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Aug 1, 2011 -- 1:55PM, bateleur_ wrote:

Every time a new set comes out I'm a little sad to see they've repeated so many of their usual errors (removal too good, broken cards at Uncommon, archetypes too linear, too many archetype-critical cards being high picks, too few decisions in early turns, etc.).

There are reasons that all those phenomena exist in their set designs, though. Removal keeps the board from getting clogged, which controls complexity as well as reducing the swinginess of global effects ( Guardians' Pledge , Fog ); it also provides answers to bomby stuff ( Doom Blade on Flameblast Dragon ). Uncommons getting better is, to me, positive, because it puts less weight on which rares get opened and, again, deepens the playable cardpool while varying the experience because they show up less often than commons.

If something is "archetype-critical", it must have a valuable effect on the board, so I'd think by definition it's usually a high pick within a color. There's a reason the Dampen Thought archetype is a rarity---Splice happened to promote a low/no-creature archetype, but few sets support that, so Limited decks often converge on creatures+removal. I agree that build-around Limited cards are among the coolest things in each set; I just think it's hard to make ones that most decks won't want. Do you have an example of something you wish had been different? Am I misunderstanding?

Aug 1, 2011 -- 10:49AM, DrSylvan wrote:

On my main point: You don't think the multiple-themes approach has significant promise?

It's a real option, if that's what you mean, but I don't think it changes the nature of a game's evolution even though it clearly extends it.

If it extends it to the point where environments are only similar to ones from a decade or more in the past, or creates enough combinations that the environment has at least some nuances, it'll be a different experience given the many knobs developers have on each card. Even if someday there are lots more players like us who remember ancient metas, recombining them differently and experiencing them at a different point in life provide a very different feel for each player. I'm not concerned that Standard 2112 might be very similar to Standard 2080 and 2052, because metagame choices and possible bannings add variance even if the cardpool is miraculously close.

Thought experiment: If only Ice Age through Scars blocks could be printed ever again, and the only things they could change were bannings and what order they released the blocks on a neverending loop, they could still make dozens of different Standard environments, and variant draft formats (my LGS in Urbana, IL just last week did M12/NPH/ROE draft) would create unique Limited experiences. Considering that R&D has hardly run out of ideas, even this pure-recycling worst-case scenario is an underestimate of the diversity Magic will have to offer in the long term.

Aug 1, 2011 -- 4:10PM, DrSylvan wrote:

Aug 1, 2011 -- 1:55PM, bateleur_ wrote:

Every time a new set comes out I'm a little sad to see they've repeated so many of their usual errors (removal too good, broken cards at Uncommon, archetypes too linear, too many archetype-critical cards being high picks, too few decisions in early turns, etc.).

There are reasons that all those phenomena exist in their set designs, though. Removal keeps the board from getting clogged, which controls complexity as well as reducing the swinginess of global effects ( Guardians' Pledge , Fog ); it also provides answers to bomby stuff ( Doom Blade on Flameblast Dragon ). Uncommons getting better is, to me, positive, because it puts less weight on which rares get opened and, again, deepens the playable cardpool while varying the experience because they show up less often than commons.

If something is "archetype-critical", it must have a valuable effect on the board, so I'd think by definition it's usually a high pick within a color. There's a reason the Dampen Thought archetype is a rarity---Splice happened to promote a low/no-creature archetype, but few sets support that, so Limited decks often converge on creatures+removal. I agree that build-around Limited cards are among the coolest things in each set; I just think it's hard to make ones that most decks won't want. Do you have an example of something you wish had been different? Am I misunderstanding?

Aug 1, 2011 -- 10:49AM, DrSylvan wrote:

On my main point: You don't think the multiple-themes approach has significant promise?

It's a real option, if that's what you mean, but I don't think it changes the nature of a game's evolution even though it clearly extends it.

If it extends it to the point where environments are only similar to ones from a decade or more in the past, or creates enough combinations that the environment has at least some nuances, it'll be a different experience given the many knobs developers have on each card. Even if someday there are lots more players like us who remember ancient metas, recombining them differently and experiencing them at a different point in life provide a very different feel for each player. I'm not concerned that Standard 2112 might be very similar to Standard 2080 and 2052, because metagame choices and possible bannings add variance even if the cardpool is miraculously close.

Thought experiment: If only Ice Age through Scars blocks could be printed ever again, and the only things they could change were bannings and what order they released the blocks on a neverending loop, they could still make dozens of different Standard environments

Ignoring the bannings, the fact blocks are released set by set rather than all at once, the core sets, and the hypothetical of them deciding to release Mirrodin block twice consecutively and taking Lorwyn/Shadomoor as 1 block rather than 2...

...I make it 91. (14 blocks if I'm counting correctly, each Standard contains 2 blocks, so if I'm remembering my formulae right that makes the relevent equation 14!/(2!*12!)) - Not entirely convinced all of those standard environments would be good standard environments, mind.

and variant draft formats (my LGS in Urbana, IL just last week did M12/NPH/ROE draft) would create unique Limited experiences. Considering that R&D has hardly run out of ideas, even this pure-recycling worst-case scenario is an underestimate of the diversity Magic will have to offer in the long term.

Mm, and while MaRo is right that the design space of any single game is finite (If you want to keep the core of the game rather than a complete overhall, that is), Magic's seems to be expanding over time - Unglued was originally things Magic can't do... And quite a few of them have wound up in real sets ( The Cheese Stands Alone being the poster child for that seeing as it got what basically amounts to a functional reprint in Time Spiral), and we keep hearing how some things, such as Split Cards, were originally going to be in Unglued II before it was put on hiatus. Which approximates to infinite, provided you use them slower than they can get created... Though I presume the rate they can get created slows down over time...