TCG Theory - The 1-Cost Problem 

In Magic the Gathering, I'd actually say the "cost" of a card having a higher mana cost doesn't scale linearly, but actually exponentially. Not only does the player have to play more lands, they also have to draw those lands, take turns to play those lands, and risk the higher cost card not doing anything if they don't get enough lands. All these factors further compound the problem the higher a card's cost is. To put it another way, the difference between a 5 and 6 mana card is greater than the difference between a 1 and 2 cost card.

Playing multiple 1-costs SHOULD be strong until you run out of cards, balanced by 1-costs being bad in topdeck mode. If a game is too fast, card advantage stops being so important so low cost cards dominate.

I’ll never complain about magic the gathering artwork being too generic ever again.

And then there's a game where every card is cost 0 and leads to a bunch of ridiculous plays.

One factor I don't think you mentioned is that with renewable resources a cheaper card is more likely to be playable for "free" using left-over resources that would otherwise go to waste, meaning not only is the card more efficient on its own, but it's also *more* likely that you can kinda sorta ignore the cost entirely.

I think this analysis completely ignores the concept of card advantage. Sure 2 1 cost cards might be stronger than a 2 cost card, but TWO cards is an investment of a different resource. Depending on the card flow of a game and the strategy of a deck, it's basically always a consideration if you will run out of cards before winning. The main issue of something like death's shadow is that if you don't win before you empty your hand, your opponent will be in a very advantageous position since drawing a 2 cost card with ~1.5 times the power of a 1 cost card is still better if you only get that one card. On the flip side, take a look at UW control, a deck happy to play 2+ cost cards specifically because something like supreme verdict can defeat multiple of the opponents cards for only one of yours, speeding up the process of running your opponent out of CARD resources and putting you in the advantageous position.

Another aspect of this that I think is important to acknowledge is the "play on curve" issue. Being able to play cards on those early turns, and not letting that mana go to waste, is really important to tempo. So you end up with an issue where you either keep the 1 cost pool small and this becomes super luck based as there are probably only a couple good cards at each low cost, or you make a ton and you end up with this issue. This is why I'm really fond of the Build Divide/Z/X/Dragoborne solution of starting at 2 mana. Since your turn 1 mana pool is now 3, it becomes far easier to ensure your players have a healthy amount of turn 1 playable cards to put in their deck so they can consistently play on curve in the early game, without running into this balance issue.

The same thing has been an going thing with my EDH group, about a year and a half ago we were playing relatively average powered decks, nothing CEDH, but as we started building towards that power more recently our deck curves have changed drastically going from an average cmc of 4-5, down to 2-3.

Clicked for Deadly Fighter Braid Claw, stayed for the compelling discussion.

There is also another problem in magic that's very similar which is the 1.5 cost problem. Prophetic prism costs 2 mana, draws you a card when entering and has 1 + tap: add a mana of any color. It's a pretty bad card that can sometimes do things, mostly in limited. Arcum's astrolabe is the same thing but at 1 mana, and it's banned in modern, legacy and pauper because it was warping those formats around itself. It's like the balanced version of the card costs ~1.5 mana. The astrolabe costs snow mana instead of normal mana as a way to try to cost that .5 mana, but it didnt work.

This video has changed how I think about resource systems in every card game. Thanks for making it!

Someone else already said something to this effect, but here's my take on it. There's more than one way to view efficiency: you have resource efficiency (or effect-to-cost ratio, where one drops excel); and then you have card efficiency (or effect-to-cards-spent ratio). Since most cards only cost one card (itself) to play, card efficiency is really just a measure of how great a card's effect is -- and it shouldn't be any surprise that this is where higher cost cards excel. Lots of one drops can produce great effects, but at the cost of card disadvantage. A single five drop will have dual pros and cons. So a card's true efficiency should be measure in units of (effect produced) / (total cost) where the total cost of a card factors in both resource cost and cards spent. Now for some math. Let's estimate that a card in mtg is worth ~1 mana (I'm basing this on the card Simian Spirit Guide, and some other things). Let's say that we value the effect of a particular one drop at N units, and a particular k-drop at F units. The true efficiency of k of those one drops is k*N/(k [mana] + k [cards]) = k*N/(k [mana] + k [mana]) = k*N/(2k) = N/2, while the true efficiency of the k-drop is F/(k [mana] + 1 [cards]) = F/(k [mana] + 1 [ mana]) = F/(k+1). Ideally, these efficiencies should be equal, so we have F = (k+1)/2*N. Note that for k=3,5,7, we have F = 2N, F = 3N, and F = 4N. This means that an equally efficient 3-drop should have 2 times the effect and an equally efficient 5-drop should have 3 times the effect of your given 1-drop. And sorry if this was super convoluted, I'm too lazy to go back and fix it lol. This doesn't seem to hold for creatures, but for instants and sorceries, it seems pretty accurate. Compare Reach Through the Mists, with Divination, and Jace's Ingenuity. They are rated similarly on the Gatherer, which suggests similar true efficiency, and their effects line up exactly with the above. Also, maybe it's not that the math is wrong, but that creatures tend to become more efficient at higher mana costs. This could be seen as one way to incentivize players to engage with the combat system

I want bring to the table how in the Digimon card game, that doesn't manage resources by cards but still with costs, the designers limit the space por 1 cost creatures with the minimum being 2 and only vainilla exist at that cost. For context, in Digimon there is a shared resource track, that goes up to 10 for each player. Your turn last until the memory goes beyond the 0 threshold at the middle at how much you pass over that threshold is the starting resources in your opponent turn. Because of this design, is possible to bring high cost card to the battlefield but in respond your opponent could play more cards in their turn. Small drop decks aren't as prominent now but the game suffers for something that all these resources base games have to endure, mana cheat and how playing thing for free is busted. It would be cool to see an analysis about that

Interesting topic! I never thought of it this way.

That was really interesting! never seen that idea of starting with higher ressource count before but I really like it, not only does it helps with the problem you're mentioning but it also means it allows designing cards that effectively cost what would normally amount to fractions of a ressource so it gives much more flexibility in balance. 0 cost cards have to be absolutely garbage to not be completely busted, but making something basically amount to a 0,5 cost card allows making it do *something* that's worth the card in your hand without immediately breaking the game.

I made a 0 cost meme card that has morph. When the card is targeted by anything, thats its morph cost and causes the targeting player to lose the game. The card is "You Lost The Game". If the card is played any other way, it immediately gets exiled instead.

Another massive part of low cost cards being important comes from how accessible card draw is and if the way you gain resources is dependent on those cards. A system with lower card draw (or card draw that is expensive in cost) and a mana system that acts independent from your hand encourages higher cost cards to make the most out of your limited resources.

One cost can be scary but can also be used for a target pulling dolls. Though it has to be done right. An example I feel is something like the level 1 rear guards.

Coming back to this video as a Hearthstone Wild player who saw the meta, in real time, devolve into decks with over 15 1-drops. We were never safe.

You can also balance out 1 mana problems with reduced starting hand sizes, smaller hand sizes encourage larger more impactful cards to be played. MTG is the worst for this as you need to have lands as well as spell in your hand meaning you need a large starting hand size, this gives the cheap spells even more value as you can reduce your decks land count without much risk of getting mana screwed, this is the same as card advantage.

Love this video! And it's also extremely helpful since I'm making my own TCG for fun.

Hearthstone would have been an interesting case to look at: the available mana besides being renewable also ramps up automatically (no card investment needed), and the base draw is (/was) relatively slow, so having a bunch of 1-drops is just not practical, since you'll just empty your hand and still float mana. Value and card advantage make even very aggressive decks focus more in twos and threes rather than ones.

When Path of Exile can remove any creature for 1 mana, spending more than 1 mana on a creature leads to a blowout

The ideal number of 1 cost cards in an aggressive mana curve is 26. I arrived at this number assuming that you want to play 1 spell on turn 1, and 2 spells on turn 2, emptying your hand as fast as possible. 26 out of 60 gives you the best chance of having exactly 3 in your opening hand. 17 land, 26 1-drops, means you have the best chance of having 2 land and 3 1-drops in your opening hand. I have won tournaments based on this streamlined mana curve and you can too!!

To be honest by now magic has a 0 cost problem

So while 1 mana cards tend to be quite efficient at their niche, they tend to be quite inefficient where it comes to card advantage. 1 mana spells tend to be 1-for-1 kinds of actions, but at 3 or more mana you can answer more than one card with a card, or generate more resources. Wandering Emperor for example, can generate one 3/3 Vigilance creature token every two turs. So let's say a Wandering emperor stays on the field for 6 turns. She generated 3 "resources" with roughly 6 mana value, without needing to spend extra mana or cards. In her "removal mode", although conditional, Wandering emperor is guaranteed to be a 2-for-1. Sunfall is another card that is often a 4-for-1, granted, you do need to spend 5 mana, plus 2 mana to get the full benefit. Of course, this is more apparent in Standard. In fast formats like Modern there are 1 mana spells with the potential to generate card advantage like Ragavan. Conclusion: In Standard, cards with higher costs are balanced in the fact that they tend to generate immediate 2-for-1 kind of interaction, or continuous resource generation, which tend to take over the game if the game goes long.

And happy 1 year!!!

While not a resource issue specifically, Yugioh has a similar problem ever since link monsters came out where link 1s, for the most part, tend to fill 1 of 2 roles: 1. being a crazy good, easy to use combo piece to often access important cards straight from the deck 2. An overly simple way to trigger overpowered graveyard effects that were meant to be balanced by the need to be sent there. Currently 6 of the 19 banned link monsters, and all 3 of the limited ones, are link 1s

This discussion is interesting to view through Dragon Ball Super card game's history. Early on, one cost cards or cards intended to be used for one cost were fairly low commitment. Senzu Bean pumps up a card for the turn and untaps 2 energy (energy works the same as Duel Master's resource), Buu draws a card on play, Furthering Destruction Champa bumped power for a battle and gave your card (if it's attacking) double strike (if an attack hits, defender takes 1 card from life area and adds it to hand, double strike makes them take two instead), they also produced a wave of Counter Attacks like Whis's Coercion which negated an attack for 1 energy and each color had their unique one. Later sets introduced units who could play themselves if you used them to aid in a battle, yielding a body that could attack the opponent with little commitment. During the early days, and several patches in the game's histroy, there have been some wild strategies that could do quite a bit for little to no cost.

A challenge to designing balanced 1 cost cards is also considering the cost of playing a card. Spending 4 mana on 1 card SHOULD be less impactful than spending 4 mana on 4 cards. But the balance is crazy hard to find (if its even possible at all)

The problem isn't the existence of one-cost cards in MtG, but the power level of the one-cost cards. Hard removal, actual threats, denial, etc. One cost cards can do everything in legacy. Of course, as you pointed out that the lowest power level and smallest card pool format of MtG does not have this problem and I think it's due to both reasons, availability and power level. A VERY easy way of fixing this problem is by exponentially increasing the power of cards with cost, but that does not come without its own drawbacks.

Simple explanation to this is that in Modern there is a larger pool of good or imbalance in some cases 1-cost cards, in standard people cannot do that because the total card pool is significantly smaller. The reason Why MTG is still going strong is because they try to slowly update their card pool with cards that combat the issue of mana-screw/flood, however the issue still remains because they are using land cards as a resource, while Duel Masters had each card become a resource and a playable card, the same is also seen in the more modern flesh and blood TCG, I also attempt to design a similar system when I find the time since I want to create something fun that doesnt rely so much on negative randomness. I have been in a tournament once where all I drew the entire tournament was up to 2-3 lands, it has happened which displays how unfun that play-day was. Nowadays people tend to seek a fun time in video games, which is sad considering it is not the same feeling as a game played in person, the experience is much different and video games often feel alienating at best, so I commend Flesh and Blood for doing what they do right now and pushing that game with even ready-made completely themed and ready to play decks. (Buy and Play right away). The game I design (on my offtime) has also a dual/multi purpose card system which enables some extra choices. Just a reminder though that such systems make games more complex and the barrier to entry a bit higher, meaning it appeals to a narrower audience, however no one can stop us from engaging with something complex in a simple way and really no one has to be perfect. Also the only crypto game I have seen done right is Skyweaver apparently, although they use the more generic resource system similar to Hearthstone.

I would like to mention though that in many contexts good one drops can be very healthy for the game. One thing that mtg has recently been doing is add more good one-drops to limited, and having them be narrow-ish cards that are good if played well. One example of this was Network Disruptor in Kamigawa. Limited is always slower and having good one drops in it makes the games more dynamic

While I'm not very familiar with competitive MTG in particular, I've played some other card games, and my experience is usually more that the reason they're used so much has more to do with "the games are usually decided very very early" - sometimes that's because one player outright kills the other player, other times it's because they play cards that gain value over time in a way that makes the game basically impossible to recover from if they aren't immediately answered. This pushes players to focus more and more on the early game because anyone that doesn't won't survive to the lategame, because whether a card is or isn't good in the lategame doesn't matter if the game has already ended or is unsalvageable by the time you can play it - even if a 6 cost card were 6x as efficient as a 1 cost card it would probably still be garbage because the game is probably over by the time you can play it.

As someone that’s studied game design and played a fair bit of magic, this really helped me understand better why some formats like modern are so fast. Very interesting. It’s actually pretty similar conceptually to one of the weird issues I had in fire emblem heroes. In that game, due to the smaller maps, cavalry move 3 spaces, infantry 2, and armored 1. As compared to, say 6, 5, 4 in Fire emblem engage. Due to the same things you discuss here, there’s just a much bigger impact when the difference is 1 to 3 than 4 to 6.

Great video! I wish it would have been recommended to me sooner!

Interesting analysis, ty

I love how netrunner solved this Problem 30 years ago.

This is a great video, thank you for the insight.

Thank you for this Video!

Excellent video! Surprised this channel hasn't come up into my feed sooner. Subbed>

In non-rotation formats, you'll get power creep. Over time, better card are printed and archetypes can keep selecting the best 40 cards, getting better over time. Eventually cheaper spells will perform better and replace more expensive cards. Eventually you'll just have a deck of 40 1 drops because once you have that critical mass of 1 mana cards that are highly effective, it can't be competed with.

In my own game design, I've found out myself that 1-drops are surprisingly difficult to design well. A 1-drop combat trick is pretty easy to do, and "spend 1 extra mana when casting this to gain a bonus effect", which is often pretty similar, is easy to do, but other kinds of 1-cost cards mean that any X mana turn can also be an X-1 and 1 turn, and that's where I think the real issue lies. A turn 4 spent casting four 1-mana spells is usually not that bad because you've spent 4 cards in hand (plus resource cards). 1-drops are often disproportionately powerful, but unless you have the draw to back it up, you pay for that in having weaker future turns. The bigger issue for me has been those X-1s. Playing a previous turn's card is usually not a very big power decrease compared to what this turn could have been, and towards the later portion of the game it's something you often do anyway because you don't want to have cards of every possible total cost in your deck. This means when you have lots of good 1-drops too, you get quite a few turns where your main play is still almost a turn's worth of value on its own, but you also get the extra value of adding in a 1-drop. It's especially potent in decks with 'breakpoint' costs, the costs of your key combo pieces. If your combo is a 2-cost card and a 4-cost card, then your turn 3 isn't any more valuable than your turn 2 in many cases, since on turn 3 you'll often find yourself casting the combo piece you wanted to cast on turn 2, so you pay virtually nothing to throw in a 1-drop, and likewise for your turn 5.

Spectacular analysis.

I've always been curious how games like MTG and Lorcana would feel if you just like, merge the first two turns. So, just draw 2 cards, place 2 mana/ink, then start from there. No removing 1-cost cards, just shifting gameplay forward slightly, and only at the very start. I wonder if it'd feel quicker without breaking balance all that much or if it just wouldn't even matter

Elder Scrolls Legends was interesting because most decks from aggro to midrange to control ran way more 2 drops than 1 drops.

People keep bringing up the fact that low cost cards mean you end up with an empty hand sooner, but have they played MTG recently? So many cards replace themselves that most decks are choked on mana rather than number of cards in hand.

I've long thought that mana should start at 2, because decks with proactive 1 mana creatures are so heavily variable in strength based on their opening hand.

Interestingly, even Yugioh has a similar problem and that game doesn't even have mana. In yugioh, its counterpart is the 1-material problem, where you can make better monsters (or at least, core monsters in a longer strategy) using only 1 other monster.

Another topic that piggybacks off the one cost problem is the Agro problem. Aggro decks don’t have to be better than their opponents entire deck, they just have to be better than their opening hand and first few turns. By playing any aggro deck you sort of invalidate 2/3 of your opponents cards which sucks :/

Thank you for this

Not once did you address card advantage as a resource here, and it's absolutely fundamental to this question. 1 cost cards are important, sure, but you don't see so many decks with nothing else - even in formats where it's possible to do just that and run only the most "efficient" 1 cost effects. The even more fundamental limitation of resources than mana is cards in hand; not only does this play into whether you get your resources, but you can't cast a spell pierce that isn't even in your hand or otherwise granted to you to cast by some card effect. A 4 mana card doesn't have to be 4x as powerful as a 1 mana card, because both of them cost the same 1 card - that's 1 draw, 1 deckbuilding slot, etc. Another way that 1 cost cards are kept from taking over the game is that they're not allowed to draw more than self-replacement, that is not to repeatedly draw without costing more mana nor to have 2+ draw built in. Playing 1 card on turn 1, 2 cards on turn 2, and 3 cards on turn 3 without a way to draw extra? If you hit every land drop to do that, you're down to 1 card in hand. I hope it's a 3-4 cost, or you topdeck one, or turn 4 is going to look really sad. Meanwhile, hitting a 1, 2, and 3 cost plus the land drops leaves a player with 4 cards in hand if they didn't draw any extra. 5 vs 2 in hand on the turn 4 draw, more than double the options and threats. If you can get the same effect from a single card for 6 mana, it's a less expensive way to do so than getting that effect from three cards for 1 mana each. Double the mana cost, but a third the card cost.

I like the Epic Card Game's approach where all cards cost either 1 or 0 and you only get a single resource on each player's turn.

This definitely has some interesting implementation for Pokemon TCG... one energy Pokemon attacks typically have some restrictions or challenges to get going. They typically try to design around the best attackers having two energy attacks (which in some cases can require one attachment) with some one and three energy attackers of note.

I get your point but if your response to my 3 mana card is more than 2 cards, my 3 mana card fulfill its purpouse. What I'm trying to say is that you're considering only mana without matching with card pool per turn. At the end of the day you can have as many 1 mana card as you want but after turn 4-5 you probably ends up in the scenario where you have no card on your hand and you only use once per turn. Beside, the beefier decks not only ends ups having more playable card at that same point but worst scenario they would drop down the same quantitative of cards per turn but with higher inner power.

Love this type of content

Good way to look at it, it's one of the reasons i play standard. Wotc noticed so they're lowering the power of 1 drops

not only DM did it... after DMs "fall" the WoW TCG did the same (and they had quest cards that you played faced up in your resource and you could "solve" them to do extra stuff and flip them over) and even the VS System TCG did the same

Never considered this, great topic!!

Good video, a different take to TCGs, a problem we often do not see

Keep up these series of critiques.

I would never classify a pitch spell in the same category as any other card that costs 1 or less. Fury and Grief are only outliers because they almost always trade 1-1, which isn't true of a spell like Force of Negation.

1 mana creature is generally at most a 3 total pow + toughness Then 2 mana for 5; 3 for 7; 4 for 10; 5 for 12 From there, the size stops increasing at 6 & 7 (exceptions for 8+ mana but they’re rarely created) because the creatures start getting powerful game ending abilities. For something to be played competitively it would need to break that mold like: death’s shadow or tarmagoyf.

THANK YOU

So what do you think of the memory system of digimon? The fact that playing card gives your opponent the resources they need to play against you, most decks avoid passing as much memory as possible, but other decks are designed to do it on purpose and then just wreck whatever advantages that memory produces.

Very good video!

iei thanks~ would be helpful for a tcg that I'm currently working on. btw, can you make a video explaining the good and bad mechanics about "Rebirth for you''?

Runeterra is having a problem similar to this in its eternal format because 1) the game has no good cheap boardwipes for swarms, 2) the game has reached a critical mass of conditionally overtuned 1 drops, changing aggro decks into big aggro/stompy decks, and 3) the initiative switch system and lack of cheap multi target tools means going wide is extremely strong. Standard doesnt really have that problem luckily, which shows how important critical mass is.

1 mana cards need to be very efficient, as a cost of 1 to 2 is not double the cost, as drawing is a resource and that resource can be valuable, a real important thing is health totals, commander starting at 40hp means that an aggro strategy, which 1 drops are inherently more important, are less viable, combine that with multiple enemies and a deck that needs to deal 20 damage becomes a deck that has to deal 120 damage if he wants to rush down the whole table, (assuming that somehow no one does anything to eachother, or heal)

Another POV To get effect of one card you must spend X resorce and in magic it not just mana but also card. For get 1 mana effect in magic you must spend 2 cards and all next 1mana cards cost 1 card + cost of opportunity This also very easy to get if you will check Hearthstone. There are not lot of decks that run all 1cost cards because in hearthstone cost of card is also much higher then in MTG. And this why to checking power curve in HS I preffer to use +1 rule. "Each card have mandatory cost of 1 for just being of card" This mean that jump from 1 to 2 is actualy from 2 to 3. And cards that cost 0 actualy cost 1 so they dont have "infinite value"

It's worth bringing up the one of the lead creators of MtG who then made Duel masters went on to currently make the game battle spirits which expanded on the DM method with the core engine. Now mana is a constantly ticking resource that increases steadily, however the resources are then eaten up by creatures semi-perminently

The one thing you should of mentioned is the possibility of one cost cards like Gurmag Angler. They are not one cost out of the gate but can become one costed later. Other then that good video

This is probably an effect of short games. If magic ran for 20 turns 1 costs would quickly empty your hand without extra card draws encouraging stronger per card choices

Your videos are awesome 👍 Could you make in-depth analyses of different card games? (Magic, Duel Masters or Flesh and Blood etc.)

All of these problems where solved by the now defunct Naruto CCG. What a game it was

What do you think about giving " cycling" ability to lands and/or limit the number of copy inside a deck bases on the rarity? (Ex. Common 4, un 3, r 2, mythic 1)

Excellent vid

Funny how games without mana systems (notably Yugioh) have a different issue in the opposite direction Without a mana system card advantage reigns supreme at all times and it's pretty easy to draw equivalents, doom blade is a powerhouse for it's low cost 1:1 removal where even something that can go card positive like raigeki being a board clear with no cost isn't as useful because it doesn't help you on your first turn and can't generate advantage till turn 3 only if your opponent doesn't manage to OTK before you get another turn.

me, staring at that murktide regent that definitely costs more than 1 mana

Great video

and then there's yugioh lol

The duration of the games and amount of draw are also to be concidered

Games with 1 mana gem per round like Hearthstone and Legends of Runeterra seem to be more midrange heavy with 3-5 cost cards being the most important, while more aggressive 1-3 cost strategies also can exist along higher cost 5-10 mana, but these can lose to bad hands.

This is why classic Vs. System was so good. Characters had costs, effect cards (plot twists and locations) had Thresholds. Plus the game was designed to be played as a curve. You still would need good 1 cost characters but many times over the most powerful effect they had was a search effect.

I rather enjoy the luck-based aspects of lands, and the _ludo-narrative_ of gaining lands and drawing power from them.

The issue with MtG's 1-drops is mostly based around the fact that drawing cards is very common. There are a lot of ways to draw additional cards, so you actually get to the question of "do I want to play one big spell or many small ones?"

Interesting take on the power creep.

This should be interesting as this is the problem Yugioh has

I never really thought about this. And I run a edh deck with an average cmc of 1.90

Have you ever done an assessment of costing and resources for any of Decipher’s old games and how that affects costing balances? Since the company had a mantra of not wanting to do anything like WOTC, they had very different resource management from any of the games listed in the video. Star Trek: No cost to any card. One card play (start of turn) and one card draw (end of turn). Infinite interrupts (like instants) can be played per turn. No maximum hand size. Discard from hand effects were devastating because of the tempo disruption and that you could get locked out of games that way. Card draw was also possibly more powerful than in MTG. Power creep involved ways to play more than one card per turn, which was awkwardly necessary for the game to grow. Star Trek (2nd Edition): Cards cost between 0-7 counters. You have 7 counters per turn to spend. Drawing additional cards cost 1 counter per card. Any cards in hand in excess of 7 at the end of the turn must be discarded. Star Wars: Decks are fixed at 60 cards and can never be larger. Locations played on table (no cost, no limit to number that can be played) typically generate ‘Force’ for both players. A player’s cards in deck are used as their Force to play cards in hand. At the start of their turn, they activate an amount of Force up to the amount they can generate from locations +1 by placing cards from the top of their deck face-down in a pile. As they play cards, they stack their ‘active’ force used to play the card into a ‘used pile.’ At the end of the turn, any ‘active’ force remaining can be drawn into hand, one at a time. No maximum hand size (but cards punish you for having too big of a hand). Unused Force can be banked for future turns. Used Force is cycled back into the deck. Note that this game has built-in top deck abilities as part of its combat system (destiny draws) and card-counting (tracking destinies) is an essential part of the game. LOTR TCG: Players play good guy cards on their turn (their ‘fellowship’ which has no interaction with any other fellowship) and bad guy cards on opponent’s turns. Good guy cards add a ‘shadow’ cost to a ‘twilight’ pool. Moving your fellowship towards Mount Doom adds more twilight. Bad guy cards remove twilight from the pool to play. Adding and especially removing twilight is very powerful. Hand of 8 cards recycles at the end of your turn and each time a fellowship moves when it’s not your turn. Any cards in excess of 8 are discarded.

Hyper Juken gets past this problem by having Lv0 Attacks both not deal much damage and be setup for stronger attacks, while Lv1 and 2 Attacks are both your main source of inflicting damage and have more assertive effects. Hyper Juken's 3 stage level system was designed to give the Attack cards a level of synergy with each other.

Out of all the card games that I've played that uses a resource type system where each card has a "cost" I don't think any of them have linearly scaling power. The biggest example is if you look at cards that are just big stat blocks. Most of the time if they cost 4 or less they are ok or good, however normally when a card reaches the 5 cost mark it needs some sort of game winning effect to be good, no matter how high its stats are.

I would hazard to mention that there is a difference in game feel for modern vs standard, with modern often being viewed as a "turn 3 meta", i.e.: decks frequently hit their "Stage III" power spike and win on turn 3, and a lot of this is due to the mana efficiency of cards in general, and as the game moves quickly, more powerful but longer-starting cards have a harder time to place in a deck. Now, wotc likes to drive standard towards a more midrangey meta, so they have to be careful with low-drops, with the primary 1-drop usually being a tap-land or fetch-land, thus contributing to a longer game. So i wouldn't attribute it as part of the mana screw problem, as the longer a game goes, the more variance there is for mana screw, so those 1-drops in modern speeding up the game avoids a lot of flood and screw

I think an aspect touched on but not explained fully (not that you didn't have a lot to go over to start with) was the concept of tempo. There is that aspect of "Why play one 4 cost when I could play four 1 cost cards" that you touched on, but there's also the aspect of playing your 4 drop, then your opponent spending 1 or 2 mana to remove it, and having 3 or 2 mana left over to further develop their position. In that scenario, you've used all your resources in an attempt to further your board, while your opponent both negates your move while furthering their position at the same time, with the rest of their board likely untouched by your move and so is now an even more difficult problem to deal with. This is why in Magic's older formats, only the strongest cards that cost 3 or more get played, because they have to do as much if not more work than your opponent's best 1 mana removal and best 2 drop threat combined. Which reminds me of another point, which is two 2 mana threats cannot be dealt with by a single-target removal spell unlike a single 4 drop, making the former play hardier than the latter.

hehe. widely regarded as a good move. just the kind of top tier content I expect from dork youtube

This is the kind of lecture I'd assume Duel Academy would have if Yugioh cards didn't all cost 0 XD

Interested to hear how you think hearthstone fits into all of this?

The issue is see with MTG here is that there is excessive creep when it comes to the utility and complexity low cost creatures are allowed. Once upon a time a 1 cost would get 1 effect, or 1 keyword. Now, 2 keywords + an effect. Ragavan is a prime example of this. 2 effects that trigger at the same time, plus an alternative casting method. If 1 cost creatures had remained 1/1 haste for 1, modern would not look how it looks now.

Yu-Gi-Oh! players: *Laughs in Link -1 monsters*

Chalice of the void made so many players seethe when I used to play MTG, it was glorious