[Community Discussion]: What makes a card good?
General forum
Posted on March 5, 2017, 10:31 a.m. by Epochalyptik
What is it that makes a card good?
I wrote a long time ago about the characteristics of a strong deck:
But what is it about an individual card that makes it good? Does it have to cost a certain amount? Do a certain thing?
Are there any qualities that make a card bad? Things that will never be "overcome" no matter what else the card can do?
If there are two cards that are functionally similar, how do you choose between them? What factors make the difference?
Is there such thing as a card that's universally good? Or one that's universally bad? How important is context in determining how good a card will be?
Is there a difference between a card being good and being playable? How do you determine which cards are worthwhile in your deck?
Triforce-Finder says... #2
sylvannos, Maybe you want to improve that spectrum theory...
Wood Elemental is far from being anything like the worst card. It's one of the few sac outlets for lands. Ever had a Titania, Protector of Argoth EDH player drop it to get 4 5/3 elementals and just stomp you dead, maybe with Crucible of Worlds, Life from the Loam, or Splendid Reclamation?
It is also quite telling how extreme your designs have to be to show theoretical examples of cards that would be universally superior. Those actually work against the premise rather than supporting it.
April 5, 2017 10:21 a.m. Edited.
Whiskerbro says... #3
Alright Zaueski, i know your comment is like a month old, but seriously, you think Devastating Summons is never playable ever? It has a steep cost but is a fantastic RDW card, at least a solid 3.5/5 card, and in no way a card with too devastating of a drawback to ever be useful. That's ridiculous.
April 5, 2017 5:11 p.m.
Lol Whiskerbro, it is not a card I would ever play, and I wpuld be delighted to see my opponent play it. The card needs to give the tokens haste or be an instant for me to ever consider it.
April 5, 2017 5:21 p.m.
Whiskerbro says... #5
Yeah, that's why stuff like Goblin Bushwhacker exists. Regardless, its pretty ignorant to say that the card is never good in any circumstances and there is no reason to ever play it.
April 5, 2017 5:31 p.m.
I judge cards in their best scenario first, then in a topdeck losing mode, then in a vacuum. Best case scenario it ends the game using another card or creature to gain haste, but it still requires another card. From a losing standpoint I sac a bunch of lands for two non-evasive tokens and probably seal my defeat because I'm out of mana. In a vacuum I'm sacrificing a bunch of lands for two tokens that can easily be killed or chumped... It fails 2 out of my 3 tests and is only ever a win more card, and even then its barely one of those. I stand by putting it up amongst cards like Doom Cannon and the ilk.
April 5, 2017 5:43 p.m.
Mateus_Nogueira says... #7
Talking with my local community, we ended up arriving in 7 characteristics of a good card (or 7 virtues, if you prefer).
- Consistency: The ability the card has to achieve the goal to which it proposes efficiently.
- Impact: How drastic the card changes the board state.
- Cost-benefit: The cost of the card and its possible drawbacks are inferior or consistent with the advantages gained from using it.
- Recursion: Capacity that the card or its effects has to be used multiple times.
- Versatility: The card gives you the ability to use it in different ways, either by having several different abilities or a wide variety of targets.
- Sinergy: It is the feature that the card has to relate well to other cards, promoting the cohesiveness of the deck on which it fits.
- Singularity: How singular is the effect of a card. It may be unique in what it does or make some desired effect present on other cards being important for redundancy.
April 10, 2017 5:13 p.m.
EnderJace80 says... #8
so Baleful Strix would fit under versatility,cost benefit,consistency, and sinergy
April 30, 2017 7:44 p.m.
Whiskerbro says... #9
ZaueskiYes, the card is risky, and it can be very bad in certain situations. But your methods of card evasion are very flawed here. In a topdeck losing mode, this card is bad. So are many eternal staples. Goblin Guide is a bad topdeck when you are behind. Dark Confidant is a bad when you are behind. Devastating Summons isn't too horrible. For an aggressive deck, where you don't really need to many lands, you can easily sack a few and get 2 fairly sized blockers to buy you time on board. Worst case scenario, you don't safely have enough lands to sac many, and just give up one for two 1/1s. But in an aggressive deck, if you are in topdeck losing mode, you probably lose the game no matter what.
Saying Devastating Summons is win more is also a fairly ignorant statement. Win more cards are those that only benefit you when you can already win the game from your current position. For Devastating Summons, this is not the case. Just because you have a few extra lands to sac does not mean you are ahead. In a low curve deck, you will frequently have a few random lands sitting around that you don't need for anything, and can easily sac for some very large creatures.
You clearly don't like the card, but saying it's as bad as Doom Cannon or something is just flat out dumb. Devastating Summons sees some modern play, and while risky, is clearly not unplayable.
sylvannos says... #1
MagnusMTG and StopShot brought up the excellent points of something being "strictly better." Magic cards are only "good" or "bad" when we compare them to other cards. They exist on the spectrum between:
Black Lotus -> Ancestral Recall -> everything else -> Great Wall -> Razor Boomerang/Sorrow's Path/Wood Elemental.
How good a card is depends on where it lands within this spectrum. The thing is, that spectrum can change. For instance, if Contract from Below were legal, it bumps everything else down as it would be the best card in the game. We judge cards based on their relativity to the other cards in the format.
If WotC makes a new set tomorrow where the worst card in the set is:
R&D_IS_DRUNK
Artifact
Sacrifice CARDNAME: Add 3 mana of any one color to your mana pool. Target player draws 3 cards. Take an extra turn after this one.
When CARDNAME is put into its owners graveyard from the battlefield, it deals 10 to target creature or player.
...and the best card is:
R&D'S_SECRET_STASH_OF_ILLEGAL_SUBSTANCES
Basic Land--Stash
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield under your control, target opponent loses the game.
Every other card in Magic becomes obsolete. Not even Black Lotus or Time Walk can be considered good cards.
I think a card can be considered good if it's in the higher percentage of cards of a format, with respect to the format. Any given Standard format may only use cards out of the top 25% of available cards, and these are what is considered "good." The number of playable Legacy cards is less than 10% of Magic's overall card pool, and among those, probably 1% to 5% are actually "good."
April 5, 2017 3:34 a.m.