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They knew that it was unbalanced and that some cards (Moxen, Ancestral Recall, etc) were too powerful, but that was on purpose because they expected scarcity to

They knew that it was unbalanced and that some cards (Moxen, Ancestral Recall, etc) were too powerful, but that was on purpose because they expected scarcity to be a part of the metagame. If you were playing with your own group of friends who owned a few cards, the small total number of overpowered cards would be a fun diversion. They didn't anticipate the huge success and scale the game achieved. With a worldwide metagame and market for buying/selling cards, scarcity vanished as top players would pay up to get 4 of whatever card gave them an edge, so revisions had to be designed in balance, rather than rely on scarcity to create balance. Source: I read way too much MtG history a few years ago when I was working on my own card game.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago
There's more to it than that. They've re-released edition after edition to obsolete the previous. Used to be 1 mana got you a 1/0 or 1/1 creature with nothing else. Now you can get cards with 1 or two features, flying etc. Anybody using the old ones is a sucker. Its easy to think its all about the money, you have to buy new cards to keep competitive. In fact this is why our game club designed their own card game (Orion Empire, check it out on Kickstarter!) The idea is, new cards will always be different in some way from old ones, so no card is ever completely eclipsed. So you can buy new decks to keep it interesting, but your old one is probably still competitive.
- ObligatoryRef 12y ago
  WotC, especially Mark Rosewater, has addressed this issue many many times. I would recommend checking out some of his columns and podcasts. Short answer: the game has evolved quite a bit (I've been playing for 17 years). Long answer: > Anybody using the old ones is a sucker. There are several different Constructed formats, each with its own restrictions on which cards can be played. The three most popular are Legacy, Modern, and Standard. In Modern and Standard, only newer cards are allowed, so there naturally aren't any from older sets. In Legacy, there are plenty of older cards being played. Take a look at the lists from any Legacy tournament, and you'll see a mix of old and new. Now, the power levels of each type of card have changed (in general, creatures have gotten more powerful and non-creature spells less powerful), so you'll often see earlier non-creature spells and more recent creatures, but this isn't set in stone. There's also the idea of power creep. The natural progression of a game like Magic is to allow more and more powerful effects, since not doing so will dis-incentivize buying new cards. For at least the past 10 years, then, Wizards has made a conscious decision to vary the power level between blocks (cycles of sets). Different types of cards will be more or less powerful at different times (in the last block, enchantments were the focus, now multicolor cards are being emphasized). It's true that if you want to stay competitive takes a certain amount of money, but this is true in many hobbies. Magic has been constantly getting more popular over the last few years, and it's still around when 99% of its competitors are gone. Let's check back on your game in 20 years and see where it's at.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    That sounds pretty much like what I said: card inflation keeps people buying new cards. I was being a little cynical, but if they cop to it, then great. I don't see it as a 'natural progression'. Its lazy; you can think of new cards without obsoleting old ones, but it takes effort. I know; we've got an edition and 3 expansions so far (500 cards) and they took a lot of work. As for being around; I see people come into our local card shop for tournaments, but nobody is 'playing Magic' any more. There has to be a gimmick, like a contest or draft tournament or some such. The kids in my Scout Troop were crazy about it 10 years ago; now its dropped off the radar. So maybe its still around, but its 30 year olds with money that keep it going.
- negativeview 12y ago
  As part of rebalancing they've buffed creatures and nerfed non-creature spells. It's simply not true that all cards have gotten more powerful, it's just that early creatures were garbage and early spells were too good. Nothing we've gotten in the last few sets compare to the original Dual lands, Channel, the Moxen, Ancestral Recall, Counterspell, or even something as innocuous as Dark Ritual.
  - Beltiras 12y ago
    Hypnotic Spectre, Hymn to Tourach, Sinkhole. I remember the days when you could empty your hand with Suicide Black (Type I) on the first turn. Not fun being on the receiving end of 2*ritual, spectre + hymn, losing 2 random cards and looking your doom in the face and your only action so far was losing a coin toss.
  - JoeAltmaier 12y ago
    Well, they're garbage if everything that comes after is inflated. That's my point.
    - negativeview 12y ago
      You said that they release more and more "to obsolete the old." My point is that was not their goal. Their goal was always to have spells and creatures roughly balanced. Their original thinking was that creatures were a repeatable source of damage and thus should be costed as such. Turns out they overestimated how much rarity mattered and underestimated the power level of creatures. As a result, we get pretty mediocre creatures and ridiculously powerful rare spells. If every set were trying to outpower the last, then we wouldn't still get functional reprints of Llanowar Elves or Grizzly Bears, both of which were in Alpha. Really, the power creep from year 1 to year 10 or so was a desire to see creatures played in competitive magic and a desire to see more actual games of magic (if your opponent wins the coin flip and goes Mountain, Black Lotus, Channel, Fireball then no actual magic was played). Since then they've actually been doing a sort of power oscillation. Different parts get more powerful over time, then go back to weaker again. They mostly focus on Standard and Limited where the power level of older cards matter less. In summary (I've already written too much) there's simple proof that the power level isn't endlessly increasing: look at Legacy and Modern. Every set that comes out adds between 0-3 cards that see Modern play and 0-1 cards that see Legacy play. If power level were just flat going up, that number would be much much higher.
- debacle 12y ago
  The power creep that you're talking about didn't really start until Magic was about 10 years old. Since then, there have been back and forths but in general you're correct. If you took a Type II deck from 2000 to a tournament today you'd get stomped on.

JoeAltmaier 12y ago

There's more to it than that. They've re-released edition after edition to obsolete the previous. Used to be 1 mana got you a 1/0 or 1/1 creature with nothing else. Now you can get cards with 1 or two features, flying etc. Anybody using the old ones is a sucker. Its easy to think its all about the money, you have to buy new cards to keep competitive. In fact this is why our game club designed their own card game (Orion Empire, check it out on Kickstarter!) The idea is, new cards will always be different in some way from old ones, so no card is ever completely eclipsed. So you can buy new decks to keep it interesting, but your old one is probably still competitive.

ObligatoryRef 12y ago
WotC, especially Mark Rosewater, has addressed this issue many many times. I would recommend checking out some of his columns and podcasts. Short answer: the game has evolved quite a bit (I've been playing for 17 years). Long answer: > Anybody using the old ones is a sucker. There are several different Constructed formats, each with its own restrictions on which cards can be played. The three most popular are Legacy, Modern, and Standard. In Modern and Standard, only newer cards are allowed, so there naturally aren't any from older sets. In Legacy, there are plenty of older cards being played. Take a look at the lists from any Legacy tournament, and you'll see a mix of old and new. Now, the power levels of each type of card have changed (in general, creatures have gotten more powerful and non-creature spells less powerful), so you'll often see earlier non-creature spells and more recent creatures, but this isn't set in stone. There's also the idea of power creep. The natural progression of a game like Magic is to allow more and more powerful effects, since not doing so will dis-incentivize buying new cards. For at least the past 10 years, then, Wizards has made a conscious decision to vary the power level between blocks (cycles of sets). Different types of cards will be more or less powerful at different times (in the last block, enchantments were the focus, now multicolor cards are being emphasized). It's true that if you want to stay competitive takes a certain amount of money, but this is true in many hobbies. Magic has been constantly getting more popular over the last few years, and it's still around when 99% of its competitors are gone. Let's check back on your game in 20 years and see where it's at.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  That sounds pretty much like what I said: card inflation keeps people buying new cards. I was being a little cynical, but if they cop to it, then great. I don't see it as a 'natural progression'. Its lazy; you can think of new cards without obsoleting old ones, but it takes effort. I know; we've got an edition and 3 expansions so far (500 cards) and they took a lot of work. As for being around; I see people come into our local card shop for tournaments, but nobody is 'playing Magic' any more. There has to be a gimmick, like a contest or draft tournament or some such. The kids in my Scout Troop were crazy about it 10 years ago; now its dropped off the radar. So maybe its still around, but its 30 year olds with money that keep it going.
negativeview 12y ago
As part of rebalancing they've buffed creatures and nerfed non-creature spells. It's simply not true that all cards have gotten more powerful, it's just that early creatures were garbage and early spells were too good. Nothing we've gotten in the last few sets compare to the original Dual lands, Channel, the Moxen, Ancestral Recall, Counterspell, or even something as innocuous as Dark Ritual.
- Beltiras 12y ago
  Hypnotic Spectre, Hymn to Tourach, Sinkhole. I remember the days when you could empty your hand with Suicide Black (Type I) on the first turn. Not fun being on the receiving end of 2*ritual, spectre + hymn, losing 2 random cards and looking your doom in the face and your only action so far was losing a coin toss.
- JoeAltmaier 12y ago
  Well, they're garbage if everything that comes after is inflated. That's my point.
  - negativeview 12y ago
    You said that they release more and more "to obsolete the old." My point is that was not their goal. Their goal was always to have spells and creatures roughly balanced. Their original thinking was that creatures were a repeatable source of damage and thus should be costed as such. Turns out they overestimated how much rarity mattered and underestimated the power level of creatures. As a result, we get pretty mediocre creatures and ridiculously powerful rare spells. If every set were trying to outpower the last, then we wouldn't still get functional reprints of Llanowar Elves or Grizzly Bears, both of which were in Alpha. Really, the power creep from year 1 to year 10 or so was a desire to see creatures played in competitive magic and a desire to see more actual games of magic (if your opponent wins the coin flip and goes Mountain, Black Lotus, Channel, Fireball then no actual magic was played). Since then they've actually been doing a sort of power oscillation. Different parts get more powerful over time, then go back to weaker again. They mostly focus on Standard and Limited where the power level of older cards matter less. In summary (I've already written too much) there's simple proof that the power level isn't endlessly increasing: look at Legacy and Modern. Every set that comes out adds between 0-3 cards that see Modern play and 0-1 cards that see Legacy play. If power level were just flat going up, that number would be much much higher.
debacle 12y ago
The power creep that you're talking about didn't really start until Magic was about 10 years old. Since then, there have been back and forths but in general you're correct. If you took a Type II deck from 2000 to a tournament today you'd get stomped on.