Comments on: Magic: Channeling Land, Oona, and You

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 01:49:23 +0000

I have to say, so far in our games the Hecatomb effect you mentioned before hasn’t really come up. Perhaps having only three players helps, it’s multiplayer but not the supremely slow pace of a big multiplayer game where you might hold out longer to drop threats or defenses.

The other factor is that the elimination of land screw/land glut gives just as much of a boost to fast, mana-efficient decks as to bomb-heavy combos. I have found card selection to be, outside of a few minor instances, almost the same as it was under vanilla Magic and the same mana cost curve – just that now I’m building to 60 spells

By: Josh

Josh — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 19:10:13 +0000

I have to admit, I haven’t played any magic in quite some time. I think in part this is due to Dominion and Race for the Galaxy. Magic was the game that a couple of us would turn to when there was only two or three people around to play games but with adding Race and Dominion to my collection (both games working very well with three players and Dominion being fine with two) there was less need for Magic.

On the other hand, I am not sure if I would enjoy playing constructed Channel Lands. I like it theory, but I also like the increased difficulty of playing bombs that comes with standard Magic.

Mostly I am just trying to avoid becoming one of those ex Magic players that now is a Magic hater. I still think the game, in many of its forms, has a lot of merit even if I don’t play the game myself much anymore.

By: Joe

Joe — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 03:30:51 +0000

Scott,
I think Josh’s land variant is interesting and merits a try in our Channeling Land variant.
I also dig the Oona variant. It makes her still awesome, but playable. Only 60% success instead of near 100%.
I must agree that I haven’t missed vanilla Magic at all and have taken the Channeling Land variant we play as rote.
I worry how my Slivers would do in this variant…

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:14:58 +0000

Josh- Thanks for reminding me, your Little Big Deck variant includes a slightly more advanced land-searching adaptation, and would certainly be viable with Channeling Land for anyone who'd prefer that the search still exact the price of a card from the searcher's library.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 02:08:31 +0000

Mike-

I’ve been quite happy playing Channeling Land, really haven’t missed vanilla Magic once.

The decisions of what card to channel when are great, I think. As I’m reading Rules of Play, which is basically THE textbook on game design, I find myself looking at those decisions as encouraging what the authors would call meaningful play… one of these days I’ll have to write more on the subject, because I really dig the book.

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:50:33 +0000

As for the land searching, that is why in my variant I mentioned for limited play as soon as a card said “land” a card of the matching color was removed and a land was replaced. Sort of the same idea as channeling lands, but with a bit of a different twist.

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:45:10 +0000

I think channeling has, for the most part, worked well for us Scott. I know Oona has been a hot topic, but your adaptive idea would certainly help balance her.

I think the nice thing about the channeling variant is that you get to essentially play with 60 cool cards instead of 40. It gives you more options in dealing with your opponent(s)…though I do tend to channel the card I need most 2 turns later, heh.