Skipping the preamble, because the discussion should be obvious (blah blah creature push nerfed everything else blah).
What's the better card in a normal limited environment (let's say a random mix of the past 6 core sets, if we NEED a fixed cardpool), Shock or Lightning Strike? Not Shock and Bolt, mind, because that's obvious, but... Shock or LS? What's actually better in an unspecified environment, holding all else equal?
Same two cards, but... Which one's more "fun"? Which contributes more to the positive aspects of the game?
You can do the same thing with Doom Blade and Murder, or some pair of blue spells that have a similar relationship, or with Giant Growth and Titanic Growth, etm., the question's the same? Better card? Which would you rather open day one of an untested, unspecified format? What's more "fun"?
This discussion seems silly and arbitrary, but i'll give it a shot.
The Doom Blade Vs Murder example is pretty clear cut, as Doom Blade is pretty much the most unfun card around. It is cheap removal, so it is always in the maindeck, but once the Doom Blade player comes up against the other black deck it becomes a dead card. Murder is always useful. More fun than both is probably Go for the Throat, as it can be played around by picking artifact creatures.
In terms of drafting, its a good thing if cards have a requirement on the deck.
For that Murder with its 1BB cost requires more commitment to black, while Doom Blade is a card everyone can pick up and splash (if they want to).
If a limited format has too many good spells at 1 colored mana, then it means you simply cant predict to see that cards, as everyone can potentially take them, no matter if you had put them out of black, if they see Doom Blade, they might take it and simply splash for it.
However on the other extreme, all the good cards would have a real color commitment, so it becomes much harder to splash for them, which would set draft players in a color and makes the "off-color" cards pretty much unplayable.
In terms of removal i go with WotC and say that unconditional removal at common should cost around 5 mana, as that ensures that even fatties (5+ mana) are worth to play, as the opponent cant just play the 1-2 mana common to kill whatever you play.
Contitional removal in that aspect helps aswell, so the cards might end more often in the sideborad and become good against specific opponents. That ensures that sideboarding is a real thing in limited. If your removal is simply good against anything, this aspect does not exist. In that terms, WotC did a tremendously good job in the last draft sets, as they put in A LOT of conditional removal, or bonus effects against specific conditions , this is a really good thing.
Uncommon removal tends to be the old removal, simply good and efficient, you pretty much play them all the time. Doom Blade is now uncommon, and it fits that way better. Oblivion Ring is another one of these cards, fits way more in Uncommon, as it being a common was just a joke.
Especially the removal that trades 2-1 should not be common, as that kind of card advantage is really powerfull in limited and having too many of them makes a color stronger then the colors that dont have this kind of deals (thats why Divination is at least a playable card, simply as card advantage is king and quite rare at common level).
In terms of shock vs lightning strike the current evolution is that shock is considered "bad" and so we get many re-prints of it that have extra abilities attached and only target creatures (as you target creatures 99,9% of the time anyway and it feels just random to kill a player with your 1 mana removal, but sometimes thats good aswell, should just not be the norm).
Changing shock to a creature removal and not a burn to the face also helps to make actual burn to the face only cards, like Lava Axe more reasonable, simply because its conditional again, they do different stuff, one is burn to the face and one is removal ; all follows the idea that cards should have a job, and if a card does too many different jobs, its "too good" and should not be common.
Without any more knowledge of the set, limited in general has a lot of 2/2 sized creatures. That is normally a universal thing, a 2/2 for 2 should at least be playable, unless the format has a specific reason that this is not true (like a ton of 2/3 at 3 mana, which then changes the "important" size to 3 power).
Since the beginning of Limited an important question to ask was "Whats the important size in the set ?" , sometimes its 2/2 , sometimes its 1 thoughness (zendikar for example lots of 1 thoughness 2 drops) and sometimes the format is overall slower, if the number of 3+ thoughness cards increases.
---------------------------
A universal consence might be that conditional cards help limited variaty.
You will see more different decks and archetypes if cards are not just "good allways" , but require something to work with or against.
This also makes late picks in drafts more important, as you can spend them in your sideboard options, or hate the cards good against your deck.
---------------------------
Another point is the idea to make cards that are :
- Win more ! (cards/mechanics good in situations you are winning anyway)
- Come back ! (cards/mechanics that help you in a losing situation, normally bad like hellbent turns into profit).
- Demanding ! (cards/mechanics like tribal, requirement on spells etc.)
If a set has too many "Win more !" it will become boring fast and if you fail to find a land or screw around a little, the game will be even worse in your favour. So its important to keep the "win more !" mechanics to a minimum, its nice to have them to support aggressive decks which really have to go in fast, but it will just make natural mana screw and stuff extra annoying and punishing.
If a set has many "Come back !" effects, its much more forgiving and can easily become very complicated, as the aggressive deck has to plan more ahead, play around that cards and possible avoid the "triggers" to set them of.
On the other side, this kind of mechanic can further help an aggressive deck to get a 2nd wind, when they would normally be out of gas.
I personally enjoy this kind of mechanics the most, as it rewards clever plays and it helps to surprise people, to avoid the situations in which you look at a board state and its just waiting to die as you cant come back.
Demanding is a thing that requires actual deck construction. Cards range from really bad to important role players and high picks, all depending on what the deck is trying to do. Here i count "combo" decks in limited. We very rarely get to see this, as its difficult to put these kinds of things in limited. If a card is just allways good its quickly boring aswell, as no matter what, the card will allways do its job, its not your skill that wins, its just the powerlevel (stuff like Wurmcoil Engine for example in limited is nearly impossible to win against, unless you have the lucky perfect answer to it). Ofcourse sets will have this cards with no/little demand and they are more often than not the constructed powerhouse cards aswell. However, WotC reduced the number of these cards to a fair level, while we still get the Elspeth and such in limited, the overall stupid-good-level is not too brutal anymore. Squeezing value out of cards that demand specific other kinds of cards is a nice thing to make sure the format is more diverse and has more archetypes.
--------------------------
A good starting point would be cube.
Theres power cubes that simply opt to play the "best" cards.
Often this results in a pile of combo cards and normal aggro decks are simply too bad to play.
Also, the removal is often so strong, that any slighty more expensive creature is a very bad investment (unless its a super huge threat and has its own build in protection).
Formats like that can become very annoying quickly.
A good way to fix that is to make your removal worse, so creatures actual survive for some turns and that makes combat more important and gives combat tricks a reason to exist (as they are normally simply worse than removal, why risk combat if you can just avoid it).
Have mana fixing to allow players to combine colors and it just naturally increases the diversity and thats an impotant part what makes Limited so fun, its different each time, but still has elements you can at least "expect" and use a different kind of skill compared to constructed.
Same two cards, but... Which one's more "fun"? Which contributes more to the positive aspects of the game?
Can't evaluate in a vacuum. The entire "unspecified environment" is meangingless.
Does the set have several 3 toughness creatures at common? Shock isn't going to cut it, then. On the other hand, if the set is largely 2 toughness creatures with various abilities, lightning strike is going to be overkill. swords to plowshares is quite powerful, but then the last time it was legal so was wildfire emmissary, so, nuts to StP. If you reprinted the banned arcbound ravager in khans it probably wouldn't see play at all.
If the environment is unspecified, the only difference I see is which one I prefer to cast. I enjoy casting Lightning Strike more than casting Shock, so I'll go with that one. Similarly, Murder > Doom Blade, but Giant Growth > Titanic Growth.
Unspecified environment is kind of meaningless. The way wizards has been going lately, the lower casting cost card is almost always going to be the pick.
Hell, Mugging, a horrible shock variant, was one of, if not the, best common in triple Gatecrash draft. Now that's one of the worst formats of all time, but it's closer to what modern limited is than something like Tempest draft, where the spell with more raw power would be the pick, even if it was a mana or two more expensive.
Shock vs Strike - In terms of power Lightning Strike will win out in most environments (i.e. not those that are exceptionally fast or full of morphs) as the added damage is usually going to be worth the extra mana in limited. Mostly because it increases the number of creatures it can kill. OTOH in terms of fun I would probably go with Shock, at least at common, as it isn't quite the super no-brainer first pick that Lightning Strike is.
Doom Blade vs Murder - Pretty much a toss-up, with Murder being more powerful but Doom Blade's splashability keeping them even. In terms of fun I prefer Murder due to the higher casting cost that actually requires a commitment to black, but ultimately I don't like either of these at common.
Giant Growth vs Titanic - Definitely Giant Growth, both in power and in fun IMO. The difference in pump is significantly less important than the 1-mana difference.
I don't think "unspecified format" makes this meaningless. If you're sitting down at a new table to an entirely unknown draft and see these six cards in your first pack, what's the pick?
In limited the mana cost of removal matters much less than constructed, because you're looking to save them for specific threats. Thus the more flexible removal is usually better at just 1 more CMC.
Combat tricks are the opposite: you're looking to trade them for almost anything, so you'd much rather they be cheap.
Thing is if limited is fun standard is bad and I used to like standard before wizard started focusing so much on Limited. It seems limited isn't fun with cheap spells like lighting bolt but standard isn't as fun with Lightning Strike. I wish they would focus more on tribes like Goblins, Merfolk, and Zombies. I think that would be fun for both sides.
Thing is if limited is fun standard is bad and I used to like standard before wizard started focusing so much on Limited. It seems limited isn't fun with cheap spells like lighting bolt but standard isn't as fun with Lightning Strike. I wish they would focus more on tribes like Goblins, Merfolk, and Zombies. I think that would be fun for both sides.
IDK, I think Standard is better with Strike than Bolt. Lightning Bolt is such a no-brainer, just SO efficient/ubiquitous/splashable, it is the kind of card that homogenizes Standard, which I hate.
I much prefer it when they swing in the direction we are now, with tons of "good" cards and very few no-brainers, especially those that are so easily splashed like Lightning Bolt or Thragtusk. That way we see a wider range of decks and card shining, instead of the same cards shining in every deck.
Thing is if limited is fun standard is bad and I used to like standard before wizard started focusing so much on Limited. It seems limited isn't fun with cheap spells like lighting bolt but standard isn't as fun with Lightning Strike. I wish they would focus more on tribes like Goblins, Merfolk, and Zombies. I think that would be fun for both sides.
IDK, I think Standard is better with Strike than Bolt. Lightning Bolt is such a no-brainer, just SO efficient/ubiquitous/splashable, it is the kind of card that homogenizes Standard, which I hate.
I much prefer it when they swing in the direction we are now, with tons of "good" cards and very few no-brainers, especially those that are so easily splashed like Lightning Bolt or Thragtusk. That way we see a wider range of decks and card shining, instead of the same cards shining in every deck.
It depends if they print under cost stuff in every color it balances out and speeds up the format. I like fast standards with a lot of power cards. The problems is when only one color has the goods that was what was wrong with the last standard block. Mono Black and UW had to many power cards compared to Green and Red.
If the format is very aggressive, say lots of 2/1s and 3/2s or so at 1-2 mana, I'd much rather have Shock in the format than a Lightning Strike. The reason for this is two fold, the first being that it lets you kill creatures quicker, especially if they go turn one Goblin Guide or something, and the second reason being that it also gives less reach to aggressive decks. In other words, not only does it deal with most of their guys, but it also makes it a little hard for them to kill a player with it, which is pretty big.
If on the other hand I'm in a slower format I like Lightning Strike or even Lightning Bolt more as it gives aggro decks more reach once the board gets bogged down and kills some of the larger creatures that might come out.
So we get the enemy colored painlands and not the allied color ones? Well that's reverse of the norm, but I thought Wizards was planning to do full 10 land cycles from now on.
Enemy pains could indicate allied Fetches in the next set, to offset the colour imbalance. It would also make sense since it would allow Modern to have access to all 10 Fetches as opposed to only 5.
Or you could read the article, and now that's not true.
I don't think "unspecified format" makes this meaningless. If you're sitting down at a new table to an entirely unknown draft and see these six cards in your first pack, what's the pick?
Well, in an actual draft I don't think it's possible that you would see two cards that are that similar in the same pack. Lets pretend that this is a cube draft where both of those cards are in the format. If that is the case, I'm giving the "more powerful" card the edge just because in an unknown environment you always want to have the highest chance of your answer landing. If you pick shock over lightning strike, and there's a ton of x/3s in the format, then you lose some effectiveness there. But that being said it's a vary slim margin.
However, I'd like to point out that this thought-experiment seems to be a little meaningless. Because if I'm choosing between Lightning Strike and Shock, at the end of the day I'm still getting a quality burn spell so it's hard to complain. I feel like maybe there is a better comparison that might illustrate the point you are trying to make than comparing 1 damage vs 1 extra mana.
The difference in the comparison is something like "versatility in effect" versus "versatility in casting". Perhaps a better comparison would be (assuming you're in black/white in a format that has both of these cards, which doesn't exist in any sanctioned world but hey, thought experiments break some rules) between Flesh to Dust and Kill Shot. Maybe. I dunno, I think the value of versatility is something that's really hard to pin down.
The rest of the cards in the draft answer that question; in a vacuum, you can only say "it depends". A slow format with lots of creatures that don't enter combat favours Flesh to Dust. A format where you're often racing early with one or two creatures on either side favours Kill Shot. Unless one card is strictly better by the purest definition (ie. Lightning Bolt versus Shock), then there's going to be enough room to construct a scenario for both cards where each is the best option. There is no "default setting" for Limited.
What's the better card in a normal limited environment (let's say a random mix of the past 6 core sets, if we NEED a fixed cardpool), Shock or Lightning Strike? Not Shock and Bolt, mind, because that's obvious, but... Shock or LS? What's actually better in an unspecified environment, holding all else equal?
Same two cards, but... Which one's more "fun"? Which contributes more to the positive aspects of the game?
You can do the same thing with Doom Blade and Murder, or some pair of blue spells that have a similar relationship, or with Giant Growth and Titanic Growth, etm., the question's the same? Better card? Which would you rather open day one of an untested, unspecified format? What's more "fun"?
My pet, really super tentantive, in development, 40-man format- Star Team!
Modern-
RWG"Frigga" (Allies)GWR
Standard-
"Kendra" (RabbleRed)
EDH-
WUR Zedruu ControlRUW
RUG Riku GUR
BGW Ghave WBG
RWB Kaalia BWR
CUBE-
Khans of Tarkir Procedural Cube
The Doom Blade Vs Murder example is pretty clear cut, as Doom Blade is pretty much the most unfun card around. It is cheap removal, so it is always in the maindeck, but once the Doom Blade player comes up against the other black deck it becomes a dead card. Murder is always useful. More fun than both is probably Go for the Throat, as it can be played around by picking artifact creatures.
The Shock Vs Lightning Strike and Giant Growth Vs Titanic Growth questions are more difficult and environment dependant. Lightning Strike and Giant Growth are obviously the better cards in a vacuum, but which is better for a format entirely depends on the other cards present there.
"A Plague on All Your Houses!" - Thespian's Stage Pox
For that Murder with its 1BB cost requires more commitment to black, while Doom Blade is a card everyone can pick up and splash (if they want to).
If a limited format has too many good spells at 1 colored mana, then it means you simply cant predict to see that cards, as everyone can potentially take them, no matter if you had put them out of black, if they see Doom Blade, they might take it and simply splash for it.
However on the other extreme, all the good cards would have a real color commitment, so it becomes much harder to splash for them, which would set draft players in a color and makes the "off-color" cards pretty much unplayable.
In terms of removal i go with WotC and say that unconditional removal at common should cost around 5 mana, as that ensures that even fatties (5+ mana) are worth to play, as the opponent cant just play the 1-2 mana common to kill whatever you play.
Contitional removal in that aspect helps aswell, so the cards might end more often in the sideborad and become good against specific opponents. That ensures that sideboarding is a real thing in limited. If your removal is simply good against anything, this aspect does not exist. In that terms, WotC did a tremendously good job in the last draft sets, as they put in A LOT of conditional removal, or bonus effects against specific conditions , this is a really good thing.
Uncommon removal tends to be the old removal, simply good and efficient, you pretty much play them all the time. Doom Blade is now uncommon, and it fits that way better. Oblivion Ring is another one of these cards, fits way more in Uncommon, as it being a common was just a joke.
Especially the removal that trades 2-1 should not be common, as that kind of card advantage is really powerfull in limited and having too many of them makes a color stronger then the colors that dont have this kind of deals (thats why Divination is at least a playable card, simply as card advantage is king and quite rare at common level).
In terms of shock vs lightning strike the current evolution is that shock is considered "bad" and so we get many re-prints of it that have extra abilities attached and only target creatures (as you target creatures 99,9% of the time anyway and it feels just random to kill a player with your 1 mana removal, but sometimes thats good aswell, should just not be the norm).
Changing shock to a creature removal and not a burn to the face also helps to make actual burn to the face only cards, like Lava Axe more reasonable, simply because its conditional again, they do different stuff, one is burn to the face and one is removal ; all follows the idea that cards should have a job, and if a card does too many different jobs, its "too good" and should not be common.
Without any more knowledge of the set, limited in general has a lot of 2/2 sized creatures. That is normally a universal thing, a 2/2 for 2 should at least be playable, unless the format has a specific reason that this is not true (like a ton of 2/3 at 3 mana, which then changes the "important" size to 3 power).
Since the beginning of Limited an important question to ask was "Whats the important size in the set ?" , sometimes its 2/2 , sometimes its 1 thoughness (zendikar for example lots of 1 thoughness 2 drops) and sometimes the format is overall slower, if the number of 3+ thoughness cards increases.
---------------------------
A universal consence might be that conditional cards help limited variaty.
You will see more different decks and archetypes if cards are not just "good allways" , but require something to work with or against.
This also makes late picks in drafts more important, as you can spend them in your sideboard options, or hate the cards good against your deck.
---------------------------
Another point is the idea to make cards that are :
- Win more ! (cards/mechanics good in situations you are winning anyway)
- Come back ! (cards/mechanics that help you in a losing situation, normally bad like hellbent turns into profit).
- Demanding ! (cards/mechanics like tribal, requirement on spells etc.)
If a set has too many "Win more !" it will become boring fast and if you fail to find a land or screw around a little, the game will be even worse in your favour. So its important to keep the "win more !" mechanics to a minimum, its nice to have them to support aggressive decks which really have to go in fast, but it will just make natural mana screw and stuff extra annoying and punishing.
If a set has many "Come back !" effects, its much more forgiving and can easily become very complicated, as the aggressive deck has to plan more ahead, play around that cards and possible avoid the "triggers" to set them of.
On the other side, this kind of mechanic can further help an aggressive deck to get a 2nd wind, when they would normally be out of gas.
I personally enjoy this kind of mechanics the most, as it rewards clever plays and it helps to surprise people, to avoid the situations in which you look at a board state and its just waiting to die as you cant come back.
Demanding is a thing that requires actual deck construction. Cards range from really bad to important role players and high picks, all depending on what the deck is trying to do. Here i count "combo" decks in limited. We very rarely get to see this, as its difficult to put these kinds of things in limited. If a card is just allways good its quickly boring aswell, as no matter what, the card will allways do its job, its not your skill that wins, its just the powerlevel (stuff like Wurmcoil Engine for example in limited is nearly impossible to win against, unless you have the lucky perfect answer to it). Ofcourse sets will have this cards with no/little demand and they are more often than not the constructed powerhouse cards aswell. However, WotC reduced the number of these cards to a fair level, while we still get the Elspeth and such in limited, the overall stupid-good-level is not too brutal anymore. Squeezing value out of cards that demand specific other kinds of cards is a nice thing to make sure the format is more diverse and has more archetypes.
--------------------------
A good starting point would be cube.
Theres power cubes that simply opt to play the "best" cards.
Often this results in a pile of combo cards and normal aggro decks are simply too bad to play.
Also, the removal is often so strong, that any slighty more expensive creature is a very bad investment (unless its a super huge threat and has its own build in protection).
Formats like that can become very annoying quickly.
A good way to fix that is to make your removal worse, so creatures actual survive for some turns and that makes combat more important and gives combat tricks a reason to exist (as they are normally simply worse than removal, why risk combat if you can just avoid it).
Have mana fixing to allow players to combine colors and it just naturally increases the diversity and thats an impotant part what makes Limited so fun, its different each time, but still has elements you can at least "expect" and use a different kind of skill compared to constructed.
WUBRG#BlackLotusMatterWUBRG
👮👮👮 #BlueLivesMatter 👮👮👮
Can't evaluate in a vacuum. The entire "unspecified environment" is meangingless.
Does the set have several 3 toughness creatures at common? Shock isn't going to cut it, then. On the other hand, if the set is largely 2 toughness creatures with various abilities, lightning strike is going to be overkill. swords to plowshares is quite powerful, but then the last time it was legal so was wildfire emmissary, so, nuts to StP. If you reprinted the banned arcbound ravager in khans it probably wouldn't see play at all.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Hell, Mugging, a horrible shock variant, was one of, if not the, best common in triple Gatecrash draft. Now that's one of the worst formats of all time, but it's closer to what modern limited is than something like Tempest draft, where the spell with more raw power would be the pick, even if it was a mana or two more expensive.
Doom Blade vs Murder - Pretty much a toss-up, with Murder being more powerful but Doom Blade's splashability keeping them even. In terms of fun I prefer Murder due to the higher casting cost that actually requires a commitment to black, but ultimately I don't like either of these at common.
Giant Growth vs Titanic - Definitely Giant Growth, both in power and in fun IMO. The difference in pump is significantly less important than the 1-mana difference.
My pet, really super tentantive, in development, 40-man format- Star Team!
Modern-
RWG"Frigga" (Allies)GWR
Standard-
"Kendra" (RabbleRed)
EDH-
WUR Zedruu ControlRUW
RUG Riku GUR
BGW Ghave WBG
RWB Kaalia BWR
CUBE-
Khans of Tarkir Procedural Cube
Combat tricks are the opposite: you're looking to trade them for almost anything, so you'd much rather they be cheap.
IDK, I think Standard is better with Strike than Bolt. Lightning Bolt is such a no-brainer, just SO efficient/ubiquitous/splashable, it is the kind of card that homogenizes Standard, which I hate.
I much prefer it when they swing in the direction we are now, with tons of "good" cards and very few no-brainers, especially those that are so easily splashed like Lightning Bolt or Thragtusk. That way we see a wider range of decks and card shining, instead of the same cards shining in every deck.
Let's look at the example of Shock vs Lightning Strike/Lightning Bolt.
If the format is very aggressive, say lots of 2/1s and 3/2s or so at 1-2 mana, I'd much rather have Shock in the format than a Lightning Strike. The reason for this is two fold, the first being that it lets you kill creatures quicker, especially if they go turn one Goblin Guide or something, and the second reason being that it also gives less reach to aggressive decks. In other words, not only does it deal with most of their guys, but it also makes it a little hard for them to kill a player with it, which is pretty big.
If on the other hand I'm in a slower format I like Lightning Strike or even Lightning Bolt more as it gives aggro decks more reach once the board gets bogged down and kills some of the larger creatures that might come out.
Oh... Ok... Clearly.
Well, in an actual draft I don't think it's possible that you would see two cards that are that similar in the same pack. Lets pretend that this is a cube draft where both of those cards are in the format. If that is the case, I'm giving the "more powerful" card the edge just because in an unknown environment you always want to have the highest chance of your answer landing. If you pick shock over lightning strike, and there's a ton of x/3s in the format, then you lose some effectiveness there. But that being said it's a vary slim margin.
However, I'd like to point out that this thought-experiment seems to be a little meaningless. Because if I'm choosing between Lightning Strike and Shock, at the end of the day I'm still getting a quality burn spell so it's hard to complain. I feel like maybe there is a better comparison that might illustrate the point you are trying to make than comparing 1 damage vs 1 extra mana.
My pet, really super tentantive, in development, 40-man format- Star Team!
Modern-
RWG"Frigga" (Allies)GWR
Standard-
"Kendra" (RabbleRed)
EDH-
WUR Zedruu ControlRUW
RUG Riku GUR
BGW Ghave WBG
RWB Kaalia BWR
CUBE-
Khans of Tarkir Procedural Cube
Erebos B | Ghost Council WB | Grimgrin UB | Jhoira UR
Jor Kadeen RW | Melek UR | Mimeoplasm GUB | Rasputin WU
Savra BG | Sisay GW | Teneb BGW | Thada Adel U | Wort BR
I draft and play EDH. If a Standard player can't understand who a card is for, it's probably for me.
I also write things about good films.