Date: Thu, 31 Jul 1997 09:13:55 -0400 From: "Thomas F. Guevin" Subject: [mpa] Coin Flips Michael Gosselin writes: > I think Tom has great opinions and ideas about Magic. This is not one of > them. The coin tosses are there for a reason. They provide some of the > gambling atmosphere that a card game has. I disagree - magic has so many "gambling" like aspects without needing coin flips. Oh he has two blue open - do I risk a counter, or cast my spell anyway? Should I plow the boa, or wait till a Maro comes out? He has seven cards still - should I play more creatures, risking wrath or disk, or hold back? These are all gambling propostions that rely on skill - bluffing, reading the opponent, and risk/benefit analysis. Contrast this to - should I bolt the frenetic, because it might still live and I'll waste my bolt? > The only problem I see now is > the Frenetic Efreet, and that can be stopped [by many things]. The other problem is those adept in sleight of hand, can manipulate coin flips. I'm not going to go into the details, but there are issues of heated coins, and coins where you can distinguish the faces by feel. > There were few complaints about the Orcish Captain, none I > know of for the Bottle of Sueileman, and none (yet) about the Goblin Bomb. > Yup, the Efreet is tough, but not impossible to deal with. Until coin > flipping is so important that lots of money relies on it, we shouldn't > worry about it. The big question is should coin flipping be a part of magic? I think magic is a strong enough and interesting enough game on its own, without needing this additional luck factor. If coin flipping adds so much, why not then add a die roll, like the computer game, where a card comes into play and you roll a die to see what it does? My goal in getting coin flips banned is to make magic more of a game of strategy and less of a game of chance. There is luck in magic, especially top decking - but that's an implicit part of any card game. In terms of top decking, there are many cards in magic that help you control what you draw for a price - like sylvan library, tutors, consult, etc. Notice how common these are in the decks of top level players. Now take the case of the player who drew 4 spells and 15 lands (this happened to a friend of mine in the final round of the US nationals). Due to his playing skill, and careful use of his 4 spells, he still almost won the game, because he saw how his draw was going and adjusted for it - like going really low in life and casting wrath of god, then holding land and casting geddon, etc. >From a play standpoint he did an admirable job because he was able to forsee his misfortune, and adjust play. Take the case of a frenetic - no matter how skillful you are in playing magic you have no way of predicting if the frenetic will phase or it will not phase. But is it worth it banning frenetic efreet? I'd argue that Justin Gary's triumph at the US nationals is the first of many tournaments won partially by coin flips, and the DCI would be well served to remove the coin flip cards sooner than later. In response to Chris Pikula saying "I would much rather see a match decided by a Frenetic Efreet from Hell than a land screw." Well I'd rather see matches not decided by coin flips or land screws, but if a match is decided by a top-deck - oh well - that's the nature of a card game. We can fix the coin flip and we can work on fixing land screw. Why not do both? A parting note - I'm not going to divulge his deck, but a friend of mine has a MiViWe deck with multiple Desperate Gambits in it. No joke. And the card has actually won him several test games, where it looked impossible for him to win. Give him a couple fireblasts and a lucky coin and he can get to Chicago. -Tom Guevin