Individual games weren’t as important as the larger game that emerged
May 20, 2024 1:02 AM Subscribe
“When you first start out playing Magic, when you're playing with kids in the schoolyard or around the kitchen table with cards that your older brother played with, that is the way it works. Your friend will have a card you don't have. But when you enter the store system, then that's no longer the way it works, you just get many, many more cards, to the point where the magical aspect of having unique cards which nobody else has goes away.” from The Creator Of ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Knows Exactly Where It All Went Wrong [Defector; ungated]
My partner's played and collected for over 2 decades, and he didn't know the history of the company. I'm glad Garfield is still out there making games.
posted by dragonplayer at 4:27 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by dragonplayer at 4:27 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
I'm not 100% sure but the old magic of Magic may be there when using just the pre-built decks of the Commander format (no duplicate cards save for the basic resource cards (basic lands)). We have a small work group that plays. Only being able to use one of each card, the deck building side becomes more of moving towards a general strategy and making the best of what you end up with in hand. Though I played enough 10 years ago to know that even Commander could go off the rails if you really started tuning things with several hundred+ dollar cards (or their cheaper reprints if they've still been doing that for things like Sol Ring).
There was a recent non-Magic card game (key something?) that tried this for smaller decks and shorter game lengths but didn't really take off here.
posted by Slackermagee at 4:51 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
There was a recent non-Magic card game (key something?) that tried this for smaller decks and shorter game lengths but didn't really take off here.
posted by Slackermagee at 4:51 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
I had the impression MTG was pay-to-win from the beginning, but maybe I was just mad it seemed to supplant creative RPG fantasy gaming with an addiction-based winnable game that requires little in the way of imagination.
posted by rikschell at 4:54 AM on May 20 [8 favorites]
posted by rikschell at 4:54 AM on May 20 [8 favorites]
I wouldn’t say MTG and other deck-building games don’t require imagination, but they require a different sort. And while it might not be true for very competitive players, a lot of people are telling themselves stories as they play their cards.
I think MTG went wrong with its pricing and rarity structure, because that draws energy away from the game and the community and into speculation. Additionally, it pits the interests of the manufacturer and retailers against the players, since the best economic situation for one side will hurt the other. Lastly, I’ve seen people get addicted to collectible trading card games — the act of buying and opening card packs definitely triggers some brain chemical action.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:34 AM on May 20 [10 favorites]
I think MTG went wrong with its pricing and rarity structure, because that draws energy away from the game and the community and into speculation. Additionally, it pits the interests of the manufacturer and retailers against the players, since the best economic situation for one side will hurt the other. Lastly, I’ve seen people get addicted to collectible trading card games — the act of buying and opening card packs definitely triggers some brain chemical action.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:34 AM on May 20 [10 favorites]
I really dislike Commander, and think it's had a terrible impact on the game overall. The basic idea is fun, and hypothetically the singleton format would lead to more interesting strategy than cramming 4 epics into a deck, but the reality is that it's just more of the same problems amplified by a greater need for the good cards in a 100 singleton card deck. I think it also goes against what's most interesting about magic, which is managing chance by building a deck with certain constraints, and instead cramming "more better" cards to trigger a pretty obvious and boring win condition. The need for commander appealing cards (and the popularity of the format with whales) also means that more stuff is now tuned to the format, and it's exacerbated the power creep. There are exceptions, and sometimes a "bad" card enters the meta because of how it interacts with a commander, but the overall trend has been bad since commander became one of the most popular formats.
It doesn't help that online magic is terrible, and is designed around profit extraction even more than the original game. One of the reasons I quit Arena was that they forked the format between regular and "Alchemy" standard, with Alchemy having faster and more tuned cards that can't be used within the normal formats at all. The only real reason for this was to make people buy into a separate format that runs concurrently to the main one and is cheaper to develop because you're just adjusting card text. If the purpose of Alchemy is to make the game faster, then just make the game faster. Defenders of Hasbro like to trot out the idea that you can play Arena for free, which is true, but that doesn't change the fact that Wizards is often developing for online sales and it skews the game poorly overall. This isn't even getting into the Fortnite style crassness of making the whole thing into a mishmosh of IPs that nerds will buy simply because it's the thing they like on the thing they like. This doesn't really have much of a mechanical impact since Secret Lair is developed specifically to get whales to spend money, but it makes everything feel cheaper.
I think this is what Garfield is getting at in the interview: original magic is designed to feel a little like being a scrappy sorcerer. You know a handful of spells, some amazing, some awful, and you bring your knowledge together to beat some other upstart. That's what good MTG feels like still, where you bring together a weird combination of things to scrape out a victory that also involves a bit of fast thinking (do I use this overpriced removal spell now against that 4/4, or do I assume that since my opponent is ramping up their mana that it will be better used in a turn or two against some larger threat?). This is why my favorite format is drafting against friends.
The response, and the common Metafilter response to any critique of a game, is that "well, it's a big game, just play the way you want to and let other people enjoy things." But this ignores the fact that things like Alchemy, Arena, and Commander shape the possibilities of the game. One company owns it, and one company has the rights to make digital versions (Garfield talks about his frustration over digital Magic in the interview), and it's very frustrating to see such an interesting game pursue so many creative dead ends in the name of nurturing its markets (both primary and secondary).
I have played one of Garfield's other games that he made as a response to leaving MTG (called Keyforge, which used an algorithm to generate nearly infinite unique playable decks that were meant to be unsealed and then played against each other), and it was technically impressive, but didn't really capture one of the beautiful aspects of Magic, which is making something out of a pile of random cards and then making it work.
posted by codacorolla at 5:38 AM on May 20 [13 favorites]
It doesn't help that online magic is terrible, and is designed around profit extraction even more than the original game. One of the reasons I quit Arena was that they forked the format between regular and "Alchemy" standard, with Alchemy having faster and more tuned cards that can't be used within the normal formats at all. The only real reason for this was to make people buy into a separate format that runs concurrently to the main one and is cheaper to develop because you're just adjusting card text. If the purpose of Alchemy is to make the game faster, then just make the game faster. Defenders of Hasbro like to trot out the idea that you can play Arena for free, which is true, but that doesn't change the fact that Wizards is often developing for online sales and it skews the game poorly overall. This isn't even getting into the Fortnite style crassness of making the whole thing into a mishmosh of IPs that nerds will buy simply because it's the thing they like on the thing they like. This doesn't really have much of a mechanical impact since Secret Lair is developed specifically to get whales to spend money, but it makes everything feel cheaper.
I think this is what Garfield is getting at in the interview: original magic is designed to feel a little like being a scrappy sorcerer. You know a handful of spells, some amazing, some awful, and you bring your knowledge together to beat some other upstart. That's what good MTG feels like still, where you bring together a weird combination of things to scrape out a victory that also involves a bit of fast thinking (do I use this overpriced removal spell now against that 4/4, or do I assume that since my opponent is ramping up their mana that it will be better used in a turn or two against some larger threat?). This is why my favorite format is drafting against friends.
The response, and the common Metafilter response to any critique of a game, is that "well, it's a big game, just play the way you want to and let other people enjoy things." But this ignores the fact that things like Alchemy, Arena, and Commander shape the possibilities of the game. One company owns it, and one company has the rights to make digital versions (Garfield talks about his frustration over digital Magic in the interview), and it's very frustrating to see such an interesting game pursue so many creative dead ends in the name of nurturing its markets (both primary and secondary).
I have played one of Garfield's other games that he made as a response to leaving MTG (called Keyforge, which used an algorithm to generate nearly infinite unique playable decks that were meant to be unsealed and then played against each other), and it was technically impressive, but didn't really capture one of the beautiful aspects of Magic, which is making something out of a pile of random cards and then making it work.
posted by codacorolla at 5:38 AM on May 20 [13 favorites]
I never got into Magic (I was more of a Star Trek card game fella, and even that was more about collecting than playing) but this was fascinating. Beautiful things just don't survive commercialization unscathed, do they. That said, Garfield can cry himself to sleep on a building sized pile of money so it's hard to feel too bad for him.
posted by signsofrain at 5:48 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
posted by signsofrain at 5:48 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
The Garfield designed game that I really got into was Netrunner, which was built around the idea of asymmetrical play -- in each match, one player would have a "runner" deck and the other would have a "corporate" deck. There was no card overlap between the two sides, and victory came from the runner trying to defeat the corporation's defenses to steal victory cards, wghile the corporation tried to fulfill those cards for their own victory points. One that bout was over, you would switch factions and play a second time for the game.
There were various factions of runners and corporations, each of which were good at some things and bad at others, with a limited ability to import cards from other factions to shore up weaknesses or create janky strategies. It was a lot of fun, the card art was remarkably unsexualized, except when it made thematic sense, and the community made real efforts to attract and nurture younger players and women at events. It really was something (and died less from lack of interest than an unwillingness from the company to relicense the rules design from Garfield).
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:52 AM on May 20 [8 favorites]
There were various factions of runners and corporations, each of which were good at some things and bad at others, with a limited ability to import cards from other factions to shore up weaknesses or create janky strategies. It was a lot of fun, the card art was remarkably unsexualized, except when it made thematic sense, and the community made real efforts to attract and nurture younger players and women at events. It really was something (and died less from lack of interest than an unwillingness from the company to relicense the rules design from Garfield).
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:52 AM on May 20 [8 favorites]
I didn't wanna be the one to bring up Netrunner but now that GenjiandProust already has... periodic reminder that Netrunner is not dead and in fact 2024 is a great time to get into Netrunner (previously)
I found this article fascinating because although I'm not a big Magic player, I observe the game from the sidelines and find the meta-meta-layer at the intersection of capitalism/community/game design interesting. these competitive card games (Netrunner included) are so challenging to keep up with compared to static games like chess, go, or commercial board games, but there are genuinely great games at their core. I think frequently about a comment from SUSD's Quinns where he lamented online play ruining Netrunner, and I hear more than a hint of that from Richard Garfield here.
posted by okonomichiyaki at 6:50 AM on May 20 [8 favorites]
I found this article fascinating because although I'm not a big Magic player, I observe the game from the sidelines and find the meta-meta-layer at the intersection of capitalism/community/game design interesting. these competitive card games (Netrunner included) are so challenging to keep up with compared to static games like chess, go, or commercial board games, but there are genuinely great games at their core. I think frequently about a comment from SUSD's Quinns where he lamented online play ruining Netrunner, and I hear more than a hint of that from Richard Garfield here.
posted by okonomichiyaki at 6:50 AM on May 20 [8 favorites]
I worked for a game distribution company back in the 1990s where the owner was convinced he had designed a "Magic killer". It was extremely derivative of magic, but you couldn't build a deck out of any cards, you had to pick from one of two factions.
The big gimmick was that you could have custom cards printed up so you could have truly unique cards no one else had. When the boss explained this, I asked what system they had in place to keep the cards balanced. He looked genuinely surprised and told me to shut up.
These geniuses had commissioned dozens of (bad) art pieces, written up a rulebook, had a world building bible for the inevitable RPG and novel spin offs and hadn't even considered whether their core selling point would work. It sank without a ripple, just like his awful gaming mag did.
Later I found out that companies we did distribution for sent us free copies of a lot of books for warehouse employees, and the millionaire owner had them sent to his office so he could spend his time using orange oil to get the "free copy" stickers off to resell them.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:04 AM on May 20 [15 favorites]
The big gimmick was that you could have custom cards printed up so you could have truly unique cards no one else had. When the boss explained this, I asked what system they had in place to keep the cards balanced. He looked genuinely surprised and told me to shut up.
These geniuses had commissioned dozens of (bad) art pieces, written up a rulebook, had a world building bible for the inevitable RPG and novel spin offs and hadn't even considered whether their core selling point would work. It sank without a ripple, just like his awful gaming mag did.
Later I found out that companies we did distribution for sent us free copies of a lot of books for warehouse employees, and the millionaire owner had them sent to his office so he could spend his time using orange oil to get the "free copy" stickers off to resell them.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:04 AM on May 20 [15 favorites]
I’m very hooked to MTG:A and I’d say th at if things are broken vs some golden age in heh are still pretty good. Magic retains its core virtue of being a simple game where the cards and interactions between them introduce an incredible degree of complexity.
The rate of release of new sets and rotation out of Standard of the old ones gets a bit much though - seems like there’s hardly time to really get to grip with some new set of mechanics before another one comes along.
(Maybe I should play Historic? I don’t know, I always getting annihilated by some shit I’ve never seen before there)
posted by Artw at 7:06 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
The rate of release of new sets and rotation out of Standard of the old ones gets a bit much though - seems like there’s hardly time to really get to grip with some new set of mechanics before another one comes along.
(Maybe I should play Historic? I don’t know, I always getting annihilated by some shit I’ve never seen before there)
posted by Artw at 7:06 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
I'm on a deckbuilding computer game kick now. Fired off by the excellent Balatro, a truly great new game. Now I'm back to playing Slay the Spire which I never really played through. Might pick up Monster Train again too. Maybe this is the month I finally finish Inscryption?
What I love about this genre is how the cards modify the other cards, create synergies that warp the whole game. Like in Balatro, the main game is to make poker hands and harder hands (straights, flushes) score higher than easy hands (a pair). But you can get jokers that modify payouts. Get Stuntman with its big +chip bonus and you no longer really care about what hand you play, any hand scores about the same, so you can ignore the poker part. Or get cards that give a big payout for flushes and now you're playing flushes. Or get a card that allows you to make 4 card straights and flushes and it's a different game again.
Has anyone written a history of this deckbuilding mechanic, the way the cards you collect alter the game itself? Everyone traces all deckbuilders to Magic but I have to assume there was a precedent before MtG that had similar elements. As the article and folks here have noted, kids invent crazy Calvinball-style games all the time. Deckbuilders sort of bottle that inventiveness, turn it into a balanced game. It's a really rich area.
posted by Nelson at 7:13 AM on May 20 [3 favorites]
What I love about this genre is how the cards modify the other cards, create synergies that warp the whole game. Like in Balatro, the main game is to make poker hands and harder hands (straights, flushes) score higher than easy hands (a pair). But you can get jokers that modify payouts. Get Stuntman with its big +chip bonus and you no longer really care about what hand you play, any hand scores about the same, so you can ignore the poker part. Or get cards that give a big payout for flushes and now you're playing flushes. Or get a card that allows you to make 4 card straights and flushes and it's a different game again.
Has anyone written a history of this deckbuilding mechanic, the way the cards you collect alter the game itself? Everyone traces all deckbuilders to Magic but I have to assume there was a precedent before MtG that had similar elements. As the article and folks here have noted, kids invent crazy Calvinball-style games all the time. Deckbuilders sort of bottle that inventiveness, turn it into a balanced game. It's a really rich area.
posted by Nelson at 7:13 AM on May 20 [3 favorites]
I would have thought Illuminati was one of the first but I guess I’d mechanically different enough that it’s considered more of a precursor than a point of origin.
posted by Artw at 7:19 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:19 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
Dominion really felt like it nailed 'magic without the bullshit.' Symmetric (everyone's working with the same set of cards), and the deck building happens during the game, instead of during turn-zero.
posted by kaibutsu at 7:21 AM on May 20 [9 favorites]
posted by kaibutsu at 7:21 AM on May 20 [9 favorites]
I haven't played Magic proper since my childhood, but the game that feels closest for me is Epic Card Game (the Wise Wizard one). It's based on a joke format of magic where you can basically play any card you want once per turn a for free, so the resource model is simplified to "one great card, any number of good cards". The "stack" is replaced by a simpler resolution timing.
It's much more Magic-y than two player deck builders like Star Realms (same company), supports a variety of deck construction formats: each color in the base set is a valid deck on its own, as is any random deal of 30 cards, or do a draft, or pre-construct.
Balance is mostly from every great card being ridiculously overpowered but having a variety of counter plays in the good cards.
Sets are non-randomized, and there's no land equivalent since every card costs the same.
posted by Anonymous Function at 7:23 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
It's much more Magic-y than two player deck builders like Star Realms (same company), supports a variety of deck construction formats: each color in the base set is a valid deck on its own, as is any random deal of 30 cards, or do a draft, or pre-construct.
Balance is mostly from every great card being ridiculously overpowered but having a variety of counter plays in the good cards.
Sets are non-randomized, and there's no land equivalent since every card costs the same.
posted by Anonymous Function at 7:23 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
Seconding Dominion as a really good deck builder in a box.
posted by Artw at 7:24 AM on May 20 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:24 AM on May 20 [3 favorites]
I started playing Magic heavily in September 1993. My first couple decks and boosters were Beta, and some of the folks I played with had original print run cards. We even played occasionally by the rules in the book, with a one card ante to be taken by the winner of the match. Kind of amazing to think that I had decks that would be worth into the hundreds of thousands today and was randomly anteing up cards from them.
The collecting bug hit harder earlier than the pay to win effect in my social circles. We just wanted to see everything there was to see. It went from buying a booster once a week to preordering carses as sets came out just because of the rush of opening and exploring the system.
By 2002 I’d sold most of the (at the time) valuable cards to help with down payment on a house. Got out a couple thousand dollars. Most of what we put into it. Sold the rest by ten years ago. Occasionally wish I’d kept the black lotus, moxes, ancestral recall, etc I had from those early beta packs. But c’est la vie.
posted by meinvt at 7:25 AM on May 20 [6 favorites]
The collecting bug hit harder earlier than the pay to win effect in my social circles. We just wanted to see everything there was to see. It went from buying a booster once a week to preordering carses as sets came out just because of the rush of opening and exploring the system.
By 2002 I’d sold most of the (at the time) valuable cards to help with down payment on a house. Got out a couple thousand dollars. Most of what we put into it. Sold the rest by ten years ago. Occasionally wish I’d kept the black lotus, moxes, ancestral recall, etc I had from those early beta packs. But c’est la vie.
posted by meinvt at 7:25 AM on May 20 [6 favorites]
I would have thought Illuminati was one of the first but I guess I’d mechanically different enough that it’s considered more of a precursor than a point of origin.
I think the big difference was that INWO wasn't collectible. Every set had a fixed liat of cards. No random boosters or anything like that.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:27 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
I think the big difference was that INWO wasn't collectible. Every set had a fixed liat of cards. No random boosters or anything like that.
posted by The Manwich Horror at 7:27 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
It’s definitely been in collectible forms, but that may have come later.
posted by Artw at 7:28 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 7:28 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
INWO started out collectible, I distinctly recall a joke in the rules or some designers notes about how Steve Jackson was hoping to sell so much of it that he could “use gold Krugerrands as action tokens”. The “One with Everything” box came after it was clear that this was never gonna happen and that there was really only room in the market for one collectible deckbuilding game that was making a bazillion dollars.
The original Illuminati game that INWO was a collective remake of had a *little* bit of the “most of the rules are on the cards” vibe of Magic but not a ton. Plus of course no deckbuilding, everyone drew from the same pile of cards.
posted by egypturnash at 7:55 AM on May 20 [5 favorites]
The original Illuminati game that INWO was a collective remake of had a *little* bit of the “most of the rules are on the cards” vibe of Magic but not a ton. Plus of course no deckbuilding, everyone drew from the same pile of cards.
posted by egypturnash at 7:55 AM on May 20 [5 favorites]
Illuminati was a non-collectable card game. Illuminati: New World Order was a collectable card game, with rarities and all that. They did make a "one with everything" set, (which go for about $500 on the eBay). Both were pretty fun games. INWO was a bit broken though. Fairly easy to build decks that could win on turn 2, with no one really being able to do anything about it.
Netrunner has left Fantasy Flight Games as a publisher, but much like the Star Wars CCG, is being run by a user group, and cards are still coming out. I burned out on buying cards before FFG stopped printing them, and haven't gotten interested in the Null Signal Games efforts. It is a pretty fun game though.
Have thrifted a couple of Keyforge starter sets, but haven't yet broken the shrink on those to play.
And agree that Dominion flipped deck-building on it's head, and has inspired hundreds of deck-building games in the Euro-gaming sphere. But when you have so much product, (I have like six or seven of the expansions), it becomes somewhat unworkable. Much the same with the FFG LCG model. I have all of Warhammer: Invasion (better than MtG), and Call of Cthulhu, and that amount of cards makes it hard to get up the gumption to actually try and build a deck, And how do I organize all of my Dominion in a way that lets me draw the cards that we are going to use this game, and then find them, and any extra bits those cards may use, to play a single game?
Somehow, MtG has been able to not fail. Can't think of many CCGs that haven't failed, often repeatedly. But there are plenty of "the next great CCG"s on kickstarter if you are a crypto bro looking to rug pull.
And Garfield has made a bunch of terrible games, (looking at you Rocketville), so I don't take his word as the end all be all of game design. But he did nail it with Magic.
posted by Windopaene at 8:05 AM on May 20 [6 favorites]
Netrunner has left Fantasy Flight Games as a publisher, but much like the Star Wars CCG, is being run by a user group, and cards are still coming out. I burned out on buying cards before FFG stopped printing them, and haven't gotten interested in the Null Signal Games efforts. It is a pretty fun game though.
Have thrifted a couple of Keyforge starter sets, but haven't yet broken the shrink on those to play.
And agree that Dominion flipped deck-building on it's head, and has inspired hundreds of deck-building games in the Euro-gaming sphere. But when you have so much product, (I have like six or seven of the expansions), it becomes somewhat unworkable. Much the same with the FFG LCG model. I have all of Warhammer: Invasion (better than MtG), and Call of Cthulhu, and that amount of cards makes it hard to get up the gumption to actually try and build a deck, And how do I organize all of my Dominion in a way that lets me draw the cards that we are going to use this game, and then find them, and any extra bits those cards may use, to play a single game?
Somehow, MtG has been able to not fail. Can't think of many CCGs that haven't failed, often repeatedly. But there are plenty of "the next great CCG"s on kickstarter if you are a crypto bro looking to rug pull.
And Garfield has made a bunch of terrible games, (looking at you Rocketville), so I don't take his word as the end all be all of game design. But he did nail it with Magic.
posted by Windopaene at 8:05 AM on May 20 [6 favorites]
Did not know there was a Blood Wars CCG, which now makes me wonder if that bit of Planescape lore was introduced purely as a handy Magic-like setting.
posted by Artw at 8:09 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 8:09 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
How did I guess it was money that spoiled things before I read the article?
Then I read the article.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:52 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
Then I read the article.
posted by BlueHorse at 8:52 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
I think frequently about a comment from SUSD's Quinns where he lamented online play ruining Netrunner, and I hear more than a hint of that from Richard Garfield here.
The MTG R&D Timmy/Johnny/Spike “player profiles” seem relevant, the idea that they try to design for people who like:
a.) powerful cards
b.) interesting/combo-able cards
c.) good cards.
Because to me what keeps Magic going is that it just works on multiple levels. Playing with limited resources is fun - draft is probably the most guaranteed fun for your dollar the game offers - but deckbuilding with unlimited resources (just proxy it) is also fun and there are all kinds of restrictions you can play with to make less played cards relevant. At the same time the actual gameplay is deep enough in a poker sort of way that playing competitively with a pure net deck is also fun and even there you get variety since every deck is still its own game.
I have my Magic Boomer bona fides - the first time I played we drew from the same deck, and I still hate the “new” (decade-old) card faces. And I don’t really play now. But I don’t totally agree with the idea that it was better before you could get all the cards or before it was “figured out.”
posted by atoxyl at 10:08 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
The MTG R&D Timmy/Johnny/Spike “player profiles” seem relevant, the idea that they try to design for people who like:
a.) powerful cards
b.) interesting/combo-able cards
c.) good cards.
Because to me what keeps Magic going is that it just works on multiple levels. Playing with limited resources is fun - draft is probably the most guaranteed fun for your dollar the game offers - but deckbuilding with unlimited resources (just proxy it) is also fun and there are all kinds of restrictions you can play with to make less played cards relevant. At the same time the actual gameplay is deep enough in a poker sort of way that playing competitively with a pure net deck is also fun and even there you get variety since every deck is still its own game.
I have my Magic Boomer bona fides - the first time I played we drew from the same deck, and I still hate the “new” (decade-old) card faces. And I don’t really play now. But I don’t totally agree with the idea that it was better before you could get all the cards or before it was “figured out.”
posted by atoxyl at 10:08 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
I bought a little bit of every trading card game when I was a kid, there was something very mysterious and magical about having this 15 card window into something. I managed to find a couple of packs of Netrunner while it was out of print, even. So I get it. But that’s only one part of what works about MTG.
posted by atoxyl at 10:16 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
posted by atoxyl at 10:16 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
[In Dominion] the deck building happens during the game, instead of during turn-zero.
I understated how important building a deck in-game is when I talked about Magic the Gathering as the "first deck building game". FWIW Wikipedia doesn't even include MtG as a deckbuilder because the deck building is not part of the main gameplay. It also says that StarCraft: The Board Game was the first actual deck building game just a year before Dominion although Dominion played a far larger role popularizing the mechanic.
Thanks to folks bringing up Illuminati as having some characteristics of card games where the cards manipulate the rules. My original clamshell set with the tiny cards is sitting about six feet from me and got a lot of love in the 80s playing with friends.
There must be earlier precedents though. Uno has a bit of the flavor with its cards that force other players to draw cards or reverse the order of play. But it didn't quite close the loop where you constructed a deck to have particular kinds of cards. Honestly it's more like Snakes and Ladders in how dependent it is on randomness rather than strategy.
While I'm here a shout out to Peter Whalen's Dream Quest, "a roguelike deckbuilding game" from 2014. It is the direct predecessor of a lot of computer-oriented deckbuilding games. The card art is aggressively bad but the game mechanics are quite well tuned. (With some influence and recognition from Richard Garfield.)
posted by Nelson at 10:17 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
I understated how important building a deck in-game is when I talked about Magic the Gathering as the "first deck building game". FWIW Wikipedia doesn't even include MtG as a deckbuilder because the deck building is not part of the main gameplay. It also says that StarCraft: The Board Game was the first actual deck building game just a year before Dominion although Dominion played a far larger role popularizing the mechanic.
Thanks to folks bringing up Illuminati as having some characteristics of card games where the cards manipulate the rules. My original clamshell set with the tiny cards is sitting about six feet from me and got a lot of love in the 80s playing with friends.
There must be earlier precedents though. Uno has a bit of the flavor with its cards that force other players to draw cards or reverse the order of play. But it didn't quite close the loop where you constructed a deck to have particular kinds of cards. Honestly it's more like Snakes and Ladders in how dependent it is on randomness rather than strategy.
While I'm here a shout out to Peter Whalen's Dream Quest, "a roguelike deckbuilding game" from 2014. It is the direct predecessor of a lot of computer-oriented deckbuilding games. The card art is aggressively bad but the game mechanics are quite well tuned. (With some influence and recognition from Richard Garfield.)
posted by Nelson at 10:17 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
I’m also going to disagree with the articles assessment of the Arena software. I don’t know if earlier versions were jankier but outside of being a storage hog on tablets it works pretty consistently and well, and technically is super neat. If you have some kind of CCG game and you want to put it online MtG:A is going to be a thing of envy.
posted by Artw at 10:32 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:32 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
They did make a "one with everything" set, (which go for about $500 on the eBay).
Holy shit, that's a rather unexpected gold mine on which to find myself sitting. I've got two, one still factory sealed. Plus a Subgenius set, I'm not sure how many packs worth of original cards, the INWO book, and even a couple issues of Pyramid that came with INWO cards. I guess I have a project now.
posted by fedward at 10:33 AM on May 20 [6 favorites]
Holy shit, that's a rather unexpected gold mine on which to find myself sitting. I've got two, one still factory sealed. Plus a Subgenius set, I'm not sure how many packs worth of original cards, the INWO book, and even a couple issues of Pyramid that came with INWO cards. I guess I have a project now.
posted by fedward at 10:33 AM on May 20 [6 favorites]
Honestly? I have put an ungodly number of hours into playing Magic, and I have never played a game against another human being.
Because I had the old Windows 95 Microprose M:TG game and its expansion, and adored Shandalar, its single-player campaign mode. That mode gave me both the 'scrappy sorcerer' experience (starting with a garbage dirt-common deck of my color of choice and hunting down, questing for and abusing the system to obtain better cards) and the extravagance of being able to build the most ludicrous, rule-abusing deck imaginable that would've cost tens of thousands of dollars in real life. The game had sealed-pack tournament mode for the thrill of ripping open booster packs and building decks out of randomness, functional if sometimes unclear-on-the-concept CPU opponents, and a final boss that would occasionally malfunction and indicate that you have saved the world by sealing away the ultimate evil for -3170 years. Life is good!
And not a dime spent beyond the CD-ROMs themselves, and no need to track down any similarly twisted individuals interested in a similar experience.
posted by delfin at 10:38 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
Because I had the old Windows 95 Microprose M:TG game and its expansion, and adored Shandalar, its single-player campaign mode. That mode gave me both the 'scrappy sorcerer' experience (starting with a garbage dirt-common deck of my color of choice and hunting down, questing for and abusing the system to obtain better cards) and the extravagance of being able to build the most ludicrous, rule-abusing deck imaginable that would've cost tens of thousands of dollars in real life. The game had sealed-pack tournament mode for the thrill of ripping open booster packs and building decks out of randomness, functional if sometimes unclear-on-the-concept CPU opponents, and a final boss that would occasionally malfunction and indicate that you have saved the world by sealing away the ultimate evil for -3170 years. Life is good!
And not a dime spent beyond the CD-ROMs themselves, and no need to track down any similarly twisted individuals interested in a similar experience.
posted by delfin at 10:38 AM on May 20 [4 favorites]
Nice fedward! Yea, check out what you can get, (but notice what is asked is not always what someone will pay).
And to Nelson, Starcraft: The Board Game was about the first I remember with the mechanic. And it is an awesome game, made even better by the expansion. Going to cost you a bunch though. I wisely bought an extra copy and expansion for my son back in the day. When he is adult enough, he will get those. I hope he will be able to play it with his kids. Though they will never likely have the fun of playing the actual video games with each other. Fun times.
"My life for Auir!"
posted by Windopaene at 10:55 AM on May 20 [3 favorites]
And to Nelson, Starcraft: The Board Game was about the first I remember with the mechanic. And it is an awesome game, made even better by the expansion. Going to cost you a bunch though. I wisely bought an extra copy and expansion for my son back in the day. When he is adult enough, he will get those. I hope he will be able to play it with his kids. Though they will never likely have the fun of playing the actual video games with each other. Fun times.
"My life for Auir!"
posted by Windopaene at 10:55 AM on May 20 [3 favorites]
For me, Mage Wars is the ultimate riff on MTG. Cards are sleeved into binders that act as your Grimoire. Each card can only be used once and there an arena that is moved around that gives a more grounded feel and let's you do things like use telekinesis to throw a monster at another monster.
That said, none if the challengers in the ccg space ever come particularly close to scratching the magic itch. These days I prefer to play it with Forge, which supports playing in a kind of career sim mode.
I also have a soft spot in my heart for Millenium Blades, which is a chaotic game with a very specific audience that simulates and parodies CCGs, complete with buying and trading cards, building collections, and attending tournaments.
Of Garfield's post magic games I liked SolForge the most, but it really had most of the same problems as magic.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:11 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
That said, none if the challengers in the ccg space ever come particularly close to scratching the magic itch. These days I prefer to play it with Forge, which supports playing in a kind of career sim mode.
I also have a soft spot in my heart for Millenium Blades, which is a chaotic game with a very specific audience that simulates and parodies CCGs, complete with buying and trading cards, building collections, and attending tournaments.
Of Garfield's post magic games I liked SolForge the most, but it really had most of the same problems as magic.
posted by forbiddencabinet at 11:11 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
Interesting forbiddencabinet. I know I have thrifted a version of Mage Wars, but have not played. Have not heard of Forge, but have heard of MBs. Haven't thrifted or played though.
posted by Windopaene at 11:23 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by Windopaene at 11:23 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
Dominion really felt like it nailed 'magic without the bullshit.' Symmetric (everyone's working with the same set of cards), and the deck building happens during the game, instead of during turn-zero.
This is funny because Dominion is the definition of a turn-zero game, and certainly much more of a turn-zero game than Magic is. Everybody knows what assets are available at the start of the game, and there is by definition a most-efficient path to winning the game, so for experienced players who can quickly assess what the "right cards" are in the combination presented, the game becomes a competition of who can draw into the optimal purchase scenario first.
This is why I got rid of Dominion from my game collection a long, long time ago: the innovations it introduced to board gaming are invaluable, but so, so many deckbuilding games have surpassed it:
This is funny because Dominion is the definition of a turn-zero game, and certainly much more of a turn-zero game than Magic is. Everybody knows what assets are available at the start of the game, and there is by definition a most-efficient path to winning the game, so for experienced players who can quickly assess what the "right cards" are in the combination presented, the game becomes a competition of who can draw into the optimal purchase scenario first.
This is why I got rid of Dominion from my game collection a long, long time ago: the innovations it introduced to board gaming are invaluable, but so, so many deckbuilding games have surpassed it:
- If you want a deckbuilding game that, like Dominion, is really just about deckbuilding, but without Dominion's turn-zero problems, I recommend Valley of the Kings.
- If you want a deckbuilding game that marries deckbuilding with Euro-style engine optimization/action selection, try Rococo or Great Western Trail.
- If you want a different take on deckbuilding (you effectively don't have a draw deck, just a hand of cards you can refresh as needed) married to an excellent economic expansion Eurogame, you can't go wrong with Concordia.
- If you're willing to give up cards and instead pull random abilities out of a bag (which is the same thing as a deck of cards, functionally speaking), Orleans is a fine design.
- If you want a deckbuilding game that melds deckbuilding with classic area-control combat, Tyrants of the Underdark is fantastic. If you want a meatier version of that with Euro-style worker placement sorta blended into it as well, Dune: Imperium is exceptionally popular and well-designed.
- If you want a deckbuilding game that merges deckbuilding with a race/adventure game, Clank! and its sci-fi cousin Clank! In! Space! are both excellent.
- If you want a deckbuilder that's extremely meaty and heavy with intense strategy, a civbuilder in deckbuilding form, the Imperium games (not Dune: Imperium, a different deckbuilding system also called Imperium - I know, I know) are superb.
- Finally, if you just really like Dominion's simplicity, Art Decko does most of what Dominion does but much better.
The Creator Of ‘Magic: The Gathering’ Knows Exactly Where It All Went Wrong
It wasn't the buttcracks?
posted by pracowity at 11:45 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
It wasn't the buttcracks?
posted by pracowity at 11:45 AM on May 20 [1 favorite]
I think MTG went wrong with its pricing and rarity structure
Now, this is coming from someone who effectively stopped playing MtG shortly after Antiquities (which is the second expansion, in 1994) so a lot has changed in the world since then, but: yes, this.
At the time, I couldn't hope to match the buying power of the other players in my friend circle, and as a result I simply had fewer uncommon and rare cards. This limited the number of effective decks I could build that had any hope of actually winning games against my friends — often in colors I didn't want to play, or forcing me to multicolor when I didn't want to.
Now, because these were my friends, we'd often have trading sessions when it was pack-opening day and I could sometimes trade a UC/R card that was potentially "better" away for a card that was actually usable. I wasn't completely without recourse. And I had a lot of fun. We even occasionally went to a local coffeeshop that hosted tables every week.
But that shit was unambiguously pay-to-win. I never once browsed the card collection of singles in a game store or card shop. It'd be pointless to. That whole economy was just... closed to me.
Handed off my boxes to my kid a couple years ago, probably a few grand worth of cards in there if you include the random beta commons and lands plus all the first print and Arabian shit. Nothing's sleeved — it's all for playing, not for looking at. I think he occasionally throws some of it into his decks, but most of the good stuff is illegal now. Weird to think of my anemic MtG boxes as "good stuff."
posted by majick at 11:57 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
Now, this is coming from someone who effectively stopped playing MtG shortly after Antiquities (which is the second expansion, in 1994) so a lot has changed in the world since then, but: yes, this.
At the time, I couldn't hope to match the buying power of the other players in my friend circle, and as a result I simply had fewer uncommon and rare cards. This limited the number of effective decks I could build that had any hope of actually winning games against my friends — often in colors I didn't want to play, or forcing me to multicolor when I didn't want to.
Now, because these were my friends, we'd often have trading sessions when it was pack-opening day and I could sometimes trade a UC/R card that was potentially "better" away for a card that was actually usable. I wasn't completely without recourse. And I had a lot of fun. We even occasionally went to a local coffeeshop that hosted tables every week.
But that shit was unambiguously pay-to-win. I never once browsed the card collection of singles in a game store or card shop. It'd be pointless to. That whole economy was just... closed to me.
Handed off my boxes to my kid a couple years ago, probably a few grand worth of cards in there if you include the random beta commons and lands plus all the first print and Arabian shit. Nothing's sleeved — it's all for playing, not for looking at. I think he occasionally throws some of it into his decks, but most of the good stuff is illegal now. Weird to think of my anemic MtG boxes as "good stuff."
posted by majick at 11:57 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]
“Constructed” (bring your own deck) Magic has historically been ”pay-to-win” in a way that I think of as “pay-to-enter.” The best deck isn’t necessarily the most expensive but you’re going to need to be able to drop a certain amount of money on cards, depending on the format, to hang at all.
Draft is fairer but potentially expensive per session. If you’re good you can break even, I have friends who played online “for free” for a long time, but necessarily most people won’t.
posted by atoxyl at 12:32 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
Draft is fairer but potentially expensive per session. If you’re good you can break even, I have friends who played online “for free” for a long time, but necessarily most people won’t.
posted by atoxyl at 12:32 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
If we're mentioning obscure CCGs, I have several complete sets of Mythos from '96/'97, including the reduced print run New Aeon expansion, and never learned how to play, I just loved the setting and enjoy flipping through the binders looking at the (mostly) beautiful artwork.
posted by Molesome at 12:34 PM on May 20 [4 favorites]
posted by Molesome at 12:34 PM on May 20 [4 favorites]
The only CCG type game I've ever played is Marvel SNAP, and while it has some eyebrow-raising monetization, it seems like an extremely well-designed game. The three randomized lanes you fight in have a huge variety of game-changing characteristics, so even though deck-building strategy is important, I frequently feel like my strategic thinking in the moment is just as important as the deck build. And they seem to do a good job of continually balancing the game and creating new abilities that counter popular strategies, so that even when I lose I often feel like I could have won if I'd made different choices or built my deck differently.
I play lots of games but SNAP is the only head-to-head multiplayer game that has kept me playing for any amount of time. (I also haven't spent any money on it.)
posted by straight at 12:47 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
I play lots of games but SNAP is the only head-to-head multiplayer game that has kept me playing for any amount of time. (I also haven't spent any money on it.)
posted by straight at 12:47 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
NSG (Null Signal Games) has honestly done some really cool stuff with Netrunner, exploring new spaces with it to create fun and novel archetypes. It's also a lot more explicitly queer now, which I enjoy even though I'm not part of that community. The last couple of years of FFG cards were, from what anyone can tell, barely even playtested, and left the game in kind of a rough place. NSG has now mostly fixed it, so while it's new (or, most of the cards are new. Some old standbys like your Sure Gambles and such will be evergreen) it feels like Netrunner being good again. Also, not a money-sink. You can order printed cards from a few sources, but you know exactly what you're getting (random packs have never been a part of Netrunner) and you can also just make your own proxy versions of the cards, as long as they play the same as the official ones. Proxies are even tournament-legal, by my understanding. In other words, you can get into Netrunner entirely for free, if you so choose.
posted by Navelgazer at 4:44 PM on May 20 [6 favorites]
posted by Navelgazer at 4:44 PM on May 20 [6 favorites]
How did I guess it was money that spoiled things before I read the article?
Obviously YMMV applies here, BUT, we should none of us be surprised that the founder is starry-eyed about the halcyon days of his pet project. I've been a close observer of this game for some time and I think he's wrong and by extension, this comment is also misguided.
If the success of a game can be measured by how many people have played it and for how long, it's difficult to compete with MtG's 30+ year run and international reach. However, there were a handful of times where the product suffered (both in widely held opinion and sales) as a result of design failures.
Design failures most commonly come in two flavors: boring (Homelands) and unbalanced (Tarmogoyf). Many of the worst periods were early on and after one of the most egregious periods (Urza block), where there was a card so unbalanced that it was banned basically as soon as it was printed (Memory Jar), was when the game evolved at the organizational level.
Hasbro bought Wotc right around this time (1999) and Garfield moved on shortly after (2001), although he has been back and dabbled (eg Ravnic CoG in 2005). It's hard to untangle the existing non-Garfield brain trust that was at Wotc before Hasbro with their governance since 1999, but what is clear is that this is NOT a case of a big corporate coming in and running a brand into the ground. There are dips, but, in general, the game and especially the product improved and became more consistent AFTER Garfield left.
The game has continued to see expansive growth, innovative design and some interesting (some not) diversifications of its business lines. It should be pointed out that no trivial part of the game's success has been by adopting or co-opting innovations by players. Commander is probably the greatest example of this. And it's hard to imagine Wotc doing any better with resource intensive transitions like supporting online play. I don't know if there's another example of a corporate taking over a creative process like this and pushing out another...130?...products (sets) after the founder's original, beloved, effort, and having so much success.
I'm the furthest thing from a Hasbro stan, but some credit where it is due.
original magic is designed to feel a little like being a scrappy sorcerer. You know a handful of spells, some amazing, some awful, and you bring your knowledge together to beat some other upstart. That's what good MTG feels like still
Here, here. Even though I've played competitive formats with five-digit price tag decks, this is absolutely the original and durable hook of the game. But just as you say in this quote, it feels like this still, if you decide to go that route. There are so many variations of how to play with MtG cards and so many harken to these simpler and unpredictable styles. You can go on Cockatrice and play people across the world for free with whatever casual (or not) setup you want.
It's an amazing game.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:54 PM on May 20 [8 favorites]
Obviously YMMV applies here, BUT, we should none of us be surprised that the founder is starry-eyed about the halcyon days of his pet project. I've been a close observer of this game for some time and I think he's wrong and by extension, this comment is also misguided.
If the success of a game can be measured by how many people have played it and for how long, it's difficult to compete with MtG's 30+ year run and international reach. However, there were a handful of times where the product suffered (both in widely held opinion and sales) as a result of design failures.
Design failures most commonly come in two flavors: boring (Homelands) and unbalanced (Tarmogoyf). Many of the worst periods were early on and after one of the most egregious periods (Urza block), where there was a card so unbalanced that it was banned basically as soon as it was printed (Memory Jar), was when the game evolved at the organizational level.
Hasbro bought Wotc right around this time (1999) and Garfield moved on shortly after (2001), although he has been back and dabbled (eg Ravnic CoG in 2005). It's hard to untangle the existing non-Garfield brain trust that was at Wotc before Hasbro with their governance since 1999, but what is clear is that this is NOT a case of a big corporate coming in and running a brand into the ground. There are dips, but, in general, the game and especially the product improved and became more consistent AFTER Garfield left.
The game has continued to see expansive growth, innovative design and some interesting (some not) diversifications of its business lines. It should be pointed out that no trivial part of the game's success has been by adopting or co-opting innovations by players. Commander is probably the greatest example of this. And it's hard to imagine Wotc doing any better with resource intensive transitions like supporting online play. I don't know if there's another example of a corporate taking over a creative process like this and pushing out another...130?...products (sets) after the founder's original, beloved, effort, and having so much success.
I'm the furthest thing from a Hasbro stan, but some credit where it is due.
original magic is designed to feel a little like being a scrappy sorcerer. You know a handful of spells, some amazing, some awful, and you bring your knowledge together to beat some other upstart. That's what good MTG feels like still
Here, here. Even though I've played competitive formats with five-digit price tag decks, this is absolutely the original and durable hook of the game. But just as you say in this quote, it feels like this still, if you decide to go that route. There are so many variations of how to play with MtG cards and so many harken to these simpler and unpredictable styles. You can go on Cockatrice and play people across the world for free with whatever casual (or not) setup you want.
It's an amazing game.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 5:54 PM on May 20 [8 favorites]
I've been off MtG:A for the last year or so. I hopped back on when they put out the LotR set and drafted that, but after that I just noticed how WotC was rushing to get the next set out in just 2-3 months, and by then it all felt like I would struggle to keep up drafting every so often, so I just stopped.
Draft formats have always interested me, as the randomness both levels the playing field and gives that feel of being the scrappy sorcerer that the article alludes to. MtG:A is the next best thing for a casual drafter with no nearby game store, but the feel of being slowly bled dry by the barrage of new sets kinda soured me on wanting to go back.
posted by FarOutFreak at 7:26 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
Draft formats have always interested me, as the randomness both levels the playing field and gives that feel of being the scrappy sorcerer that the article alludes to. MtG:A is the next best thing for a casual drafter with no nearby game store, but the feel of being slowly bled dry by the barrage of new sets kinda soured me on wanting to go back.
posted by FarOutFreak at 7:26 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
I don’t feel bled dry as I don’t really spend money on it other than the odd batch of “gems” to do the mastery track thing, but it does feel relentless. Some of the recent sets have been really good and fun and it almost feels like they are squandering them by rushing through them so fast.
posted by Artw at 7:41 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 7:41 PM on May 20 [1 favorite]
To the gamers upthread...
Garfield had a great idea. Did it, and rocked it.
No one else has been able to make that model sustainable.
Great Western Trail and Concordia are both great. Navegador and Imperial as well.
And as far as deckbuilding goes, for different takes, I would add El Dorado and Hands in the Sea.
posted by Windopaene at 7:47 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
Garfield had a great idea. Did it, and rocked it.
No one else has been able to make that model sustainable.
Great Western Trail and Concordia are both great. Navegador and Imperial as well.
And as far as deckbuilding goes, for different takes, I would add El Dorado and Hands in the Sea.
posted by Windopaene at 7:47 PM on May 20 [2 favorites]
Anyone played the open source games Arcmage or Argentum Age? Or tried any of the open source online card game engines, like forge or xmage, or open duelyst? (previously)
posted by jeffburdges at 12:36 AM on May 21 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 12:36 AM on May 21 [1 favorite]
There are so many variations of how to play with MtG cards and so many harken to these simpler and unpredictable styles. You can go on Cockatrice and play people across the world for free with whatever casual (or not) setup you want.
Ah, there it is.
The response, and the common Metafilter response to any critique of a game, is that "well, it's a big game, just play the way you want to and let other people enjoy things." But this ignores the fact that things like Alchemy, Arena, and Commander shape the possibilities of the game. One company owns it, and one company has the rights to make digital versions (Garfield talks about his frustration over digital Magic in the interview), and it's very frustrating to see such an interesting game pursue so many creative dead ends in the name of nurturing its markets (both primary and secondary).
MTG is trapped in a creative dead end for most formats that get attention and support of developers, and this is largely due to decisions made for profitability by Hasbro. The fact that the game has existed for 30 years and still has a massive back catalogue doesn't really change the fact that the place it's headed currently is depressing and bland. The fact that people choose to play this doesn't change the fact that it lacks a lot of the original core appeal.
posted by codacorolla at 3:42 AM on May 21 [1 favorite]
Ah, there it is.
The response, and the common Metafilter response to any critique of a game, is that "well, it's a big game, just play the way you want to and let other people enjoy things." But this ignores the fact that things like Alchemy, Arena, and Commander shape the possibilities of the game. One company owns it, and one company has the rights to make digital versions (Garfield talks about his frustration over digital Magic in the interview), and it's very frustrating to see such an interesting game pursue so many creative dead ends in the name of nurturing its markets (both primary and secondary).
MTG is trapped in a creative dead end for most formats that get attention and support of developers, and this is largely due to decisions made for profitability by Hasbro. The fact that the game has existed for 30 years and still has a massive back catalogue doesn't really change the fact that the place it's headed currently is depressing and bland. The fact that people choose to play this doesn't change the fact that it lacks a lot of the original core appeal.
posted by codacorolla at 3:42 AM on May 21 [1 favorite]
Ah, there it is.
But the option I mentioned isn't a application that Hasbro owns. And perhaps the current moment in MtG's development is vapid and uncreative by comparison to its history. Maybe that's the talent in the room or maybe it's the eventuality that all things run their course.
Still, new people find Magic every day. They typically don't do it at the cafeteria table like they used to. Everything is more digital than it was back in 1993. You can't step in the same river twice, etc. I just don't see how your 'gotcha' applies to the real options in front of us. In my experience people still have access to the original hook of the game and can still, in their own new way, capture lightning in the bottle.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 4:16 AM on May 21 [1 favorite]
But the option I mentioned isn't a application that Hasbro owns. And perhaps the current moment in MtG's development is vapid and uncreative by comparison to its history. Maybe that's the talent in the room or maybe it's the eventuality that all things run their course.
Still, new people find Magic every day. They typically don't do it at the cafeteria table like they used to. Everything is more digital than it was back in 1993. You can't step in the same river twice, etc. I just don't see how your 'gotcha' applies to the real options in front of us. In my experience people still have access to the original hook of the game and can still, in their own new way, capture lightning in the bottle.
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 4:16 AM on May 21 [1 favorite]
I got into the game just before the pandemic, and so just before the Hasbro decisions that fans least like (Secret Lairs, Universes Beyond, a ceaseless release schedule that's pushed the mainline sets to the side a bit) and I won't say all those have been totally great, but I think Mark Rosewater's maxim that something is always Killing Magic is well-observed. From my perspective, the one major problem with the game has been there from early on, which is that there's no way to participate in officially sanctioned play for a single purchase of less than $50. Challenger decks were a good idea, but you could tell they were struggling to put together viable decks without having to reprint any of the $30 rares that keep the secondary market running.
posted by jy4m at 6:42 AM on May 21 [1 favorite]
posted by jy4m at 6:42 AM on May 21 [1 favorite]
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This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
Nibling used their allowance to buy several packs of Pokemon cards. No one else knew the rules, so they invented their own game. Visiting, they explained. Quite convoluted, yet fun, mostly had something to do with differences in numbers on the cardstock.
"...They'll tell you I'm insane, 'cause you know I love the players and you love the game..."
Anyway, I happened across a Japanese Pokemon card and knew exactly where to send it.
Didn't have much as a child, so mancala was a revelatory pleasure. [wiki]
posted by HearHere at 2:46 AM on May 20 [2 favorites]