Magic is a complicated game. You can make it less complicated by not thinking about what cards do.

Panharmonicon? A neat card, does cool stuff, but it doesn't kill you.

Mentor of the Meek? Adds most of an Opt to all of your opponent's creatures, but it doesn't kill you.

Exquisite Blood? Part of an A+B combo with Sanguine Bond, but until then, it doesn't kill you.

A card that generates excessive value is a card that will kill you.

This is things that are generally going to statically two for one on a resource for you. Smothering Tithe, and Consecrated Sphinx are good examples of this. Rhystic Study is not. I have opinions on this, but that's for later.

Craterhoof Behemoth generates excessive value because you're making a dumb amount of power. Even then, it might not be enough to kill you.

It's okay to ignore cards that aren't going to kill you.

The common understanding in Commander is that 1 for 1 removal is bad, because it puts you down a card compared to your opponents. If you're killing cards that don't matter, that's true! However, we're only going to worry about cards that kill us.

It means we can leave up the one to three mana in the midgame for instant speed interaction, because we only care about cards that are going to kill us.

Sometimes, a card will get played that we know isn't going to kill us now, but will kill us later. That card is going to kill you. It's okay to think about it.

#MagicTheGathering #EDH #Commander

This is a post about propaganda. It is not about about the example I use.

Propaganda is, for lack of a better phrase, fucking insidious. You have to be extremely aware of it! Positive Antagonistic Propaganda especially so, and it's one of the reasons why you should hire someone that does messaging professionally to make sure you don't do your opponents' work for them.

Positive Antagonistic Propaganda is about getting your opponents to do your work for you. You create a messaging program that they can agree with unexamined, and then they do the work for you! Propaganda is not always about convincing you to do something. Sometimes it is about making it harder for you to do something.

The example I'm going to use to talk about this is, “No one is illegal on stolen land.” Again, this is not about this statement. I think most of the people saying this have good intentions. You should not tell strangers to stop saying this, because you're wasting the time and energy of people you agree with. This is about how good intentions can support your opponents' movement.

The problems with this statement, in no particular order: * The predication of one truth on another. * The combination of controversial topics to shift attention away from both. * The choir preaching problem.

People use this statement in the context of immigration, and that's what it's about. The point is, “No one is illegal.” When you add a predicate, you automatically concede the point that there are conditions in which some people are illegal, and you make it easier to reject your premise. I no longer have to argue against your stance on immigration, I can argue against your stance on landback. Which isn't the conversation you're trying to have! It also makes it so that even if you win, you introduce other complications. No one is illegal on stolen land, sure, but now you have to defend against people saying that folks can be illegal in other conditions.

Each of these issues on their own is controversial. Combining them into one statement, attaches all of the problems of each to the other, without attaching any of the positive points. You now have people on the fence about things, talking about their perceived negative arguments about the other topic, instead of the actual point. This is about immigration, but now you've attached peoples' negative sentiments about landback to immigration. (This can happen in the other direction too, but I don't know anyway that's pro-landback but anti-immigration. This person could exist, but I can't even conceive of a strawman lol.) You're losing people that would have been an easy win, because now you've made them worried about something else.

The point of messaging is to convince people of something. “No one is illegal on stolen land” only engages people who already agree with you. I'll write a post about political activation eventually, but for now, what you need to understand is that, fundamentally, the phrase only reaches people you agree with, and then spends their political activation, while giving your opponents will to engage with their own, effective talking points. It's a bad deal all around.

No real conclusion here, mostly education about the weird dumb ways propaganda works. Focus on the points you are making, and give your opponent the fewest edges to grab on to, so that it's harder for them to distract you from the point you are trying to make.

#politics #propaganda

Like playing commander, but mad about power levels/fast mana/ramp/no more battlecruiser magic? I have the solution! It's Elder Goblin Highlander (#EGH)!

What is EGH?

EGH uses the same rules as commander, except that you can only include cards with mana value four or greater in your deck. This includes your commander! You also get two basic lands in your command zone, because I don't want to wait around for you to make good deckbuilding decisions and mulligan.

Why is EGH?

Basically all of the complaints about commander come from cards that cost three or less mana. Now, you don't have to worry about them!

Split Cards, Adventures, and cards with abilities that can be activated from hand for less than four mana

If you're trying to cast a spell for less than four mana, that's a no go, because then people start jamming all the split cards they can for advantage, and booooo on your house! This is easy for split cards, but harder for things like Adventures/MDFCs. Talk to your playgroup, but the idea is that you shouldn't be casting spells before turn four. A possible split difference is if you force Fuse casting on spells that have that option.

Activated abilities, like cycling, should be fine! We've done limited playtesting mostly around things like Krosan Tusker and Yidaro, and it played fine. If you run into problems let me know!

Banlist

In our playtesting and thought experiments, there wasn't much that arose as too problematic. Consider using the regular commander banlist, but also most of the cards there that are a pain are also less than four mana, big exceptions being Prophet of Kruphix and Primeval Titan.

A big exception to this are four and five mana smokestack effects. For this reason, the following cards are banned:

Smokestack Braids, Cabal Minion Descent Into Madness Keruga, the Macrosage is banned as a companion.

You should not play cards that look like these cards. They generate non games, and the only reason to play them is to make non-games. Braids, especially, if you go first you can just play 99 swamps and then your opponents never get to cast spells.

The biggest thing is don't be a jerk! Stax is fine (though difficult, a lot of stax pieces cost less than four mana), being a jerk about it is not.

#MagicTheGathering #CustomMagicFormats #CustomMagicRules

Mask Magic

It first comes in the night, a flicker of a nightmare. A crash of thunder, the sound of stone on metal.

They don't think much of it at first, but then the images start showing up in the daytime. A crow, a fox, flint, steel, hands grasping up from the earth, attacking the senses. An Icon beckons to them.

The first mask usually isn't even a mask, just a fever of earth and dye, almost plastered on their face, thick with unrefined emotion. It is then that the totem can speak.

And there is much to teach.

#Writing #ShortFiction #MagicUsers #Sorcerers