Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

I'm certain a lot of you have heard of this adage before. I'm pretty sure that some people reading this blog might have never experienced these kind of choices before. But a lot of people have faced such choices. In any place where humans are involved, you will eventually find some point in life where you are between a rock and a hard place. This is especially true where things less material are involved, such as politics. It is when the line between right and wrong is completely erased. The choice you have to make is no longer obvious. There is no easy way out anymore. The pros and cons of your choices are nearly identical. Your entire set of principles comes into play as you attempt to ascertain the best way out - which is still a bad way out. You are not getting out of this unscathed, no matter what you do.

In this case, it helps to have friends help you in this decision. It helps to know who your friends actually are. Who will help you when you in a difficult position? Most of the time, you will find that no one can, although some might want to. The decision is yours and it will become difficult. Sometimes, you might find an option no one saw - but this is highly unlikely.

I was talking about evil things to do to your opponent in Magic: the Gathering with chewxy the other day (involving how to make your opponent make difficult choices). I came up with two simple examples. Most Magic players will know what I'm talking about. As for those who don't, the card on the left sums up my post quite nicely as it is. :D

(I suddenly ran out of things to say. >< This is not a Magic post, despite my referring back to it for cards.)

What I've Pulled From the Few Boosters I've Bought

(This is a crappy filler post. Do not read. This is the kind of post I delete or 'privatise' so you never read such crap. It's an example of what comes out of writer's block.) I won't lie. I buy loads of boosters. In fact, I've actually lost track of how much I actually spent on Ravnica boosters. I remember telling Yam that it was around RM100. To be honest, this is more of the initial investment. I spend far more in total than I could ever imagine or remember. I believe I've actually opened crazy amounts, probably closing in on about one box (and maybe a half or more) worth of Ravnica. However, I find it unlikely since I don't think I have the funds to open that many. It's probably because I open, sell and open some more. Probably.

In my loads (which aren't really that many) of boosters, I've opened one Birds of Paradise, one foil Overgrown Tomb, one Glimpse the Unthinkable, two Loxodon Hierarchs, three Dark Confidants, three Circu, Dimir Lobotomist, two Grave-Shell Scarab, three Lightning Helixes(uncommon), three Necroplasm, three Putrefy(uncommon), two Telling Time, three Firemane Angel, one Hour of Reckoning, two Ursapine, one Hunted Troll, one Nullstone Gargoyle, one Grozoth, one Hunted Dragon, one Privileged Position, one Hunted Lammasu and one Dimir Cutpurse.

As you can see, I have my fair share of horrible rares (if you don't know which is considered horrible, just imagine hypothetically). :D I also have a few so horrible, I can't remember their names. :D But in those cases, I'd have to say the uncommon paid for them. :D If you were to calculate, it does constitute to around one booster box worth, but of course, a booster box wouldn't contain three of so many rare cards. ><

Singles are probably the best way to go hunting for cheap rares like Hex, Grozoth, and so on. :D Who doesn't like to see how crazy you can push things with Grozoth?

Card Advantage

When you are playing a card game, card advantage always comes into play. This isn't so much when you're playing Hecatomb where you're drawing two cards a turn, but it might be different when it comes to ordinary ones where you play with one draw per turn. Since I'm most familiar with Magic, so I'll be talking about card advantage in Magic. (I'll be using a number of pictures, most of which I have taken from Magiccards.info, but the copyrights belong to Wizards of the Coast or Hasbro, I think. I thank Imageshack for their bandwidth. :D)

In Magic, the idea is to win. The main reasons why card prices can escalate is because of card quality. Card advantage is difficult to gain in Magic since card avdantage can literally crack the game. This leads us to the easier way of winning a game: play better spells than your opponent. You win a Magic game by having card quality advantage of sheer card advantage over your opponent. Your 4 mana to cast 4/4 creature will obviously stomp all over his army of 1/1s. He would be spending tons of cards to stop your 4/4. The quality of your single card beats the quality of his by several times. This leads to card advantage in the long run. Card quality is important, but sometimes card advantage can win the day. If your opponent had 4 1/1s, you would think twice before attacking with your 4/4. If your opponent had 20 1/1s, he has practically won the game already.

In Magic, card advantage is difficult to gain. There are some obvious examples, such as the following:

If you hit five mana on turn 6, they do the exact same thing at slightly different costs (if you played Arena on turn 3). Phyrexian Arena is obviously better for most people - it's a long-term investment that'll serve you up till you run out of life. Tidings is also good. It'll give you card advantage nearly immediately and it doesn't need you to wait for for you to recoup your investment. 5 mana for 3 cards (4 cards minus 1 which is the Tidings) worth of advantage.

Why is card advantage important? Card advantage gives you power. It's a simple way to reason. The more cards you have, the more power you have. You can play more lands than your opponent ever could. You could play more creatures than your opponent could handle. Your sheer card advantage can trump his card quality advantage. So what if your opponent has a 4/4 on each turn if you could come up with more and more 1/1s to stop him with.

Card advantage gives you the ability to control the game. If you could trade every single card with your opponent on a one-for-one basis into the graveyard, the one that draws more cards will be the winner. There is no need to skimp on blocking his creatures with your own, or destroying that creature with the single cards that you have since you're going to win the race anyway.

Then, I show you one of the cards that define card advantage:

One card that can destroy any other creature on the board. Depending on how many creatures your opponent has, this one card can produce more card advantage than any card drawing can get you. You want proof? Here's one that generates so much card advantage you have to give up all the cards you're holding in your hand. :D