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A concept which manifests itself in contexts ranging far and wide.

The fact that if you balance a pencil on its end it will fall over is an example of symmetry breaking.  At the moment when it's balancing, the gravitational forces are symmetrical all the way around the circle or hexagon.  But the symmetry breaks (due to a slight gust of wind or whatever), and the pencil falls.

The concept is related-but-different in MagicTheGathering.  The concept here is: a card like Earthquake (Deals X damage to all players and to all creatures without flying), or Armageddon (Destroy all lands), is symmetrical:  It affects all players equally.  However, there can be ways in which the symmetry can be broken, thus making the cards much more beneficial to one player than to the other(s). 

Examples include:

Other "symmetrically destructive" cards are MTG: Pox, MTG: Forsaken Wastes, MTG: Gravity Sphere, MTG: Aether Flash and MTG: Akroma's Vengeance.  All are powerful and effective in the right deck.

Some others which are viewed as "bad" cards because they're symmetrical are MTG: Warped Devotion, (add others here)ThoseWhoAreThatWayPerverted may like to consider how to break the symmetry of these cards.

Balance is not symmetrical. If I have four lands and my opponent has six, one creature and my opponent has ten, two cards in my hand an my opponent has three, it hurts me not at all and cripples him. Hardly symmetrical! Symmetry of effect and symmetry of result are funamentally different concepts and shouldn't be confused.
Fair point, and thanks.  Okay, I agree. --AC
Balance Act, however, is much harder to exploit, but probably closer to the original intent. -Colin
(PeterTaylor) CrystalKeep? knows of no such card. Do you mean MTG: Natural Balance?
I suspect MTG: Balancing Act is the intended one, which was meant to be the "fixed" MTG: Balance.  It certainly doesn't seem as broken as the original ;) --AC


It's usually harder to exploit a "symmetrically constructive" card, like MTG: Nantuko Shrine.  Jay Moldenhauer-Salazar had lots of good things to say about trying this:
My goal in building around symmetrically constructive cards is similar to building around their destructive cousins: Find cards that ensure the effect helps me more (read: a LOT more) than my opponent, then use that advantage to pound him senseless.
The rest of his article may be found [here].  For those (like AlexChurchill) who love a challenge, other symmetrically constructive cards to attempt to exploit are: MTG: New Frontiers; MTG: Overabundance (AC has mentally built at least 3 decks around this one); MTG: Task Mage Assembly; MTG: Well of Knowledge; MTG: Howling Mine (a very powerful card, but symmetrically constructive); MTG: Prosperity; and many others...
I've seen decks that exploit MTG: New Frontiers and MTG: Howling Mine. --qqzm
I've been killed by decks using MTG: Prosperity and MTG: Howling Mine.  Depending on just how much mana they can throw into the Prosperity, they can either just straight-out deck you, or cast a MTG: Storm Seeker / MTG: Sudden Impact at the head to kill you very shortly afterwards.  Other things like MTG: Indentured Djinn and MTG: Viseling combine to make drawing cards quite a painful experience.  --AC


A different kind of symmetry is provided by MTG: Shared Fate, where the issue is that you want cards which are more useful to you than to your opponents, even though they may end up "drawing" them. There are a surprising number of ways of doing this:
Or, indeed, if the black player "draws" the Hydroblast it might help, to kill off the green player's red spells and permanents.  Wonderfully silly dynamics abound in 5-colour star with Shared Fate... it almost deserves to be a format of its own (where you have to assume the Shared Fate enters play after initial hands are drawn, and can't be destroyed after that). --AC


MTG: Mesmeric Orb


How does one break the symmetry of Mesmeric Orb totally, in that one wins by decking without milling a single card oneself?

PeterTaylor and AlanLawrence have come up with MTG: Panoptic Mirror imprinting MTG: Mana Short. Sac lands provide the small quantity of mana needed and don't stay around to untap. MTG: Ensnaring Bridge, tutors, and utility might just fill out a halfway decent deck.

Based on a game recently had at GamesEvening - MTG: Shared Fate works nicely. You really want a card-drawing engine backing it up, though - not having one just got silly. --Requiem



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