*NOTE – The views and opinions expressed within this article are solely those of the author and do/may not reflect the thoughts and feelings of Magic Deck Vortex and any members of staff found therein.*

Welcome folks to another one of Luther’s off-beat articles. Every now and then there’s something I want to talk about that doesn’t really fit into my usual string of articles. This time around it’s the state of the game itself and the changes it has recently undergone.

Looking Back

Let’s start where the changes truly started, back in the days of Time Spiral, when Wizards of the Coast (WOTC) dipped their toe into a concept that would fundamentally change the face of the game – an extra rarity. Of course, we weren’t actually told the cards had a new rarity and in truth many of them didn’t really warrant a change in rarity but it was a simple, stylish, and explainable way for them to see how we would react to a change in our rarity scale. I’m talking of course about those delightfully purple cards – Timeshifted cards.

They got the result they wanted – we loved them and with good reason. Timeshifted brought back some amazing cards like the original Akroma and the ever-useful Disenchant. But let’s be honest, most of us took these cards as what they were – a novel way for R&D to fix some gaps in the current Standard format without having to do too much work and also a means to attract back some of the older fans they had lost during the Kamigawa age. It just tacked on so beautifully with the “rediscovery” of Coldsnap and was exactly what we needed at the time.

Fast forward to June 2008 and Mark Rosewater declares numerous, changes in that horrendously cold manner of his. One of these changes was the inclusion of a new rarity – Mythic.

What I can’t truly get my head around is the stated reason:

“Another important part of attracting new players is understanding the environment they come from. When Magic first began, it had the luxury of defining itself because it was the first of its kind. That is not the world we live in today. TCGs*1 are now an established game genre. It used to be that the majority of game players getting their first exposure to a trading card game did so with Magic. With the explosion of TCGs, particularly ones aimed at lower ages, this is simply no longer true.

We came to realize that we don't have the luxury of defining Magic solely against itself. The trading card game genre has created some standards that evolved from decisions made after Magic's creation, rarity being one of the best examples. The idea of a TCG with only three rarities is antiquated. (And before I get letters, I do understand that technically basic land is a fourth rarity; for these discussions I am not going to count it.) Magic is the only major trading card game currently printed with only three rarities. If we want to stay competitive in attracting new players we have to keep up with the industry standards.”

*1 – TCG Stands for Trading Card Games

Let me break this down for you as I see it:

“We looked over the market as it exists and saw that we didn’t have the dominate section of the pie anymore so we figured we best do something to reclaim some of our lost customers. So we turned to the game we saw to be selling the best – Yu-Gi-Oh!.

Since the game is selling so well, we thought the best way to draw people away from the game was to mimic some of it’s style – we eventually decided to adopt part of it’s rarity scale and maybe some of the flavor of the game as a whole.”

End result – Lorwyn and Mythic rares went on the cards. Lorwyn itself was not too bad - just a lot "Cuter" then most existing Magic fans would have liked it & there were some complaints regarding power levels. (Some people still have these complaints.)

Now do not get me wrong – I’m not attacking the game or the way it works; recently I have started playing the game and have come to appreciate the game under its own context. It’s quite simple really – Magic is not Yu-Gi-Oh!, it’s not anything like the VS TCG, or the UFS TCG and it certainly isn’t anything like the World of Warcraft TCG. Magic is a game that works under its own system and bears under the weight of its own style.

Now I know that the decision was a marketing and financial one; that I cannot complain about as I need the game to make money for it to continue. But in truth, I’m sure there were better ways they could have drawn more players in – Free events, demo tours, advertising, pushing the play-buddy system more, or even aided evangelists with promo kits.

I mean honestly; what player wouldn’t have been stoked for WOTC to send them a letter saying “If you can arrange a gaming event to draw new players in, we’ll send you this limited edition promo card.”

I would have signed up straight away and run as many events as I could. I’d have done the school-crawl again and tried to setup after-school activity groups because I like to evangelize, but I feel WOTC as a whole does a poor job of supporting us.

In truth, they could stand to learn a few things from Games Workshop and White Wolf in this regard. Even the Indie Press companies do a better job then WOTC. Each of these companies do a far superior job of supporting their evangelists.

The Slow Descent

Also another bone of contention for many players is the inclusion of basic lands in boosters in place of a common. When you then factor in Mythic rares, this essentially aids to increase the difficulty in getting a complete set through boosters and also serves to ensure that every player on the face of the earth will have hundreds of land cards that will never see the light of day.

Two main issues here WOTC; the first one is probably not one most people will jump at because it’s an environmental issue. How many tree’s will be destroyed to feed the increase in demand for boosters since every one will need to buy more to get the cards they need/want for their decks? In line with this; how much more plastic and metal will be used to create the actual booster pack covers? How big is your carbon footprint going to be next year WOTC?

Secondly; lands are an essential part of the hobby, I mean - I am MDV’s resident Land Fanboy, but even I have to call “spherical-object” sack (Or as we quaint English put it – BOLLOCK!) on this one guys. If you want to offer basic lands in an easier outlet for players to obtain – create land packs. It’s a simple concept, twenty copies of a chosen basic land with one or two foil examples. You could probably ship them at £1.50/$3 a piece and the hobby as a whole would improve.

In fact, you could even use them as a teaser outlet for new sets; remove basic lands from future set releases and slowly release artwork for these lands through the packs and people will be psyched to see ruins in their swamps that strangely resemble Urza’s school or Trees that scream Yavimaya.

It Gets Better

Who here likes Fatpacks? They're great aren’t they – essentially free boosters, a roll-down dice and a book based upon the current set; great way to build up your excitement for the new block and a great way to fill in the time between new releases. Well guess what folks, WOTC did some thinking and decided the Fatpack wasn’t good enough – so they changed them.

Now what we’re going to get is one book per set and you’re going to have to wait for the very last set release to get it! What we get in it's place whilst we wait can loosely be referred to as a book when in truth it’s a pamphlet; a ten page long pamphlet. Well it’s not that bad surely; the content will be original and will give us something to mull over right? We’ll folks, I’m going to spoiler the contents of the current Fatpack pamphlet. Click Here to See It’s Contents.

Three words for you WOTC – What – The – Hell!? You mean to tell me that I’m paying to read something I can look at anytime for free? Stuff that bares no relevance to the actual play of the game and is in essence, nothing better then fluff? No wait, fluff’s the wrong term because fluff has purpose – filler; dry-wall filler. Yeah, that sounds about right.

The only saving grace; the only thankful aspect of this entire mockery of the fan’s devotion to the hobby is that a Fatpack is still cheaper then buying eight boosters, a storage medium, and a D20 and if that changes then I can honestly see people walking.

Oh There’s More

The last true issue I have is R&D’s decision to reduce the number of cards within a set. Their reasoning was to help players to keep up with the hobby; that both new and existing players were suffering from the ever increasing number of cards they were shipping out each set.

Firstly; that excuse is a poor one and here’s why: by having more cards you increased the diversity of the game and increased the number of decks that were being created. Now correct me if I’m wrong, but surely this is better for the hobby then ensuring that every single player knows every single card ever released. I find it fascinating when someone plays a spell against me that I don’t know; it adds mystery to the game and their deck.

Secondly; is it me or does this sound like R&D is trying to reduce their workload? The genius of these changes has to be truly wondered at. They make it harder for us to complete a set, then they make the sets smaller so it works out at roughly the same work needed to get the complete the collection, all the while they ensure they kill more trees, increase their carbon footprint, alienate and anger their existing fan base and dilute the flavor and grandeur of the hobby.

Well done WOTC, well done.

This is Luthervamplord, Disillusioned and Unhappy.

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.
Find other articles by this author here.
Find other articles from this series here.

[ Back ] [ Home ] [ Up ] [ Next ]

Articles Spotlights from 2008:
A Fresh Perspective: Stasis - Part One.
The Apprentice Magician - Part Six.
Design on a Dime: The Lunch Meat Edition!
Fit the Flavor 2008 - FINALE!
The Games People Play - Market & EDH.
Sarpadian Empires, Vol VII: Foreword.
More Evil Than Evil.
Pauper Chronicles: Top O' the Morningtide to You!
Words from the Streetz: Uncommon and Common Magical Treasures.
The Writers Guild: The Inside Scoop.