Rosewater podcast in defense of Magic's mana system

I think the last time we got to talking about Magic's mana system big arguments broke out, and a lot of people have taken to using the Danger Room variant to "fix" its problems. Mark Rosewater, the current (for the last decade or so) lead designer of Magic and by *far* the most important person in Magic's development since Richard Garfield, does a podcast every week where he talks about a topic while he drives to work. He believes that Richard Garfield had three genius ideas when he created Magic: 1) the trading card game genre 2) the color wheel and 3) the mana system. He did a podcast on each; the last one is, of course, the most controversial. Give it a listen, and just deal with his nerdy voice:

media.wizards.com/podcasts/magic/driveto...4mana_3of3haho5u.mp3

As I've said, I love the mana system myself, and have defended it against the haters, so I was aware of most of the arguments for it, but I liked the idea that it was designed to be a scapegoat and is TOO good at that job.

I love the mana system. I get into arguments each time we draft cuz my buddies (one, in particular) never put enough mana in their 40 card deck and then they rage and everyone feels bad and wants them to keep playing so they make all sorts of concenssions. But the truth is, they are putting too many good cards and not even land. Land is essential. You don't remove oxygen tanks from your Apollo spacecraft to make room for more Emma Stone posters. You don't. Sure the trip is more fun, but you're not going to make it home.

So we got to put up with all the haters who cry over being mana-screwed because they miss their 3-drop and have Fisher Price rules put in. Magic is a top-decking game, it's not a strategic board game. Mana is part of the game.

Hey dstout (and other mtg lovers), my buddy is having a bday GT at his house on April 6. We typically draft as one of the activities. I want to get him a birthday present but I don't know what. For a guy that ONLY likes to draft with his friends, what should I get him? A box of M13 boosters? What makes for a great bday present for a guy who loves magic drafting once every three months with 3-4 friends?

I didn't realize people had such a problem with it. I've never thought it was broken.

Although I do have one friend who tended to be a god damn cheater with his land. At one point we found out he would occasionally seed his land cards uniformly throughout his deck. We were appalled, and he couldn't understand why. He got up and went to the bathroom, and one guy grabbed his deck, and without looking at the cards, dealt out 2 cards to one pile, and 1 card to another pile, repeating this between the two piles, then put the "land stack" on the bottom. He got so mad that he couldn't draw a land to save his life. After that we would always grab his deck and give it a few shuffles despite his protests. Idiot.

Edit - Lol'ing so hard at Rosewater's voice.

disgust, your friend didn't shuffle his deck? land-seeding is fine as long as you properly shuffle

If he shuffled it after seeding, it was maybe once. And it wasn't something he did with every deck all the time. We just made sure every deck he brought out got properly shuffled. Seeing him get pissy was an added bonus.

When i used to play in CCG tournaments, you could spot the seeders right away cuz they would try to shake your hand and then draw their opening hand right away after. If you asked them to shuffle, they would get super pissy. One guy called over a judge once.

Toronto guy: I already shuffled sufficiently and he's asking me to reshuffle for no reason.
Judge (to him): Did he see you shuffle?
Toronto guy: No, I did it while I was waiting for him to show up.
Judge: Give him your deck to shuffle. (leaves)

after that I would politely ask new adversaries, ''Want to shuffle each other's deck?'' 90-95% of people reacted really positively to this offer and then I would make a joke that we have to look into each other's eyes so we don't see cards being passed.

I remember this one douche where the second I handed him my deck to shuffle, he flips it and looks at the bottom card. REALLY?!

Black Barney wrote: When i used to play in CCG tournaments, you could spot the seeders right away cuz they would try to shake your hand and then draw their opening hand right away after. If you asked them to shuffle, they would get super pissy. One guy called over a judge once.

Toronto guy: I already shuffled sufficiently and he's asking me to reshuffle for no reason.
Judge (to him): Did he see you shuffle?
Toronto guy: No, I did it while I was waiting for him to show up.
Judge: Give him your deck to shuffle. (leaves)

after that I would politely ask new adversaries, ''Want to shuffle each other's deck?'' 90-95% of people reacted really positively to this offer and then I would make a joke that we have to look into each other's eyes so we don't see cards being passed.

I remember this one douche where the second I handed him my deck to shuffle, he flips it and looks at the bottom card. REALLY?!

In a tournament that player could be given an immediate game loss, at least nowadays. You have to be VERY careful not to look at your opponent's cards.

As for the players who wouldn't shuffle their decks in front of you: they could probably get their ass whupped by a judge too, but I'm not entirely sure. In any case, it's pretty standard procedure to shuffle your opponent's deck these days, in tournaments at least; in casual play I just cut the opponent's deck, but no way would I ever do that in a tournament.

As to your question, Barney: 1) what's your budget 2) what's his experience level with Magic 3) how long do you want your present to last?
If you want to buy a booster box to draft with, I'd go with Magic 2013 (best core set for drafting for non-beginners ever, IMHO; for absolute beginners, Magic 2010 was better) or Innistrad (in the running for best set ever, including for draft; only warning is that you need opaque sleeves for everyone's decks, or else you have to play the butt-ugly PITA checklist cards) or Return to Ravnica or Gatecrash (the two most recent sets, also good draft formats, though Gatecrash has a lot of haters).

Problem with a booster box is that you'll use 24 packs (assuming 8 players), have 12 packs leftover, and just get one draft out of it. IF you're willing to double the money spent BUT get infinite replayability out of it after that, I'd buy a complete set of one of the above sets, plus an extra set of uncommons and a couple extra sets of commons (usually you're better off just buying a 4x Common/Uncommon set for shipping cost reasons, but shop around and you might get something cheap, ESPECIALLY if you can find something local and avoid shipping; I'll have to check, I might still need some extra C/U sets myself and we could split), and then making "simulated packs" out of that with 10 commons / 3 uncommons / 1 rare. I WOULD recommend Innistrad for that, because it really is easily one of the top 3 draft formats ever, but it is kind of a pain-in-the-ass getting the distribution right for the simulated packs. But maybe you don't care about that. In any case, either Return to Ravnica or Magic 2013 would be good backups, with M13 not as deep but simpler.

ANOTHER alternative would be to get him a Common/Uncommon Cube. I haven't priced these kinds of things out in a while, but an all-common Cube would DEFINITELY be within budget, and I just have no clue what's happened to the prices of uncommons lately and whether that would be within budget (certainly I think uncommons add HUGELY; there are so many types of cards that just do not exist at common). Certainly for a C/U Cube you'd want to cut out stuff like Sinkhole, Maze of Ith, Wasteland. You could start with a common Cube and then he or you could slowly add uncommons to make it more fun. The classic Cube lists I would start with would be:
Lanxal's All-Common Cube
Klug's Common/Uncommon Cube

Here's a debate about Pauper (just commons) vs. Peasant (uncommons too) Cube:
forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=493479

If you're thinking "I don't want to buy 420 individual cards, what a PITA": most MTG singles shops have a "deckbuilder" feature where you can input a list of a whole bunch of cards at once. For buying commons, I strongly recommend against any of the big stores except for 1) tcgplayer and 2) adventuresON. What I'd recommend is using the "Mass Card Entry" feature at TCGPlayer, then using the Cart Optimizer to minimize shipping costs. It's not as user-friendly as it could be, but you'll save a TON of money compared to buying at Coolstuffinc et al.

Yeah, I think my final recommendation is: buy Lanxal's Pauper Cube, and look at Klug's C/U cube to see if you just happen to have any of those uncommon cards already that you could throw in as extras, or buy a bunch of cooler cheap uncommons from that list (cheap = 25 cents or less). I think he'd love the crap out of it.

He can defend it all he wants, but it's still a very weak part of what is, overall, a very good game. The fact that Mr. Magic even feels the need to defend it, 18 or 19 years after the game's release, says a lot, actually.

Magic's timing couldn't have been better, really. It became an established presence and gained tons of traction in the last few years before internet usage became a common thing in most homes. Had it been released in 2004 instead of 1994, the first thing the tastemakers, neckbeards, basement-dwellers, BGG thumb-harvesters, and other internet warriors would have seized upon would have been the mana system. There would have been "concerns."

Thanks a ton, Dragonstout.

Have not thought of budget but I don,t want to go nuts. It would be a draft for 4 guys most likely (maybe 5).

What's a Cube? I don,t even know what this is. We only draft boosters right from the box.

I had not considered buying online and that makes a ton of sense. I'm scared my local card shop (I have been once in my entire life) would recommend something stupid (that he can,t usually sell) and that would cost me too much.

maybe i'll check the two card websites that used to sponsor me when I used to play (CardShark and KwyjiboKardz)

It is true, in the most general sense, that the land system has its share of flaws but if you lose constantly to mana screw I'm positive you either:

1) Have a poorly-built deck
2) Don't shuffle properly

And the more you complain, the worse you are at the game because good players don't strive to excuse themselves, they just move on to the next game.

I also don't understand how people can play 14 lands in draft. Like, seriously guys.

Black Barney wrote: What's a Cube? I don,t even know what this is. We only draft boosters right from the box.

Oh holy shit yes yes yes.

A Cube, in general, just means you have a box of cards from which you make simulated booster packs and draft from that. The benefit of a Cube is obvious: once you crack a booster box it's cracked and you have to buy more to draft again, whereas with a Cube once you've bought it you can draft over and over without buying new cards.

There are two chief types of Cube, both of which I describe above: a Cube which attempts to simulate an existing booster draft format as much as possible, and a Cube which draws on cards from throughout the history of the game, TYPICALLY the most powerful cards (sometimes under some restriction) from the history of the game, almost always singleton.

In my opinion? Powered Cube is *the most fun way to play*, ever.

Just copy and paste Lanxal's list (he has it broken into like 12 parts, so it's a tiny pain, but whatever still just five minutes) into TCGPlayer's Mass Card Entry form, use the Cart Optimizer, and check out how much it costs (you can try CardShark and Kwyjibo too, but please make sure you check TCGPlayer as well). Tell us how much that costs (you can cut Sinkhole and Chain Lightning to chop $30 off). I think it'll be crazy cheap and you guys will have a freaking blast. I think it is also something he will treasure for a long time.

I don't agree at all that everyone who complains about the mana rules doesn't build their deck properly or can't shuffle. Plenty of good players recognise that bad luck can ruin your day.

It's a serious flaw in the game that has been fixed by other games that just can't replace magic because of how well entranched it is.

Squigherder wrote: I don't agree at all that everyone who complains about the mana rules doesn't build their deck properly or can't shuffle.

Note that I didn't say "everyone who complains" but "if you lose constantly to mana screw".

You will lose games to mana screw in the same way you lose to other sources of randomness in the favourite games of this site. But when you lose most games to such randomness, there's something wrong beyond the mana system.

Squigherder wrote: I don't agree at all that everyone who complains about the mana rules doesn't build their deck properly or can't shuffle. Plenty of good players recognise that bad luck can ruin your day.

It's a serious flaw in the game that has been fixed by other games that just can't replace magic because of how well entranched it is.

Did you listen to the podcast? It's specifically compared to other games that theoretically "fixed" the flaw, and is kind of all about how EVERYone wants to fix the "flaw" without understanding that it's one of the game's greatest strengths. He also notes that yes, of COURSE mana screw sucks, mostly...but that it's worth it.

Anyway.

Black Barney, I put Lanxal's Cube list into TCGPlayer. Without Sinkhole or Chain Lightning, you can buy *the entire 360 card Pauper Cube*, good for dozens of drafts, for $73.71. That is nuts. I'll sell you a Chain Lightning for cheaper than you can get it there, too, you should really add that because it's a Cube staple even when it's NOT Pauper or Peasant. I think I've got an extra Sinkhole, too; if you bought them both from me I'd send some cards from that list your way for free.

Edit: Actually, I've got a TON of those cards that I could sell you for a significant discount on what they're charging, and you'd be giving the money to a FATtie instead of a store.

i agree that 14 land is obscenely low for a draft. That's what my friend, who complains always, plays. I had done research on it and the number was higher (which is what I played) but I forget the number now.

Dragon, that's cool but two things:
1) I'd want to buy them all at once to make it easier.
2) this isn't your standard draft. We're only 4-5 guys.