TCG rant

[Lheticus]

I like TCGs, but I also completely despise them. There's a lot about them that contribute to the "like". Complex, interesting rules, an (ostensible) emphasis on customization, and (in theory) vast possibilities for strategic consideration. However, the reason I despise them is that in any public circle they are at a progressed point in an arms race that only allows for decks with absolutely ridiculous power, and which usually entail the use of expensive cards. Not even necessarily the rarest cards, cards that are actually used in decks that are capable of winning in a public setting become expensive by virtue of that alone almost no matter if they're "normal" level rares or some heightened rarity level, while all other cards regardless of "rare" or better status become worthless!

And I'm sure some of those who have interacted with me here before know they shouldn't even get me STARTED on "the metagame". This is the exact arms race I refer to, and it always seems to lead to decks of such ridiculosity that anyone with a deck not on par with such an opponent may as well not even have showed up to play. I don't even understand the appeal of the metagame as it is in TCGs. It's like an ordinary player looking to check out the local scene metaphorically brought a sword while the people who play in the metagame brought a pair of AK47s, an RPG launcher, and the ability to telekinetically decapitate their opponent then urinate in the hole left by said decapitation. EACH.

Wow, I think I got carried away with that last bit, it's actually making me crack up! But you get the idea. Rant over.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I hear ya on all that. There's some emergent facts about TCGs, given how they're designed and their economic model, plus the normal way that power creep tends to happen sometimes. It's worse in some games than in others, but I think it'll tend to happen in most games with a collectible element, whether or not that collectibility is tied to rarity.

Essentially, a long-term game with the TCG's traditional release model has to give players a reason to keep purchasing cards, which means that they're pushed to make sure that new cards are still viable alongside old cards. So either mistakes in card design (making some cards too powerful) lead to a gradual change in the power level of cards, or else there's a good amount of card bans, weird errata, and even set rotation to make old cards unviable (and require you to keep buying new cards).

If you haven't read David Sirlin's game design articles yet, you should look into his stuff. He even did a podcast episode on this exact problem, which he calls "uneven playfields". (It's here, if you're interested (http://www.sirlin.net/posts/sirlin-on-game-design-ep3-uneven-playfields).) In essence, an "uneven playfield" is a game where monetary or time investment equates to in-game power--for example, in a TCG, you can buy cards to make better decks like combo decks. He hates this. So I think you'd find a bit of a kindred spirit there.

(He's also working on a non-collectible TCG-style game called Codex: Card-Time Strategy (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/131111/codex-card-time-strategy) that's inspired by RTSes. It's still very much "in development", but I wouldn't be surprised to see it launch next year, whether it's by Kickstarter or some preorder system. I think you'd maybe find it interesting.)

[Siosilvar]

I'm still not sure how you don't understand a metagame - people want to win, whether it's for money, bragging rights, feeling successful, or the thrill of the challenge playing against other people who want to win. The most effective way to do that is to pick the combinations of cards that help you win the most against what other people around you are playing. Tournament-viable decks are certainly going to be too strong for casual play, especially against newbies, but that's why most Magic players I know have decks with different power levels and themes (I only play infrequently and casually, and win maybe 40% of my games against the more serious players' casual decks, but it's still fun).

Any game with notable strategic factor is going to develop this. It's an inherent part of playing a competitive game even at a "friendly" level - figuring out which strategies work and which don't. And the people who have invested the most time and effort (i.e. the people in "the scene") are going to be the people who have progressed the furthest in the arms race. The more you play, the better you are. Whether or not they can tone that down for players with less experience is a personal issue.

So, I guess I don't understand that complaint. I do get the "buying power" complaint, but I think that one's inherent to anything collectible. The most useful cards will be the most valuable, and with a limited number of them you can then put a dollar amount on it - and fixing that would require the company making the cards to both acknowledge the second-hand market exists (which everybody strays away from) and reprint old cards that the players most likely to buy cards already have.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm still not sure how you don't understand a metagame - people want to win, whether it's for money, bragging rights, feeling successful, or the thrill of the challenge playing against other people who want to win. The most effective way to do that is to pick the combinations of cards that help you win the most against what other people around you are playing.

And of course to remember the things that worked and try them more, and try the things that didn't work less.

That's where a metagame comes from, it comes from people who remember their previous games and apply the lessons of them to the subsequent ones (and also communicating about what worked and what didn't with other people.)

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Granted, metagame + a collectible game that keeps releasing new material is pretty annoying, because you have the normal meta shifts of a non-collectible game (aka which strategies get used, and which counters get used) as well as the additional shifts introduced by new releases.

Like, you could get tons of meta evolution out of an already-existing game, and that totally still happens in games like Diplomacy, which have a mere 7 sides (and haven't changed since inception). Now imagine if the starting positions for Diplomacy changed every year.

Meta in collectible games requires you not only to stay on top of the hot new trends in the game, it also requires you to stay up on new releases and to acquire new cards or rebuild your decks to deal with that.

[Lheticus]

I'm still not sure how you don't understand a metagame - people want to win, whether it's for money, bragging rights, feeling successful, or the thrill of the challenge playing against other people who want to win. The most effective way to do that is to pick the combinations of cards that help you win the most against what other people around you are playing. Tournament-viable decks are certainly going to be too strong for casual play, especially against newbies, but that's why most Magic players I know have decks with different power levels and themes (I only play infrequently and casually, and win maybe 40% of my games against the more serious players' casual decks, but it's still fun).

Any game with notable strategic factor is going to develop this. It's an inherent part of playing a competitive game even at a "friendly" level - figuring out which strategies work and which don't. And the people who have invested the most time and effort (i.e. the people in "the scene") are going to be the people who have progressed the furthest in the arms race. The more you play, the better you are. Whether or not they can tone that down for players with less experience is a personal issue.

So, I guess I don't understand that complaint. I do get the "buying power" complaint, but I think that one's inherent to anything collectible. The most useful cards will be the most valuable, and with a limited number of them you can then put a dollar amount on it - and fixing that would require the company making the cards to both acknowledge the second-hand market exists (which everybody strays away from) and reprint old cards that the players most likely to buy cards already have.

I believe my priorities are askew compared to the usual TCG player. Winning is a priority, but to me it is a higher priority to have a "good game"--a game where one side or the other doesn't utterly wreck the opponent or get into an extremely dominant position or indeed end the game in a scant 2 or 3 turns. Games like that aren't the least bit enjoyable to me even if I'm the one winning. Now, because of the aforementioned power creep, the situation becomes such that a deck that plays well in the metagame would create that situation with virtually ANY deck that doesn't play well in the metagame and possibly some that do. It's like when in Dragonball Z Cell has become Perfect Cell (metagame deck) and he's so freaking powerful everyone can just whale on him all at once and it doesn't come remotely close to fazing him (non metagame deck)--they may as well have not even been there. Now, guys like Goku (other metagame deck) can still challenge him, but it's extremely limiting and with some bad luck (Cell reforming himself out of a single Cell after blowing up the planet or whatever) a game can STILL be a blowout. This makes it exceptionally difficult to have a "good game" even if I do get a proper deck.

[Siosilvar]

I believe my priorities are askew compared to the usual TCG player. Winning is a priority, but to me it is a higher priority to have a "good game"--a game where one side or the other doesn't utterly wreck the opponent or get into an extremely dominant position or indeed end the game in a scant 2 or 3 turns. Games like that aren't the least bit enjoyable to me even if I'm the one winning. Now, because of the aforementioned power creep, the situation becomes such that a deck that plays well in the metagame would create that situation with virtually ANY deck that doesn't play well in the metagame and possibly some that do. It's like when in Dragonball Z Cell has become Perfect Cell (metagame deck) and he's so freaking powerful everyone can just whale on him all at once and it doesn't come remotely close to fazing him (non metagame deck)--they may as well have not even been there. Now, guys like Goku (other metagame deck) can still challenge him, but it's extremely limiting and with some bad luck (Cell reforming himself out of a single Cell after blowing up the planet or whatever) a game can STILL be a blowout. This makes it exceptionally difficult to have a "good game" even if I do get a proper deck.

So, you're a casual TCG player who doesn't like rocket tag. That's cool, so am I.

That's not really a metagame complaint so much as a balance/design complaint, though. It's probably possible (but difficult) to create a game that has that kind of balance, and it definitely limits your design space. Hearthstone is probably the closest on the market right now, and has the advantage that cards can't go out of print except if Blizzard decides to arbitrarily make that decision later. Magic has draft formats that can generate that kind of environment, but that either limits the collection factor or overblows it (cube draft). I'm not really interested in TCGs enough to make any other recommendations, though.

[Gandariel]

Play drafts in M:TG or Arena in Hearthstone.

You get to play the game, you get to deck build, you (sorta) get to use whatever strategy you come up with, and the winner is solely dictated by skill.

There is some little meta gaming (Mage and Paladin being best arena classes, and each set in Mtg has "best cards" and "best color"), but those are really minor things.

[Winterwind]

I have to say, your experience is wildly divergent from mine.

I've played in several MtG groups now, and in each all players were trying to build the best decks they could and adjusted their decks if they found their decks had too little removal or whatever to deal with the other people's decks (i. e., they did pay attention to the metagame), but were not willing to spend excessive amounts of money on new cards (I, for example, have not even bought any new cards in like three or four years whatsoever). As a result, the power level stays roughly even between all of us, nobody has a deck that is even remotely powerful enough to end games in 3 turns (because nobody owns the cards to build a deck that strong, nor is anybody interested in getting them), and there are no cards that completely dominate the meta (again, because nobody owns enough copies of a particularly powerful card to pull that off).

Heck, in my current group, we are seven players, of whom everyone owns between 5 and 20 decks. That's probably around 60 decks or so. If I had to estimate how many of those decks are similar enough one could consider them duplicates of each other... I would say, there are none. Because some of us play mainly with cards from five or more years ago, some with new ones, and even those who use cards from the same block, in the same colours, still went with different deck strategies (my Grixis deck is based around discard and removal; my friend's Grixis deck is based around Unearth and strong creatures. Etc.). And all of us win roughly the same amount of games.

So, across multiple groups, it has not been my experience that paying attention to the meta has negatively impacted power levels or deck diversity at all.

If I had to make a guess as to where that difference in experience comes from, I would guess that it's because I play with friends, at home, hence in an environment where, even though we're all rather competitively minded and pay attention to metagame and deck optimalization, we're nonetheless casual in that we care about everyone having fun, don't want to spend much (or any) money on the game, and have no tournaments (hence no prizes, hence no need for a win-at-all-cost attitude). Whereas, as I recall from past threads, you play at a shop, where there are tournaments, cards are sold, money is involved, and people are not necessarily friends.

In short, I don't think it's TCGs so much where the real problem lies, it's the circumstances and people you play them with.

[GloatingSwine]

I'd buy the "Johnny in the world of Spikes" explanation more if this wasn't the fifth time we'd had this thread now about multiple different types of game with almost certainly non-overlapping player pools. (and one of which was a single player JRPG).

Lheticus is almost certainly not playing in a super high competitive environment with cutthroat players with tuned tournament decks played to their limits. He's just playing orthogonally to the design of the game in an environment of ordinary players who are playing ordinary decks as best they can and confusing it with the former environment because he doesn't define the game the same way other people do.

For instance, the complaint about people establishing early dominance so that the game is won in 2-3 turns is almost certainly because he's not trying to stop it, because he's invested in some kind of late game interaction more than actually playing the early game well enough to ensure that late game comes about. He assumes that because he likes that late game interaction his opponent is also invested in letting it happen but they aren't. His opponent is playing to win the game and so gets that early dominance uncontested.

Because that's how this thread goes.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I believe my priorities are askew compared to the usual TCG player. Winning is a priority, but to me it is a higher priority to have a "good game"--a game where one side or the other doesn't utterly wreck the opponent or get into an extremely dominant position or indeed end the game in a scant 2 or 3 turns. Games like that aren't the least bit enjoyable to me even if I'm the one winning. Now, because of the aforementioned power creep, the situation becomes such that a deck that plays well in the metagame would create that situation with virtually ANY deck that doesn't play well in the metagame and possibly some that do. It's like when in Dragonball Z Cell has become Perfect Cell (metagame deck) and he's so freaking powerful everyone can just whale on him all at once and it doesn't come remotely close to fazing him (non metagame deck)--they may as well have not even been there. Now, guys like Goku (other metagame deck) can still challenge him, but it's extremely limiting and with some bad luck (Cell reforming himself out of a single Cell after blowing up the planet or whatever) a game can STILL be a blowout. This makes it exceptionally difficult to have a "good game" even if I do get a proper deck.
So, there's two possible things going on here.

The first is the "scrub mentality (http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/introducingthe-scrub)" (not to keep quoting David, but he summarizes it so well), where you get aggravated at one particular strategy in a game because of how powerful it is, without learning about the strategy and learning how to counter it. Another example would be getting mad at Zerg Rush because it ends the game so fast, without learning how to adopt really simple tactics that can shut a Zerg Rush down quick. So that might be what you mean by "the metagame".

And really, there's no recourse there but to commit yourself to learning how to adapt to different playstyles. Because if everyone had the same tempo/playstyle, the game would actually be really boring, because everyone would pretty much play the same. But in a well-balanced game, there's no such thing as a dominant playstyle that you can't do anything about.

The second is the "rocket tag" thing that was brought up, where cutting-edge gamers assemble tight decks around really potent interactions. These decks also tend to have more extreme strengths and weaknesses, to the point that you can almost win by having a deck that's a hard counter to your opponent's deck. I know this was sometimes heavily the case in Magic previously (thus the use of a "sideboard" where you would keep hard counters to your opponent's deck), but I've heard that it's improved somewhat.

And I can totally respect that; I feel that even characters/decks/asymmetric sides that play out with radically different tempos should still be relatively evenly balanced. No worse than a 6-4 or 4-6 matchup, if you can help it. 3-7 or 7-3 matchups are bad, but sometimes happen (but should be avoided). I can't really respect an asymmetric game that boasts 8-2 or 2-8 matchups.

Have you tried playing many symmetrical games? I know that it's hard to find competitive symmetrical games, but they definitely sidestep this issue strongly. That might help you come to a better understanding of how you compete and what you enjoy in competition.

[Lheticus]

I'd buy the "Johnny in the world of Spikes" explanation more if this wasn't the fifth time we'd had this thread now about multiple different types of game with almost certainly non-overlapping player pools. (and one of which was a single player JRPG).

Lheticus is almost certainly not playing in a super high competitive environment with cutthroat players with tuned tournament decks played to their limits. He's just playing orthogonally to the design of the game in an environment of ordinary players who are playing ordinary decks as best they can and confusing it with the former environment because he doesn't define the game the same way other people do.

For instance, the complaint about people establishing early dominance so that the game is won in 2-3 turns is almost certainly because he's not trying to stop it, because he's invested in some kind of late game interaction more than actually playing the early game well enough to ensure that late game comes about. He assumes that because he likes that late game interaction his opponent is also invested in letting it happen but they aren't. His opponent is playing to win the game and so gets that early dominance uncontested.

Because that's how this thread goes.

The reason I don't try to stop it is because I don't have and can't get access to the cards that are capable of stopping it. With this particular facet of TCGs, I think it's at minimum kind of ****** up that it's even possible to conclude a game that quickly using a method that does not vastly rely on luck and only on your opponent not stopping you. The issue I have with TCGs is not limited to one problem or design feature, but rather it seems to me that TCG systems as a whole are inherently constructed in such ways that I'm going to have one problem or another with any given TCG. A combination of the inevitable power creep and the monetization of actually used cards leads to the fact that even the NON-CUTTHROAT players often wield decks that reach ridiculous levels of power and effectiveness, at least by my standard, and yes that standard is skewed. But people who basically tell me "stfu and get gud" are doing the opposite of help.

And yes, we've had this thread before. Still doesn't make it the right thing to do to belittle me.

[GloatingSwine]

The reason I don't try to stop it is because I don't have and can't get access to the cards that are capable of stopping it. With this particular facet of TCGs, I think it's at minimum kind of ****** up that it's even possible to conclude a game that quickly using a method that does not vastly rely on luck and only on your opponent not stopping you.

IS it vastly reliant on luck though?

A Constructed Magic deck is 60 cards with a limit of 4 of each, so your early game plan is likely to rely on having taken four of one or two options, which virtually guarantees them appearing in your first draw or within the cards you take on those first few turns, especially given that you can also mulligan if you get no good early plays.

If you have four of a card in your 60 card deck the chances of it coming out in the opening draw are actually about fifty fifty (7/15). And you get two goes to get it.

Building around those kind of probabilities is a huge part of the game.


The issue I have with TCGs is not limited to one problem or design feature, but rather it seems to me that TCG systems as a whole are inherently constructed in such ways that I'm going to have one problem or another with any given TCG. A combination of the inevitable power creep and the monetization of actually used cards leads to the fact that even the NON-CUTTHROAT players often wield decks that reach ridiculous levels of power and effectiveness, at least by my standard, and yes that standard is skewed. But people who basically tell me "stfu and get gud" are doing the opposite of help.

Power creep is an inevitable thing in these games (because newly introduced cards have to offer something to existing players in order to attract sales), but the rate at which it happens is, I suspect, nowhere near high enough to produce the effects you're talking about. Especially with physical releases which have production costs attached (Hearthstone might be worse here because the digital nature means turnover is higher).

A simple brute fact of CCGs is that you have to be willing to spend money on cards to play at all. If you're not that's not actually a problem of the format, it's you wanting the game to change from the ground up to suit your requirements.

[warty goblin]

The reason I don't try to stop it is because I don't have and can't get access to the cards that are capable of stopping it. With this particular facet of TCGs, I think it's at minimum kind of ****** up that it's even possible to conclude a game that quickly using a method that does not vastly rely on luck and only on your opponent not stopping you. The issue I have with TCGs is not limited to one problem or design feature, but rather it seems to me that TCG systems as a whole are inherently constructed in such ways that I'm going to have one problem or another with any given TCG. A combination of the inevitable power creep and the monetization of actually used cards leads to the fact that even the NON-CUTTHROAT players often wield decks that reach ridiculous levels of power and effectiveness, at least by my standard, and yes that standard is skewed. But people who basically tell me "stfu and get gud" are doing the opposite of help.

So then don't play TCGs?

Seriously, this seems like one of those cases where you want about four things, but only can get two of them. To wit;

Win
Have fun
Stick to your definition of fun and sane effectiveness.


Personally, I'd advise ditching the third, because the other's trying to move a mountain that has no reason to budge. The people playing with the decks you find ridiculously powerful are probably playing the game they want to play in the way they want to play it. You are going to have basically no success in changing that. But maybe - just maybe - playing decks that actually work against them would win you the game and let you have fun.

Or if you aren't willing to do that, just don't play. The game is what the game is.

[Lheticus]

So then don't play TCGs?

Seriously, this seems like one of those cases where you want about four things, but only can get two of them. To wit;

Win
Have fun
Stick to your definition of fun and sane effectiveness.


Personally, I'd advise ditching the third, because the other's trying to move a mountain that has no reason to budge. The people playing with the decks you find ridiculously powerful are probably playing the game they want to play in the way they want to play it. You are going to have basically no success in changing that. But maybe - just maybe - playing decks that actually work against them would win you the game and let you have fun.

Or if you aren't willing to do that, just don't play. The game is what the game is.

Mmm...yep. I'm not, in fact, playing them really. I just got to thinking about this sort of thing rather too much the day I posted this thread. Just wanted to air it out.


IS it vastly reliant on luck though?

A Constructed Magic deck is 60 cards with a limit of 4 of each, so your early game plan is likely to rely on having taken four of one or two options, which virtually guarantees them appearing in your first draw or within the cards you take on those first few turns, especially given that you can also mulligan if you get no good early plays.

If you have four of a card in your 60 card deck the chances of it coming out in the opening draw are actually about fifty fifty (7/15). And you get two goes to get it.

Building around those kind of probabilities is a huge part of the game.



Power creep is an inevitable thing in these games (because newly introduced cards have to offer something to existing players in order to attract sales), but the rate at which it happens is, I suspect, nowhere near high enough to produce the effects you're talking about. Especially with physical releases which have production costs attached (Hearthstone might be worse here because the digital nature means turnover is higher).

A simple brute fact of CCGs is that you have to be willing to spend money on cards to play at all. If you're not that's not actually a problem of the format, it's you wanting the game to change from the ground up to suit your requirements.

I want to change the game from the ground up to suit me? Well, admitted plans to do just that (among several other things at the same time) notwithstanding, why do you think that's what I want out of posting these thoughts on this thread? I'd like to think I'm not dumb enough to believe that posting in this thread would actually do something in that regard. Again, I'm just airing rageous thoughts here. I put "rant" in the subject line, darnit! Yes I know it's a rerun, but I needed to do it at the time. Please get off me.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

As a general FWIW, I definitely think that the classic TCG model is a bit broken for anyone who's keen on playing but not keen on continually shelling out money in order to stay on top of the game. (Seriously, we're talking hundreds of dollars when a new set comes out in the case of Magic.) I think it's well worth getting really irked at some of the accepted norms of the business model. Heck, we already have seen some renovation as various publishers took the randomized distribution model out back and nuked it in favor of fixed distribution aka "living card games". (Wizards still gets away with it because it already has a captive fanbase, pretty much.)

So I think we're starting to see some change in this pretty change-averse sector of the hobby (seriously, the core business model hasn't changed in over 30 years).

Obviously, the current assumptions of the TCG business model don't allow for some of the things that would make TCGs into better games for everyone, and not just the people who continually pump money into them. But other sectors of competitive gaming (most particularly MOBAs) are finding success with business models that manage to cater to ongoing customers while still letting some people play competitively with little monetary investment. And that's sectors of gaming that have to continually invest money in order to stay online (because they're hosted on servers). So I totally think there could be solutions to this problem, but they require creative thinking and a willingness to challenge the long-standing TCG paradigm that more money equals more power in the game.

Even things like power creep don't have to be accepted as realities of the game. They're just design challenges to be overcome, just like how the original Magic had its own design challenges to overcome.

[Anarion]

I want to change the game from the ground up to suit me? Well, admitted plans to do just that (among several other things at the same time) notwithstanding, why do you think that's what I want out of posting these thoughts on this thread? I'd like to think I'm not dumb enough to believe that posting in this thread would actually do something in that regard. Again, I'm just airing rageous thoughts here. I put "rant" in the subject line, darnit! Yes I know it's a rerun, but I needed to do it at the time. Please get off me.

Typically talking or writing in a public place means you want the thoughts of the public. At any rate, you're gonna get them whether you want them or not. :smalltongue:

In this particular case, I think you're actually complaining about the fact that many TCGs lack a good beginner's learning tool. MOBAs and RTS games suffer from very similar problems. The genres are so developed and refined that many, many games are picked up and cross-pollinated from people who play the others games whereas truly new players who don't know the nuances have an extremely hard time learning the game. This is a totally valid complaint and it's something that many of the card and video game manufacturers have been working hard to try and address, but they still haven't gotten there. You can see efforts towards new players with things like Tavern Brawl in Hearthstone (crazy rules and often preconstructed decks to let players have fun at all skill levels), or Magic's simplified online endeavors (set decks primarily focused on certain colors with limited card selection).

The reason I think you're complaining about a poor beginner's curve is because most TCGs have a way of playing them that ignores the relative amount of money shelled out by each player. Draft, sealed, Hearthstone Arena and similar modes focus on the skill of the player in selecting the best cards for their deck and then actually playing those cards to best effect. Every player in a Magic draft starts on exactly the same footing. Even though there is some random chance involved, players that know what they're doing can manipulate their picks using their knowledge of the cards in the set and what other players like to play in order to construct a deck that's very likely to win, then play that deck intelligently to win quite a lot.

But it's absolutely true that draft and similar formats take dedication. When Innistrad was out for Magic, I spent a lot of time with it and briefly went through a period where I was playing Magic:online for free because I was winning so much, including beating some pros in the draft queues. I did that well because during that set I spent a lot of time with it: I'd estimate ~2 hours a day starting on release day. That included playing it, but also reading articles about the set, going over possible decks and combos, and watching others play. If I tried to jump into a random Magic draft for whatever set is out now (I haven't played in ~3 years), I'd probably get crushed.

It's certainly worse for people that don't have years of general knowledge about drafting and playing TCGs. Or MOBAs, FPS, or what have you. Because most of these games don't have a good way of easing beginners into the complexity, the only way to overcome that is to do some studying and then dive in headfirst and study where you screwed up until you start to get it. Different people learn at different rates and if you're actually skilled as a player, you will be able to learn at a rate that lets you get reasonably good at the game.

[Lheticus]

Typically talking or writing in a public place means you want the thoughts of the public. At any rate, you're gonna get them whether you want them or not. :smalltongue:

Oh, very much so. But that doesn't mean I'll put up with such thoughts that are based on false, and in some cases sweeping, assumptions. Good stuff for the part of this post that I'm not quoting here.

[gooddragon1]

Learned a valuable lesson today (at least I think it is): Never play momir vig basic on mtgo again.

The reason? The eldrazi. There's only 1 creature with cmc 15. It's not the other player's fault either. It seems WotC's design mistakes (land destruction, infect, mythics, planeswalkers, and more specific to this situation eldrazi) have infected everything. Now they infect even vig basic. I thanked the other player for showing me this. He didn't do it intentionally. He just randomly got ullamog (cmc 11, the first one).


Well....nobody designs for or even considers Momir Basic when making cards....You can't call something a mistake if that thing is clearly not designed to work with this other thing.

Momir is a MTGO-only casual format. It's on no one's radar screen at WotC.

I wouldn't even care about that if Eldrazi in the modern just for fun room hadn't forced me to seek refuge in vig basic. I don't call those things design mistakes just for vig basic. I call them those things because they destroy your ability to play magic (your mana sources). I have other reasons for mythics (rich kids only club, except... in the just for fun room? Really?), planeswalkers (I disagree with the way they were implemented), and infect (infect... which should be pretty obvious). I thought to myself, meh if you can't beat em and you can't join em, just go for the format where all things are equal. It still is, but now the inevitable desire to get out eldrazi is going to result in strats and the desire to optimize plays towards eldrazi. People skewing their land base to black red in vig basic? Meh. I'll deal. Eldrazi decisively ending the game. No. I'm done with mtgo now. Glad I didn't waste too much money on it. I think I may be done with mtg as a whole since I don't like the idea of small playgroups. This whole fiasco of corporate greed and an accommodating playerbase is motivating me to get my other computer installed so I can play planetside 2 and snipe people at 200+m with the railjack.

I'm a casual player, I like casual games. With the design decisions going on at WotC, I'm getting the message: You play competitive or find another game. Okay, I'll find another game.


I mean, I've played other games, a lot of them are worse than Magic for "casual play."

There's plenty of cheap answers to all the cards you have problems with if you are looking. I can point you to several. Sometimes you have to play answers to powerful things you don't like.

Wizards has established that Annihilator was a mistake. I'm sorry if you don't want to play Magic against it, as it exists; perhaps I suggest playing formats where it doesn't play? There's many of those, though they cost money to play on Magic Online.

Mythics, especially on Magic Online, are actually not that hard to get; Magic Online's card prices are tanked by the massive amounts of drafting people do. Most cards from the last 5 years of Magic's history cost half as much online as they do in real life or less. It certainly depends on the particular card (the powerful and popular cards cost more), but they aren't too crazy to obtain if you want. So yeah, people will play with whatever cool cards they can't get to work in other formats on Magic Online.

If you didn't want a format where random cards decisively end games, I would not suggest Momir Vig. That format has so many cards that just automatically cause the game to end when they enter the battlefield, not just Eldrazi. Heck, Eldrazi are usually HARD to play in that format, because most of the time people are just going to jam 8s into you until you die.

All that said, I hope you find a game that you enjoy.



I don't think there will ever be a TCG immune to the effects of power creep, wallet warriors, and my playstyle or lose everytime. I also know somewhat how you feel about optimized assortments of cards arms races that even if you could afford them it's like your playstyle is irrelevant. I played a deck surgery (http://forum.nogoblinsallowed.com/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=11853) deck that I made and it consistently loses to rich kid decks. If you feel the same way I'd wager that you'd think the idea of symmetrical gameplay is garbage and boring. So, overall, I just don't think there's really much hope for TCGs at all in the long run. Which is a crying shame, because although MTG had some crazy stuff back in the day... it had a nice slower playstyle given the lack of hyper agressive cards.

[Starwulf]

I'm not really sure why you feel the need to make a 2nd thread on this exact specific topic(Your last one went several pages and focused very heavily on MTG, but it was about exactly this very topic), it wasn't even that long ago(a year ago, tops). Still though, your only options are, as others have already said, is to find as large of a group as possible who the feel same way as you and just want to have fun and not use the "insta-pwn" tactics, play draft duels, or just don't play at all.

Nothing's changed since the last time you brought this up, and nothings going to change the next time you bring it up, it's just the way the TCG arena works, and while ranting on an internet forum may help relieve some stress, maybe try to spread the rants to other forums as well, because as you've seen, you're going to get some derision/hostility from people who get annoyed at you bringing up the same topic over and over.(I'm neither btw, just confused as the point of making an exact duplicate of a thread that was already discussed in-depth not that long ago).

[Squark]

I'd second the recommendation of LCGs if you're looking to scratch the "tcg itch" while avoiding the side effects of the randomized distribution. I've been doing the same thing myself recently, although my complaints with M:TG are a bit different than yours.

My complaints are as follows, for anyone wondering;
1) Printing dual lands at rare. Okay, I understand the money issue, and realize this isn't going to change. But Khans of Tarkir and Return to Ravnica both had cycles of common dual lands, which means printing good dual lands as commons wouldn't hurt drafts. This makes building any decent multicolor deck expensive for no other reason than to make it expensive. Planeswalkers and Mythic fatties need to be rare for the health of the draft format. Manabases don't. I'd be less upset if mono-colored decks that aren't red slightly were viable. Or if quality nonbasic land disruption returned.
2) Removal has been increasing in rarity and decreasing in quality. Tragic Slip, Doom blade, and Lightning Bolt were all common. I haven't seen anything on par with their efficiency recently. Actually it feels like commons in general have been dropped in the toilet. Remember Goblin Bushwhacker, Squadron Hawk, and the like?
3)I realise we've had two multicolor blocks in recent years, but wizard's insistence on having a cycle of multicolor charms in standard at all times is getting old. Especially when they're the exception to the "Removal is bad" rule.
4) Planeswalker Control is awful and just unenjoyable for me to play against
5) I. Hate. Hexproof. It's a stupid, uninteractive mechanic. This is especially upsetting to me because a similar mechanic that I found much more enjoyable because it was two-sided was phased out. R.I.P. Shroud :smallsad:

[gooddragon1]

My complaints are as follows, for anyone wondering;
4) Planeswalker Control is awful and just unenjoyable for me to play against


Planeswalkers should be treated as creatures in a lot of ways. Leave the damage mechanic the way it is, but anything that could target a creature can target a planeswalker, and tapping them makes it impossible to use their ability (so tap them on upkeep phase). -X to toughness is -X counters temporarily or cancel out loyalty counters for -1/-1 counters.

This means that planeswalkers would not dodge board wipes, kill spells, and would be in many ways just as vulnerable as creatures. However, they'd never do this because planeswalkers dominating the game and soaking up cash are exactly what they want. Can you even imagine the crying the people who dropped loads of cash on them would do? Elaborating on my earlier view... a TCG starts out (generally) with the intention of being balanced. It then moves into the "screw the rules, I have money phase". MTG had power 9 and broken combos from the start, but they introduced rotation and fixed their stuff somewhat over time. Now that they've printed planeswalkers, infect, mythic rares, and lately the 'drazi... they'd have to ban a whole lot of things and gut the game to get back. This would have very bad consequences (which would never be the same) on their cash flow and credibility. So they won't do it. Yugioh had a problem where everyone was playing the same deck. It isn't quite there with MTG... but they're closing in on it I think. Yugioh also diversified later on and made HUGE bans to get to somewhere along where MTG is now (only a few viable decks in any given format if you don't want your teeth kicked in). MTG is more flexible given how it's built and it's card base. Still, I can see it eventually boiling down to more and more aggressive cards at higher and higher prices. WotC can't just do blanket bans like yugioh. Maybe they could make a new format, but they'll lose credibility each time (I admit that I was suckered into Modern, but I'm not going to be fooled as easily by their next gimmick). Pity that they've got an accommodating fanbase to this. I'd blame them quite a bit for enabling it as well.

[thracian]

And I'm sure some of those who have interacted with me here before know they shouldn't even get me STARTED on "the metagame". This is the exact arms race I refer to, and it always seems to lead to decks of such ridiculosity that anyone with a deck not on par with such an opponent may as well not even have showed up to play. I don't even understand the appeal of the metagame as it is in TCGs. It's like an ordinary player looking to check out the local scene metaphorically brought a sword while the people who play in the metagame brought a pair of AK47s, an RPG launcher, and the ability to telekinetically decapitate their opponent then urinate in the hole left by said decapitation. EACH.


I believe my priorities are askew compared to the usual TCG player. Winning is a priority, but to me it is a higher priority to have a "good game"

These two quotes brought to mind this classic clip (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anEuw8F8cpE). You're bringing a sword to a gunfight. Either avoid the gunfight (and go find a swordfight), or find a gun yourself and jump in. Don't complain because other people play competitive games to win rather than to tell a story.

[Chen]

Now that they've printed planeswalkers, infect, mythic rares, and lately the 'drazi... they'd have to ban a whole lot of things and gut the game to get back.

So I'm curious as to what your ideal game looks like for MTG? There were always ridiculously expensive cards way before any of the above were printed. Planeswalkers add a new dimension to the game with new strategies and the like. Most are not "broken" so to speak (perhaps original Jace). I'll grant I'm not current on the new sets of Eldrazi but the last bunch that were released were all just ridiculously high costed monsters with strong abilities.

Deck variety in formats is always going to be shaped by the cards in them. If you're looking at the top level, yes there's going to be a limit on what decks are viable. I find Commander/EDH to be better with deck variety, especially in casual play. The cost is way more though due to the needs of old cards and the like (duals mainly). The real key is finding a playgroup where you can set whatever houserules people can agree on.