Lore things put together to make a strong deck? The Urza lands in Tron. 1+1+1=7

Perhaps signposting explains the popularity of commander. “Take a cool card and build a deck around it.” (I understand you could not have brought this up in the video because it would have implied that commander has positive qualities)

Singposting is also very important to many roguelikes. Slay the spire has a lot of singposty cards(first one that comes to mind is Body Slam), and I'd say some Hades boons are very much like that, too

Re: the lore leading to gameplay in Magic, it’s more subtle but it really works in a rotating environment like standard. Looking at the phyrexian arc, they were introducing praetors on planes they weren’t supposed to be on all the way back in Kaladesh. In a more paper-dominant environment, this gives the Vorthos players an advantage in understanding what archetypes will be powerful and what cards to prioritize collecting early

You're describing my very dumb INT/STR build and his journey to wield The Almighty Delete Key (or as the uninitiated call it, "The Ruins Greatsword").

Ever since Elden Ring has come out I've not stopped saying that Elden Ring is the perfect IP for a Universes Beyond set. Not a series of commander decks (I'm absolutely sick of those at this point) but a full on booster set similar to Lord of the Rings. Magic is one of the major inspirations for Miyazaki but Elden Ring just feels sooooooo much like magic, from all the color coding of areas, items and clothes to the presentation of item desctiptions to the way you literally have things that feel like llfe gain, burn damage, enchantments and equipment. You also have summons. It's just perfect.

This kind of design is the sort of thing that would benefit more games. Where you are given plentiful options and the idea of "the possibility of the thing" (as Gavin so eloquently stated), and it works as an incentive to come back to it again and again! Using Videogame comparisons : Legend of Zelda- Tears of the Kingdom does incentivize players to explore the world very well.. but it "fails" at what Magic and Elden Ring provide, a new way to experience the journey by making a few tweaks to the way you approach things and what goals you impose on yourself. Link will always be Link and your move-set and abilities don't differ (nor does it demand you to). Storytelling being hidden between the puzzle pieces is also something I've learned to appreciate more. Where it is not necessary, but it provides so much more for those invested in it (the only difference here is that Magic's story isn't worth following).

Another great thing about the "lore excavation" kind of design is that you can have a rich lore/story without imposing it on those who simply enjoy the gameplay. You get to choose what you want to engage with.

There was pro tour eldritch moon where liliana the last hope beat emrakul in the finals just like in the story at the time which was kind of neat that happened irl at the same time

I think the fact that you can't have hidden info on a card makes the difference. Cards tell you exactly what they do, the game doesn't work otherwise. One I really like that feels similar is Emrakul and the delirium mechanic.

I never undrestood why people buy boosters outside of draft/pre-releases. To me it was always: Shops opens lots of boxes. You go to a shop and get the cards you want.

I appreciate the way yall strike a balance between talking about game design more broadly and magic because it's what really took off in the algorithm.

Lore-to-strategic-advantage in Magic: There are a handful of cards in Magic that reference other cards which share a theme/lore/naming convention (i.e. the Urzatron lands) and to some extent that tells the player to find the other cards with similar flavorful properties to get the mechanical synergy. The personalities of the colors and multicolor factions do a lot of suggesting how a deck built around that theme is likely to play out and gives the player some hint as to whether they will enjoy the style of gameplay as well as encourage them to play in a way aligned with the theme. Tribal strategies: Goblins are depicted as numerous and overtly disposable. Spells like Goblin Grenade clearly show that individual goblins aren't meant to be held dear so the player feels safe in playing aggressively, making a lot of goblin tokens, and then sacrificing them for various effects. Elves on the other hand often have art and flavor text that implies they are a collective and that could encourage gameplay built around cards that count how many elves you have or simply playing a lot of "lords". That's the best I could come up with :)

I think Magic's equivalent to Margit/Mohg's shackle and the item that lets you parry Maliketh's destined death attack could be something like 'Protection from X thing'.

Flavor as gameplay: Using Cabal Therapy to sacrifice Academy Rector to tutor Yawgmoth’s Bargain into play.

When I see 2 untapped blue mana I am remembered about counterspell. That’s a signpost if I understand the vocabulary correctly. But now as far as lore is concerned I know that open blue mana can be used to counter spells in one way or the other. I don’t need to know exactly what cards can counter me. So it’s a mix of lore and heuristics.

For lore combos in mtg they do exist but are more set based. The best example of this are urza playing the might/weak stone on the battlefield. Which if you then pay 7 mana can combine them into a very powerful plainswallker.

Card flavour does matter a lot for what Rosewater calls modular set design. The contrast, linear design, is like using keywords, or types, or a common trigger or resource. Their synergies stand out obviously, and you just want more of the thing they are all doing or interested in. With modular design, the mechanical interactions are not so obvious. But when you see that they involve a common art direction or flavour theme you can be inspired to think about how they might work together, which they usually do as part of a Limited archetype colour pair. Actually, in Limited, this can lead you towards hidden "mini-archetypes" which are usually something like splashing a third colour being easier and having better synergies than you might expect.

>Enough Uzra cards together they make a good deck Yo you guys heard of UrzaTron? :P

This was an amazing episode 👏 🙌

I would have never thought to compare Elden Ring and MtG, the associations you made are so spot on and so interesting. I'm not a lore person at all but love the fact that it is there. Particularly with FromSoft games I only pay minimal attention to the deep lore connections while I play but I LOVE VaatiVidya, who is kind of the lore king of FromSoft games. I would never be able to make all the connections he does, but his videos explaining the lore are so interesting and it shows the passion FromSoft has for painting the fabric of the lore. Everything is intentional and connected. Great stuff.

Melira in her varied incarnations is pretty good at fulfilling her narrative purpose mechanically. She's basically the only card that limits poison counters directly and in lore that's her whole thing. At least from the limited knowledge I have about her.

Dark Intimations was a pretty obvious build me with Nicol Bolas, but it wasn't a prominent standard deck. I think lore tying a deck together really only happens with commander where the motive is changed more to that flavor aspect. I think they actually actively avoid tying a deck together with lore because they want the player to feel like they are putting the deck puzzle together themselves. I have noticed lore will be used to tie up narrative points with a card that specifically counters a prevalent deck though I.E. Deicide or Questing Beast having those cards both drive the narrative away from the recent past and shifting the meta with it.

Great episode!

I recently discovered that there is a comic about moon girl and devil dinosaur, two characters that combo in marvel snap. So the gameplay led me to the comic, very neat

I'm interested how you two would feel about the lore excavation in other TCGs (specifically, Yu-Gi-Oh!)

Ostensibly the original printings of sagas (as did later ones) in Dominaria was very much a means for them to mechanically represent lore events happening - while it doesn't necessarily read as lore leading to in game combo, it does seem to harken to a similar sort of parallel

This is a very interesting topic and comparison. Makes me think of other similarities too. Like if we take the psychotypes Spikes in TCGs and RPGs want to have the meta build. It isn't about the journey but the accomplishment. They want the most optimized deck and build so they can win tournaments or beat the superboss. Johnnies want to experiment and explore the options available to them. The ones who come up with azora's meteor kamehameha tactic, the ones who break down the game's systems and figure out creative, sometimes trolly, builds for youtube. And Timmy's want to explore the world and truly experuence the journey. The quest matters more than the reward. The flavor of their deck, the atmosphere of the world matters more

It's interesting taking the premise of discovery (pack opening to find build-arounds or playing against a new card you've never seen before) and seeing a correlating increase in Commander decks getting released. Like when Gavin remarked about opening a pack to have a prebuilt deck in it, that's basically what they've been capitalizing on for a bit now as Commander has become their #1 most played format. Regarding "lore excavation", IMHO Magic used to be a *lot* better at managing their lore, or at least their execution of expressing lore through their cards, card art, and flavor text. Now it feels very generic, slush art-y, and quickly consumable as opposed to well thought out, bespoke, and nuanced. Magic has migrated from being a durable good to a consumable one.

I think you guys skipped over the biggest signpost items in Elden Ring! ...which I think are all talismans. The Exultations tell you that bleed and poison/rot are viable strategies, the Branchswords give you a reason to play really risky, Filigree Crest suggests that you could rely on weapon skills more than you might think, the "successive attacks" talismans encourage you to play with faster weapons instead of the big heavy ones that have the highest stats, all of the weapon talismans highlight particular mechanics that could go overlooked. A lot of the weapon skills and Ashes of War have similar suggestions inherent in them, but these talismans are distinctive in how they suggest strats or tech which you then have to find the right weapon, skill, equipment, etc for.

I spent so many hours as a child just reading the flavor text on my cards just to learn a little more about the card or the world it exists in

Errant Signal has a good video on the design of fortnite and how it makes itself fun despite the fact that only 1 in 100 people can get the victory royal. Short version is it gives you a bunch of side objectives so that even if you lose the match you can still feel like you accomplished something. Mtg does a similar thing, maybe you didnt win your draft game but you can feel accomplished cos you managed to get a bunch of goblins together with something that buffs your goblins.

In game lore example for mtg - Kaldra?

I feel like the closest thing to what you are describing is less prevalent now. But back in the day, if you had some knowledge of the lore, then while drafting, you can go, "Oh, this mono red card has a person flying through the air propelled by lightning bolts, I bet it will have synergies if I'm drafting an Izzet deck," "Oh, this mono black card is throwing knives? I should consider him in my Rakdos deck," or, "Oh, here's a mono-blue thing with bulbous sacks of ooze? Probably will go in a Simic deck." And you can glean this information before seeing watermarks or learning all the archetypal keywords. Of course, nowadays, the factions' watermarks on the cards seem way more obvious and noticable, which I feel kinda undercuts a bit of the original challenge.

first

Eldin Ring doesn't inspire you to try new items because it arbitrarily locks weapons behind pointless stats and weapon-levels, while the majority of weapons are just copy-paste stat-sticks because number-go-up. Armor might as well be purely cosmetic... the entire game is quite literally what Magic would call a "functional reprint." Magic for the most part tries to refine and prevent number-go-up. While it is hard to escape "everything is kicker" they are pretty innovative, and for the most part keep functional reprints to a minimum. Would you consider Apocalypse Chime a lore-payoff? It's basically a Margit's Shackle xD lmao