For those in search of new tech, I must offer a warning: you will not find it here. While I have been drafting CBS with a mild fury recently, any observations I have about the new format will have to wait. Rather, this piece will be firmly entrenched in the "Issues" section of the site, and anyone searching for strategy would do better to look further up the page.
Mark Rosewater wrote an article last Monday concerning the mistake that was the Sweep "ability word," and as someone who has heartily decried both the recent spike in keywords and the addition of ability words altogether, I was rather pleased. (I’m also a little late in responding by now, for which I apologize.) I saw that my demographic was being heard – those players who didn’t care for the overuse of officially worded mechanics got through to the people in charge. Sweep was (more or less) rescinded, and while it can’t exactly be taken off the cards, Rosewater acknowledged that Wizards was reaching too far in putting it on there in the first place.
This is a significant step away from Rosewater’s previous column on keywords, which served mostly to hype up how awesome it was that all these new keywords were coming into the game. The recent piece acknowledges that there are limits, which is at least a step in the right direction. Still, Rosewater argues that the modern glut is generally positive, and that while Sweep was a dud, so many other worded abilities are still valid. As a vocal critic of this practice, I felt the need to make a few counterpoints, corrections and criticisms of this new article. There are some good points that I agree with, but sometimes the facts that Rosewater presents don’t point to the conclusions he draws.
If you’re not that interested in the design theory behind Magic, this would be your opportunity to leave.
Alright then, let’s get into it. We’ll begin where Mark does:
"We’re doing roughly the same number of mechanics that we’ve always done. The difference is now we’re labeling them so everybody can clearly see them.
My favorite example of why this is important comes from the design of Urza’s Destiny…"
One of Rosewater’s justifications for all the new keywords is that, if they were to go unworded, they would go unnoticed. While this may be the case in some instances, Rosewater’s primary (and favorite, as he says) example to show this is the "cycling from play" cards from Urza’s Destiny. This example fails in one of its most important premises, the premise that the ability on cards like Yavimaya Elder and Plague Dogs is actually related to cycling in any way other than cosmetics. They resemble each other, yes – both cost two mana to activate and both result in you drawing a card – but their actual executions couldn’t be more different.
Cycling as a mechanic, at least the way it existed in Urza Block, served as a way for a player to filter through his or her deck with a minor mana investment. Cycling 2 could smooth out a rough mana draw or dig for a particular answer, and it did so on the cheap. A two-land hand with a couple cycling cards was more than fine, since you knew you could cycle for lands if your draw step didn’t yield them. If you managed to cycle into the answer you were searching for, you might actually have the mana to cast it that turn, which could be the difference between victory and defeat. The "cycling from play" cards can’t do either of these things – at least, they can’t do them for the bare-basement price that made cycling so good. That two-land hand looks more dangerous when your cycling cards are replaced by Marker Beetles or Slinking Skirge. Even a Yavimaya Elder, possibly the most ridiculous land-fixer ever, can’t help you when both your lands are Mountains.
"CFP" cards also had strengths that regular cycling cards did not. Until Onslaught’s cycling triggers came along, there was no way to get card advantage from a cycling card by cycling it. By being able to sacrifice these new cards from play, a player could stack damage for a creature, or make an advantageous block with Illuminated Wings, before cashing in his or her card. The practical uses of these cards are very different from those of cycling, and as a result, they filled a completely different niche. The dots are just too far apart to expect most players to connect them without having the line drawn for them. To even think that they should be connected is stretching the boundaries of where a "mechanic" begins and ends.
This hazy definition of "mechanic" is also evident when Rosewater talks about Invasion block:
"This group [that complains about too many new mechanics] loves to point out that Invasion block only had one mechanic – kicker. But that’s not true. Invasion block had split cards, domain, the divvy mechanic, the upgrade instant spells, gating cards, battlemages, charms, familiars, volvers, sanctuaries."
Now, split cards, domain, divvy and gating are all legitimate "mechanics." Hell, I pointed them out myself when I talked about Invasion in my previous article. They’re each explored to a semi-reasonable extent, although divvy is really only six cards. All of those other "mechanics," however, are just cycles. A cycle is not a mechanic – it’s five cards with some similar aspect or format. In the very loosest sense, that could also be the definition of a mechanic, but if cycles are supposed to be mechanics, that list should be about three times longer, adding protection bears, Dragons, Attendants and a dozen more. The line might be a little blurry, but it’s certainly drawn before simple cycles fall into this category.
When considering the actual mechanics of Invasion Block, it’s also important not to get the real argument confused, which I believe Rosewater does. Although I can’t speak for everyone who has contacted Rosewater about this topic, I have never argued that kicker was Invasion’s only mechanic. Such a claim is certainly untrue and easily dismissed. My point, and I would imagine the point of at least some subset of this group, is that kicker was Invasion’s only keyword. I’ve already written an entire article on this point, so I won’t get into it too deeply here. I’ll just say that having a mechanic like gating is a different animal than keywording it and I am (obviously) less approving than many others of the latter. I would rather the cards got to speak for themselves – it is keyword inflation, and not the straw man of mechanic inflation that concerns me.
As such, I don’t really fit into Rosewater’s first group of complainants. Of course, I don’t really fit into the second group either:
"The next camp seems upset with the new keyword strategy because it plays into a common theme – stop dumbing down the game. My response to this is simple. The game is so complex, it needs all the simplification it can get."
I do think that extra keywords negatively affect the complexity of the game. However, I don’t think they dumb the game down – I feel they make the game more complicated. Every keyword adds more sections to the Comprehensive Rules, and is another thing a new player has to learn when picking up the game. In a single pack of Saviors of Kamigawa, you could open a card with Splice onto Arcane, a card with Bushido, a card with Soulshift, a card with Channel and a card with Sweep. That’s five things a novice player has to learn (or learn to ignore, for ability words) in order to use this one set.
Of course, this is where I lose out by not being inside the loop of market research. Perhaps Mark has documentation that keywords make the game easier to understand for new players. I don’t think they do, but I am one voice in a sea of millions. It’s not just my game, and if a majority of others disagree, then so be it.
Now we come to the portion of Rosewater’s article where he lists the ways in which Sweep failed:
"Sweep fails as a keyword on a number of levels. First, there are just not enough cards to warrant a keyword. Four cards might be acceptable if we were planning to revisit it in the near future (remember that double strike started in Legions with just three cards), but sweep isn’t what I would call a deep deposit vein of design. Second, the cards don’t really have much value by being connected. You’re not going to play the cards together. There’s not a great need to talk about them as a subset. And, third, to be honest, they’re really not up to snuff as something really worthy of a keyword. This isn’t to say they’re not interesting cards, but I think in our zeal to keyword, we finally went to (sic) far."
These are three very valid points, and I’m not going to refute any of them. What I want to point out is that this isn’t the first time a worded mechanic has failed these tests. As Sweep fails, so do some other keywords, like Offering: It was only five cards, none of which are likely to be played together, and while it makes for somewhat "interesting cards," the Patrons weren’t so impressive that they were worthy of a keyword just for them. Epic whiffs on the first two as well, although it gets some points for interest value. I actually like Epic, and I have no real problem with it, but if these are reasons to admit that Sweep was a mistake, then other mechanics should be considered under the same light.
The one criterion that Rosewater rejects is the idea that Sweep cards can function without the keyword. While they can, he doesn’t see that as a reason to not keyword something. I agree to a certain extent. Even though his example of flying actually wouldn’t work without the keyword, more recent adaptations like fear and vigilance recently were just game text. I can live with keywords like these, even though they could just be written out, mostly because they are permanent fixtures. These are "core" keywords, ones that will survive from block to block and appear in base sets. Although it is one more thing to learn when you pick up the game, you will get to keep using that knowledge for the rest of your or the game’s life, whichever ends first.
I am somewhat less thrilled about block keywords that could be written out, but I admit that they serve a purpose. Bushido could easily be game text, but it serves to unify the Samurai creature type, and occurs enough that it is useful to have the name for reference. It also actually abbreviates the ability, and on top of that, it creates additional design space by allowing cards like Takeno, Samurai General to exist. Sweep, of course, doesn’t do any of these things, so the argument still works against it, but I can agree that this should not hold up every potential keyword.
In all, I’m glad Rosewater wrote the column, as it shows that Wizards does recognize the existence of a boundary. Even if I disagree with exactly where it is, or some of the reasons for it, at least I don’t feel like keywords are going to take over the game. With a little luck, maybe they could even be pushed back some.
Signing off,
andy dot clautice at gmail dot com
BONUS SECTION: One With Nothing
I suppose that while I’m talking about the first part of Rosewater’s article, I’ll jump on the bandwagon and weigh in on the other half. Was One With Nothing a mistake?
In my opinion, yes, but I agree with the theory behind it. Bad cards are indeed a necessity, and that’s just something we all have to live with. If no cards were bad, then no cards would be good, and that’s just not a very interesting game. If I am nothing else, let me be clear about that: I understand why bad cards exist, and I accept it.
One With Nothing, however, isn’t a bad card. It’s not even, as Rosewater calls it, a "bad bad card." In fact, it’s not even a card at all.
Cards do things. Some players like to say that certain bad cards "don’t do anything", but even the worst cards have some sort of effect. Mudhole, Pale Moon, Sorrow’s Path – they all provided some service to the person using them. Sure, often that service isn’t very necessary, or is expensive, or comes with a heinous drawback, but it’s something. Mudhole can make a Planar Birth very one-sided. Pale Moon can hop on an Isochron Scepter and make all those nonbasic lands your opponent has (because you’re giving them to her with Shifting Borders) not very useful. At some point, some whacked-out Johnny could give them a shot, and they could serve as a cog in some perverted combo that could conceivably win a game, somehow.
Not this thing. One With Nothing is all drawback with no upside. There’s no service it provides you except shooting yourself in the foot. If you need to discard, there are already cards that do that for you. Cabal Therapy, Skull Fracture, and Funeral Charm all let you dump that fattie for the same one mana, and if you need to bin the entire grip, Putrid Imp has you covered. Even when discarding is profitable, One With Nothing is bad because it costs you so much more than any other possible method.
The only reason to play One With Nothing is to say "I played with One With Nothing," and everyone knows it. The so-called "uber-Johnny" who makes that claim will not be commended, but will meet confused stares. I mean, why bother doing or appreciating something when it’s so clearly contrived just to use this "bad card?" It’s so blatant that it’s not a worthwhile challenge. As a part of the game of Magic, it has no actual value.
At the end of the day, One With Nothing isn’t a card; it is a joke.
It is a joke played by Wizards upon its customers. Every time it is opened in a booster pack, that player gets hosed out of an actual card. It might be funny once, but every time thereafter it is a punch in the gut. While bad cards are a necessary part of the game, this completely unusable travesty goes beyond the limit.
One With Nothing doesn’t anger me, really. I’ve opened plenty of rares that I knew I would never use. However, it’s a rare that I really do think nobody will ever use, which is wasteful. Of course, I could be wrong – if Star City has sold some O.W.N.s that I don’t know about, that would certainly disprove my point. In fact, if even one person has wanted One With Nothing badly enough to exchange money for it, I will rescind my objections.
As I write this, there are 75 (non-foil) copies available in the StarCityGames.com online store. If there are fewer by the time this sees print, just ignore this entire section.