Pseudo-Newb's real time learning about Shocklands

Ever wonder why it’s so hard to teach or share information with a newb? It’s because the way most people are reacting to information isn’t the way you’ve gotten used to thinking about it. You’ve forgotten. It’s OK most people do. And newbs never write articles because who would write an article when they suck and are still learning.

I would!

Every person to new to the game brings their own unique background and skills to learning the game, but experienced players absorb background knowledge pretty quickly and don’t know much about adult learning theory. That stuff’s complicated, so instead let me show you how ONE NEWB ( that’s me) tries to make sense out of things that everyone in magic culture seems to know.  If anyone reads this and sees all my impressions, I’d like them to keep in mind that other new players are coming in with other ideas/mistakes/impressions that are just as off base. At the end when I’ve hopefully learned it I’ll show how I’d teach/tell a fellow newb the thing I learned.

If it’s not entertaining at least you can feel intellectually superior.

First Impressions of the Ravnica Guilds:

Oh my God it’s full of Symbols – sooo many symbols . . . .

Wait, is this where the whole Jund, Bant, Grixis slang that keeps getting thrown around comes from? I don’t see anything that looks like that. 

Hey Mark Rosewater is writing an article on the Guilds. Cool this will fix it.

Lesson learned – I can only read three longform Magic articles in the morning before I cannot absorb anymore new information. Unfortunately I read the Selysnia article fourth, realized it was as long as one of my journal posts and all about one guild.  I was suddenly worried that I was too dumb to understand the strategy of this game if I had trouble reading the flavor articles after half a year in. I love flavor. This might be a problem.

Before the Journey – Distracted by Shocklands

Here’s what a I knew before I started the journey. Everyone talks about Ravnica like it was the best thing ever, there were a bunch of Magic the Gathering novels about it and it took place on a giant cityscape – which as a former Brooklyn street rat I should enjoy immensely.  I knew there were guilds but because of the way everyone writes tournament reports I figured they were the whole Jund, Grixis Bant things that I can never keep track of because I don’t know what they mean other than “three colors”.  And I knew that they liked and practically harassed the various public people in Wizards like Aaron Forsythe and Mark Rosewater about “shock lands”.

So those I actually looked up, because they had to be super special right?

They are (in alphabetical order):

▪                Blood Crypt (/)

▪                Breeding Pool (/)

▪                Godless Shrine (/)

▪                Hallowed Fountain (/)

▪                Overgrown Tomb (/)

▪                Sacred Foundry (/)

▪                Steam Vents (/)

▪                Stomping Ground (/)

▪                Temple Garden (/)

▪                Watery Grave (/)

A Real Time Learning Curve – How a Newb Tries to Learn

Ok, I think I’ve got this now – the old Dual Lands from when there was no Pseudo in my Newb are searchable by things that look for Land Types (Basic Lands) even though a card will clearly say something like:

{T}, Sacrifice Evolving Wilds: Search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped.”

So here’s the newb question. Are these so-called Shock Lands “basic lands” or are they somehow not basic lands since here in Newbville they don’t seem basic at all.

All of you sitting there in your moral, experienced superiority, either already know the answer or will tell me to ask my community or internet or something. But experience has taught me not to trust answers like that, because they rarely are explained correctly or leave out the “how” so it sets me up for a humiliating misinterpretation of something else later.

 There’s also the simple fact that I’ve had answers misrepresented before.  In my most charitable moments I simply assume that the misrepresentation was a bad attempt at “jedi mind tricks”.

Here’s how a newb with trust issues checks things before finally collapsing in tears and writing to Cranial Insertion because they seem “safe”.

Phase 1 – Investigation - Look up the specific representative of the card type on Gatherer- OK there’s a little box called rulings at the bottom of Gatherer and it has this to say about Steam Vents:

▪       10/1/2005 Has basic land types, but isn't a basic land. Things that affect basic lands don't affect it.  For example, you can't find it with Civic Wayfinder.

▪       10/1/2005 If another effect (such as Loxodon Gatekeeper's ability) tells you to put lands onto the battlefield tapped, it enters the battlefield tapped whether you pay 2 life or not.

▪       10/1/2005 If multiple permanents with "as enters the battlefield" effects are entering the battlefield at the same time, process those effects one at a time, then put the permanents onto the battlefield all at once. For example, if you're at 3 life and an effect puts two of these onto the battlefield, you can pay 2 life for only one of them, not both

So Evolving Wilds won’t work with Shock Lands because they aren’t basic.

Phase 1 – Result = metacomplexity I’m really confused now, everything I read on the internet seems to indicate that “Shock Lands” are good with “Fetch lands”

I thought that Evolving Wilds would be a Fetch Land because it’s a land that goes to get another land. I’ve been playing and reading articles most of the year. Have I been wrong or missing things the whole time?  As I’m writing this, it’s the first time I’ve even considered any other definition.  So now for the first time I’m going to look it up.

Phase 2 – Secondary Investigation - MtG Wiki is the first hit on a Google Search for Fetch Lands, you can check it out at your leisure:

 http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Fetch_lands

Ok apparently Fetch Lands are a particular thing – They ARE lands that search for other lands but specifically search for Land Types (mountain, island, etc.)

http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/images/a/af/MTG_-_Fetch.jpg

This is what the original ones look like

Phase 2 – crosscheck: I’m going to check with Gatherer just to make sure there aren’t any super secret hidden rules that I don’t know about so I’ll pick Flooded Strand to check for rulings.

OK, no extra rulings.

I think I’m good, but I keep remembering my experience with Islandwalk. It was a big problem for me, and my first experience where everyone told me something slightly different until I learned how to check FAQs to see if my dumb questions were already everyone else’s dumb questions.

Over here is Harbor Serpent: my go-to check to see how Islandwalk works. Islandwalk specifically says this in the rulings:

8/15/2010            Harbor Serpent's abilities care about lands with the land type Island, not necessarily lands named Island.

8/15/2010            The second ability checks how many Islands are on the battlefield (regardless of who controls them) only as attackers are declared. Once Harbor Serpent is declared as an attacker, it will continue to attack even if the number of Islands on the battlefield falls below five.

Learning from past mistakes - I’ve absolutely made the mistake of thinking that if it creates blue mana and it’s a land,  that means that it’s a Land Type Island because of that ruling text from 8/15/2010.

I was wrong, but I never found out from anyone else.

I embarrass myself here so the newb you love in your life won’t have to.  Things that seem simple and clear to people who play regularly  ARE relatively simple and clear but presented in disjointed and contradictory ways. The comprehensive rules are a repository, not a learning tool. The information is not set up connectively.

That was hard for anyone else to correct, because well, Islandwalk doesn’t get played very often, and there weren’t any nearby lands that had land types that would meet the criteria to show me the difference.

Not gonna lie. I might have understood that the words “Island, Swamp, Mountain, Forest, Plains”  need to be next to the word “Land –“ on the Card Type line but I was still confused about whether mana color  also indicated land type if it was on a land until just now.

I figured this out because I looked at Drowned CatacombThe rules text that  references a “Shock Land” - Blood Crypt -  as something it will recognize as a “land type swamp.”

10/1/2009

This checks for lands you control with the land type Island or Swamp, not for lands named Island or Swamp. The lands it checks for don't have to be basic lands. For example, if you control Blood Crypt (a nonbasic land with the land types Swamp and Mountain), Drowned Catacomb will enter the battlefield untapped.

That means that if I’ve only got Drowned Catacomb out, Drowned Catacomb won’t recognize another Drowned Catacomb as an island or swamp so it will come in tapped. But it will recognize Blood Crypt. And Drowned Catacomb does not count towards the 5-island total that triggers Harbor Serpent’s Islandwalk.

Ok I can grok* that.

(A note on community and “just play a lot” advice. I’m pretty sure I played Drowned Catacomb incorrectly for a few months and even people “teaching” me in play never caught it to correct me leaving me with the horrible epiphany when I realized it on my own during a match. Initially it was because another player had taught me that the mana symbol means land type on searches, but going uncorrected for so long means either it almost never came up ( possible ) or that I had played it incorrectly and my opponent didn’t read my board state. Admittedly I didn’t play it in tournament. I’m glad I caught myself before I did, but “community” is not a panacea for learning, please be kind to newbs who are struggling with that.)

Phase 2 – Result  "Fetch Lands" as terminology was something I thought was general and could tell from context, but really isn’t and other people might be using it sloppily because they made the same assumptions I did.  It’s possible that the slang will change to match that usage, which will make old articles confusing. This has probably already happened with other Magic Slang.

Ok- what have I learned so far?

▪       Shock Lands are a bunch of Lands that have two types of land each.

▪       Fetch Lands are lands that search for other lands, but Evolving Wilds may not be one because it only searches for Basic Lands.

▪       Land Types are ONLY Land Types if they are on the Card Type Line

What are the questions I still have?

1.   Why is everyone so excited about Shock Lands coming back, they don’t look THAT much better or worse than other dual lands that have been in Standard?

Shock Lands require you to either pay two life or they enter they battlefield tapped.  And Fetch Lands allow you to get a basic land type if you sacrifice it and pay one life. So theoretically, you’re told that it costs 3 life and 2 cards to get out a usable dual land in a single turn. I think I can see why it’s really popular for Commander where you start with 40 life and the cost means nothing serious but is it really that good in Standard or anywhere else that it’s worth being so obsessed with it that it’s pretty much the only thing I’ve heard about since Return to Ravnica was announced?

2.     Are there a lot of cards in Standard at the moment that search for Land Type?

Well, the second one I can answer for myself. 

Using this search criteria in text I got this result

Search Criteria

▪                x Text:

                                    x DOES contain search

                                    x DOES contain for

                                    x DOES contain island

                                    x OR contains swamp

                                    x OR contains plains

                                    x OR contains forest

                                    x OR contains mountain

▪                x Format:

x OR contains "standard"

        

Farseek  (2)

Sorcery

Search your library for a Plains, Island, Swamp, or Mountain card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Then shuffle your library.

           

Gem of Becoming  (3)

Artifact: Sacrifice Gem of Becoming: Search your library for an Island card, a Swamp card, and a Mountain card. Reveal those cards and put them into your hand. Then shuffle your library.

So there are only two Standard Legal Fetch Style Thingies that take advantage of the Shock Lands.

Now I have a new question – if your Farseek goes and gets your Steam Vents does it allow you to pay your life to untap it or does the Farseek ability resolve higher up in the stack?  I don’t have to guess or track slowly like I did in December, I have Magic Playing Twitter friends now! I can ask the internet, actually I’ll ask Twitter which is like the Internet’s friendlier cousin.

12:27 the question tweets without preamble

10/1/2005 If another effect (such as Loxodon Gatekeeper's ability) tells you to put lands onto the battlefield tapped, it enters the battlefield tapped whether you pay 2 life or not.

Hey, wait a minute. I’d posted that myself, here in this very document. Its up at the beginning.

That, boys and girls is what the side effect of complexity creep is.

The wording of the ruling is tied to a card name I don’t know, and there’s no way for me to associate it it when I’m 3 learning objectives away from seeing how it’s relevant.

I’m no closer to understanding anything about Ravnica, or picking a guild but at least I know what the Shock Lands are and what they really do. But I’m at information overload and need to stop or I’m going to make bad decisions or misprocess something new.

Takeaway –

This is the way I would now teach a fellow Newb about Shock Lands:

There are dual lands that match each of the color pairs in Ravnica Guilds, but when they come into play  they come in tapped unless you pay two life and then they can come in untapped like a regular land.

The regular basic lands let you use them right away. But if a special land does something cool, there usually has to be a drawback. So for these lands the drawback is “wait a turn to use it or get damaged”.

The reason they’re called “Shock” is because of the life cost.

Magic Players love insider jargon alot, so they put some insider jargon in their jargon. There’s a spell called “Shock” that damages a player for 2 life. That spell isn't currently in Standard so it's just slang but it also has the regular English wordplay going for it.

The other thing that makes Shock Lands important is because it has the type of Land it is right on the Card Type line. That’s important.

If the card type line DOESN’T say “Plains, Island, Swamp, Mountain or Forest” on that line right under the art box then it’s not really any of those land types. No matter what anyone else tells you.

Shock Lands have more than one of those; they’re "Island Swamps" so they’re both of those things. That makes them different than old dual lands which made colored mana but really weren’t any special kind of Land Type.  Shock Lands let you cast spells that interact with those things.

One card that can always be looked at as two things always makes Magic Players super happy because of card advantage stuff they’re always writing about, but have trouble explaining.

So that’s the important part for now.  Shock Lands let the expert players do some things really fast, but let every player use more cards even though they’re just lands. Just be careful and go slow. Even if we use them for basic stuff to start with I’m sure we’ll be OK and figure out the big deal later.

Now we still have to figure out what the heck the guilds are and how to pick them.

*****

Note *You don’t know what “grok” means because it’s insider SF lit fan terminology? (Or old hippie’s terminology). Welcome to my world when I try to read MTG articles anywhere.

Actually, if you all storm the comments section to tell me how you do too know what grok is you’ll make me cry tears of hope and joy.

Otherwise I’ll share, we’re all friends here. Here’s a link:

It’s a real word in the dictionary: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/grok

And the Wiki article on Grok isn’t bad either http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok