General Good cards you don't run because they are ugly

TrainmasterGT

TrainmasterGT

Velrun said:
So should I go with old or new Genesis?

Question for all

View attachment 2439 View attachment 2440
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New is hands down better in every way except maybe the frame.


I find this card art to be incredibly ugly:

...Which is a shame, because I actually like the way this card plays a lot.

I wish she had this art:
Image.ashx

I don't like this card at all, but the art is superior.
 
Chris Taylor

Chris Taylor

Contributor
TrainmasterGT said:
New is hands down better in every way except maybe the frame.


I find this card art to be incredibly ugly:

...Which is a shame, because I actually like the way this card plays a lot.

I wish she had this art:
Image.ashx

I don't like this card at all, but the art is superior.
Click to expand...

Here you go:
Liliana of the Veil.png
I can't really do the out of frame effect the original has, but I thought it looked better a bit zoomed out. The hi-rez artwork is a bit wider than what they used on the card
https://www.artstation.com/artwork/yK9lx
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

I heavily prefer new borders because they are cleaner and more space is given to the text box and illustration. The thick borders of older MTG cards made sense given the printing process of its day, but their size now sticks out to me when compared to the newer border or games with no borders like Android: Netrunner or Legend of the Five Rings.

The downside is that newer art is often much less evocative and more aggressive. But that's another subject.
--

Something I want to do, though, is try to keep complexity down. Many cards are busy with abilities and the overload in rares has led to a cube that is harder to parse for less experienced players than I would like. I'm considering cutting some cards (or minor mechanics) for that reason, too.
 
ahadabans

ahadabans

Erik Twice said:
Something I want to do, though, is try to keep complexity down. Many cards are busy with abilities and the overload in rares has led to a cube that is harder to parse for less experienced players than I would like. I'm considering cutting some cards (or minor mechanics) for that reason, too.
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Concur completely with this. Now that I no longer have a regular cubing group, it's generally just a thing that happens randomly. And that means I'm playing with people that are just not plugged in the game anymore (or at all). Some of these newer cards are mechanically sound and interesting from a design standpoint but are also super intimidating with all the text. While it's arguably boring just to run Eternal Witness, everyone can clearly see what it does and how that can be useful. It's elegant, has a ton of synergy and took me 1 second to read and grasp.

I basically want to build a cube with 360 eternal witnesses in it. There aren't enough elegant magic cards of the appropriate power/synergy level with clean text like this though. Yet. One day maybe though. I hope the game survives long enough for that cube to exist.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Erik Twice said:
Something I want to do, though, is try to keep complexity down. Many cards are busy with abilities and the overload in rares has led to a cube that is harder to parse for less experienced players than I would like. I'm considering cutting some cards (or minor mechanics) for that reason, too.
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I actually went through my cube, I think a year or two ago, to do a keyword count. For each keyword that appeared only once or twice, I decided to (in order of likeliness); 1) cut those cards, 2) add more cards with the same keyword, 3) keep the card(s) because it/they was vital to an archetype. You know, drafting a cube is not unlike drafting Time Spiral, with the bewildering number of different keywords we run. It seems like a small, even silly thing to do, but complexity creep is a real thing in cube, and keeping the number of different keywords in check is one more thing we could do to keep complexity down.
 
Velrun

Velrun

I am not entirely in the opposite boat but almost.

My players aren’t newbies and actual know all the cards just by reading the names. I try to have as much diversity in my cube as possible. This is the whole reason why the cube has 90 % singleton and 10 % doubles and tribles in various ways.

If you guys prefer it simple, maybe you should completely abandon the singleton/99 % singleton ‘rule’?

Aggro Madness is easier with 3 Basking Rootwalla’s for example.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Velrun said:
If you guys prefer it simple, maybe you should completely abandon the singleton/99 % singleton ‘rule’?
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Carefully cultivating the complexity of your cube doesn't equal a preference for a simple cube. I don't want a simple cube, I just want to spend my "complexity points" on the right elements. If a card doesn't contribute to/synergizes with an archetype in some way, but does introduce a new keyword, that card introduces complexity for very little gain. If two different cards compete for a slot (say two cheap burn spells), and are of comparable power level (and "fun level", as subjective as that is), but one of them introduces a new keyword, I prefer to include the one that doesn't. On the other hand, I still run Abzan Falconer as my only outlast card, because there isn't really a replacement that can fill the same role in the +1/+1 counters archetype, and it's an important signpost for that deck. I looked at other outlast cards to include, but they're really lackluster, so the Falconer remains alone.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Let’s talk about your complexity points :) Nice phrase by the way!

It is my understanding and my point before that each cube gets more/less complexity points depending of the players who has to understand and enjoy the playing experience of the cube.

So in other words: The more hardcore players => The more complexity points your cube will get. The less experienced players will contribute with less points. It can be argued that we are not talking about a total sum of CPs but but instead only focusing on the least experienced player in order for that person to understand and enjoy the playing experience of the cube.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
I agree that the more experienced the least experienced player in your player base is, the more complexity points you can "spend" on your cube, but I'ld argue that even a very experienced playgroup can benefit from not using up all your complexity points. Also, there's a lot of places where you can spend them, including unexpected ones. To name just two that wouldn't be immediately obvious to everyone, I think, both flattening your power band and increasing the percentage of mana fixing costs complexity points, because both lead to more viable picks in every booster, meaning players will have a harder time figuring out the "right" pick.

Basically, anything that
  • increases the number of viable picks in a booster
  • increases board state complexity during games
  • increases the time to process what individual cards do
  • decreases the cohesion of the cube
costs complexity points.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

Onderzeeboot said:
It seems like a small, even silly thing to do, but complexity creep is a real thing in cube
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It's a real thing in Magic in general. When I look at the cards on my cube, newer cards have much more text than older cards do. For good reasons, mind, but the difference is there.

For me this is important because the people I'm going to be playing at my local boardgame club and I know my players will face some problems.

1) They'll have to read the cards. Half of the cards in my cube are modern, half are older. There's only going to be a couple people there that have played with both Urza Saga and Innistrad and none of them are me!

2) It's not the game they are used to. The players who played back in 4th edition and the players who started in Kaladesh will see Magic in my cube is not the game they are used to.

3) They'll draft simpler archetypes. I think most players will build fairly generic archetpyes like "Black/White control" or "put similar cards together". I have to keep that in mind when building archetypes. I'm also going to provide a short page to them before the draft listing colour combinations and some of the possible decks so they know "hey, this sacrifice a creature card is a good pick!"

That said, I'm mostly building a cube I like and I know I'm supporting ideas that might not get played very much, like Lands.

4) They'll misevaluate some of the cards. I know the "modern era" players will misjudge some of the older cards. I know people are going to think Yawghmoth's will is stronger than it actually is and so on. And that's fine, but these cards shouldn't be traps.

I haven't started to cull by complexity yet, but it's something I have on the back of my head. I know I have like one or two "spectacle" cards, only one morph and so on.

Velrun said:
It is my understanding and my point before that each cube gets more/less complexity points depending of the players who has to understand and enjoy the playing experience of the cube.
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I would simply say that complexity is a cost for your players. The more complex you make your cube, the more effort and knowledge players will need to play it. So if you have more involved and knowledgeable players, you can incur in higher costs because you know your players can support them.
 
Velrun

Velrun

You can see it as a cost but I do not think that is entirely the case.

Imagine four super experienced board game players who are use to playing Risk 2210AD, Civilization etc. If they are suddenly told to play the simple Settlers of Catan, Ludo or Monopoly. They will feel bored and crave for more decision making and more complex situations and ways to grow in the game.

You need the right amount. Not too much, not too little.

And if you have a player base who are not use to Magic then you need a low amount of complexity compared to an experienced crowd.
 
Erik Twice

Erik Twice

It's a cost because complexity on its own doesn't make a game strategically deeper or more fun. After all, there's more decision making in Go and Chess, which are very simple games than in the average Fantasy Flight game, despite the latter being significantly more complex. In other words, complexity is a cost because it's not a goal in and on itself. You don't make a game better by making it more complex, you make a game more complex because sometimes the things that are actually interesting or fun require you to.

To put it in Magic terms. Is the depth and interested added by Rix Maadi Reveler to my cube worth the cost of having players read yet another mechanic? What about Humilty? Is the cost it imposes on players when it comes to rulings worth the fun and strategic depth it provides? These are questions you should ask yourself as a cube designer, or as a game designer as a whole. And it's actually a topic of great concern amongst game designers. I know Mr Rosewater has covered the subject on his drive to work podcast and so have the designers of Ludology. I recommend checking them because I think they offer a valuable perspective.
 
Aston

Aston

I'm not sure I agree that more keywords = more complexity. Like, what's the actual difference between

"Amass 1. (Put a +1/+1 counter on an Army you control. If you don't control one, create a 0/0 black Zombie Army creature token first.)"

and

"Put a +1/+1 counter on an Army you control. If you don't control one, create a 0/0 black Zombie Army creature token first."

If anything, the first is easier to remember after you've read it once or twice.
 
Onderzeeboot

Onderzeeboot

Ecstatic Orb
Keywords are a handy way to shorthand abilities, but that concept only works if you get to see an ability a second time. The first time you see an ability, you actually have to read more words before you know what the card does. Hence, keywords work best when they show up multiple times.
 
Aston

Aston

Onderzeeboot said:
Keywords are a handy way to shorthand abilities, but that concept only works if you get to see an ability a second time. The first time you see an ability, you actually have to read more words before you know what the card does. Hence, keywords work best when they show up multiple times.
Click to expand...


Or if you draft the cube multiple times.
 
Velrun

Velrun

Erik Twice said:
It's a cost because complexity on its own doesn't make a game strategically deeper or more fun. After all, there's more decision making in Go and Chess, which are very simple games than in the average Fantasy Flight game, despite the latter being significantly more complex. In other words, complexity is a cost because it's not a goal in and on itself. You don't make a game better by making it more complex, you make a game more complex because sometimes the things that are actually interesting or fun require you to.

To put it in Magic terms. Is the depth and interested added by Rix Maadi Reveler to my cube worth the cost of having players read yet another mechanic? What about Humilty? Is the cost it imposes on players when it comes to rulings worth the fun and strategic depth it provides? These are questions you should ask yourself as a cube designer, or as a game designer as a whole. And it's actually a topic of great concern amongst game designers. I know Mr Rosewater has covered the subject on his drive to work podcast and so have the designers of Ludology. I recommend checking them because I think they offer a valuable perspective.
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To answer your question, a professionel player will not care if you add Rix Maadi Reveler because he knows the card even without reading it.

So let me repeat: You need the right amount ofcomplexity (like Chess) for a game to be interesting for a longer period of time. Otherwise your simple game (Ludo) will get boring really quickly because you are too smart to enjoy things that are too simple. You need the right amount, not too much, not too little.
 
Felipe Budinich

Felipe Budinich

The only thing I try to avoid as much as possible is white bordered cards, but that is something I'll just have to deal with once I get a set of duals (I don't see myself getting alpha/beta ones due to the cost).

But I'm seriously considering a beta Dark Ritual, Bolt and Llanowar Elves.
 
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