Week 4 - Making Some Magic

This week we were tasked with making Magic Cards based on a formula we derived in class. After trying to create with this restriction, as well as looking through a much larger list of cards, I find it hard to believe that this game can be considered balanced. Although, that may be a built in flaw, wherein obviously overpowered cards are introduced into the game to get people buying more packs in the hopes of finding them. Regardless, there are some elements of the game that could have more thought put into their balancing.

One example is that every special effect seems to add only one more mana cost to a card, but there are obviously better special effects. For instance, “Trample” can be a game ending effect, regardless of the defense that the opponent has built up. “Trample” allows the player to plough through their opponent’s defensive line, dealing their remaining attack power in damage to their opponent’s life. The main problem with this is that to my knowledge, there is no way to stop it (there may be a card that directly affects Trample). Regardless of how powerful the creature card is, that “trample” effect only costs one additional mana. Compare that to another effect, “Swampwalk”. What “Swampwalk” does is allow a creature to be unblockable, but only if the defending player has a “Swamp” land card in play. This effect is usually only on black creatures who are summoned using “Swamp” lands, and is practically useless if the defending player is using a different coloured deck. Regardless, the effect costs an extra mana, making it a hindrance to the player in 4/5 situations (assuming the player is using a deck of all one colour).

Another example would be the inexplicable way that red and blue creatures seem to cost an extra mana to summon. On the other hand, green creatures get an additional benefit when the summoning cost is greater than five. I can’t see any reason for this to be the case, and it’s especially strange given the exploitability of the green deck. The deck is full of cards that allow you to place a horde of weak creatures for very little cost, which in turn power some of the originally docile cards to ridiculous strength. Given this exploitability, it would stand to reason that perhaps the green deck would at the very least carry the burden of the extra mana to summon, but it doesn’t.

I understand that with so many cards available across so many iterations, balancing the entire game would be extremely difficult. That being said, there are some obvious exploits that perhaps favour the meta-game centered on constructing a powerful deck instead of the game itself.