Congratulations! You have a time machine. For some reason you decide to use it to make one change to an old Magic set, using what you know about the game now. For example, you could go back to Torment/Judgement and use the Banishing Light wording right from the get go, removing the ability to exploit the stack to make "jailor" cards into permanent removal. Or you could rework Annihilator to exile cards so that ROE Eldrazi function with BFZ Processors.
Fire whoever first floated the ideas of mythic rarity, NWO and the reserved list.
Making quality cards hard to obtain and making easily-obtained cards terrible is not a decision made by somebody who wanted the game to be widely played.
A time machine would be good for getting rid of the ante cards which probably never should have been printed.
Seriously, just imagine the other bulk rares we could've had in their stead!
Anyhow, the best I can come up with myself is a game in the top 8 of a PTQ back during Urza block in which we were starting game 3 with time already expired, so the tiebreaker rule was that whoever had more life after 3 turns would win. And I lost to... healing salve.
Fire whoever first floated the ideas of mythic rarity, NWO and the reserved list.
Making quality cards hard to obtain and making easily-obtained cards terrible is not a decision made by somebody who wanted the game to be widely played.
You'd have to fire Richard Garfield, then, since that was his intent even during the design step of the game, well before alpha.
That link no longer works, but here's a quote from it:
In the beginning, there was Richard Garfield, and the groundwork of the game came from his imagination. He envisioned a game where, among other things, the power level of people's decks were kept in check by the availability of different tiers of rarity.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Going back to the very beginning and change the initial rules so that lands and nonlands were in separate piles and you could choose which one to draw from when drawing, thereby preventing mana screw and mana flood from ever existing.
I'd go back in time and tell just starting to play magic me that $8 is not too much to pay for spellskite and that I should stop whinning and just buy the $20 snapcaster mages I needed to play standard and stop trying to pretend that being a budget player is something noble.
Also that I should go to FNM to learn to draft innstrad and not wait until gatecrash to go to fnm drafts weekly.
So young so naive.
As for game design there are lots of block changes I would make. I would mix more of journey of nyx into born of the gods for making it much more intersting, born of the gods was so bad. Make an actual enchantment theme for the block not just "oh creatures are enchantments/auras now". Make those damn 1/1 flyiers allies in bfz and find a way to improve green somehow, perhaps mix in the waste mana into BFZ perhaps, with something like "this cost can only be pay with colourless mana" before the full reveal in the next set. Make Dimir actually good in gatecrash, deal with awkwardly complicated mechanics that make them too may hoops to jump to play in standard. Pack rat :/. Make sure there is a better balance of spell based and creature base stratgies in standard.
I'd go back to Chronicles and make a strong statement: reprints of cards WILL happen. The cards are meant to be in the hands of players, and we will reprint them as necessary. I'd make an allowance, though, that the first printing of a card gets a foil watermark, 1st printing, to make them more collectible.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Going back to the very beginning and change the initial rules so that lands and nonlands were in separate piles and you could choose which one to draw from when drawing, thereby preventing mana screw and mana flood from ever existing.
Good one, they used this type of mechanic in Legend of the Five Rings, never played it but love the idea. My personal choice though would have been never allowing the damn Reserved List, that just screws newer players of EVER getting those cards. Well unless you win that $900 million lottery tonight or you have rich parents.
Going back to the very beginning and change the initial rules so that lands and nonlands were in separate piles and you could choose which one to draw from when drawing, thereby preventing mana screw and mana flood from ever existing.
So you're okay with Burn-style decks only having to run 3 lands?
Going back to the very beginning and change the initial rules so that lands and nonlands were in separate piles and you could choose which one to draw from when drawing, thereby preventing mana screw and mana flood from ever existing.
So you're okay with Burn-style decks only having to run 3 lands?
Maybe I should have specified that the "land deck" would require a minimum number of cards, though I thought that would be assumed. So you couldn't just have three lands in it, you'd have to have 20 or something, to ensure people with a multi-colored manabase wouldn't just put a handful of cards in that list and be sure they'd have everything they'd need off of it. Running a multi-colored deck is still more risky because you can draw the wrong colors.
However, if we're talking about a mono-Red burn deck, you're missing the fact that if this was the original paradigm, some cards would be designed differently to accommodate it. If my idea were to be implemented now, you would have the problem you cited. If implemented at the start, different choices would be made and the game, while similar, would be better built around this idea and not have a number of the issues such an implementation would have if done today.
Preventing Chronicles and the Reserved List from ever happening
Keeping damage on the stack
The first one probably wins out though. Damage being on the stack enabled way more interesting lines of play (IMO) and made a lot of cards really beautifully flexible, so I'd like the game a lot more if that were the case. But the Reserved List is probably the biggest single mistake in the history of Magic.
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Playing UX Mana Denial until Modern gets the answers it needs.
WUBRG Humans BRW Mardu Pyromancer UW UW "Control" UR Blue Moon
1. Never print a non-legendary land above uncommon (so all present rare two-colour lands are uncommon).
2. Revise the land/mana system in some way (side deck, as suggested above, etc.).
3. Don't institute the reserved list.
4. Don't institute the mythic rarity.
5. Deliberately incorporate a schedule of mass reprints for tournament staples into the set rotation (e.g. using core sets).
6. I'm increasingly leaning towards 'don't implement the New World Order' (limit on complexity of commons). This has to do with the following:
7. Philosophically, dissociate card rarity and constructed quality, i.e., design cards such that commons are expected to be as likely as rares to be tournament-playable. This is possible under the New World Order with discipline, but the New World Order would seem to tend to draw design away from it.
8. Alternatively, associate limited and constructed playability, i.e., do not design cards such that we are able to speak of 'draft fodder' or of cards 'designed for limited' or 'designed for constructed'. Limited is what we would define as (very) 'high-powered' and played with constructed-quality cards.
9. I'm not sure I would actually do this, but a sweeping change that would affect much of the above at least partially would be to never implement a rarity system at all. There is an equal probability of drawing every card (except probably basic lands) from a pack.
10. With hindsight, this is actually probably not a good idea, but as a statement of what I believe I would have done if I had been involved in the design process, I would have argued vociferously against the creation of the Planeswalker card type. It's taken me a long time to get used to them, and I still don't really use them.
I'd probably change a lot of things, but some potential changes I'd strongly consider would be:
-No Reserve List!!
-Never print dual lands with virtually no downside (only non-price downside of dual lands is they are non-basic)!
-Implement a policy where cards will automatically be reprinted in the next set (or product of reprints like a 'From The Vault' but for expensive reprints only) if they are used in ANY top 8 deck in ANY format and hit $50 or more per card (note this price would have started lower if implemented in the early years of Magic, but then I would have tied it to inflation). Reprints would continue until the cheapest version of the card hits $20 or less per card and remains so for a specific period of time (e.g. Three months). In order to maintain collectibility and some price advancement of old cards the policy would mandate reprints of cards that hit the $50 price point feature new art and style.
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Modern:UB Taking Turns Modern:URW Madcap Experiment Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
6. I'm increasingly leaning towards 'don't implement the New World Order' (limit on complexity of commons). This has to do with the following:
7. Philosophically, dissociate card rarity and constructed quality, i.e., design cards such that commons are expected to be as likely as rares to be tournament-playable. This is possible under the New World Order with discipline, but the New World Order would seem to tend to draw design away from it.
9. I'm not sure I would actually do this, but a sweeping change that would affect much of the above at least partially would be to never implement a rarity system at all. There is an equal probability of drawing every card (except probably basic lands) from a pack.
Limiting the complexity of commons is a good thing, in my opinion. That doesn't mean making them nothing but vanilla/french vanilla cards, but they should be cards of obvious strength that a new player can just slot into a mana curve and win games with without needing complex strategies to make them viable. And in turn, a properly implemented rarity system does have some value to ensure that the most generally useful cards are the most common, instead of flooding your collection with Legendary cards (which you can only play one of at a time) and combo cards (that don't fit into every deck).
This thread's gone in a different direction to the one I intended, but anyway...
Limiting the complexity of commons is a good thing, in my opinion. That doesn't mean making them nothing but vanilla/french vanilla cards, but they should be cards of obvious strength that a new player can just slot into a mana curve and win games with without needing complex strategies to make them viable. And in turn, a properly implemented rarity system does have some value to ensure that the most generally useful cards are the most common, instead of flooding your collection with Legendary cards (which you can only play one of at a time) and combo cards (that don't fit into every deck).
Sure, that's essentially what I meant when I said 'this is possible under the New World Order with discipline', but it doesn't seem to be the strategy R&D has been following (of late). And instead of flooded with situational cards, my collection is flooded with simply poor-quality cards I can't realistically play, even non-competitively, past the draft!
1. Never print a non-legendary land above uncommon (so all present rare two-colour lands are uncommon).
2. Revise the land/mana system in some way (side deck, as suggested above, etc.).
3. Don't institute the reserved list.
4. Don't institute the mythic rarity.
5. Deliberately incorporate a schedule of mass reprints for tournament staples into the set rotation (e.g. using core sets).
6. I'm increasingly leaning towards 'don't implement the New World Order' (limit on complexity of commons). This has to do with the following:
7. Philosophically, dissociate card rarity and constructed quality, i.e., design cards such that commons are expected to be as likely as rares to be tournament-playable. This is possible under the New World Order with discipline, but the New World Order would seem to tend to draw design away from it.
8. Alternatively, associate limited and constructed playability, i.e., do not design cards such that we are able to speak of 'draft fodder' or of cards 'designed for limited' or 'designed for constructed'. Limited is what we would define as (very) 'high-powered' and played with constructed-quality cards.
9. I'm not sure I would actually do this, but a sweeping change that would affect much of the above at least partially would be to never implement a rarity system at all. There is an equal probability of drawing every card (except probably basic lands) from a pack.
10. With hindsight, this is actually probably not a good idea, but as a statement of what I believe I would have done if I had been involved in the design process, I would have argued vociferously against the creation of the Planeswalker card type. It's taken me a long time to get used to them, and I still don't really use them.
Everything about this post, absolutely.
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Cards are game pieces, and should be treated as such, easily replaceable.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
I would make it so that a deck can only have 2 copies of a rare, 3 of an uncommon and 4 of the commons (and no mythics rarity) assuming that rarity equals power, of course.
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What would you do?
Art is life itself.
Legacy: Dark Depths, Pox, Eldrazi Agro
Vintage: Dark Depths, Grey Orge
Pauper: Faerie Ninja
7pt Highlander: BW Combo
EDH: Horobi, (t)Toshiro, (t)Isamaru
Making quality cards hard to obtain and making easily-obtained cards terrible is not a decision made by somebody who wanted the game to be widely played.
In all seriousness though, I would unmake JTMS.
WBG Karador GBW
R Daretti R
RG Omnath GR
WRG Modern Burn GRW
WB Modern Tokens BW
DCI Rules Advisor as of 5/18/2015
Wouldn't we all!
In all not-so-seriousness though, unmake can't target Jace, the Mind Sculptor
A time machine would be good for getting rid of the ante cards which probably never should have been printed.
Seriously, just imagine the other bulk rares we could've had in their stead!
You'd have to fire Richard Garfield, then, since that was his intent even during the design step of the game, well before alpha.
http://www.starcitygames.com/php/news/expandsub.php?Article=2080
That link no longer works, but here's a quote from it:
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
Also that I should go to FNM to learn to draft innstrad and not wait until gatecrash to go to fnm drafts weekly.
So young so naive.
As for game design there are lots of block changes I would make. I would mix more of journey of nyx into born of the gods for making it much more intersting, born of the gods was so bad. Make an actual enchantment theme for the block not just "oh creatures are enchantments/auras now". Make those damn 1/1 flyiers allies in bfz and find a way to improve green somehow, perhaps mix in the waste mana into BFZ perhaps, with something like "this cost can only be pay with colourless mana" before the full reveal in the next set. Make Dimir actually good in gatecrash, deal with awkwardly complicated mechanics that make them too may hoops to jump to play in standard. Pack rat :/. Make sure there is a better balance of spell based and creature base stratgies in standard.
Pioneer:UR Pheonix
Modern:U Mono U Tron
EDH
GB Glissa, the traitor: Army of Cans
UW Dragonlord Ojutai: Dragonlord NOjutai
UWGDerevi, Empyrial Tactician "you cannot fight the storm"
R Zirilan of the claw. The solution to every problem is dragons
UB Etrata, the Silencer Cloning assassination
Peasant cube: Cards I own
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.
Good one, they used this type of mechanic in Legend of the Five Rings, never played it but love the idea. My personal choice though would have been never allowing the damn Reserved List, that just screws newer players of EVER getting those cards. Well unless you win that $900 million lottery tonight or you have rich parents.
So you're okay with Burn-style decks only having to run 3 lands?
However, if we're talking about a mono-Red burn deck, you're missing the fact that if this was the original paradigm, some cards would be designed differently to accommodate it. If my idea were to be implemented now, you would have the problem you cited. If implemented at the start, different choices would be made and the game, while similar, would be better built around this idea and not have a number of the issues such an implementation would have if done today.
The first one probably wins out though. Damage being on the stack enabled way more interesting lines of play (IMO) and made a lot of cards really beautifully flexible, so I'd like the game a lot more if that were the case. But the Reserved List is probably the biggest single mistake in the history of Magic.
WUBRG Humans
BRW Mardu Pyromancer
UW UW "Control"
UR Blue Moon
2. Revise the land/mana system in some way (side deck, as suggested above, etc.).
3. Don't institute the reserved list.
4. Don't institute the mythic rarity.
5. Deliberately incorporate a schedule of mass reprints for tournament staples into the set rotation (e.g. using core sets).
6. I'm increasingly leaning towards 'don't implement the New World Order' (limit on complexity of commons). This has to do with the following:
7. Philosophically, dissociate card rarity and constructed quality, i.e., design cards such that commons are expected to be as likely as rares to be tournament-playable. This is possible under the New World Order with discipline, but the New World Order would seem to tend to draw design away from it.
8. Alternatively, associate limited and constructed playability, i.e., do not design cards such that we are able to speak of 'draft fodder' or of cards 'designed for limited' or 'designed for constructed'. Limited is what we would define as (very) 'high-powered' and played with constructed-quality cards.
9. I'm not sure I would actually do this, but a sweeping change that would affect much of the above at least partially would be to never implement a rarity system at all. There is an equal probability of drawing every card (except probably basic lands) from a pack.
10. With hindsight, this is actually probably not a good idea, but as a statement of what I believe I would have done if I had been involved in the design process, I would have argued vociferously against the creation of the Planeswalker card type. It's taken me a long time to get used to them, and I still don't really use them.
-No Reserve List!!
-Never print dual lands with virtually no downside (only non-price downside of dual lands is they are non-basic)!
-Implement a policy where cards will automatically be reprinted in the next set (or product of reprints like a 'From The Vault' but for expensive reprints only) if they are used in ANY top 8 deck in ANY format and hit $50 or more per card (note this price would have started lower if implemented in the early years of Magic, but then I would have tied it to inflation). Reprints would continue until the cheapest version of the card hits $20 or less per card and remains so for a specific period of time (e.g. Three months). In order to maintain collectibility and some price advancement of old cards the policy would mandate reprints of cards that hit the $50 price point feature new art and style.
Modern: URW Madcap Experiment
Pauper: MonoU Tempo Delver
My EDH Commanders:
Aminatou, The Fateshifter UBW
Azami, Lady of Scrolls U
Mikaeus, the Unhallowed B
Edric, Spymaster of Trest UG
Glissa, the Traitor BG
Arcum Dagsson U
Limiting the complexity of commons is a good thing, in my opinion. That doesn't mean making them nothing but vanilla/french vanilla cards, but they should be cards of obvious strength that a new player can just slot into a mana curve and win games with without needing complex strategies to make them viable. And in turn, a properly implemented rarity system does have some value to ensure that the most generally useful cards are the most common, instead of flooding your collection with Legendary cards (which you can only play one of at a time) and combo cards (that don't fit into every deck).
Sure, that's essentially what I meant when I said 'this is possible under the New World Order with discipline', but it doesn't seem to be the strategy R&D has been following (of late). And instead of flooded with situational cards, my collection is flooded with simply poor-quality cards I can't realistically play, even non-competitively, past the draft!
Everything about this post, absolutely.
Cards are not money, investments, or a retirement fund, and should never have been treated as such.
Wizards made a mistake caving to speculators once, and we still pay for that mistake 2 decades later.
"Entitled:" the entire ad hominem fallacy condensed into a single word. It doesn't strengthen your argument to attack motivations, it just makes you look like you don't understand the argument.