The Biggest Lesson Magic: The Gathering Taught Game Designers

[@Orinn000]

Originally, Rarity was supposed to act as a second as a second limitation. Garfield never really expected anyone to just be able to mail-order an entire deck to play. Unfortunately, this has become one of the bad scenarios you outlined: pay the money for a top-tier deck, and you get to win more games. The joke about MTG Arena is that the most powerful card in the game is the credit card.

[@distractionmakers]

Yup. Unfortunately that is the case with far too many games these days.

[@LibertyMonk]

Huh. I've known that the reason there wasn't a card limit originally was because having 20 copies of a card (other than land) just wasn't imagined, but rarity as an extension is a wrinkle that didn't click. Combined with Ante, you're expected to have like 1-6 rares total in your deck, and any one of them might get lost to ante. Seems odd that they didn't design for Limited then, even though limited seems a lot closer to the imagined concept than constructed. I guess that would be redundant if it actually played out as imagined.

[@AngelusNielson]

I've heard it put "MTG is the original pay-to-win game."

[@QuicksilverSG]

Commander is really three overlapping formats, distinguished by card selection: * Casual Commander - No: stax, infinite loops, land destruction. Budget-friendly, no proxies. * Pay-to-win Commander - Casual plus pay-to-win cards > $25. Proxies require negotiation. * Competitive EDH (cEDH) - Play-to-win, nothing legal excluded, proxies taken for granted. Prominent promoters of Pay-to-Win Commander are WotC, online card dealers, and corporate-sponsored KZbinrs.

[@demiurge2501]

@@QuicksilverSGmodern horizons is the “pay to win constructed” set lol

[@benpuffer7891]

I like how in the Sorcery TCG the amount of a card you can have in your deck corresponds to rarity. 4- Common, 3-Uncommon, 2-Rare, 1-Unique.

[@patricksullivan6988]

I like this rule. I've wanted something like it for MtG.

[@t1junox]

I've been talking to my group about this idea for a format for YEARS. And you are telling me it already exists?? Glad I'm not the only one that's thought of it.

[@lostalone9320]

It's not a bad idea at all, but you HAVE to design the whole game around this idea. It inherently creates a game with more variance, which isn't bad but it is definitely different and you can't just overlay that onto MtG. For example - Oko (or JTMS or whatever) is much less of a problem if you only have one copy to use. But when your opponent has that one copy in play then its still a huge beating. And your own top tier threats and answers are also higher rarity, so you are less likely to have them. You also have to make card draw much less common, and effects like scry etc equally less common, because now card quality and selection are much more powerful, not just giving you more resources but also more opportunities to get the really powerful resources. On top of that, now you have less access to your top couple of powerful cards, there is way less reward for sticking to your colours. Players will naturally stretch mana bases and include powerful cards from other colours to keep the density of threats high, and that has to be planned for. At least in an MtG context, this would probably also be the death of combo decks, fullstop. Combo is pretty dead anyway, but even more so. Because having your combo be one-ofs is just not viable, at least not outside Vintage where you have DT and Merchant Scroll and can draw a LOT of cards.

[@SpydrXIII]

oh nice this is an idea i've had for a while, glad to see it's already in use!

[@enricomassignani]

​​@@lostalone9320 we already see that all the time in Commander. How many games are won/lost on the back of a turn 1 Sol Ring or Mana Vault?

[@theetiologist9539]

Magic the gathering in modern design has intentionally throw away the restriction parts of this. They attach treasures to everything, they staple the value generation and the payoff to the same card, they broke the color pie hopelessly and don’t care about it anymore. So you guys might be right about the design philosophy but wizards doesn’t really care about this anymore.

[@Zarbon000]

Finally someone said it. I don’t like it, in fact I hate it, but apparently enough other people love it. 😅

[@SuperTallBird]

I think a rather eloquent solution to this problem came from another Richard Garfield game actually, Keyforge. Keyforge removed the deck building aspect from the game and opted to have each deck generated by a computer algorithm, as well as be completely unique with no two decks being the same. Decks are remarkably well balanced, and almost every game feels like it's down to the skill of the players involved in understanding their deck. There was also a system built into the game that tracked each decks win/loss ratio and applied restrictions to decks that were outliers and overly powerful, and would keep games balanced. This approach allowed players to focus on better understanding game mechanics without having to worry about if their deck had as much flashy cards as their opponent.

[@ryanburkett949]

While I super enjoyed Keyforge, You could still drop a fat stack on buying a crap load of decks to randomly have a great one. Use it until it wont some events and got penalized(I forgot the machining for this) and then pay a bunch of money to repeat this. It was in the end kind of the same as buying expensive cards, meta changing, buying different expensive cards, rinse repeating that we did in magic.

[@SuperTallBird]

@@ryanburkett949 The balancing system (Chains) would usually bring decks to a balanced level in either one or two weeks of play. Outlier decks are usually about one in every 500-1000, and would take about a month to be balanced. Almost no one was willing to drop that kind of money every few weeks, and the few that did quickly changed approach or left the game out of frustration because they couldn't buy their way to the top. I still play the game a few days a week where I live, looking forward to the next set later this year, the latest set is one of the best designed yet in my opinion.

[@carolinedavis8339]

It's funny you mention the sacrifice system in Yugioh, because while it's basically unused in modern Yugioh, at least in its original context, remnants still live on in the form of the Extra Deck. Old Yugioh generally required very very specific cards to get out their big haymakers, but modern Yugioh has made requirements for their cards significantly more generic. And with the only real resource that currently exists being your One (1) normal summon a turn, much like Magic's one land per turn, decks now are basically all Amulet Bloom now, cheating that restriction by special summoning potentially dozens of times per turn. Your only other resource cost consistent among all decks is the cards in your hand, so while Yugioh has a ton of tutor effects, generic draw cards are heavily restrictive, incentivizing you to narrow in on a particular deck archetype to search for Their Specific Cards instead of jamming 40 of the Best Cards In The Game in a vacuum into your deck.

[@harinarain09]

I would add a nuance that another resource Yugioh has is the hard once per turns. You have to manage your once per turns to get the maximum value out of your combo

[@Dyllon2012]

A lot of the modern summoning mechanics kind of work like sacrifice, but with extra steps (and without using your normal summon). Also, another interesting resource is the number of garnets (a card you only ever want to tutor and never want to draw) some combo line requires. The new Exodia support seems pretty good, but it requires running 5 garnets.

[@SenkaZver]

This is one thing YGO gets. The tutoe I have an issue with but it does treat draws as a full resource while other games are much more loose about giving draws.

[@midshipman8654]

there is also the resource of card advantage I think you forgot to mention which I think is the HEART of yugioh when you really get down to it. sacrificing is just one aspect of this. Its really “how can i get rid of the most of my enemies meaningful cards with the least of mine”. Wjich is true at any point in yugiohs history of power scale, from 2000 to today regardless how fast the game is. Which is actually something I really like conceptually and often in practice too. There not being some detached “metacurrency” like mana, but sear action economy of the “playing pieces” themselves. Of course, the trade off is its harder to easily balance since you have to take into account all the different ways cards can interact instead of having the litmus test of mana cost. But i think that allows for very novel interactions to take place.

[@laytonjr6601]

Nowadays all cards have 3 effects: one to special summon themselves for free from the hand, one on the battlefield to give you some kind of card advantage and one recursion effect to do it again the next turn

[@simplegarak]

As someone also working on a game system, this is a great discussion. I still love to buy starters of TCGs just to see what their system is and how they have solved this problem (or not). EDIT: "Games are a story told with math." - I like that. I'm definitely stealing it.

[@distractionmakers]

Glad you find it helpful! Checking out new TCG is a favorite thing of ours as well. Lots of great inspiration for new systems and mechanics.

[@simplegarak]

​@distractionmakers3995 my current passions are Unmatched (just a great game) and Keyforge. Which is... interesting in its queen "solution."

[@sh41]

Magic has another layer to prevent dominant strategy, which is that every strategy has a weakness, and if you double down in exploding the weakness, you win. Even the most powerful standard deck (affinity) didn't win most tournaments because of hate cards being maindecked. Also, in general there's a rock paper scissors setting where agro beats control, midrange beats agro and control beats midrange (oversimplifying) At the very worst, you end up with a metagame of 3 decks, which is usually 5 or 6

[@inflatablefish921]

there hasn't been room for midrange in standard for the last 5 years or more. every time, the format inevitably escalates into hyperaggro vs. hypercontrol.

[@argentfang]

@@inflatablefish921What? Literally the past two years, midrange piles have been the dominating decks in Standard. Let’s not forget how overpowered Rakdos Midrange was last year that 6 of the top 8 for that Pro Tour were running it, or did you forget how much of a problem card Fable of the Mirror Breaker was?

[@tyloschsosas]

@@inflatablefish921literally almost every deck right now is midrange, except for the occasional red or boros aggro deck. Standard is pretty healthy rn honestly.

[@SenkaZver]

I think this is underrated and IMO the biggest issue with YGO. Modern YGO is basically all aggro decks with a few hard counter control decks. MtG might be falling this way too. The idea of the aggro, mid range, control dynamic needs to be discussed and explored more IMO

[@Joker22593]

You got the triangle. It's actually Control > Combo > Aggro > Control. Midrange is defined by being some combination of the three corners.

[@Zuginator]

I would say the point limits in a game like Warhammer would both be a limiter and a resource. The total point value is your limiter, but then that limit is a resource you use to purchase your units. Which are your options. Within that there are other limitations like required army composition.

[@anthonycannet1305]

I remember learning in high school economics the concept of “opportunity cost” which is the idea that every choice you make includes the cost of all the choices you didn’t make. For example if I am forced to choose one of three things, the downside of each is that I can’t also have the other two. In most games this isn’t really something to think about but in games like warhammer where you have a point total to build an army or squad or whatever, the point cost to play it is the opportunity cost of choosing to play it. If I choose to play this piece that costs 20 points, that’s 20 points worth of other things that I now can’t use. In tcg’s with a resource system this comes into play during each turn you play cards. The opportunity cost of playing this card right now is the resources that I need for it that I won’t have to spend on something else. In mtg’s commander format there’s also color identity. The opportunity cost of playing this red/blue commander is giving up access to every card that has black, white, or green in it.

[@distractionmakers]

Great point!

[@peterkirk8510]

14:45 that happens in numerous PvP games, but it’s generally a reward for performing well, like think league of legends. Your reward for beating someone early is getting to get your items that make you stronger earlier. Even in a game like chess - outplaying your opponent and getting to take their queen for a knight - the game is unbalanced, but it’s because you played well and were rewarded.

[@kittensmakingcandles]

I'd say the biggest design lesson Magic taught me was: any mechanic and any theme can be turned into different games. Each card in a deck, each card in play, each card in a cardpool, each format. Has the ability to transform mechanics. What game, and how the game, is being played. And each card has the ability to creatively explode and transform the thematic experience conveyed. Both as a thematic entity from art and text design. And as it incorporates a mechanic-theme paired hybrid system, with cohesive logic of how theme and mechanics are matched up and accentuate and reinforce each other. It reduces a game system to building block pieces. To imbue those pieces with powerful mechanics, theme, and/or mechanics-theme hybrid systems. And then allows you to build up those pieces to create versions of games. In general, Magic has been played as a MECHANICS/theme game (with more emphasis on mechanics than theme). But Magic as a game system demonstrates that both theme and mechanics can both be accessed and emphasized. And from there, designers can augment a type system to make it weight emphasize either element as desired.

[@distractionmakers]

Great insight. This is pretty much exactly how I design my games as well. 😄

[@pabloisuarez]

Another way could be to lose something to gain something in return, some aRPG games implement this in the form of corrupted items, meaning items that have big benefits but with also big downsides, that if played around correctly become very powerful. Lets imagine for a second you have a chess-like game, where you can sacrifice the hitpoints of your king to be able to place a second queen on the board, or, not being able to play for X amount of moves but gain something very powerful in return. I havent played Yu-Gi-Oh but maybe this is the sacrifice model you mention. Different kings would allow for different types of sacrifices, etc. Just brainstorming.

[@distractionmakers]

Great ideas! The digimon card game has an interesting take on the type of system you’re mentioning. You can play basically any card you want, but the more powerful it is, the more extra resources you give to your opponent on their next turn. It’s a really interesting take on a casting system.

[@pabloisuarez]

Interesting, will take a look.@@distractionmakers Btw, just occurred to me, someone some time ago mentioned that DnD did a number on many devs creativity, regarding how tied to their rules, systems and lore they become, maybe making a video on something related to that would be interesting.

[@simplegarak]

@@distractionmakers it is a great system. Our game also is reusing an old "shared" resource system but more oriented to multi-player.

[@saparapatepete]

Or a chess with a point buy system, you have one king and you have 39 points for pieces to choose, pawns cost 1point, knights cost 3, bishops cost 3, rooks cost 5 and queens cost 9. So if you choose to have 4 queens, you only get to have 3 pawns, or 1 bishop or 1 knight. Or you can go crazy and play with an army of pawns XD, but no rooks, knights, bishops and queens.

[@Zuginator]

When he said about videogames and weapons. My first thought was shotgun/rifle is probably ~90% of my weapon usage in an FPS. I use what I'm best at, until I need something special. It also means I've fired the Fatman probably ONCE ever to it at work, but never carried it into battle because of the weight and skill cost.

[@younasdar5572]

If you mean by magics model the mana cost and color, that hardly works. It ends up just inversing the queens problem where now using the queen is so costly that everyone only plays pawns, pawns are 1 cost spells right(?), so that those are effectively in the place of the queen in terms of power. If it is desirable to solve the queens problem, and I'm not sure it entirely is, then you would have to limit yourself to only giving out certain types of effects at certain minimum costs, otherwise the more narrow 1 cost removal spell is just better then the more generic 3 cost removal spell etc. If you for example made it so that removal/counters always only cost 3 then you would probably get players to play those 3 cost removal/counters and that might clog up the 3 cost slot so they might not include as much other 3 cost cards. But with MTG almost every effect is available for less then 3 mana or at most for 3, so you get to the point that a 4 or higher cost card needs to have an unbelivably broken effect that is unique to it (or its specific cost) to be included that it is almost not funny anymore. To the point where my playgroup jokes about how a 7 cost sorcery with the text "You win the game" might not be powerful enough to ever include in a deck.

[@jkattack2640]

Overwatch 1's descent into tank meta is a great example of the failure to solve the queen problem. The tanks could largely do similar damage to damage characters with the main difference being their 3x as large hp pools. Why play a 200 hp dps when you could play a 600 hp one?

[@petersmythe6462]

It is interesting that the big 3 physical TCGs solve this in rather different ways. Yu-Gi-Oh solves it by making powerful things more than 4 stars and very powerful ones more than 6 stars, meaning they require sacrifices. Pokemon arguably has 3 different parallel systems for solving this. Its energy system limits what it's queens can do quickly immediately after being summoned. Its evolution system gates some queens behind a stage 1 or 2 while giving others no room to grow, and its 2 prize card EX system means that some queens may twice as strong but they fall twice as far. Magic of course has its summoning mana cost.

[@anthonyrepetto3474]

An alternative to solving the Queen Problem: "Complexity-as-a-Cost" via "Drawback-Management" - that is to say, each card has *multiple* small effects that it can be used for, yet each effect has a drawback - something happens which would 'normally' be bad. In MTG, the 'sacrifice a creature to...' mechanic works this way. YET! If you construct your deck wisely, and *notice* the opportunities when they arise, then you can build decks which *leverage* or *ignore* those 'draw-back costs', while also 'chaining' or 'combo-ing' many small-effects together. SO! In order to get the most out of your cards, you DON'T rely on casting-cost or rarity-restrictions... you just have to play smart, with a lot of seemingly-tiny or usually-inconvenient abilities!

[@dubiousbrick4483]

“You can make a deck with a bunch of 8 mana cost cards but you just won’t be able to play them for eight turns” “You can do it, it just doesn’t work-“ Oh you sweet summer child, you’ve never met a green player have you 😢

[@thered1s276]

given current standard rotation, I don't think anyone's met a green player in over 2 years

[@dubiousbrick4483]

@@thered1s276 stan-standard? Unheard of, never see that being hosted by any LGS. Stop making up words.

[@Atmatan]

In essence, the queen problem refers to a situation in game design where a single option or strategy becomes so powerful and versatile that it overshadows all other choices. This can lead to unbalanced gameplay where players feel pressured to choose the dominant option to remain competitive. The term originated from MTG, where the queen refers to any card that was extremely powerful due to its wide range of abilities. This concept has since been applied to various game design aspects, including unit design, weapon selection, and resource allocation. The goal of avoiding the queen problem is to create a balanced game environment where multiple strategies can be viable and competitive. This can be achieved through careful design of game mechanics, unit abilities, and resource costs.

[@aetherllama8398]

Other solutions: conditional power and decreasing returns. A card's power may be highly dependent on the situation, so you wouldn't want to include too many of them, or you risk not having any good options. Some effects naturally get weaker the more you use them. If you increase your attack from 10 to 20, that's a 100% increase, but from 20 to 30 is a 50% increase.

[@Apocralyph]

Here's one of Yugioh's worst solutions to this problem: Engine requirements. The progenitor of this concept is the card Brilliant Fusion. An archetypical Queen, it has a very powerful effect that allows you to bring out multiple monsters at no activation cost, but you can only resolve it if you have an actual vanilla, commonly referred to as a "Garnet" after Gem-Knight Garnet, in your deck (at the point of activation). In theory this could balance deckbuilding: In order to play a strong card, you also have to include a weak one. But in practice this leads to terrible gameplay. If you draw Brilliant Fusion before Garnet, you are very likely to win. But if you draw Garnet, with or without Brilliant Fusion, you often lose, being stuck with useless cards. The card is balanced with high variance, which is fine for regulating its win rate, but makes for poor individual gameplay experience. Brilliant Fusion is currently banned from competitive play, but engine requirements continue to be prevalent to this day.

[@distractionmakers]

That is interesting. It’s a bit similar to mana dorks in Magic, but sounds much harsher. If you draw your mana dork late game it’s a dead draw, but early game it’s very powerful.

[@goncaloferreira6429]

what you describe is pretty much part of ygo identity: an all ot nothing ideology that leads to extreme where you win by a mile or lose miserably.

[@goliathsteinbeisser3547]

How come this high quality content has so little engagement? :(

[@pabloisuarez]

My guess is that it caters to game devs mostly, and most people are consumers not creators.

[@distractionmakers]

We’re a new channel. Hopefully we’ll continue to grow! Thanks for the kind words of encouragement.

[@midshipman8654]

there is also the resource of card advantage I think is the HEART of yugioh when you really get down to it. sacrificing is just one aspect of this. Its really “how can i get rid of the most of my enemies meaningful cards with the least of mine”. Wjich is true at any point in yugiohs history of power scale, from 2000 to today regardless how fast the game is. Which is actually something I really like conceptually and often in practice too. There not being some detached “metacurrency” like mana, but sear action economy of the “playing pieces” themselves. Of course, the trade off is its harder to easily balance since you have to take into account all the different ways cards can interact instead of having the litmus test of mana cost. But i think that allows for very novel interactions to take place.

[@origaminosferatu3357]

Unapologetically making a deck that is "Oops all Queens" is by no means a bad idea...if you catch my drift.

[@thered1s276]

it seems you've invented... a normal midrange deck

[@barge489]

"games are stories told with math" Stealing the hell out of that! I tell my students that game designers "make people feel things with numbers."

[@Joker22593]

Better definition: Games are a series of interesting choices.

[@joshuatran6526]

Yugioh as a game with no mana mechanic has resource based limitations of cards and synergies. Over time, we saw the net resource generation per card move from negative/zero to positive. To account for this, the implementation of the hard Once Per Turn clause onto most card effects. Compared to a soft once per turn which is tracked per instance of a card, a hard once per turn only allows you to use a particular effect of once regardless of how many copies you have. This style of play has lead to two kinds of decks/stories: decks that build resources then consolidate them into an immediately winning position, and decks that attempt to snowball advantage. The other major different restriction is one of card design, ie how powerful does a game let a queen be? While the floor of what a yugioh card can do is higher inherently than a magic card, the ceiling is lower. Cards in yugioh rarely get above an equivalent 7/7 without major restrictions. Top tier 8+ mana effects are wholey missing and those that arent have been banned. Another solution to the queen problem is specificity. One can imagine a chess game without a deliberate best piece in the queen where the rooks, bishops, and knights are tied for the most valuable piece. Each performs the best in their niche. If you can very tightly control the niche that a particular strategy operates in, it allows other strategies to play orthogonally to the strategy. The danger is having a single strategy that's the best at all things, because that doesn't allow counterplay

[@goncaloferreira6429]

a dont get your second paragrath. ygo is often a game where you end your first turn with multiple monsters with 3000 attack with built in protectio and negates. how is the ceiling lower?

[@diamonddudeygo]

​@@goncaloferreira6429The ceiling of what an individual card can do in Yu-Gi-Oh is definitely lower than in Magic. This is counterintuitive given that it's a much faster paced game, but a simple scryfall search will give you 35 results for cards with "You win the game" in their text. Compared to that, there's only three cards with that text in Yu-Gi-Oh. One of them requires you to have 5 specific cards in hand, another one requires you to control 5 specific cards that do nothing on their own and the final one requires 20 turns to pass after activating it. We're not even including cards like Scapeshift or Doomsday that don't explicitely say "you win the game" but definitely win the game upon resolution. If you compare that to Baronne de Fleur or Borreload Savage Dragon (the two biggest culprits behind the general perception that Yu-Gi-Oh is a turn 1 game because of the amount of negates you can in theory put up), those are just glorified Glen Elendra Archmages. The ceiling is definitely lower when the biggest thing a card can be is counterspell attached to a body. Ever since 2020-ish, follow-up is an incredibly important part of any combo given how easy it is to break big boards. Divine Arsenal AA-Zeus - Sky Thunder was the herald of this big shift in gameplay. Games often get to a grind game state where the player with the most access to their engine tends to win. As a result, big combo boards (oops all queens) haven't been prominent (or good) for a long time (especially since they're the most vulnerable to hand traps), and decks that put up a modest board and a lot of recursion are usually always the best deck in any given format. If your deck is focused on pulling off an insane turn 1 board, it usually puts the game in a binary state where if your opponent cannot break it, you win, and if they can, you lose. Midrange decks often have enough gas to break these boards and can generate great amounts of follow-up to beat them in a grind game, so they've become the de facto best strategy in Yu-Gi-Oh. Hope this helps!

[@midshipman8654]

maybe a better word then “fairness” is “warranted”. Something can be very unbalanced, but as long as it feels warranted its fine. Having a little kobold up against a dragon isnt “fair”, but there isnt a reason for a kobold to have a fair fight vs a dragon to begin with. and it would feel weird if it was. Likewise, if Someone in an mmo got the level 99 GODSLAYER sword thats from a level 99 raid, its warrented that some leve 20 isnt going to stand up to them blow for blow. “warented” implies sufficient reason for something while “fairness” implies an assumed equity or that something should be taken for granted. And its about what feels like a sufficient enough reason for something or not.

[@distractionmakers]

Theme and flavor matters so much. I really love exploring the intersection of those things in my game design. Warranted is a good way to describe it.

[@XerrolAvengerII]

I would love a format in which rarity sets card count. Mythics are limited to 1, rares limited to 2, uncommons to 3 and commons to 4 unless stated otherwise.

[@DanyF02]

Magic using mana cost to solve the queen problem... Expectations: Interesting varied decks with countless possibilities. Reality: Chose between aggro or ramp/cheating on mana.

[@DrewskiTheLegend]

In my opinion, the only real way to consistently and elegantly address the Queen problem is supporting limited play, either curated, like cube, or randomized sealed. There’s always going to be powercreep towards more powerful cards and effects, and players are always going to demand fewer restrictions in order to keep their attention. Queens will get cheaper and occupy a larger percentage of the cards that are released as power creep increases. Mechanics will change over time to facilitate faster, cheaper, easier access to the deck’s queens and at an exponentially faster rate. There’s constant demand for novelty either way, but it doesn’t get more novel than randomized deckbuilding with varied game pieces. Also, in my opinion, it’s better to reward versatility than specialization. If the best deck in every format is pretty much the same deck just with different skins, there isn’t a lot of reward to innovate, so the game becomes stale pretty quickly. It’s one of the things about Yugioh that holds it back and I think it makes Commander such a flawed format despite actually solving a lot of the problems presented here. Yugioh archetypes are becoming roughly copy-paste iterations of other decks “with a twist”. Commander decks focus on building around one of a handful of possible legendary creature designs “with a twist”. At a certain point, you can’t build into a new design space without introducing a radical mechanic that risks breaking not just the game but the spoken and unspoken rules of design. Limited changes between sets and requires the player to adapt to changes in available strategies on both a meta level as well as within each instance of play.

[@distractionmakers]

I especially like your last insight. I would keep in mind that going deep or going wide are tools to be used. I agree that cards that go wide can be more interesting than cards that just go deep, but the mixture of both gives players choices. The analogy I often use is tcgs are like Lego, some bricks are versatile and some are just windshields.

[@TheMightyBattleSquid]

I think this also highlights why so many broken formats in mtg's history failed. Because a new set was like "we dumped all of the queens in 2-3 colors" so only people playing those colors could run all of the queens. Even worse were the instances when decks made from earlier cards in the rotation already had queens and synergies with the new stuff in those colors, making the imbalance even worse.

[@tyeklund7221]

Mana is not a problem anymore. So many dual and tri color lands have been printed at this point that if you want a landfall deck you dont have to choose between Simic or Gruul for your commander, just run Temur and get the best of everything. That is why 5 color decks are so frustrating. WotC acts like 5 colors is a sufficient restriction but it just isnt. There is so much mana fixing and card draw in every color that there is pretty much no downside to running a 5 color tribal unless you specifically want an ability only a certain commander gives you and even then you may as well run the one with the most colors that gives you a similar effect

[@Windavee]

Flesh and Blood pitch system is insanely innovative

[@TheUltimateRey]

I miss high mana costed cards that had a powerful or interesting effect that made it feel insane to pull off but now usually a high costed card will have some caveat to reduce its mana cost by X or something like what’s the point of making it high mana cost if you can just cheat it in for like 2 mana, the great henge is a perfect example of this dumb design

[@distractionmakers]

Agreed. Spells should cost mana.

[@demiurge2501]

It does seem like they’re sort of reverting back to this now, especially in standard. You have cards like atraxa, breach the multiverse, the white and black virtues from WOE, vein ripper(pioneer), etc. etc. it seems like more decks are actually using the full mana curve recently rather than the bottlenecking effect we saw from lurrus of the dream den

[@IAMYETTI25]

This is so insightful! Y'all earned a sub. Plus I can say I was here before y'all inevitably blow up. 😂

[@distractionmakers]

Haha thanks!

[@SuperDuperHappyTime]

The Queen Problem isn’t MtG’s Problem. Deck Construction involves maximizing Queens and Knights, minimizing Rooks and Bishops (Pawns aren’t even an option). The real Problem is the game’s designers believe that “Rarity” and “Legendary” are restrictions for playing with certain cards in certain decks.

[@GreylanderTV]

Magic avoids the queen problem, but falls into a meta-queen problem, which is that some cards and combos work best, and this knowledge is discovered and shared over the internet at light speed. So while nobody can play all queens, everybody who wants to win must play one of the known best decks in the current meta with only minor tweaks, and all games start to look the same, with little strategic depth and rarely any surprises (and the rare surprises become part of the "meta" overnight). The winning player is nearly always the one who gets the more optimal draw from their deck. The solution to the meta-queen problem is giving each card something like an ELO rating (which requires tracking a lot of stats) and requiring competitive decks in a tourney to have certain ELO rating total for all cards (this could vary for different events). Note that individual cards would have a different ELO rating in different even formats. The advantage of this system is that it could make nearly every card and every deck concept viable, the "power 9" could become legal again, and even the 4 copies per deck rule could dispensed with (anyone including cards like the power 9 in their decks would have to then include exceedingly weak cards cards to balance them). An ELO-like card rating system could easily be done online in MtG Arena, but a bit harder tracking data for in person tourney play. Note that I say ELO-like as there are a number of adjustments that might be made to math to make it more suitable for rating cards. It might also be desirable to rating combo pairs and triplets of cards, rather than just individual cards. This would allow even greater deck design flexibility since it could be acknowledge that a certain card is only overpowered in certain combinations, and players could still use the card at lower cost if they weren't playing the combo that makes it most powerful. Deck size and side board limits could also be relaxed or perhaps done away with by incorporating that information into the rating system (using something like average card rating rather than total, to account for small deck advantage, but the there might also be an additional deck-rating adjustment based on deck size & sideboard size alone). Imagine being able to competitively play almost any deck-concept you can think of as long you make sure your cards synergize well. At least for events where the deck-total ELO ratings was reasonable. And if anyone comes up with a combo/strategy the "breaks" the game, the ELO system will quickly adjust ratings so it won't turn into an "everyone is playing the same decks" situation. But the player who first invents such a new strategy gets the benefit of some wins before the ELO adjusts.

[@distractionmakers]

Canadian Highlander has this a little bit. But they only police the most powerful cards with a number of points. Your deck cannot exceed a point total. Its is akin to a ban list with granularity. I like it!

[@GreylanderTV]

@@distractionmakers It's a start! The nice thing about an ELO rating is it can detect very subtle gradations in power level, truly allowing both balance and complete freedom in deck design. I think it would require Arena to adopt such a system for it to catch on though.

[@mtg9587]

I really can't see how paying differentiated resource costs is something that Magic invented to solve the Queen problem...

[@deProfundisAdAstra]

Having played Yugioh for quite a long time, Magic's Lands system bores the hell outta me, but I can understand why it would be preferred. I don't think it's reasonable to write off the entirety of Yugioh due to the perception that it's "very anime". There are certainly a lot of design mistakes throughout the game, but there're far more considerations and improvements which have been made with time to make the game exceptionally engaging and interesting, while still keeping the vast majority of cards available to use in any given deck. The biggest issue with YGO is the lack of alternative formats. I would really like to see a rolling card list like Magic has, as means to limit some of the more excessive power creep issues we've encountered over the years, but that's hardly a criticism of the base game. It would just be nice to have a little more variety.

[@yumanai5615]

You didn't address power creep over the lifetime of a game and how much of a problem that is in magic. I wanted you to complain about Sheoldred but you didn't and i got clickbaited boo

[@turtlekappa7141]

But Sheoldred isn't the problem. As its a single card. The video isn't about SINGULAR cards. You go click baited due to personal bias. So boo yourself

[@TheWackyWorkbench]

Meanwhile, in yugioh, we gave the queens rocket launchers

[@DrewskiTheLegend]

Every non-Queen piece in Yugioh finds a queen, has a way to recur itself to find more queens or get more queens into play and the queens all have effects that negates the opposing pieces from getting their queens out.

[@TheWackyWorkbench]

@@DrewskiTheLegend and that’s why I love it

[@K1ngsd1]

Yugioh is a joke from a designers pov, it breaks almost every single rule of design to the point of being a turn one semi solvable game.

[@TheWackyWorkbench]

@@K1ngsd1 1) it ain’t solved, the random chance and being a deck building game keeps that from happening. 2) it breaks every rule because it is an anime game at its heart. The bullshit IS the point.

[@jrschmitt6187]

So glad I found this. Great video. +1 sub.

[@ryanedwards7487]

This works for the paper variant. Arena is a whole new animal. Also, Standard now being 3 years makes so many things issues. White Mana is obscenely powerful in Arena, because its removal basically means you can solo play against other people. It’s gotten to where I loathe ranked play because there’s only so much “oh, that’s a fun creature…*Uses Exile spell for the 9th time in a row*..guess my 2/2 knight is safe again.” I can take before I question why people like that haven’t been run over by upset truckers (for being such killjoy fun police) yet.

[@beech5950]

Playing Arena has become so asinine lately. Historic ranked is full of Sheoldred, the one ring, Vito infinite combo, lazy white life gain, and exiles for days. I go to unranked queue and people are still playing the same overpowered crap that they do in ranked. No fun to be had anywhere.

[@ryanedwards7487]

@@beech5950 exactly. I literally made a mono-white deck on Arena called "FINE! YOU WIN!"...it's literally 10 2/2s and 30 white control spells. It's gone 9/10. ANd that's freaking nuts. And then you do play...and it's you getting pasted by the same OP crap. I literally have taken Sheoldred out of most of my decks because it wasn't fun to play "Sheoldred, the Apocalypse". I want to play NEW things....Standard needs to be a 1 year rotation. Not 2, not 3. One cycle, Because suddenly all of these things would go away, in standard at least.

[@ryanedwards7487]

@@beech5950 Jump In has gotten just as bad too. I never run into an opponent in Jump In that hasn't ALSO used a white deck so they have at least 2 control spells. And I use Jump In to try new things or get cards...why in god's name would someone say: I NEED my removal spells for Jump In. I can't win without them! If you can't win without using Kellan's Lightblades / the same dang spell in any of the other 12 sets available right now, you need to reevaluate your play style.

[@Big_Dai]

- I'd argue the limitations in Magic the Gathering are more layered, and should also include colors (mana-base, deck building and such), Format (pauper exists for a reason > Player frustration and real-money), as well as Legendary type (motivating players to use less of that card for fear of being a dead-draw)!! Which was even more prevalent with initial Legendary Ruling. You could also say Cards being "Queens" is a product of the "meta" and the times. Card pool, Power-creep and answers being more accessible and more specific change the perspective of said cards. - Also, not quite as applicable, but I quite like Legends of Runeterra (digital card game), where Champion cards in hand when a Champion is in play transform into a different spell! I'm sure someone could use a similar idea to make a restriction that could prevent "Queen" cards being a problem. - Finally, the now dead LCG of Legend of the 5 Rings introduced a REALLY interesting mechanic in "Fate".. as "Creatures" were discarded at the end of a Round, and each additional Fate you paid (akin to mana) added a counter that allowed that card to remain in play an additional Round. Resources being scarce, made for board-card rotation something that was forced. So, even if you had all Queens, it was unrealistic to count on them for the duration of a game. All in all, interesting discussion! I'll be checking the rest of the channel.

[@distractionmakers]

Interesting thoughts. L5R tried some really neat stuff.

[@goncaloferreira6429]

nice to see someone bringup LoR. still, remember mtg had grandeur to try to tackle the legendary problem. I would quite like to see them give it another try.

[@im7254]

Pauper format and similar are how you control it. A queen is a requirement for games to be fun so everything doesn't feel same and for card choices to matter. Seeking balance in games is the worst thing you can do.

[@Drakshl]

So, potential mega nerdy essay incoming. I play quite a lot of World of Warcraft (retail). This game, in its PvE, runs into a number of "Queen Problems" (including tank and healer trinket selection, talent choices and more), however I want to focus on a couple that I think have been quit expertly solved. We do still have issues sometimes with both of these, but in a raiding context the game does far better than it has any right to as a game this big. 1) Rotation: For those who dont know, rotation in a WoW context refers to the optimal usage of player abilities in the performance of their role (usually discussed in a DPS context since its less situational than tanking or healing). Basically, how do most damage? The "Queen Problem" here is that if you give a player "X" number of abilities but "A" ability does the most damage, why would anyone ever chose to use "B" ability or really anything else within the "X" pool, reducing skill expression and inducing boredom. Over the years, Blizzard have implemented a number of systems and concepts to mold rotations into a healthier form. it must be noted that this is complicated by the fact that in many cases you need to make these decisions over the course of a couple of seconds or less, so it has to walk a fine line between boring and to difficult. a) Cooldowns: This is the most basic tool. Giving abilities cooldowns is a common method used by game developers to prevent players from using their most powerful abilities all the time. It also opens up a design space for "Cooldown reduction" effects which reward "correct" play by bringing down your cooldowns so you can use them more often. Cooldowns arent the most suitable for every situation though, because really they involve taking a decision away from a player which has led to situations like ret paladin in the wrath of the lich king expansion where you just pressed the buttons as they came off CD with no thought. Sometimes this can be made more interesting by giving an ability "charges" but we probably dont need to get into that here. b) Resource costs: Almost all DPS spec's have a formal resource system (like an energy bar) or an informal resource system (stacks or charges of a key ability), where some or all of their abilities (usually the most powerful) have resource costs. These costs restrict a players use of an ability, without actually preventing an ability from being pressed multiple times in a row in most cases. This can create interesting gameplay around whether it is better to spend or save resources, but without other tools it would just become a game of spending whenever you could. c) Conditional requirements: some abilities require you to be in melee, within a certain range, or prevent you from moving whilst casting or channeling them. These requirements are a really good way to add skill expression in maximizing uses of your best abilities (or any of them in the case of most melee dps), but can sometimes cause balancing issues as some classes "DPS" is more resistant to disruption from forced movement ect than others. d) Temporary empowerment: Sometimes you get a "proc" or in some other way are able to "buff" a certain ability which might push it up the priority order for a single usage or in a short time period. Some classes do this a lot (eg Shadow priest) but almost all classes have some. These can be particularly good as random proc's can add "variance" by preventing a fixed rotation where the optimal button press for every second of the fight could be pre determined (this is an issue with some jobs in WoW's current main competitor FF14, as some of that game's jobs have no variance at all from pull to pull and so their DPS rotations can be and are spreadsheet-ed in advance by top players). e) Burst phases: in this context I am referring to any way a player can increase their own damage above average temporarily, such as by activating a personal buff with a long cooldown (usually called a "DPS CD" or "CD"). Not only are you incentivised to activate these windows rather than just pressing your biggest spell, they can frequently change up your DPS rotation completely (for example, fire mage is able to use "Combustion", a DPS CD which vastly changes its rotation for a short period. Executing this window correctly gives it lots of high value spell casts which do not require a normal casting time, vastly increasing overall DPS if performed correctly). f) Resource generation: Most spec's which have resource systems have occasional or regular ways to generate resources. These abilities often do little damage on their own, but allow you to use your more powerful abilities more times. Usually this is relegated to a "filler" activity that a player performs when they can't do something more exciting but sometimes a player can generate big chunks of resources at once and this does feel fun. g) Maintenance buff's, debuffs and dot's: this isnt always liked (although not always a bad thing), but players often have abilities which either apply a buff to themselves or debuff/damage over time effect to an enemy. These effects are tuned to be incredibly powerful compared to the amount of player time invested to activate them, so they are often high priority activities within a rotaiton. H) Target counts: diferent abilities will deal damage to different numbers of targets and for different amounts. Your main AoE abilities will usually not be tuned to do high single target damage and visa versa, so you can decide what to press based on what will do the most damage. I) FIGHT CIRCUMSTANCES: This is the SINGLE most important of all considerations to the health of the game long term. It needs to be the case that depending on the number of targets available the importance of each target, how much movement is involved, when new targets will spawn, if any "amplified damage" phases or "difficult" phases are coming up, that a player will make different rotational decisions. This is usually the case, and is typically the thing that most separates good players from great players. Accurately assessing your situation and deciding on a response is genuinely the hardest thing about raiding at a high level in wow This is not an exhaustive list, and all the relevant factors come together to create a theoretical "priority" system that good players can use, almost algorithmic-ally, to determine what the best ability to activate is. The critical point here is that although the community "codifies" this, its just people answering the questions about what the right decision is, and in actuality when you play out a raid fight sticking to the priority completely strictly will not lead to an optimal outcome in 90%+ of difficult encounters. We have had some major issues in the past, where certain specs have ended up where optimal gameplay was "degenerate" gameplay because these finely balanced factors become out of sync with each other. Elemental shaman at the end of last expansion mostly just mashed one button (on ST and AoE), and whilst it was fun for a bit to see lava bolts going everywhere it got boring quite quickly because you ended up ignoring your main resource a lot of the time which "feels bad" when is overcapping.

[@Drakshl]

1) Raid composition: for context, in wow, you deploy a raid team of 20 players to contend with the hardest content (now, the exact number has varied over the years but the general rule's remain the same). this is going to lead to a few questions, for which blizzard have implemented a number of answers: a) why not just 20 DPS? Given that the goal is to decrease the bosses health to 0 as quickly as you can, this makes sense. To answer this, blizzard has bosses which do to much damage (usually melee) to their primary target, which DPS players *almost always* cannot survive. so you need to bring tanks. These bosses also tend to have mechanics which force the players to change the boss's primary target, meaning teams will bring around 2 tanks. Additionally, blizzard tunes the fights to do enough damage to the raid group that some number of healers (from 3-5 in typical circumstances). Specifics of which tanks and healers to bring also vary based on similar factors to those discussed bellow for DPS, but i shouldnt bloat this more than it already is by talking about raid cooldowns or tank defensiveness. b) Why not just have all DPS players play the DPS class which does the highest amount of damage overall? This has been the central sticking point for wow DPS comp's throughout the years. Blizzard has settled on a few "Tunning nobs" which are used to fix this particular "queen problem" - Theme and unique gameplay: this is a minor point but even fairly hardcore raid teams will often have players who play certain classes purely because they like them. If that player is good enough or your raiding level isnt incredibly high, or you just like them, you will probably accept them playing what they want because it keeps them motivated and you want to keep playing with them. - Raid Buffs: Most classes (at this point almost all) bring some sort of buff or debuff which is fairly passive but which adds a lot of value to the team. enough value, in fact, that it counteracts any potential loss for bringing a sub optimal class (if a character is going to give you 5% magic damage for example (which equates to 3-3.5% raid damage or more in some cases), that is going to outweigh the difference between that characters dps and the best characters dps). These are controversial as it makes getting a new team together more difficult, but overall they are good for getting representation up for "worse" classes. - Damage profile: this refers to HOW your class does damage. Does it do it in big bursts? if so, what timings does it do those bursts at? does it have good aoe whilst also doing single target at the same time? does it have wide ranging aoe which can hit targets at opposite sides of a boss arena? does it do strong "cleave" damage from a main target on to 1-2 additional targets? Does its single target actually increase by adding new targets through more procs or resource generation? the result is that having a varied raid composition is generally in your best interests as it means that your team damage profile will not have any major gaps. if you need damage for a certain point in a fight you will always have it. - Gear: this is a weird one, but because you want to have your raid team as "geared" as possible, you are incentivized to bring a character which might be bad on a given boss because it happens to be strong on other bosses, and you want to make sure it gets loot that it needs to perform. - Raid utility: from group wide defensives, to movement speed buffs, a group wide teleport and health stone item, the ability to pull allies or knock enemies around the battle field, the ability to resurrect during combat or even an ability to give everyone in the raid a lot of haste (faster casting, shorter cooldowns ect) for a short period once in the fight, wow classes each have some utility they bring which adds value to the raid team. as someone building a composition it is in your interests to have a variety of this utility to "cover your bases". We do not always succeed in getting raid comp diversity, but what we do sometimes have is interesting "tech" where players will make specific decisions to bring one character over another in order to let them "solve" something on the fight. This is usually not required but can make fights far easier and be very cool. Blizzard is not the best company at solving these issues, but then no dev is perfect. I think we can all learn a lot though from the sheer volume of different simultaneous dials they are able to tweak. Thinking like this is diffiuclt but it can help to solve your "queen problem" whilst avoiding incentives for other degenerate behavior.~ This talk was awsome, thank you for your amazing video. I will definitely follow your future content!

[@distractionmakers]

Great points and insight into modern wow. I think applying some of these ideas in other context is really interesting. Some of it only works in a PvE or real-time setting. Procs for example would feel much more unfair in a turn based 1v1 setting, but they are an exciting way to solve the queen problem… though I suppose drawing your queen from a deck is similar to a proc 🤔. Lots of good food for thought.

[@kuzmychmaksym3843]

Is that original WoW TCG Onyxia Lair?

[@salmonellamuffin]

The queen problem is exactly why Ive come to personally dislike some of modern cloning card design in mtg. It feels like so many of them now a days are printed with that "Except its no longer legendary" clause that some decks just turn into all queens and it makes some of the management that came with those cards moot. It really hurts part of the point of those cards being legendary and leads to things like that Quintorious Kand deck in pioneer.

[@distractionmakers]

Agreed. The legend rule is becoming less and less relevant. There was some weirdness in the past with its removal-like qualities, but it does feel like the lack of respect for it takes away its flavor and impact.

[@Demonskunk]

I despise MMO pvp specifically because of the playtime based power imbalance factor.

[@raymondluca7779]

17:33...umm wrong people buy boosts all the time in wow...raid and pvp boosts with either wow gold or real life money which is used to buy gold from wow

[@Terracronz]

They could just add a point system to deck construction, 60 cards with a 100 point value or something

[@distractionmakers]

This is an interesting idea and is how the Canadian Highlander format handles it. There is also the how many you can have in a deck adjustment too, like in Vintage with restricted cards. I think the point system has merit, but might be cumbersome for players to track.

[@danshive4017]

(Twitches involuntarily at Fallout 3 inaccuracies that aren't a big deal but all the same)

[@thejuggernautofspades9453]

"We made mana to subvert this restriction" *ME A GREEN PLAYER* Your tax means nothing

[@duelme1234]

What is with the framing of this video/concept? I get that not everyone is entrenched in cpvp games like some of us, but even then I don't understand the point of framing this as "the queen problem". Like the entire point of the PVP section basically boils down to "balance the options players can select", but dragged on for 11mins. Do that and points like "a choice that is more powerful should have higher cost (or drawback if traditional cost isn't really a thing like in yugioh)" and "it's probably not a good idea to let players run *insert absurd number here* of a single card/item (or at least have it be any good as a bare minimum) in their deck/build" should have fairly intuitively. The only logical direction to build upon that framing is to emphasize a concept I like to call "points of contention", (such as dota's roshan or lol's dragon) that temporarily gives one side an advantage to facilitate progress. This will then require both sides to take that into consideration BEFOREHAND and thus add strategic depth to the game. You guys wandered around the general vicinity of that subpoint but didn't really touch on it at all. The subpoint on "different ways of solving the queen problem creates different themes/tones" is somewhat fair, but at that point shouldn't we stop trying to forcefully tie the queen problem point in and just say "different gameplay structures/systems/emphasis creates different pacing/tones/themes/dynamics? And each game is trying to pursue a tone that best suits them?" Let the tone subpoint stand on its own so it can be properly explored in-depth without being burdened to forcefully incorporate the queen problem into the framework every step of the way. Sure, Richard Garfield might have used this concept when creating magic and that's fair enough. But shouldn't we constantly try to access and evaluate if the frameworks we previously used in design are relevant (or at least efficient) to today's understanding?

[@nomukun1138]

Why not allow a deck of all queens? You didn't answer this question in the video. You said it was a problem and compared ways to solve it. Why can't we have all queens? Is it just to add CONTENT to your game for players to slog through? Is it just to slow down the game to force players to spend more time/money? Is it only to add information players need to learn before they can play? Why not have five different variations of a queen as the only pieces? Or a list a pretty designs to choose from? WHY do we need non-queen pieces? To make the queen FEEL SPECIAL.

[@nomukun1138]

I'm getting a little emotional but I don't disagree with anything you said. Thank you for sharing your perspective, and of course I'm just a random internet idiot while you are real designers. The pressure of your ideas being judged by impartial market forces and producing money means your ideas are actually stronger and better.

[@distractionmakers]

Good question. In simple terms there are queens at each mana cost. Without mana costs you would have one best card and you would only play it in your deck. That might be interesting, but the interaction would have to come elsewhere.

[@GrapeCheckerBoard]

You won’t have much deck variety if everyone is allowed to load their deck with all the best cards. In chess terms, everyone would choose to play fifteen queens and the obligatory king.

[@MrsTheMark]

Mtg has some of the most absurd and poorly designed formats of any tcg ccg I lve played. It was always rough, but arena in a microcosm is like a parody. Historic has joke cards from Lord of the Rings alongside cards like 4 mana Sheoldred, but bans lightning bolt for its power level while allowing some of the most degenerate meta ever witnessed.

[@andrewreed4924]

MtG has some of the most crybaby players in all of gaming

[@masterthnag105]

And what "joke cards" are a part of the LOTR set?

[@Atmatan]

1. Mininukes arent that heavy. You can easily carry dozens with mediocre strength stat. 2. Ygo runs 3 copies, unless restricted, as opposed to mtgs 4. 3. Shoulda scripted this better

[@stromrage100]

Great point. Also based WoW tcg raid deck

[@dragonridgestudios9323]

I was the 1000th Like. Yay. Keep the good content coming!

[@KennyNiii]

Great stuff

[@Carddaddy311]

There’s a lot more than sacrificing in yugioh

[@SpydrXIII]

i was so afraid to click on this, 'cause my main MTG Arena deck is based around Sheoldred, The Apocalypse.

[@distractionmakers]

😆

[@eldenmox5525]

Also legend rule

[@ProfessorWaifu]

LMFAO. Wait these guys think customizable games (and solving the queen problem) didn't exist before MtG? That's absolutely hilarious. Customizable war games existed for many decades before MtG. Customizable war games are what D&D came from, back in the 1950s.

[@RedOphiuchus]

No, they don't. And I have no idea how you came to that conclusion. Their channel is primarily dedicated to card games, and Magic, being the first collectible card game, becomes generally the first game they talk about. They acknowledge that it was already known because they talk about how Magic baked solutions for it into their design right out of the gate. Something that would be difficult to do without prior knowledge of the phenomenon. They also said it occurs in all customizable games before going in on the specific kind of customizable game that they enjoy.

[@SocioCenil]

P

[@Magidex]

What the hell? Yugioh's sacrifice system is awful. It doesn't have a resource manage system. All costs are either life, cards in hand, or one of the monsters you ONLY get to play once per turn of. That's real bad. Every deck plays every card because there are no real costs, and that game bans **card draw**. It's miserable. The chain is similar to the stack, but if anyone STOPS responding, it ALL resolves, with no opportunity to pick a spot to jump back in and respond to different things. And then you can't attack your opponent directly. Which means I can't hold onto a guy to use his ability. I can't choose to take the hit in order NOT to block with my guy. That whole game is just is just bleargh.

[@diamonddudeygo]

Magic's mana system is awful. It requires to fill 20-30% of your deck with cards that do literally nothing in order to be able to play the game. Games are often decided by drawing too little or too many lands, to the point where WOTC has had to make cards that either reduce the amount of lands in your deck (fetchlands) or lands that have additional effects if you draw them to mitigate flood (Boseiju, Otawara, Tolaria West, etc) The stack allows players to keep priority and cast a bunch of stuff without passing priority, and being able to activate mana abilities as you cast spells allows you to trigger multiple effects at the same time that clearly weren't designed to do so. Announcing you want to cast Chromatic Star and being able to activate Krark-Clan Ironworks as many times as you want, sacrificing Scrap Trawler and Myr Retriever at the same time so you can target each other with their effects is the hallmark of terrible game design. Every single time Lion's Eye Diamond can be used for anything, it's an admission of defeat on the quality of MTG as a whole. The chain disallows this kind of fuckery altogether, making it a WAY more elegant solution that is way less prone to general bullshit. And then you can't even use the combat phase as removal? Which means I can't use my creature to kill a Magus of the Moon that is preventing me from playing the game via combat? That whole game is just bleargh.

[@Magidex]

@@diamonddudeygo I like how everything you said is pure 100% deflection, because it doesn't address a single thing I said. Stay classy. ✌️

[@xneet00]

This was not as interesting a topic as I thought it would be. It's just a conversation about game balance, which isn't anything new

[@distractionmakers]

Our goal is to welcome everyone. Just because something doesn’t seem new to you doesn’t mean others aren’t learning.