I've been playing Magic since the mid 90's, when you could buy yourself a copy of the Black Lotus for just over a hundred bucks. I think I bought my first set of magic cards from the Unlimited set. The jump from fantasy board games, and RPG's to a fantasy card game was easily made, and I thought that this game concept was just brilliant. I wouldn't say that I was any good at the game, but I did have a lot of fun.
Of course, I didn't always play magic. I played for a few years, then quit, went back, then quit again, only to come back just a few years ago, around the time the 2012 core set was released. I've been playing sporadically ever since.
Now, as my post title suggests, I want to write about why I hate MTG. Before I begin, I must give some details on my playing history. As I stated above, I was introduced to MTG back in the mid 90's. I started off buying those starter decks, and some booster packs as fillers. They were all pretty standard cards. I didn't really explore buying individual cards, nor did I have any idea how many cards there were in circulation, or what kinds of abilities any of the cards I didn't own, had. So I was playing, more or less, blindly. I put together some cool cards, added some lands, and by trial and error, was able to put together some fun decks. My friends basically did the same, and so we started playing on a regular basis, with relatively equal decks, of radically different sizes and cards.
I never sat down and analysed anything about MTG, deck sizes, lands per deck ration, creature abilities, casting costs, or mana curves. It was all just pure fun for me. But not so for some of my playing buddies. They were into everything that was magic, and spent tons more cash on cards than I ever did, or could. In short, and without bashing those guys, the game quickly became a pay-to-win TCG. My friends quickly became more interested in winning than just having fun, and they basically bought every card available in order to get the most valuable cards, both in price and playability.
All else being equal, I believe that the better player will win most of the time, given that all conditions are the same for both players (obviously in a two player game), within reason. I couldn't keep up with my friends in terms of buying cards, or constructing decks, so the game became disagreeable for me not because I kept on losing, but because I was starting at a CPD, or Card Playability Disadvantage (a term of my own). In general terms, that means that there is often a core resource imbalance, which alters the chances of winning any game, usually in favour of the player with the highest aggregate value of core resources, where said core resource aggregate is calculated as the total value of all benefits (or effects) of all cards, in relation to it's converted mana cost, and timing (how it can be played). (I honestly don't know if that sounded right, but writing it once was enough!)
I began analyzing all of the cards I owned, and went even so far as giving relative values to a few of those cards, depending on it's type, converted mana cost, and the abilities or effects they may have owned. Let me say that gone are the days that the dreaded 6/4 Craw Wurm would see any real game play! Vanilla = Bad. :-(
Maybe the idea that vanilla cards are bad (or just not really playable), is what I dislike the most. What deck will ever again see that awesome (and terrifying) 6/4 Craw Wurm being played? What deck would include a creature card that costs so much, yet has no other benefit besides a possible P/T per CMC ratio? None, that's what deck. None. Those fucking awesome "vanilla cards" have been replaced by an army of "ability cards", and that's what's truly disappointing.
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