Card Advantage with Brian Weissman

All podcast content by Mark Rosewater

Mark Rosewater: 

I'm not pulling out of my driveway! We all know what that means! It's time for another Drive to Work, At Home Edition. So today I want to talk about a concept that's very important to Magic. That's a little on the complex side. Card advantage. So what I've done is I got an expert, Brian Weissman, longtime pro player, creator of The Deck, one would argue the first ever recorded deck that took advantage of card advantage, to come talk about what is card advantage. So hey Brian.

 

Brian Weissman: 

How's it going, Mark, thanks for having me on.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, so this is going to be like a wading pool, what they call a zero entry pool, where we're going to start very shallow. And then as we go along, we'll get to the deep end. So we're not going to start at the deep end, but we will get there. Okay, so Brian.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yes.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

In simplest terms, what is card advantage?

 

Brian Weissman: 

In simplest terms, Mark, card advantage is simply the idea that the easiest, almost deterministic route to winning a game of Magic is to dominate your opponent in resources, specifically in the resources of cards, either by destroying more of their cards for fewer of yours, or more simply, by drawing more cards than your opponent. And the essential idea that if you accomplish that, winning the game becomes inevitable, regardless of their strategy and generally, regardless of your strategy. Okay,

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, so let's just walk through some simple examples.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Okay.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

 Okay, so let's take Divination.
Okay, so Divination, you spend mana, you draw two cards. So you've spent one card, but you've drawn two cards,

 

Brian Weissman: 

Precisely.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And I mean, drawing cards is kind of the most simplest version of card advantage, right? I spent one card, I got more than one card.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Precisely. And I think on this on the surface, on face value, it's a very relatively easy concept to understand. Mainly because I think if you... if you pay attention to what people value the most about a given turn in Magic, one of the behaviors that I observe a lot when people are learning the game, and something that was totally endemic to all of the players that I first started playing Magic with back in early 1994, was that everybody really, really wanted to draw a card more than anything else. As soon as their turn began, often at the expense of the untap step, and sometimes even the upkeep step, people would reach over to their deck and grab another card. It was clearly obvious to people that they understood that drawing a card was fundamentally important, not only for entrenching their strategy, but also for just enjoying the game more. More cards means more options, more mana to do the things you want, and eventually gets you to whatever the theme of your deck is. And so I think that early on, most players recognize that drawing cards feels good, and it's powerful in some way that they may not necessarily understand. But in terms of really getting into the nitty gritty of what made that so important, it took a little bit of time for that to be understood in the community.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, so let's now... the second example here is Mind Rot. Mind Rot is a spell that makes your opponent discard two cards. So assuming your opponent has two cards, although most likely if you're casting Mind Rot, they have two cards. I cast one card, they lose two cards. So now this is this is another--as we're getting into this pool, the idea that it's not that I'm going up in cards, it's that I have--in the comparison to my opponent, I have played one, I lost one card, but they lost two cards. So let's talk a little bit about like, the idea that it's--I have more cards in relation to my opponent.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yes, exactly. And I think that getting back to one of the things that I really like to explain to new players and one of the things that is a really good indicator whether or not something matters a lot is how people feel about it emotionally. And anybody that's ever been forced to discard cards kind of has that that icky feeling in the middle of their chest that kind of feels uncomfortable to be made to discard. And when I think back to Magic's early days, there was there was one incredibly powerful discard spell called Mind Twist that was considerably more powerful than Mind Rot. Basically imagine Mind Rot, but it scales. You can cast--spend as much mana as you want on it. And the discard is a random discard rather than a choice discard, which feels a lot worse. 

But it wasn't until the Fallen Empires expansion was printed in I think mid to late 1994 that a lot of people were playing with discard because a two black mana discard spell called Hymn to Tourach was printed. And everybody was playing with it because it was a common card and it was in just hundreds of decks. And it created a really kind of uncomfortable game experience for a lot of players. People began to realize I think around the time when Hymn to Tourach came out, that making your opponent discard was a strategy unto itself, and begin to understand why that was a thing. Because it felt bad to discard. You weren't really sure, you threw cards in the graveyard, was that the same as the cards being milled off the top of your library by Millstone?
kind of seems the same, but it isn't really the same. And it certainly felt a lot worse. 

And I think gradually, people came to understand that if you could make your opponent lose additional resources for fewer cards than you were expending to do that, that it got you further ahead and it made the situation, you began to feel more powerful in the context of the game. And they began to feel weaker. And I think that was a clue that there was something really important going on there. That it wasn't just necessarily I'm drawing more cards than you. It was, it was the idea that I'm losing options. I'm losing my foothold in this game. Something important is happening here. And it seems like it's kind of leading to the guy doing--causing all the discard to win a disproportionate number of games.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, so the next example is, I cast a spell. I'll use Fireball, I guess. I cast a spell in which I have one spell, but I'm able to destroy two creatures with it. So the idea is I've cast one spell... now, note, these aren't cards in their hand. These are creatures on the battle. So the next thing to understand is when we say cards, we don't just mean cards in hand. Both discard and drawing are talking about cards in hand. But now we're starting to talk about, I went up in cards because they lost two cards on the table, and I lost one card in my hand. So let's talk about the idea that it's not just cards in hand, but just cards you have.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, precisely. I mean, it elicits that same feeling. You overextend on the board, your opponent casts a Wrath of God--an early creature removal spell from alpha that everybody was playing with. It was a rare, so you didn't see it a ton and it cost double white. But still, the card showed up a lot. Certainly Earthquake was around, Fireball was around.

In Legends, they printed the card Pyrotechnics, which could deal--kill a bunch of creatures. Anytime that happened, you would feel like, ugh, I feel kind of gutted as a result of that. I lost my three guys off the battlefield,  that felt bad, but I kind of just feel like I'm really falling behind now. I just feel like I have far fewer options, a lot less going on. And my opponent just feels like they're getting a dominant position. 

And so again, it became really apparent that you didn't just need to mess around and interact with cards in hand, drawing more cards, making them discard. But if you could get two for one or three for one or four for one, on the battlefield, from cards that had already been played, it was kind of the same sense of getting much further ahead in the game right away from something that was clearly impactful.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, so the next example, I'm gonna use Giant Growth  to talk about going both directions. How you can lose card advantage with--Giant Growth can gain card advantage or lose you card advantage. As example for gaining card advantage is, I'm attacking with a two two creature, and my opponent has--what's a good example--three one--

 

Brian Weissman: 

A pair of 1/1s.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

A pair of 1/1s. Okay. A pair of 1/1s is good. I'm attacking with a 2/2, they have two 1/1s. Or it even can be--the thing about 1/1s is, they were going to trade both their 1/1s for your 2/2.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, maybe a 1/1 and a 1/2.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Yeah, a 1/1 and a 1/2, the idea being that I wasn't going to destroy both  of their creatures. I was going to destroy one of their creatures, but not both of their creatures. And then you cast Giant Growth. Now it's a 5/5, and instead of them losing one creature, they lost both creatures,

 

Brian Weissman: 

Exactly. To a single spell that cost only one mana, and a very similar situation that happened a lot was the card Lightning Bolt, one red mana instant, deal three damage, and so you'd have that exact scenario. I attack with a 3/3, my opponent puts two 2/2s in front of it thinking that they're going to trade a 2/2 for a 3/3, I Bolt away one of the other guys, now a 2/2 hits a 3/3 and I kill two creatures for one red mana. incredibly potent effect that also just feels backbreaking when it happens to you.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And the other important thing with this example is, it's not that a Giant Growth is inherently card advantage. It doesn't--a lot of times I can attack with the creature and Giant Growth it, hit you... I haven't gained any card advantage. So it's not that Giant Growth is inherently card advantage. But it can be. And that's the thing to understand is that, like--a Divination is always card advantage, I'm always going up in cards, but a Giant Growth--situationally I could go up in cards. But let's use the other example. Here's where it can cost you card advantage, which is I'm attacking with a 2/2 creature, I use Giant Growth on it, and then like the Lightning Bolt you're talking about, in response to my Giant Growth, you would Lightning Bolt my creature. Now, I lose my creature, and my Giant Growth essentially went for nothing. I--it doesn't do anything because there's no--the creature isn't there anymore. So now I've lost card advantage by casting Giant Growth.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah. And you go through that experience, having a creature Bolted or in--more commonly Swords to Plowshared back in the era. One white mana, exile a creature and the person gains life from the--equal to the power of the creature that was exiled. But the same exact thing, I try to pump up my guy somehow, enhance my guy as a combat trick, and then my guy gets blown away from underneath me. And I lose two cards for one and feel quite awful. And so totally interchangeable, right? All the cards, whether it's the situation we described at the very beginning, simply drawing more cards, making your opponent discard more cards, getting two for one, getting three for one on the battlefield with some kind of a sweeper, or even a combat trick. Giant Growthing during, you know, a multi block or something like that. Or killing a bander when your opponent tried to block with a banding creature and you kill the other thing, any one of those things gets you further into the game, and makes it considerably harder for your opponent to recover their position. And if it happens a couple of times, you'll often engineer the ideal situation where you have three or four cards in your hand, and parity on the battlefield or even a lead, and your opponent has nothing in their hand and is reduced to drawing a single card per turn off the top.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, so all of these examples so far are super practical, right? That you can look--you can look back at what happened, you can count the number of cards, and you can see, oh, one player at the end of it ended up has more cards in relation to the other player.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Exactly, yes.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, so now the next step is the idea that I can play a card that costs you cards, but not immediately. So for example, let's say I play a card. We were talking old school today, so I'll use an old school card. I play a Circle of Protection.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yes,

 

Mark Rosewater: 

So Circle of Protection is an enchantment that you can spend one generic mana to prevent any source of that color. So I play--let's say you're playing red, and I play Circle of Protection: Red, how's this card advantage? Nothing got lost. So why is this card advantage?

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, in fact, actually, it feels initially the opposite, right? I play a Circle of Protection: Red, and it doesn't immediately impact the board, you still have all your red spells in hand, you still have your red creatures in play, it feels like I've actually spent two mana and a card that I've drawn to accomplish nothing. But the problem is that the Circle of Protection: Red, provided that you have mana to fuel it, not only neutralizes most of the red spells in your opponent's hand, but more importantly, it is a future negation. Every red card that they draw. Now, particularly if they're drawing a deck that's based around dealing damage directly to the player every single time they now draw Chain Lightning or Lightning Bolt, Pyrotechnics or Fireball or whatever, they're unable to do any damage. So it's almost as if their draw step didn't matter at all. And we talked before about how you're gleeful and happy to draw your card every turn. That's the really fun part of the game. Well, when your opponent has a Circle of Protection: Red in play, you're not looking forward to drawing off the top of your deck, unless it's maybe the one or two cards in your deck that might interact with that Circle of Protection: Red. You might not even have any way to deal with it at all. And in fact, it wasn't until I think the card Anarchy was printed in Ice Age, or maybe it was... was Anarchy in Alliances? It's around then.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Anarchy is from Ice Age, I believe. [Yes. -LTH]

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah. And it destroys all white permanents in play. A red sorcery. And it wasn't until anarchy--

 

Mark Rosewater: 

A color break by the way, that card shouldn't have been printed.

 

Brian Weissman: 

You learned some lessons, I think. I think you've done a few videos about that sort of thing. But anyway, it wasn't until anarchy was printed that red actually had a direct way of dealing with enchantments. And so if you put a Circle of Protection: Red in play. for a single spell, you could often nullify 30 cards in their deck. In play in hand, whatever, it was one of the most powerful card advantage cards in the world. So people think, oh, Circle of Protection: Red is unsportsmanlike, it's so powerful, it's strong. But what it really is, is it's just the ultimate card advantage card when it's employed against a deck that's very narrow, like a mon-red burn deck or something,

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Right, and so that's the next thing to understand on card advantage is, it's not necessarily that I'm trying to get more cards in the immediate present, right now. But it could be that I'm--over the course of the game, I'm going to make cards, I'm going to go up on cards. And so--now here's the next thing for us to explain. The difference between card advantage and virtual card advantage. So--

 

Brian Weissman: 

I see, yeah.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

So card advantage means that we actually count the cards, you know, I'm up in cards. I have more cards than you. If you count all my cards in play and cards in my hand, you know, there's--I have more cards than you do.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Right.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Virtual card advantage, and this is kind of what the Circle of Protection: Red was getting at is, it's not that that card necessarily made them discard cards or destroyed cards, but it made cards they have kind of not be useful anymore.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, (???)

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And so you went up cards, but you went up virtual cards. And that, that card--yeah, they still have it. It's still in their hand. You can count it, but it's not advancing them toward winning.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, the best example I can think of in that regard was a situation that happened a lot back in the day. An enchantment that was printed in Legends, one of the most powerful enchantments ever made. And oddly enough, not an Enchant World--even though I don't believe there are any Enchant Worlds in white [There are just a few -LTH]--is the card Moat.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Yeah.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Costs two generic, two white mana. And simply, while it's on the battlefield, it says non flying creatures cannot attack, hard stop. And back when Moat was around, and people were still learning the game, I'd have people walk up to games that I was playing, and I'd have a Moat in place, sort of just, you know, surreptitiously sitting on the side of the battlefield, and they'd have 11 creatures in play, and the person would walk up and their initial assumption would be, look how many creatures are in play on one side of battlefield. That guy must be winning. And then they notice that over in the right corner, I have this singular enchantment holding all of those creatures at bay. And my hand has several ways to stop any attempt that they might make to get rid of the Moat. Consequently, all 11 of those creatures are effectively dead, rendered totally irrelevant, as well as any additional creatures they might draw from their deck. So the Moat in that situation is more powerful than Mind Twist. 

More powerful than Brain Geyser, a card drawing spell that allows you to draw X cards in addition to the blue, initial casting cost of it. So you think oh, Brain Geyser for eight is really powerful. Well, a Moat that destroys 10 creatures in play and 13 more creatures in their deck is way better than Brain Geyser. And understanding that that's a real thing is kind of a big lightbulb moment for people when they're learning how to play the game better.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, now here--as we continue to delve deeper here.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

The next thing that interesting is, cards are--situationally create advantage. Like virtual advantage means, well, I play a card, and it means something. Now, in the case of Moat, you might have things in play. So like, you could right away invalidate things.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Right.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

But sometimes what happens is, by watching you play your deck, I'm figuring out what I believe is in your deck. And then I play a card. And sometimes there are cards where you get to name something, you can use knowledge that you have, but I play something that's going to cause you problems, not because you--not that I've seen it yet, but I can anticipate. And so I'm--the card advantage is like future virtual card advantage. Which is a very odd concept. But the idea that I'm going to do something, because I've read you and I understand what you're doing, and that I'm causing you problems in the future. So let's talk a little bit about sort of future--future virtual card advantage.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, I mean, I think that--I think to understand the value of of what you're describing, future card advantage, I think that you have to kind of make a mental leap as a player where you develop from the idea of dealing with the here and now and starting to develop your strategy so that you incorporate some planning. You begin to think about, what could I draw? What could the opponent draw? And as soon as you start to consider those things, not just what is the creature in play that I have to block or remove, but more of what could the person have down the road, and you start to formulate a strategy. Cards, like the ones you're describing, which sort of preemptively deal with things become increasingly attractive. And you can start to actually sculpt and plan a strategy where you are not even necessarily dealing with the stuff that's in play, but you're sculpting a situation where everything that they draw from that point onward is nullified. And those lead to some of the most powerful and advanced decks that have ever been played in constructed magic.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And the other thing to remember is, the thing where it starts getting very complicated is, sometimes I can do something--like the example Circle of Protection is one for one, meaning I play Circle of Protection and red cards now can't be played. I play Moat and non-flyers can't attack--non-flyers, non-islandwalkers can't attack.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

But sometimes I can do something where it's--it's not on destroying a particular card, is I'm making certain strategies harder. Could we talk a little bit about that?

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, I think so. I would say that probably the class of cards that's in that case, I'm very glad that you brought that up, actually, because I--in an article I wrote many years ago, I think probably almost 30 years ago, where I talked about this idea, I think the best example of that are cards that are directly involved in resource denial, specifically cards like Winter Orb, and Armageddon.

Winter Orb is a two mana artifact that was printed in Alpha. It shows up in Commander, particularly competitive Commander fairly often. And it says that during the untap step, players only are allowed to untap a single land. The remainder of their lands are--stay tapped. So if you play a Winter Orb, and your opponent has a hand full of cards and all of their lands are tapped, they may draw three, four or five spells consecutively and be unable to do anything and actually be forced to discard. So for two mana, because of the situation that you've sculpted, your opponent is discarding the cards that they draw off the top of their deck rather than playing them. And maybe if they discard three or four cards, that Winter Orb has gotten four for one or five for one, then they play one card through the Winter Orb, tapping out again. And then the next four or five cards they draw are nullified by it. And so--and Armageddon, the famous sorcery from Alpha. One white, three generic, destroys all lands in play, can create very much the same situation and can straight up just win the game a lot of the time, too. And it's not just that you lose your mana. It's the fact that you've had such a crippling crushing blow to the card advantage dynamic between the two players, that the other person is just out of the game. They're not dead yet. But they're out.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Here's what I like to think about it, which is imagine when you cast that spell, it splits. Now there's two timelines, one of which you cast the spell and one which you didn't cast the spell.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Ah, that's great.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Like a lot of what you're talking about is well, they actually discard the card, but I'm like--it's not even that. In one timeline where I did do it, they play some number of cards. In the timeline where I didn't do it, they play a different number of cards. If in another timeline they played more cards, every card they played that wasn't played in the timeline where you did play it is card advantage. (???), for example, like I play and they can only play three cards for the rest of the game. Where if I didn't, and they played eight cards, I netted this sort of virtual five cards.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yes--I know, I love that analogy, that makes a ton of sense. And that's a really--it's an excellent way of looking at it, this sort of split timeline. And you'll often--and people recognize this instinctively, too, because when the game is over, in the game that you cast the Armageddon, you cast Winter Orb, the person says, "Oh, I would have done this. And I would have done this. And I had this card and I had this, and I would have done this," and you're like, "Well, you couldn't do any of those things. Because I had a Winter Orb in play, you were limited to doing one thing, every four turns."

 

Okay, so the next level--as we go deeper?

 

Sure.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

So sometimes, because you can read what your opponent wants to do, you can take steps that makes it so they have trouble doing that.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Of course.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

For example, let's just use Giant Growth, because that's a great example. If you read them as having Giant Growth, you can act in such a way that a Giant Growth isn't going to cause card advantage--card disadvantage for you.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Right.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

So what that means is, sometimes card advantage is a matter of understanding the situation where you might suffer card disadvantage, and not allowing those opportunities. Could we talk a little about that?

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, I think that--that comes down to of course, understanding specific interactions and playing around a range of effects in a situation where you might be vulnerable. So another example would be, let's say I've got a creature enchantment in my hand. And it's a creature enchantment that draws a card, whenever the creature deals damage. I could just play it on my guy and try to attack and try to get a card out of it right away. But he's got three mana sitting there untapped, you know, two red and white or something. And I can't just play it, because if he has any range of red and white removal spells, I might lose card advantage. I might lose the creature and the enchantment. But if I wait until he's tapped out, then I know that I can safely invest in the creature, get through for an attack, at least have the enchantment replace itself.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Let me say real quickly, just to--so the audience understands, if I have an enchantment that says "when this enters the battlefield draw a card," if the creature I'm putting it on is not there, meaning it fizzles, then the effect doesn't happen.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, I'm just thinking more along the lines of it of a card like Curiosity, for example.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Oh, sure, when it does damage. Sure.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Right, the idea that when the creature attacks and deals combat damage, you get to draw a card from it. So it's the idea that I really want to play this. But I recognize that if my opponent has three untapped, and he's playing red and white, there's a high probability--or black, he might be able to kill my creature at instant speed and I lose two for one. So by understanding that and waiting until he's tapped out, so that I guarantee that I at least get through for an attack, that at least nullifies the the aspect of that interaction that would result in me getting two for one.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And the important point here for card advantage is, early on--like we go back to our first example, with the Divination, that has kind of card advantage separated from gameplay, right? If I cast the Divination, I am going up in card--I mean, barring some very weird cases, but I'm gonna go up in cards, and my opponent isn't interacting with that. I'm just gaining card advantage.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Exactly.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

But as we look at the stuff we're getting to now, it's like, there's a lot of card advantage that has to--from understanding the game and playing correctly and reading what your opponent's doing, that a lot of card advantage is putting myself in situations where I'm increasing card advantage or decreasing disadvantage, you know.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah.

 

Can I give a fairly technical explanation of that idea?

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Sure.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Okay, so back in old school format, back in the day, the most powerful reliable card advantage engine was a four mana artifact called Jayemdae Tome, which was also printed in Alpha. By  modern standards, Jayemdae Tome is quite obsolesced. In fact, it's been printed for quite cheaper both to cast and activate, and hasn't seen widespread adoption. But in that era, Jayemdae Tome was the way that slower, deterministic control decks won games of Magic. So both players generally, if they were savvy, particularly the person playing with Jayemdae Tome, would recognize that the card was instrumental to their win. In fact, it was the win condition. It may have been a four mana artifact that didn't deal damage that took four to cast and four to activate to draw a single card. But it was actually your win condition. 

I used to tell people that every time I tapped my Jayemdae Tome, you may die to a Serra Angel later, but every time that Jayemdae Tome taps you're taking four damage. And if I tap it five times over the course of the game, you've already lost. It may take a little while for my angel to eventually finish you, or the Mirror Universe or a Fireball, but you've lost to the Jayemdae Tome already. It's actually the win condition. 

So because the card is so critical to your victory, protecting it is critical as well. And that may lead you, in the case of using counter magic, which is the other tool that control decks use to control the board state, is the prioritizing of Counterspell to protect Jayemdae Tome above all else.

 So I might let you kill two or three things in play with a Counterspell in my hand, because I recognize that my route to victory is actually casting a Jayemdae Tome three turns from now with enough mana to protect it. So when you try to kill the Jayemdae Tome, I Counterspell that. Now you can't kill it. And now the Jayemdae Tome starts dealing four damage a turn until the game's over. And that's a high sort of high mastery behavior that takes a lot of time to figure out, and back to what you were saying--it means that you need to understand intrinsically as a player, where the sources of card advantage are as the context of the game evolves.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, the next thing I want to explain is, we use the term card advantage just because that's the term we've used forever.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

"Card" is a little--can be a little misleading. So I also want to say that there are other resources. Tokens probably being the most famous example. Meaning when we're talking about cards, what we mean is things that you can use. So for example, there are strategies in which I'm going to keep making tokens, and my tokens are my card advantage. That I'm going to beat you because you're not stopping me from making the tokens, and that tokens eventually will overwhelm you. And so, once again, I just want to explain that we use the term card advantage, but that doesn't even mean it has to be cards. As you said earlier, really, it's about resources.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Right.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Cards are the simplest resources, but whatever the resource is, I'm doing something in which I'm going up on you. And token creatures are nice, because it's easy to understand. That, you know, if you have a token card to represent your token creature, and think of those as cards. You know, that's the other thing to understand is that there's many different facets for how you can do that. Okay, so--

 

Brian Weissman: 

(???)

 

Mark Rosewater: 

 Go ahead. Go ahead.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Oh no, it's fine. Go ahead.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

So now I want to explain where people get a little lost. Let's talk about looting. So looting is an effect where you draw a card and discard a card. So let's talk about, how is looting card advantage when you are not going up cards?

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, it's quite enigmatic I think to a lot of players. It's--I liken it a little bit to--I'm sorry to introduce another concept, but I talked about the idea of milling too. And there are a lot of people that when you initially start playing, they think that having their library milled by a card--like Millstone for example just mills two cards when it's used--is card advantage. They're thinking, oh, look, I'm putting cards in your graveyard. I'm getting ahead. This feels important. It feels powerful. And it certainly elicits bad feelings. But they're obviously very distinctly different. Looting, which involves drawing one card and then discarding a card, versus milling cards from the top of your opponent's library are not the same thing. And the real reason why looting can actually be quasi-card advantage is because there is an aspect to card advantage, particularly as it pertains to the idea of resources. That is, has to do with context. It's contextual. Cards can be very powerful at some point. At other times, they can be utterly redundant. Lands in particular, right? If you--if your deck runs off three or four mana, once you get to three or four mana and you're not interested in doing two or three things in a turn, every additional land you draw after that is useless. It's basically like a dead draw. It's just like drawing a creature when your opponent has Moat in play. And so if you have the ability to loot, you can exchange a totally dead or useless situational card for something that might be more powerful at that moment. And so that card selection can inevitably lead to victory in the same way that just simply drawing more cards can too.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And the way to think of it is, when we're talking about card advantage, one of the ideas we introduce is the idea that you can make dead cards. You can make cards that even though they have them in their hand or on the battlefield, they've lost their potency to win the game. To have any function. And so the reason that, you know, looting and things like it become very important for card advantage is, you need the ability to take sort of dead cards and turn them into live cards. And that is why looting--and there's a lot of other types of things. But anything in which I can trade, I can do a trade of a dead card for a live card--and when I say card, it could be a token, but you know, I'm taking a dead resource and turning into a usable resource. That is going up in card advantage from a virtual stand--I mean, that's why this gets very complicated, because...

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, no, it does. I think you can't overstate the point of context and timing in a game of Magic. And I think a really good example would be the cards Brainstorm and the card Ancestral Recall. So Ancestral Recall, arguably the most powerful Magic card ever printed, one blue mana, instant, target player draws three. So it's one blue mana draw three at instant speed, plus two hand size, tons more resources and options, just a bonkers card. And not in print since Unlimited Edition a million years ago. 

Contrast it with Brainstorm, which was printed in Ice Age and then reprinted a bunch of times, a Commander staple, draw three cards, then take two cards from your hand and put them back on top of your library. And so to a relatively inexperienced player, they might see those two cards side by side and think, huh. They both draw you three cards for one blue mana at instant speed. They must be roughly the same. But the brainstorm is effectively a double looting. effect, whereas the Ancestral is an actual card drawing effect. So they're not mechanically the same at all in terms of how they increase your hand size. But in a lot of games, casting Brainstorm wins you the game just as fast as casting Ancestral Recall does, because it contextually draws three cards in your hand right away, gives you more resources and options in that moment, even if you have to put cards from your hand back on top of your library. And so you can kind of understand, even though we're not doing the same thing here, the impact on the game is the same. And it was actually so apparent. After a while in I guess it was Vintage, or maybe Type I format, that Brainstorm eventually had to be restricted. In Type I, right alongside Ancestral Recall. The cards were almost functionally the same in most situations, which is kind of a really amazing thing to consider. That draw once, loot twice is most of the time the same as draw, draw, draw.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

One last thing before we have to wrap up soon here. So the one other concept I want to throw in here is, you can turn things that aren't resources into resources. So for example, let's say I--what's a good... Yawgmoth's Will, I guess. I guess since we're going old school today. Yawgmoth's Will is a spell that lets you--when you cast it, you now can cast things out of your graveyard.

 

Brian Weissman: 

And play lands too.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And play lands. But the idea there is, the sort of card advantage of it is, I took cards that were dead cards, cards in my graveyard, and I turned them at least even temporarily. And once again, we didn't even get into, like, card advantage can be temporary. I mean, there's a lot of nuance here. But by turning my graveyard into--I mean, it's kinda like I put them in my hand for the turn. I mean, at the end of turn, I have to discard them. So I don't get to keep them. But I get them for a turn. And that that is--Yawgmoth's Will is a very, very powerful card for that ability to just temporarily--

 

Brian Weissman: 

(???)

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Right, allow you to do something. Sort of give like temporary card advantage.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, I mean, imagine if Yawgmoth's Will read "one black, two generic, sorcery, draw your graveyard?"

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Yeah.

 

Brian Weissman: 

I mean, that's essentially what it is almost, right? But discard those cards at the end of the turn. It's almost exactly what that is. Three mana, draw your graveyard. That's pretty insane.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And so what that also means is that part of card advantage could be turning things into a usable card that previously weren't a usable card. And so for example, there's a card called Intuition, where you get four cards out of your library, and then your opponent chooses two of them, they go in your hand, and the two other ones go to your graveyard. And the way that card gets used that's very efficient is, I don't care what you pick, the cards being in my graveyard is just as useful to me as the cards being in my hand. So for all intents and purposes, I've drawn four cards. I've gone up four cards.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, and in some--in many cases, actually, because of the effects like flashback and so on, you might actually be up even more than that, right? Because the two cards that go to the graveyard, you might be able to play them anyway. So you're drawing four cards at instant speed for three mana.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

So anyway, hopefully today--today was kind of an intro to card advantage--is, it's a very interesting thing, in that--like I said, Brian, when did you make The Deck? So it was like '94?

 

Brian Weissman: 

Built in--first version was probably early April of 1994.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, so The Deck is kind of known as being the first sort of named deck, you know. The internet wasn't quite what it is now. So it wasn't as easy to share information.

 

Brian Weissman: 

[Laughs] Not at all.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

But the idea that card advantage, which was like the--you know, it was the engine that ran The Deck, until modern day, like card advantage is still a very important part of just Magic theory. I mean, that's kind of why I wanted to walk them through today, is that part of getting better at Magic is understanding, how do I win? Why do I win? What makes me win? And there are other concepts, card advantage isn't the only thing that matters, but it is a very potent idea that was true, you know, almost 30 years ago and it's true today.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yeah, I actually--I kind of--I wanted to talk very briefly to a card that's probably familiar to a lot of listeners, and that's the card Rhystic Study. From--which--I don't remember when it was printed...

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Prophecy, I believe is when it was.

 

Brian Weissman: 

In Prophecy, yeah. Incredibly powerful card that's all over the place in Commander, particularly because it's a very problematic mechanic when there's three other...

 

Mark Rosewater: 

(overlapping) Why don't you tell people what it does?

 

Brian Weissman: 

I'm sorry, yeah, one blue, two generic mana enchantment, it says whenever any opponent would cast a spell, any spell. If they do not pay an additional generic mana during the spell's resolution, actually on the casting of the spell. The Rhystic Study triggers and the controller of Rhystic Study draws a card. And once it's in play, all of the players have to monitor it if they're accountable to this. And what you'll notice is that the behavior of players around Rhystic Study is very demonstrative of their relative skill levels, and their understanding of the game in general. The savvy players, the people with experience understand that paying for Rhystic Study is very important. You can't just feed cards indiscriminately to the opponent. The less experienced players, the less sophisticated players who are more new to the game, will often just play stuff and not even pay the extra mana even when they can do it. And not out of some idea of collusion, it just doesn't occur to them that that's a thing that's quite deleterious to their ability to win the game. They just don't even notice. And so there's definitely a--there's kind of an evolution that goes on among players, where they go from being the person that happily just gleefully casts their spells into Rhystic Study, to being a person like me, who it causes me physical pain to allow players to draw cards, and I will bend over backwards to prevent you from ever drawing even one card from Rhystic Study, even if that means that it's constraining my development for you know, half the game, and you have to treat it that way. And when players really begin to recognize that--you can kind of do a gut check. Whenever you start to get that feeling that my opponent is drawing extra cards, and it's making me uncomfortable, you're kind of starting to understand what's going on and why it's so important.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

And the one thing I will say, for people that this is a new concept for them, the next time you play, it's kind of fun just to sort of notice--that's the first step I say when you're beginning, just try to notice when card advantage happens. Just be thinking about like, oh, I cast this one spell and they lost two spells. And once again, it could be on the battlefield, in their hand, just I spent one spell, and they lost two spells. You know, And the spells can be permanents, I mean, they can be, you know, tokens and stuff. But that's the first step, I think, to understanding card advantage, is just noticing it happening in the game.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Absolutely. And there was the--opportunities to make that observation are everywhere in the game of Magic. I mean, in a game of Commander, for example, you're often engaged in card advantage effects, literally from turn one. And every single decision you make from that point onward is predicated on, how do I get--how do I establish card advantage in this game? How do I draw more cards? How do I make my opponent discard more cards? How do I nullify key things that give them card advantage, or protect the things that give me card advantage and so on. And once you begin to understand that and you recognize that, you can sculpt an entire sort of meta strategy around that idea, and it's very effective.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

So I'm gonna leave everybody with one--here's the most important lesson I remember learning early in the early days, which comes out of card advantage isth e following, is--the thing that keeps you from getting better at Magic, is you. Like, you are making decisions that with more knowledge and more understanding, that you will--you know, like--absolutely anybody can get better. It's just a matter of saying, oh, I am doing things that if I learned not to do them, or I learned to do things a little differently, I will become a better Magic player. And that's a really important first step to be getting better at Magic is understanding that you are in control of whether you are better or not.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Yes, precisely, exactly. Just be self analytical, be self critical. Pay attention to what lets you win, and pay attention to what causes you to lose. And if you monitor that closely, you will inevitably improve. That's how we learned how to play this game in the first place. When I started playing in 1994, we had this little inscrutable manual, that we could barely even understand the rules in it much less the strategy. And it was just a systematic way of paying attention to what worked and what didn't work and really honing in on the key components, the key mechanics of Magic, and at the heart of it, at least in 1994 and even to this day, is card advantage. It informs everything. It's sort of the unified theory of everything in Magic, it kind of does come down to that.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Okay, well, I want to thank you for being with us, Brian.

 

Brian Weissman: 

You're very welcome, Mark. Thanks for having me.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

I knew when we talked to this topic there was no better authority than you on card advantage. So I'm glad to have you with us.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Very, very glad to be on, Mark. Thank you.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

But anyway, guys, I can see my desk. So we all know what this means. This means instead of talking Magic, it's time for me to be making Magic. So I'll see you all next time. And once again, thanks, Brian.

 

Brian Weissman: 

Take care, Mark.

 

Mark Rosewater: 

Bye bye, everybody.