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amuraivel
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« on: October 24, 2004, 05:35:55 am » |
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@Mod please move this to the main forum. I was not allowed to post it there, but I believe it belongs there.
The Minimum Card Limit in T1
There are 3 fundamental rules to deck construction in Magic the Gathering
The first is the rule that defines the legal card pool of the format.
The second defines the number of any one specific card that can be in a legal deck.
The third sets the minimum number of cards, which must be present in a legal deck.
The first rule is the format. T1 is defined a priori by the licit use of all Magic editions.
It is this card pool depth and breath, which makes T1 enjoyable to play. Any adjustment in this department would be the death of T1 and the birth of a new Magic format.
The second rule is a global Magic rule concerning deck construction. It is a relatively simple rule. Though limiting the number of any copy to one would be even simpler way to manage card numbers. A more complex variant would be to allow 1, 2, 3, or 4 of any particular card.
However, I would like to discuss the third fundamental deck construction rule. The minimum card rule trumps even the 1-4 card rule. A deck of exactly 7-8 cards would insure a consistent draw every game (but this strategy is not without peril). In Block and Extended, this rule is not much of a problem, because the card pool is fixed to a certain quantity of cards. But this does not hold true for Type 1 and Type 1.5. The card pool continues to grow without parallel growth in the minimum deck size. The result of this is an even faster Type 1 archetype as decks are distilled out of an ever-growing card pool. This leads to more efficient decks, (c.f. Oscar Tan’s new card evaluation criteria).
The question is how efficient should decks become?
My answer is where fun is maximized—unfortunately, this is a very subjective criterion, one that would be very difficult to measure within a Magic community—though not impossible, e.g. polling.
A more objective standard would be one that looks for signs of degeneration within the game. I know many people are reciting the T1 mantra at this point, “Broken things happen.� True, this is another entertaining and unique aspect of T1, but I retort “How often should broken things happen?� If too many of the rules are broken the game is undone.
Conceptually, Magic is a series of interactions, which take place within a fixed framework. This framework was conceived to give constancy; rules such as drawing one card per turn, one land per turn, etc. were conceived to give the game a logical progression.
It is in the nature of the Type One beast to gnaw at these rules voraciously. Some decks have succeeded at consuming these rules altogether.
This trend is exemplified by the rise of Mishra’s Workshop based aggro decks. For such decks the 1 turn : 1 mana ruled was dispensed with. Packing 4 colorless loti and a slew of on-color moxen (BTW: the proper plural for this Latin word is ‘moges’ not the Germanic plural ending ‘en’); say ‘on-color’ because there is no wrong color. Workshop decks are able to severely undermine the mana constraints in Magic. I foresee Workshops continuing to be a part of the future because of the acceleration they provide. This coincides with a move toward artifacts because of the stripping away of the color requirement, another fundamental rule of magic.
Look no lands!
Another major example is Michael Simister’s
Belcher—the deck contains only two lands. Not only is he capitalizing on Goblin Belcher’s ability he has succeeded in ravishing the 1 mana : 1 turn rule, which partially underpins Magic. While this deck is not a dominant deck, it does show the direction of deck building.
Other decks are getting around the mana requirements (and hence need for land) with the abuse of the graveyard—Dragon, Rector, Bazaar and the ubiquitous Goblin Welder.
Combo decks have always have been a component in the format, but are they taking the lead? I do not think that combo is dominant yet. However, the prevalence of combo decks can be a barometer for the format. The reason for this is because as decks speed up—there is a greater need to break more of the fundamental rules of magic in order to keep up with the rest of the field. Combo decks are usually breaking rules in a massive way. The metagame has become more ‘comboesque’ as compared to 1997. Zoo, ‘The Deck’, Suicide Black, and Sligh at least heeded most of the primal rules of Magic the Gathering.
With each new set, Wizards seems to press the envelope at least a little bit. While this is a completely reasonable thing to do within the confines of a block, it becomes more problematic when possible destructive synergies arise due to the exorbitant size of the Type 1 card pool. Naturally, the increased size of the Type 1 card pool has provided some answers to problems it has created. Nevertheless, there does seem to be a trend towards more ‘comboesque’ decks. And the format has sped up in the last 3 years.
Is it really a problem?
It is hard to say at the moment. There are a variety of metagames in T1 hence it is hard to speak of a coherent metagame. However, decks seem to be more ‘techish’. A new flavor or deck springs up every month. This is a sign of instability. Magic plays a wider game due to the engorged card pool. The road to victory leads to the same place: usually by dealing 20 damage, but the mechanisms vary widely. Sideboards and decks no longer trump other deck archetypes they aim to combat specific decks. This is because in narrowness one gains efficiency. The feasibility of narrowness is a direct result of a swollen card pool. But the multiplicity of deck threat mechanisms makes it tougher for any one deck to maintain consistency.
Therefore, I maintain the larger the card pool, provided the 60 minimum card limit remains in force, will eventually lead to even more erratic encounters. I think we will see fewer ‘good decks’ and more ‘metadecks’, i.e. decks which perform extremely well in a given environment for a short while until the metagame readjusts. This phenomenon has the potential to become a problem.
If not 60 how many?
It is clear that no matter what the minimum number of cards in a deck is, the metagame will eventually reach equilibrium, though I hold that that the equilibrium will be increasingly unstable the lower that card limit is. One of the main ways to make decks less efficient is to increase the minimum card limit. Indeed, some Highlander variants of Magic have done just this with card minimum limits of 75 or 100.
But, I do not have an answer to the question posed above. In Block or even Extended, the 60 limit acts s a benchmark, but in T1 it is clear that the 60 card minimum is an artifact of a different time. While raising the minimum card limit would not be a panacea for metagame imbalances, it could dilute some of the acrid effects of mana acceleration, graveyard abuse, and ‘comboesque’ components by diluting them.
Up until now the DCI has only used the Banned / Restricted list to correct imbalances. While this is an appropriate tool in correcting some metagame imbalances, it should not be the only tool to used correct metagame imbalances. It is time for at least some discussion on the matter in an effort to achieve some idea of if and under which conditions the minimum card limit should be raised.
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