In Magic, players construct decks.  Each game of Magic features two players, each with one deck, each attempting to defeat the other.  (There are variations, of course, but we’ll stick with this for now.)

One interesting thing about Magic is that decks can be constructed to take advantage of different strategies.  A deck can attempt to cast enough creatures and attack with them to cause damage; that’s usually called an “Aggro” (for “aggressive”) strategy.  A “Control” deck would neutralize all enemy threats, then field one threat that the opponent could not answer.  A “Combo” deck attempts to assemble a series of cards in play (a “combo”) that combine to create an effect that cannot be stopped.

Of course, these strategies work better or worse against opposing strategies.  For example, an Aggro deck fighting a Combo deck would most likely cause enough damage to win the game before the combo could be assembled.  However, Control decks are built to neutralize Aggro threats.  (There is sort of an RPS relationship here, but the real Magic environment is quite a bit more complicated than my summary; these are only the broadest categories, there are many archetypes and sub-archetypes of deck designs.  For purposes of illustration only!)

Now, every few months a new Magic set is released, changing the mix of cards available to deckbuilders.

The Standard format uses only the newest sets the game has to offer. The current block, the block that was released the previous October, and the most recent core set are all legal to play in a Standard deck. As you can tell from the name, Standard is the most commonly played format.

—“Sanctioned Formats” at wizards.com

So, when new sets are released, older cards are no longer available to play and newer cards enter the mix.  (Of course, there are tournaments where older cards can be played; see the Sanctioned Formats page for more information.)  With each different mix of cards, new card interactions are found and the strategies change.  Deck Type A may lose some core cards, while Deck Type B gains a really efficient card; it’s impossible to just accumulate “the best cards”.  People spend a lot of time figuring out which new cards are good and, more important, which cards work well together.

All that is fine, but what IS this metagame thing anyway?

Yeah, that was all just kind of background.

Imagine yourself in the place of someone who wants to attend a Magic tournament.  And, of course, you wish to win.  But what sort of deck should you bring?  At the tournament you’ll be matched up against several other randomly chosen people and their decks.  So it might help to figure out what other people are playing.

Let’s say that recent tournament scouting reports show 40% of people playing Deck A, 30% Deck B, 20% Deck C and 10% random other stuff (“rogue decks”).  So, if Deck C is good against Deck A, you might construct your own variant of C to bring.

But what if, in this particular area, more people play B than the average?  Is your deck good against B?  What if everyone ELSE comes to the same conclusion and brings C—How will you deal with the “mirror match” against another variant of C?  What if you’re matched up against a completely random rogue deck?

“The metagame” usually refers to the state of Magic decks.  It encompasses the currently-in-fashion deck types and variants, along with the frequencies at which they’re played.  People playing in real tournaments often spend a lot of time figuring out the metagame and trying to prepare for it.

When does a metagame appear?

Other games can have metagames.  I’ve tried to puzzle out the conditions that might lead to a metagame arising.

• Different strategies exist.
• There are no completely dominant strategies.  In other words, there is no “best” strategy.
• An environment is made up of recently successful strategies.
• Some strategies are better in some environments.
• Strategies are tested multiple times, with time to adjust between.
• Something happens on a regular basis to change the mix of strategies.

The one point I want to make here is…It’s easy to think of a metagame as being composed of “matches” at “tournaments”.  However, with my definition of “environment” above, we can apply the definition to other games.  Perhaps the game appears to be single player, but each successful strategy is entered into a “pool of recent winners”, which later players must face.  Something to think about, anyway.

(Also see my next entry, Metagames: Part 2!)

That’s the great thing about powers on cards; you can easily shuffle them up and deal them randomly, or you can let players choose in some other method.  Those two methods would provide for different experiences; therefore, players have an easy way to vary their experiences of they choose.  The really important thing is that you’ve allowed players these two options without any extra work.

What other scenarios might profit from this strategy?  Some games allow customization, so let’s think of doing them randomly.  A randomly chosen character class in a game like Kingdom of Loathing?  How about a randomly generated Master of Orion 2 race?  How about the other side, a randomly generated option that might benefit from direct choice?  This one is actually much harder to think of; I suspect if people play a game where this happens, somebody eventually hits upon the idea of letting people choose; Diplomacy comes to mind.  I’d be happy to hear more examples in the comments!

1. Shuffle, deal 7 cards to each player.
2. Players trade cards amongst themselves.
3. After a while (time limit?) trading ends.
4. Each player uses the cards they have to construct the highest-scoring poker hand they can.
5. Highest hand wins.

The information problem

Notice I’ve said nothing about what sort of information is allowed to be passed.  How do you know the other person will stick to their deal?  Do you have to reveal the cards before trading them?  What happens if you trade cards and suddenly someone says “Wait, you said it was a heart, but this is only a 3 of hearts!  I don’t want this, give me back my card!”.  Also, is it difficult to make deals with someone sitting across the table from you?

Playing on a computer solves many of these problems.  Any decent chatroom interface allows the players to chat with each other both publically and privately.  Also, I can envision a trading interface that would make things easy.  The trading interface would look something like this:

1. You choose a card(s) to offer.
2. You choose how to present those card(s).  If you were trading the 7 of hearts, there would be options for calling it “One 7″, “One H”, “One Red”, “7H”.
3. When both players are finished with the trade, they see the details of the trade and can examine it.  (“Trading One 7 For One D”)
4. If both players confirm, the trade is executed.  If either player cancels, the trade is cancelled.

This solves the problem of not getting what you expected by making it part of the game.  Yes, you might have gotten a 2H, but you saw that you were getting “One H” and you pressed “Confirm”–it’s your fault!

Notes

You may trade unequal numbers of cards.  Is a hand with four cards a legal hand?  I would say for this game it should be.  If you trade away all but four cards, but those four cards are four kings, you deserve to win!

Obviously there’s room for variation; giving the players fewer cards to start with would probably restrict their freedom, but giving them too many would shift the emphasis more toward simply arranging the cards you already had.  Playtesting is certainly a good idea here.  One thing that might be fun would be to shuffle two decks together; that way things become more uncertain and random.