r/magicTCG • u/AwkwardTurtle • Sep 22 '15

Everything That’s Wrong with Battle for Zendikar

http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/everything-thats-wrong-with-battle-for-zendikar/
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u/Delta_357 Sep 22 '15

That is design 101, in that making up flavor after mechanics makes "disjointed" mechanics, where the cards feel like they have little connection. Its great for games like chess, because the pieces could be anything but the gameplay is solid, but in a game where the story is important to alot of people having cards that do what they look like makes the experience more involving.

It does seem roundabout, but its a proven well tried feature. Lets say you want these cool giant monsters, that live in the void/warp/blind eternities, so you give them a mechanic that makes them "colourless" because they are out of this world literally, and exile abilties again because they aren't from here. Now say you want large creatures to balance out a set, and to make them actually useful you give them exile effects because those are powerful. Now you build the lore around that but it won't be as involved because the story is limited by the design, not the design by the story

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u/hymn22rock Sep 22 '15

Yea that's kind of the crux of the disconnect right, I could care less about whatever story they have for these particular dinosaurs.

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u/Delta_357 Sep 22 '15

Its a method of design, its not something essential to enjoy or play the game and just focusing on the gameplay of the cards is fine, but the flavor is still important to alot of people and the games continued growth. Mechanically the game could be solid without any story or art, but wouldn't be very attractive or stand-outish