What's with all the Card Advantage articles?

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NorrYtt

Guest
Well after all the hulabaloo, the people that chimed in on the forums seemed to actually learn something.

There's some very interesting things about Magic Theory. Just some hiccups I've run across.

Cemetary Gate holds back Avatar of Woe indefinitely. That's a huge difference in Tait's Effective Card Advantage generating 1.0 points of Virtual Card Advantage.

I've lost games because I couldn't get my Genesis into my graveyard. Beating down with a 4/4 at the time was far weaker than Genesis's power in the graveyard. My opponent refused to block or remove Genesis and won in the air. I more or less lost because I lost options or paths to victory, and my opponent denied me my out - Spike Weaver recursion.

Some cards are luck or skill testers. Cabal Therapy can 8-for-2 an opponent for single B (hit 4 cards, sac an Ornithopter, hit 4 more cards) if you are a skillful card namer and get extremely lucky.

Mirari's Wake - this powerhouse Standard card generates no card advantage. It generates a massive tempo advantage. Large mana for large game-breaking spells to overwhelm your opponent.

I think another author on SCG put it best. His formula was something like:

G + Scryb Sprite card -> 1/1 Flying Faerie
R + Shock card -> 2 damage to target creature or player
2WW + Wrath of God card -> Wipe creatures

Choosing to Shock or Wrath the Faerie lets you compare the resources they spent. Since it incorporates mana costs and other additional costs, we can see who comes out ahead.

Just as intuition tells us...
Playing Wrath of God on a Scryb Sprite is a bad trade, resources wise (G vs. 2WW).
Playing Wrath of God on a massive Decree of Justice for 9 Angels a good trade, resources wise (you spent less mana).

From this you can concoct a larger convoluted example including creatures and equipment and instants and life totals.
 
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Gizmo

Guest
Mirari's Wake - this powerhouse Standard card generates no card advantage. It generates a massive tempo advantage. Large mana for large game-breaking spells to overwhelm your opponent.
Well if Spidey hasnt any complaints, I do.

First of all, is it a Powerhouse card? I don;t do Magic any more but if Mirari's Wake is a powerhouse card in Standard then Im glad I stopped playing.

Generates no card advantage. Not true. There are several ways in which Mirari's Wake can give you card advantage. Firstly the mana boost might allow you to hold additional land in hand, which might have a number of effects when discarded to various other cards. Secondly the +1/+1 might make your creatures larger than their creatures, which would possibly make their creatures irrelevent, thus generating potentially massive card advantage, it might also make their removal spells irrelevent - again possibly massive card advantage.

Thirdly you say it generates tempo advantage. I disagree. You are using tempo advantage out of turn here, because tempo advantage really means beating your opponent by playing your spells faster than he plays his spells. Mirari's Wake is too slow (5cc?) to really make a difference there, and it would actually really only matter in terms of letting you cast larger spells than your opponent... not MORE spells. The Wake would be a card that enables you to win by Qualitative Advantage, but Tempo Advantage is really not what the Wake is about.

But yeah, looking at the Wake it has several ways it MIGHT gain you card advantage... lands in hand, bigger creatures, bigger spells... but none in which it is guaranteed to. Which makes me question why you would call it a powerhouse card.

So apart from that everything you said was wrong, you did well.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Why would I have complaints? I'm not the theory guy, you guys are :)

Although again, I think you're looking at the Wake at what it can give you in the future, i.e. possible plays, rather than what you might have in hand now. I mean, you say it could cause you to hold a land for other land-in-hand effects. Well, until you have that land, it's not doing anything for you. Tempo-advantage-wise, the extra mana could power a Treasure Trove Jayemdae Tome or other card drawing permanent and allow you to cast it, thus letting you keep playing more spells than your opponent (or holding onto for future use, whatever). But it's all "what-ifs". I think you have to weigh the card with what's on the table at the moment.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
Very true. But to echo you
So apart from that everything you said was wrong, you did well
, which is how I feel about your post ;)

Except the opinion of whether it's a powerhouse or not. That I don't know. It could be despite your reasonings, or not because of your reasonings, or not despite your reasonings :)
 
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Gizmo

Guest
Although again, I think you're looking at the Wake at what it can give you in the future, i.e. possible plays, rather than what you might have in hand now.
Ok. But what's the difference? Surely what I'm going to draw next turn becomes next turn's 'what I have in hand now'. And surely thats actually more relevent anyway because Ive jsut tapped 5 mana for the wake on this turn so im not likely to be using my hand this turn. What you just said doesnt mean anything, its an empty soundbite with no thought behind it.

I mean, you say it could cause you to hold a land for other land-in-hand effects. Well, until you have that land, it's not doing anything for you.
But I WILL draw land. 2 every 5 turns, on average. Wake WILL allow me to hold land, and the real question isnt necessarly that Im going to hold the land, but will I have any reason to. Not necessarily unless Im using stuff like Spellshapers or Mongrels.

Tempo-advantage-wise, the extra mana could power a Treasure Trove Jayemdae Tome or other card drawing permanent and allow you to cast it, thus letting you keep playing more spells than your opponent (or holding onto for future use, whatever).
Dont use the phrase tempo advantage unless you know what it means. You were describing Numerical Advantage. Tempo Advantage is very specifically the advantage gained by playing your cards quickly, NOT by drawing more than your opponent (Numerical Advantage) or by playing better than your opponent (Qualitative Advantage). Mirari's Wake MAY allow you to gain either Numerical or Qualitative Advantage (dependent on other cards in your deck and that you draw) but it is almost certain never to gain you Tempo Advantage because by the time you are casting it you are already outside the window of Tempo Advantage opportunity.

But it's all "what-ifs". I think you have to weigh the card with what's on the table at the moment.
Which is just another soundbite. What, the game's going to end now? I'm not going to draw another card or play another spell? Magic is a game of 'What If's, a game of percentage plays, and of cards that improve odds of advantageous situations. Weigh it in terms of what's on the table at the moment? Bah, that's simple woolly headed thinking from somebody scared of the fourth dimension. You won't know the value of the card until the end of the game anyway, certainly trying to judge it's value at the moment of play is ridiculous.

I mean, if you cast Armageddon and destroyed 8 of his land and 4 of yours, would you count that as a +4 card advantage? I hope to god you're not going to say that you would, because that would be such a hopelessly narrow view of the card advantage issue. You won't know what the card advantage of that play was without taking into account factors like 'cards other than land in play' 'casting costs of our decks' 'number of land in our decks' and even then those factors are only a way of gauging the potential for card advantage from the play - you wouldn't know the true score until you played it out, and drew your cards, and drew your land, and cast your spells, and see who won, and see how much the Armageddon actually did.

What is it Ben Sisko says in the pilot of DS9, about Baseball? It's not linear. You don't know how it's going to end. It's different every time, every pitch he might swing and hit, he might swing and miss. With every ball thrown the shape of the game develops... but you never know the final shape of the game until the end. You want to ascribe a value onto ever card as soon as it is played - the equivalent of deciding the result of a baseball game without throwing a single pitch. It's a narrow understanding of the nature of the game.

Except the opinion of whether it's a powerhouse or not. That I don't know. It could be despite your reasonings, or not because of your reasonings, or not despite your reasonings
Mirari's Wake is not a powerhouse card. If it is being played in tournaments then it is a sign of how low Magic strategy has slumped that a card of such low quality as Mirari's Wake is seeing play - either that or that there is an abusive use of the additional mana it provides in some form of combination. Mirari's Wake is a weak card BECAUSE of how dependent it is on other cards to produce any advantage. For 5 mana you can get cards that are more certain to produce an advantage.

NorrYtt was wrong on all counts. He said Mirari's Wake could not produce card advantage. I proved it can. He said Mirari's Wake could produce tempo advantage. Unless your deck is very peculiarly designed (Wake/Jokulhaups maybe) then that won't happen either. He said Mirari's Wake was a powerhouse. It isn't.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I think this boils down to how we look at trying to describe advantage. You, it seems, like to try to think many moves ahead and try to take in all possibilities. I, and I think Oscar Tan from his articles, are talking about a specific moment in time on the game table. As such, this is probably futile, but my arguments below are based on my self-described view.

Ok. But what's the difference? Surely what I'm going to draw next turn becomes next turn's 'what I have in hand now'. And surely thats actually more relevent anyway because Ive jsut tapped 5 mana for the wake on this turn so im not likely to be using my hand this turn. What you just said doesnt mean anything, its an empty soundbite with no thought behind it.
Yes, but then you can really only apply ~whatever~ advantage to that particular card. You can't say "Well, if I draw a land, I get this advantage, or if I draw a StP (and use it), I get this advantage, etc".

But I WILL draw land. 2 every 5 turns, on average.
Key word: average. Not certainty. You could have a man flood and draw land for the next 7 turns, or just draw spells. Because of the uncertainty, you can't count on drawing land and applying it to ~whatever~ advantage.

Dont use the phrase tempo advantage unless you know what it means
I'll give you this unless "numerical" and "qualitative" are solely your terms for describing such advantages, of which I really can't remember if it's accepted "advantage lexicon".

Magic is a game of 'What If's, a game of percentage plays, and of cards that improve odds of advantageous situations. Weigh it in terms of what's on the table at the moment? Bah, that's simple woolly headed thinking from somebody scared of the fourth dimension. You won't know the value of the card until the end of the game anyway, certainly trying to judge it's value at the moment of play is ridiculous.
Yeah, Magic is a game of what-ifs, but then you'll never know the value of a card because of all the endless permutations. Perhaps it IS "woolly headed thinking", but in the route you're going, there's absolutely no way to gauge a card's value. At some point you have to narrow it down or it becomes too big, as Mikeymike has said.

You won't know what the card advantage of that play was without taking into account factors like 'cards other than land in play' 'casting costs of our decks' 'number of land in our decks' and even then those factors are only a way of gauging the potential for card advantage from the play - you wouldn't know the true score until you played it out, and drew your cards, and drew your land, and cast your spells, and see who won, and see how much the Armageddon actually did.
If that's the case, Armageddon's card advantage is going to flucuate from game to game because you're never know it's impact until each game is over. Perhaps this is your goal/point...

For 5 mana you can get cards that are more certain to produce an advantage.
I don't think the goal was to see which are the best cards that produce an advantage - it was simply measuring what Wake can do.

NorrYtt was wrong on all counts. He said Mirari's Wake could not produce card advantage. I proved it can. He said Mirari's Wake could produce tempo advantage. Unless your deck is very peculiarly designed (Wake/Jokulhaups maybe) then that won't happen either. He said Mirari's Wake was a powerhouse. It isn't.
The only thing here is the card advantage statement, where you have said it is all dependent on outside factors (in your examples, it's land and creatures). Sure it can, but that's a lot of dependencies. On its own, by itself, it doesn't do that (unlike a more obvious example of, say the Tome). Which more or less leads into agreement that it's NOT a powerhouse, ironically...
 
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Gizmo

Guest
but in the route you're going, there's absolutely no way to gauge a card's value. At some point you have to narrow it down or it becomes too big, as Mikeymike has said.
You HAVE to do this.

You have to be aware that every value of every card that you draw, that you play, that you have played, and that you are yet to draw is affected by every other card that both you and your opponent draw/play/have/played/are about to draw.

If you try and fix numbers onto things you are fooling yourself and you will make bad decisions as a result, because the values you ascribed to something will become inaccurate almost immediately. The flow of a game of Magic fluctuates with every card drawn/played/tapped or whatever, and with it the value of each card.

I feel like Im trying to explain across a quantum leap in understanding - that you want to say 'here, this is this and it will always be this' when really you're trying to nail down something as fluid and changeable as the ocean.
 
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train

Guest
Gizmo...

that is probably one of the best statements I have seen about the cards involved in a game...

i can only add to it that you must also realize this is a game - and games are supposed ot be fun - so if the cards don't draw/play your way - remember it's a game...
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
You have to be aware that every value of every card that you draw, that you play, that you have played, and that you are yet to draw is affected by every other card that both you and your opponent draw/play/have/played/are about to draw.
Then there's no way of ascribing with any certainty a value to a particular card so this whole exercise seems futile.
 
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Gizmo

Guest
That's so binary. There's no reason Magic has to be so bivalent, indeed in the best possible way I think the game would be awful if it was. That's like Baseball where there was nothing between Home Runs and Strikes, no singles, no bases loaded and dependent on the next pitch...

Magic games are NOT a black and white pattern of good and bad plays, Spidey. They're a rich tapestry of color - plays that should be good but turn out bad, plays that should have been awful but by sheer fluke won the game, multiple plays that individually were poor but which when made alongside another play all become good.

It's not futile to try and see and appreciate that tapestry, and to try and use your best judgement of previous experiences to try and guess how it's likely to end. It truly IS futile to try and pin black and white values onto it and hope to finish up with something that looks even close to the real thing.
 
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orgg

Guest
Giz- Wake was broken using the Wish cards with Time Streach and Mirari to gain infinate turns and infinate token creatures, etc.

It was, for a while, Tier 1 and most Tier 1 decks stand out to players as being 'powerful,' even after their rotation or outdating by more current sets.
 
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Gizmo

Guest
K. I said the only reason it would be good would be because of something abusive. Bringing it into a card advantage conversation is not helpful because the card is NOT about card advantage.
 

Spiderman

Administrator
Staff member
I'm not saying it's black and white - I'm saying that because it's such a rich tapestry of color, you can't ascribe one particular value to a card to generate "card advantage". There's too many variations and interactions.

At least, that's what I'm getting out of this discussion with you.
 
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