As Bruce announced on Friday, we’ll be taking three weeks off over Kwanzaa. We’ll still have articles on our usual days, but this week they’ll be my favorites, next week they’ll be Brandon’s picks, and we’ll usher in the New Year with Bruce’s selection.
When we started the Muse Vessel, we wanted three things: money, chicks and preview cards. When we realized we were only likely to get one of those three, we decided it would also be nice if we helped to expand the knowledge base of the Casual Tribe and energize the discussion about the ideas that were important to all of us. My pick for the best article I’ve written at Muse Vessel is therefore also my most ambitious: an attempt to define one of the most commonly used terms in multiplayer. It definitely isn’t my best-written article, and I certainly don’t claim to have given the final word on this topic, but right or wrong, I think this gives every casual player something to think about in terms of what makes multiplayer multiplayer, and I don’t think that could have happened without the Muse Vessel.
Graveborn Musings – Politics, Complexity and Multiplayer Strategy (Part I)
Graveborn Musings – Politics, Complexity and Multiplayer Strategy (Part II)
Graveborn Musings – Politics, Complexity and Multiplayer Strategy (Finale)
OK, so I cheated, it’s three articles not one, but as a Magic article junkie I know you’re going to be jonesing for content during the Christmas break, so knock yourself out with this!
Happy holidays, and may all the boosters you bust open this season be blessed with bad-ass brokenness!!
Brandon Isleib
Graveborn Muse
Windborn Muse
Muse Vessel
Whispering Muse
Muse Vessel 
I think I’ve worked out why tournament players begrudge the punishing of the “right play” in multiplayer.
In a duel, the strongest / right play will force your opponent to respond to it, hopefully leading the game in your favour; not unlike check in chess.
However, in multiplayer there is a cascade of responses to a single choice, many of which cancel each other out. There cannot be an easily manipulated chain. I think it’s still possible to have a “right play” at any given stage of a multiplayer bout, but that the immediate effects of it are different.
Choosing the right play behaves more like a science in pro-duels, but more like an art in multiplayer.
…
Either way, I love this series. It inspired me to create a purely political deck. That’s still in construction.
That’s a fair point. I think there might be other reasons as well, but you’ve definitely identified a big part of it! I guess in multiplayer ‘it isn’t always about you’, whereas in duels it basically is.