History MagicTheGathering / GameplayTropes

* TacticalRockPaperScissors: Present in the three standard categories of tournament decks: aggressive, combination, or control (aggro, combo, and control). Sometimes decks can play as either of two roles, but not as well as a deck truly dedicated to that role. The three roles fall into a rock-paper-scissors scenario: Aggro decks play multiple redundant threats to keep the pressure on and overwhelm Control decks. Combo decks use cards that are individually relatively weak but synergize to create powerful effects that can overcome even the strong threats from an Aggro deck. Control decks focus on defense foremost and use card-removal effects to dismantle combos — if a Control deck removes one part of a three-card combo, it cripples the whole combo, while removing one of three Aggro deck cards will leave the other two to continue attacking. So basically: Control < Combo < Aggro < Control.

* AttackReflector: [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=o%3A%22is+dealt+to+target+creature+or+player+instead%22&v=card&s=cname many cards]] (usually white) work as damage reflectors for you or your creatures.

* BlessedWithSuck: Many of the extremely mighty creatures ([[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=191312 Darksteel Colossus]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=259706 Serra Avatar]], ...) have an ability that puts them back into the deck every time they hit the graveyard. Sounds great, until you realize that this is a deliberate safety measure to prevent players from discarding and reanimating them, thus circumventing paying their steep cost.

* BroughtDownToNormal: Numerous cards exist which remove the abilities of target creatures. For instance, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=96918 Crash Landing]] targets creatures with flying while [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=83008 Blood Moon]] turns all non-basic lands (which notably can do things like create more one one type of mana, or have special powerful effects) into basic, mundane mountains.

* CannibalismSuperpower: Implied with [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=228232 Mimeoplasm]]. When it enters play, you exile two creatures from your graveyard. Mimeoplasm becomes a copy of one of the cards (power, toughness, abilities) with a number of +1/+! counters equal to the power of the other card.

* CaveMouth: The card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=129598 Howling Mine]] looks like this most of the time, DependingOnTheArtist.

* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: the enchantment cards [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Fear Fear]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Lifelink Lifelink]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Vigilance Vigilance]], and [[http://magiccards.info/m10/en/17.html Indestructibility]] give the enchanted creature the abilities ''Fear'', ''Lifelink'', ''Vigilance'', and ''Indestructible'', respectively.

** In a metagame sense, this is present in with regards to the color system. For casual players, the five colors are more or less equally good. At the competitive level, blue (the color most associated with magic and "wizards") is typically viewed as the best color while green (the color most associated with creatures and hence, "warriors") is typically viewed as the worst. This is hotly contested, though, and the game is constantly being updated with an eye toward balance. For example, by 2019, green is one of the better colors in the Standard format, with several very powerful cards (some of them even had to be banned). White has taken green's former place as the weakest color.

** Happens so frequently that the term "[[http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Strictly_better strictly better]]" has entered the ''Magic'' lexicon to describe the phenomenon. Card A is "strictly better" than Card B when they are identical in most parameters, and in the ones where they're different Card A has a clear advantage, meaning that Card A is preferable to Card B in almost all situations. Specific example: [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=209 Lightning Bolt]] costs 1 mana and deals 3 damage where [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=5143 Shock]] does only 2. (An incomplete list of cards that fit the "strictly better" comparison can be viewed [[[[http://mtgsalvation.gamepedia.com/Strictly_better here]].) In total fairness, the game is over [[LongRunner 20 years]] and 15,000+ cards old, which simply suggests that PowerCreep is inevitable.

* PressXToDie: A handful of actions will do nothing useful and just harm you or your creatures. For example, ''normally'', when you cast [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=420833 Progenitor Mimic]], you target another creature and the Mimic become a copy of that creature [[MookMaker that makes more copies]]. However, the ability responsible specifies "may", which means you don't ''have'' to do any of that, in which case "Progenitor Mimic enters the battlefield as a 0/0 Shapeshifter creature and is probably put into the graveyard immediately."
** Mana in Magic pays for almost anything a player wants to do. In Magic's early days, the mana pool emptied at the end of each phase of a turn as well as before and after combat. Mana is almost always voluntarily generated by a player by using their land, artifacts, and creatures. In early editions, having unspent mana in your pool when it emptied resulted in mana burn, or loss of life.

** In a metagame sense, this is present in with regards to the color system. For casual players, the five colors are more or less equally good. At the competitive level, blue (the color most associated with magic and "wizards") is typically viewed as the best color while green (the color most associated with creatures and hence, "warriors") is typically viewed as the worst. This is hotly contested, though, and the game is constantly being updated with an eye toward balance.
*** By 2019, green is one of the better colors in the Standard format, with several very powerful cards (some of them even had to be banned). White has taken green's former place as the weakest color.

*** By 2019, green is one of the most prominent colors in the Standard format, with several very powerful cards. White has taken green's former place as the weakest color.

** The staple White PowerLimiter [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=259711 Oblivion Ring]] exiles a card when it enters play, and returns that card to play when it leaves. As the entry itself states, "If Oblivion Ring leaves the battlefield before its first ability has resolved, its second ability will trigger and do nothing. Then its first ability will resolve and exile the targeted nonland permanent forever." This was problematic enough that they designed an ObviousRulePatch version called [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=380375 Banishing Light]], and used that card's wording for most subsequent similar cards.

** The Spanish version of the M11 card [[http://magiccards.info/m11/es/94.html Disentomb]] mistranslated "Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand" as "Return target creature card from your graveyard to ''play''". ''That'' would make the card significantly ''better''.

** [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=48923 Krark's Thumb]] and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=9665 Goblin Bookie]], allow you to re-flip a coin if you lose the flip.

** Throat Wolf, a creature that supposedly had "firstest strike". This was before cardlists were available...

** As seen with Aboroth, Age Counters in general accomplish this. Many creatures and artifacts can be summoned for less initial mana relative to their power, but have an age counter added each turn. The cost to keep each permanent in play gets higher each turn, until it is no longer possible to keep it around any longer

** Age Counters are another method of accomplishing this. Many creatures and artifacts can be summoned for less initial mana relative to their power, but have an age counter added each turn. You must pay upkeep equal to the amount of age counters on it (usually in mana, but sometimes in life) or else sacrifice it. Eventually, no matter how powerful the card, the upkeep cost no longer becomes worthwhile.

** There are a number of powerful creatures who can be summoned initially for relatively low mana, but require some form of cumulative upkeep in order to keep them in play. A prominent example is [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=4505 Aboroth]], a 9/9 creature for six mana but who gets a -1/-1 counter per turn ''AND'' requires you to pay an upkeep cost for each counter. Essentially, you pay more as it gets weaker.

* JunkRare: There are a lot of these, usually [[TheyPlottedAPerfectlyGoodWaste on purpose]]. Mark Rosewater, the head designer, wrote a lengthy [[JustifiedTrope justification]] of the practice titled [[http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom/daily/mr9 "Rare, but Well Done"]], in which he discusses in great detail why this trope exists. [[invoked]]

** ''VideoGame/MagicTheGatheringOnline'''s "Vanguard" has several Vanguard avatars which pull random effects like these. Most prominently, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=182271 Momir Vig]] allows you to pay X mana to make a copy of a random creature that also costs X mana, spawning an entire alternative format called Momir Basic, where players build a deck using only mana sources and a Momir Vig avatar and battle with randomized creatures from all over ''Magic''. [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=182252 Jhoira of the Ghitu]] has a similar effect for instants and sorceries; likewise with [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=182254 Stonehewer Giant]] and equipment.

** The AI in ''VideoGame/DuelsOfThePlaneswalkers'' generally knows what to do with each of the decks, excepting a few mistakes it'll consistently make. However, in 2013, it has no idea what to do with the Plane cards in Planechase. It'll throw mana at rolling the planar die even when a success won't actually do anything, or when the current plane favors their deck, or when it really ought to attack before doing so, or in a few cases when a success would be actively detrimental (say, bringing them closer to death by milling).

* EverythingsSquishierWithCephalopods:
** When the folks in charge got tired of Merfolk, they decided to try replacing them with the Cephalid squid-folk for a while in the ''Odyssey'' block. Squids are cool, right?
** [[http://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/mm/60 Mark Rosewater's description]] of the origin of [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=191369 Lorthos, the Tidemaker]] (the legendary Octopus from ''Zendikar'') fits the trope quite well.

** Every set introduces new rules terms and long-standing parts of the game may have their names or the related rules changed if necessary. The concept of the "exile" zone, for example, has been in the game since the very first set, but did not receive its current name until 2009. (Exiling cards is a way of removing them from play that's more final than most methods. It used to be called "removed from the game" but was renamed, partly because so many design ideas wanted to interact with cards that had been exiled or be used while the card itself was exiled, so "removed from the game" seemed more and more inaccurate.)

* DeathIsCheap:
** Or rather, "being removed from the game is cheap". Most permanents and spells that are destroyed, discarded or otherwise gotten rid of go to the graveyard zone by default, but ever since the game was new a few abilities here and there send their targets or themselves to the "removed from game" zone. But such effects have slowly become more common over the years, and two cards were printed that retrieved any card that had been removed from the game, and variations on the effect like suspend have proved very powerful and popular. So in a 2009 rules change, the description of the "remove from game" effect was changed to "exile", to reflect the fact that there's a good chance it hasn't been "removed from the game" at all.
** [[ParodiedTrope Parodied]] by the unhinged card "AWOL", which first removes an attacking creature from the game, and then takes that creature from the "removed from the game" zone and puts it in a state called "[[DeaderThanDead absolutely-removed-from-the-freaking-game-forever]]".

** ''MagicTheGathering Online'''s "Vanguard" has several Vanguard avatars which pull random effects like these. Most prominently, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=182271 Momir Vig]] allows you to pay X mana to make a copy of a random creature that also costs X mana, spawning an entire alternative format called Momir Basic, where players build a deck using only mana sources and a Momir Vig avatar and battle with randomized creatures from all over ''Magic''. [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=182252 Jhoira of the Ghitu]] has a similar effect for instants and sorceries; likewise with [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=182254 Stonehewer Giant]] and equipment.

* {{Counterspell}}: [[http://magiccards.info/query?q=o%3A%22counter+target%22+o%3Aspell+t%3A%22instant%22&v=card&s=cname Loads and loads of examples]], including the TropeNamer. Each card in a player's deck is considered a spell, and cards with the types "Interrupt" or "Instant" may be played in response to other spells -- such as those your opponent tries to play. The modern standard for counterspells in ''Magic'' is Cancel -- as in, "I cancel your spell."

* {{Griefer}}: The ''New Phyrexia'' expansion was [[IntentionalTrope intentionally designed with Griefing in mind]], and contains many cards that are intended to make your opponent feel bad. For example, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=247341 Shattered Angel]] takes something they normally feel happy about (getting more mana) and makes them feel bad about it (by making you gain life every time they play a land); there's a similar dynamic with cards like [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=214063 Consecrated Sphinx]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=217981 Suture Priest]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=233067 Invader Parasite]], and so on.\\

[[folder: A to K]]

---> That card is an embarrassment to card design. I actually had zero to do with the card and I'm still embarrassed. We took two iconic beloved cool legends and combined them into a pile of, well a word I'm not allowed to use on this site. Of all the balls dropped with the design of legendary characters, this is one near the top of the list. My humblest apologies.

--> '''Player 1:''' Shock on Player 2's [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=220179 Merfolk Looter]].\\

--->''Design leads to progress.''
--->''Progress leads to inspiration.''
--->''Inspiration leads to design.''

--> ''Rise of the Eldrazi'' is going to be a set built around the Eldrazi creatures, all of which have no color and are giant. For example, there are two Eldrazi at common, the smaller of which is 7/7. All of the Eldrazi have a new keyword called annihilator. Creatures with annihilator have a number; whenever a creature with annihilator attacks, the defending player must sacrifice that many permanents. The Eldrazi are very expensive but there are cards that can create 0/1 tokens called Eldrazi Spawn that can be sacrificed to add one colorless mana to your mana pool and will help you be able to cast the Eldrazi. In addition, the set has a new ability called level up. You may spend mana on creatures with level up to improve their stats and abilities. This Limited environment is much slower than the one in ''Zendikar''.

--> These kids today with their collector numbers and their newfangled tap symbol. Twenty [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=600 Black Lotuses]] and 20 [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3871 Plague Rats]]. Now that's real '''Magic'''.

** The art for the cards has evolved over the years due to both a preference for more detailed, elaborate art, and much more meticulous guidance given to the artists. For example, when the company commissioned the art for the card [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=70 Lord of the Pit]], they reportedly gave the artist a one-word instruction: "balrog". (This was years before the LordOfTheRings movies were made.) Under the circumstances, it came out pretty well, but today artists get multi-paragraph descriptions of what the image on the card should look like, generally designed taking into account both exactly what the card itself does and the flavor and description of the world of the current set. Nowadays comprehensive style guides and concept art are made for each set, or consecutive block of set that share the same setting: for example, the goblins of the ''Scars of Mirrodin'' block have a large round head with a sharp snout and long pointed ears.

* CastFromSanity: This is the case for decks built around the keyword abilities Hellbent, Madness ([[CaptainObvious yeah]]), and, to a lesser extent, Dredge. Sanity is represented by the cards left in your hand and in your library; an empty hand is unstable, an empty library is when a planeswalker is going to completely lose their mind. Madness allows you to sacrifice short-term sanity to play the card you're discarding cheaply[[note]]in fact, it can only be used when you’re discarding the card ''anyway'', so it’s a case of “use it or lose it”[[/note]]; Hellbent denotes cards that gain an advantage when your hand is empty; and Dredge allows you to affect your long-term sanity to recur things from your graveyard.

** Finally, it should be pointed out that "strictly better" cards almost always have another downside: they're [[CrackIsCheaper strictly more expensive]], especially in cases like Lightning Bolt vs Shock where the more powerful card was deliberately {{Nerf}}ed. How much more? In this case, ''ten times more'' (25¢ vs $2.50). And let's not even ''talk'' about the value difference between the aforementioned Serra and Baneslayer Angels.[[note]]Serra Angel is a Rare; you are guaranteed to get a Rare in every 15-card "booster pack" you buy. Baneslayer Angel is a ''Mythic'' Rare, which replaces the Rare in about one of every ''eight'' booster packs.[[/note]]