[Article] Magic University and Bad Faculty

[Ric_Flair]

First here is the point of departure for this thread:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=6641

As a preliminary thing I think it is an admirable task to try to collect Magic theory in one place.  I am not sure, however, if this is the way to do it.  Another issue, if you are going to call most people stupid in public you better damn well be fucking Einstein, and while Ted is assuredly a smart guy, he ain't Einstein.  

The heart of the issue here is Ted's vaccuous definitions of crucial terms.  I think we as a community can do better.  I am going to get the discussion started with my ideas, but feel free to pipe up and add your two cents (or more).

Ted on Card Advantage:

Card Advantage
Magic is at heart, a resource management game, and the first resource that most people focus on are the cards. Card advantage as a theory focuses on two things:

1) He who draws the most cards is more likely to win.
2) If you deal with more than one of your opponent's cards with just one of yours, it is a good thing.

First, as a definition this tells you little more than likelihoods.  If we defined torts as things that MIGHT harm people that would be a useless definition.  So this one gets scrapped right from the outset.  It is AWFUL.  

Working Definition of Card Advantage:

A superior position in the game caused by drawing more cards than your opponent or negating many of an opponent's cards with fewer of your own.

The major idea with card advantage is that by drawing more cards you have more options and a greater ability to deal with opponent's cards.  Thus card advantage is important.  I am not sure how much else to add because of the next few terms Ted defines.

Ted "Virtual" Card Advantage:

Card advantage combined with the added benefits from the act of making your opponent's cards, whether in play, in their hand, or in their library, "dead."

Rule one of definitions from Aristotle: never use the term in the definition of the term itself.  Oh Teddy boy, this is a basic issue.  I think this is worthy of you losing tenure.  

Anyway, here is my crack at the term:

A superior position in the game based on the negation or obstensible negation of opponent's cards in any zone of play, insofar as they impact the game.  

These are just examples.  I think we can do better.  Anyone else care to correct Ted's errors?

[Matt]

I'll provide my review of this in real-time:

The biggest problem I see with this venture is that he's making certain things appear to be wholly discrete when in fact they're sub-classifications.

What's the difference between tempo and speed? Nothing that I can see. 'Investment' also falls under tempo. How is 'inevitability' not perfectly explained by card advantage, tempo, card quality, or some combination of these?

Some of the terms, like 'symmetry', are really just there for a glossary. There can't really be a theory about these like there can CA or tempo.

Oh, oh, here's the worst of them all. "Impact." Please, anyone: what is the difference between card impact and card quality? And what is a quality card if not one that gains tempo, card advantage, or consistency?

It seems to me like he's approaching Magic theory like he's in a book club, discussing various aspects of things, when it SHOULD be dealt with in a more mathematical approach. There's no need that I see for defining so many terms.

A brief summary:

Foundations
Schools of Magic (I don't see why this should be the foundations at all. Aren't these fairly advanced concepts?)

->General Applied Theory
Card Advantage (good)
Tempo (good)
Card Quality (useless, because it's purely a function of tempo and CA)
Mana Curve (well, it's good to know, but it seems like this should just be included in tempo)
Synergy (...what can you honestly say about this? "You have synergy when two of your cards work together to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual effects"...yeah? so? how does this help?)
Mulligan Theory (this actually sounds interesting. I can't think of what it could be, but unlike some other topics, I imagine there COULD be something here I don't know)
Information Theory and Bluffing (shouldn't THIS be in the fundamentals?)
Play Improvement (...)
Miscellaneous (well...ok.)

-> Constructed
Deck Creation from Scratch
Deck Templating (I assume this is something like the metagame clock, or "finding the tinker deck". Vaguely useful to know, but I don't see any way to extend this.)
Fundamental Turn (good)
Law of Repetitiveness (?)
Archetype Play Advice (isn't this part of the deck templating?)
Metagame
Metagame Clock and Archetype Classification (yeah, I'm getting about a 7.3 on the Overlap-o-meter)
Rogue Deck Theory
Sideboarding

[Jhaggs]

In regards to tempo, Ted decided against creating a formal definition siting:

I'm not going to delve into the research on the various definitions of Tempo here, as that will be saved for the Tempo installment of the University.

He goes on to briefly describe some aspects of tempo with the inclusion of an article that Zvi is working on:

"Tempo is the rate at which the current situation will cause you to gain or lose advantages."

I remember that Rasko had written 3 articles about game tempo a while back and I think he had actually created a functional definition of what tempo is.

Here are Rasko's articles:

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=5611

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=5647

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=5715

It is really hard for me to speak for any established vintage writer so please correct me if I miss the boat on this one, but in my opinion, Rasko defines tempo is:

Any game situation where a player is able to violate the fundamental rules of the game.  Example of these violations can be seen in playing more than one land per turn, drawing more than one card per turn, having two attack phases, ect.  In these situations an increase in advantage can be seen by overcoming established rules.

[Ric_Flair]

Tempo:

The pace of activity each player has aimed at their decks goal.

Tempo Advantage:

The negation or decreasing of an opponent's pace of activity towards winning.

Something like that but less vague  

[cssamerican]

I think this definition covers "Pure" and "Virtual" card advantage.
Card Advantage: A superior position in the game caused by having access to more playable cards than your opponent.

Tempo: Is the rate of development.
You gain tempo by developing at a faster rate than your opponent develops. For example, you play a Plains and a Savannah Lion, your opponent plays a Plains and passes. You have gained tempo because your rate of development is ahead of your opponents. This leads to a simple rule when looking at tempo, if player A gains tempo then player B loses tempo and visa versa.

Everything else can be judged by how much Card Advantage and Tempo it brings to you. This is what defines Card Quality, Card Impact, or any other theory you come up with. Including the "Best Deck" theory, the best deck is simply the deck that has the greatest amount of Card Advantage and Tempo.

[jpmeyer]

Tempo: the maximal utilization of mana at a given time

[cssamerican]

Tempo: the maximal utilization of mana at a given time

Not necessarily true. I think you have to use your mana to its maximum to achieve a tempo advantage (at least in most cases), but just because you had maximal utilization of mana at a given time does not necessarily mean that you gained a tempo advantage in the game. There have been many games in which I used my mana the best way possible, but was still down in the "Tempo War"due to lack of card advantage (playable cards) or in some cases a lack of tempo generating cards (moxes). This is why I think Tempo can only be defined as the rate of development.

[jpmeyer]

Correction: the maximal utilization of mana at a given time relative to the opponent.

[Gothmog]

I see where you're going JP but your definition doesn't quite get there.

I think using a basic example before writing the definition illustrates it best.

I cast Call of the Herd during my mainphase, and the end of the turn, you Swords it, and then Impulse.  We've used the same mana, but you have a tempo advantage.  The Swords gained you the tempo, because it left you with the resources to do something else later.

I don't your definition fully brings that out.

Tempo

Using resources more efficient than the threats they deal with.

Bear in mind I'm using the term "threat" here extremely loosely to include almost anything an opponent does.

[theorigamist]

Actually, I think JP's definition is really close, if a little too vague.  How about this:

Tempo: The maximal utilization of all at a given time that affects the state of your position in the game in a favorable way relative to the state of the opponent.

I think it is necessary to include information about the state of the game in the definition of tempo.  It is still tempo to catch up from behind as long as your situation improves relative to the opponent.  It is also tempo to slow the opponent down so that, once again, you speed up relative to them.

As for the article, I admit I stopped reading it fairly quickly.  I got kind of tired of the not-entirely-warranted arrogance and the lack of substance in many of the definitions.

[Ric_Flair]

Basic and elementary reasoning shows the flaws in Ted's definitions.  The first problem is the example as a definition.  This is never the right way to go.  Definitions need to be statements of what something is, not a demonstration of what that thing is like, or what its effects are.  This is just tremendously problematic.  Nonetheless it is more excusable than the using the word to define the word problem.  This is UNACCEPTABLE ON ALL ACCOUNTS IN ANY CONVERSATION THAT HAS EVEN PRETENSES OF BEING REASONED AND RATIONAL.  I put that in all caps for emphasis.  This is just entirely and without hesitation WRONG.  I am almost offended that he calls us stupid, only to proffer his garbage as intelligent.  Nothing personal against Ted, but thinking about this more just makes be heated.  

[BreathWeapon]

One thing I have never seen any writer talk about at all is Gambit Theory, I.E. FoW should suck because its a 2 for 1 investment ... so why is it a format defining card? Any moron can tell you why having more cards than your opponent is a good thing, but its a whole different ball game to explain the advantages of sacrificing resources at a 2 for 1 trade for board position.

I'm sure there is more eloquent language for Gambit Theory, I just can't come up with it at the moment. Anybody have an opinion on this?

[Dr. Sylvan]

Force of Will is a tempo card, BW. It makes any blue card in your hand turn into 3UU. Like a specialized Dark Ritual. But still tempo. I have no idea what you mean by Gambit Theory.

[BreathWeapon]

A gambit is an investment of resources for tempo or board position in chess, so I figured the same concept would carry over to Magic.

[theorigamist]

BreathWeapon, if I understand you correctly, I think I can try to explain:

You say Force of Will is a 2 for 1, but in fact the trade depends on the card it counters.  The reason Force of Will (or any counter, actually, but especially Force) is not considered disadvantageous is because of the comparison you make.  In other words, when you say FoW is a 2 to 1 trade, you mean that from the situation before the opponent cast their spell to the situation after you countered, you have lost 2 cards and the opponent has lost 1.  In actuality, you must compare the situation that would be if the opponent's spell resolves with the situation that would be if you use Force of Will.  One of Oscar's articles covered this very well.

The more complex computations, though, are those made after the stack clears. Take this simple example: How much do you gain by using Force of Will on an opponent's Ancestral Recall?

You might do it this way:

Player
-1 card (Force of Will moves from the hand to the graveyard)
-1 card (A blue card leaves the hand and is removed from the game)

Opponent

-1 card (Ancestral Recall moves from the hand to the graveyard)

This is obviously wrong because it concludes that the play leaves the player with a one-card loss, implying that using Force is a bad play.

What you have to do, however, is compare the above result to the scenario had the player not countered:

Player
-0 card (Force of Will stays in hand)

Opponent
-1 card (Ancestral Recall moves from the hand to the graveyard)

+3 cards (Three cards move from the opponent's library to his hand)

Obviously, the player is better off countering because the opponent ending up with a two-card net gain is bad.

Note from this example that no matter what one does, the opponent will bury Ancestral Recall anyway, making it irrelevant to gauge the benefits of countering. It should be removed from the computation.

Further, one entry was simply missing from the first table, namely something else the opponent lost in the exchange:

Player
-1 card (Force of Will moves from the hand to the graveyard)
-1 card (A blue card leaves the hand and is removed from the game)

Opponent
-3 cards (Opponent no longer moves three cards from his library to his hand)

Thus, countering with Force of Will actually saves you one card - which makes sense since that's the difference between you being one card behind and the opponent being two cards ahead (consider that every card he gains is one card you lose). Moreover, it also explains why a player may not be willing to pitch Mana Drain to Force of Will against Ancestral Recall; keeping the two counters may be better than losing them to end up with just a one-card gain.

And a link...http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=4835.

[Ric_Flair]

Oscar's example works great for Forcing an Ancestral, but I think a simpler analysis explains why Force is so good, and it is based on tempo, or at least JP's definition of tempo, which BTW I think is elegant and correct.

Force of Will essentially costs 0 mana to play.  An opponent's spell cost X, but almost always greater than 0.  Furthermore you get to choose which spell to Force, thus optimizing the difference between 0 and X as much as possible.  Even if the difference in mana spent is not that great (Forcing a Yawg Win, for example) the card countered usually represents something of a game breaking (ending of a stale mate) or game winning play.  So in a simple view Force stops game altering cards for free.

But look again at the tempo gain.  Force is free to cast and negates an important spell, but it also opens up (or opened up) your ability to cast good spells.  Either the Force let you use mana (maybe all of it) during your last main phase or it will let you cast instants eot on an opponent.  Either way, Force negates their use of mana and allows your own.

So Force's power, in line with this thread's analysis, comes not from the card advantage Oscar cited (because that example only works when Forcing an Ancestral), but from three forms of tempo:

1) Stopping a game altering card (which all hard counters do)
2) Generating a positive mana advantage for you (Force, cc: 0 stops opponent's card, cc greater than 0) (something many hard counters do, but not as efficiently as Force, aside from Drains sometimes)
3)  Generating a second form of positive mana advantage by letting you use your mana for something else, either during your last turn or eot on your opponent. (something all free counters do)

Looking through the list you see that Force does #1 as well as any other counter, #2 as good as any free counter, and #3 as good as any free counter.  Add to this the relatively cheap ACC of Force it is easier to see why it is the powerhouse that it is.  The loss of one card is made up for by a HUGE swing in tempo.  

Force is one of the better examples why pure CA analysis will get you in trouble.  Oscar's example is one of the few that works out to show a CA in Force.  It is, however, misleading in that it is so unrepresentative of the usual Force of Will use.  Furthermore, I think that Oscar offered other (read: better) reasons for Force's power than the countering Ancestral example.  He knows about the tempo boost it provides, I am sure of it.

[BreathWeapon]

Nope, Oscar's Article doesn't cover the subject at all, it simply states the obvious via hard card advantage.

I was thinking in lines of FoW on a first turn Trinisphere. The card advantage trade is strictly 2 for 1, but the actual benefit rests solely on board position and tempo.

Other examples are even more relative, like Fireblasting a Serra Angel (3 card investment) to clear the road for your Jackal Pup to take home the win over the course of a few turns.

Card advantage is all well and good, but Magic Theory uses it as a serious crutch to explain some of the higher "theologies" of Magic. Anybody can describe why the opponent with the most cards won a game, but it takes considerable effort to explain why the player with significantly less cards won the game.

Some of the most classical decks ,Sligh and Suicide, are built on the principles of decreasing the relative value of card advantage by restricting its uses. I.E. 5 cards or 50 are equally worthless when your life total is 0 or you have no land to cast those spells.

Sorry, that was sort of a cluttered rant against the principles of pure card advantage.

Edit: Amen Ric.

[LoA]

It's pretty clear that there are some problems with Ted's article, I think we're all in agreement there.

But I can't help but question the basic premise of the enterprise.  Yes, ideas like tempo and virtual card advantage (old-timers might recall the phrase Branch Utility--it's the same thing) go into deck making, but when you're building a deck or discussing decks, it's a much more organic process.  I'm beginning to believe that the (semi)recent rise of internet sites and regular writers has more to do with these semantic arguements than solid game theory.

Many years ago, readers of the Dojo discovered the term card advantage.  By now we all agree that it's good.  Ideas like tempo followed, and while some people have trouble distinguishing between cards that ought to be in a tempo deck (or even if their deck is a tempo-based deck), your run-of-the-mill TMD member knows these things, they're not tough concepts.

So if we know these things, why write about them?  Why have debates over how much card advantage a 1/1 token represents?

[tangent]
Foucault's  Discipline and Punishment (1979) argues that the strength of the psychiatric field lies in the process of professionalization.  In short, those in positions of power control access to power and the direction of the discourse surrounding the field.  Someone gets a piece of paper that allows him to be called a psychiatrist because he learned the proper language.  Once there, he can determine who else gets that piece of paper, and they better use the proper language if they want in.
[/tangent]

Who the hell argues over the proper definition of virutal card advantage?  When I playtest with ctthespian, we debate the maindeck Platinum Angel in TnT or the proper play in situation X.

The problem lies not in the game or the community but in the process of professionaliztion.  Please know that this is not an attack on regular featured writers.  Many times, they have interesting things to contribute.  This is an issue of process.  The article's opening quote from Flores (whose writings I respect the hell out of, by the way) implies that if you read Magic theory articles, you're smart.  If you don't, you're not.  If you agree with this discourse, you're smart.  Does anyone else see a problem with this?

I cannot believe that every writer out there can come up with a quality column every week.  So, instead of adding to the general knowledge of the game, writers are tempted to reinforce their own expertise.  They set the parameters of the debate in such a way to exclude those on the outside, making their own position seem that much more unassailable.

There is lots of room for debate in the game.  Card choices, proper play and proper deck construction are all valid topics--there are dozens more.  I worry that the current state of writing will become writers writing for other writers, or aspiring writers who buy into the framework.  I'm currently working away on my dissertation in History and see this all the time in academia.  Antiquarians may love history, but they would have a tough time getting through an issue of Past and Present (a journal).  I'm pretty sure this isn't a good thing for my field in the long term.

[theorigamist]

I'm sorry for using that example in a misleading way.  What I meant to show by that quote was that you should compare the board situations in the two possible resulting plays (i.e. whether you Force or not), and not the situation before and after the play.  Oscar happened to talk about that in the card advantage article, and he happened to use the example of FoWing an Ancestral.  

Ric, I agree with your tempo analysis as well.  My point was more about analyzing board situation before and after the play (which can be considered analyzing the tempo during the play).

[defector]

I want to address two separate things here.
First, my contribution to Ted.  The community of writers in Magic is small, I think that may explain this kind of stagnation.  Writing deadlines or writers block are probably culprits here.  There is going to be a distribution of players, many in the middle, a few cutting either edge.  This is inevitable, magic is a bell curve kind of game.  This is probably more evident in the construction end than the theory end.  There are many more players than deck archetypes, this is not an excuse to insult people.  Maybe the Superbowl show inspired him.

My second contribution was to the Force fo Will discussion.  Force of Will and Arcane Denial both net me a card advantage of -1, both are hard counters.  One costs me a life in addition to the card loss, one costs me a blue and any other color.  Why is FOW the best and Denial the worst.  One is timing, I can cast FoW when I can't cast Denial.  Another is card selection versus card advantage.  I can Force your restrcited card, thus stooping an event that will(barring wishes) not re-occur this game.  I can do it by throwing away a blue card that I have a redundant number of.  I pitch my Accumultaed Knowledge to FoW to counter your Balance.  I don't like the term card selection, but can't find a good name for this part of the game.  We both lose on the exchange, but I lose less.  As long as I continue to lose less than you, I will win.  A fundamental in Stax as well, one of my fav decktypes .  Losing less isn't card advantage or tempo, yet I belive it's real and wins games as much as anything else does.
I don't know if this adds anything or simply restates, but that's my two cents
defector