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Warp World is such garbage. In my opinion, it should've lost to Thieves' Auction. All it is is "lol, looks at all my bad goats token and ornithopters lol lol, and look at my seige gang that I refuse to use and now lets play worpworld lol, now your land count goes from 8 to 3 and I have 2 darksteel colosuses and a hellkite overlord and an akroma, lol, good game, wasn't that so fun?"
The short answer is "no".

Mar 15, 2010 -- 9:58AM, MT_Gunn wrote:

Also, from someone who has played against hundreds of FoF splits, I can say that the card is too easy on the person playing them.  The person playing the card is the one who is interested in trying to gain an advantage by outhinking their opponent, but they are the ones that have the easiest decision.  (The same goes for Gifts ungiven, as with proper deck construction, there is no "right" choice.)  The FoF's opponent is forced to play the Spike role for a bit, but the Spike gets everything easy. 

A good card advantage spell is great, but make the person playing it have the tough choices.

My 2 cents.

-MT Head

Dude, that IS the fun of the card. I don't play FoF or Gifts, but I always wave my arms and yell "pick me" when one is being cast. I love trying to make the split that makes my opponent have to really think about which stack to pick, or to get them to groan as their combo remains a turn away after a gifts. I think it's fun to have a little battle of wits in a game (figuratively and otherwise, actually ).

Mar 15, 2010 -- 12:07PM, izzet_guild_mage wrote:

Warp World is such garbage. In my opinion, it should've lost to Thieves' Auction. All it is is "lol, looks at all my bad goats token and ornithopters lol lol, and look at my seige gang that I refuse to use and now lets play worpworld lol, now your land count goes from 8 to 3 and I have 2 darksteel colosuses and a hellkite overlord and an akroma, lol, good game, wasn't that so fun?"
The short answer is "no".

so what you're saying is that a warp world deck builds around a single weird card like johnny likes to do, and ends up with a battlefield full of a bunch of huge but protected and robust creatures that both timmy and spike have traditionally loved. yeah, good point. i have no idea why any magic player would find that deck fun.

Mar 15, 2010 -- 2:30PM, morticianjohn wrote:

Where is cloudstone curio , intruder alarm , thornbite staff , maelstrom nexus , worldpurge , soulquake , conflux , scion of the ur-dragon etc...

somebody's a johnny...

It's fascinating to me how the wild variety of responses on this thread and part 1's do a gread job of showing how much different each person's definition of "fun" can be. They are actually more interesting to me than the article itself, and I have no doubt that they are some of the MaRo articles threads that MaRo was the most interested in reading himself. I'd like to say that I respect everyone's definition of fun, except when it is "making other players feel awful".  Now, some of my own thoughts on the discussed cards :

On Warp World : Among all of the cards in the face-off, this one strikes me as the one which fun level can vary the most depending on its caster's deck. What I mean is that if you're the opponent of the Warp World player, the card can be incredibly fun for you and everyone in the game, or it can be little else than "95% chance of game over in Warp World's caster favor; preparing to concede". Tournament Warp World decks are made to win the vast majority of the time if Warp World resolves, which makes it not an especially fun card, IMO, in that context. But Warp World from a wacky casual deck not meant to auto-win with it sure is good times.

On Shahrazad : I rated that card quite high for its out-of-the-box design, its flavor and its nostalgia appeal, but honestly, I just don't know how fun it would end up in practice. I know in what kind of deck I'd play it : a Boros or Zoo deck, since it's pretty much a burn spell that works best if your deck has a lot of redundancy. The subgame would end fast unless my opponent plays a control deck, and I wouldn't design it to create unfun moments. It sure makes for a possibly much longer game than it should be, but I wouldn't have a problem with it in a casual context where there is no time limit concerns.

On Booster Tutor : I'd love to play that card in any context where un-cards are accepted and I would be able to open a booster pack. It implies discovery, adventure, decision-making... But of course, the card lacks practicality a lot. The only context where I'd see myself play it and enjoy it a lot is in an Unhinged draft in a card shop. Still, I don't really understand the outrage of some people who consider it a money grab; much like hating the concept of drafting because it requires buying boosters, hating that card for the same reason is automatically absurd if you ever buy boosters to just crack them open and do nothing else with them than putting the cards in constructed decks or trade binders for future use. It only adds a layer of fun to something you'd do anyway.

Oh man, inciting people to buy more of your products is something sooooo illogical and evil for a company to do... Guys, no one's forcing you to play the card. As most cards, it's not meant to be fun for everyone; that one is uninteresting for people that are poor at the moment.

On Pools of Becoming : Possibly the most fun card of a very fun casual variant! I haven't had the occasion to play Planechase very much, but it's definitely worth a try, and the Pools create the most impressive fun moments in my experience, with its chaos trigger.

On Mindslaver : I love this card's design. It's out-of-the-box and creates very fun, unusual decision making. Depending on the situation, I often don't mind or even have fun having it played against me, even if it means I'll lose; it fascinates me looking at which imaginative ways my opponent can use my own cards to destroy me. While I watch, I try to solve the puzzle too in my head, asking myself what I'd do to most efficiently and/or most creatively make my own victory harder within one turn. Also, it really isn't that powerful on its own; one activation doesn't auto-win you the game most of the time unless your opponent has a card that can be used as an easy suicide outlet, one with an unlimited life payment for example. Many times it's just an unefficient Time Walk. Of course, what makes it an unfun card is the possibility of constant recurring from the graveyard to use it every turn, which takes away all the fun decision-making and makes it just an other two-card combo win. If I could redesign it, I would have made it maybe slightly cheaper to cast, but something else than an artifact, a creature or a land, or I would have made it exile itself on activation.