And that's the difference between discovery and surprise I've talked about with notthephonz. I agree it isn't needed. But that's not what you've said, I think. You've said "I just disagree that the something couldn't be added in other ways".
I was counting what you call "surprise" as a sense of discovery. My point is that, instead of allowing players to discover that a card is playable, they could instead set it up so that every card is playable, and the sense of discovery comes from finding how to use it. On the individual level, there could still be cards you consider unplayable, but eventually any of them could surprise you when you find out that they're actually playable in a certain situation. If objectively unplayable cards exist, then not every card has this potential for individual surprise.
Very few situational cards are really build-around. I can see a pack with Furor of the Bitten and Nightbird's Clutches which are perfectly playable but not for me. What you're saying will still happen without unplayable cards. And again, because the number of actual unplayable cards is so low, the number of times the above is caused by unplayables is also just a tiny faction.
They don't have to be build-around to take your deck in a new direction. You see a Furor of the Bitten and no other red cards worth taking, and now you're leaning more towards an aggressive beatdown than a removal-fueled control. If that Furor of the Bitten were instead something like "Enchanted creature is a Red Devil in addition to its other types", then instead you just have a dead card.
That's not an effect on gameplay, it's an effect on card evaluation. And like I said before, you don't need unplayable cards to be surprised by an individual card's playability. Just knowing that every card is playable in some situation doesn't mean you know what those situations are.
The game is meant to be played. That's where people get their enjoyment from, and why they keep coming back for more. Card design is not so much about individual cards, but environments as a whole. As long as a card contributes to the game, it's worth printing.
A card that will never be played in the game doesn't contribute to the game. Even once you've "solved" it by realizing it's unplayable, now it's just something to be ignored, which still doesn't contribute anything. It's the difference between "this sucks" and never look at it again, and "this sucks, oh wait, it's good here" now it contributes to the game forevermore.
Yes, this makes a lot of sense. The power level of the cards is redistributed from the lower rarities to the higher ones. It's pretty much exactly the opposite of the closer power-curve Bezman was describing. In other words, the game is becoming less Spike-friendly and more Timmy-friendly. I realize New World Order is supposed to help acquire new players, but I don't think new players are necessarily Timmies and older players are necessarily Spikes.
I wouldn't say that overpowered mythic rares are more Timmy friendly than Spike friendly. Jace, the Mind Sculptor was absolutely nuts, but it was a Spike card through and through, and made a lot of Spikes happy.
Going back to the horror/thriller analogy, you might know that someone in the room is the murderer, but you don't know who--or you know who, but the story is about trying to prove it. You don't need to be surprised by the murder itself taking place.
I like this analogy. Knowing that a murder took place and someone did it doesn't ruin the mystery; knowing that a card is playable doesn't ruin the mystery of how to play it.
Well, if there are no picks for you late-pack because nothing's left in your color, that could mean too many drafters were competing for that color. If there are no picks for you late-pack because of stuff like Evil Presence , then it's just because of random chance. It's a matter of something bad happening that you had control over (for example, by reading the drafting signals better) versus something bad you had no control over
Well-put. The existence of unplayable cards puts more emphasis on (bad) luck than on skill.
First-picking a Baneslayer Angel doesn't have the same reasoning; you first-pick it because it's just flatout stronger than anything else. Rosewater wrote about the balance of rock-paper-scissors strategies being key to a successful game; adding in nuclear bombs and nuclear duds detracts from the elegance and strength of the design.
Exactly. More powerful higher-end cards also subtracts from skill, putting more emphasis on luck. Instead of balancing a color in Limited by throwing in a couple of extremely weak cards, maybe they should instead go after the top-end. Though its rarity restricts it to only showing up in (and, in many people's opinions, ruining) a few games.
Rosewater's always talking about Magic standing the test of time, but looking at Magic in terms of Limited, it becomes apparent that Magic's design is in direct conflict with doing so. It isn't one game that stands the test of time but a series of related games.
Interesting. When you put it that way, I dislike the increasing focus on Limited even more.
Well, this has more to do with us not having come up with a concrete definition for what constitutes "weak," "bad," "situational," or "playable." I'm not sure this is possible, which is why I've been sticking to mentioning cards the developers have explicitly stated were designed to be bad. The best I can think of is to define playability as how often the card appears in decklists in tournaments or Magic Online.
Maybe the way to define playability is to limit the scope. If a card is designed for Limited, but never gets played in Limited, then it's unplayable. This brings in the new problem of "How do we know for which format a card is designed?" but I feel that's a little easier to answer than trying to determine whether a card is unplayed in every format under the sun.
Well, if there are no picks for you late-pack because nothing's left in your color, that could mean too many drafters were competing for that color. If there are no picks for you late-pack because of stuff like Evil Presence , then it's just because of random chance. It's a matter of something bad happening that you had control over (for example, by reading the drafting signals better) versus something bad you had no control over
Well-put. The existence of unplayable cards puts more emphasis on (bad) luck than on skill.
I think you guys missed the point Bezman was making earlier. There are more than two levels of skill, and different sorts of cards are needed to emphasize the various distinctions between them. The existence of "unplayable" cards may not help distinguish between between good players and decent players, as neither group will attempt to play those cards. However, "unplayable" cards may be ideal for letting decent players triumph over bad players. If those "unplayable" cards did not exist, the decent players would lose to bad players with good luck a lot more often.
For example, this afternoon I played in an AVR sealed tournament. After losing my first match to B/R aggro, I was paired against a guy with three Angel's Mercy , etc, in his deck. The presence of those nearly-dead cards gave me the edge I needed to beat him, even when he played a Dark Impostor I had no way to deal with. If every single card he had to choose from for deckbuilding had been at least a mediocre creature or bad removal spell, it's doubtful if I could have overcome the power of his bomb rare, and I think I'm a pretty good player.
However, "unplayable" cards may be ideal for letting decent players triumph over bad players. If those "unplayable" cards did not exist, the decent players would lose to bad players with good luck a lot more often.
Just what the game needs: more ways for less-skilled players to be defeated by better players. Because better deck-building, play skill and sideboard skill isn't enough to help the better player win.
I'm sorry your opponent opened a bomb rare, but that's the way Limited works. Plus, the fact that a less-skilled player can get lucky and win is actually a positive feature of the game, since newer players would get discouraged if they could never win.
However, "unplayable" cards may be ideal for letting decent players triumph over bad players. If those "unplayable" cards did not exist, the decent players would lose to bad players with good luck a lot more often.
Just what the game needs: more ways for less-skilled players to be defeated by better players. Because better deck-building, play skill and sideboard skill isn't enough to help the better player win.
What? What I just described is a more skilled player using better deck-building to defeat a less-skilled player. Having cards that mediocre players can tell aren't effective enough to use but that bad players cannot is one way the game distinguishes between those two tiers of players, and learning to recognize those cards is an achievement for the bad players.
It seems like you've been saying, "No one would ever play those cards, so they serve no purpose and shouldn't have been printed." However, I'm trying to point out that people _do_ play those cards, and they do serve a purpose. By asking for a flatter power curve, you're removing some of the more easily acquired skill from the game. That, in turn, steepens the learning curve and raises the barrier to entry. If practice evaluating cards doesn't benefit you until you can recognize subtle nuances in utility, then why bother to play and improve at all?
I'm sorry your opponent opened a bomb rare, but that's the way Limited works. Plus, the fact that a less-skilled player can get lucky and win is actually a positive feature of the game, since newer players would get discouraged if they could never win.
I'm aware of all of that. The game has to walk the line of rewarding skill enough that it matters, but not so much that there is no point for players of disparate skill levels to ever play each other.
That's not an effect on gameplay, it's an effect on card evaluation.
To be fair, some people--like Bezman and fractal--consider card evaluation part of the game. Lots of games have elements which might or might not be considered essential. For example, is golf just about testing the players' ability to hit the ball, or does it also test the physical endurance required to walk to each hole? Is the physical dexterity required to hit button combinations an essential part of fighting games, or are they more about knowing which moves to use in certain situations?
In my opinion, having gameplay options that exist solely to be bad adds an unnecessary and artificial level of difficulty. It's sort of like what Hill said in Bringing Flashback Back: "Oh, if you want to win, you shouldn't summon that awesome Demon Angel Dragon or cast that awesome spell that makes your guys 27/27 or assemble that awesome combination that deals 62 damage to each opponent for every Squirrel Penguin Cat Lord you have in play; instead, you should cast Mind Rot ." Whatever the bad card was, there was something about it that attracted the player. If the card turns out to be deliberately unplayable, then that attraction was a lie.
Which brings us back to the problem of scope. In a fighting game, it usually isn't a problem for a move or even an entire character to be designed to be unplayable. I think this is because fighting games are purchased as wholes and characters are selected as wholes. On the other hand, in a customizable game like Magic, cards are purchased, traded, banned, etc. on an individual level. And of course, there are other reasons this works in fighting games--a expert player can still win with a joke character, whereas an expert Magic player will be much worse off if his deck consists entirely of Squire s.
I wouldn't say that overpowered mythic rares are more Timmy friendly than Spike friendly. Jace, the Mind Sculptor was absolutely nuts, but it was a Spike card through and through, and made a lot of Spikes happy.
Maybe the way to define playability is to limit the scope. If a card is designed for Limited, but never gets played in Limited, then it's unplayable. This brings in the new problem of "How do we know for which format a card is designed?" but I feel that's a little easier to answer than trying to determine whether a card is unplayed in every format under the sun.
Well, sure, but if it's possible to access Magic Online data for Limited, it shouldn't be too difficult to access that data for Constructed formats as well. In fact, I think I remember reading somewhere that Wizards compares what's being played in the Casual rooms to what's being played in the Tournament rooms to get an idea of what's out there that people want to play but isn't doing well.
However, "unplayable" cards may be ideal for letting decent players triumph over bad players. If those "unplayable" cards did not exist, the decent players would lose to bad players with good luck a lot more often.
Eh, this sounds like circular logic to me. "We need bad cards to identify bad players, where 'bad player' is defined as a player who would use those cards." Aside from that, though, a flatter power curve would keep lesser skilled players from winning just by opening bomb rares, too.
By asking for a flatter power curve, you're removing some of the more easily acquired skill from the game. That, in turn, steepens the learning curve and raises the barrier to entry. If practice evaluating cards doesn't benefit you until you can recognize subtle nuances in utility, then why bother to play and improve at all?
If it's that easily acquired, I would hesitate to call it skill. To invoke Hill again, it's sort of like the "skill" of knowing how to say "damage on the stack" when that was legal--it feels artificial. I imagine that a flatter power curve would steepen the learning curve, but that's what makes a game deep. For example, it's very easy to know that a queen is worth more than a rook in chess, but what makes a player skilled is knowing how to use the queen or rook.
Well, if there are no picks for you late-pack because nothing's left in your color, that could mean too many drafters were competing for that color. If there are no picks for you late-pack because of stuff like Evil Presence , then it's just because of random chance. It's a matter of something bad happening that you had control over (for example, by reading the drafting signals better) versus something bad you had no control over, which is one of the things Rosewater mentions in Kind Acts of Randomness. Competing over a color is also a more inherent conflict to Draft whereas having cards randomly be bad is an artificial conflict. In fact, as admitted in LaPille's article, the unplayable cards are deliberately designed to band-aid unbalanced formats.
Not every pack contains the same number of cards of each color. Perhaps there just isn't any black common there, something bad you had no control over. The game can handle that. Just as I think the game can handle the negativeness of an unplayable card.
Eh, this swings both ways, though. If you don't care enough about an individual bad card for it to detract from your experience, you can't say that it adds to your experience either.
Of course it does! This is the whole point of sums greater than the parts.
Yes, the Baneslayer Angel would most certainly have been an auto-pick in Draft...which is sort of my point. Getting back to Cube Draft, LaPille mentions that he would first-pick a Chrome Mox from the hypothetical pack because it doesn't commit him to anything and he values mana acceleration highly. First-picking a Baneslayer Angel doesn't have the same reasoning; you first-pick it because it's just flatout stronger than anything else.
I never said you would not pick it, I said you might not play it. If the person to your right opens a white card also and cuts it severe, you might end up with a red/black deck and thus not playing the Angel. That's why draft is more interesting than sealed.
Eh, personally, I don't think the fact that Limited formats rotate so quickly is an excuse to do a bad job. But like I said, ephemerality is a given since we're dealing with a trading card game. Rosewater's always talking about Magic standing the test of time, but looking at Magic in terms of Limited, it becomes apparent that Magic's design is in direct conflict with doing so. It isn't one game that stands the test of time but a series of related games.
Would Magic be a better game if Wizards spent twice as much time developing it? I'm sure it would. But they can't just make the best game. They have to make the best game with the resources they have.
Some things are just not meant to last, I don't see that as a bad job.
So we're all thinking at different scales again. On the other hand, a lot of the polarizing cards we're talking about demand to be evaluated on an individual level. As a few people pointed out in the Building on a Budget threads, sometimes there are situations where you can't make a budget version of a deck because the deck relies on an expensive card that can't be replaced. No other card can do the same job as Snapcaster Mage , for example.
But the thing that matters here is the deck that includes Snapcaster. Not just the card itself.
I was counting what you call "surprise" as a sense of discovery. My point is that, instead of allowing players to discover that a card is playable, they could instead set it up so that every card is playable, and the sense of discovery comes from finding how to use it.
Or how about both? =D I agree unplayable cards are not needed in the sense that they're not neccesary. I'm just saying the specific thing they add to the game is something nothing else could add. You can add something similar as you suggest and the game would be fine, I just rather have both.
If objectively unplayable cards exist, then not every card has this potential for individual surprise.
But that's the whole point of a game like Magic consisting of individual cards. Not every card has to do everything. Not every card has to have such a potential.
They don't have to be build-around to take your deck in a new direction. You see a Furor of the Bitten and no other red cards worth taking, and now you're leaning more towards an aggressive beatdown than a removal-fueled control. If that Furor of the Bitten were instead something like "Enchanted creature is a Red Devil in addition to its other types", then instead you just have a dead card.
A cow is an animal, an animal isn't a cow. I'm not discounting the times Furor of the Bitten presents a meaningful choice. I'm just showing the game can handle a few less choices in the cases it doesn't (or in the cases of an unplayable card).
That's not an effect on gameplay, it's an effect on card evaluation. And like I said before, you don't need unplayable cards to be surprised by an individual card's playability. Just knowing that every card is playable in some situation doesn't mean you know what those situations are.
As others have said, gameplay is more than actually playing a game of Magic. Unplayable cards are like seasoning/spice. No you don't need them, but they improve the overall thing.
A card that will never be played in the game doesn't contribute to the game. Even once you've "solved" it by realizing it's unplayable, now it's just something to be ignored, which still doesn't contribute anything. It's the difference between "this sucks" and never look at it again, and "this sucks, oh wait, it's good here" now it contributes to the game forevermore.
Not every piece of the game has to be everlasting. That's why we get new sets with new limited environments every year. Once you've "solved" it, it has done its job. Games are very much about experiences, inlcuding ephemeral ones.
I'm not advocating a flatter power curve. I'm merely saying that cards that are just plain worthless should not exist. That's eliminating maybe the bottom 1% of the power scale. Angel's Mercy isn't an unplayable card. Grave Exchange isn't an unplayable card. What I mean are cards like Favor of the Woods , where, once you realize how bad it is, there is literally no reason to ever play it.
Having weaker cards and stronger cards is fine; in fact, it's necessary. But having cards that serve no role but to be bad is annoying, and I personally feel the game would be better without them.
@notthephonz:
Card evaluation is part of the metagame; it's part of the game as a whole. What I meant was, a card in a game in which you play cards should be worth playing. It can serve other roles, but it should still serve that core role, no matter what.
@TobyornotToby:
There's a difference between being ephemeral and being negligible. Cards that are only good in Limited formats still impact the game for a little while. A card which isn't good in any format will never have an impact. Its only purpose is to be looked at once and henceforth ignored. You may feel that the singular time it's ever looked at is worth its inclusion; I do not.
You separate the objective surprise of a card actually being playable from the subjective surprise of finding out how to play a card. I don't believe the two are separate. Whether a card is actually playable or not, a person may look at it and deem it unplayable; then, later, that evaluation may change, which surprises him. However, if a card is objectively unplayable, that surprise will never happen; if a card is playable in some niche situation, that surprise could potentially happen, but it may not.
You're assuming that just because every card is designed to be playable in some situation that everyone will automatically know that every card is playable in their evaluation. This is not the case. In fact, even if every card is designed to be playable, not every card will be playable in practice. R&D often thinks a certain archetype will be more powerful or more popular than it winds up being. Cards designed for the archetypes that wind up never getting played will still be effectively unplayable. Thus, even if Wizards doesn't set out to make unplayable cards, you still get the surprises like Gnaw to the Bone .
I'm not arguing for a flatter power curve. I'm not arguing for all cards to be made transparently good. I'm not arguing for the removal of bad cards from the game. All I'm saying is that Wizards of the Coast should never, ever make it a goal to design a card that will never see play.
I'm not advocating a flatter power curve. I'm merely saying that cards that are just plain worthless should not exist. That's eliminating maybe the bottom 1% of the power scale.
Trimming off one tail of the distribution is making a flatter power curve.
Angel's Mercy isn't an unplayable card. Grave Exchange isn't an unplayable card. What I mean are cards like Favor of the Woods , where, once you realize how bad it is, there is literally no reason to ever play it.
Having weaker cards and stronger cards is fine; in fact, it's necessary. But having cards that serve no role but to be bad is annoying, and I personally feel the game would be better without them.
So there was definitely a long time when I would have agreed with you. My feeling now, however, is that people realizing that those cards are bad is actually an important role. The game would indeed be better for experienced players without them, but not for newer players. As MaRo likes to say, often the correct response to "I don't like that card" is "Well, that card isn't designed for you."
Which cards are unplayable depends upon the environment.
I don't disagree. I'm not saying cards that such cards never be printed. I'm just saying they should never be printed in places where they serve no purpose.
So there was definitely a long time when I would have agreed with you. My feeling now, however, is that people realizing that those cards are bad is actually an important role.
This is the reason I'm not saying they shouldn't print cards like the lucky charms (Angel's Feather ) in the core set. Cards that look better than they are have a role to play. However, you can have a card that looks better than it is without making that card unplayable. Maybe it's a sideboard card that a newer player runs maindeck, only to realize it's not good against most decks. Maybe it's a card that plays well when built-around, but is otherwise below the curve. Maybe it's just a card that is weaker than it looks. A card can be a teaching tool without being useless in gameplay.
There's a difference between being ephemeral and being negligible. Cards that are only good in Limited formats still impact the game for a little while. A card which isn't good in any format will never have an impact. Its only purpose is to be looked at once and henceforth ignored. You may feel that the singular time it's ever looked at is worth its inclusion; I do not.
You separate the objective surprise of a card actually being playable from the subjective surprise of finding out how to play a card. I don't believe the two are separate. Whether a card is actually playable or not, a person may look at it and deem it unplayable; then, later, that evaluation may change, which surprises him. However, if a card is objectively unplayable, that surprise will never happen; if a card is playable in some niche situation, that surprise could potentially happen, but it may not.
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.
Kicker Aggro (Invasion Block)
