Quote Originally Posted by Glinthall View Post
The thing with Magic updates is that older cards are all still compatible with newer decks, if a bit underpowered.
No, the thing with Magic is that in any official game, you can only use cards from the most recent sets. Compare the D&D Encounters program, that indeed only allows you to make characters using the most recent books.

And it's not the case that every Magic set is more powerful than the preceding one; if anything, they're weaker than the first few sets. Of course, that holds for 4.4 as well: most of it is significantly weaker than the 4.0 stuff. It's not a bad comparison, really.

Seeker in the other thread hypothesized that fifth edition will focus on making things simpler, with less aspects to track, something that could be turned into an app or an online program.
I think that to promote an app or online program, you need more aspects to track, so that it becomes infeasible to do it with pen and paper. The more tiny fiddly bonuses, the better. Actually, 4E already has a lot of those: you do 2d8 damage, +1d8 when charging, +2 when bloodied, +3 when your enemy is bloodied, +1 more when flanking, and +2 when within three squares of your leader.... yeah.