Magic 2010 Rules Changes

[Spiderman]

But 99.9% is way, way more than that. Remember, that's 999 out of 1,000

I think he was merely trying to make the point that it almost never happens in a game. The 0.1% is just the wiggle room. But whether you've played 9 games out of 10, 99 games out of 100, 49 games out of 50, the main point is that there may be one game where it happens but the others not.

This has nothing to do with what I'm talking about though. Even if people never, ever use decks that try to make the opponent take mana burn, the rule itself could still affect people.

??? It does have something to do with what you're talking about. Firstly, it pretty much shows that unless you're actively building a deck to mana burn someone, it's not going to happen otherwise. Secondly, since this is a casual forum, you'd expect someone at some point to play a game that mana burns someone, yet no one has. So even though the option is out there, people at this forum haven't found that aspect of the game interesting enough to use.

So yes, it's going to affect some people, but I'm thinking a *very* small amount of people. Too small of an amount to really matter, in the long run.

 

[Mooseman]

Actually, I think mana burn effect a lotof players... mostly in deck building when they want to use any thing that produces or makes other thing produce more than one mana. They have to plan there deck to not get to much of a disadvantage with the different number of mana produced. I t would be silly to have a lot of 1 or 3 or 5 casting cost cards when they are producing an even number of mana.

If this was covered, forgive me.. I don't get to read this stuff at work all day anymore....

 

[Oversoul]

I think he was merely trying to make the point that it almost never happens in a game. The 0.1% is just the wiggle room. But whether you've played 9 games out of 10, 99 games out of 100, 49 games out of 50, the main point is that there may be one game where it happens but the others not.

I'm not necessarily opposed to hyperbole, but this particular example irked me and I think it was because it came across as an honest estimate or even an authoritative one, rather than an exaggeration at all. I mean, from the word choice and the general tone of the article and all that. I could be wrong. I could be seeing a message that isn't there. If you think it was meant to be an obvious exaggeration, I'd like to point out post #7 in this thread, where you were pretty clear about taking made-up statistic at face-value.

??? It does have something to do with what you're talking about. Firstly, it pretty much shows that unless you're actively building a deck to mana burn someone, it's not going to happen otherwise.

Let's try one more time: people do not need to actively try to force opponents into mana burn ever, not even once, for the rule itself to affect gameplay and deckbuilding. Once again, I'll turn to Power Surge as an example to illustrate this point because I think Power Surge makes it pretty clear. Here are two scenarios...

Under the old system
I have Power Surge out. You have tapped out all six of your lands to play spells on your turn. At the end of my turn, I tap all five of my lands to use Candelabra of Tawnos on five of your six lands. Your turn rolls around and you take five damage from Power Surge.

Under the new system
I have Power Surge out. You have tapped out all six of your lands to play spells on your turn. At the end of my turn, I tap all five of my lands to use Candelabra of Tawnos on five of your six lands. You tap those five lands for mana. Your turn rolls around and you take zero damage from Power Surge.

In case you didn't notice, mana burn doesn't happen in either scenario. Not at all. Zero life lost due to mana burn on both sides. But in the first scenario, you took five damage and the in the second you took zero damage. Power Surge is one of the original Magic cards and has always worked this way since 1993 (although it didn't always have Candelabra of Tawnos to work with). The card wasn't built to exploit mana burn or have anything to do with mana burn really. The connection is indirect. The card was designed with mana burn as a property of the game in place. So were about 10,000 other cards.

As far as cards that will be neutered like Power Surge, I'm guessing it will be just a handful. But ANY card, I repeat, ANY card that adds variable amounts of mana to your mana pool will be affected by this. I'm talking about things like Mana Drain, Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Academy, and lesser known cards like Songs of the Damned. You don't want these cards to mana burn you and usually they won't. But you're also building your deck in such a way that if you're using such cards, you won't often run into significant life loss from mana burn. Now you don't have to worry about it. Besides cards like these, entire strategies can change. Combo decks that needed to manage mana production before now have absolutely no reason not to overproduce on mana, since any extra they can't get rid of does nothing harmful anymore. I recall games playing storm combo where I had to consider whether to use my LED or Cabal Ritual or whatever before doing something that might draw into a kill because if I didn't get what I needed, the mana would burn me and I'd have even less life to work with for Yawgmoth's Bargain or just surviving the next attack.

 

[Spiderman]

It would be silly to have a lot of 1 or 3 or 5 casting cost cards when they are producing an even number of mana.

It's a minor consideration, but usually you have mana sinks like Misha's Factory (to use an old school example) or a mana artifact like Fellwar Stone or a Diamond to provide the odd mana.

I could be wrong. I could be seeing a message that isn't there. If you think it was meant to be an obvious exaggeration, I'd like to point out post #7 in this thread, where you were pretty clear about taking made-up statistic at face-value.

<shrug> I took it as an exaggeration, at least to the extent that you're using to mean 999 out of 1000 games. I think he pretty much meant there's 1 game you might play that you use or encounter it and the rest you don't, but since there's obviously different amount of percentages for that 1 game out of x that a particular person has played in his life, rather than list all of the possibilities, he just went with the 99.9%.

And actually, I was just going with his example, but I was afraid that if *I* said my one game type thing, you would have said "But that isn't .1%, that's <whatever percent of how many games I've played>". But I guess it was moot after all...

Using your example, yes, that's possible. But I will say overall that Power Surge and Candelabra are such old cards, you're not going to face that kind of combo anymore. I can say when I *did* play back in 1995-ish, I never encountered anyone playing with Power Surge even by itself, let alone with the Candelabra. And again, seeing as how most of the players here have kinda stopped playing and are most familiar with "old" cards, that combo didn't come up with any Constructed decks here.

Again, I'm not saying the removal won't have an effect on the game. I'm saying that it will have such a *minor* effect that it will hardly be noticeable. Yes, some cards get neutered. But it's such a handful and fill just a niche that they probably won't be missed either. It was the same when the combat rule was changed so that tapped blockers dealt dmg and thus cards that tapped blockers become useless.

 

[EricBess]

Power Surge is sort of one of those cards that makes the point I was trying to get across. Honestly, mana burn probably shouldn't have ever been part of the game. However, since it was part of the game, they designed cards with it in mind. As Oversoul points out, Power Surge is one of those cards. In fact, it's probably the perfect example because the card is absolutely meaningless without mana burn.

So, WotC decided to bite the bullet and remove a rule that shouldn't have been part of the game in the first place, but because it was, they end up with a bit of egg on their face. Personally, it bothers me when people change the rules of games when they put out a "new edition" because it causes confusion between old and new players. Magic, however, changes all the time because of the new cards anyway, so "fixing" the game by removing a rule that shouldn't have existed in the first place seems more reasonable than it would with other games.

Effectively, they are saying that cards like "Power Surge" now do nothing, but that those cards shouldn't have been created in the first place, so they don't really care.

 

[Spiderman]

I'm looking at Power Surge because I was going to say something about WOTC re-wording the cards so that they can somehow retain their original intent (kinda like how they did with Winter Orb), but it still looks viable - it's making players pay by having untapped lands at the beginning of their turn. Which sounds a lot like anti-blue, but obviously has applications to all colors. Is that causing players to mana burn so they don't take dmg? Maybe... but there's also cards and decks that take advantage of having your lands tapped (can't remember the set where a bunch of them came out). So I actually don't think this is a good example... the mana accelerators like Mana Flare/Heartbeat of Spring are better examples.

 

[Oversoul]

It's a minor consideration, but usually you have mana sinks like Misha's Factory (to use an old school example) or a mana artifact like Fellwar Stone or a Diamond to provide the odd mana.

The fact that the term "mana sink" is in the popular Magic jargon indicates that mana burn mattered, as the only reason to have a mana sink at all was to avoid mana burn. That a card was a mana sink was certainly not reason enough by itself to use it, but it was often a considerable bonus to an already useful card. Anyway, Mooseman's point was that fixing things with an artifact to reach exactly the right amount of mana or dumping extra into a sink will, in the future, be unnecessary, which changes deckbuilding at least a little. Again, actual mana burn need not happen for things to change because the potential for it is no longer there.

That also reminds me that in Legacy and, to a lesser extent, Vintage, Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors were borderline inclusions for some decks. The mana boost was much appreciated, but the prospect of being forced to take a mana burn and two damage from the Tomb in order to play a spell could be daunting. Sometimes Magus of the Moon was used alongside such cards as tech to shut the problem down after the boost had been taken advantage of. Both of those cards, especially Tomb, definitely got at least a bit better.

<shrug> I took it as an exaggeration, at least to the extent that you're using to mean 999 out of 1000 games.

That's not merely my usage. That's what 99.9% actually means. Mathematics and statistics were around long before I came along.

I think he pretty much meant there's 1 game you might play that you use or encounter it and the rest you don't, but since there's obviously different amount of percentages for that 1 game out of x that a particular person has played in his life, rather than list all of the possibilities, he just went with the 99.9%.

Things don't work like that. There isn't a demon watching over Magic games and making sure each player has a quota of one mana burn game per lifetime. And from everything I've seen, it happens more often than that.

Using your example, yes, that's possible. But I will say overall that Power Surge and Candelabra are such old cards, you're not going to face that kind of combo anymore. I can say when I *did* play back in 1995-ish, I never encountered anyone playing with Power Surge even by itself, let alone with the Candelabra.

It was just an example and I said as much when I presented it. I highly doubt that it's the most important example. But I used it because I already remembered it from earlier, I've used the combo myself, and it's a particularly extreme case that demonstrates how mana burn was strongly integrated into the game and the design of cards for the past 16 years.

And again, seeing as how most of the players here have kinda stopped playing and are most familiar with "old" cards, that combo didn't come up with any Constructed decks here.

So? Not many games are played here and I might be the only person who was a fan of the CandelabraSurge combo. I happened not to use it here and no one else used it here either. Do you have any idea how many other cards I've used in the past and happen not to have ever used here? Me neither, but it's a lot.

Again, I'm not saying the removal won't have an effect on the game. I'm saying that it will have such a *minor* effect that it will hardly be noticeable. Yes, some cards get neutered. But it's such a handful and fill just a niche that they probably won't be missed either. It was the same when the combat rule was changed so that tapped blockers dealt dmg and thus cards that tapped blockers become useless.

As far as cards that will be neutered like Power Surge, I'm guessing it will be just a handful. But ANY card, I repeat, ANY card that adds variable amounts of mana to your mana pool will be affected by this. I'm talking about things like Mana Drain, Gaea's Cradle, Tolarian Academy, and lesser known cards like Songs of the Damned. You don't want these cards to mana burn you and usually they won't. But you're also building your deck in such a way that if you're using such cards, you won't often run into significant life loss from mana burn. Now you don't have to worry about it. Besides cards like these, entire strategies can change. Combo decks that needed to manage mana production before now have absolutely no reason not to overproduce on mana, since any extra they can't get rid of does nothing harmful anymore. I recall games playing storm combo where I had to consider whether to use my LED or Cabal Ritual or whatever before doing something that might draw into a kill because if I didn't get what I needed, the mana would burn me and I'd have even less life to work with for Yawgmoth's Bargain or just surviving the next attack.

Power Surge is sort of one of those cards that makes the point I was trying to get across. Honestly, mana burn probably shouldn't have ever been part of the game. However, since it was part of the game, they designed cards with it in mind. As Oversoul points out, Power Surge is one of those cards. In fact, it's probably the perfect example because the card is absolutely meaningless without mana burn.

I'm curious why you think it shouldn't have been part of the game in the first place. It seems to make sense as far as flavor goes, and it forces players to manage resources better. How would the game have been improved by never including it in the first place?

'm looking at Power Surge because I was going to say something about WOTC re-wording the cards so that they can somehow retain their original intent (kinda like how they did with Winter Orb), but it still looks viable - it's making players pay by having untapped lands at the beginning of their turn. Which sounds a lot like anti-blue, but obviously has applications to all colors. Is that causing players to mana burn so they don't take dmg? Maybe... but there's also cards and decks that take advantage of having your lands tapped (can't remember the set where a bunch of them came out). So I actually don't think this is a good example... the mana accelerators like Mana Flare/Heartbeat of Spring are better examples.

Huh? How is it viable? Refer to my two scenarios from post #23. Yes, Prophecy does have cards like Chimeric Idol and such, but so what?

 

[EricBess]

I'm looking at Power Surge because I was going to say something about WOTC re-wording the cards so that they can somehow retain their original intent (kinda like how they did with Winter Orb), but it still looks viable - it's making players pay by having untapped lands at the beginning of their turn.

Yes, but there is nothing in the game anymore that keeps me from simply tapping out at the end of my opponent's turn, so the only reason you would EVER take damage from Power Surge now is if you wanted to. If it dealt the damage based on how many land you have untapped at the beginning of your opponent's turn, that would be a different story.

I'm curious why you think it shouldn't have been part of the game in the first place. It seems to make sense as far as flavor goes, and it forces players to manage resources better. How would the game have been improved by never including it in the first place?

See my post #20. In general, the more straight-forward a game is, the better. You say that mana burn makes sense in terms of flavor, but that's because you are used to mana burn. Managing your resources already has inherent advantages. In general, using all of your resources every turn gives you an advantage over an opponent who doesn't. Yes, that is a vast oversimplification, but a generally sound concept, so the addition of mana burn as a game rule is just one more rule that people need to remember that doesn't really add significantly to the game experience.

I'm not saying it doesn't add at all, the fact that it has been a game rule for so long and cards have been designed with it in mind clearly means that something is now lost by removing it. However, if mana burn had not been a game rule in the first place, Magic would have been just as successful and marginally less complicated.

BTW - I'm not saying they are doing the right thing by removing it. I'm just saying that Magic is already a complicated game and mana burn is a rule that was never needed. I have built decks where I needed to make sure I included mana sinks, so I know what you are referring to, but how is flavor served by funnelling all of this extra "energy" into a monster that can (but won't need to) regenerate 50 times this turn?

 

[Oversoul]

See my post #20. In general, the more straight-forward a game is, the better.

I suppose so, but that could be a tricky "in general." Anything that adds detail could be considered to make things less straightforward. Wouldn't chess be more straightforward without castling? Wouldn't Magic be more straightforward without so many cards? I might agree in the case of mana burn, though. I'm not sure. Some cards would never have been designed they way they were, certainly. Maybe it would have been an improvement. But I don't think we know for sure.

You say that mana burn makes sense in terms of flavor, but that's because you are used to mana burn.

Well, that's not all. In other games with "magic" in them, there are often similar concepts. I actually almost accidentally called mana burn "mana drain" earlier in this thread because I've been playing Puzzle Quest and they have something that's more like the opposite (mana drain happens when you can't make any moves in Puzzle Quest and it means that you lose all of your mana). Games and other things that incorporate magical energy of some sort often have a way for unused, improperly used, or unusable magic to harm the caster in some way. So I guess I mean that there's some precedent for it. But if it hadn't been there to start with, yeah, no one would miss it. Same thing with summoning sickness.

Managing your resources already has inherent advantages. In general, using all of your resources every turn gives you an advantage over an opponent who doesn't. Yes, that is a vast oversimplification, but a generally sound concept, so the addition of mana burn as a game rule is just one more rule that people need to remember that doesn't really add significantly to the game experience.

Well, how resources are managed is determined in part by the rules of the game. Anyone can manage all of his resources in Blackjack or Aggravation. It's a lot harder to do so in Bridge or Go. But in Magic, how big a part of resource management does optimizing mana use play? I guess it depends on the deck. CCG's are, by their nature, variable about such things. I must say that I've seen, elsewhere on the web, the sentiment that the elimination of mana burn is bad because it dumbs the game down. I don't think that such an effect is important enough in that way for it to matter. If resource management had been the best argument against eliminating mana burn, then it eliminating it would be very sensible. That's not what I was getting at in my previous post though. I merely meant that resource management was part of the reason to have mana burn or something like it in the first place. In particular, this is because high-mana producing cards are so good already that players suffer little for using them even when they can't use all of the mana, but mana burn helps make that a bit less crazy.

 

[Spiderman]

Well, today's my last day for two weeks so I probably won't get to see your replies, so I might or might not dredge this up when I come back

The fact that the term "mana sink" is in the popular Magic jargon indicates that mana burn mattered, as the only reason to have a mana sink at all was to avoid mana burn.

I don't know if it showed that mana burn "mattered", but it evolved because mana burn merely existed. So once mana burn goes away, does "mana sink" also go away? And is it really important that if it goes away?

Anyway, Mooseman's point was that fixing things with an artifact to reach exactly the right amount of mana or dumping extra into a sink will, in the future, be unnecessary, which changes deckbuilding at least a little.

Well, I've always thought mana acceleration, in terms of creatures and artifacts, was important anyway, ever since Zak Dolan, the first World Champion, wrote what he thought about deck-building. Hopefully I'm not the only one who thinks this way So I don't know if deckbuilding will necessarily exclude such "fixers" merely because mana burn doesn't exist.

That also reminds me that in Legacy and, to a lesser extent, Vintage, Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors were borderline inclusions for some decks...

True, it will be interesting to see if it has any impact on such Vintage decks which include these cards or think about including them.

That's not merely my usage. That's what 99.9% actually means. Mathematics and statistics were around long before I came along

Aaand... still doesn't mean it can't be used as an exaggeration.

Things don't work like that. There isn't a demon watching over Magic games and making sure each player has a quota of one mana burn game per lifetime. And from everything I've seen, it happens more often than that.

And I haven't. So where does that leave us?

So? Not many games are played here and I might be the only person who was a fan of the CandelabraSurge combo. I happened not to use it here and no one else used it here either. Do you have any idea how many other cards I've used in the past and happen not to have ever used here? Me neither, but it's a lot.

And the rest of the quotes... I repeat, I agree with the article's assumption that it's going to have a miniscule effect on the game. I can't tell if you don't, but since your reply quote to my quote mentioned "handful", I think you're agreeing. So I can't really tell if you're arguing against the bad decision to remove mana burn because of the handful of cards it affects, or removing mana burn is going to be bad for Magic overall, or what.

Huh? How is it viable?

Yes, but there is nothing in the game anymore that keeps me from simply tapping out at the end of my opponent's turn

Like the rest of my quote said, you build a deck that takes advantage of your opponents lands being tapped. Power Surge is a niche card anyway, so it just fits into the deck. I *know* there are cards that say "If your opponent's lands are all tapped..." So you play Power Surge, and they become damned if they do, damned if they don't (hopefully).

Off Thread Topic:

because I've been playing Puzzle Quest...

Great game! I've been playing it myself, using a Knight... I haven't tried the other classes yet. I beat it once by just running through it and am replaying it trying to forge everything with the runes now.

 

[Oversoul]

I don't know if it showed that mana burn "mattered", but it evolved because mana burn merely existed. So once mana burn goes away, does "mana sink" also go away? And is it really important that if it goes away?

But something that exists but doesn't affect the game wouldn't normally get informal terms for things related to it. Calling something a "mana sink" only makes sense if mana is something you might need to get rid of. And that's because of mana burn.

Well, I've always thought mana acceleration, in terms of creatures and artifacts, was important anyway, ever since Zak Dolan, the first World Champion, wrote what he thought about deck-building. Hopefully I'm not the only one who thinks this way So I don't know if deckbuilding will necessarily exclude such "fixers" merely because mana burn doesn't exist.

Acceleration is completely different from this, although the same cards can sometimes perform both roles. The first example that comes to mind is the MUD/Urzatron deck that I use in, yet again, the Microprose game. Moxes can help with acceleration early game, but later on, when all of my Urza lands produce multiple mana and so do my Workshops, having a Mox to get the exact right amount of mana to cast something saves me mana burn even if I could actually still have played the spell with my lands.

True, it will be interesting to see if it has any impact on such Vintage decks which include these cards or think about including them.

The main thing I keep thinking about with Vintage is Mana Drain. I'm sure more than that will be affected in some way, but Mana Drain was already really strong and now they're making it even better.

Aaand... still doesn't mean it can't be used as an exaggeration.

But I never said it couldn't be an exaggeration. I said that I interpreted it (from the tone and context) not to be one. By this, what I'm talking about is that the pretty much the whole article seems dumbed down as though the readers must all be children. It's also a pretty serious piece. We don't see sudden interjections of "this change is a billion times better than the old rule" or anything remotely like that. I see absolutely no indicators that peg the figure as hyperbole. I pointed out that you your own post earlier in this thread seemed to take the figure seriously, which I would think indicates that you didn't consider it to be hyperbole. But you said that you did, and here's the weird part, "at least to the extent" that I was using it. I felt compelled to point out that "99.9% = 999/1,000" isn't my usage, it's an objective fact. And this quip is your response? I mean, it's also certainly true. That 99.9% = 999/1,000 has no bearing on whether either figure could used as an exaggeration. But what does it have to do with what I said?

Whether something can be an exaggeration is not the same as whether it is an exaggeration. And in this case, is it? Do you really think so? Are there any cues you're seeing that I'm not? Would an exaggeration even be warranted on a matter such as this? It seems inappropriate.

And I haven't. So where does that leave us?

With you only playing with people who use basic lands for mana? Okay, seriously, I have no idea.

And the rest of the quotes... I repeat, I agree with the article's assumption that it's going to have a miniscule effect on the game. I can't tell if you don't, but since your reply quote to my quote mentioned "handful", I think you're agreeing. So I can't really tell if you're arguing against the bad decision to remove mana burn because of the handful of cards it affects, or removing mana burn is going to be bad for Magic overall, or what.

I'm against it because it makes some niche or underused cards worse (even if it's just a handful) and makes some overpowered cards better (a lot of them, actually). It widens a power-level gap between cards and that seems to be the most prominent effect it has on the game as a whole. I can't think of any positive things it does that come close to outweighing this. Sure, it eliminates a rule, but so would eliminating any other rule.

Like the rest of my quote said, you build a deck that takes advantage of your opponents lands being tapped. Power Surge is a niche card anyway, so it just fits into the deck. I *know* there are cards that say "If your opponent's lands are all tapped..." So you play Power Surge, and they become damned if they do, damned if they don't (hopefully).

I'm not sure which cards you're talking about. You can't take advantage of your opponent's lands "being tapped" as a condition because they're only going to be tapped at the end of your turn. Your opponent has no reason not to save tapping out for the last minute. The only thing I can think of would be something that punishes the opponent for tapping the lands at all and there's not much of that. So yes, Power Surge/Manabarbs is a combo. Cute, but if you're using both cards in the same deck, you'll probably lose pretty hard.

Great game! I've been playing it myself, using a Knight... I haven't tried the other classes yet. I beat it once by just running through it and am replaying it trying to forge everything with the runes now.

Nice. I've never done the knight. My strongest character is a druid and I started a warrior, which is what I've been playing recently. I'm using the DS version so the warrior's deathbringer spell kills just about anything once I get the mana for it.

 

[Nightstalkers]

F***ing magic rules lawyers keywording the f*** outta the game so that newbies can feel content in their word games.

Mana Burn doesn't happen anymore? Okay... I see how that helps the new players... I usually overlook it till they get to more professional levels... but... The hell... Where's Richard Garfunkle when you need him?

 

[EricBess]

Oversoul - I understand your point about the flavor, but I don't think it is a necessary component. In Puzzle Quest, you don't take damage when you mana drain, for example, but yeah, if you draw in too much energy, it can damage you directly, so the point is granted.

As for summoning sickness, note that my point is that anytime you add a rule to the game (and the number of cards isn't "a rule", I'm talking about something you need to remember), you need to weigh how much that rule adds to the game vs the difficulty in remembering the rule. Yes, summoning sickness is something that needs to be remembered, but there are some significant game implications without it. I've played many games both with and without a summoning sickness concept and they are very different sorts of games.

BTW - have any of you played "Puzzle Quest Galactrix"? It's a really cool new version of Puzzle Quest using hexagonal "pieces".

 

[Spiderman]

But I never said it couldn't be an exaggeration.

Perhaps "exaggeration" is the incorrect term. But c'mon, if the author was canvassing other players for their percentage of how many times they encountered mana burn, he can't write the article for each reader specifically. Like he gets one player (you) who may have say he's played 4 out of every 10 games where mana burn was actually used, 5 players who have NEVER encountered mana burn (playing 5, 24, 44, 109, and 500+ games), a player who's encountered it once in 97 games, and a player who's encountered it in the only game he's played in. How does the author come up with a single percentage to convey all of that? Yeah, he can do the average and get *very* technical, 'cause if I read a percentage of something like 97.85%, I'd pretty much group that with 98-99%, which overall says to me it happens very little. Or he could go with the 99.99%, which again, says it happens very little. And of course, with the first percentage, you'd probably *still* say, "well, no one has played 9785 games out of 10,000".

Nice. I've never done the knight. My strongest character is a druid and I started a warrior, which is what I've been playing recently. I'm using the DS version so the warrior's deathbringer spell kills just about anything once I get the mana for it.

Well, I tried the Knight first because it seemed the easiest, based on the PQ forum, for allocating points and stuff. If I ever finish forging everything and finish the game, I'm not sure what I'll try next. Yeah, and the PC version toned down some of those effects

BTW - have any of you played "Puzzle Quest Galactrix"? It's a really cool new version of Puzzle Quest using hexagonal "pieces".

Haven't tried it but read about it - I'm a regular at the I2 forums where the games are developed. Seems some people like it, most hate it, due to the repetitive gate hacking and whatnot. There's a guy (BlackVegetable) working on a mod though to "correct" some of that stuff though. I probably won't get it though, I like the fantasy setting more than SF.

 

[Spiderman]

Mark Rosewater talking about Mana Burn Removal

 

[Oversoul]

As for summoning sickness, note that my point is that anytime you add a rule to the game (and the number of cards isn't "a rule", I'm talking about something you need to remember), you need to weigh how much that rule adds to the game vs the difficulty in remembering the rule. Yes, summoning sickness is something that needs to be remembered, but there are some significant game implications without it. I've played many games both with and without a summoning sickness concept and they are very different sorts of games.

There are some significant game implications without mana burn too. Of course, there are more for summoning sickness. But I think it's just a matter of degree (and not as much as one might first guess). The principle is the same.

Perhaps "exaggeration" is the incorrect term. But c'mon, if the author was canvassing other players for their percentage of how many times they encountered mana burn, he can't write the article for each reader specifically. Like he gets one player (you) who may have say he's played 4 out of every 10 games where mana burn was actually used, 5 players who have NEVER encountered mana burn (playing 5, 24, 44, 109, and 500+ games), a player who's encountered it once in 97 games, and a player who's encountered it in the only game he's played in. How does the author come up with a single percentage to convey all of that? Yeah, he can do the average and get *very* technical, 'cause if I read a percentage of something like 97.85%, I'd pretty much group that with 98-99%, which overall says to me it happens very little. Or he could go with the 99.99%, which again, says it happens very little. And of course, with the first percentage, you'd probably *still* say, "well, no one has played 9785 games out of 10,000".

I highly doubt he examined any numbers at all. I am confident that the 99.9% figure was conjured from thin air. And of course the point wasn't that it was accurate (and my initial argument may have attacked this, but it was missing the point then). And maybe it's not so much "exaggeration" either, although that's closer. What it is doing is dismissing mana burn as irrelevant.

I read some of the Rosewater article, but couldn't finish the thing because it was too repetitive and I have things to do. It looked like the whole thing could be summed up with: "People are afraid of change, but change is necessary for this game to survive. Change is good. Eliminating mana burn is change. That means eliminating mana burn must be good."

There was one part where it looked like he was about to say actually relevant things, and that kept me reading it for a bit more. He made three points and conveniently bolded them...

Eliminating mana burn frees up design space: This is actually a good argument, or it could be. The only example he gave was Mindslaver, which was still made even with mana burn and needed one extra sentence in reminder text, which isn't a big deal. There's the potential for a case against mana burn here, but a card that was printed when mana burn was part of the game and that functionally won't change one bit with mana burn leaving just doesn't make that case. What we should see here are examples of cards that R&D wanted to make, but that wouldn't work unless mana burn was eliminated.

Mana burn caused a problem for beginners: I'm going to just come out and say it, because it's the only response I can think of. Spiderman or someone will probably chide me for this one because, after all, Mark Rosewater would know better than I would, but too bad, I'm saying it anyway. No, it didn't. Mana burn is not a problem for beginners. I have taught people to play Magic and I have played in games with people who were just starting out. Mana burn is exceedingly simple and anyone with half a brain can grasp it. New players are apt to forget about mana burn or the potential for it because it doesn't come up much in the decks people use to learn how to play and new players forget any number of things inevitably. But mana burn is not a special case. New players also sometimes forget about combat tricks or arranging the order of upkeep abilities or decking out or whatever. Even advanced players forget things sometimes.

I've never once seen newer players who had trouble grasping mana burn. While my experience certainly isn't the gold standard for anything, I must conclude that if people don't get mana burn (as opposed to simply forgetting it the way they forget anything else in the game) despite proper instruction, they're probably a few cards short of a full deck, and I don't mean a deck of Magic cards.

Mana burn wasn't carrying its weight: His justification for this is that while testing for a new set, he had the design team play their games without mana burn in order to see what would happen, and the results were clear that mana burn wasn't doing anything. Now, the point itself is again one that might have potential and this one seems to be the primary argument against mana burn. But I've already argued against this point and don't want to repeat myself. What I do want to point out are the problems with his justification. Firstly, mana burn is a background effect that becomes particularly pronounced with certain types of cards. One result of this is that the change will almost certainly affect Vintage deckbuilding at least somewhat (because of all the cards in that format that are more likely to be affected by the change). But it's also quite possible that whatever set he's talking about lacked such cards. If I decided that having sorceries and instants as separate things wasn't necessary for the game and that all sorceries should simply be instants, I wouldn't tell my design team to play some games with Legions and pretend that all sorceries are instants to gauge the effect of the change.

Secondly, if we take this point at face value, it contradicts the other two points. Mana burn can't be something that doesn't matter at all AND confuses new players and limits design space. It either matters or it doesn't.

 

[Spiderman]

<shrug> He's the man who saved mana burn in 6th Edition and helped shepherd its demise for 10th.

Basically, keeping it around for the convenience of a handful of cards doesn't justify its continuance. Like most rule changes, I bet this will be forgotten until another rules change brings it back

 

[Oversoul]

Basically, keeping it around for the convenience of a handful of cards doesn't justify its continuance.

But it isn't just a handful. And what's this about justifying continuance? Did every rule in the game go through some sort of test to see if they merited keeping? I would think the onus for justification would be with the party wanting to eliminate the rule.

 

[DarthFerret]

Actually, the only "real" argument that he made that I can even see relevent is the one towards the end of the article (I am stuck in the office all day with nothing to do, can ya tell?). He said that due to keeping the rules from growing out of control (ed. more than they already do), they needed to take a few things out. According to his mindset, the mana-burn rule would have the "least" impact on the whole spectrum of the game.

Whether you agree or not, that was a pretty good argument. I still think mana burn is a core mechanic that needed to stay. I used a few decks with that as my main kill...well..that or power surge. (Why do you think Firebreathing was mainly a red mechanic if not for a mana sink to power surge?...oh, wait...fire is red?). I also disagreed with being able to regenerate a creature that is not dead (6th ed. change). I also disagreed with not being able to shut of an artifact by tapping it (thus the end of my Winter's Orb, Phyrexian Gremlins deck). I usually do not have any problem with things evolving or changing, but some of these really do eliminate a lot of my quirky decks.

That being said, it will take a while for any of these that I may end up liking, to show themselves that way. For instance, the whole "the person that goes first in a dual cannot draw a card" ruling in 6th ed. I hated that at the time, but now I have gotten so used to it, I do not even think about it. Same thing with the way Mulligans changed in 6th ed. Now it does not bother me. And yes, I still only go 1/3 mana.....

I come at this from a different perspective as most as I started my playing at Beta. I saw the game when there were ONLY 300 cards. I saw the Arabian Nights expansion hit and disappear so fast. I have seen the color pie get spliced into a myriad of off colors so many times my head spins when I think about it. So, this is just another change, and one I may be able to live with. I will not stop playing because of these changes, although I have yet to see if I will follow the changes in casual play.

Rant 2 over

 

[Oversoul]

Actually, the only "real" argument that he made that I can even see relevent is the one towards the end of the article (I am stuck in the office all day with nothing to do, can ya tell?). He said that due to keeping the rules from growing out of control (ed. more than they already do), they needed to take a few things out. According to his mindset, the mana-burn rule would have the "least" impact on the whole spectrum of the game.

I'm not sure that I agree with this entropy thing with regards to rules. I think if we had print-outs of the comprehensive rules, they would indeed be getting larger. But that's because of new mechanics, and those sections only come up in special situations or when the mechanics are being heavily used. In any given format, the number of mechanics that are heavily used won't grow indefinitely. So judges may have more information to deal with, but players don't really have to memorize more now than they did in the past. Most of us here have probably actually forgotten what we knew when we played more and we're not incompetent or anything.

But if it really is an issue, eliminating one simple rule, especially when it's done alongside a change that especially complicates things, in this case the combat restructuring, doesn't address the problem. I see what you're getting at, but I wouldn't call it a good argument. It's more like, "This ship will eventually wear out and get holes in it. We need to take the bowl you're eating soup out of and use it to scoop out the water." I don't think they could ever address a problem of increasing complexity due to new cards (if it exists) by slashing rules from the list.

I also disagreed with not being able to shut of an artifact by tapping it (thus the end of my Winter's Orb, Phyrexian Gremlins deck).

Although the rule change stuck, your example did not. Winter Orb was the one people were most upset about. It and a few other artifacts received errata the next year that made them function as they did before. The Oracle text reads: "As long as ~this~ is untapped, players can't untap more than one land during their untap steps." The same goes for Howling Mine and I forget what else.

Same thing with the way Mulligans changed in 6th ed. Now it does not bother me.

The mulligan thing wasn't a 6th edition change although it was around the same time. It was called the "Paris" mulligan because, I think, it was popularized at a tournament in Paris where they did it. The new method was widely considered to be more fair and the "better" Paris mulligan had to sort of compete against the established land mulligan. I am having trouble remembering this, but I seem to recall that the Paris mulligan became the standard with the DCI before the 6th edition rules changes. Some time around Urza's Legacy maybe.