There have been a couple of threads recently which either started with or devolved into what amounted to arguments about Semantics (sorry, I mean semantics) or definitions. As a linguaphile, I would love to gather around and agree on some definitions... since interweb forums are entirely vocabulary based, I feel it's pretty important to have our terms mean the same thing as much as possible. Now, I'm not the kind of guy that points out when people are using the words "ironic" or "peruse" wrong, but I know that language is a powerful tool for thought- without the proper words we have a difficult time forming thoughts.*
I can update this first post as new terms are added or agreed upon, or slink back into my corner if nobody cares.
TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
BOMB. First, the elephant in the room. "Bomb" doesn't have a solid definition, but the word loses meaning the looser one defines it, so I prefer a strict definition. A card which, on its own, will end the game in a few turns and is difficult to deal with. Also, the card must be castable in a reasonable number of games. Now this will always be a matter of semantics, but, like mayonnaise, it is best reserved for when it's definitely good, and not slathered over everything in sight. ALTERNATIVES: Finisher- a card with 4+ power/toughness, or 3+ power and evasion. There's no doubt Air Elemental is a fine finisher. Powerful- a card that can swing the game quickly in certain board states. Or a card that can end the game in a few turns but can be dealt with in the normal means. Or a card that stabilizes you immediately. Or any number of things. Stop putting mayonnaise on Shiv's Embrace.
BEAR.A "bear" is a creature that costs two mana (generally, including at least one colorless) and has two power and two toughness. That's it. ALTERNATIVES:Goblin Piker- Two mana 2/1. Grey Ogre- Three mana 2/2. Hurloon Minotaur- Three mana 2/3 (we don't say this much.) Hill Giant- Four mana 3/3. Wind Drake- A three mana, two power flier. Toughness is generally two.
CARD ADVANTAGE. This is a strict definition. If an action increases the number of cards you have available for use, or decreases the number of cards your opponent has available for use by more cards than the action cost you, then it is card advantage. Card Advantage can refer to inherent or potential qualities. For example, Divination is card advantage, whereas Doom Blade can provide card advantage.
REMOVAL. A card or action which removes or negates a resolved threat from the battlefield. As distinct from counters and bounce spells.
Finally, in an attempt to seem like less of a hard-ass, here's a link to my favorite MTG card.
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Did you know that some cultures lack a subjunctive form of their verbs (i.e., would have, should have, etc.) and as such are more practical as a people and have a hard time processing thoughts such as "If you had paid your bill, you wouldn't be in debt?" Neat!
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2.) A card that completely shifts the gamestate into a favorable position for you. (Mainly board sweepers)
3.) Any card that must be dealt with immediately by an opponent or it will win you the game the turn you play it or in a few turns. (Hellkite Charger, Gigantiform)
I've seen Bear used to mean 2/2 or 2/1 and I'm fine with that. Because no one plays 1/x creatures for early attacking purposes (which is perfectly fine) there's not much functional difference between a 2/2 and a 2/1 unless the format is littered with 1 damage effects. Sure your 2/1 might get stopped by a 1/4 but so would your 2/2.
If you actually get everyone to agree on a definition of Bomb...by god I would award you the Nobel Prize for Limited.
*snip* CARD ADVANTAGE. This is a strict definition. a.) A card which will draw you at least one card during its resolution (unless its only effect is drawing a card, in which case it must draw at least two,) or which will require your opponent to discard/lose two cards. b.) A card which, once on the battlefield, will produce more cards (i.e., token generators, cards which allow you to search your library or graveyard for cards to put on the battlefield or in your hand, etc.) or remove cards from your opponent (i.e., Skinrender or Batterhorn.)
*snip*
I feel like card advantage is often the result of an action in a given board state rather than tied to a specific card. Sure, Opportunity inherently provides card advantage and Doom Blade inherently does not. However, if you Doom Blade your opponent's Serra Angel enchanted with Blessing and Divine Favor in response to them Giant Growth-ing it, then I think most people would agree that your opponent is terrible... and that the play provided a form of card advantage. Obviously, a lot of situations aren't so clear cut, which is why I've read discussions on here debating card advantage.
As a proponent for 'words have meanings', I applaud this. I do have a couple of questions.
Specifically, first, for 'card advantage'. How is token production evaluated, specifically? Lingering Souls is clearly card advantage because of its flashback cost. But what about Midnight Haunting? Is it card advantage because it produces two creatures? Or is it not?
If we go the 'two creatures' route, then are the Command cycle of cards (e.g., Primal Command) card advantage because they can give two 'cards worth' of effect, or not?
On that note, is any creature that produces a token when it enters play (e.g., Attended Knight) card advantage?
Now, with bomb, I think we need a bit more clarification. I would want to separate pseudo's first definition to 'transformational' cards and/or strategies, because they change the default board state. This is even more clear when the new board state is 'get this card off the table'. The best recent example is Pack Rat. I would argue that it fails the 'few turns' part of the bomb definition, but it's inarguably a bomb because it's incredibly resilient.
Regarding tokens -- I do not consider them card advantage. In my mind, the issue is how many cards worth of effects are you getting? Lingering Souls produces multiple tokens but it is the combined effect of one card. To put it another way, you wouldn't pay 2W for a single 1/1 Flying token so getting two just makes it a reasonable deal. The value is balanced by the cost. Same with cards like Knight Watch and even cards like Imperious Perfect which have built into them the potential to generate many tokens vs. the chance they get killed.
The Doom Blade example above is clearly card advantage. You're investing one card to eliminate the continued effects of 4 cards (creature + aura + aura + instant targeting creature).
Card advantage is built on the general idea that whoever plays more spells is probably going to win. We all know this is a gross simplification but in the long run it tends to be true. It's the reason you lose to mana screw (couldn't play your spells) and mana flood (didn't have enough spells to play). It gets blurrier between those extremes.
It's never going to be an exact science because take a card like Divine Favor. Even if you kill the creature that it's attached to, how much value did you remove? They still gained life. Maybe that allowed them to block for a turn or two until you drew your removal. It still provided lasting impact on the game so did you really "remove" a whole card? Definitely not. But it's the best way we have to casually discuss this stuff.
There's, i think, a difference between the inherent CA of card draw and such printed right on the card and the CA you pick up through game play like the doom blade scenario or trading a bunch of saproling tokens for x/1s over the course of a game. One is more of a noun, a divination or messenger drake has inherent CA that can't or is unlikely to be stopped, and one is like a verb, im generating CA through efficient plays like 2 for 1ing off a flames of the firebrand or forcing a double/chump block on my giant woodborn behemoth but i require X Y and Z things to line up on the board and our hands to achieve it.
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Another wrinkle to card advantage is that Doom Blade is never going to destroy a land, but Divination might draw you 2 lands which depending on the game state might be about as useful as 2U: Do Absolutely Nothing.
Regarding tokens -- I do not consider them card advantage. In my mind, the issue is how many cards worth of effects are you getting? Lingering Souls produces multiple tokens but it is the combined effect of one card. To put it another way, you wouldn't pay 2W for a single 1/1 Flying token so getting two just makes it a reasonable deal. The value is balanced by the cost. Same with cards like Knight Watch and even cards like Imperious Perfect which have built into them the potential to generate many tokens vs. the chance they get killed.
While I don't disagree with this, Phyrre, for a clear delineation of 'card advantage', this needs to be codified, and the biggest part of this is, 'what is the worth of a card?' That answer is neither obvious nor even fixed over the length of the game.
The Doom Blade example above is clearly card advantage. You're investing one card to eliminate the continued effects of 4 cards (creature + aura + aura + instant targeting creature).
And the issue is that to count this as CA means that the definition of CA relies, at least in part, in (likely suboptimal) play by your opponent.
Card advantage is built on the general idea that whoever plays more spells is probably going to win.
Not really true, or it is true only while the flow INTO the hand is the same. It's normally true, but if my opponent is drawing two cards for every card I draw, 2-for-1s on my part are no better than a 1-for-1 in the 'default' sense.
This is why you need to distinguish between the various advantages. Card advantage really should be restricted to how many cards you gain access to. There are other advantage terms (board advantage, time advantage, even mana advantage) that could be used to cover all of these other circumstances.
Really, if you look at it more in the terms of flows, the key is to maximize flow of resources to the correct point, whatever that point is.
The issue with mana screw is that it creates a bottleneck in the flow of resources between hand and battlefield, and generally cards in the hand are worth less than on the battlefield.
(Note that battlefield is a poor term here because spells don't ever really 'hit' the battlefield.)
But it's the best way we have to casually discuss this stuff.
I'm not sure we need to have a discussion about this at all, if we're only looking for a casual definition.
Another wrinkle to card advantage is that Doom Blade is never going to destroy a land, but Divination might draw you 2 lands which depending on the game state might be about as useful as 2U: Do Absolutely Nothing.
If lands are worthless in the current game state, Divinating for 2 lands still provides CA because it speeds up your next nonland draws by 2 turns. So that's still CA, just a bit delayed.
A similar example is Into the Wilds, which only draws you lands. Nevertheless, it still provides lots of effective CA.
I've seen Bear used to mean 2/2 or 2/1 and I'm fine with that...... Sure your 2/1 might get stopped by a 1/4 but so would your 2/2.
I actually had written pretty much this on my first draft of the definition, but then I remembered we have a term for a 2/1. There is enough difference between one toughness and two that I think the distinction is worth preserving. From Shrivel or Flames of the Firebrand type effects to pingers, there are whole classes of cards that make a big difference. Furthermore, sometimes you need a guy swinging even if they're blocked; for example, you have three guys and they have two walls. There's a big difference between one and two toughness swinging into Basilica Guards and Archaeomancers. Also, less importantly, in the 2/2 vs 1/4 scenario, you're not necessarily telegraphing a trick to swing in anyway..
Either way, the real reason I feel "bear" should ONLY mean 2 mana 2/2s is because we have a term for 2/1s.
If you actually get everyone to agree on a definition of Bomb...by god I would award you the Nobel Prize for Limited.
My aspiration is not that for "bomb"... I'm hoping to introduce other ways of saying "good card." Recently posts have been "word word word bomb word bomb word word not a bomb word bomb bomb bomby bomb." Glecch.
Many of you are much more experienced than I, so I would love a consensus definition. Overall, I think "card" usually refers to a literal card. The exception would be recurring token generators, i.e., Myr Turbine. Flashback is clearly built in CA. After that, I think we can define effects that put multiple cards on the battlefield as "board advantage." It may get hazier when you're talking about a bunch of tokens, but I'm comfortable with this definition.
I think that card advantage is a bit more esoterically defined. i.e. any card that provides you with more than one card's worth of value.
Then that brings up the question of how to define what is "worth a card"
If what you mean by this is along the lines of "Mark of the Vampire makes my guy bigger and gains me life" you're just talking about power level. Card Advantage has a specific meaning (we're just trying to hone in on it) which is distinct from "Advantageous Cards."
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I've seen Bear used to mean 2/2 or 2/1 and I'm fine with that. Because no one plays 1/x creatures for early attacking purposes (which is perfectly fine) there's not much functional difference between a 2/2 and a 2/1 unless the format is littered with 1 damage effects. Sure your 2/1 might get stopped by a 1/4 but so would your 2/2.
If you actually get everyone to agree on a definition of Bomb...by god I would award you the Nobel Prize for Limited.
The difference between a 2/2 and a 2/1 is extremely relevant in terms of double and triple blocking.
The difference between a 2/2 and a 2/1 is extremely relevant in terms of double and triple blocking.
Agreed. M14 also has a significant number of relevant 1 power creatures (Seacoast Drake, Gnawing Zombie, etc.) as well as some removal that likes killing creatures with one toughness (Wring Flesh, Rod of Ruin, Flames of the Firebrand). I think it's worth making the distinction between a bear and a piker.
Is it worth splitting up "card advantage" into two separate terms to reflect advantage inherent to the card and advantage derived from the board state? Casting an Opportunity and Doom Blading your opponent's triple aura creature might both be four-for-ones, but if you ask someone in a vacuum which one Opportunity or Doom Blade is the four-for-one I don't imagine too many people will be picking the Doom Blade. Perhaps we just need to be really clear and get people to talk about "inherent card advantage" (card draw, etb creatures) and "derived card advantage" (sweepers blowing up multiple guys). People talk about the two things as though they are they same - they aren't.
The idea of card advantage doesn't need to be so nuanced. Card advantage is a single principle, not a full-blown system of card evaluation.
If an action increases the number of cards you have available for use, or decreases the number of cards your opponent has available for use by more cards than the action cost you, then it is card advantage. That's it. Yes, you can have virtual card advantage from casting a spell that does a lot without generating extra cards, but the point isn't to cover every situation, the point is to have a simple concept you can discuss.
Midnight Haunting is card advantage. Divination for two lands is card advantage. Doom Blade on a creature enchanted with Divine Blessing is card advantage. Are they potentially weak examples of the concept? Yes. But overcomplicating the idea in order to simplify the tactical implications of the idea is exactly backwards.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
PJ is right, you'll drown in the nuances if you try for a perfect definition. I think MTG players could really benefit from applying the concepts that have been used in sports analysis in the past decade or so. When you're describing a highly random process (such as successfully hitting a baseball) you have to accept the fact that you can never perfectly model that event. At best, you can innovate new ways to look at and talk about the event to understand more about it.
If card advantage as a simply defined concept improves our understanding of the game, then it is a good metric. There will always be loopholes, exceptions, etc. but that's alright.
That's why I applaud this effort, because the only truly useless metric is one that is not defined by all people in the same way. That type of metric can often cause more confusion than help.
That's why I applaud this effort, because the only truly useless metric is one that is not defined by all people in the same way.
However, the opposite problem might be even worse: You can spend all day today pinning down a definition everyone accepts, then tomorrow a new user will log on and use the same word in a different way. What are you going to do, post links to the "accepted" definition every time this happens?
Or we could just accept that this isn't how language works. A word communicates not some objective meaning, but instead what your audience takes it to mean. Horrifying, eh? But there it is. As such, a definition shouldn't attempt to be clean and precise if the term it's defining is widely used in an imprecise manner. Why not? Because doing that doesn't communicate better, it just creates further distraction from the more interesting topics that the terms in question are supposed to be helping us to talk about.
Is <some card> a bomb? Never mind. Let's talk about how to play against it, whether we can splash it and when to switch colours for it. (Unless it's Pack Rat, in which case let's stop talking about it.)
Want a concrete example? Many years ago, Geordie Tate decided to write an article on card advantage... but the topic turned out to be so complex he ended up writing three (pure card advantage, virtual card advantage and effective card advantage). And after all that, still nobody agreed.
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However, the opposite problem might be even worse: You can spend all day today pinning down a definition everyone accepts, then tomorrow a new user will log on and use the same word in a different way. What are you going to do, post links to the "accepted" definition every time this happens?
Or we could just accept that this isn't how language works. A word communicates not some objective meaning, but instead what your audience takes it to mean. Horrifying, eh? But there it is. As such, a definition shouldn't attempt to be clean and precise if the term it's defining is widely used in an imprecise manner. Why not? Because doing that doesn't communicate better, it just creates further distraction from the more interesting topics that the terms in question are supposed to be helping us to talk about.
You're talking about vernacular, which definitely applies to words like bomb. A bomb isn't anything with any specificity attached to it, and it doesn't need any to get across the idea. But there are terms, like card advantage, where having a clear definition actually matters for theory discussion. Leaving the idea nebulous or overcomplicated actually makes it harder to communicate. In that case, having a simple, precise definition should absolutely be prioritized and encouraged among players new to the discussion.
Wit's End is the PERFECT answer to your opponent's Monomania however.
Just hold on to your Wit's End when they Monomania, so you can Wit's End them on your next turn!!!
I think this is fairly reminiscent of the "Jace Battles" we have seen in past standards.. My guess is we will soon witness the great Monomania-Wit's End battles.
Or we could just accept that this isn't how language works. A word communicates not some objective meaning, but instead what your audience takes it to mean. Horrifying, eh? But there it is.
Hmm...I disagree. There are plenty of examples of words that have specific meanings, and if you deviate, people will refer you to the proper definitions. Think of something like Accounting for example. There are generally accepted definitions for just about everything, and you're expected to follow them or else you're a bad accountant.
You can't just decide that at your company, when you say "revenue," it means the amount of loose change lying about. It has to match up with other peoples' definition of revenue or you're considered objectively wrong by your peers. I'm not saying every word has to be finely crafted, but we can identify some nouns and give them meaning.
I think the case I was looking to consider was the "is this card advantage?" of something where you get clear good two for ones built into a card.
Something like a creature with good removal built into it.
Ah, so. Well, that case is textbook CA. Other cases (the Command cycle, for example) seem like they might be, but if by "card" we mean "a friggin card" then we can just call those "good cards."
A word communicates not some objective meaning, but instead what your audience takes it to mean.
If the audience is left to their own devices, yes. However, language has no purpose if words don't have inherent meaning, and if a community (especially online, where all communication is strictly verbal, and even sloppy punctuation can render something unintelligible) can agree on definitions, then we can communicate more effectively and powerfully.
If an action increases the number of cards you have available for use, or decreases the number of cards your opponent has available for use by more cards than the action cost you, then it is card advantage. That's it.
Done. Thank you. I could feel my boots sticking in the mud as I tried to write that one out concisely.
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If an action increases the number of cards you have available for use, or decreases the number of cards your opponent has available for use by more cards than the action cost you, then it is card advantage. That's it.
Done. Thank you. I could feel my boots sticking in the mud as I tried to write that one out concisely.
I will note that, by this definition, cantrips are not card advantage. Since this was different/more ambiguous in the OP, this needed adjudication.
Also, by this definition card advantage is a purely subjective term. I'm not saying that this is bad, but since 'card advantage' is the result of an action, not a card, it does not make sense to say, "This card is card advantage". Rather, you say, "This card provides card advantage in this situation," and the term has no meaning without a specified situation.
E.g., most people here would say that Divination 'is card advantage', but it is fairly easy to construct a scenario where Divination is not. (E.g., a card that requires the discard of a card whenever you play a spell negates the card advantage of playing Divination.)
If you want a clear and concise definition, such fine details are not irrelevant but are, indeed, crucial.
Wintersky: What I believe Phyrre refers to is jargon, which means denotatively (:)) the set of technical terms related to a specific discipline.
For example, in my RL discipline of Industrial Engineering, 'linear programming' is a reserved term that has a specific meaning, and if you use it in another context, you are simply incorrect if you are speaking IE jargon.
Hardened is basically calling for a Magic 'jargon' dictionary, and should be applauded for doing so.
Jargon often relies on other jargon for its precise definition. E.g., it would be very hard in Java to define the jargon term method if you don't define terms such as class before it.
Perhaps the issue is that we need to define other jargon terms first (like 'card') before we define 'card advantage' in a jargon sense.
BTW, you might argue that 'income' is well-defined in an accounting sense (I would quibble over that), but the very similar term (in a real life sense) 'revenue' is much less well-defined in accounting.
I will note that, by this definition, cantrips are not card advantage. Since this was different/more ambiguous in the OP, this needed adjudication.
Well, now, this is an interesting question. At first I was tempted to rework the definition to allow for cantrips... then I thought, "What if they're not CA, but rather something analogous to an activated ability?" Often the effects aren't worth a card themselves (Cremate, Inaction Injunction) but sometimes they are simply overcosted (Bone to Ash, Scatter Arc.)
Ultimately, I think that cantrips do not inherently classify as CA; rather, each card must be assessed on its own merit. In this case, Bone to Ash is clearly CA and Inaction Injunction is not.
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There have been a couple of threads recently which either started with or devolved into what amounted to arguments about Semantics (sorry, I mean semantics) or definitions. As a linguaphile, I would love to gather around and agree on some definitions... since interweb forums are entirely vocabulary based, I feel it's pretty important to have our terms mean the same thing as much as possible. Now, I'm not the kind of guy that points out when people are using the words "ironic" or "peruse" wrong, but I know that language is a powerful tool for thought- without the proper words we have a difficult time forming thoughts.*
I can update this first post as new terms are added or agreed upon, or slink back into my corner if nobody cares.
TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
BOMB. First, the elephant in the room. "Bomb" doesn't have a solid definition, but the word loses meaning the looser one defines it, so I prefer a strict definition. A card which, on its own, will end the game in a few turns and is difficult to deal with. Also, the card must be castable in a reasonable number of games. Now this will always be a matter of semantics, but, like mayonnaise, it is best reserved for when it's definitely good, and not slathered over everything in sight.
ALTERNATIVES: Finisher- a card with 4+ power/toughness, or 3+ power and evasion. There's no doubt Air Elemental is a fine finisher.
Powerful- a card that can swing the game quickly in certain board states. Or a card that can end the game in a few turns but can be dealt with in the normal means. Or a card that stabilizes you immediately. Or any number of things. Stop putting mayonnaise on Shiv's Embrace.
BEAR. A "bear" is a creature that costs two mana (generally, including at least one colorless) and has two power and two toughness.
That's it.
ALTERNATIVES: Goblin Piker- Two mana 2/1.
Grey Ogre- Three mana 2/2.
Hurloon Minotaur- Three mana 2/3 (we don't say this much.)
Hill Giant- Four mana 3/3.
Wind Drake- A three mana, two power flier. Toughness is generally two.
CARD ADVANTAGE. This is a strict definition. If an action increases the number of cards you have available for use, or decreases the number of cards your opponent has available for use by more cards than the action cost you, then it is card advantage. Card Advantage can refer to inherent or potential qualities. For example, Divination is card advantage, whereas Doom Blade can provide card advantage.
REMOVAL. A card or action which removes or negates a resolved threat from the battlefield. As distinct from counters and bounce spells.
Finally, in an attempt to seem like less of a hard-ass, here's a link to my favorite MTG card.
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If you actually get everyone to agree on a definition of Bomb...by god I would award you the Nobel Prize for Limited.
I feel like card advantage is often the result of an action in a given board state rather than tied to a specific card. Sure, Opportunity inherently provides card advantage and Doom Blade inherently does not. However, if you Doom Blade your opponent's Serra Angel enchanted with Blessing and Divine Favor in response to them Giant Growth-ing it, then I think most people would agree that your opponent is terrible... and that the play provided a form of card advantage. Obviously, a lot of situations aren't so clear cut, which is why I've read discussions on here debating card advantage.
Specifically, first, for 'card advantage'. How is token production evaluated, specifically? Lingering Souls is clearly card advantage because of its flashback cost. But what about Midnight Haunting? Is it card advantage because it produces two creatures? Or is it not?
If we go the 'two creatures' route, then are the Command cycle of cards (e.g., Primal Command) card advantage because they can give two 'cards worth' of effect, or not?
On that note, is any creature that produces a token when it enters play (e.g., Attended Knight) card advantage?
Now, with bomb, I think we need a bit more clarification. I would want to separate pseudo's first definition to 'transformational' cards and/or strategies, because they change the default board state. This is even more clear when the new board state is 'get this card off the table'. The best recent example is Pack Rat. I would argue that it fails the 'few turns' part of the bomb definition, but it's inarguably a bomb because it's incredibly resilient.
The Doom Blade example above is clearly card advantage. You're investing one card to eliminate the continued effects of 4 cards (creature + aura + aura + instant targeting creature).
Card advantage is built on the general idea that whoever plays more spells is probably going to win. We all know this is a gross simplification but in the long run it tends to be true. It's the reason you lose to mana screw (couldn't play your spells) and mana flood (didn't have enough spells to play). It gets blurrier between those extremes.
It's never going to be an exact science because take a card like Divine Favor. Even if you kill the creature that it's attached to, how much value did you remove? They still gained life. Maybe that allowed them to block for a turn or two until you drew your removal. It still provided lasting impact on the game so did you really "remove" a whole card? Definitely not. But it's the best way we have to casually discuss this stuff.
While I don't disagree with this, Phyrre, for a clear delineation of 'card advantage', this needs to be codified, and the biggest part of this is, 'what is the worth of a card?' That answer is neither obvious nor even fixed over the length of the game.
And the issue is that to count this as CA means that the definition of CA relies, at least in part, in (likely suboptimal) play by your opponent.
Not really true, or it is true only while the flow INTO the hand is the same. It's normally true, but if my opponent is drawing two cards for every card I draw, 2-for-1s on my part are no better than a 1-for-1 in the 'default' sense.
This is why you need to distinguish between the various advantages. Card advantage really should be restricted to how many cards you gain access to. There are other advantage terms (board advantage, time advantage, even mana advantage) that could be used to cover all of these other circumstances.
Really, if you look at it more in the terms of flows, the key is to maximize flow of resources to the correct point, whatever that point is.
The issue with mana screw is that it creates a bottleneck in the flow of resources between hand and battlefield, and generally cards in the hand are worth less than on the battlefield.
(Note that battlefield is a poor term here because spells don't ever really 'hit' the battlefield.)
I'm not sure we need to have a discussion about this at all, if we're only looking for a casual definition.
If lands are worthless in the current game state, Divinating for 2 lands still provides CA because it speeds up your next nonland draws by 2 turns. So that's still CA, just a bit delayed.
A similar example is Into the Wilds, which only draws you lands. Nevertheless, it still provides lots of effective CA.
Practice for Khans of Tarkir Limited:
Draft: (#1) (#2) (#3) (#4) (#5)
Then that brings up the question of how to define what is "worth a card"
I actually had written pretty much this on my first draft of the definition, but then I remembered we have a term for a 2/1. There is enough difference between one toughness and two that I think the distinction is worth preserving. From Shrivel or Flames of the Firebrand type effects to pingers, there are whole classes of cards that make a big difference. Furthermore, sometimes you need a guy swinging even if they're blocked; for example, you have three guys and they have two walls. There's a big difference between one and two toughness swinging into Basilica Guards and Archaeomancers. Also, less importantly, in the 2/2 vs 1/4 scenario, you're not necessarily telegraphing a trick to swing in anyway..
Either way, the real reason I feel "bear" should ONLY mean 2 mana 2/2s is because we have a term for 2/1s.
My aspiration is not that for "bomb"... I'm hoping to introduce other ways of saying "good card." Recently posts have been "word word word bomb word bomb word word not a bomb word bomb bomb bomby bomb." Glecch.
True story. I'll add a second definition.
Many of you are much more experienced than I, so I would love a consensus definition. Overall, I think "card" usually refers to a literal card. The exception would be recurring token generators, i.e., Myr Turbine. Flashback is clearly built in CA. After that, I think we can define effects that put multiple cards on the battlefield as "board advantage." It may get hazier when you're talking about a bunch of tokens, but I'm comfortable with this definition.
Perhaps a slight re-wording? How's about "card that will win/take over the game in a few turns and is difficult to answer?"
If what you mean by this is along the lines of "Mark of the Vampire makes my guy bigger and gains me life" you're just talking about power level. Card Advantage has a specific meaning (we're just trying to hone in on it) which is distinct from "Advantageous Cards."
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
The difference between a 2/2 and a 2/1 is extremely relevant in terms of double and triple blocking.
*DCI Rules Advisor*
Agreed. M14 also has a significant number of relevant 1 power creatures (Seacoast Drake, Gnawing Zombie, etc.) as well as some removal that likes killing creatures with one toughness (Wring Flesh, Rod of Ruin, Flames of the Firebrand). I think it's worth making the distinction between a bear and a piker.
If an action increases the number of cards you have available for use, or decreases the number of cards your opponent has available for use by more cards than the action cost you, then it is card advantage. That's it. Yes, you can have virtual card advantage from casting a spell that does a lot without generating extra cards, but the point isn't to cover every situation, the point is to have a simple concept you can discuss.
Midnight Haunting is card advantage. Divination for two lands is card advantage. Doom Blade on a creature enchanted with Divine Blessing is card advantage. Are they potentially weak examples of the concept? Yes. But overcomplicating the idea in order to simplify the tactical implications of the idea is exactly backwards.
If card advantage as a simply defined concept improves our understanding of the game, then it is a good metric. There will always be loopholes, exceptions, etc. but that's alright.
That's why I applaud this effort, because the only truly useless metric is one that is not defined by all people in the same way. That type of metric can often cause more confusion than help.
Something like a creature with good removal built into it.
However, the opposite problem might be even worse: You can spend all day today pinning down a definition everyone accepts, then tomorrow a new user will log on and use the same word in a different way. What are you going to do, post links to the "accepted" definition every time this happens?
Or we could just accept that this isn't how language works. A word communicates not some objective meaning, but instead what your audience takes it to mean. Horrifying, eh? But there it is. As such, a definition shouldn't attempt to be clean and precise if the term it's defining is widely used in an imprecise manner. Why not? Because doing that doesn't communicate better, it just creates further distraction from the more interesting topics that the terms in question are supposed to be helping us to talk about.
Is <some card> a bomb? Never mind. Let's talk about how to play against it, whether we can splash it and when to switch colours for it. (Unless it's Pack Rat, in which case let's stop talking about it.)
Want a concrete example? Many years ago, Geordie Tate decided to write an article on card advantage... but the topic turned out to be so complex he ended up writing three (pure card advantage, virtual card advantage and effective card advantage). And after all that, still nobody agreed.
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You're talking about vernacular, which definitely applies to words like bomb. A bomb isn't anything with any specificity attached to it, and it doesn't need any to get across the idea. But there are terms, like card advantage, where having a clear definition actually matters for theory discussion. Leaving the idea nebulous or overcomplicated actually makes it harder to communicate. In that case, having a simple, precise definition should absolutely be prioritized and encouraged among players new to the discussion.
Hmm...I disagree. There are plenty of examples of words that have specific meanings, and if you deviate, people will refer you to the proper definitions. Think of something like Accounting for example. There are generally accepted definitions for just about everything, and you're expected to follow them or else you're a bad accountant.
You can't just decide that at your company, when you say "revenue," it means the amount of loose change lying about. It has to match up with other peoples' definition of revenue or you're considered objectively wrong by your peers. I'm not saying every word has to be finely crafted, but we can identify some nouns and give them meaning.
Ah, so. Well, that case is textbook CA. Other cases (the Command cycle, for example) seem like they might be, but if by "card" we mean "a friggin card" then we can just call those "good cards."
If the audience is left to their own devices, yes. However, language has no purpose if words don't have inherent meaning, and if a community (especially online, where all communication is strictly verbal, and even sloppy punctuation can render something unintelligible) can agree on definitions, then we can communicate more effectively and powerfully.
Done. Thank you. I could feel my boots sticking in the mud as I tried to write that one out concisely.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge
I will note that, by this definition, cantrips are not card advantage. Since this was different/more ambiguous in the OP, this needed adjudication.
Also, by this definition card advantage is a purely subjective term. I'm not saying that this is bad, but since 'card advantage' is the result of an action, not a card, it does not make sense to say, "This card is card advantage". Rather, you say, "This card provides card advantage in this situation," and the term has no meaning without a specified situation.
E.g., most people here would say that Divination 'is card advantage', but it is fairly easy to construct a scenario where Divination is not. (E.g., a card that requires the discard of a card whenever you play a spell negates the card advantage of playing Divination.)
If you want a clear and concise definition, such fine details are not irrelevant but are, indeed, crucial.
For example, in my RL discipline of Industrial Engineering, 'linear programming' is a reserved term that has a specific meaning, and if you use it in another context, you are simply incorrect if you are speaking IE jargon.
Hardened is basically calling for a Magic 'jargon' dictionary, and should be applauded for doing so.
Jargon often relies on other jargon for its precise definition. E.g., it would be very hard in Java to define the jargon term method if you don't define terms such as class before it.
Perhaps the issue is that we need to define other jargon terms first (like 'card') before we define 'card advantage' in a jargon sense.
BTW, you might argue that 'income' is well-defined in an accounting sense (I would quibble over that), but the very similar term (in a real life sense) 'revenue' is much less well-defined in accounting.
Well, now, this is an interesting question. At first I was tempted to rework the definition to allow for cantrips... then I thought, "What if they're not CA, but rather something analogous to an activated ability?" Often the effects aren't worth a card themselves (Cremate, Inaction Injunction) but sometimes they are simply overcosted (Bone to Ash, Scatter Arc.)
Ultimately, I think that cantrips do not inherently classify as CA; rather, each card must be assessed on its own merit. In this case, Bone to Ash is clearly CA and Inaction Injunction is not.
My Decks:
EDH: Sygg, River Cutthroat , Road to Scion
Grimgrin, Corpseborn
Modern: Polytokes
IRL: Progenitus Polymorph , Goblins
Just a friendly reminder that I will drive this car off a bridge