Volume 3 Newsletter: Contributions
Posted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 1:23 am
Gollum’s Grotto: Overdetermination
A Definition
In this article, I will discuss one way to take a good deck with some decent combos and raise it to the level of a great deck with killer combos. The method is what I shall call overdetermination. A card in a deck is overdetermined in that deck if it can be used (either by itself or in combination with multiple other cards in the deck) to do more than one thing. One card is more overdetermined in its deck than another if it can be used (by itself or in combos) in more ways than its counterpart. This is a very sparse way of characterizing what I mean, so I’ll switch to examples.
Hero Example
A card whose overdeterminations are obvious and frequently exploited is Gates of Morning. You might play Gates of Morning simply to counter your opponent’s Snowstorm or Foul Fumes or whatever other nasty environment hazards he has in store. Such a use of Gates of Morning is not overdetermined. You might, however, decide to throw three copies of Many Turns and Doublings into your deck as well. Now both Gates of Morning and Many Turns and Doublings will be singly overdetermined. You can use Gates of Morning in two ways: (G1) to counter your opponent’s environment hazards and (G2) in combination with Many Turns and Doublings to reduce your hazard limit. Similarly, you can use Many Turns and Doublings in two ways: (M1) to cancel an attack and (M2) in combination with Gates of Morning to reduce your hazard limit. Furthermore, you might add a couple copies of The Evenstar to your deck. Now Gates of Morning will be doubly overdetermined, and both Many Turns and Doublings and The Evenstar will be singly overdetermined. (G1) and (G2) come up again, but there is a further use for your Gates of Morning: (G3) in combination with The Evenstar to change a region type (and fizzle a creature, for instance) and increase the prowess of all elves. The Evenstar has two uses: (E1) to increase the prowess of an elf and (E2) in combination with Gates of Morning to change a region type and increase the prowess of all elves.
As I said, you can simply go wild with Gates of Morning. Here, for example, is a hero deck I’ve been toying around with for a few months:
Elladan / Cram
Elrohir / Cram
Gildor Inglorian
Galdor
Haldir
3 Pallando
Cirdan
Annalena
3 Gates of Morning
3 Many Turns and Doublings
3 Dark Quarrels
3 The Cock Crows
3 The Evenstar
3 Risky Blow
3 Quiet Lands
3 Await the Advent of Allies
Bridge
Tom Bombadil
Orcrist
Wormsbane
The Mithril Coat
Elves of Lindon
The basic scheme is to send the brutes (separately – yes, alone!) to fetch the greater items at Carn Dum, Mount Gundabad, and Moria, Galdor to summon the faction, and Haldir to fetch Tom. There’s a Bridge so that you can draw a few extra cards, and perhaps exhaust by turn three. In this deck Gates of Morning is sextuply overdetermined, and each of the other environment cards is doubly overdetermined. It’s possible in this deck to get 10 character points, 3 ally points, 2 faction points, and 12 item points for a total of 27 without even accessing your sideboard once. In all likelihood, you’ll kill a creature or three, so breaking 30 MP with alacrity is a facile task.
Minion Example
Here’s another example, on the minion side of the fence. Let’s say you want to play a dragon faction deck. So you throw in Smaug of course, and then probably Scatha, and Agburanar. You put a couple greater items in the deck, a regiment, and a bunch of cancellers. Great! Instead, however, you could put Agburanar in your sideboard and switch in the Ice-Orcs, who are a bit more versatile, as well as easier to influence. Now, when your Ringwraith comes into play, have him discard five resources from your sideboard, one of which will be Agburanar (you can figure out what the other four should be). In your hazard portion, pack three copies of Parsimony of Seclusion. During your opponent’s turn, you can play Parsimony to fetch your dragon faction to your hand, increasing his hazard limit while simultaneously setting up your resource play for the next turn. Agburanar Roused is now playing a dual role in your deck: (A1) to be a big nasty dragon faction and (A2) in combination with Parsimony of Seclusion to increase your opponent’s hazard limit. But that’s only the beginning. Now you should think to yourself, “Well, I can of course use Parsimony of Seclusion to fetch Daelomin at Home, which would be useful.” Good start. You can also use it to grab Agburanar himself, or even Smaug or Itangast, and then play the creature with (say) Dragon’s Desolation. Now Parsimony is playing a quadruply overdetermined role in your deck: (P1) in combination with a manifestation of Agburanar to increase your opponent’s hazard limit, (P2) in combination with any dragon faction to set up your resources for the next turn, (P3) in combination with any dragon creature to set up a doozy of an attack, and (P4) to return Daelomin at Home to your hand.
Why Overdetermination?
“Why are you telling us to play combos, Mark? We already know that combos are very important.”
I am telling you to play combos, but I’m not just telling you to play any old combos. Rather, I’m telling you which combos to play: overdetermined ones.
“I don’t know, Mark. I feel like the really fast and effective decks are usually the ones that don’t have any (or at any rate, many) combos. Combos make for hand jam, and that can be the death of a deck.”
Combos do make for hand jam, it’s true. However, overdetermined cards reduce the likelihood of hand jam because they can be used in so many ways. The reason you get a hand jam is that you’re waiting to draw a certain card, which once drawn will allow you to play two or more cards at once. But if you are not waiting to draw just one card, but any of a large number of cards (as in the elf deck listed above), the likelihood of hand jam decreases dramatically.
“I’m still not convinced. Show me some strong decks that actually use this overdetermination principle.”
OK.
Gates of Morning Lucky Search Deck.
Hobbits in Dragon Country (Halfling Strength overdetermined)
Red Hills (Hold Rebuilt overdetermined)
Elf-Lords Squatting (Elf-Song overdetermined)
The Mouth Influencing Factions (Bane overdetermined)
Elven CVCC
Hobbits with ’Gorn on the High Seas
[There's a bunch of links to go with this]
A Definition
In this article, I will discuss one way to take a good deck with some decent combos and raise it to the level of a great deck with killer combos. The method is what I shall call overdetermination. A card in a deck is overdetermined in that deck if it can be used (either by itself or in combination with multiple other cards in the deck) to do more than one thing. One card is more overdetermined in its deck than another if it can be used (by itself or in combos) in more ways than its counterpart. This is a very sparse way of characterizing what I mean, so I’ll switch to examples.
Hero Example
A card whose overdeterminations are obvious and frequently exploited is Gates of Morning. You might play Gates of Morning simply to counter your opponent’s Snowstorm or Foul Fumes or whatever other nasty environment hazards he has in store. Such a use of Gates of Morning is not overdetermined. You might, however, decide to throw three copies of Many Turns and Doublings into your deck as well. Now both Gates of Morning and Many Turns and Doublings will be singly overdetermined. You can use Gates of Morning in two ways: (G1) to counter your opponent’s environment hazards and (G2) in combination with Many Turns and Doublings to reduce your hazard limit. Similarly, you can use Many Turns and Doublings in two ways: (M1) to cancel an attack and (M2) in combination with Gates of Morning to reduce your hazard limit. Furthermore, you might add a couple copies of The Evenstar to your deck. Now Gates of Morning will be doubly overdetermined, and both Many Turns and Doublings and The Evenstar will be singly overdetermined. (G1) and (G2) come up again, but there is a further use for your Gates of Morning: (G3) in combination with The Evenstar to change a region type (and fizzle a creature, for instance) and increase the prowess of all elves. The Evenstar has two uses: (E1) to increase the prowess of an elf and (E2) in combination with Gates of Morning to change a region type and increase the prowess of all elves.
As I said, you can simply go wild with Gates of Morning. Here, for example, is a hero deck I’ve been toying around with for a few months:
Elladan / Cram
Elrohir / Cram
Gildor Inglorian
Galdor
Haldir
3 Pallando
Cirdan
Annalena
3 Gates of Morning
3 Many Turns and Doublings
3 Dark Quarrels
3 The Cock Crows
3 The Evenstar
3 Risky Blow
3 Quiet Lands
3 Await the Advent of Allies
Bridge
Tom Bombadil
Orcrist
Wormsbane
The Mithril Coat
Elves of Lindon
The basic scheme is to send the brutes (separately – yes, alone!) to fetch the greater items at Carn Dum, Mount Gundabad, and Moria, Galdor to summon the faction, and Haldir to fetch Tom. There’s a Bridge so that you can draw a few extra cards, and perhaps exhaust by turn three. In this deck Gates of Morning is sextuply overdetermined, and each of the other environment cards is doubly overdetermined. It’s possible in this deck to get 10 character points, 3 ally points, 2 faction points, and 12 item points for a total of 27 without even accessing your sideboard once. In all likelihood, you’ll kill a creature or three, so breaking 30 MP with alacrity is a facile task.
Minion Example
Here’s another example, on the minion side of the fence. Let’s say you want to play a dragon faction deck. So you throw in Smaug of course, and then probably Scatha, and Agburanar. You put a couple greater items in the deck, a regiment, and a bunch of cancellers. Great! Instead, however, you could put Agburanar in your sideboard and switch in the Ice-Orcs, who are a bit more versatile, as well as easier to influence. Now, when your Ringwraith comes into play, have him discard five resources from your sideboard, one of which will be Agburanar (you can figure out what the other four should be). In your hazard portion, pack three copies of Parsimony of Seclusion. During your opponent’s turn, you can play Parsimony to fetch your dragon faction to your hand, increasing his hazard limit while simultaneously setting up your resource play for the next turn. Agburanar Roused is now playing a dual role in your deck: (A1) to be a big nasty dragon faction and (A2) in combination with Parsimony of Seclusion to increase your opponent’s hazard limit. But that’s only the beginning. Now you should think to yourself, “Well, I can of course use Parsimony of Seclusion to fetch Daelomin at Home, which would be useful.” Good start. You can also use it to grab Agburanar himself, or even Smaug or Itangast, and then play the creature with (say) Dragon’s Desolation. Now Parsimony is playing a quadruply overdetermined role in your deck: (P1) in combination with a manifestation of Agburanar to increase your opponent’s hazard limit, (P2) in combination with any dragon faction to set up your resources for the next turn, (P3) in combination with any dragon creature to set up a doozy of an attack, and (P4) to return Daelomin at Home to your hand.
Why Overdetermination?
“Why are you telling us to play combos, Mark? We already know that combos are very important.”
I am telling you to play combos, but I’m not just telling you to play any old combos. Rather, I’m telling you which combos to play: overdetermined ones.
“I don’t know, Mark. I feel like the really fast and effective decks are usually the ones that don’t have any (or at any rate, many) combos. Combos make for hand jam, and that can be the death of a deck.”
Combos do make for hand jam, it’s true. However, overdetermined cards reduce the likelihood of hand jam because they can be used in so many ways. The reason you get a hand jam is that you’re waiting to draw a certain card, which once drawn will allow you to play two or more cards at once. But if you are not waiting to draw just one card, but any of a large number of cards (as in the elf deck listed above), the likelihood of hand jam decreases dramatically.
“I’m still not convinced. Show me some strong decks that actually use this overdetermination principle.”
OK.
Gates of Morning Lucky Search Deck.
Hobbits in Dragon Country (Halfling Strength overdetermined)
Red Hills (Hold Rebuilt overdetermined)
Elf-Lords Squatting (Elf-Song overdetermined)
The Mouth Influencing Factions (Bane overdetermined)
Elven CVCC
Hobbits with ’Gorn on the High Seas
[There's a bunch of links to go with this]