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AuthorOscar Tan

Winner of the 2002 Writer War, Oscar lives in the Phillipines and is an aspiring law student.

You CAN Play Type I #127: Deconstructing Darksteel, Part IV – Instants

Shunt

Okay, so Deflection and Misdirection should have been Red now? This pie business is sure confusing.


Anyway, Deflection was a chase card after Jester’s Cap back in Ice Age days, but it was just too tempo inefficient. Barring a Fireball for twenty, Deflection didn’t really do all that much for four mana, aside from having cute flavor text. Shunt, at three mana, isn’t all that different in Type I. Remember, this effect truly took off with Misdirection’s free cost.

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You CAN Play Type I #124: Deconstructing Darksteel, Part I – Creatures

Incidentally, my goal here is not just to point out the top picks. I see the traditional set review as a beginners’ intellectual exercise, and I’m more interested in the thought process, especially articulating why some hyped”Timmy” cards glitter but aren’t quite gold.

As my habit goes, we start with the simplest category, creatures. Talking shadow price, we’re mainly talking power-to-mana ratio (see”Counting Tempo, Part II”). Even if you’re interested in the ability, you’ll still prefer it come with a decent-sized warm body.

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You CAN Play Type I #122 – The Control Player’s Bible, Part IV.3: The History of “The Deck”, December 2003

Although Hulk Smash and raw firepower was the top deck going into Vintage Champs, changes in the metagame made”The Deck” and its flexibility the Blue-based deck of choice once again. For example, the December 12, 2003 Dülmen saw three top German players-Oliver Daems, Roland Bode and Falk Bernhardt-Top 8 using”The Deck” with Isochrons, and it also featured prominently in January 2004 European tourneys. Since the notable event in this slice of time is mainly the release of Mirrodin, it’s easier to understand the evolution on a card-by-card basis. I spent December finishing off my theory articles and January starting with my midterms so I haven’t been able to really update my deck, either, but here’s what’s on my plate for reference…

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You CAN Play Type I #122: Back to Basics, Part XII: Counting Card Quality, or Why You Can’t

“Card quality” is a mishmash of the possible interactions between all the resources in Magic – beyond just the cards and draw steps – and it’s used in so many different senses you can’t always be sure what the speaker means.”Card quality” has become a piece of Magic space-filling jargon, the way some people say”mise”,”barn”, and”f***” every other word and assume you understand whatever the hell they’re talking about.

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You CAN Play Type I #121: Back to Basics, Part XI: Counting Shadow Prices, Unifying the Theories of Magic

Don’t worry, the formulas in this article aren’t serious, I’ve had it with fancy math. Last week, I snuck into the cafeteria for a bite, and the only other person there was a grad student from the neighboring college, studying calculus models for a Macroeconomics midterm. Missing my Bachelor’s in Economics days, I took the seat beside her, put on a big smile, and asked,”So, what’s your favorite equation?”

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You CAN Play Type I #119: Back to Basics, Part IX – The Ten-Second Card Advantage Solution Part 1

Card Advantage is simpler and more visible than tempo, so the spectacular plays you associate with Type I are usually those that build incredible CA, from Stroke of Genius to Mind Twist. The most powerful card ever printed, Necropotence, is also the most powerful CA engine ever printed.

It’s really very simple. If Restriction 1 says you only draw one card a turn, or your regular draw, then one way to win is by drawing more cards. However, spectacular plays aren’t common. Normally, you have to choose between two average plays. Thus, you want a simple method to count CA, to help you decide… and that’s what I’m going to provide.

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Oscar Takes On All Comers!

When you read this, I’d like you to e-mail me the most confusing, perplexing, tooth-gnashing, ball-breaking card advantage conundrum you can think of. And I’ll do my best to explain it to you in one stroke, using a very short checklist. In other words, I’d like you to help me write the next column.

If I can’t – again, take note of the grain of common sense needed – then I admit defeat and will shut up.

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You CAN Play Type I #118 – Back to Basics, Part VIII: Revisiting Card Advantage

To begin, I’d like to go back to something I glossed over in”Counting Card Advantage.” A lot of the forum discussion touched on”virtual” card advantage, but I doubt all readers know exactly what this is. It was a term coined by Eric”Danger” Taylor in”Virtual Card Advantage in Urza’s Block, a Sub-Category of Card Advantage Theory” (The Dojo, August 4, 1999). EDT’s classic article actually discussed two specific sets of scenarios, and the first concluded:

You can’t ignore tokens when counting card advantage.

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You CAN Play Type I #117: CAN Randy Buehler Play Type I? Hell Yes!

Before anything else, you have to give him credit. I criticized – too violently, some said – Mark Rosewater’s column because it was just a cut-and-paste of an old column and was certainly unflattering, sounded patronizing in a number of areas, asked for Type I articles on topics that had already been debated to death on Star City and TheManaDrain, and focused on what they wouldn’t do without saying much about what they would.

Forget all that.

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