Darwin Kastle recently wrote a good article exploring what he feels are some design issues in Magic briefly. I'm going to cover my opinions on what he talked about as well (some in more detail), as well as some things he didn't talk about.
Mana Problems
I think Darwin is on the other side of a bug/feature relationship with this as far as Magic is concerned. There are people who feel that mana screw/flood is a bug in the game that needs to be solved, whereas I feel that it is just an inherent feature of the game. Mechanics like Kicker and Flashback are great ways of dealing with this, but I feel like land//spell split cards are a bad idea.
Skill Testers
I can see where Darwin is coming from here, and I want to make a clearer definition of Skill Testers. I see three basic categories of skill testers.
1) Waste of cardboard - these cards are no good. They will never have a sufficiently large impact on the game to be worth a card. Vanilla 1 mana 1/1's are often an example of this. Another example would be something like this - 1W Sorcery, Gain 2 life.
2) Over-costed, but functional card - These are cards that are clearly over-costed, but do have a discernible impact, if played, in a reasonable number of situations. Cyclops Tyrant is an example of this.
3) Sideboard cards - These are pretty self-explanatory. Examples range from cards like Naturalize to Leaf Arrow.
Of these three categories of cards, I think 2 and 3 are fine, but I would like to see a reduction in the number of cards that fall into category 1. The crucial thing to remember about card design is the following:
Card power is completely relative. For there to be good cards, there must be bad cards as well.
The interesting thing comes in HOW you make cards bad. Basically, there are three ways of making a card bad:
1) Make it not-functional
2) Make it under-powered.
3) Narrow its effective application
Not-functional cards are wastes of cardboard. They do not have sufficient impact on the game state to do anything. They are a necessary evil, but I would seek to minimize the number of these.
Narrow or under-powered cards, however, do have function, and thus, by definition, are skill-testing. Because the situations in which they are good are infrequent, it requires skill to identify those situations. This allows stronger players to differentiate themselves from weaker players, which I think is a good thing.
Looking at Green
I think Darwin makes an excellent point regarding the dials thing. It is, in fact, the core issue with green. There are two major dials for making cards useful and good. Most strong cards push on both of these dials, but often one of these dials is turned up significantly higher than the other.
1) The numbers are strong
2) The card provides a lot of util options
Let's look at a relevant comparison. Historically blue has been the best color in Magic, something that I myself have written about here. Let's take a look at two recent standard staples that showcase the dichotomy I'm talking about - Thragtusk and Snapcaster Mage.
Why is Thragtusk good? Thragtusk is good because the numbers are strong. The card itself would be weaker if we tweaked the numbers down, even if we left everything else the same. Example
NeoTusk - 4G
Creature - Beast
When NeoTusk comes into play, gain 3 life.
When NeoTusk leaves play, put a 2/2 Bear token into play
3/3.
If you look at it, this card is reasonable for 4G, but it is definitely weaker than Thragtusk. Thragtusk's strength lies in its numbers.
Now, compare it to Snapcaster Mage. Assuming you preserve the functionality of the card, would Snapcaster Mage lose a whole ton if it were a 1/1 instead of a 2/1? Not really. The reason is because Snapcaster Mage's strength is in the options it provides the blue player. The ability to get back another spell is the primary draw of Snapcaster Mage. Thus, Snapcaster Mage's strength is in the options it provides.
The problem with green is that green cards are almost invariably turning the "numbers" dial. Rumbling Baloth is good because it is a 4 mana 4/4, which means it is good because it is a sizable creature. It's a dumb card, and doesn't really allow the player to make any interesting decisions. This is very common among green cards.
Recently Wizards has been moving away from that. The addition of the fight mechanic and the fact that it's being pushed is a good thing, particularly for limited. I would like to see this mechanic pushed more, as well as other flavorful ways for green to interact in interesting ways. Here's an example.
Ambush -
If a creature your opponent controls is attacking and unblocked you may pay
The templating of this ability is probably off, but I think something similar would be interesting as a green mechanic.
The addition of more cards like Scavenging Ooze also bodes well. Scavenging Ooze has its "options" dial turned higher up than a lot of green cards, and thus represents the sort of card I would like to see more often.
However, the primary issue of green is still a lack of methods of generating card advantage, particularly in limited. Basically, raw creature size nullifying opposing dudes is still green's primary method of generating advantage. I would like to see that change. I may have said this before, but I do believe that moving Sorcery speed mass draw into green is a positive change. Leave blue with Forbidden Alchemy, Ponder, Impulse, and Divination. Give green Tidings and Harmonize.
Anyway, that's most of what I wanted to talk about. Tune back in for my magical musings on a semi-regular basis.
