I don't play this game though

This is what I feel the problem is, and I hate to sound like a spike, but the game has gotten too simple. In fact, a year ago I got back into YuGiOh (dragged into it kicking and screaming), and mused that while in the last ten years "the mature game" Magic has become extremely simple compared to what it was (for better and or worst), and YuGiOh went from being a rather simple kids game to being probably the most complex and rule heavy tcg currently in production. It's just ironic. Yet YuGiOh players will always get **** on by every other gaming group and culture because YuGiOh.

Magic players aren't lazy. Magic is already a hard game compared to most other games. Magic has over ten thousand cards, over fifty mechanics, and seven game zones. Super Mario Brothers has four controls and you can see in a 150 pixel radius from your character.

Anyway, the game sometimes has to remove things to keep complexity creep in check. Here's some quotes from Maro - he's talking about the removal of mana burn, but could just as easily be talking about graveyard order.


But Magic is an awesome game. How would we ever stop attracting new players? The answer is what I consider to be the biggest danger to the game: complexity creep. Let me explain. The game keeps evolving. As it does so, it continues to add new elements to the game. Complexity can only grow. Here's the problem: The entry to the game is always the same. The beginner knows nothing. They have to make the jump from knowing nothing to knowing enough to play. But that line, "knowing enough to play," is a moving target. As the game gains in complexity, the line goes up. At some point the differential is too high and not enough new players can make the jump.

But things rotate out, you say. If a beginner sticks to Standard, then the vast majority of the game's complexity is hidden away where they won't see it. Ah, but here is the problem. New things drift from expansions to base sets. Some things even become evergreen, meaning they start appearing in every set. Inertia pushes the line up.

How does R&D fight this? How do we keep the line within the appropriate range? The answer is twofold. First, we make the best use of intuition that we can. Second, we remove things.

... This brings us to R&D's only other option, removing things. This is not something we do lightly, but it is something that has to be done. If we allow the game to add things, we also must allow it to remove things as well. Multicolor cards, legendary permanents, cantrips, numerous creature keywords, equipment, race/class, hybrid mana, planeswalkers—these are all things available to a designer for any set he or she designs, none of which existed in Alpha. The game has notched up considerably in complexity over the last sixteen years. What has been removed to keep the balance?

I find it interesting that whenever we remove something the common cliché for it is "R&D's dumbing down the game," yet adding new things to Magic is "business as usual." These forces are inexorably linked. If you want the latter, you have to accept the former. This is why R&D doesn't worry about lesseninog the complexity of the game. Inertia is pushing hard in the opposite direction. Until we start removing more things than we add, the complexity level isn't going down.

The number one reason mana burn was removed was that it could be. It happened infrequently and it stood relatively independent from other aspects of the game. To use a game metaphor, if Magic is Jenga, mana burn was that loose piece sitting high up in the middle, the one you take out early because you know it won't topple the whole tower.

Here's a different way to think of it. What if I assigned you the reader the following task (think of it as fodder for this article's thread): you have to remove a rule from the game for Magic 2010. Your goal is to have the least impact you can on the game, but you have to remove a rule that has some effect on game play. What do you choose? You, like R&D, do not have the luxury to say nothing.

Maro is a horrible author and has bad opinions on Magic generally.

I think bashing on MaRo is incredibly short-sighted. I doubt anyone has had a greater impact on the game for the last decade than he has - and that decade has been Magic's most successful. It's hard to argue with success. His maneuvering of the game may not be to everyone's perfect fancy (how could it be?), but it is good for the majority, the majority of the time.

Has he made mistakes? Sure. But I think you'd be hard pressed to find proof that he's bad at what he does.

I don't agree that it exists, I think it is a fictional construct created by the Daily MTG authors to justify their removal of anything remotely complex from the game.

And no, I don't agree on the second point either. When I was getting into the game, it was complex. No arguing that. But anyone with half a brain will be able to pick up on it, no matter what complex card interactions and mechanics exist.

Magic fairly simple compared to most TCG's.