Goa Tse-tung posted:

the signets and talismans (and reverse engineered Felwar Stone!) clearly demonstrate you can replicate any (reasonable) land by making it a 2 mana artifact


that's right, we need Shock Rocks

Framboise posted:

Even then, commander is much more nuanced than that as it adds a social element to the game that Garfield isn't acknowledging here.

A big flaming stink posted:

Why do you all aspire to be the biggest assholes possible in this thread

generatrix posted:

Wittgen posted:

It's worth pointing out that Richard Garfield is flatly, objectively wrong there. You can have some philosophy of game design objection to it, but it's wildly wrong to say most people would dislike it.

precision posted:

Yes, I talked about playing in two formats that nobody else has played since the 2010s

Rutibex posted:

I think he's right, its not really a game of skill. Its more of a shared social experience, which is great those are fun. Like playing Talisman!

Charity Porno posted:

Be an Ajani in a multiverse of Jaces

Rutibex posted:

oh bless your heart

Here I will let Magic the Gathering creator Richard Garfield explain why Commander is actually a bad format:

Toshimo posted:

Setting aside that Garfield isn't talking about commander here, that this is a 20+ year old description of a game theory principle, and not related at all, and Rutibex is just talking out his rear end about things he doesn't understand again with unearned authority and ego, this isn't indicative of how Commander functions at any level, but it gets away from the point that Rutibex flat-out made up a lie about the rules of the game, and when confronted, deflected to another lie, and then made reference to the Talisman incident that helped make him a pariah in the Board Games thread.

Because we've had a decade of this and the mods won't act on it, it needs to be pointed out every time he shows up in a new TG thread just making poo poo up and citing his "vast experience", which always amounts to playing some vaguely house-ruled garbage version of every game, whether it's board games, D&D, or Magic.

If people have legitimate criticisms of Commander (and there are plenty, we make them constantly in the EDH thread, in constructive ways), by all means. If you want to invent lies about how "Commander is Calvinball with fake cards" or how "Richard Garfield actually says Commander is bad", you can eat my rear end in a top hat, and gently caress right off out the thread. And if the mods want to tell me that's too harsh a take, then maybe stop "gently reminding" the drive-by threadshitters and trolls, and do something about it. It's basically a weekly occurrence at this point. If someone showed up in the D&D thread evey week to say "Sorcerer players are degenerates who are having the wrong kind of fun", would you mod that? Be consistent.

Tism the Dragon Tickler posted:

What does this blurb have anything to do with a made up rule about attacking left

Orange Fluffy Sheep posted:

Richard Garfield thought U draw 3 was fine because it was not frequently in packs.

Grifter posted:

trip report

Rutibex posted:

commander is great fun with your mates, everyone knows that. i brought out the richard garfiend quotes because you were getting weird

Its not made up, thats the only point I was trying to make. This is how most people played multiplayer magic back in the day, unless it was two headed giant or Emperor format.

flatluigi posted:

dude did you misread 'the winner is the last person with any chips left' because that's the only time the word left is even mentioned in the blurb you're being so smug about

Rutibex posted:

oh bless your heart

Here I will let Magic the Gathering creator Richard Garfield explain why Commander is actually a bad format:

quote:

Some Advantages of Politics
In general, we have been talking about politics as a bad thing in games, but in practice allowing room for political interaction has many excellent effects.

One advantage of political games, or political variants of nonpolitical games (such as free-for-all Magic or Starcraft), is that they can provide opportunities for low-skilled players to participate in high-skilled games (surviving and perhaps even winning because the high-skilled players attract more attention). While some highly skilled players may object in principle to this leveling of the playfield, in practice it allows them to play more games due to an increased potential audience size. Additionally it makes those games interesting, whereas otherwise they may not be, due to the natural dampening effect on skill that political interaction can have. Finding players to play games is generally speaking the hardest part of playing the average game, and anything that can increase the potential audience size is extremely valuable to both player and publisher. This is an important effect in family games and children’s games, where the set of people playing a particular game is fixed and wide skill ranges are common. Mario Kart and Mario Party find much advantage in their limited politics as a way to keep multiplayer games interesting for a single family or friend group.

Political games tend to be exciting to the very end (on the downside, depending on the game design, they may drag on too long). The lead will change many times, as each new winner is picked on in turn. Any player has a chance to win (the flipside of this is that any actions other than those near the end of the game may not matter much). One can think of “pick on the leader” as a catch-up feature. Like any catch-up feature, it can become problematic when it is too powerful (see section 4.2 on snowball and catch-up), but it can be perfectly reasonable in small doses — many multiplayer games use it to good effect.

Some people just plain enjoy the social interaction, give-and-take, alliance making and breaking, and other behaviors that are common in political games. Since complex game mechanics tend to get wiped out by politics, it ’ s usually best to keep the game relatively simple for this audience. A good example is the boardgame Diplomacy: there’s no need to have countless kinds of military units and detailed combat simulations with charts and die rolls. Such details would only be washed out by the negotiations, alliances, and betrayals that are the real heart of the game.

Political games can be fun to watch, even if you don’t know the details of how a game is played: the ebb and flow of human social interaction is something everyone can relate to. Outrage and betrayal make for good theater as well. The TV show Survivor is just one example. (Survivor is an extreme example of kingmaking in particular: there’s even an extra kingmaking step where strictly eliminated players are brought back to vote on the final winner!)

A key to understanding the place of politics in a game is understanding its audience. While classic games have evolved along with their player bases so there is a matching of political interaction with the stomach for it among the players, a new game needs to take this into account from the design. Is the game intended to be primarily for competitive players interested in differentiating their skill from one another? If so, it is probably best to keep politics to a minimum by making it two-sided, making it less interactive, giving players rewards for their absolute instead of relative finish, or hampering players’ ability to target one another specifically. For a more casual intended audience, politics can be a useful way of increasing the effective critical mass for play, since more widely varying skill sets can find interesting games together. Additionally, intensity of play is not nearly as much of a prerequisite for winning in a political game.

Toshimo posted:

What are you even talking about? If you brought fake cards to a real tournament and someone caught it, you'd be disqualified. Those are the rules.

Fantastic Foreskin posted:

Based on like, every single anecdote I've ever seen about multiplayer magic in the 90s, 'attack left' or emperor magic or other limited range of influence rules were super loving common.

Rutibex posted:

sorry! the idea was that attacking left would eliminate a lot of the politics from multiplayer magic. you only have one opponent you can attack, so no one can gang up. it makes the game more about your deck than about how popular you are

Judgy Fucker posted:

90% of the shittiness comes from the same 4-5 posters. At this point it's clear it'll never change so might as well just ignore 'em

Charity Porno posted:

Yeah the attack left thing was because Jyhad played that way so people just kind of adapted that style.

(Jyhad is a totally garbage 2 player game and one of the best multi-player card games I've ever played, assuming you're in a group that all knows how to play and there are no "wacky chaos" players)

HootTheOwl posted:

3-3. Death to modern. Death to magic.
Fire Maro and everyone who did MH2 into the sun. Ty, I'll take my answer off the air

HootTheOwl posted:

3-3. Death to modern. Death to magic.
Fire Maro and everyone who did MH2 into the sun. Ty, I'll take my answer off the air

HootTheOwl posted:

I'm half way to scrubbing out of a 5k. I am going to say it: I do not like modern right now.

Judgy Fucker posted:

90% of the shittiness comes from the same 4-5 posters. At this point it's clear it'll never change so might as well just ignore 'em

HootTheOwl posted:

3-3. Death to modern. Death to magic.
Fire Maro and everyone who did MH2 into the sun. Ty, I'll take my answer off the air