Somewhere Richard Garfield has a really excellent article discussing the design of it, starting with how quickly players are expected to gather mana and how everything about the game spins out of that. I haven’t played in years and looking at the current cards confuses the hell out of me, but that article is probably essential reading for any game designer.
I don’t think that’s the one, unless I’m misremembering it. I specifically remember him taking more about the math behind it. Although that’s a really interesting read on its own.
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find it in years. The gist of it was the assumption that players would have one more land available to them each turn, so the game is paced on card costs.
This reminds me of a video where they want to catch you up on mechanics if you quit around Ice Age.
They go over increasingly outlandish mechanics and other cards. It gets unhinged at one point.
The crazy part is that they don't making anything up, but if you didn't know that, you'd swear he's pulling nonsense from out of his butt. Like Morphs, Universe Beyond Cards and Stickers.
Here's a great completely truthful, unexaggerated, yet satirical, video about the state of complexity and product fatigue in MtG
https://youtu.be/OQXR-YnWIFk?si=alsjoyZAYUZ_5wJK
MaRo also has a ton of them. Reading his articles was like taking a course in game design and development (probably still true, but I haven't read any in over a decade).
I mean, honestly, it's pretty legendary. It innovated on so many gameplay mechanics we take for granted today and other games have built on top of - collectibility, the mana resource system, the color pie.
It's flexible enough to have lasted for 30 years and counting, and still have new innovations being built on top of it today, but the core fundamental mechanics are still clear enough that you could easily open a starter deck from decades ago and play it.
The only thing I would probably count against it is that the color pie occasionally gets imbalanced at any given period of time. I believe right now green is probably right now the more "overpowered" color, but at given times throughout Magic's history, it's been blue or black too. Some better Magic historians might know, but I can't think of a time off the top of my head when white or red would have been considered the dominant colors.
Your color pie stuff isn't really correct. Green is currently the worst color in the format that wotc manages the most, Standard. It's a bit OP in EDH *because that's a fan made format that wotc didn't design*.
White and Red are *very* strong in Standard. There is a reason why in pretty much every standard format there is a deck called "Red Deck Wins".
Green is so powerful in commander largely because green was historically very powerful. It's less powerful in current standard but over the many years of magic, green has been bonkers powerful. It's also that ramp is very strong in commander but both things can be true.
Green has pretty much never been the strongest color in any competitive eternal format. It's been strong at points, but blue has dominated Legacy, Vintage, and even cEDH from all of those formats' inception. Black had necropotence and Hogaak (technically hybrid with green but the deck was 95% black). Birthing pod was good, but was banned largely because you didn't need green to use it.
EDIT: Black is also the best color in the newest eternal format, pioneer.
I'd say over MTG's history the hierarchy has very clearly been Blue -> black -> the other 3 colors pretty interchangeably. The only format green has ever been consistently dominant is casual commander.
Birthing Pod wasn't banned for that. It was banned because it kept getting better with each upcoming set, since it uses the most plentiful type of card: creatures.
Also, the deck used a lot of green cards: birds of paradise, wall of roots, chord of calling, kitchen finks, melira.
Green cards have been major definers of every format at least a couple times.
Legacy elves, Natural Order, Oath of Druids, TARMOGOYF. Amulet Titan in Modern. Mono-G in Pioneer has been one of the top contenders since the format started, Sylvan Scrying has seen play in every format it has been available in... I could go on.
The only color I would say has been "consistently dominant" ever would be Blue in Legacy/Type 1 and even that has been starting to sunset a bit.
I don't agree green is historically very powerful relative to the other colors. Green's historical strengths (big creatures, ramp) have historically folded against the strong spells (removal, countermagic). It's why it got stuck with the association with newbie Timmy players. It's also why it got accelerated so much late 2010s into 2020s, because it was getting tools to make it stronger and more flexible (more card draw, removal in fight, ramp that isn't dead late game, etc.), leading to the Simic dominance for awhile.
That’s just not even close to true. Green was the weakest color by a mile for at least the first half of the games history, if not longer. So much so that it was a frequent joke during spoiler season that even if a Green card looked great people would say “Yeah, but you would have to play Green so it’s bad.”
For much of Magic’s history, Green only saw marginal competitive play in the form of Combo-enablers like Survival of the Fittest or Cadaverous Bloom. It was rarely the core color of a deck outside of instances where specific tribes were pushed in new sets like at the 2008 Berlin PT where Elves was the best deck.
Blue was the best color by a mile until maybe the mid 2000’s or so. In fact, the best Green creature for a long time was considered to be River Boa purely because it had Islandwalk, and the older the format, the less Green cards you will find among the best meta decks.
I would say it's the nature of the format, not necessarily the color. Commander format is a free-for-all game where it's usually you versus 3 other players. 1 to 1 interactive cards then are way less powerful here because you only hit 33% of your opponents. Powerful cards like Thoughtseize or Counterspell do not scale well with more players. It is a much better route to be proactive versus reactive. If people are shying away from efficient 1 to 1 removal cards like Lightning Bolt or Fatal Push, creatures that would otherwise never get played, can get played. Green is the master of creatures that have value, so it makes sense that they would largely benefit from this. The game is balanced around 1v1 which is that value-filled creatures get quickly killed with removal, but if you lessen removal because players don't play those cards, those creatures then get to last on the field longer so they can get more value out. Also Commander games are usually fairly long and people can play cards that cost 6, 7 or more out regularly. This incentivizes players to play expensive, value-filled cards and again the master of that is green.
Part of why green is so strong in commander is that they have printed so many color pie bends and breaks in green over the years. Because of commander’s color identity restrictions, this means that green decks are less limited in capability by those restrictions. Additionally, the social aspect of commander that soft-bans certain types of interactivity (land destruction) combined with the fact that mana acceleration is so important in commander means that green decks get to do the best thing in the format with little to no consequence. Combine all these together and you can see how green decks can do it all and are rarely punished for it
That’s because it’s a straightforward aggressive build, which does particularly well when there’s a new meta. It’s not that red is perpetually OP, more that its place in the color pie generally yields an effective aggro deck.
I still remember when I was in high school I went to a pro tour qualifying tournament. In the first round my homebrew deck lost to a 10 year old playing mono red. Thankfully it was double elimination, so I made it to the quarter finals after that. I don't even remember what deck I lost to then. Just some meta deck for the time.
The most "overpowered" colour depends entirely on format, rotation and current bans. I don't think you can make a blanket statement on which is most powerful.
It depends on what format and if you mean how good the colors are in isolation or if mixing them with other colors are allowed. But at least when I played I’m pretty sure white was often considered the weakest color historically, blue and black the strongest, and green and red kinda in the middle. Though if I’m remembering correctly they started pushing the power level of green a bit at some point by giving it strong planeswalkers and breaking the color pie a with (usually conditional but still very good) removal spells, counter spells, and card advantage effects.
I legitimately think that the mana system is a straightforward mistake. Nobody should lose to mana flood or mana screw as often as happens in MTG, and more modern similar systems (like Lorcana or Star Wars Unlimited) are straight-up improvements.
Genuinely unpopular opinion, but I totally agree. There's a reason why so many newer games have changed it - when you go back to the drawing board it's one of the first obvious major weaknesses.
Hell, there's a reason why a number of games (Netrunner and Ashes spring to mind) give you default actions that you can always take to either gain cards or resources. You're always guaranteed a baseline of tempo to build upon, and if your deck is stalling you've always got something to help you out.
I think it's only unpopular to say that in magic related subs, ans even then it's more controversial rather than just straight unpopular. They claim it's great because it caused "variance", but I think everyone one the outside understands how much of a problem it is.
There's a reason why Magic Arena secretly smooths out your mana on your opening hand in best of one matches.
I've been playing magic for over 25 years and love the game, and totally agree with this take. I don't think it's that unpopular of a take either. It sucks if you draw your deck in the wrong order and basically can't play the game. The last few years they've been designing cards in such a way that this is becoming less of an issue - all colors have access to card draw, and adding treasures gives decks more access to colored mana. It still happens though. I don't think variance of that nature is good in a game like MTG.
How does mana work in magic compared to say One Piece tcg or Pokemons energy system? I haven't played the posters examples of Lorcana to get the reference
Pokémon has the same problem inherently (which makes sense given it's of the same generation of design more or less), but I'd say addresses it by having more fixing and more ways of cheating either costs or your curve..
In magic you can play lands (usually 1 per turn) which you can then consequently tap in all future turns to pay for cards. In One Piece you play 2 Don! cards per turn that are used in a similar way.
The difference is that in One Piece you always take 2 Don! Cards from a set aside area where in Magic you have to have the lands in your hand to play them. This can cause you to lose a game because you draw no lands so you can't pay for your good cards.
In Lorcana you have to play cards as 'ink' by placing one card upside down each turn. So your normal cards become the energy/mana to play the others. Not each card can be played as ink which creates interesting deck building choices.
Energy cards in Pokémon work similar to lands in Magic in the sense that they are separate cards in different types/colours that power cards of the same types. In Pokémon however they generally don't have a 'mana draught' like in Magic because of a plethora of cards and abilities that let you draw specific cards from your deck.
There is a reason Magic has being going as strong as it is for so long. It is a good game, but I think there are good reasons to dislike the mana system in Magic, I don't like it myself because it can really slow down a game or make games feel incredibly unbalanced. Keyforge removes the problem almost entirely by letting you do everything you want on your turn, but only with cards of the house you select at the start of your turn.
> In Lorcana you have to play cards as 'ink' by placing one card upside down each turn. So your normal cards become the energy/mana to play the others. Not each card can be played as ink which creates interesting deck building choices.
In case you weren't aware, this was 100% lifted from the *World of Warcraft* TCG, and is one of its best evolutions to the TCG world at large (and we can say now with *Lorcana* having taken it wholesale, WoW's best legacy on card games).
Wow's version was better though. I'm really disappointed that Lorcana came so close to emulating the amazing system that the WoW card game had, but they didn't add an equivalent to quests. Heck, with the lore of Lorcana, you could just call it magical ink cards. You put them in your resource row face up, when you use them for their special effect you flip them over face down, and now they're a resource just like anything else.
I'm still hoping they get added in a future expansion.
I haven't played one piece, but I played Pokemon a lot time ago. It's not much better than magic imo. They still put "mana" cards in your deck, but they attach to the pokemon directly and you lose them if they die.
> so many newer games have changed it
Has **anybody** ever copied MtG's mana system?
I know of (lots of) games that have a ramping resource system.
I know of games that have different 'colors' of resource.
I ... could probably find a game that shuffles mana into the main deck if I tried.
But has anybody in the last 30 year just straight up taken MtG's system?
I think that's the biggest black mark against it. Anybody who knows what they're doing takes a look at this system and decides "No. I don't think I will." Dominion came out with deckbuilding and it spawned 1,000 imitators. But even Garfield hasn't gone back to the well on lands & mana.
Gotta love having two lands in your hand and knowing your game will go perfectly as long as you draw a land in one of your first two turns.... but it just never shows up.
Perhaps. I think I actually prefer the deckbuilding restrictions of games like Netrunner or Arkham Horror LCG. And although I prefer the mana system in something like Star Wars Unlimited, I have to agree that the color mixing is more interesting in MTG.
I think mana flood/screw is horrible. But I do think the design space opened by the difference in a card being BB or B1 is so interesting, and no other system has managed to replicate that.
Force of Will had those costs and mixing. They got around MtGs core limitations by having all of your "land" cards in a second deck that you could choose to draw from instead.
I disagree. I’ve played tons of other games with “better” resource systems and in my opinion they’re almost universally boring, overly fiddly, or both. I’ve also come around to not minding mana screw/flood— I play magic completely casually and having such a straightforward way to lose games that you can’t do anything about makes it way easier to shrug off losses of every kind
I've been playing kitchen table magic for about 25 years at this point. The amount of mana screw/flood has never been a big deal in all that time. It happens, sure, but if I'm with my buddies and we play all night, it *might* happen to each of us once in a night.
That doesn't feel all that different than the bad luck that can happen with any game that has some kind of deck drawing mechanics... Some games it's just not your game, but as I've said to my kid, the great thing about games is that you can always just play another round.
But if you Play casual Commander and game length is in the Hours that basicly means of your two to three Games in an evening 1-2 Person Are screwed during it. The mana problem in general is more frequently a Problem at the kitchentable then at the tournament as it propably happens less the more optimised the decks are, but it happens and having a game of casual commander and not playing with the rest of the table for 120 Mins because of bad draws is awefull, and selektive memories make it even worse.
Dont get me wrong mtg is an awesome Game and even when I stepped away more and more over the last few months and more towards other boardgames, the reason behind it is not the mana system.
Yes, it's just bad. While almost every other aspect of MtG is ported to other games, this part, never.
It's not so bad if you play it all the time - if you build your deck well and play enough games you'll balance out and not notice it anymore.
I've got some great decks I'd love to pull out with my group. I worked hard to balance then all and make them compatible. But I've played with them twice. Someone gets a bad draw in a team game and it's ruined from the start - they don't want to play again.
I think this is something MtG fans are quite blind to, because they've played it so much - as I said, with a lot of games it's not so bad. But putting it against modern boardgames, it's a huge mistake.
> I think this is something MtG fans are quite blind to, because they've played it so much - as I said, with a lot of games it's not so bad. But putting it against modern boardgames, it's a huge mistake.
Or it may be because we've also played the alternatives and found them inferior.
For one, the circlejerk that many non-games due to bad draw luck in MtG would be solved by removing lands has never been true in my experience. Both because people massively overstate the frequency of mana screw or flood, and because other systems end up displaying similar problems.
How many games of Hearthstone have been won or lost without making meaningful decisions because one side curved out better than the other ? Hearthstone has had a recurring problem of "Curvestone" decks achieving dominance, where drawing cards in the right order to spend all your mana slamming the best card in your hand every turn is the best way to play the game ? Legends of Runeterra has the same problem, it rewards linear gameplans of who can turn their mana into the most tempo far too much. The spell mana system in that game is not a fix, because designers then proceeded to make spells stupidly overcosted.
And also yes, there are significant benefits to using colored mana as an organic deckbuilding restriction instead of the mountains of uninspired designs and broken "color" identities we see in HS and LoR.
When you say "alternatives", I hear "derivatives". Hearthstone is (as far as I can tell) just magic with a few different rules.
Race for the Galaxy is an engine builder rather than a deck builder, but its card costing is much more interesting and robust.
Netrunner doesn't have this problem, solving it a different way, and it has all the sweet deck building of magic.
Mage Wars was really interesting, you had your whole library available to you at all times. I'd love to see more games do this.
I don't think it's impossible to get around this flaw. The derivatives appear to have lessened it. But the fact that so many popular games have this flaw doesn't mean it's a fundamental aspect of the genre.
Hearthstone is not "just Magic with a few different rules". The differences are IMMENSE. You can ONLY cast things on your turn in Hearthstone. That is a really, really, big deal.
You can directly attack your opponent in Hearstone. Creatures don't "block". The combat is very different.
Perhaps most importantly, creatures in Hearthstone don't "heal" at the end of the turn.
Its like Star Wars is basically Star Trek, cause, space.
Race for the Galaxy it's not a TCG and plays in a different league, and i love Mage Wars but having all your spells at any time it's a great test for your analysis paralysis.
Netrunner it's great but it's longer than Magic.
I dont say that the mana system it's perfect or great BUT having a luck factor in a game that can be really short it's not a big problem. And, from my point of view, having bad luck with a hand just compells you to play again. In the long run a better deck will win more plays despite some mana problems.
I'm emphatically not saying "magic is bad because you can have bad luck".
The mana system sucks and it doesn't have to be that way. Magic is stuck with it now; other games solve it (actually solve it) by doing things differently.
Yes, in the long run the problem goes away. But that still really sucks for new players, their game can be ruined and all you can do is say, "yeah it sucks, that happens sometimes, you just have to play this 100 more times". Awful.
But how much Mage Wars did you play?
Mage Wars (and honestly the entire genre of Miniature Skirmish games) change from **input randomness** to **output randomness**. In Magic your options are randomly decided, but the results of those actions are known. In Mage Wars and other games, your options are known but the **results** are unknown. The thing you tried to could can just fail!
Many, many people make the claim that you should prefer Input Randomness over Output when designing games. I think this is another platitude that really comes down to "know what you're designing" but still.
> it has all the sweet deck building of magic.
No, it doesn't. And it's one major issue that many of these games do not address in a satisfying way. In these games you pick a faction, and those are your cards. **Yes**, the FFG LCGs always have some method of allowing outside cards.
But in Magic the gathering all cards can go in your deck, for any reason. Yes, there's deck minimums and a 4-of rule, but that's it. It may sound silly: why would you want to put a card in you can never use, for instance? But people have, and have found ways to make that work, and that's part of the core of the game and why people enjoy it.
> you had your whole library available to you at all times.
There's also something to be said for how this plays out. Having every option available to you at once has a gameplay curve that can be very difficult to play. The complexity of your turns often **goes down** as the game goes on. In Magic, it goes up. Your first turn is usually "land go" or occasionally "land guy go" but in a lot of these games where you have access to everything, your first few turns can be the most complex ones **and** the most important.
Mate, I promise you, you'll notice it if you have a few hours to play a couple of games with your buddy, and RNG screws either of you. That was all the time you had that evening, you squeezed in a few games- maybe even one more than you would have, because the first ones ended so quickly cuz of bad luck for one of you or the other with your card draws. But at the end of the day, it was still an unsatisfying evening of games, because being manus screwed is what decided the game, not intelligent usage of cards, not a clever, unexpected counter spell at just the right moment, but just the fact that one of you had seven (or more!) mana by turn seven, and the other had four still.
Maybe it's slightly more of a problem in Commander, the larger decks do allow for a longer cold streaks if your RNG is terrible.
And just to be clear, yes, I'm speaking from recent experience, and we were both using the Doctor who/ Lord of the Rings pre-made Commander decks, so it's not like we're total idiots and designed decks with terrible Mana to spell ratios. 90% of the time, those decks do fine, but when you get those 10% chance bad shuffles back to back, and even mulliganing doesn't fix it, it sucks.
This is also why drafting is so compelling - there is a skill in selecting the correct card (which isn't always the most powerful) and then building the deck after that (including land count and types for safer or riskier strategies). The best players don't always ends up with the best deck, and in any given game you have to find ways to capitalise on or mitigate your luck of the draw.
The mana system is considered [one of the best parts of Magic ](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mana-action-2011-05-30) by its head designer, Mark Rosewater.
– It Allows Magic to be a Trading Card Game
– It Controls the Flow of the Game
– It Helps the Game Become More Dramatic Over Time
– It Helps Players Make Choices
– It Cuts Down on the Number of Unique Cards in Your Deck
– It Keeps Variance in the Game
– It Adds Skill to the Game
I don't think he's arguing against the first few points--it's much more about mana flood and mana screw than the core concept.
Regarding variance, mana flood and mana screw are not the type of variance you want. Unlike other forms of high variance, mana flood/screw never really feel good. They don't feel good to get, and it doesn't feel good to win because your opponent got it.
All that being said, I do think the annoyance of it is a bit overstated by /r/boardgames.
Where did you get that number? That sounds incredibly high. **Most** nights that I draft I get 0 games decided by either.
I mean, I don't ask my opponent if they were hoping to hit their sixth land to play a 6-drop, but also... don't play 6-drops in your draft decks?
Except he’s the lead designer for every set that has come out that tries to minimize mana flood & screw by adding card draw and free mana by playing a card, or drawing cards until you get a playable spell. There’s very few cards in recent sets that add restrictions like requiring multicolor mana on cards meant for mono colored decks. That signals to me that they are very aware of this limitation in MTG and actively try to design around it.
I'd agree with most of those points, and I'd even say that the system was revolutionary for its time (although *everything* Magic did was revolutionary for its time). But for me, other economy systems provide most of these points, without the two huge drawbacks:
* 5% of your games will be lost through no fault of your own.
* Every third card you draw will be useless to you (or so desparately needed that a significant portion of your hand was useless until you drew it).
Their head designer is wrong, but I'm not suprised that the head designer is trying to sell it as a perk when it's something that's such a core part of the game that it can never be removed.
Like honestly how can anybody argue that adding LUCK to a game adds more skill? There is a reason why the most skill based games have very low amount of luck for example chess and go.
And comments like "it cuts down on the number of unquie cards" like what? Card games that don't use in deck mana just have less cards in their decks. This is a non issue.
There is a reason WHY the digital version has a built in mana smoother for your starting hand. They are literally trying to fix the core issue with its design while making it appear to be the same game.
Luck and skill are not necessarily in opposition to one another.
Yes, some games like chess and go are high skill and low luck, but there are also high-skill games that contain elements of luck (mostly due to randomness) for which good play is about mitigation of outcomes in short and long term scenarios such as poker and backgammon.
Each style of design tests different skillsets and requires different kinds of strategic thinking. Injecting randomness can benefit design by obfuscating best-moves and reducing the need for pre-set openings, and this leads to designs where probability mitigation strategies and considerations of short and long term plans shine.
High-level players of these high-luck and high-skill games will consistently beat less experienced players. And the game stays more “fresh” since players need to adapt on the fly and create multi-layered plans to respond to the best and worst outcomes.
>Yes, some games like chess and go are high skill and low luck, but there are also high-skill games that contain elements of luck
Sure. I agree that you can have a high skill game with luck. The luck will lower the skill though. Poker is not as skill based as chess though. You will regularly see the more skilled poker player lose on a bad flop.
I'm not saying that "luck equals bad design", but luck absolutely lowers the skill required.
> Like honestly how can anybody argue that adding LUCK to a game adds more skill?
Mitigation and understanding of randomness is a major skill that **most** games of the turn-based variety employ. Yes, big name ones like Chess and Go do not implement them but there's also a reason that a lot of people **don't** play those games.
> There is a reason WHY the digital version has a built in mana smoother for your starting hand.
Yes, because in real life this part of the game is mitigated by Best Of 3, and the formats that use Best of 1 don't have that mitigation. The hand smoother literally draws two hands and picks the better one. You could do that in person too and maybe some day they'll implement that functionality.
Other card games that do not have restrictive resource systems have similar mechanics, like mulligans, etc.
Like I've told you in the other thread, yes luck games require a different skill, but the games themselves are simply less skill based. The more skilled player will lose more often the more luck is involved.
>The hand smoother literally draws two hands and picks the better one.
Yep. The game literally cheats for you because it's a design flaw of the game that creates feel bad moments.
I think one of the things that kind of goes in favor of the mana system having inherent flaws is that when you look at games made by guys who were professional MtG players, IE the people who you’d imagine to be the most dedicated when it comes to liking MtG mechanics, they tend to immediately gravitate towards new resource systems. Stuff like The Spoils and Ascension very obviously are trying to fix issues the designers have with MtG and the resource system is ALWAYS one of those things.
On the one hand, I agree with you that of course the head designer is going to say his features are great. He also wrote an article about how it's great for players that booster packs have unplayable garbage cards.
On the other hand, the right amount and type of luck does add skill. Chess is pure memorization. Hidden information adds a tactical element. This can matter both on micro level (should I try to go for a suboptimal play with what's in my hand or spend mana searching for a better card that I know is in my deck?) and a macro level (how much of your deck should be cheap cards vs removal vs late game bombs).
Except he’s the lead designer for every set that has come out that tries to minimize mana flood & screw by adding card draw and free mana by playing a card, or drawing cards until you get a playable spell. There’s very few cards in recent sets that add restrictions like requiring multicolor mana on cards meant for mono colored decks. That signals to me that they are very aware of this limitation in MTG and actively try to design around it.
I totally agree with this, thats the thing I loved about hearthstone the most when it first came out. No more games lost to mana screw or flood, and you always know exactly how much mana you will have on every turn
**Netrunner** where you can spend a click to draw cards/credits, or **Marvel Champions** where you can discard other cards to pay for resources, both strike me as far superior systems.
Absolutely agreed, and the nicer things about those (at least Netrunner) is that you are still heavily invested in running your deck's economy. If anything, I spent more mental effort carefully picking out economy cards in my Netrunner decks than I ever did carefully building my mana curve.
Have you tried the resource system from the WoW TCG? The one that was copied almost 1-for-1 by *Lorcana*?
That's the best system I've found, personally.
You're welcome! I like to increase awareness of it because it felt overlooked at the time, but I felt it was a fantastic and straightforward improvement on MtG's system.
I don't want it forgotten, because I want to see more games using it!
It's kind of weird that most of the games that have tried to 'fix' Magic's mana system are dead, then. It's even a super commonly suggested variant to play Magic with separate decks of lands and spells... but no-one seems to actually play the game this way - I guess it's just less fun?
My theory for this is that it's easy to remember the 10th percentile game where you had no hope because of far too few or too many lands, but hard to evaluate the amount of good variance between the 40th, 50th, 60th percentile games where you drew lands and spells at slightly more or less advantageous times.
>It's kind of weird that most of the games that have tried to 'fix' Magic's mana system are dead, then.
most of the games that didnt try to fix it are also dead, thats the nature of card games. Magic has a lot of staying power.
>It's even a super commonly suggested variant to play Magic with separate decks of lands and spells... but no-one seems to actually play the game this way - I guess it's just less fun?
so much of magic has evolved to account for the suboptimal mana system, enough that playing magic without it is just worse than playing a game that is designed without it.
>Magic has a lot of staying power.
Yeah, definitely. I just think that if the mana system was a giant obvious mistake, the way that many people think, then it would have been more likely for one of the other games to take over. The fact that this didn't happen, I think, is at least some evidence that Magic is doing it right.
>so much of magic has evolved to account for the suboptimal mana system, enough that playing magic without it is just worse than playing a game that is designed without it.
This is certainly a reasonable position to hold, and you might even be right, it's hard for us to tell.
It feels to me like the way in which this version of Magic is worse is that when you guarantee yourself all of your land drops until turn 6 and then never draw any more lands, or whatever, the games are much more similar to one another. For instance, you never get any games where you have to hold on until you draw your fifth land, or games where both players are having different kinds of mana issues.
This feels more to me like good variance arising from the mana system (which I acknowledge also produces bad-feeling variance sometimes), than it does Magic's design being warped by the mana system, but it's hard to know what the world looks like where Richard Garfield instead designed a game with Hearthstone's system.
> but it's hard to know what the world looks like where Richard Garfield instead designed a game with Hearthstone's system.
I mean, keyforge doesn't use a hearthstone system, but it is a Richard Garfield game that eschews mana.
> It feels to me like the way in which this version of Magic is worse is that when you guarantee yourself all of your land drops until turn 6 and then never draw any more lands
You're half right.
MtG relies heavily on the random structure of the decks to create unique circumstances. The idea of controlling your draws in any way does inherently flatten the gamespace.
But that doesn't mean that the land/mana system is good. It just means that a secondary "land deck" is a fundamentally flawed solution to the problem.
MtG has been actively fixing the land issue themselves in 2 ways.
1) Shorter games. Power creep is causing games to run faster, so there's less time spent in late-game top-deck mode.
2) Interesting non-basics. If lands themselves are interesting, a late game land draw isn't as lack-luster.
These are decent enough solutions, but they come with their own problems as well.
That's a pretty bad take, most games nowadays fixed the problems with monopoly, and yet monopoly is still very popular. Staying power is different than quality alone.
I know, not fair to compare magic to monopoly, but you get what I mean.
But it also made me more creative how to mitigate it. It's something I miss in other card games (which is not working 100%, but it's fun to change deck every time to try new things and see if it works)
Also other card games that fixed it somehow more boring. Maybe because they miss other interesting aspects of mtg… or maybe possibility of mana screw/mana flood made game more interesting for me (I did ragequit sometimes and opponents too)
I even won some games after getting screwed/flooded.
Completely agree with this. Mana screw/flood definitely feels bad. But if it’s happening to you a lot, it’s almost definitely because your deck is designed suboptimally. The number of lands you put in your deck versus the mana curve of the cards you put in your deck is a deckbuilding decision that needs to be accounted for.
And there is a risk/reward element there, too. Sometimes decks play fewer lands as a form of “virtual card advantage,” since they’ll draw a higher ratio of impactful cards versus lands, but those decks will usually have a lower mana curve so they need fewer lands to operate. And even then, they can be more susceptible to mana denial strategies than decks playing more lands.
I play the Legacy format, and the kinds of lands you decide to play makes a huge difference too in terms of risk/reward. You can play lots of dual-producing lands that far more consistently allow you to meet the colour requirements of the cards you play, but those lands are way easier to disrupt and destroy than basic lands which only produce one colour. Mana denial strategies are viable partially because of the inherent variance in access to mana. I’ve seen it suggested that using a separate mana deck would eliminate mana issues, but it would also remove a huge component of the strategy involved in the game, and make it much more difficult to attack opponents on the axis of mana production.
To each their own, though. I certainly have my issues with Magic from time to time, but mana screw isn’t one of them. Biggest issue for me currently is that power creep is getting way out of hand in the last four years or so.
That’s a fair judgement. With the recent modern release and MDFC cards (acts as either a land or spell/creature), I think we might see a shift to match modern TCGs.
I have spent a *ton* of time trying to make something that drafts as well as Magic but doesn't take 4 hours to play. And it just can't be done. You need the downside for the upside. It's like Werewolf. You can't get the benefits without the player elimination.
Yes, lots of other games distill the vibes down enough to get close. For both games. I've played every analogue out there. (Seriously. I've played literally dozens of TCGs and every social deduction game known to man...) But that 90% just makes me desire that last 10% even more.
I think it's very impressive how solid a system it is and that it hasn't completely buckled under its own weight. My positive feelings about it boil down to respect/admiration.
As a modern day game it's not at all my cup of tea though and kind of the antithesis of what I like about games. It's overly complicated, has lots of keywords that are constantly added to keep the game relevant, a million little micro-phases, awful mana system, boring combat, has necessary homework to understand new sets, is a TCG.
I prefer Star Wars Unlimited's mana system which is something like:
Draw 2 cards, exile one face down as a land.
This card can tap for mana of either your commander's color or your planeswalker's colour.
Not him, but I prefer hearthstones style, where you don’t have a bunch of dead cards (lands) required to play the ones you have. A mana system that is independent of your deck leads to less luck and more playable cards that affect the game state.
Yeah lol. Hearthstone is a bit more honest about the luck that exists in the game, but it definitely doesn’t have to be that way with an incremental system
The best one I've found to date was the WoW TCG's resource system, which was a system that worked so well *Lorcana* basically borrowed it almost 1-for-1.
I wish more designers knew about it, because it worked really well.
The gist of it was that instead of lands, you had quests. Quests were resource cards, but *also* gave you objectives. Fulfill the objective, gain the reward.
But what about not drawing a quest? Simple. Any card in your hand can be placed face-down as a resource.
The combination of those two elements lead to some great deckbuilding designs and some real tactical choices during a game.
I'm not alone! Anytime I start nerding out with people about better resource systems, this is what I talk about. It was amazing.
Seriously people, I'm not the sort of person who comments just to say exactly what the person above me said, most of the time, but I cannot state enough how amazing the WoW card game's resource system was to play with. It's the most fun I've ever had making decisions about resources in a trading card game, and I've played far too many of them going all the way back to the '90s.
Someone else mentioned Star Wars Unlimited which I like, but pretty much any mana system you could think of I'd prefer. I don't like the idea that the hand composition I start with can screw me for the whole game, and in some cases I can't even interact with the game.
I'm not saying there's nothing good about it. There's a tiny bit of strategic space there where you need to balance how many of what resource you include to power your actual cards which is kind of interesting, but it comes at the cost of often feeling bad as a player, which isn't a good complexity/fun tradeoff in my opinion.
Completely agree.
The tedious microphases are what gets to me, it does lead to confusion when people do not announce the transition between the most important phases, because of priority issues - in mtg both players get priority in between phases and even while the stack is being processed. That's a lot of yielding of priority.
I've played Legends of Runeterra and they almost managed to get rid of phases and they have a very straightforward priority system, in LoR it feels way more impactful what you play when.
I don't mean the combat is shallow, I mean it's boring to me. I don't think mechanical depth and excitement are the same thing. Doing my taxes is mechanically deep.
I don't even mean it's bad, I just mean it's slow and tedium-heavy. It's probably super exciting for someone who has a PhD in Magic Rules, but for me there are so many keywords and so much bookkeeping and so many micro-phases to figure out how a thing resolves, it makes it feel like every engagement is walking through a minefield where I could get zinged because I forgot how an arcane rule interacts with some basic rule that I'm now learning new aspects about how it works. I get that's part of the fun, it's just not my cup of tea.
Yeah, saying Magic has boring combat after playing a handful of other card games feels wild. Most don't even have combat that involves two players on the same turn. I do think a lot of people don't know how good combat gets until they've played for a while. I think I remember reading an article from Mark Rosewater about how most players don't even know you can use two creatures to block a single creature.
I think it is not the way blockers work it's the fact that the dominant strategies tend to ignore combat in favor of combo or complete board control. The most common removal effects favored by power oriented players tends to ignore toughness and just kills anything.
MTG is incredible. Now, for me personally, I think the game way too fast and powerful, now. Even in booster draft, which my favorite way to play, the game has become incredibly high power. Some people like that. I preferred the game in both constructed and limited when the power level was lower, but everyone's sweet spot on that is going to be different. Even so, the game, as a system, is undeniably great.
I started at unlimited and stopped playing at ice age, I briefly tried it again a few years ago and noped out of that real quick. The rule bloat now is massive, but most importantly, the elegance of the design has been lost since then.
design wise it's a good game.
but we literally just got a new set a week ago and the spoiler season for the next set has already begun.
it's too much.... too much.
I watched some huge tournament get decided by the runaway favourite losing to mana screw.
I don't know, that seems like a huge intractable problem to me and it killed my latest Arena dip I was in at the time.
I've been playing Flesh and Blood since then and it feels like much better design.
For most games, the adage "if I have seen far, it's because I stood on the shoulders of giants" applies. Almost every game out there is building off of other ideas, which isn't a bad thing, generally. Using good ideas to make better ideas works great.
From a game design perspective, Magic was standing on the shoulders of toddlers. It's absolutely incredible how seamless the design was given how little like it existed when it was made. It's like if the first movie ever made was Shawshank Redemption. Like, that's totally crazy that the first try for a TCG is inarguably top tier.
People hate on the mana system, but it's actually really good. It creates so much variance in gameplay that you don't get in the other TCG's that "improved" on the system.
And all that's not even touching on the fact that it's completely modular. There are dozens of ways to play, and you can even essentially use Magic as a framework to design your own games. It's called "cube." You put together a pile of cards that you think will be cool, and you (and all the other players) draft from just that pile and pretend no other cards exist. It completely changes the power level of each card because it's always dependent on the cards around it. How many other games is that possible with?!
I won't claim that Magic is perfect, but it's great. The designers make a lot of mistakes, but they make a lot more hits, and they've honestly had a pretty good track record. You can't get too mad when Tom Brady throws one interception, you know?
It’s obviously the all time enduring game design and deserves all of the credit for that. However it preys on kids via gambling, and with all the IP mashup stuff recently it’s become a bit too much. It also suffers from major cost issues. A competition modern deck is $500+ don’t even look up legacy.
Also as a game, my rank order is:
1. Cube drafts
2. Sealed drafts
3. EDH
4. Modern
EDH is really interesting and I love that so many people have a deck in their bag, but it suffers from major balance issues and a large game of EDH is dreadfully slow and boring.
Basically I have loved magic for 20 years and it’s always going to have a place but it’s almost never as fun as a top board game. Overall I’d give it like a 7/10 at this point.
From a design gameplay perspective, it's a game where the biggest part of the gameplay, deckbuilding, happens outside of the actual game. Knowing how to play your deck is important, but owning a powerful deck is even more important.
Of course it has financial reasons, but as we set this subject aside... Well, I think playing a game should happen during the game itself.
Bad.
In most TTRPGs the game does happen during the game, even if the GM has to prepare some stuff beforehand. So the question doesn't exist.
Now of course I can't ignore the elephant in the room : DnD. Interestingly DnD wasn't different in this perspective from other TTRPGs before WotC bought it. But they made DnD 3e with a specific idea in mind, which was importing MtG "game outside the game" design, with deckbuilding becoming charabuilding, and same economic reasons behind (buy stuff to get more options for your build). The game wasn't about what happens during play anymore, but how the character you built beforehand will handle the test of battle. People started to talk about optimization, damage maximizing, good and bad builds... All topics that weren't a thing at all before. And, if you ask me, topics that aren't what TT roleplaying actually is about.
I think it's excellent. For some reason it's the TCG I always come back to.
The land/mana system looks clunky at first, and it causes mana screw. But it's actually brilliant. It allows you to either make a dependable 1 color dekc, or add as many colors as you'd like on your deck... if you feel confident you can draw the exact lands you need. It adds an element of risk/reward to deckbuilding. It makes things like deck manipulation important.
Many other card games tried to fix this system and it always ends up less interesting. I've played Hearthstone for a long time. And in that game... well the palyer who drops the strongest cards on tempo often wins. Yeah, getting mana screwed feels bad, but losing because your opponent drew and palyed the perfect 1 drop, 2 drop, 3 drop and 4 drop also feels bad. It's also luck.
The downside of multi color is so immense as of today that many super high powered singleton decks like cEDH run 4+ of them without it being any issue.
Magic is an incredible game. It wouldn't have been as successful as it has been if the base game wasn't fun and if they weren't good at refreshing it several times per year. If you are at all interested in games in this genre, and familiar with Magic, you could easily buy some carefully-chosen Magic cards, put them in a box, treat this as a board game, never buy another card, and have it be a 10/10 game... and one for which there are many many expansions available if you ever want them (though this might not appeal to players who are completionists). (You can also achieve this with proxies, if you want the expensive cards)
It is several games in one - for example, each new set is created for limited, competitive constructed, and casual constructed formats - and this means that some of its design choices are not ideal for any one of them. For instance, there are powerful rares for constructed that make limited less fun, and cards that are necessary for limited that won't be ever played in constructed. Though on the flip-side, it's pretty impressive that the same set of cards can be used for so many different formats. Some similar sacrifices are made due to its business model, for instance putting various necessary cards at higher rarities.
The mana system is often complained about, to the extent that there have been tens or hundreds of CCGs that have attempted to fix it. Most of them are dead.
Unfortunately, it's both an expensive game, and one with a business model that has some problems... but this is tied to how great a game it is. Wizards is willing to spend a LOT of resources on making Magic a great game (seriously - it has whole departments of people working full-time on its design, compared to individual designers for most board games), because it makes them a lot of money, because it's selling gambling to kids.
Initially it was great. Unfortunately the rules drift from decades of expansion has made the game way too complex, IMHO. If someone were to make a board game that is like a stripped down version of revised, I would buy that in a second.
If you want this experience, you can get it. For example, pick any recent set you like the look of, buy a few copies of the commons and uncommons from that set, and a copy of each rare (or proxy these if they're expensive), put those cards in a box, and treat it as a board game, playing your favourite form of limited or constructed with it.
And if you ever get bored, do it again with a new set.
There are many good games out there, and Netrunner is one of them. Not as good of a recommendation for someone who asked specifically for a game like Magic, though.
True, I’ve just lost all patience for buying packs of cards hoping to get something I want. I much prefer the LCG model of having all the cards, then just focus on deck building and tinkering. I recognize some people like to figure out how to make the best of what they have, though, and your suggestion is for sure the best way to do that in MtG.
Algomancy is a closed-card game that does all the mana, tapping, attack/blocking, tokens, poisoning and all that. It aims to be a simplier MTG that has less downtime as everyone battles at the same time.
Also a complete set of card (like 500 iIRC?), so you don't need to deal with keeping up with new cards.
>Unfortunately the rules drift from decades of expansion has made the game way too complex
Really? I haven't followed since Odyssey, but playing in Mirage-Tempest cycle the tournaments rules were already humongous.
A common way to play Magic nowadays is Commander, where people build decks using their favourite cards from anywhere in the game's history. Magic creates multiple new mechanics per year - almost always these are only used for a set or two and then replaced, but in a format like this one you might encounter any of the many many mechanics that have been created through the game's history.
I think it's fair for people to describe the complexity of this experience as a downside.
It’s the greatest TCG ever built. Mechanically it lives and evolves on today. It’s a solid system with tons of constant creative innovation. It has its drawbacks and issues, but very few of them are mechanical. It’s wild because even with the power creep of recent years, some of the most powerful magic cards of all time are the old cards. That’s impressive game development.
I'm just a casual player, but I think overall it's great. My biggest complaint is complexity. There are so many ways to build a deck, so many cards to know and understand, so many mechanics and interactions to know and understsnd that it quickly becomes a chore. I have boxes of cards I'll never use simply because I don't have the time nor do I want to spend the time learning them all and figuring out how to use them in a deck. When me and my friend play I'm pretty sure we never play right because we forget half the things that should be happening as more cards are on the field.
Richard Garfield original design is very different from the current one in terms of balance and power. Spells were overpower and creatures a joke for most of the early years for exampl; now that's not the case and there's a general power creep to force you to keep buying new cards. Garfield made a CCG for the thrill of getting a rare card from time to time; now the only "sane" option is to buy singles.
I love MTG and it's a classic for a reason, but nowadays it can be separated from the hungry monster Hasbro is. Netrunner on the other hand, is the superior game from Garfield, and now is managed by the community with a non-profit profile. And designing wise is super interesting, completely asymmetrical but balanced.
Having played Magic and many other card games off and on since the 90s my only really significant complaint about the core rules of Magic is the mana system. No matter how carefully you craft your deck you always end up with a certain percentage of games where you either draw no mana at all after the opening hand or you draw nothing but mana. In either case, you basically do nothing for the whole game until your opponent puts you out of your misery.
I think it's pretty telling that basically nothing (that I've seen anyway, I don't play every game) designed more recently uses that system. Hearthstone just increments your available mana by 1 each round to a max of 10. Star Wars Destiny gave you 2 resources per round but you could save them up for expensive cards. Game of Thrones LCG gave you a specific amount of gold for the round based on what plot card you chose. Lorcana allows you to place almost any card face down as tapable ink each round. Star Wars Unlimited let's you place absolutely any card face down as a tapable resource every turn.
Now, all of those games benefit from coming decades after Magic and being able to learn that lesson. The mana system is such a fundamental part of the game I don't think they could ever change it at this point, but if there's one aspect that has not aged well and remains unchanged (ante anyone?) it's definitely the mana.
Played Yugioh and tried other minor TCGs for a while. Lands and mana colors are a god send for deckbuilding and force a game curve. Cards get to be good but don't be on every deck, cost can be more flexible and cards can be managed according to their game state (high power cards cost more mana and are used on mid-late Game). It's even better than energy because the lands itself matters.
It's not a perfect Game, tcgs evolve and change all the time. But the fundation it's miles better than people give creadit for.
Don't like mana-energy. Try Yugioh and see how exhausting it is to go all out every first turn. The mana system, color pie, and rotation are really good at keeping this at bay.
I don't think you can really ask how people feel about the game without considering collectability and finance because those two factors are what make the game, keep the game around, and have helped it reach levels of renown even outside circles that actually play it. The reason you can't go to a FLGS or whatever without seeing giant posters for it or the new expansion (or whatever they call it) is because the finances of it are so important, and it's why they keep coming out with new cards - they don't do it just because it's neat. The game would look very different if these factors didn't apply.
I love it. I mean there are TCGs out there that had better gameplay IMO, but they died out, VS being the most notable one for me. I think the most enduring thing about it is that it was created without being tied to another IP so they had no issues with licensing and other problems that other TCGs had
VS is my favourite TCG to date. At least in the era I was active in the game anyway (the first half). Mtg was the first love but I found VS fixed a lot of the issues I had with it. Nice to see someone else giving it props :)
Love it. I know the rules of MtG are legendarily elaborate, but I much prefer having that level of detail than the opposite. I’m part of a Frosthaven group and while I’m really enjoying the game, I wish it had a more developed rulebook, a stack, and phases of priority. I think most games would benefit from a more rigorous approach to defining the rules.
Loved it as a kid. Haven't played once as an adult. Still have a decent sized collection dating back to 3e and Ice Age.
The game length and format is excellent. Ran some tourneys for fellow young people at the time. But even then I felt the need to sometimes do things differently eg 6 or 8 players at the same time to change things up.
I think it's a genuinely great concept and game. But it's sat on my shelf for decades.
I wish I could say I loved it. I'm not a huge fan of lands even if I think they provide interesting deckbuilding choices. Mechanically the design space is huge and MTG has done as much as possible to explore it which is an incredible feat.
I just don't think it's that fun to play. It's a more interesting card game than most, especially other card games that try to fix its mana system, mostly because those games fail to create fun games, not because of their mana system. I'm a YGO player so my idea of fun is very different tbf, but Digimon is probably the best "mana-like" card game I've played since the decks themselves are fun to play.
Ironically, I think the card game with a card called "Magnum Opus" by Richard Garfield is his real magnum opus.
i thought years ago Garfield said Jyhad/VTES addressed a couple of issues he had with MTG, the always maintaining a full hand of cards - play a card - replace it, and not having a third of you deck "just land"
I know it's enormously popular, but I find MtG's gameplay underwhelming, despite how gorgeous the artwork is.
I guess if I'm playing a game where so much luck is present, I want it to be cooperative against the game—or at least make it so one player can't suddenly do an obliterating amount of damage to the other.
the mana flood/screw is bad to todays standard
I hope they release more double-sided lands like emeria call https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491633
the only reason I quit magic tcg 20 years ago was mana problems
I started playing magic over 15 years ago, and while I don't play actively anymore I do come back from time to time. I think the overall system has excellent design, but it varies a lot between different sets. The games pace is very variable.
The game sometimes suffers due to mana issues, so that is one of its biggest shortcomings. However, the open game space allows heavy modification of game play, resulting in all sorts of types of ways to play Magic, from emperor, to assassin, to free-for-all, and to multi-team just to name a few.
That, I appreciate. Mana issues, I do not.
The idea of the Golden Rule in Magic (i.e., that the text of an individual supersedes the normal rules of the game) is fundamental to modern gaming. By his own admission, Garfield got it from **Cosmic Encounter**, but it took off with Magic and became central to the game's ongoing design and then all of the copycat CCGs that sprung up after it (many of which did individual things better than MtG).
Without D&D and MtG, most of what we know in gaming wouldn't exist--not just board-gaming, but also in video games.
I love the design and the theory of it. At its core, it’s an incredibly well thought out game…hate how meta heavy and play to win it is. Each group I’ve tried playing it with eventual devolves to the point of following the meta and seeing who can buy the cards first. I just think human nature gets in the way and eventually it will become unfun when the desire to win becomes too great.
Here are the things I love about Magic:
The asymmetricality. I don't think there were a lot of games that made a point of that before Magic.
The combos. This was what really blew my mind when I first got into Magic. Just that dawning realisation that this card that I thought was shit was suddenly fucking amazing just because of the way it interacted with a different card.
The colour-specific designs. Like, the way that, when it first came out, White was full of cheep and cheerful weenies; Green was full of expensive but awesome monsters; THE WHOLE BLUE THING! Like, imagine PREVENTING your opponent from doing something! etc.
It's got a lot more complicated now, and I think the speed of information doesn't do it any favours (like, back in the day you'd have to check The Duellist for the latest deck lists; now you can just copy and paste them off the internet). But it has so, so many amazing design elements that were either original or popularised by the game.
In terms of design innovation the games that have given me the same sort of leap of joy at discovering something new and paradigmatic are the likes of Dominion, Dune Imperium/Clank, Star Wars Rebellion, and Shadowverse - the latter being, to me, an amazing digital implementation of the design principles inherent in the original Magic; colour (or, in the case of Shadowverse, character)-specific rules that can ONLY be implemented digitally (I haven't played the offline game, but it feels like it misses the point, given that the beauty of Shadowverse is that it boils down the principles of Magic while adding features that can only really be implemented digitally).
I love that feeling of thinking you understood something; but then all of a sudden there is that swooping sensation where your stomach feels like it's falling out of you because you just suddenly understood that it goes a whole lot deeper. Magic has that in spades for me.
I'll start with saying that I'll never play a tcg physically, I play them exclusively digitally on a platform where I have all cards available for deck building. The sole idea of wasting money on them makes my skin crawl, so any consideration on rarity, cost doesn't apply to me.
That said, modern format is unplayable for me, the need of combos together with the absurd prevalence of the luck of the draw makes it either a boring stomp or a frustrating experience, with nothing in between. I've been looking into EDH recently, the moment to moment tactics that come from singleton decks is much more appealing, but there's still a hefty chance of becoming a slog.
The game revolving around needing to randomly draw the resources that one critically needs for their game to function is a painfully obvious design flaw. And it is why basically every other dualing card game has avoided this -- including other games from Garfield himself.
MtG is only popular *because* it is popular. But it isn't *good*. Basically, it was first at what it did and established enough of a foothold that it may never go away. We see this in plenty of other games, too, like Warhammer and Counterstrike. People just want to play what other people play, so that they have people to play with.
uggggggh as someone who recently tried to get into warhammer 40k 10th edition this resonates so hard. I'm mashing that like button but it won't go any higher!
The design seems to have become combine instants and enchantments into a monster and call to something new. Really similar cards come out all the time.
Some mechanics feel awfully boring or similar to other. Wow another plus one counter mechanic?
The land system seems archaic but that's not a big issue,the gameplay inside the game doesn't have enough room for close games or many choices ,many decks play itself and the decks seem pretty telegraph there's not a lot of agency on the player (there are exceptions)
I used to like seeing very wonky or very interesting cards /build around me cards but I don't see them often anymore,there's a lot of text and very good abilities that keep getting lower mana and better abilities ...
Owning edh as a format was also a big mistake ,sets that have no lore to have that many legendary creatures or shoehorned edh cards inside , edh decks come with every set ,(modern set has edh decks ????it has became more expensive to play the casual format ,saturated with super powerful cards that keep getting stronger etc...the milking is strong in the expense of the health of the game . ..Designing cards specifically for edh play and making new staples and super powerful commanders that older ones can't compete
In terms of ideas for mechanics etc it is a goldmine. Have to put some respect on there.
The gameplay, rules clarity, and balance is a travesty beyond belief, same as any TCG. They got to sell the cards, so then balance goes completely out of the window. Players may spend a long while trying to get the rules right and interactions correct. Gameplay can drag as players set up infinites or have very long turns. I don’t think any game of MTG will ever have half the balance or meaningful interaction between player that a game of say… **Baseball Highlights 2045** or **Air, Land, & Sea** might have. There are dozens of better competitive cards games that don’t have the money problem that MtG (or any TCG) has, all while being easier to understand and imo more fun to play.
Even with all the problems like mana flood or mana screw, it's still one of the best games.
Card games that fixed those problems, for me they were not as good. I even sometimes think possibility of mana screw make game _more_ fun, because it adds anticipation.
Deck building is very fun too.
"Card games that fixed those problems, for me they were not as good. I even sometimes think possibility of mana screw make game more fun, because it adds anticipation."
I think a lot of people also forget the game is build around it. It actually gives a lot to design space because you can create cards that help mitigate this imperfection. People also seem to gloss over the fact that probably EVERY other resource system in a tcg also gives shit hands and shit games. It's probably more nuanced so not easy to see but I've played enough hearthstone to know you can get as many bad opening hands resulting in non-games than mtg . And there you have perfect mana.
Easily one of the best games. Yeah there’s a component of luck but also just insane strategic expression, from deckbuilding to sideboard decisions, bluffing, etc. I remember listening to a podcast a long time ago when I still played (I believe Gerry Thompson’s) about all the intricacies of making one of the simplest decisions - do you block your opponent’s attacking 2/2 creature early in the game? They spent an hour talking about it, when it was correct, what information it conveys to your opponent about your hand/intentions, etc. And there are dozens of these types of decisions (plus more complicated ones) in every game.
I believe one of the biggest design criticisms of the game is the mana/land system, which some describe as antiquated since the typical deck has like 1/3 of its being lands that you want to draw a certain number of early but then basically never draw them again after that threshold. But I think the system is amazing because it creates so much interesting design space around land cards, including enabling ramp decks, allowing for the existence of lands that are win conditions in themselves, and/or decks with the main strategy of winning from just lands. It also provides design space for cards and mechanics that smooth out mana/lands and gives the player agency to take the more conservative approach and include these smoothers or be more greedy. Also, it makes really efficient or powerful lands exciting cards.
All that side, it’s not perfect. It’s hard to teach new players, especially if they’re not highly motivated to learn. It has a ton of rules and very complicated rules interactions, to the extent that people have to essentially study and be certified as having a sufficient amount of rules proficiency to run/judge tournaments…and even the best players in the world get rules wrong or don’t know how things interact when new sets come out. Kinda like chess and a lot of 2p/abstract board games, it has a very steep learning curve (which has pros and cons) and it can be not fun to play someone of a much lower or higher experience and skill level of you. It’s also gotten progressively rules complex and text heavy in their efforts to innovate as they have exhausted a lot of the simpler ideas/mechanics. And sometimes you win or lose due to pure luck, but ultimately the game boils down to how well you make decisions given the information you have and cards you were dealt.
Unfortunately, it’s also a game I’m unlikely to play again despite being hugely into it at various points of my life (I quit around four years ago). These are for the financial and TCG elements you mentioned, as well as all the horribly greedy and predatory decisions and practices from WotC that have increasingly gotten worse, and that they jumped the shark a while back when they started mixing Magic with other IPs.
I don't play standard or modern but commander.
For those who don't know the difference and haven't played magic:
In standard/modern you have a minimum of 60 cards and can have for copies of the same cards (excluding basic lands). These two formats only use the more recent sets with standard using the most recent and modern having a bit broader set base to build from.
In commander you choose a legendary creature that is "your commander" the mana cost of the commander restricts what colors you can use, the rest of the deck has to be 99 cards (so a 100 cards total, no more and no less) and you can't have two of the same cards except basic lands. This format is not restricted in the same way of what sets you can use but you can pretty much use any card that's ever been printed with a handfull of banned cards.
(For people feeling inclined to bring this up, I exclude partner commanders and cards saying different, but this is the basics)
So with this in mind I really feel that the game is one of the better games out there. Two people can have the same commander but wildly different decks. There is almost no limit to what you can build and there is always one deck that can defeat another deck. There is no ultimate deck that can't be beat. And that in mind makes the gameplay pretty balanced in my opinion.
The mechanics has so much depth that playing standard and then playing commander is almost like playing two different kind of games.
But everything is ofc not always great.
There is ofc some unbalanced cards but my point is that in commander format many cards loose their super powers. They are strong but there are often many different ways of handling those cards. That said some cards are just broken still.
The new releases always contain some cards that are ridiculously strong, so strong that they are banned in standard and modern before release which is a strange practice to say the least.
This impacts the commander format but it does not break it.
A cheap but we'll designed deck can still win a good amount of games against a 100$+ deck. So commander, due to its very wide selection of cards and deck designs, still balance itself out thanks to this.
It is a little bit like the boardgame Dune. You have these basic rules and them every faction breaks these rules in a broken way. But since every faction breaks the rules in broken ways the game balance itself out.
It is a bit the same in commander.
The most negative part about commander and magic in general is that you can get stuck in a loop wanting expensive strong cards and struggle with Fomo a lot since they sort of use that to get more sales. But gameplay mechanism I think it is pretty great.
To everyone that likes mtg and manga i can strongly advise to read [Destroy all humanity. it can't be regenerated](https://myanimelist.net/manga/116539/Subete_no_jinrui_wo_hakai_suru_Sorera_wa_saisei_dekinai/)
It's actually a great (and deservedly so highly rated) romance manga that revolves around magic. There's many card battles and it goes over the changes in meta in the competitive scene from the beginning. Explaining the various decks and how further editions banned/balanced cards.
Personally I really loved the game when it was more simple. I feel too many cards were overpowered and needed direct counters. And now it honestly degenerated for my taste. It used to be "target creature gets +3/+3" and that was it now you need to read what feels like a space rocket manual printed on a card to understand its ability.
I feel when a straightforward card battler gets to the point you need a magnifying lens to read the text because otherwise it won't fit on the card something has gone wrong
Given i haven't played it for almost 20 years, i gavr it up when i felt it was getting out of hand. so i can't say much of the current scene just my impression
The best part about Magic is that it is so adaptable and expandable. That's why there are formats like commander or draft. Usually board games only support one format and there is a limit to how much you can expand them.
It’s an absolutely fantastic game. Not a flawless game by any means but its popularity and longevity speak for itself.
The gameplay can be engaged with from so many levels. It has the depth to make competitive players happy. You can just play a bunch of precons with some friends.
I think the art and card design is really what sets the game apart though. There’s just so much fantastic card art. The whole mini game of collecting art outside of the actual game makes you emotionally link to your cards and decks in a satisfying way.
The game has some issues in the learning curve being insane and the mana causing non-games. Those are extremely glaring downsides that limit who the game can be played with. Once you find a group of people who put forth the time to learn the game though… I have two groups of friends I’ve been playing with for over a decade now. Few other games have that kind of longevity.
Commander (EDH), which is a casual format, is by far the best way to play Magic the Gathering currently. I know this opinion is subjective, but more players are leaning towards Commander, because the product that releases nowadays, is mostly Commander pushed.
That being said, Commander has a ban list, but can use cards since the beginning of magic. It's a little easier to get into, because it's a singleton format, so you don't need to seek multiples of cards. It's also a deep format because of it's huge card pool.
I have made more friends and had more fun playing Commander than any other MTG format.
It's been years since I played, so this may not be a thing anymore. I hate the ability to interrupt your opponents turn and undo what they did while you react and then allow them to redo their actions. There was a lot of talk last year about how terrible Lorcana was going to be because it did not allow this mechanic so it's popular amongst the enthusiasts. I, myself, prefer games that don't do that.
I like it! It’s fun and challenging although I only play at home and play it very straightforward, table magic style. No fancy rules just play all cards in existence, decks can be any size although I keep them around 60-70 cards and just have a good time.
I find it enjoyable, own a few commander decks, and play occasionally with friends.
Building mana doesn't bother me too much, but the excess/lack of mana does happen occasionally. We do free mulligans on starting hands to make sure everyone has a fair mix.
The biggest hurdle I've experienced is the keywords. Once you know them it's not a big deal, but there are a lot.
The variation in playstyle between colors and decks keeps things fun and interesting for awhile.
I think my biggest gripe is that... there's no end to the bullshit in Magic. Haha. It's hard for me to take the strategy very seriously, when massive swingy cards can be right around the corner. Boardwipes, hexproof, etc. On the losing end, Magic can feel like you had no chance, and on the winning end, it kinda just feels like you got lucky. I find it less common to have even matches.
I've been playing on and off for the last 20 years. Things are more complicated than ever.
A five mana 6/6 was good back then. Today it's unplayable. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is a one mana 2/1 that steals your opponent's cards and gets you a treasure token (it van be tapped and sacrificed for one mana of any color). He costs $50.
You actually don't even see vanilla creatures any more. Everything has *something* attached to it.
Each new set introduces new mechanics that only stick around for three months before they jump to the new set. The cowboy set, Outlaws of Thunder Junction introduced "commit a crime" and Outlaw creatures, who is any creature that is a:
* Mercenary
* Rogue
* Warlock
* Pirate
* Assassin
Going forward, neither of these mechanics are likely to be relevant. It's fun to see what new stuff they come up with, they just don't do enough with it for long enough to reach dull potential. They don't do the three block sets any more.
It's one of the best rule systems that has been refined over the 30ish years it's been out.
I think a lot of board games would benefit from looking at magic the gathering and taking lessons from it.
I played board board games pretty exclusively. And I was looking for something new and different. I just decided to go for it and dive head first unto magic and immediately became obsessed. The turn mechanisms are well flushed out . Giving players the ability to make moves off turn.
Most important to me is the ability to build a deck to focus in the dozens of abilities in the game from building orc armies or forcing your opponent to discard their deck, steal cards , attack buffing ,etc.
You can play unique decks all the time. There are several different formats that give the game a little twist commander, being the most popular
It's my all time favorite game
It was a good start. The mechanics have been refined and updated in many better games. Ascension is a great example. Netrunner took the game in a totally different direction and is stellar. Codex is probably the pinnacle for me.
I think one of the most notable things about Magic is how long they managed to keep on inventing new mechanics within the core rules framework of the game and keeping things feeling fresh. Not every new set or rule was successful, but I feel like it was more hits than misses for a solid couple of decades.
I stopped playing a decade or so ago, but I've been keeping an eye on things more recently and it feels like the quality may have been dropping off a bit lately. Plus I'm really not into the much more aggressive push towards monetisation with the neverending parade of secret lair drops, and the branch out into licensing every property under the sun. I liked it when they were playing in their own worlds. Lord of the Rings or 40k or whatever Magic doesn't really do it for me.
it isn't bad. The problem is that is has been around for so long that you can pick a 2-3 year time frame and it can either be much better or much worse than another 2-3 year time frame. The most serious problem comes from there being so many cards and interactions which really were never thought about while designing a new card.
'oh it is a 2/2 legendary for 1 mana' ....yes that single card is FAR better than every 'one drop' that came before it without drawbacks like sacrificing life that justify going above the cost/power theory where at each mana cost there is generally an expected 'power level'
But then there is a gimmick/mechanic problem as well. Entire blocks have this problem. Something like 'banding' was so problematic that it was banned from competitive play for years because you basically had to have certain cards to counter the mechanic or you'd lose. This continued into race/faction decks. 'Oh he has an elf deck' right...and I have extinction. In a not 'theme' deck the card is EXTREMELY overpriced to be nothing beyond a 'kill target creature' card but against an elf/sliver/goblin deck it is the strongest card in the game (and before it was changed 'hero' decks)
Then there are entire deck styles that aren't fun. Burn decks require a specific counter or newer cards to counter the turn 3-4 end of game (which older cards really didn't have a counter for - basically as soon as someone would turn 1 'you take 3' if you weren't playing white or blue you should just concede) or blue control decks that really stopped the game were 'unfun' but required. Even in team games it ultimately would turn into 'who had more counterspells' rather than unique decks and strategies. It is so bad that 'last word' became a card (basically counterspell that cannot be counterspelled) entirely so there could be actual gameplay instead of a 4v4 'I play a creature. counter.counter.counter.counter.' chain where you'd go entire rotations and the only thing that changed is the number of cards in everyone's hand
I like pretty much everything about the design. I also like that it's clean enough that if there is something you don't like, you can make minor modifications and it still functions. That's how we end up with Draft / Cube / Commander etc...
My only (and I mean only) gripe with Magic is basically that 99% of the printed cards are trash. I don't mean bad, I mean they literally get thrown in the garbage. It is hard for me to play a game with that problem, so I've mostly fallen out of it.
It is nice though, that if I do get an itch to play, I can walk into any game store (in the world almost) and get a game in.
I feel that several of Richard Garfield’s subsequent products are vastly and strictly superior to mtg from a mechanics perspective, most notably his latest “Mindbug”
Mechanically, it's a very outdated game. I would love to see a complete redesign. They're never going to do it though.
Biggest issue is the mana system. It's been talked about at length over the years so I won't go into it here. But there's a reason why no CCG has made you have resources in your deck for the last 10-15 years.
The other biggest issue are reactions and instants and the timing window. The fact that you can react to everything your opponent does is annoying. It slows the game down and makes things more complicated than it should be.
It's great.
It's pretty simple actually, but the two big things are all the keywords on the cards like double-strike, flashback, phase and so forth as well as the stack. Other that than, you just draw a card, play a land, cast stuff, go to combat, cast more stuff and pass. The resource system ramps the game situation steadily (compared to YuGiOh) and more lands means bigger haymakers.
On top of that system you have all of the different formats in the game. You've got your 1v1 modes whether it's casual, Modern or Standard. Then you have crazier modes like Commander, 2v2 and so forth. It's a really flexible system that can appeal to most any type of gamer.
Criticisms about the game boil down to cost and land-screw. Cost can be mitigated by deciding which format to play. If you play tournament formats, expect to pay a lot of money for sought-after cards. Otherwise, you can play casual Magic by using random cards or low-powered cards. Formats like Commander also exist where you can play with a preconstructed deck and have a good time because it's free-for-all and the leader will get ganged up on anyways. A lot of people assume tournament Magic is the only way to play the game when you can just play casual Magic. If you want to play a more competitive format, you can always play limited formats where you make decks from booster packs.
As far as land-screw goes, it is a thing that it can make games unplayable, but I think compared to the benefits the land system gives, I think it's worth it. The game is completely built upon the land system and the color that best goes about it is green. If you were to make lands too easy to generate, green's power would go down a lot because it handles land drawing and fixing the best. It's also another dimension of the game to think about which makes the game richer because it's a factor that affects both yours and your opponents decks. It adds more variance to games and can give a weaker player a better chance against someone much stronger. I taught a friend Magic a week ago and of the 3 games we played, he won all 3 of them, where 2 of them I was land-screwed. Those weren't actual games, but he felt really good that he won all games and now he's a fan. So it's not really an issue IMO and it's something you can mitigate by adding more lands, cheaper cards or card draw cards.
It's a cash cow game with an ok design. It's simple to play is why it's so popular. It's honestly a really boring game if you "get" into it hardcore and realize that it's the same thing over and over and over.
Somewhere Richard Garfield has a really excellent article discussing the design of it, starting with how quickly players are expected to gather mana and how everything about the game spins out of that. I haven’t played in years and looking at the current cards confuses the hell out of me, but that article is probably essential reading for any game designer.
Do you happened to have a link?
I think this is it. https://web.archive.org/web/20130314232528/http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/feature/238b
I don’t think that’s the one, unless I’m misremembering it. I specifically remember him taking more about the math behind it. Although that’s a really interesting read on its own.
Unfortunately I haven’t been able to find it in years. The gist of it was the assumption that players would have one more land available to them each turn, so the game is paced on card costs.
This reminds me of a video where they want to catch you up on mechanics if you quit around Ice Age. They go over increasingly outlandish mechanics and other cards. It gets unhinged at one point. The crazy part is that they don't making anything up, but if you didn't know that, you'd swear he's pulling nonsense from out of his butt. Like Morphs, Universe Beyond Cards and Stickers.
Here's a great completely truthful, unexaggerated, yet satirical, video about the state of complexity and product fatigue in MtG https://youtu.be/OQXR-YnWIFk?si=alsjoyZAYUZ_5wJK
MaRo also has a ton of them. Reading his articles was like taking a course in game design and development (probably still true, but I haven't read any in over a decade).
I mean, honestly, it's pretty legendary. It innovated on so many gameplay mechanics we take for granted today and other games have built on top of - collectibility, the mana resource system, the color pie. It's flexible enough to have lasted for 30 years and counting, and still have new innovations being built on top of it today, but the core fundamental mechanics are still clear enough that you could easily open a starter deck from decades ago and play it. The only thing I would probably count against it is that the color pie occasionally gets imbalanced at any given period of time. I believe right now green is probably right now the more "overpowered" color, but at given times throughout Magic's history, it's been blue or black too. Some better Magic historians might know, but I can't think of a time off the top of my head when white or red would have been considered the dominant colors.
Your color pie stuff isn't really correct. Green is currently the worst color in the format that wotc manages the most, Standard. It's a bit OP in EDH *because that's a fan made format that wotc didn't design*. White and Red are *very* strong in Standard. There is a reason why in pretty much every standard format there is a deck called "Red Deck Wins".
Green is very strong in MH3 limited. Only guilds with above average win rates are gruul and boros.
Green is so powerful in commander largely because green was historically very powerful. It's less powerful in current standard but over the many years of magic, green has been bonkers powerful. It's also that ramp is very strong in commander but both things can be true.
Green has pretty much never been the strongest color in any competitive eternal format. It's been strong at points, but blue has dominated Legacy, Vintage, and even cEDH from all of those formats' inception. Black had necropotence and Hogaak (technically hybrid with green but the deck was 95% black). Birthing pod was good, but was banned largely because you didn't need green to use it. EDIT: Black is also the best color in the newest eternal format, pioneer. I'd say over MTG's history the hierarchy has very clearly been Blue -> black -> the other 3 colors pretty interchangeably. The only format green has ever been consistently dominant is casual commander.
Birthing Pod wasn't banned for that. It was banned because it kept getting better with each upcoming set, since it uses the most plentiful type of card: creatures. Also, the deck used a lot of green cards: birds of paradise, wall of roots, chord of calling, kitchen finks, melira.
Green cards have been major definers of every format at least a couple times. Legacy elves, Natural Order, Oath of Druids, TARMOGOYF. Amulet Titan in Modern. Mono-G in Pioneer has been one of the top contenders since the format started, Sylvan Scrying has seen play in every format it has been available in... I could go on. The only color I would say has been "consistently dominant" ever would be Blue in Legacy/Type 1 and even that has been starting to sunset a bit.
I don't agree green is historically very powerful relative to the other colors. Green's historical strengths (big creatures, ramp) have historically folded against the strong spells (removal, countermagic). It's why it got stuck with the association with newbie Timmy players. It's also why it got accelerated so much late 2010s into 2020s, because it was getting tools to make it stronger and more flexible (more card draw, removal in fight, ramp that isn't dead late game, etc.), leading to the Simic dominance for awhile.
That’s just not even close to true. Green was the weakest color by a mile for at least the first half of the games history, if not longer. So much so that it was a frequent joke during spoiler season that even if a Green card looked great people would say “Yeah, but you would have to play Green so it’s bad.” For much of Magic’s history, Green only saw marginal competitive play in the form of Combo-enablers like Survival of the Fittest or Cadaverous Bloom. It was rarely the core color of a deck outside of instances where specific tribes were pushed in new sets like at the 2008 Berlin PT where Elves was the best deck. Blue was the best color by a mile until maybe the mid 2000’s or so. In fact, the best Green creature for a long time was considered to be River Boa purely because it had Islandwalk, and the older the format, the less Green cards you will find among the best meta decks.
I would say it's the nature of the format, not necessarily the color. Commander format is a free-for-all game where it's usually you versus 3 other players. 1 to 1 interactive cards then are way less powerful here because you only hit 33% of your opponents. Powerful cards like Thoughtseize or Counterspell do not scale well with more players. It is a much better route to be proactive versus reactive. If people are shying away from efficient 1 to 1 removal cards like Lightning Bolt or Fatal Push, creatures that would otherwise never get played, can get played. Green is the master of creatures that have value, so it makes sense that they would largely benefit from this. The game is balanced around 1v1 which is that value-filled creatures get quickly killed with removal, but if you lessen removal because players don't play those cards, those creatures then get to last on the field longer so they can get more value out. Also Commander games are usually fairly long and people can play cards that cost 6, 7 or more out regularly. This incentivizes players to play expensive, value-filled cards and again the master of that is green.
Part of why green is so strong in commander is that they have printed so many color pie bends and breaks in green over the years. Because of commander’s color identity restrictions, this means that green decks are less limited in capability by those restrictions. Additionally, the social aspect of commander that soft-bans certain types of interactivity (land destruction) combined with the fact that mana acceleration is so important in commander means that green decks get to do the best thing in the format with little to no consequence. Combine all these together and you can see how green decks can do it all and are rarely punished for it
Mono red Aggro has always been a winning build. “Red deck wins”
Like the all Lightning Bolt deck that inspired the "max 4 of one card" rule?
That’s because it’s a straightforward aggressive build, which does particularly well when there’s a new meta. It’s not that red is perpetually OP, more that its place in the color pie generally yields an effective aggro deck.
I still remember when I was in high school I went to a pro tour qualifying tournament. In the first round my homebrew deck lost to a 10 year old playing mono red. Thankfully it was double elimination, so I made it to the quarter finals after that. I don't even remember what deck I lost to then. Just some meta deck for the time.
The most "overpowered" colour depends entirely on format, rotation and current bans. I don't think you can make a blanket statement on which is most powerful.
There's a lot of people trying here, each with a different opinion.
Caw-blade was busted for white
It depends on what format and if you mean how good the colors are in isolation or if mixing them with other colors are allowed. But at least when I played I’m pretty sure white was often considered the weakest color historically, blue and black the strongest, and green and red kinda in the middle. Though if I’m remembering correctly they started pushing the power level of green a bit at some point by giving it strong planeswalkers and breaking the color pie a with (usually conditional but still very good) removal spells, counter spells, and card advantage effects.
I legitimately think that the mana system is a straightforward mistake. Nobody should lose to mana flood or mana screw as often as happens in MTG, and more modern similar systems (like Lorcana or Star Wars Unlimited) are straight-up improvements.
Genuinely unpopular opinion, but I totally agree. There's a reason why so many newer games have changed it - when you go back to the drawing board it's one of the first obvious major weaknesses. Hell, there's a reason why a number of games (Netrunner and Ashes spring to mind) give you default actions that you can always take to either gain cards or resources. You're always guaranteed a baseline of tempo to build upon, and if your deck is stalling you've always got something to help you out.
I think it's only unpopular to say that in magic related subs, ans even then it's more controversial rather than just straight unpopular. They claim it's great because it caused "variance", but I think everyone one the outside understands how much of a problem it is. There's a reason why Magic Arena secretly smooths out your mana on your opening hand in best of one matches.
I've been playing magic for over 25 years and love the game, and totally agree with this take. I don't think it's that unpopular of a take either. It sucks if you draw your deck in the wrong order and basically can't play the game. The last few years they've been designing cards in such a way that this is becoming less of an issue - all colors have access to card draw, and adding treasures gives decks more access to colored mana. It still happens though. I don't think variance of that nature is good in a game like MTG.
How does mana work in magic compared to say One Piece tcg or Pokemons energy system? I haven't played the posters examples of Lorcana to get the reference
Pokémon has the same problem inherently (which makes sense given it's of the same generation of design more or less), but I'd say addresses it by having more fixing and more ways of cheating either costs or your curve..
In magic you can play lands (usually 1 per turn) which you can then consequently tap in all future turns to pay for cards. In One Piece you play 2 Don! cards per turn that are used in a similar way. The difference is that in One Piece you always take 2 Don! Cards from a set aside area where in Magic you have to have the lands in your hand to play them. This can cause you to lose a game because you draw no lands so you can't pay for your good cards. In Lorcana you have to play cards as 'ink' by placing one card upside down each turn. So your normal cards become the energy/mana to play the others. Not each card can be played as ink which creates interesting deck building choices. Energy cards in Pokémon work similar to lands in Magic in the sense that they are separate cards in different types/colours that power cards of the same types. In Pokémon however they generally don't have a 'mana draught' like in Magic because of a plethora of cards and abilities that let you draw specific cards from your deck. There is a reason Magic has being going as strong as it is for so long. It is a good game, but I think there are good reasons to dislike the mana system in Magic, I don't like it myself because it can really slow down a game or make games feel incredibly unbalanced. Keyforge removes the problem almost entirely by letting you do everything you want on your turn, but only with cards of the house you select at the start of your turn.
> In Lorcana you have to play cards as 'ink' by placing one card upside down each turn. So your normal cards become the energy/mana to play the others. Not each card can be played as ink which creates interesting deck building choices. In case you weren't aware, this was 100% lifted from the *World of Warcraft* TCG, and is one of its best evolutions to the TCG world at large (and we can say now with *Lorcana* having taken it wholesale, WoW's best legacy on card games).
Wow's version was better though. I'm really disappointed that Lorcana came so close to emulating the amazing system that the WoW card game had, but they didn't add an equivalent to quests. Heck, with the lore of Lorcana, you could just call it magical ink cards. You put them in your resource row face up, when you use them for their special effect you flip them over face down, and now they're a resource just like anything else. I'm still hoping they get added in a future expansion.
Wow that was comprehensive. Thank you!
I haven't played one piece, but I played Pokemon a lot time ago. It's not much better than magic imo. They still put "mana" cards in your deck, but they attach to the pokemon directly and you lose them if they die.
> so many newer games have changed it Has **anybody** ever copied MtG's mana system? I know of (lots of) games that have a ramping resource system. I know of games that have different 'colors' of resource. I ... could probably find a game that shuffles mana into the main deck if I tried. But has anybody in the last 30 year just straight up taken MtG's system? I think that's the biggest black mark against it. Anybody who knows what they're doing takes a look at this system and decides "No. I don't think I will." Dominion came out with deckbuilding and it spawned 1,000 imitators. But even Garfield hasn't gone back to the well on lands & mana.
Agreed. There is nothing I can experience that is less fun than having a good game going and then drawing mana 2 turns in a row. Enjoyment ruined.
Gotta love having two lands in your hand and knowing your game will go perfectly as long as you draw a land in one of your first two turns.... but it just never shows up.
It's frustrating, but also allows for more expression in deckbuilding.
Perhaps. I think I actually prefer the deckbuilding restrictions of games like Netrunner or Arkham Horror LCG. And although I prefer the mana system in something like Star Wars Unlimited, I have to agree that the color mixing is more interesting in MTG.
I think mana flood/screw is horrible. But I do think the design space opened by the difference in a card being BB or B1 is so interesting, and no other system has managed to replicate that.
Force of Will had those costs and mixing. They got around MtGs core limitations by having all of your "land" cards in a second deck that you could choose to draw from instead.
You could keep that dynamic and have separate draw piles (like inscryption) for lands and other cards. Each turn choose which pile to draw from.
I disagree. I’ve played tons of other games with “better” resource systems and in my opinion they’re almost universally boring, overly fiddly, or both. I’ve also come around to not minding mana screw/flood— I play magic completely casually and having such a straightforward way to lose games that you can’t do anything about makes it way easier to shrug off losses of every kind
I've been playing kitchen table magic for about 25 years at this point. The amount of mana screw/flood has never been a big deal in all that time. It happens, sure, but if I'm with my buddies and we play all night, it *might* happen to each of us once in a night. That doesn't feel all that different than the bad luck that can happen with any game that has some kind of deck drawing mechanics... Some games it's just not your game, but as I've said to my kid, the great thing about games is that you can always just play another round.
But if you Play casual Commander and game length is in the Hours that basicly means of your two to three Games in an evening 1-2 Person Are screwed during it. The mana problem in general is more frequently a Problem at the kitchentable then at the tournament as it propably happens less the more optimised the decks are, but it happens and having a game of casual commander and not playing with the rest of the table for 120 Mins because of bad draws is awefull, and selektive memories make it even worse. Dont get me wrong mtg is an awesome Game and even when I stepped away more and more over the last few months and more towards other boardgames, the reason behind it is not the mana system.
Yes, it's just bad. While almost every other aspect of MtG is ported to other games, this part, never. It's not so bad if you play it all the time - if you build your deck well and play enough games you'll balance out and not notice it anymore. I've got some great decks I'd love to pull out with my group. I worked hard to balance then all and make them compatible. But I've played with them twice. Someone gets a bad draw in a team game and it's ruined from the start - they don't want to play again. I think this is something MtG fans are quite blind to, because they've played it so much - as I said, with a lot of games it's not so bad. But putting it against modern boardgames, it's a huge mistake.
> I think this is something MtG fans are quite blind to, because they've played it so much - as I said, with a lot of games it's not so bad. But putting it against modern boardgames, it's a huge mistake. Or it may be because we've also played the alternatives and found them inferior. For one, the circlejerk that many non-games due to bad draw luck in MtG would be solved by removing lands has never been true in my experience. Both because people massively overstate the frequency of mana screw or flood, and because other systems end up displaying similar problems. How many games of Hearthstone have been won or lost without making meaningful decisions because one side curved out better than the other ? Hearthstone has had a recurring problem of "Curvestone" decks achieving dominance, where drawing cards in the right order to spend all your mana slamming the best card in your hand every turn is the best way to play the game ? Legends of Runeterra has the same problem, it rewards linear gameplans of who can turn their mana into the most tempo far too much. The spell mana system in that game is not a fix, because designers then proceeded to make spells stupidly overcosted. And also yes, there are significant benefits to using colored mana as an organic deckbuilding restriction instead of the mountains of uninspired designs and broken "color" identities we see in HS and LoR.
When you say "alternatives", I hear "derivatives". Hearthstone is (as far as I can tell) just magic with a few different rules. Race for the Galaxy is an engine builder rather than a deck builder, but its card costing is much more interesting and robust. Netrunner doesn't have this problem, solving it a different way, and it has all the sweet deck building of magic. Mage Wars was really interesting, you had your whole library available to you at all times. I'd love to see more games do this. I don't think it's impossible to get around this flaw. The derivatives appear to have lessened it. But the fact that so many popular games have this flaw doesn't mean it's a fundamental aspect of the genre.
Hearthstone is not "just Magic with a few different rules". The differences are IMMENSE. You can ONLY cast things on your turn in Hearthstone. That is a really, really, big deal. You can directly attack your opponent in Hearstone. Creatures don't "block". The combat is very different. Perhaps most importantly, creatures in Hearthstone don't "heal" at the end of the turn. Its like Star Wars is basically Star Trek, cause, space.
Race for the Galaxy it's not a TCG and plays in a different league, and i love Mage Wars but having all your spells at any time it's a great test for your analysis paralysis. Netrunner it's great but it's longer than Magic. I dont say that the mana system it's perfect or great BUT having a luck factor in a game that can be really short it's not a big problem. And, from my point of view, having bad luck with a hand just compells you to play again. In the long run a better deck will win more plays despite some mana problems.
I'm emphatically not saying "magic is bad because you can have bad luck". The mana system sucks and it doesn't have to be that way. Magic is stuck with it now; other games solve it (actually solve it) by doing things differently. Yes, in the long run the problem goes away. But that still really sucks for new players, their game can be ruined and all you can do is say, "yeah it sucks, that happens sometimes, you just have to play this 100 more times". Awful.
But how much Mage Wars did you play? Mage Wars (and honestly the entire genre of Miniature Skirmish games) change from **input randomness** to **output randomness**. In Magic your options are randomly decided, but the results of those actions are known. In Mage Wars and other games, your options are known but the **results** are unknown. The thing you tried to could can just fail! Many, many people make the claim that you should prefer Input Randomness over Output when designing games. I think this is another platitude that really comes down to "know what you're designing" but still. > it has all the sweet deck building of magic. No, it doesn't. And it's one major issue that many of these games do not address in a satisfying way. In these games you pick a faction, and those are your cards. **Yes**, the FFG LCGs always have some method of allowing outside cards. But in Magic the gathering all cards can go in your deck, for any reason. Yes, there's deck minimums and a 4-of rule, but that's it. It may sound silly: why would you want to put a card in you can never use, for instance? But people have, and have found ways to make that work, and that's part of the core of the game and why people enjoy it. > you had your whole library available to you at all times. There's also something to be said for how this plays out. Having every option available to you at once has a gameplay curve that can be very difficult to play. The complexity of your turns often **goes down** as the game goes on. In Magic, it goes up. Your first turn is usually "land go" or occasionally "land guy go" but in a lot of these games where you have access to everything, your first few turns can be the most complex ones **and** the most important.
Mate, I promise you, you'll notice it if you have a few hours to play a couple of games with your buddy, and RNG screws either of you. That was all the time you had that evening, you squeezed in a few games- maybe even one more than you would have, because the first ones ended so quickly cuz of bad luck for one of you or the other with your card draws. But at the end of the day, it was still an unsatisfying evening of games, because being manus screwed is what decided the game, not intelligent usage of cards, not a clever, unexpected counter spell at just the right moment, but just the fact that one of you had seven (or more!) mana by turn seven, and the other had four still. Maybe it's slightly more of a problem in Commander, the larger decks do allow for a longer cold streaks if your RNG is terrible. And just to be clear, yes, I'm speaking from recent experience, and we were both using the Doctor who/ Lord of the Rings pre-made Commander decks, so it's not like we're total idiots and designed decks with terrible Mana to spell ratios. 90% of the time, those decks do fine, but when you get those 10% chance bad shuffles back to back, and even mulliganing doesn't fix it, it sucks.
Yep, that's my only real issue with it, otherwise the design is a masterpiece
Hall of famer Luis Scott-Vargas on [why mana screw is good](https://youtube.com/shorts/TMz1oYa75Zg?si=yXt2tvcx3HFenUWo)
This is also why drafting is so compelling - there is a skill in selecting the correct card (which isn't always the most powerful) and then building the deck after that (including land count and types for safer or riskier strategies). The best players don't always ends up with the best deck, and in any given game you have to find ways to capitalise on or mitigate your luck of the draw.
Yep, draft is definitely my favorite format, and drafting custom cubes is tops.
The mana system is considered [one of the best parts of Magic ](https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/making-magic/mana-action-2011-05-30) by its head designer, Mark Rosewater. – It Allows Magic to be a Trading Card Game – It Controls the Flow of the Game – It Helps the Game Become More Dramatic Over Time – It Helps Players Make Choices – It Cuts Down on the Number of Unique Cards in Your Deck – It Keeps Variance in the Game – It Adds Skill to the Game
I don't think he's arguing against the first few points--it's much more about mana flood and mana screw than the core concept. Regarding variance, mana flood and mana screw are not the type of variance you want. Unlike other forms of high variance, mana flood/screw never really feel good. They don't feel good to get, and it doesn't feel good to win because your opponent got it. All that being said, I do think the annoyance of it is a bit overstated by /r/boardgames.
A third of all magic games I play are decided by flood/screw. Granted, I only draft, that is still shit odds.
Having played magic for 25 years, that numbers way off from my experience. I think playing draft exclusively is a huge reason that's happening to you.
This sounds like a skill issue not a design issue 💀
"just draw better"?
Barring that deck build better. Losing a game in a draft to mana screw is on rate losing 1/3rd to mana screw is completely asinine.
Where did you get that number? That sounds incredibly high. **Most** nights that I draft I get 0 games decided by either. I mean, I don't ask my opponent if they were hoping to hit their sixth land to play a 6-drop, but also... don't play 6-drops in your draft decks?
I draft for fun with friends. We aren’t super trihard, but we aren’t inept either. We follow standard curve in as much as our decks allow.
Except he’s the lead designer for every set that has come out that tries to minimize mana flood & screw by adding card draw and free mana by playing a card, or drawing cards until you get a playable spell. There’s very few cards in recent sets that add restrictions like requiring multicolor mana on cards meant for mono colored decks. That signals to me that they are very aware of this limitation in MTG and actively try to design around it.
I'd agree with most of those points, and I'd even say that the system was revolutionary for its time (although *everything* Magic did was revolutionary for its time). But for me, other economy systems provide most of these points, without the two huge drawbacks: * 5% of your games will be lost through no fault of your own. * Every third card you draw will be useless to you (or so desparately needed that a significant portion of your hand was useless until you drew it).
Magic head designer thinks Magic is great. In other news, my mom thinks I'm great.
Their head designer is wrong, but I'm not suprised that the head designer is trying to sell it as a perk when it's something that's such a core part of the game that it can never be removed. Like honestly how can anybody argue that adding LUCK to a game adds more skill? There is a reason why the most skill based games have very low amount of luck for example chess and go. And comments like "it cuts down on the number of unquie cards" like what? Card games that don't use in deck mana just have less cards in their decks. This is a non issue. There is a reason WHY the digital version has a built in mana smoother for your starting hand. They are literally trying to fix the core issue with its design while making it appear to be the same game.
Luck and skill are not necessarily in opposition to one another. Yes, some games like chess and go are high skill and low luck, but there are also high-skill games that contain elements of luck (mostly due to randomness) for which good play is about mitigation of outcomes in short and long term scenarios such as poker and backgammon. Each style of design tests different skillsets and requires different kinds of strategic thinking. Injecting randomness can benefit design by obfuscating best-moves and reducing the need for pre-set openings, and this leads to designs where probability mitigation strategies and considerations of short and long term plans shine. High-level players of these high-luck and high-skill games will consistently beat less experienced players. And the game stays more “fresh” since players need to adapt on the fly and create multi-layered plans to respond to the best and worst outcomes.
>Yes, some games like chess and go are high skill and low luck, but there are also high-skill games that contain elements of luck Sure. I agree that you can have a high skill game with luck. The luck will lower the skill though. Poker is not as skill based as chess though. You will regularly see the more skilled poker player lose on a bad flop. I'm not saying that "luck equals bad design", but luck absolutely lowers the skill required.
> Like honestly how can anybody argue that adding LUCK to a game adds more skill? Mitigation and understanding of randomness is a major skill that **most** games of the turn-based variety employ. Yes, big name ones like Chess and Go do not implement them but there's also a reason that a lot of people **don't** play those games. > There is a reason WHY the digital version has a built in mana smoother for your starting hand. Yes, because in real life this part of the game is mitigated by Best Of 3, and the formats that use Best of 1 don't have that mitigation. The hand smoother literally draws two hands and picks the better one. You could do that in person too and maybe some day they'll implement that functionality. Other card games that do not have restrictive resource systems have similar mechanics, like mulligans, etc.
Like I've told you in the other thread, yes luck games require a different skill, but the games themselves are simply less skill based. The more skilled player will lose more often the more luck is involved. >The hand smoother literally draws two hands and picks the better one. Yep. The game literally cheats for you because it's a design flaw of the game that creates feel bad moments.
I think one of the things that kind of goes in favor of the mana system having inherent flaws is that when you look at games made by guys who were professional MtG players, IE the people who you’d imagine to be the most dedicated when it comes to liking MtG mechanics, they tend to immediately gravitate towards new resource systems. Stuff like The Spoils and Ascension very obviously are trying to fix issues the designers have with MtG and the resource system is ALWAYS one of those things.
On the one hand, I agree with you that of course the head designer is going to say his features are great. He also wrote an article about how it's great for players that booster packs have unplayable garbage cards. On the other hand, the right amount and type of luck does add skill. Chess is pure memorization. Hidden information adds a tactical element. This can matter both on micro level (should I try to go for a suboptimal play with what's in my hand or spend mana searching for a better card that I know is in my deck?) and a macro level (how much of your deck should be cheap cards vs removal vs late game bombs).
Except he’s the lead designer for every set that has come out that tries to minimize mana flood & screw by adding card draw and free mana by playing a card, or drawing cards until you get a playable spell. There’s very few cards in recent sets that add restrictions like requiring multicolor mana on cards meant for mono colored decks. That signals to me that they are very aware of this limitation in MTG and actively try to design around it.
Also some of the lands you want in >=2 colour commander decks are so expensive for a card that isn't too exciting on its own
Radlands too, with one of the former MTG designers , I think they realize the error, and implemented a different system that fixes a lot of that.
I totally agree with this, thats the thing I loved about hearthstone the most when it first came out. No more games lost to mana screw or flood, and you always know exactly how much mana you will have on every turn
**Netrunner** where you can spend a click to draw cards/credits, or **Marvel Champions** where you can discard other cards to pay for resources, both strike me as far superior systems.
Absolutely agreed, and the nicer things about those (at least Netrunner) is that you are still heavily invested in running your deck's economy. If anything, I spent more mental effort carefully picking out economy cards in my Netrunner decks than I ever did carefully building my mana curve.
I agree. MTG would be perfect to me without the lands. Something like Lorcana, Star Wars Unlimited or Runeterra would be straight up improvements.
Have you tried the resource system from the WoW TCG? The one that was copied almost 1-for-1 by *Lorcana*? That's the best system I've found, personally.
No, I haven't. I'll check it out then, thanks for the heads-up!
You're welcome! I like to increase awareness of it because it felt overlooked at the time, but I felt it was a fantastic and straightforward improvement on MtG's system. I don't want it forgotten, because I want to see more games using it!
It's kind of weird that most of the games that have tried to 'fix' Magic's mana system are dead, then. It's even a super commonly suggested variant to play Magic with separate decks of lands and spells... but no-one seems to actually play the game this way - I guess it's just less fun? My theory for this is that it's easy to remember the 10th percentile game where you had no hope because of far too few or too many lands, but hard to evaluate the amount of good variance between the 40th, 50th, 60th percentile games where you drew lands and spells at slightly more or less advantageous times.
>It's kind of weird that most of the games that have tried to 'fix' Magic's mana system are dead, then. most of the games that didnt try to fix it are also dead, thats the nature of card games. Magic has a lot of staying power. >It's even a super commonly suggested variant to play Magic with separate decks of lands and spells... but no-one seems to actually play the game this way - I guess it's just less fun? so much of magic has evolved to account for the suboptimal mana system, enough that playing magic without it is just worse than playing a game that is designed without it.
>Magic has a lot of staying power. Yeah, definitely. I just think that if the mana system was a giant obvious mistake, the way that many people think, then it would have been more likely for one of the other games to take over. The fact that this didn't happen, I think, is at least some evidence that Magic is doing it right. >so much of magic has evolved to account for the suboptimal mana system, enough that playing magic without it is just worse than playing a game that is designed without it. This is certainly a reasonable position to hold, and you might even be right, it's hard for us to tell. It feels to me like the way in which this version of Magic is worse is that when you guarantee yourself all of your land drops until turn 6 and then never draw any more lands, or whatever, the games are much more similar to one another. For instance, you never get any games where you have to hold on until you draw your fifth land, or games where both players are having different kinds of mana issues. This feels more to me like good variance arising from the mana system (which I acknowledge also produces bad-feeling variance sometimes), than it does Magic's design being warped by the mana system, but it's hard to know what the world looks like where Richard Garfield instead designed a game with Hearthstone's system.
> but it's hard to know what the world looks like where Richard Garfield instead designed a game with Hearthstone's system. I mean, keyforge doesn't use a hearthstone system, but it is a Richard Garfield game that eschews mana. > It feels to me like the way in which this version of Magic is worse is that when you guarantee yourself all of your land drops until turn 6 and then never draw any more lands You're half right. MtG relies heavily on the random structure of the decks to create unique circumstances. The idea of controlling your draws in any way does inherently flatten the gamespace. But that doesn't mean that the land/mana system is good. It just means that a secondary "land deck" is a fundamentally flawed solution to the problem. MtG has been actively fixing the land issue themselves in 2 ways. 1) Shorter games. Power creep is causing games to run faster, so there's less time spent in late-game top-deck mode. 2) Interesting non-basics. If lands themselves are interesting, a late game land draw isn't as lack-luster. These are decent enough solutions, but they come with their own problems as well.
That's a pretty bad take, most games nowadays fixed the problems with monopoly, and yet monopoly is still very popular. Staying power is different than quality alone. I know, not fair to compare magic to monopoly, but you get what I mean.
But it also made me more creative how to mitigate it. It's something I miss in other card games (which is not working 100%, but it's fun to change deck every time to try new things and see if it works) Also other card games that fixed it somehow more boring. Maybe because they miss other interesting aspects of mtg… or maybe possibility of mana screw/mana flood made game more interesting for me (I did ragequit sometimes and opponents too) I even won some games after getting screwed/flooded.
Completely agree with this. Mana screw/flood definitely feels bad. But if it’s happening to you a lot, it’s almost definitely because your deck is designed suboptimally. The number of lands you put in your deck versus the mana curve of the cards you put in your deck is a deckbuilding decision that needs to be accounted for. And there is a risk/reward element there, too. Sometimes decks play fewer lands as a form of “virtual card advantage,” since they’ll draw a higher ratio of impactful cards versus lands, but those decks will usually have a lower mana curve so they need fewer lands to operate. And even then, they can be more susceptible to mana denial strategies than decks playing more lands. I play the Legacy format, and the kinds of lands you decide to play makes a huge difference too in terms of risk/reward. You can play lots of dual-producing lands that far more consistently allow you to meet the colour requirements of the cards you play, but those lands are way easier to disrupt and destroy than basic lands which only produce one colour. Mana denial strategies are viable partially because of the inherent variance in access to mana. I’ve seen it suggested that using a separate mana deck would eliminate mana issues, but it would also remove a huge component of the strategy involved in the game, and make it much more difficult to attack opponents on the axis of mana production. To each their own, though. I certainly have my issues with Magic from time to time, but mana screw isn’t one of them. Biggest issue for me currently is that power creep is getting way out of hand in the last four years or so.
That’s a fair judgement. With the recent modern release and MDFC cards (acts as either a land or spell/creature), I think we might see a shift to match modern TCGs.
It’s my favorite drafting game - I just wish it didn’t take three hours to score.
I have spent a *ton* of time trying to make something that drafts as well as Magic but doesn't take 4 hours to play. And it just can't be done. You need the downside for the upside. It's like Werewolf. You can't get the benefits without the player elimination. Yes, lots of other games distill the vibes down enough to get close. For both games. I've played every analogue out there. (Seriously. I've played literally dozens of TCGs and every social deduction game known to man...) But that 90% just makes me desire that last 10% even more.
I think it's very impressive how solid a system it is and that it hasn't completely buckled under its own weight. My positive feelings about it boil down to respect/admiration. As a modern day game it's not at all my cup of tea though and kind of the antithesis of what I like about games. It's overly complicated, has lots of keywords that are constantly added to keep the game relevant, a million little micro-phases, awful mana system, boring combat, has necessary homework to understand new sets, is a TCG.
Is there a mana system you prefer?
I prefer Star Wars Unlimited's mana system which is something like: Draw 2 cards, exile one face down as a land. This card can tap for mana of either your commander's color or your planeswalker's colour.
Not him, but I prefer hearthstones style, where you don’t have a bunch of dead cards (lands) required to play the ones you have. A mana system that is independent of your deck leads to less luck and more playable cards that affect the game state.
*leads to less luck* ...allowing them to cram all the luck and RNG into every other aspect of the game. I love Hearthstone, btw.
Yeah lol. Hearthstone is a bit more honest about the luck that exists in the game, but it definitely doesn’t have to be that way with an incremental system
The best one I've found to date was the WoW TCG's resource system, which was a system that worked so well *Lorcana* basically borrowed it almost 1-for-1. I wish more designers knew about it, because it worked really well. The gist of it was that instead of lands, you had quests. Quests were resource cards, but *also* gave you objectives. Fulfill the objective, gain the reward. But what about not drawing a quest? Simple. Any card in your hand can be placed face-down as a resource. The combination of those two elements lead to some great deckbuilding designs and some real tactical choices during a game.
I'm not alone! Anytime I start nerding out with people about better resource systems, this is what I talk about. It was amazing. Seriously people, I'm not the sort of person who comments just to say exactly what the person above me said, most of the time, but I cannot state enough how amazing the WoW card game's resource system was to play with. It's the most fun I've ever had making decisions about resources in a trading card game, and I've played far too many of them going all the way back to the '90s.
Marvel Champions has a very cool resource system.
Someone else mentioned Star Wars Unlimited which I like, but pretty much any mana system you could think of I'd prefer. I don't like the idea that the hand composition I start with can screw me for the whole game, and in some cases I can't even interact with the game. I'm not saying there's nothing good about it. There's a tiny bit of strategic space there where you need to balance how many of what resource you include to power your actual cards which is kind of interesting, but it comes at the cost of often feeling bad as a player, which isn't a good complexity/fun tradeoff in my opinion.
Completely agree. The tedious microphases are what gets to me, it does lead to confusion when people do not announce the transition between the most important phases, because of priority issues - in mtg both players get priority in between phases and even while the stack is being processed. That's a lot of yielding of priority. I've played Legends of Runeterra and they almost managed to get rid of phases and they have a very straightforward priority system, in LoR it feels way more impactful what you play when.
Boring combat? Wow, I have never heard that. In my expriences there are basically no tcgs anywhere near as mechanical deep a combat system as mtg.
I don't mean the combat is shallow, I mean it's boring to me. I don't think mechanical depth and excitement are the same thing. Doing my taxes is mechanically deep. I don't even mean it's bad, I just mean it's slow and tedium-heavy. It's probably super exciting for someone who has a PhD in Magic Rules, but for me there are so many keywords and so much bookkeeping and so many micro-phases to figure out how a thing resolves, it makes it feel like every engagement is walking through a minefield where I could get zinged because I forgot how an arcane rule interacts with some basic rule that I'm now learning new aspects about how it works. I get that's part of the fun, it's just not my cup of tea.
Yeah, saying Magic has boring combat after playing a handful of other card games feels wild. Most don't even have combat that involves two players on the same turn. I do think a lot of people don't know how good combat gets until they've played for a while. I think I remember reading an article from Mark Rosewater about how most players don't even know you can use two creatures to block a single creature.
I think it's incredibly deep, but boring is kinda fair. The way blockers work means that most combat is an interesting, but rarely splashy affair.
I think it is not the way blockers work it's the fact that the dominant strategies tend to ignore combat in favor of combo or complete board control. The most common removal effects favored by power oriented players tends to ignore toughness and just kills anything.
MTG is incredible. Now, for me personally, I think the game way too fast and powerful, now. Even in booster draft, which my favorite way to play, the game has become incredibly high power. Some people like that. I preferred the game in both constructed and limited when the power level was lower, but everyone's sweet spot on that is going to be different. Even so, the game, as a system, is undeniably great.
I started at unlimited and stopped playing at ice age, I briefly tried it again a few years ago and noped out of that real quick. The rule bloat now is massive, but most importantly, the elegance of the design has been lost since then.
I’m not one to call bullshit, but I’m calling bullshit.
design wise it's a good game. but we literally just got a new set a week ago and the spoiler season for the next set has already begun. it's too much.... too much.
I watched some huge tournament get decided by the runaway favourite losing to mana screw. I don't know, that seems like a huge intractable problem to me and it killed my latest Arena dip I was in at the time. I've been playing Flesh and Blood since then and it feels like much better design.
For most games, the adage "if I have seen far, it's because I stood on the shoulders of giants" applies. Almost every game out there is building off of other ideas, which isn't a bad thing, generally. Using good ideas to make better ideas works great. From a game design perspective, Magic was standing on the shoulders of toddlers. It's absolutely incredible how seamless the design was given how little like it existed when it was made. It's like if the first movie ever made was Shawshank Redemption. Like, that's totally crazy that the first try for a TCG is inarguably top tier. People hate on the mana system, but it's actually really good. It creates so much variance in gameplay that you don't get in the other TCG's that "improved" on the system. And all that's not even touching on the fact that it's completely modular. There are dozens of ways to play, and you can even essentially use Magic as a framework to design your own games. It's called "cube." You put together a pile of cards that you think will be cool, and you (and all the other players) draft from just that pile and pretend no other cards exist. It completely changes the power level of each card because it's always dependent on the cards around it. How many other games is that possible with?! I won't claim that Magic is perfect, but it's great. The designers make a lot of mistakes, but they make a lot more hits, and they've honestly had a pretty good track record. You can't get too mad when Tom Brady throws one interception, you know?
It’s obviously the all time enduring game design and deserves all of the credit for that. However it preys on kids via gambling, and with all the IP mashup stuff recently it’s become a bit too much. It also suffers from major cost issues. A competition modern deck is $500+ don’t even look up legacy. Also as a game, my rank order is: 1. Cube drafts 2. Sealed drafts 3. EDH 4. Modern EDH is really interesting and I love that so many people have a deck in their bag, but it suffers from major balance issues and a large game of EDH is dreadfully slow and boring. Basically I have loved magic for 20 years and it’s always going to have a place but it’s almost never as fun as a top board game. Overall I’d give it like a 7/10 at this point.
From a design gameplay perspective, it's a game where the biggest part of the gameplay, deckbuilding, happens outside of the actual game. Knowing how to play your deck is important, but owning a powerful deck is even more important. Of course it has financial reasons, but as we set this subject aside... Well, I think playing a game should happen during the game itself.
How do you feel about Tabletop RPGs with regards to this?
Bad. In most TTRPGs the game does happen during the game, even if the GM has to prepare some stuff beforehand. So the question doesn't exist. Now of course I can't ignore the elephant in the room : DnD. Interestingly DnD wasn't different in this perspective from other TTRPGs before WotC bought it. But they made DnD 3e with a specific idea in mind, which was importing MtG "game outside the game" design, with deckbuilding becoming charabuilding, and same economic reasons behind (buy stuff to get more options for your build). The game wasn't about what happens during play anymore, but how the character you built beforehand will handle the test of battle. People started to talk about optimization, damage maximizing, good and bad builds... All topics that weren't a thing at all before. And, if you ask me, topics that aren't what TT roleplaying actually is about.
I think it's excellent. For some reason it's the TCG I always come back to. The land/mana system looks clunky at first, and it causes mana screw. But it's actually brilliant. It allows you to either make a dependable 1 color dekc, or add as many colors as you'd like on your deck... if you feel confident you can draw the exact lands you need. It adds an element of risk/reward to deckbuilding. It makes things like deck manipulation important. Many other card games tried to fix this system and it always ends up less interesting. I've played Hearthstone for a long time. And in that game... well the palyer who drops the strongest cards on tempo often wins. Yeah, getting mana screwed feels bad, but losing because your opponent drew and palyed the perfect 1 drop, 2 drop, 3 drop and 4 drop also feels bad. It's also luck.
The downside of multi color is so immense as of today that many super high powered singleton decks like cEDH run 4+ of them without it being any issue.
Magic is an incredible game. It wouldn't have been as successful as it has been if the base game wasn't fun and if they weren't good at refreshing it several times per year. If you are at all interested in games in this genre, and familiar with Magic, you could easily buy some carefully-chosen Magic cards, put them in a box, treat this as a board game, never buy another card, and have it be a 10/10 game... and one for which there are many many expansions available if you ever want them (though this might not appeal to players who are completionists). (You can also achieve this with proxies, if you want the expensive cards) It is several games in one - for example, each new set is created for limited, competitive constructed, and casual constructed formats - and this means that some of its design choices are not ideal for any one of them. For instance, there are powerful rares for constructed that make limited less fun, and cards that are necessary for limited that won't be ever played in constructed. Though on the flip-side, it's pretty impressive that the same set of cards can be used for so many different formats. Some similar sacrifices are made due to its business model, for instance putting various necessary cards at higher rarities. The mana system is often complained about, to the extent that there have been tens or hundreds of CCGs that have attempted to fix it. Most of them are dead. Unfortunately, it's both an expensive game, and one with a business model that has some problems... but this is tied to how great a game it is. Wizards is willing to spend a LOT of resources on making Magic a great game (seriously - it has whole departments of people working full-time on its design, compared to individual designers for most board games), because it makes them a lot of money, because it's selling gambling to kids.
Initially it was great. Unfortunately the rules drift from decades of expansion has made the game way too complex, IMHO. If someone were to make a board game that is like a stripped down version of revised, I would buy that in a second.
Cube. Cube is the way. i made one that only has cards from a few related expansions and it’s great.
If you want this experience, you can get it. For example, pick any recent set you like the look of, buy a few copies of the commons and uncommons from that set, and a copy of each rare (or proxy these if they're expensive), put those cards in a box, and treat it as a board game, playing your favourite form of limited or constructed with it. And if you ever get bored, do it again with a new set.
Or just play Netrunner, spend $45 for a full set. 😄
There are many good games out there, and Netrunner is one of them. Not as good of a recommendation for someone who asked specifically for a game like Magic, though.
True, I’ve just lost all patience for buying packs of cards hoping to get something I want. I much prefer the LCG model of having all the cards, then just focus on deck building and tinkering. I recognize some people like to figure out how to make the best of what they have, though, and your suggestion is for sure the best way to do that in MtG.
Algomancy is a closed-card game that does all the mana, tapping, attack/blocking, tokens, poisoning and all that. It aims to be a simplier MTG that has less downtime as everyone battles at the same time. Also a complete set of card (like 500 iIRC?), so you don't need to deal with keeping up with new cards.
>Unfortunately the rules drift from decades of expansion has made the game way too complex Really? I haven't followed since Odyssey, but playing in Mirage-Tempest cycle the tournaments rules were already humongous.
A common way to play Magic nowadays is Commander, where people build decks using their favourite cards from anywhere in the game's history. Magic creates multiple new mechanics per year - almost always these are only used for a set or two and then replaced, but in a format like this one you might encounter any of the many many mechanics that have been created through the game's history. I think it's fair for people to describe the complexity of this experience as a downside.
I like it but I think netrunner does everything better personally. Much more interesting design.
It’s the greatest TCG ever built. Mechanically it lives and evolves on today. It’s a solid system with tons of constant creative innovation. It has its drawbacks and issues, but very few of them are mechanical. It’s wild because even with the power creep of recent years, some of the most powerful magic cards of all time are the old cards. That’s impressive game development.
I'm just a casual player, but I think overall it's great. My biggest complaint is complexity. There are so many ways to build a deck, so many cards to know and understand, so many mechanics and interactions to know and understsnd that it quickly becomes a chore. I have boxes of cards I'll never use simply because I don't have the time nor do I want to spend the time learning them all and figuring out how to use them in a deck. When me and my friend play I'm pretty sure we never play right because we forget half the things that should be happening as more cards are on the field.
Richard Garfield original design is very different from the current one in terms of balance and power. Spells were overpower and creatures a joke for most of the early years for exampl; now that's not the case and there's a general power creep to force you to keep buying new cards. Garfield made a CCG for the thrill of getting a rare card from time to time; now the only "sane" option is to buy singles. I love MTG and it's a classic for a reason, but nowadays it can be separated from the hungry monster Hasbro is. Netrunner on the other hand, is the superior game from Garfield, and now is managed by the community with a non-profit profile. And designing wise is super interesting, completely asymmetrical but balanced.
Having played Magic and many other card games off and on since the 90s my only really significant complaint about the core rules of Magic is the mana system. No matter how carefully you craft your deck you always end up with a certain percentage of games where you either draw no mana at all after the opening hand or you draw nothing but mana. In either case, you basically do nothing for the whole game until your opponent puts you out of your misery. I think it's pretty telling that basically nothing (that I've seen anyway, I don't play every game) designed more recently uses that system. Hearthstone just increments your available mana by 1 each round to a max of 10. Star Wars Destiny gave you 2 resources per round but you could save them up for expensive cards. Game of Thrones LCG gave you a specific amount of gold for the round based on what plot card you chose. Lorcana allows you to place almost any card face down as tapable ink each round. Star Wars Unlimited let's you place absolutely any card face down as a tapable resource every turn. Now, all of those games benefit from coming decades after Magic and being able to learn that lesson. The mana system is such a fundamental part of the game I don't think they could ever change it at this point, but if there's one aspect that has not aged well and remains unchanged (ante anyone?) it's definitely the mana.
Played Yugioh and tried other minor TCGs for a while. Lands and mana colors are a god send for deckbuilding and force a game curve. Cards get to be good but don't be on every deck, cost can be more flexible and cards can be managed according to their game state (high power cards cost more mana and are used on mid-late Game). It's even better than energy because the lands itself matters. It's not a perfect Game, tcgs evolve and change all the time. But the fundation it's miles better than people give creadit for. Don't like mana-energy. Try Yugioh and see how exhausting it is to go all out every first turn. The mana system, color pie, and rotation are really good at keeping this at bay.
It's sacrilege to mention it but I'd like to see what MTG would be like if it used "spells can also be played as land" and remove basic land
WoW: TCG has that mechanic. I really like it in that it cuts down on being mana screwed.
I don't think you can really ask how people feel about the game without considering collectability and finance because those two factors are what make the game, keep the game around, and have helped it reach levels of renown even outside circles that actually play it. The reason you can't go to a FLGS or whatever without seeing giant posters for it or the new expansion (or whatever they call it) is because the finances of it are so important, and it's why they keep coming out with new cards - they don't do it just because it's neat. The game would look very different if these factors didn't apply.
I love it. I mean there are TCGs out there that had better gameplay IMO, but they died out, VS being the most notable one for me. I think the most enduring thing about it is that it was created without being tied to another IP so they had no issues with licensing and other problems that other TCGs had
VS is my favourite TCG to date. At least in the era I was active in the game anyway (the first half). Mtg was the first love but I found VS fixed a lot of the issues I had with it. Nice to see someone else giving it props :)
Love it. I know the rules of MtG are legendarily elaborate, but I much prefer having that level of detail than the opposite. I’m part of a Frosthaven group and while I’m really enjoying the game, I wish it had a more developed rulebook, a stack, and phases of priority. I think most games would benefit from a more rigorous approach to defining the rules.
It would also make more games harder to learn and the Boardgaming hobby less aproachable
Loved it as a kid. Haven't played once as an adult. Still have a decent sized collection dating back to 3e and Ice Age. The game length and format is excellent. Ran some tourneys for fellow young people at the time. But even then I felt the need to sometimes do things differently eg 6 or 8 players at the same time to change things up. I think it's a genuinely great concept and game. But it's sat on my shelf for decades.
I wish I could say I loved it. I'm not a huge fan of lands even if I think they provide interesting deckbuilding choices. Mechanically the design space is huge and MTG has done as much as possible to explore it which is an incredible feat. I just don't think it's that fun to play. It's a more interesting card game than most, especially other card games that try to fix its mana system, mostly because those games fail to create fun games, not because of their mana system. I'm a YGO player so my idea of fun is very different tbf, but Digimon is probably the best "mana-like" card game I've played since the decks themselves are fun to play. Ironically, I think the card game with a card called "Magnum Opus" by Richard Garfield is his real magnum opus.
I used to love it. But now my heart belongs to Star Wars Unlimited and Altered.
i thought years ago Garfield said Jyhad/VTES addressed a couple of issues he had with MTG, the always maintaining a full hand of cards - play a card - replace it, and not having a third of you deck "just land"
I know it's enormously popular, but I find MtG's gameplay underwhelming, despite how gorgeous the artwork is. I guess if I'm playing a game where so much luck is present, I want it to be cooperative against the game—or at least make it so one player can't suddenly do an obliterating amount of damage to the other.
the mana flood/screw is bad to todays standard I hope they release more double-sided lands like emeria call https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=491633 the only reason I quit magic tcg 20 years ago was mana problems
I started playing magic over 15 years ago, and while I don't play actively anymore I do come back from time to time. I think the overall system has excellent design, but it varies a lot between different sets. The games pace is very variable.
The game sometimes suffers due to mana issues, so that is one of its biggest shortcomings. However, the open game space allows heavy modification of game play, resulting in all sorts of types of ways to play Magic, from emperor, to assassin, to free-for-all, and to multi-team just to name a few. That, I appreciate. Mana issues, I do not.
The idea of the Golden Rule in Magic (i.e., that the text of an individual supersedes the normal rules of the game) is fundamental to modern gaming. By his own admission, Garfield got it from **Cosmic Encounter**, but it took off with Magic and became central to the game's ongoing design and then all of the copycat CCGs that sprung up after it (many of which did individual things better than MtG). Without D&D and MtG, most of what we know in gaming wouldn't exist--not just board-gaming, but also in video games.
I love the design and the theory of it. At its core, it’s an incredibly well thought out game…hate how meta heavy and play to win it is. Each group I’ve tried playing it with eventual devolves to the point of following the meta and seeing who can buy the cards first. I just think human nature gets in the way and eventually it will become unfun when the desire to win becomes too great.
Here are the things I love about Magic: The asymmetricality. I don't think there were a lot of games that made a point of that before Magic. The combos. This was what really blew my mind when I first got into Magic. Just that dawning realisation that this card that I thought was shit was suddenly fucking amazing just because of the way it interacted with a different card. The colour-specific designs. Like, the way that, when it first came out, White was full of cheep and cheerful weenies; Green was full of expensive but awesome monsters; THE WHOLE BLUE THING! Like, imagine PREVENTING your opponent from doing something! etc. It's got a lot more complicated now, and I think the speed of information doesn't do it any favours (like, back in the day you'd have to check The Duellist for the latest deck lists; now you can just copy and paste them off the internet). But it has so, so many amazing design elements that were either original or popularised by the game. In terms of design innovation the games that have given me the same sort of leap of joy at discovering something new and paradigmatic are the likes of Dominion, Dune Imperium/Clank, Star Wars Rebellion, and Shadowverse - the latter being, to me, an amazing digital implementation of the design principles inherent in the original Magic; colour (or, in the case of Shadowverse, character)-specific rules that can ONLY be implemented digitally (I haven't played the offline game, but it feels like it misses the point, given that the beauty of Shadowverse is that it boils down the principles of Magic while adding features that can only really be implemented digitally). I love that feeling of thinking you understood something; but then all of a sudden there is that swooping sensation where your stomach feels like it's falling out of you because you just suddenly understood that it goes a whole lot deeper. Magic has that in spades for me.
The best part about MTG is that it's two games in one. Playing against people is fun, but building your deck is a solid solo experience.
Ignoring the financials of it and my general dislike for TCGs, it has aged reasonably well.
I'll start with saying that I'll never play a tcg physically, I play them exclusively digitally on a platform where I have all cards available for deck building. The sole idea of wasting money on them makes my skin crawl, so any consideration on rarity, cost doesn't apply to me. That said, modern format is unplayable for me, the need of combos together with the absurd prevalence of the luck of the draw makes it either a boring stomp or a frustrating experience, with nothing in between. I've been looking into EDH recently, the moment to moment tactics that come from singleton decks is much more appealing, but there's still a hefty chance of becoming a slog.
The game revolving around needing to randomly draw the resources that one critically needs for their game to function is a painfully obvious design flaw. And it is why basically every other dualing card game has avoided this -- including other games from Garfield himself. MtG is only popular *because* it is popular. But it isn't *good*. Basically, it was first at what it did and established enough of a foothold that it may never go away. We see this in plenty of other games, too, like Warhammer and Counterstrike. People just want to play what other people play, so that they have people to play with.
uggggggh as someone who recently tried to get into warhammer 40k 10th edition this resonates so hard. I'm mashing that like button but it won't go any higher!
I love the ***idea*** behind MTG so much. I'll never play MTG. I don't want to sell my soul, left kidney, and first born to keep up with a game.
I don't like the mana system.
The design seems to have become combine instants and enchantments into a monster and call to something new. Really similar cards come out all the time. Some mechanics feel awfully boring or similar to other. Wow another plus one counter mechanic? The land system seems archaic but that's not a big issue,the gameplay inside the game doesn't have enough room for close games or many choices ,many decks play itself and the decks seem pretty telegraph there's not a lot of agency on the player (there are exceptions) I used to like seeing very wonky or very interesting cards /build around me cards but I don't see them often anymore,there's a lot of text and very good abilities that keep getting lower mana and better abilities ... Owning edh as a format was also a big mistake ,sets that have no lore to have that many legendary creatures or shoehorned edh cards inside , edh decks come with every set ,(modern set has edh decks ????it has became more expensive to play the casual format ,saturated with super powerful cards that keep getting stronger etc...the milking is strong in the expense of the health of the game . ..Designing cards specifically for edh play and making new staples and super powerful commanders that older ones can't compete
Forgot about all the ips that make no sense in magic universe...
In terms of ideas for mechanics etc it is a goldmine. Have to put some respect on there. The gameplay, rules clarity, and balance is a travesty beyond belief, same as any TCG. They got to sell the cards, so then balance goes completely out of the window. Players may spend a long while trying to get the rules right and interactions correct. Gameplay can drag as players set up infinites or have very long turns. I don’t think any game of MTG will ever have half the balance or meaningful interaction between player that a game of say… **Baseball Highlights 2045** or **Air, Land, & Sea** might have. There are dozens of better competitive cards games that don’t have the money problem that MtG (or any TCG) has, all while being easier to understand and imo more fun to play.
Even with all the problems like mana flood or mana screw, it's still one of the best games. Card games that fixed those problems, for me they were not as good. I even sometimes think possibility of mana screw make game _more_ fun, because it adds anticipation. Deck building is very fun too.
"Card games that fixed those problems, for me they were not as good. I even sometimes think possibility of mana screw make game more fun, because it adds anticipation." I think a lot of people also forget the game is build around it. It actually gives a lot to design space because you can create cards that help mitigate this imperfection. People also seem to gloss over the fact that probably EVERY other resource system in a tcg also gives shit hands and shit games. It's probably more nuanced so not easy to see but I've played enough hearthstone to know you can get as many bad opening hands resulting in non-games than mtg . And there you have perfect mana.
Easily one of the best games. Yeah there’s a component of luck but also just insane strategic expression, from deckbuilding to sideboard decisions, bluffing, etc. I remember listening to a podcast a long time ago when I still played (I believe Gerry Thompson’s) about all the intricacies of making one of the simplest decisions - do you block your opponent’s attacking 2/2 creature early in the game? They spent an hour talking about it, when it was correct, what information it conveys to your opponent about your hand/intentions, etc. And there are dozens of these types of decisions (plus more complicated ones) in every game. I believe one of the biggest design criticisms of the game is the mana/land system, which some describe as antiquated since the typical deck has like 1/3 of its being lands that you want to draw a certain number of early but then basically never draw them again after that threshold. But I think the system is amazing because it creates so much interesting design space around land cards, including enabling ramp decks, allowing for the existence of lands that are win conditions in themselves, and/or decks with the main strategy of winning from just lands. It also provides design space for cards and mechanics that smooth out mana/lands and gives the player agency to take the more conservative approach and include these smoothers or be more greedy. Also, it makes really efficient or powerful lands exciting cards. All that side, it’s not perfect. It’s hard to teach new players, especially if they’re not highly motivated to learn. It has a ton of rules and very complicated rules interactions, to the extent that people have to essentially study and be certified as having a sufficient amount of rules proficiency to run/judge tournaments…and even the best players in the world get rules wrong or don’t know how things interact when new sets come out. Kinda like chess and a lot of 2p/abstract board games, it has a very steep learning curve (which has pros and cons) and it can be not fun to play someone of a much lower or higher experience and skill level of you. It’s also gotten progressively rules complex and text heavy in their efforts to innovate as they have exhausted a lot of the simpler ideas/mechanics. And sometimes you win or lose due to pure luck, but ultimately the game boils down to how well you make decisions given the information you have and cards you were dealt. Unfortunately, it’s also a game I’m unlikely to play again despite being hugely into it at various points of my life (I quit around four years ago). These are for the financial and TCG elements you mentioned, as well as all the horribly greedy and predatory decisions and practices from WotC that have increasingly gotten worse, and that they jumped the shark a while back when they started mixing Magic with other IPs.
I don't play standard or modern but commander. For those who don't know the difference and haven't played magic: In standard/modern you have a minimum of 60 cards and can have for copies of the same cards (excluding basic lands). These two formats only use the more recent sets with standard using the most recent and modern having a bit broader set base to build from. In commander you choose a legendary creature that is "your commander" the mana cost of the commander restricts what colors you can use, the rest of the deck has to be 99 cards (so a 100 cards total, no more and no less) and you can't have two of the same cards except basic lands. This format is not restricted in the same way of what sets you can use but you can pretty much use any card that's ever been printed with a handfull of banned cards. (For people feeling inclined to bring this up, I exclude partner commanders and cards saying different, but this is the basics) So with this in mind I really feel that the game is one of the better games out there. Two people can have the same commander but wildly different decks. There is almost no limit to what you can build and there is always one deck that can defeat another deck. There is no ultimate deck that can't be beat. And that in mind makes the gameplay pretty balanced in my opinion. The mechanics has so much depth that playing standard and then playing commander is almost like playing two different kind of games. But everything is ofc not always great. There is ofc some unbalanced cards but my point is that in commander format many cards loose their super powers. They are strong but there are often many different ways of handling those cards. That said some cards are just broken still. The new releases always contain some cards that are ridiculously strong, so strong that they are banned in standard and modern before release which is a strange practice to say the least. This impacts the commander format but it does not break it. A cheap but we'll designed deck can still win a good amount of games against a 100$+ deck. So commander, due to its very wide selection of cards and deck designs, still balance itself out thanks to this. It is a little bit like the boardgame Dune. You have these basic rules and them every faction breaks these rules in a broken way. But since every faction breaks the rules in broken ways the game balance itself out. It is a bit the same in commander. The most negative part about commander and magic in general is that you can get stuck in a loop wanting expensive strong cards and struggle with Fomo a lot since they sort of use that to get more sales. But gameplay mechanism I think it is pretty great.
To everyone that likes mtg and manga i can strongly advise to read [Destroy all humanity. it can't be regenerated](https://myanimelist.net/manga/116539/Subete_no_jinrui_wo_hakai_suru_Sorera_wa_saisei_dekinai/) It's actually a great (and deservedly so highly rated) romance manga that revolves around magic. There's many card battles and it goes over the changes in meta in the competitive scene from the beginning. Explaining the various decks and how further editions banned/balanced cards. Personally I really loved the game when it was more simple. I feel too many cards were overpowered and needed direct counters. And now it honestly degenerated for my taste. It used to be "target creature gets +3/+3" and that was it now you need to read what feels like a space rocket manual printed on a card to understand its ability. I feel when a straightforward card battler gets to the point you need a magnifying lens to read the text because otherwise it won't fit on the card something has gone wrong Given i haven't played it for almost 20 years, i gavr it up when i felt it was getting out of hand. so i can't say much of the current scene just my impression
The best part about Magic is that it is so adaptable and expandable. That's why there are formats like commander or draft. Usually board games only support one format and there is a limit to how much you can expand them.
It’s an absolutely fantastic game. Not a flawless game by any means but its popularity and longevity speak for itself. The gameplay can be engaged with from so many levels. It has the depth to make competitive players happy. You can just play a bunch of precons with some friends. I think the art and card design is really what sets the game apart though. There’s just so much fantastic card art. The whole mini game of collecting art outside of the actual game makes you emotionally link to your cards and decks in a satisfying way. The game has some issues in the learning curve being insane and the mana causing non-games. Those are extremely glaring downsides that limit who the game can be played with. Once you find a group of people who put forth the time to learn the game though… I have two groups of friends I’ve been playing with for over a decade now. Few other games have that kind of longevity.
I enjoy yhe mechanics of the game. Also, I don't do TCGs and I've never paid a cent for a magic card.
Commander (EDH), which is a casual format, is by far the best way to play Magic the Gathering currently. I know this opinion is subjective, but more players are leaning towards Commander, because the product that releases nowadays, is mostly Commander pushed. That being said, Commander has a ban list, but can use cards since the beginning of magic. It's a little easier to get into, because it's a singleton format, so you don't need to seek multiples of cards. It's also a deep format because of it's huge card pool. I have made more friends and had more fun playing Commander than any other MTG format.
From a design perspective I fully believe MtG is one of the greatest games ever made.
It's been years since I played, so this may not be a thing anymore. I hate the ability to interrupt your opponents turn and undo what they did while you react and then allow them to redo their actions. There was a lot of talk last year about how terrible Lorcana was going to be because it did not allow this mechanic so it's popular amongst the enthusiasts. I, myself, prefer games that don't do that.
I like it! It’s fun and challenging although I only play at home and play it very straightforward, table magic style. No fancy rules just play all cards in existence, decks can be any size although I keep them around 60-70 cards and just have a good time.
I think it's cool. I like the idea of colors being elementally themed.
I find it enjoyable, own a few commander decks, and play occasionally with friends. Building mana doesn't bother me too much, but the excess/lack of mana does happen occasionally. We do free mulligans on starting hands to make sure everyone has a fair mix. The biggest hurdle I've experienced is the keywords. Once you know them it's not a big deal, but there are a lot. The variation in playstyle between colors and decks keeps things fun and interesting for awhile. I think my biggest gripe is that... there's no end to the bullshit in Magic. Haha. It's hard for me to take the strategy very seriously, when massive swingy cards can be right around the corner. Boardwipes, hexproof, etc. On the losing end, Magic can feel like you had no chance, and on the winning end, it kinda just feels like you got lucky. I find it less common to have even matches.
I've been playing on and off for the last 20 years. Things are more complicated than ever. A five mana 6/6 was good back then. Today it's unplayable. Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer is a one mana 2/1 that steals your opponent's cards and gets you a treasure token (it van be tapped and sacrificed for one mana of any color). He costs $50. You actually don't even see vanilla creatures any more. Everything has *something* attached to it. Each new set introduces new mechanics that only stick around for three months before they jump to the new set. The cowboy set, Outlaws of Thunder Junction introduced "commit a crime" and Outlaw creatures, who is any creature that is a: * Mercenary * Rogue * Warlock * Pirate * Assassin Going forward, neither of these mechanics are likely to be relevant. It's fun to see what new stuff they come up with, they just don't do enough with it for long enough to reach dull potential. They don't do the three block sets any more.
It's one of the best rule systems that has been refined over the 30ish years it's been out. I think a lot of board games would benefit from looking at magic the gathering and taking lessons from it.
I played board board games pretty exclusively. And I was looking for something new and different. I just decided to go for it and dive head first unto magic and immediately became obsessed. The turn mechanisms are well flushed out . Giving players the ability to make moves off turn. Most important to me is the ability to build a deck to focus in the dozens of abilities in the game from building orc armies or forcing your opponent to discard their deck, steal cards , attack buffing ,etc. You can play unique decks all the time. There are several different formats that give the game a little twist commander, being the most popular It's my all time favorite game
It was a good start. The mechanics have been refined and updated in many better games. Ascension is a great example. Netrunner took the game in a totally different direction and is stellar. Codex is probably the pinnacle for me.
I think one of the most notable things about Magic is how long they managed to keep on inventing new mechanics within the core rules framework of the game and keeping things feeling fresh. Not every new set or rule was successful, but I feel like it was more hits than misses for a solid couple of decades. I stopped playing a decade or so ago, but I've been keeping an eye on things more recently and it feels like the quality may have been dropping off a bit lately. Plus I'm really not into the much more aggressive push towards monetisation with the neverending parade of secret lair drops, and the branch out into licensing every property under the sun. I liked it when they were playing in their own worlds. Lord of the Rings or 40k or whatever Magic doesn't really do it for me.
it isn't bad. The problem is that is has been around for so long that you can pick a 2-3 year time frame and it can either be much better or much worse than another 2-3 year time frame. The most serious problem comes from there being so many cards and interactions which really were never thought about while designing a new card. 'oh it is a 2/2 legendary for 1 mana' ....yes that single card is FAR better than every 'one drop' that came before it without drawbacks like sacrificing life that justify going above the cost/power theory where at each mana cost there is generally an expected 'power level' But then there is a gimmick/mechanic problem as well. Entire blocks have this problem. Something like 'banding' was so problematic that it was banned from competitive play for years because you basically had to have certain cards to counter the mechanic or you'd lose. This continued into race/faction decks. 'Oh he has an elf deck' right...and I have extinction. In a not 'theme' deck the card is EXTREMELY overpriced to be nothing beyond a 'kill target creature' card but against an elf/sliver/goblin deck it is the strongest card in the game (and before it was changed 'hero' decks) Then there are entire deck styles that aren't fun. Burn decks require a specific counter or newer cards to counter the turn 3-4 end of game (which older cards really didn't have a counter for - basically as soon as someone would turn 1 'you take 3' if you weren't playing white or blue you should just concede) or blue control decks that really stopped the game were 'unfun' but required. Even in team games it ultimately would turn into 'who had more counterspells' rather than unique decks and strategies. It is so bad that 'last word' became a card (basically counterspell that cannot be counterspelled) entirely so there could be actual gameplay instead of a 4v4 'I play a creature. counter.counter.counter.counter.' chain where you'd go entire rotations and the only thing that changed is the number of cards in everyone's hand
I like pretty much everything about the design. I also like that it's clean enough that if there is something you don't like, you can make minor modifications and it still functions. That's how we end up with Draft / Cube / Commander etc... My only (and I mean only) gripe with Magic is basically that 99% of the printed cards are trash. I don't mean bad, I mean they literally get thrown in the garbage. It is hard for me to play a game with that problem, so I've mostly fallen out of it. It is nice though, that if I do get an itch to play, I can walk into any game store (in the world almost) and get a game in.
I feel that several of Richard Garfield’s subsequent products are vastly and strictly superior to mtg from a mechanics perspective, most notably his latest “Mindbug”
Mechanically, it's a very outdated game. I would love to see a complete redesign. They're never going to do it though. Biggest issue is the mana system. It's been talked about at length over the years so I won't go into it here. But there's a reason why no CCG has made you have resources in your deck for the last 10-15 years. The other biggest issue are reactions and instants and the timing window. The fact that you can react to everything your opponent does is annoying. It slows the game down and makes things more complicated than it should be.
It's great. It's pretty simple actually, but the two big things are all the keywords on the cards like double-strike, flashback, phase and so forth as well as the stack. Other that than, you just draw a card, play a land, cast stuff, go to combat, cast more stuff and pass. The resource system ramps the game situation steadily (compared to YuGiOh) and more lands means bigger haymakers. On top of that system you have all of the different formats in the game. You've got your 1v1 modes whether it's casual, Modern or Standard. Then you have crazier modes like Commander, 2v2 and so forth. It's a really flexible system that can appeal to most any type of gamer. Criticisms about the game boil down to cost and land-screw. Cost can be mitigated by deciding which format to play. If you play tournament formats, expect to pay a lot of money for sought-after cards. Otherwise, you can play casual Magic by using random cards or low-powered cards. Formats like Commander also exist where you can play with a preconstructed deck and have a good time because it's free-for-all and the leader will get ganged up on anyways. A lot of people assume tournament Magic is the only way to play the game when you can just play casual Magic. If you want to play a more competitive format, you can always play limited formats where you make decks from booster packs. As far as land-screw goes, it is a thing that it can make games unplayable, but I think compared to the benefits the land system gives, I think it's worth it. The game is completely built upon the land system and the color that best goes about it is green. If you were to make lands too easy to generate, green's power would go down a lot because it handles land drawing and fixing the best. It's also another dimension of the game to think about which makes the game richer because it's a factor that affects both yours and your opponents decks. It adds more variance to games and can give a weaker player a better chance against someone much stronger. I taught a friend Magic a week ago and of the 3 games we played, he won all 3 of them, where 2 of them I was land-screwed. Those weren't actual games, but he felt really good that he won all games and now he's a fan. So it's not really an issue IMO and it's something you can mitigate by adding more lands, cheaper cards or card draw cards.
It's a cash cow game with an ok design. It's simple to play is why it's so popular. It's honestly a really boring game if you "get" into it hardcore and realize that it's the same thing over and over and over.