[Article] Tempo IS Interesting

[Andreas]

I just want to add a comment about the example of the Dragon vs. Belcher match at the beginning of the article:

Unless the Dragon player has either his Ancestral Recall or a second Stifle in hand and finds his Ambassador soon he will still loose as the Belcher player simply can belch again in his next upkeep, before his empty library would end the game for him.

Probably I am missing something, though.

[Phyr[NA]]

I just want to add a comment about the example of the Dragon vs. Belcher match at the beginning of the article:

Unless the Dragon player has either his Ancestral Recall or a second Stifle in hand and finds his Ambassador soon he will still loose as the Belcher player simply can belch again in his next upkeep, before his empty library would end the game for him.

Probably I am missing something, though.

Heh. Sure he can Belch in his upkeep, but that won't do him any good, since he doesn't have any cards left in his library and thus doesn't get to deal any damage =P.

[Andreas]

I just want to add a comment about the example of the Dragon vs. Belcher match at the beginning of the article:

Unless the Dragon player has either his Ancestral Recall or a second Stifle in hand and finds his Ambassador soon he will still loose as the Belcher player simply can belch again in his next upkeep, before his empty library would end the game for him.

Probably I am missing something, though.

Heh. Sure he can Belch in his upkeep, but that won't do him any good, since he doesn't have any cards left in his library and thus doesn't get to deal any damage =P.

I knew I was missing something... :lol:

[Alfred]

Gandalf, you are missing my point. I'm not saying that card advantage and tempo are two totally different things that never have any interaction, what I'm saying is that they are two different ways of looking at the same set of circumstances. For example: if you look at wrath of god from a card advatage point, you would exclaim "Wow, wrath of god just killed 4 of my opponent's creatures, that's better than ancestral!", But if you were to look at it from a tempo point of view, you would say something like "Wow, I now have many more turns to live, as my opponent has to recast more creature spells!"

You see? What you said about mind twist gaining tempo, you have only negatively impacted your opponent's tempo when he would have been able to cast the spell he discarded, and was unable to. For example, if you duress your opponent and make him discard an obliterate, and he is only on his second land, have you really gained tempo? The answer is not really. It would only matter when he is able to cast the spell, and whether he would cast the spell or not. Another example is: Say you hymn to tourached him, and made him discard 2 8 cc artifacts that have no ability whatsoever. In this play you would be gaining card advantage, but doing absolutely nothing for tempo, because these spells mean nothing as far as progressing the game state.

I hoped this helped.

[Ric_Flair]

Alfred and Gandalf, I think you are both partially right and partially wrong.  Tempo is an analysis of all of ones resources and a comparison of how efficiently you use your resources (with the constant exchange rate in mind) and how efficiently your opponent uses his or hers.  Card advantage is part of tempo, not the only part, but certainly an easily quantifiable part.

[Alfred]

Ric, I don't think that card advantage is "part" of tempo as you are saying, I think that it's a different set of criteria, or a different way of looking at how cards interact with one another. You can look at something from a card advatage perspective, or you can look at it from a tempo perspective. Saying that the two are fundimentally intertwined makes the whole concept of both needlessly muddled.

[Ric_Flair]

Look at this way there is no necessary relationship between the two, but situations that give rise to tempo can and often do involve card advantage.  Tempo is the efficient use of resources when compared to an opponent.  So the Wrath example is both tempo and card advantage.  Tempo is the genus of "advantage" while card advantage is a species of tempo.  

In other words if you gain card advantage you have more efficiently used one resource than an opponent.  However, card advantage is not the definitve analysis because an opponent may have recouped the inefficient use of cards through a more efficient (than your) use of another resource.  Think of the difference between casting Ancestral turn one and Belching an opponent out on turn one.  The Ancestral player used his mana and cards efficiently, generating card advantage, but the Belcher player used his mana and card even MORE efficiently.  The result might be only one "usable" card in play, the Belcher, but upon activation, your lost in card advantage is made up for in our opponent's lose of life.  You have exchanged your mana and cards for your opponent's life more efficiently than they have.  The end result is that you have more tempo than they do.  Enough, in fact, to win outright.

[PucktheCat]

Tempo is the genus of "advantage" while card advantage is a species of tempo.

See here is why I think people are getting confused. EDT's articles clearly identify tempo as a particular variety of advantage that arises from overcoming one of the two basic limitations the game imposes on a deck, that limitation being mana development. Card advantage is a separate kind of advantage that comes from overcoming the other major limitation the rules place on a player.

Your definition, along with several others in this thread, defines tempo much more broadly. There are two possible explanations for this. I assume the tacit assumption here is that all advantage is somehow derived from optimized use of mana resources, although I don't know that for sure.  The other explanation is simply that people are being intellectually sloppy and using one term to describe two distinguishable concepts.

Regardless of the explanation, why don't we just use the term that most logically designates an advantage in the game and say one player is "winning" and the other is "losing."  This is an especially relevant question considering the fact that you see tempo as only be perceptible through its effects (in other words, through hindsight). If all advantage is tempo and tempo is only recognizable after it has had its effect on the game then what is the distinction between saying "I got a tempo advantage on you this game" and saying "I am winning this game"?

Leo

[Alfred]

Ric, good points. I think we are on the same page here. I just have one nitpick with your argument:

In other words if you gain card advantage you have more efficiently used one resource than an opponent.

Gaining card advantage is such a bad term to use when describing tempo. I like to use the idea of "tempo scores" when looking at tempo, this way you don't always have to look at card advantage when examining tempo. Tempo scores != card advantage. I have given a few examples why, here is another:

You are playing against an aggro deck with UW control. You draw into a wrath of god. Have you gained tempo? The answer is not yet. Wrath of god negatively effects your opponent's tempo, but only when it is cast. The fact that it is in your hand or not means nothing to tempo unless it is actually cast. The big difference between tempo and card advantage lies (I've been saying this all along) in effect on the game. Tempo cares, card advantage does not.

Tempo doesn't really differentiate between an ancestral and a cantrip, because both would be cast by the deck that has them anyway. Tempo does however differetiate between concetrate and ancestral, due to the fact that one is easier to cast, and thus changes the pace of the game, whereas card advantage does not.

If you were playing a creatureless mono-black deck and cast duress on a UW control opponent, only to find that he had only wraths of god in his/her hand, you have really done nothing tempo-wise.

[Alfred]

Puck, I don't think that having a tempo advantage on your opponent means that you are winning the game, it just means that you are closer to achieving your goal or winning than your opponent. There is a difference, which can be highlighted in an example:

Control vs dragon:

Dragon has a worldgorger dragon in his/her graveyard. And thus is much closer to winning the game than his opponent, he also has no cards in his/her hand. He isn't winning because his opponent has counterspells.

Counterspells can do two different thing in tempo, they can nullify the gain in tempo the cast spell would have had, and also would stop the opponent from casting other spells that turn that he might have been able to.

[wuaffiliate]

The sole goal of my article was to try and articulate how tempo plays out.

i think you have an article there that every new player should read. you accomplished your goal.

Puck, I don't think that having a tempo advantage on your opponent means that you are winning the game, it just means that you are closer to achieving your goal or winning than your opponent.

i agree, tempo creates a downward spiral causing you to win the game unless your opponent plays a will. :lol:

[PucktheCat]

Well, I don't think tempo = winning either, but I am not the one trying to generalize the definition of tempo so that it includes all advantage.  Tempo refers to a particular kind of advantage/resource.  That is what makes it a powerful concept.  If we simply define all advantage as tempo then we have accomplished nothing more than playing a feeble semantic trick on ourselves.  We can now say with 100% truth that "tempo is the key to winning" because we have defined tempo as that which makes one win, but we can say nothing more about how to get an advantage when we call it tempo than we could before.

People object to card advantage theory and the more narrow varieties of tempo theory because they find situations where a deck wins "in spite" of lack of tempo or card advantage.  That misses the point entirely.  OF COURSE these theories are simplifications.  That is what makes them useful.  Magic is an enormously complicated game, and calculation or monte carlo testing of all possible play scenarios is far beyond human capacity.  Reductive theories like tempo and card advantage let a player reduce the number of variables to a managable number and dismiss based on reasonable grounds certain plays without actually calculating or testing ever possible iteration.  In other words, theories like this have a useful prescriptive function.

Leo

[bebe]

I do not see as that difficult to define.
The limitation that pertains most to tempo:

Play one land per turn

Therefore tempo is that which furthers
mana development and lowers the casting cost
of individual spells in a deck.

If you could play out your
entire hand in one turn by having the mana
resources to do so - eg., Tendrils or Belcher,
that is a tempo advantage.

If you are playing Workshop and you can empty
your hand turn one, you have gained a tempo advantage.

Type 1 being a very fast format relies on low cc
spells and denial to gain this advantage in tempo.

The loss of tempo can be defined as
when a player takes two turns to accomplish what can
be done in one turn.

Of course Fish exemplifies tempo.
When you combine the fundamental strategy
of using your mana resources to the
maximum effect ( cloud of faeries)
with support cards such as Wasteland,
Strip Mine and Stifle, you will have gained more
tempo than your opponent.

[mrieff]

As always, great article.

In your article, you define tempo quite broadly. The discussion so far seem to have adopted that broad definition, some even to a point where tempo seems to be equal to winning. In my opinion, that would not do justice to our complicated game.

In my view, tempo is always associated with board position. The Dragon/Tog example, where the Dragon player prevent the Tog player casting Intuition for AK's is not tempo advantage. Its card advantage.

Card advantage and tempo are very different concepts. They cannot be a part of a single theory because they do different things. Most of the time, there even a tension becuase of your scarce resources, as you can't realize both at the same time.

My opponent plays a turn 1 Dryad, and I have two options:

1) Play a StP
2) Play a turn 1 Fact or Fiction

If card advantage=tempo, it would be impossible to determine the correct play. Because you're comparing 2 different options falling under a single theoretical concept . You can either gain card advantage (playing the Fact) but you will take damage from the Dryad. If you play the StP, you have dealt with the Dryad but will loose out on extra cards.

If you don't distinguish between card advantage and tempo, it would be impossible to determine the right choice here, as you can't measure whether extra cards or a removed Dryad is better. After all, if tempo=card advantage, then drawing extra cards=removing the Dryad. While in reality, the game will look very different as a result of the choice you've made.
On the other hand, if you regard them as fundamentally different options with specific pro's and con's, you can evaluate them and choose.

Another reason that the concept is not equal to winning the game, is that   tempo is not always important in each game. Some match-ups (Control mirrors) are almost completely decided on card advantage, not tempo. Pursuing tempo instead of card advantage in such a game is a flawed strategic plan.  
 
In summary, equalling tempo with winning the game is a theoretic generalization which will have a severe negative impact on practical strategy. Magic is too subtle for that, and you need to keep in mind the difference (and often natural tension due to scare resouces) between tempo and card advantage. Know when to pursue tempo and when to go for other advantages (such as card advantage).

[Alfred]

In many decks though Mrieff, their tempo is harder to see. It's not always board position, a good example of this is Hulk. A lot of it's tempo is defined by how many cards it has drawn or "seen" in the deck, and to simply say that if it has worse board position than, say O. Stompy, it has less tempo would be wrong. It gains tempo, or increases the pace of it's game by drawing cards.

[Ric_Flair]

In my view, tempo is always associated with board position. The Dragon/Tog example, where the Dragon player prevent the Tog player casting Intuition for AK's is not tempo advantage. Its card advantage.

Board position...another term...that just makes things more complicated.  Plus, I think a lot of what tempo is has to do with changes in what's in your hand and whats in your graveyard.  If that is part of board position then everything is board position.  So determining who has better board position is the same thing as asking who is winning.

Gaining card advantage is such a bad term to use when describing tempo. I like to use the idea of "tempo scores" when looking at tempo, this way you don't always have to look at card advantage when examining tempo.

First, the idea of tempo score is a little silly.  What is a cantrip worth?  What about a cantrip that grants first strike?  What about that cantrip in combat?  In Limited combat?  And so on.  There are too many permutations that are dependent on other permutations to make any consistent scale or scoring system.  The only way to do this is to base on context AFTER the fact.  In which case, tempo scores are not useful predictively, which is what we all care about in the first place (How do I win from here?  Not, how did I win from there?).

Also I think that any analysis of tempo without counting all of your resources--card, life, and mana--is silly.  To take out card advantage and treat as a separate thing is what has stymied people for so long.  This is the kind of thinking that kept Force of Will out of many control decks.  People did not realize that cards, life, and mana are interchangeable and a loss of cards can be made up by a gain in mana (or in Force of Will's case a loss in your opponent's mana).  You MUST look at cards, at life, and mana to see who has tempo.  Otherwise you have some useless metric that covers only 2/3 of a really entwined three part problem.  It would be like asking how many times a player reached third in baseball without looking at how many times that guy reached home.

The basic operation here is this:  the player who has tempo is the player that exchanges his or her resources--cards, life, and mana--most efficiently.  If you can routinely cheat the "exchange" rate more than your opponent you will win.  Cheating this exchange rate more than your opponent results in Steve's dimunition of tactical and strategic options.  

Think of the Belcher and Dragon example and the Stifle.  One mana and one card negated all that mana and all those cards.  Counting cards is important here.  So is counting mana.  Only by including both can you see the whole picture.  Limited is even better at showing these things because it forces you to be aware of resource conversion.  Flexible cards like Crystal Shard are enormously powerful because they let you exchange resources on a regular basis (mana for CITP effects, mana for cards [saving a creature in combat], mana for life [removing a blocker] and so on).  But here the costs are much smaller and the swings less gigantic, allowing us to see it in a sort of exploded view when compared to Vintage's mace to the head type swings of Yawg Will v. Yawg Bargain.  Ugh.

By the way, Steve, I now see the point in distinguishing between tempo and its effect.  I was not thinking the issue through to its truly final conclusion.  Tempo is cheating the exchange rate of resource more and its effect is a dimunition of options for an opponent.  So let me formally rescind some of my criticism.  You have the right conclusion, but you did not show us (or did not have) the premise that got you there.

[defector]

Nice read Steve, the problem of resource allocation in this goofy card game we all love has taken another step forward.  I think that tempo, board, position, card advantage, virtual card advantage must tie into some unified concept of resource allegation and resource exchange.  Force of Will has to be the most important card in type 1 becuase its very use is an illustrative exmple of this unified concept.  Life costs are insignificant, the card you toss may not be worth the card you stop, its blue so there's bound to be enough draw in the deck to get back from the pitch, it operates at turn 0 and controls tempo.  I don't know if that applies too well, just thinking and typing.
defector

[PucktheCat]

Ric, no one is arguing that cards, mana and life aren't all important parts of any complete picture of a game of magic.  The problem is that you seem to assume that tempo must be a complete picture of a game of magic.  In fact tempo has always been a part of how a player should approach the game just as card advantage has been a part.

As far as I can tell what is happening here is a simple error of definition.  Tempo is advantage gained through having more mana or using your mana more efficiently than your opponent.  Here is the entire passage from EDT's article "Tempo and Card Advantage"

If you look at the game mechanics of Magic, there are only two basic limitations:

1) Draw one card per turn
2) Play one land per turn

The two limitations are related to each other in subtle ways.

The first limitation has been discussed at length by the Godfather of Magic theory, Brian Weissman, and it seems that tournament Magic players understand how and why card advantage is good. Even indirect card advantage is fairly easy to spot and understand.

For instance, when you Wrath of God and you kill three creatures with one Wrath of God you are gaining the same amount of card advantage as the card Ancestral Recall does. You can just add it up: Three cards for one.

The second limitation is more difficult to figure out because of the more complicated interactions of mana, time, and casting cost of individual spells in a deck.

Not to belabor the obvious, but the point of the article is that overcoming either of the two basic limitations creates an advantage for the deck that does it.  Overcoming the first limitation is called card advantage and overcoming the second is called tempo.

So when I see a quote like:

You MUST look at cards, at life, and mana to see who has tempo.

I see:

You MUST look at cards, at life, and mana to see who has mana advantage.

What I think you are saying is:

You MUST look at cards, at life, and mana to see who is winning a game.

When you look at it this way a quote like . . .

Also I think that any analysis of tempo without counting all of your resources--card, life, and mana--is silly.

. . . looks pretty absurd.  It seems to be based on the tacit assumption that tempo must be something more than a piece of the puzzle.

It may be that it would be productive to the theoretical understanding of the game to have a term for the total relative advantage state of a game - what you are calling tempo - but using a term that was introduced to the community and developed over time based on a particular meaning that is fairly different than the one you are using seems calculated to create exactly the kind of confusion we are trying to prevent.

Leo

Edit: because my team just smacked up the Cubs and so I feel like addressing the baseball analogy:

It would be like asking how many times a player reached third in baseball without looking at how many times that guy reached home.

Looking at how many time a player has reached third without looking at how much they get home would certainly be silly, but you know what would be sillier?  Using this fact to justify using the 3B column in a players stats to tally runs scored.  Wouldn't it be better to just ignore the 3B column if it doesn't record a stat you consider relevant?

[Smmenen]

[By the way, Steve, I now see the point in distinguishing between tempo and its effect.  I was not thinking the issue through to its truly final conclusion.  Tempo is cheating the exchange rate of resource more and its effect is a dimunition of options for an opponent.  So let me formally rescind some of my criticism.  You have the right conclusion, but you did not show us (or did not have) the premise that got you there.

I didn't think that I had to show that .

You had me worried at first.

One of the most important assertions I make is that Tempo is quite different from its effect.  I think you are making matters more complicated.  

I'm not exaggerating when I say that I have scrutized each word I chose in this article.  

I think tempo is difficult to grasp for one reason: it's effect is different from what it is.

Once that fact occurred to me - then the entire article wrote itself.  I wanted to keep my entire article very practical, and going into theory where it was not practical to a person trying to understand what I'm saying and relevant for T1 play then I didn't want to delve into it.  I was hoping that the broad range of examples I chose would sufficiently bolster the points I was making.

I think you finally understand what I'm saying now though.  Do you think I've managed to cut through some of the previous clutter that is tempo theory?  Obviously, I do - and I think your criticism are addressable by what I've written in the article, which is why I haven't addressed them one at a time in this thread.  In fact, just staying silent seems to be best becuase you find the answers yourself .


While I tried to make a number of subpoints - the overarching importance of the article isn't in its theoretical analysis - but in emphasizing how important tempo is in T1 - and how important I think understanding Fish is to T1.  Fish is utterly underrated at the moment, still.  That will change.

[Lucentspirit]

Good article Steve. That Belcher vs. Tog example sure seems familiar;). I'd say your right on the money about tempo. Fast consistant threats can be a powerfull disrutive tool.

[Ric_Flair]

Tempo is advantage gained through having more mana or using your mana more efficiently than your opponent.

The reason that I think that tempo is better defined as I have defined and as Steve has explained its functions than as others have defined it because merely looking at mana is an incomplete picture.  What point is there in merely looking at how efficiently you use your mana if it does nothing to help you win?

The thing is that for a long time we looked at card advantage as some discrete part of the game, thinking that you have card advantage OR speed.  And then we got obsessed with tempo or time advantage or whatever you wanted to call it, and again thought of it as another sort of discrete thing.  But the innovation in Steve's effects perspective, if the thinking that went into it is what I think it is, is that for the first time we see that these discrete forms of advantage are really pointless to analyze alone.

We started out not knowing anything.  Then Weissman "discovered" card advantage and we went around counting cards and virutal cards.  But then Sligh came along and won DESPITE card disadvantage.  So then we came up with the EDT version of tempo.  This idea of mana efficiency or as another person put it "Time Walks" or portions of a Time Walk.  But again this analysis failed.  OBC showed us this well.  We had cards like Innocent Blood that killed expensive creatures for B that invariably cost more than that. "Tempo advantage" under EDT's scheme.  MBC had Mind Sludge and Mutilate for card advantage.  But the deck was still not as good as U/G Madness because even with EDT's "tempo" and card advantage, U/G had more flexible cards and cards that were multizone useful.  That meant that the time/mana analysis was failing as the card advantage was before.  

So really what we have is the final progression of theory, of how a game is won, and that is what I am talking about and what I think Steve either found (but did not show us) or inadvertently talked about.  True tempo analysis and merely the time/mana analysis of EDT results in Steve's dimunition of options effect that ultimately results in victory.  But figuring out that behind this effect is cheating the "constant" exchange rate more than your opponent is the key to the theory of the game, I believe.  

In the end it is a nomenclature thing.  EDT's time/mana analysis could be tempo.  Steve's dimunition effect could be tempo.  But both ideas are really related to a comparison of cheating the fixed resource exchange rate.  When someone asks if you are winning, intuitively this is the analysis you are doing.

[Gandalf_The_White_1]

I agree with ric's post about how we analyse the game.  As players we ultmately try to find terms and concepts that we can use to help us analyse how the game works.

The problem with this, as I said before, is the sheer number of variables that go into a single game of magic.  One indivudual component is meaningless if not compared to others.  Who cares if keeper had card advantage if FGC goes of; it is still dead.  However, if keeper has card advantage over hulk with only mana sources on the field, keeper is probably winning.  This goes back to the individual game plan of each deck.  Each matchup of deck vs deck has certain important things in it.  That is why keeper will sb out stps vs hulk.

In tempo we are baffled because, as steve said, it's definition and effect are seperate things.  Not only this, however, but it is no something that we can count/measure in any reliable way, other than the sytem of "time walks," which, although simple, is woefully inadequate.

I think that for this very reason a broader definition of tempo is necessary, unless we want to create even more seperate terms, etc, for analying the game.  Personally, I think tempo is up to it.  We can certainly seperate tempo into more indivivual components, ie mana development, life totals, etc, but then things get even more complicated, because different things mater in different matchups.  Does hulks life total really matter that much in the dragon matchup?  No. But against FCG?  Definately.  No one thing can always be a measure of tempo, at least not as how I see tempo.

The efficient exchcange of resources; cards, life, mana, etc, is another good way to look at tempo, however.  It shows how powerful cards like black lotus, ancestral recall, channel, etc, gain tempo by cheating exchange rates.  We have to realize that mana isn't the only resource to consider how effectivly we are using it.

[Smmenen]

I think its actually easy to quantify the tempo elements but pointless to do so.

[Mixing Mike]

Why?

[Jacob Orlove]

Why?

This post is too short.

However, to answer the question, ALL tempo is just fractions of a turn. Early on, it's the one land per turn and one untap per turn that are most relevant, but later, the one card per turn limit tends to dominate. Life is just some number of attack phases, and that's pretty much all the resource limits you have.

Cheating the resource exchange rate is basically equivalent to gaining more untaps/lands/draws/attacks than the equivalent that you spend, or neutralizing more untaps/lands/draws/attacks of your opponent's than you give up to get the effect.

[Bulls on Parade]

Why?

Why is it easy to quantify? Because you're essentially doing no more than counting. Why is it pointless? This isn't poker, and the variables are almost incalculable. For example, were a formula worked out to determine which player is "winning" a game at a given time that weighed cards in hand, mana available and life totals differently (or the same, it actually is irrelevant), it would be instantly meaningless were one of those cards in hand and mana available turned into 3 cards and potentially more mana (Ancestral Recall is resolved). So the tempo measured is such a minute instant of the game that it's irrelevant when looked at this way.

Smmenen, if this isn't at least the gist of what you're saying, feel free to say I'm flat out wrong.

EDIT: Jacob and I were posting at the same time :/

[Smmenen]

At the end of a control mirror, do you try to figure out who had the most card advantage by counting up all the 2for1s and all the extra cards drawn, etc using Oscar's THE F.U.C.C?  Of course not.  It would be ludicrous.  Same with counting tempo.  

They may be informative to someone who cares about theory more than the game.   But they aren't relevant.  

Tempo is easy to quantify.  It is probably less complicated than the comprehensive card advantage systems I've seen used like Oscars too.  I think people have this idea of tempo as this mysterious icon that can't be uncloaked.  Sorry, I've done by best to show that this idea of Tempo is fraudulent.  The important element about tempo is recognizing its importance in t1 and realizing why its important.  If you think about that - if people are aware of how their deck creates tempo and in the process minimizes the opponents tactical and strategic options then it will help you win and understand why you are winning.  That's what's relevant.

[PucktheCat]

We started out not knowing anything. Then Weissman "discovered" card advantage and we went around counting cards and virutal cards. But then Sligh came along and won DESPITE card disadvantage. So then we came up with the EDT version of tempo. This idea of mana efficiency or as another person put it "Time Walks" or portions of a Time Walk. But again this analysis failed. OBC showed us this well. We had cards like Innocent Blood that killed expensive creatures for B that invariably cost more than that. "Tempo advantage" under EDT's scheme. MBC had Mind Sludge and Mutilate for card advantage. But the deck was still not as good as U/G Madness because even with EDT's "tempo" and card advantage, U/G had more flexible cards and cards that were multizone useful. That meant that the time/mana analysis was failing as the card advantage was before.

I understand all this.  I just wonder why we are using the term tempo to refer to our new understanding.  Tempo is a term that was defined and used to refer to a particular kind of resource advantage for years.  If you want to break from EDT's tempo theory as people have broken from card advantage theory wouldn't it be worthwhile to abandon the old terminology so that EVERY time you refer to your new theory you aren't evocing an old theory that you consider wrong.

Seriously, do you remember that thread where you and Steve argued with Matt (and me a bit as well).  I believe Steve said the format was all about tempo and Matt and I objected that card advantage played a part as well.  If you had simply said "when I say tempo I mean tempo and card advantage as well as life total, card quality and card interaction, so when I say tempo is the key to the format you can read that as tempo and card advantage as well as some other factors are the keys to the format" I think there would have been a whole lot less disagreement.

The reason that I think that tempo is better defined as I have defined and as Steve has explained its functions than as others have defined it because merely looking at mana is an incomplete picture. What point is there in merely looking at how efficiently you use your mana if it does nothing to help you win?

analyse, -ze, v.[/v]
Prim. sign. To take to pieces; to separate, distinguish, or ascertain the elements of anything complex, as a material collection, chemical compound, light, sound, a miscellaneous list, account or statement, a sentence, phrase, word, conception, feeling, action, process, etc.

In other words, tempo designates an element of the game of magic that we have separted, distinguished or ascertained.  As such it is naturally an incomplete picture.  In fact, I don't think anyone would ever claim that it was a complete picture unless they were misusing the concepts involved.

[Ric_Flair]

The major reason why I think that tempo is a good term for what I am talking about is twofold.  First, and most appropos to this conversation, is that the effect of tempo DIRECTLY relates to who wins, unlike stupid counts of card advantage, as Steve showed in his article.  Thus pulling out and getting the big picture and calling THAT tempo is accurate and useful.  This sort of thing happens all the time in all sorts of theory.  Is there really that much in common with the logic of Aristotle and the logic of Wittgenstein?  They both used the same term and just like here, what Aristotle call logic ended up being a small slice of the overall theory of logic as a whole.  The same term is used because the concept is more broadly defined than it was originally thought.  The same applies here.  Second, I think that of what EDT talked about applies to what I have identified as tempo.  The analysis can be extended and still consistent with what he said in the original article.  

Seriously, do you remember that thread where you and Steve argued with Matt (and me a bit as well).

I remember that thread, and if I am not mistaken the general point was the pointlessness of theoretical debates.  I still agree with that basic point, but I think that what Steve has done is a HELPFUL use of theory.

tempo designates an element of the game of magic that we have separted, distinguished or ascertained. As such it is naturally an incomplete picture.

The problem is that the separating of tempo from other elements of the game is not only unnatural, it is counterproductive.  Unlike counting cards for card advantage, which is somewhat useful when evaluating cards when they are first released, or in comparing draw engines, counting tempo separately is BAD.  Looking at the effect of tempo alone made it difficult to see the power of cards like Cloud of Fairies.  We all knew that it added mana somehow, giving us tempo, but it wasn't until this knowledge of tempo was combined with other cards that cheated the exchange rate (such as Null Rod) that Cloud of Fairies became recognized as the very good card that it is.  There are tons of other examples of cards ignored because of our previously myopic view of tempo: Root Maze, Standstill, Elvish Spirit Guide, and others.

[PucktheCat]

The problem is that the separating of tempo from other elements of the game is not only unnatural, it is counterproductive. Unlike counting cards for card advantage, which is somewhat useful when evaluating cards when they are first released, or in comparing draw engines, counting tempo separately is BAD. Looking at the effect of tempo alone made it difficult to see the power of cards like Cloud of Fairies. We all knew that it added mana somehow, giving us tempo, but it wasn't until this knowledge of tempo was combined with other cards that cheated the exchange rate (such as Null Rod) that Cloud of Fairies became recognized as the very good card that it is. There are tons of other examples of cards ignored because of our previously myopic view of tempo: Root Maze, Standstill, Elvish Spirit Guide, and others.

Actually, the most rudimentary tempo analysis would have shown all of these cards to be extremely tempo efficient (except Standstill, which is a tempo loss card by EDT's definition).  Root Maze is a bit of a special case because it is dependent on specific card interactions to be good tempo, but the others are very obviously tempo cards in the EDT sense of the term.  The problem people had with these cards (and still sometimes have) is that they seemed to cost too much on the card side of the resource equation for their benefit on the tempo side.  In other words, people were not paying enough attention to a card that broke one resource curve because they thought they understood "the big picture."

Leo

Edit:  As a brief follow up, I think we are not too far apart conceptually.  I too think about a deck largely in terms of efficient resource exchange and usage, but the resources I think of a deck using and aquiring are tempo, card advantage and life and the overall picture is just "efficiency."