Subject: Re: The straying of Magic Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1998 18:28:25 GMT From: fred_sXYXYX@netcom.com (Frederick Scott) Newsgroups: rec.games.trading-cards.magic.strategy (TO REPLY VIA E-MAIL, STRIP 'XYXYX' FROM THE ADDRESS) Michael Benveniste writes: >Sometimes, though, it seems like Wizards is hell-bent on trying >to kill it. I say Wizards because the mistakes are being made >in several groups. Some not-so-random examples: > >1. Market division into beginner, advanced, and expert levels. >This left the basic set in limbo. Portal players get stuck >with cards they can't play if they want to take the step up, >and without the "advanced" expansions the basic set is too weak. I agree. I've never really thought the Portal approach did that much good, overall. I'd sort of be interested in hearing if other people thought that was wrong, though. In short, how many people do you hear about that got into the game by starting with Portal - who would never have tried Magic, otherwise? > A related problem is "golden age syndrome." By printing >weaker versions of old cards, Wizards sends a strong message >to the newer player that things were better in the past than >now. Wizards faces a real dilemma with the Christmas gift >set. If WotC reprints valuable old cards, it risks upsetting >collectors. If WotC doesn't, then the set will appear lame. The problem with "golden age syndrome" is that the designers keep making changes in the game ("Old multilands like Savannah were too easy to use. Let's replace them with multilands that have a build-in disadvantage.") by eliminating cards in the main set, but they make no efforts whatsoever to adjust the card set people can actually build with. Obviously, you get the latter effect in Standard constructed and limited formats due to their nature, but the other formats are regulated in a totally half-assed way, if at all. And there's no reasonable deck- building rules recommended for use in informal play whatsoever, which is crazy! It's like that old game company (I think it was Fresno Games or someone like that) who published historic war games with no rules provided and claimed they were selling "game sets" and that it was up to the customer to generate his own rules. Bullshit. Basically, (outside of DCI tournament play), Magic is a game missing a major component of its rules (reasonable, balanced deck construction rules) and WotC is shamelessly excusing their own reprehensible failure to provide them by wrongly suggesting that customers want to make up their own construction rules. Some customers might, but WotC providing a real set isn't going to prevent that. >2. Nor do things appear significantly better for 6th Edition. By >my count, I expected Wizards to swap out about 90 cards, simply >on the basis of eliminated mechanics (like banding), new templates, >and having strictly superior replacements available. That's >before looking at the really weak cards such as Ironclaw Curse. >In short, over 50% of the basic set consists of cards people >don't want to play with, and that's too many to replace without >hurting the continuity of the game. I agree, the main set needs major rework. But how do you know this isn't in the works? >3. Overmanaging rules. The new trample rule is yet another >example of the Rules Team making a sweeping rules change in >order to fix as few as one card. In this case, the card to >trigger the change was Furnace of Rath. The same happened >in the past for Verdant Force and Abeyance. I strongly agree! WotC's designers have a long, stupid history of creating overly complex rules and then, upon realizing that there's a problem with a given rule, make some half-assed change that just causes more confusion but really fixes nothing. They rewrite the whole rule set (as they did in fifth edition) time and again, claiming they're "streamlining and simplying" the rules and the rules are never one iota simpler. They issue card after card that should be named "Errata me!" even though a dedicated read-through of every card in an expansion set just prior to sending them off to the printers should have easily turned up potential rules problems. The truth is, I don't think these designers would recognize a simple, straightforward rule if it bit them in the butt! I have a hard time coming to any other conclusion. I can see having some problems in this area (all games do), but with the number of chances the designers have had to fix the situation and improve their record vis-a-vis new expansions and simply haven't done so, the results have been very discouraging over time. >4. Overemphasis on tournaments and structured settings. >For the game to thrive, there has to be a good base of casual >play. Unfortunately, casual play seems to be more and more >the exception rather than the rule. Even the 75-card boxes >of Urza's Saga are labelled "tournament packs." Unglued was >a step in the right direction, but it contained too many "in" >jokes and too much self-referential material that new players >don't care about. Chicken jokes only go so far. > As a result of trying to make a set "competitive" for >both constructed and limited play, rarities get skewed and >too many other compromises get made. I think this gets back to the lack of well-managed informal play construction rules. No one has a sense of what a "standard game of Magic" _is_, outside of a tournament and you're right to point out that not everyone cares for that environment. I know that that sounds nice to the Deadhead faction and to people who love lack of structure, but unfortuantely, it's problematic in CCGs. You have to construct your decks before you leave for the place where you'll play the games. If you have it in mind that an informal game is a theme deck from the last three expansions and you try to play someone who's using multilands and moxen, the results aren't going to be very fascinating. People always say, "Well, just don't play the guy using power cards." but that kind of defeats the whole point. I don't take my decks somewhere to NOT play opponents - and the disourganization in construction rules is what's causing that. Fred