Why Some Magic Cards Suck

An Indie Dev and a AAA Dev discuss Magic's player psycho-graphics and how they impact card design.
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Forrest Imel forrestimel.com/
Gavin Valentine www.gavinvalentinedesign.com/
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Thumbnail Artwork: Timmy, Power Gamer by Karl Kopinski

[@willowparker-ct3pq]

An important point of clarification is that R&D doesn’t view Vorthos and Mel as psychographics. The three main player psychographics (Timmy, Johnny, and Spike) describe why different players play the game. To wit: Timmy plays to feel something, Johnny plays to express something, and Spike plays to prove something. Vorthos and Mel are aesthetic preferences, and describe what players appreciate about card design. Vorthos appreciates designs on a holistic level - they like when everything about a card, from its name, to its art, to its rules text, to its flavor text, all works together to create a cohesive whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts. Spice8Rack’s video about why Goblin Grenade is their favorite card is a perfect example of what a Vorthos likes about Magic cards. Mel is the opposite side of a spectrum from Vorthos - where Vorthos is interested in a card as a whole, Mel is interested in all the moving parts of a card. They like to be able to dissect a card and see each individual element of its design so they can understand what each of those elements are doing, how they all interact with each other, and how those functions and interactions serve the overall design.

[@tldreview]

Bold move, to put the best MTG card ever printed in the thumbnail of a "Why Some Cards Suck" video

[@andrewamann2821]

Storm Crow isn't the thumbnail....

[@jimboweezer]

It was Colossal Dreadmaw for those here after they changed it.

[@mjhenkel1984]

"blue eyes white- whatsitcalled?" cmon man.

[@GerBessa]

The player psychographics are not limited to "newbies" for Timmy or tournament players for Spikes. Timmy play to feel. Johny play to express. Spikes play to prove. I realized that I am more of a Timmy now than 20 years ago.

[@Flum666]

you are very close. so I'm a spike

[@bradb2680]

As Melvins have you guys ever considered forming a highly influential heavy metal band?

[@tonysladky8925]

Melvin and the 15 squirrels.

[@Ninjamanhammer]

*slow claps*

[@PoopinaBucket]

For Vorthos players, they’re also big into the lore. So if I have Yawgmoth, I’m putting the phyrexians and Gix as his right hand man. Or form of the dragon is a Vorthos card because of the flavor of you becoming a dragon. So they’re big on flavor

[@GFreeGamer]

For me, MaRo's the best because he puts himself out there to receive feedback. Some might argue he sometimes misses the point of a feedback or responds to the wrong part of it, but I can't imagine responding to feedback daily from the community and still being in good spirits.

[@Leviathan_XO]

This was cool, I was hoping for another deep dive of designs so this felt more psychological for me. Still glad for the great content.

[@Tootatis]

Started as a Johnny then becames a Spike/Johnny and I guess now I'm a Spike/Johnny/Melvin. Keep that fun stuff like Timmy and Vorthos away from me though.

[@jaysuede2627]

An important component to balancing mechanics that need to chain off of each other, or maybe only ever truly work with full sets of cards, is the starter deck. A starter deck was never going to outcompete a fully tuned list, but it wasn't trying to, it was only ever designed to show you what you can do with a skeleton of a deck. It can be hard to balance that with psychographics and archetypes, but it was always helpful when the design teams tried. Companies knew that once.

[@Pistallion1]

My problem with draft chaff is the simple fact cards cost money. Unless you are drafting, buying packs feels bad the vast majority of the time. Opening packs is basically throwing money away. And then when they make a set where packs are good like Modern Masters, the hike up the price

[@draftmagicagain1000]

Then don’t buy packs… ?

[@francescognerre2408]

shout out to all the players who consider themselves as jonny/jenny and spike mixes (like me!)

[@szymonidesomco4974]

"Edgelord Timmies."

[@distractionmakers]

Edgelord Timmies unite!

[@FluffySpikeM]

Hamsters and rangers everywhere, rejoice! (c)

[@tricksonafixed]

The amount of bulk commons and uncommons I found so cool and fascinating back in 2011 was insane. Cards I look back on today and realize they’re either suboptimal or outright bad and at the time it didn’t matter- that was part of the journey as a new MTG player and it opens up your mind to all of the things one can do when building a deck. My first deck was G/R and it was an 80 card pile of random jank that somehow did well amongst my young high school play group. I didn’t always win but it gave me such a good feeling of accomplishment at the time.

[@draftmagicagain1000]

Colossal Dreadmaw is a good card! Runs over little tokens and Wins Games!

[@andygoody2599]

How is Johnny not also Melvin? The combo player is also and always appreciating the design. Is Melvin simply NOT playing but observing from the outside?

[@bulkbogan6235]

I would say so. The initial trio of Timmy, Johnny and Spike describe how players interact with the game of magic, while Melvin and Vorthos don't have to play magic to appreciate the aspects that they like. I for example am a Melvin, in terms on how I look at the mechanical design of cards and can appreciate a good design separated from the context of the game of magic. But when I play magic I don't really have that urge of brewing and deck building that Johnny players have. I usually just go for lists made by someone, maybe with some substitutes. Also I feel like the 90% of custom card makers (at least the good ones) are Melvins, because they like thinking about the design space.

[@chromaticchrome3746]

Given you've pretty much mentioned every other niche anime card game there currently is, I'd love to hear your oponions on the Final Fantasy TCG. While overall derived from MtG, it has a very interesting take on ressources and life points: You can discard cards to generate 2 mana of one of its colors and/or play backup characters that cost mana to play, but act as mana rocks that tap for 1 mana in addition to any other effects they might have. To counteract that inherent discarding you draw 2 cards per turn. Life is quite similiar to digimons security checks, where every unblocked attack only deals 1 damage, which is a card put from the top of your deck in a damage zone, and some cards activate for free when revealed as damage. Also many, many more unique aspects but that goes above the scope of a comment.

[@totalvoid6234]

Wizards like money. Hasbro like money. Next question.

[@bchavez149]

OMG How dare you call it the Dragon Ball Z card game, it's based off Super, not Z! lol jk, great video guys

[@draftmagicagain1000]

What kind of decks would a Melvin build? Can someone help me. I think I might be one. But the explanation is Very Vague.

[@distractionmakers]

I think a Cube is likely the closest thing a Melvin would build.

[@jimboweezer]

Custom cards I feel like would also be something I could see. Trying to design something new and fun within the system of magic. Or maybe a deck that revolves around unique/unintuitive synergies that push on the limits of the rules.

[@ntw-bg3si]

Queen Allenal of Ruadach / Tatsumasa, the Dragon's Fang. 'Okay I'll explain, bring me a whiteboard'

[@TheSpunYarn]

Surprised with the advent of Magic = Commander that we haven't gotten the "plays to socialize" player psychographic. I certainly know folks like that.

[@distractionmakers]

Oh I think that was one of the types I was trying to remember and couldn’t!

[@jaredwright1655]

@distractionmakers be my pshyco analyst for a second. I make Commander decks for the interactions, but mostly for the other players and passerby to go "oh wow, that's a neat way to use that" or "I haven't seen that before" It might be a Timmy/Johnny cross but idk?

[@Ninjamanhammer]

That's Timmy

[@joaobispo2602]

@@jaredwright1655 Thats a Jonnhy they play to express

[@Flum666]

I'm just 496. is plat good?

[@distractionmakers]

Haha shhhh

[@SymphoneersGaming]

Worth noting, the kind of "Intentionally bad"/card that exists to be a floor that players can look up from card is essentially obsolete, at least as a primary driver of design. I wish I had the article on hand, but they've talked about as part of the shift to Play Boosters how they just literally don't have the room to design for limited AND commander AND collectors AND new players all in one pack, so the average power level of commons/uncommons has gone up substantially, mostly for the sake of making sure that limited still works. Aside from Magic, psychographics are also one of the things I find interesting about Altered's design. They're certainly aware of Magic's psychographics, but are choosing to emphasize and divide things a little bit differently. I'm thinking in particular of the recent twitter thread on the Lyra and how they drummed up characteristic mechanics for a faction that's otherwise just "Hey, it would be cool if Vorthos players actually had a dedicated space on the cards."

[@NZPIEFACE.]

It makes me rather sad that we don't have room for vanilla creatures in sets anymore.

[@DanielRedMoon]

Sure, I'll be a Melvin. EDIT: Interestingly, there are only 4 Avatars created, and Melvin doesn't have one.. yet. Also, the MTG Fandom site has this trivia : "The Mystery Booster test card 'Metagamer' jokingly introduced a new player type. The Metagamer chooses their cards to counter decks that are popular in the metagame."

[@draftmagicagain1000]

What is a Melvin?

[@andrewamann2821]

Eh... Metagamers are a subset of Spike, just with a contrarian streak.

[@andygoody2599]

Spikes are on Meta. Other Spikes are anti Meta in order to attempt to get an edge.

[@macedbear]

Hey did y'all listen to my comment and are now rocking mugs? Either way, good on ya! Keep the content coming 👏

[@alextita1356]

could you further define the psychographics into colors?

[@SymphoneersGaming]

The colours don't map cleanly on to the various psychographics, they have different fundamental principles at play, but within colours a lot of individual cards are definitely made by catering to them. Blue's one of the easiest examples; spike blue's force of will and brainstorm, Timmy blue's krakens and stuff, Johnny blue is like future sight, etc. You can also look at successful cards in the colour and how the hit multiple archetypes; Urza's good for vorthos, spike, johnny. Kappa Cannoneer and Murktide Regent are both very spikey but have a strong Timmy "Lol, why turtle/dragon so big." element, etc.

[@rizzzou]

I find it amusing that so many people think Timmy cards/decks can’t be good when there is no question that Johnny decks can be good. Just because many new players start as Timmy because it’s more obvious.

[@distractionmakers]

Timmy cards can 100% be good.

[@lololllololololol]

I don't know where I am on these things, but they're cool to think about anyways

[@paulgaither]

By cards that suck, I would assume you mean Tutors.

[@sithapprentic03]

As designers is there one psychographic you use to design games more than others

[@distractionmakers]

I think you can’t help but lean towards the archetype you are. In the current landscape of easily data I think spikes are being overly represented though.

[@Collinxd]

We should switch that to the Johnny/Jenny.

[@ParadoxMooCheese]

Another player type- I forget which name. They play just to make other players have less fun, typically with U.

[@Ninjamanhammer]

I've heard this mentioned before, and the conclusion I usually see is that if this type actually exists, they're Johnny players. As mentioned in the video the psycho-graphics aren't about what you do, but why you do it.

[@PaulSzkibik]

@@Ninjamanhammer yeah, wanted to say that sounds like a subset of johnny. They want to self-express how they "don't care for the rules" so it's about being liberated. Often times they don't play to win or rather they don't care about the win condition of the given game. They make their own win condition, which could be "everything is pure chaos" or "nobody can't do anything I'm staxing every player including myself", they're playing "divine internvention" to force a draw, they start an infinite loop, that doesn't stop by itself and as such forces a draw. But it can also be just using their cards and removal to unbalance a game and make one player miserable, e.g. intentional misplays. They're trying to break the game. In short, they're trying to "escape the matrix while bragging about it"? And of course, it can be incredibly annoying, because especially in a multiplayer format, that kind of player will often non-sensically king-make another player. The way to comabt this is to have a talk with these kinds of players and make them understand, that just because they're having fun, that doesn't mean everyone is having fun. And if they don't understand this or don't want, then you just gotta move on and not play with them anymore. A good friend of mine was like this and I told him that his tendency to always try and find a way to "not actually play the game" made me miserable and not want to play with him. He actually understood eventually and now we're having way more fun, whenever we play a board game. He's still very "creative" and on the hunt for edge cases but he's now playing to win, not to be free.

[@Randomperson-pk3ce]

Johnny for sure

[@freddiesimmons1394]

Missing psychographic: griefer The people who enjoy playing lantern control, etc