Just because you don't mind games that aren't competitive at all because someone floods or screws too hard doesn't mean the vast majority of people don't mind them. You simply don't care as much about fair competition as the rest of us, clearly, given your statement that you don't mind when your opponent floods.
Just because someone minds it doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game. There's lots of things that balance out mechanics in games that players don't necessarily like or know what would be best. The fixed mana growth system (like Hearthstone) is the worst of the three options actually.
I know what you pretend to say. But you trait mana flooding as an acceptable situation.
It is not.
Both with excess and scarce of lands in your hand you have dead cards (either I do not have enough mana to play my spell, either i do not have spells to play with this mana).
Mana screw usually beats mana flood because you can draw out of screw a lot easier. That said, sometimes it happens but a lot of the time you can build around it being an issue. Cards with Monstrous or X values are ridiculously good at letting you use mana.
As I repeat, both mana flooding and mana scarcity are problems in your hand. You can't avoid one without aggravating the other.
This is simply untrue. You can add cards to your deck that add as mana sinks, they hedge against flooding while your land situation hedges against screw. For example running 26 lands and some 2 mana card draw drops your chance of mana screw (which we'll define as 2 land to start and nothing 4 draws later) to happening on average in 11 out of 1000 games. Your chance of flood in this situation (which we'll define as 6 lands out of the first 11 cards) is 30.9%, but once you include mulligans and don't keep hands with say 6+ lands it drops to about 12 in 1000 games that you'll flood out.
Then you have the deck construction side of things. There's not much you can do to construct around mana screw but you can do a lot to deal with flooding. Olivia Voldaren, Kessig Wolf Run, Sphinx's Revelation, Monstrous, Overload, and so on are mechanics that hedge against flooding. If flooding is a concern put 6 cards in your deck that hedge against mana flood and you'll usually see one (75% confidence) by turn 5. Apply that to the 12 in 1000 games above and you're talking about 3 in 1000 games where you just lose with no chance due to flood while also having taken measures in your deck to hedge against screw. A total 15 out of 1000 games just losing to randomness is not a big deal. You'll lose to god hands from the opponent more often than that.
For those of us that are mathematically challenged, could you put your 'formula' into simple basics without the graphs? Once received, I suggest all those who are convinced mana screw/flood ruins the game adjust their decks accordingly and give it a try at FNM for a month or two, then come back and report their results.
His formula was (CMC of card*Total cards in deck)/(Turn to play card+Number of cards in hand)=Total land needed.
So using his formula lets say I wanted to cast Ruric Thar the Unbowed he would be
(6*60)/(7+7) That assumes wanting to play on turn 7, and assuming you don't mulligan
360/14
26 land
The reason this is a bad formula is it gives you a pretty low chance of success once you actually do the probability. Assuming you're on the draw here that's only a 63.3% chance of having the lands you need. The formula isn't bad for a quick estimation in limited if you don't have all the numbers memorized but I wouldn't apply it to anything beyond that. And I would probably go 1 land higher than the formula says in limited too.
Your method is extremely bad. Lands needed are a function of two things. Your curve, and the number of colored sources you need in order to hit lands that let you cast your spells. If you're seriously concerned about your curve and you don't want to do all the math, use a hypergeometric calculator. There's plenty online. I use this one. After that it's just a matter of figuring out what probability you're comfortable with and building accordingly. Are you ok with a 65% chance? Do you want a 75% chance? (this is what most pro's use, though by their statements they don't build this way... it's just what they gravitate towards by feel) Do you want an 85% chance?
I like 85% in legacy/modern because of the fetch interactions (and the need for higher consistency is why you still don't often go past 3 colors in those formats even though the mana is so good you could actually run 5 color with higher consistency than last seasons standard ran 3 color) but 75% in standard. Play with it a bit and see what you feel comfortable with. Just because of how probability works, there's diminishing returns the higher you go. For example with 24 land you have a 72.6% on the play and 80.3% on the draw chance of hitting your 4th land on turn 4 so a 23.55% chance of failure. With 26 land that becomes 80.2/86.6% so a 16.6% chance of failure. With 28 land that's 86.3%/91.4% or a 11.15% chance of failure. At some point you have to ask yourself are you gaining more by reducing your failure chance on lands or having more action spells. Going from 24 to 26 land each card is worth hitting your 4th land drop on time in about 35 additional games out of 1000. Going from 26 to 28 lands though each land card is only saving you in 27 out of 1000 games. At some point that extra consistency isn't worth losing a card that does something.
You honestly think that WotC have never tested anything to see if its better? How else do you think they got from "all land/no land = free mulligan, else no mulligan" to the current system?
I have no idea, and neither do you. We know that MaRo likes to say that mana screw makes the game better. We know that they like to talk about how mechanics like cycling and scry "smooth out" mana draws. But have they internally spent some number of man hours discussing and testing and rejecting various schemes like the one presented in the OP? Maybe. But if they had, why wouldn't they have written about it from time to time?
Nothing I've ever read from R&D indicates to me that they have in the past decade-plus seriously considered any kind of alteration to the mulligan rule, or any kind of escape-valve type rule to mitigate mana screw.
You honestly think that WotC have never tested anything to see if its better? How else do you think they got from "all land/no land = free mulligan, else no mulligan" to the current system?
You're talking about your 5th game with a deck. That's nowhere near enough to call it a significant issue. When I say "build a better deck", I don't mean "build a better deck and you'll never have mana issues again", because that's what variance does to the game. But its a fact that a deck with a poorly designed mana base will have issues a lot more often than one that's built well.
If I build a deck and I get crumby mana 4 games out of 10, that's a poor mana base and the deck needs a better build. If I build a deck and I get bad mana 4 times out of 50, then we're getting somewhere. And with my EDH decks, which I've spend literally years refining, its closer to 1 in 100 games that I get bad mana.
All decks will get bad draws, that's life, but a well build mana base and deck should mitigate that as much as possible.
You're acting like there's much more skill to building a manabase, particularly in limited, than there actually is. The vast majority of decks in almost every limited format are undeniably correct when playing 17 lands - they still screw and flood often. For constructed, better players than either of us have figured out the correct manabase for basically every deck you could imagine (outside of EDH). There's not that much wiggle room to begin with - it's not complicated to figure out, especially with something like a two or three colored Modern or Standard deck. People still flood and screw often there, too.
Even if it only happens 1% of the time (which means almost 2% of games, since your opponent can also flood/screw), this seriously affects the integrity of the competition. You realize the effect of an automatic loss in a best of 3 situation, right? First, consider that if it happens in 2% of games or so, that means that it happens in almost 5.8% of matches (it affects slightly less than that if you consider it a wash when it happens to both). That means that in almost 6% of matches, rather than two equally skilled opponents having about a 50% chance to beat each other, the victim of the automatic loss now has only a 25% chance of winning the match.
Think about that: In 6% of matches, using your own frequency figures, a player's odds of winning the match are cut in half right off the bat through no fault of his or her own. How delusional do you have to be to say that's not an issue?
PS: Again, I'm not saying I have a solution or that Wizards should change anything. It's something we have to live with. Living with it, however, is a very different thing than saying it's okay.
Of course it's a problem. Some percentage of games of magic are miserably unfun. That is bad.
There is no game in existence in which some proportion is unfun for some people, saying that Magic is the same as every other game ever invented is not much of a revalation. It is good to reach for an idea of being "better", but reaching for an ideal of perfection is not only delusionary, but it also creates an unrealistic vision of the state of the game.
I've never understood this position. People's feelings are their feelings. If you and you alone tell me that you really really hate the feeling of playing against green creatures, well, I won't quite know how to respond. If such a huge portion of the magic playing populace hates playing against green creatures that it's the subject of constant threads, and MaRo is constantly having to write articles about how "hey, we know you THINK you hate green creatures, but here's why they're important", and on and on, well, I might argue that it's important that green creatures exist for various reasons, and I might suggest some alternate ways that people might want to think about the way that green creatures influence the game, but I'm not going to tell someone that they SHOULDN'T dislike what they dislike, or that "it's just a game".
The problem is that you have no way of realistically collecting such data...this (or any) website is certainly not a reliable measure of the pulse of the player. Wizards, however, do spend tens of thousands of dollars collecting this kind of data, and if that data presented that opinion then they would make a change. Just because everyone you know, or everyone you talk to at your shop think that mana variance is a problem that needs to be fixed, does not mean squat for the direction of the game.
Why shouldn't their opinion matter? If they're not having fun they're not having fun, and that's just as valid a data point as the fact that you ARE having fun.
Psychology, neurology, advertising and perception studies, and countless other fields have proven that humans do not know elements contribute to them enjoying or desiring a thing. It is not invalid that they are not enjoying themselves, it is invalid to consider that they accurately what could be done to make the activity enjoyable. It is also invalid to think that just because "you" are not enjoying the game for a given reason that the game should change to make your experience more enjoyable. There are aspects about the game that I hate, but I am not so self-centered so as to think the game should mold to my taste.
Psychology, neurology, advertising and perception studies, and countless other fields have proven that humans do not know elements contribute to them enjoying or desiring a thing. It is not invalid that they are not enjoying themselves, it is invalid to consider that they accurately what could be done to make the activity enjoyable. It is also invalid to think that just because "you" are not enjoying the game for a given reason that the game should change to make your experience more enjoyable. There are aspects about the game that I hate, but I am not so self-centered so as to think the game should mold to my taste.
I'm no longer sure you're being serious.
Guy wins game 1 and has fun.
Guy loses game 2 and has fun.
Guy wins game 3 and has fun.
Guy wins game 4 and has fun.
Guy loses game 5 and has fun.
Guy loses game 6 and has fun.
Guy loses game 7 to a mana screw and has a miserable time.
Guy wins game 8 and has fun.
Guy wins game 9 and has fun.
I wonder what caused him not to have fun in game 7.
The second part is just as absurd. I've been a part of countless games involving game-ruining floods/screws. The only emotions I've ever seen are frustration, anger and boredom, occasionally mixed with some (brief) humorous disbelief. They're certainly not the only things that can make games boring or frustrating, but no one alive actually enjoys experiencing them (or learns from them unless you're brand new, as someone suggested) and no one who cares about competition and plays MTG for the right reason enjoys playing against them.
I enjoy screw/flood. Part of the game is seeing what lines of play are open to you. If every scenario is perfect, where's the fun in that? Not to mention the enjoyment I get out of building a deck properly and taking that into account, or even writing about it on a forum.
Anyways in your example, you can say the guy didn't have fun due to variance in game 7 but in all the other games he probably also got some enjoyment out of that same variance which lead to mana problems in 1 game. If you remove variance in order to remove unfun aspects, you remove a lot of what makes the game exciting when there's a skill difference between players. Without variance Magic turns into another form of chess and while chess isn't a bad game, it's a very different type of game.
I'm entirely serious, you are looking at one game of mana variance as an indication that there is something wrong with the game, where as I am looking at the macro. This person lost a game in part due to variance, but we can assume that they will play many game and who's to say that these moments where chance does not favor the player are not balanced (or even exceeded) by the excitement from the many other times in which the well made deck performs as designed. This could result in a net increase in enjoyment, but when you obsess on on the occasional moments of negative variance rather than the larger picture you miss the elegance of the larger design. You may think that it is those occasional variances are what needs to be fixed, when the reality may be that they contribute to the greater appreciation of the game over time.
I have played systems like Duel Masters, WoW, and even a few games of Kaijudo for the heck of it, and each of these systems has the "chuck any card for mana" design and they are terrible (IMO). It makes deck play much more predictable, and dull over time. They are not made better in the bigger picture by the reduction of variance due to resource management.
Oh, and what does "plays MTG for the right reasons..." mean?
The mana system can't be changed because card design is totally based around mana screw and flood.
Whether you think it improves the game or not is kind of irrelevant.
The only situation where it could be modified is in a closed environment like a limited format or block format, but then, why not just use commonly appearing cards and mechanics within that set that mitigate mana screw? Perhaps making scry easy and accessible for a block. Something crazy like that.
Yeah, I guess being smacked around by your spouse does make the instances where he doesn't beat you up much more enjoyable.
But he says he loves me.
I'm joking, but yes, I agree. That's a poor argument. If anything it's "just part of the game." And if random mana screw/flood is the cost that has to be paid for the game to function as it does, then I'm okay with that. But increasing overall enjoyment subconsciously? Not so much.
I've enjoyed playing Hearthstone, despite its other flaws, because you never dread topdecking a land when you need some action, are never frustrated by having to lose a card (or 2 or 3) right off the bat because of an unplayable opening hand and never worry if your 3 land opener will ever get more than 3 lands.
Yeah, I enjoy Hearthstone too...
but not because of that.
I get frustrated with it all the time as every turn I drop a very cool critter, just for my opponent draw a "non land" removal and get rid of it
I enjoy screw/flood. Part of the game is seeing what lines of play are open to you. If every scenario is perfect, where's the fun in that? Not to mention the enjoyment I get out of building a deck properly and taking that into account, or even writing about it on a forum.
Anyways in your example, you can say the guy didn't have fun due to variance in game 7 but in all the other games he probably also got some enjoyment out of that same variance which lead to mana problems in 1 game. If you remove variance in order to remove unfun aspects, you remove a lot of what makes the game exciting when there's a skill difference between players. Without variance Magic turns into another form of chess and while chess isn't a bad game, it's a very different type of game.
You don't understand what we're talking about. No one is talking about games where you're playing aggro, only need 3 lands but draw a 4th and 5th a little earlier than expected. We're talking about games that literally aren't winnable or losable, no matter how good/bad you are, because of screws/floods. The game where you're playing evenly with your opponent, you both go into topdeck mode and you topdeck 6 straight lands while he topdecks bombs and counters/removal (in case you ever do draw a threat). You can't learn anything from that (assuming you built or copied your deck correctly). There are no "lines of play" to figure out. You just plain aren't playing a game - you're watching him play solitaire. That is what we're talking about. No one wants variance removed (we're not even arguing that they need to prevent the rare game ending floods/screws), but no one truthfully enjoys those games.
Yeah, I enjoy Hearthstone too...
but not because of that.
I get frustrated with it all the time as every turn I drop a very cool critter, just for my opponent draw a "non land" removal and get rid of it
drawing lands works both ways.
If you enjoy your opponent being unable to answer things because he's topdecking lands, you're not playing for the right reasons. The reason creatures with ETB/dies effects and spells that are 2+ for 1s are powerful is because they don't get answered by one topdeck (usually). That's the fun. Using good deckbuilding or strategy to stick something that your opponent can't profitably (or evenly) deal with. I don't see how anyone who plays MTG for the right reasons could possibly enjoy "I topdeck gas, you topdeck a land, I topdeck gas, you topdeck a land..." for the last few turns of a game. People playing because they enjoy the game and the competition don't want to get screwed into losses, but they also don't want to luck into boring, free wins.
Oh, and what does "plays MTG for the right reasons..." mean?
Playing because you enjoy the game and the competition. The people who care more about the game being fun (for both players) than they do about winning are playing for the right reasons. People who enjoy beating a poorly constructed $10 casual deck with their $700 tournament deck and people who enjoy getting free wins because their good opponent just happened to flood out hard aren't playing for the right reasons. It's a game.
The rest of your post, as others have explained, was much too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
There are a few opinions that I disagree with here.
Mana flood/screw has been apart of the game for 20 years
- Just because something has been apart of something for a while does not mean it is useful. For example, doctors used to do surgery without anesthetic for many years. However, it was a problem, so it was corrected, REGARDLESS of how many years it had been done without
You need to learn how to adapt to mana flood/screw
- There really is not adapting. I'm not talking about missing a land drop on your 3rd turn. I'm talking about getting no lands, mulliganing down to 5 and still drawing no lands with a WELL made deck. It's not fun, for anyone. You see it in the pro tours and grad prix: people just straight up losing due to mana flood and/or screw. If the best players in the game can't adapt to it to remove the frustrating and negative manner of it, I doubt anyone else can.
I don't want to remove the variance from the game, I love the variance.
- I think everyone here likes the variance, and no one wants to remove it. We just want to make the 'extreme' variance occur instead as significant variance. Why? Because extreme variance is often boring/frustrating/annoying, whereas just significant variance is often still fun. We want to maximize the fun in the game.
It doesn't happen that often, so just live with it
- Minimal frequency does not mean we should condone negativity. Especially if the solutions will be of equally minimal fequency.
Just learn to adopt to the game, stop trying to change it
- I think everyone in the game has learned to adopt -- as we are all playing this game. The advice is derogatory and inflammatory. As for stop trying to change it, magic has had many key changes that have made it the game it is today. Mulligans, creature power, banned/reserved cards, different formats, etc. Without those changes magic would be a much worse game. If people had just said "learn to adopt, stop trying to change" with all those other changes we would have a worse game. How is the situation any different here?
Again, the proposed solution I think is quite effective. I think there may be better ones but it is the best I have encountered so far:
1) You may exile 3 lands from hand at sorcery speed to draw a card.
2) You may exile 3 non-lands from hand at sorcery speed to reveal the top 8 cards of your library. Put a land card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library.
Another excellent suggestion is correction in the cards themselves. Basic land search on more cards, and cycle on more lands. However, this would not fix previous cards and would probably increase the complication of future cards to have these mechanics. That being said it may be more ideal than the above solution.
Regardless, something should be done, especially in light of all the new TCGs that have fully addressed and/or rectified this problem that will be in competition with magic.
- There really is not adapting. I'm not talking about missing a land drop on your 3rd turn. I'm talking about getting no lands, mulliganing down to 5 and still drawing no lands with a WELL made deck. It's not fun, for anyone. You see it in the pro tours and grad prix: people just straight up losing due to mana flood and/or screw. If the best players in the game can't adapt to it to remove the frustrating and negative manner of it, I doubt anyone else can.
Again, the proposed solution I think is quite effective. I think there may be better ones but it is the best I have encountered so far:
1) You may exile 3 lands from hand at sorcery speed to draw a card.
2) You may exile 3 non-lands from hand at sorcery speed to reveal the top 8 cards of your library. Put a land card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library.
Your solution does not fix the problem.... You get no lands and mul to 5... still see no lands... either you keep 5 and exile 3 to probably get a land, or mull to 4 and then 3 to hopefully get at least 1 land.... you see virtually the same number of cards. Opening hand all lands? Mulligan is still your best option and there are ways to abuse those suggestions. The first one in particular makes any multiple card draw effects a lot better... normally drawing 7 cards results in getting a few land... but when you can just pitch those land into another card those draw effects are better without even needing something like cycling.
Another excellent suggestion is correction in the cards themselves. Basic land search on more cards, and cycle on more lands. However, this would not fix previous cards and would probably increase the complication of future cards to have these mechanics. That being said it may be more ideal than the above solution.
This is the correct solution and is already being done... bounce lands, scry, cycling, mana dorks, suspend, fetch lands, leveling creatures, flash back, kicker.... these are all examples of mechanics that play into mana screw or mana flood.
This is the correct solution and is already being done... bounce lands, scry, cycling, mana dorks, suspend, fetch lands, leveling creatures, flash back, kicker.... these are all examples of mechanics that play into mana screw or mana flood.
Certainly, and all of those things are welcome and make the game better. But there's something a bit contradictory about two positions being espoused in this thread (not necessarily both by you), one being "it's not a problem, it makes the game better, learn to build a better manabase" and the other being "well, all of these things (scry etc.) are already addressing it". If it isn't a problem, then why are there a bunch of mechanics to make it better? And if there are a bunch of mechanics to make it better, why is it off-limits-undiscussable-verboten for there to be a possible rules change to make it more better?
Certainly, and all of those things are welcome and make the game better. But there's something a bit contradictory about two positions being espoused in this thread (not necessarily both by you), one being "it's not a problem, it makes the game better, learn to build a better manabase" and the other being "well, all of these things (scry etc.) are already addressing it". If it isn't a problem, then why are there a bunch of mechanics to make it better? And if there are a bunch of mechanics to make it better, why is it off-limits-undiscussable-verboten for there to be a possible rules change to make it more better?
Because being contradictory is fun? Or something...
But increasing overall enjoyment subconsciously? Not so much.
You misunderstand, what I am trying to point out is that it may contribute to the greater health and quality of the game due to factors that are unseen by the person who is miffed because the variance did not go their way one game. Reducing varaince in the game's resources could very well have an over all reduction in the appeal of the game- after all there are millions of people world-wide that enjoy the thrill of slots. It is not due to the money, they have done studies on gambling, it is due to the rush and thrill of the variance. Now, clearly MTG is a different kind of game that appeals to people for different reasons, but I am saying that the same neuro-biology that provides us with a sense of accomplishment when we think we have overcome chance is at work in MTG as a contributing factor.
Playing because you enjoy the game and the competition. The people who care more about the game being fun (for both players) than they do about winning are playing for the right reasons. People who enjoy beating a poorly constructed $10 casual deck with their $700 tournament deck and people who enjoy getting free wins because their good opponent just happened to flood out hard aren't playing for the right reasons. It's a game.
First of all that is what I enjoy about the game, but who gives you or me the right to say that these are the right reasons to enjoy the game? Who made you arbiter of right and wrong?
The rest of your post, as others have explained, was much too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
You can take the simple approach and dismiss it without thinking or looking into the reasons we enjoy things, but you would be sticking your head in the sand.
There are plenty of instances where we think we know what we want but are in fact wrong. For example if there are two ice cream shops, one that has 50 flavors and the other has 5 flavors, but otherwise the ice cream quality is the same. Most people (at least people in western democratic cultures) would choose the 50 flavor shop because with all that variety they are bound to find something that they really like, but that is not the choice that will bring us the most satisfaction. When physiology is observed as well as exit interviews taken it has repeatedly been shown in studies that people have more satisfaction when they have less choices, despite the belief that they want more choices. The reasons are not 100% clear, but the established theory is that since each thing you don't choose represents a "what if" scenario for you subconsciously there is greater stress contributing to dissatisfaction.
That has nothing to do with what we are talking about in it's specifics, what I am trying to get across is that there are plenty of instances like this that prove what we do not always know what the contributing factors are to our satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Our immediate conscious mind is often creating a legend in an attempt manage immediate stressors, but that legend is not the full picture.
1) You may exile 3 lands from hand at sorcery speed to draw a card.
2) You may exile 3 non-lands from hand at sorcery speed to reveal the top 8 cards of your library. Put a land card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library.
This would heavily prevent mana flooding and mana screwing. It still allows all the benefits of the system while just preventing the extreme situations from being so bad.
I mean, isn't this just more ideal, why not introduce something like this into the rules?
I'm sure there are some exceptions to the rules I suggested that would mean they would need to be adjusted but why not something along those lines?
Appreciate any feedback, I've sent the same request to Mark Rosewater and am hopeful he will respond.
Cheers,
Ucross
This rule is largely arbitrary. Most of Magic's rules are relatively self-explanatory, and "make sense". This rule, however, does not (from both a flavor and a rules standpoint).
This rule is largely arbitrary. Most of Magic's rules are relatively self-explanatory, and "make sense". This rule, however, does not (from both a flavor and a rules standpoint).
It's a fair point and probably the best criticism of the suggested rule so far. =/
The problem with just trying to do it on the cards is that it doesn't work that well. It's still pretty easy to get mana screwed.
This rule is largely arbitrary. Most of Magic's rules are relatively self-explanatory, and "make sense". This rule, however, does not (from both a flavor and a rules standpoint).
Are they? I disagree. I'm not saying whether or not I like the rule, but I very much disagree with this statement.
Damage stacking made sense. The way it is now is completely illogical from a flavor standpoint and very unintuitive. Why does a blocked creature completely stop his attack, even if the creature blocking him dies before the attacks actually take place? He just stops because the opposing creature intended to block him?
How can two legends exist on the field at the same time - yet not by the same person? How come I can summon Jace and you can summon a second Jace, yet neither of us can summon two Jaces? Even the old way, why did a clone copying my legend cause both the clone and the legend to commit suicide? Why did attempting to summon my the legend I've already summoned kill them both - should they not return to our hands or should you not "steal" it from me? The original way long ago made some logical sense, but that's it. The flavor and logic are terrible now and were terrible before the change.
I understand that we can't target PWers with burn because it would severely limit older cards that just say "creature or player," but that's clearly unintuitive and not at all flavorful. I can target my PWing opponent. I can target Venser as a creature. I can't target Venser the PWer?
There are plenty more examples of rules that make no sense flavorfully or aren't really at all logical.
You don't understand what we're talking about. No one is talking about games where you're playing aggro, only need 3 lands but draw a 4th and 5th a little earlier than expected. We're talking about games that literally aren't winnable or losable, no matter how good/bad you are, because of screws/floods. The game where you're playing evenly with your opponent, you both go into topdeck mode and you topdeck 6 straight lands while he topdecks bombs and counters/removal (in case you ever do draw a threat). You can't learn anything from that (assuming you built or copied your deck correctly). There are no "lines of play" to figure out. You just plain aren't playing a game - you're watching him play solitaire. That is what we're talking about. No one wants variance removed (we're not even arguing that they need to prevent the rare game ending floods/screws), but no one truthfully enjoys those games.
The more extreme you make your case the rarer it happens. Using your example, yes sometimes you'll lose but there's a lot of play in optimizing your resources to get that one extra card to try and get out of the situation. Those are the most fun moments in the game to me. Playing to that one extra turn is everything. Without the variance of mana flood and mana screw those moments simply aren't possible. And as I said, if you build your deck to be able to take advantage of mana flood (much more doable in constructed), you significantly reduce the impact of it.
I remember playing in the Theros prerelease for example, we did a draft afterwards and it was me vs another guy in game 3 of the finals. We had both drafted red/white (I had a green splash too though, this guy and one other player both directly to my left were also red/white so I was cut really bad in pack 2) and I mana screwed while he had a strong draw. Having to switch plans from the beatdown to the control role and base all of my decisions around what line lets me draw the most extra cards in order to fix the situation was a lot of fun. For several turns in a row I was simply discarding due to lack of cards to play. I won that game as well as the 16 packs that were on the line for my trouble. I won with 3 life (effectively 1 since he was holding a Magma Jet) and killed him for exact after around 17 turns or so while being dead to the counter attack. Those types of moments are some of the most fun moments in the game to me and they quite literally aren't possible without mana flood/mana screw existing.
If you enjoy your opponent being unable to answer things because he's topdecking lands, you're not playing for the right reasons. The reason creatures with ETB/dies effects and spells that are 2+ for 1s are powerful is because they don't get answered by one topdeck (usually). That's the fun. Using good deckbuilding or strategy to stick something that your opponent can't profitably (or evenly) deal with. I don't see how anyone who plays MTG for the right reasons could possibly enjoy "I topdeck gas, you topdeck a land, I topdeck gas, you topdeck a land..." for the last few turns of a game. People playing because they enjoy the game and the competition don't want to get screwed into losses, but they also don't want to luck into boring, free wins.
Some people enjoy non interactive games? I can certainly understand that. I have times where I simply don't want to play fair and play something as non interactive as possible. Perhaps that's creatureless control loaded with counters and a card like Nephalia Drownyard for the kill. A few weeks back we did a 2HG Standard FNM and I played Maze's End+Fog+board wipes paired with a deck that was counters+board wipes. In Legacy I like to play burn which is the toughest deck to interact with in the format, in Modern I play either Pod (super interactive) or Eggs (super non-interactive), or Superfriends (also very non interactive). There's a whole bunch of fun uninteractive strategies out there, whose to say what the right reasons are or aren't? I think that you should play a deck you'll find fun, and leave it up to your opponent to do the same for their own enjoyment. If I enjoy a free win because my opponent either got super unlucky or made their deck poorly, what's wrong with that? Similarly, if they were smart about building their deck so that it can actually deal with mana problems and they're still in the game despite that, then good for them. My main and sometimes only motivation for playing is prize packs, if my opponents build their decks poorly and make it easier for me to get prizes I'm happy. If my opponents actually read good articles about deck construction, apply a little math, and so on and make a deck that minimizes screw/flood and that causes us to have some good games of Magic I'm happy with that too because it means my inner spike gets to prove I'm a better player than them (or sometimes not and I get to experience being beaten by someone better... which leads to my own improvement in the future).
Just one quick note, you made the calculation wrong. You have/had 6+x cards in hand, where X is the turn. You made the formula with 7+X instead.
The result for Ruric on turn 7 is:
(6*60)/(7+6)= 28 lands
If you want to play a 6 mana card, you will play it with my formula in these turns:
20 lands/generators in deck: turn 12
24 lands/generators in deck: turn 9
28 cards/generators in deck: turn 7
If you want to play ruric on turn 6 (hard to get without fixers or card advantage), you will need.
(6*60)/(6+6)= 30 lands in deck
Doesn't that imply only 6 cards in your starting hand? You're taking 7 draws+6 starting cards. Are you not counting the last one because you know for certain it's a non land? When I throw 28 lands into the calculator with 13 draws (7+6) it still only comes up with a 63.7% chance which is pretty low. Like I said before, it all comes down to what probability you're comfortable with but 63.7% is pretty loose. At 30 lands (though some of these could be other mana sources like Caryatid) it's 73.4% which is better but still not where you want to be.
I do like your formula as something I can quickly do in my head for color balancing in limited, but it comes up 1-2 cards short for what I would be comfortable with, though that's not really a big deal if you know the total lands you're going to be using in the first place.
Thing is, I don't think there is any real solution to manascrew/mana flood without completely revamping the game and taking out lands entirely.
Oh, there are inarguably solutions to mana screw/mana flood that don't involve taking out lands altogether. Dozens have been proposed. The question is whether there are solutions that don't have so many drawbacks/loopholes/side effects that they end up with a game that's worse off then where we started.
Here's by far the best solution I've ever thought of, although as you'll see it has one massive drawback: Change the code for the magic online shuffler so that whenever it shuffles a deck it actually shuffles twice, examines how evenly distributed the lands are in both shuffles, and uses the one with more even land. I think that's just about an ideal solution... all of the variance and unpredictability of magic is still there, you never have guaranteed land or spell draws, and even the most extreme screw/flood is still POSSIBLE, it's just that the screw and flood are less likely, and extreme screw and flood are WAY less likely. Now, if you were looking closely you probably saw the big problem with this plan... it only works on magic online, not paper magic. Nonetheless, I think it's important to keep an open mind about things rather than just assuming that everything is already the best it can possibly be.
Here's by far the best solution I've ever thought of, although as you'll see it has one massive drawback: Change the code for the magic online shuffler so that whenever it shuffles a deck it actually shuffles twice, examines how evenly distributed the lands are in both shuffles, and uses the one with more even land. I think that's just about an ideal solution... all of the variance and unpredictability of magic is still there, you never have guaranteed land or spell draws, and even the most extreme screw/flood is still POSSIBLE, it's just that the screw and flood are less likely, and extreme screw and flood are WAY less likely. Now, if you were looking closely you probably saw the big problem with this plan... it only works on magic online, not paper magic. Nonetheless, I think it's important to keep an open mind about things rather than just assuming that everything is already the best it can possibly be.
There's another problem with that too. It's NOT random. Lands appear in a semi fixed pattern. This would allow you to run fewer lands while hitting more land drops which completely skews deck construction. Now if you're choosing the most distributed out of a small sample size there will still be some variation, but what you're essentially doing is the same thing as a double nickel with a few cuts, which will guarantee 4 lands by turn 4 with a mere 20 land. With even distribution lets say you have 20 land, you'll have 1 land every 3 draws which means after 12 draws you're guaranteed to have 4 land and not see another one until turn 7.
Messing with the shuffler in this fashion is a really bad idea if you want Magic Online to look at all similar to paper Magic. You might not think this is a big deal but I guarantee you it would cut 4 lands from every deck. With fewer lands (but still hitting land drops) comes less room for colors which leads to more mono/two color decks and it causes more threats to be run. With more threats being run, answers start to look different, and after a couple weeks of decks evolving the paper/MTGO metas would look absolutely nothing alike. After this you would see another severe divergence as MTGO could no longer evolve the paper meta which would lead to very slow paper evolution (SCG Opens would be the main source of data). It would be like taking the paper game back in time by 15 years.
The main thing you need to understand is that randomness implies things are streaky. Random is the absence of a pattern, even or semi even distribution is a pattern. By definition, mana pockets are not only supposed to exist in the deck but have to exist.
I'm not sure that people are saying that it in and of itself makes the game better, at least that is not what I am saying. Think of it like a mosquito- you are at a park that has a body of water in it and you are having a nice afternoon when suddenly you realize that there are a dozen or so hungry female mosquitoes buzzing around you. No matter where you go in the park you are beset by these "pests". I think we can agree that almost no one likes to be "bit" by them, and when you are bit by multiple mosquitoes no matter where you go in the park it can be easy to say that the park would be better without them. They can cause disease in some parts of the world, but even just the common clean mosquito is annoying. The reality is, however, that it is very likely that this park would not be healthy in any way if all the mosquitoes were gone, the water would be unpleasant, the birds would not be as numerous, you would not get to watch bats flutter around in the dusk, and the plant-life would need constant outside help to stay alive. Getting rid of them makes the park less enjoyable.
I believe that mana variance (and any major part of the game) is similar in that while it may not always be fun, it is an integral part of the ecosystem of the game, and reducing or eliminating it could very well make the game less healthy and enjoyable as a whole.
Just because someone minds it doesn't mean it shouldn't be in the game. There's lots of things that balance out mechanics in games that players don't necessarily like or know what would be best. The fixed mana growth system (like Hearthstone) is the worst of the three options actually.
Mana screw usually beats mana flood because you can draw out of screw a lot easier. That said, sometimes it happens but a lot of the time you can build around it being an issue. Cards with Monstrous or X values are ridiculously good at letting you use mana.
This is simply untrue. You can add cards to your deck that add as mana sinks, they hedge against flooding while your land situation hedges against screw. For example running 26 lands and some 2 mana card draw drops your chance of mana screw (which we'll define as 2 land to start and nothing 4 draws later) to happening on average in 11 out of 1000 games. Your chance of flood in this situation (which we'll define as 6 lands out of the first 11 cards) is 30.9%, but once you include mulligans and don't keep hands with say 6+ lands it drops to about 12 in 1000 games that you'll flood out.
Then you have the deck construction side of things. There's not much you can do to construct around mana screw but you can do a lot to deal with flooding. Olivia Voldaren, Kessig Wolf Run, Sphinx's Revelation, Monstrous, Overload, and so on are mechanics that hedge against flooding. If flooding is a concern put 6 cards in your deck that hedge against mana flood and you'll usually see one (75% confidence) by turn 5. Apply that to the 12 in 1000 games above and you're talking about 3 in 1000 games where you just lose with no chance due to flood while also having taken measures in your deck to hedge against screw. A total 15 out of 1000 games just losing to randomness is not a big deal. You'll lose to god hands from the opponent more often than that.
His formula was (CMC of card*Total cards in deck)/(Turn to play card+Number of cards in hand)=Total land needed.
So using his formula lets say I wanted to cast Ruric Thar the Unbowed he would be
(6*60)/(7+7) That assumes wanting to play on turn 7, and assuming you don't mulligan
360/14
26 land
The reason this is a bad formula is it gives you a pretty low chance of success once you actually do the probability. Assuming you're on the draw here that's only a 63.3% chance of having the lands you need. The formula isn't bad for a quick estimation in limited if you don't have all the numbers memorized but I wouldn't apply it to anything beyond that. And I would probably go 1 land higher than the formula says in limited too.
Your method is extremely bad. Lands needed are a function of two things. Your curve, and the number of colored sources you need in order to hit lands that let you cast your spells. If you're seriously concerned about your curve and you don't want to do all the math, use a hypergeometric calculator. There's plenty online. I use this one. After that it's just a matter of figuring out what probability you're comfortable with and building accordingly. Are you ok with a 65% chance? Do you want a 75% chance? (this is what most pro's use, though by their statements they don't build this way... it's just what they gravitate towards by feel) Do you want an 85% chance?
I like 85% in legacy/modern because of the fetch interactions (and the need for higher consistency is why you still don't often go past 3 colors in those formats even though the mana is so good you could actually run 5 color with higher consistency than last seasons standard ran 3 color) but 75% in standard. Play with it a bit and see what you feel comfortable with. Just because of how probability works, there's diminishing returns the higher you go. For example with 24 land you have a 72.6% on the play and 80.3% on the draw chance of hitting your 4th land on turn 4 so a 23.55% chance of failure. With 26 land that becomes 80.2/86.6% so a 16.6% chance of failure. With 28 land that's 86.3%/91.4% or a 11.15% chance of failure. At some point you have to ask yourself are you gaining more by reducing your failure chance on lands or having more action spells. Going from 24 to 26 land each card is worth hitting your 4th land drop on time in about 35 additional games out of 1000. Going from 26 to 28 lands though each land card is only saving you in 27 out of 1000 games. At some point that extra consistency isn't worth losing a card that does something.
I have no idea, and neither do you. We know that MaRo likes to say that mana screw makes the game better. We know that they like to talk about how mechanics like cycling and scry "smooth out" mana draws. But have they internally spent some number of man hours discussing and testing and rejecting various schemes like the one presented in the OP? Maybe. But if they had, why wouldn't they have written about it from time to time?
Nothing I've ever read from R&D indicates to me that they have in the past decade-plus seriously considered any kind of alteration to the mulligan rule, or any kind of escape-valve type rule to mitigate mana screw.
You're acting like there's much more skill to building a manabase, particularly in limited, than there actually is. The vast majority of decks in almost every limited format are undeniably correct when playing 17 lands - they still screw and flood often. For constructed, better players than either of us have figured out the correct manabase for basically every deck you could imagine (outside of EDH). There's not that much wiggle room to begin with - it's not complicated to figure out, especially with something like a two or three colored Modern or Standard deck. People still flood and screw often there, too.
Even if it only happens 1% of the time (which means almost 2% of games, since your opponent can also flood/screw), this seriously affects the integrity of the competition. You realize the effect of an automatic loss in a best of 3 situation, right? First, consider that if it happens in 2% of games or so, that means that it happens in almost 5.8% of matches (it affects slightly less than that if you consider it a wash when it happens to both). That means that in almost 6% of matches, rather than two equally skilled opponents having about a 50% chance to beat each other, the victim of the automatic loss now has only a 25% chance of winning the match.
Think about that: In 6% of matches, using your own frequency figures, a player's odds of winning the match are cut in half right off the bat through no fault of his or her own. How delusional do you have to be to say that's not an issue?
PS: Again, I'm not saying I have a solution or that Wizards should change anything. It's something we have to live with. Living with it, however, is a very different thing than saying it's okay.
There is no game in existence in which some proportion is unfun for some people, saying that Magic is the same as every other game ever invented is not much of a revalation. It is good to reach for an idea of being "better", but reaching for an ideal of perfection is not only delusionary, but it also creates an unrealistic vision of the state of the game.
The problem is that you have no way of realistically collecting such data...this (or any) website is certainly not a reliable measure of the pulse of the player. Wizards, however, do spend tens of thousands of dollars collecting this kind of data, and if that data presented that opinion then they would make a change. Just because everyone you know, or everyone you talk to at your shop think that mana variance is a problem that needs to be fixed, does not mean squat for the direction of the game.
Psychology, neurology, advertising and perception studies, and countless other fields have proven that humans do not know elements contribute to them enjoying or desiring a thing. It is not invalid that they are not enjoying themselves, it is invalid to consider that they accurately what could be done to make the activity enjoyable. It is also invalid to think that just because "you" are not enjoying the game for a given reason that the game should change to make your experience more enjoyable. There are aspects about the game that I hate, but I am not so self-centered so as to think the game should mold to my taste.
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I'm no longer sure you're being serious.
Guy wins game 1 and has fun.
Guy loses game 2 and has fun.
Guy wins game 3 and has fun.
Guy wins game 4 and has fun.
Guy loses game 5 and has fun.
Guy loses game 6 and has fun.
Guy loses game 7 to a mana screw and has a miserable time.
Guy wins game 8 and has fun.
Guy wins game 9 and has fun.
I wonder what caused him not to have fun in game 7.
The second part is just as absurd. I've been a part of countless games involving game-ruining floods/screws. The only emotions I've ever seen are frustration, anger and boredom, occasionally mixed with some (brief) humorous disbelief. They're certainly not the only things that can make games boring or frustrating, but no one alive actually enjoys experiencing them (or learns from them unless you're brand new, as someone suggested) and no one who cares about competition and plays MTG for the right reason enjoys playing against them.
Anyways in your example, you can say the guy didn't have fun due to variance in game 7 but in all the other games he probably also got some enjoyment out of that same variance which lead to mana problems in 1 game. If you remove variance in order to remove unfun aspects, you remove a lot of what makes the game exciting when there's a skill difference between players. Without variance Magic turns into another form of chess and while chess isn't a bad game, it's a very different type of game.
I have played systems like Duel Masters, WoW, and even a few games of Kaijudo for the heck of it, and each of these systems has the "chuck any card for mana" design and they are terrible (IMO). It makes deck play much more predictable, and dull over time. They are not made better in the bigger picture by the reduction of variance due to resource management.
Oh, and what does "plays MTG for the right reasons..." mean?
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Whether you think it improves the game or not is kind of irrelevant.
The only situation where it could be modified is in a closed environment like a limited format or block format, but then, why not just use commonly appearing cards and mechanics within that set that mitigate mana screw? Perhaps making scry easy and accessible for a block. Something crazy like that.
I would like it much more if they made scry an "ever green" mechanic and just include some scry in every set.
You wouldn't have to change the foundation of the game and it would help with both mana flood and screw.
Thread | Draft
But he says he loves me.
I'm joking, but yes, I agree. That's a poor argument. If anything it's "just part of the game." And if random mana screw/flood is the cost that has to be paid for the game to function as it does, then I'm okay with that. But increasing overall enjoyment subconsciously? Not so much.
Thread | Draft
Yeah, I enjoy Hearthstone too...
but not because of that.
I get frustrated with it all the time as every turn I drop a very cool critter, just for my opponent draw a "non land" removal and get rid of it
drawing lands works both ways.
You don't understand what we're talking about. No one is talking about games where you're playing aggro, only need 3 lands but draw a 4th and 5th a little earlier than expected. We're talking about games that literally aren't winnable or losable, no matter how good/bad you are, because of screws/floods. The game where you're playing evenly with your opponent, you both go into topdeck mode and you topdeck 6 straight lands while he topdecks bombs and counters/removal (in case you ever do draw a threat). You can't learn anything from that (assuming you built or copied your deck correctly). There are no "lines of play" to figure out. You just plain aren't playing a game - you're watching him play solitaire. That is what we're talking about. No one wants variance removed (we're not even arguing that they need to prevent the rare game ending floods/screws), but no one truthfully enjoys those games.
If you enjoy your opponent being unable to answer things because he's topdecking lands, you're not playing for the right reasons. The reason creatures with ETB/dies effects and spells that are 2+ for 1s are powerful is because they don't get answered by one topdeck (usually). That's the fun. Using good deckbuilding or strategy to stick something that your opponent can't profitably (or evenly) deal with. I don't see how anyone who plays MTG for the right reasons could possibly enjoy "I topdeck gas, you topdeck a land, I topdeck gas, you topdeck a land..." for the last few turns of a game. People playing because they enjoy the game and the competition don't want to get screwed into losses, but they also don't want to luck into boring, free wins.
Playing because you enjoy the game and the competition. The people who care more about the game being fun (for both players) than they do about winning are playing for the right reasons. People who enjoy beating a poorly constructed $10 casual deck with their $700 tournament deck and people who enjoy getting free wins because their good opponent just happened to flood out hard aren't playing for the right reasons. It's a game.
The rest of your post, as others have explained, was much too ridiculous to be taken seriously.
- Just because something has been apart of something for a while does not mean it is useful. For example, doctors used to do surgery without anesthetic for many years. However, it was a problem, so it was corrected, REGARDLESS of how many years it had been done without
- There really is not adapting. I'm not talking about missing a land drop on your 3rd turn. I'm talking about getting no lands, mulliganing down to 5 and still drawing no lands with a WELL made deck. It's not fun, for anyone. You see it in the pro tours and grad prix: people just straight up losing due to mana flood and/or screw. If the best players in the game can't adapt to it to remove the frustrating and negative manner of it, I doubt anyone else can.
- I think everyone here likes the variance, and no one wants to remove it. We just want to make the 'extreme' variance occur instead as significant variance. Why? Because extreme variance is often boring/frustrating/annoying, whereas just significant variance is often still fun. We want to maximize the fun in the game.
- Minimal frequency does not mean we should condone negativity. Especially if the solutions will be of equally minimal fequency.
- I think everyone in the game has learned to adopt -- as we are all playing this game. The advice is derogatory and inflammatory. As for stop trying to change it, magic has had many key changes that have made it the game it is today. Mulligans, creature power, banned/reserved cards, different formats, etc. Without those changes magic would be a much worse game. If people had just said "learn to adopt, stop trying to change" with all those other changes we would have a worse game. How is the situation any different here?
Again, the proposed solution I think is quite effective. I think there may be better ones but it is the best I have encountered so far:
Another excellent suggestion is correction in the cards themselves. Basic land search on more cards, and cycle on more lands. However, this would not fix previous cards and would probably increase the complication of future cards to have these mechanics. That being said it may be more ideal than the above solution.
Regardless, something should be done, especially in light of all the new TCGs that have fully addressed and/or rectified this problem that will be in competition with magic.
Your solution does not fix the problem.... You get no lands and mul to 5... still see no lands... either you keep 5 and exile 3 to probably get a land, or mull to 4 and then 3 to hopefully get at least 1 land.... you see virtually the same number of cards. Opening hand all lands? Mulligan is still your best option and there are ways to abuse those suggestions. The first one in particular makes any multiple card draw effects a lot better... normally drawing 7 cards results in getting a few land... but when you can just pitch those land into another card those draw effects are better without even needing something like cycling.
This is the correct solution and is already being done... bounce lands, scry, cycling, mana dorks, suspend, fetch lands, leveling creatures, flash back, kicker.... these are all examples of mechanics that play into mana screw or mana flood.
Certainly, and all of those things are welcome and make the game better. But there's something a bit contradictory about two positions being espoused in this thread (not necessarily both by you), one being "it's not a problem, it makes the game better, learn to build a better manabase" and the other being "well, all of these things (scry etc.) are already addressing it". If it isn't a problem, then why are there a bunch of mechanics to make it better? And if there are a bunch of mechanics to make it better, why is it off-limits-undiscussable-verboten for there to be a possible rules change to make it more better?
Because being contradictory is fun? Or something...
You misunderstand, what I am trying to point out is that it may contribute to the greater health and quality of the game due to factors that are unseen by the person who is miffed because the variance did not go their way one game. Reducing varaince in the game's resources could very well have an over all reduction in the appeal of the game- after all there are millions of people world-wide that enjoy the thrill of slots. It is not due to the money, they have done studies on gambling, it is due to the rush and thrill of the variance. Now, clearly MTG is a different kind of game that appeals to people for different reasons, but I am saying that the same neuro-biology that provides us with a sense of accomplishment when we think we have overcome chance is at work in MTG as a contributing factor.
First of all that is what I enjoy about the game, but who gives you or me the right to say that these are the right reasons to enjoy the game? Who made you arbiter of right and wrong?
You can take the simple approach and dismiss it without thinking or looking into the reasons we enjoy things, but you would be sticking your head in the sand.
There are plenty of instances where we think we know what we want but are in fact wrong. For example if there are two ice cream shops, one that has 50 flavors and the other has 5 flavors, but otherwise the ice cream quality is the same. Most people (at least people in western democratic cultures) would choose the 50 flavor shop because with all that variety they are bound to find something that they really like, but that is not the choice that will bring us the most satisfaction. When physiology is observed as well as exit interviews taken it has repeatedly been shown in studies that people have more satisfaction when they have less choices, despite the belief that they want more choices. The reasons are not 100% clear, but the established theory is that since each thing you don't choose represents a "what if" scenario for you subconsciously there is greater stress contributing to dissatisfaction.
That has nothing to do with what we are talking about in it's specifics, what I am trying to get across is that there are plenty of instances like this that prove what we do not always know what the contributing factors are to our satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Our immediate conscious mind is often creating a legend in an attempt manage immediate stressors, but that legend is not the full picture.
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This rule is largely arbitrary. Most of Magic's rules are relatively self-explanatory, and "make sense". This rule, however, does not (from both a flavor and a rules standpoint).
GX Tron XG
UR Phoenix RU
GG Freyalise High Tide GG
UR Parun Counterspells RU
BB Yawgmoth Token Storm BB
WB Pestilence BW
It's a fair point and probably the best criticism of the suggested rule so far. =/
The problem with just trying to do it on the cards is that it doesn't work that well. It's still pretty easy to get mana screwed.
I'd love to hear other ideas/suggestions.
Thing is, I don't think there is any real solution to manascrew/mana flood without completely revamping the game and taking out lands entirely.
Are they? I disagree. I'm not saying whether or not I like the rule, but I very much disagree with this statement.
Damage stacking made sense. The way it is now is completely illogical from a flavor standpoint and very unintuitive. Why does a blocked creature completely stop his attack, even if the creature blocking him dies before the attacks actually take place? He just stops because the opposing creature intended to block him?
How can two legends exist on the field at the same time - yet not by the same person? How come I can summon Jace and you can summon a second Jace, yet neither of us can summon two Jaces? Even the old way, why did a clone copying my legend cause both the clone and the legend to commit suicide? Why did attempting to summon my the legend I've already summoned kill them both - should they not return to our hands or should you not "steal" it from me? The original way long ago made some logical sense, but that's it. The flavor and logic are terrible now and were terrible before the change.
I understand that we can't target PWers with burn because it would severely limit older cards that just say "creature or player," but that's clearly unintuitive and not at all flavorful. I can target my PWing opponent. I can target Venser as a creature. I can't target Venser the PWer?
There are plenty more examples of rules that make no sense flavorfully or aren't really at all logical.
The more extreme you make your case the rarer it happens. Using your example, yes sometimes you'll lose but there's a lot of play in optimizing your resources to get that one extra card to try and get out of the situation. Those are the most fun moments in the game to me. Playing to that one extra turn is everything. Without the variance of mana flood and mana screw those moments simply aren't possible. And as I said, if you build your deck to be able to take advantage of mana flood (much more doable in constructed), you significantly reduce the impact of it.
I remember playing in the Theros prerelease for example, we did a draft afterwards and it was me vs another guy in game 3 of the finals. We had both drafted red/white (I had a green splash too though, this guy and one other player both directly to my left were also red/white so I was cut really bad in pack 2) and I mana screwed while he had a strong draw. Having to switch plans from the beatdown to the control role and base all of my decisions around what line lets me draw the most extra cards in order to fix the situation was a lot of fun. For several turns in a row I was simply discarding due to lack of cards to play. I won that game as well as the 16 packs that were on the line for my trouble. I won with 3 life (effectively 1 since he was holding a Magma Jet) and killed him for exact after around 17 turns or so while being dead to the counter attack. Those types of moments are some of the most fun moments in the game to me and they quite literally aren't possible without mana flood/mana screw existing.
Some people enjoy non interactive games? I can certainly understand that. I have times where I simply don't want to play fair and play something as non interactive as possible. Perhaps that's creatureless control loaded with counters and a card like Nephalia Drownyard for the kill. A few weeks back we did a 2HG Standard FNM and I played Maze's End+Fog+board wipes paired with a deck that was counters+board wipes. In Legacy I like to play burn which is the toughest deck to interact with in the format, in Modern I play either Pod (super interactive) or Eggs (super non-interactive), or Superfriends (also very non interactive). There's a whole bunch of fun uninteractive strategies out there, whose to say what the right reasons are or aren't? I think that you should play a deck you'll find fun, and leave it up to your opponent to do the same for their own enjoyment. If I enjoy a free win because my opponent either got super unlucky or made their deck poorly, what's wrong with that? Similarly, if they were smart about building their deck so that it can actually deal with mana problems and they're still in the game despite that, then good for them. My main and sometimes only motivation for playing is prize packs, if my opponents build their decks poorly and make it easier for me to get prizes I'm happy. If my opponents actually read good articles about deck construction, apply a little math, and so on and make a deck that minimizes screw/flood and that causes us to have some good games of Magic I'm happy with that too because it means my inner spike gets to prove I'm a better player than them (or sometimes not and I get to experience being beaten by someone better... which leads to my own improvement in the future).
Doesn't that imply only 6 cards in your starting hand? You're taking 7 draws+6 starting cards. Are you not counting the last one because you know for certain it's a non land? When I throw 28 lands into the calculator with 13 draws (7+6) it still only comes up with a 63.7% chance which is pretty low. Like I said before, it all comes down to what probability you're comfortable with but 63.7% is pretty loose. At 30 lands (though some of these could be other mana sources like Caryatid) it's 73.4% which is better but still not where you want to be.
I do like your formula as something I can quickly do in my head for color balancing in limited, but it comes up 1-2 cards short for what I would be comfortable with, though that's not really a big deal if you know the total lands you're going to be using in the first place.
Oh, there are inarguably solutions to mana screw/mana flood that don't involve taking out lands altogether. Dozens have been proposed. The question is whether there are solutions that don't have so many drawbacks/loopholes/side effects that they end up with a game that's worse off then where we started.
Here's by far the best solution I've ever thought of, although as you'll see it has one massive drawback: Change the code for the magic online shuffler so that whenever it shuffles a deck it actually shuffles twice, examines how evenly distributed the lands are in both shuffles, and uses the one with more even land. I think that's just about an ideal solution... all of the variance and unpredictability of magic is still there, you never have guaranteed land or spell draws, and even the most extreme screw/flood is still POSSIBLE, it's just that the screw and flood are less likely, and extreme screw and flood are WAY less likely. Now, if you were looking closely you probably saw the big problem with this plan... it only works on magic online, not paper magic. Nonetheless, I think it's important to keep an open mind about things rather than just assuming that everything is already the best it can possibly be.
There's another problem with that too. It's NOT random. Lands appear in a semi fixed pattern. This would allow you to run fewer lands while hitting more land drops which completely skews deck construction. Now if you're choosing the most distributed out of a small sample size there will still be some variation, but what you're essentially doing is the same thing as a double nickel with a few cuts, which will guarantee 4 lands by turn 4 with a mere 20 land. With even distribution lets say you have 20 land, you'll have 1 land every 3 draws which means after 12 draws you're guaranteed to have 4 land and not see another one until turn 7.
Messing with the shuffler in this fashion is a really bad idea if you want Magic Online to look at all similar to paper Magic. You might not think this is a big deal but I guarantee you it would cut 4 lands from every deck. With fewer lands (but still hitting land drops) comes less room for colors which leads to more mono/two color decks and it causes more threats to be run. With more threats being run, answers start to look different, and after a couple weeks of decks evolving the paper/MTGO metas would look absolutely nothing alike. After this you would see another severe divergence as MTGO could no longer evolve the paper meta which would lead to very slow paper evolution (SCG Opens would be the main source of data). It would be like taking the paper game back in time by 15 years.
The main thing you need to understand is that randomness implies things are streaky. Random is the absence of a pattern, even or semi even distribution is a pattern. By definition, mana pockets are not only supposed to exist in the deck but have to exist.
I believe that mana variance (and any major part of the game) is similar in that while it may not always be fun, it is an integral part of the ecosystem of the game, and reducing or eliminating it could very well make the game less healthy and enjoyable as a whole.
Reprint Opt for Modern!!
FREE DIG THOROUGH TIME!
PLAY MORE ROUGE DECKS!