft concepts pretty readily because it's all about economy, board presence and tempo. Something like Delver vs. Storm is far better represented by dueling swordsmen or the like. Hell, you could even consider it as a match between a resource denial push and a duelist who seeks out an opening for that one decisive hit, something that's just thoroughly strange to RTS and duelling.

If you want to take something from Starcraft/RTSes to Magic and apply it, the main point of interest would be a bit more general: The tension between army, economy and teching up and translating advantages or preparation from one phase of the game to the next and control of the playfield are things that apply to most games of strategy and are concepts that allow parallels to be drawn usefully from a multitude of sources.

[BBG|Scott-Spain]

If nothing else, this was a fun and cool article! I sort of agree Zombie. You can't apply Starcraft philosophy to Magic in such a broad sense. It works way better on a deck by deck basis. Either way, good stuff! Look forward to you doing something like this again.

[Lemnear]

I love both games; I love crossover-thinking. 'nuff said

[EpicLevelCommoner]

Neat, though I should say I always thought of MtG as more a fighter than a RTS.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63AE0s76qhU

To give an example of what I mean, I will do my best to translate the fighter terms presented in that video to MtG terms.

Phases of the round -> Essentially this all falls under Beatdown vs. Control
Making Contact (aka Neutral Game) -> This is where imperfect information makes determining who is the Beatdown and who is the Control uncertain
After Contact and Okizeme -> You are the Beatdown
Defense and Wake Up -> You are the Control
Knockdown -> Top Deck mode: wake up here basically means the ability to get out of that state, whereas okizeme means the ability to keep your opponent in that state
Pressure -> Staying the Beatdown
Combo -> Making the most out of being the Beatdown (i.e. winning the game efficiently)
Mix-ups -> In short: Mind Games; to expand: no, this isn't just bluffing, but rather using knowledge and resources available to play a threat that the opponent does not have an answer for at the time
Poking -> Playing a threat and seeing how the opponent responds to it to better gauge whether you are the beatdown or the control

Eh ... looks like a mess right now, but the general gist is that several genres implement the Beatdown vs Control dynamic.

[Zombie]

You make the same mistake as Carsten did and are trying to force everything to fit from GG to MTG, which is just not going to happen, especially when many MTG decks are better dissected according to RTS principles than fighting game ones. It's far more useful to draw singular parallels that may allow a new way to look at some specific thing about the game, but full-on porting everything is bound to end up being torturous and contrived.

On a fighting game related note, it's interesting how combo decks' high threat level allows the player to play actual mixups/mind games in the sense the term is used with fighting games. I find it true with Infect especially. You can see Tom Ross pull off all kinds of stunts with Infect just because it could kill you any second and plays well at instant speed. People have to respect that.

[Richard Cheese]

Nothing on APM?!

[Ellomdian]

Nothing on APM?!

As a Judge, I see 0 far too much...

[Richard Cheese]

As a Judge, I see 0 far too much...

Well Magic is naturally going to play out quite a bit slower. I suggest we measure in Free Bird Units (FBU), with one FBU = 9:06. With each round equal to approximately 5.6 FBUs, I think you could reasonably expect each player to average roughly 8-15 APFBU.

[Ellomdian]

Well Magic is naturally going to play out quite a bit slower. I suggest we measure in Free Bird Units (FBU), with one FBU = 9:06. With each round equal to approximately 5.6 FBUs, I think you could reasonably expect each player to average roughly 8-15 APFBU.

Never before have I wished I was an L5 so much, so as to make this written, documented policy.

[twndomn]

No Koreans allowed! kkkkk:laugh:

[Lord_Mcdonalds]

Well Magic is naturally going to play out quite a bit slower. I suggest we measure in Free Bird Units (FBU), with one FBU = 9:06. With each round equal to approximately 5.6 FBUs, I think you could reasonably expect each player to average roughly 8-15 APFBU.

I now want a burrito