MagicTheGathering/VitenkasThoughts

Ok - MetaGame trumps gameplay. Quite badly. Not totally, and there is some fun to be had in the play - but MetaGame trumps.

I had a /WhiteWeenie? for the 'real' games. One deck it mercilessly thrashed. One match it drew horribly in. The other match it was trumped. (Opponent used a land which let him kill any creature less than 3/3 and I didn't see the crusade-equivs until too late, and drew three cheap 'put any card you own into your hand' cards)

The most fun deck to play was a black control deck. It actually required thought. Thought of the 'do I use this now and make the opponent burn their entries, or do I hold, or do I try and actually hurt the opponent now' kind. It would not be terribly unfair to say that the thought boiled down to "Do I light the fuse now, or later". But in the three player game, it got to use two forked demonic tutors in one turn. Which has to count for something in the fun stakes.

It's good to see that red and blue still works too - counterspells and big dragons just make for an irresistible combination. Not a terribly good one, but he did have this neat way to get the dragons out more quickly than usual and start cloning them.

I only made three mistakes in game that I know of:

Glory only works from the graveyard. I'm not totally to fault for this, the card was in Hebrew.
I messed up my play after a Wrath of God. I should have held back slightly, playing only 2 instead of 3 creatures. But I risked it, forgetting that my opponent had been drawing heavily.
I didn't quite realise how the threshold thing was designed. I should have sacrificed more cards (though a lack of ability to draw hampered this) - the second chance at a crush with, effectively, double power cards in the mid game makes weenie slightly, but not very, interesting.

I should have held out for the green deck. It was way more interesting, and way less cheesy.

Rules to note:

If you win the coin toss, then you get to choose whether to play first or not. If you play first, you skip your first turn's draw phase. Otherwise your opponent does. You decide whther to play first before seeing your hand.
The loser of the previous round wins the coin toss automatically.
You may choose to discard your whole hand and draw a new one, of one card fewer, as many times as you like. If your opponent does so, you may also - in which case you both draw again of the same size. Same applies if you choose to and they do too. You can do this for any reason.

Environment to note:

Creatures are MUCH bigger than you remembered, and cheaper.
Spells are more expensive - instants MUCH more expensive. To get them cheaper, put up with half and half effects. (This card taps a creature and does it two damage for two mana, instead of tapping it for one or doing three damage for two, kind of thing.)
Everything feels more crippled - but combining things produces power most awesome.
Any cost of four or more is usually very powerful. It really isn't a case of wondering what the opponent is going to do - it could be anything. It's a case of wondering how many times they will do it.
I am serious about the creatures. Prods cost one more, but can be used the turn they come into play, have first strike and two more attack - and that means they can do 4 points of damage in combat before the opponent can.
Instants have been massively downpowered. Almost no one uses them. They generally cost more too.
Lots of creatures have an effect when they deal damage. 'Draw a card' is a particularly nasty one. You NEED creature removal.
And most creature removal is sorcery now - so you REALLY need haste and removal that stays in play.

As of Aug04. I'm playing again :(
Weenie works, but since we almost always play multiplayer (and can anyone suggest a GOOD 3-5 multiplayer variant simple enough that I can get them to try?) it needs some kind of mid game ability. Currently I'm winning on pure politics with it.

: See MagicTheGathering/ConstructedFormats. 5 players also allows mono-coloured star, which doesn't seem to have an entry on that page yet.

Sorry - rephrase question. It must work with 'normal' decks. Preferably it must be able to cope with half the players having a few power-nine cards and decks built to do evil things like swap the 'in play' zone and the 'graveyard' zone, playing alongside players who have two mirrodin packets. Emporer does this, but nothing else seems to. Being comprehensible in a one-line summary is a vital point too. --Vitenka (Who is sorely tired of FreeForAll? fourways that end in KingMaker every time.)

Decks with the Power 9 are emphatically not 'normal'.

: A deck created by someone who has been playing that long without periodically throwing out cards is. What I meant by 'normal' was 'not specially constructed for this format', as you well knew. --Vitenka

There are too many and two awesome artefacts. If you don't have four shatterstorms (or similar) then certain decks will wipe you.
Some of the abilities which have cycled out of type2 (shadow, notably) are grossly unfair when outside of their environment.
I revise my thoughts on Metagame. It doesn't allow bad play to beat good play. But it is almost trivial to play 'best' play with most decks. Thus metagame wins.

Oh, next whine - HOW do you deal with red burn? Being dead by turn four every game is a bit pants really. --Vitenka