Card Rarity as a game design Framework

void

There has been a lot of posts from people being dissapointed with Mythics or Rares they've recieved or the amount of those cards in their collection and I'd like to provide some insight on my views regarding how card rarity should corralate with card viability. The way I see it people on this forum do not seem to be card gamers, a lot of posts point out to their lack of rares and above as a bad thing, a feeling of being cheated out. But in a card game the amount of rares or mythics you have shouldn't matter, the deck building is the key.

The way rarity works in physical card games is having cheap common cards forming the core of most decks with rarer cards giving you additional victory conditions. This is a healthy way to build a game in an environment where booster packs are the only way to get new cards. The way I see card rarity in MtGPQ is flawed but not broken.

Common
These cards should form the core of most decks but they do not. The biggest offender are the cards in the uncommon slot that unfortunately offer much better value. Common cards in this game are simply too weak, instead of getting strong vanilla minions in common and having to pay for abilities we get abilities and strong minions in Uncommon and above.

Uncommon
Uncommon cards are the cards that make the game go around at the moment. These cards should make the core of your deck for the most classes. It is a healthy direction for the game to take as long as they do not take it overboard with card rarity in relation to strenght.

Rare
Rares should be the icing on the cake, the cards you add to your deck to benefit the archetype you are going for. They'd strenghten your deck without forcing your hand into any direction.

Mythic
Mythic cards should be game changers. Cards that you build your deck around. Mythics as replacements for common cards should never be a reality in a card game.

fruithead

Ah yes, I remember that one game where the ai in pvp got a **** first turn epic cascade and summoned a 6/6 with renown 6. So round 2 had a 12/12.

Thats a balanced card. Yup.

Unknown

Outland Colossus (the one you're talking about) is a fairly vanilla rare. It is the most efficient power to mana ratio of any card in the game, provided you can swing renown with it. There are many ways to shut it down, of course, getting 1 turned by it is not one of those ways.

There are far more powerful ones. This isn't really about fair or not fair.

My opinion is that decks should be built around 2-3 rares and the rest uncommons. Mythics should be game changing additions but I like mythics being expensive - because you can't rely on them and you shouldn't rely on them.

But how people talk its like they haven't tried to make an uncommon deck before - an uncommon deck can easily carry you to victory in story and pvp, without needing any rares or mythics.

I actually rely on uncommons far more often than rares, because they're mostly cheaper and some of their effects are extremely powerful.

Unknown

There's a big difference between "can easily win" and "gives the best opportunity to win." Sure, you can win with uncommons, especially with a Planeswalker level advantage, but that would be because you received more favorable mana. In an "all things equal" situation, the deck with powerful rares will beat a deck with good uncommons.

For many players, starting at a disadvantage before the first card is drawn is frustrating even if they know they still have a 60% chance of winning the game.

Enoc99

One thing I strongly disagree with in this game is cards that are "strictly better" at higher rarities than the equivalent card at a lower rarity.

Strictly better is defined as having a superior effect and/or higher power/toughness while having either the same or a lower mana cost.

A couple examples:
Separatist Voidmage(C) vs Harbringer of the Tides (R)
Exquisite Firecraft (R) vs Lightning Javelin (C)

I can understand having a more powerful effect at higher rarities, but the casting cost of that card should be higher as well.

There should always still be a reason to use the lower rarity cards. They are more efficient to cast, but have a lesser impact on the game. This gives more of a decision making process to those building the deck, as they have to consider both the cost of the cards versus the impact they have on the game, as either aspect could be a trade-off for their use in your deck.

Meto5000

Enoc99 wrote:

There should always still be a reason to use the lower rarity cards. They are more efficient to cast, but have a lesser impact on the game. This gives more of a decision making process to those building the deck, as they have to consider both the cost of the cards versus the impact they have on the game, as either aspect could be a trade-off for their use in your deck.

Have any of you guys actually played Magic the Gathering? To be honest, with a few exceptions most of the mythic cards are fracking terrible in this game and highly overcosted. Half the point of mythic and rare cards is that they do exactly what a common or uncommon card does but better. That's why people pay hundreds of dollars to create their decks, filling them with chase rares and mythics. I feel like this is pretty standard for any tcg or ccg.

For those not familiar with actual MTG there are actually two, well three, types of tournaments. The style that MtG:PQ uses is closest to constructed Magic; you can use any legal card in your arsenal to make a deck.

There's also two types of limited formats where you have only a few packs from which to create a deck. The limited formats are where really good common and uncommon cards shine since you don't have the ability to fill your deck with a bunch of mythic and rares.

A lot of people don't like standard magic because it has a substantial pay to win element to it. The two limited formats typically have a much lower entry cost and are almost entirely skill based. It would be terrific if the events that they _hopefully_ implement are reminiscent of these limited formats.

void

That is not really the whole truth.

MtG is over 20 years old card game so that skews the perspective a lot, believe it or not there used to be a time when Grizzly Bears was an entirely viable card for constructed. I haven't played Magic in a long time but when I did rarer cards did not see play because they were "better versions" of more common cards, they saw play because they were more complex in terms of card text which meant they made whatever engine the deck needed possible. In a game with 10 card decks there's a lot less room for high synergy and combo decks to function.

There's no question that card gaming is an expensive hobby and card rarity plays a large role in that, but Wizards doesn't go into new sets thinking they need to print X number of playable rares and fill the rest of the set with trash. What ever problems modern constructed scene suffers from have more to do with the rules of Magic itself, in other games with different type of rules eg. Hearthstone or different structure of card rarity eg. Netrunner card rarity plays even less of a role.

Meto5000

void wrote:

That is not really the whole truth.

MtG is over 20 years old card game so that skews the perspective a lot, believe it or not there used to be a time when Grizzly Bears was an entirely viable card for constructed. I haven't played Magic in a long time but when I did rarer cards did not see play because they were "better versions" of more common cards, they saw play because they were more complex in terms of card text which meant they made whatever engine the deck needed possible. In a game with 10 card decks there's a lot less room for high synergy and combo decks to function.

There's no question that card gaming is an expensive hobby and card rarity plays a large role in that, but Wizards doesn't go into new sets thinking they need to print X number of playable rares and fill the rest of the set with trash. What ever problems modern constructed scene suffers from have more to do with the rules of Magic itself, in other games with different type of rules eg. Hearthstone or different structure of card rarity eg. Netrunner card rarity plays even less of a role.

Back 20 years ago when I played Magic I didn't pay a lot of attention to things like ideal mana curves or deck synergy. I thought a 2/1 for (1) was the ****. My playing venues were limited to living room floors or kitchen tables. These days, rares and mythics fit into a few different categories:

1. A card that is fun, and/or stronger than normal, and/or weird but might be good in limited formats or fringe decks that are largely non competitive
2. A card that is targeted at shaking up older formats of Magic but will have little to no impact on the current standard constructed or limited formats
3. An efficient card that has huge upside and can fit into one or more competitive decks

Over the past like...15 years of magic they've made creatures that are faster, better, stronger. Take for example a card I used to love back in the day that was included when MtG was initially released, Keldon Warlord. An uncommon creature that costs 4 mana and its power and toughness is equal to the number of creatures you control. Now take a gander at a card that came out in 2012 Voice of Resurgence. A 2 mana creature with 2/2 that leaves behind at least one if not more tokens that are copies of Keldon Warlord. At one point I think people were paying $50+ dollars for Voice when it was legal in standard. Chase rares and mythics are what drive competitive standard legal decks to average more than $400. Think what you want about their monetization strategy but creating demand through overpowered rares and mythics is how they make the bulk of their money.

Also, I don't know what you mean about Hearthstone that rarity doesn't play a large part of the meta game. I often hear complaints about how the only way to begin to be competitive in Hearthstone is to keep buying cards until you have the overpowered "Flavor of the Month OP Card". However, I would love, LOVE, to see a Hearthstone arena type event. The Hearthstone arena is very similar to paper MtG limited draft which is my favorite format. I don't know anything about Netrunner so you may be right about that.

And regarding less synergy because it's only a 10 card deck, the opposite is actually true. In a paper MtG constructed deck you can include a max of 4 of the same card in one 60 card deck a ratio of 1:15 . In MtG:PQ you have a 1:10 ratio which makes the chances to draw a card you want a much higher likelihood. Because of this, you can setup synergistic situations a hell of a lot easier. Right now in my Gideon deck I realistically only care about seeing 5 out of the 10 included cards in my deck and the rest are filler that sit in the back of my hand until I get what I want. As long as I get ~2 of those 5 cards I'm almost guaranteed to win the game within a few rounds and be at 100% life when I finish. This happens about 95% of the time which is reflected in my match win % vs AI. When I play paper MtG I can play 3 best of 3s and sometimes never see some of the cards in my deck. I mean, in a Gideon deck vs AI basically all you need to win is a single lifelinker that gets buffed every single round until it doesn't matter how much damage the enemy is throwing at you.

I realize this game is not MtG and the people who make and produce MtG:PQ are completely separate entities from Wizards of the Coast. However, all of the cards in this set are based 1:1 off existing paper MtG cards (though, somewhat loosely). If there's a card in MtG:PQ it's because it was a similar card in paper MtG first. Unless MtG:PQ makes a concious design decision to move away from chase rares and mythics you can expect it to be a continuing trend in this game. Why would they need to introduce shields and boosts to help monetize when they can just make an ultra rare OP mythic card that everyone has to buy 20+ packs to have even a chance to get. We'll have to wait and see what happens I guess.

Unknown

Yo a 2/1 for (1) is still pretty ****!

In draft of the new set the 2/1 flyer for (2) is probably the most solid card in there.

Unknown

Some of the cards I enjoy the most on MtG are actually common or uncommon cards. I feel at my best playing MtG when I get to 3-for-1 my opponent with a 3 mana instant, which cards such as Wildsize, Fire at Will or Act of Aggression to very often for me. Here, commons are vendor trash, uncommons are where the baseline starts most of the time. Besides a handful of still useful cards like Artificer's Intuition. This isn't much unlike MPQ, where 1* are absolutely worthless and you should immediately start focusing on 2* from the get-go

I was actually really excited to open an Auramancer because I like the card and the effect seems useful, but spending 10 on a 2/2 with such a marginal effect when you can spend 11 on a 4/4 with a more useful ability is a terrible idea. Hitchclaw Recluse became a joke the moment I got Vastwood Gorger, and even bigger one when I got myself a Skysnare Spider. You can just compare Calculated Dismissal to Clash of Wills, which had the gall to come out simultaneously

I love this game's gameplay and mechanics, but the business model really has ways to go if it wants to survive for any amount of time, specially since the whole monthly login shtick just slapped us in the face

Unknown

Just on the subject of Outland Collosus: in actual MTG it isn't broken because if you can't chump it, you're already losing. In this, blockers are fairly uncommon, as the ability is largely a downside.

Unknown

Yep, I was really surprised at the mana curve for 1/1 or 2/2 creatures (6+ mana...? You should be able to pump out at least 2 of these a turn instead of one every 1-2 turns). Every creature needs to be able to block too...but I understand why it doesn't. Because it would bog this game down, and turn it into magic instead of PQ.

The fact that you can't churn out cards means that also card draw and tempo is pretty much completely useless and the only worthwhile method is control through first strike, bounce, destruction or burn. Nothing else really matters and board presence isn't necessary if you can just keep the opponent's board clean.

There is also pretty much no real mana ramp.

This is primarily why Jace, chandra, gideon are much better than the others.

void

Meto5000 wrote:

Back 20 years ago when I played Magic I didn't pay a lot of attention to things like ideal mana curves or deck synergy. I thought a 2/1 for (1) was the ****. My playing venues were limited to living room floors or kitchen tables. These days, rares and mythics fit into a few different categories:

1. A card that is fun, and/or stronger than normal, and/or weird but might be good in limited formats or fringe decks that are largely non competitive
2. A card that is targeted at shaking up older formats of Magic but will have little to no impact on the current standard constructed or limited formats
3. An efficient card that has huge upside and can fit into one or more competitive decks

cool

void

Maybe in a game unlike magic the gathering we can form a new type of meta?