Koff koff.
Actually it should be more.
KOFF KOFF!
My throat hurts and now I’ve got a headache and neck ache from coughing so much. Normally I’m hardly ever ill, but it seems like every bug this winter wants a piece of me. In fact I can’t remember a winter where more people have been down with one illness or another. I suspect it might be because we’ve had one of the mildest winters in the UK I can ever remember. I think it’s snowed something like twice this year.
I suppose that’s one of the inevitable by-products of global warming.
Oh dear, you’ve done it now Craig. You can’t mention global warming on a Magic site. Everyone knows it’s just a myth dreamt up by tree-hugging liberal wishy-washy Democrats to force the average hard-working American Joe to pay more taxes anyway.
And in other news, Darwin was wrong.
Sighs for the state of the U.S. education system.
Don’t mind me, I’m not about to get all preachy or anything, I’m just being deliberately controversial to get more responses in the forums. And because playing “bait the creationist” is so much fun.
This is all a scrap between Biologists and Economists anyway. Biologists and Economists are like the Pirates and Ninjas of the academic world.
Actually, I might have to take one of those asides at this point. What the hell is this Pirates versus Ninja’s thing?
You’ll have to forgive me, I’m old and this Inta-ma-web thingy is a bit too complicated for my decaying grey matter.
So, back to Biologists and Economists, and exponential growth curves. Economists like exponential growth curves. More people equals more productivity and, more importantly, more consumers to sell crap to. That’s more wealth all round and everyone is happy.
Biologists also know about exponential growth curves, but they’re fuddy-duddies who also worry about things like finite resources, carrying capacity, and stationary and death phases.
Economists also know of these things but don’t really care, as they’re years off in any case, and by the time we reach them human ingenuity will have already found a solution to the problem.
So you see, it’s sort of like Pirates versus Ninjas except the Economists will always win because their advice makes more money… and everybody wants more money.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why, in a nutshell, the human race is ultimately completely and totally [censored].
But don’t worry, we can all do our bit to save the world. While some people like to recycle and others use energy conserving light bulbs, I prefer a more… direct… approach.
Koff koff.
Ah yes. The bacterial and virus load appears to be quite acceptable.
Spraggle! Come clear away the remains of this puppy.
Bwahahahahaha!
As this is a Magic-related site I suppose I should actually get round to talking about some Magic. After the Sliver related abuses of last week netted Fizz and I a (mythical) blue envelope, the Two-Headed format is pretty much dormant to me until San Diego later in the year. Overall I’m kind of ambivalent to 2HG. On the one hand it can be a lot of fun, and I think it serves an important role for bringing new players into the games. But I also think it suffers from a number of problems that currently make it unsuited for high-level events. I can only hope that the players at Grand Prix: Massachusetts this weekend experience none of the problems that plagued Amsterdam. Good luck all, and have fun.
I know! I can talk about Block. I’ve been doing a lot of Time Spiral Block testing online recently. Why don’t I talk about [CENSORED by order of Stuart Wright], [CENSORED by order of Stuart Wright] and [CENSORED by order of Stuart Wright].
Hmm, Stuart Wright has gotten much better with computers recently. I knew letting him out of my basement dungeon was a bad idea.
That’s one of the inevitabilities about being a (pseudo) pro. I’m currently part of a team testing for Yokohama, so it wouldn’t be fair for me to talk about Block. Come back in a few weeks and I’ll give you the full low down on Block, including how I managed to win the Pro Tour itself (everyone was struck down the night before by a “mystery” illness.)
Until then… what about Standard? I know I could talk about that mono-Black deck… that went 0-3 at the FNM last Friday. Too. Many. Scryb and Force. Decks.
That’s one of the things about Constructed. If you get a bad matchup there isn’t really a lot you can do about it other than suck it down and move onto the next round. I can understand why a lot of good players prefer drafting. Although you can just as easily fall prey to bombs and bad mana draws in that format as well.
But…
Yes, there are ways and means, and I’m not talking about cheating either (although sadly that has a more important role than anyone would like). Follow me into the shady and dubious world of imprecision.
First off, I’ll admit I’m rubbish at it. I’m a straight down the line kind of player, and pretty much hostage to how the cards fall. I’m good (most of the time) at playing the right cards in a deck, and at formulating a game plan that will give me the best chance of winning, but when it comes to those amazing acts of escapology where an opponent’s mind seemingly self destructs as they throw a game away… nope, I ain’t got it. Jedi mind tricks come into it, but also it’s being sharp enough to take advantage of when the game state wanders into the twilight zone of “which phase are we in exactly?”
Real life Magic is not like Magic Online, and it’s important to recognise this. MTGO is like your Magic nursemaid. Every trigger goes onto the stack and is nicely presented for your approval. In MTGO World, no one ever forgets to gain life from their Firemane Angel or to pay Cumulative Upkeep or Echo. In MTGO World, you don’t have your opponent smiling at you and asking you about what you think of City X and where you’re staying and… oh dear you’ve just drawn a card without paying Cumulative Upkeep on that Ronom Hulk? Too bad, sucka!
There is more to a game of Magic than just playing the cards.
Many people remember Quentin Martin embarrassing moment in the quarterfinals of PT: Prague against Christian Huttenberger, when he mistakenly thought Huttenberger had forgotten to regenerate a Dimir House Guard (The German hadn’t needed to as a Magemark made it big enough to survive combat). But what they don’t remember is that Huttenberger forgot to assign any trample damage to Martin in that attack.
On this occasion I think it may have been accidental, but I have a much better example involving Quentin from GP: Bilbao.
The format was Extended, and Quentin was playing for Day 2 in the last round against a Spanish amateur. Quentin had a Genesis in his graveyard, but getting it back would be problematic as his opponent had either a Coffin Purge or Withered Wretch and mana open.
At the beginning of his upkeep Quentin asked, “Can I pay three to get back Genesis?”
On the surface this seems an innocuous question, but it’s actually a very clever phrasing.
You see, if you read Genesis carefully you’ll notice that the cost is paid on the resolution of the effect. In MTGO World, the trigger would go on the stack, your opponent has a chance to respond, and then you get asked whether you’d like to pay the mana cost.
Quentin could have announced it in the same way, “Beginning of upkeep, Genesis trigger on the stack” and then pause while he waited for the inevitable Coffin Purge to hit. Instead he surmised (correctly) that his opponent didn’t quite understand how the card worked, and so asked this innocuous little question instead.
And of course, as his opponent didn’t understand how the card worked, he said yes and then tried to respond once Quentin had paid his mana. By this time it is, of course, too late as the game state has moved onto resolving the Genesis trigger.
Small things like this can be enough to make the difference between winning and losing.
In this example it was decisive as Quentin’s opponent, once he realised his error, tried to get the game state backed up in order to rectify his mistake. A small tip: lying to a judge is an extremely bad idea, especially when there are plenty of witnesses to corroborate one player’s story. One DQ later, and Quentin was into Day 2.
You could argue that Quentin could have announced his triggered effect more clearly, but you could also equally argue that it is not Quentin’s job to play “nursemaid” to his more inexperienced opponent.
Real life Magic is an infinitely sloppier affair than the online equivalent. There simply isn’t enough time to clearly announce every phase or trigger, and this gives rise to “grey” areas a sharp player can exploit.
Here are two more quick examples of when, sadly, I’ve been on the receiving end.
Round 3 of Worlds last year, and I’m attempting to Gigadrowse all of a Solar Flare player’s mana in his upkeep. My opponent Remands the copy targeting his Karoo land.
Slight problem. How do we know it was a copy being Remanded and not the original?
Well, we don’t. I was sloppy and waved the Gigadrowse at his land thinking it wouldn’t really matter. On this occasion my opponent was sharper and took advantage of a “grey” area, namely my sloppiness in failing to announce targets correctly, to engineer a more favorable target for his Remand.
The other example was in a PTQ against Stuart Wright a while back. We were in a deciding game and having to play quite quickly as there wasn’t much time left on the round. I ran a regenerator into combat. Stuart blocked, and then killed my monster in response to me putting a regeneration shield on it.
I looked at his blocker and waited for Stuart to put it into the graveyard.
“You didn’t announce damage was on.”
Of course, I wasn’t best pleased as we’d been playing very quickly because of the time constraints – quick enough to skip a lot of the explicit announcements of declare attackers etc – and I assumed we’d already put damage on. This again is one of the “grey” areas that can arise in real life Magic, and Stuart had been sharp enough to exploit the fact I hadn’t explicitly put damage on, getting me to waste mana without losing his blocker.
You could argue that I’m being a bit of a doormat here and should probably fetch a judge over. This is another grey area in itself, and sadly one where, in my experience, rulings depend more on which player is the better at debating his point rather than any consistency.
I took the position that I’d been sloppy and therefore it was my fault, but you could argue that a sharper player might have been able to successfully argue there was a discrepancy in both player’s perceptions of reality, and that the game state should be backed up to a point where both agree.
Finally we get to that interesting example from Amsterdam a few weeks back. I’d originally intended for this to be the actual Magic content for the Amsterdam article, but then I noticed the report was getting too long as it was. As there’s been some discussion on sloppy play and cheating recently, I thought it would make sense to write an article on how easy it is for these grey areas to arise.
So here we go, back in the time machine to round four of GP: Amsterdam. Keith and I are about to punt the game in dramatic fashion with a pathetically suicidal all-in attack.
The original report mentioned this, and you might also want to reference my live report of the screw up here.
We punted round 4, pure and simple. It was now around seven in the evening, with another five rounds still to go. Once I’d worked out how the tournament was going to go overall there were really only two ways I wanted to it to go for us. In the ideal situation we’d start out winning and wouldn’t stop until Day 2. The second-best scenario was we’d lose the first two rounds really quickly and get the hell out of there. The worst situation for me was we’d lose the first and then kind of stumble along only to pick up a second right near the end and then be eliminated by tiebreakers or something stupid after battling all the way to five in the morning.
We’d just lost round 3. With hindsight we should have probably just ticked the drop-box, as I don’t think either of us really cared at that point. I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t have alpha-striked all our slivers into a situation where about a billion cards would wreck us and allow them to counter-attack and kill us.
I knew it was a dodgy attack, but the turn earlier they’d thrown away a Skycutter just to ground a Castle Raptors so they could get three damage through with a Basalt Gargoyle. As we were currently on five life, I did think it was now or never.
Then we screwed up. It’s not in the Player Blog as I wrote it straight after and hadn’t even realised the mistake. Anyone with a shred of rules knowledge would have read that game report and screamed, “Weathered Bodyguards only takes the damage for one of the players.”
Yeah, it’s another one of those weird Two-Headed Giant quirks like double-striking Hurricanes.
And now the detailed examination of that situation that was left out of the original:
We attacked, they unmorphed Weathered Bodyguards. We put the Bodyguards in the bin, and then shook their hands when the counterattack came in the following turn.
I’m fairly dumb like that. I play by what I think the card is intended to do instead of actually reading it closely to find out what the card actually does.
This is a very interesting situation, so let’s just rewind and freeze the action at the moment they unmorph the Bodyguards. I like to think, the odd very smelly brain fart aside, I’m very good within the game. I’m good at taking the cards I’m given and formulating a strategy that will give me the best chance of winning a game.
But there is also a whole aspect of play outside of the game. This is where the rules lawyering and psychological tricks come in. I’m no good at it because in some way I think it detracts from the thinking inside the game itself. One of the reasons I hated Cumulative Upkeep coming back was because winning a game because your opponent forgot upkeep is not exactly challenging the skill of anyone.
So now we have this Weathered Bodyguard unmorphing and the first question we ask is “where are we?”
I imagine some judges would now start wincing, as you can see this isn’t going to end well. In fact, we’re straight on the Train to Messyville.
First off we need to know what the card does in Two-Headed Giant. Obviously Keith and I completely fell at that hurdle, so you can kick us straight off to the bar for some consolation beers.
The next question is “do they know what the card does in “Two-Headed Giant”?
Now we really need to know exactly where we are.
First off, some details. Keith and I are at a very vulnerable 5 life. They have a bunch of creatures on the board, including Basalt Golem, Durkwood Baloth, and two face-down morphs. The guy on the left with the Green-Black deck (and one of the morphs) is tapped out, if I remember correctly. The other guy is White/Blue and has mana open. I’m terrified of Dawn Charm, and really frightened by his morph.
Last turn I abused Whitemane Lion and Wild Pair to put a lot of slivers into play. Now I’ve just effectively declared all-in with my attackers. I’m attacking with 26 points of trampling sliver damage, and 5 points of unblockable flying damage. They are at 17 life and have 14 points of toughness to put in the way. As it stands the attack is exactly enough to kill them.
We’ve already seen one Shaper Parasite. If this morph is one as well, then we’re dead as they take out our Bonesplitter Sliver. If it’s something with a higher toughness, then they don’t die but pretty much everything else does and they either kill us with Basalt Golem plus trick, or we get them with our fliers on the following turn.
They unmorph Weathered Bodyguards, and this is where it gets tricky. This isn’t MTGO, and without anything else being said we have to assume this is still the declare attackers stage.
Now if we assume it’s not Keith and I playing, as we’re already in the bar drinking beers thank you very much, then the question is back to “do they know what the card does in Two-Headed Giant?”
The other important factoid is that if damage is put on the stack and it hasn’t been specified to which head it has been assigned, then it is assumed to be divided between both players. This doesn’t actually help us, as even assuming the damage is assigned favorably that only makes 16.
I don’t think we’re at that point, as nothing has been said. But we also technically haven’t past the declare blockers stage yet, so if you tip them off and they’re sharp, they can block in such a way that the Baloth lives and kills us next turn.
Admittedly, all of this is very sloppy and judges wouldn’t approve, but Magic is a game where you can’t explicitly announce all of the phases and actually finish a match within the time limit (although I remember playing an Italian player at Torino who was so nervous he tried anyway).
So we have an important juncture in the game that’s basically going to be decided by which teams say these words and when:
“Damage on?”
We’re the attacking player. They’ve just unmorphed Bodyguards, but we suspect they don’t know how it works with Two-Headed Giant, and we definitely can’t afford for them to block. So we say, in a very resigned voice, “damage on?”
If they agree you point at the other head, cackle manically and say “that will be thirty-one points of damage to you, sucka.” No Bodyguard protecting you, mate… and that’s one game stolen right there.
Of course, it’s a much thornier issue if they ask if damage is on before unmorphing.
It’s even worse, and an absolute nightmare for the judges, if one team suddenly decides to have “English comprehension” issues.
Fortunately, none of this occurred as Keith and I are stupid, as you’ve already worked out. But it is an interesting example of how vagueness in the game state can be exploited by a clever player (I’m so getting a forum post from our opponents saying they clearly announced damage on and nothing could have happened in any case, which will undermine the whole damn thing, although I don’t remember it at the time… and it’s an interesting situation to talk about in any case.)
Actually, I’m now wishing I’d saved this tidbit for a later article as I’m supposed to poking fun at Amsterdam and I’m already probably over my word limit (not that I think we have one – I think Craig just chases us down with a big stick when it takes him ‘til five in the morning to edit it).
I did indeed save this tidbit for a later article, because it highlights clearly how imprecision affects real life magic. The Amsterdam example is very interesting because it has everything. First off, we have a huge grey area on whether players actually understand what a card does. Then we’re clearly in a grey area about which phase the game is actually in. And finally, this isn’t one of those minor situations that may eventually decide a game, but an enormous situation that decides the outcome of the match, right there!
Imprecision is an inevitable part of real life Magic, and as a player you should be aware and be able to take advantage of when these grey areas arise.
If you wish to turn to the Dark Side and be a Black Hat so to speak, then creating a little imprecision (or exploiting imprecision on the part of your opponent) may give you ways to win games that might not normally be there. I’ll leave the question of whether this is ethically sound to the forums. I’m curious to know what people, especially judges, think on this issue, and how far you can go before brilliant play crosses the line into misrepresenting the board state, as I’m sure it’s an interesting point to debate.
If, like me, you’re a White Hat (anyone else repeats that I said this gets their gizzard ripped out with a spoon. I’m evil, I tell you! Evil!), then you need to be aware of how imprecision can be exploited, and make damn sure you’re absolutely clear when announcing targets, phases, etc.
Thanks for reading.
Prof