Spzi

this mostly just seems like complaints about Magic itself

You're right, I strayed from the title. Arena is where I experience MTG, I guess that's how both got mashed together from my view.

What I still could have mentioned: Ropers, and generally unsportsmanlike behaviour. Like being a dick with emotes, being quick when you win but sluggish when you lose, abusing 'Your Go', spamming 'Good Game' when I still have or might draw a solution. I've also done all that, so I try not to judge too hard. Sometimes I think the whole experience is an exercise in emotion regulation.

decks that are too fast and decks that are too slow simultaneously

What I meant with fast: Decks which can kill in the first few rounds (regardless of how much time has passed

What I meant with slow: Players who physically take a long time to play (like roping on every step)

It can be both, which is the worst. Like a player scaling up his Scurry Oak in one of the first few turns to 100+ counters, while frequently taking breaks to clown around with emotes or whatever. I can't really leave my desk, but also don't want to surrender since I might draw a solution. Though this could be in 5 seconds or 10 minutes, who knows. Sometimes I feel this just isn't worth my nerves and surrender anyway, even with a solution in hand.

I heard about the slow wildcard economy, so I guess you're right. I have the opposite experience, but seen this point numerous times before; seems legit. I've been playing this game for many years (10?), sometimes almost all day. After some start phase, I could make whatever I needed from wildcards, without ever spending any real money. Currently, I have around 15 rare/mythic wildcards, which is a low count for me, since I just made another deck (with an accompanying post in this community). I guess it helps that I usually only play one deck, which rarely sees changes once it's settled. Only vaguely I remember grinding for missing cards, an adventure which I did occasionally miss since then.

Seen the card many times, but never appreciated the art. So thanks for highlighting it.

Would be hell to see it as a meter-wide sprayed street art in a punky hood, or a dark club. 🤘😈

I also hate whenever it comes up in matches. I hate when red players make any move. It kind of burns.

Opponent played Ocelot Pride, which boosted my Doppelgang to the moon. Match ended in a draw, too many triggers to compute.

At this point, I could make infinite mana and infinite copies of any permanent on the battlefield, and create flash copies of any card in my graveyard, all at instant speed. Doppelgang on Nashi, Illusion Gadgeteer breaks the game.

Screenshot

Hehe, good point.

people need to read more code, play around with it, break it and fix it to become better programmers.

I think AI bots can help with that. It's easier now to play around with code which you could not write by yourself, and quickly explore different approaches. And while you might shy away from asking your colleagues a noob question, ChatGPT will happily elaborate.

In the end, it's just one more tool in the box. We need to learn when and how to use it wisely.

What's up with the wiggeling, is the camera dangling from a balloon?

I guess if drones can fly into doors on moving targets, an observation drone should be able to hold relatively still.

One obvious problem would be that some cards are good no matter the cost. I’m going to reanimate an Emrakul even if the card costs 40 mana. Manaless dredge will still be manaless.

Excellent point. Yeah, some things exist which are already kind of broken and could be exploited further. Maybe more generally, MTG uses CMC to balance cards, but also many other aspects (comes into play tapped, draw a card/gain life on enter, ...). So only changing mana cost affects the balancing of different cards differently.

Yes, Llanowar Elves. A silly result could be that people use equivalents (like Elvish Mystic) while the "original" is too expensive. But probably, all ramp cards would probably become more expensive as long as they do the job. Which makes ramp cards kind of pointless, as you point out.

Right, two good objections and a funny video. I like it, thanks.

I don't see it yet, please help me out. Maybe it helps if you can find a specific example.

Can you describe a scenario how an asshole could game that system?

Generally I think MTG is probably the most capitalism-ruined game. It annoyed me much when starting to play as a teenager. Whenever a friend upgraded their deck, others were kind of forced to spend money as well. Because the rich guy had access to all the powerful cards (= relatively low mana cost for their effect / strong effect for their CMC). Isn't that exactly what a balancing approach would alleviate? Everyone has access to all cards, and all cards receive a CMC which matches how much players value it.

You're right, this would be very unpractical for analogue play. I thought it has to be digital. But then another person in this post pointed out that Penny Dreadful is a thing, which seems to work with printed cards, although it has it's banlist change from season to season. Granted, checking what is banned/legal (and modifying your deck accordingly) is much simpler than checking each mana cost.

I'm not a fan of capitalism, it was just a metaphor to convey they mechanic. Now that I think closer about this, they even differ in that. I did not have "supply and demand" in mind, since the supply in a digital TCG is essentially infinite. It's more about rating cards based on their popularity, whereas popular items in capitalism can be dirt cheap (e.g. tap water). One of the other major differences is that in capitalism, people can reinvest their capital to gain more capital. I don't see how that could be a thing in 'my' idea. But the system would need some protection against deliberate manipulationg. Yet another person proposed a solution to this; only monitor tournament decks.

seasonal patches like a video game’s balance

That makes much more sense, yes.

Your other thoughts are also good and welcome. Yeah, tracking what cards tournament players include is probably sufficient!

Are you familiar with the MTGO format Penny Dreadful?

I was not, thanks! Haha, yes, that is a pretty good implementation of the core idea, with very little overhead. It was funny to read about the implications this can have on real world market prices.

Spending (the equivalent of) 0.942 of a mana on something isn’t functionally different in almost all cases from spending 1 mana on it.

You're right, it does not work so well with the current mana system. Because you still bring whole numbers of lands into play. When those lands produce 1000 mana, you still have either 1000 or 2000 mana, so the 0s are mostly redundant. It would still make a difference for carts which have a significant margin (so that you can play 3 unpopular cards for the cost of 2 regular, or 2 popular for the cost of 3 regular). But for small changes, as you say, it wouldn’t functionally change much.

I like the fine granularity of the cost-balancing approach. Though the binary ban/legalize mechanic of Penny Dreadful might be accurate enough.

Update: Casting Doppelgang with Flash and Casualty 2 is fun :D

I removed [[Smogbelcher Chariot]] and [[Blooming Cactusfolk]], since they were too situational/slow. Still climbing the ladder ...

Alright, thanks! I think I understand where you're coming from, and can relate. I'm an ex-Christian, although I guess for ex-Muslims this process is a whole other beast.

And yes, I know exactly what you mean about culture and critique - as an leftwing, anti-theist leaning atheist, I often have to cringe about my peers. It feels like false romanticizing, like we did with native americans, or other falsly understood cultures. So many things which I despise in fascism are also present in strict Christianity and strict Islam. Although luckily, very few people take their religion seriously here. So our religious nutjobs are a fringe minority and can mostly be ignored.

Refugees welcome, but I hate it when they try to establish religio-fascist areas here, spewing hate and all their nonsense, occasionally killing someone. I mean, if you want to live like that, go back. If you like our way, be welcome.

Yeah, a sensitive topic which can easily trigger people. I try not to care about the boxes they try to put me in. And I absolutely love the freedom of speech we have here. I don't want that be ruined by migrants who think they speak for Allah, nor by leftists who think every minority shares their values. Like I was one of them. In my youth, with coloured hair and ragged clothes, I was regularly beaten up by (almost exclusively) migrants. Created quite some cognitive dissonance, some effort to justify their deeds, like worse socioeconomic status blabla. Truth is, many people are quite "conservative", naturally more so in less liberal countries of origin. And still, I vote and speak for open borders. Our society must find better ways than building walls. This issue is challenging European core values, with at least two ways to erode the values; we can lose them by allowing hostile subcultures to grow, or we can lose them by closing us off to the outside.

Good lord, 6 years. Poor Aisha. I guess my brain was happy to forget that detail.

So thanks again for this exchange. Stay safe.