Magic is a complicated game.

I really don’t have to tell you guys that. One of the hardest barrier to entries to this game is overcoming all of the language and all of the rules. But once you get past that, Magic’s still really complicated. With all of the timing issues and layers upon layers, there has to be an intricate judge program to make sure the high levels are adjudicated properly. And that’s not always the case.

So when you’re designing a card for a game that’s so complicated, sometimes you forget what goes where or if it all works. That’s why people playtest their works (I hope you’ve been doing that). Sometimes you need a little help. And that’s what I intend to do.

I’ve designed a cheat sheet (one of many, hopefully), that will help you guide yourself in the process. This isn’t intended to be an end all type of thing, but it’s here to help you when you’re breaking down the parts of the game. Even though the game has a huge amount of rules, luckily they can be dissected down to the common language building blocks to make the game work.

For this first part, I’ve tacked two of the very basic concepts of Magic: zones and parts of the card. Now, this isn’t a replacement for if you have a question about the rules, this is a cheat sheet that will help you make sure you’re on the right track. It covers:

• The different zones in the game
• Language used for when cards transfer between zones
• Parts of the card
• Card types
• Card supertypes
• Card subtypes
• And notes between the interaction between Zones and parts of the card
• Examples of what it this looks like on two cards

Like I said, it’s a cheat sheet. It doesn’t explain everything, nor do I believe it doesn’t have to. This was created that the reader has the basic knowledge about the game, but it’s a nice refresher as well.

You’re free to save it to your computer, link back to it, print it out, etc. But please don’t claim it as your own; not that I have any copyright issues with it since I’m using Magic cards, it’s just a jerk thing to do. If you have any questions, ideas, or feedback, please let me know. My contact info is on the page itself.

Click for full size

This represents version 1.1, as suggested by some of the changes by alextfish in the comments below. Added Artifact subtypes and lowercased all of the zones.

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I usually don’t get political (especially on a non-political website). Sure, there might be issues that I have an opinion about, but nothing like this. I have never written my Congressman until a few days ago. I never called my Congressman until just a few weeks ago about this very topic (I just got one of his aides, which is completely understandable).

If you’re following me on twitter (@mtgcolorpie), you’ve noticed that for the past several weeks I’ve been tweeting about SOPA or the Stop Online Piracy Act (and if you’re sick of it, I’m sorry). It’s a bill that’s currently being debated in Congress to try and “stop” online piracy of movies, music, software, and maybe prescription drugs and other fake merchandise. It’s a well intnetioned act, and it basically declares “war” on online piracy.

And since our government has done such a bang up job on the “wars” on terror, drugs, poverty, education, I’d say this act is going go be of equal success.

Source: SMBC-Comics.com

It doesn’t matter what your political beliefs are- Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Socialist- this is a matter that affects us all. And it will kill the Magic community online. How you may ask? Buy not allowing us to talk about Magic.

If you don’t know what SOPA is, here’s the quick rundown: Basically to stop online piracy, anyone who holds a copyright to something can force a website to be shut down. It can also prevent payment to those websites by its advertisers. full more of an overview of SOPA (which is the House of Represenatives bill) and its sister PIPA (Protect IP Act, the Senete bill), check out this video:

“Big deal, it won’t affect me,” most of you are saying. “I don’t even have a website.” No, but most likely you have a Facebook page, or a Twitter account, or anything of the 2.0 web. And if you happen to link to something, anything, that could be copyrighted that copyright holder has the right to not only get your account shut down, but the entire site shut down as well. “But Congress won’t let that happen. Surely they will allow those sites to continue.” No, those site will be shut down too.

This is Congress that we’re talking about. In the debates before Christmas, Maxine Waters (D-CA) basically said “We don’t need to discuss this, just pass it.” What? I thought your entire job was to discuss the laws that you’re making. Why do believe that, because that’s what I was taught when I was growing up.

But that’s not the only thing. Mel Watt (D-NC) said, “I’m no expert the Internet, but I disagree with all the experts.” What? That’s like saying, “Robby, we know something’s wrong with Vintage, so what should we ban?” While I do have some idea of what Vintage is and what gets played, I’m not an authority on such a topic to discuss metagames and what is actually screwing up the format (If anything at all). So I would A) do some research and B) listen to experts. If you want to rule on something you better know what you’re talking about.

Back to Magic. Most, if not all, Magic sites tend to have Magic cards on them, or at least Magic art. Nobody (hopefully in their right mind) is saying that they painted them, or designed them, but the cards and the art, and the logos are still up there. You know who owns all of that work? Wizards of the Coast. If they wanted to, currently under the DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act), they could send a cease and desist letter to any of us who own a blog and tell us to remove our content. They are perfectly within their rights to it.

However, they don’t. Why? Wizards wants to foster a community to get players to talk about the game and have it grow. Yes, it’s a self serving thing because the more people talk about it, the more likely they will buy the product, but it makes sense. One of the best ways to do this is to allow players to blog, and tweet, and use their cards and art to talk about the game. While there is some grey area about making money while using their images (One of the reasons why I don’t advertise on this site), it’s pretty clear that you can’t use Wizards’ work to make money directly. This is the main reason why you don’t see me selling t-shirts or stickers with my logo on them.

It has five pieces of Magic art, one representing each of the five colors in Magic. I photoshopped this image which is a direct homage to the “original” color pie that debuted on Mark Rosewater’s column when he first explained heavily about the concept (for those of you wondering where I got my name from). Due to the five pieces of Magic art, each by a different artist, I could never put this logo on anything and sell it without Wizards getting all mad and suing me.

And I know that Wizards employees have read my blog because I’ve talked to them about it because they like to read what the outsiders are thinking about Magic; if you’ve got a blog or Tumblr, they most likely have read that too. It’s not like I’m trying to hide it from them. They could use the protection used by the DMCA and have gotten me to take down almost every image on this blog while keeping my blog intact. Under the SOPA act, they could very well just shut me down. But I’m not worried about Wizards.

I’m worried about Hasbro.

Hasbro owns Wizards, which means they could theoretically do the same thing. if SOPA passes, all Hasbro has to do is sneeze and my blog “gets taken offline.” Not only my blog, but everyone else’s who write about Magic. In fact, any site that uses Magic art or a Magic card could be attacked by Hasbro. While it would be funny to see StarCityGames suddenly become a text based website in response, the concept is not a laughing matter at all. Gone is Magiccards.info. Gone are all the blogs, the tweets, the YouTube videos.

Oh yeah, those. If you think that you’re going to see draft walk-throughs on MTGO by your favorite pros, you’re dreaming. Youtube will most likely have to shut down anyway because of all the content on that site.

But why would they do that? Because, it’s better for them that way. Techdirt has the reason why almost any website can be shutdown:

The true impact of this section was only made clear by Rep. Polis’ attempt to limit it, as he highlighted how this broad immunity would likely lead to abuse. That’s because this section says that anyone who takes voluntary action “based on credible evidence”: basically gets full immunity. Think about what that means in practice. If someone sends a service provider a notice claiming infringement on the site under this bill, thefirst thing every lawyer will tell them is “quick, take voluntary action to cut them off, so you get immunity.” Even worse, since this is just about immunity, there are no counternotice rules or anything requiring any process for those cut off to be able to have any redress whatsoever.

The best legal action is to shut down anything everywhere. It’s not just pictures, or videos that could harm the bloggers and the websites. Under this power, anyone who says anything bad in a product review could possibly be shut down as well since, well, “copyright infringement.” That two word phrase “Copyright infringement” could mean anything under SOPA; Set names, Planeswalkers, even Magic is copyrighted. Yes, it’s not like I can just make this a text-only blog and be fine from SOPA; if I voice my opinion and it’s potentially harmful to Magic (ie, I didn’t like the new set), they could shut down my blog. For everyone that complained about the new Planeswalker Points (PWP) system, you could’ve been taken offline if Wizards thought you were causing a problem.

You may think I’m going all 1984 on you, but think about this for a moment. The intended use of this act is to prevent online piracy. Intent is such a strong word, but if you’ve been playing Magic for a while, you know that it’s a silly phrase. Squee was intended to be a fun card that you got back after it died, not a repeatable pitch card to Survival of the Fittest/Masticore. Stoneforge Mystic was intended to help bridge the Zendikar/Sacrs of Mirrodin blocks together, not be so good it was banned in multiple formats. The intent of the Artifact Lands in Mirrodin were to help with the flavor of the world, not break the game in half with Affinity.

It’s like Congress is burning down a house because one of the shelves in the kitchen is not level. You have to fix that shelf rather than decide no one should live in it. And the house that Congress is burning? Our house.

Gone will be the draft videos from LSV, and Brian Kibler, and Mike Flores, and Conley Woods.

Gone will be the videos of Evan Erwin (The Magic Show), Richard Castle (Inside the Deck), KormanAndHolt (Their Youtube Page), and any of the hundreds of people who post on YouTube everyday talking about Magic.

Gone will be the blogs that you read. The little voices, the ones that you’ve watch go from small, independent, self-run holes in the wall to major players on the major Magic websites.

Gone will be the large, non-DailyMTG sites that you buy your cards from and get your decklists and ideas. Gathering Magic, Star City Games, Channel Fireball, Magic.TCGPlayer.com, BlackBorder, and the like would be no more. The SCG Open would be gone too, there would be no way to advertise it.

Gone will be Twitter, where almost everyone in R&D communicates with the public. Gone will be Tumblr, where multiple people quick blog about Magic, including Mark Rosewater himself. Gone will be Facebook, where you chat with friends about Magic, where there’s an official Magic page, where you live you life. Gone will be Reddit and /r/magictcg where forming group of Magic players gather. Gone will be Flickr, where you share pictures of your epic matches late at night. Every possible social media website and experience will be shut down.

Gone will be MTGSalvation, because if you think that’s going to survive with all the spoilers, you’re sorely mistaken. In fact, gone will be all the forums everywhere including on DailyMTG.com.

Gone will be MTGCast, where you get all your favorite podcasts from.

Gone will be Magic Set Editor because, well that be too hard to figure out.

Gone will be all the voices that you have become accustomed to while learning Magic and about the Magic community. Gone will also be all the other voices that never had the opportunity to be heard. The creative endeavors, the user created content will be no more.

What can you do about it?

Tell people you know. Then act upon it.

But don’t just tell people you know online and be done with it. Tell co-workers, tell parents, tell friends. If all you do is just tell people online you’re doing one part. If you’re just screaming on the internet for Congress not to do anything with the internet, they aren’t hearing you. You’re an animal in a forest trying to tell the lumberjacks not to cut down the trees where they want to build an zoo to house all the animals of the forest they just cut down.

You cannot just tweet “Boo SOPA.” You cannot go on Facebook and go “I hate SOPA.” The Representative who is supporting this bill, Lamar Smith (R-TX), doesn’t believe the people who oppose this bill have legitimacy nor are they large in number. They won’t read your blog post, they most likely have interns that read their own Facebook page. You have to email, call, and/or meet with them face to face. You have to converse with them on their terms.

Call your Representative (SOPA).

Call your Senators (PIPA).

Write to them. Have a meeting with them. Ask them if they agree with it. Ask them why. Be kind about it. Question them. DO NOT BE RUDE.

How you can get more involved.

I have already called and emailed my Representative (Dave Reichert), and I’m going to call him again plus my two Senators (Patty Murry and Maria Cantwell). The Senate is meeting in the 24th to talk about PIPA, which is almost a mirror of SOPA. That needs to be addressed as well. Reddit is planning a blackout all day on the 18th while streaming the “geeks and nerds” that will testify before the house committee trying to explain why this is wrong.

This thing is much bigger than Magic, but for the people who believe that the only people who are against SOPA/PIPA and fear it are pirates, they are dead wrong. I like interacting with all of you, where we have discussions and meet face to face at tournaments. Having our community is one of the greatest things about Magic; if that was taken away I don’t know how little Magic I would play, or even if I would care about the game.

The goal the SOPA/PIPA is trying to achieve is noble and understandable; they’re just going about it completely wrong. OPEN (Online Protection and Enforcement of Digital Trade), is another proposed bill that will do a much better job at enforcing piracy while keeping the internet viable. “An action needs to be done, this is an action, so we’re doing it” is the wrong philosophy for Congress to take at this time.

SOPA/PIPA won’t kill Magic. It will still be sold in game stores and Wal-Mart and Target. Sets will still be made, Duels of the Planeswalkers will still be released, kitchen tables will still be battlefields for our matches. What SOPA/PIPA will do is make the game a shell of its former self.

You can do something about it. Now is your opportunity. If this passes, all of us online will be silenced.

For more information about SOPA/PIPA, please visit: http://americancensorship.org/

Yes, this card is somewhere on this list.

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Best laid plans…

This series was originally going to be a part of Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month). What was going to take place was that I was going to reveal 5 cards a day for 20 days, or slow roll the top 10 (I hadn’t completely decided), where each card had its own little write-up.  Along with the write-up it was going to look pretty fancy with graphics and stylized nicely, like you would see in a publication. It was going to be a fun thing to talk about during the longest break between new set releases where it’s traditionally the slowest Magic news time of the year; it only had the World Championships to compete with at the end of the run.

Alas, like everything else lately, I just ran out of time. So I’m presenting the whole list today, only without commentary.

What follows is a list of what I consider to be the 100 best designed* cards in all of Magic. And there’s an asterisk with designed because I know that not all cards are designed but developed as well. This is a design blog, and I understand the Development has an equal hand in how the cards you play with shape out. But we’re doing it this way and that’s that. It doesn’t mean that any of these cards are going to be reprinted (in fact, I know that some of them won’t be), but I wouldn’t disagree ripping any of these out of a booster pack in the future.

I went through all the Magic cards ever printed. To be on this list they have to be the best designed cards according to modern design standards. There’s no Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, Maze of Ith, or any of that ilk on this list. Any of these cards could be printed today, and many of them have. They have appropriate mana costs, fit in the right color with the correct philosophy, and are balanced. There are some cards that are/were tournament staples, and some that little to no play outside of casual and Commander. The cards were not given weight to any particular format of limited to constructive (outside of #100 for obvious reasons). Cycles of cards were considered, and if each card in the cycle was designed very well, it was included as one entry (4 such cycles made the list). I decided that the cutoff to be on this list was M12 so nothing from Innistrad on will be on this list.

Of course, this is a highly subjective list. There are some on here that people will disagree with (I’ll talk about #2 in a moment), but this is my feeling of the best designed cards. They were not chosen on this list because they were good for tournament play or that they inspired other cards years later. They were included on this list because the card was well designed; it broke new ground in a well done way, or did a concept the most eloquently. The card, on a whole, makes sense mechanically and flavorfully.

Now I believe that #2 will be one of the most controversial cards on this list. I strongly believe that it’s a well designed and balanced card, only the environment it was played in broke it in half. Taken outside of that, there hasn’t been too much issue with the card. There will be a future post (whenever that will be) that I’ll use to try and defend my opinion on that card.

Before I get to the list, here’s a bunch of stats:

• Color Breakdown:
  White – 14
  Blue – 15
  Black – 16
  Red – 13
  Green – 12
  Artifact – 10
  Land – 4
  Colorless – 1
  All (Cycle) – 2
  Multicolored – 13
• Type Breakdown:
  Noncreature Artifacts – 7
  Creature – 45
  Enchantment – 9
  Instnat – 19
  Land – 4
  Planeswalker – 2
  Sorcery – 14
• Magic Ages Breakdown of First Printing:
  Alpha-Alliances – 10
  Mirage-Prophecy – 12
  Invasion-Saviors – 31
  Ravnica-Rise of the Eldrazi – 40
  Scars of Mirrodin-M12 – 6
  (One cycle of cards goes between those two ages)
• Other Breakdowns:
  Invitational Cards –  3
  On Reserved List –  2
  Number of Jaces – 1

And now, without commentary, is the full 100:

This week, Fearless Leader wrote about the five dynasties of Magic Design (actually, it was kinda of a rehash of his State of Design of this year, but it makes sense in Transformation Week). If you didn’t click the link, nor read the article, don’t worry, here’s the info “that will be on the test” version:

• First Stage (Alpha through Alliances): This stage was about the focus on individual card design. Design decisions tended to be made on a card-by-card basis.
• Second Stage (Mirage through Prophecy): This stage was the introduction of the block and the focus of design in thinking of Magic in terms of a year.
• Third Stage (Invasion through Saviors of Kamigawa): This stage was the introduction of block themes. Blocks were no longer just a collection of mechanics, but contained specific things chosen to highlight the block’s theme.
• Fourth Stage (Ravnica through Rise of the Eldrazi): This stage was the introduction of block planning. Instead of picking a theme and continuing it through the block, design now planned out how exactly the block was going to evolve. This planning allowed for themes to be better set up and paid off.
• Fifth Stage (Scars of Mirrodin through ???): Now we get to last year. What I believe Scars of Mirrodin block has done that shifts design into the next age is to radically change how mechanical themes are looked at and used. For the last two stages, themes have been used as the foundation to build the block on. Starting with Scars of Mirrodin, mechanical themes are now thought of as tools used to put a block together. Metaphorically, themes are no longer the canvas, but the paint.

All of this is great. You really see the evolution of Magic when it gets separated into these categories. In fact, this isn’t the first time that MaRo has brought to us these dynasties (as highlighted in his State of Design right before Ravnica, the fourth stage). Here it is broken down:

• First Stage (Alpha through Alliances): Design on a card by card basis.
• Second Stage (Mirage through Prophecy): Blocks are created and keywords are enforced.
• Third Stage (Invasion through Saviors of Kamigawa): Creation of the Block Theme (Multicolor being Invasion, and so on).
• Fourth Stage (Ravnica through Rise of the Eldrazi): Tying the block closer together by having the sets in the block interconnect better.
• Fifth Stage (Scars of Mirrodin through ???): Design a world that encompasses and design for that plane.

That fifth stage is a little card to pin down since we’ve only seen 4 sets (plus a Core Set), of this new design philosophy. As fellow GDS2 participate, and eventual winner, Ethan Fleisher said:

During the Designer Search, I was working based on some obsolete assumptions. Not only could I not see the next eight to twelve sets worth of innovation that were in the works, but I had to look back several years in order to get a clear picture of what sorts of standards existed in common between sets.

And he’s right. We’re in a total lag of trying to stay on top of what Wizards considers “proper” design. For people not working at Wizards, we’re trying to decipher what is not laughable when it comes to designing cards of our own. Everyone started making Planeswalkers when they first were announced, but we didn’t know exactly how they worked and what their impact would be. Wizards did.

So for today, I give you the four dynasties of amateur Magic design. It’s because of this constant catch up, and the way people design cards, that I believe that this is how people create cards. Of course, this is just one man’s opinion and everyone else is a little different.

The Four Dynasties of Amateur Magic Design:

• First Stage (Alpha through Weatherlight): Design on a card by card basis.
• Second Stage (Tempest through Prophecy): Blocks are created and keywords are enforced.
• Third Stage (Invasion through Worldwake): Creation of the Block Theme (Multicolor being Invasion, and so on).
• Fourth Stage (Rise of the Eldrazi through ???):Design a world that encompasses and design for that plane.

Got it? We’re done, right? Well, not really.

If you notice that I’ve taken the steps as above, move some sets around, and skipped a stage. For what the players were seeing, this is what Wizards were teaching us to do when we make our own cards. The enforcement of keywords wasn’t drilled into us until Tempest came along. But obviously just because we’ve moved on to a new stage doesn’t mean that we’ve given up the old one. Each of them overlap into the next.

The differences between the stages is that these are new ways of designing cards that were not thought of before. While most amateur designers don’t have the knowledge or experience or extra sets of eyes to take on full blocks, we do the best that we can.

To the analysis:

First Stage: Design on a Card by Card Basis

This is what most people do. They have an idea for a card, and decide that they should create a card for it. There is no harm in any of this, but all of these cards exist in vacuums. They could theoretically be in any set (especially any Core Set), and it doesn’t matter the type of environment that they would fit best in. You saw this plenty of times in the early sets because it was all about creating awesome cards. There may have been a cycle of cards, but there wasn’t a full structure about how this card should fit in this world.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with this. If you’re creating a joke card or a one of, it’s a great model to follow. But when people want to start to create their own sets, filling it up with cards in this stage cause nothing but problems. Besides the obvious drafting problems (which amateur designers may or may not care about), it just doesn’t flow together.

The best way to describe this is imagine that each card in the set is a person, and have these people meet in crowd together. If it looks like this:

the set doesn’t look like it goes together. Sure, there’s a ton of amazing stuff in there, maybe some of your favorites, but instead of being part of the same set up, there’s stuff that doesn’t belong.

But that’s ok. You’ve decided to change some stuff up and go to the next step.

Second Stage: Designing Around Keywords

Now we come to something more sophisticated: keywords. By having a common identifier to a group of cards, it’s easy to design around a basic concept. Sometimes you just want to show off that cool idea that you had, other times, it’s what it could be. But the good news is that Ever since Onslaught, it’s been ok to reuse keywords, so why not do your own variation of this.

This, I believe, is the second most common way people design cards. They were disappointed that a keyword they liked didn’t see print more. Or if they just design around this one keyword, they can create like 15 cards. What a deal! Sometimes the keywords go in obvious directions, other times it take a turn that no one thought possible.

Creating your own keyword is hard (another topic we’ll get into some other time), but it was from here that it looked more and more like a real Magic set. Then Wizards threw us for another loop.

Third Stage: Creation of the Block Theme

In Invasion we were introduced to the block theme. Invasion it was Multicolored, Odyssey was Graveyard, Onslaught was Creature types, etc. Now it was a collection of cards that reached a common goal. It was more than just a keyword, it a whole series of cards that played off each other as a common goal. You didn’t just have to choose one way of designing a card, you could come at it from several different areas, as long as it all tied into the block theme.

What’s great about this approach is that every color could get into this theme by doing things that it normally wouldn’t do, but still within the boundaries of the colors (Er, ignoring Phyrexian Mana). Green could be beneficial to artifacts, Red could care about creature type. And so on. This opened up so much more design space than just the usual keywords and top down designs. The larger issue is that if someone creates one card from this stage, it’s unknown with the block theme was. Easily fixed with a line of text explaining the card, but now designing for one card was more than just the card.

Speaking of that…

Fourth Stage: Designing a World

This is just a guess of what this stage is going to be (again, with only 5 sets since I included Rise of the Eldrazi into the mix), but this looks like where design is headed. What’s hard about this stage is that though would building might have been something that was done in the past, it wasn’t the main focus. But MaRo brought it out as part of the GDS2 and it was one of the things we had to do as contestants. Why force us to do something if that’s not where Magic is going to go?

Look at Rise, Scars and now Innistrad. All of these planes seem more fully realized then the last stage where they were just themes. Yes, even Ravinca with all of it’s world building was just a huge mass of collected block themes spread out over three sets. Basically every card has a purpose on the plane, nothing looks remotely out of place. When you’re trying to sell a horror block to people you want them to feel the horror, and I believe that Innistrad does exactly that. How many cards from Scars block look out of place on Mirrodin/New Phyrexia?

Very few.

Now, it’s much harder for us to encompass the flavor/style when we don’t have an art department/budget, but we make due. But the card should be more than just the art to tie it in with the environment; it has to be the whole package. A great number of cards just “feel” right to be in those sets. Sometimes they’re cool ideas that can only fit on that plane, or based off a mechanic, or of the theme of that block, but they belong there.

If you notice, each one of the steps looked at the larger picture each time a card was designed. It was first the awesome card, then a series or connected card, then a conglomeration of cards, and finally the whole plane. The way design is going makes it harder and harder to develop just a series of singular cards. Take a look back at that Futurama picture again. Yes, there are a ton of great ideas, but they don’t look like they should go together from a design point of view (Sci-Fi is a little different since you want to show off your wide range of designs, but that’s not always what’s best for Magic).

But these days, I can’t go into a card creation forum and just look at one card. I can get an idea of what the world is in one card, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. That’s unfair because it can’t; it’s just one card. For Magic to tell its story, its vision of what’s happening on the plane, you need more than one card. Any card can look good and be the best card in a vacuum, which is why I believe that most amateur designers design for the first stage: it feels better and it’s easier to design this way.

As the public, we’re months, even years behind what Wizards dictates as the most modern design. We think we may know, but we don’t. MaRo’s touting the 5th stage of Magic Design and I believe we have some time to explore in this area before we move onto the next one. It might be a while that we can play in this sandbox before there’s another design philosophy shift. All we know is that Wizards has a head start over all of us.

The best we can do is try and play catch up.

That thing on Jace 3.0? It’s a Bonded Fetch. Is “Magna Hair” Jace better than “Duck-Faced/Blue Steel” Chandra? Yes, yes he is.

Editor’s Note: Inspiration of this piece came from Gavin Verhey. It’s also dedicated to him: Good luck on the new job.

In the northwestern part of the United States there resides a tiny town of Seattle, Washington. Some of you may be heard of it, it’s about 10ish or so miles north of Renton, Washington; Renton, of course, being home to Wizards of the Coast.

This metropolitan area has over 3,000,000 souls living here, as well as large lake that separates the area. There are two bridges that cross the lake: Interstate 90 and Highway 520 (lovingly called the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, or just the 520 Bridge). With the population growth in the area, there has been discussion for a while about expanding one of the bridges. It makes sense, the 520 Bridge has two lanes of traffic each way, no carpool, and only supports 65,000 cars a day while currently carrying 115,000.

Oh, and there’s this little tech company called “Microsoft” that’s one the east end of the bridge (the west end is Seattle). Daily traffic creates a huge bottle neck at the ends of the bridges, there it connects with Interstate 5 and Interstate 405. It’s normal to expect at least 40 minutes of travel time to go this almost a mile and a half bridge. It’s inefficient and it causes too many problems.

After years of deciding what to do with it, the state government has ripped off the Band-Aid and they’re doing construction. “Full bore, let’s get this baby working again,” type of attitude.

It was a broken outdated system that couldn’t be used to its fullest. That’s great right? In fact, for around the past year and a half they’re working on the east side of the bridge, expanding the highway to get the bridge ready for expansion itself. They’re closing the bridge during weekends (another one is expected this weekend). Sure, it’s inconvenient now, but in a few years we’ll see the fruit of their labor. Right?

To help pay for this they’re enacting tolls, something that hasn’t been around here in 30 years. I know that other parts of the country are used to it, but with the growth of new people, most of the commuters (including myself) haven’t had to pay a toll to cross the bridge people. It’s a varying toll based on the time of day (peak hours are obviously higher). Commuters have been starting to plan alternate routes into Seattle in order to avoid paying the tolls, which will increase the traffic in those areas. And no matter what anyone protests, these tolls are going to happen. Sometime. Some day. Whenever.

Look, I imagine a project like this takes hundreds of people to make thousands decisions that will effect millions of people. This is effecting me since I work right next to the 520 Bridge and use it several times a week. And I know that thousands of people make their livelihood based on this bridge and if they can access it. They’re going to have opinions like the rest of us.

However, nothing in this project is done lightly. Like with any huge undertaking out there, the people that it’s impacting are going to question every little thing. Why? Because it’s impacting them, why wouldn’t they want to know more? After all, everything done with this project can be answered by looking at the big picture. Why don’t we do that now:

Via komonews.com

Wait a minute. You mean you haven’t finished DESIGNING it?

I know it’s a bridge that crosses a body of water, but surely you have an idea of how people are going to access it, right? Trees are being ripped down and new asphalt is being poured on the east side of the bridge right before the current bridge. But you’re telling me you haven’t finished designing the west end yet? You’re reworking something and have no idea what it will be in the end?

This has been a huge sticking point with the bridge construction. There’s a point where you get off the bridge as it crosses a sliver of land. Of course, within this sliver of a land there is the University of Washington oh, and the east side of Seattle. The designers, with pressure from the Governor (who doesn’t reside in Seattle) and the Sierra Club (so the rumor goes), have decided that several off-ramps that help direct the flow of that 115,000 people must consolidate into one off-ramp exit.

Taken from the WSDOT Presnetation

The image is taken directly from the most recent WSDOT presentation, though I added the Red lines to show the current two off-ramps. The red line on the right also represents another on-ramp as well. But that’s not the only problem that hasn’t been fully addressed: what about the increased load of traffic when it reaches I-5? What about the people who live to the south of the bridge at this exit when they have to fight for the same space as everyone else going north, but have no easy way to go south? Why are buses getting their own lane on the off-ramp?

There are still too many questions that we, the people being effected by it, have and we’re not getting any answers. This is frustrating us because we want to know. By how the bridge is going to be laid out, we need to decide if we’re going to be moving over to Seattle instead, or look for another job while not having to cross the bridge, or if instead of going to an event in Seattle try and find something on the Eastside. This is more than just an inconvenience, this is our lives. And it may seem petty to people who don’t live here, but it’s important to us.

The whole 520 Bridge project is a mess (Actually, mess is a much nicer term than what I was going to say, but I felt it would’ve taken away from the piece).

And they haven’t even funded for the continuation of the 520 Bridge on the west side. They’ve got part of the necessary funding, but until they do, they have to stop at what part they’ve got funding for leaving us with a half built bridge with a promise that the rest will be built in the future. It’s the hope of people actually traveling the bridge to pay the tolls to pay for the part that’s not paid for. Building the future with the future money they hope to get in the future.

We have to trust that all of this works. Once they’ve started this, there’s no going back. We’re all in this together whether we like it or not. We can make suggestions, and wonder aloud why if they’re building this for the future and wanting more people to cross it why is there no light rail system that I would totally take if that was an option.

Sorry. Self serving interest. I hope you can understand that.

If we, as a concerned public, have any issues we can look up and see the big picture.

Er, right.

All we know is that it’s a bridge that crosses a body of water. The details of that bridge, however, remain sketchy.

Editor’s Note: What follows is the first part in a series I was going to write about the Reserved List. This was written in February of last year, when the talk of the Reserved List heated up and we, the players, didn’t know what was going to happen. While all of this in the air, I had an idea. I wanted to write a four part series about the Reserved List and what should be done with it. My goal, if the editors allowed it, were to have this published on four different websites: Old Gathering Magic, Old Mana Nation, Quiet Speculation and here. To my knowledge nothing like this had ever been attempted (and still hasn’t).

This was abandoned when the announcement of the Reserved List was made public as half of the series dealt with what should happen with it. While I don’t agree fully with the decision, this is neither the time nor the place for that discussion. Part One, what you’re about to read, dealt with the history of the Reserved List, and why it was created. If you’re relativity new to Magic, or just haven’t kept up with the political aspects of the game, then hopefully this will shed some light on the topic.

Why this is coming out now is that not everything I write makes it to publication. I was going through some of my writing documents and found this. Creating a straw poll on twitter, I asked if people wanted to still read this. If you don’t like this, blame them. Most of this is still in its original state (some mention of dates and events). Please remember, this is about the history, not if you agree with Wizard’s final word on the topic.

—

It all started with trying to be everything to everyone.

Certainly we all know that can’t happen, so a choice had to be made. What good is a game without its players? If there’s no one to play, is it still a game? A decision was finally made and that has made all the difference.

It was decreed that Wizards of the Coast said they wouldn’t print certain cards ever again. Not only was this a game, but a dream for collectors as well. With one single mistake, Wizards upset a section of their fans. Wizards backed up, evaluated everything and said, “No more.”

This is what players and investors have to remember: All Wizards did was make a promise not to reprint these cards. There was no contract signed by anyone, the government didn’t force Wizards to do this, and there weren’t any lawsuits involved. Out of their own good will, Wizards created a list of cards they said they would never reprint because some players cried foul. The events that proceeded it changed the way the game was made, marketed and played.

What we’re talking about here is the “Reserved List,” a list of cards that Wizards promised never to print again. Over the years, it’s gotten more controversy than the new Frames, Affinity, Tarmogoyf and Planeswalkers combined (Rough estimate, but I would stand by it). Why would people argue and feel passionate about a list that Wizards made years ago to a bunch of collectors? Because, they set the tone for how the game proceeded in the future. Many believe that the creation of the Reserved List will eventually bring doom and gloom to the game of Magic while there are others that say it will be its savior.

But how did this list come pass? Many years ago when Magic first started, people were really excited about the game. Whenever anyone saw the game for sale, it was gone within hours, if not minutes. Arabian Nights was released and the same thing happened. Then the next set, Antiquities, sold out. Wizards tried to keep up with their new larger set: Legends. No dice. Players were lined up around blocks (so the story goes) trying to get product. Stores couldn’t keep product on the shelves for long. There was a shortage and the demand for cards couldn’t be higher. Because of this, the good and “powerful” cards were really expensive (A mantra I’ll repeat: Price = Supply + Demand).

Wizards then released 4th Edition and players noticed something. In Revised, there were a couple reprints from some of Arabian Nights and Antiquities, but nothing too major, mostly commons and horrible rares. However in 4th Edition, Carrion Ants, Mishra’s Factory, and Killer Bees that were rares in their previous sets and worth at least double digits in dollar figures were now printed as uncommons (Ball Lightning was thankfully still a rare). This was done for a logical reason: to get those cards into players hands who missed them the first time.

Shortly after, Chronicles was released. The entire set was reprints from the expansion sets. To quote from Wizards’ website: “Released in July 1995, this 125-card set was created in an effort to satisfy players’ demand for out-of-print cards.” All the cards that were deemed too powerful weren’t reprinted. This included such cards as Mana Drain, Maze of Ith, Mirror Universe, Juzam Djinn, Moat, Nether Void, and The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. Cards that were reprinted were The Elder Dragons, City of Brass, Concordant Crossroads, Cyclone, Erhnam Djinn, Aladdin, and Serpent Generator.

What’s the big deal since none of the really powerful cards were reprinted? Wizards noticed which cards were the expensive tournament viable ones and didn’t give them a second reprinting while taking a look at some of the casual cards and got them to players who wanted them. As a game company, Wizards identified this need and figured out that it would be in the best interest to reprint some of the hard to get cards that would be fun to play with. The cards in Chronicles would be printed in white borders to make sure that no one confused them with the originals and that they would have a “mark” of being reprinted (Only the Core sets starting with Unlmited were white bordered which a majority of the players thought were ugly).

DCI tournament rules 3.4 talks about the legality of cards. If a card has black or white borders (which Chronicles has white) and has a standard Magic back (which it does), then the card is legal for tournament play. By printing these cards, if someone wanted to use one of the cards from Chronicles in a tournament, they could. Following the logic Price = Supply + Demand, the demand went up, so the price dropped. The Elder Dragons were going for about $30 a piece and could now be picked up for about $5. Collectors who had hoarded the Dragons and other cards that were reprinted in Chronicles saw their value drop dramatically.

And, as Firefly fans know, if you yell loudly enough, you can make something happen. The collectors complained that Wizards doesn’t care about the secondary market (For those who don’t know, the Secondary market is what you use to value cards with after you open them out of a pack. If you wanted to trade that rare for your friend’s rare, most people use the secondary market to estimate the value of the cards to see if it’s a fair trade). By reprinting the cards, the Collectors said that Wizards just want to grab the quick buck (a complaint that has never changed) and not believe in the value of the product they print. The people who wanted the cards to play with were happy to have $5 cards instead of having to shell out $30 for the same thing, only in black boarders. Collectors, who had the stranglehold on the inventory, found that demand dropped for their once valuable cards.

It should be pointed out here that people buy Magic for different reasons. Some buy to play the game (the largest group), some buy to collect the cards. Yes, people who collect also play and visa versa, but you could separate yourself into one of those two groups (It doesn’t matter what format you play or what you collect, you’re still part of those groups. If you can’t, pick a side, we’re at war /Colbert). Collectors collect because it’s fun and possibly profitable (see: Comic books before 1980 and lunchboxes), and players wanted the cards to play. By reprinting the cards, Collectors were complaining that their collections were more important than the game itself.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, is where we have our roads diverged. The choice was simple: ignore this crowd of collectors that have been with them from the beginning and continue to reprint cards, or stop reprinting possibly fun and powerful cards to make the collectors happy and alienate the players much further down the road. Wizards, wanting to make this a collectible game, went ahead and apologized for their mistake. With this apology, they set up the Restricted List, a list of cards they promised the would never print again.

The Reserved List was made six years after the start of the game and four years after the Chronicles debacle as far as my research tells me. The rules were simple: From Randy Buehler’s Latest Developments:

Wizards made a list of cards it promised never to reprint. The list included all the cards from Alpha that had rotated out of print before Fourth Edition along with all the uncommons and rares from Antiquities, Arabian Nights, and Legends. In addition, from Ice Age through Urza’s Destiny, all the rares had only one opportunity to get reprinted in a base set and after that they were added to the reserved list, never to be printed again.

By “one opportunity to get reprinted in a base set”, Wizards used to have a schedule to print cards that were to be in the Core Set (or base set). It was a few years after they first were printed that cards could qualify for a Core Set. If they weren’t reprinted then, they were going to be added on the Reserved list. Such examples were Necropotence/Pain Lands in 5th edition (Pre-Mirage block), Vampire Tutor in 6th (Mirage block), and Ensnaring Bridge/Worship in 7th (Rath/Urza’s Block). Yes, if the Ice Age pain lands weren’t reprinted in 5th Edition, we never would’ve saw them again (which is why we see the much less useful “depletion” lands on the Reserved List).

The Reserved List stopped adding to the cards to the list after 7th Edition, when the Reserved List was changed. This explains why there were no Mercadian Masques on the list (phew, would hate to see that /Sarcasm), and why things were opened up for the special 15th anniversary for 8th Edition. Here’s the thing, philosophies constantly change inside Wizards (Obviously, otherwise there woudln’t be this discussion). The new Reserved List Policy was changed months before Onslaught was release. Why is that valuable information? Onslaught was the first set released where Wizards “re-printed” a mechanic. Says Mark Rosewater:

In short, R&D sees mechanics as a reusable resource that we can use to enhance the game. When the designers sit down to create a new set, we look at all the resources available to us. New ideas and old ideas are all paints they we can use to create our new canvas. If something from the past fits into what we are doing we will take the opportunity to use it.
- Mark Rosewater “Cycling Cycling“

The biggest change in philosophy has to do with how R&D looks at mechanics. For a long time, R&D thought about mechanics as a limited resource. To use a metaphor, design space was treated like a diamond mine. With each diamond (mechanic) we removed, we were a step closer to having an empty mine. As such, we had to be very careful about how fast we were extracting diamonds from the mine.
- Mark Rosewater “Keyword to the Wise“

Not all of the cards that could’ve been put on the Reserved List were put on the list. First group of cards that were left off were cards that they decided weren’t too powerful so that it left a little wiggle room in case they ever wanted to do something like what 8th Edition did (non-Reserved cards that haven’t been printed before). The second? Cards that had block mechanics. Check out the Reserved List. Very few of the cards after Mirage (and especially after Tempest) had block mechanics. Why? With Cycling and Shadow and Echo never scheduled to return, there was no reason to put them on the Reserved List so the decision was made to leave them out. With this “new” philosophy of mechanics, it might have made the decision to stop the Reserved List.

But Core Sets weren’t the sets that saw reprints; Magic was still growing but up until this time the only reprints were common cards: Incinerate, Dark Ritual, Disenchant, Counterspell, Circles of Protection, you know, “non-harmful” cards. The Reserved List used to have un-reprinted commons and uncommons until it was put to a vote online and removed them from the Reserved List (Randy Buehler’s Latest Development). In fact, as of this printing (after Worldwake) very few rares outside of being printed in core sets have been rares: Reflecting Pool being the only one that was reprinted in a non-core set setting that saw significant play and rose in price dramatically. But this debate isn’t about reprinting cards in Core Sets or what rarity they were; it’s about reprinting them at all.

This debate has blown up in the past couple of weeks. From GatheringMagic (which helped spawn this idea) to QuietSpeculation’s talk about Proxies, to the man some people blame/think is the savior in all of this, Ben Bleiweiss at StarCityGames. There was the announcement the Duel Decks: Phyrexian vs Collation will have a foil Phyrexian Negator, and the release the art of Masticore being in From the Vault: Relics. Both of these cards are on the Reserved List but, to skirt the whole “can’t print them issue”, they’re foil. Oh, didn’t you notice that earlier?

All policies described in this document apply only to non-premium, tournament-legal Magic cards. Wizards of the Coast has and may continue to print special versions of cards not meant for regular game play, such as oversized cards.
- Reserved List Policy

Yes, for years Magic has been printing Judge Foils that have been on the Restricted List. No one cared all that much since they were special versions of the card meant for Judges. If you don’t know: Magic judges don’t get paid money for doing their job, they get paid in product (Boxes and promo cards). The cards were more valuable because of the supply/demand issue. Collectors (as well as EDH/Cube/Vintage/Legacy players) want these cards since they’re are so few printed of them, keeping the price high. Judges, if they want to, obviously, can sell the cards to turn it into money and get “paid” for judging. Since these cards are never sold in packs, that keeps them valuable and sought after, artificially inflating their prices.

But what makes this a different tiger than just reprinting them in sets are all the various products that Wizards are producing these days: From the Vault, Duel Decks, Premium Deck Series, Planechase, Archenemy. The real key about this is the fact that they can reprint the card without having it effect other formats such as Standard and Extended (much like the Timeshifted cards in Time Spiral did). This issue suddenly gets more relavent because at anytime, because there are foils, anything in the Reserved List can be printed.

As this year continues on, we might get more and more instances of the “old” Reserved List becoming to cease in existence, or, like it did back in 2002 with the uncommons, change. There are some deciding factors in this and again, the two sides of Players versus Collectors have pulled out their pitchforks and are ready to do battle again.

With this being Halloween and all, I thought I’d get in the spirit a little bit. Spirit, as in ghosts (And what’s the deal with airline food?). Not everything that Wizards of the Coast has printed for Magic been perfect. There have been a ton of mistakes that have haunted the game (stop my puns if they get too much). Those mistakes were horrible at the time and have even driven away people in droves, but hopefully their lessons have been learned and not to be repeated.

Hopefully.

As you’ll see I left out singular cards, but one is heavily implied. I didn’t feel it fair to blame one card out of several hundreds from the same set or situation.

5 – Only the Shadow Knows

Shadow, in and of itself, is not a totally bad mechanic. Introduced in Tempest (The second “Real” block), it enabled players to have another type of creature to attack and defend with. We can almost forgive this mistake early in Magic’s history if it wasn’t brought back during Time Spiral.

Why is it on here? Today, Magic is encouraged to be interactive. Yes, swinging in with creatures does create interactivity, but it’s weird how Shadow doesn’t really promote that. Reread Shadow’s reminder text:

This creature can block or be blocked by only creatures with shadow.

Either you have to race the creatures, have shadow creatures in your deck, or ways to handle creatures. How is this any different than creatures with flying? That’s exactly the point: you have to now worry about creatures with Flying AND creatures with Shadow. If the game evolved to where Shadow was a major player, then I don’t think it would be as much as a problem because there would be more ways to handle it. One major form of evasion is perfectly fine, but when you add another main one in there it adds complexity.

This is different than Unblockable in Blue only because it can block if needed. I get the flavor behind Shadow, but the fact that it can only block other Shadow creatures means it takes interaction from your opponent’s side as well too because it makes the decision of attacking that much easier. Horsemanship fits in this category as well, but with only one set that it’s been printing in, it’s not as bad.

4 – Arcane is Forever Alone

Everyone loves card advantage (except Red Deck Wins and White Weenie players). It seems that Pro Players and PTQ grinders would love cards that stayed in your hand for an extra cost. Splicing is a neat idea to make your spells “customizable.”

Why is it on here? This is the very definition of a “Parasitic” Mechanic; it needs other arcane cards for it to operate. With arcane only appearing in one block, you have cards that can only work with each other. The idea is pretty cool, and I think Wizards misunderstood why people didn’t like the block until recently (ignoring power level complaints). Splice is the part that everyone loves, but it was put on too little of a subset of cards that nobody can play with. If I want to play Evermind, I have to play with other Arcane spells to make it work, severely limiting my deck building choices.

And this is something that I see a ton of amateur designers do when I lurk around on card creation forums and areas. They create this new subtype of card and try and shove it down our throats trying to get us to play it. Their logical conclusion might be, “If WotC has done that with Arcane, and Traps and now Curses, why can’t I?” It’s because WotC learned from Arcane. Traps and Curses have a small subsection in the sets they’re now in.

Number of times that “Trap” was used outside of the subtype in Zendikar block? Two: Trapfinder’s Trick and Trapmaker’s Snare. One was a tutor, the other a discard/safety card. In Innistrad with “Curse”? Two: A tutor (Bitterheart Witch) and a safety card (Witchbane Orb, which can also double as a non-curse card).

How many non-Arcane cards reference Arcane? 57. There were 93 Arcane cards and 27 Splice into Arcane cards. That may seem like a lot. But considering that out of the thousands of Magic cards out there, you can really only build a few Arcane decks that have to work together means it’s a very limited base to design from.

3 – Coldsnap Needs to Grow Up

If you loved to draft, this was your set. Pretty much tailored to give one of the best drafting environments ever, Coldsnap was giving nostalgia a modern update. Everything everyone loved about the Ice Age block (Snow-Covered lands, Pitch spells, dual colored lands) was going to be back and more with this singular set.

Why is it on here? Besides the fact that it had a hugely parasitic mechanic (Snow), overly nostalgic mechanics no one really liked (Cumulative Upkeep and “Slowtrips”), the real problem was the set size. “But Robby,” those of you who like to ask questions out loud when the author isn’t present, “it was a third set. What did you expect them to do?”

True. Without Coldsnap we wouldn’t have had Rise of the Eldrazi. Look at the similarities: both are the “third” set of a block designed to be drafted exclusively. They were both experiments to see if a heavily draft-able set could work. Rise was extremely successful and beloved by many a limited player. I have yet to run into a player who remembers Coldsnap fondly (as players were complaining that it was just a money grab in a year where they weren’t releasing four sets a year to that point).

When Rise was announced, it was a huge surprise that it was going to be a “large set” instead of the normal third set size. The set had more time to breathe and figure out what it actually wanted to be. Coldsnap relied too heavily on the nostalgia as the goal of that set was to “finish” an uncompleted block. Could the set have benefited from a little more space in the cards? Yes, I believe so. But the idea of making a huge set caused a stir at the time, making hard at that time to swallow even more.

2 – When the Planeswalkers Roamed Wild

No, it’s not about the card Jace itself. While there are some broken things with it, I don’t think it was the problem in general. Being banned in Standard is a huge deal (Stoneforge will get her shout out soon), but the fact that this was banned has more to deal with its environment than the card itself. Ok, the card was a problem too, but more of it dealt with getting rid of it.

Why is it on here? Planeswalkers are now 4 years old, but we’re still learning on how to handle them in the game. There are four ways Planeswalkers leave the battlefield: A creature/damage knocks their loyalty counters down to zero, the Planeswalker uses its abilities to go down to zero, another Planeswalker with the same name enters the battlefield, or it gets destroyed/bounced. It’s this last group that we’re concerning ourselves with mostly.

Here are the ways to get rid of a Planeswalker from Lorwyn to M10 (Bounce is in italics):

• Archon of Justice
• AEthersnipe
• Banishing Knack
• Boomerang
• Capricious Efreet
• Celestial Purge
• Cephalid Constable
• Child of Alara
• Consign to Dream
• Cryptic Command
• Deny Reality
• Disperse
• Girxis Charm
• Kederekt Leviathan
• Legacy Weapon
• Lightwielder Paladin
• Maelstrom Pulse
• Nevermaker
• Nicol Bolas, Planeswalker
• Oblivion Ring
• Planar Cleansing
• Primal Command
• Reaper King
• Resounding Wave
• Rootgrapple
• Scourglass
• Surgespanner
• Violent Ultimatum
• Warp World
• Wild Swing
• Woodfall Primus
• Worldpurge

Zendikar to Mirrodin Besieged (Bounce is in italics):

• Admonition Angel
• All is Dust
• Argentum Armor
• Aether Tradewinds
• Celestial Purge
• Devout Lightcaster
• Disperse
• Elspeth Tirel
• Into the Roil
• Lux Cannon
• Mold Shambler
• Quicksilver Geyser
• Ratchet Bomb
• Regress
• Spine of Ish Sah
• Steel Hellkite
• Terastodon
• Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre
• Vampire Hexmage
• World Queller

New Phyrexia to Innistrad (Bounce is in italics):

• Archon of Justice
• Beast Within
• Bramblecrush
• Brutalizer Exarch
• Celestial Purge
• Exclusion Ritual
• Hex Parasite
• Karn Liberated
• Lost in the Mist
• Oblivion Ring
• Worldslayer

In just three sets, we have as many ways to deal with a Planeswalker as the previous six. Looking at most of the cards in the second group, they seem pretty soft when it comes to handling Planeswalkers. In the age of Jace TMS, there was hardly any good way of dealing with him in a non-creature fashion. He already has a leg up since he’s in Blue (countering, bouncing, stealing, outdrawing), and his third ability didn’t help. If you wanted to brute force attack him, the Jace player could bounce the creature for free, and leave mana untapped to counter it again.

Once it became apparent to WotC that Jace was going to be too good, it started printing ways to get rid of it. Look at the ways New Phyrexia has to deal with Planeswalkers:

• Beast Within
• Brutalizer Exarch
• Exclusion Ritual
• Hex Parasite
• Karn Liberated

Any deck can use two of the cards while Green has the splash-able Beast Within. However, there is one card on the first and last list that doesn’t appear in the middle one:

Oblivion Ring.

Sometimes the threat of an answer is a great answer itself when it comes to deckbuilding and metagaming. WotC knows from the past that it needs reset button in case things get too far out of hand (Creeping Corrosion in an artifact block). The lack of great answers to a Planeswalker might have been the whole problem; it lead to the Superfriends deck and ultimately Jace’s rise and eventual banning. I honestly believe that if there would’ve been more (playable) answers provided, Jace wouldn’t have overrun the environment. He still would’ve been good, but not as good.

1 – Getting Something for Nothing

Sometimes Wizards just doesn’t learn. This could’ve been a whole article just on this section; in fact when I was writing this list I noticed that a majority of my choices fit into this category. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. As I said before, players love card advantage; if there’s a way of skirting the cost of something, players will figure it out and abuse it.

Why is it on here? Here’s the list I came up with that fits in this category:

• Urza’s “Free Spells”
• Affinity
• Rebels
• Storm
• Cascade
• Mental Misstep
• Tinker
• Stoneforge Mystic

When you mess around with the mana system, you get burned. Affinity, Rebels and Storm ended up being way too good as a linear mechanic. Urza’s “free spells” was a neat mechanic done wrong in a color that should’ve have not gotten it in the first place. Cascade has the potential to be the most “fun” out of these mechanics since it was “random”, but hugely broken when you take out that random factor. Mental Misstep was printed with the wrong wording (I would’ve love to have seen a Nix variation on it) and given to every color. Tinker, well, Artifacts weren’t completely broken back then; just an 8/8 creature was the worst that could happen. Stoneforge tutored up an equipment and threw it onto the battlefield at the end of the turn, bypassing a normal mana requirement.

Each time that Wizards has tried to do more with less, it blows up in their face. Free mana, casting things for free, and putting objects onto the battlefield without issue are all dangerous aspects of the game. Players want to do powerful things, but in a capable player’s hands it’s like giving a machine gun to Rambo: the normal person will flair around and think it’s cool, Rambo will spend no time killing everyone in sight.

But here’s the thing: I don’t want them to stop doing effects like this. If you don’t test out new waters, the game becomes boring. Is Phyrexian Mana broken? No, it’s the cards they put it on like a free counterspell that hinders early game development. Can Affinity see play again? Yes, but this time without all the enabling lands and creatures.

On the other hand, I think we might have seen the last of Storm.

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I’m dubbing this week: “Return of Content” Week. It’s like Shark week, but most likely not as cool (Come on, Sharks are way badass). As you might have read from my last post, I’ve been a little distracted as of late. But I haven’t stepped away from Magic, just my writing time as been shrunk while we get ready for our new addition. I’ve got a ton of new content I want to get to.

The goal is a new post everyday this week between here, 99EDHProblems.com and GatheringMagic.com. That’s the goal and I’ll do my best to get it to work. On Friday, I’ll debut a new project that I’ve been working on for several months that will…

…well, let’s wait until then.

So Lotus Cobra is Evil starts Return of Content Week. I’d say that’s always a good thing.

I was going to create a card for this situation, but realized one had already been made:

Expected Due Date: Spring 2012

Obviously this is a Magic blog and will remain that way. If you are curious about the wacky adventures and this new beginning, I’ve started a new Twitter feed where my Wife and I will tweet from: @SympathyTweets. This is our first.

Normal blogging will return shortly.