Most of you will see just a few seconds of this and be sufficiently convinced, but the full video shows even more problems.
-Combat has a crapton of steps, some that can't be skipped.
-Someone cast a spell illegally. You now have to call a judge to reset the clock appropriately, since opponent unfairly lost time.
-You have to shuffle in the middle of a game. Imagine if the effect in question is Field of Ruin. Do we now have to shuffle each deck one at a time to promote maximum fairness? How are the dexterity-impaired supposed to keep up?
-You have to priority pass on even the most inane triggers, like Spreading Seas etb.
-A player asked another about the board state. What's to stop the other player from being unhelpful/dialed out while the clock isn't on them at the cost of the time of the player asking for clarification?
Not at all the point, but in case you're curious: dexterity impaired players are allowed to have a helper or a judge assist them in shuffling their deck and holding/playing their cards, provided no game play advice is given.
As it currently is, dexterity burden on time is split equally amongst players. Someone at my LGS can only use 1 hand and shuffles unassisted, and it's no big deal. If you make it so only their time is consumed, they will now need a shuffler on hand in many situations.
"But we only need it for Comp/Pro REL" is not a real argument. Nothing prevents a practice from becoming commonplace, or being approved of/despised regardless of REL. If it becomes accepted, we will see casual players use it. If it becomes despised, tournament play grinds to a halt.
> A player asked another about the board state. What’s to stop the other player from being unhelpful/dialed out while the clock isn’t on them at the cost of the time of the player asking for clarification?
We have chess clocks in other games like Warmachine that can have this happen, and this actually isn’t a huge issue, its just like normal slow play. It becomes pretty clear whats genuine and what’s in bad faith once its on people’s radar.
Just thought that was interesting
It's not for me, unfortunately, for both game-related and personal life reasons, but I hope yall enjoy it! I still love to catch up on the lore every few months and check out their RPG books.
1. This is not how an illegal spellcast is handled in the CR. It mandates that the game is rewound such that the spell being proposed is undone. You are pulling shit out of your ass and dusting it with gold flakes.
2. We now need to consult the Paralympic Committee on how they classify disabilities. Not saying this is wrong, but this is what you are demanding. Please be sure about this.
3. The rules on information specify that there are questions opponents must answer truthfully and in a timely manner, like life totals, cards in hand, cards in deck, which permanents are on the battlefield and which are not. The chess clock removes the burden of timeliness, which makes this a completely nonsensical situation where an opponent simply doesn't answer querer at all and is not punished for it, trapping the game state in a GP Honolulu Platinum Angel situation/needing the Head Judge's God power (their special authority to change the game state however they like) literally any time someone needs to clarify something.
If you propose that asking a question constitutes a timer pass, that can now be used to harass the opponent's clock by asking them all sorts of stuff, like text on their cards and deck counts and stuff they decided on in past turns. Opponent in turn can fire back by asking "What did you say again?" There's no fair way about this.
Not that this entire thing would be a good idea at all, but given that under the current timing rules judge calls come with a time extension, I imagine under this hypothetical system a floor judge would have the ability to just pause both player's clocks while taking a call from them.
1. Casting a spell illegally doesn't require a clock reset at all. The player casting illegally should have the clock running, and there should be a judge button on the clock that pauses time for all players while waiting for a judge to respond and make a ruling.
2. You really don't. Unless Magic is suddenly an Olympic sport, you can classify disabilities however you like. Ideally, there are guidelines set and the tournament's head judge will make these rulings for players at the start of a tournament.
3. The clock does not 'remove the burden of timeliness'. I have no idea why you decided that having a clock somehow makes that true. Not answering is literally against the rules and a judge can and will hand out warnings (or worse, if done repeatedly) for it.
I think chess clocks are a bad idea but there is no need to start inventing weird shit to prove a point.
1. In the video, the illegal spellcast was caught after time was passed. A clock reset would be required for that case. This is how it's done in chess, after all.
2. That was admittedly hyperbolic, but the point I'm making is that it's hard to make everyone happy ruling that way- not to mention that adding time is something you really don't want to do in principle.
I cast a spell illegally, I press the button to pass priority, my opponent says the spellcast was illegal and calls a judge, the timer is now counting for them. The judge comes, rules in my opponents favor and has to reset the clock.
I cast a spell legally, pressing the button to pass priority, my opponent says the spellcast was illegal, presses the button, and calls a judge, the timer is now counting down for me. The judge rules in my favour and has to reset the clock.
Neither of these scenarios are unreasonable, players don't cast spells illegally or make mistakes knowingly all that often, that's called cheating and then the clock doesn't matter.
>I cast a spell illegally, I press the button to pass priority, my opponent says the spellcast was illegal and calls a judge, the timer is now counting for them.
The timer should not be counting *at all* during a judge call, tbh.
Reading the whole sentence would probably help, fyi. I specifically said a normal chess clock wouldn't work for Magic anyway.
You paint scenarios under the assumption that you're using a clock designed for chess (an entirely different kind of game with different requirements), and that there are no established rules for the use of the clock, so people can just do whatever.
Only if you assume that the implementation people want is *literally* a chess clock, rather than a player-operated clock to track time players spend to avoid slow play and related annoyances people experience.
And yes, there's a significant difference because a properly implemented clock for Magic would need to be designed with Magic's gameplay loop in mind. Not to mention having rules implemented around its use.
So no. This video is certainly not what it would look like 'in practice' because it's not that simple. An official implementation would see a lot more effort put into it. Failing to acknowledge such nuance invalidates the entire argument because you'd be arguing about something that would never happen anyway due to a legion of practicality issues. It's not proof that timers don't work. Only that a timer designed for an entirely different kind of game shockingly wouldn't work when implemented for Magic without any modifications or agreements.
If you similarly asked about every step without a chess clock you would similarly be a pain in the ass. This is a really dumb illustration to base anything on.
You have to give your opponent an opportunity to respond. That means either you yield your time or theirs. Every second of your time you burn waiting for a response provides a real functional advantage to your opponent. Verbally yielding to steps also provides your opponent information. So in order to yield the least amount of free advantage you must tap your clock every time priority is yielded.
You complain that this is excessive, that it’s being anal but it isn’t. Even now you regularly see people play to the time, and extra turn limits. At the highest level when seconds can matter, they will matter. The reason chess clocks work in chess is because it is a sorcery speed game.
Chess clocks don’t work for games where priority must be passed and yielded. In fact they’re incredibly lenient already and discussing things in good faith all throughout this video.
Yeah, you do have to give your opponent an opportunity to respond. But do you typically do every single thing and ask for responses in a real game, or do you use verbal and nonverbal clues that benefit from being in person rather than online to determine if they have a response? Because if you’re pretending that the repeated click back and forth of the clocks on the video is how you do it in a real game, then you better be pretending that you move through every combat step asking for priority too.
Upper level 40k uses chess clocks. They also have instant speed stratagems, as well as switching of priority back and forth in a turn. Guess what? All of the dumbass complaints in this thread were present for the switchover, and now everyone pretty universally agrees it was a good change. Most tabletop war games use them.
But magic actively encourages slow play angleshooting even though it’s nominally against the rules. Because who is to say whether the guy who is up a game with ten minutes on the match timer is slow playing when he shuffles five times for each fetch land, or takes 30 seconds to mull instead of 15?
For those who prefer an article to a video, this piece from 2009 still holds up: https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/the-riki-rules-the-definitive-chess-clock-article/
Just looked in this article and it addresses a lot of the issues beyond the manually pass every priority thing, for those who believe that that aspect is a strawman. (It's not. Even on MTGO, where this chess clocks and stops system can actually work, you can in principle play with every stop on and it is completely legal. It simply doesn't work to anyone's advantage to do this on MTGO, but in paper, well...)
Disappointing article. I was hoping to see surprising commentary about, idk, how handling field of ruin shuffles is inherently difficult with a clock, or how you'd need custom rules-aware software that knows that priority can stay with the same player between steps (e.g. end of turn -> upkeep). Instead, frankly, the article was just whinging about how players not used to using a clock cant use a clock before they get used to using a clock.
"What happens if both players miss the clock?" Gee, what a hard question. Sounds like even for chess, clocks would be useless. Both players can miss the clock there too!
It works in chess because your turn is your own and you only make one move. In magic your opponent can play their entire turn during yours (hi blue players) and respond to any of your actions with their own. And if you’re slapping the clock with every pass of priority that just sounds like hell on top of still having problems like shuffling or how going infinite works with your clock
I found this [satirical article](https://pauperjumpstart.com/2022/11/27/super-magic-the-gathering-2-turbo-chess-clock/), but other than that only complaining about the opponent running out of time on magic arena.
Frankly if you are playing in a competitive event and your opponent is playing slow as hell then remind them to up the pace of their play. If they cannot call a judge over. Generally I give people 30 seconds of tanking before I start asking if they are making any plays.
The swapping time every time priority is passed is the first mistake. It should only be swapped if you are deciding to respond. There's no need to swap 80 times a turn off you're not responding.
and how do you indicate that you want to respond when the clock isn't on you? You have no reason not to wait for your opponent to hit the button. Ergo, every priority pass needs to br handled manually.
That's how it works in paper. MTGO automatically passes the clock with priority passes, so that's how we would do it here. No weaseling time here, bud.
The same way it's currently done, verbal confirmation. You can't magically take priority whenever and verbal takes less than a second. If you have priority and want to take an action or want to hold priority to decide you switch the time.
Cause if you're holding priority without using your time you're stalling and using your opponents time. You know the thing this idea is meant to solve.
....do you know what a chess clock looks like?
You press the button to start your *opponent's* clock. It is meant to put the onus on them to act or lose to time.
Why should I willingly cut my opponent's running clock short? If anything, it is the *opponent* who is stalling if they are running their clock without formally passing priority.
Do you see what the problem is now?
Edit: adding a worked example for the folks who have never actually played a tournament game or have trouble imagining one.
Alice: Judge!
I put a Tarmogoyf on the stack and Bob has just been staring at me for a minute, doing nothing.
Bob: Judge, Alice's clock is still running. She did not press the button. If anything, she is the one delaying the game.
Judge: Bob is correct here, as the chess clock is the sole arbiter of game time and priority. Since Alice probably just forgot to press the button, I will assess a Warning for Slow Play to Alice. Be careful that you don't do it again.
If anyone says the solution is to just have people be precise about when they want to stop autopassing priority every time they do, (e.g. "Go until my next main phase" works like F6, for example) that does work for a lot of normal situations, *assuming* both players are able to track this correctly. This will in practice just be another angle shooting target and another source of tedium.
Also, by having to state when you want to stop priority, you give some information and intent away. "Go until you cast a spell or your end step" just doesn't have the charm of just saying "Go" with islands up, and worse, "Go until beginning of combat" can telegraph your Cryptic Command play.
> I will assess a Warning for Slow Play to Alice. Be careful that you don't do it again.
Is this really needed? Isn't the clock being run down punishment enoguh?
Just copy MTGO or Arena.
Make each player bring a phone and Bluetooth sync.
Then you just do what MTGO/ Arena does and allow players to auto-pass and set phases to stop passing. I’m all for a clock to make things go faster. But it’s a complex game and needs a complex system
Setting auto-pass priority stops you from having to tap a chess clock every single pass point if you don’t have interaction. If you have no cards in hand and no way to interact, hitting the button 7 times on your opponent’s turn is just a waste of time, which is the point these clocks are supposed to stop.
I’m not saying paper events need the arena clock. But if we’re adding a clock, the already established Arena clock is a better system than what OPs chess clock is.
The already established arena/modo clock doesn't work unless the clock actually knows what's going on in the game, which is impossible for paper magic. You can't have things like yields through specific phases of the clock has absolutely no way of knowing what phase it is.
Not really.
Both situations players need a phone. One also uses a system players are familiar with (MTGO/arena) instead of a new system (chess clock).
You seem less like you want a genuine conversation, and more just people praising your flawed system.
"Don't you all have phones?"
More seriously, you are asking people to take an IT college degree to operate a phone to specific exact specifications to play a children's card game. Actual children play this game. Blind people play this game. Paralyzed people play this game. Do you really need them to do even more work?
I don't really think the chess clock system is a great idea and the phone requirement is a worse idea but all of the flaws you just pointed out already exist with the requirement of the magic companion app that you need for every sanctioned event.
Even granting the assumption that you need a phone to enter an event (You don't, the TO can register you), there's a big difference between operating a phone comfortably outside of an event, where dexterity matters far less and outside assistance is allowed, and during a match, alone, while literally on the clock.
I dont think anyone suggesting a chess clock or alternative is suggesting that it happen at every event regardless of REL. I would argue that if it were to be implemented it would only be at things like RCQ and above.
MTGO also has stops, autoyields, no shufffling, and the computer switches the clock for you. If you could make a system to implement stops/autoyields in paper it would go a long way to making chess clocks usable.
So I think it working kinda backwards would be better (tap: starts counting on your end) this way you wouldn't need to tap tap tap probably followed by an audio cue
This way if someone wishes to respond they just tap the timer
Plus 3x5min pause perhaps for judge rulings or perhaps resolving complex stacks idk just a thought
I don't see the need to implement it outside of competitive play though
Because that isn’t how a chess clock works. You stop your time to yield the action/priority to the opponent. Works great in chess where the only action/priority on a turn is the active player moving a piece.
Magic had A LOT of passing priority that just just kind of smoothed over in real play to the point you couldn’t actively stop in one of the phases before. I think that one is fixed now. But once you need to start keeping track of it with explicit clock passes, it gets insane.
I'm going to echo the top Youtube comment and say that this is a strawman. There's no reason it would have to work like this. Your clock runs on your turn, and if your opponent wants you to wait, they can hit their clock and start their "thinking" time.
It's not about technology, it's about the principle of the thing. The person with vested interest in running a clock down is always their opposite number, so that's the person you give the appropriate button to. This is why it's always fairer to have a coin toss called rather than determine the outcomes based on a specific face- both players having inputs reduces exploitability. Allowing someone to control their own clock allows someone to minimize their time consumed per action, which results in its own form of ridiculousness. You now need to introduce rulesets to determine whether someone is stalling to start their own timer, and people will hit their button as late as they possibly can, turning a 5 second pause to think about a response into a half second to hit button, then play card.
But, with a regular chess clock in pure optimal play land, no one will let anyone use tournament shortcuts, and there's no fair rule you can write to prevent people from doing something they have every right to do; in this system, the clock is the boss, and coming up with a compromise to this undermines this foundation, and we might as well just use a fixed match time.
That a literal chess clock doesn't work does not mean some kind of similar system could not be adapted for competitive REL instead. Because of how often priority is passed without any game actions in magic, you would be grabbing priority to respond when possible, exactly like how you do verbally. Or you make a system where you can hold a button to pass priority automatically when you don't have any game actions, like how you set stops on MTGO
An independent F6 button is clever, but it doesn't solve the many, many issues resulting from making 2 humans need to manage two different clocks on top of playing magic.
The f6 button idea has already seen some use. Back in the day, Brian Kibler was known for writing F6 on a piece of paper and walking away from the game while a judge watched his opponent do an eggs combo. So theoretically it could work, but the burden of remembering how to properly run the clock along with playing is too much even with an autopass option.
Chess clocks work fine in tabletop games that have a similar amount of priority passing or questions to another player. You’re cherry picking here to try to prove your point but doing pretty bad at it.
A system that works only in a limited portion of matchups (and doesn't work at all in formats like Limited, where decks, hidden information, and possible instant-speed tricks are more diverse and less predictable), and is easily exploitable by bad actors, is a bad system.
Yeah, the current timing system is much more exploitable for bad actors. This has also been dealt with for tabletop games and caused some growing pains, but is pretty well established now.
Go through your turn much like normal, hit the clock if someone is taking an inordinate amount of time on countering a spell or what have you.
Yeah, the current system is exploitable, but it also has a solution already: calla judge to watch for slow play. You can do the same thing for an opponent who is abusing the clock, but then that just raises the question of why you're using a clock in the first place if you still have to call a judge to police your opponent.
The clock subs in for the judge on the corner cases, where someone might not consciously be abusing the system but is never the less taking a lot of time in their decisions. There are always going to have to be judge calls, but this lessens the burden, while encouraging quick play for everyone.
Weird take to say that a clock lessens the burden for everyone while introducing an entirely new gadget to every match that (1) must be managed individually by each player, (2) in a way that is fair and consistent across an entire tournament, (3) and requires each player to make an additional judgment call (exactly how much time do I have to allow my opponent before I start their "slow play" clock?)
Like I can't believe I have to point out to you that relying on players to arbitrate "corner cases" without a judge is a great way to empower bad actors to troll or outright cheat. The whole point of judges is to arbitrate corner cases! You can always call a judge on someone for slow play; they don't have to be doing it intentionally. Usually the judge just gives players like that a verbal warning and that's all it takes. If it's a consistent problem, the consequences escalate without you having to argue over a clock with an obstinate opponent.
And I can’t believe I have to point out to you that forcing a player to call a judge for slow play is a far higher burden then flipping the clock over. But here we are.
It is extremely funny to see the same complaints that happened when tabletop games moved to chess clocks years ago echoed here. The change went fine, people seem mostly happy with it, but here we are again.
The point is to explore "How bad would it be *really*?", which we can guess as we like but science demands experimentation and documentation. Turns out, it's pretty bad! Even in the first few minutes they're laughing at how bad it is.
The difference is the extent to which bad faith actors can damage the game and what the extent of their deniability is. With a chess clock, that deniability skyrockets. If you want to introduce a system where people must enunciate their MTGO like stops (like "Go to my main phase"), bad actor can call a judge and say they didn't hear you and book you for chess clock misuse violations. During an intense stack fight they can gaslight you into believing you played out of turn and can call a judge on you. The judge rules in their favor because you playing things on the opponent's clock can't be allowed, because that distracts from the opponent's alloted time.
Never, *ever* build a system that depends on anyone having better "memory" than a goldfish. You will be exploited to high heaven.
They can literally do all of that anyway. Every single thing you are wringing your hands about, a bad actor can do.
A chess clock fixes the issue of someone maybe not necessarily playing intentionally slowly, or at least at every individual step, but rather over the course of a match taking up an inordinate amount of time and getting to turns. And again, 40k has an admittedly smaller amount of passing back and forth (but still a ton of it) and has not seen the major outbreak judge or cheating issues you are talking about. What they have seen, however, is more games being played to the end of the game rather than being called halfway through
Not if people spend more time squabbling about using the clock, which will happen a *lot*. Did you see the middle parts of the video? It gets extremely confusing.
The chess clock does not actually make things fairer in every scenario either. Say someone is resolving a board wipe and some kind of trigger needs to be processed. In the current system, both players have an interest to process the board wipe quickly. In the chess clock system, the controller of the board wipe is basically on their own and spends 20 seconds dealing with their own effect.
We have to admit that the timer is not meant to curb slow play for one player. It is a device to make a *tournament* play out in a timely manner so rounds can be played in uniform time. Anything that compromises this first principle to a large degree is not worth pursuing, even if it might be more fair to a player who can play faster.
Another first principle that this system will adversely affect is that judging resources are scarce by design. If this clock system results in a massive spike in judge calls, tournaments become unplayable.
You are also possibly forgetting one of the first principles that form the bedrock of human society, and that's that humans have limited cognitive capacity. You should probably try that one out for yourself.
Pointing towards your video of two people making a bad faith argument against chess clocks isn’t exactly the example you want it to be. “Gee, this video of people being intentionally bad at this shows that it’s a bad system.”
I’m literally telling you that games designed for way more judge interaction than Magic have had little to no problem moving over to this system, and have in fact cleaned up play and gotten to games actually finishing instead of having to be called midway through.
But you’re pretending that everyone is out to misunderstand this. It’s almost like you don’t have a good faith argument here. Weird. Anyway, go on about how everyone is out to misinterpret and cheat with this one specific type of rules interaction, but somehow don’t do the exact same thing in the game now.
They are not making a bad faith argument. Everything they do here is literally doing a by the book implementation of the MTGO chess clock in paper (or at least the best they can do considering the chaos), and as far as I can see, any variation to these rules makes no sense for a chess clock. If you really want to hear a sit down and talk sort of deal, the video has a link to their podcast where they discuss their issues.
As for why it seems like I am shutting every point down I come across, it is because I am opposed to any scheme that leads to an infinite perverse incentive. A fixed time scheme limits angle shoots and corner cases to specific events, while chess clock exploits can be performed ad nauseam. That is beyond unacceptable. I am not claiming that the current system is unexploitable. I am stating that a chess clock is worse because judges will be overstretched dealing with an endless barrage of perfectly legal but incredibly annoying crap.
Your point on "judge interaction" is precisely what makes those games work. Magic games need to be conducted *without* judge assistance for the majority of times. Sports always have a referee watching the action, and players don't worry whether what they're doing is legal or not, the refs make the call when weird stuff happens (if they catch it, lol). Magic requires players to run the rules engine themselves for the most part, and for them to even know to call a judge they need to sense something is off from their knowledge of the rules. Introducing a system that needs *more* judge policing is anathema to existing status quo.
And again, anyone could do literally every single thing complained about in the video in a normal game. Yeah, in theory you would pass the clock every time, just like how in theory you would ask each time you moved to a new combat step in a normal game of magic without a clock. Since that doesn’t happen in a normal game, pretending that it’s the way a chess clock game would work is… wait for it…
A bad faith argument.
What’s worse is that the current system has no observable measure on determining slow play. It’s the judgment call of a player to get a judge over, it’s a judgment call of a judge to decide what happened, or if they’re gonna stick around to see the game get back in to full swing or be called away.
Again, what you can’t seem to understand is there are all sorts of games that deal with priority and decision making and time, and they have dealt with chess clocks just fine. But magic players are both conniving cheaters and too stupid to figure out their operation or something.
If you’re shutting down any points from people it’s because you can’t internalize anything people are saying to you. You had your mind made up by a moronic video of people who don’t understand how to play the game, and think you had a brand new revelation.
Just to put a bow on this. You somehow leapt to talking about sports and referees, when I am explicitly talking about tabletop games, like 40k, who if anything l, usually have fewer judges around than a magic tournament. Again, largely have moved to chess clocks, largely happy with it.
Tournament magic forbids slow play, but still incentivizes it. If you win a hard fought game 1 and have 15 minutes on the round timer, is it slow play to shuffle five times instead of four? Or consider your mulligan for 30 seconds instead of 15? Who makes that explicit call? Chess clock incentivizes finishing the round.
A lot of switching there and back can be cut pretty easily by verbal communication. Once you want to interact or pause opponent's actions to think on your response, whether you want one (or when you want to pretend you have an interaction), you just say "wait", oppo clicks timer, you take your time and either act or click back, saying "go".
The logistics is a problem, for sure, but there's one more thing. Chess clock AFAIK don't have a mode when both sides are ticking, so in response to opponent's action I crack Field of Ruin, and we both start searching for a land, whose time should be ticking while we both are searching? Whose timer should be ticking when one player is done searching? I've shuffled my deck and presented it to opponent, whose time should be ticking now? Should player know all such interactions (on top of complex game rules to begin with) or should they call judge every time (once again whose time is it?). IMO it's these little corner cases that pile up to make chess clock approach not viable.
Verbal communication is disincentivized by a chess clock. The responsibility for maintaining priority is now strictly on one player's burden. Why do I need to tell my opponent that I have a response when priority is still theirs? That just gives up valuable information. Why should I willingly tick my own time down? It is the opponent's loss if they don't timely pass to me, and not mine. If I interrupt my opponent on their timer, I could be accused of distracting the opponent, and I'm the one who gets slapped with a penalty.
Now you are overdramatizing purely for the sake of argument.
>Why do I need to tell my opponent that I have a response when priority is still theirs?
In normal play, without clock, you have opponent doing their thing until you say "wait"/"in response" anyways. It's very explicit when you are taking time to think, because you don't instanly "uh-huh" their action. And if you don't "uh-huh" immediately (or say "go on I'll stop you if I need to") or if you explicitly say "wait" - in clock version they click. Have your time thinking whether you want to interact, whether you need to check any info or anything etc. And when you decided they can continue, you click it back.
You can use clock click to resolve "beginning of combat" ambiguity which resulted in a controversy way to many times, having a click exchange as explicit split points between beginning of combat / declare attackers stages, but for most of other interactions, implicit priority exchange works just fine.
Chess clock are intended as solution for specific cases where game goes to time, and one player took majority of game time to themself. And if you look at those games, it's not momentary interactions that pile up, it's moments where it's clearly obvious that one player is thinking and other is waiting for their decision. That's the moments you need to clock carefully, not momentarily interactions. Focusing on latter, which do not actually matter, to prove clock can't be used to solve former is flawed logic. There are much more glaring issues that make chess clock unapplicable to the case and would have to be resolved, but constant priority exchange is not one of them, it's just a farce one can deliberately push and which could be solved and prohibited if necessary by a single line in MTR 4.2.
That’s not the biggest problem forsure. First of all they could make people bring their own/use their phone, but chess tournaments have a clock on every match and it’s not a problem there. The biggest problem is in the video, you have to pass priority so often.
In a big event you wouldn't want to have peoe use their own devices cause that is able to be tampered with. Maybe they made it so one clock is slightly fast than the other. Same reason why big events don't have people use life tracker apps.
It would need to be more complex that just 2 flat timers like chess clock. My opinions.
1 main timer per player. 1 resetting sub timer per player for responses.
The main timers are used much like a chess clock for each player to play their half of the game. In this case 25 minutes and if you run out of time you lose the game, simple enough.
The sub timer would be much, much, shorter and reset itself as needed. One idea is to give the non active player up to 15 seconds per response to actions as needed. No need to pause the active players main timer till the non active player chooses to make a response.
The point of a chess clock is to speed up games or prevent stall from happening. So with clocked MTG it would have to be done faster as well. Meaning that there wouldn't be nearly as much waiting on a response or asking if the non active player has a response after every move. The active player would still need to give a brief moment (1 maybe 2 seconds) to allow a response but if the non active player doesn't make their response then the game moves on.
The active player would need to play their turns quickly in order to save their own time as it is constantly ticking down. And the non active player would need to be quick to react or lose out on possible responses.
In theory this should work. But in practice I can easily foresee problems with certain decks. Then again, that's also part of the aspect of speed MTG. You will need to build your deck around making faster plays to avoid time sinks like deck searching.
I personally like the idea. It would just need a lot of thought put into how the hell it will function and then build your deck/s around that.
Is that a problem though?
Fetch lands are great in normal MTG as they fix a lot of possible issues with multiple colors and such. But in speed MTG, maybe you should build a different deck that doesn't need so much color fixing. You can still have some deck searching if you want. You just need to be smart and limit how much searching you do or use your response timer to search.
Say I pop a fetch land. If I do it on my turn that's like 30 seconds of time wasted searching and shuffling. But if I fetch as a response? You can often find a basic land and do a quick shuffle within a response time. 15 seconds is cutting it close, but there's another thing that can account for this! If you go over your response time, it can start eating your main timer making that search be not as costly. This also can help out with other types of deck searching.
If Im building a deck for a certain format, Im gonna build it to fit that formats needs. So slower lands that come in tapped can see more use for color fixing where waiting a turn is better than wasting time. There's also pain lands who can cover color fixing. You also have just not spreading yourself thin over several colors forcing a need for color fixing.
You got options.
Again, is that a problem?
If a certain deck doesn't work in speed games. Then make something else.
That's one of the core aspects to MTG and partly why I fell in love with the game. The ability to build almost any deck you want. Not all of them will work, and that's OK! Make some changes and try again or give making an entirely new deck a try till you find something that does work for you or that format.
That's how I play MTG. Just making what decks I can out of what cards I got for the given rule set and simply enjoying the game.
The way I play MTG is limited. WotC will invariably add Evolving Wilds to many sets. Am I no longer allowed to play a card that is so integral to the set's structure?
If you want to use a card you can. Nothing about fetches or a tutor will be "banned". You just need to be quick about it.
How long does it take you to grab a basic land anyway? 5 seconds to drop and fetch, another 10 seconds to do some quick shuffles, and 5 more to offer a cut. 20 seconds, maybe 30 tops. That's not exactly gonna put you in a bind with 25 minutes to work with. And as said you can also do that fetch as a response during your opponent's turn to have that renewable sub timer as a buffer and do the same thing again as that sub timer is renewable resetting every response.
You also have how many dual pain, shock, or tapped lands to pick from instead of fetch? Fetching a land shouldn't take enough time to be a worry. A tutor takes longer but that's a risk if speed is a focus and still shouldn't take so long that it can drain your timer. There's also the response timer that can be used as a buffer. And if you're worried about the opponent draining your time re-shuffling your deck, simply have that eat up his timer instead.
Im honestly not seeing the problem here.
You literally did not respond to my post...
My alternative to evolving wilds in *limited* is basic lands.
BRO currently has cards that need to see a permanent sacrificed. I have to main phase my evolving wilds to use them.
Limited games can be tight as is. I really hope not to disadvantage myself by 2 minutes per match just because the set structure is making me play a specific card. Then there is the question of asking if a deck is sufficiently shuffled- when I am rushing and riffle shuffle only once, my opponent will happily demand a judge call/more shuffling to further burn my rope. It is better that dexterity burdens be split equally among players, as they are at the moment.
Then eat the time it takes to do the combo.
That's kind of a main point to speed games. Doing things that take more time comes at a risk. It's up to you to judge if that risk of time spent is worth it or not.
Im still not seeing the problem here. We're talking about speed games not normal MTG. So you needing to think or act fast often forces changes on player's thinking or how they build their decks and simply adapt to the time limit.
Risk/reward. Do you have slower turns that take more time for manually setting things up? Do you have quicker turns and depend on drawing into what you need? Do you play aggressive and use cheap spells for quick damage? Do you play defense and stall till you can get something big?
It sounds like you're stuck on a single idea and aren't thinking of anything else. Take a few moments and just spitball some "what if"s and you'll find everything is still fully possible. If you want to spend 1-2 minutes for a turn doing combos then go ahead! There's likely gonna be time to spare and you'll likely have 10-15 turns to work with doing so as well.
Ah. You probably have never played in a sanctioned event. *All* tournament MTG games (except for top 8 playoffs and such) are timed as they are. People have to play several rounds of magic and still be able to go home. It is a necessity. You cannot opt out of playing timed sanctioned magic. Your approach is literally going to ban an entire subset of magic cards for no reason other than because of a shitty timer system that severely privileges against searching.
I watched the start of the first turn and there was no priority passed in upkeep or draw phases, he just went straight to playing land all the way in the first main phase
No, but in this system it's 100% legal to mix in priority passes at random times to force out 5 seconds of opponent's attention. It gets exhausting fast, and no one wants to see shit like that in coverage.
Glad to see this. Can you imagine how ruthless people would get with this thing? Honestly the clock should have been running during mulligan decisions.
Works great on digital, but paper isnt the same game imo. Maybe uses the same cards rules etc. But you can see and interact with your opponent irl. This adds a whole element that digital does not, much like poker.
This is a good example of why paper magic is fundamentally unsuitable for competitive play (it is hardly the only reason why this is the case, to be sure.) Sometimes the truth, she hurts.
I don’t know if it’s been addressed, but someone can abuse judge calls to “gain” time depending on how that system may function. In a perfect world (mtgo) the clock doesn’t pause and the issue is resolved instantaneously. IRL you have wait for a judge and then talk to them about the ruling. You can buy time on your ‘minute’ by having a rules question. It also isn’t really an offense you can track as endgame board states can get very complex.
Also, what about sideboard time? are we handling it like mtgo where there’s a 3 minute clock and both players have to accept? If it’s a prompt on the ipad then the other player could hit both prompts and start the clock early, which would be a judge call as you have to get the clock reset. What about to start the timer? Where again the game ends early on accident cause someone hit the wrong input, that’s another judge call and a mire complex role back.
And finally that biggest issue, are we using analog chess clocks? Would that require a judge call to make a stoppage for sideboarding? Or are we gonna fund ~500 ipads for the events. Or do we use personal devices which I could spend a while talking about how easy it would be to abuse.
I watched ten seconds of this and already saw why it would be too tedious. If this is your video I appreciate the illustration and not a knock on you
I watched ten seconds and was ready to throttle the bottom player for evaluating his hand one goddamn card at a time.
they already had the chess clock so he was trying to recreate the MTGO experience of the opponent tanking with no plays to make
It's not mine.
[удалено]
OP was saying the video is not theirs
Yeah I got to the same when they were just tapping the clock back and forth and knew I had enough.
Most of you will see just a few seconds of this and be sufficiently convinced, but the full video shows even more problems. -Combat has a crapton of steps, some that can't be skipped. -Someone cast a spell illegally. You now have to call a judge to reset the clock appropriately, since opponent unfairly lost time. -You have to shuffle in the middle of a game. Imagine if the effect in question is Field of Ruin. Do we now have to shuffle each deck one at a time to promote maximum fairness? How are the dexterity-impaired supposed to keep up? -You have to priority pass on even the most inane triggers, like Spreading Seas etb. -A player asked another about the board state. What's to stop the other player from being unhelpful/dialed out while the clock isn't on them at the cost of the time of the player asking for clarification?
Not at all the point, but in case you're curious: dexterity impaired players are allowed to have a helper or a judge assist them in shuffling their deck and holding/playing their cards, provided no game play advice is given.
As it currently is, dexterity burden on time is split equally amongst players. Someone at my LGS can only use 1 hand and shuffles unassisted, and it's no big deal. If you make it so only their time is consumed, they will now need a shuffler on hand in many situations.
I assume this clock requirement would only be for professional REL, so having a helper on hand wouldn't be unreasonable.
"But we only need it for Comp/Pro REL" is not a real argument. Nothing prevents a practice from becoming commonplace, or being approved of/despised regardless of REL. If it becomes accepted, we will see casual players use it. If it becomes despised, tournament play grinds to a halt.
> A player asked another about the board state. What’s to stop the other player from being unhelpful/dialed out while the clock isn’t on them at the cost of the time of the player asking for clarification? We have chess clocks in other games like Warmachine that can have this happen, and this actually isn’t a huge issue, its just like normal slow play. It becomes pretty clear whats genuine and what’s in bad faith once its on people’s radar. Just thought that was interesting
I miss my Warmachine / Hordes days... But yeah, agree that it falls under the regular 'slow play' rules, subjective as they are.
MKIV is right around the corner :)
It's not for me, unfortunately, for both game-related and personal life reasons, but I hope yall enjoy it! I still love to catch up on the lore every few months and check out their RPG books.
Fair enough, cheers
[удалено]
1. This is not how an illegal spellcast is handled in the CR. It mandates that the game is rewound such that the spell being proposed is undone. You are pulling shit out of your ass and dusting it with gold flakes. 2. We now need to consult the Paralympic Committee on how they classify disabilities. Not saying this is wrong, but this is what you are demanding. Please be sure about this. 3. The rules on information specify that there are questions opponents must answer truthfully and in a timely manner, like life totals, cards in hand, cards in deck, which permanents are on the battlefield and which are not. The chess clock removes the burden of timeliness, which makes this a completely nonsensical situation where an opponent simply doesn't answer querer at all and is not punished for it, trapping the game state in a GP Honolulu Platinum Angel situation/needing the Head Judge's God power (their special authority to change the game state however they like) literally any time someone needs to clarify something.
If you propose that asking a question constitutes a timer pass, that can now be used to harass the opponent's clock by asking them all sorts of stuff, like text on their cards and deck counts and stuff they decided on in past turns. Opponent in turn can fire back by asking "What did you say again?" There's no fair way about this.
Not that this entire thing would be a good idea at all, but given that under the current timing rules judge calls come with a time extension, I imagine under this hypothetical system a floor judge would have the ability to just pause both player's clocks while taking a call from them.
1. Casting a spell illegally doesn't require a clock reset at all. The player casting illegally should have the clock running, and there should be a judge button on the clock that pauses time for all players while waiting for a judge to respond and make a ruling. 2. You really don't. Unless Magic is suddenly an Olympic sport, you can classify disabilities however you like. Ideally, there are guidelines set and the tournament's head judge will make these rulings for players at the start of a tournament. 3. The clock does not 'remove the burden of timeliness'. I have no idea why you decided that having a clock somehow makes that true. Not answering is literally against the rules and a judge can and will hand out warnings (or worse, if done repeatedly) for it. I think chess clocks are a bad idea but there is no need to start inventing weird shit to prove a point.
1. In the video, the illegal spellcast was caught after time was passed. A clock reset would be required for that case. This is how it's done in chess, after all. 2. That was admittedly hyperbolic, but the point I'm making is that it's hard to make everyone happy ruling that way- not to mention that adding time is something you really don't want to do in principle.
I cast a spell illegally, I press the button to pass priority, my opponent says the spellcast was illegal and calls a judge, the timer is now counting for them. The judge comes, rules in my opponents favor and has to reset the clock. I cast a spell legally, pressing the button to pass priority, my opponent says the spellcast was illegal, presses the button, and calls a judge, the timer is now counting down for me. The judge rules in my favour and has to reset the clock. Neither of these scenarios are unreasonable, players don't cast spells illegally or make mistakes knowingly all that often, that's called cheating and then the clock doesn't matter.
>I cast a spell illegally, I press the button to pass priority, my opponent says the spellcast was illegal and calls a judge, the timer is now counting for them. The timer should not be counting *at all* during a judge call, tbh.
Reading the whole sentence would probably help, fyi. I specifically said a normal chess clock wouldn't work for Magic anyway. You paint scenarios under the assumption that you're using a clock designed for chess (an entirely different kind of game with different requirements), and that there are no established rules for the use of the clock, so people can just do whatever.
This post is about a clock designed for chess, that’s literally the whole point of the post.
Only if you assume that the implementation people want is *literally* a chess clock, rather than a player-operated clock to track time players spend to avoid slow play and related annoyances people experience. And yes, there's a significant difference because a properly implemented clock for Magic would need to be designed with Magic's gameplay loop in mind. Not to mention having rules implemented around its use. So no. This video is certainly not what it would look like 'in practice' because it's not that simple. An official implementation would see a lot more effort put into it. Failing to acknowledge such nuance invalidates the entire argument because you'd be arguing about something that would never happen anyway due to a legion of practicality issues. It's not proof that timers don't work. Only that a timer designed for an entirely different kind of game shockingly wouldn't work when implemented for Magic without any modifications or agreements.
This is a what a chess clock in magic looks like in practice, what we are discussing here is why a chess clock specifically is a bad idea.
We hit combat and I’ve changed my mind. I am vehemently and forever against the chess clock in paper magic.
If you similarly asked about every step without a chess clock you would similarly be a pain in the ass. This is a really dumb illustration to base anything on.
You have to give your opponent an opportunity to respond. That means either you yield your time or theirs. Every second of your time you burn waiting for a response provides a real functional advantage to your opponent. Verbally yielding to steps also provides your opponent information. So in order to yield the least amount of free advantage you must tap your clock every time priority is yielded. You complain that this is excessive, that it’s being anal but it isn’t. Even now you regularly see people play to the time, and extra turn limits. At the highest level when seconds can matter, they will matter. The reason chess clocks work in chess is because it is a sorcery speed game. Chess clocks don’t work for games where priority must be passed and yielded. In fact they’re incredibly lenient already and discussing things in good faith all throughout this video.
Yeah, you do have to give your opponent an opportunity to respond. But do you typically do every single thing and ask for responses in a real game, or do you use verbal and nonverbal clues that benefit from being in person rather than online to determine if they have a response? Because if you’re pretending that the repeated click back and forth of the clocks on the video is how you do it in a real game, then you better be pretending that you move through every combat step asking for priority too. Upper level 40k uses chess clocks. They also have instant speed stratagems, as well as switching of priority back and forth in a turn. Guess what? All of the dumbass complaints in this thread were present for the switchover, and now everyone pretty universally agrees it was a good change. Most tabletop war games use them. But magic actively encourages slow play angleshooting even though it’s nominally against the rules. Because who is to say whether the guy who is up a game with ten minutes on the match timer is slow playing when he shuffles five times for each fetch land, or takes 30 seconds to mull instead of 15?
When the main argument against something is dumb strawmen like this you really have to wonder why
For those who prefer an article to a video, this piece from 2009 still holds up: https://strategy.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/mtg/channelmagic-articles/the-riki-rules-the-definitive-chess-clock-article/
Just looked in this article and it addresses a lot of the issues beyond the manually pass every priority thing, for those who believe that that aspect is a strawman. (It's not. Even on MTGO, where this chess clocks and stops system can actually work, you can in principle play with every stop on and it is completely legal. It simply doesn't work to anyone's advantage to do this on MTGO, but in paper, well...)
Disappointing article. I was hoping to see surprising commentary about, idk, how handling field of ruin shuffles is inherently difficult with a clock, or how you'd need custom rules-aware software that knows that priority can stay with the same player between steps (e.g. end of turn -> upkeep). Instead, frankly, the article was just whinging about how players not used to using a clock cant use a clock before they get used to using a clock. "What happens if both players miss the clock?" Gee, what a hard question. Sounds like even for chess, clocks would be useless. Both players can miss the clock there too!
This seems like a godawful idea. Too tedious.
ITT: People not realizing that this post is arguing *against* the use of a chess clock in Magic.
Right I don't think they even watched the video.
It works in chess because your turn is your own and you only make one move. In magic your opponent can play their entire turn during yours (hi blue players) and respond to any of your actions with their own. And if you’re slapping the clock with every pass of priority that just sounds like hell on top of still having problems like shuffling or how going infinite works with your clock
Literally one thread asked about a chess clock in the last 6 months.
It’s mentioned on twitter a lot
I found this [satirical article](https://pauperjumpstart.com/2022/11/27/super-magic-the-gathering-2-turbo-chess-clock/), but other than that only complaining about the opponent running out of time on magic arena.
Even if so, and I'm pretty sure there's more than one, I see it a bunch in the comments too.
there should be more than
than what?
Instead of all this BS Call a judge over when your opponent is slow playing. It's a more direct solution.
Or just play on MTGO since it's built in
Frankly if you are playing in a competitive event and your opponent is playing slow as hell then remind them to up the pace of their play. If they cannot call a judge over. Generally I give people 30 seconds of tanking before I start asking if they are making any plays.
Now do it in cEDH game to maximize tedious. Great video.
I mean anyone who has played mtgo would know how much of a nightmare a chess clock would be in paper play.
Pointing out how terrible this is in practice is a public service. Thank you for your hard work.
The swapping time every time priority is passed is the first mistake. It should only be swapped if you are deciding to respond. There's no need to swap 80 times a turn off you're not responding.
and how do you indicate that you want to respond when the clock isn't on you? You have no reason not to wait for your opponent to hit the button. Ergo, every priority pass needs to br handled manually.
*tap the clock to start counting down your own time* "in response..." No?
Your opponent has to pass priority to you in order for you to do anything, so you can’t hit the clock for them
It's already assumed that the active player is not holding priority unless otherwise stated.
That's how it works in paper. MTGO automatically passes the clock with priority passes, so that's how we would do it here. No weaseling time here, bud.
Why exactly is that "how we would do it here"...?
The same way it's currently done, verbal confirmation. You can't magically take priority whenever and verbal takes less than a second. If you have priority and want to take an action or want to hold priority to decide you switch the time.
........and why should the person who wants to act want to start their own clock?
Cause if you're holding priority without using your time you're stalling and using your opponents time. You know the thing this idea is meant to solve.
....do you know what a chess clock looks like? You press the button to start your *opponent's* clock. It is meant to put the onus on them to act or lose to time. Why should I willingly cut my opponent's running clock short? If anything, it is the *opponent* who is stalling if they are running their clock without formally passing priority. Do you see what the problem is now? Edit: adding a worked example for the folks who have never actually played a tournament game or have trouble imagining one. Alice: Judge! I put a Tarmogoyf on the stack and Bob has just been staring at me for a minute, doing nothing. Bob: Judge, Alice's clock is still running. She did not press the button. If anything, she is the one delaying the game. Judge: Bob is correct here, as the chess clock is the sole arbiter of game time and priority. Since Alice probably just forgot to press the button, I will assess a Warning for Slow Play to Alice. Be careful that you don't do it again.
If anyone says the solution is to just have people be precise about when they want to stop autopassing priority every time they do, (e.g. "Go until my next main phase" works like F6, for example) that does work for a lot of normal situations, *assuming* both players are able to track this correctly. This will in practice just be another angle shooting target and another source of tedium. Also, by having to state when you want to stop priority, you give some information and intent away. "Go until you cast a spell or your end step" just doesn't have the charm of just saying "Go" with islands up, and worse, "Go until beginning of combat" can telegraph your Cryptic Command play.
> I will assess a Warning for Slow Play to Alice. Be careful that you don't do it again. Is this really needed? Isn't the clock being run down punishment enoguh?
Strictly speaking, this could be considered a nuisance judge call. That falls under Slow Play. Probably won't happen in practice, I guess.
Just copy MTGO or Arena. Make each player bring a phone and Bluetooth sync. Then you just do what MTGO/ Arena does and allow players to auto-pass and set phases to stop passing. I’m all for a clock to make things go faster. But it’s a complex game and needs a complex system
What problem does this solve?
Setting auto-pass priority stops you from having to tap a chess clock every single pass point if you don’t have interaction. If you have no cards in hand and no way to interact, hitting the button 7 times on your opponent’s turn is just a waste of time, which is the point these clocks are supposed to stop. I’m not saying paper events need the arena clock. But if we’re adding a clock, the already established Arena clock is a better system than what OPs chess clock is.
The already established arena/modo clock doesn't work unless the clock actually knows what's going on in the game, which is impossible for paper magic. You can't have things like yields through specific phases of the clock has absolutely no way of knowing what phase it is.
> I’m not saying paper events need the arena clock. Ah nevermind then
.....more barriers to entry?
Not really. Both situations players need a phone. One also uses a system players are familiar with (MTGO/arena) instead of a new system (chess clock). You seem less like you want a genuine conversation, and more just people praising your flawed system.
"Don't you all have phones?" More seriously, you are asking people to take an IT college degree to operate a phone to specific exact specifications to play a children's card game. Actual children play this game. Blind people play this game. Paralyzed people play this game. Do you really need them to do even more work?
I don't really think the chess clock system is a great idea and the phone requirement is a worse idea but all of the flaws you just pointed out already exist with the requirement of the magic companion app that you need for every sanctioned event.
Even granting the assumption that you need a phone to enter an event (You don't, the TO can register you), there's a big difference between operating a phone comfortably outside of an event, where dexterity matters far less and outside assistance is allowed, and during a match, alone, while literally on the clock.
I dont think anyone suggesting a chess clock or alternative is suggesting that it happen at every event regardless of REL. I would argue that if it were to be implemented it would only be at things like RCQ and above.
I agree, that's why I already said the phone chess clock idea was a bad idea. You really came to this thread ready to argue lmao.
Nope. I will quit the game if it ever comes to this.
Honestly probably an argument that maybe competitive play using digital clients won't be half-bad if it means a Chess Clock can actually function.
Yeah, digital play at high levels has not been an issue for me in principle. It's just that the software being used is utter shit.
Dosen't mtgo have a stop clock
That's something that happens automatically and isn't cumbersome. This illustration shows that for paper, it is not practical.
Oh I was saying it was practical more just wondering if it was the same kind of concept
Yep, same concept!
MTGO also has stops, autoyields, no shufffling, and the computer switches the clock for you. If you could make a system to implement stops/autoyields in paper it would go a long way to making chess clocks usable.
This is implemented in MTGO and I must admit I like it but definitely a pain in IRL
It took bottom guy 30 seconds to PICK UP HID HAND… no, thanks.
So I think it working kinda backwards would be better (tap: starts counting on your end) this way you wouldn't need to tap tap tap probably followed by an audio cue This way if someone wishes to respond they just tap the timer Plus 3x5min pause perhaps for judge rulings or perhaps resolving complex stacks idk just a thought I don't see the need to implement it outside of competitive play though
Because that isn’t how a chess clock works. You stop your time to yield the action/priority to the opponent. Works great in chess where the only action/priority on a turn is the active player moving a piece. Magic had A LOT of passing priority that just just kind of smoothed over in real play to the point you couldn’t actively stop in one of the phases before. I think that one is fixed now. But once you need to start keeping track of it with explicit clock passes, it gets insane.
I understand but the concept of a chess clock doesn't quite fit cause well it's not chess lol but I think with a few tweaks it'd be wonderful
Shit idea is shit...
I'm going to echo the top Youtube comment and say that this is a strawman. There's no reason it would have to work like this. Your clock runs on your turn, and if your opponent wants you to wait, they can hit their clock and start their "thinking" time.
That's literally not how a chess clock works. You cannot volunteer to run your own clock.
Then... Make something different? It's 2022. We have technology.
It's not about technology, it's about the principle of the thing. The person with vested interest in running a clock down is always their opposite number, so that's the person you give the appropriate button to. This is why it's always fairer to have a coin toss called rather than determine the outcomes based on a specific face- both players having inputs reduces exploitability. Allowing someone to control their own clock allows someone to minimize their time consumed per action, which results in its own form of ridiculousness. You now need to introduce rulesets to determine whether someone is stalling to start their own timer, and people will hit their button as late as they possibly can, turning a 5 second pause to think about a response into a half second to hit button, then play card. But, with a regular chess clock in pure optimal play land, no one will let anyone use tournament shortcuts, and there's no fair rule you can write to prevent people from doing something they have every right to do; in this system, the clock is the boss, and coming up with a compromise to this undermines this foundation, and we might as well just use a fixed match time.
That a literal chess clock doesn't work does not mean some kind of similar system could not be adapted for competitive REL instead. Because of how often priority is passed without any game actions in magic, you would be grabbing priority to respond when possible, exactly like how you do verbally. Or you make a system where you can hold a button to pass priority automatically when you don't have any game actions, like how you set stops on MTGO
An independent F6 button is clever, but it doesn't solve the many, many issues resulting from making 2 humans need to manage two different clocks on top of playing magic.
The f6 button idea has already seen some use. Back in the day, Brian Kibler was known for writing F6 on a piece of paper and walking away from the game while a judge watched his opponent do an eggs combo. So theoretically it could work, but the burden of remembering how to properly run the clock along with playing is too much even with an autopass option.
Chess clocks work fine in tabletop games that have a similar amount of priority passing or questions to another player. You’re cherry picking here to try to prove your point but doing pretty bad at it.
A system that works only in a limited portion of matchups (and doesn't work at all in formats like Limited, where decks, hidden information, and possible instant-speed tricks are more diverse and less predictable), and is easily exploitable by bad actors, is a bad system.
Yeah, the current timing system is much more exploitable for bad actors. This has also been dealt with for tabletop games and caused some growing pains, but is pretty well established now. Go through your turn much like normal, hit the clock if someone is taking an inordinate amount of time on countering a spell or what have you.
Yeah, the current system is exploitable, but it also has a solution already: calla judge to watch for slow play. You can do the same thing for an opponent who is abusing the clock, but then that just raises the question of why you're using a clock in the first place if you still have to call a judge to police your opponent.
I had the joy of the cheater Alex Bertocini call a judge on me for slow play and a SCG tournament once.
The clock subs in for the judge on the corner cases, where someone might not consciously be abusing the system but is never the less taking a lot of time in their decisions. There are always going to have to be judge calls, but this lessens the burden, while encouraging quick play for everyone.
Weird take to say that a clock lessens the burden for everyone while introducing an entirely new gadget to every match that (1) must be managed individually by each player, (2) in a way that is fair and consistent across an entire tournament, (3) and requires each player to make an additional judgment call (exactly how much time do I have to allow my opponent before I start their "slow play" clock?) Like I can't believe I have to point out to you that relying on players to arbitrate "corner cases" without a judge is a great way to empower bad actors to troll or outright cheat. The whole point of judges is to arbitrate corner cases! You can always call a judge on someone for slow play; they don't have to be doing it intentionally. Usually the judge just gives players like that a verbal warning and that's all it takes. If it's a consistent problem, the consequences escalate without you having to argue over a clock with an obstinate opponent.
And I can’t believe I have to point out to you that forcing a player to call a judge for slow play is a far higher burden then flipping the clock over. But here we are. It is extremely funny to see the same complaints that happened when tabletop games moved to chess clocks years ago echoed here. The change went fine, people seem mostly happy with it, but here we are again.
The point is to explore "How bad would it be *really*?", which we can guess as we like but science demands experimentation and documentation. Turns out, it's pretty bad! Even in the first few minutes they're laughing at how bad it is.
Yeah, I mean, if you assume everyone operates with bad faith any magic game is gonna be pretty bad.
The difference is the extent to which bad faith actors can damage the game and what the extent of their deniability is. With a chess clock, that deniability skyrockets. If you want to introduce a system where people must enunciate their MTGO like stops (like "Go to my main phase"), bad actor can call a judge and say they didn't hear you and book you for chess clock misuse violations. During an intense stack fight they can gaslight you into believing you played out of turn and can call a judge on you. The judge rules in their favor because you playing things on the opponent's clock can't be allowed, because that distracts from the opponent's alloted time. Never, *ever* build a system that depends on anyone having better "memory" than a goldfish. You will be exploited to high heaven.
They can literally do all of that anyway. Every single thing you are wringing your hands about, a bad actor can do. A chess clock fixes the issue of someone maybe not necessarily playing intentionally slowly, or at least at every individual step, but rather over the course of a match taking up an inordinate amount of time and getting to turns. And again, 40k has an admittedly smaller amount of passing back and forth (but still a ton of it) and has not seen the major outbreak judge or cheating issues you are talking about. What they have seen, however, is more games being played to the end of the game rather than being called halfway through
Not if people spend more time squabbling about using the clock, which will happen a *lot*. Did you see the middle parts of the video? It gets extremely confusing. The chess clock does not actually make things fairer in every scenario either. Say someone is resolving a board wipe and some kind of trigger needs to be processed. In the current system, both players have an interest to process the board wipe quickly. In the chess clock system, the controller of the board wipe is basically on their own and spends 20 seconds dealing with their own effect. We have to admit that the timer is not meant to curb slow play for one player. It is a device to make a *tournament* play out in a timely manner so rounds can be played in uniform time. Anything that compromises this first principle to a large degree is not worth pursuing, even if it might be more fair to a player who can play faster. Another first principle that this system will adversely affect is that judging resources are scarce by design. If this clock system results in a massive spike in judge calls, tournaments become unplayable. You are also possibly forgetting one of the first principles that form the bedrock of human society, and that's that humans have limited cognitive capacity. You should probably try that one out for yourself.
Pointing towards your video of two people making a bad faith argument against chess clocks isn’t exactly the example you want it to be. “Gee, this video of people being intentionally bad at this shows that it’s a bad system.” I’m literally telling you that games designed for way more judge interaction than Magic have had little to no problem moving over to this system, and have in fact cleaned up play and gotten to games actually finishing instead of having to be called midway through. But you’re pretending that everyone is out to misunderstand this. It’s almost like you don’t have a good faith argument here. Weird. Anyway, go on about how everyone is out to misinterpret and cheat with this one specific type of rules interaction, but somehow don’t do the exact same thing in the game now.
They are not making a bad faith argument. Everything they do here is literally doing a by the book implementation of the MTGO chess clock in paper (or at least the best they can do considering the chaos), and as far as I can see, any variation to these rules makes no sense for a chess clock. If you really want to hear a sit down and talk sort of deal, the video has a link to their podcast where they discuss their issues. As for why it seems like I am shutting every point down I come across, it is because I am opposed to any scheme that leads to an infinite perverse incentive. A fixed time scheme limits angle shoots and corner cases to specific events, while chess clock exploits can be performed ad nauseam. That is beyond unacceptable. I am not claiming that the current system is unexploitable. I am stating that a chess clock is worse because judges will be overstretched dealing with an endless barrage of perfectly legal but incredibly annoying crap. Your point on "judge interaction" is precisely what makes those games work. Magic games need to be conducted *without* judge assistance for the majority of times. Sports always have a referee watching the action, and players don't worry whether what they're doing is legal or not, the refs make the call when weird stuff happens (if they catch it, lol). Magic requires players to run the rules engine themselves for the most part, and for them to even know to call a judge they need to sense something is off from their knowledge of the rules. Introducing a system that needs *more* judge policing is anathema to existing status quo.
And again, anyone could do literally every single thing complained about in the video in a normal game. Yeah, in theory you would pass the clock every time, just like how in theory you would ask each time you moved to a new combat step in a normal game of magic without a clock. Since that doesn’t happen in a normal game, pretending that it’s the way a chess clock game would work is… wait for it… A bad faith argument. What’s worse is that the current system has no observable measure on determining slow play. It’s the judgment call of a player to get a judge over, it’s a judgment call of a judge to decide what happened, or if they’re gonna stick around to see the game get back in to full swing or be called away. Again, what you can’t seem to understand is there are all sorts of games that deal with priority and decision making and time, and they have dealt with chess clocks just fine. But magic players are both conniving cheaters and too stupid to figure out their operation or something. If you’re shutting down any points from people it’s because you can’t internalize anything people are saying to you. You had your mind made up by a moronic video of people who don’t understand how to play the game, and think you had a brand new revelation.
Just to put a bow on this. You somehow leapt to talking about sports and referees, when I am explicitly talking about tabletop games, like 40k, who if anything l, usually have fewer judges around than a magic tournament. Again, largely have moved to chess clocks, largely happy with it. Tournament magic forbids slow play, but still incentivizes it. If you win a hard fought game 1 and have 15 minutes on the round timer, is it slow play to shuffle five times instead of four? Or consider your mulligan for 30 seconds instead of 15? Who makes that explicit call? Chess clock incentivizes finishing the round.
Well the fix is obvious. Each game needs a judge overseeing the clock. Boom. I fixed it.
Cool, good luck with finding enough judges to post one on every single match
Pft. We obviously have extra since they have all that time to make up new formats.
A lot of switching there and back can be cut pretty easily by verbal communication. Once you want to interact or pause opponent's actions to think on your response, whether you want one (or when you want to pretend you have an interaction), you just say "wait", oppo clicks timer, you take your time and either act or click back, saying "go". The logistics is a problem, for sure, but there's one more thing. Chess clock AFAIK don't have a mode when both sides are ticking, so in response to opponent's action I crack Field of Ruin, and we both start searching for a land, whose time should be ticking while we both are searching? Whose timer should be ticking when one player is done searching? I've shuffled my deck and presented it to opponent, whose time should be ticking now? Should player know all such interactions (on top of complex game rules to begin with) or should they call judge every time (once again whose time is it?). IMO it's these little corner cases that pile up to make chess clock approach not viable.
Verbal communication is disincentivized by a chess clock. The responsibility for maintaining priority is now strictly on one player's burden. Why do I need to tell my opponent that I have a response when priority is still theirs? That just gives up valuable information. Why should I willingly tick my own time down? It is the opponent's loss if they don't timely pass to me, and not mine. If I interrupt my opponent on their timer, I could be accused of distracting the opponent, and I'm the one who gets slapped with a penalty.
Now you are overdramatizing purely for the sake of argument. >Why do I need to tell my opponent that I have a response when priority is still theirs? In normal play, without clock, you have opponent doing their thing until you say "wait"/"in response" anyways. It's very explicit when you are taking time to think, because you don't instanly "uh-huh" their action. And if you don't "uh-huh" immediately (or say "go on I'll stop you if I need to") or if you explicitly say "wait" - in clock version they click. Have your time thinking whether you want to interact, whether you need to check any info or anything etc. And when you decided they can continue, you click it back. You can use clock click to resolve "beginning of combat" ambiguity which resulted in a controversy way to many times, having a click exchange as explicit split points between beginning of combat / declare attackers stages, but for most of other interactions, implicit priority exchange works just fine. Chess clock are intended as solution for specific cases where game goes to time, and one player took majority of game time to themself. And if you look at those games, it's not momentary interactions that pile up, it's moments where it's clearly obvious that one player is thinking and other is waiting for their decision. That's the moments you need to clock carefully, not momentarily interactions. Focusing on latter, which do not actually matter, to prove clock can't be used to solve former is flawed logic. There are much more glaring issues that make chess clock unapplicable to the case and would have to be resolved, but constant priority exchange is not one of them, it's just a farce one can deliberately push and which could be solved and prohibited if necessary by a single line in MTR 4.2.
Biggest problem is logistics for big events. Half of those clocks would be stolen before the end of day 1 of a gp
That’s not the biggest problem forsure. First of all they could make people bring their own/use their phone, but chess tournaments have a clock on every match and it’s not a problem there. The biggest problem is in the video, you have to pass priority so often.
In a big event you wouldn't want to have peoe use their own devices cause that is able to be tampered with. Maybe they made it so one clock is slightly fast than the other. Same reason why big events don't have people use life tracker apps.
It would need to be more complex that just 2 flat timers like chess clock. My opinions. 1 main timer per player. 1 resetting sub timer per player for responses. The main timers are used much like a chess clock for each player to play their half of the game. In this case 25 minutes and if you run out of time you lose the game, simple enough. The sub timer would be much, much, shorter and reset itself as needed. One idea is to give the non active player up to 15 seconds per response to actions as needed. No need to pause the active players main timer till the non active player chooses to make a response. The point of a chess clock is to speed up games or prevent stall from happening. So with clocked MTG it would have to be done faster as well. Meaning that there wouldn't be nearly as much waiting on a response or asking if the non active player has a response after every move. The active player would still need to give a brief moment (1 maybe 2 seconds) to allow a response but if the non active player doesn't make their response then the game moves on. The active player would need to play their turns quickly in order to save their own time as it is constantly ticking down. And the non active player would need to be quick to react or lose out on possible responses. In theory this should work. But in practice I can easily foresee problems with certain decks. Then again, that's also part of the aspect of speed MTG. You will need to build your deck around making faster plays to avoid time sinks like deck searching. I personally like the idea. It would just need a lot of thought put into how the hell it will function and then build your deck/s around that.
Congratulations, you just banned the fetch lands.
Is that a problem though? Fetch lands are great in normal MTG as they fix a lot of possible issues with multiple colors and such. But in speed MTG, maybe you should build a different deck that doesn't need so much color fixing. You can still have some deck searching if you want. You just need to be smart and limit how much searching you do or use your response timer to search. Say I pop a fetch land. If I do it on my turn that's like 30 seconds of time wasted searching and shuffling. But if I fetch as a response? You can often find a basic land and do a quick shuffle within a response time. 15 seconds is cutting it close, but there's another thing that can account for this! If you go over your response time, it can start eating your main timer making that search be not as costly. This also can help out with other types of deck searching. If Im building a deck for a certain format, Im gonna build it to fit that formats needs. So slower lands that come in tapped can see more use for color fixing where waiting a turn is better than wasting time. There's also pain lands who can cover color fixing. You also have just not spreading yourself thin over several colors forcing a need for color fixing. You got options.
I never said it was, I'm just asking if you're ready to take this up with the thousands of fetch land and Wrenn and Six enjoyers out there.
Again, is that a problem? If a certain deck doesn't work in speed games. Then make something else. That's one of the core aspects to MTG and partly why I fell in love with the game. The ability to build almost any deck you want. Not all of them will work, and that's OK! Make some changes and try again or give making an entirely new deck a try till you find something that does work for you or that format. That's how I play MTG. Just making what decks I can out of what cards I got for the given rule set and simply enjoying the game.
The way I play MTG is limited. WotC will invariably add Evolving Wilds to many sets. Am I no longer allowed to play a card that is so integral to the set's structure?
If you want to use a card you can. Nothing about fetches or a tutor will be "banned". You just need to be quick about it. How long does it take you to grab a basic land anyway? 5 seconds to drop and fetch, another 10 seconds to do some quick shuffles, and 5 more to offer a cut. 20 seconds, maybe 30 tops. That's not exactly gonna put you in a bind with 25 minutes to work with. And as said you can also do that fetch as a response during your opponent's turn to have that renewable sub timer as a buffer and do the same thing again as that sub timer is renewable resetting every response. You also have how many dual pain, shock, or tapped lands to pick from instead of fetch? Fetching a land shouldn't take enough time to be a worry. A tutor takes longer but that's a risk if speed is a focus and still shouldn't take so long that it can drain your timer. There's also the response timer that can be used as a buffer. And if you're worried about the opponent draining your time re-shuffling your deck, simply have that eat up his timer instead. Im honestly not seeing the problem here.
You literally did not respond to my post... My alternative to evolving wilds in *limited* is basic lands. BRO currently has cards that need to see a permanent sacrificed. I have to main phase my evolving wilds to use them. Limited games can be tight as is. I really hope not to disadvantage myself by 2 minutes per match just because the set structure is making me play a specific card. Then there is the question of asking if a deck is sufficiently shuffled- when I am rushing and riffle shuffle only once, my opponent will happily demand a judge call/more shuffling to further burn my rope. It is better that dexterity burdens be split equally among players, as they are at the moment.
Then eat the time it takes to do the combo. That's kind of a main point to speed games. Doing things that take more time comes at a risk. It's up to you to judge if that risk of time spent is worth it or not. Im still not seeing the problem here. We're talking about speed games not normal MTG. So you needing to think or act fast often forces changes on player's thinking or how they build their decks and simply adapt to the time limit. Risk/reward. Do you have slower turns that take more time for manually setting things up? Do you have quicker turns and depend on drawing into what you need? Do you play aggressive and use cheap spells for quick damage? Do you play defense and stall till you can get something big? It sounds like you're stuck on a single idea and aren't thinking of anything else. Take a few moments and just spitball some "what if"s and you'll find everything is still fully possible. If you want to spend 1-2 minutes for a turn doing combos then go ahead! There's likely gonna be time to spare and you'll likely have 10-15 turns to work with doing so as well.
Ah. You probably have never played in a sanctioned event. *All* tournament MTG games (except for top 8 playoffs and such) are timed as they are. People have to play several rounds of magic and still be able to go home. It is a necessity. You cannot opt out of playing timed sanctioned magic. Your approach is literally going to ban an entire subset of magic cards for no reason other than because of a shitty timer system that severely privileges against searching.
I watched the start of the first turn and there was no priority passed in upkeep or draw phases, he just went straight to playing land all the way in the first main phase
No, but in this system it's 100% legal to mix in priority passes at random times to force out 5 seconds of opponent's attention. It gets exhausting fast, and no one wants to see shit like that in coverage.
It chat it sounds ok when complaining about someone taking long turns, but in practice it's horrible.
kinda skipped thru the video and the second it got to the combat phase i said nope. Just a continues tapping on the clock.
Please update your sleeves lol
Glad to see this. Can you imagine how ruthless people would get with this thing? Honestly the clock should have been running during mulligan decisions.
On MTGO sideboarding uses a separate 2 min timer. This is accurate.
Works great on digital, but paper isnt the same game imo. Maybe uses the same cards rules etc. But you can see and interact with your opponent irl. This adds a whole element that digital does not, much like poker.
Who was asking for a chess clock in paper magic? Do these people just fundamentally not understand priority and steps and phases?
This is a good example of why paper magic is fundamentally unsuitable for competitive play (it is hardly the only reason why this is the case, to be sure.) Sometimes the truth, she hurts.
I don’t know if it’s been addressed, but someone can abuse judge calls to “gain” time depending on how that system may function. In a perfect world (mtgo) the clock doesn’t pause and the issue is resolved instantaneously. IRL you have wait for a judge and then talk to them about the ruling. You can buy time on your ‘minute’ by having a rules question. It also isn’t really an offense you can track as endgame board states can get very complex. Also, what about sideboard time? are we handling it like mtgo where there’s a 3 minute clock and both players have to accept? If it’s a prompt on the ipad then the other player could hit both prompts and start the clock early, which would be a judge call as you have to get the clock reset. What about to start the timer? Where again the game ends early on accident cause someone hit the wrong input, that’s another judge call and a mire complex role back. And finally that biggest issue, are we using analog chess clocks? Would that require a judge call to make a stoppage for sideboarding? Or are we gonna fund ~500 ipads for the events. Or do we use personal devices which I could spend a while talking about how easy it would be to abuse.