Mark Rosewater's Comments on the Game Focusing on the Battlefield
General forum
Posted on Oct. 20, 2024, 7:05 p.m. by DemonDragonJ
In this post, Mark Rosewater addresses a fan who is fond of cards that heavily interact with the stack, but Rosewater stated that most players prefer to play with permanents on the battlefield, so WotC shall be focusing more strongly on the battlefield, and I dislike that, because, while creatures are my favorite cards in the game, I enjoy using other cards, as well, and I believe that other players who enjoy interacting with the stack should be allowed to indulge themselves, as well.
What does everyone else say about this? How do you feel about Mark Rosewater's comments, on this matter?
sergiodelrio says... #4
Since board states already can become complex very quickly, I believe the stack, as a zone, needs to be explored more to add strategic depth and design space at some point. Be it with new card types that only work on the stack, or other shenanigans that are stack-only. Not more-of-the-same, but rather actual new real estate on the stack. (My humble opinion anyway)
I understand why WotC are hesitant, but we will eventually get there, just in the same way they were hesitant to go evergreen/deciduous with hybrid and cycle at some point, but later realized how much it helps their design environments.
October 21, 2024 5:07 a.m.
FormOverFunction says... #5
Here are a few quick “I just woke up and barely know where I am” comments: (1) think that The Stack is still the biggest hurdle for new players, so I can see why they’d be hesitant to do more with it (2) one could argue that there have been a number of sets devoted to the stack, with all of the spell copying and whatnot of Strixhaven as an example (3) with all of the creatures now having at least one ability… it seems like The Stack is being used as much now as ever, even when you’re ignoring counterspells.
October 21, 2024 8:14 a.m.
I feel like Rosewater often gives his opinions a lot of the time in the context of "wotc is following this train of thought" but is it always true? Like, remember "we understand that energy was a mistake" and now there is a dominant meta energy deck in modern. I mean, I think he has a lot of ideas on how the game should look, I'm just not sure how much of that translates into what happens. He's often seen by us players as the voice of wotc, but it really seems like at wotc he's just a voice. And that's okay, they need a public persona, but I do think it does player/fans of magic a bit of a disservice because you never have any idea if the ideas Rosewater is stating to the public will pan out into actual design or not.
October 21, 2024 7:38 p.m.
Bookrook That's kinda in line with split second, which shows up once in a while. I wouldn't expect too much more, though.
October 21, 2024 11:28 p.m.
Interrupt is basically split second but you can play interrupts in response, right?
October 22, 2024 7:21 p.m.
Bookrook Pretty much, yeah. That's the main concept.
Once an interrupt was played, you couldn't do anything else but play another interrupt. It was "faster" than instants, like activated abilities and instants are "faster," than sorceries.
October 22, 2024 9:34 p.m.
Some interrupts were also permanent, like Thoughtlace. Alchemy in its earliest form.
October 22, 2024 9:47 p.m.
jethstriker says... #13
If I remember correctly, old rulebooks defined Interrupts as a type of card that targets another spell (ex.Counterspell). With the release of Classic 6th Ed. also came a major revisions of rules. And one of them is simplifying card types, merging Interrupts to Instants.
October 22, 2024 9:59 p.m.
But in actual gameplay scenarios, did that change anything?
October 23, 2024 10:23 a.m.
knucklekustard says... #15
A classic example of cumulative "player friendly" design choices gradually ruining what was once a far more balanced, aesthetically diverse, and strategically interesting game. The combat in Magic is better than a lot of other games due to defending players assigning combat, damage to creatures being removed at the end of turn, and possibilities with combat tricks... but just playing enchantments/artifacts and turning creatures sideways becomes much more stale when other elements of play that shift the boardstate are de-emphasized.
The stack and the mana system are the two best mechanics in Magic that really set it apart from other CCGs imo, but for all the recent complexity creep, I really feel a lot of new mechanics have just been boring variations of adding +1/+1 counters to things and gimmicks with overly long names that need stupid knick-knacks to track and aren't actually interesting to play.
I'm just not the target audience anymore.
October 24, 2024 12:19 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #16
knucklekustard - this leads me back to my “sad but content widower” position. “She was the best, and only, wife I’ll ever have.” :p
October 24, 2024 7:23 p.m.
Can we agree that the Jund midrange mirror matchup is a very fun game? So if people like it, just make more midrange style cards, both permanents and instant and sorceries.
October 24, 2024 9:31 p.m.
wallisface says... #18
From a Modern-format perspective, midrange was king for the entirety of MH2 through to before-MH3, and from that perspective, the format was very interactive/healthy.
The release of MH3 has skewed the format more towards strengthening aggro and combo strategies, but there is still lots of room for interaction and midrange decks - you just need to ensure you have options available to battle the faster-paced meta.
wallisface says... #2
Imo tgere’s nothing to indicate wotc are going to reduce their quantity of stack-interaction - just that there’s no intention to explore further in this domain. Note that the only cards that directly interact with the stack at the moment are counterspells (you could argue instants and abilities can also interact with the stack, but they’re generally more of a timing-thing and less of a stack-interaction-thing).
What do you think we’re missing out on? How do you think the game could be improved by moving focus more towards the stack (and, by extension, away from the easily-representable boardstate of the game)??
October 20, 2024 7:27 p.m.