Look, you've been arguing 2 things up until now, and here again.
Unplayable cards have no impact.
The impact unplayable cards have can also be achieved through other means.
The second is kinda contradicting the first. So what is your overall stance? Let's continue discussing only that one and not both.
Look at it this way.
Let's say you're hungry, and you have two choices of what to eat. They are otherwise identical, but meal A is stale and meal B is fresh. Sure, meal A will serve a purpose (satisfying your hunger), but there's no reason to choose it if there's a less negative option. It is pointless to offer the choice of meal A when meal B is available.
My point is similar for unplayable cards (at least, cards designed with intent to be unplayable). Unplayable cards do fulfill a role: the role of allowing a lesser skilled player to learn what works and what doesn't. However, this role is just as well served by having playable, yet situational, cards. It is just as well served by having otherwise weak build-arounds. Since there is a better option for fulfilling this role, there's no reason to choose the negative option.
So any time I said unplayable cards had no reason to exist, this is what I meant.
However, a different thing is happening in the example above. The statements are made in two different contexts. The first is about an unplayable card's impact on the game; the second is about the card's impact on the players.
An unplayable card, having achieved its goal (its impact on the player) by showing them that it's not as good as they thought, now has no secondary impact (on the game). Once it's solved, it's effectively blank. Since there are options that yield the first result while still having an impact in the second, I feel my above point applies: there's no reason to choose "A and not B" when you can have "A and B".
Let's say you're hungry, and you have two choices of what to eat. They are otherwise identical, but meal A is stale and meal B is fresh. Sure, meal A will serve a purpose (satisfying your hunger), but there's no reason to choose it if there's a less negative option. It is pointless to offer the choice of meal A when meal B is available.
My point is similar for unplayable cards (at least, cards designed with intent to be unplayable). Unplayable cards do fulfill a role: the role of allowing a lesser skilled player to learn what works and what doesn't. However, this role is just as well served by having playable, yet situational, cards. It is just as well served by having otherwise weak build-arounds. Since there is a better option for fulfilling this role, there's no reason to choose the negative option.
So any time I said unplayable cards had no reason to exist, this is what I meant.
However, a different thing is happening in the example above. The statements are made in two different contexts. The first is about an unplayable card's impact on the game; the second is about the card's impact on the players.
An unplayable card, having achieved its goal (its impact on the player) by showing them that it's not as good as they thought, now has no secondary impact (on the game). Once it's solved, it's effectively blank. Since there are options that yield the first result while still having an impact in the second, I feel my above point applies: there's no reason to choose "A and not B" when you can have "A and B".
tl;dr: I choose the blue option
Ah, but the role you're talking about (which I've bolded) is not the one I was talking about. Not sure if this was detrimental to the discussion thus far. The impact, the goal, the role, of unplayable cards that I've been arguing for: Favor of the Woods has an impact on our experience of Gnaw to the Bone .
Also, even though I really do not want to sidetrack this, weak situational and build-around cards do NOT serve the role you're proposing "just as well". Magic is incredibly complex, and the learning curve for a beginner is something to take into account. An obviously unplayable card is easier identifyable as such and thus more fit as a learning tool. This is not an argument against your whole argument, just against the red part.
Okay, here is the clincher. I've been waiting to say this.
The "cam girl" this was inspired by was just a girl from a social networking website, Stickam. Her name was TinyTerror and she was just a regular girl who was on her webcam, totally unrelated to any type of adult content.
I hope you all feel really smart now.
This is like someone coming into class with a bloody nose and everyone's like "Jeez what happened to you" and they're like "I ran into a wall" and everyone laughs at them for being an idiot but then at the end of the class they say "HAHA JUST KIDDING I PUNCHED MYSELF IN THE FACE!!!!!! TALK ABOUT OWNED HAHAHAHAHA"
I really enjoy imagining this from Kevin's perspective. Because in Kevin's world, Rosewater actually reads everything he types. Mark is sitting there right now, reading this, and thinking "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled. . ." Or some such. He chuckles low, then clicks on "The Best Of KEVINSET" and says "Yes, this'll do just fine. A busty lady with banding who deals direct damage to Zones!? Why this will be the star of my next set, and no one will ever believe you Kevin." Then he closes his Macbook, so his servant may move it out of the way, while another servant puts a Fetal Richard Garfield Clone lathered in Steak Sauce in front of him. Then Mark Feasts.
Sorin walked into the chamber where his newly wed bride, Vampy, awaited. A beam of moonlight illuminated his brilliant silver hair as he strode with confidence towards the bed. His shirtless body showcased his powerful abdominal muscles and he was wearing jeans with holes in the knees.
Packs should have more bad cards (more borderline playable commons, lower the average power level of uncommons/rares). Limited was way more fun when it was hard to get playables. And its hard to believe they could ever test a set where significantly more commons were constructed playable then in current sets, so its not like this would really impact constructed.
The impact, the goal, the role, of unplayable cards that I've been arguing for: Favor of the Woods has an impact on our experience of Gnaw to the Bone .
I understand, but I have to respectfully disagree. That impact, unlike the one you point out, is just as well served without R&D making it a goal to design unplayable cards. R&D, being a much smaller group, typically makes mistakes in which archetypes will be the most popular, which will get played, and which cards will be used in those archetypes. As such, they'll already be making cards that, while they serve a purpose, are still unplayable because that purpose winds up being unnecessary. Remember Overgrown Battlement in Infect? Sure, the question is now "Is this card playable in practice?" rather than "Was this card designed to be playable?", but I believe the impact is the same. People will look at a card and discount it as a mistake of R&D's, deeming it unplayable. Then, some of those cards (the Gnaw to the Bone s) will wind up getting re-evaluated later, and surprising people.
In fact, taking out the intentionally unplayable cards gives every such borderline-playable card a chance to be surprising, rather than only some of them, though in both cases not all of them will actualize that potential like Gnaw to the Bone did.
Also, even though I really do not want to sidetrack this, weak situational and build-around cards do NOT serve the role you're proposing "just as well". Magic is incredibly complex, and the learning curve for a beginner is something to take into account. An obviously unplayable card is easier identifyable as such and thus more fit as a learning tool.
Yeah, I suppose you're right.
It is possible to have cards be great teaching tools while still not being completely unplayable. Take the lucky charms, Dragon's Claw and friends, for example. They appeal to lesser-skilled players who overvalue life gain, thus leading to them being played when they really shouldn't. Eventually, those players learn that life gain isn't as powerful as they'd thought, and the cards have taught a valuable lesson in comparative power level. However, the cards do still show up, from time to time, in situations such as a sideboard card for the mirror-match in some decks.
Where I am forced to concede is that such designs are likely few and far between. It is a very fine line between "simple, appealing to lesser-skilled players, and niche playable" and "simple, appealing to lesser-skilled players, and unplayable". As such, I must begrudgingly accept that, in order for this goal to be met in every set, R&D will have to seed terrible cards that a more-skilled player will immediately gloss over. I don't have to like them, but I guess I can no longer deny that they are an inevitable consequence of design. Well-argued.
Packs should have more bad cards (more borderline playable commons, lower the average power level of uncommons/rares). Limited was way more fun when it was hard to get playables. And its hard to believe they could ever test a set where significantly more commons were constructed playable then in current sets, so its not like this would really impact constructed.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't recent sets (such as Innistrad and Rise of the Eldrazi) been called the "best Limited environments ever"? This would seem to imply that the majority of drafters disagree with you: easier access to playable cards, with more emphasis on synergy than on power level, is better than forced scarcity via a dearth of playables.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but haven't recent sets (such as Innistrad and Rise of the Eldrazi) been called the "best Limited environments ever"? This would seem to imply that the majority of drafters disagree with you: easier access to playable cards, with more emphasis on synergy than on power level, is better than forced scarcity via a dearth of playables.
New limited has also produced the worst limited environment ever, Zendikar. I'd guess the majority of players like "constructed style" games more than limited games, which can somewhat explain the popularity of modern limited. Old limited wasn't really focused on power level, so much as it tested skills like combat math and card evaluation (like fundamentals as opposed to being able to pick a bunch of cards with the same keyword) in a way that no other format does. All the decks in new limited play like boring constructed decks. Its way easier to draft a deck, and combat is way easier. Not to say that new limited is has no redeeming qualities, I really like cube, which is pretty much what limited has turned into. But we've had a lot of sets now that play like a cube, I just wish we'd have some that would actually play like real limited.
This probably isn't a realistic desire, since I can't imagine a format like Masques or Invasion or Kamigawa is new player friendly, and it makes the transition between limited and constructed much more difficult (if that makes any sense). But I would really like a limited format that actually rewards you for reading signals and being able to figure out difficult attacks, instead of rewarding you for picking rares and being able to count to 20 faster than your opponent.
That impact, unlike the one you point out, is just as well served without R&D making it a goal to design unplayable cards.
I don't follow what you're saying here, what you're referring to with the 'that' and 'the one you point out'. As a reply to something I point out, it seems to refer to the same thing twice?
R&D, being a much smaller group, typically makes mistakes in which archetypes will be the most popular, which will get played, and which cards will be used in those archetypes. As such, they'll already be making cards that, while they serve a purpose, are still unplayable because that purpose winds up being unnecessary. Remember Overgrown Battlement in Infect?
I'm only talking about limited here. The majority of cards aren't exactly designed to be played in constructed in the first place. Wizards' time and energy seems to be more focussed on limited, and I don't think they make as much mistakes there. It's a much more controlled environment, with the added balance that an overpowered strategy will be overdrafted.
Sure, the question is now "Is this card playable in practice?" rather than "Was this card designed to be playable?", but I believe the impact is the same.
So wait, are you talking about constructed evaluation here? Because that would indeed be a wholly different dynamic?
It is possible to have cards be great teaching tools while still not being completely unplayable. Take the lucky charms, Dragon's Claw and friends, for example. They appeal to lesser-skilled players who overvalue life gain, thus leading to them being played when they really shouldn't. Eventually, those players learn that life gain isn't as powerful as they'd thought, and the cards have taught a valuable lesson in comparative power level.
But that's not the lesson unplayable cards have to teach. Their purpose is to make the new player that jams the charms in his deck feel smart. Even he can look at Aven Trooper and say "Hey I'm seeing that this is a weak card, I'm not going to play this" and make him feel happy. Or at least he finds out way before he finds out about the charms.
Arguments could be made about how necessary/important this purpose is, but it certainly is a purpose that only blatantly unplayable cards can fulfill.
That is just either incompetent or trollish set design, wherein a subtheme for the commons is woefully under-supported (incompetent), or a subtheme is intentionally engineered to force players to pick awful cards that end up shoeboxed forever after a draft ends (trollish).
That impact, unlike the one you point out, is just as well served without R&D making it a goal to design unplayable cards.
I don't follow what you're saying here, what you're referring to with the 'that' and 'the one you point out'. As a reply to something I point out, it seems to refer to the same thing twice?
Sorry, somehow I forgot to add the essential "later on" after "you point out". It should have said: "That impact, unlike the one you point out later on, is just as well served..."
I'm only talking about limited here. The majority of cards aren't exactly designed to be played in constructed in the first place. Wizards' time and energy seems to be more focussed on limited, and I don't think they make as much mistakes there. It's a much more controlled environment, with the added balance that an overpowered strategy will be overdrafted.
They may not make as many mistakes, but that doesn't mean people won't think they do. It is a failing of human nature to think "I could do this better than the pros". I, myself, fall into that trap often. Such as when I once said "They shouldn't design unplayable cards."
But that's not the lesson unplayable cards have to teach. Their purpose is to make the new player that jams the charms in his deck feel smart. Even he can look at Aven Trooper and say "Hey I'm seeing that this is a weak card, I'm not going to play this" and make him feel happy. Or at least he finds out way before he finds out about the charms.
Arguments could be made about how necessary/important this purpose is, but it certainly is a purpose that only blatantly unplayable cards can fulfill.
So you're saying that the purpose of unplayable cards is to be so bad that even the least skilled player knows not to play them? Sorry, but that's a bit ridiculous. There's no lesson to be learned, just as there's no lesson to be learned in looking at a cliff and saying "I should probably not jump off of that."
They may not make as many mistakes, but that doesn't mean people won't think they do. It is a failing of human nature to think "I could do this better than the pros". I, myself, fall into that trap often. Such as when I once said "They shouldn't design unplayable cards."
I don't see what effect on limited you're getting at here exactly, and how it 'serves it just as well'.
So you're saying that the purpose of unplayable cards is to be so bad that even the least skilled player knows not to play them? Sorry, but that's a bit ridiculous. There's no lesson to be learned, just as there's no lesson to be learned in looking at a cliff and saying "I should probably not jump off of that."
I'm saying that's a purpose. The lesson learned is "I should evaluate cards and think about what to include and what not to".
Btw, do you think the must attack "reminder text" on Ulamog's Crusher is ridiculous?
