CCGs for “Fun”
Posted by Rob Herman at November 3rd, 2006
In the comments to yesterday’s article, John reminded me of a phenomenon that is common, but by no means exclusive, to Magic and other CCGs. I was about to bust out Play to Win and come down with a furious indictment of the practice of using the term “fun deck” as the antonym of “good deck,” but I had a change of heart. See below.
I still object strongly to the term “fun deck” to refer to a deck build poorly or built around some interesting but suboptimal feature. First, it implies that your opponent’s deck is by its very nature not fun, which is kind of a rude insult. Second, it’s vague. Back when I played Legend of the Five Rings, players would often complain that their opponents’ decks were not “interactive” enough. Sound innocuous? Read between the lines: “interactive” means “puts up a fight, but not so much of one that I can’t overcome it.” Landing a bass is “interactive.” Sure, it’s fun, but body is under the illusion that the fish is going to win. Don’t let your opponent call your deck “non-interactive.” That means they want you to roll over and die.
In the hands of jaded enough players, “fun,” “interesting,” “novel,” and “interactive” are all synonyms for “weak.” Don’t force your opponents to use these terms disparagingly about yours by claiming that their decks are none of these things.
In fact, I think it’s downright unfair to call a deck “not fun” or to claim that you have a “fun deck” while your opponent doesn’t. Clearly this is a category that 1) you just made up, 2) you’re not going to bother telling your opponent what it is and 3) your own deck, of course, is a perfect examplar. You owe it to your opponent to come up with a more concrete set of construction guidelines and share them. How about:
- Highlander-style (no more than one of a specific card)
- No more than X uncommons or Y rares
- Spend no more than 3 minutes thinking up the deck (and no using the Internet)
- Make a deck that incorporates two cards you didn’t consider usable before
…Or some combination of these.
So, the biggest reason I didn’t want to lay down a crashing indictment of the “for fun” mentality is that there are a lot of interesting cards that don’t see play because they just aren’t good enough. It seems like a shame to just have them go to waste. To get them to see play, though, you would need some highly restricted environment, and you need to tell everyone exactly what you mean. You could come up with your own format (“make 3 decks using a grand total of no more than 2 of any card from the last 3 expansions”) or play some kind of sealed-deck or booster draft environment. As far as I can tell the only downside to these is the slightly higher cost, but if you were going to buy the cards anyway you can’t go wrong.
It has become unclear to me whether we are discussing the virtues of playing to win vs. playing to experiment or are we discussing two people, both of whom are playing to win, and one is just a whiny jerk?
In John’s previous example he discussed two individuals who were both playing to win, however one had a deck that had a tactical advantage.
Yet whenever I’ve heard the term ‘fun deck’ it is usually stated before the game has begun. This is to explain that the deck may not be competitive, but was built either to see if it would work or to invoke situations that do not normally arise. Sometimes this includes a favorite card or two for style, or it maybe simply trying to play with rules that don’t usually get touched upon.
Either way I believe the importance of a serious deck vs. a ‘fun’ deck is more an issue of deck construction, and should be less an issue of the maturity of the players.
I also have no objection to the term “fun deck.” It is shorthand for a “just for fun deck.” It is frequently used to caution the opponent that playing a competitive deck may not result in a satisfying experience for either player. No challenge for the competitive deck, no opportunity for the weaker, just-for-fun deck. When a player starts accusing their opponent of playing a deck that isn’t fun, I think the problem is more that the player with the competitive deck appears to have taken pleasure in a victory without challenge while the player with the just-for-fun deck didn’t get any opportunity. In my opinion, the situation does have a strong element of one player having fun at the expense of the other player. I don’t like seeing that happen. It’s much better when both players have fun together.
WotC defines three player archetypes. One of the archetypes, Spike, plays just to win. The other two archetypes are usually playing to experience something within the game itself and it frequently occurs that Spike’s goals prevent that. I suppose that the conflict arises from the fact that players DO have different goals in a game of Magic besides just winning. You may disagree with their goals or have different ones of your own, but that isn’t going to change them. I think that the accusation of playing a deck that isn’t fun could be more accurately expanded to, “You’re playing a deck that doesn’t let me have any fun.” This line is a clear and obvious indicator that the players had different goals. The solution may be that both players need to find other players that more closely share their goals in the game. What players on both sides of the rift often fail to recognize, however, is that this is not a failure of either player. Neither one is playing the game incorrectly. Stated differently, implicit goals are explicitly encouraged in Magic.
I agree with MJB’s possible explanations of what a just-for-fun deck might want to do. Especially considering that Wizards of the Coast has explicitly stated that some of the cards they print are outright bad or exist NOT for competitive players, the game clearly is designed to have depth beyond playing with optimized tournament decks.
In general, I think that most casual play groups tend to play with a mix of suboptimal decks (both in concept and in execution.) In fact, this, to me, is the hallmark of a casual deck. It doesn’t mean that the deck isn’t designed to win. It just means that the deck is designed to win in a way that is worse than other ways. I most enjoy Magic when I am playing an optimized deck with a suboptimal pretense.
I think that the playing to win by doing everything in the rules simply does not create an even playing environment for Magic (and other CCG’s). The more money one is willing and able to put into the game provides more choices and better resources. When I play Magic I often feel like I am playing a game of Monopoly that I only had $500 at the start of the game. In this situation the game is not be about who can design and play the best deck. With such handicaps, it often does not come down to skill and luck, but money.
Knowing this why do I still play? I play it for the same reason I play most games, to have fun. I rarely play games just to win. Even when playing Catan, I am not trying to prove that I am the best Catan player (the dark part of me sasy :I already know I am the best.”), I play to have fun. It is not fun to lose a lopesided game bewcause the other player has access to cards that are objectively better than yours, but it still might be fun to play. I figure it must still be fun to play because I still have decks built from cards mostly a decade old that I like to play.
If one really wanted to do everything wanted to do evrything within the rules, one would have to know the abilities of every card printed (or legal in the environment) and have access to four of every card one wanted to use. This is a staggering amount of time and money to put into a game. Contrast this with Catan, the total number of rules is fixed and quite manageable. when play begins everyone is starting with the same phyiscal resources. There is not much I can do to get any better at Catan than I already am. I have done just about everything I can to try to win. In Magic, the continuum on how much one can do to win is enormous. Memorizing the Scrabble dictionary sounds like a less imposing task than truly doing everything possible within the rules of Magic.
Know that I know I am playing for fun, I have do determine what that is. Whatever I decide is likely to be different than what other people decide. I admit I complain about the pwer creep in later editions, but I don’t really expect someone to not play there shiny new cards against me. I try to do the best I can with what I have and enjoy myself. I enjoy myself more the more my deck does what I designed it to do. If that is to try to make someone draw ten cards a turn or do 40 damage witrh stormseakers so be it. I have two decks that contain 0 creatures. They are very effective because All they do is eliminate every threat on the board while slowly dealing direct dame to players. I have been told numerous times that these decks are not fun because most other decks cannot do what they want to do. I do not play them very often because of this. when teamed with a partner whose deck did similar things the opposing tema just quit. Both teams were still above 30 points and except for land, there was not much on the table. It was clear they di not have fun, and I felt a little guilty. If your in a game and no choice you can make is going to increase yourr chance to win or do what you want to do, it is not a lot of fun for you. Its like getting only one or two lands in the first 6 turns. You lost bef0ore the first card was played, you just did not know it at the time. the rest of the game is going to frustrating and completely non-rewarding.
Normally I play non-team multi-player Magic, because it compensates to a degree for deck imbalances. A really strong deck is going to have to face more resistance than a deck that poses less of a threat, most players get a chance for their deck to do what they want it to do, even if the start of land-screwed.
Unless you played with the smae people on a regular basis, it would be hard to have any deck construction rules. Since it takes time to build most decks, deck design is done before the game starts. I suppose you could all agree a week before play started what the rules will be to try to balance the differing resources, but I just do not play that organized or often to make it worth my while.
If I cal deck unfun, what I really mean is the contents of your deck are suchh that I do not have a fun game, please do not play that deck again against me anytime soon.