------------------------------ Date: Sat, 18 Jan 1997 01:55:04 -0800 From: Mark Opaskar Subject: Re: Card Advantage VS. Throughput Advantage Lots can be argued about the value of throughput; I'm not going to try to do so here. I am, however, going to expand on the basic theme of the original post: Card Advantage is not the only valid strategy to follow. To effectively reflect on all strategies of Magic is an impossible task, so I will stick to a general overview of the subject. Simply put, Magic is a game of multiple resources. The most important resource is Life: without it, you lose the game. Other resources, in no particular order, include Mana, Cards, and various classes of other permanents. An effective strategy takes into account all these resources, and can successfully manipulate at least two of them. Possibly the most dangerous of all decks is the Stasis deck; because it manipulates Mana and Permanent advantages, and generally does not negatively impact the player's Life and Card resources. Compare this to a Necropotence deck: this deck is dangerous because it manipulates a player's Card advantage to a high degree. However, it does so by negatively impacting a player's Life resource; it also only has very granular methods to effect Permanent resources. This deck became dominant for a time because of the incredible Card advantage it could generate, but was vulnerable. Any deck that could negatively impact the Necro player's Life early had a distinct advantage (hence the reappearance of nit decks), as did any player playing a Mana control option (read: Armageddon). It is my opinion that Necro was on its way out in Type 2 even w/o the removal of Ice Age from the set. (Necro is still useful in Type 1, where players aren't really restricted in the number of colors of mana they play.) Another deck style that is interesting to consider is the Permission deck. A straight permission deck attempts to gain an advantage in Permanents by preventing your opponent's from hitting the table. Obviously, a permission player would have to let something of his opponent's reach the table so that the permission player would be able to invoke whatever method his deck would use to kill his opponent. The problem with the original permission deck was that it only manipulated Permanents, and not very well. Card advantage was hard to achieve, as was true advantage in Permanents. The solution to the first problem was found in various strategies: one such is the use of Disrupting Scepters and Jayemdae Tomes. In the hands of a skilled player, such a deck is dangerous. But the evolution of the Permission deck hasn't stopped there. With the addition of the Kjeldoran Outpost and the Sacred Mesa, the Permission player may now also invoke a serious strategy of Permanent advantage. This so-called "counterpost" deck is so strong that even beginning players can be successful with it. The point to this digression is this: one cannot reject the "Throughput" concept out of hand. Sacrificing a Card Advantage is a legitimate strategy so long as a player can successfully manipulate his/her other resources. The trick is actually pulling it off. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Why, yes. I *am* a Rocket Scientist. >=O) (BS AsE 1989, BA CS 1995) Mark Opaskar opaskar@sd.znet.com ------------------------------