Scarlet Plays Magic: Let's Have an Economics Lesson! · 11:56pm Oct 1st, 2016
Magic: The Gathering has a pretty fun community even if it's largely made up of people who complain about Magic: The Gathering. The massive amount of both official and fan content written about the game was actually what inspired me to pick it up myself. Among the first fans I ever encountered content by is the man simply known as "The Professor", a highly vocal and entertaining gentleman who produces short Magic-related comedy sketches as well as product reviews and "deck techs". He's fun, has a lot of great advice, and introduced me to Pauper as a format. Neat guy.
Sometimes though, I just want to scream "oh god how can you be so wrong" at him. This is one of those times.
This video is obnoxious in a way I don't think veteran players of the game are ever going to understand. So I'm going to try to break this down. And don't have me break this thing down for nothing! I want to see you all on your baddest behavior, lend me some sugar, I am your-
Sorry. I just really like Outkast.
So before I get into why I vehemently disagree with the Professor's analysis of the new Chandra and Nissa Planeswalker Decks, let me walk everyone through a quick description of the products in question and the Professor's specific objections as I understand them.
-The Chandra and Nissa Planeswalker Decks are a new product created by Wizards of the Coast as a way to give players with no prior investment a way to quickly and affordably get into the game. Previously this role was filled by Intro Packs, which have since been discontinued since they proved to be an unsuccessful product. Planeswalker Decks following the pattern of the two decks showcased in this video will be released for each new set block going forward.
-These decks are each built around a two-color archetype and have a broad, easy to understand overall strategy making use of one of the new mechanics from the current set (in this case Vehicles and Energy). This is meant as a way to introduce new players to the new cards and abilities present in each current running set block.
-To further enhance the product, each Planeswalker deck contains a number of unique cards not available anywhere else as well as a single copy of the deck's Planeswalker, backed by several cards meant to tutor for that Planeswalker. However, the Planeswalkers and unique cards in question are not pushed for tournament play. Wizards has openly acknowledged this, claiming that their overall low power level was a feature designed to make sure that tournament players wouldn't buy up the product, raising its overall retail price and making it harder for new players to access it.
-The decks are sold together with a pair of booster packs of the latest set, in this case Kaladesh. These are meant to both give potential new players extra options to customize their deck with, and to give them a look at what's available in the current booster.
The Professor has the following overall objections:
-The decks contain few playsets of cards, with many appearing at as few as two copies or less. This prevents the decks from playing consistently, which is a major part of tournament-level Magic play and makes it unlikely for them to win at the local competition level, such as at a Friday Night Magic event. They are, he argues, in effect, not "playable out of the box".
-The deck contains few cards of any intrinsic value. Most of the cost of the deck's individual pieces is bundled in a relatively low number of cards, which may very well fall in retail value over time. Therefore while the deck is financially a good buy, that good buy is of questionable worth if you intend to simply strip the deck for parts and customize it, since most of the cards will be of little trade value.
-There are better options for new players in the form of $9.99 "battle decks" available through online retailer Card Kingdom, which sells inexpensive decks built around draft archetypes. It should be noted that these decks are not legal for Standard, and seldom focus on current mechanics. They are also built after the Limited environment of each set has emerged.
-The decks are functionally impossible to simply 'rebuild' into a Standard-playable deck, and cannot be brought to most events. Therefore they are not a suitable product for players who wish to enter tournament play.
Okay, everyone following me so far? Great. Good. Let's talk about why I think these objections betray a serious level of Old Player Perspective.
The Professor has joked in previous videos on his channel about being an Old Man, and yeah he's not wrong. This is very Old Magic Player logic - that is, the logic of someone who has a relatively long play history and is removed from the direct experience of new players with little to no knowledge of how the game operates. Old Player Perspective isn't unique to him, either. I've noticed that enfranchised Magic players seem to be very bad as a general rule at communicating the experience of the game to prospective newcomers. Which isn't to say that they don't make the game seem fun and inviting, far from it - it's that they're a very bad judge at what is and isn't something to use to teach a new player the game.
Let's take a look at the list of one of the Battle Decks mentioned in the video as an alternative to the Nissa and Chandra Planeswalker decks, the Battle Blitz deck. I actually own and use a variation of this deck on MTGO, and it's a reasonably powerful archetype. The idea is to get Kiln Fiend or Nivix Cyclops into play, cast a flurry of spells that power up your creature, and use either Slip Through Space or Artful Dodge to make them unblockable. Then you cast Temur Battle Rage, effectively doubling the amount of damage your creature deals, and swing for hopefully-lethal. This is a great deck to play. It's fun, this version has alternate win conditions so you don't have to feel like you need to deal twenty-or-just-lose, and it seems like a great deck to have if you just want to get casual games with your friends.
There are three huge problems with this deck.
1) The gameplan is generally super linear.
Most of your wins with this deck are basically going to be getting Nivix Cyclops or Kiln Fiend into play, making them unblockable, and giving them Double Strike. The deck even gives you Jeskai Elder specifically to give you chances to loot into those cards. You are almost always going to win using this combo - your other ways of dealing damage are too slow, and run the risk of getting eaten alive if your opponent is playing bigger creatures than you. Which they are, because when your guys aren't pumped the largest creature in the list is Shu Yun, The Silent Tempest at 3/2,
I don't know why experienced magic players think this, but never give a linear deck to a new player as their first deck. This feels counter-intuitive in some ways, I know. New players tend to 'play their own hand' and not worry about what's going on with the other side of the table. But new players also need to be sold on the experience of the game. That means that the ideal deck should have a focused gameplan, but not one that plays out the exact same way with minor variations each time you sit down with the deck.
2) The deck plays several mechanics that, while synergetic, are going to be a lot for a new player to take in.
Just from the start we have three different keyword mechanics in this deck. While I'll give a pass to Prowess, since it's an evergreen mechanic that new players are going to encounter all the time anyway when we get Red/Blue decks somewhere down the line, the list also includes Phyrexian Mana and Flashback - mechanics that aren't even part of the current Standard, meaning that a player looking to transition from their first deck into tournament play won't want this deck anyway.
Again, the deck looks super fun and probably plays really well, but are you sure it's a good idea to hand Immolating Souleater to someone who isn't going to intuitively know the value of being able to pay two life to pump a dude by +1/0 until end of turn? (And why didn't this thing come with four Kiln Fiends?)
3) The deck contains cards and interactions that are not necessarily typical of the included colors.
While Blue/Red "Spells matter" cards are common, cards like Immolating Souleater are not normal for Magic and are really specific to old set environments. The deck also plays a set of Brute Force (really? Over Titan's Strength?), a pump spell that is super atypical for Red. Red never gets to just Giant Growth its own stuff as a general rule.
The deck is also straight up a bad buy. If you bought the singles from this deck as just straight-up single card purchases on the secondary market, the deck would retail for less than then $9.99 you're paying here. The advantage of the $9.99 cost is the ability to make a one-time purchase of a pre-constructed product, rather than going through the hassle of tracking down singles just to get your hands on what's ultimately a super casual deck you're not taking to official events and just want to have around so you can get quick games against your buddies.
What I'm saying is that while this deck is probably a product of value to someone who's been playing long enough to appreciate the experience it offers, it is very unlikely to be a good product for a newcomer to the game - and the cheaper price tag is something of a lie. At least if you buy the Planeswalker decks, you're getting two booster packs worth of extra value on top of the cost of individual singles.
The other major assumption made in the video is that the deck should be designed to go to or prepare new players for events such as Friday Night Magic. This is the part I have a huge problem with.
Why the hell does a new player want to go to Friday Night Magic?
FNM is a competitive event. It may be at a lower level than a Grand Prix or the Pro Tour, but you are still engaging in competition with multiple other players with the promise of prizes. This is not a place a new player really wants to be before they've found their sea legs, and products that are designed to teach the new player about the competitive environment of these events would be nice to have but are not the same thing as teaching someone how to play the game of Magic and what the baseline level looks like. That would be like teaching someone how to play Chess by showing them replays of championships and asking them to memorize the moves of the top players instead of giving them a primer on how to move the pieces across the board or what Castling is.
The truth is that Friday Night Magic is primarily an event players who are already into the game are invested in, not an event that appeals right out of the gate to people who have never played before. This means that a large part of the Professor's complaints about deck consistency are rendered moot.
Rendering these complaints even more moot is the fact that new players want something other than consistency for the most part. New players who are just learning the game crave the experience of playing Magic. If the deck they're playing with is consistent to the point of most games ending with the same pattern of moves, they're going to get bored very quickly and want to branch out - they haven't yet reached the level of play where they're understanding how to play around an opponent's decisions, or are making sideboard calls to deal with their local metagame. New players want their deck to play a consistent game, but they don't necessarily want to see the same cards in every game. That's why the Planeswalker decks include so many cards at two copies. It ensures that the player is almost always hitting their mana curve, but also ensures that they have fewer games where they see the same opening hand.
Finally, and this is a big one, the decks come with Planeswalkers.
Yes they're bad Planeswalkers, but this is a huge deal. Let me explain.
Planeswalkers were, previous to this product, something new players would likely never encounter outside a very lucky pack opening. They're powerful cards that have an immediate impact on games for a number of reasons:
1) They give the player access to a set of abilities that do not require them to invest any mana during their turn. Even when those abilities are small, the fact that you get them all the time is useful.
2) They take heat off the player. Since Planeswalkers get access to powerful "Ultimate" abilities when they stay on the board long enough, the opponent has an incentive to try to get rid of that Planeswalker as soon as possible after the card hits table. And Planeswalkers are really hard to destroy. The only way to effectively get rid of them is to just take every damage spell you have available and every creature on your board and start swinging at the Planeswalker's face. The problem is that every card you devote towards doing that is one less card that can be devoted to attacking your opponent's life total, meaning that the worst a Planeswalker will ever do is typically buy you another turn.
3) They are relatively hard to deal with. Most removal in the game can't touch Planeswalkers at all, and the few types that can are typically harder to cast and have less utility than cards that kill creatures. The net result is that playing a Planeswalker is almost always setting off a bomb: your opponent is now in a position where unless they can push back really hard in the next few turns, you are going to either win or end up with a huge advantage they do not want you to have.
This isn't even exploring the other major bonus of the Planeswalkers, which is that they're significant characters within the story of the game. Previously if you wanted to get your hands on a Chandra or a Nissa because you liked either character, you had to shell out major money even if you just wanted a single copy for your casual theme deck. Now you get one and several cards that can go look for it in your Library for fifteen bucks. That's a huge score for new kids who might have been drawn in by the appeal of these characters. It's also something Magic's never really had available before. Do you think Ajani Goldmane is the coolest dude in the multiverse and also is the fluffiest adorbs kitty? Of course you do! The cheapest version of him is $5.00 though, and you're on your own for finding a deck to put his fluffy rear in. And that's going to require you to go out and search the secondary market, a place that is typically not great for new players to wander into and which is reselling cards either purchased from players or pulled out of boosters. If you buy one of the new Planeswalker decks, you get your own mint-condition unique Nissa or Chandra to ruin by slamming it onto the table without sleeves!
Planeswalkers were, previously, always hard to encounter. There has never been a Planeswalker printed at low rarity in the history of the game with the exception of Tybalt, who is so bad that he actually completely negates all of the baseline advantages I described earlier and who nobody loves at all if you do you are objectively wrong. If you get into the game by cracking packs or by buying cheap intro products, you weren't ever going to encounter Planeswalkers - and because Planeswalkers are so baseline powerful, ones that are printed in new sets tend to be incredibly pricey on the secondary market for quite some time.
Yes, if you're an older or experienced player or if you're looking for ways to transition into FNM, this is not a product for you. But it was never meant to be! This is a deck that's serving a great role for giving people an easy way to just buy into the game with minimal up-front investment, and which is offering new players access to a card type they just don't get to use normally. It's great. I like it. I might actually get one of my little sisters into the game with this product! That's awesome!
I love you, Professor, but please stop assuming you know what's best for other players. Some of us don't remember Alpha.
You make me want to play magic again. Bah
4235906 I'm doing my evil job.
It's always important to remember your audience when you design a product, and I think Wizards has really been hitting the nail on the head over these past few years when it comes to Magic. You could apply the same arguments to their Commander line as well, but heck if I don't find those to be an amazing line of products. Sure, they're not the greatest decks out of the box, but they're not meant to be. Plus, I always love the new Commander-oriented cards
.
And yes, I know I'm talking something else, but what I want to say is that Wizards get an A+ from me when it comes to their product lines. Especially their Commander line. God I love them for making that series.
4235959 Mind it's hard not to love them when, as I understand it, Meren is just absurdly good right out of the box.
No, that's Mirri.
/so old
I keep wanting to play Magic.
But its like, I get the same fix from Hearthstone, except my finances love me a lot more - in Hearth I can make any deck I want easily, in Magic doing that is a constant cashbleed.
Basically, I miss MTGO back in the beta days when it was paradise.
*googles Ajani* Awww whatta big floofy kitty!
Care to explain to non-players why Tybalt is so bad? Or is that another blog post?
4236435 That might be another one but I don't mind explaining pretty quickly.
Tybalt as a character isn't entirely bad, but as a card... well.
Planeswalkers don't require mana to use their abilities once you've cast them. Instead, they use a resource called "Loyalty", and typically have three abilities - a weaker ability that increases loyalty, a slightly stronger ability that decreases loyalty, and an "ultimate" ability that requires you to use up a large amount of Loyalty at once.
Tibalt casts for two red mana, which is extremely cheap so that's a point in his favor. He enters the battlefield with two loyalty counters, which is not - this means that just about any creature will kill him in one hit. His abilities are as follows:
+1: Draw a card, then discard a card at random.
-4: Tibalt the Fiend-Blooded deals damage to target player equal to the number of cards in their hand.
-6: Gain control of all creatures until end of turn. They gain Haste until end of turn.
The major issue with Tibalt is that his first ability is really bad. Looting, or drawing a card and then discarding, is a powerful way to search through your deck for new cards. But being forced to discard a card at random means every time you use Tibalt's ability you're rolling the dice to see if you accidentally throw away the land you wanted to play next turn, the spell you wanted to follow up and cast on your next play, or just pitching whatever you just drew. The low initial Loyalty and bad +1 ability along with a lack of ways to protect himself on the field mean you have to roll the dice with Tibalt two turns in a row to get any sort of useful ability out of him, and four turns in a row to get his ultimate. Chances are you'll never get to do that, though, because the low Loyalty count also means that your opponent just has to point a pretty average creature in the direction of his face and he goes away pretty fast.
I also made one serious error concerning him though - he isn't lower rarity, which might have helped him get into the hands of more players. TIbalt is a Mythic Rare. The reason his power level is so awkward is entirely because he can be played for only two mana. Which only goes to prove my point about the Planeswalker deck cards, I suppose.
4236496 Urgh, that does sound pretty terrible. Someone might've been asleep on the job that day.
4236498 If I remember right, Mark Rosewater (head of Initial Design for Magic) mentioned in response to questions about the card that a big problem was that the design and development teams had laser-focused too hard on trying to make a Planeswalker who only cost two mana. You'll note that since then, the cheapest Planeswalkers ever go is three.
Wow, really? Really?
That is just a shameful misunderstanding of who and what the product is for. Just looking at the planeswalker cards themselves should tell people all they need to know about the intended power level of the decks. These are designed for new players to have fun, not for Spike's latest march to X-0 ezpz. They're replacing Intro Decks. They're going to comparable to Intro Decks. How hard is this to understand?
... Huh. I didn't expect to feel this strongly about this. Of course, that kind of attitude would chase off new players, which would make the game slowly die, so there's that.
As for Tibalt, the idea of a guy who accidentally made himself half-devil is pretty interesting. Very comic book supervillain. Hopefully one day they'll dare to print a playable version of him. Or have him do something narratively relevant. Or maybe he was just eaten by Emrakul, or Wizards is just hoping we'll forget about him. I suppose time will tell.
4236518 You know, since Emrakul twists the biology of things to be more like her, if he was eaten...
Eldrazi Devil Planeswalker?
4236528
Tiba'mrakul, Twice Mutated (2r)(2r)(2r)
Planeswalker — Tibalt Emrakul
+1: You may draw a card. If you do, exile a card from your hand.
-3: Tiba'mrakul, Twice Mutated deals 2 damage to target creature. If that creature would die this turn, instead exile it and create a 3/2 colorless Eldrazi Horror creature token.
-6: Tiba'mrakul deals 2 damage to each opponent for each card in exile.
4
4236545 Oh.
SNAP.
I would play this with Eternal Scourge every day of the week.
The Professor is a cool dude, but I seem to end up disagreeing with him a lot like this. Also, he talks too darn slow.
I think I started going very early on, maybe a couple months after starting to play. I had several benefits, though. The level of competitiveness wasn't too high, because of the low cost of entry and very wide (everyone got at least a pack) but very shallow prize pool and large proportion of newer players, probably both cause and effect of it for a while being consistently the largest FNM in the US. Surprisingly enough, despite being an almost complete novice and it being during one of the worst points in the history of Standard/Type 2, it hooked me.