In discussing Magic, we will here argue that the flexible simplicity of the stack greatly contributes to the game being well played. Our initial thoughts on the stack come from years of experience playing the game both casually and at the tournament level. In that time, we both observed players, who were quite aware of the rules of the game, only slow down gameplay when the interactions required careful thought. Our initial thinking was that players with a sufficient mastery of the rules did so because they recognized that strict application of the rules is only required when a situation is sufficiently complex. It is with this idea in mind that we played two games of Magic, transcribing the games as we went. In the first game, we played casually, only really slowing down when the need arose: essentially, we used flexible simplicity. In the second, we adhered stringently to the order of events as advised in the rules regardless of the need presented by the situation, ignoring the concept of flexible simplicity entirely. To say that the second game was tedious would be an understatement. Using these test games as a subject, we will demonstrate the usefulness in applying flexible simplicity to the stack, drawing on theories in game studies as well as rhetoric.
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