Ante up, Magic: the Gathering
July 13th 2008 01:54
I just recently came back from Melbourne's Eventide pre-release. There were a lot of nice people there, but overall the atmosphere was a little more subdued than it’s been in the past. Perhaps the uncertainties of the impending changes to rarity and event structure were hanging over people’s minds. Actually, it may have something to do with the flatter prize structure Melbourne’s pre-releases have adopted: a 3-1 or 4-0 record gets you scarcely more than 2-2, and significantly more than 1-3 but only if you weren’t used to the old structure. As a result, everyone whose self-esteem depended on lucking out in sealed deck construction and riding the product to eight booster packs has dropped out of the pre-release scene. The ones whose self-esteem depended on sucking up to those people are following.
And that, for reasons that even I didn’t get my head around until later, got me thinking about ante.
It may surprise you to learn, dear reader, that not only were there once Magic cards that interacted with ante, it was actually mandated by the original rules. At the beginning of each game, both players were supposed to select one random card from their deck and set it aside. The winner of the game kept both cards. At the game’s inception, there was no DCI or organized tournaments, so Richard Garfield devised the ante rules in an attempt to give early players a way to feel that something was at stake. But in addition to violating many U.S. states’ laws against gambling, they were terrible for the game. There is no way to know how many people were turned off forever because they lost their favorite card to a chance meeting with a better player than them.
Losing a random card from your deck can affect gameplay, too. Some decks have a high degree of redundancy, playing many cards that have similar game functions. Some decks… do not.
Consider Brain Freeze, a staple in several different combination decks. Such a deck is designed to make the turn you play the "win card" the last turn in the game. But as you might expect, that is only possible with an elaborate setup, and it has to play every card it can to ensure its ability to make the setup. So the deck plays about one copy of Brain Freeze and uses other cards to search for it or draw it when it’s time to win. It’s a viable strategy, provided the deck is constructed correctly. What happens, though, when you take such a deck into an ante game, and your random bet is your single Brain Freeze?
That’s right: you just lost the game. And your Brain Freeze card, for that matter. We talked about game design two weeks ago. What kind of game makes it possible for you to lose before you even start playing? Ante was the only true griefing strategy in Magic, particularly in the hands of experienced players looking to steal cards from neophytes.
Fortunately, like most of Richard Garfield’s original sins, it has been corrected. By the Fourth Edition, the rulebook already stressed than ante was optional; the Fifth Edition rulebook didn’t mention it at all. The last card that interacted with ante was in Homelands. It only took two years to fix, which is significantly less time than it took for blue's portion of the color wheel to even start making sense.
But ante’s legacy lives on in the heart of every player who cares more about the payoff than about the strategy and game skills he uses to get there. It lives on in everyone who thinks they’re entitled to receive more cards than a less experienced player solely because they are more experienced. And with further upcoming changes to the pre-release, it may soon be deader than it's ever been before. I won't miss it.
And that, for reasons that even I didn’t get my head around until later, got me thinking about ante.
It may surprise you to learn, dear reader, that not only were there once Magic cards that interacted with ante, it was actually mandated by the original rules. At the beginning of each game, both players were supposed to select one random card from their deck and set it aside. The winner of the game kept both cards. At the game’s inception, there was no DCI or organized tournaments, so Richard Garfield devised the ante rules in an attempt to give early players a way to feel that something was at stake. But in addition to violating many U.S. states’ laws against gambling, they were terrible for the game. There is no way to know how many people were turned off forever because they lost their favorite card to a chance meeting with a better player than them.
Losing a random card from your deck can affect gameplay, too. Some decks have a high degree of redundancy, playing many cards that have similar game functions. Some decks… do not.
Consider Brain Freeze, a staple in several different combination decks. Such a deck is designed to make the turn you play the "win card" the last turn in the game. But as you might expect, that is only possible with an elaborate setup, and it has to play every card it can to ensure its ability to make the setup. So the deck plays about one copy of Brain Freeze and uses other cards to search for it or draw it when it’s time to win. It’s a viable strategy, provided the deck is constructed correctly. What happens, though, when you take such a deck into an ante game, and your random bet is your single Brain Freeze?
That’s right: you just lost the game. And your Brain Freeze card, for that matter. We talked about game design two weeks ago. What kind of game makes it possible for you to lose before you even start playing? Ante was the only true griefing strategy in Magic, particularly in the hands of experienced players looking to steal cards from neophytes.
Fortunately, like most of Richard Garfield’s original sins, it has been corrected. By the Fourth Edition, the rulebook already stressed than ante was optional; the Fifth Edition rulebook didn’t mention it at all. The last card that interacted with ante was in Homelands. It only took two years to fix, which is significantly less time than it took for blue's portion of the color wheel to even start making sense.
Blue is the color of air, water, and thought. Red is the color of earth, fire, and impulse. That naturally means that a spell that damages things should be… blue?
Ah, that’s better.
But ante’s legacy lives on in the heart of every player who cares more about the payoff than about the strategy and game skills he uses to get there. It lives on in everyone who thinks they’re entitled to receive more cards than a less experienced player solely because they are more experienced. And with further upcoming changes to the pre-release, it may soon be deader than it's ever been before. I won't miss it.
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