One of the things I’ve been trying to do is to get some opinions from some more prolific people in the Magic community. It seems like a pretty natural instinct to appeal to the most knowledgeable, and fortunately, I got a hold of Frank Karsten, recent Magic Hall of Fame inductee and Magic writer, including several pieces on Magic. This is going to be a somewhat long post, but here’s what our email exchange looks like. Feel free to add in on any of the points in either:<\/p>\n
Frank to Tom and me<\/p>\n
Course Syllabus <\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n
A Class? On That Silly Card Game?<\/strong><\/p>\n
Game Design: <\/span><\/p>\n
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- \u201c\u2026by understanding the intent of design, one can become a significantly better player.\u201d; you may (instead) argue that learning something about game design may also be useful for computer science students when making computer games or something like that.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Game Theory: <\/span><\/p>\n
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- \u201cThe history of game theory comes more from political situations and the arms race\u201d; I think historically, it actually originates from an analysis of parlor games and of economic situations of coalition formation (Von Neumann and Morgenstern\u2019s 1944 Theory of Games and Economic Behavior).<\/li>\n
- \u201cwhere the choices one must make choices\u201d; the second \u2018choices\u2019 is superflous<\/li>\n
- \u201cwhether to bluff, call, or fold\u201d; so in poker bluffing is equal to raising? J<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Week 1 – Overview of topics and the rules of Magic<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- What you cover in this week should be highly dependent on who actually takes the course. People that already know how to play the game don\u2019t need a rules overview and people that don\u2019t know how to play the game may very well need more than a week to fully understand the rules of the game. The latter type of people may learn more from http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/TCG\/NewtoMagic.aspx<\/a> and http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/Magazine\/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom\/academy\/2<\/a> and http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/Magazine\/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom\/academy\/4<\/a> than from an article on Magic Jargon.<\/li>\n
- Some of the information in the rules articles you listed for this class are now slightly outdated by the M10 rules (no damage on the stack anymore, etc.). I would add http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/Magazine\/Article.aspx?x=mtg\/daily\/feature\/42a<\/a> to the list of readings to account for the M10 updates.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Week 2 – Deckbuilding Basics and “Card Advantage”<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- I would not say that tempo is closely related to card advantage; in fact, a tempo play (such as playing Unsummon on an opponent\u2019s creature) is usually not a card advantage play.<\/li>\n
- I would add http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/Magazine\/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom\/academy\/12<\/a> as a great explanation of the concept of tempo. Furthermore, it may be useful to know that tempo is also used in chess (http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tempo_(chess))<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Week 3 – Game Theory in Multiplayer games<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- I never play any multiplayer, so I may be biased here \u2026 but I would move multiplayer (if you want to cover it at all) to the end of the class, or at least after probability and deckbuilding. I would rather first teach everything about the game itself and then afterwards move on to extensions such as multi-player Magic. Putting it in week 3 seems too early, especially when not everyone is a solid Magic duel player yet.<\/li>\n
- Note that game theory is not only applicable to multiplayer games but also to two-player games. I regularly roll dice on the Pro Tour to decide whether to block or not (since a mixed play leaves no strategic holes that can be taken advantage of by a good bluffer, as partially explained here http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/Magazine\/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom\/daily\/fk41<\/a>), for example. A game-theoretical analysis of bluffing is also applicable to games such as poker.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Week 5 – Statistics and Simulation in Deckbuilding<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- Wait, what are those articles on e.g. tempo doing there? I don\u2019t see what that has to do with statistics.<\/li>\n
- However, statistics can be a very useful tool in building decks and playtesting. In addition to the relevant and valid topics you want to tackle in this class, I can add some statistical questions that I had to answer in my preparation for Pro Tour Honolulu (these are real examples of how probability theory can be applied to relevant questions and are straightforward exercises on conditional probability):\n
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- With X lands and Y creatures in your Z-card deck, what is the probability that a Gift of the Gargantuan will yield either one or both?<\/li>\n
- When deck X has an A% chance of winning before sideboarding<\/em> against deck Y and a B% chance of winning after sideboarding<\/em> against deck Y, what is the probability of deck X winning a match<\/em> against deck Y?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- You could also discuss mulligan decisions here and use probability to show that keeping one-land opening hands is almost always a bad move. For example, take a one-land opening hand and calculate the probability of finding at least one land in the top 2 cards of your deck. From that extrapolate to the odds of winning the game if you keep the 7-carder and compare that to an (estimated) odds of winning the game if you go down to 6 cards. If the latter is higher (it almost certainly is), then you should mulligan.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Week 6 – Epistemic Logic and Limited<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- Some useful articles:\n
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- Introduction to drafting: http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/Magazine\/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom\/academy\/13<\/a><\/li>\n
- A booster draft signaling primer: http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/sideboard\/article.asp?x=sb20010223c<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Week 7 – Metagame and Applications of Graph Theory<\/strong><\/p>\n
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- I\u2019m curious to see what the graph theory will add here, since I\u2019ve never used it and perhaps it is valuable.<\/li>\n
- Two potentially useful articles (written by me, but that\u2019s what I remember best) detail how to calculate expected win percentage of decks depending on the metagame http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/Magazine\/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom\/daily\/fk23<\/a> and metagaming http:\/\/www.wizards.com\/Magic\/Magazine\/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom\/daily\/fk41<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Week 9 – Presentations<\/strong><\/p>\n