I'm not advocating a flat power level across all cards. I understand that some cards have to be better than others. But an unplayable card contributes nothing. Magic is a game, and games are meant to be played. Game pieces that have no gameplay value should simply not exist.
I agree with the bolded part. But unplayable cards, in moderation, do not detract from this. Magic is a game about customizing, about inclusion and exclusion. You pick your game pieces, you don't have to play them all.
Aren't art and flavor pieces of the game without gameplay value? Just like flavor text is just a part of a text box, an unplayable card is just a part of a set.
Unplayable cards add nothing to Limited. Your point about unplayable cards adding skill-testing and variance could just as easily be accomplished by having cards that vary in power level based on the context of the deck in which they're played.
About what kind of cards are we talking about here? Almost every card has some kind of niche application. If you look at it in this way, there aren't any truly unplayable cards.
I agree with the bolded part. But unplayable cards, in moderation, do not detract from this. Magic is a game about customizing, about inclusion and exclusion. You pick your game pieces, you don't have to play them all.
They certainly detract from my enjoyment when I get them in a booster pack. And they detract from the Limited experience, as well.
Aren't art and flavor pieces of the game without gameplay value? Just like flavor text is just a part of a text box, an unplayable card is just a part of a set.
Art and flavor text are purely additive. They don't remove rules text from cards to make room for flavor text, after all. An unplayable card, however, is subtractive; it's effectively a blank. It removes a card in the booster pack; it removes a card from the set; it removes a card from your card pool in Limited.
About what kind of cards are we talking about here? Almost every card has some kind of niche application. If you look at it in this way, there aren't any truly unplayable cards.
A card which is only playable because of tribal interactions has limits. I could print a three-mana 1/1 vanilla wolf and you could claim that it's not unplayable because it could be used to reach critical mass in an wolf deck.
It's very difficult to qualify 'unplayable'. Things that are strictly inferior to other options in the same format... Cards that would still be fair, even underpowered, at one or more mana cheaper... Cards which serve no role in any deck, or serve a role better performed by another card in the same format...
Thanks to the focus on Limited these days, very few cards are unplayable in all formats, but they still do exist.
Ooh, this is starting to get interesting. I'll come back with a more detailed response when I have more time, but I just want to get a foot in here for now.
I agree with most of your post, but I disagree with you here. The key shouldn't be making some cards that are literally unplayable in all situations, but cards that have extremely limited use, or vary wildly in power level in different types of decks. The skill-testing, then, is figuring out how to use a given card, which is typically much more skill-testing, and almost always more rewarding, than just having a card with the answer "don't ever play this".
But then, upon seeing Gnaw to the Bone , people would immidiately think "okay, this doesn't look very good, but there must be a reason". So there aren't really any hidden surprises. Only hidden plants. And games are all about surprises.
I agree with chronego completely here. I don't really understand your point about "surprises" versus "plants."
Of course as a player you'd rather play #1, but that's because the example breaks the magic circle and is not really a game. I was only using the example as a metaphor for gameplay value, not actual monetary value. That for limited (which is a huge focus for Wizards) cards aren't judged in isolation, but in the bigger picture. An unplayable card can still contribute to this.
Well, as "the house" Wizards would rather have everyone play #2--obviously they have outside-the-magic-circle concerns as well.
Aren't art and flavor pieces of the game without gameplay value? Just like flavor text is just a part of a text box, an unplayable card is just a part of a set.
Art and flavor text are purely additive. They don't remove rules text from cards to make room for flavor text, after all. An unplayable card, however, is subtractive; it's effectively a blank. It removes a card in the booster pack; it removes a card from the set; it removes a card from your card pool in Limited.
I think what TobyornotToby is getting at is that unplayable cards could be seen as an additive, depending on one's perspective. In terms of game design, there wouldn't be much difference between Scars of Mirrodin block and a hypothetical Scars of Mirrodin minus Defensive Stance block, in the same way that Lightning Bolt is functionally the same regardless of whether it has flavor text or not. The problem, though, is that whenever someone buys a booster pack, that person is paying for the possibility of opening a Defensive Stance instead of one of the playable cards.
About what kind of cards are we talking about here? Almost every card has some kind of niche application. If you look at it in this way, there aren't any truly unplayable cards.
It's very difficult to qualify 'unplayable'. Things that are strictly inferior to other options in the same format... Cards that would still be fair, even underpowered, at one or more mana cheaper... Cards which serve no role in any deck, or serve a role better performed by another card in the same format...
I agree; it is very difficult to qualify unplayability. Competitive Pokémon deals with the issue by dividing Pokémon into tiers (uber, overused, underused, never used), but Pokémon isn't updated nearly as often as Magic, and it isn't played under nearly as many different formats and variants.
I'm not advocating a flat power level across all cards. I understand that some cards have to be better than others. But an unplayable card contributes nothing. Magic is a game, and games are meant to be played. Game pieces that have no gameplay value should simply not exist.
If you made a set of the 250 best cards in Magic history, cards #225 - 250 would be unplayable because they'd get the snot beaten out of them by cards #1 - 100.
If you made a set of the 250 best cards in Magic history, cards #225 - 250 would be unplayable because they'd get the snot beaten out of them by cards #1 - 100.
That is not true. They may be unplayable in Standard, but not in Limited or Casual or other formats.
The sorts of cards I'm talking about when I say 'unplayable' are cards like Favor of the Woods that are just plain bad in any situation.
I agree with chronego completely here. I don't really understand your point about "surprises" versus "plants."
Oh oh I just thought of another example:
You're watching a horror/thriller. They're ramping up the tension, music is getting more intense, you can feel it. There are 3 things that can happen here.
1. Something happens. You flinch. 2. Nothing happens. Then just as you let out a breath of relief, something happens. You flinch. 3. Nothing happens. You curse the movie for making you scared.
Not knowing what will happen is what makes them scary and thus exiting and fun. If #3 was removed, those scenes would be a lot less scary because you're certain something will happen, you just need to brace yourself for when it happens. There would be no surprise, as you know for certain the director planted a moment of something happening there. The same can be said about evaluating magic cards.
1. They're playable. 2. They look unplayable, but then hidden usages emerge. 3. They're unplayable.
Again, if #3 was removed, the discovery of new magic cards (which is a huge part of magic's appeal, and why so many cards are released each year) would be less exiting and less fun.
The problem, though, is that whenever someone buys a booster pack, that person is paying for the possibility of opening a Defensive Stance instead of one of the playable cards.
They certainly detract from my enjoyment when I get them in a booster pack.
Yes this is the problem with them. There are many levels to look at Magic. At the set level, at the booster level, at the playing-a-game-of-magic level, etc. Perhaps we're discussion different levels here. It's true that in boosters, they waste slots. I find that an acceptable sacrifice though, as long as it isn't the rare slot. But commons? Whatever you wanted to open in that Defensive Stance slot you can buy for 10 cents. Or get for free from anyone with draft piles at home.
I stopped buying boosters a long time ago because I got sick of opening crap rares. But I never minded crap commons.
And they detract from the Limited experience, as well.
Well this is where I disagree, as the "Limited experience" is something shaped by more than individual cards. A 'the whole bigger than the sum of the parts' thingy.
Art and flavor text are purely additive. They don't remove rules text from cards to make room for flavor text, after all. An unplayable card, however, is subtractive; it's effectively a blank. It removes a card in the booster pack; it removes a card from the set; it removes a card from your card pool in Limited.
This is true, which is why we're having this discussion (should unplayable cards exist?) and not that discussion (should flavor text exist?). However, I was merely using this point to refute your statement, "elements without gameplay value have no reason to exist".
A card which is only playable because of tribal interactions has limits. I could print a three-mana 1/1 vanilla wolf and you could claim that it's not unplayable because it could be used to reach critical mass in an wolf deck.
If the set has a tribal component, yes. I couldn't make the same excuse for Chimney Imp I think.
It's very difficult to qualify 'unplayable'. Things that are strictly inferior to other options in the same format... Cards that would still be fair, even underpowered, at one or more mana cheaper... Cards which serve no role in any deck, or serve a role better performed by another card in the same format...
A legacy burn deck plays a lot of cards strictly inferior to Lighning Bolt , but it's for the better. I'm at a loss thinking about such cases for limited (Skillful Lunge and Zealous Strike are not in the same environment for example, even being just a set apart), unless you count rarities? But rarities have a gameplay value in limited.
Many cards would be fair for a mana cheaper, many cards that are regulary played already.
"Having no role in any deck" seems like an interesting qualification for "unplayable".
I'm sure that my experience at the AVA pre-release was improved thanks to the range of power levels. Frankly, I don't buy cards very often and don't even play /that/ often (and when I do, it's usually with equally inept players). I appreciated being able to go through my cards and - on 2nd reading - ditch nearly half of them for being 'worse' and use the others to determine what colour(s) I should play.
I probably made some mistakes in both stages - some folk who beat me pointed out cards that are actually playable. Someone suggested I switch colours completely and I did fare a tiny bit better after that.
But I'm definitely not the worst - finishing higher than median - and even I appreciate the fact that I'm able to discount some cards, making deck-building (or drafting) a bit less stressful.
I find that the better that players are, the more they want the power-curve of all cards to be closer together, making evaluation harder and encouraging deckbuilding to be about synergy and specific deck needs rather than simply putting in the most powerful cards of your colour. MtG has to differentiate between all abilities on the 'spectrum' though and I like being able to beat someone worse than me, despite not being very good myself.
If MtG became the game that forum-posters and pros often seem to ask for, there wouldn't be much differentiation in skill levels until you'd reached a certain point.
If you made a set of the 250 best cards in Magic history, cards #225 - 250 would be unplayable because they'd get the snot beaten out of them by cards #1 - 100.
Actually, this makes me wonder about the Cube format (which I have never played or designed for). Do people intentionally stick cards like Chimney Imp into their Cubes? I imagine that, for a particular Cube, certain cards are less likely to be played--do those cards get replaced or deleted? Is a hidden strategy seeded into the card selections to make the apparently weaker cards worth choosing?
You're watching a horror/thriller. They're ramping up the tension, you can feel it. There are 3 things that can happen here...
Not knowing what will happen is what makes them scary and thus exiting and fun. If #3 was removed, those scenes would be a lot less scary because you're certain something will happen, you just need to brace yourself for when it happens. There would be no surprise, as you know for certain the director planted a moment of something happening there. The same can be said about evaluating magic cards.
This is a nicely constructed analogy. I think I get what you're saying--in order for "looks unplayable but has hidden uses" to mean anything, there have to be cards that actually are unplayable. Otherwise, there are just obvious good cards and less obvious good cards. I think your analogy falls down in a few places, though:
1. The horror/thriller can only pull off that trick on the first viewing. Magic is designed to be played multiple times. 2. I don't think surprise and discovery are quite the same thing. Regardless, discovery still exists without #3. Instead of discovering whether a card is playable, a player can discover why a card is playable. In fact, because anyone can look up card prices online, the "whether" is often obvious. (This Jace, the Mind Sculptor card is pretty expensive; it must be really good!) 3. As has been mentioned before, cards aren't necessarily playable or unplayable in a vaccuum; sometimes they are situationally so. 4. There isn't any discovery to be had when a card is obviously unplayable. To quote Extra Credits, "choice is about overcoming internal conflict." If the card is obviously unplayable, there's no conflict--the correct decision will always be to not play the card. For there to be conflict, the card must be useful in some kind of situation.
There are many levels to look at Magic. At the set level, at the booster level, at the playing-a-game-of-magic level, etc. Perhaps we're discussion different levels here.
I do think this is the heart of the problem. You seem to be discussing at the "playing-a-game-of-magic" level where players can effectively ignore bad cards by simply not including them in their decks. But then, if players are ignoring the cards, that brings us back to why design them in the first place?
And they detract from the Limited experience, as well.
Well this is where I disagree, as the "Limited experience" is something shaped by more than individual cards. A 'the whole bigger than the sum of the parts' thingy.
I agree with you here, TobyornotToby. As you mentioned before, sometimes you do have those situations where you have to choose from among three bad cards to be the last card in your Limited deck. Or you have to decide whether it's better to splash for that off-color bomb or stick to weaker cards with a more consistent mana base.
Art and flavor text are purely additive. They don't remove rules text from cards to make room for flavor text, after all. An unplayable card, however, is subtractive; it's effectively a blank. It removes a card in the booster pack; it removes a card from the set; it removes a card from your card pool in Limited.
This is true, which is why we're having this discussion (should unplayable cards exist?) and not that discussion (should flavor text exist?). However, I was merely using this point to refute your statement, "elements without gameplay value have no reason to exist".
Remember Zac Hill's hypothetical Raging Centaur? Bad cards are like the ": Lose 10 life" ability. Even if they're additive in the sense of being an extra option, their psychological impact is negative--they're actually worse than having no gameplay value. This is true at the booster and set level regardless of whether the bad card takes a rare or common slot.
It's very difficult to qualify 'unplayable'. Things that are strictly inferior to other options in the same format... Cards that would still be fair, even underpowered, at one or more mana cheaper... Cards which serve no role in any deck, or serve a role better performed by another card in the same format...
A legacy burn deck plays a lot of cards strictly inferior to Lighning Bolt , but it's for the better. I'm at a loss thinking about such cases for limited (Skillful Lunge and Zealous Strike are not in the same environment for example, even being just a set apart), unless you count rarities? But rarities have a gameplay value in limited.
Many cards would be fair for a mana cheaper, many cards that are regulary played already.
"Having no role in any deck" seems like an interesting qualification for "unplayable".
I wish I could be more helpful here. In Pokémon, tiers are generally standardized by one of the competitive battling websites (read: Smogon.com) through playtesting, tournament results, and community opinion. The "serves a role better performed by another Pokémon" reasoning does come up fairly often, though.
I'm not sure there's a way to meaningfully define "having no role in any deck." I mean, I'd gladly take the 3 mana vanilla 1/1 Wolf if I need to chump-block a Homicidal Brute .
I still have no clue how to do Multi-Quote other than just copy and pasting each person I want to quote, so I'm going the lazy route here. Also to keep my post shorter.
@TobyOrNotToby:
Your Horror Movie example is a good one, and tempts me to change my position. Yet I still feel that it's better to be able to go back to any given card and eventually find a use for it, rather than occasionally have "never touch this card again" be the actual, valid answer. It's exciting to finally crack the puzzle, after all.
Yes, commons are easy to pick up, so having a common slot wasted isn't that big a deal. I, too, have stopped bothering with booster packs, but it is in large part because the commons and uncommons have gotten so much less Constructed viable these days. In Time Spiral, I would buy a bunch of boosters and put many of the cards I opened into decks, or build new decks with the cards. I've tried doing the same thing recently, a few times, and found that if I'm lucky, maybe two or three cards in the pack will be worth a spot in a Constructed deck, and that's counting the rare.
Obviously this isn't proof that unplayable cards have gotten more commonplace, since many of those commons I discount are good in Limited. Still, opening a card that would literally be better if replaced with a second basic land is never a good feeling, easily replaceable or not.
Fair point about the Limited experience. I merely meant that unplayable cards decrease your card pool in Limited, rather than being another situationally useful sideboard card.
I understood your point about flavor text and art. Perhaps I should qualify my original point: "Gameplay elements that affect gameplay yet aren't actually playable shouldn't exist."
@Bezman
A fair defense of unplayable cards in Limited. I still feel that this role could be just as equally served by having cards that are only good in some situations, so you can discount them if you don't want to play that type of deck, or don't have the cards to go with them.
I'm not advocating a flat power curve. I'm just advocating that cards which literally serve no role except to be bad, unplayable cards, shouldn't exist. There could still be a range of cards from Primeval Titan to Craw Wurm , since those are playable at all points on their spectrum (at least in Limited).
@notthephonz
Welcome to the discussion!
Good counterpoint to the horror movie metaphor.
The Limited experience isn't necessarily served by having unplayable cards. Having to choose from among three bad cards for the final place in your deck would still exist without unplayable cards. What unplayable cards do is take a spot in your card pool and give absolutely nothing back. You wouldn't even look to run them if they were the last card in your chosen colors; you'd be better off running another land. I'm not talking about bad or weak cards; I'm talking about cards that will never be played. This does mean most creatures don't count as unplayable, because no matter how bad they can still chump block or attack.
Agreed with the Zac Hill Raging Centaur analogy. When a person opens a card that is completely unplayable, it feels like Wizards of the Coast is insulting their intelligence. "We think you're dumb enough to fall into the trap of playing this." And for the people who do fall into the trap of playing it, when they eventually find out just how bad the card is, they feel even more insulted, or at least embarassed.
I know it's hard to define "having no role in any deck", which is why I added the second point, "or a role that is better served by another card in the same format". So yes, you might want that 3-mana 1/1, but you'd be better off running almost any other 3-drop creature in the format for that role.
1. The horror/thriller can only pull off that trick on the first viewing. Magic is designed to be played multiple times. 2. I don't think surprise and discovery are quite the same thing. Regardless, discovery still exists without #3. Instead of discovering whether a card is playable, a player can discover why a card is playable. In fact, because anyone can look up card prices online, the "whether" is often obvious. (This Jace, the Mind Sculptor card is pretty expensive; it must be really good!) 3. As has been mentioned before, cards aren't necessarily playable or unplayable in a vaccuum; sometimes they are situationally so. 4. There isn't any discovery to be had when a card is obviously unplayable. To quote Extra Credits, "choice is about overcoming internal conflict." If the card is obviously unplayable, there's no conflict--the correct decision will always be to not play the card. For there to be conflict, the card must be useful in some kind of situation.
1. True. Luckily for Wizards it takes quite a few drafts/weeks before a format is 'figured out'. However, they've published a number of articles now on how the SCG circuit is endangering their model as people are playing Magic at a hugher frequency than before (and thus formats take less weeks to be figured out). It could be that they need to change their current model in the future, and this 'trick' doesn't work anymore. 2. Certainly, a game without unplayable cards is still functioning and good. They're not essential. I'm just saying the game is better with than without them. 3. Not sure in what way this makes the analogy fall. 4. But what is obvious and what isn't? There are only a few truly obvious unplayable cards. Many are not obvious but still unplayable, others seem obvious but are actually playable.
Remember Zac Hill's hypothetical Raging Centaur? Bad cards are like the ": Lose 10 life" ability. Even if they're additive in the sense of being an extra option, their psychological impact is negative--they're actually worse than having no gameplay value. This is true at the booster and set level regardless of whether the bad card takes a rare or common slot.
Yeah, again, that's why we're having this discussion. Unplayable cards definitely add something negative to the game. My opinion is just that their benefits outweigh that. It's just that it adds positive things on different levels than where it adds negative things.
Yes, commons are easy to pick up, so having a common slot wasted isn't that big a deal. I, too, have stopped bothering with booster packs, but it is in large part because the commons and uncommons have gotten so much less Constructed viable these days. In Time Spiral, I would buy a bunch of boosters and put many of the cards I opened into decks, or build new decks with the cards. I've tried doing the same thing recently, a few times, and found that if I'm lucky, maybe two or three cards in the pack will be worth a spot in a Constructed deck, and that's counting the rare.
True. I do wonder how much this has to do with New World Order. With commons being simpler, there are less knobs to turn for variation, so it's harder to make something that isn't just strictly worse than another card.
Fair point about the Limited experience. I merely meant that unplayable cards decrease your card pool in Limited, rather than being another situationally useful sideboard card.
Yes this could theoretically be a problem, but I don't think it is one in practice. Sometimes it's a foil basic. Sometimes it's a card in a color you're not in. Sometimes it's a card playable only with synergies you don't have. A limited pool can handle a few "never-looked-at-again" slots. When the boosters went from 15 to 14 cards, the world didn't end either.
I understood your point about flavor text and art. Perhaps I should qualify my original point: "Gameplay elements that affect gameplay yet aren't actually playable shouldn't exist."
Just out of curiosity, are you in the "Incite shouldn't change colors" camp?
: Lose 10 life" ability. Even if they're additive in the sense of being an extra option, their psychological impact is negative--they're actually worse than having no gameplay value. This is true at the booster and set level regardless of whether the bad card takes a rare or common slot.