Is Magic The Gathering on steriods?

I am glad to host here an article from Serpen, and old Magic the Gathering player and a person with a deep knowledge of the game. Even if he is not a mtgolibrary.blogspot writer, welcome him!

I started playing Magic in 1994. Back then Goblins where what we called "born to die creatures". Small creature with no job but to hopefully get out quick, deal some minor damge then be used to block bigger creatures. Cards like Wrath of God was like the Loch Ness Monster. Eveyone knew someone who had seen one, But never seen one themselves. Combos where simple. Normally nothing more than putting an equip enchantment on a creature. Worse one then was Fire Breathing on a Wall of Stone. Game winners where Shivan Dragon (one of my favs), Crawl Wurm, Segnir Vampire, Earth and Air Elemental. Back then Magic was like chess. Strategy was everything.

Now there are a couple one turn kill combos. Combos that end the game as soon as they are played.

I started playing Magic Online shortly after the birth of the Planeswalkers. Like everyone else I became fasinated by them. In talking with a fellow clan member about the new Planeswalkers he had made the comment "Why don't they put at the bottom of each of the Planeswalker If I am still here in 2 turns the game is over". After that I started to look at them and saw that most of them could use their biggest ability on the third turn. As time goes on the Planeswalkers are getting more powerful. Most of them even have 4 or 5 casting making them fast to get out.

Then came Exalted. Most low casting creatures that can turn a single 1/1 into a 4/4 or bigger. This gave decks a mindless speed. No stategy needed. Just load up your deck with them and attack.

Then magic gave birth to the Eldrazi. Massive creatures with Annihilator X. These creatures force your apponent to sacrifice X permantents before you can even block. With high casting you dont see to many of them. Good call on that one Magic. But with some cards the Eldrazi can hit the field in 4 or 5 turns. I had made a deck like this and am now blocked by a couple of players who didn't like the idea I could play them out so fast. I had even used them in a tourney with my clan and ended up making one clan member very upset with me for it. Sorry.

Now its getting even worse. With the birth of infect. Nasty creatures that deal poison counter to players and -1/-1 counters to creatures. With poison it doesn't matter how much life you have, 10 poison counters and its game over. Infect decks are running wild all over Magic. Small powerful creatures that can kill with mindless speed. Like with Exalted all you need to do is throw a few of these infect creatures into a deck and its game over. Now abilities like this have been on Magic for awhile. Abilities like wither. But I havent seen much of them. Now every time I play I am seeing infect.


To me it looks like Magic The Gathering is looking for more powerful cards instead of making players work with strategy. It is taking all the fun out of the game. Even they are seeing it. They resently took Jace The Mindsculptor off the standard list. But even seeing this mistake isn't stopping them. With the release of every new set Magic is putting out even more powerful cards. When is enough enough? I am all for the powerful cards, but make them harder to play or use. Jace Beleren is a show of this. In order to put counters on you must allow your opponent to draw a card as well as yourself. So far he is the only one that has an effect that benifits your opponent. Give the cards a higher casting or in some way benifit your opponent or hurt yourself in order to get the big effect.

By Serpen