I’m not going to write about the new Planeswalker Points system. Yes, it’s a fundamental change to an element of Magic that’s gone mostly un-fucked-with for quite some time now. It also gives us a new number to slap down on the table for all to admire. Is it a good system long-term? I don’t know. It doesn’t rate who the best players are, that’s for sure, but it’s not really designed to do that. Will it drive more people to play competitively more often, thus spending more time and money on Magic? That’s the hope, obviously. It probably will.
Showing posts with label shameless attempt to create controversy to drive traffic to this blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shameless attempt to create controversy to drive traffic to this blog. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Thursday, September 1, 2011
obligatory alyssa bereznak response post
The Alyssa Bereznak post is the first true crossover hit between the Magic: the Gathering community and greater nerddom. For those of y’all that have, hopefully, streamed in with millions of your average-joe friends to read this fascinating piece of writing you have before you, what you have to understand is shit like this just doesn’t happen. Magic news is for Magic people. We’re comfortable in our little bubbles and don’t venture outside of them too often unless we’re really hungry and the Burger King is right there.
Monday, July 25, 2011
BOOK: grinder: the brad nelson story, by rich hagon
(Note: if you're unfamiliar with the book, here's an explanation.)
After the success of Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids, it was inevitable that someone within the Magic community would write another book about a pro player with the intention of giving those with no knowledge of the Magic pro scene a glimpse inside this difficult-to-penetrate lifestyle. Potential authors, once they know that Grinder: the Brad Nelson Story by Rich Hagon exists, will probably stay away.
After the success of Johnny Magic and the Card Shark Kids, it was inevitable that someone within the Magic community would write another book about a pro player with the intention of giving those with no knowledge of the Magic pro scene a glimpse inside this difficult-to-penetrate lifestyle. Potential authors, once they know that Grinder: the Brad Nelson Story by Rich Hagon exists, will probably stay away.
Friday, July 8, 2011
scg writer roundup
Patrick Chapin
Style: enthusiastic descriptions that make no sense whatsoever- so he can be viewed either as a version of Evan Erwin that has played nonzero games of Magic or as a schizophrenic professor that wildly oscillates between theories that won them the Nobel prize a dozen years back and the rantings that had them institutionalized six months after said prize. Talks about levels a lot. Popularized the phrase “semi-soft lock,” often used to describe the feeling of eating a DQ Blizzard.
Style: enthusiastic descriptions that make no sense whatsoever- so he can be viewed either as a version of Evan Erwin that has played nonzero games of Magic or as a schizophrenic professor that wildly oscillates between theories that won them the Nobel prize a dozen years back and the rantings that had them institutionalized six months after said prize. Talks about levels a lot. Popularized the phrase “semi-soft lock,” often used to describe the feeling of eating a DQ Blizzard.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
holistic game update analysis
That title makes this look academic as fuck. Let me ponder this whilst stroking my beard.
This is another post inspired by Starcraft 2; specifically, this unbelievably nerdragey post on the TeamLiquid forums.
For those not versed in competitive Starcraft, a bit of background: the engine for the game had a lot of bugs and quirks to it, and similar to how speedruns and tool-assisted videos for old video games are a nearly incomprehensible barrage of bug abuses and engine tricks, high-level Starcraft play involves the abuse of the way that movement and attack animations in the game work as a fundamental part of it. It's essentially a shitload of arcane busywork that almost no one could figure out on their own that allows certain units to operate at around twice their intended effectiveness. Obviously, the fact that these bugs aren't present in Starcraft 2 sends Brood War players into a tizzy. This isn't a unique phenomenon.
In any game, whenever something is updated, certain hardcore players immediately focus on what cannot be done any more, such as the removal of damage on the stack. Removing anything that could previously be done (usually backed up by an example of a cool play the old system allowed) is immediately thought of as BAD, and therefore the new update/new game as BAD. Instead, players should look at both games in their entirety, rather than thinking of the older system as the norm and the new one as a deviation from it.
Similarly, the loss of something skill-testing is not necessarily a bad thing. Sure, yes, it's incredibly special that it took you four years to perfect Mutalisk micro or how batch effects worked, but that difficulty doesn't make it a good system. Quite the opposite, in fact; chances are, there's absolutely no reason for such a high learning curve to be needed. No one wants to have to multiply random sequences of ten-digit numbers in their head before declaring an attack on turn three of a Limited game, despite how skill-testing it would be. It's just busywork.
New game systems, even if they're simpler, can still be good.
This has been part two of my series of strategy-less articles while I'm too broke to play tournament Magic.
This is another post inspired by Starcraft 2; specifically, this unbelievably nerdragey post on the TeamLiquid forums.
For those not versed in competitive Starcraft, a bit of background: the engine for the game had a lot of bugs and quirks to it, and similar to how speedruns and tool-assisted videos for old video games are a nearly incomprehensible barrage of bug abuses and engine tricks, high-level Starcraft play involves the abuse of the way that movement and attack animations in the game work as a fundamental part of it. It's essentially a shitload of arcane busywork that almost no one could figure out on their own that allows certain units to operate at around twice their intended effectiveness. Obviously, the fact that these bugs aren't present in Starcraft 2 sends Brood War players into a tizzy. This isn't a unique phenomenon.
In any game, whenever something is updated, certain hardcore players immediately focus on what cannot be done any more, such as the removal of damage on the stack. Removing anything that could previously be done (usually backed up by an example of a cool play the old system allowed) is immediately thought of as BAD, and therefore the new update/new game as BAD. Instead, players should look at both games in their entirety, rather than thinking of the older system as the norm and the new one as a deviation from it.
Similarly, the loss of something skill-testing is not necessarily a bad thing. Sure, yes, it's incredibly special that it took you four years to perfect Mutalisk micro or how batch effects worked, but that difficulty doesn't make it a good system. Quite the opposite, in fact; chances are, there's absolutely no reason for such a high learning curve to be needed. No one wants to have to multiply random sequences of ten-digit numbers in their head before declaring an attack on turn three of a Limited game, despite how skill-testing it would be. It's just busywork.
New game systems, even if they're simpler, can still be good.
This has been part two of my series of strategy-less articles while I'm too broke to play tournament Magic.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
your set review sucks
Almost all set reviews are terrible.
People read articles about anything for a few reasons. Usually, it comes down either to be entertained, or to learn something new. When writing a set review, hopefully you should be doing both of these, but very few of them do. They're usually rather dry, with some terrible attempts to nickname cards thrown in if you're Evan Erwin or somewhere approaching as dumb as he is. But more importantly, they don't tell people jack shit, despite how absurdly common they are.
Everyone has kneejerk reactions. That's why they're kneejerk reactions; you don't need to do any research or put any work into anything to have them. People (with the exception of the truly soulless, such as market researchers) don't care what others' kneejerk reactions are- they have theirs already, what do they need more for?
If you're considering writing a set review, please do the world a favor and think in advance about what you're giving the world by writing it. Do you have some unique insight into a format that gives you more authority than most, and thus better-than-average kneejerk reactions? If no, have you done the slightest bit of work to determine whether your hypotheses were accurate at all? It would be a hundred times more useful if, instead of mashing your keyboard to tell us which cards seem good in some vague archetype that will probably never see the light of day, put that time into researching one card in one archetype, and report back on the results.
For example, the new card All Is Dust looks pretty cool. Some people think it might see play. Will it? I haven't the slightest idea. I haven't cast it or seen it cast, personally, so you tell me. However, I've thrown together a GW deck and played against the world's worst players on mwsplay, and can confidently report back that Vengevine is as good as people think it is. See how much cooler that is? I confirmed my hypothesis! Holy shit!
Conclusion: stop writing set reviews unless you have something to say.
People read articles about anything for a few reasons. Usually, it comes down either to be entertained, or to learn something new. When writing a set review, hopefully you should be doing both of these, but very few of them do. They're usually rather dry, with some terrible attempts to nickname cards thrown in if you're Evan Erwin or somewhere approaching as dumb as he is. But more importantly, they don't tell people jack shit, despite how absurdly common they are.
Everyone has kneejerk reactions. That's why they're kneejerk reactions; you don't need to do any research or put any work into anything to have them. People (with the exception of the truly soulless, such as market researchers) don't care what others' kneejerk reactions are- they have theirs already, what do they need more for?
If you're considering writing a set review, please do the world a favor and think in advance about what you're giving the world by writing it. Do you have some unique insight into a format that gives you more authority than most, and thus better-than-average kneejerk reactions? If no, have you done the slightest bit of work to determine whether your hypotheses were accurate at all? It would be a hundred times more useful if, instead of mashing your keyboard to tell us which cards seem good in some vague archetype that will probably never see the light of day, put that time into researching one card in one archetype, and report back on the results.
For example, the new card All Is Dust looks pretty cool. Some people think it might see play. Will it? I haven't the slightest idea. I haven't cast it or seen it cast, personally, so you tell me. However, I've thrown together a GW deck and played against the world's worst players on mwsplay, and can confidently report back that Vengevine is as good as people think it is. See how much cooler that is? I confirmed my hypothesis! Holy shit!
Conclusion: stop writing set reviews unless you have something to say.