Under your paradigm, remove Fortress Crab, Armored Skaab and Curse of the Bloody Tome from Innistrad and no-one would bat an eye.
Funny you mention Fortress Crab. Back during the Innistrad prerelease I picked it as a last pick fodder in a draft and, after a few matches, decided to sideboard it into my deck. It actually won me a few matches. I'll always remember it with fondness.
The idea that useless cards suck is totally justified, but I honestly don't see how making a change like this is actually doing anything.
I'm not saying that this change alone would make it so that I would print it, but this change alone would make it a better card and fulfill the exact same role in limited WOTC wants Aven Battle Priest to fulfill.
Thus if your position is that WOTC constructs cards for a balanced limited environment, Aven Battle Priest 2.0 would have been preferable.
Hey guys, just wanted to say that while I think the existence of "bad cards" is a relevant discussion for our forum and a subject on which we can have some productive debate, it is also a topic that people feel strongly about, which could lead to some unproductive posts. As always, if you feel you are being trolled or flamed, send us a report instead of responding. I also don't want to see this topic derailing discussion in other threads.
Thanks for your cooperation, carry on.
What if I feel like your cards are a ripoff and I don't want them? For example, what if I don't like the tribe you're deciding to focus on. What should I do about that?
What if I feel like your cards are a ripoff and I don't want them? For example, what if I don't like the tribe you're deciding to focus on. What should I do about that?
What if you don't like Pepsi? Buy something else.
Selling Pepsi is not inherently evil. But selling something that wasn't Pepsi as though it was Pepsi would be fraud, no?
What if I feel like your cards are a ripoff and I don't want them? For example, what if I don't like the tribe you're deciding to focus on. What should I do about that?
What if you don't like Pepsi? Buy something else.
Selling Pepsi is not inherently evil. But selling something that wasn't Pepsi as though it was Pepsi would be fraud, no?
I'm with labarith... crappy cards stink. Yes I know context and all that, but in the end he's right. Determination of card power levels are based on a formula that generates revenue and are otherwise arbitrary. Which is fine with me.
Conspiracy theory stuff like this annoys me. Power level has less to do with revenue and more to do with crafting a solid product.
Yes, crafting a solid product so as to net a profit, which like I said, I’m fine with. It isn’t a conspiracy theory. I don’t think WotC is an evil corporate entity; just that it’s a business that wants to net a profit. There’s nothing immoral about earning an income. That being said, their methods of doing so are occasionally somewhat dubious – i.e., conveniently timed bannings, expedition lands, *****ty overpriced duel decks, and the like.
If a "Magic Card" is defined as a Card for a collectable card game, and is not designed to be played in said collectable card game... then yes?
If a "Magic Card" is defined as "Any card WOTC calls a Magic Card," then you've defined the term so broadly that many cards that cannot even in principle be played - such as radical misprints - count as "magic cards."
I've had this discussion earlier in the thread, it's not 100% better, it's just 99.9+% better, which fits with the colloquial use of the term.
Again, Mindless Null can't block Prized Unicorn - but this isn't sufficient evidence that it's not - in the sense we're discussing it - worse than Scathe Zombies.
Selling Pepsi is not inherently evil. But selling something that wasn't Pepsi as though it was Pepsi would be fraud, no?
I go to my local ChannelSodapop store. On one shelf, I see a six pack of Pepsi. On another shelf, I see the Mystery Soda Machine. Both Pepsi and the fun chance of getting something random is available to me. The Mystery Soda Machine is not being advertised as a machine that dispenses only Pepsi. If you take it as such, it is not the fault of the person in charge of the Mystery Soda Machine. The person in charge of the Mystery Soda Machine is even nice enough to include a minigame as you buy from the Mystery Soda Machine that you can't play if buy the six pack of Pepsi!
Listen, if your position is that it's not a harm to get barf-flavored jelly beans in Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans - sure. But if they were Bertie Bott's Won't Make You Sick Flavour Beans... then I think it's false advertising, no?
Now the question becomes whether Magic card are WOTC's Collectable Card Game Cards or WOTC's Random Printed Words and Pictures on Cardstock. I think we think they're the former, not the latter. You might disagree, but I suggest you look at the product description before taking that stance.
"Bad" cards aren't any less collectable than "good" ones. In fact, a collection can be said to be incomplete if it lacks them.
They're also playable as a part of a game, since they have all the requisite characteristics and obey all the rules as outlined by Magic Comprehensive Rules.
They're also cards in that they're made of printed cardboard in accordance to the sizing, formatting and design created by Wizards.
So yeah, they're pretty much Collectible Card Game cards.
Aluksky, I take it that to be a "Collectable Card Game" card, the card must be both collectable and a playable card in said game.
It's not a "Collectable AND/OR Card Game" card.
Finally, the "it's technically playable if you want to put yourself at a disadvantage," argument doesn't seem to hold up with commonsense conceptions of games. It's not a game if someone is letting you win.
They're all both playable and collectible. Vantage and disadvantage aren't binary states, either, so that can't be determined by any one card in isolation - and, regardless, it doesn't change that the cards obey all requisites to be considered Magic: The Gathering cards, so they're very much playable Collectible Card Game cards. Just because you personally don't want to play them doesn't make them unplayable.
@labarith - So we're back to "Anything Labarith doesn't like is immoral to print"?
Seems like we're back there. After all, while other players do like these cards, Labarith feels they must never be made.
Naturally, any card that makes the gameplay experience worse shouldn't be printed. Opening complete junk cards on the level of Mindless Null can make the booster-opening experience worse, but as has been mentioned they're often important for balancing limited. I speak from experience, you can't reduce all the cards in a single color by 1/32th a mana in order to make things balanced. Additionally, doing a full base change on that level would change so many cards that you'd need to retest everything again and you'd wind up with new balance problems. It's changing too many variables at once.
So if a card is liked by some people and makes one of the world's most popular format's better due to being used as a balancing tool... Why is it immoral? You compared it to selling you something other than what you paid for. WOTC releases full spoilers of their sets, so not sure how that's a thing. And you can get whatever cards you like through the secondary market, so you aren't even forced to buy packs for anything other than limited (where it makes the game more fun).
If you went to a singles store and paid for a black lotus and were handed a mindless null, you'd have cause to complain. As is, why not follow this person's sage advice:
Quote from labarith »
What if you don't like Pepsi? Buy something else.
In general though, you don't want to make your customer's offended. Mindless Null and friends can indeed do something like that. It's not immoral, but it's a painful price to pay to make some of your customers unhappy despite how much the card does invisibly for the overall popular formats. As such, I try to make the awful cards in games I design look less offensive. Either I tie the effects to things players clasically overvalue, or make them look like they might have combo potential. Any reason to exist beyond the truth of, "we needed a bad card for limited".
It's a perception problem, so it can have perception solutions.
The fact I don't like it is incidental, the fac that it does not fit the description of the product makes it fraud.
Hey man, I think you've got some good points, but saying stuff like this doesn't help your cause. WotC tells you exactly what you might get out of its product, which includes being upfront about how bad certain cards are. The fact that you want something different does not make what they're doing fraud. You might see it as immoral, disingenuous, unfair, wasteful, or anything else, but calling it fraud is just resorting to hyperbole and undermines the moral stance you're trying to take.
You could conceivably convince me that WotC shouldn't print bad cards on principle, but you will not convince me that showing me a big list of cards I could potentially open, which includes some bad ones, is lying.
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"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
WotC tells you exactly what you might get out of its product, which includes being upfront about how bad certain cards are.
Just because WOTC in another venue gives you a complete spoiler does not change the fact that their description of the cards as "collectable card game" cards is inaccurate.
But, more to the point, the next time you buy a booster I suggest you read the booster. It gives you every indication that you will be opening 15 playable cards for card game called "Magic the Gathering."
If they had fine print on the back of the package that said "Note that some cards are specifically designed not to be playable magic the gathering cards, but jokes." this doesn't change the fact that they advertise it one way, and return something different.
Still, I find these arguments that "It's WOTC's right to sell us cards we don't use and we contingently tacitly consent to it by continuing to buy cards." to be rather odd. I'm not asking whether WOTC is allowed to do so - I've argued it's fraud, and they ought not be allowed to do intentionally defraud people. Yet often times I get this battered-spouse syndrome answer - we're used to it, so it's okay. Or if we didn't want it, we'd leave and play a new game. This is really disturbing and I think it's clear where these arguments fall apart.
But the argument that "Someone on the internet someone told me that there was this bad card in the set, and yet I still bought it so I consented to getting the bad card" is directly analogous to a famous bioethics argument - the consent argument. The problem with the consent argument is that you know that by not committing suicide this moment you know it's possible that you will be kidnapped/robbed/etc., so you've consented to being kidnapped/robbed/etc. It's a fallacious argument and one that paints the victimizer as completely in the right. After all, if you didn't want to be robbed you could just jumped into a volcano. That would have made it very difficult for me to take your wallet at gunpoint. Since you didn't, you've consented to give me your wallet - I'm not a thief.
This is a scary moral principle that has clear-cut horrible implications - embrace it at your own risk.
What's the description of the product? Is it not in their official spoiler? Is it not a magic card legally playable in the set?
I suggest you look up the term "spoiler;" the product description is the description on the package.
"Spoiler" is a nickname that originally comes from a different kind of product and stuck - what about the official (and officially named) Card List Gallery?
And for what it is worth: What is the description on the package?
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I hate stringing this argument along, because it is clear that you are not open to listening to other points of view. However, I feel I at least owe it to you to provide counterpoints so you can at least be aware that you are in the strong minority on these issues. At very least I ask that you please respect the people you're talking to, even if they are not always as respectful as they should be to you. A lot of your arguments seem to boil down to passive aggressively calling the majority of magic players idiots who have been bamboozled rather than simply disagreeing with your opinion. Does it not seem a little arrogant to assume that you're the only one who sees the truth instead of just disagreeing? Couldn't you at least try to concede some of the reasonable counterarguments instead of just rejecting it all wholesale from atop a moral high horse? No one is saying you have to change your opinion, but choosing not to acknowledge the viewpoints of other people is not going to lead to better design nor better morals.
Just because WOTC in another venue gives you a complete spoiler does not change the fact that their description of the cards as "collectable card game" cards is inaccurate.
This is false. No matter how bad a card is I can still collect it and I can still play a game with it. This is honestly starting to baffle me.
But, more to the point, the next time you buy a booster I suggest you read the booster. It gives you every indication that you will be opening 15 playable cards for card game called "Magic the Gathering."
I'm actually holding a booster in my hands, and all it says is that there are 15 cards. Absolutely nothing about the playability of those cards relative to an existing metagame. I've actually got a booster box here too, and it says "contains 36 boosters with 15 randomly inserted cards". If you're arguing false advertising you have to use words that actually appear on the box...
Honestly, at the end of the day, nobody else cares. People are not stupid, they're just willing to put up with a little BS for a game that's fun and challenging and brings people together. Abstracting everyday decisions out to a philosophical level is pointless when the reality of the situation is that we're not moral agents, we're people. We eat food we know is bad for us because it tastes good. We drive cars we know are bad for the environment because its convenient. Nobody cares if a game is a tiny bit immoral if it's fun. In the grand scheme of things, it really is just a game.
You can criticize me all you want, I'll be over here having fun getting ripped off. A few bucks a month is a small price to pay, and calling me morally reprehensible and ignorant is just not a very convincing approach when the result would be me having less fun.
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"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
@labarith
People who don't view the card list before purchasing cards should be quite aware that they don't what cards they will get, and might not want all of them.
You still seem to be under the false impression that it is at all feasible to make a set that both plays well for limited and has all somewhat constructed playable cards. It's not.
Until you can front up the testing to show that it is, you have nothing. Your entire argument lives and dies on the feasibility of making card in a set work for both limited and constructed.
R&D has decades of experience making sets. So when they say 'bad' cards are for the health of limited, I take it as probably true.
They aren't bad for the game, they serve a purpose. Just as some cards in a set are made for constructed and could be made better for limited, some cards in a set are made for limited and could be better in constructed.
If you don't like it, that's fine. But it's not about you, or any one person.
@labarith
People who don't view the card list before purchasing cards should be quite aware that they don't what cards they will get, and might not want all of them.
I really don't see where the card list comes into it.
If you tell me you're selling me medicine for my cold, and it's not medicine for my cold, the fact you noted online that there was a chance it wasn't medicine for my cold doesn't make it any less fraud.
You say I'm under a false impression, but you haven't demonstrated it. My Aven Battle Priest 2.0 example shows that WOTC could make functionally better cards w/o affecting limited. Thus I am under the demonstrably correct impression that WOTC could make better cards w/o affecting limited.
You say "Until you can front up the testing to show that it is, you have nothing." - but I have done the testing. We all have. If you take the cards from standard, you have a 100% constructed playable set. If your position is "limited needs to have unplayable cards for reason X," you put the burden of proof on yourself, not me. You have to come up with an example of a card that is "bad for limited" AND that cannot be improved for constructed in some format (tribal highlander, h2g, pauper, etc.). If you cannot come up with just ONE CARD to demonstrate this, then why should we believe it's true of more than one card?
And "R+D had decades of experience" is probably actually not true, as they have a rotating cast that don't work on everything. But what we do know is that they're prone to printing cards "for a laugh" - Mindless Null. And if you want to start off your position by admitting "Yeah, so there was this one mistake. I think WOTC messed up, but surely that's the exception and not the rule" then MAYBE we can have a sensible debate where we discuss the issues.
As it stands now, though, the no bad cards position has set out several arguments that the we *need* bad cards position has yet to address. If you want to address those arguments, we can have a conversation about those arguments. But please don't result to simply dismissing those arguments by saying that they're subjective or incomplete.
Either WOTC is engaging in fraud, or they are not. Either it is good game design to print cards that cannot be played or it is not. Either a certain percentage of cards in limited have to be exactly as constructed unviable as they are printed, or they do not. My position is that it is fraud, that it's not good game design to print cards that cannot be played in your game, and that Aven Battle Priest 2.0 is printable and has the exact same effect on limited, while being (more) constructed playable in mutliplayer proving that the exact choices WOTC make are not tied to making the best possible product for limited and constructed.
You still seem to be under the false impression that it is at all feasible to make a set that both plays well for limited and has all somewhat constructed playable cards. It's not.
Even if it potentially was you still have to factor in that it has to not just be one set but a set every three months. Stretching credibility as each card ends up restricting the design space of the other. As mentioned in Maro's Reprint Podcast this weekend the design space in magic is large but not infinite, especially when taking into account complexity, aesthetic concerns, limited curves, and dozens of other factors.
Aven Battle Priest 2.05W
Creature - Bird Rebel Cleric
Flying
When Aven Battle Priest 2.0 enters the battlefield, you gain 3 life for each opponent.
3/3
Aven Battle Priest 2.0 example shows that WOTC could make functionally better cards w/o affecting limited.
It shows that could make a single "functionally better" card, however doing this creates minor issues that compound as you attempt to apply this to a whole set, making the product overall worse.
It contains an additional creature type with mechanical baggage that is not supported in ORI, pulling focus, and adding a tiny amount of comprehension complexity.
One of the core design goals of a Core Set is to make the simplest iteration of an effect, to teach newcomers the game. Adding the "for each opponent." here isn't much but do this to 5, 10, 20+ cards that your consider unplayable and your then fighting against the design goal that is keeping player acquisition (and therefore the long term health of the game.) high.
This doesn't even achieve the goal you set out for of making it "playable". If this card was in the set you could be making the exact same argument about how the card is unplayable, lets add more stuff to it.
Example: Aven Battle Priest 3.05W
Creature - Bird Rebel Ally Cleric
Flying
When Aven Battle Priest 3.0 enters the battlefield, you gain 3 life plus an additional 9 life for each of your opponents beyond the first.
3/3
In the lens of your "functionally better" and "playability" worldview this card is exactly the same in ORI limited yet more playable. But its not elegant, its has more complexity, it pulls focus from the themes of that set. You said you enjoyed Vanilla creatures earlier and that you wished they where more playable. Yet consider why you like them?
I like them because they are easy to understand, they allow you to stop processing comprehension complexity for a moment and focus on other aspects of the game. Me and Dan talked about comprehension complexity in our Podcast
For similar reasons this card would be less popular among certain players that either v2.0 or the original. Now you personally may think v3.0 is great, but magic is many games for many people.
And this is all without getting into how nowhere has WOTC or the definition of "collectable card game" promised that every card has to be playable, thus making your fraud argument seem fairly flimsy. So please clarify your fraud argument.
Lets start with a definition:
Fraud: "Fraud is deliberate deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right."
So you would you show me where the "deliberate deception" is?
What is the "unfair or unlawful gain"?
or what "legal right" are you being deprived of?
It shows that could make a single "functionally better" card
Exactly!
My position is that WOTC needs to hold itself to a higher standard. If - and I do mean if - the game *needs* bad cards, then they should be created ONLY because of this NEED, and not because someone wants to play a joke, or is too lazy to playtest.
I don't believe that there NEEDS to be bad cards, though. And no one in this thread has given a single example of a card that has to be at a certain level of quality unless it would otherwise warp limited. Not ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE.
But if magic NEEDS bad cards, then there should be any number of public, verifiable examples where making a common better in this kind of way would warp limited. But NO ONE HAS GIVEN SUCH AN EXAMPLE.
So, please, ANYBODY who wants to keep up this discussion - find me a common card from an expansion that never saw constructed play that would have warped the limited format if it was constructed playable. Just one. And then you'll have proven your point. There's a clear path to victory - all you need to do is do this one thing that so many people are saying is so easy to do... and yet not doing.
Aven Battle Priest 3.0 5W
Creature - Bird Rebel Ally Cleric
Flying
When Aven Battle Priest 3.0 enters the battlefield, you gain 3 life plus an additional 9 life for each of your opponents beyond the first.
3/3
Making it a BRAC seems fine... if there's room... sure.
But 12 life for 6 mana AND a body in a 3 player game seems pretty unfair, don't you think? Sure, 6 mana cards sometimes say "Double your life", but by turn 6 your life's probably at 10 or so anyways, no?
3.0 is too powerful. 1.0 is not powerful enough. There was this story about a girl and three bears in the woods... it might apply here, I don't know.
Funny you mention Fortress Crab. Back during the Innistrad prerelease I picked it as a last pick fodder in a draft and, after a few matches, decided to sideboard it into my deck. It actually won me a few matches. I'll always remember it with fondness.
I think it's wrong to purposely try to rip off people. Idolizing people who try to rip off people is just weird.
I'm not saying that this change alone would make it so that I would print it, but this change alone would make it a better card and fulfill the exact same role in limited WOTC wants Aven Battle Priest to fulfill.
Thus if your position is that WOTC constructs cards for a balanced limited environment, Aven Battle Priest 2.0 would have been preferable.
Thanks for your cooperation, carry on.
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What if you don't like Pepsi? Buy something else.
Selling Pepsi is not inherently evil. But selling something that wasn't Pepsi as though it was Pepsi would be fraud, no?
Is Mindless Null not a magic card?
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Yes, crafting a solid product so as to net a profit, which like I said, I’m fine with. It isn’t a conspiracy theory. I don’t think WotC is an evil corporate entity; just that it’s a business that wants to net a profit. There’s nothing immoral about earning an income. That being said, their methods of doing so are occasionally somewhat dubious – i.e., conveniently timed bannings, expedition lands, *****ty overpriced duel decks, and the like.
If a "Magic Card" is defined as a Card for a collectable card game, and is not designed to be played in said collectable card game... then yes?
If a "Magic Card" is defined as "Any card WOTC calls a Magic Card," then you've defined the term so broadly that many cards that cannot even in principle be played - such as radical misprints - count as "magic cards."
I've had this discussion earlier in the thread, it's not 100% better, it's just 99.9+% better, which fits with the colloquial use of the term.
Again, Mindless Null can't block Prized Unicorn - but this isn't sufficient evidence that it's not - in the sense we're discussing it - worse than Scathe Zombies.
Listen, if your position is that it's not a harm to get barf-flavored jelly beans in Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans - sure. But if they were Bertie Bott's Won't Make You Sick Flavour Beans... then I think it's false advertising, no?
Now the question becomes whether Magic card are WOTC's Collectable Card Game Cards or WOTC's Random Printed Words and Pictures on Cardstock. I think we think they're the former, not the latter. You might disagree, but I suggest you look at the product description before taking that stance.
They're also playable as a part of a game, since they have all the requisite characteristics and obey all the rules as outlined by Magic Comprehensive Rules.
They're also cards in that they're made of printed cardboard in accordance to the sizing, formatting and design created by Wizards.
So yeah, they're pretty much Collectible Card Game cards.
It's not a "Collectable AND/OR Card Game" card.
Finally, the "it's technically playable if you want to put yourself at a disadvantage," argument doesn't seem to hold up with commonsense conceptions of games. It's not a game if someone is letting you win.
Seems like we're back there. After all, while other players do like these cards, Labarith feels they must never be made.
Naturally, any card that makes the gameplay experience worse shouldn't be printed. Opening complete junk cards on the level of Mindless Null can make the booster-opening experience worse, but as has been mentioned they're often important for balancing limited. I speak from experience, you can't reduce all the cards in a single color by 1/32th a mana in order to make things balanced. Additionally, doing a full base change on that level would change so many cards that you'd need to retest everything again and you'd wind up with new balance problems. It's changing too many variables at once.
So if a card is liked by some people and makes one of the world's most popular format's better due to being used as a balancing tool... Why is it immoral? You compared it to selling you something other than what you paid for. WOTC releases full spoilers of their sets, so not sure how that's a thing. And you can get whatever cards you like through the secondary market, so you aren't even forced to buy packs for anything other than limited (where it makes the game more fun).
If you went to a singles store and paid for a black lotus and were handed a mindless null, you'd have cause to complain. As is, why not follow this person's sage advice:
In general though, you don't want to make your customer's offended. Mindless Null and friends can indeed do something like that. It's not immoral, but it's a painful price to pay to make some of your customers unhappy despite how much the card does invisibly for the overall popular formats. As such, I try to make the awful cards in games I design look less offensive. Either I tie the effects to things players clasically overvalue, or make them look like they might have combo potential. Any reason to exist beyond the truth of, "we needed a bad card for limited".
It's a perception problem, so it can have perception solutions.
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The fact I don't like it is incidental, the fact that it does not fit the description of the product makes it fraud.
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You could conceivably convince me that WotC shouldn't print bad cards on principle, but you will not convince me that showing me a big list of cards I could potentially open, which includes some bad ones, is lying.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
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I suggest you look up the term "spoiler;" the product description is the description on the package.
Just because WOTC in another venue gives you a complete spoiler does not change the fact that their description of the cards as "collectable card game" cards is inaccurate.
But, more to the point, the next time you buy a booster I suggest you read the booster. It gives you every indication that you will be opening 15 playable cards for card game called "Magic the Gathering."
If they had fine print on the back of the package that said "Note that some cards are specifically designed not to be playable magic the gathering cards, but jokes." this doesn't change the fact that they advertise it one way, and return something different.
Still, I find these arguments that "It's WOTC's right to sell us cards we don't use and we contingently tacitly consent to it by continuing to buy cards." to be rather odd. I'm not asking whether WOTC is allowed to do so - I've argued it's fraud, and they ought not be allowed to do intentionally defraud people. Yet often times I get this battered-spouse syndrome answer - we're used to it, so it's okay. Or if we didn't want it, we'd leave and play a new game. This is really disturbing and I think it's clear where these arguments fall apart.
But the argument that "Someone on the internet someone told me that there was this bad card in the set, and yet I still bought it so I consented to getting the bad card" is directly analogous to a famous bioethics argument - the consent argument. The problem with the consent argument is that you know that by not committing suicide this moment you know it's possible that you will be kidnapped/robbed/etc., so you've consented to being kidnapped/robbed/etc. It's a fallacious argument and one that paints the victimizer as completely in the right. After all, if you didn't want to be robbed you could just jumped into a volcano. That would have made it very difficult for me to take your wallet at gunpoint. Since you didn't, you've consented to give me your wallet - I'm not a thief.
This is a scary moral principle that has clear-cut horrible implications - embrace it at your own risk.
"Spoiler" is a nickname that originally comes from a different kind of product and stuck - what about the official (and officially named) Card List Gallery?
And for what it is worth: What is the description on the package?
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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If your position is that WOTC has a list that they post online that people who buy packs don't have immediate access to, note the underlined text.
As for what's on the description on the package - look it up! Why are you outsourcing the things to other people?
This is false. No matter how bad a card is I can still collect it and I can still play a game with it. This is honestly starting to baffle me.
I'm actually holding a booster in my hands, and all it says is that there are 15 cards. Absolutely nothing about the playability of those cards relative to an existing metagame. I've actually got a booster box here too, and it says "contains 36 boosters with 15 randomly inserted cards". If you're arguing false advertising you have to use words that actually appear on the box...
Honestly, at the end of the day, nobody else cares. People are not stupid, they're just willing to put up with a little BS for a game that's fun and challenging and brings people together. Abstracting everyday decisions out to a philosophical level is pointless when the reality of the situation is that we're not moral agents, we're people. We eat food we know is bad for us because it tastes good. We drive cars we know are bad for the environment because its convenient. Nobody cares if a game is a tiny bit immoral if it's fun. In the grand scheme of things, it really is just a game.
You can criticize me all you want, I'll be over here having fun getting ripped off. A few bucks a month is a small price to pay, and calling me morally reprehensible and ignorant is just not a very convincing approach when the result would be me having less fun.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
People who don't view the card list before purchasing cards should be quite aware that they don't what cards they will get, and might not want all of them.
You still seem to be under the false impression that it is at all feasible to make a set that both plays well for limited and has all somewhat constructed playable cards. It's not.
Until you can front up the testing to show that it is, you have nothing. Your entire argument lives and dies on the feasibility of making card in a set work for both limited and constructed.
R&D has decades of experience making sets. So when they say 'bad' cards are for the health of limited, I take it as probably true.
They aren't bad for the game, they serve a purpose. Just as some cards in a set are made for constructed and could be made better for limited, some cards in a set are made for limited and could be better in constructed.
If you don't like it, that's fine. But it's not about you, or any one person.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
QFT and to add that some people actually have fun complaining. (I wonder if there's a psychographic for them.)
I really don't see where the card list comes into it.
If you tell me you're selling me medicine for my cold, and it's not medicine for my cold, the fact you noted online that there was a chance it wasn't medicine for my cold doesn't make it any less fraud.
You say I'm under a false impression, but you haven't demonstrated it. My Aven Battle Priest 2.0 example shows that WOTC could make functionally better cards w/o affecting limited. Thus I am under the demonstrably correct impression that WOTC could make better cards w/o affecting limited.
You say "Until you can front up the testing to show that it is, you have nothing." - but I have done the testing. We all have. If you take the cards from standard, you have a 100% constructed playable set. If your position is "limited needs to have unplayable cards for reason X," you put the burden of proof on yourself, not me. You have to come up with an example of a card that is "bad for limited" AND that cannot be improved for constructed in some format (tribal highlander, h2g, pauper, etc.). If you cannot come up with just ONE CARD to demonstrate this, then why should we believe it's true of more than one card?
And "R+D had decades of experience" is probably actually not true, as they have a rotating cast that don't work on everything. But what we do know is that they're prone to printing cards "for a laugh" - Mindless Null. And if you want to start off your position by admitting "Yeah, so there was this one mistake. I think WOTC messed up, but surely that's the exception and not the rule" then MAYBE we can have a sensible debate where we discuss the issues.
As it stands now, though, the no bad cards position has set out several arguments that the we *need* bad cards position has yet to address. If you want to address those arguments, we can have a conversation about those arguments. But please don't result to simply dismissing those arguments by saying that they're subjective or incomplete.
Either WOTC is engaging in fraud, or they are not. Either it is good game design to print cards that cannot be played or it is not. Either a certain percentage of cards in limited have to be exactly as constructed unviable as they are printed, or they do not. My position is that it is fraud, that it's not good game design to print cards that cannot be played in your game, and that Aven Battle Priest 2.0 is printable and has the exact same effect on limited, while being (more) constructed playable in mutliplayer proving that the exact choices WOTC make are not tied to making the best possible product for limited and constructed.
Even if it potentially was you still have to factor in that it has to not just be one set but a set every three months. Stretching credibility as each card ends up restricting the design space of the other. As mentioned in Maro's Reprint Podcast this weekend the design space in magic is large but not infinite, especially when taking into account complexity, aesthetic concerns, limited curves, and dozens of other factors.
It shows that could make a single "functionally better" card, however doing this creates minor issues that compound as you attempt to apply this to a whole set, making the product overall worse.
Example:
Aven Battle Priest 3.0 5W
Creature - Bird Rebel Ally Cleric
Flying
When Aven Battle Priest 3.0 enters the battlefield, you gain 3 life plus an additional 9 life for each of your opponents beyond the first.
3/3
In the lens of your "functionally better" and "playability" worldview this card is exactly the same in ORI limited yet more playable. But its not elegant, its has more complexity, it pulls focus from the themes of that set. You said you enjoyed Vanilla creatures earlier and that you wished they where more playable. Yet consider why you like them?
I like them because they are easy to understand, they allow you to stop processing comprehension complexity for a moment and focus on other aspects of the game. Me and Dan talked about comprehension complexity in our Podcast
For similar reasons this card would be less popular among certain players that either v2.0 or the original. Now you personally may think v3.0 is great, but magic is many games for many people.
And this is all without getting into how nowhere has WOTC or the definition of "collectable card game" promised that every card has to be playable, thus making your fraud argument seem fairly flimsy.
So please clarify your fraud argument.
Lets start with a definition:
So you would you show me where the "deliberate deception" is?
What is the "unfair or unlawful gain"?
or what "legal right" are you being deprived of?
Are you designing commons? Check out my primer on NWO.
Interested in making a custom set? Check out my Set skeleton and archetype primer.
I also write articles about getting started with custom card creation.
Go and PLAYTEST your designs, you will learn more in a single playtests than a dozen discussions.
My custom sets:
Dreamscape
Coins of Mercalis [COMPLETE]
Exodus of Zendikar - ON HOLD
Exactly!
My position is that WOTC needs to hold itself to a higher standard. If - and I do mean if - the game *needs* bad cards, then they should be created ONLY because of this NEED, and not because someone wants to play a joke, or is too lazy to playtest.
I don't believe that there NEEDS to be bad cards, though. And no one in this thread has given a single example of a card that has to be at a certain level of quality unless it would otherwise warp limited. Not ONE SINGLE EXAMPLE.
But if magic NEEDS bad cards, then there should be any number of public, verifiable examples where making a common better in this kind of way would warp limited. But NO ONE HAS GIVEN SUCH AN EXAMPLE.
So, please, ANYBODY who wants to keep up this discussion - find me a common card from an expansion that never saw constructed play that would have warped the limited format if it was constructed playable. Just one. And then you'll have proven your point. There's a clear path to victory - all you need to do is do this one thing that so many people are saying is so easy to do... and yet not doing.
Making it a BRAC seems fine... if there's room... sure.
But 12 life for 6 mana AND a body in a 3 player game seems pretty unfair, don't you think? Sure, 6 mana cards sometimes say "Double your life", but by turn 6 your life's probably at 10 or so anyways, no?
3.0 is too powerful. 1.0 is not powerful enough. There was this story about a girl and three bears in the woods... it might apply here, I don't know.