I present here a set of house rules that drastically reduce mana-screw and mana-flood. I’ve tried a few other fixes in the past, but I admit they felt like duds. But these rules are the best house rules I’ve devised to date. They work great for Limited formats and Standard. I haven't tried them in Modern or Legacy. My house rules are presented first, followed by my rationale and thought process in creating these rules.
This opening post has been edited to incorporate a few suggestions made to me in some of the responses below.
I hope readers will ask themselves the following questions:
1. Am I willing to play a few games with these rules to see if I like them?
2. If WotC implemented these rules into tournament play, would I approve or disapprove?
3. If I these rules are awful, can I think of a better set of house rules that I want to share?
House Rules – Draw Step Options:
During your draw step, select one of three options. If you don’t specify one of these options, you are presumed to have selected Option #1. These options collectively replace rule 504.1 in the Comprehensive Rules at http://media.wizards.com/2017/downloads/MagicCompRules 20170925.pdf.
Option #1: Simply draw a card (exactly as in rule 504.1).
Option #2 (when you need more mana): During your draw step, immediately before you draw, scry 1 twice. Then you may reveal the card you draw for your draw step. If you didn’t reveal a land card, immediately put the card you drew on the bottom of your library. Use this option only if you have at least 7 cards in your library. This procedure is a turn-based action that doesn’t use the stack.
Option #3 (when you need more spells): During your draw step, immediately before you draw, discard a land card to scry 1. Then draw a card. This procedure is a turn-based action that doesn’t use the stack.
Valid concerns:
1. Will Option #2 make decks based on Urzatron, Cloudposts, or other specialized lands overpowered?
2. Will Option #2 make cards like Sylvan Library, Mirri's Guile, and Sensei's Divining Top overpowered?
3. Will Option #3 make cards that benefit off discarding lands in the graveyard overpowered? (Dakmor Salvage, Crucible of Worlds, Gitrog Monster, etc.)
4. Will Option #3 make spells with the Miracle mechanic overpowered?
Goals of my House Rules:
1. Although these rules ought to drastically ameliorate mana-screw and mana-flood, the goal isn’t to make including the proper number and distribution of lands irrelevant to deckbuilding. Selecting the proper quantity and distribution of mana sources should still be crucial to deck optimization.
2. Although it would also be nice to prevent overt color-screw from occurring, it is critical that players are prevented from too easily accessing all colors of mana without consequence, otherwise 5-color decks will be the norm. There needs to remain incentive to not play too many colors for the sake of dependably and efficiently acquiring the appropriate colors of mana.
3. Under standard rules, a typical deck containing 40% lands will on average be able play lands on their first 4-5 turns, but thereafter playing lands will become intermittent unless many extra cards are being drawn. It’s important that these rules don’t allow players to reliably hit land drops on turns 6-8, otherwise the rules would favor decks relying on high-cost spells.
Rationale for this Proposal:
1. It’s not fun when a player mulligans because they don’t draw enough lands (typically 0, 1, or 2) or draw too many lands (typically 5, 6, or 7).
2. It’s not fun when a player needs to draw a third or (rarely) fourth land, but they don’t. This often makes defeat inevitable.
3. It’s also not fun when a player draws too many lands. This also often makes defeat inevitable.
4. It is my opinion that Magic already has enough variance without overt mana screw, overt mana flood, and overt color screw. There is enough
excitement and variety simply by drawing spell cards at random.
5. A more-skilled player will do a better job of including the correct number and assortment of lands and mana-smoothing effects in their deck than a less-skilled player, and thereby succumb to mana problems less frequently than their less-skilled opponent. Nevertheless, even the more-skilled player can’t escape the random nature of mana, and the more random a game is, the greater the chances are that the less-skilled player will win due to chance.
6. Luck is the main reason that the highest-ranking Magic players had a rating of around 2300 (way back when the ELO rating system was used instead of Planeswalker Points), whereas in Chess the best players have a rating of around 2800; that 500-point discrepancy is due to luck, because Chess is a game with no luck. Yet luck is good because it adds variance and excitement to the game. But when luck dictates that any player, irrespective of skill, will intermittently be deprived of gameplay options and be doomed to defeat, it is indeed counter to the principle that games should be fun. I predict that if lands were always drawn “smoothly”, then the top-rated Magic players would have attained a rating around 2400-2500.
7. Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic, has stated that, in hindsight after creating Magic and moving on to creating another trading card game, “I wanted no land – I didn’t like that Magic had about 40% boring resource cards in the deck.” (source: https://vtesone.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/vtes-history-richard-garfield-interview/)
8. WotC has created other games I have enjoyed that also used mana systems, but in these games mana wasn’t unevenly distributed to players. One game was Hecatomb, in which spells could alternatively be played in effect as lands. Another game was Dreamblade that gave players a random but equal amount of mana on each turn. The creation of these games leads me to presume that they realize that random mana issues are a flaw in Magic’s otherwise amazing design.
9. Unfortunately, very few of the overt mana screw/mana flood alleviating cards have been strong enough for inclusion in constructed decks. Examples of mana screw/mana flood alleviating cards have been buyback cards from Tempest block, cycling lands from Urza block, Spellshapers from Masques block, cycling lands from Onslaught, landcycling spells from Scourge and Conflux, and Retrace cards from Eventide.
10. In major Magic tournaments, a player typically needs to go 5-1-1 or better (like the time I got 9th at States going 5-1-1) to qualify for the top 8. Hence, random bad mana can be the crippling.
11. Why is it that planeswalkers (as cards) can always cast a “spell” (by activating a planeswalker ability) on every single turn, yet players sometimes can’t do anything during their turn due to mana problems? Why do planeswalkers, get the privilege of essentially flawless mana? Is WotC trying to suggest that chumps like Jace and Gideon are more competent than the planeswalkers represented by us, the players of the game?
Your rule will absolutely warp the game, and is unecessarily complicated. Messing with the deck itself like scrying does allows players to find specific cards rather than just lands or spells as needed. Discarding cards is also a bad idea since there are so many ways to generate value off if the graveyard. At the very least, change discarding to exiling - but it's still not a good idea.
The game is inherently balanced around the way the mana system works now, and any changes made to it won't actually have the effect you want. As you've stated there are plenty of tools to reduce variance in the card pool, but they never result in more consistent decks. Instead, people simply use them to play fewer lands. There's no way around this without drastically reworking the rules from the ground up. It's not a lack of access to consistent mana, it's simply game theory pushing people towards an equilibrium that trades consistency for power.
I think you overestimate the frequency by which these options will facilitate assembly of combos (via scrying) or allow a player to "cheat" specific cards into their graveyard (like a huge reanimation target, a Bloodghast, or a big dredge card). Try these options in a few solitaire games with a combo deck and see how often you "go off" a turn earlier than you otherwise would. I guess it won't be often.
The mana system in Magic is balanced in the same way as the spinner in Wheel of Fortune is balanced: anyone - including an ingenious MtG master with a PhD in mathematics - can simply lose a Magic duel by overt mana problems, just as anyone - including a savant familiar with all known words and phrases in modern English - can simply lose at Wheel of Fortune by spinning "Bankrupt" once or twice. And it's not just the fact that you lose... it's the fact that you lose while watching your opponent(s) get all the action that's frustrating.
Mana screw ain't fun, and it ought to be fixed. This can be accomplished either by changing the core rules or by printing cards that add consistency AND are powerful enough to be competitive in constructed formats. Prior tools like cycling lands, man lands, spellshapers, and buyback spells, and retrace spells have indeed resulted in more consistent decks... but historically speaking, the vast majority of these cards have been too weak and/or slow to compensate for their added consistency in constructed formats.
I agree that these rules are awkward to understand as written, but the complexity is super-simple when compared to the complexity of priority and the stack. Later on I'll post a few new card ideas that address mana flood/screw in the You Make the Card forum.
Part of what makes magic great is the simplicity of the basic rules.
Untap, upkeep, draw a card, main phase one, decleare attackers, decleare blockers, damage, main phase two. End step, clean up.
You can only play one land per turn in a main phase. Cast spells in you main phase, everything except lands are a spell. Instants can be cast whenever.
You turn cards in play sideways to use them and they refresh, untap, at the start of your turn. Creatures can't be tapped unless under your control since your upkeep.
7 card starting hand. Discard to 7 in your clean up step. If you don't like your starting hand you can shuffle it in a draw 6 then 5 etc. Once you keep a hand less than 7 you look at the top card of your library you may put it on the bottom.
20 starting life total. Creatures deal damage equal to thier power and can take there toughness in damage before they die. Damage is removed in the clean up step.
You win when you get your opponent to 0 life or 0 cards in library.
Unless a card says otherwise.
Good now you know enough to play a game of magic. Everything else you can learn as you play.
This what makes magic better than its compedators. The knowleagde barrier to entry is low. New players don't get overwhelmed (until they realise just how many cards there are) you don't even need to tell them all of the above if some of it can be explained as you play.
Do you remember how simiple to play your first deck was? I do. Play elves and rampant growths until i have 6 mana then..... dragons!
I understand mana screw sucks and possibly can annoy new players as well (particular when they are deckbuilding). But it annoying established players more because they know what they are missing out on..they know they would of beaten this new player if they hadn't got stuck on 2 land.
If anything this a mid term player issue. New players don't care that much and when rng swings in thier favour its a big deal for them to win sometimes when they weren't the best player. Long term players are one with the rng know how to play around it and try to push it in thier favour. Mid term players are still learning but sometimes forget that. Particular if they are net decking and not fully engaged with thier deck design.
You're new banned list looks pretty arbitrary to me.
You want to ban Cloudpost and Urzatron, but not Ancient Tomb, City Of Traitors, Workshop, Tolarian Academy, or Gaea's Cradle?
You want to ban Dark Depths, but no other powerful utility lands (Maze, Glacial Chasm, Bazaar, Library, Tabernacle etc). Why Dark Depths? Is this a pet hate card?
I really don't think you put enough thought into your ban list adjustment. Including format considerations.
eg, in Legacy you've banned cards from Lands, 12 Post, and Depths combo. Do you have any reason to believe these decks specifically would get out of hand? Sure, Lands gets to scry every turn, but that deck usually replaces it's draw so it would have to discard at random a lot. Furthermore, the main strategy of mana denial is completely hosed by your new rules (which is warping the game, btw), so the deck might actually get worse.
Meanwhile, decks with a high basic land count (like Burn, D&T) get a huge consistency boost, while decks that run on a small land count (with no basics) get very little help.
Did you even have a format in mind for this? You have proposed banning cards that are already not legal in Standard or Modern (and which are bad in EDH). Are you expecting these rules to be played in Legacy, or Vintage?
Those cards are banned because they are components of land + land combos, and Option #2 is intended to acquire land drops, not to set up combos. But now that you point out those other utility lands, I agree that additional lands wouldn't be compatible with Option #2. I overlooked such cards because I don't play Legacy. These rules work best for Limited and Standard. I agree that land destruction decks are weakened by these rules, but WotC seems to have deliberately prevented land destruction from being a viable strategy in Limited and Standard. Perhaps you are correct and ALL lands should scry 1 just once.
I won my first game of Magic with the contents of a Revised starter deck... but only because we didn't read the rule book twice and incorrectly thought a Black Knight couldn't be stopped by Circle of Protection: Black.
There are many instances in which I know I lost to a vastly inferior player due to bad luck my my mana. Like last weekend, I mulligained a no-land hand... into another no-land hand... into a 3-land hand... and then mana flooded, ending the game having drawn a total of 8 lands and 4 spells. I think I lose about 15% of my games due to overt mana flood/screw and win about 15% of my games for free when my opponents get flooded/screwed. I assembled a spreadsheet that indicates that my subjective observations of mana flood/screw spoiling the game this frequently is about correct. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JoaZo_Cxkvor1hlHOCtiW_4zAREZj0Fj/view?usp=sharing
Mana screw ain't fun, and it ought to be fixed. This can be accomplished either by changing the core rules or by printing cards that add consistency AND are powerful enough to be competitive in constructed formats. Prior tools like cycling lands, man lands, spellshapers, and buyback spells, and retrace spells have indeed resulted in more consistent decks... but historically speaking, the vast majority of these cards have been too weak and/or slow to compensate for their added consistency in constructed formats.
You've missed my point entirely. It doesn't matter how much more consistency you give people, because the correct move won't be to play the more consistent deck - it'll be to play fewer lands. Legacy decks have lots of consistency tools, but instead of preventing Mana screw they just cut down on land counts even further.
The ability to discard lands at-will isn't just a risk for combos. There are a few lands that care about being in the graveyard like [/card]Dakmor Salvage[/card], a massive number of cards that benefit from throwing lands in the graveyard such as anything with Dredge and Threshold, and several cards that mitigate the downside of discarding lands like [/card]Crucible of Worlds[/card].
I am probably having difficulty understanding your point due to lack of experience playing Legacy. A cursory examination of Legacy netdecks reveals that such decks indeed play fewer lands, but must nevertheless be consistent due to low mana curves and Ponder/Brainstorm + fetch lands. So a question remains: would these rules be appropriate for Legacy, or is Legacy consistent enough that player's would ignore these options anyway because they wouldn't need them?
Any rule change will warp the game, but to what extent? And will the warping make the game better or worse overall? For Limited and Standard at least, I think these rules make the game better.
The cards I am most concerned exploits Option #3 is The Gitrog Monster, which is already a profoundly powerful yet underappreciated card.
I am probably having difficulty understanding your point due to lack of experience playing Legacy. A cursory examination of Legacy netdecks reveals that such decks indeed play fewer lands, but must nevertheless be consistent due to low mana curves and Ponder/Brainstorm + fetch lands. So a question remains: would these rules be appropriate for Legacy, or is Legacy consistent enough that player's would ignore these options anyway because they wouldn't need them?
Any rule change will warp the game, but to what extent? And will the warping make the game better or worse overall? For Limited and Standard at least, I think these rules make the game better.
The cards I am most concerned exploits Option #3 is The Gitrog Monster, which is already a profoundly powerful yet underappreciated card.
Problem is Legacy (and vintage) are Super powered formats (by compairson to standard/Modern) This rule will help some decks and not help others. This would give FREE extra consistancy (or extra bonus in the case of discarding for some decks) to some decks which is basically a free powerup. This would push some of the already successful decks to "maybe too good" range. This gives burn and combo that little bit of extra fule (or time) to pop. Its the spell one thats the much larger problem, storm would go "no problem trade undergroundaea for a rit DEAL!" They are still both very VERY strong. This is the format land of decks that rejoyced at cards that cycled for life (not mana) so they could reduce their total deck count. Any edge they can find they will take perticuarly if its free.
I am probably having difficulty understanding your point due to lack of experience playing Legacy. A cursory examination of Legacy netdecks reveals that such decks indeed play fewer lands, but must nevertheless be consistent due to low mana curves and Ponder/Brainstorm + fetch lands. So a question remains: would these rules be appropriate for Legacy, or is Legacy consistent enough that player's would ignore these options anyway because they wouldn't need them?
Some decks get a free powerup. Some do not. Right now legacy is a format where there are dozens of viable decks and if one gets too powerful decks to counter it pop up. What you're proposing will result in the need for several bannings and unbannings.
Any rule change will warp the game, but to what extent? And will the warping make the game better or worse overall? For Limited and Standard at least, I think these rules make the game better.
I'm of the opinion that the more viable and different looking decks there are, the better the format.
Your changes are
1) Increase complexity to the draw step
2) Increase consitency without really creating new decks and making some decks too powerful.
2. Although it would also be nice to prevent overt color-screw from occurring, it is critical that players are prevented from too easily accessing all colors of mana without consequence, otherwise 5-color decks will be the norm. There needs to remain incentive to not play too many colors for the sake of dependably and efficiently acquiring the appropriate colors of mana.
3. Under standard rules, a typical deck containing 40% lands will on average be able play lands on their first 4-5 turns, but thereafter playing lands will become intermittent unless many extra cards are being drawn. It’s important that these rules don’t allow players to reliably hit land drops on turns 6-8, otherwise the rules would favor decks relying on high-cost spells.
See those two points? You are deliberately making high cost decks difficult to make, while making midrange more powerful. Flat cost decks, which rely on speed, gain no advantage, but since midrange is consistent, it makes it difficult for them to compete. Mana denial just goes up in smoke as a viable strategy.
Basically you want a format to cater to your tastes, but not necessarily to the taste of other people. You are _reducing_ the number of viable decks, which is the complete opposite of what I'd consider a good format.
Mana screw ain't fun
Sure.
and it ought to be fixed.
That's your opinion. More consistency means the better player wins... which means starting players get frustrated. If you think mana screw isn't fun, then a n00b that consistencly gets flattened is even less fun. No, "git gud" doesn't apply here. MTG is in the balance between consistency and variance that appeals to both new and old players.
To put it in perspective: try looking at other competitive gaming that are as old as MTG. Street Fighter, as an example, has been trying to get a grip on who they want to attract -- the older players, or the newer ones who won't have the technical skill to match the older players. Rather than appealing to the skilled players, they changed control schemes to give newbies a chance. While some people have decried that this is dumbing the game down, it is not the case in MTG because MTG has always been played with variance in mind.
Yes, increasing consistency without creating new decks is what I was hoping for.
I don't think these rules put high cost decks at a disadvantage. Goals/Principles 2 and 3, which you referenced, are principles of MtG prior to my house rules, and I endeavor to not create house rules that invalidate these principles. Goal/Principle 2 is why good players usually restrict their drafts and constructed decks to 2-3 colors in order to get the right colors of mana. Goal/Principle 3 is why good players don't base their decks on Akromas and Griselbrands unless they play mana acceleration or some other method of getting those expensive spells online earlier than they would if they patiently waited to draw land #8.
A typical 40% land deck will play lands on turns 4-5 most of the time. The goal is to design a set of house rules that helps players reliably get their first few land drops, but that can't be exploited to reliably get land drops on turns 6-8. However, even with these house rules, ramp decks should still be viable.
By flat cost decks, do you mean low-cost decks, like traditional weenie decks? Midrange might indeed benefit a little bit more from these rules, because random mana screw (which these rules help prevent) is something weenie decks cope with much better than midrange. But conversely, weenie decks suffer more from mana flood (which these rules also help prevent) than midrange decks. So without testing these rules out a bunch, I think both weenie and midrange decks will benefit about the same from these changes.
Mana denial as a strategy is indeed harmed very much by these rules changes. I couldn't think of a way to diminish the probability of mana screw without harming the land destruction deck. WotC seems to have abandoned land destruction in recent years. We can't even cast Stone Rain anymore.
My taste is to play a game in which all games are epic duels to the death! But alas, even for expert players, about 15% of the game are essentially solitaire. I think most players have the same taste, since most people generally find random mana screw/flood very frustrating, and also don't derive much satisfaction from beating a mana screwed/flooded opponent. And yet I agree completely that it isn't fun to play a game you have no chance to win. At chess club, I get squashed by a tournament Master always, and I prefer to seek opponents who are definitely better than I am, but against whom I feel I have a slim chance to beat if I'm really alert and/or they goof up. But regarding MtG, I think it would be preferable if less-skilled players get their wins over their more-skilled opponents when they get a really good matchup or a series of the right spell card at the right time... not ... my opponent kept a 2-land opener on the draw and didn't hit land #3 for 6 draws, so I won.
I don't want to reduce the number of viable decks. Without examples I can't see how these rules help or hurt specific archetypes... at least in Limited and Standard. I really can't think of which decks, if any, will be made much stronger or weaker by these rules changes.
Edit: Well, pitching an extra land to scry 1 helps activate Hazoret.
This opening post has been edited to incorporate a few suggestions made to me in some of the responses below.
I hope readers will ask themselves the following questions:
1. Am I willing to play a few games with these rules to see if I like them?
2. If WotC implemented these rules into tournament play, would I approve or disapprove?
3. If I these rules are awful, can I think of a better set of house rules that I want to share?
House Rules – Draw Step Options:
During your draw step, select one of three options. If you don’t specify one of these options, you are presumed to have selected Option #1. These options collectively replace rule 504.1 in the Comprehensive Rules at http://media.wizards.com/2017/downloads/MagicCompRules 20170925.pdf.
Option #1: Simply draw a card (exactly as in rule 504.1).
Option #2 (when you need more mana): During your draw step, immediately before you draw, scry 1 twice. Then you may reveal the card you draw for your draw step. If you didn’t reveal a land card, immediately put the card you drew on the bottom of your library. Use this option only if you have at least 7 cards in your library. This procedure is a turn-based action that doesn’t use the stack.
Option #3 (when you need more spells): During your draw step, immediately before you draw, discard a land card to scry 1. Then draw a card. This procedure is a turn-based action that doesn’t use the stack.
Valid concerns:
1. Will Option #2 make decks based on Urzatron, Cloudposts, or other specialized lands overpowered?
2. Will Option #2 make cards like Sylvan Library, Mirri's Guile, and Sensei's Divining Top overpowered?
3. Will Option #3 make cards that benefit off discarding lands in the graveyard overpowered? (Dakmor Salvage, Crucible of Worlds, Gitrog Monster, etc.)
4. Will Option #3 make spells with the Miracle mechanic overpowered?
Goals of my House Rules:
1. Although these rules ought to drastically ameliorate mana-screw and mana-flood, the goal isn’t to make including the proper number and distribution of lands irrelevant to deckbuilding. Selecting the proper quantity and distribution of mana sources should still be crucial to deck optimization.
2. Although it would also be nice to prevent overt color-screw from occurring, it is critical that players are prevented from too easily accessing all colors of mana without consequence, otherwise 5-color decks will be the norm. There needs to remain incentive to not play too many colors for the sake of dependably and efficiently acquiring the appropriate colors of mana.
3. Under standard rules, a typical deck containing 40% lands will on average be able play lands on their first 4-5 turns, but thereafter playing lands will become intermittent unless many extra cards are being drawn. It’s important that these rules don’t allow players to reliably hit land drops on turns 6-8, otherwise the rules would favor decks relying on high-cost spells.
Rationale for this Proposal:
1. It’s not fun when a player mulligans because they don’t draw enough lands (typically 0, 1, or 2) or draw too many lands (typically 5, 6, or 7).
2. It’s not fun when a player needs to draw a third or (rarely) fourth land, but they don’t. This often makes defeat inevitable.
3. It’s also not fun when a player draws too many lands. This also often makes defeat inevitable.
4. It is my opinion that Magic already has enough variance without overt mana screw, overt mana flood, and overt color screw. There is enough
excitement and variety simply by drawing spell cards at random.
5. A more-skilled player will do a better job of including the correct number and assortment of lands and mana-smoothing effects in their deck than a less-skilled player, and thereby succumb to mana problems less frequently than their less-skilled opponent. Nevertheless, even the more-skilled player can’t escape the random nature of mana, and the more random a game is, the greater the chances are that the less-skilled player will win due to chance.
6. Luck is the main reason that the highest-ranking Magic players had a rating of around 2300 (way back when the ELO rating system was used instead of Planeswalker Points), whereas in Chess the best players have a rating of around 2800; that 500-point discrepancy is due to luck, because Chess is a game with no luck. Yet luck is good because it adds variance and excitement to the game. But when luck dictates that any player, irrespective of skill, will intermittently be deprived of gameplay options and be doomed to defeat, it is indeed counter to the principle that games should be fun. I predict that if lands were always drawn “smoothly”, then the top-rated Magic players would have attained a rating around 2400-2500.
7. Richard Garfield, the creator of Magic, has stated that, in hindsight after creating Magic and moving on to creating another trading card game, “I wanted no land – I didn’t like that Magic had about 40% boring resource cards in the deck.” (source: https://vtesone.wordpress.com/2015/09/11/vtes-history-richard-garfield-interview/)
8. WotC has created other games I have enjoyed that also used mana systems, but in these games mana wasn’t unevenly distributed to players. One game was Hecatomb, in which spells could alternatively be played in effect as lands. Another game was Dreamblade that gave players a random but equal amount of mana on each turn. The creation of these games leads me to presume that they realize that random mana issues are a flaw in Magic’s otherwise amazing design.
9. Unfortunately, very few of the overt mana screw/mana flood alleviating cards have been strong enough for inclusion in constructed decks. Examples of mana screw/mana flood alleviating cards have been buyback cards from Tempest block, cycling lands from Urza block, Spellshapers from Masques block, cycling lands from Onslaught, landcycling spells from Scourge and Conflux, and Retrace cards from Eventide.
10. In major Magic tournaments, a player typically needs to go 5-1-1 or better (like the time I got 9th at States going 5-1-1) to qualify for the top 8. Hence, random bad mana can be the crippling.
11. Why is it that planeswalkers (as cards) can always cast a “spell” (by activating a planeswalker ability) on every single turn, yet players sometimes can’t do anything during their turn due to mana problems? Why do planeswalkers, get the privilege of essentially flawless mana? Is WotC trying to suggest that chumps like Jace and Gideon are more competent than the planeswalkers represented by us, the players of the game?
The game is inherently balanced around the way the mana system works now, and any changes made to it won't actually have the effect you want. As you've stated there are plenty of tools to reduce variance in the card pool, but they never result in more consistent decks. Instead, people simply use them to play fewer lands. There's no way around this without drastically reworking the rules from the ground up. It's not a lack of access to consistent mana, it's simply game theory pushing people towards an equilibrium that trades consistency for power.
The mana system in Magic is balanced in the same way as the spinner in Wheel of Fortune is balanced: anyone - including an ingenious MtG master with a PhD in mathematics - can simply lose a Magic duel by overt mana problems, just as anyone - including a savant familiar with all known words and phrases in modern English - can simply lose at Wheel of Fortune by spinning "Bankrupt" once or twice. And it's not just the fact that you lose... it's the fact that you lose while watching your opponent(s) get all the action that's frustrating.
Mana screw ain't fun, and it ought to be fixed. This can be accomplished either by changing the core rules or by printing cards that add consistency AND are powerful enough to be competitive in constructed formats. Prior tools like cycling lands, man lands, spellshapers, and buyback spells, and retrace spells have indeed resulted in more consistent decks... but historically speaking, the vast majority of these cards have been too weak and/or slow to compensate for their added consistency in constructed formats.
I agree that these rules are awkward to understand as written, but the complexity is super-simple when compared to the complexity of priority and the stack. Later on I'll post a few new card ideas that address mana flood/screw in the You Make the Card forum.
Untap, upkeep, draw a card, main phase one, decleare attackers, decleare blockers, damage, main phase two. End step, clean up.
You can only play one land per turn in a main phase. Cast spells in you main phase, everything except lands are a spell. Instants can be cast whenever.
You turn cards in play sideways to use them and they refresh, untap, at the start of your turn. Creatures can't be tapped unless under your control since your upkeep.
7 card starting hand. Discard to 7 in your clean up step. If you don't like your starting hand you can shuffle it in a draw 6 then 5 etc. Once you keep a hand less than 7 you look at the top card of your library you may put it on the bottom.
20 starting life total. Creatures deal damage equal to thier power and can take there toughness in damage before they die. Damage is removed in the clean up step.
You win when you get your opponent to 0 life or 0 cards in library.
Unless a card says otherwise.
Good now you know enough to play a game of magic. Everything else you can learn as you play.
This what makes magic better than its compedators. The knowleagde barrier to entry is low. New players don't get overwhelmed (until they realise just how many cards there are) you don't even need to tell them all of the above if some of it can be explained as you play.
Do you remember how simiple to play your first deck was? I do. Play elves and rampant growths until i have 6 mana then..... dragons!
I understand mana screw sucks and possibly can annoy new players as well (particular when they are deckbuilding). But it annoying established players more because they know what they are missing out on..they know they would of beaten this new player if they hadn't got stuck on 2 land.
If anything this a mid term player issue. New players don't care that much and when rng swings in thier favour its a big deal for them to win sometimes when they weren't the best player. Long term players are one with the rng know how to play around it and try to push it in thier favour. Mid term players are still learning but sometimes forget that. Particular if they are net decking and not fully engaged with thier deck design.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
You want to ban Cloudpost and Urzatron, but not Ancient Tomb, City Of Traitors, Workshop, Tolarian Academy, or Gaea's Cradle?
You want to ban Dark Depths, but no other powerful utility lands (Maze, Glacial Chasm, Bazaar, Library, Tabernacle etc). Why Dark Depths? Is this a pet hate card?
I really don't think you put enough thought into your ban list adjustment. Including format considerations.
eg, in Legacy you've banned cards from Lands, 12 Post, and Depths combo. Do you have any reason to believe these decks specifically would get out of hand? Sure, Lands gets to scry every turn, but that deck usually replaces it's draw so it would have to discard at random a lot. Furthermore, the main strategy of mana denial is completely hosed by your new rules (which is warping the game, btw), so the deck might actually get worse.
Meanwhile, decks with a high basic land count (like Burn, D&T) get a huge consistency boost, while decks that run on a small land count (with no basics) get very little help.
Did you even have a format in mind for this? You have proposed banning cards that are already not legal in Standard or Modern (and which are bad in EDH). Are you expecting these rules to be played in Legacy, or Vintage?
https://fieldmarshalshandbook.wordpress.com/
RUGLegacy Lands.dec
RUGBLegacy Lands.dec
RGLegacy Lands.dec
WUBRG EDH Lands.dec
UBR EDH Artificer Prodigy
B EDH Relentless Rats
There are many instances in which I know I lost to a vastly inferior player due to bad luck my my mana. Like last weekend, I mulligained a no-land hand... into another no-land hand... into a 3-land hand... and then mana flooded, ending the game having drawn a total of 8 lands and 4 spells. I think I lose about 15% of my games due to overt mana flood/screw and win about 15% of my games for free when my opponents get flooded/screwed. I assembled a spreadsheet that indicates that my subjective observations of mana flood/screw spoiling the game this frequently is about correct.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1JoaZo_Cxkvor1hlHOCtiW_4zAREZj0Fj/view?usp=sharing
You've missed my point entirely. It doesn't matter how much more consistency you give people, because the correct move won't be to play the more consistent deck - it'll be to play fewer lands. Legacy decks have lots of consistency tools, but instead of preventing Mana screw they just cut down on land counts even further.
The ability to discard lands at-will isn't just a risk for combos. There are a few lands that care about being in the graveyard like [/card]Dakmor Salvage[/card], a massive number of cards that benefit from throwing lands in the graveyard such as anything with Dredge and Threshold, and several cards that mitigate the downside of discarding lands like [/card]Crucible of Worlds[/card].
Any rule change will warp the game, but to what extent? And will the warping make the game better or worse overall? For Limited and Standard at least, I think these rules make the game better.
The cards I am most concerned exploits Option #3 is The Gitrog Monster, which is already a profoundly powerful yet underappreciated card.
Problem is Legacy (and vintage) are Super powered formats (by compairson to standard/Modern) This rule will help some decks and not help others. This would give FREE extra consistancy (or extra bonus in the case of discarding for some decks) to some decks which is basically a free powerup. This would push some of the already successful decks to "maybe too good" range. This gives burn and combo that little bit of extra fule (or time) to pop. Its the spell one thats the much larger problem, storm would go "no problem trade undergroundaea for a rit DEAL!" They are still both very VERY strong. This is the format land of decks that rejoyced at cards that cycled for life (not mana) so they could reduce their total deck count. Any edge they can find they will take perticuarly if its free.
Some decks get a free powerup. Some do not. Right now legacy is a format where there are dozens of viable decks and if one gets too powerful decks to counter it pop up. What you're proposing will result in the need for several bannings and unbannings.
I'm of the opinion that the more viable and different looking decks there are, the better the format.
Your changes are
1) Increase complexity to the draw step
2) Increase consitency without really creating new decks and making some decks too powerful.
See those two points? You are deliberately making high cost decks difficult to make, while making midrange more powerful. Flat cost decks, which rely on speed, gain no advantage, but since midrange is consistent, it makes it difficult for them to compete. Mana denial just goes up in smoke as a viable strategy.
Basically you want a format to cater to your tastes, but not necessarily to the taste of other people. You are _reducing_ the number of viable decks, which is the complete opposite of what I'd consider a good format.
Sure.
That's your opinion. More consistency means the better player wins... which means starting players get frustrated. If you think mana screw isn't fun, then a n00b that consistencly gets flattened is even less fun. No, "git gud" doesn't apply here. MTG is in the balance between consistency and variance that appeals to both new and old players.
To put it in perspective: try looking at other competitive gaming that are as old as MTG. Street Fighter, as an example, has been trying to get a grip on who they want to attract -- the older players, or the newer ones who won't have the technical skill to match the older players. Rather than appealing to the skilled players, they changed control schemes to give newbies a chance. While some people have decried that this is dumbing the game down, it is not the case in MTG because MTG has always been played with variance in mind.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
I don't think these rules put high cost decks at a disadvantage. Goals/Principles 2 and 3, which you referenced, are principles of MtG prior to my house rules, and I endeavor to not create house rules that invalidate these principles. Goal/Principle 2 is why good players usually restrict their drafts and constructed decks to 2-3 colors in order to get the right colors of mana. Goal/Principle 3 is why good players don't base their decks on Akromas and Griselbrands unless they play mana acceleration or some other method of getting those expensive spells online earlier than they would if they patiently waited to draw land #8.
A typical 40% land deck will play lands on turns 4-5 most of the time. The goal is to design a set of house rules that helps players reliably get their first few land drops, but that can't be exploited to reliably get land drops on turns 6-8. However, even with these house rules, ramp decks should still be viable.
By flat cost decks, do you mean low-cost decks, like traditional weenie decks? Midrange might indeed benefit a little bit more from these rules, because random mana screw (which these rules help prevent) is something weenie decks cope with much better than midrange. But conversely, weenie decks suffer more from mana flood (which these rules also help prevent) than midrange decks. So without testing these rules out a bunch, I think both weenie and midrange decks will benefit about the same from these changes.
Mana denial as a strategy is indeed harmed very much by these rules changes. I couldn't think of a way to diminish the probability of mana screw without harming the land destruction deck. WotC seems to have abandoned land destruction in recent years. We can't even cast Stone Rain anymore.
My taste is to play a game in which all games are epic duels to the death! But alas, even for expert players, about 15% of the game are essentially solitaire. I think most players have the same taste, since most people generally find random mana screw/flood very frustrating, and also don't derive much satisfaction from beating a mana screwed/flooded opponent. And yet I agree completely that it isn't fun to play a game you have no chance to win. At chess club, I get squashed by a tournament Master always, and I prefer to seek opponents who are definitely better than I am, but against whom I feel I have a slim chance to beat if I'm really alert and/or they goof up. But regarding MtG, I think it would be preferable if less-skilled players get their wins over their more-skilled opponents when they get a really good matchup or a series of the right spell card at the right time... not ... my opponent kept a 2-land opener on the draw and didn't hit land #3 for 6 draws, so I won.
I don't want to reduce the number of viable decks. Without examples I can't see how these rules help or hurt specific archetypes... at least in Limited and Standard. I really can't think of which decks, if any, will be made much stronger or weaker by these rules changes.
Edit: Well, pitching an extra land to scry 1 helps activate Hazoret.