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- Stairc
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Member for 15 years and 26 days
Last active Mon, Feb, 5 2018 10:18:16
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Jun 3, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayI suggest not including cards in your auction block that you believe will break the format. Emrakul and Griselbrand are two examples of cards I wouldn't include in this format. Elesh is doable in an extremely high powered block though.Posted in: Articles -
May 25, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayPosted in: ArticlesQuote from SFWasabi74 »Ah. Okay yes, that makes a LOT of sense to the scheme of the auction. Now, since the bid replaces the draw of a turn, does the player whose turn it is get first bid (or can pass) and then it goes back and forth? Sorry if I seem somewhat redundant or thick-headed
I want to make sure I get the fine points so I don't wind up fouling the auction somehow or stalling it when I decide to get one going.
You're correct. When rule 3 mentions the active player bidding first, that means "the player whose turn it is". Rule 3 describes the bidding order from there. However, each player can only bid (or decline to bid) once. This makes the auction a lot faster and just play better in general.
Here's an example of the process in a two player game.
[Doubling Season is revealed for auction]
Player 1: Hmm... I'll bid 5 gold for this. Are you going to let me have it, or will you pay 6?
Player 2: I'll pay 6 and take it.
Player 1 doesn't get an opportunity to bid again on the card. This gives player 1 an incentive to place the correct bid first, instead of players meaningless bidding too low on cards in the hopes of getting a bargain. It significantly speeds the auction and makes the decision of what to bid matter a lot more.
And don't worry, I'm happy to answer questions. I hope you have as much fun with the format as I have. -
May 24, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayPosted in: ArticlesQuote from Kasreyn »I'm guessing cards that generate triggers during the Draw step aren't good includes? Ie., Howling Mine and variants?
Exactly. Fortunately, there are only 47 cards in all of Magic at the time of this article that reference the draw step. It's not a huge limitation.
Well, the reason I asked is that if you don't combine the graveyards, then the dredge player gets to mill the single library solely into his own 'yard, meaning he is the only one who reaps any advantages from linear synergies of graveyard based effects like Threshold etc., etc.
That's fine. When you buy a card, normally you want to be the one benefiting from it. You don't really want to buy a card to fill a graveyard only to turn on your opponents' threshold creatures or give your opponent a chance to cast flashback spells. Separate graveyards actually make for fine gameplay here.
So basically you're saying tribes didn't fit well with your design goal of favoring highly diverse creature p/t totals, so as to allow a player on the ropes to find a blocker to "recover" with? I see what you're saying.
Essentially yes. Most tribes are full of lots of little creatures. They also, due to the flavor of the tribe, often all do similar things - and we want a lot of diversity in our action block. I'd be interested to hear how a higher tribal theme plays in practice though. If you give it a try, let me know.
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May 24, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayPosted in: ArticlesQuote from SFWasabi74 »Oh I think I see now, because with the creature you would be playing it, then the next auction/turn would begin? I think this is an awesome concept by the way.
Glad to hear.
The original design just had 1 card auctioned per turn (instead of players drawing 1 card each turn, like in normal magic). However, if you needed to buy a blocker and some cool-but-irrelevant-right-now card like Doubling Season came up? You might have more gold, but it wouldn't help you develop the board. The person that bought the first creature, if he or she got lucky, might get several free turns of attacks.
So instead we decided to guarantee that a creature would go up for auction each turn. It also adds a lot of suspense to the game, because when a card like Doubling Season is revealed you know it's not going to be the last card auctioned this turn... And you don't know what the next cards are going to be. It both keeps the game more open for including a larger variety of cards and makes the auction steps a lot more exciting.
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May 23, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayPosted in: ArticlesQuote from rowcla »This looks very cool, I'll be looking to try it out some time.
I notice the sample you provided doesn't have any cantrips in them (from what I could see anyway) they seem like they could be pretty sweet, and not too powerful. Basically just letting players bid on the next card down, and with scry and stuff you can play some sweet mindgames. whispers of the muse seems particularly cool, letting players either run it off as a cantrip, or spend 5 gold for a free card. Seems like it could be balanced enough, though I could see it being a bit much.
Cantrips I haven't been particularly interested in because it's really just "buy a random card". It can be fun if you want that element of uncertainty in the game, but I prefer players to have at least a bit better of an idea of what they're getting. Even cards like Wild Guess, you buy it to try and turn another inexpensive card - such as a weak speculative one you picked up for 1 gold - into somethnig that's likely going to have much greater value. Cantrips just aren't my favorite for the experience I like in my own auction block, but if you want a less predictable experience then they'd be worth trying out.
Whispers of the Muse makes things more interesting via buyback though. Being able to turn 5 gold into 1 card whenever you like provides some interesting flexibility.
I do almost feel like it would be best to build an auction block with no mana sources and no mana requirements, meaning you could essentially abolish rule 8. How important of a dynamic have you found it to be?
I've found it to be absolutely awesome. Not only is the rule essential for cards like your own Whispers of the Muse example, it allows extraordinary gameplay with cards like Evernight Shade and Warden of the First Tree that add a whole new meaning to your gold total. You could absolutely build an auction block that doesn't use this rule, but your options are going to be significantly restricted. Equipment, Cycling, Buyback, Kicker, many activated abilities, X spells and all sorts of other options suddenly vanish if you get rid of this rule.
It also adds a whole new dimension to the auction itself, because if your opponent pays for a Warden of the First Tree you can set intentionally-low prices at auction in order to force them to buy up cards (or give them to you for cheap) in order to strain their gold supply. The difference between your opponent having 4 gold and 3 gold when they have a Centaur Glade out is huge.
TLDR; You can absolutely make an auction block without any of the abilities that would require this rule. However, I think it's absolutely worth it. -
May 23, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayPosted in: ArticlesQuote from SFWasabi74 »I'm not sure I understand rule 5. Doesn't the auction step begin again every time anyway when someone purchases a card?
No, only when someone purchases a noncreature card. Once a creature card is purchased at auction, the step doesn't repeat and the turn progresses as normal.
For example, if the first card revealed for auction is a Young Pyromancer, after it's purchased there won't be any more auctions that turn. If the first card was any noncreature, like a drake umbra, you auction again after it's purchased. You keep doing this until someone purchases a creature card. -
May 14, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlaySounds neat. Let us know how it goes. I'd like to try out some new auction blocks.Posted in: Articles
We haven't tried hero cards or utility lands, but they could definitely be played with. Colors matter is also going to be less annoyig here than in most environments, you're correct. -
May 14, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayThe build-your-strategy-as-you-play element is similar, but the core gameplay experience is very different.Posted in: Articles
The fact you set your own price for each card in High Stakes makes a huge difference in the core experience, versus picking which of 5 cards to buy for a fixed price in Ascenscion. This also gives High Stakes a much higher skill ceiling than Ascencion. It's also much more interactive, since you can actually attack the other player (which also creates a lot more tension).
Ascenscion also tends to involve a lot more waiting between decisions. This is because you only buy cards on your turn, whereas High Stakes involves you in each player's turn during the auction step.
Ascencion is a neat game (and its spiritual successor, Star Realms, is phenomenal) but the experience between it and High Stakes feels pretty different. If you like Ascenscion though, you'll probably also like High Stakes. While the experience is different, the core fun of building a strategy as you play is the heart of both games. -
May 12, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayAn optimal auction block size depends on two things:Posted in: Articles
1) Large enough so you don't get bored of seeing the same cards too often.
2) Small enough so that the build-around cards in your block (like Young Pyromancer or Corpsejack Menace, any card that rewards you for playing a certain type of effect) are nearly guaranteed to show up in the same game as cards that support them. Build-around cards are great for the format, because they change how you value cards. However, it feels bad to buy a build-around card like Undead Warchief and have only a 2% chance of seeing another zombie in a given auction... Meaning you'll probably never get the chance to get a benefit from the build-around you invested in. When a player buys a build-around, they want to build around it. Our 200-card block is pretty big, so our build-around themes tend to be very easy to support (such as instants/sorciers matter, +1/+1 counters matter and so on). A smaller block could take advantage of more narrow build-arounds.
Overall, I wouldn't worry about your block being "too small" at first. Even a 60 card block is going to last you a good number of games before the situations start repeating themselves too often. After all, different board states and different combinations of cards and gold totals add a lot of replayability. If you do end up playing your block so often that it starts wearing thin, that's great - the format's probably a runaway hit with your play group. You can spend more time building a larger block then.
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May 10, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayPosted in: ArticlesQuote from Kasreyn »Quick questions
Quick Answers.
- do players still have a normal draw step per turn? Or is the Auction step the only "guaranteed" chance a player has per turn of seeing new cards?
As stated in the article, the auction step [replaces the draw step.
Edit: also, is there still a hand size limit of seven?
As stated in the article, all the other rules of MTG apply. However, this one will matter even less than in normal magic.
So, why not change the rule? Because changing this rule is an extra change you have to explain to MTG players, and since the rule really doesn’t matter there’s no need to change it.
Do the players have a shared graveyard zone as well, or two separate ones? (Likewise: shared Exile, or mutual? Could be relevant.)
Since all the other rules of MTG apply, players have their own graveyards. This is important if you include cards that interact with the graveyard in your block, like flashback spells. Same goes for exile.
Also, what if you included cards with Dredge and changed Dredge to "whenever a player would win an auction for a card, they may instead mill the top X cards of the auction block (where Dredge = X) to put this card from the graveyard into their hand"? Could engineer some interesting graveyard strategies this way. To go with this rule though, I'd have the players share a graveyard, so that one person's dredging might accidentally help an opponent's graveyard strategies (flashback spells perhaps?).
That sounds like a neat series of house-rules to make dredge cards more interesting in this format. It’s a lot of added rules to put in just to make one ability work, so for the official version I probably wouldn’t include it, but you should give it a try and let us know how it plays. You can do all sorts of cool things with house rules.
How did you arrive at the "three gold per player per turn" rule?
A whole lot of playtesting. We tried all sorts of different income structures for how much gold players gain and when they gain it. This proved to be the best for a whole host of reasons.
Does this tend to lead to games where the first really powerful couple spells suck up all the gold and then each player is just piking it out with 3 or 6 gold per turn? Or do players in practice "pass" on a lot of cards that don't help their particular board state?
It depends on the players and the auction block. Due to the presence of non-creature cards, which mean the card you’re currently bidding on isn’t going to be the only card up for auction this turn, auction steps have a lot of variance. It also depends on how much your opponent is bidding. If they over-bid on a lot of cards, you’re likely to let them purchase those cards. If they under-bid, you’re likely to be the one spending a lot of gold and getting a lot of discount goodies.
Have you tested Tribal effects in your auction blocks much? Particularly conflicting tribes, such as making it possible to go with "Goblins" or "Elves", but at the expense of going with "Warriors" or "Shamans" which are split between them?
Oddly, tribal often doesn’t work that well in our block because in MTG tribal tends to be designed to power up an army of a lot of little creatures. Goblin tribal is very hard to work in for that reason, though a block that was full of lots of tribes would probably have a lot of creatures about the same size and would likely work well. We’ve tried to work in a subtle amount of beast tribal, since beasts are a very diverse tribe with lots of sizes, but MTG doesn’t have many tribal cards that work perfectly for our existing auction block.
Kudos on an interesting format! Reminds me of Mental Magic from back in the day - ever hear of that?
Thanks. I happen to love Mental Magic actually. Studying that game is the best simulation I think of what being a real wizard would feel like, infinite power bat your finger tips… If you can memorize the spells. Prepring a “spellbook” feles great too, as you search through all the MTG cards and figure out which ones you’ll want to memorize for which costs.
Unfortunately, the skill gap in actually playing it between someone that’s prepped and someone that hasn’t is very punishing. Makes it difficult to find a good game, and actual gameplay often results in frustration (as because there’s always a way out, almost everything is an on-board trick you feel frustrated for not being able to remember). I’ve had a lot more fun preparing to play the format than actually playing it. -
May 10, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayYep. I probably wouldn't include it if I were you, but I can also be completely wrong. We're testing it to find out.Posted in: Articles
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May 9, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayThat's an interesting variant. Right now mana-producing cards are an investment to pay for activated ability costs, X spells and so on without spending goals. My concern would be that even a llanowar elf would be extremely powerful. It's another rule players would have to learn, but there probably isn't too much you can do with it to enhance gameplay. Some cards, like Radha, Heir to Keld, would be very interesting though - because setting up ways to have her survive multiple attacks is a challenge. Unfortunately, there aren't too many cards like Radha.Posted in: Articles
If you give it a try, let us know how it goes. -
May 9, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to Play1) You'd play with the top card of the auction block revealed, and since you can pay gold to add mana to your mana pool - you can pay gold to play cards off the top of the auction block. However, it'd ruin a lot of the fun surprise factor of what's going to go up for auction next. I probably wouldn't include it in the block if I were you.Posted in: Articles
2) Yep.
3) Yep. -
May 8, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayYes, each player will only bid once. We originally played it with the auction continuing until all other players had declined to bid, where players can raise each others' bids repeatedly like in most auctions. However, it didn't add much to the experience. I just slowed the game down, as players would often bid low first, then slowly ladder up to the fair numbers they were going to bid for anyway.Posted in: Articles
For example, let's say a card shows up that you think is a good buy at 5 gold. In the old system, it would often go like this:
Player 1: I bid 0 gold.
Player 2: 2 gold.
Player 1: 3 gold.
Player 2: 5 gold.
Player 1: 6 is probably too much. You can have it.
Currently the system (as described in the article) runs like this:
Player 1: I'll bid 4 gold...
Player 2: Hmm... Okay, I'll bid 5 gold and take it.
It's much faster, and the single decision on the price has more impact. Shaving 30 seconds off of every auction, when there's more than 1 auction every turn on average, also cuts about 10 minutes off of a game where each player gets to take 7 turns. That's a big difference, and we found that the strategy behind how much you bid feels more important when you can't just raise your bid for the same card later. You have to think deep, and the auctions go faster. A lot of win all at once.
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May 8, 2015
Stairc posted a message on High Stakes Magic - A New Way to PlayFirst off, it's great to see everyone thinking deeply about the format and seeing new ideas riffing off it. I'll leave feedback on your proposed format changes when I get time (about to play some games of Faeria to test the new stuff we've made), but I can at least answer your initial questions. I'll put them in spoiler tags, because the answers go on a little while.Posted in: Articles
Quote from kulekitsune »...So... after drawing a creature, you stop auctioning. Then what?
All the normal rules apply. You can cast a creature if you have it and the game continues from there.
Free attack with no blockers?
Only if the creature has Haste, and if it's the person's turn who bought it. If it's Player 1's turn and Player 2 bought the creature, player 2 can play it - but you can't attack if it's not your turn. Player 2 would be able to attack with the creature on his or her next turn of course, even if it didn't have haste (since it entered play during the opponent's turn) but then player 1 has a guaranteed chance to buy a blocker during the auction on Player 2's turn.
Getting something like Phage or Blightsteel Colossus equals turn-two win, no competition
I reccomend not putting cards that break the format in your auction block. Phage doesn't really break it, because she can be blocked and killed in lots of ways, but Blightsteel probably does. Of course, it's your auctionblock so it's up to you if you enjoy that gameplay or not. Having a single "I win" card in the auction block can be very interesting, because all players have a chance to buy it... So keeping a gold advantage is very important, and does allow added comeback potential. I think that's too big a swing for my own enjoyment, but it has merits - especially if you start players at higher life totals or include more ways to deal with that kind of monster (such as oblivion ring and swords to plowshares).
Does each player get a separate Bid Step before anyone gets a combat step?
The auction step replaces the draw step. Unless a creature has haste, the summoning sickness rule ensures that in a 2-player game, both players will have a chance to buy a creature before one gets to attack. If it' in a multiplaeyr game, politics can put added pressure on the "threat" at the table. I haven't tested multiplayer much, but I did get a PM from someone who's been using their cube as an auction block and said even turn 1 Inkwell Leviathan was kept in check by the fact the person who bought it had to go down to 0 gold and the rest of the table united against him.
Getting something that pings every upkeep would destroy balance.
Not sure what you mean by this.
Do you even have upkeep steps? When the bidding is done whose turn is it?
Yes. All the other rules of magic apply, as stated in the article. The auction step replaces the draw step. There's still an upkeep step, a main phase, a second main phase and so on.
If the person who gets the creature always gets their turn when they win their creature, then the match is pretty much Solitaire. If it is Player A's turn and Player B won all the auctions, then Player A pretty much does nothing.
Unless, of course, player A already has cards (like, if it's not turn 1). Additionally, player A did get to do something - bid on the cards. That's the core strategic element of gameplay.
Obviously players bid in some kind of order, otherwise it would devolve into a screaming match.
As stated in the article, it starts with the active player and moves from there in turn order.
Do players get more gold to start if there are, like, five players? Do they get more each round the more players there are? They would have to, to have some kind of balance.
Currently the game has been extensively tested with 2 players but I haven't played with more. The current rules state that at the end of each player's turn, all players gain 3 gold. This does mean that more players means more gold for everyone. You might want to read the article more closely, a lot of your questions are answered there.
EDIT - I've gone over your proposed variant. It seems like you've got a lot of extra rules you probably don't need. Random color identity in a 2 or 3 player game means there will be lots to colored spells coming up that no one is going to want to buy, or that they're just automatically going to go to the people who are already having their color identity. Resell rules, cost reduction multiplier rules, rotation counters to mill the auction block... When you add this much complexity to a game, it makes the game a lot harder to learn. You want to be sure the game is vastly improved to compensate. I don't really see the benefits of all these extra rules.
Still, you should give the format a playtest or two. I'd like to hear how it plays in practice. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Once you start thinking of the result we care about it, the result we'd like to achieve for how society operates, it becomes pretty clear why a god isn't necessary to determine that murder is bad. Murdering other people for no reason, or just for kicks, has some pretty obvious negative consequences for the people affected.
Where do governments come from? Everywhere in the world started with anarchy, with no governments around. People then gathered power and declared themselves kings, or any other form of government you dislike. Obviously it becomes rather hard to just "compete" with these existing powerhouses that you think are abusing their power, or else you wouldn't be on here complaining about it.
Your system obviously doesn't work. It doesn't function the way you say it does. We have several thousand years of human history as proof.
Governments are not some magical curse cast by a witch that can be broken by blog posts. It's just people in power forcing other people to do what they want. If I and a group of people in an anarchist society decided to pool our money to pay for a private security force, then decided we would force you to pay for it as well and would send our private security force after you if you didn't... That's police. That's taxes. What you gonna do about it?
Your kneejerk reaction is to say, "Well I'll make my security force and it'll be so much better and bigger and cooler than yours." Okay then, do it. Do it right now, in the real world. What's stopping you?
The whole world started with absolute freedom and without any governments buddy. Where did they come from? Clearly absolute freedom DOES produce abusive power structures despite what you claim. So how did that happen?
Rich Guy: "I'm a rich guy with a gigantic private security force and I've conquered or purchased huge amounts of land."
Libertarian: "No problem."
Rich Guy: "I'm also going to label myself a King."
Libertarian: "No! Now you're suddenly a government and that's bad!"
This is just a bargain sale of unrelated arguments. Several of them are actually outright contradictory. Mortal lives gain value when there is no promise of an infinite afterlife, this is why you have apologists arguing that it doesn't matter that god lets babies die because they're going to be happy in heaven.
This is the kind of absurdity that comes with people starting with fears and flawed premises. Just a collection of unrelated attempts at rationalization. Do you enjoy living at all? Do you enjoy warm sunshine or a tasty meal? Do you enjoy friends, family, playing MTG? Do you find your life preferable to an endless, dreamless sleep? If so your life absotootly is worth living, heaven or not. And if the only reason you don't murder babies is because you're scared god will be mean to you later, you're a much worse person than I think you are. But you can still be afraid of life in prison I suppose, if you really are a closet serial killer waiting to snap.
1) I know this.
2) I'm baffled you chose to nitpick this.
3) Some classical interpretations of eternal suffering indicate that you do little *but* play card games there. Heck, some communities banned MTG as satanic.
Ask the people who get upset when fictional characters on TV shows die. It's pretty well established that it's possible to care about fictional characters. That's how basically all fiction works in the first place.
I like playing card games. I get an experience of joy from playing card games. I like this experience. I won't get this experience if I'm dead (unless perhaps I'm sent to the shadow realm). Doesn't seem like a waste to me. Extrapolate this point to all other enjoyable experiences in life. I enjoy the experience of a card game despite it being a completely artificial construct. I don't need to really kill a dragon to enjoy playing a card game, and even if all life is a simulation it's a much more convincing one than MTG.
Yes it is. You're asking, "Why bother taking advantage of something now if it's just going to go away later?"
The fact it's going to go away later is the reason you should take advantage of it now. If you think non-existence is preferable to existence, that's a different debate. The fact that life has an expiration date itself is not a reason to end it, it's a reason to take advantage before the expiration date comes due.
That's like asking, "Why eat a cake when it's fresh when it's just going to go stale eventually?"
You're not answering the big point, you're just speculating wildly (and more than a little incoherently). I've demonstrated that anarchy produces governments consistently. If you believe governments are bad, then your beloved anarchy does indeed produce bad end results. Arguing that it won't is like staring at a waterfall and saying, "Water isn't affected by gravity."
You are insisting that humans will act in ways that we know they never have. You sir are ignoring reality.
*People choose to create governments of their own will*. You can establish a starting circumstance, but anarchy by definition refuses to enforce laws. People given perfect freedom will choose to form an organized structure, either for defense or for power or both. That *always* happens, throughout all of human history across the entire world. You can claim it won't happen, but you're denying the evidence of the entire world - which always show governments arising in every society that starts in anarchy.
If by "square 1" you mean that your argument is dismantled and that you need to start again from a stronger foundation, I agree. Otherwise you'll need some sort of coherent response to the issue I raise.
I'll ask again, because you didn't answer me: @MTGTCG Do you have any response to my post? Here it is again for reference:
Your central error is assuming that "governments" are some mystical non-human-produced force. Rich dudes amassing power and conquering people is how you get kings in the first place, which is a system of government. We started with anarchy everywhere, and now there are governments basically everywhere. You suggest that people will come together in organized resistance against people who are abusing their powers. You're correct, that's what governments are. That's what a police force is.
Clearly every group of people starts in anarchy and eventually results in governments forming. If you think this is a bad thing, then you have to admit anarchies DO tend towards bad things. You're caught in a contradiction.
Your central error is assuming that "governments" are some mystical non-human-produced force. Rich dudes amassing power and conquering people is how you get kings in the first place, which is a system of government. We started with anarchy everywhere, and now there are governments basically everywhere. You suggest that people will come together in organized resistance against people who are abusing their powers. You're correct, that's what governments are. That's what a police force is.
Clearly every group of people starts in anarchy and eventually results in governments forming. If you think this is a bad thing, then you have to admit anarchies DO tend towards bad things. You're caught in a contradiction.