Brain in a Jar

Sharing is caring edition!

I think we can all agree that one of the biggest stars of Commander 2018 is this little goblin right here:

I’ve never looked at its stats very closely, but a 3/2 for 3 is actually pretty beefy for a goblin. Huh.

Whatever, that’s not why this card is great! People tend to use artifacts a lot in commander games. Whether it’s a Sol Ring or a Gilded Lotus, this card will ensure that you get your fair share of everyone’s mana ramp! But… who said it had to be fair? Let’s take a look at another goblin:

Yes, Bazaar Trader. A classic weird card with a weird ability. Now, normally you won’t see this card anywhere but in a Zedruu deck. After all, all it does is give someone control of something you have. How does that combo with the Treasure Nabber above? Very well, actually.

You see, it’s a little thought-of fact that you can target yourself with Bazaar Trader. Normally this is pointless. Why would you want to re-gain control of something you already control? Well, it turns out that’s a handy ability to have since it overrides the “until end of turn” clause that is unfortunately tagged onto the end of Treasure Nabber’s ability. Yup, with the powers of these two goblins combined you can permanently gain control of any mana rocks your opponents are foolish enough to use against you.

Sharing is caring edition!

I think we can all agree that one of the biggest stars of Commander 2018 is this little goblin right here:

I’ve never looked at its stats very closely, but a 3/2 for 3 is actually pretty beefy for a goblin. Huh.

Whatever, that’s not why this card is great! People tend to use artifacts a lot in commander games. Whether it’s a Sol Ring or a Gilded Lotus, this card will ensure that you get your fair share of everyone’s mana ramp! But… who said it had to be fair? Let’s take a look at another goblin:

Yes, Bazaar Trader. A classic weird card with a weird ability. Now, normally you won’t see this card anywhere but in a Zedruu deck. After all, all it does is give someone control of something you have. How does that combo with the Treasure Nabber above? Very well, actually.

You see, it’s a little thought-of fact that you can target yourself with Bazaar Trader. Normally this is pointless. Why would you want to re-gain control of something you already control? Well, it turns out that’s a handy ability to have since it overrides the “until end of turn” clause that is unfortunately tagged onto the end of Treasure Nabber’s ability. Yup, with the powers of these two goblins combined you can permanently gain control of any mana rocks your opponents are foolish enough to use against you.

Advice for New Players 

At the beginning of a game, ask which player is going to be your coach/teacher during the game. If it’s a two-player game, ask if you can both play with your hands revealed so you can ask the other player questions before playing a card, and so they can explain what they’re doing, and why. 

Also, demand that experienced players explain what the crap they’re actually doing. Especially in a multiplayer game, and ESPECIALLY if you’re playing Commander. Way too often, more experienced players will use shorthand, take complicated turns, or just generally do stuff during their turns that they think should be obvious. 

Don’t let them get away with this. Don’t let them brush you off or make you feel like you’re the one messing things up just because they are being unclear. Be willing to “pause” the game and slow things down. This can feel embarrassing or uncomfortable for some people, which makes it especially helpful to have someone designated to be your teacher/coach who will back you up on this. 

In short, don’t put up with players who try to steamroll you. 

I saw this happen just last week when I went to my local game store to buy my son a birthday present… 

Story Time 

A couple of guys were teaching their friend how to play Commander for the first time, and I saw this new player with a look of horror and utter confusion on his face as his opponents just took their turns, wrecked his board state, passed the turn to him, and then told him the spell he tried to play was wrong, told him what spell he should play, tapped the mana for him, and then passed the turn back to Stupidly Complex Town. 

I walked over to the table, said hi, and asked if I could watch for a bit. They said sure, and continued to steamroll this new player. During one opponent’s turn, they used Swords to Plowshares on the new player’s commander (which that opponent had insisted was the right thing to cast the turn before) exiling it. “Don’t worry about it,” the opponent said, “you can just cast it again for two more mana.” 

“What? Play again? It says to remove it from the game.” This new player looked at his two opponents, completely confused. “OK, I’m totally lost. What just happened?” 

“What is there to be confused about?” the other player said. 

The new player just stared at them. He didn’t even know where to start. And besides, the other players didn’t wait for him to respond. They just kept moving forward with their turns. 

When it finally got around to the new player again, the other players immediately tried to take his turn for him again. Before they could, I got the new player’s attention, looked at him in the eye, and asked in a calm quiet voice, “Can I help?” 

“Yes please!” he replied. 

“OK, so you asked what they meant about playing your commander again. In the Commander format, the strategy of your deck is typically built around your commander. Because of that, if your commander dies it goes to the Command Zone instead of your graveyard. Same thing happens if it gets exiled or shuffled into your library. And you can always cast it from your Command Zone, but to keep it from being broken, you have to pay an extra two generic mana for each time it goes back there.” 

“Ooooooh! OK, that makes sense!” he says with a look of relief. 

At this point, the other players are silent and trying to avoid eye contact. I’m not sure if they’re embarrassed for their earlier behavior, or annoyed that I’m slowing down the game. I really hope it’s the former, but I suspect it’s the latter. It seems clear they want to get back to taking their turns and setting off big combos. 

“Can I look at the cards in your hand?” I ask. 

“Yeah, sure!” 

We look through the cards in his hand. They aren’t great, and he doesn’t have many permanents on the battlefield for so late in the game, but there’s some potential. I talk him through the three cards he can play, and what they do. I explain what Convoke and Affinity do. I don’t worry about his opponents being able to guess what his cards are based on the hints in my explanations. I also point out why the spell he tried to play on his last turn is one that’s better to hold onto to maybe play defensively on an opponent’s turn. 

After we go through it, he chooses the card he wants to play, casts it, and then finishes his turn. He still has a lot to learn, but seems considerably less overwhelmed at this point. 

“Well, I have to head out and get back to my family, but it seems like you’re getting the hang of it,” I said. “Thanks for letting me watch for a bit.” 

“Thanks for the help,” he said. “It made a really big difference.” 

I say goodbye to the other players, walk up to the store counter, and make my purchase. Just as I’m walking out the door, I hear one of the new player’s opponents say, “Hey, did you hear me? I just wiped your board.” 

*sigh* 

Advice for Experienced Players 

Now obviously, the guys teaching this new player were making LOTS of mistakes. In their defense, they were just teenagers, and I’m sure they were doing the best they knew how to do. I don’t think they were TRYING to be mean to this new player, they just took for granted the speed and complexity they’re used to in their games. They were acting like players, but nobody was acting like a teacher. 

For those of you who are experienced players wanting to teach new players how to play Magic, here’s an article that I wrote a couple years ago that I think may be useful. The article is about lessons I learned while teaching my kids to play, but I think the lessons apply to teaching people of any age, not just kids. 

In Summary 

Experienced Players: Make teaching the first priority, overall fun the second priority, and winning a distant third priority. 

Tokens created by Elemental Mastery’s effect will still be exiled at the beginning of the end step because the effect that’s exiling them is a delayed trigger that’s set up when the tokens are created and that trigger knows which tokens were created even if they’re now copies of something else.

I couldn’t find any effects that create “temporary” tokens that would work otherwise, but be on the lookout in future for effects that tack the sacrifice onto the token itself as a granted ability, as those wouldn’t be affected if they were turned into something else by Brudiclad.

The creature will be exiled and then return to the battlefield. (Whose control it enters under depends on the wording of the effect that’s blinking it. Any effect that doesn’t specify under whose control it returns to the battlefield will return it return it to the battlefield under its owner’s control.)

The creature returns from exile because the replacement effect set up by Isareth’s triggered ability only stops the creature from going to a zone that isn’t exile. Since the blink effect wants to exile it anyway, this is allowed to happen and the full effect resolves. The creature is then a new object and is no longer affected by Isareth’s trigger.

How Hollywood sees diversity:

similar roles

to slightly different people

but still sticking to the same basic concept

doesn’t make Magic grow as a game. Just changing the name or type line rarely changes the overall card.

But if we follow that thought process, just a hair further, we start thinking about the defining characteristics of tribes. Like… Clerics. They do healing.

Still a White 1/1 for one mana, but a big difference from what came before. Even when the typeline is the same you can make cards with a big difference from cookie-cutter copies.

Magic is about exploring a Multiverse. There’s an Egyptian Desert world, an Indian Inventor world, a world mostly inhabited by robot copies of things, a world that’s a big city, a world that didn’t know about its four twin worlds where EVEN THERE each world was different. There’s a world that’s tiny, a world where the world itself could be your worst enemy, a world where Dragons are in charge of people, a world where humans don’t exist and everything is happy (and its sister world, where humans still don’t exist but nightmares would be a relief from how bad real life is). There’s a world with ninjas, a world with pirates, a world with werewolves (and supposedly other werecreatures across the sea).

Gluttonous Slime is rather akin to the idea of growing as it consumes characters, and as most Oozes in Magic do have a +1/+1 counter theme (but smaller than Hydras, typically), this is a good medium between Magic and D&D.

Ravenous Slime, from the upcoming (THIS FRIDAY, YO!) Commander set has some spectacular art, and again uses +1/+1 counters to grow.

So a friend (who I’m very jealous of, because he’s at Gencon, and I’m sitting at home) spoke to someone at the Wizards of the Coast booth about being a Math teacher, and Liz gave him cards for the kids at his school. So a big shoutout to @wizardsmagic !

Magic is a GREAT tool for helping math and language skills, and the turn structure is great for teaching social skills, especially since whenever you do something other than play a land you basically have to ask the other player’s/players’ permission.

But focusing just on the math aspect, Magic features a lot of subtraction, especially in combat or with red spells. Addition is used whenever you cast a spell, with +1/+1 counters, with Glorious Anthem-style effects, even a deck that’s gaining life has you adding and subtracting. Or when you have a text box that says to count a bunch of stuff.

MaRo ( @markrosewater​ ) has made a BUNCH of cards that double things, but even a card with “XX” in a mana cost starts going into basic multiplication. Multi-kicker may have only been in one block, but that’s using multiplication. And perhaps one of the best known uses of multiplication in Magic is cumulative upkeep… which isn’t always a bad thing.

And sometimes Magic does go into square numbers.

Magic doesn’t have Mol, but it does have a Mole. And they help you add, unless you’re sacrificing a bunch of Clues, like with Tamiyo’s Journal… which is still adding, but faster. But that’s what multiplication is.

But to my knowledge there aren’t imaginary numbers, or factorial. No Avagadro’s number, or silly stuff like that…

Oh. Except for irrational numbers. Still, a great way to get kids to practice math skills without it feeling like homework.