Tempo and magic theory

[Jacob Orlove]

There have been a couple recent articles on TMD concerning Tempo.
Hanni's article is here: Tempo: What it is and how it applies to Legacy
My article is here: What Tempo Isn't (note that this article is both incomplete and unedited--it should look different soon).

Anyway, I created this thread so that people could actually discuss these articles, and the subject of Tempo in general, since the article feedback threads are supposed to be direct comments on the article (ongoing discussion from those threads will be merged in here.

[Mr. Nightmare]

For my own theory, I've long believed that Tempo and Card Advantage are the same thing. A Land Destruction deck is all about card advantage, and so is a deck full of Lightning Bolts. Fact or Fiction is a card-advantage spell of course; but so is Sinkhole and so is Dark Ritual.

I disagree with this statement pretty much entirely.  Trading 1 card of yours for 1 card of your opponent's is never card advantage.  FoF is, yes, because it's one card for 1 amazing/2 Great/3 good/4 mediocre cards.  Stone rain is a tempo card because it puts you ahead of your opponent in a scarce resource (land drops).  It's never positive card advantage.

[Machinus]

Card Advantage is easy to quantify and Tempo isn't, and that makes it hard to separate them.

[Matt]

Stone Rain is card advantage if you cut off a color. It makes them have dead draws.

[The Atog Lord]

Card Advantage is the quantity of useful cards available to a player.

Stone Rain is card advantage if I cut off one of your lands and thereby render another card in your hand worthless. I lose one card in Stone Rain. You lose the Swamp that I hit. You also lose the ability to cast that Lord of the Pit in your hand. So, while the swamp is actually gone, the card in hand has been rendered useless.

How is Jackal Pup a card advantage spell? The point of a quick Burn deck is to overwhelm the opponent before his defenses are online. If I can burn you out on the third turn of the game, then the Morphling in your hand and the Shivan Dragon there might as well be useless. If you have spells that cost five mana and don't live long enough to cast them, its as though they were never there because they never transition into useful cards. Thus, I create card advantage by playing my Jackal Pup.

Dark Ritual works in the exact same way.

If this stuff is interesting, I wouldn't mind writing an article about it at some point in the near future.0

[Godder]

Isn't that the concept often called "Virtual Card Advantage" ?

[The Atog Lord]

One is the other -- it's just language clouding thought.

Whether the Lord of the Pit is in my hand or in my graveyard is neither here nor there if he's uncastable. He's null and useless in either place. Likewise, if my Jackal Pup wins the game before your Force of Nature resolves, it doesn't really matter if he is sitting uncast in your hand or you Mulliganed and never drew him in the first place.

This is why not playing creatures is such a powerful strategy in a format like Legacy -- every Terror you draw counts nothing towards your card advantage.

Moreover, this is exactly why Brainstorm is insanely good. Very often, Brainstorm it isn't mere card selection. If I replace a null card with a useful one, then I've gained card advantage. Brainstorm is no different from Ancestral Recall if I shuffle away two dead cards.

[Machinus]

A better reason why Brainstorm is so good is that it allows you to defer making important decisions until you have collected lots of information. For example, when you cast it on turn five, you have a very good understanding of the status of the game and can reprioritize the value of the cards in your deck. Brainstorm is used this way in the early game to fix mana and curve out, but afterwards it really does net card advantage - the often used expression for this is 'shuffling away dead cards.' But this would just be considered virtual card advantage.

Consider this - "Tempo Advantage" and "Card Advantage" can both lead to winning the game, but there are clearly restrictions on this. Burn runs out of cards, and control decks go to zero life. They are merely exploitations of different boundaries of the game.

[The Atog Lord]

Defining card advantage as a numerical superiority in cards makes little sense. If we instead use my definition as the number of "useful" cards, then it becomes a more potent metric. Let's consider Jacob's examples. Land Tax is not widely played because while putting three cards into your hand, those cards tend to be null cards. Imagine if instead it gave you three random cards off the top, or three instants. Then it would be very powerful. In fact, the decks that have historically used Land Tax to good effect were decks that could somehow translate the null cards ganted by Land Tax into useful cards -- namely by Scroll Rack. Squee too is an excellent example of a null card. Without something like Bazaar to leverage his return, he's not good. This is because he isn't useful.

To dissect Machinus's Burn vs Keeper example, the match is all about card advantage. The Burn player wants to end the game quickly because he knows that should the game drag on, Keeper's superior but more costly spells will insure its victory. The Burn player attempts to render the expensive cards held by the Keeper player null by not letting the game progress to the point where they come online. On the other hand, the Keeper player is aware that his cards aren't in general as useful right away as those of the Burn player. If he does before resolving his good but expensive spells, then those good spells do nothing -- they are null.

This, incidently, is the sort of card advantage a deck like Long might have over Control Slaver. If I use Dark Ritual to cast a spell before you have a second blue source on the table, then I've made your Mana Drain null.

[Jacob Orlove]

I think we agree on what's good, except you keep calling it card advantage.

[The Atog Lord]

Heh, true. Stone Raining your opponent out of resolving his spells is Good no matter what we call it.

[Hanni]

Brainstorm is used this way in the early game to fix mana and curve out, but afterwards it really does net card advantage - the often used expression for this is 'shuffling away dead cards.' But this would just be considered virtual card advantage.

I always thought 'virtual card advantage' was card advantage that perpetuates itself over time... like Umezawa's Jitte or Engineered Plague. Shuffling away dead cards with Brainstorm sounds to me like regular card advantage, which is different from the early game mana fix which would simply be card quality.

[Scott_Limoges]

It seems that tempo is the progression of a game-plan relative to the progression of another game-plan.  Some strategies have natural tempo over others.  Some cards have tempo over strategies.  Tempo in combo can be defined this way and tempo in control can be defined this way.

Every step in a game-plan creates tempo, like playing a land or countering an opponents spell, because it adds towards the progression of winning the game.  Tempo can be offensive or defensive.  As Rich said, Dark Ritual first turn has tempo over Mana Drain in the same way that Force of Will has tempo over Stax.  Land Tax is tempo in a Seismic Assault deck.  Each card in each deck adds a relative amount of tempo towards the decks objective.  When we test different cards, we are trying to find the card which adds the most tempo relative to our game-plan.  We factor in opponent game-plans when choosing cards to gain a comparative tempo advantage vs. an opponents strategy.  Every MTG game is won by creating more tempo than your opponent.

[silvernail]

I disagree that playing a Jackal Pup is card advantage. I would call that tempo or time advantage, because what you are taking away from your opponent is the time he needs to cast said cards, as opposed to the cards themselves. Its arguably a pseudo or virtual card advantage, but I do not consider burn or pure aggro based decks to be based on card advantage. They function on time advantage, by limiting the amount of time your opponent has to make a relevant play.

[Godder]

"Virtual card advantage" refers to the concept that a card that can't be played is worthless as a card, so a card that nullifies another card without actually countering or destroying it still fees like card advantage. A relevant Vintage example is Chalice@0, which renders opposing Mox cards useless if they're stranded in hand. However, it's virtual, not real card advantage, because if Chalice is destroyed, the Moxen can be played and used as normal. Cards like Null Rod, Moat, Humility and Meddling Mage are cards with similar effects, where they deal with cards without actually destroying or countering them.

However, in modern Magic, especially Eternal formats, destroying permanents or countering spells doesn't always permanently deal with anything (especially with Yawgmoth's Will and Recoup running around), so virtual card advantage and real card advantage suddenly look much more alike, which supports what AtogLord* said earlier.

For the Tempo as Card Advantage theory, turn 1 Tinker->Colossus is a powerful start in Vintage precisely because it demands an immediate answer. In a sense, that opening can negate 50-odd cards in an opponent's deck, simply because they don't deal with the threat.

*Once again, AtogLord is right .

[Pave]

I understand Jacob to be saying this.  There are turn-limited resources - these can all be counted - and then there is card quality - this cannot be counted.  Tempo plays produce gains that can be counted, whereas card quality plays (Serum Visions) merely produce the conditions for future tempo plays (that is, future gains than can be counted).  When card quality plays (cantrips) produce tempo (an increase in future turn-limited resources) they can only be said to do it indirectly, by means of the actual tempo cards that they locate (lands, or creatures, or whatever).  In this respect, Jacob is right to emphasise that cantrips 'lose less tempo' than lesser plays.  Hanni is right to say that cantrips might produce tempo only if he emphasises that they do it 'indirectly', say.  So it strikes me.

[Mr. Nightmare]

so virtual card advantage and real card advantage suddenly look much more alike, which supports what AtogLord* said earlier.
*Once again, AtogLord is right .

Except Rich isn't saying Virtual and Actual card advantage are the same.  He's saying Tempo and card advatage are the same, which is incorrect in many cases.

Daze is a difinitive tempo card.  It allows you to counter an opponent's spell for less mana than he invests into the spell, almost always.  It allows you to drop a cheap threat on the table and maintain your counterspell abilities.  Yet this card is not in any way card advantage, real or virtual.  It goes 1-for-1, arguably less since it costs you a land drop.  If you can describe to me how this creates card advatage, I'm anxious to learn.

Yes, there are tempo cards that can create a virtual card advantage.  I disagree this makes the two concepts the same thing.

[The Atog Lord]

Except Rich isn't saying Virtual and Actual card advantage are the same.

I'm actually saying exactly that. Virtual Card Advantage and Standard Card Advantage are the same thing. Trying to split hairs and discern one from the other won't help you play better. That Trinisphere that's shutting you down is very real card advantage for the opponent.

He's saying Tempo and card advatage are the same

I'm saying this too. And this one is a bit more subtle. However, let's consider not just tempo in a narrow context of my paying (x) and your paying (x-1). Rather, consider why tempo is good in the first place. If we both have 4 lands out, and you pay two mana to Edict my Hill Giant, that's tempo. You've spent two mana to undo what it took me four mana to do. However, this only matters when you've found something useful to do with the leftover two mana. If you just spend two mana killing my four-mana spell, and the remaining mana goes to waste, you might as well have spent four mana killing my hill giant.

So, when is it good to have spent two mana to kill my Hill Giant? When you do something useful with the other two mana. If you play a Black Knight after the Edict, then you've acheived "tempo." Then you have used your four mana to both undo my four mana, and apply some pressure on me. This is using tempo well. Again, if you simply Daze my Shivan Dragon, and yet don't use your mana for anything else, that's not tempo. Tempo comes about when and only when you make use of that mana that you've saved.

And now you're starting to see how tempo is just a means of achieving card advantage. If you play an Edict and a Black Knight, for the same mana, you've played two spells to my one. For all intents and purposes, you're ahead of me in card advantage. You've managed to make two of your cards thusfar "useful" while I've done that only for one. We talk a lot about tempo, but consider those times when its actually useful -- in those cases, it is used to make the opponent's cards "null" or it is used to make your own cards non-null more quickly.

[roberts91rom]

Tempo is resolving something that causes your opponent's game plan to slow down more than it affects you. Card advantage is when a resolved spell creates more cards than it cost, whether through destroying/discarding multiple cards, or drawing multiple cards.

Rich is saying Tempo and card advatage are the same, which is incorrect in many cases.

Tempo and card advantage are very closely entwined, and more often than not it appears that they are the same thing. For example it can be said that any draw spell creates both tempo and card advantage. However, it can be argued that the way in which those spells are used defines what it truly creates. For example, casting Ancestral Recall, but having to use a FoW to protect it shows that tempo is more relavent than card advantage. Your opponent has been slowed down because you have cost him protection, while potentially gaining protection. In this scenario Ancestral was tempo, more than a card advantage spell. This is because the end result is you have taken 1-2 cards from your opponent's hand, without losing any from your own. You have also gained information and your Recall cost 1 mana where as any counterspell printed either cost a land drop(tempo), +1card(tempo) or 2 mana(+1psuedo mana). What if instead your opponent decided to let it resolve unopposed? Then it is card advantage, and creates little tempo because it does not directly swing turns or turn fractions in your favour.

The point I just made can, of course, be disputed. It can be said that the Recall sped up your game plan by 3 turns, because it would have taken that long to draw those cards. However, assume the top 4 cards are 1 shuffle effect and 3 sub-optimal draws. All of the sudden Recall just lost you tempo in that waiting to draw the shuffle effect would have been the 3 turn tempo that was described earlier. The Recall itself didn't create tempo, the cards that you drew off it did. The point to be made is that Concentrate would have drawn those same three cards. The way in which you use a card defines whether it is card advantage or tempo. Concentrate costs 4 times as much and is a sorcery, but in a vacuum that doesn't matter. Through interactions with other cards it is clear that Ancestral costing 1/4 as much and being an instant allows for the flexibility that makes it a slight tempo card even in the worst situations.

Jackal Pup is not card advantage in the least. 1 Card for 1 permanent is just about the going rate for 0 CA. Assuming that your opponent plays nothing before he dies it is argued that the Pup was card advantage because your opponent played nothing and as such you made his hand useless and as such it was card advantage. However, it is clear that the Pup created such a tempo boost that it won the game. Your opponent could not deal with the 10-turn() clock and as such he created a 10 turn tempo boost. This goes back to my original point of slowing your opponent's game plan enough to win. Your opponent was probably sitting across from you struggling to find an answer. It doesn't matter that his draw step was the only way that he could do it, as the intent was clear that he wanted to get rid of it. In this way the Pup was pure tempo.

Making cards in your opponent's hand dead is, once again, tempo. It is not card advantage as he still has the physical card in his hand. That Stone Rain cut off one of his colours and your opponent has to search for the answer to that. The answer is a land that also produces that colour. You have created tempo because he can't cast his spells, and must dig for an answer to that Stone Rain. Once he gets that land, there is no more "card advantage". This leads to the second difference between tempo and card advantage.

Tempo is temporary, card advantage is permanent. After that Ancestral Recall resolves, those three cards go into your hand. There is no way he can go back and change this. Sure he can play Mind Twist for 9999999, but the point is those cards still went into your hand. Same goes for any destruction or discard effect that resolves. The card will go to the graveyard or be RFG. Nothing will change that fact. Sure he can play Crucible or Will, but the card still went to the graveyard. Tempo on the other hand, can be undone. Tinker->DSC doesn't create tempo if he resolves CoV that was in his hand, or if he wins the game next turn. If you Stone rain one of his colours and he is holding a hand full of lands, I'm sorry but that didn't accomplish much.

I have to go now but I will be back to continue debating what tempo and card advantage are either later, or when somebody argues with me.

Final note: Tempo is resolving something that causes your opponent's game plan to slow down more than it affects you. Card advantage is when a resolved spell creates more cards than it cost, whether through destroying/discarding multiple cards, or drawing multiple cards.

Tempo can be undone, Card Advantage can't.

Edit: I agree that not using your mana to its fullest extent is loss of tempo, but I do not agree that using it to the fullest is gaining tempo. Assuming both players always use their mana to the fullest then every player always gains tempo, and that seems contradictory because neither player has done anything to change this. Assuming 20 Plains 40 "Savannah Lions".dec then both players are using all their mana. It is not until somebody doesn't play a Lion that the other player gains a tempo boost. As such, using all your mana can't be defined as gaining tempo, only not using it is a loss of tempo.

The same is applied to your example. Diabolic Edict for Hill Giant is not tempo, because you have answered his threat, and as such have undone his tempo. Had you done nothing on your turn your opponent would have gained tempo off the Hill Giant, but no card advantage. Should all your threats have costed 5 mana, the Hill Giant didn't stop you from playing them. He created no card advantage because it was 1 spell for 1 permanent. Assuming however, that you also played a black knight along with the edict. There is no card advantage. You didn't gain more than what you gave. The tempo boost was very minor, because what if next turn your opponent drops 3 creatures? He is ahead in card advantage simply because he cast spells? By that logic, once again, we are assuming that casting spells is card advantage, when I just can't see this happening.

The easiest way to disprove this logic is with Ichorid. They cast what, 2 spells a game? Rarely use any mana that is in the oppening hand? By your logic they have no tempo or card advantage because that 1 swamp in the oppening 7 is going to waste. This is all while they are using dredge for card advantage(their graveyard is their hand so they "draw" 10+ cards a turn), and Dread Return for tempo. Dread return is hardly card advantage. It costs 3 creatures in play+1 card in their "hand" for 1 creature. -3CA, but it creates a tempo boost in that the Ghoul needs to be dealt with this turn, or next turn if the Dragon Breath doesn't come up.

Second last point of this edit is about how you view making cards usefull as card advantage. By that logic Grim Long has more card advantage than any other deck in the format. Grim Long rarely wins with spare cards in hand, because that is what the deck is designed to do. Yet, Gifts variants always seem to win with a few spare cards in their hand. Does that mean that Gifts decks are bad at creating card advantage? Does that mean that Ancestral Recall is jank because you probably don't need those 3 extra cards to win, and it makes card disadvantage?

The final point is the comment about Trinisphere. Trinisphere is not card advantage. Trinisphere merely demands an answer. I will assume that you mean something along the lines of shop->trini go because it is one of the most powerfull openings for the card. You have not made their cards in hand disappear. A good player will build up a pile of basic lands and then bounce that Trinisphere. Suddenly those Moxen fly back into their hand? No, it was just that the tempo threat that Trinisphere created demanded an answer. This goes back to my point that Tempo is created by forcing your opponent to find an answer, and card advantage is created by physically gaining more cards in usefull zones than it cost you to put it there.

[Mr. Nightmare]

Robert's post above this one is a very clear picture of the differences between card advantage and tempo, specifically this quote:

Tempo is resolving something that causes your opponent's game plan to slow down more than it affects you. Card advantage is when a resolved spell creates more cards than it cost, whether through destroying/discarding multiple cards, or drawing multiple cards.

This quote only addresses "real" card advantage, rather than "virtual" card advantage, but the theory is sound.  Rich's example of the Hill Giant and Edict/Black Knight is again, not an example of tempo or card advantage. 

A better tempo advantage is this:

You are at 3 life, your opponent is at 4.  On your turn, you cast Durkwood Boars, tapping out for the turn.  On your opponent's turn, your opponent plays Hill Giant, tapping out for the turn.  You respond by removing a blue card from the game, paying 1 life, and casting Force of Will (-1 card advantage).  This is a tempo boost (your opponent invested all his resources for the turn, while you invested yours as well, and still were able to counter his play), but not card advantage, either real or virtual.

A better (real) card advantage example is this:

Your opponent is ahead of you in creatures, with them controlling Durkwood Boars and Hill Giant, and you controlling zero creatures.  You cast Flametongue Kavu, with the CIP ability targetting the Boars.  Now, even if your opponent uses removal on the FTK, it's still a 2-for-1 card advantage for you.  If he attacks, or you attack and he blocks with the Giant, you have gone 2-for-1 with his creatures, again, creating card advantage.

And for Virtual card advantage:

You play Meddling Mage, naming Dark Ritual.  Your opponent has 2 dark Rituals in hand.

This is virtual card advantage, as well as a potential boost in tempo.  The difference lies in the next step.  If your opponent combos out without the need of Dark Ritual, then the tempo boost was in your opponent's favor, since you used up 2 mana and potentially a turn to make an irrelevant play.  If they follow up the Mage with a Massacre, then the virtual card advantage is negated by a 1-for-1 trade, as the cards that were dead in hand are no longer dead.

All of these are similar (most similar being tempo and Virtual Card advantage, but are most definately not the same idea.

[roberts91rom]

I wanted to touch upon virtual card advantage but i was unable to earlier due to timing issues. VCA is just a way of descibing one of the 3 forms of tempo.

1. Quick boost in resources. (Drain mana, DRit, YawgWill, etc.)
2. Threat application. (Tinker->DSC, FoW on Hill Giant, Bombs in general, etc.)
3. Virtual Card Advantage. (Meddling Mage, Trinisphere, Tangle Wire, etc.)

VCA is a method of gaining that tempo boost in that your opponent has to deal with it, or win the game. VCA can be undone, ignored or played around, which is the main difference to actual card advantage. Take Meddling Mage for example. He can be killed/bounced (undone), you can name the wrong thing (ignored) or they can use alternate ways to win (played around). Once actual card advantage happens, it is done and there is now way to get around the fact that it happened.

[Machinus]

Perhaps the attempt to formalize these ideas is just based on incorrect and/or incomplete premises.

Magic theorists pretend their ideas are fundamental aspects of the game, when they really aren't. The most fundamental pieces of understanding magic are magic cards themselves. Magic "theories" are just proposed ways of trying to categorize magic cards and how they function with and against each other. You may think that theory has something to do with magic, but really you're just analyzing the development practices of Wizards. Different magic cards can change the rules of magic entirely.

Consider another hypothesis: magic cards can work towards generating "card advantage," "tempo," neither, or both. Certain combinations of cards can reach these goals where neither one would individually, etc. These ideas just don't function very well in the abstract.

The only theories of magic that have a hope of making sense are those that are consistent with the entire library of R&D's work.

[roberts91rom]

What cards disagree with my theory of tempo and card advantage? I would rather hear why my theory is incorrect as opposed to somebody comming into this thread and stating that no theories work and everything is BS. As such there are a few questions I would like answered.

Perhaps the attempt to formalize these ideas is just based on incorrect and/or incomplete premises.

Magic theorists pretend their ideas are fundamental aspects of the game, when they really aren't. The most fundamental pieces of understanding magic are magic cards themselves. Magic "theories" are just proposed ways of trying to categorize magic cards and how they function with and against each other. You may think that theory has something to do with magic, but really you're just analyzing the development practices of Wizards. Different magic cards can change the rules of magic entirely.

Consider another hypothesis: magic cards can work towards generating "card advantage," "tempo," neither, or both. Certain combinations of cards can reach these goals where neither one would individually, etc. These ideas just don't function very well in the abstract.

The only theories of magic that have a hope of making sense are those that are consistent with the entire library of R&D's work.

How are my premises incomplete/incorrect?
When did anyone here say that you have to use theories to understand MTG?
The third bold is a contradiction of itself, because how does analyzing the development practices of Wizards when designing MAGIC CARDS have nothing to do with MAGIC CARDS?
I fail to see what your third point has to do with disproving theorization in Magic. I clearly state in my first post an example that Ancestral Recall and Concentrate are the same card in a vacuum, but in practice they function to create tempo, CA, neither or both depending on the situation. How is stating a fact a bad thing?
I repeat my earlier question, when I ask you to name a card that does not function with my theory on tempo and card advantage.

[Jacob Orlove]

Magic theorists pretend their ideas are fundamental aspects of the game, when they really aren't. The most fundamental pieces of understanding magic are magic cards themselves

That's just not true. The "most fundamental pieces" of the game can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/comprules/MagicCompRules070201.txt

Individual cards can make particular strategies especially potent or unplayable, and they can even "break" the rules of the game itself, but you only have to look at the various block environments to see that the fundamentals remain the same even with completely different sets of cards.

[OfficeShredder]

Ok, a bit of a good idea actually.  Assuming the idea is valid, check if it holds up against corner cases:

If I cast Sharazhard (I probably didn't spell that correctly...) while losing in the main game, when we go on to the second game, assuming I have better cards left in my deck, did I create card advantage/tempo for that sub-game?

If I cast traumatize, do I get a tempo boost because my opponent has to deal with the fact that he's going to be decked in 20 turns?  If no, why not, if yes, I must be honest it seems like the definition of tempo is too vague and conformist to be useful (ex., casting ancestral recall on yourself is a tempo boost for your opponent, because you're closer to getting decked.  What does that mean?)

Late game, I topdeck a useless land.  Is that card advantage or virtual card advantage for my opponent?  I would wager it's simply virtual card advantage, so if it is, what if I already have enough mana to literally play everything in my deck at the same time, even after my opponent casts every relevant spell that would make those spells cost more/destroy lands?  Would it become real card advantage then?

[Machinus]

Magic theorists pretend their ideas are fundamental aspects of the game, when they really aren't. The most fundamental pieces of understanding magic are magic cards themselves

That's just not true. The "most fundamental pieces" of the game can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/comprules/MagicCompRules070201.txt

Individual cards can make particular strategies especially potent or unplayable, and they can even "break" the rules of the game itself, but you only have to look at the various block environments to see that the fundamentals remain the same even with completely different sets of cards.

I would account for the rules by saying that over time, development has incorporated their characteristics into cards themselves. The most arbitrary and original sections of the rules have created a framework in which the game has evolved. The tournament rules must be included with the knowledge of how to use magic cards, so at a basic level I think it's true that they are somewhat disjoint. But when you get to actual competitive decks, the rules have been rewritten or ignored in order to support powerful strategies. The complete rules of the game have served as guidelines and precedents for development, and in the modern era of card design, it is cards that define the game, not rules. They are designed to be as self-contained as possible, with reminder text and obvious patterns. They are created to be intuitive, cooperative, and require as little as possible knowledge of the rules. Even a huge part of the rulebook is just a list of developed mechanics, which are clearly derived from development.

Consider that the rules of the game provide no information about what strategies or ideas would create successful decks. There is no way to determine solely from those constraints what magic would be like, much less what ideas to follow when creating or playing decks whose components do not exist. Theoretically, magic could exist in an infinite number of different ways, and it's only development that breaks that symmetry. It's development that provides abilities and standards to cards, and its the cards that have led to ideas about which ones are superior and why. Magic theory is completely relative to the card pool; development has chosen to preserve the identity and flavor of magic throughout many card pools and therefore we have the illusion of fundamental magic theory.

[roberts91rom]

I am unclear about what you are asking with Shahrazad. After the subgame all cards in that subgame are shuffled back into their owner's libraries, so I don't know how you get better cards in your library. It is impossible to create card advantage with a card that only does damage to a player. I don't know how casting Shahrazad gives you tempo in a sub-game. The only possible way I can see your point is if you somehow remove a few bad cards from the game. In that case you have thinned your deck and increased the odds of drawing better cards. That is not tempo, nor is it card advantage. It is the same as casting Astral Slide, or using a fetch land. In a vacuum the card does nothing. In combination with other spells and the draw step, they can increase the tempo you would gain from drawing cards in that you would draw more useful cards. This goes back to my example of Ancestral Recall hitting shuffle effect and 2 bad cards. It creates little tempo, but it could have made more should you have waited to shuffle the library.

Yes casting Traumatize does in fact give you tempo. This fits perfectly with my defenition of tempo in that your opponent has to deal with the fact that you removed X cards in their library. As I stated earlier anything that causes tempo has to be answered whether it is negating the effect or just winning. Most players won't care that you removed those cards and will proceed to just win the game. The problem lies in the fact that the tempo boost Traumatize provides is in an area of Magic that most Vintage players don't care about. Of course you could remove their win conditions, and as such the tempo gained from Traumatize was a huge burst, rather than the statistically small one it normally would. Same goes with your example of Ancestral Recall. If your opponent has built a deck to completely mill you by turn 3, suddenly Recall is a bad card because it gives your opponent a tempo boost in the area that matters to him. Tempo can come from any part of a Magic game, the only problem is whether the tempo is relavent or not. In the case of milling in the format of Vintage, no it is most likely not relavent tempo.

As to the late game topdeck of a land that is VCA because you either ignore the fact that you didn't need it, and play it anyway, undo it through cards like Brainstorm or TfK, or just win beside the fact that you drew the land. 1 card for 1 card is never actual card advantage, and I don't know why playing a land becomes card advantage.

I would be glad to show how other cards and scenarios fit into my defenition of card advantage, so keep them comming.

Edit: Machinus

All you have done in this thread is come in saying that what we are doing is wrong and a bad idea and has nothing to do with Magic. My response to your post may not have been clear enough, so I will attempt to make it as clear as possible.

Please tell me of a time, a deck, a metagame, a card, a scenario in which my theory of Tempo and Card advantage is incorrect. Until then please stay out of this thread.

In addition to this if the rules of Storm were changed to: "Pull down your pants and start dancing around." you can't tell me that there isn't a clear sign that they are defining the metagame. A real example is perfect in the errata of Time Vault. They changed the official text of Time Vault into something more contradictory to the rules than before, but this time the combo didn't work. I think that is a clear indication that they didn't want the combo to be a part of the metagame.

[OfficeShredder]

For the Shahrazad, I was asking about how the different decks being used (e.g., my opponent played all his bombs in the main game, so has none left for the sub-game) affected real, virtual card advantage and tempo for the sub-game (does someone get an advantage in the subgame, and what type).

For the land, it can't be turned into a card again.  The point of the example is that no matter what sequence of possible events takes place within the game, I already have so much mana, and so few spells left in the deck, that no matter what happens, I cannot take advantage of the extra land.  If it becomes impossible to use the card, under any circumstances left in the game, does the virtual card advantage become real (because as far as the game is concerned, it does become real)?

[roberts91rom]

It is the same as my description of fetchlands and Astral Slide, except the opposite. Alone, the fact that those bombs are there do nothing. I mean if on the first turn of the subgame somebody gets Possessed Portal into play with a way to keep it in play indefinetely then the fact that they are not there doesn't affect anything. However, the fact that they are not there, combined with things such as the draw step and card draw creates a loss in tempo for the player without bombs whenever they draw a card. Once again this goes back to the Ancestral Recall that hits complete jank.

If it is absolutely impossible without even the slightest shred of hope to be useable and there is no way to make it useable and it might as well just be RFGed now then yes it is real card advantage for your opponent because that card does not exist for all intents and purposes. This is because your opponent has given 0 cards to destroy 1 of yours and in that context it is card advantage. However, if there is any way for the mana off that land to be useful then it was merely a tempo boost for your opponent.

[Illissius]

Machinus: I'm intrigued by your denial of theory, but am not so sure. Certain basic facts, such as: cards cost mana; cards which cost more mana are more powerful; you have a limited amount of cards and mana; you spend cards and mana in order to gain an advantage over your opponent, and eventually win the game; seem pretty invariant to me. Some of them are fundamental to the game, and it's hard to imagine a card pool for which the rest aren't true -- otherwise, it doesn't make sense, doesn't work, and/or isn't Magic. For example, if, as a rule, more expensive cards are not more powerful than cheaper ones, what right do they have to exist? Can you give any theoretical counterexamples? It seems to me that these alone would be sufficient to derive a theory of Magic from. (Which, in fact, I think I have -- expect yet another of these articles in the coming days).