Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
You example supports your case yes.
Then I type these examples to support my case;
1) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have two artifacts on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
2) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact in deck/hand that might cause problems in future turns. Maybe you are better off jamming that newly summoned 8/8 of yours in front of the 8/2.
3) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have two artifacts on board that will cause problems in the following turns, but you don't know yet which one will cause the most problems. Maybe you think jamming that newly summoned 8/8 in front of the 8/2 is better in order to gather more info on which artifact to destroy with Torch Fiend.
Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
You example supports your case yes.
Then I type these examples to support my case;
1) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have two artifacts on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
2) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact in deck/hand that might cause problems in future turns. Maybe you are better off jamming that newly summoned 8/8 of yours in front of the 8/2.
3) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have two artifacts on board that will cause problems in the following turns, but you don't know yet which one will cause the most problems. Maybe you think jamming that newly summoned 8/8 in front of the 8/2 is better in order to gather more info on which to destroy with Torch Fiend.
But all (or at least most) of those decisions are still present without DoS. In the classic example of Savannah Lions attacking into sakura-tribe-elder, we've been talking as if the 100% correct play with DoS is to block, stack damage, and sac. Of course it's possible that the right play is not to block at all for other reasons. But that's also true without DoS. It's just that with DoS, block-stack-damage-sac is pretty much 100% better than either block-and-sac-before-damage or block-and-let-elder-die.
Either with DoS or without DoS it's possible that the right play is to not block because you want to be able to block some bigger create on a later turn, or because you first need to know what color of mana to fetch, or any of various other reasons.
In a way WotC is dumbing down the game in that they are changing rules (and correct startegy) to align with player intuition rather than rewarding the players to actually learn. I do not like it, but that's how you take a complicate strategy game and sell it to the masses.
No, it's not about being a keyword. It's about being an ability (that the permanent can gain or lose.) Previously "indestructible" was not an ability, but a permanent could have an ability that made it indestructible.
I'm pretty sure it was always an ability - not all abilities are keywords.
Unnecessary complexity isn't "good" for the game. That's like saying, "Chess is ok, but it would be much better if you could move a pawn three spaces the turn after you moved a knight, and once per game you could make a double jump with each knight, oh and also if your king ever took another piece you would get an extra turn..."
MTG has a lot of rules. On top of that, cards "overwrite" the rules. Making cards read intuitively helps the game overall.
In order to understand why damage on the stack makes for a richer game you have to contemplate
how it affects the game at all points, not only in attack step where your decision is to push it
ahead or not.
Aside from the attack step, damage on the stack is literally identical to not having damage on the stack.
Damage on the stack makes more situations into calculations, not choices, than it is nowadays with no damage on the stack. The depth of magic (as in all games) is derived by the true choices a player makes, not just raw options. Heavy calculation punishes new players very hard while contributing very little to game depth and what makes most games of magic fun.
I have a hard time believing that all this hate for "dumbing down the game" isn't just people resisting change. People made the same accusations every time the rules have been revised, even if those revisions were later revealed to be for the better of the game.
Complexity creep is a very real, ongoing threat to the game that we all love. I applaud Wizards for fighting against it. I want players to play against, even in 30 years, when I'm old and grey (but still playing!). And I don't have the arrogance to call anyone who thinks Magic is hard a "casual gamer" who "can't be bothered" to learn all the Oblivion Ring (etc.) tricks. I've dated many intelligent women, and had many intelligent friends, who threw their hands up at some point in me teaching them Magic and said "this is too complicated." Anything Wizards does to limit the number of new player ragequits (without changing the fundamental rules of the game) will always get a gold star from me. The game should be as intuitive as possible. They should streamline the rules wherever they can.
And to the "narrowing non-creature playstyles is bad" points: it's not only "noobs" who think that certain playstyles aren't fun. I've played Magic since 1994. I've top 8'ed a States and top 24'd PTQs. I'm not a noob. But I think playing against a turn 1 or 2 combo deck, or against one that takes 15+ minutes to do a turn, or against a "draw-go" deck that's won, but takes 20 more minutes to actually win...I think playing against any of those isn't fun. So I'm glad Wizards has toned down or eliminated those aspects of the game. And according to Wizards' marketing research, tons of people agree with me. I get that it sucks if you're not one of them, but that's life sometimes. You'll always have Legacy and Vintage (which Wizards does support, to the extent that you can expect them to, seeing as the Eternal formats make them very little money).
I have a hard time believing that all this hate for "dumbing down the game" isn't just people resisting change. People made the same accusations every time the rules have been revised, even if those revisions were later revealed to be for the better of the game.
Complexity creep is a very real, ongoing threat to the game that we all love. I applaud Wizards for fighting against it. I want players to play against, even in 30 years, when I'm old and grey (but still playing!). And I don't have the arrogance to call anyone who thinks Magic is hard a "casual gamer" who "can't be bothered" to learn all the Oblivion Ring (etc.) tricks. I've dated many intelligent women, and had many intelligent friends, who threw their hands up at some point in me teaching them Magic and said "this is too complicated." Anything Wizards does to limit the number of new player ragequits (without changing the fundamental rules of the game) will always get a gold star from me. The game should be as intuitive as possible. They should streamline the rules wherever they can.
And to the "narrowing non-creature playstyles is bad" points: it's not only "noobs" who think that certain playstyles aren't fun. I've played Magic since 1994. I've top 8'ed a States and top 24'd PTQs. I'm not a noob. But I think playing against a turn 1 or 2 combo deck, or against one that takes 15+ minutes to do a turn, or against a "draw-go" deck that's won, but takes 20 more minutes to actually win...I think playing against any of those isn't fun. So I'm glad Wizards has toned down or eliminated those aspects of the game. And according to Wizards' marketing research, tons of people agree with me. I get that it sucks if you're not one of them, but that's life sometimes. You'll always have Legacy and Vintage (which Wizards does support, to the extent that you can expect them to, seeing as the Eternal formats make them very little money).
According to WotC this, and according to WotC that.
When they made O-ring and later said they did a mistake in making O-ring they want threee things:
1) People that like running unexpected things on the opponent got to do it for 2-3 years. Some part of the player base got their fix.
2) People that disliked it got to hear it was a mistake. So, I was NOT wrong when complaining in all those discussions about O-ring, WotC meant for me to be right, (haha).
3) At the same time WotC will never say what "mistake" really means. Does it mean "ooops(our people weren't clever enough to see the interaction)" or does it mean "we thought this trick was better for the game than we today think, we have changed view." ?
They communicate to different people with sentences that can be interpreted in several ways.
Can we see cards in KTK that do the unexpected (that some players will call unreasonable) ?
so, quick question: where does WotC say that the original template of O Ring was a mistake?
AFAIK, they were taking out an unintuitive interaction with the updated wording, and streamlined the card to work the way the flavor suggests.
Now, on to the subject of Game Depth: decisions, on their own, do not make a game deep. rules, on their own, do not make a game deep. Decisions alone is like deciding what to have on your pastami on rye. rules on their own is studying law. I would say that decisions are intuitive and rules are complex. So, when you have intuitive rules along with complex decisions, then that leads to depth of the game.
Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
You example supports your case yes.
Then I type these examples to support my case;
1) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have two artifacts on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
2) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact in deck/hand that might cause problems in future turns. Maybe you are better off jamming that newly summoned 8/8 of yours in front of the 8/2.
3) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have two artifacts on board that will cause problems in the following turns, but you don't know yet which one will cause the most problems. Maybe you think jamming that newly summoned 8/8 in front of the 8/2 is better in order to gather more info on which artifact to destroy with Torch Fiend.
How do your examples support your case? None of them have anything to do with damage being on or off the stack.
I don't know what chocolate has to do with damage on the stack, but Anteaterking is right, none of those examples have anything to do with damage on the stack. Let's go over each scenario and the possible decisions you can make.
1) You have a Torch Fiend, they attack with an 8/2 and have 2 artifacts.
Damage on the stack:
a) You block, put damage on the stack, then blow up Artifact A
b) You block, put damage on the stack, then blow up Artifact B
Damage not on the stack:
a) You block and trade
b) You block and before damage blow up Artifact A
c) You block and before damage blow up Artifact B
Adding additional artifacts doesn't change anything with damage on the stack, it is still always most optimal to block, put damage on the stack and then blow something up. Adding artifacts just adds to the things you can blow up.
2) You have a Torch Fiend and an 8/8, they are attacking with an 8/2 and they have an artifact somewhere in their hand/deck
Damage on the stack:
a) You decide if the potential downside of them playing the artifact and not having removal is worth losing your 8/8 over and block with the creature you decide is most optimal.
Damage not on the stack
a) You decide if the potential downside of them playing the artifact and not having removal is worth losing your 8/8 over and block with the creature you decide is most optimal.
This again has nothing to do with damage on the stack and everything to do with if you think the artifact they might play is worth losing your 8/8 over
3) You have a Torch Fiend and an 8/8, they are attacking with an 8/2 and have 2 artifacts and you don't know which will be more annoying
This is pretty much exactly the same as case 2. You decide weather having the 8/8 or removal for the artifacts is more optimal. If you block with the Fiend goto case 1.
The "good" thing of dmg stack was to give player a feeling for "timing".
You had to know what dmg stack means, then you had to know when you have to sacrifice your creature (or do whatever else) , it also ment, that you actual really assign the dmg as it, then the opponent had a chance to use prevention and the like (which is kinda worse right now with the idea of using first/second creature etc.).
However, they changed how they design cards.
Any meaningfull "sacrifice" effect is now done simply as a comes into play / leaves play trigger, which is easier to abuse aswell, most visible by flicker effects.
The creatures with sacrifice abilities where simply better for the rule.
The creatures with +1/-1 or -1/+1 abilities where better and it allowed tricks with creatures that changed p/t during combat, Morphling is a big one for this and even Wall of Deceit was pretty much designed to use the dmg stack rule to make it a 2/5 , IF the player knew the rules well enough.
Stuff like that is overly complicating the game, but it also gives a nice warm feeling to simply outsmart the opponent, as you know the rules and they dont. If a player loses to such a play, they will learn the "trick" and feel smart later on aswell, which was actual a nice thing ; doesnt mean such tricks dont exist anymore, they just became a little less "important" (theres just not that rules focsued mechanics anymore that allow real tricks with the ruling that isnt quite obvisious, but from time to time it still happens).
Good old "at the end of turn" stuff. So many cards allowed to be tricky and much stronger if you knew the rule interaction. If a card has "at the end of turn, sacrifice this" just use the effect after "at the end of turn" and keep it around till the next. It is quite unintuitive, as players actual understand "at the end of turn", as the literal "end of turn" , and its even more strange to see that its not the same as "until of end of turn" , etc. etc.
Playing with the knowledge how all this works is a nice feeling, and it wins games against the less rules affine players.
For WotC they try to avoid that, they think its a bad thing, while i think it is totally fine, but at the same time, theres reasons to remove that rules and replace them with the actual intuitive thinking, even if it changes the game, cards play different after that, and interactions you liked might not work anymore, cards become much worse with changes like that.
Without manaburn, Pulse of the Forge and Pulse of the Fields are indeed much worse, and it was quite a feat to know how to play against this cards (which means, for red it was actual viable to start the game just taking mana burn, as you could finish the opponent with the Pulse of the Forge, as long as you could keep it resolving over and over, and for the opponent, it was important to keep in mind that you can mana burn yourself, to avoid the opponent from playing the Pulse, while it also allowed bluffs and had quite a deep mini game attached to it, a wonderful designed card, that really used mana burn in a way it could much better be part of the game).
But then, without manaburn, we get mechanics like Fateful hour (Gather the Townsfolk), which would not really work in a fair way with manaburn.
Beside that, manaburn had the nice funny moments if a player uses Mana Drain to counter a Force of Will and cant spend the mana, take 5. Or counter a Darksteel Colossus, take 11 ? Well thats epic funny moments of the game, if the otherwise superior Counterspell kicks you right in ownthe nuts.
Manaburn actual allowed really cool design features, they simply didnt use it, and so they removed it. Potential nice feature lost, but just a small number of players even cares.
More decisions is not a bad thing and dmg stack was totally unnecessary, but still, the rules interaction was good for the game, as it made the player feel smart (especially in the days of less internet, right now every tech spreads pretty fast, but back in the days, players didnt read articles, they just experienced the game by playing it in person, if a rules tech was a thing, they learned it by losing to it, or having a rules nerd in reach).
The game in that way becomes more "Timmy" and less "Jonny" , its still as much Spike as it ever was.
All I know is that I won more when damage was put on a stack.
But then again I have a win percentage below 50 percent.
When including something that dumbfounds the game somewhat the other skills involved have that less relevance which explains why I won more with damage on the stack.
I win 20 percent today, when damage was on the stack I won closer to 30 percent.
You had to know what dmg stack means, then you had to know when you have to sacrifice your creature (or do whatever else) , it also ment, that you actual really assign the dmg as it, then the opponent had a chance to use prevention and the like (which is kinda worse right now with the idea of using first/second creature etc.).
All I know is that I won more when damage was put on a stack.
You won more because when damage was on the stack you had an advantage over players who had the same or more skill compared to you, but were new enough to the game that they had not been made aware of that interaction yet. Now you can't use damage on the stack as a crutch anymore.
In order to understand why damage on the stack makes for a richer game you have to contemplate
how it affects the game at all points, not only in attack step where your decision is to push it
ahead or not.
Aside from the attack step, damage on the stack is literally identical to not having damage on the stack.
Strcitly speaking, it only afects the game in between damnage being asigned and dfamage being dealt. But we can anticipate these options, and it affects how we go into comnbat on tyhat turn, what spells we cast before combat (or before the relelavent turn), or even how we build. Look at Astral Slide. The deck wouldn't have existed with DotS (as well as an uninituitive rules about end-of-turn effects). Using those rules with that deck dodin't always make decisipons hard, but those rules supported a unique deck which overall took a lot of strategic thinking to play well.
You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You can sacrifice it to gain a useful ability. With DoS you do both 98% of the time. Without DoS you have to choose which one to do
I think you guys are looking a DotS very narrowly. in these situations:
You are always sacrificing thwe creature, not changing it's power/toughness.
The sacrificing ability gives you a clear gain, and does not effect the combat math with pros and cons.
Sacrificing the creature requires no commitment of resources.
everyone has full information.
Going through these:
As has been said, things like Morphling, and morph ofer great depth in combat.
looka at cards like Atog, Arcbound Ravager, and Blood Bairnif you sacrifice the creature after damage goes on the stack, the sacrificed creature deals dfamage,, but the benifactor doesn't deal the extra damage (but gets the extra toughness).
This is a big one. When you can just sca Tribe Elder for a land, it's pretty obvious. If you have Fling (or another spell), need to cycle a card, tap a land (eg, High Market), etc, you won't always automatically want to hold the mana and/or you may want to save the card.
When your opponent also might have hidden combat tricks the decisions are never automatic.
You control a creature that is going to deal lethal damage to another creature, and also die. You have a spell that will either pump it or unsummon it. With DoS you stack damage, then pump/unsummon it. Without DoS you have to either pump it first, and risk getting 2-for-1d
with damage on the stack, you still risk being 2-for-1ed.
With damage on the stack you choose between:
* Sacrifice before blockers are declared, get more tokens to block with
* Block, stack damage, sacrifice to get tokens and maybe kill an attacker
Without damage on the stack you choose between:
* Sacrifice before blockers are declared, get more tokens to block with
* Block, don't sacrifice at all and maybe kill an attacker
* Block and sacrifice, getting tokens but failing to kill the attacker
holding the spell is also a valid option with DotS.
I play almost exclusively limited, so LOTS of creature interactions...
...There are occasional situations in which DoS is a trickier decision...
...But compared to the number of times the more common cases come up, that's clearly an exception.
Could it be that your perspective is not a function of DotS, but rather the nature of the design in the formats you play? I'm assuming you didn't play limited in Onslaught or Time Spiral blocks (when we had Morph)?
[ BUT, I still think you're 100% wrong about there being more meaningful decisions with DoS than without.
I am going to conceed that there are more cases where DotS reduces complication than I had previously realised, and that ther is more to this than I had thought. I wil not concede to being 100% wrong - I believe my opponentens have also not been seeing the whole picture.
In order to understand why damage on the stack makes for a richer game you have to contemplate
how it affects the game at all points, not only in attack step where your decision is to push it
ahead or not. Do you put it on the battlefield now ? Does' its on-the-stack ability work better on
defense blocker or offense attacker ? In the deck building. How do I spend my removal, kill that
critter with DoS effect now when he doesn't have the mana available to activate it ? Etc,etc...
Damage on the stack = a richer game.
I'm not entirely sure you know what damage on the stack means. These aren't considerations with it and trivial without it. They're exactly the same with or without it. Damage on the stack added next to nothing to the game, made no sense flavor-wise AND wasn't at all intuitive. It was a complete and utter failure of a rule that they changed as soon as they figured out a way to eliminate it.
Because he's a suicide bomber, for all intents and purposes. He either explodes on whoever blocks him or whomever he blocks, runs away and explodes on another creature or player and, of course, can get away with just leaving his bomb behind on an unprotected Planeswalker if he goes unblocked. It doesn't make any sense for him to explode and then fight to the death (which is what damage on the stack represents). And that's a generous example for it - others make far, far less sense. Any sort of sacrificial pump, for example. The Morphling example is just nonsense. The entire point is that both creatures attack at exactly the same time - he can either make himself attack stronger or make his defense stronger. If he had first strike, he could do exactly what you're saying (both in flavor and in gameplay without damage on the stack), but he doesn't.
I think you guys are looking a DotS very narrowly. in these situations:
You are always sacrificing thwe creature, not changing it's power/toughness.
I think the argument is pretty much the same. So I have a 4/4 and you have a morphling. With DotS, I should clearly not attack, because if I do my guy will get eaten and yours will live. And if I do attack, it's clear what you should do, there's a definitely best play.
Without DotS, then you have to choose. Your morphling can live, OR you can kill my guy, not both.
Morphling is clearly WORSE without DotS, but (once you understand basic timing) it's also much easier to play, because there is almost always a single clearly best play.
Similarly, there are some 0/5 and 0/6 morphs in Khans. If someone attacks with a 2/2, and you block with one of those morphs, you have to decide... trade dudes or unmorph my guy and have him in play. With DotS the correct play is obvious.
with damage on the stack, you still risk being 2-for-1ed.
No. I attack with 3/3. You block with 3/3. Stack damage. I cast giant growth to save my guy, you doom blade in response. Net result: each of us lose 1 creature and 1 spell. Without DotS I attack, you block, I have to GG before damage, you doom blade in response, I get 2-for-1d. If I'm attacking a 3/3 into a 4/4 and really need to kill the 4/4, then it's pretty much identical.
Actually I did think of another situation where DotS adds depth. So you have a creature that I really want to end up dead because it will be crucial later on. I attack. You block with it. I have a giant growth in my hand. I have reason to think you also have a giant growth in your hand. Without DotS, I pass. If you pass, both creatures will die. If you GG, I GG, both creatures die. With DotS I have to commit to the GG before damage to ensure that you can't GG after damage.
But my point is that in general, the simpler and more common examples, the ones that come up all the time, are the ones in which DotS makes the decision easier.
Could it be that your perspective is not a function of DotS, but rather the nature of the design in the formats you play? I'm assuming you didn't play limited in Onslaught or Time Spiral blocks (when we had Morph)?
That is an extremely incorrect assumption.
I am going to conceed that there are more cases where DotS reduces complication than I had previously realised, and that ther is more to this than I had thought. I wil not concede to being 100% wrong - I believe my opponentens have also not been seeing the whole picture.
I appreciate that. And I don't want to sound like I've been saying that DotS NEVER makes things more complex, as I've provided several examples myself where it does. I just think that in the majority of situations it makes the correct play easier to find. Theoretically speaking, it's usually right in magic to do things as late as you possibly can, and DotS lets you use that rule in more situations.
Your "concession" point isn't a very realistic situation. Not only would you both need pumping combat tricks, hardly a common occurrence (especially outside of limited), you'd also have to not want to save your 3/3, but kill his. Normally you'd just Giant Growth anyway if you care that much. Save your guy, kill his and just trade off if he does have the Growth anyway. It'd have to be some weird situation where you need to kill his 3/3 this turn AND have an evasive guy that will swing for the win next turn if you can pump it with Giant Growth. Pretty sure I've never seen that. Have you?
On the flip side, all it took to come up with a DOTS being inferior situation was someone having pump and someone having removal or burn. Significantly more common. Not that you need to look hard - every single instant speed sacrifice effect, of which there are hundreds, are more complicated without damage on the stack.
A Mogg Fanatic fighting an enemy and then having his bomb explode, resulting in 2 total damage makes more sense to me than his bomb either somehow being a dud or him just blowing himself up and leaving the other guy unharmed. Or maybe he would lob his bomb at the enemy planeswalker before engaging. That a Morphling is able to change its arms into swords or whatever and then immediately afterwards harden its skin to stone makes more sense to me than said Morphling just being too slow to do both after one another. Why can't he turn his arm into a blade, stab the enemy and then counter the enemy's attack by turning his skin into rock?
Because the ability itself implies some sort of trade-off. If you sacrifice this creature, you get an effect. If you pump your power, you lower your toughness. That kind of design is common throughout games. Very rarely does a game have these kinds of mechanics while at the same time providing an in-game, built-in method to skip the trade-off and "get it both ways". That's why the first reaction of someone being exposed to DotS for the first time is often to suspect the opponent of cheating. The whole concept belies the traditional cost/benefit design of gaming.
All players Ive played have known the interaction, as well as I did.
In that case the most likely explanation is that you have not been very good at evaluating situations that are made more complex by DotS. Previously, with damage on the stack, many common choices have a single clearly defined answer because you can get "the best of both worlds". DotS allowed you to always make the correct choice with cards like Sakura Tribe Elder or Mogg Fanatic, because the correct choice was the same every time. Removing DotS made it harder to make the correct play, and your results have suffered as a result. The increased depth exposed a weak point in your evaluation process.
Another possible explanation is that damage on the stack had nothing to do with your diminished results. It was just a coincidence and the actual reason was something else.
Your "concession" point isn't a very realistic situation. Not only would you both need pumping combat tricks, hardly a common occurrence (especially outside of limited), you'd also have to not want to save your 3/3, but kill his. Normally you'd just Giant Growth anyway if you care that much. Save your guy, kill his and just trade off if he does have the Growth anyway. It'd have to be some weird situation where you need to kill his 3/3 this turn AND have an evasive guy that will swing for the win next turn if you can pump it with Giant Growth. Pretty sure I've never seen that. Have you?
On the flip side, all it took to come up with a DOTS being inferior situation was someone having pump and someone having removal or burn. Significantly more common. Not that you need to look hard - every single instant speed sacrifice effect, of which there are hundreds, are more complicated without damage on the stack.
Right... you and I agree, I think. Situations where DotS makes the strategy more complicated certainly do exist, but are generally contrived or at least unusual.
We do agree. I just think you're being too generous to the opposing point. It's not really debatable, even. It's just objectively accurate that the removal of damage on the stack opened up more different lines of plays and created more choices in the course of a game. Everyone should know this. It's clear whether you see it with something like Centaur's Herald in RTR limited, Sakura Tribe Elder in EDH or Cartel Aristocrat recently in standard.
If you've ever played the console version of magic the summoning sickness effects the creature if you were to gain control of that card from an oponent. If you look at alot of red cards that steal creatures you will see that they specifically say gain control of said creature untap it and it has haste. So unless the card you use to take the creature gives the creature haste or the creature itself has haste then the card will have summoning sickness.
In the functionality of game design, there usually is a single best answer. For flavor, there are many answers. Thus, when the two butt heads, the more flexible item needs to give in to the less flexible.
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You example supports your case yes.
Then I type these examples to support my case;
1) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have two artifacts on board that will cause problems in the following turns.
2) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have an artifact in deck/hand that might cause problems in future turns. Maybe you are better off jamming that newly summoned 8/8 of yours in front of the 8/2.
3) Look at Torch Fiend for example. Your opponent swings at you with a 8/2. But they also have two artifacts on board that will cause problems in the following turns, but you don't know yet which one will cause the most problems. Maybe you think jamming that newly summoned 8/8 in front of the 8/2 is better in order to gather more info on which artifact to destroy with Torch Fiend.
But all (or at least most) of those decisions are still present without DoS. In the classic example of Savannah Lions attacking into sakura-tribe-elder, we've been talking as if the 100% correct play with DoS is to block, stack damage, and sac. Of course it's possible that the right play is not to block at all for other reasons. But that's also true without DoS. It's just that with DoS, block-stack-damage-sac is pretty much 100% better than either block-and-sac-before-damage or block-and-let-elder-die.
Either with DoS or without DoS it's possible that the right play is to not block because you want to be able to block some bigger create on a later turn, or because you first need to know what color of mana to fetch, or any of various other reasons.
Unnecessary complexity isn't "good" for the game. That's like saying, "Chess is ok, but it would be much better if you could move a pawn three spaces the turn after you moved a knight, and once per game you could make a double jump with each knight, oh and also if your king ever took another piece you would get an extra turn..."
MTG has a lot of rules. On top of that, cards "overwrite" the rules. Making cards read intuitively helps the game overall.
Club Flamingo Wins: 1!
Aside from the attack step, damage on the stack is literally identical to not having damage on the stack.
None of your examples support your case. All of them present identical depth with or without damage on the stack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg8fVtKyYxY
Damage on the stack makes more situations into calculations, not choices, than it is nowadays with no damage on the stack. The depth of magic (as in all games) is derived by the true choices a player makes, not just raw options. Heavy calculation punishes new players very hard while contributing very little to game depth and what makes most games of magic fun.
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Complexity creep is a very real, ongoing threat to the game that we all love. I applaud Wizards for fighting against it. I want players to play against, even in 30 years, when I'm old and grey (but still playing!). And I don't have the arrogance to call anyone who thinks Magic is hard a "casual gamer" who "can't be bothered" to learn all the Oblivion Ring (etc.) tricks. I've dated many intelligent women, and had many intelligent friends, who threw their hands up at some point in me teaching them Magic and said "this is too complicated." Anything Wizards does to limit the number of new player ragequits (without changing the fundamental rules of the game) will always get a gold star from me. The game should be as intuitive as possible. They should streamline the rules wherever they can.
And to the "narrowing non-creature playstyles is bad" points: it's not only "noobs" who think that certain playstyles aren't fun. I've played Magic since 1994. I've top 8'ed a States and top 24'd PTQs. I'm not a noob. But I think playing against a turn 1 or 2 combo deck, or against one that takes 15+ minutes to do a turn, or against a "draw-go" deck that's won, but takes 20 more minutes to actually win...I think playing against any of those isn't fun. So I'm glad Wizards has toned down or eliminated those aspects of the game. And according to Wizards' marketing research, tons of people agree with me. I get that it sucks if you're not one of them, but that's life sometimes. You'll always have Legacy and Vintage (which Wizards does support, to the extent that you can expect them to, seeing as the Eternal formats make them very little money).
Modern: GW Hatebears/midrange, WGU Knightfall/evolution midrange stuff
Standard: nope
Legacy: W Death & Taxes
EDH (not Commander!): W Avacyn, Angel of Hope, GR Ruric Thar, the Unbowed, WGB Anafenza, the Foremost, WU Hanna, Ship's Navigator
According to WotC this, and according to WotC that.
When they made O-ring and later said they did a mistake in making O-ring they want threee things:
1) People that like running unexpected things on the opponent got to do it for 2-3 years. Some part of the player base got their fix.
2) People that disliked it got to hear it was a mistake. So, I was NOT wrong when complaining in all those discussions about O-ring, WotC meant for me to be right, (haha).
3) At the same time WotC will never say what "mistake" really means. Does it mean "ooops(our people weren't clever enough to see the interaction)" or does it mean "we thought this trick was better for the game than we today think, we have changed view." ?
They communicate to different people with sentences that can be interpreted in several ways.
Can we see cards in KTK that do the unexpected (that some players will call unreasonable) ?
AFAIK, they were taking out an unintuitive interaction with the updated wording, and streamlined the card to work the way the flavor suggests.
Now, on to the subject of Game Depth: decisions, on their own, do not make a game deep. rules, on their own, do not make a game deep. Decisions alone is like deciding what to have on your pastami on rye. rules on their own is studying law. I would say that decisions are intuitive and rules are complex. So, when you have intuitive rules along with complex decisions, then that leads to depth of the game.
"normality is a paved road: it is comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow there."
-Vincent Van Gogh
things I hate:
1. lists.
b. inconsistencies.
V. incorrect math.
2. quotes in signatures
III: irony.
there are two kinds of people in the world: those who can make reasonable conclusions based on conjecture.
How do your examples support your case? None of them have anything to do with damage being on or off the stack.
I don't know what chocolate has to do with damage on the stack, but Anteaterking is right, none of those examples have anything to do with damage on the stack. Let's go over each scenario and the possible decisions you can make.
1) You have a Torch Fiend, they attack with an 8/2 and have 2 artifacts.
Damage on the stack:
a) You block, put damage on the stack, then blow up Artifact A
b) You block, put damage on the stack, then blow up Artifact B
Damage not on the stack:
a) You block and trade
b) You block and before damage blow up Artifact A
c) You block and before damage blow up Artifact B
Adding additional artifacts doesn't change anything with damage on the stack, it is still always most optimal to block, put damage on the stack and then blow something up. Adding artifacts just adds to the things you can blow up.
2) You have a Torch Fiend and an 8/8, they are attacking with an 8/2 and they have an artifact somewhere in their hand/deck
Damage on the stack:
a) You decide if the potential downside of them playing the artifact and not having removal is worth losing your 8/8 over and block with the creature you decide is most optimal.
Damage not on the stack
a) You decide if the potential downside of them playing the artifact and not having removal is worth losing your 8/8 over and block with the creature you decide is most optimal.
This again has nothing to do with damage on the stack and everything to do with if you think the artifact they might play is worth losing your 8/8 over
3) You have a Torch Fiend and an 8/8, they are attacking with an 8/2 and have 2 artifacts and you don't know which will be more annoying
This is pretty much exactly the same as case 2. You decide weather having the 8/8 or removal for the artifacts is more optimal. If you block with the Fiend goto case 1.
You had to know what dmg stack means, then you had to know when you have to sacrifice your creature (or do whatever else) , it also ment, that you actual really assign the dmg as it, then the opponent had a chance to use prevention and the like (which is kinda worse right now with the idea of using first/second creature etc.).
However, they changed how they design cards.
Any meaningfull "sacrifice" effect is now done simply as a comes into play / leaves play trigger, which is easier to abuse aswell, most visible by flicker effects.
The creatures with sacrifice abilities where simply better for the rule.
The creatures with +1/-1 or -1/+1 abilities where better and it allowed tricks with creatures that changed p/t during combat, Morphling is a big one for this and even Wall of Deceit was pretty much designed to use the dmg stack rule to make it a 2/5 , IF the player knew the rules well enough.
Stuff like that is overly complicating the game, but it also gives a nice warm feeling to simply outsmart the opponent, as you know the rules and they dont. If a player loses to such a play, they will learn the "trick" and feel smart later on aswell, which was actual a nice thing ; doesnt mean such tricks dont exist anymore, they just became a little less "important" (theres just not that rules focsued mechanics anymore that allow real tricks with the ruling that isnt quite obvisious, but from time to time it still happens).
Good old "at the end of turn" stuff. So many cards allowed to be tricky and much stronger if you knew the rule interaction. If a card has "at the end of turn, sacrifice this" just use the effect after "at the end of turn" and keep it around till the next. It is quite unintuitive, as players actual understand "at the end of turn", as the literal "end of turn" , and its even more strange to see that its not the same as "until of end of turn" , etc. etc.
Playing with the knowledge how all this works is a nice feeling, and it wins games against the less rules affine players.
For WotC they try to avoid that, they think its a bad thing, while i think it is totally fine, but at the same time, theres reasons to remove that rules and replace them with the actual intuitive thinking, even if it changes the game, cards play different after that, and interactions you liked might not work anymore, cards become much worse with changes like that.
Without manaburn, Pulse of the Forge and Pulse of the Fields are indeed much worse, and it was quite a feat to know how to play against this cards (which means, for red it was actual viable to start the game just taking mana burn, as you could finish the opponent with the Pulse of the Forge, as long as you could keep it resolving over and over, and for the opponent, it was important to keep in mind that you can mana burn yourself, to avoid the opponent from playing the Pulse, while it also allowed bluffs and had quite a deep mini game attached to it, a wonderful designed card, that really used mana burn in a way it could much better be part of the game).
But then, without manaburn, we get mechanics like Fateful hour (Gather the Townsfolk), which would not really work in a fair way with manaburn.
Beside that, manaburn had the nice funny moments if a player uses Mana Drain to counter a Force of Will and cant spend the mana, take 5. Or counter a Darksteel Colossus, take 11 ? Well thats epic funny moments of the game, if the otherwise superior Counterspell kicks you right in ownthe nuts.
Manaburn actual allowed really cool design features, they simply didnt use it, and so they removed it. Potential nice feature lost, but just a small number of players even cares.
More decisions is not a bad thing and dmg stack was totally unnecessary, but still, the rules interaction was good for the game, as it made the player feel smart (especially in the days of less internet, right now every tech spreads pretty fast, but back in the days, players didnt read articles, they just experienced the game by playing it in person, if a rules tech was a thing, they learned it by losing to it, or having a rules nerd in reach).
The game in that way becomes more "Timmy" and less "Jonny" , its still as much Spike as it ever was.
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But then again I have a win percentage below 50 percent.
When including something that dumbfounds the game somewhat the other skills involved have that less relevance which explains why I won more with damage on the stack.
I win 20 percent today, when damage was on the stack I won closer to 30 percent.
Im pretty smart in this post, aint I ?
Hmm, maybe Im wrong...
Which means I aint smart afterall.
Which means...
...blurgh, I give up.
I suggest that you check out this MaRo article:
http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/209
The game design that works like your customers expect is superior to the game design where your customers have to figure out how it works.
You won more because when damage was on the stack you had an advantage over players who had the same or more skill compared to you, but were new enough to the game that they had not been made aware of that interaction yet. Now you can't use damage on the stack as a crutch anymore.
All players Ive played have known the interaction, as well as I did.
So that isn't right.
Strcitly speaking, it only afects the game in between damnage being asigned and dfamage being dealt. But we can anticipate these options, and it affects how we go into comnbat on tyhat turn, what spells we cast before combat (or before the relelavent turn), or even how we build. Look at Astral Slide. The deck wouldn't have existed with DotS (as well as an uninituitive rules about end-of-turn effects). Using those rules with that deck dodin't always make decisipons hard, but those rules supported a unique deck which overall took a lot of strategic thinking to play well.
I think you guys are looking a DotS very narrowly. in these situations:
Going through these:
with damage on the stack, you still risk being 2-for-1ed.
holding the spell is also a valid option with DotS.
Could it be that your perspective is not a function of DotS, but rather the nature of the design in the formats you play? I'm assuming you didn't play limited in Onslaught or Time Spiral blocks (when we had Morph)?
I am going to conceed that there are more cases where DotS reduces complication than I had previously realised, and that ther is more to this than I had thought. I wil not concede to being 100% wrong - I believe my opponentens have also not been seeing the whole picture.
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I'm not entirely sure you know what damage on the stack means. These aren't considerations with it and trivial without it. They're exactly the same with or without it. Damage on the stack added next to nothing to the game, made no sense flavor-wise AND wasn't at all intuitive. It was a complete and utter failure of a rule that they changed as soon as they figured out a way to eliminate it.
I think the argument is pretty much the same. So I have a 4/4 and you have a morphling. With DotS, I should clearly not attack, because if I do my guy will get eaten and yours will live. And if I do attack, it's clear what you should do, there's a definitely best play.
Without DotS, then you have to choose. Your morphling can live, OR you can kill my guy, not both.
Morphling is clearly WORSE without DotS, but (once you understand basic timing) it's also much easier to play, because there is almost always a single clearly best play.
Similarly, there are some 0/5 and 0/6 morphs in Khans. If someone attacks with a 2/2, and you block with one of those morphs, you have to decide... trade dudes or unmorph my guy and have him in play. With DotS the correct play is obvious.
No. I attack with 3/3. You block with 3/3. Stack damage. I cast giant growth to save my guy, you doom blade in response. Net result: each of us lose 1 creature and 1 spell. Without DotS I attack, you block, I have to GG before damage, you doom blade in response, I get 2-for-1d. If I'm attacking a 3/3 into a 4/4 and really need to kill the 4/4, then it's pretty much identical.
Actually I did think of another situation where DotS adds depth. So you have a creature that I really want to end up dead because it will be crucial later on. I attack. You block with it. I have a giant growth in my hand. I have reason to think you also have a giant growth in your hand. Without DotS, I pass. If you pass, both creatures will die. If you GG, I GG, both creatures die. With DotS I have to commit to the GG before damage to ensure that you can't GG after damage.
But my point is that in general, the simpler and more common examples, the ones that come up all the time, are the ones in which DotS makes the decision easier.
That is an extremely incorrect assumption.
I appreciate that. And I don't want to sound like I've been saying that DotS NEVER makes things more complex, as I've provided several examples myself where it does. I just think that in the majority of situations it makes the correct play easier to find. Theoretically speaking, it's usually right in magic to do things as late as you possibly can, and DotS lets you use that rule in more situations.
On the flip side, all it took to come up with a DOTS being inferior situation was someone having pump and someone having removal or burn. Significantly more common. Not that you need to look hard - every single instant speed sacrifice effect, of which there are hundreds, are more complicated without damage on the stack.
Because the ability itself implies some sort of trade-off. If you sacrifice this creature, you get an effect. If you pump your power, you lower your toughness. That kind of design is common throughout games. Very rarely does a game have these kinds of mechanics while at the same time providing an in-game, built-in method to skip the trade-off and "get it both ways". That's why the first reaction of someone being exposed to DotS for the first time is often to suspect the opponent of cheating. The whole concept belies the traditional cost/benefit design of gaming.
In that case the most likely explanation is that you have not been very good at evaluating situations that are made more complex by DotS. Previously, with damage on the stack, many common choices have a single clearly defined answer because you can get "the best of both worlds". DotS allowed you to always make the correct choice with cards like Sakura Tribe Elder or Mogg Fanatic, because the correct choice was the same every time. Removing DotS made it harder to make the correct play, and your results have suffered as a result. The increased depth exposed a weak point in your evaluation process.
Another possible explanation is that damage on the stack had nothing to do with your diminished results. It was just a coincidence and the actual reason was something else.
Right... you and I agree, I think. Situations where DotS makes the strategy more complicated certainly do exist, but are generally contrived or at least unusual.
I guess I was not being clear enough with my point. I was pointing out that the flavor you wanted was at odds with basic game design concepts. Thus...