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

[NotAYakk]

Spell Blast (UX, counter spell that costs X) is more interactive than counterspell, because Spell Blast cares about the mana cost of the spell it is countering.

A "remove soul" spell that cost X, where X is the creature's power, and then does Y to the remove soul caster, where Y is the creature's toughness, also cares more about the text on a creature than one that simply counters any creature spell.

Now these might not be good spells, but they are interactive. Making them good is always possible (... and draw a card, or make them counter 2X, or whatever).

This is why "does X damage to target creature" is more interactive - more back and forth - than "destroy target creature".

The MtG combat game is interactive, in that the creatures your opponent have and their text matter to how your creatures can help defeat your foe.

I'm not against escalating combos or even control; I'm against lack of interactivity in most of the "good" combos and "good" control cards. Combos often try to reach a win condition that bypasses whatever the opponent does rather than interacts with it. "Good" control cards bypass what a given card does or says, and just shuts them down, with the less interaction -- the less it cares about what the opponent card says -- the better.

I mean, I have enjoyed playing solitaire magic. But solitaire magic isn't fun to play against.

The interaction you get, at best, with solitaire magic is you have a meta situation where you become aware of what solitaire magic your opponent is going to try to do, and you have crafted your deck to disrupt their solitaire magic enough that you can beat them with your deck before they can.

Even then, you attempt to minimize your interaction with their cards as much as you can, unless you are playing in a meta where black/red damage is so dominant that you can drop a prot RB deck and win the tournament (... which again proactively vetos the enemy cards from doing stuff. You don't care what the damage you take is, you are immune.)

Healing Salve (prevent 3 damage to target creature or player) is more interactive than "creature is indestructible". But because damage to creatures is bypassed by enemy decks (they don't want to interact with your card text!), healing salve becomes a junk card even if you tried to make it better.

 

[Staffan]

It's been a real long time since I played Magic, and I never did it at any type of high level, but I think you both have a point regarding counterspells and the like.

Denial (counterspells, creature destruction, discard, and other similar cards that just say no to an opponent's card), do play a vital role in the game. Being able to negate an opponent's six-mana game-winning card with a three-mana card of your own is good for the game, I think. The problem is when a format has enough of a critical mass of good denial cards that you can deny your opponent all the plays. That's no fun. And by the game's very nature, eternal formats (Modern, Legacy, Vintage, to some extent Commander although its multiplayer nature and deck construction rules help some) will tend to have that critical mass because there's a new counterspell in pretty much every set, with whatever twist that set has on mechanics.

 

[Pedantic]

I'm not against escalating combos or even control; I'm against lack of interactivity in most of the "good" combos and "good" control cards. Combos often try to reach a win condition that bypasses whatever the opponent does rather than interacts with it. "Good" control cards bypass what a given card does or says, and just shuts them down, with the less interaction -- the less it cares about what the opponent card says -- the better.

I mean, I have enjoyed playing solitaire magic. But solitaire magic isn't fun to play against.

This is a really straightforward design side problem that needs to be accounted for outside of player control. Successful play in card games pretty much always comes down to two things: decreasing variance and decreasing interactivity. As a player trying to win, it is always your preference that you get precisely the cards you need and that your opponent does nothing about it, and you do your best with the tools provided to achieve those two things.

Designers must be careful to give you very limited tools to do either.

 

[Scribe]

The problem is when a format has enough of a critical mass of good denial cards that you can deny your opponent all the plays. That's no fun. And by the game's very nature, eternal formats (Modern, Legacy, Vintage, to some extent Commander although its multiplayer nature and deck construction rules help some) will tend to have that critical mass because there's a new counterspell in pretty much every set, with whatever twist that set has on mechanics.

I can say with confidence, that Modern never reached that bar, Legacy maybe has, but even the 'best' deck in Legacy uses combat to finish the game.

Vintage is just weird to me, I dont even know how it plays.

 

[Staffan]

I can say with confidence, that Modern never reached that bar, Legacy maybe has, but even the 'best' deck in Legacy uses combat to finish the game.

Vintage is just weird to me, I dont even know how it plays.

I'm not up to speed on the Magic meta, but even if a deck uses a decent-sized creature to beat the opponent about the head and neck, I would consider it a denial deck if the main way it keeps the opponent from winning is denial.

What I'm getting at is that if I look at the cards legal in Standard right now, there are 15 of them with the text "Counter target spell" on them. Some of those are conditional, like "Counter target spell with mana value 4 or greater" or "Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3" (The search I use looks for the specific text "Counter target spell" so it won't get e.g. "Counter target red spell"). So I don't know how many of them are good as "hard" counters. But I figure I'd be hard-pressed to put in, say, 24 or 28 counterspells in a deck. It's more likely I'll have like 4 or 8, which means I have to be selective about what I counter, and also might lead to some interesting moments where my opponent taps half their mana to cast something when I only have mana and/or cards for one counterspell – do I counter that spell and maybe leave myself open for my opponent's other spell, or do I let it through?

If I search for the same phrase in Modern, I get 172 hits. That means there are a lot more quality counterspells from which to choose. Filling up a deck with counterspells is easy, so you'll always have a counterspell ready.

 

[Zardnaar]

I'm not up to speed on the Magic meta, but even if a deck uses a decent-sized creature to beat the opponent about the head and neck, I would consider it a denial deck if the main way it keeps the opponent from winning is denial.

What I'm getting at is that if I look at the cards legal in Standard right now, there are 15 of them with the text "Counter target spell" on them. Some of those are conditional, like "Counter target spell with mana value 4 or greater" or "Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3" (The search I use looks for the specific text "Counter target spell" so it won't get e.g. "Counter target red spell"). So I don't know how many of them are good as "hard" counters. But I figure I'd be hard-pressed to put in, say, 24 or 28 counterspells in a deck. It's more likely I'll have like 4 or 8, which means I have to be selective about what I counter, and also might lead to some interesting moments where my opponent taps half their mana to cast something when I only have mana and/or cards for one counterspell – do I counter that spell and maybe leave myself open for my opponent's other spell, or do I let it through?

If I search for the same phrase in Modern, I get 172 hits. That means there are a lot more quality counterspells from which to choose. Filling up a deck with counterspells is easy, so you'll always have a counterspell ready.

Modern counterspells, card drawing and filtering cards are weaker.

 

[Staffan]

Modern counterspells, card drawing and filtering cards are weaker.

Yeah, but Modern goes back to... Mirrodin, right? That's an awful lot of potential countermagic (and enough to include proper Counterspell rather than Cancel), so there has to be some good stuff in there.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, but Modern goes back to... Mirrodin, right? That's an awful lot of potential countermagic (and enough to include proper Counterspell rather than Cancel), so there has to be some good stuff in there.

Sorry wasn't referring to modern format.

More from when cancel replaced counterspell, pitch counterspells got removed/weakened and sorcerery speed card draw replaced things look ke brainstorm, fact or fiction and that nemesis common that let you draw 1-4 cards at instant speed.

 

[MoonSong]

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.

Yesterday I was listening to a podcast about j22. To semi-quote one of the hosts "And if you are one of those pshchos that weren't hugged enough by their parents, there is plenty of good blue cards im the set too"

 

[Scribe]

Yeah, but Modern goes back to... Mirrodin, right? That's an awful lot of potential countermagic (and enough to include proper Counterspell rather than Cancel), so there has to be some good stuff in there.

The proper counterspell wasnt included naturally, it had to be added via a direct to Modern set.

I would encourage anyone talking along this line, to look at the actual meta of Modern and realize that its Tempo, which is the real issue, not hard Uxx Control. Same as Legacy.

Top 3 look to be a Tempo deck, a linear 'gotcha' aggro deck, and a red/black disruptive (discard) aggro deck.

Control is way down the list, and outside of some very short and specific periods, has been for the last like 8 years.