[Article] Incremental Thinking, and Saying No to Cute Combos

[rakso]

http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandnews.php?Article=7395

I remember one funny scene from David Eddings, which pooh-poohed a fantasy knight plunging his sword to the hilt to kill an opponent. The quip went that since the first twelve inches of the blade kills as effectively as the last twelve, why make it hard for you to pull out the sword for the next foe?

The most pervasive old school example of a "cool combo" that's really a lousy increment is what I've called the "Megrim problem" (see "Deconstructing Darksteel, Part II") for years.

Imagine your archetypical casual mono-Black discard. Duress is amazing. Hymn to Tourach is great. Hypnotic Specter is the bomb. But having Megrim on the board, in reality, doesn't make them all that much better, since the key here is the first twelve inches of disruption. It's better to just get a good creature finisher instead of spending an extra card to bury your discard spells to the hilt. Besides, you'll play out your discard before anything else, anyway, and will get to play Megrim when the opponent has an empty hand.

[AIcOPed]

This is (as always) a well thought out article. I was introduced to SCG for your articles, and have read them all at least twice. I agree w/ almost all of that article, but I am patial to CoW since I have been proxying it for about two months w/ much success. granted I have not played in any tounements, but I have found it makes my deck better verses GAT and Slaver(these are the only decks I have played it against{other than the uber secret suiblack deck that is about to take the world by storm}).

I thought about velkaden orrey for a while, and came to the same conclusions that it by itself does not make your deck that much better. I can not think of a single card I would take out of my deck for this.

[skecreatoR]

Weren't you guys the same?

[baumann]

shhh Jacob, teasing raksos make baby jesus cry.

How come Matt didn't close this yet?

I've been out of the country.[/color]

[Kowal]

No dude, that was a different guy.  According to the IPs, this dude is legitimately from Spain.

[theorigamist]

Again, the first twelve inches will do the job

Interesting.  I've never said that about Magic before.  To each his own.

The article was really nothing new.  It would have been much better without a reference to another article every five words.  Those were pretty distracting.  It also would have been better with more content.

[AIcOPed]

I am rakso's spanish ally. lol.

Seriously, I tell people what I believe, and couldn't care less about the result. If it is good, I will tell them, and I will also tell them if it is bad.

Separate note: green belongs in keeper.

[Necropotenza]

I find your recent articles to have lack of content. I hope they are at least interesting to newbies so they can understand the basics of T1 competitive play.

@AIcOPed: I think what the T1 Spanish community needs is reading more TMD threads...

[eddavatar]

It's getting better these days, but I've to agree with origamist that it's too much distraction to look at the URLs to "counting shadow price" 3000 times =/

not a bad read rakso, keep up.

[Liam]

This is something we all need reminding of from time to time.  No serious type one player can honestly say they haven't recently spent the wee hours of the morning tweaking a new and exceedingly bad decklist for at least ten minutes before scrapping it.

[defector]

My latest, this is too neat oh wait it sucks was rector to fetch parrell thoughts, then jar the seven and combo out with tendrils
so bad!
oh well, one can always rationalize it as the the ugly underbelly of innovation and originality
defector

[AIcOPed]

HI all,

I currently read each article on SCG, Wizards, non premium brainburst, and I look through forums at themanadrain. They all have their advantages and disadvantages. I do enjoy tmd for its content, but  the elitist attitude here is imo silly. Is oscar tan perfect or the best player in the world? of course not. But he does evaluate cards objectively, and fairly accurtately. Is this only a benifit to newbies? I do not know. It benifits me. I am a newbie of sorts, so maybe it does. The bottom line imo is if you or anyone thinks his stuff  sucks then write approximately one article a week for 3 years on your favorite deck and see how it does.

[paradigm]

The bottom line imo is if you or anyone thinks his stuff sucks then write approximately one article a week for 3 years on your favorite deck and see how it does.

The main argument I have with such logic is that someone need not be a featured-writer to criticize writing. One doesn't challenge Roger Ebert to make a better film than those he criticizes, to draw along similar lines of thinking.

It's true that Tan's recent articles have been below par. But they are improving, as others have noted.

But he does evaluate cards objectively, and fairly accurtately.Is this only a benifit to newbies?

The idea here is that the analysis are not as in-depth as most players would like to improve their play.

[AIcOPed]

Very valid points. I am not saying that one can not criticize someone unless they do it themselves. I am saying it just does not change much, unless they do it for themselves. For example, if I were to talk all the time about the horrible state the environment is in because of litter, and then never pick any up when I saw it, that would not get much done. If Tan's articles are not in depth enough then pick a card or several that you would like to see analyzed and put it in a forum. The analysis of serum visions was as complete as iit could be, and it helped. Saying CoW can be good but maybe not (or words to those effect which are going around the net) is obviously less good.

[Liam]

My latest, this is too neat oh wait it sucks was rector to fetch parrell thoughts, then jar the seven and combo out with tendrils
so bad!
oh well, one can always rationalize it as the the ugly underbelly of innovation and originality
defector

not to hijack but I recently set out to break power artifact hehe

[Jacob Orlove]

shhh Jacob, teasing raksos make baby jesus cry.

How come Matt didn't close this yet?

That's not me. I guess if you haven't seen my avatar in a while, they could look similar, but mine isn't a magic card.

Now stop going off topic, people.