Double-Sided MTG Cards
Saturday, August 27, 2011 at 10:30PM The Magic: the Gathering world is flipping out over the new double-sided card mechanic.
I admire that they are trying to do something new and splashy, but this just seems so full of problems. You can't shuffle a deck that has a card with no back, so you'll have to either use opaque sleeves and actually take the card out of the sleeve during gameplay when you need to flip it, or you'll have to use the "checklist" card in place of the real card when it's in a hidden zone like your hand or deck. The checklist card looks like a joke to me, I thought it was maybe April Fools when someone linked it.
It's also pretty problematic in draft if you open a pack and decide to take a double sided card. Everyone can see that, and also everyone now has reason to scrutinize you as you look through your possible draft picks, just to look for this.
There's a lot of confusing interactions too. Imagine your double-sided guy interacting with this, this, or this. And in case you're wondering how double-sided cards work when things copy them, here's a quick explanation for you:
If a double-faced card becomes a copy of something else, the copied values will overwrite its characteristics for as long as the copy effect lasts, even if the double-faced card transforms. If a double-faced card that's copying something else is instructed to transform, it will do so, because the physical card has two faces, but its characteristics will still be those of whatever it's copying. This is true even if the object it's copying is one face of a double-faced card.
I almost wonder if these cards will end up banned, all of them, for some sort of logistics reason. I think a LOT of what MTG has been doing in the last couple years is really great, so this stands out as pretty wonky. It looks like the community of MTG players--people completely used to their game constantly changing--are even saying that this is just too much.
The theme and flavor of the new set looks great, at least.
Reader Comments (30)
I started playing competitively a little before Kamigawa block and the flip cards, and I never remember there being any real issues with the flip cards. I'm pretty sure I lost a round of the champions pre-release to Nezumi Graverobber and neither of us was confused about how anything worked even though it was the first day we'd been able to play with flip cards. I understand how not having enough text box space on those cards limits design options, but I also don't feel that this can be the proper solution to that problem. I can think of a number of issues past those already mentioned as to why this is not a good idea for the competitive community, and a separate list of problems it creates for casual players.
The checklist card creates a set of problems and probably shouldn't be allowed in constructed events, but I haven't seen anything to suggest it isn't. It's too easy to put four copies of the checklist card in your deck to represent the new flip Planeswalker when you only own copy of the physical card.
Playin the card in opaque sleeves will probably be a problem especially early after the sets release. Players are going to flip their cards back to original orientation after the game, and sometimes when they draw that card in the next game they're going to forget the mana cost. They're then going to have to either guess (and perhaps inadvertently cheat) or take the card out and flip it over, revealing their hand to their opponent.
Overall as a simple cost benefit analysis I don't feel the benefit of the design space this mechanic opens up even nears the cost of the logistical nightmares it creates.
I love the mechanic itself. It is so flavorful and just perfect for werewolves and other shapechanging creatures. However, I hate the phyisical implementation they went with. Getting rid off the neutral back side of the cards in a card game with random draws and hidden information? Disrupting the popular draft format? Giving people ugly, but legal proxies in an attempt to remedy some of the problems caused by those double faced cards? That's just insane.
I would have prefered it if they went with two seperate cards for this mechanic: One ordinary Magic card for the day side and one special token card for the night side. Even if 10+ % of the boosters failed in matching their day and night sides, it would have been less of a problem than this double faced card mess. They could simply have send packs of additional night side tokens with every display, so players could replace their mismatching night side cards.
It was already pointed out, but I find it funny that double faced cards will cause absolutely no problem on Magic Online.
The reason I brought up the Kamigawa cards is not because I think they are a better design, but because they are achieving something very similar here. They are inducing a whole slew of complexity issues for something that isn't even very mechanically innovative - the benefit does not seem worth the cost.
I would really have preferred the cards be required to be open information in draft as opposed to "open information if you've got keen eyes". It would add something interesting to the usual draft and also introduce newer players to concepts like reading signals.
As someone mentioned, it's very convenient for Wizards that these cards have no issues whatsoever when it comes to Magic Online - it may be that they are attempting to push that platform more as I'm pretty sure they make a lot more money per player from the online market than from the offline one (due to the secondary market taking a much bigger chunk offline).
I was initially worried about the mechanic, but I usually give Wizards the benefit of the doubt. Richard Garfield was on the design team for Innistrad, so I have to believe that it isn't the design nightmare that I initially thought it to be. As for drafting, they changed a rule, so you can rearrange your draft pile to hide the card. I'm glad that Magic has designers that aren't afraid to push the boundaries a bit. I'm sure they are aware of what this mechanic means for all levels of play. After all, they have multiple Pro Tour Hall of Famers working for them.
Andy, you stated several facts: Garfield was on the design team, other pro tour players are on the design team, they changed a drafting rule. Also, you said you're glad they have designers who push the boundaries. I agree with every single one of those. But as for the actual issue at hand, the dobule-sided cards and all the problems they bring...the problems are still there. It's still the least elegant, most problematic thing they've done...possibly ever. It's so much more clunky that anything should be in that game (or any game...).
I hate these cards!
Why did wizarsd have to print them!
They don't wor as intended in any situation and desedvantade begining players sooo much!!!!!!
why! why! why!
I love magic but this makes me want to quit!
I too hate these cards.
They remove things like mana burn to make the game less complex and this way they remove a gameplay feature I was using in three differnt decks. But this cards are not complicated for beginners?!
Some other decks where destroyed because of other strange rules that are not explained comletely until today. For example iterrupting the Eye of the Storm effect and play sorceries this way when it is not main phase, where other cards with the "you may play" phrase the cards can not be played anytime?!
( And they made this ugly little kitkin creatures I hate so much;))
This all makes me hate magic incrementally.
You say there was not enougth room for Art and Rules but the only text on the most double sided creatures ist just: "play when two ore more spells was played last turn" just say: "trasform - two spells" or something like that.
Lastly the checklist card has no artwork at all!!
The flip cards of kamigava where unpopular? They just where bad except for nerzumi grave robber. Most used ki counters and arcane spells which never reappeard and was not very good at all. The art was spaller but the cards was at least playable.
Texts can be shorten by keywords, however keywords are learnable and can be referred in the rule any time.
Such cards would be playable too.
The double sided cards aren't playable!
Very much cons for playing magic these times, well the plainswalkers were a pro.
Again I hate the double sided cards, stupid rule chandes, vampires that are pure red (one would be ok but this much?), stupid rules, stupid rulechanges and incomplete discriptions and incomplete encarta and card abilitys that never reappear.
Sorry, if that sounds hard, but you finnaly destroyed the game I once loved much more.
And I thought this would not be possible!
Now that Innistrad has released and I've played with the mechanic a couple of times, here's an actual analysis of how this plays:
I've played Magic fairly steadily since Mirage, mostly limited and casual. I play in the pre-releases, and never bother with sleeves (so I used the proxy check off cards). The end result is, the transform card were fun to play, worked well mechanically, and the "hassle" of having the extra card to swap when I cast the creature was barely noticible. In draft, I was focused enough on my picks that I wasn't even considering to look at the card someone near might took that I might be able to read.
In the long run, the concern is more theoretical than actual, since the majority of analysis above stemmed from a month before anyone speaking on the subject had actually played with the cards. Has R&D screwed the pooch before? Yes. Does the magic community consistantly overract to any changes at "the destruction of Magic"? Yes also.
The actual litmus test is how the game plays and I, for one, feel it plays well.
Yes, but it will become 'much more fun' if they create more of that strange cards.
However liked the kamigava flip cards.
I also hate the flip cards. Me and my group have agreed to ban everyone of them after playing with them for a while.
Stupidest mechanic ever done IMO. Much more elegant ways to handle this.
For us, the flip cards simply dont exist.