History MagicTheGathering / GameplayTropesJToQ

** 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, historically, 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 has been changing over time and is now hotly contested, though, and the game is constantly being updated with an eye toward balance. For example, on the 2019 tournament scene, green is considered one of the better colors in the Standard format, with several very powerful cards (some of them even had to be banned). White has since taken green's former place as the weakest color.

** And of course, the players themselves are "Planeswalkers," wizards who have grown so powerful they can travel the multiverse, cast all these spells that do sometimes reality- (and game-) breaking things, and summon warriors who are ''vastly'' less powerful than they are.

* LateInstallmentWeirdness: After 2016, the block model of three sets that had been used for 20 years got scrapped in favour of every new set being stand-alone-

** Wizards tends to give these out, not as BS "cash grabs" like many other [=CCGs=], but as one-of-a-kind prizes. Several have been given out as unique prizes within books. One unique card was given at the opening of Wizards' first store in Japan. One was given to the 1997 World Champion. Three more were given to Richard Garfield to commemorate his proposal, wedding, and the birth of his first child, respectively. Wizards has also given its employees silly, "Unglued"-style foil promotional cards at Christmas.

* MythologyGag: The [[https://scryfall.com/search?q=type%3Aclass&unique=cards&as=grid&order=set Class enchantments]] from ''Adventures in the Forgotten Realms'' all incorporate the [[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/08/a7/be/08a7be05262acbf3140b7bc195684e83.png class logos from the Player's Handbook]] in their artwork, sometimes subtly, sometimes obviously.

* NonElemental:
** Artifacts, with a few exceptions, are colorless.
** [[EldritchAbomination Eldrazi]]. Again. Is there any trope they don't fall under?

** Non-Basic lands provide a greater range of powers. Some, such as dual lands, can produce mana of multiple types. Others, such as "[[https://mtg.gamepedia.com/Manland Manlands]]", can generate creatures. Some even change how other lands function, such as the (in)famous [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=131005 Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth]].

** There is also ''deliberate'' creep on the part of Wizards. The overall pattern has been creatures growing in strength while spells get weaker. When the game first came out, LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards was in full effect. The infamous [[https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/power-nine-2003-10-15 Power Nine]] were early cards considered to be the most powerful effects in the game ([[BoringButPractical despite all but one of them being fairly boring in effect]]). Six of them are mana sources while the other three are all spells. There are no creatures in the Power Nine. Meanwhile, [[http://magiccards.info/al/en/103.html Force Of Nature]] was originally the biggest creature in the game, an 8/8 (for 6 mana) that you need to keep paying mana to in order to keep alive. Nowadays, [[http://magiccards.info/zen/en/187.html Terra Stomper]] -- a "strictly better" version with a more flexible casting cost, the upkeep drawback removed, and a small perk added -- is considered ''too weak'' to play in competition. Additionally, compare [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=220176 Serra Angel]], a creature that was at one point removed from the core set for being too powerful, to [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=205077 Baneslayer Angel]], which lacks one of Serra Angel's traits (Vigilance) but replaces it with a metric crap-ton of other stuff. The generally-agreed-upon theory as to why creatures suddenly became extremely useful around 2003-2004 was that, for the first 10 years of the game's life, creatures were largely a total waste of mana. While a few were actually considered "good", such as Morphling and Psychatog, the vast, ''vast'' majority [[LinearWarriorsQuadraticWizards were considered plainly useless compared to Enchantments, Instants, Sorceries]], and even ''Lands''... to the point that most top-tier Type 1 and Type 1.5 decks (now called Vintage and Legacy Formats) were creatureless. Wizards vastly overestimated the effect that creatures had on the game outside of Limited and Standard, and around 8th Edition, realized that they needed to make creatures relevant. What ensued was massive power creep of creatures that were intensely mana-efficient, so that they would be considered just as useful as other card types. [[BatmanGambit It worked]]: it is now very rare for Modern, Legacy, and Vintage decks to contain no creatures, but at the same time they aren't the bulk of most decks, either, with most decks playing between 8 and 18 creatures.

** [[https://scryfall.com/card/2ed/114/lich?utm_source=mci Lich]] is a classic. It essentially turns ''you'' into a lich -- you lose all life, but do not immediately lose the game. Instead, you can discard cards in place of damage taken. If you are unable to discard, ''then'' you lose.
** Another notable early example is [[http://ww2.wizards.com/gatherer/CardDetails.aspx?&id=135271 Lord of the Pit]], an extremely powerful creature for its cost that requires a sacrifice of one creature per turn or it turns on you.

* PsychicPowers: A staple of blue magic, especially anything relating to the (in)famous planeswalker Jace Beleren. In terms of game mechanics, "psychic" abilities most often take the form of forcing your opponent to discard from their hand and/or directly from their deck (attacking their mind and knowledge), removing cards from their graveyard (their memory), and even playing their own cards against them (landing somewhere between MindControl and MindRape).

** [[https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=14653 Jokulhaups]], one of the earliest "clear the field" cards in the game, implies wiping everything away in a flood. Unusually, it requires Mountains, the source of Red mana. The reason? [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B6kulhlaup Jokulhlaups]] are the result of melting glaciers, which would require a lot of Red mana.

** It's possible to attack your opponent's lands, denying them their mana.

* ManaDrain: [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=1491 Mana Drain]], [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=3903 Drain Power]], and [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?id=25567 Mana Short]], among others.