Thursday, May 5, 2011

Broken? But the card's completely undamaged!


Continuing my streak of launching discussions based on commentors, let's discuss what makes something broken. I've heard a few people call this guy busted, and it's true he (She?) seems pretty nuts when you just read her text box. I mean, she does a ton of stuff. But there's a few major weaknesses that keep this ole girl in line, the most glaring is a mana cost of 15. Which means if you don't build your deck around ramping, hardcasting the card (and thus gaining the extra turn) would likely happen around turn 18 or so, by then any competent opponent would have cleaned your clock. 

Ok, well what about cards that put her directly into play? If my opponent cheats it in they don't get the extra turn, but it's got protection from ALL COLORS! Now back up, does it? In reality, it has protection from colored spells, which means that the 2 mana Journey to Nowhere gets rid of her right away, making sure she won't come back for quite some time. 
Now, does that make this particular tentacled monstrosity from beyond time a bad card? No, I love her I even have a deck built around her, but that deck rarely wins because I played her, generally it's because my little dudes with huge cost effects took the game. 

Of course, not everyone here plays magic so let's have a general discussion shall we? What makes something in any game "Broken"? To me it's a single object or strategy within the game with no effective counter outside of it's self, though it could mean something else to you guys.  So let me know what defines broken to you, or give me examples of broken things in any game. The more horrendously busted the better!

26 comments:

  1. If you are able to get 15 manna on the board then you should be able to play it... there are other counters out there

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  2. Somethings broken to me if it's either overwhelming powerful in a game or weak.

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  3. Here's a busted card, 'Razor Boomerang'
    Shits so broke

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  4. wish i could help but im not that knowledgeable about magic cards

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  5. haha theyll keep complaining about "broken" cards until a new one comes out thats even better

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  6. I've never understood the Broken thing either.

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  7. This is why I don't play magic anymore. Or at least not with any cards past....Mmmmm...About Nemesis

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  8. Broken indeed D: dunno too much anyway, following!

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  9. Don't know much about Magic, but this card does indeed seem broken. =/

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  10. For me the deffinition for broken is something that is easily exploitable an unbeatable. If this was the case then almost all decks should be built around this card, which I believe is not the case.

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  11. The last time I tried to play Magic I got raped by a guy with tons of Meteor Showers in his deck. I used to use a deck kinda like this but I had 2 Leviathans and instead.

    I still have a lot of my cards, I should try selling them or something.

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  12. when i played i had 4 cloudpost in my deck which each count as amount of mana for how many cloudpost u have in play. so if u have 3 of them in play u have 9 mana right there...that with birds of paradise u could throw that card out on turn 4-5 if you draw cloudpost luckily...card seems a little op but thats my opinion.

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  13. Looks awesome! I should really be more into this!

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  14. hahaha, im stuck in Pokemon Cards.. nice blog man

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  15. Something broken if it doesn't work...

    Ehhh... yup

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  16. This is interesting, because of all the games I play, I don't think anything I found ever truly broke the game...except for my shenanigans in SNK vs Capcom cardfighters DS. I hear it's similar to magic, but you can pretty much win ALL the matches in the game if you just fill your deck with cards that only cost 1 energy to put onto the field, effectively zerg rushing your opponent for victories in 3 turns or less! It's a pretty bad card game technically speaking, but I have fun with it!

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  17. Really nice read, i can completly find in points of your blog! Keep it up =]

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  18. I haven't played this game in years. Gonna see if I can get my friends back into it.

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  19. I think things are broken if there are very few things in the game that can stop it. For example, I used to larp. Monks had a spell called sanctuary and one called touch of death. Sanctuary prevented everyone from making hostile actions against the monk as long as he made none against anyone else. Touch of death killed whoever the monk touched. This combo pretty much meant instant death to anyone on the field while also leaving the monk invincible for possibly the whole game. Sanctuary was broken in my opinion.

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  20. I think I have to much faith in people and don't regard anything in a final version as broken, otherwise they wouldn't have made it that way..

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  21. emrakul backwards is lukarme. Luke Army is the name of a guy I just made up. Coincidence?

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  22. It's hard to define a hard point at which something in a game is broken. Depends on the game, of course. And I'd say it's really a continuum, in any case. What's the level of advantage or exploitability that most people agree is excessive and unfair? That'll be the point, but it's usually difficult to find a consensus.

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