WotC Hasbro CEO is going to have a Fireside Chat With Investors Over WotC

[NotAYakk]

Good MtG play is reactive.

Bad MtG play is cards that ignore most of the other player's cards features. This is counter, destroy, eliminate, discard mechanics.

Simply because they don't interact with 90%+ of the other player's card. To deal with it you need to have cards that specifically interact with that mechanic (cannot be countered etc).

MtG is best when cards interact with each others features, not veto them.

Given the number of "veto" type cards (discard, destroy, remove from graveyard, counter, control, exhile) this means defending is a game of whack-a-mole. And if you don't know your opponents veto strategy, you are screwed unless you guess right. Or you yourself try to veto your opponent.

This is also why creature combat is more interesting than direct damage; direct damage (on the other sides' HP) bypasses the stats of the creatures your opponent has defending them.

This merges relatively smoothly with the other "solitaire" genre of magic, where you don't interact with the opponents cards at all (if you can help it). You set up some combo that doesn't care what your opponent is doing; the old "timetwister, black lotus, time walk, regrowth" combo is an example of it (which would win the game on turn 1 more than half of the time) if only a degenerate extremely fast version.

This is why a "-5/-5 enchant" is fundamentally different than a "destroy creature" spell. One of them cares about the creature's stats; the other bypasses them.

But anyhow, I haven't played MtG seriously in ages, so whadda I know. I just know what made MtG fun back when I played it.

 

[Scribe]

Bad MtG play is cards that ignore most of the other player's cards features. This is counter, destroy, eliminate, discard mechanics.

These are all reactive...

 

[NotAYakk]

These are all reactive...

They are also all made of cardboard.

Oh, I get it. I used a MtG jargon in the wrong way. I was unaware of that particular jargon difference of reactive vs proactive counter-play.

I was not using the word "reactive" in the sense of "reactive counter-play", but as in "reacts to what the opponents cards text is".

Spells that eliminate creatures might react to the creature and it being nasty, but spells that just destroys a creature doesn't interact the text on the card other than the fact it is a summon and it isn't immune to being destroyed. It ignores 90%+ of the card.

Maybe "interactive" is a better word?

...

Like, the spell that makes activated abilities cost mana? That is control but it at least pays attention to the features of the other player's cards.

My point is, when the text on the other player's cards matters more than "does it specifically veto my trick? No? Well then, whatever" the game feels better to play.

In fact, if activated abilities usually cost mana, I'd be happier with the +2 mana cost thing. Or even one that doubles the mana cost of activated abilities. (I understand this is much weaker; but my point is, the more you interact with the other cards features, the more interesting I find the game play; the closer to solitaire and rocket tag MtG is, the less fun the actual game being played.)

 

[Vaalingrade]

I mean, you are right in control being a meta that is all about making sure no one at the table gets to have fun and I hate it.

But that's not unique to MtG. My friend was just showing me how the new Yugihoh meta is all about anti-fun as well.

 

[Scribe]

The card text shouldnt matter is what I mean though.

Counter, "Instant", Destroy X, Exile X, Discard. These are all way more important to the depth of Magic as a game, than boring Creatures and Board State.

Long live the Stack.

I'm afraid we likely look at the game from wildly different points of view.

 

[Remathilis]

The card text shouldnt matter is what I mean though.

Counter, "Instant", Destroy X, Exile X, Discard. These are all way more important to the depth of Magic as a game, than boring Creatures and Board State.

Long live the Stack.

I'm afraid we likely look at the game from wildly different points of view.

I think the big issue is how much what the other player does should also matter.

For example, I LOATHE millstone decks. Because they don't care if my deck is 60 cards of highly tuned fire or 60 basic lands, the goal is to deny me a chance to play any of them. Discard, Mill, Counter, etc don't care about anything except occasionally card type.

 

[Scribe]

I think the big issue is how much what the other player does should also matter.

For example, I LOATHE millstone decks. Because they don't care if my deck is 60 cards of highly tuned fire or 60 basic lands, the goal is to deny me a chance to play any of them. Discard, Mill, Counter, etc don't care about anything except occasionally card type.

Right, and Creatures dont care about anything but "I turn sideways, whats your life total" and Burn doesnt care about anything but "I can count to 20."

Playing a reactive deck, the peak being Esper Control for example, cares about answering. It 100% cares about what the other player does, because it cannot goldfish anything.

A combo deck, doesnt care about what the other player does. An actually interactive control deck, cares about nothing else.

 

[Remathilis]

Right, and Creatures dont care about anything but "I turn sideways, whats your life total" and Burn doesnt care about anything but "I can count to 20."

Playing a reactive deck, the peak being Esper Control for example, cares about answering. It 100% cares about what the other player does, because it cannot goldfish anything.

A combo deck, doesnt care about what the other player does. An actually interactive control deck, cares about nothing else.

Creatures care about other creatures on the board. My white weenies care about the size and number of your creatures. Burn cares about life gain and creature defense because it can run out of gas quickly. Control cares about keeping islands untapped so that I waste my turn. You aren't necessarily interacting with the cards I'm playing, you're interacting with the fact I'm playing cards.

 

[Scribe]

Creatures care about other creatures on the board. My white weenies care about the size and number of your creatures. Burn cares about life gain and creature defense because it can run out of gas quickly. Control cares about keeping islands untapped so that I waste my turn.

We can over simplify either position if we like.

Point is, the card types I would describe as reactive/interactive, are more than just critical to the game's health, but are foundational.

Creatures, and the Board (a pox on Planeswalkers while we are at it) need not, and should not, be the end all be all.

This is why MtG was one of the greatest games, no exaggeration here, of all time.

 

[Pedantic]

This discussion of interactivity feels, from my outside perspective, very much like nibbling around the edges. Magic games usually seem to resolve in one of two ways when I watch them.

Either one player's board is sticky to enough to make it past the other player's attrition (removal, control, etc) and they win because they hit with creatures often enough, or there's a combo deck in play and that player gets to turn on their engine that wins the game.

There isn't generally a lot of obvious decision making, particularly because you have pretty limited control over card draw (it is very hard to play cards games with turn limited draw after Netrunner's default "spend 1 action: draw" mechanic).

Obviously I'm simplifying, but then majority of the interesting decisions in MtG seem to live in deckbuilding. The "piloting" of a given deck is a very tight optimization problem that mostly goes in to any given game solved ahead of time. The spectrum from control at the most crunchy in play to combo at the least is still a pretty narrow band.