The Hidden Depth of Strategy in Magic The Gathering

[@distractionmakers]

Here’s the link to Gavin’s Kickstarter: www.kickstarter.com/projects/lastditchgames/bullets-and-teeth-and-aliens?ref=him1bs

[@tredad01]

Would’ve been cool if the thumbnail picture was Shahrazad, since it’s a literal “Sub Game”.

[@dreamsalongthepath7377]

May you from now forth always play Magic: The Gathering under a table that is underneath a larger table. And let that Magic Game be Commander.

[@GrayVMhan]

Goblin Game!

[@thejollyrajamtg9847]

This type of content is literally my heroin.

[@Leviathan_XO]

It's so guuuud

[@megapussi]

I think one part of the value of a rotating format is how it avoids the "everything is a brain storm" problem. As complexity rotates out of a format, new complexity can rotate in. You have a format with a weird energy mechanic, or a weird day night cycle, or whatever, abd then those things leave and make room for new things.

[@distractionmakers]

Exactly! Rotating formats are great for the game.

[@ekolimitsLIVE]

In terms of commander, rotating formats are not great. Players already rotate by changing decks so you won’t see many mechanics as a result

[@maximillianhallett3055]

@@ekolimitsLIVEMy friend, not everything is about Commander.

[@zigeif777]

​@@ekolimitsLIVE Commander is not a rotating format

[@ekolimitsLIVE]

@@maximillianhallett3055 yes. That’s why I said “in terms of commander”. Not sure how better could I have worded my response.

[@omahonda]

Love Distraction Makers. Most interesting content on KZbin!

[@chimarielucie]

7:55 if only this was the case man. I know having some free spells is cool and all but it's such a feels bad when you wait until players are tapped out to cast your big spell only for it to get free countered, or when your removal spell gets swatted right back to you. If free spells had a really restrictive condition that warranted their power, that would be fine. I think foil is an example of where you do lose quite a lot of resources to counter one spell. But stuff like force of will, fierce guardianship etc. never feels good and punishes players for not knowing what specific conditions free spells require to cast

[@ekolimitsLIVE]

Free spells are a crutch that mtg designers toyed with long ago and unfortunately set a standard while not fully realizing their implications. We can clearly see this by looking at the original rarity of things like force of will. Now we call that a “chase mythic”. That’s how good it is. Back then? Basically a whole cares card. So if things continue, the speed of play of commander will implode on itself. I myself already stopped having fun in regular pods of commander due to the power creep. Personally, I started playing pauper commander to get back to what made the format great. Simple decisions. Fun interaction. Need for politics. And simple ban list. (Although mystic remora should not be banned. That card actually sucks in the format and no one would play into it. Rhystic studies is just a mistake. It can stay banned. )

[@elijahlyons8164]

@@ekolimitsLIVE mystic remora at a downside is interesting because it makes your opponents hold more interaction in their hand and either makes them commit to the board early or not play anything altogether. If you can see that and utilize the fact that opponents are being given two entire turns to stock interaction, then let them interact with eachother later plan accordingly. all that is at a floor.

[@bensonprice4027]

Games discussed in this video: Magic: The Gathering Bullets and Teeth and Aliens (Gavin's Kickstarter) Rock Paper Scissors Mark Rosewater and Richard Garfield were not mentioned in this video (which might be a first for an MTG centered video)

[@SenkaZver]

The real hidden depth of MtG is recognizing Colossal Dreadmaw as the pinnacle strategy

[@hircenedaelen]

Whenever you guys talk about sub games I can't help but think about shaharazad lol

[@distractionmakers]

Shahrazad is a great example of designers being extremely meta haha

[@klolwut]

If it wasn’t for Arena, the idea of the stack would be incomprehensible to me. Even having everything stacked up in paper is woefully insufficient for streamlined interfacing.

[@IssaUserName]

I would wager it comes from coding, which also uses a stack to execute in several languages. It works exactly the same. The way it was always likened for me when learning comp sci was that it's a stack of dishes. You can't pull from the bottom of the stack without making a mess

[@SenkaZver]

​@@IssaUserName thats how I visualize it. You stack the cards on top of each other and you don't pull from the botom, you go down the stack by what is visible (the top).

[@yugioh1870]

Oh boy! Youre gonna talk about my favorite card Shahzarad. Oh.

[@BatCaveOz]

"The depth of the strategic breadth..." Me - It feels like I am back in the office.

[@elijahlyons8164]

As a veteran player who has learned the game in depth and has a vast knowledge of the stack and how to explain it (that last part is the most important aspect of understanding in my opinion), I think all the complicated aspects of the stack for early players are completely taken care of and become very overshadowed by the benefits that late players gain from understanding it. Having an Indepth understanding of how the stack works and all the little tricks you can do with it increases how much you can do with the game and really just make you a better player.

[@philipmantos2544]

Also remember the fringe use case of using brainstorm to protect key cards from hand hate by keeping them on top of the library

[@distractionmakers]

Yes! Great point.

[@bensonprice4027]

While a little clunky to understand at first, I think the stack is primarily what gives Magic the feeling of a wizard battle. I feel something inherent to the experience of the game would be missing without it. You're dueling another wizard and pulling out whatever edge you can with that well timed counterspell or that well timed counter to the counterspell.

[@distractionmakers]

The ludo-narrative of the stack does fit quite well.

[@lightworker2956]

Yeah, there's a reason why, despite MtG's clunkiness and slight barrier to learn, it's the most successful card game of all time.

[@sayntfuu]

Best content in the field.

[@diegogamba7825]

rock paper scissors is a telepathic game IMO. Great Video as usual :)

[@joshwingart8188]

Did you guys gain like, 6k subscribers in the last few months, or am I trippin? Here for it though 🎉

[@noneofyourbusiness3288]

One priority system I absolutely adore is Legends of Runeterra, which I used to play a lot before it pivoted towards PVE content (which is very sad: it really was the best digital card game imo). The decisions when to attack and when to develop your board were very meaningful and aggro was quite a challenging archetype to pilot well (even more so than magic, where I think classic burn often gets underestimated).

[@distractionmakers]

It is a unique system for sure. I feel like it would need to be simplified to be adapted to tabletop though.

[@noneofyourbusiness3288]

@@distractionmakers Maybe. I was considering using something similar for a Pen and Paper rpg, but got sidetracked before I could really hash out all of the details.

[@isambo400]

The best feeling is when you know about the subgame and your opponent does not

[@jacobd1984]

So if there is Shahrazad on one side, “every game action” on the other, where is something like Atemsis, All-Seeing (objectively the greatest blue creature ever printed)?

[@ForrestImel]

This would be more in line with someone's strategy. Atemsis would be more of an econ strategy, it would mean that the majority of subgames that the Atemsis player is trying to win are in favor of their economy strategy. This would more than likely mean that they are using some cards in a defensive/interactive way to keep the opponent from winning while they build up their own plan. So, the subgames you'd probably commonly see from that player would be the decision on when/what cards to counterspell and what cards to try and search your deck for to build towards your wincon. Cards themselves aren't often subgames themselves, but create the outcomes or opportunities for subgames to exist if the system allows for that.

[@NZPIEFACE.]

I thought this was going to be a Shahrazad video at first.

[@MultiDAXDAX]

Thanks for putting into words why I dislike counters so much, I prefer another type of subgame!

[@uptherockies]

Does Fact or Fiction count as a subgame ? :)

[@distractionmakers]

Yes 👍

[@mathewshaw1111]

Not having some sort of stack system is ultimately what puts me off other games.

[@Flum666]

The real subgame is do you play Beta Mountain or full art Unglued Mountain or Mirage Mountain #346 in your legacy Mono R burn deck.

[@distractionmakers]

I’m from the unhinged era 😆, but beta lands are classy as hell.

[@tylergoerlich9494]

Gotta be tarkir basics

[@megapussi]

taking a wild guess that this video isnt about shahazrad

[@distractionmakers]

Haha no.

[@ledrociam]

Oh boy do I have a fun format I made for Magic. I'll be releasing some content about it myself in the next few weeks. This is amazing

[@ekolimitsLIVE]

The worst thing about actions introducing subgames like the stack does is unintuitive outcomes. Why does my terror not stop your ETB from mulldrifter? Didn’t I just kill it so why is it drawing you two cards. It’s rules like this that make explaining mtg just odd to new players.

[@georgiopapakonstantinou1580]

Definitely agree here but can be simple depending on how it's explained. One of the more difficult ones to understand is killing a blocker after it's declared and explained why there's no dmge even tho the card is not physically there.

[@distractionmakers]

For sure. It creates lots of weird unintuitive interactions.

[@ekolimitsLIVE]

@@georgiopapakonstantinou1580 oh yeah. Combat is a sub game too and that is another great example. I always hated when players block and then sacrifice their creature to some effect. I was left thinking: “ok, so my damage goes through. Right?”

[@ekolimitsLIVE]

@@distractionmakers you guys should talk about the impact of such decisions on game design. When you go against what is intuitive and why they might have chosen to do so. There is a lot of nuance with each design decision. And sometimes these tradeoffs are just not worth it.

[@SenkaZver]

I think the issue here is the oversimplification of a stack. By putting everything in the same priority outside of stack placement, it leads to unintuitive situations. Imo digimon probably handles this the best by keying in triggers on system and card states and having a looser you-go-I-go stack

[@Cody_GG]

My favorite subgame, poison counters Enjoy your life gain, I'm just counting to 10

[@TrueAohaku]

I've been playing MtG for nearly two decades, and I cannot stand broad, inexpensive, conditionless counterspells that do nothing to affect the board state. Things like Rewind, Counterspell, Dissipate, and the like irk me to no end because just about the only thing you can do to build against them is run counterspells yourself. I'm fine with your Mana Leaks, your Contradicts, your Negates, your Plasm Captures, because they're some combination of expensive, avoidable, and have a tacked on ancillary effect that affects the board in some way (whether that be drawing a card, gaining mana on your next turn, bouncing another creature, or what-have-you). BIC counterspells are the tumors that make blue as dominating as it is, and I feel like the game would be better if, assuming they have to exist, you had to do something like Foretell them face-up for 0 as a sorcery (paying their mana cost later) before you could play them. They're so much more powerful and broadly useful than most destruction it's disgusting.

[@DavMat007]

Clicked on this video thinking it was about Shaharazad, I'm deeply disappointed

[@TonySloan2112]

Unethical loves this episode.

[@warpsterdash5420]

Now actual subgames like sharazard thats its own whole new video hahahaha, changing the fundamentals of a game between them has been done before but in magics case people didn't like it hahaha

[@KyleTremblayTitularKtrey]

This is a rather long way of saying commander players are bad at mtg and blame other players/mtg instead of getting good. If you dont like the subgames of magic, you dont actually like magic. Go play pokemon?

[@Vitox96]

i dont want to play Blue just because the opponent decided to play blue. It is easy as that. Creatures are balanced around EtBs and Death Triggers VS Power if they get to Untap. Counterspells gets around all that and more, they counter whatever, may it be an Enchantment, Artifact or anything else. It is so fukin stupid it is unreal... they start playing a game of value around keeping mana open until they can and will get over you in card advantage, because for some fukin ungodly reason they decided to give the Control color the best Draw cards too, like... how stupid can they be? It is literally either win in the first 3 rounds or get the counterspell fiesta started, getting poked to death by 1/1 birds or whatnot. Oh you wanted to play a card on curve? Too bad, i dont have hands and i must play blue, countered for 2 mana.

[@elijahlyons8164]

welcome to tempo

[@lightworker2956]

While blue used to be completely overpowered, if you look at blue in modern-day standard then blue usually isn't overpowered. Counterspells are much less efficient and creatures are more efficient than they used to be. Other colors also have more card advantage and interaction than they used to. But yes, if you play with old cards, or with cards specifically made for old formats (modern horizons cards), blue is stupidly good. I agree. On top of that, there's a secondary effect that if you play multiplayer, then 1) improving your "economy" is better than picking a fight with an opponent therefore drawing cards is great, and 2) multiplayer has cards that are much more combo-oriented / expensive / back-breaking than 1 vs 1 magic, making counterspells by far the best kind of interaction to have. Whereas if you try to play a deck in 1 vs 1 modern-day Standard with a bunch of blue draw spells and counterspells, it really isn't overpowered; you may very well get your teeth kicked in by a horde of small efficient creatures. So, I sort of agree. Blue isn't OP in 1 vs 1 modern-day standard, but it is OP in older formats and in multiplayer and especially in multiplayer formats that allow older cards.

[@cheeseitup1971]

The control color not having card advantage wouldn't be much of a control color

[@Vitox96]

@@cheeseitup1971 trading a 2 cost card for a 5 cost one apparently isnt enough