+1Originally Posted by GreenOne
Beside Goyf (and TombStalker ?) there is no Vanilla critter lurking around the table now, even tribal ones !
Thus, they have to power up the creatures ability.
Example ?
Vampire's Servant (B)(1)
Human Vampire - Uncommon
DeathTouch
(B), Sacrifice ~ : Exile ~, Destroy target non-black, non-artefact creature.
"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings." Socrates.
Seriously. Bob + CoP: Black is a much better combo than Bob + Top in anything not running Counterbalance. I hope you can understand that. Instead of paying 1 to take the least amount of damage for an extra card, you pay 1 to draw a card. Thats crazy, takes away any fear I would have of ever running FoW and Tombstalker in a list with Confidant. It's not an overreaction if it is a crazy, stupid idea that would break cards that are already extremely good.
More respect for "veteran" players would be a nice "change". In fact, I thought that's what this entire thread's mentality was--a request for more respect (or at least concern) from WotC and the DCI for the "veteran" (read: legacy and vintage) players. I understand some of you are okay with the changes. I, however, am not, and if you are okay with something like Confidant + CoP: Black, then I'm sure we have both made the appropriate choices with you staying and myself leaving.
Pce,
--DC
Note: I understand that DC + CoP isn't true, and that it probably won't ever be, but the fact that someone came up with it and it is in fact an intuitive idea based on simpler rules makes me worry that it could come to that in the future. For example, I never even imagined they would make it to where combat damage didn't use the stack...
Schadenfreude is the most genuine kind of joy, since it doesn't include even a drop of envy.Why can't we just admit it?
Well there are loads of other creatures that have actually "big size" and no other relevant ability other than killing your opponent, like the snake, Nacatl, Kird Ape, Werebear, Dreadnough, Terravore.
Actually there's already little creatures with activated abilities. Most of the critters in the format have either static abilities (threshold, trample, haste..) or triggered ones (Confidant, Ringleader, Trinket..), while just a little have activated abilities (a bunch of goblins, Pridemage, Ravager, Factory, Lavamancer). I'd just like to have more of those.
Currently Playing: Nourishing Lich.Deck
Current Record: 1-83-2
Because CoP:Black obviously does a great job of stacking your draws...
Yup, I mis-generalized Activated abilities and Abilities in general. Thanks pointing and clearing that out.
Still, when I was typing, I thought of Coatl and Crusher, but they are more of a 'mere' vanilla beater to me : they provide mechanics which could lead to deckbuilding innovation (even if in those cases, the Archetypes already existed before the card were printed).
An, like you, I'd like to see more critters that are 'better' or more enjoyable to play than a mere 5/6 for 1G.
I hope I've made it more understandable (and that my english is clear//correct enough to make it understandable =/ ).
I guess I don't mind the new combat rules. You can make arguments for "dumbing down" as much as you want, but to me, it's just more intuitive. How, may I ask, does your fanatic do combat damage if he's already dead? If a creature isn't around while damage is being dealt, it shouldn't deal damage.
As for not letting the player choose how damage is dealt, well, that seems unnecessary. It doesn't really speed anything up either, they still need to select an order to deal damage.
I'm assuming with the new lifelink rules, if you're at 4 life and take 8 damage and lifelink for 6, you don't actually lose the game anymore? Also, sorry if this was mentioned, but does lifelink no longer stack after this (if a creature has lifelink twice...)?
It's a bit complicated. True "lifelink" creatures (the ones with that exact keyword) don't stack, but you don't lose the game if the life you gain is enough to end above 0 life. Creatures like Essence Sliver which didn't have the keyword in the first place have been errataed to their original wording, so they do stack, and you can lose the game before you gain the life.
Cards that have been printed both ways (Loxodon Warhammer is the only that comes to mind) will function under the new rules though. So as if it had the keyword (no stack, insta-gain).
Intuitivity is subjective.
I'm sure you can easily imaging this scene :
Gears of War. You as (2/2)Marcus running to (1/1)Locust with your Shotgun loaded. He fires molten lead, scratching your body, you shot and kill him shortafter.
As you reload, you notice that fracking Grenade stuck to your forearm. Tic-Tic-Boom : you're dead.
It works perfectly with Fanatic. Less with Pridemage, but again : that's just an interpretation and imagination thing, not an intuitive one.
Still, the rules are what they are, and we have to adapt.
Last edited by lolosoon; 06-17-2009 at 10:38 PM.
In that, The Ferret made a more persuasive argument that what I was aiming for in the M10 Poll thread.
His thesis. People need context to organize information. The flavor aspects of the game provide new players with much-needed context for MtG rules. "Damage on the Stack," is a "this is how it is" or "because I said so" rule that is unintuitive, confusing to new players, makes no "flavor-sense" is, in WotC's estimation, a barrier worth removing to aid recruitment/retention.
As for the burning of straw men section at the end, I skimmed it and that wasn't why I was recommending it.
Dunno if anyone listens to the Top8 MtG podcast, but the 3-part interview with Zvi about the M10 rules changes has been the most coherent of anything I've seen/heard so far. Neither Flores or BDM are on it, if that makes you more likely to listen to it.
http://www.top8magic.com/category/podcasts/
I gotta say, reading through that one paragraph the second time was a lot easier to understand. It's a really great example of how context is important for learning.
That said, I still don't see why we can't stack damage however we want.
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This is the only complaint I have had with the new rules. You should be able to have your creatures deal damage how you feel would be best since you are supposed to be controlling them.
But since this is the biggest complaint I have had, I will just suck up the new rules and play Magic how they feel is best.
And yet, from start to finish, completely wrong. No matter which way The Ferret or anyone else slices it, "intuition" isn't an objective truth and there's no way you can argue the subject to change that. Plenty of us found stacked damage intuitive. But ultimately our intuition doesn't seem to matter.
Well, right, we're not discussing objective truths, like "fire is hot" or "if I stick this hot fire poker up my ass, it will hurt, a lot." Maybe it's impossible to draw objective conclusions about knowledge and the ways of learning. Regardless, some stuff is easier to learn (flying creatures fly over non-flying creatures) and some is not (organic chemistry). Also, it doesn't matter if you think "damage on the stack" is intuitive.
The important thing, for you and me, is that the people who make the game and own the IP believe stacking combat damage is an impediment to learning for new players and that it only makes sense within the rules because the rules say so. That's the way you learned it. Thing is, they make the rules. Though, there's nothing to stop you (or should stop you) from playing by your own rules.
The issue they have already is functionality within the larger card pools for T1 and even T2 with a limited number of "good decks." This takes down certain deck tiers and focuses the power back into the rarity tiers. Since the more complex cards tend to be rare, this will hedge out advantages that can be had at for cards at the common slot. Therefore hurting the playerbase it's ironically trying to help in winning games/"having fun."
I believe they'll probably change it back after looking at the stagnation of certain cards in the card pools as they gear more towards the new combat rules.
Me: I'll let damage stack, then unsummon my dude
Opponent: But that's not how it works!
Me: Ohh, it is under *my* rules, didn't I tell you?
Yeah, one can play casually with whatever rules they want. Try that at a tournament and you're kicked out of the DCI club! Hehe, I take your point however.
My main issue isn't the combat rule changes, but instead the rest of the rule changes which, while they may simply things a minute bit, also require errata'ing buttloads of cards which make things infinitely more complicated. They've been doing this a lot lately. I'm still not sure if my Lord of Atlantis is a Merfolk, or just a poser. Ideally, I'd like my cards to say what they do, not what they used to do, in all but degenerate cases.
Dude, I'm talking about house rules. You'd obviously be an idiot to try that kind of solipsistic bullshit in a sanctioned event, but most people who play magic do not have a DCI number. They don't play in tournaments (or only very rarely). They play at their kitchen or dining room tables with friends and can play under any set of rules they want (and they do). If not for this silent majority, there would be not MtG. It would be totally unprofitable and would have folded in 1995 or so.
The earliest house rule my buddies created was "No one gets to play Control Magic." Sad day. I used to love stealing someone's Mahomoti.
Ok, so ultimately you agree with me that it's a matter of opinion as to what's intuitive. So I guess I'm missing something because I thought you were agreeing with the article, where the central point seems to be "my intuition is more correct than your intuition".
And doesn't saying, "Well you can play the game however you want to" pretty much shoot the idea of making changes in the foot in the first place? I mean, if what you're saying is true and Magic is played primarily by people without DCI numbers, then why make any changes at all? They can continue to play with or without mana burn or invent a system of throwing ducks at balloons to resolve combat damage and nobody will care either way, right? Why should the "minority" to whom the rules actually matter have to endure vast changes to the structure of the game to suit a group of people who are just going to play their own way anyhow?
Because it's about the rules they learn. If there's no mana burn, they don't learn it; if combat damage doesn't stack, but happens as a non-stack event that happens on the "battlefield," with broad swords, teeth and dragon claws, that's what they learn.
As for "intuition" being a matter of opinion, I'm not going to lie, I have no idea. I suspect the corporate line is something like: "Data from our market research, extensive surveys and focus groups tells us that new players just can't grok this concept."
Also, I'm not going to look up a definition, but intuition is a sort of innate understanding without formal education. Things that are intuitive sort of "just make sense." Without intuition, the world would be a messy, gobble-y-gooky sort of place. Intuition creates short-cuts to conclusions that somehow work. Is intuition subjective? To a degree.
I'd look at it like a bell-curve. There are outliers to the left and right. You can't ignore outliers, because they're important, but they're also not representative of the bulk of the sample. I'm not going to be an apologist or cheerleader for WotC, but if the dudes in R&D believe the bulk of the bell-curve for prospective new players finds "combat damage on the stack" an unintuitive sort of "this is just what the rules say" aspect of the game that creates an unreasonable threat/concern to acquisition/retention, I'll place my trust in them and think they know what they're doing by changing how combat damage operates.
It's a brave new world and gravity still works.
But why the does it even matter how they play? By your own admission, they're not playing in tournaments, so if they get the rules wrong it doesn't matter to anyone, at all, ever. To the people the rules did matter to, they were already fine, so there was no real need for a change.
I don't doubt they researched it, but I'm wondering even why their focus is and always has been on new blood in this game. Seriously, here, let's face it. This is a game of elves, goblins, scantily-clad angels with big boobs, and robot-demons from other dimensions. There's a pretty big segment of the population out there who is never, under any circumstances, going to buy a pack of Magic cards, simply because of the nerd stigma attached to it. I would contend the ability to win new players is going to be limited far more by that factor rather than rules minutiae.As for "intuition" being a matter of opinion, I'm not going to lie, I have no idea. I suspect the corporate line is something like: "Data from our market research, extensive surveys and focus groups tells us that new players just can't grok this concept."
And ultimately, there's the simple concept in business that it's much easier to keep your existing customers happy than it is to win new ones...and far less expensive. So I'm wondering why they're even willing to risk alienating large segments of the existing customer base on the remote chance that changing these aspects of the game are going somehow turn the tide for them and win over the huge market share they've been looking for. I mean, I'm assuming at some point we're accepting the Nerd Stigma Factor and we're moving into poaching players off other CCGs. So are these changes an attempt to make this game similar to those other CCGs? If so, why would it be a good thing to make your product more mediocre and indistinguishable from other similar products? I mean maybe things like that work if you're an up-and-comer with no market share to begin with, then you can get some of the "Oops, this isn't what I thought it was" dollars, but that doesn't tend to work when you're an established brand name and the creator of the entire genre after which other products are modeled.
Does it really make sense that these changes are going to cause a crop of players of other CCGs think to themselves, "Hey, that Magic game used to suck because of stacking combat damage, but now that it's less distinguishable from the game I already play, I'm going to stop playing this game and play Magic instead!"
Ok, assuming that Wizards is right, that their market research data is flawlessly collected and accurate and given that the conclusion "changing rules is the way to win new customers" and accepting the idea that there is some as-yet-unnamed reason why they should care about how well casual players, who don't even attend sanctioned events, know and follow the rules, what is the guarantee that the players you gain will outweigh the players you lose?I'd look at it like a bell-curve. There are outliers to the left and right. You can't ignore outliers, because they're important, but they're also not representative of the bulk of the sample. I'm not going to be an apologist or cheerleader for WotC, but if the dudes in R&D believe the bulk of the bell-curve for prospective new players finds "combat damage on the stack" an unintuitive sort of "this is just what the rules say" aspect of the game that creates an unreasonable threat/concern to acquisition/retention, I'll place my trust in them and think they know what they're doing by changing how combat damage operates.
The bottom line here is that I really don't care about "intuition" or any of those buzzwords - I'm not going to argue with that because it's not something we can objectively debate. What I'm confounded by is what a poor business decision it is to refocus the game in this direction. Ultimately, these changes just don't make sense. To tie this back in to the Ferret's article, all of this goes back to my original point that he can argue over the buzzwords all he wants, but in the end the buzzword arguments are just pretty much irrelevant to the true justifications for these changes and the resulting counter-arguments.
Honestly, what's the point in making a comment like this?It's a brave new world and gravity still works.
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