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On June 02 2010 11:44 fabiano wrote:
lol
i remember those magic days:
me: tap 3 forest and 2 plains, summon some 5/4 beast.
friend: counterspell.
me: motherfucker, tap 2 forests, 1 plain and summon some 3/2 beast.
friend: counterspell.
me: what a fag... tap 1 motherfucking forest and 1 plain to summon this beast shit
friend: counterspell.
I have a friend who plays with no creatures(technically I think he has 2). He never wins, but he doesn't care. He'll just counter spell the fuck out of you, and if that fails, chainer's edict x8.
(I've repeatedly seen him chainer's edict to get rid of suntail hawks)
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The idea wasn't really to outline ways to play Starcraft better, but to try and clarify concepts from Starcraft by filtering them through the lens of a different strategy game.
I suppose if you're good at Magic but bad at Starcraft, you can use these comparisons to understand the game better (much like Happy Gilmore used his knowledge of hockey to improve his golf game, if you want a silly example.)
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On June 02 2010 11:14 TheYango wrote:Sideboarding is hard to draw an analogy to, because you're not required to play the same build all 3/5 games of a Bo3/Bo5. Sideboarding exists because of the fact that competitive play requires you to play the same deck in a Bo3/Bo5, so that matches don't turn into rock/paper/scissors.
Sideboarding would be probably be analogous to mind-games and build orders. A lot of sideboards nowadays aren't just "4 cards for this match-up, 4 cards for this match-up and 4 cards for this match-up" and so on. There's a lot of skill in sideboarding in predicting what exactly your opponent will bring in and whether or not your standard sideboard cards are too slow if you're going to be on the draw or are not as useful on the play. For example in the Faeries mirror a while back, the Faerie player on the draw might board out Broken Ambitions because it was too slow to counter the important cards (Bitterblossom).
In Starcraft there's some skill involved in choosing your next build order in a BoX. I see in a lot of live report threads people predicting cheese or not predicting cheese because a certain player is 0-2 or 2-0 ("Effort won't 4 pool now because it's too risky at 0-2").
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I think comparing MTG to an mmo like WOW would be far more appropriate as Global cooldown translates into your-turn my-turn well. Also many abilities are easy to transfer over.
There are many more reasons why StarCraft is nothing like MTG though. MTG is mostly about Cards you have available and the way you combine them for the match. When your game starts, execution doesn't really do too much. If you have a deck your opponent counters, you cannot adapt and win unless you get lucky. There are some tough decisions of course. But StarCraft is almost entirely about execution. Also Luck is a huge factor in MTG, no matter what fans of the game try to tell me. I watched these finals and like, this best player in the world couldn't get his third land even after 2 mulligans and few turns in. This is just the most extreme example. Far more games get decided by bad beats. StarCraft is purely a game of skill on the other hand.
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It is funny since I have a destroy land deck, which is basically like mutalisk micro. I also have my unblockable deck (DT rush deck I call it).
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United States5162 Posts
Magic The Gathering and Starcraft...I feel like I'm back in 6th grade. And back then I was definitely the Timmy player. Now I'm now longer any of the personalities. I'm guess kinda a mold between Johnny and Spike since I think winning and fun are pretty synonymous, but I like to play different styles and not do the same thing over and over again or else it gets boring.
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On June 02 2010 11:53 dcttr66 wrote:
i disagree. i'm not a johnny, timmy, or spike. maybe that's why i quit playing mtg.
at any rate, did you know that there is are a few ums games made for starcraft that were really fun to play?
So were you a vorthos? He is the 4th type.
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Ahah love it, amazing read! Coming from a person who has grown up playing Starcraft and MTG, this thread instantly caught my eye.
The Zerg would be Black/Red/Green, for example.
I remember I had a huge argument over myself when I was trying to decide what colours each race was.
What would be the sideboarding?
I think sideboarding can be compared to scouting, and adapting your build depending on what you see to better suit what you are up against. And of course, in a series, bringing in some unexpected 'cards' out to surprise the opponent.
How is MTG online for those who play? Does it take out that $$ factor?
MTG Online still costs quite a bit, it just saves you the shuffling, and makes organizing your collection easier. I suppose you do save some money not buying sleeves, deck boxes and binders!
but i think you're missing a key part of your article, which is "why does this comparison help us play starcraft better?" simply making an analogy doesn't accomplish anything if you don't have a point. really the only thing you are suggesting is "play more strategy games if you want to be better at one", which is valid, but is also something that people probably aren't going to do unless they were already interested.
One thing I think we can take away from this analogy is a mindset that pro-gamers carry when playing games. In MTG, any good player will always keep in mind what their opponent's deck is capable of in any situation - assessing how much mana/lands they have open (untapped/ready to be used), and how many cards they have in their hand. A similar mindset would be beneficial in SC, always considering what your opponent's race is capable of, given the amount of resources/map-control/etc. that they have.
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be warned: i hate mtg............................................... these ideas are similar to starcraft yes, but /// starcraft is realtime strategy and magic is turn based. also in magic if you get a shit hand you will lose, if you get a beast hand you will win. its not like your starting a match in starcraft and you spawn with 1 drone, 4 overlords and 600 gas, and your opponent starts with 7 drones 50 mins and 1 overlord. you start out with the same shit. if magic you could pick your hand off the bat then yes maybe it would be a little bit closer but its not even close. i played magic for a long time and got sick of going to tourneys only to not have the oldschool expensive cards and just get raped. there is cards in magic that goes, "if you play this card, you win." i would love in starcraft if as soon as you got a certain unit you won. that would be so fun. not.
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eh these comparisons are so loose... I guess its a creative way to burn 20 minutes writing a post. I did read it after all.
turns = supply? that's an odd theory. Why not game time?
Supply is like a 3rd resource in SC, one you are able to create yourself.
Life total is easier to equate to your ramp in SC than building count.
Sure if I run out of buildings I lose, but you don't start off with 20 buildings in SC. Life in MTG serves as a buffer so just because the other guy has 2 creatures or a burn spell i don't lose immediately. And you can extend this buffer by gaining life (many control decks are based around that)
the only thing I can think of that gives you that kind of buffer is the ramp/choke outside your base. Such that those 6 zerglings can't blow up all your shit.
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On June 02 2010 12:10 OneFierceZealot wrote:
be warned: i hate mtg............................................... these ideas are similar to starcraft yes, but /// starcraft is realtime strategy and magic is turn based. also in magic if you get a shit hand you will lose, if you get a beast hand you will win. its not like your starting a match in starcraft and you spawn with 1 drone, 4 overlords and 600 gas, and your opponent starts with 7 drones 50 mins and 1 overlord. you start out with the same shit. if magic you could pick your hand off the bat then yes maybe it would be a little bit closer but its not even close. i played magic for a long time and got sick of going to tourneys only to not have the oldschool expensive cards and just get raped. there is cards in magic that goes, "if you play this card, you win." i would love in starcraft if as soon as you got a certain unit you won. that would be so fun. not.
Well, your opening hand is based on two main factors. Luck, and how you built your deck. Deckbuilding/testing can be compared to practice in SC, playing multiple games to make your play and deck as efficient as possible, and to try to erase any weaknesses. The well-built deck will win more games then a poorly-built deck, even considering luck, similar to how a player who dedicates a lot of time to practice will - although giving up a few games here and there - win the majority of his games. (There are also mulligans, that reward consistant decks.)
Taking your disclaimer in mind, I can see where you're coming from, but you've had a pretty bad experience with Magic in general. Consistancy, and efficient play is rewarded in MTG, as well as SC.
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I'm kinda a Timmy, although I don't prefer 4v4 over 1v1, and I don't try to use stupid units, I play zerg and just feel that it's very comfortable to get into a macro fight.
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For me, the biggest similarity between the two is the competitive spirit that they inspire in me. I've played a lot of games but only M:tG and SC2 have really made me feel like, "I have to get better!"
Unfortunately, I've never been a very good Spike in either game. I'm not quite ruthless enough.
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United States47024 Posts
On June 02 2010 12:21 Cow wrote:
Well, your opening hand is based on two main factors. Luck, and how you built your deck. Deckbuilding/testing can be compared to practice in SC, playing multiple games to make your play and deck as efficient as possible, and to try to erase any weaknesses. The well-built deck will win more games then a poorly-built deck, even considering luck, similar to how a player who dedicates a lot of time to practice will - although giving up a few games here and there - win the majority of his games. (There are also mulligans, that reward consistant decks.)
Taking your disclaimer in mind, I can see where you're coming from, but you've had a pretty bad experience with Magic in general. Consistancy, and efficient play is rewarded in MTG, as well as SC.
To be fair, at a mid-level of play in MtG, deckbuilding is not a necessary skill, as it's very easy to just take a list that has won somewhere else (provided that you have the requisite funds). From there the act of *playing* the deck is one of simply doing it against the various decks you might see. There are some mindgames involved, but generally the act of execution is of relatively low difficulty in comparison to SC. I've seen a school of thought floated that in high-level constructed, the only relevant skills are sideboarding and mulligans, and the rest is just playing out your hands (limited is, of course, a whole different ballgame).
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Magic is like starcraft in that they are both competitive games and share the same things that all competitive games share( metagame and whatnot )
Magic is NOT like starcraft in what really matters, the actual gameplay and how decisions affect the game.
You see, in magic, particularly in the most popular tournament format( type 2 ), there is a very, very small amount of things you can do to actually change the outcome of the game. Most of the decisions you make are spelled out for you. Play your cards as they curve.
Many times in magic the game is decided immediately after the cards are shuffled. The ordering of the cards on top of your deck will have decided how the game plays out from start to finish. Once a moderate level of playskill is reached, the game is decided mostly by luck. The play options are just too limited. The guy who got 10 lands stacked on top of his deck will lose to the guy who gets 10 threats instead, assuming both players have passed a basic skill threshold.
In starcraft, at least in a balanced starcraft, the winner is decided mostly by who plays better. Who had more effective APM decides the winner. You are faced with dozens of macro decisions all the time, each with risks and rewards, on top of having your micro ability tested every battle.
In balanced starcraft, there is pretty much always something you as a player could have done better to win the game. In magic, perfect play will often see you losing simply because you drew the wrong cards.
This is why I think magic is in fact not at all like starcraft mechanically.
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On June 02 2010 12:38 TheYango wrote:
To be fair, at a mid-level of play in MtG, deckbuilding is not a necessary skill, as it's very easy to just take a list that has won somewhere else (provided that you have the requisite funds). From there the act of *playing* the deck is one of simply doing it against the various decks you might see. There are some mindgames involved, but generally the act of execution is of relatively low difficulty in comparison to SC. I've seen a school of thought floated that in high-level constructed, the only relevant skills are sideboarding and mulligans, and the rest is just playing out your hands (limited is, of course, a whole different ballgame).
Mhm, I definitely see where you're coming from, and agree with it to some degree. Netdecking is ridiculously popular right now, to my dismay.
Going on 'auto-pilot' definitely does happen when playing MTG at a lower level of play, or when you're just playing a quick game. It can also be deck specific, since the level of play needed for control and combo, as opposed to general aggro/midrange/beatdown is noticeably higher. However, at higher levels of play, or in some match-ups, your game can be won by 'outplaying' (or out-thinking) the opponent. SC is definitely a lot more tasking execution-wise (as is dealing in real-time as opposed to turn based), but the similarity still holds.
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United States47024 Posts
On June 02 2010 13:05 Cow wrote:
Going on 'auto-pilot' definitely does happen when playing MTG at a lower level of play, or when you're just playing a quick game. It can also be deck specific, since the level of play needed for control and combo, as opposed to general aggro/midrange/beatdown is noticeably higher. However, at higher levels of play, or in some match-ups, your game can be won by 'outplaying' (or out-thinking) the opponent. SC is definitely a lot more tasking execution-wise (as is dealing in real-time as opposed to turn based), but the similarity still holds.
"Out-thinking" is a very vague term when applied to MtG. The thing is, due to the relatively small number of card types in a deck (if you run 24 lands, and mostly 4-ofs, you're only really playing with 6-7 relevant cards for the majority of the game), there are a relatively small number of truly unique game states. For most situations that an unpracticed player might say requires thinking, an experienced tournament player can simply practice the matchup (since any particular meta usually breaks down to a small number of reasonable decks), and work out the most reliable choice. From there, one just plays out the relevant scenarios.
The problem breaks down to the fact that in a system where the card pool is essentially reset every year, it's virtually impossible for designers to create scenarios in a game such that choices have multiple viability (e.g. that there are multiple "correct" plays to make in a given game state). There will be times where the "correct" choice results in a loss, but those are just going to be times that the odds didn't work out for you. The SC2 analogy is that while there are games where a clutch Transfusion might win you the game, that doesn't mean you should be saving energy for Transfusion instead of using Spawn Larva on every cooldown. At a high level, MtG breaks down to a lot of "Spawn Larva"-type decisions.
It's worth noting that this applies primarily to T2 and block constructed. Limited adds a whole new dimension, and the eternal formats often avoid this sort of closed state by the fact that a vastly larger card pool makes it much harder to test a particular meta reliably.
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On June 02 2010 12:51 Carthage wrote:Once a moderate level of playskill is reached, the game is decided mostly by luck.
If you follow(ed) high level Magic you'd know that this is simply untrue. It is easy to say that a lot of Magic is based on luck but if you look at the records of some of the top players in the game it's obvious that they have more going for them than luck. It's just like poker, really.
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On June 02 2010 12:51 Carthage wrote:
Magic is like starcraft in that they are both competitive games and share the same things that all competitive games share( metagame and whatnot )
Magic is NOT like starcraft in what really matters, the actual gameplay and how decisions affect the game.
Thank you. The OP's parallel's are really bad, only the general gaming concepts apply because they cross every boundary (not to mention his understanding of those seems pretty shallow).
You see, in magic, particularly in the most popular tournament format( type 2 ), there is a very, very small amount of things you can do to actually change the outcome of the game. Most of the decisions you make are spelled out for you. Play your cards as they curve.
Many times in magic the game is decided immediately after the cards are shuffled. The ordering of the cards on top of your deck will have decided how the game plays out from start to finish. Once a moderate level of playskill is reached, the game is decided mostly by luck. The play options are just too limited. The guy who got 10 lands stacked on top of his deck will lose to the guy who gets 10 threats instead, assuming both players have passed a basic skill threshold.
This is true... but that's why top players don't like type 2! Or constructed, generally. (EDIT: If you don't know any, please don't try to debate this point.) If you ask 9/10 high level players whether they prefer draft or constructed, they'll say draft, because the level of luck is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay lower, both in game and with good/bad matchups.
Just to draw another parallel, constructed is like a sc tournament where you have to choose one build order when you enter, and can't change it up from game to game.
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On June 02 2010 13:26 TheYango wrote:
"Out-thinking" is a very vague term when applied to MtG. The thing is, due to the relatively small number of card types in a deck (if you run 24 lands, and mostly 4-ofs, you're only really playing with 6-7 relevant cards for the majority of the game), there are a relatively small number of truly unique game states. For most situations that an unpracticed player might say requires thinking, an experienced tournament player can simply practice the matchup (since any particular meta usually breaks down to a small number of reasonable decks), and work out the most reliable choice. From there, one just plays out the relevant scenarios.
The problem breaks down to the fact that in a system where the card pool is essentially reset every year, it's virtually impossible for designers to create scenarios in a game such that choices have multiple viability (e.g. that there are multiple "correct" plays to make in a given game state). There will be times where the "correct" choice results in a loss, but those are just going to be times that the odds didn't work out for you. The SC2 analogy is that while there are games where a clutch Transfusion might win you the game, that doesn't mean you should be saving energy for Transfusion instead of using Spawn Larva on every cooldown. At a high level, MtG breaks down to a lot of "Spawn Larva"-type decisions.
It's worth noting that this applies primarily to T2 and block constructed. Limited adds a whole new dimension, and the eternal formats often avoid this sort of closed state by the fact that a vastly larger card pool makes it much harder to test a particular meta reliably.
As is the case for both MTG and SC, there are scenarios where - when encountered - a set number of ways are chosen that optimally play out that scenario. I can relate to you remarking on the number of unique game states involved in high level MTG games, but I feel the same situation applies to SC. Although, yes, there are definately 'more' unique scenarios in SC, there is an overall larger pool of situations. This is because SC is an RTS, while MTG is turn-based, so naturally, MTG will have fewer. SC as a whole still has those limited unique game states when looked at from a broader view. The MTG to SC comparison isn't perfect so there will definitely be some significant differences, but when you compare an RTS to a turn-based game, you're bound to have to scale everything down to a similar level to make the comparison that much more fun to do.
Regarding your SC2 analogy, the first thing that came to mind for me is that in MTG there is usually a clear use when playing with a card. Stone Rain is meant to be targetted at your opponent's lands, for example. But there are a few rare situations where doing something unorthodox with a card (comparing it to you using Tranfusion instead of the accepted Spawn Larva), is more beneficial to your play. I can't come up a great example right now off the top of my head, the best one so far being: Using Pariah on your opponent's Platinum Angel, and then using (lol)Lava Axe on yourself to kill it. Not sure if that example was good enough to get the idea across properly, but we'll have to see ahah.
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EPT
