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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8253833" data-attributes="member: 6779196">It was a card on a single common sheet that got left in the set by accident when the change was made from a standalone set with a different back to a standard set. It was not a rare by design, so it does not support your argument that rares are not designed to be balanced with each other.My argument also doesn’t rely on rares being balanced against each other. The point is, in the context of a limited format, rarity is a balancing factor. Rare cards are able to be more powerful and “bomby” because they are more rare. You couldn’t have a card like Jace the Mindsculptor at common, it would ruin limited. But at rare, it’s a powerful bomb that certainly helps someone who pulls it (if their pool supports a double blue at CMC4, which is far from a given) but it isn’t going to make your deck the best in the pod by itself.In a play format where rarity doesn’t actually limit access? Absolutely. If there’s nothing stopping you from getting as many copies as you want of whatever cards you want, rarity isn’t a factor at all. This is analogous to the way D&D is typically played, where you can re-roll stats until you’re satisfied with the array you get, or use alternate stat generation methods that give you a better chance at higher scores. In this case, stat requirements are a non-factor. And if the stat generation methods are strictly enforced, it can in fact be very unbalancing. Like if everyone just got a single card from a Magic pack, obviously the player who got the one rare in the pack would have a big advantage over everyone else.However, in the context of something more like limited, it can be an effective balancing tool. For example, in troupe play (which is what Gary’s group originally did, and what he was likely designing for), where each player has multiple characters, all of whom are generated randomly and any one of whom might or might not be involved in any given session of play, tracking experience separately, it absolutely works as an effective balancing tool. Sure, one player might get a character with way better stats than average, maybe even enough to qualify for a more powerful class with higher requirements. But that was just one character in their stable, and likely wouldn’t even be the best in their stable, as other characters might be higher level, or have better magic items (which were also acquired by way of random roll, with the more powerful items being rarer).What are you talking about??1e’s design was deeply flawed, I don’t deny that. It was highly idiosyncratic to the way Gary and his group played, and there is value in trying to understand why he made the decisions he did. The question is not “is this objectively good or bad design?” It’s “what was the context in which this design choice made sense to Gary?” Context is extremely important to game design, as what is “good” or “bad” depends very heavily on what you are trying to accomplish. Rarity as balance didn’t work for the way most people actually played D&D, just like it didn’t work for constricted Magic: the Gathering. But, the way most people actually played D&D wasn’t the way  Gary imagined them playing it, just like the way most people actually played Magic wasn’t the way Richard Garfield imagined them playing it. And that’s ok! WotC was smart to move away from that type of design in favor of balance between each individual characters, because that was what their customers wanted. But it’s still valuable to understand the context Gary and Richard we’re designing for and why they made the decisions they did. Because, hey, maybe some folks want to play Limited, or a troupe game, and maybe in that context, some of the old designs would actually have merit.</blockquote>

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