Electric Boogaloo

Last night was weird. My roommate is in the process of moving out, some time around 5:00 am she was using my vacuum cleaner and grabbed a spot on the cord where the rubber has somehow been removed and managed to electrocute her arm. Luckily, as of this morning it hasn't turned black and fallen off yet, but electrical burns arc inside the body, so really they're hard to gauge. From what we can see though, the blistering looks somewhat minor and roommate is following all the post electrocution protocol: ice, ointments, not touching the vacuum anymore...

Now I need to figure out how I'm going to patch up the cord on my brand new vacuum. T_T

Swimming?

I spent a good portion of yesterday looking for a drag suit. Apparently functional swimming attire is a rare occurrence. Don't fret though, to compensate there was plenty of board shorts and poorly designed trunks. Even Academy (Sports and Outdoors) failed me, corralling all male and female swimwear to a back corner and making way of a menagerie of colorful Nike running shorts. I don't know how people got swimming shit before the internet!

Another New Residence

Resident Evil fans who found themselves confused with the mishappened mess of discontinuity and unresolved plot-bunnies are in for a questionable gift: a fourth installment to the series. For those who have never seen any of the movies, the first one, written and directed by Paul Anderson (Mr. Video Game to Movie extraordinare) is a decent suspense movie with a zombie twist. The second and third one, written by Anderson but directed by seemingly less capable people while he pursued important projects such as Alien Vs Predator (don't see it!), got progressively TERRIBLE and should only be watched under extreme duress or in a vain attempt to understand horrible renditions of the video game characters. In spite of it all my complaining I can't lie; I'm going to see the movie. Anderson is directing this one, so I can tell myself that it has a hope to be managed in a way that doesn't feel like the direction is fighting with the script (case in point: Resident Evil 3: Extinction, the movie has some good themes and sequences, but it carelessly lingers on parts that aren't pertinent or that just seem completely random; I felt that presentation choices were trying to redefine focus points in the movie, and that lead it to feel long and awkward).


Even if Anderson wasn't directing it though and it was absolutely garenteed to be terrible, I'd probably still go see it in theaters just to see how they were moving the material from the game source around this time. And that is why sequels are inherently [resident] EVIILL.

Sad Good Day

Every now and then people enter your life who, while not perfect, are still strong individuals who exemplify love, experience, and determination. Of course these kinds of people will never stay in your life as much as you'd like, but what you have to remember is that you're lucky to have ever known them at all.

Moms

My statistics grade came out and it was a full letter grade above what I was expecting, so I made it a point to call my mom today. She did that lovingly chastising that only a mom can do: "You're so smart, you can pick stuff up quickly and skate by without trying. But you too stubborn and don't have the tenacity to reach your full potential." I've been in college long enough to know just how not smart I am, but I will admit to being lazy. Some have even said flaky. That's something I can take to heart and work on.

Magic: Running Games and Power Creep

This article is part of the series: Magic: The Gathering Summer '09

Magic the Gathering is an old card game, created in 1993. It was the original collectible card game, and as you can expect, it's earliest incarnation had some definite limitations. The fact that it's lasted this long (over 15 years) can not be attributed to a sturdy game design. Instead, I think it's endurance has more to do with capable management and handling with a deep rooted vein in conceptualizing popular themes in fantasy. The huge great sweeping M10 rules change was an attempt to prevent complexity creep. But more routine management is needed for maintain a game as a business. Running games, that is that games that are routinely updated and sold in waves, almost inevitably have one sweeping problem: Power Creep.

As a business, the main goals is to stay in business. When creating a game, the main goal is to make an enjoyable experience for the players. If no one buys your product, your business fails and if you fail to make the experience enjoyable, people won't play your game. But if you have a running game, you have to release game parts that are compatible with older iterations and still give people incentive to buy them. One way to do this, a very easy way, is to release cards that are strictly better than previous ones. (In the card world) this creates a situation where although older cards technically work, anyone who fails to buy your newest release will be at a distinct disadvantage. The release of strictly better cards with each iteration is Power Creep, as the power level of the cards released steadily raises in an effort to attract players to buy newer cards.

Power Creep is seductive in that it literally gives most players what they want, stronger and cheaper cards. But it is destructive to the fun game play over the long run. As cards get cheaper in their playing cost, the individual matches get shorter and more explosive. Players often want cards that decrease the variability of their shuffled deck, but releasing too many cards that allow them search for cards leads to matches that are no longer randomized and that are overly predictable. Most often, whatever players want most is bad for the game overall because players think strictly of ways they can card-for-card improve their play.

While the cards used in most recent Magic sets are stronger than the majority of early sets, they have done a decent job of avoiding Power Creep. They largely accomplished this by by doing two things: setting baseline 'standards' and rotating themes. The core sets, are often the place where 'standards' cards are released. An example is the Grizzly Bears card, one that has been in core sets since the beginning. For for the cost of 1 colored mana and 1 mana of any color (listed at the top right of the card) you get a creature that has 2 attack points and 2 hit points. All other new cards that are similar are only allowed to be slightly better than Grizzly Bears. For instance Wild Mongrel is a card based off Grizzly Bears. It has the same cost and the same stats but it has an extra ability, an ability so good that it unexpectedly became a power house card to play on the second turn. Wild Mongrel is strictly better than Grizzly Bears, but it did not become the new standard. Many sets (and bear lookalikes later) Ashcoat Bear was released. Just like all other cards on the 'bear standard' it is meant to be only slightly better than the standardized Grizzly Bears. Magic does this with all basic creatures and all basic effects it deems central to the game.

Although releasing cards that continuously get better than the same base card prevents the game from getting Power Creep, by itself it doesn't encourage the sales of newer sets. Which is why Magic rotates themes. Each set and block (3 related sets) tie together by focusing on certain playing styles or concentrations on certain game zones. For instance, one of the reasons Wild Mongrel was so good was that it was released in a block that rewarded players for having many cards in their discard pile (graveyard). It also followed a block where players were rewarded for playing cards of multiple colors. Had Wild Mongrel been released in a a block based around artifact cards (such as Mirrodin) it wouldn't have been as exciting. Magic rotates these themes and markets them as a fun new way to play the game. It also uses the rotation to discontinue the cards from popular tournament play a few years after their introduction. This allows them to generate excitement by releasing cards strictly better than the standards (which most tournament players have) reissued in the core set.

One of the most drastic changes in this upcoming core set is the removal of the standard Wrath of God, a card that was so hyper efficient at mass creature removal that could not be improved upon without risking Power Creep. Every white colored tournament deck would often include the maximum number of Wrath of God cards over the newly released Wrath-variants because they were often more specific and more expensive to play cards than the standard. Wrath of God has been so strongly ingrained in core sets that it's often been seen as one of the few reasons to actually buy core set cards. In its place, they put what would otherwise be seen as a new Wrath-variant.

Magic: M10 Rules Changes

This article is part of the series: Magic: The Gathering Summer '09

Magic is a card game that has kept many of its essentials much the same despite pioneering the collectible card game as a business and surviving over 15 years. However as it's progressed it has found itself burdened with its attempts incorporate fantasy, fun, and comprehensive game mechanics. Magic started out as side game people could play with cards while waiting at Dungeons & Dragons gatherings, as it grew and developed into its own right it became distinctly different. While D&D is a story telling game, Magic has grown into a contest game. Magic boasts strict rules that can run through competitions and tournaments. These rules weren't perfected at the start and eventually the number of special cases and the strain of several stacked effects created situations where even judges and experts had to subjectively guess at what was going to happen in the outcome. In an effort to make the rules more coherent, Magic got a huge overhaul with the release of it's 6th edition core set, the summary of all past card accepted in the standard playing environment. For whatever reason, on the cusp of what would be the 11th edition core set, the power at work decided to do something similar. For starters, the core sets now are planned to be released by year, hence the title M10 for Magic Core Set 2010. There are six main changes to the rules and one policy change. Below Im' going to describe them and their impact.

#1 Now Mulligans are simultaneous. That is, before the active player decided how many mulligans he or she wanted to do before the passive player. No one really cared about this rule as it was an effort to make the game overly mechanized. It was cumbersome and largely ignored by 99% of the people playing. This was a good call even though it doesn't really effect much.


#2 Manaburn no longer exists. Typically you tap lands for mana of the corresponding color, and that mana is used to pay for the cost of cards and abilities you want to play. Occasionally there are cards that add arbitrary amounts of mana to your pool and before, the player would take damage for each unused mana as it emptied from the mana pool at the end of each phase. This reduces the functionality of some cards but Manaburn was always such a small part of the game, that I think it's a change for the overall better.

#3 Lifelink and Deathtouch are no longer triggered effects. These were both abilities that triggered when creatures that have them deal damage. Lifelink makes the creature's controller gain that much life and deathtouch kills any other creature hit with the damage. While it made the abilities easier for rule-whores like me to piece together in my head, it did lead to some unintuitive situations. Like even though a lifelink creature deals damage, there was always a brief momment where the player could take lethal damage and loose. This was especially relevant during combat, where lifelink-life could have otherwise kept a player alive. This change will make me have to reorder how I do combat math, but it still is so intuitive that I believe it is a good change. In a related story, this also means that multiple instances of lifelink no longer trigger individually. Genju of the Fields is sad.

#4 Token Ownership is now the controller of the Token when it comes into play. Apparently before, Tokens were 'owned' by the controller of the card that made them, reguardless who controlled them when they came into play. I didn't even know about this rule, but it largely was a technicality. This just prevents Warp World, Azorius Æthermage, and Brand from doing weird things with cards that put tokens under your opponent's control. It makes sense, I like this too.

#5 Assign Combat Damage is now no longer a phase. Instead now creatures all deal their damage and die. Also during the Declare Blockers step, if multiple creatures block a single attacking creature, the attacking player orders the blocking creatures in a row. When damage is dealt, it more or less 'tramples' through the creatures. Once damage assigned to be lethal to the first creature to attacking player can (but is not forced to) run the rest to the next in line and so forth. This is a huge change for me and my tricksey combat math, although I see how it makes the combat step easier to understand. It took me by surprise at first. It definitely changes how I evaluate cards like Mogg Fanatic (who can no longer assign his attacking/blocking combat damage and then activate this ability to sacrifice himself and deal another damage to a creature to player). Cards like Morphling and Fleeting Image don't like this change much, but everyone else does. I understand and agree with it. As a side note, Deathtough now lets creatures spread out it's damage.

#6 Terminology: Battlefield, Exile, and At the Beginning of the End of Turn. This change only affects how cards are worded. Now when a card would say "When CARDNAME comes into play" it'll say "When CARDNAME enters the battlefield." Instead of "Remove target card in a graveyard", it's "Exhile target card in a graveyard". And finally, instead of "At end of turn, sacrifice CARDNAME" it's "At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice CARDNAME." These were all done because newer player apparently were getting confused with terminology 'play', 'removed from game', and the convoluted end of turn step. However with the exception of Exile, it's just replacing sloppy wording with more sloppy wording. 'Entering the Battlefield' hints at 'whenever this attacks' as much as it does 'when this comes into play'. Although it tries to be flavorful, it comes off as stupid and clumsy. A better approach would have been to phrase it as 'Enters the field of play'. Although space is always a consideration with wording, 'field of play' only has 2 more characters than Battlefield and is much more clean. Speaking of which 'At the beginning of the end of turn step' is clumsy as hell! This is supposed to clear up the confusion because 'At end of turn' was a phrase for a triggered ability going off at the end of turn step while 'until end of turn' was a phrase for a state-based. This only mattered when people tried tricks, using 'At end of turn, this goes away' effects during the end step of the turn... meaning the 'go away effect' wouldn't actually go away until the end of the next turn. This is sloppy because these tricks were unintuitive anyway. They should have just consolidated them both as state based effects: for example changing it to 'during the end of turn'. That would have been shorter, cleaner, and easier for newer players to grasp while sacrificing nothing in terms of intended functionality as no 'at end of turn' abilities are really directed to be played through this loophole. I loathe 'Battlefield' and 'Beginning of the end of turn' phrasing. I can agree to 'Exile' as 'removed from the game' has become a more interactive zone, it just doesn't mean what it used to so it needs a new name.

#7 More generalized creatures will now appear in the Core set along with functional reprints of cards from previous sets. This is a policy to make the core sets appealing to newer players. 'Real world' things are being removed along with 'Magic universe only' name references to make a more generic fantasy scene. While this does make things easier to understand, it also gives returning players a little bit of the shaft. Core sets are low selling points, but they set baselines and return cards that would be retiring to the Standard format for another rotation. Now players who obtain cards when they are originally released have to buy their functional reprints when they're put into the core set? I understand the policy, but it smacks of something bitter. I only hope Wizards of the Coast look forward enough to start naming cards intended for the core set names that won't require functional reprints. The good news is that all the real functional reprints I've seen so far have been common, so in the online environment they can be picked up for literally a few pennies each. Also some of the creature types have shifted a little bit, allowing them to tweak relevant creature types more into use (for instance Savannah Lions is now a Human Solider, something with more type support in White). This change actually does help me out, in Singleton (where 100 card decks are used with only 1 of each card), I am now effectively able have two Skyhunter Prowlers, Remove Souls, and Civic Wayfinders. I'm confused as to why they made Runeclaw Bears to replace Grizzly Bears when they already had made exact-down-to-the-creature-type, ready-to-go functional equivalents with Bear Cub and Forest Bear. But whatever.

These eterras are meant to take effect immediately (Gatherer has already been updated) in paper Magic, and will go onto Magic Online come July 29th.

Productivity

With Statistics finally over, you would think I would jump directly into projects and work and make a good use of my time. You would think and it would be a fantasy. I'm not looking forward to retirement just because it means that I won't have a regular job to keep me purposefully moving on a normal schedule; heaven only knows what grumpy old man I'll be when I have nothing to do all day AND I have joint pain.