Old School MTG: Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG? Part 2

Let's talk about the concept of "unfun." I'll bet that a lot of readers bristled when they read in my last post that the banned and restricted list ultimately exists because some cards are not fun.

Magic is a game. It's a leisure activity. Some people play competitively, but there are a countless number of other competitive game alternatives. For Magic to continue as a game, it has to meet a certain threshold of fun. Otherwise, it wouldn't exist. People wouldn't play.

These posts are written from the perspective of Old School MTG, but it would be foolish to disregard the developments in the game in the years after the early sets were released. It is clear that some of the original concepts were not fun for a majority of players. They were either removed entirely or revised to make them more acceptable.



Ante
As a reminder, the game was designed with the concept of ante. Enough players did not like playing with ante, that ante cards are banned in almost every format. The game designers responded to what the players found "unfun" by no longer designing ante cards for the game.




Land Destruction
In the early sets, destroying lands was part of the game. Simple land destruction spells were printed in multiple colors and at relatively low mana costs. A land was even printed that destroyed a land! This meant that a viable strategy for building a deck was to focus on destroying your opponent's lands, effectively stopping them from playing the game.

This is a clear example of a strategy that allows for limited counterplay. For the most part, tapping lands for mana is fundamental to the game. Denying your opponent lands is a viable strategy, but is it fun? History suggests that for many people, being on a receiving end of land destruction is not fun. We know this because as we review more recent card designs, land destruction has either been entirely removed or modified to the point that it is no longer recognizable as land destruction. The focus now is on cutting off an opponent from a color of mana, punishing greedy mana bases, or stopping lands that produce multiple mana per turn.

In other words, as the game has evolved, the message from many players that land destruction is unfun has been heard by the designers. Recent designs no longer contain this design element from the early sets. Land destruction has been "shadow banned" by the rotation of sets, an option we do not have available to us in Old School since sets do not rotate.



(Random) Discard
Similarly, in early sets, random discard was part of the game. This worked much like land destruction in that if you were hit with an early random discard spell, it was entirely possible that your only lands could be discarded from your hand. This effectively locked you out of the game for several turns, resulting in limited possibility for counterplay.

Again, this was a viable strategy built into the early game design. But it's one that has been heavily modified in more recent designs. Now, discard spells are highly focused or restrictive. They often includes choices made by one or both players.

Designers again understood that players do not want to be locked out of the game by random discard and created cards accordingly. Random discard has been "shadow banned" by the rotation of sets. Yet, in Old School, we still have access to this strategy as sets do not rotate.



(In)Consistency
What we have here is an inconsistency. As Magic has continued to grow in popularity and more players have joined the game, the designers have become more sophisticated about creating environments that downplay unfun elements from the original design. This includes things like Land Destruction and Random Discard.

In other words, if the original game was remade today knowing what we know now, Ante, Land Destruction, and Random Discard would look very different than they did. They would look more like modern designs. The reason is that these game elements are inherently unfun for many players. Given the way that the game is designed, especially around a combination of a random distribution of lands through your deck and being only able to play one land per turn, any strategy that can consistently remove those lands in your hand or in play will make for lopsided games with limited opportunity for counterplay.

Old School is a non-rotating format. We are stuck with the cards as they were designed and printed originally in those early sets. This includes game concepts that many players clearly find unfun. For some of those unfun concepts, like ante, we've all decided that we are fine simply banning the entire concept from the game. But for other concepts, like land destruction and random discard, those strategies are still available. Our only option to deal with these cards and concepts is the banned and restricted list.

Does it make the game more fun to continue to include these strategies? Arguably it does not. History has shown us that players do not enjoy these types of games and so these cards have been removed in more recent designs. But does it make Old School more nostalgic? Almost certainly, as these are the cards we remember playing and playing against.

Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 1
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 2
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 3
Why Are Cards Banned and Restricted in Old School MTG: Part 4