Delving into Lazy Card Design

In the aftermath of Pro Tour: Oath of the Gatewatch, there’s a lot of talk going on that says the Eldrazi are overpowered in Modern. The arguments are based on how the Eldrazi overwhelmed the Pro Tour this time around with decks fueled by a mana base reminiscent of Ancient Tomb and Mishra’s Workshop in Vintage Shops decks.

Many are even calling for/predicting an emergency ban of either Eye of Ugin or Eldrazi Temple. I won’t be surprised if time proves the Eldrazi are too strong for Modern, but like I explained in my previous blog entry, it’s too soon to tell whether the Eldrazi are going to have a format-warping Caw Blade effect on Modern.

Either way, the result of this Pro Tour is yet another clue that there is a fundamental flaw in how WotC is designing cards. Phyrexian mana. Stoneforge Mystic bypassing the casting cost of Batterskull. Getting a free spell off Bloodbraid Elf. And perhaps the worst offender of all: Delve. Cost reduction is a design tool that, in my estimation, has been implemented carelessly by WotC in card design. Whenever I see a card that lowers the casting cost of either itself or other cards, all I see is evidence that people at Wizards got lazy with design.

“Clearly you don’t appreciate powerful, low-costed spells.” – Snob Rhino

Do they not understand when they make cards like these that using cost reduction or overly efficient mana as a card design tool is dangerous? They can’t be ignorant of the history of Magic: the Gathering, can they? I don’t think they are, so the only other option is that they get lazy at times, and instead of being creative, they just throw in a cost reduction.

I mean, seriously: Dig Through Time AND Treasure Cruise in the same set? They’re basically the same card. How is this not evidence that they just stopped trying? And that’s not even considering that both Dig and Cruise are overpowered, cheap, blue card draw, that ended up getting banned or restricted in every format outside of Standard.

Was a Logic Knot variant deemed too good to reprint?

There were no cost reduction designs in Oath of the Gatewatch, but given their decision to shift from the big mana/big effect Battleship Eldrazi that emerged in Rise to the sleek and efficient Ferrari Eldrazi in Oath, WotC should have considered the interactions such cards would have on non-rotating formats.

Care to have a race? I Thought-Knot.

Yes, I am aware that they don’t test nearly as extensively for the larger formats as they do for Standard and Limited, but, prior to Oath of the Gatewatch, there were only 20 or so cards that had anything at all to do with Eldrazi. How much effort would it have taken for someone at WotC to spend an hour or two looking them up on Gatherer?

WotC should have predicted the outcome of this Pro Tour. And I think they would have (and could have prevented it), had they been more careful. But, as we’ve seen, their track record with cost reduction/”free” spells isn’t great, so of course #PTOGW was dominated by a Vintage-esque strategy.

WotC banned Splinter Twin “in the interest of competitive diversity,” and what we got at the Pro Tour was a tournament which was neither interesting nor diverse. I barely watched the Top 8. There’s only so much of the same deck I care to watch.

Hopefully too much damage hasn’t been done, and if it has, hopefully it will be fixed before too long. Most of all, I hope WotC learns a lesson from this.