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No. 31: The Metagame

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The Metagame

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Permanent URL: https://mezzacotta.net/dinosaur/?comic=31

Strip by: David Morgan-Mar

T-Rex: You just lost The Metagame!
T-Rex: It's based on The Game. Think about The Game and you lose.
T-Rex: If you think about The Metagame, it negatively affects your ability to win The Game.
Utahraptor: What if I don't think about The Metagame?
T-Rex: Then you win The Metagame, which makes you better at not losing The Game!
Utahraptor: Wow. I win then!
T-Rex: Why is everyone better as this Game than me?
T-Rex: I'm analysing it deeply!

The author writes:

Many competitive games - such as chess, bridge, and Magic: The Gathering - have an active metagame, in which studying how people play the game can positively influence your ability to win instances of the game. If you know from studying past tournaments that your chess opponent favours a certain style of play, you can modify your own style to better counteract it. If you know which cards are in the current Magic: The Gathering tournament environment, and what the trends are in deck-building, you can build your own deck to take advantage of weaknesses in popular decks, and you can use knowledge of what cards are available to tailor your play style.

It just makes sense to apply this sort of thinking to try to perform better at The Game.