I remember some of the first games of Magic the Gathering I played in middle school outside on the bare and hot cement with some friends. Later on dirty lunch tables in highschool and finally years playing in competitive events with carefully sleeved cards.

What hasn’t really changed is the game itself. Sure there’s some new rules, mechanics and card types but the base gameplay is the same. This I both consider a blessing and a curse.

The good thing about the core game is that someone who has played magic once can play it again at anytime in its future and still have the gameplay experience they want. This is a huge boon for casual players that might buy some cards every time a set comes out, play for a bit, then put the game down to do other things with their life until the next set comes out. A lot of players that come out regularly to draft or play constructed have their fun for the day and don’t put much more thought into what the game is actually doing.

The bad thing is that the core system is over 20 years old. When you dig deeper into the game you start finding a lot of flaws that are incredibly difficult to fix with how the game currently operates. These problems include the resource system, player vs player dynamics, and the power creep that comes from keeping things exciting and new. Today we are going over the resource system.

A lot of games of magic end when a player either gets mana screwed(not enough resources) or mana flooded(drew too many resources); its not often that players have a close and interesting game. Even in games where players are trading evenly on resources, an incredibly powerful card can push a player far enough ahead that the game is effectively over before it is done.

Really the main problem here is the resource system and having it tied to the deck. Digital card games such as Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra have detached the resource system from the deck. There are immense benefits to this such as never running out of options(all draws are live), designing cards for specific stages of the game(everyone has the same amount of resources), and reducing the overall rng in the game. The experience is simply better on all levels as both players are constantly engaged in the game. There is never a time when a player is simply unable to play the game.

PROBLEM: MTG’s resource system is tied to an RNG mechanic, the deck.

THE CONSTRAINTS: Unpacking the problem leads to more problems with the game as a product; any major changes are likely to nullify the 20 years of backlog the game supports which will estrange all the players heavily invested in the game. The secondary market for this game is a problem in itself (decks costing upward of $1000) and heavily discourages the want for change. As the game stands it has a lot of momentum and popularity so there’s no real reason to change anything from the company’s perspective but lets work with a hypothetical situation where we have the chance to change anything we want to.

SOLUTION 1: Make a separate deck that only contains mana. Players draw a card from both decks every turn.

CONSEQUENCES: You still have some of the RNG mechanics of what sort of mana you draw but players are always drawing action. This system really changes how the game needs to cost cards and what types of abilities can exist on cards. Currently expensive cards in the game are partially balanced around the difficulty to reach that many lands, after 3-4 lands each land drawn over action makes it more likely that player lose the game before they reach enough mana to play the more expensive card. With a constant flow of resources over the course of the game cards need to be costed to a new standard of what is the early, mid, and late game. There also needs to be more ways to utilize a lot of the extra mana otherwise we will end up with players still feeling like they can do nothing to affect the game on many turns.

SOLUTION 2: Add a global rule that once per turn(on your turn), you can discard a card to search the deck for any land and put it into your hand

CONSEQUENCES: Deck building suddenly changes as you only play the max amount of lands you would ever need to play any card in your deck(unlikely more than 5-6 lands). One of the problems though is how colors are restricted, in the current game multicolored cards are much harder to cast and are generally more powerful as a result. With this system more restrictions have to be put into place such as deck building rules on how many colors you can play. The costing and design of multicolored cards could also heavily change, needing multiples of specific colors more often (ex: a 2RG card might instead cost RRGG). There’s an additional side effect where aggressive decks get worse as there’s no point where an opponent is stumbling to stay in the game.

SOLUTION 3: Add a global rule that every card has cycling 3 (pay 3: discard the card and draw a new one).

CONSEQUENCES: This change has the lowest impact on the game. It doesn’t fix mana screw but it does fix mana flooding. It also helps find more impactful action later in the game by cycling out cards that are not good in the situation your in. It takes time and mana to cycle cards leaving openings for more aggressive decks to continue to apply pressure. It also creates relevant decision making, do you play your 6th land so you can cycle twice later or do you cycle it now instead and hope to find something better sooner.

SOLUTION 4: Global rule, before you draw a card, Scry 1(look at the top card of your deck, you may put it on the top or bottom of your deck)

CONSEQUENCES: Players are more likely to find the cards they need throughout the game, be it mana or spells. This does add a significant amount of consistency to the game which conflicts with the idea of a card game. Card games are meant to create different and unique game states every game and this ups the frequency of seeing highly impactful cards. It also makes multiple colors of mana easier to achieve over the course of a game making multiple colors less of a cost. The big upside here is that it heavily rewards skillful play. The downside is that there are still instances of drawing dead cards for the current game state.

Out of all of these solutions #3 and #4 are the cleanest without revamping the entire game. A big reason people play magic is they have access to a vast backlog of cards to build decks with and this keeps all of those cards playable. You also keep the core mechanics of the game similar so all the gained knowledge of deck building and play patterns will still matter without forcing established players to relearn the game from scratch. With #3 the game still flows forward but still creates openings where a player can stumble and the other player catches up or pushes ahead. With #4 the more skilled player is more likely to pull ahead over the course of the game.

So which one to choose? I think solution 3 would resonate better with players. Every card has the potential to be another card. Deck building is a little more interesting as its reasonable to play one specific card to deal with specific strategies and board states. I also think players are more likely to play more lands in their deck to make sure they hit their 3rd land drop to be able to take advantage of the new global rule, which reduces the likelihood that they get mana screwed.