I think that ‘win-more’ is the probably least helpful concept in card game strategy. Not just for new players, but for experienced players as well. (Its annoying enough to read people say something is win more on MtG sites, now I have to read it on LessWrong as well!)
I’m of the opinion that almost everyone would become better players and would be better at card evaluation if they eliminated the concept of Win More from their vocabulary. It almost never is used to actually successfully avoid using an actual bad card, and almost always results in misclassifying good card that would actually help you convert games into a win as a bad card.
What term should we use for concepts that are net harmful for ALL users?
I rarely follow MtG sites so I didn’t know about this term, but if I did it would have really simplified a recent conversation where it was difficult to explain why such good cards had no place in the deck we were building. Any vocab term that can bundle a group of arguments together in a way that is easy to convey and understand will simplify constructive conversation.
I’m of the opinion that almost everyone would become better players and would be better at card evaluation if they eliminated the concept of Win More from their vocabulary. It almost never is used to actually successfully avoid using an actual bad card, and almost always results in misclassifying good card that would actually help you convert games into a win as a bad card.
I agree. That’s why I used it as an example here. The concept of win-more is useful—but only to high level players. Since very few players are high enough level to benefit from the concept, nearly everyone who uses it does so incorrectly and in fact becomes worse.
What term should we use for concepts that are net harmful for ALL users?
It names Iona, Shield of Emeria as 9 mana card as example. That leaves to me who played magic 10 years ago the question of why you need a concept to tell you that you shouldn’t play cards that cost 9 mana.
This post reminds me that “using Google to judge the popularity of things” is a good example of the problem described in the OP. Many times on the internet I’ve seen people claim that something is more or less popular/known than it really is based on a poorly formulated Google search.
Also, compared to when you last played, high-cost cards are more likely to be viable.
Many times on the internet I’ve seen people claim that something is more or less popular/known than it really is based on a poorly formulated Google search.
I’ve seen it too. Even Nate Silver did it in this New York Times blog post, where he estimates the number of fans for each team in the National Hockey League “by evaluating the number of people who searched for the term “N.H.L.”” Using his method, Montreal is the only Canadian market with a team for which it is estimated that fewer than half of the people are avid hockey fans (as he defined it).
In Montreal, French is the official language and the language spoken at home by most people.In French, the NHL is called the “Ligue nationale de hockey,” abbreviated “L.N.H.”
Many times on the internet I’ve seen people claim that something is more or less popular/known than it really is based on a poorly formulated Google search.
Web search engines aren’t really designed to deliver comparisons of popularity, anyhow; those numbers are pretty much a way of saying “look, we index a lot of stuff!” rather than an accurate count.
Systems like Google Books’ Ngram Viewerare designed to compare popularity of terms — though that one indexes over a corpus of works in print, which is not the same as the Web.
This is better, but it’s also common to get Ngram viewer wrong—eg not realizing that a word has multiple meanings which may have changed over time, or not realizing that there are two different ways to phrase the same thing, etc.
Hmm, I don’t see the LW article on the first page at all. Perhaps this is different search customization?
In any case I see severalotherarticles on this topic, as well as many forum discussions about it, people asking whether specific cards are or aren’t win-more, etc.
Are you suggesting that this concept is a country-example to the argument put forward in this essay that was recently listed in the rationality blogs? At the moment you and the author have given your expertise as evidence, it would be nice to have something a little more concrete.
I think that ‘win-more’ is the probably least helpful concept in card game strategy. Not just for new players, but for experienced players as well. (Its annoying enough to read people say something is win more on MtG sites, now I have to read it on LessWrong as well!)
I’m of the opinion that almost everyone would become better players and would be better at card evaluation if they eliminated the concept of Win More from their vocabulary. It almost never is used to actually successfully avoid using an actual bad card, and almost always results in misclassifying good card that would actually help you convert games into a win as a bad card.
What term should we use for concepts that are net harmful for ALL users?
I rarely follow MtG sites so I didn’t know about this term, but if I did it would have really simplified a recent conversation where it was difficult to explain why such good cards had no place in the deck we were building. Any vocab term that can bundle a group of arguments together in a way that is easy to convey and understand will simplify constructive conversation.
I agree. That’s why I used it as an example here. The concept of win-more is useful—but only to high level players. Since very few players are high enough level to benefit from the concept, nearly everyone who uses it does so incorrectly and in fact becomes worse.
“Wrong?” “Bad?”
I don’t think so. It’s interesting that the LW article makes top 10 in google for google win-more card. There one article http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/article.asp?ID=8867 about the concept.
It names Iona, Shield of Emeria as 9 mana card as example. That leaves to me who played magic 10 years ago the question of why you need a concept to tell you that you shouldn’t play cards that cost 9 mana.
This post reminds me that “using Google to judge the popularity of things” is a good example of the problem described in the OP. Many times on the internet I’ve seen people claim that something is more or less popular/known than it really is based on a poorly formulated Google search.
Also, compared to when you last played, high-cost cards are more likely to be viable.
I’ve seen it too. Even Nate Silver did it in this New York Times blog post, where he estimates the number of fans for each team in the National Hockey League “by evaluating the number of people who searched for the term “N.H.L.”” Using his method, Montreal is the only Canadian market with a team for which it is estimated that fewer than half of the people are avid hockey fans (as he defined it).
In Montreal, French is the official language and the language spoken at home by most people.In French, the NHL is called the “Ligue nationale de hockey,” abbreviated “L.N.H.”
Web search engines aren’t really designed to deliver comparisons of popularity, anyhow; those numbers are pretty much a way of saying “look, we index a lot of stuff!” rather than an accurate count.
Systems like Google Books’ Ngram Viewer are designed to compare popularity of terms — though that one indexes over a corpus of works in print, which is not the same as the Web.
This is better, but it’s also common to get Ngram viewer wrong—eg not realizing that a word has multiple meanings which may have changed over time, or not realizing that there are two different ways to phrase the same thing, etc.
Hmm, I don’t see the LW article on the first page at all. Perhaps this is different search customization?
In any case I see several other articles on this topic, as well as many forum discussions about it, people asking whether specific cards are or aren’t win-more, etc.
Are you suggesting that this concept is a country-example to the argument put forward in this essay that was recently listed in the rationality blogs? At the moment you and the author have given your expertise as evidence, it would be nice to have something a little more concrete.