Dear Magic: The Gathering. What happened to commons?
Once upon a time, we got cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Grapeshot, Lightning Bolt and Ponder as commons. Constructed decks weren't defined by a handful of mythics, but by synergistic interactions between your commons and a few choice rares.
Something horrible has changed in the design philosophy over the last while, and commons have become literally unplayable.
Let's look at a few of the top decks in today's standard.
Something weird changed in design philosophy after mythics were introduced, and we've been seeing a gradual creep in power level on the high-end mythics and rares, and a dropping off in power amongst commons and uncommons to the point where most of them are so inefficient in terms of mana cost that they're no longer playable cards.
Why? What benefit is there to giving players a bunch of cards that are literally unplayable to a point that they're not usuable in constructed decks?
There have always been unplayable cards. Back in the days of my Heartbeat of Spring deck, we had terrible cards like Chimney Imp and Coalhauler Swine - But we also had awesome playable commons like Stinkweed Imp, Myr Enforcer and Ancient Stirrings! I understand the need to have bad commons. But there also needs to be good commons to serve as a base for a deck, so that a new player's deck doesn't require 40 packs worth of rares/mythics just to have a fighting chance!
Nobody should buy packs to try to get singles for a constructed deck.
People should really only buy packs if they are new and want to have a small base of cards to build a casual deck around, if they are doing some kind of limited event, or if they just really really enjoy the visceral feeling of opening a pack and seeing what you get.
There's an argument for the three "awesome" commons you named as all being mistakes of design. The commons you are lamenting are designed for limited. By actually making limited fun, it pushes pack sales more which makes wizards money. Its a win win, we have fun playing and wizards gets what they want.
Also in recent sets like Dominaria and upcoming Guilds of Ravnica, I'm noticing the complexity and power level increasing. Cards like Darkblade Agent, Notion Rain, Tarmogoyf, and Goblin Cratermaker all seem fairly complex and interesting. the more interesting a format it, the longer people will want to play it and buy more packs.
Basically, it's part of pushing draft. They use the common slots to build a limited environment, and use rares and mythics for constructed. Uncommons tend to occupy a little bit of space in both.
Basically, it's part of pushing draft. They use the common slots to build a limited environment, and use rares and mythics for constructed. Uncommons tend to occupy a little bit of space in both.
This is also why Narcomoeba was upshifted from uncommon to rare for GRN. It's a pretty trash card for Limited, but a key card for certain Constructed format decks. By increasing its rarity, fewer people will see it in their Sealed or Draft pools, and they still increase the number available for people who want to build the decks that use it.
Commons are less complex and usually less powerful by design.
I understand the argument for less complexity, but not the argument for less power level.
Obviously not every common can be an efficient powerhouse, but when decks have to be 60%+ rares and mythics, and often run no commons, it points to a massive imbalance between the power level of higher rarity cards vs lower rarity cards.
Academy Journeymage could have been a viable tempo card if its mana cost were 1 lower.
Aven of Enduring Hope could be a (weak) contender in constructed decks at 4CMC, but is easily trumped by Lyra Dawnbringer at 5CMC and becomes utter junk.
Befuddle might see play at 1U in WU control, but doesn't stand a chance at 2U
This trend continues with a host of cards that could all still be reasonably costed, and significantly more likely to see constructed play if their costs were reduced by 1: Crash the Ramparts, Cruel Finality, Dark Bargain, Final Reward just to grab a few at random. There's hundreds of examples.
It's like most commons are intentionally overcosted by 1, and to break free of that curse they need to get really lucky, or they need to be upgraded to uncommons. The problem with these cards is nothing to do with complexity, and everything to do with power level.
Commons are less complex and usually less powerful by design.
I understand the argument for less complexity, but not the argument for less power level.
Obviously not every common can be an efficient powerhouse, but when decks have to be 60%+ rares and mythics, and often run no commons, it points to a massive imbalance between the power level of higher rarity cards vs lower rarity cards.
Academy Journeymage could have been a viable tempo card if its mana cost were 1 lower.
Aven of Enduring Hope could be a (weak) contender in constructed decks at 4CMC, but is easily trumped by Lyra Dawnbringer at 5CMC and becomes utter junk.
Befuddle might see play at 1U in WU control, but doesn't stand a chance at 2U
This trend continues with a host of cards that could all still be reasonably costed, and significantly more likely to see constructed play if their costs were reduced by 1: Crash the Ramparts, Cruel Finality, Dark Bargain, Final Reward just to grab a few at random. There's hundreds of examples.
It's like most commons are intentionally overcosted by 1, and to break free of that curse they need to get really lucky, or they need to be upgraded to uncommons. The problem with these cards is nothing to do with complexity, and everything to do with power level.
Most of them cost more to slow draft games down a little and make for more interesting decision points.
With the way the conversation usually goes when it comes from WOTC's own words, it usually boils down to "we decided it was too powerful for standard". Wasn't always that way.
Now before I get to the next part, note I'm not necessarily trying to spin some bad web about Mark, but within the structure of the R&D and playtesters that a paradigm shift has indeed happened when regarding the power level of cards within a given set.
As one will note that Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, and Llanowar Elves (and/or Elvish Mystic) are all very simple cards. Being too powerful for standard will raise a few eyebrows as it doesn't sound like it makes much sense. If they are too powerful at common, why not shift their rarity to uncommon instead? Yet rarity isn't the issue. The common pattren with WotC is that these cards upset a balance within card design, that if Lightning Bolt is in standard the worry is that players wouldn't play other burn spells if given the opportunity to play something better. Which, in my opinion, raises more questions about the matter. As what they have been printing, at least for burn, has been fairly low-powered.
One might be quick to point out Llanowar Elves in Dominaria, but if you go back two years to 2016, the atitude towards that card was in the same regard as a Counterspell or Lightning Bolt.
IMHO, the problem with the "commons are weak to make limited more fun" argument is that it supposes "weak commons make limited more fun," which isn't clearly supported by facts.
Cubes have a much higher power level, and cube drafting is widely considered a better and more satisfying experience than regular drafting.
Wizards is specifically selling their Masters sets, with a higher overall power level, as a premium experience worth the premium price vs. regular drafting.
Wizards could just increase the power of commons, leading to a more intense limited environment and making it so most players don't automatically throw aways 93% of their cards after drafting (one of the things I hate most about Magic).
The limited argument is just a smoke-screen for the real reason: Wizards puts the good cards at higher rarities to sell more packs.
Yes, Wizards is a business, and they have to do this to some degree. But it's a matter of degree, and doing it too much, and being too blatantly cash-grabbing, erodes the good faith of the player base.
I've been playing Magic for 21 years, and back when I was younger I always used to laud Magic for being better than other CCGs. Making a Super Secret Ghost Rare that only appears one in every 100 packs, and has absurd stats and you need to play competitively, and quickly rockets to $100-$300...that's the sort of thing Yu-Gi-Oh would do, but never Magic. Magic, I used to think, was better than that. Though unfortunately over the years Magic has slipped further and further in the wrong direction, getting more into blatant cash grab territory (the recent "Guilds of Ravnica Mythic Edition" is a good example of this).
This is why I almost exclusively play Pauper now, and have tons of fun with it. I consider it almost like an act of protest.
I dislike the NWO complexity principle as much as the next guy, but try a simulated Ice Age or MIR-VIS-WTL draft to see how many cards there were that weren't just mediocre, but completely unplayable.
I dislike the NWO complexity principle as much as the next guy, but try a simulated Ice Age or MIR-VIS-WTL draft to see how many cards there were that weren't just mediocre, but completely unplayable.
Nostalgia is a hell of a rosy lens
I'm going by an actual data metric, the "percentage of cards that were common in successful Standard decks," instead of just anecdotal "these cards were powerful."
If you look back at the standards that had Invasion, Odyssey, Onslaught, Mirrodin, etc, there were vastly more commons actually getting played in Standard. UG Madness and Psychatog were practically all commons.
Nostalgia is a rosy lens, but past Standards really were awesome. I'm reminded of this Pretty Deece video that breaks down Mirage/Tempest block standard, and how diverse and awesome things were back then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu6F4pEcSMU
Lemme break down how many commons those decks have:
Sligh: 22 maindeck commons
Draw-Go: 16 maindeck commons
White Weenie: 11 maindeck commons
Prosblom: 9 maindeck commons
Recsur: 5 maindeck commons
Forbidian: 20 maindeck commons
Oath of Druids: 6 maindeck commons
Some are combo decks with a lower level of workhorse commons, but still, there's clearly a huge difference between that and the two representive decklists of today with only zero and 1 commons, respectively.
And yes, I can agree that Ice Age was designed horribly. the designers specifically wanted to make the game way longer and slower, so he made evasion super rare. Mirage block and the blocks after that are pretty solid, though.
There's a damn good reason draft works better when there are fewer strong commons, but it's not immediately obvious, and it's unclear whether WotC is aware of it, though they ought to be with all their internal data. It's a benefit to draft only - I think I'd prefer a common-defined format in sealed. Unfortunately for sealed lovers, draft is more popular.
It's all about signalling. To be a consistently great drafter you must master signalling. And signalling falls apart when too many of the highest tier cards are commons.
This is easiest illustrated by example. Let's say you make some poor life decisions and draft m19. It's pack 1 pick 4. You didn't pick any green cards in picks 1-3, but maybe you saw a few mid tier green cards, nothing to get you to bite, but also notably not a total lack of green that would indicate it's being cut. Pack 4 comes and you see a Rabid Bite. (Hint: Rabid Bite and Druid of the Cowl are the two high tier green commons in m19). There are two possibilities for how this Rabid Bite got to you at pick 4:
a) A series of players decided not to take a premium green card. Green is likely to be open from the right so long as none of them has a change of heart.
b) Somebody did take another premium green card. It was either the only other great common, Druid of the Cowl, or it was a rare or uncommon. Green will likely not be open from the right.
You can see that the inference that green is open from the right is much much more reliable when it's less likely that there were multiple premium green cards in the same pack, and that happens when the best cards are in the rare and uncommon slots. Significantly increase the number of high tier cards at common and you explode the frequency of meaningless signals. If the average number of premium cards per color per pack is 2, receiving a pack of with 1 remaining could mean that one was taken, or it could mean that it only had one to begin with due to variance. Keeping the highest power in rare and uncommon pushes that average down and makes signals more reliable.
This was all assuming you meant you want more high tier cards at common. If you meant you want power level to rise such that power variance in limited becomes flatter, there's a different problem. It would result in either power creep or its opposite.
You will note a very different mentality where each rarity mattered more, that the good cards shouldn't be frontloaded into a specific rarity, that they cared about price budgets for players back then.
This power shift does is greatly increases the price for back bone cards needed for playing in constructed, Standard or Modern. When you have to pay over $20 for just one card, you really feel the burn when you have to pay for a play-set. Imagine how a new player would feel when told that in order to be competitive in standard constructed they would need to shell out $100 to 150 just to be considered competition. That possible new player would walk away from the game and then possibly slap their friend over the head for recommending the game.
The last time I truly felt there was power in the lower rarities was back when Avacyn Restored was in rotation. Using a cheapo soulbond deck I managed to go neck and neck with a max value Jund deck. I lost in the third game, but not once did I ever think to myself "That guy won because he poured buckets of money out for the best rares," I was thinking "Holy *****! This deck is so much fun, I wanna play with this again!" And that deck mainly had commons and uncommons in it with a few exceptions like wolfir silverheart, but he never really went high in price. I think that soulbond only cost me $50 to make and it was worth every penny.
A retailer said it best when he stated that if he had a choice between routinely having ten customers paying $100 each vs a hundred customers paying $10 each, he would pick the hundred. Why? Because it was more stable and reliable, it helped give the image of a successful business, and made the products he was selling look appealing while still affordable. Right now with magic we are moving towards the ten paying $100 each model, and its honestly not healthy. It is harder to get new blood in and stay in, actual card focused stores become far more reliant on the whales to keep themselves afloat, and when something does happen to a whale the effects can be devastating to the store. The only places that can thrive in this trend are big box stores because cards are a side business for them, and online stores since they can run their business from just about anywhere. And neither of the two will not be able to move the packs they have if there is no real value in those packs, since any knowledgeable player would know not to buy packs. So in the end moving the power/value to higher rarities and away from the lower is kinda hurting Wizards, because fewer consumers will buy the sealed merchandise and places to actually play the game could end up becoming rarities.
I know card price was not really the subject, but when the card power starts going to rare and mythic card there is a noticeable change in card prices.
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I dislike the NWO complexity principle as much as the next guy, but try a simulated Ice Age or MIR-VIS-WTL draft to see how many cards there were that weren't just mediocre, but completely unplayable.
Nostalgia is a hell of a rosy lens
I'm going by an actual data metric, the "percentage of cards that were common in successful Standard decks," instead of just anecdotal "these cards were powerful."
If you look back at the standards that had Invasion, Odyssey, Onslaught, Mirrodin, etc, there were vastly more commons actually getting played in Standard. UG Madness and Psychatog were practically all commons.
Nostalgia is a rosy lens, but past Standards really were awesome.
Well, it helps sell packs if there's in-demand rares and mythics, so decks like UG Madness or Psychatog aren't really that good for WOTC. That said, there is a balance to be struck, and I thought it was struck very well with Scars-Innistrad Standard. Take a look at the deck to beat back then, UW Delver. It utilized some high-demand rares/mythics like Snapcaster Mage and Geist of Saint Traft, plus of course the dual lands, but a good amount of the deck was commons or uncommons. And the only "required" mythic in the deck was Geist of Saint Traft (the Swords sometimes saw play in the deck, but not all builds used them). That deck had the kind of rarity ratio that I think Standard decks should have.
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Once upon a time, we got cards like Sakura-Tribe Elder, Grapeshot, Lightning Bolt and Ponder as commons. Constructed decks weren't defined by a handful of mythics, but by synergistic interactions between your commons and a few choice rares.
Something horrible has changed in the design philosophy over the last while, and commons have become literally unplayable.
Let's look at a few of the top decks in today's standard.
RAKDOS AGGRO:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20103&d=330768&f=ST
BLUE WHITE CONTROL:
https://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=20103&d=330782&f=ST
Looking back at when I really enjoyed standard, commons were the norm in constructed decks.
One of my old favorite decks, HEARTBEAT OF SPRING, ran an astounding 17 commons:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/historical-standard-gauntlet-heartbeat-combo/
Something weird changed in design philosophy after mythics were introduced, and we've been seeing a gradual creep in power level on the high-end mythics and rares, and a dropping off in power amongst commons and uncommons to the point where most of them are so inefficient in terms of mana cost that they're no longer playable cards.
Why? What benefit is there to giving players a bunch of cards that are literally unplayable to a point that they're not usuable in constructed decks?
There have always been unplayable cards. Back in the days of my Heartbeat of Spring deck, we had terrible cards like Chimney Imp and Coalhauler Swine - But we also had awesome playable commons like Stinkweed Imp, Myr Enforcer and Ancient Stirrings! I understand the need to have bad commons. But there also needs to be good commons to serve as a base for a deck, so that a new player's deck doesn't require 40 packs worth of rares/mythics just to have a fighting chance!
Commons are less complex and usually less powerful by design.
People should really only buy packs if they are new and want to have a small base of cards to build a casual deck around, if they are doing some kind of limited event, or if they just really really enjoy the visceral feeling of opening a pack and seeing what you get.
There's an argument for the three "awesome" commons you named as all being mistakes of design. The commons you are lamenting are designed for limited. By actually making limited fun, it pushes pack sales more which makes wizards money. Its a win win, we have fun playing and wizards gets what they want.
Also in recent sets like Dominaria and upcoming Guilds of Ravnica, I'm noticing the complexity and power level increasing. Cards like Darkblade Agent, Notion Rain, Tarmogoyf, and Goblin Cratermaker all seem fairly complex and interesting. the more interesting a format it, the longer people will want to play it and buy more packs.
BGGRock
Modern
BRGJund
BBGRock
Two Score, Minus Two or: A Stargate Tail
(Image by totallynotabrony)
Obviously not every common can be an efficient powerhouse, but when decks have to be 60%+ rares and mythics, and often run no commons, it points to a massive imbalance between the power level of higher rarity cards vs lower rarity cards.
Academy Journeymage could have been a viable tempo card if its mana cost were 1 lower.
Aven of Enduring Hope could be a (weak) contender in constructed decks at 4CMC, but is easily trumped by Lyra Dawnbringer at 5CMC and becomes utter junk.
Befuddle might see play at 1U in WU control, but doesn't stand a chance at 2U
This trend continues with a host of cards that could all still be reasonably costed, and significantly more likely to see constructed play if their costs were reduced by 1: Crash the Ramparts, Cruel Finality, Dark Bargain, Final Reward just to grab a few at random. There's hundreds of examples.
It's like most commons are intentionally overcosted by 1, and to break free of that curse they need to get really lucky, or they need to be upgraded to uncommons. The problem with these cards is nothing to do with complexity, and everything to do with power level.
Most of them cost more to slow draft games down a little and make for more interesting decision points.
Now before I get to the next part, note I'm not necessarily trying to spin some bad web about Mark, but within the structure of the R&D and playtesters that a paradigm shift has indeed happened when regarding the power level of cards within a given set.
As one will note that Swords to Plowshares, Lightning Bolt, Counterspell, and Llanowar Elves (and/or Elvish Mystic) are all very simple cards. Being too powerful for standard will raise a few eyebrows as it doesn't sound like it makes much sense. If they are too powerful at common, why not shift their rarity to uncommon instead? Yet rarity isn't the issue. The common pattren with WotC is that these cards upset a balance within card design, that if Lightning Bolt is in standard the worry is that players wouldn't play other burn spells if given the opportunity to play something better. Which, in my opinion, raises more questions about the matter. As what they have been printing, at least for burn, has been fairly low-powered.
One might be quick to point out Llanowar Elves in Dominaria, but if you go back two years to 2016, the atitude towards that card was in the same regard as a Counterspell or Lightning Bolt.
Cubes have a much higher power level, and cube drafting is widely considered a better and more satisfying experience than regular drafting.
Wizards is specifically selling their Masters sets, with a higher overall power level, as a premium experience worth the premium price vs. regular drafting.
Wizards could just increase the power of commons, leading to a more intense limited environment and making it so most players don't automatically throw aways 93% of their cards after drafting (one of the things I hate most about Magic).
The limited argument is just a smoke-screen for the real reason: Wizards puts the good cards at higher rarities to sell more packs.
Yes, Wizards is a business, and they have to do this to some degree. But it's a matter of degree, and doing it too much, and being too blatantly cash-grabbing, erodes the good faith of the player base.
I've been playing Magic for 21 years, and back when I was younger I always used to laud Magic for being better than other CCGs. Making a Super Secret Ghost Rare that only appears one in every 100 packs, and has absurd stats and you need to play competitively, and quickly rockets to $100-$300...that's the sort of thing Yu-Gi-Oh would do, but never Magic. Magic, I used to think, was better than that. Though unfortunately over the years Magic has slipped further and further in the wrong direction, getting more into blatant cash grab territory (the recent "Guilds of Ravnica Mythic Edition" is a good example of this).
This is why I almost exclusively play Pauper now, and have tons of fun with it. I consider it almost like an act of protest.
Corrupt Control B | Burn R | UG Turbofog UG | White Weenie W | GW Tethmos WG | BG Cycling Combo BG
Enchantress GBW | Colorless Tron C | Red Deck Wins R | UG Madness UG | Mono-G Tron G | UR Puzzlehorns UR
Rhystic Tron WU| WU Prowess WU | BR Reanimator BR | Mono-R Control R | Stompy G | Temur Tron URG
Mardu Infinite Priest WBR | 85-Card Dredge BRG | Elves GU | Boros Bully RW | Jeskai Familiars RWU
I dislike the NWO complexity principle as much as the next guy, but try a simulated Ice Age or MIR-VIS-WTL draft to see how many cards there were that weren't just mediocre, but completely unplayable.
Nostalgia is a hell of a rosy lens
I'm going by an actual data metric, the "percentage of cards that were common in successful Standard decks," instead of just anecdotal "these cards were powerful."
If you look back at the standards that had Invasion, Odyssey, Onslaught, Mirrodin, etc, there were vastly more commons actually getting played in Standard. UG Madness and Psychatog were practically all commons.
Nostalgia is a rosy lens, but past Standards really were awesome. I'm reminded of this Pretty Deece video that breaks down Mirage/Tempest block standard, and how diverse and awesome things were back then: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xu6F4pEcSMU
Lemme break down how many commons those decks have:
Some are combo decks with a lower level of workhorse commons, but still, there's clearly a huge difference between that and the two representive decklists of today with only zero and 1 commons, respectively.
And yes, I can agree that Ice Age was designed horribly. the designers specifically wanted to make the game way longer and slower, so he made evasion super rare. Mirage block and the blocks after that are pretty solid, though.
Corrupt Control B | Burn R | UG Turbofog UG | White Weenie W | GW Tethmos WG | BG Cycling Combo BG
Enchantress GBW | Colorless Tron C | Red Deck Wins R | UG Madness UG | Mono-G Tron G | UR Puzzlehorns UR
Rhystic Tron WU| WU Prowess WU | BR Reanimator BR | Mono-R Control R | Stompy G | Temur Tron URG
Mardu Infinite Priest WBR | 85-Card Dredge BRG | Elves GU | Boros Bully RW | Jeskai Familiars RWU
It's all about signalling. To be a consistently great drafter you must master signalling. And signalling falls apart when too many of the highest tier cards are commons.
This is easiest illustrated by example. Let's say you make some poor life decisions and draft m19. It's pack 1 pick 4. You didn't pick any green cards in picks 1-3, but maybe you saw a few mid tier green cards, nothing to get you to bite, but also notably not a total lack of green that would indicate it's being cut. Pack 4 comes and you see a Rabid Bite. (Hint: Rabid Bite and Druid of the Cowl are the two high tier green commons in m19). There are two possibilities for how this Rabid Bite got to you at pick 4:
a) A series of players decided not to take a premium green card. Green is likely to be open from the right so long as none of them has a change of heart.
b) Somebody did take another premium green card. It was either the only other great common, Druid of the Cowl, or it was a rare or uncommon. Green will likely not be open from the right.
You can see that the inference that green is open from the right is much much more reliable when it's less likely that there were multiple premium green cards in the same pack, and that happens when the best cards are in the rare and uncommon slots. Significantly increase the number of high tier cards at common and you explode the frequency of meaningless signals. If the average number of premium cards per color per pack is 2, receiving a pack of with 1 remaining could mean that one was taken, or it could mean that it only had one to begin with due to variance. Keeping the highest power in rare and uncommon pushes that average down and makes signals more reliable.
This was all assuming you meant you want more high tier cards at common. If you meant you want power level to rise such that power variance in limited becomes flatter, there's a different problem. It would result in either power creep or its opposite.
You will note a very different mentality where each rarity mattered more, that the good cards shouldn't be frontloaded into a specific rarity, that they cared about price budgets for players back then.
The last time I truly felt there was power in the lower rarities was back when Avacyn Restored was in rotation. Using a cheapo soulbond deck I managed to go neck and neck with a max value Jund deck. I lost in the third game, but not once did I ever think to myself "That guy won because he poured buckets of money out for the best rares," I was thinking "Holy *****! This deck is so much fun, I wanna play with this again!" And that deck mainly had commons and uncommons in it with a few exceptions like wolfir silverheart, but he never really went high in price. I think that soulbond only cost me $50 to make and it was worth every penny.
A retailer said it best when he stated that if he had a choice between routinely having ten customers paying $100 each vs a hundred customers paying $10 each, he would pick the hundred. Why? Because it was more stable and reliable, it helped give the image of a successful business, and made the products he was selling look appealing while still affordable. Right now with magic we are moving towards the ten paying $100 each model, and its honestly not healthy. It is harder to get new blood in and stay in, actual card focused stores become far more reliant on the whales to keep themselves afloat, and when something does happen to a whale the effects can be devastating to the store. The only places that can thrive in this trend are big box stores because cards are a side business for them, and online stores since they can run their business from just about anywhere. And neither of the two will not be able to move the packs they have if there is no real value in those packs, since any knowledgeable player would know not to buy packs. So in the end moving the power/value to higher rarities and away from the lower is kinda hurting Wizards, because fewer consumers will buy the sealed merchandise and places to actually play the game could end up becoming rarities.
I know card price was not really the subject, but when the card power starts going to rare and mythic card there is a noticeable change in card prices.