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A lot of the "false complexity" in MtG comes from the wide variety of trivial differences between cards. Deckbuilding becomes an exercise in, depending on forma

A lot of the "false complexity" in MtG comes from the wide variety of trivial differences between cards. Deckbuilding becomes an exercise in, depending on format, sifting through some 10,000 (probably more by now) cards to determine which are synergistic. I wish they would strip out the trivially different cards, particularly the ones that are strictly better or worse than another, such as two identical cards but one has a higher cost for no reason. Some of the cruft is due to rebalancing as the game evolved, but some is just part of the artificial scarcity model of making many of the common cards worse than the best rare ones. I agree, though, that MtG has a very broad and creative tree of possibilities. In the pure board game world, it is perhaps more similar to Arimaa.

Al-Khwarizmi 12y ago
But, but... sifting through 10,000 cards to determine which are synergistic is half of the fun! I really love the feeling of seeing an interesting card in a new expansion, and thinking that it might go well with some obscure card that you remember from some obscure expansion from 15 years ago. And researching what that card actually did. It really feels like being a wizard and going to an ancient forgotten grimoire to see if you can find a use from a long-forgotten spell. I especially enjoy realizing that a card that was considered universally crappy and never saw serious use is suddenly useful. I agree that the cards that are strictly worse than others could have been avoided. But they don't really do that much anymore (they seldom release commons that do nothing like Hill Giant or Grizzly Bear, for example). And they can still be fun in formats like Type III, or Limited as new players call it.