So coming from another thread I decided to make one so we can all smash beer bottles in rage at one another!

The jist...

Aniel was King during his reign as a Dragon player because he has a photographic memory. When he uses Kitsuki Investigators he can remember not only what was in your hand at the time but what you have and have not used from your hand 2 turns from that exposure. All without notes, it IS a tactical advantage and those who can do this without pad and pencil have a STRICT advantage over those who can't.

So why NOT allow note taking? This is a strategic game for more than a simple memory game right?

No, it's just a memory game.

If you can't process 210 Tb of information each turn, you're not tailored for this game.

Now, you can either learn to remember all that stuff, turn into a cyborg, or just do like every other average Joe, forget stuff like a cool guy.

Games are long enough as it is. Taking notes would lengthen them even more.

Its also not about remembering every card, its remembering the cards that can hurt you.

6 hours ago, Khudzlin said:

Games are long enough as it is. Taking notes would lengthen them even more.

Jotting down a hand is going to take a handful of seconds. That's not going to impact round times.

3 hours ago, HamHamJ2 said:

Jotting down a hand is going to take a handful of seconds. That's not going to impact round times.     

Hand sizes are quite large. I don't see this bearing out.

No, this can take up time. It can easily lead to stalling. Please remember that fences only keep honest people out and the rules as no different.

Aside from that, it’s just practice.

On ‎6‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 11:23 PM, Foxtrot Four said:

So coming from another thread I decided to make one so we can all smash beer bottles in rage at one another!

The jist...

Aniel was King during his reign as a Dragon player because he has a photographic memory.

Sorry, but, this is way off the mark.

Aneil is a good player that puts in a ton of work playing the game. He also doesn't tie himself down to the concept of clan loyalty and plays the best deck, regardless of clan. The current Shogun has not made any claims about having a photographic memory, but, he's consistently placing highly in every event he plays. These are players that put in the work to get the results.

Anyone that puts in the amount of work that these players have will not only greatly improve their play, but, they will gain a better understanding of what to expect. You'll be able to accurately predict what your opponent is playing when you have a deep understanding of the metagame, like Aneil has. I consider myself an average player, but, I put in a ton of work to prep for the Seattle Kotei. Sadly, I was not able to make it, but, my play improved dramatically over the months of practice I put in. Games often felt like my opponent was playing with their hand revealed because I knew what to expect and how to play around it.

A photographic memory and/or note taking is not necessary. It's not going to close the gap in player skill.

Understanding the game, knowing what cards that are played by each clan commonly, Knowing when to retreat from conflicts and so on is how you win games. Memory has a small part to play in the game, yes if you get to see your opponents hand I.e. Meek Informant, Upholding Authority etc... recalling what the opponent has is useful information. However since there are no hand limits in the game many clans play super greedy with cards and players often bid 5 on top of card draw mechanics, writing down a hand of 20 cards will take time, something that is in short supply of at major events since rounds are timed. Quite frankly most of the time when you get to see peoples hands you only need to be concerned with 2 or 3 cards in it to plan the next move carefully which is not very memory intensive at all.

I mostly want to be able to take notes to ensure that current honour totals are accurate. Even a single point of discrepancy matters a massive amount when playing a Dishonour deck, and being able to go back and double check which player is correct about the current total is incredibly useful.

I'd have two requests of people, the next time they have a chance:

1) Take a look at your play space. Between mats, tokens, decks, discard piles, and play space, can you get a notepad onto the table in an easily accessible place?
(Or is the notepad small enough it can sit in your deck box?)

2) Shuffle your own conflict deck, and take roughly half of it into hand. Time yourself writing down the contents.

I'm not sure what kind of games you people are played but usually cards get played as fast as they are drawn. I end up with an empty hand far more often than a ten plus one.

Maybe I don't play conservative, but I rarely have 12+ hands. I like attachments and playing them during the action window closing the draw phase ending with 7-10 cards, so my hand is already on the table and I play 4-6 at least card during conflicts, so you shouldn't have to take notes when reading my hand, and you can when you want check my discard.

I don't say git gud at memory, but you only need to remember 3-5 cards in my hand, mostly to know how they go against your plans. Some even in multiple.

21 hours ago, Bayushi Shunsuke said:

2) Shuffle your own conflict deck, and take roughly half of it into hand. Time yourself writing down the contents.

Do you think that someone staring at half a deck's worth of cards and trying to memorise what's there is genuinely any faster? Someone taking too long to complete either task is wasting time and should have a judge called.

1 hour ago, Evilgm said:

Do you think that someone staring at half a deck's worth of cards and trying to memorise what's there is genuinely any faster? Someone taking too long to complete either task is wasting time and should have a judge called.

I was intending my post as a reply to those claiming that taking notes only takes seconds.

In any case, you shouldn't have/need to memorize the whole 20 cards, but memorize the 3-5 most disruptive for your strategy or ones you need to plan playing around.

And even though some of us may have predispositions for this, memory isn't just a gift, it's a skill.

What would take longer: Writing down shorthand for a few key cards, or staring at a hand of cards long enough to remember with some reliably what was in it 5 minutes later? I have a crap memory, but I'm a fast writer.

My concern, if I was trying to write this rule into the Tournament Regulations, is what looks like a simple rule needs to account for a large number of scenarios.

Shorthand vs Full Name
Key cards vs All the cards
5 cards in hand vs 20 cards in hand
How long is too long to give someone to take the notes?
How fast does someone write?
How do you ensure the notes are destroyed at the end of the game? (I don't want to hijack this thread with a different debate, but open deck lists are not a thing).

In the end, I believe there are too many variables to be able to create a blanket rule

https://blogs.magicjudges.org/rules/mtr2-11/

They could be based on these, which work quite well.

How about this argument... because I'll admit my point about skill has been refuted.

So how about a simple; Why Not? Who suffers from this desicion?

To be honest, I will have no problem if my opponent will take notes. I will personally not: the game already take needs time. That's all for me

4 hours ago, Foxtrot Four said:

How about this argument... because I'll admit my point about skill has been refuted.

So how about a simple; Why Not? Who suffers from this desicion?

My first worry would be the victims of people who abuse it to go to time as well as the Judges.

How long or how many times can you be writing notes before it becomes stalling? How do judges police this? Judges then get flack for handing out Losses for stalling (I believe this is the penalty for stalling (please correct me if I am wrong)) as some people will be genuinely taking lots of notes and those who were stalling would still cry.

Personally I find I lose my focus of the game when interrupted so I would prefer it if there were less opportunists for this to happen.

3 hours ago, Jamadman said:

How long or how many times can you be writing notes before it becomes stalling?

That's not an issue specific to taking notes though, right now there are no guidelines on what constitutes stalling in any form. Allowing note taking doesn't facilitate stalling anymore than any other activity already in the game. Indeed, spending time trying to memorise or recall an opponent's hand, repeatedly reviewing a discard pile, or similar activities currently can be used to waste time and could be avoided with note taking.

7 hours ago, Jamadman said:

My first worry would be the victims of people who abuse it to go to time as well as the Judges.

How long or how many times can you be writing notes before it becomes stalling? How do judges police this? Judges then get flack for handing out Losses for stalling (I believe this is the penalty for stalling (please correct me if I am wrong)) as some people will be genuinely taking lots of notes and those who were stalling would still cry.

Personally I find I lose my focus of the game when interrupted so I would prefer it if there were less opportunists for this to happen.

I find "Some bad people may abuse this sometimes" to be a pretty weak argument for most things. Yes, unscrupulous people will always find a way to cheat.

As for the specifics, that can all be worked out. They could specify the size of paper, the amount of time allowed to write, exactly what can and cannot be written down. This can all be codified. Example:

Players may use a single 3x5 index card, both sides, on which to take notes over the course of a match. Notes may ONLY be taken when viewing an opponent's hand. Players may have up to 30 seconds per opportunity to write as many notes as they are able, after which note-taking will cease and the opponent's hand will be returned to them. Honor and fate totals may not be recorded, as they may only be tracked using tokens as previously stated.

I'm not saying this is how it SHOULD be; it's just an example of how it COULD be. Point is, it could happen, and it can be done well, in such a way that it's useful for those who wish, and will be minimally invasive to the game as a whole.