
My Kid Lost a Game of 'Magic' to Its Creator But Scored a Piece of Its Art - ascertain
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/articles/how-my-kid-lost-a-game-of-magic-to-its-creator-but-scored-a-piece-of-its-original-art/
======
wyldfire
MtG is just a fantastic game. Somehow I think the detailed rules really
appeals to those of us who simulate automata in our head. ;)

> I had begun the interview with what I figured was an obvious, softball
> icebreaker: “Yes,” Garfield responded when asked if he was related to
> President James Garfield (1831-1881), “he was my great-great-grandfather.”

Wow!

> I think make-believe is a very important component of games; the art really
> drives that.

The art and flavor text are a big part of the game, IMO. At least its original
draw, anyways.

~~~
umvi
Is there a way to have access to all cards for free? Kind of ruins the fun
when you need to sink so much $$$ just to try out different decks.

Another reason Hearthstone was so frustrating. All the legendary cards were
locked behind astronomical paywalls.

~~~
hiccuphippo
Another game you might want to take a look at is Dominion. You buy a single
box with the cards for all the players (from 2 to 4 IIRC) so no need to buy
extra decks.

~~~
blotter_paper
I enjoyed Dominion, and generally appreciate games where you don't have to
_keep_ buying things to play competitively. I've never actually played it, but
I was always intererested in Codex:
[http://sirlingames.com/codex](http://sirlingames.com/codex)

It's modeled after real time strategy games (Warcraft 3 especially), and was
designed by David Sirlin. Sirlin writes about game design, and I've really
enjoyed his commentary on competitive systems. He did the rebalancing for
Super Street Fighter 2 HD Remix, and the changes he made are discussed in a
series of articles here:
[http://www.sirlin.net/articles/sf](http://www.sirlin.net/articles/sf)

You can various other articles he's written by clicking around that site.

~~~
eropple
I was interested in Codex but at the same time I played Fantasy Strike for a
hot minute and it kinda cooled me on Sirlin-as-designer rather than Sirlin-as-
analyst. I'd be interested in whether anybody has played Codex and enjoyed it.

------
alasdair_
Magic may be the best game ever devised.

Unlike chess, it’s stochastic and unlike backgammon, it has hidden information
and bluffing. But it’s more than that - the cards change the rules of the game
itself.

On top of those layers, the fact that each player builds their own deck makes
the game asymmetric and ultimately the meta-game of building the deck to beat
the Keynsian beauty contest of optimal deck selection becomes the most
important part.

It is this meta game that makes me think it will be a long long time before we
have a machine learning model that can play the full game (and the meta-game)
consistently better than an expert human player. At least while new cards are
being added to the game.

The game is turing complete. It can have infinite loops and crazy, ridiculous
complexity and is gloriously fun to play. I’d love to hear about any AI
projects that have taken a serious stab at playing a complete game.

~~~
gbrown
I think it's fun, but I HATE that it has such a strong pay to win component.

If a video game let players spend thousands of dollars on high power abilities
to completely dominate the lower paid tier players, they'd be ridiculed in
many circles.

There are certainly ways to play around this, but it's definitely a thing.

~~~
antoinealb
There are a lot of different formats. In Limited for example, you buy the
boosters you are going to play with when entering the event (you don't bring a
constructed deck). This makes it very level and pretty cheap (pay to enter
instead of pay to win). It is also quite competitive and is a format often
played in championships.

~~~
whereismylogin
And sets these days are designed with limited in mind. Limited has gone from
this weird thing you do at a PTQ side tourney after you flunk out round 4, to
a real, super fun format!

~~~
thaumasiotes
> And sets these days are designed with limited in mind.

For reference, sets have been designed with limited in mind since Mirage in
1996.

------
jahlove
Growing up in the suburbs south of Seattle, I got to visit the Wizards of the
Coast headquarters once or twice. As a 14 year old, I approached Richard
Garfield one day and asked him if he wanted to play. We played two or three
games, I recall I won two. He signed one of my cards and continued playing
other folks.

For a 14 year old me this was a pretty big deal. Thank you Richard for doing
that!

~~~
klyrs
I grew up in south Seattle, and also got to visit the original WotC
headquarters a few times. What an awesome opportunity that was. In addition to
tables and tournaments for Magic players, they had a bank of networked
computers where you could play multiplayer games on their LAN.

My favorite memory was when me and a friend tried a novel strategy in Warcraft
2 -- the "Peon Rush". Haven't heard of the strategy? That's because it's
awful. We ganged up on another player, sending waves of peons as fast as we
could spawn them. Our target crushed us both with, IIRC, a pair of ogres. One
died.

------
cehrlich
What a great read! Stasis is one of my all time favourite pieces of MtG art,
although there are definitely people who feel the opposite. To me it perfectly
encapsulates what the card does, and as someone who at age 12 lost his first
game at a 'real' Magic tournament to a Stasis deck the card is a special
memory for me. Although the game has moved towards being very cohesive with
its art, I actually liked it when there were many cards whose artwork didn't
really fit into the canon of the game, in some way it made the game's world
feel even bigger.

~~~
whereismylogin
I feel like the rise of digital illustration/art has lost something special
about the old cards.

------
lifeformed
The art in the old sets were so much more iconic and imaginative. They were so
varied in styles and had so much personality. The newer ones have a much more
consistent style, but ends up looking really generic and forgettable.

~~~
DonaldPShimoda
I don't think that's completely true; plenty of the new cards are quite
imaginative. I think there's just a greater degree of imposed consistency in
the design.

For some counterexamples to your point, look at any of the art by Seb
McKinnon.

~~~
moultano
>For some counterexamples to your point, look at any of the art by Seb
McKinnon.

His stuff looks fantastic, and does look a lot like the more "tarot" inspired
art of early magic. Thanks for telling us about him! Link for the curious.
[http://www.sebmckinnon.com/illustration/2019/5/29/2019/5/29/...](http://www.sebmckinnon.com/illustration/2019/5/29/2019/5/29/answered-
prayers)

~~~
DonaldPShimoda
(I'm not very good at responding to HN comments, but hopefully you'll see
this!)

A few of my favorite pieces by him are Deliver Unto Evil [1], Soulherder [2],
and String of Disappearances [3]. His art is just so wonderfully fantastical
and different from everything else. I love it.

[1] [https://scryfall.com/card/war/85/deliver-unto-
evil](https://scryfall.com/card/war/85/deliver-unto-evil)

[2]
[https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/214/soulherder](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/214/soulherder)

[3] [https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/72/string-of-
disappearances](https://scryfall.com/card/mh1/72/string-of-disappearances)

------
uwuhn
I first played Magic when I was around seven years old, when the Portal set
came out. I've played on-and-off, never seriously/competitively. Before Arena
came out, I had spent more time playing on Apprentice and then Cockatrice than
I had with physical cards.

Arena now takes up a LOT of my spare time. I'm happy with the microtransaction
system. $5 can take you pretty far when it comes to building a competitive
deck if you are willing to play drafts. I've spent around $40 total across
three accounts. The $5 one-time purchase is quite generous.

BO1 constructed allows you to deviate from the meta and/or counter it. The
matchmaking is good, and you can tell a lot of effort has gone into cosmetic
and sound effects.

I've played lots of Hearthstone and Shadowverse since both came out. I haven't
touched Hearthstone in years, even though I spent close to a thousand dollars
on it. I'm done with HS for good. I'll still play Shadowverse for new sets
since you can always make a competitive deck for free if you create a new
account and spend a few hours grinding.

I hope Wizards doesn't get greedy with Arena as it (and MTG) continue to grow
in popularity. When Hearthstone got big, I expected Magic to die out
completely, but it's nice to see that didn't happen.

~~~
busterarm
I love playing Magic. I was a bit of a whale player as far as case openings
goes. Obviously paper magic became untenable at some point...and I love
playing Standard.

Arena has been so fantastic for me. I spend a fraction of what I used to, have
all that space back in my apartment and play way more than ever. There are
some things that I miss about playing face to face with people, but also
there's no way I'd ever play some of my combo decks (any Mirror March...) in
paper.

~~~
Qworg
Sadly, many combo decks that are perfectly viable run up against the clock in
Arena. If only there was loop detection to allow for "do this X times", it'd
be far better.

------
JorgeGT
There's no mention in the article, but as a kid I really liked the flavor text
at the bottom of some cards: witty, small fragments of an unknown fantasy
lore.

~~~
alok99
Well there is the whole MtG novel series for the (relatively) newer blocks and
sets. I wouldn't be surprised if some flavor texts are direct quotes.

~~~
EamonnMR
That definitely wasn't the case in the heyday of MTG novels, though they might
have gotten better at it more recently. Wizards is very open about its design
process:
[https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/116841](https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/116841)

------
Itaxpica
It's nice to learn about the backstory of Stasis in particular. The card art
in Magic was gorgeous all around back then, but Stasis in particular has
always been one of my favorites. Totally iconic, highly unique stylistically
but still a great fit for what the card is and does. It's a real classic of
the genre.

~~~
rubinelli
Stasis is probably one of the worst cards to play against, to be unable to do
anything as your opponent slowly chips at your life total or makes you draw
your whole deck, but at least that gives you a lot of time to admire the
lovely art.

------
thom
If there's one thing that has made me fall in love with Magic all over again,
it's my boy trying to get into Yu-Gi-Oh, which is one of the most absurdly
complicated games I've ever tried to learn. In Magic, no matter how big the
rulebook is now, the core interactions and vast majority of cards are
incredibly simple (and still flavourful!), and all the complexity is more or
less optional, in terms of playing with more rares or different sets. It's
astonishing how much stuff Garfield got right 25+ years ago, whether by
accident or not, but I hope to be playing the game for the next 25 years as
well.

~~~
thom
Also worth pointing out that there's a Mythic Championship on right now, if
anyone wanted to get a feel for how the competitive game looks in 2019:

[https://www.twitch.tv/magic](https://www.twitch.tv/magic)

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> So, in Magic, the rare cards are often the more interesting cards, but the
most powerful cards are meant to be common so that everybody can have a
chance.

It's funny but just today I was playing a match in M:tG Arena and I noticed
that I used a card's rarity to make a decision. The card was Worthy Knight, a
2/2 creature and I was trying to decide whether to attack into it with my own
creature, a Pelt Collector (at the time also a 2/2, with a +1/+1 counter).
Normally, in that situation, I wouldn't attack with Pelt Collector - I'd wait
for it to grow a bit and then attack so it wouldn't just trade.

However, I wasn't sure what Worthy Knight was doing in the opponent's deck,
but I noticed it was a rare (I didn't know the card, it's from the new set,
Sword of Eldraine).

Now, normally that would make no difference, but there is no trading in M:tG
Arena, as there is in the physical game, so rare cards are harder to come by
in Arena than they are in the physical game. Given that Arena booster packs
only have eight cards, when physical booster packs have 15 cards, a full set
of four of any rare represents a more significant investment (of money, or
time) on the part of its owner.

Based on this I figured that, if the opponent was running Worthy Knight (and
likely a set of four given I'd seen it in the first turn), then it must be
somehow important to their strategy. So I attacked with Pelt Collector and we
traded (i.e. the two creatures killed each other in combat).

~~~
Aeolun
If he used it to block it clearly wasn’t so important to his strategy though?

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
I think they recognised Pelt Collector was important enough to my own strategy
to be worth the trade. I did regret it later. I think I lost that game
actually (too many bloody knights).

Edit: I mean, Pelt Collector is like the creature kill magnet. It seems
players know it's a powerful card and do their best to get rid of it as early
as possible.

Edit 2: Oh, I remember now. They just played another one next turn. They
probably had it in hand from the start. I should have waited with the
Collector.

------
YeGoblynQueenne
>> “One of the underlying premises of the game,” he said, “is that there’s
supposed to be a very simple set of rules and all the cards are exceptions.
Every card allows you to break the rules at some point. That’s how I think of
it.”

That's Garfield of course and it's his game, but I think it's more accurate to
describe the game as an abstract machine and the text on the cards (the
"ability text") as its inputs that change the machine's state. Seen another
way, the ability text language is the scripting language of the game's rules
engine.

The language itself is fascinating. Formally, it's a Controlled Natural
Language, but I doubt there is any other CNL that has been in constant use by
so many people, while undergoing so many changes to its syntax and vocabulary.

Consider for instance the ability text of the card, Stasis, discussed in the
article:

    
    
      Players do not get an untap step.
      Pay {U} during upkeep or Stasis 
      is destroyed.
    

That was what was printed on the card in its original, Limited Edition Alpha
printing. The same text is now listed as follows on The Gatherer, Wizards' of
the Coast M:tG online card database:

    
    
      Players skip their untap steps.
      At the beginning of your upkeep
      sacrifice Stasis unless you pay 
      {U}.
    

Note how the original card uses "destroyed" while the new text uses
"sacrificed" to describe what happens if "you" (the player "controling"
Stasis) does not pay {U} (one blue mana) during your upkeep step. In short,
"destroy" and "sacrifice" now have different meanings. In particular, while
both abilities ultimately move a permanent from its controller's Battlefield
to its owner's Graveyard zone, "sacrificing" a permanent doesn't "destroy" it,
so effects that replace destruction (like regeneration) cannot prevent a
permanent from being moved to its owner's graveyard. Neither can
"Indestructible", an ability that precludes destruction, prevent sacrifice.

So the ability text language started very loose and informal, a language aimed
to help players understand how a card is meant to be played, but over time it
has morphed into something else entirely, a precise formal language that
leaves no room for ambiguity, given of course a good knowledge of the rules.

~~~
rantwasp
yeah. the guy who invented it does not know.

-5/-5 for you + you must suffle all of your library into your graveyard

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
If I have a library, I must be a player. In that case, how do I get -5/-5?
Players don't have P/T.

~~~
scubbo
Form of the Dragon begs to differ... /s

~~~
YeGoblynQueenne
Form of the Dragon "makes you a dragon" in the sense that your life total
becomes 5 and it also deals 5 damage to a creature or player (but not
planeswalker because there weren't any back then, as a card type).

But, a life total is a unique characteristic of players, not creatures, and
it's not P/T, while the ability to directly damage a creature or player is
distinctly different from the ability to _attack_ a player (and enter combat
with a blocking creature). So no, Form of the Dragon doesn't make you into a
creature.

I suppose a card that actually turned the player into a creature, now that
would be a fun card and I guess it could be done without even a token to
represent the creature since you have the person's own body as a physical
representation. You could get vigilance to avoid having to tap, because that
would be awkward. Some people might misunderstand the ability of a creature to
"attack" an opponent and that might cause some trouble. Anyway, probably a
card for an un-set.

/p

(for pedantry).

------
ryanmercer
A very long time ago (16-18 years ago) I saw that one of the artists (Dameon
Willich) was also in the SCA and did equestrian stuff, I found an email
address on some website for the period equestrian stuff for him and shot him
an email saying I think it's really cool that he's doing the sorta stuff I
like doing and to keep having fun.

Replied to me pretty quick, asked for my address and sent me a signed artist
proofs of all the cards he had designed which was really cool because they
have the card on the front but the backs were blank, just white. It made my
month, any time we went to play at a store I'd get them out and set them out
and if anyone asked "oh these are my artist proof good luck charms" just for
an excuse to show them off.

Sadly all of my MtG cards went up in flames at a friend's apartment 3 or 4
years ago when he lost everything (including one of his two dogs) in a New
Year's day fire.

I just looked him up again, he's still doing the period stuff, and dropped him
a line thanking him, brought a smile to my face and I'd probably not thought
about that in the better part of decade, good times.

------
smabie
I really enjoyed mtg as a kid but played a few games recently and discovered I
don’t really like it. I feel the use of mana makes the game slow and clunky.
Moreover, a deck of 60 cards is a _lot_. My favorite card game nowadays is
Gwent. With the small deck size and single card mulligans you can mitigate
almost all bad luck and chance and design a really tight and cohesive deck.
Also I love the 3 round format, makes the game very interesting.

Mtg at this point just feels dated and I think there’s better ccgs around. Net
runner is also great and imo, deeper than mtg. The asymmetrical nature of it
also makes things very interesting and deep.

~~~
alasdair_
The latest “London” mulligan rule is far better than the older rules and only
became standard a fee weeks ago. It helps mitigate the mana issue
fantastically well.

------
AcerbicZero
I've seen MTG played, and I've had a few friends try to get me into it, but
the idea of collecting a big shoe box full of cards never appealed. In a way I
see it much like WH:40k, super interesting looking game, but with such a high
barrier to entry as to make it functionally unattainable. Also unless I'm
mistaken don't most MTG cards come in "packs" where you don't know what you're
actually getting? I have zero interest in loot boxes, virtual or physical, so
thats a big negative for me.

To each there own of course, but I think I'll avoid this particular time/money
sink.

~~~
enneff
You don’t ever have to open a booster pack if you buy all singles on the
secondary market, as many players do.

There are also draft formats where you pay to play against others from the
pool of cards opened from a set of packs. The choosing of the cards is a deep
meta game of its own. These are pretty affordable in general.

And you can play online which is cheaper still.

------
otakucode
I would love to hear the original audio from that game between a precoscious 6
year old and Garfield. It sounds like it would be totally adorable and also
informative. I got the Magic bug in junior high school in the early 90s and it
was a blast that definitely enhanced my life and expanded my friend circle
throughout high school. I vividly remember going to a small local tournament,
meeting a ton of people and very much having a feeling of 'these are my
people'. It was amazing.

That was back in 4th edition days I think (I know it was during release of The
Dark expansion, I bought a box of boosters for that... was a bit
disappointed). It seems the rules have changed a bit since then and the game
itself is quite a bit more complicated. Lots of counters and tokens and such
that weren't so much of a thing back then.

------
k__
Magic is an awesome game.

Taught me how strategy and tactic work together.

How you make weaknesses my strengths.

But most importantly, it taught me not to play the games of others, but to
play my own game.

------
make3
the part about rare cards not being stronger than common cards is really not
true anymore sadly, with competitively payable planeswalkers like Oko, for
example, often being 50$+ each, and pretty much every card in competitive
decks except basic lands being rare or mythic rare

------
lordleft
I've recently gotten back into MTG, and Commander in particular. If you think
you know magic, check out the Commander format -- it feels so political, so
dynamic, so buck wild.

D&D is still my favorite game, but man is magic up there for me.

------
paulpauper
Like many others reading this, I wish i had kept my old cards or invested in
the alpha,beta editions when they were merely just expensive compared to the
price they are now. The oldest MTG cards are like the original bitcoin
equivalent.

------
oneepic
I almost got into Magic just because the cards looked so cool, but my aunt
(who showed me my cousin's cards) said I was too young for that somehow.
Anyway, that's how I became a Yu-Gi-Oh! player instead...

------
Phillips126
Growing up I enjoyed playing Magic: The Gathering with my friends - simpler
times. I remember having a pretty killer "Goblin Deck". Alas, that was 20+
years ago and are nothing more than feint memories.

------
seanwilson
Is there a good link that concisely describes the rules of the game?

~~~
wyre
The rules are too large for there to be a concise resource to learn all of
them. I would recommend learning the basic rules and then learning the
intricacies playing the game with others. YouTube is probably a good resource
for learning the game or go into you local game store and tell the staff you
are interested in learning.

Be warned, mtg is addictive and expensive.

~~~
seanwilson
What's a good concise guide for the basic rules then?

~~~
wyre
I can't recommend a good guide because I learned from playing with friends.
But an Internet search "how to play magic the gathering" or a YouTube search
for the same thing should give you a lot of lot of guides to choose from.

If you have a local game store going in and asking if they have any resources
for new players hoping to learn how to play would probably be the best option,
imo.

Boardgames are social thing. Magic is the best when there is a gathering.

~~~
cmaggard
MTG Arena, their latest online effort, also has a "learn to play" mechanism
built in.

------
diego898
Does anyone know if/where one could download all the art from Magic the
Gathering? If not all, any subsets? Not necessarily generic wallpapers, but
the actual card art.

~~~
Noumenon72
Scryfall has the biggest-sized art if you're looking one card at a time.
[https://scryfall.com/card/me1/54/vesuvan-
doppelganger](https://scryfall.com/card/me1/54/vesuvan-doppelganger)

------
crtlaltdel
love MtG, started at the end of general availability (locally anyhow) of the
beta release around 6th grade. still have cards, still play with my spouse
once or twice a year.

i even still buy the occasional booster pack.

------
simonebrunozzi
Is there an easy way to learn MtG online, without buying cards?

~~~
pcmaffey
[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magic-
duels/id881106329](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/magic-duels/id881106329)

------
thedaemon
"How Not To Type a Title."

