The Joy of Simplicity 

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It's almost like MTG is leaning on an online client to do the legwork these days.

I started playing around Kahns block, and even then I've noticed how much MTG has changed since then.

My friend wrote me yesterday about his first draft of Karlov Manor, praising the simple clean design of Burden of Guilt. Yeah, his favorite card from the draft was an old common from The List 😂

My deck needs all the extra stuff, even more extra stuff than there already is. I just want to one day get my opponents to concede via cognitive overload; I'm almost there!

I love having the right tokens and dice and extras. I always have +1/+1 & -1/-1 dice, reminder cards for foretell, monarch, morph, etc. And my favorite deck is Gimbal. I've been playing for 10 years so I'm not exactly new, I've just embraced it

A significant issue with complexity creep in a game like MTG is that there's no going back. These cards exist permanently in many formats, and you seemingly can't even escape it in the rotating standard format because that's the one where these types of cards are introduced.

Honestly my standard deck right now doesn't need anything extra. I'm running Obliterator, bushwhack, glissa the sunslayer, sheoldred, gix, fleshworm, and removal. I love it. Probably because it doesn't need any extra stuff in it. It just needs to beat down my opponent with my favorite color combo G/B

My friend has recently bought several Commander Precons and the amount of stuff they need to function is obscene. Just one card creates both clues and food every time it deals damage to a creature, they played one other card that interacted with these things the whole game. I joined Magic in 2016 and I've seen Clues, Treasure and Food all be created but it wasn't until about 2019 when recourses like that went from being a part of a set to being in "every" (not all) set and often just a few cards in that set. More recent keywords just make so much of magic busy, you have to track dozens of seperately tracked moving pieces. The thing I most miss are "boring" cards, that do very little but are still useful. Vanillas are gone the way of the Dodo and French vanilla are becoming rarer. Cards have to do sooo much now, even commons and uncommons. It's been really unfun in limited where the value engines printed at common are soo efficient they're rquiring the removal previously reserved for uncommon payoffs and bomb rare/mythics but those same bombs are even bombier. The phrase "every card has a book on it" was a bit of hyperbole two years ago now it feels every accurate.

This is an excellent video and perfectly captures my experience with magic. I pulled out my first competitive decks ever the other day (my bad big blue leviathan deck 😂) and I was amazed by how little I shuffled. For me that’s my new issue, so much shuffling

Yes! Thank you for this. I built a standard deck last season and realized I needed a whole other deck box for tokens! Normally, a deck would use a few tokens, and that would be put in the same box as the deck, but nope. I really wish we could go back to simplicity as well.

@MagicArcanum -- simplicity like the wonderfully amazing uncomplicated shiny-ness of Ryan Gomez's canium

I've definitely made decisions with my commander decks based on removing complexity. I disassembled my werewolf deck to avoid tracking day/night and avoided one-off the ring bearer and initiative cards in decks (even if the rest of the card would be great).

My favorite deck: Play blue unblockables, equip them, attack.

I am loving multiple uploads in a row Ryan!

I feel the same! About almost the same deck too. I like to run mono-black burn in Pauper and that deck just feels so fluid to play. I love complex games but I do feel like game where more simple interactions happen the more the actual skill in construction and play the player can have. The more a deck needs x mechanic or high synergy the less actual choices you as a player have. Like, if you have a deck based on food, you more or less have to run a specific sweet of cards. I like when the strategy of the deck dictates cards rather then synergy/power ceiling.

This is something I have intentionally put a lot of effort into when building my cube. There are +1/+1 counters and creature type synergies to keep in mind, but I tried to streamline things as much as possible and the included card interactions from the 90s really showcase the difference.

As a bonus, if you want to get into Pioneer, mono black Gary is a relatively solid and relatively less expensive deck to build if you want something you can brink to the LGS. Sure, you can drive up the costs with cards like Sheoldred, Nykthos, or Phyrexian Obliterator, if you want to upgrade, but it's possible to find less expensive cards, a lot of commons and uncommons. No dual lands, which can help save money on that part of your deck. It's actually a deck I like lending to friends getting into paper magic, because of the lack of peripherals on super complexity. Just count the black pips, maybe swing a couple time, minimal repeating triggers to track. I like having cards like Nighthawk Scavenger (less than $1) and Gifted Aetherborn (less than $1), Underworld Dreams (kind of a Sheoldred at home on their draw, roughly $1-2), Warlock Class (less than $1), which can all do a little damage or keep me alive until I can play a Gray Merchant or 2 (about $1-3). Murderous Rider gives good value and can be gotten for less than $1 often. Just finding commons/uncommons with 2+ black pips to start the deck, a few kill spells, and you've gotten something you can build up from without needing a bunch of extra stuff, shuffling, or spending the equivalent of a nice dinner on lands.

Now I'm nostalgic about mono black devotion. It's one of my all time favorite decks ever since it was introduced in standard.

My first and favorite decks both used Goblin tokens from the get go. So tokens were a thing for me from day one.

My main Commander deck is Emmara, Soul of the Accord so I'm always looking out for new vehicles every set. When Kaldheim came out, I bought an Esika's Chariot. But the store I bought from didn't have the cat tokens to go with it. That made me feel discouraged to put it in my deck for some time. Eventually, I just ended up buying the cat tokens from M21 (the ones intended for Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse) since it has the same stats. After putting Esika's Chariot in my deck, I was able to finally experience how much value that card gives to my board, with or without abusing its ETB. That made me ponder about how much I'm inclined to hold myself back from playing powerful cards just because I don't have access to the (technically not needed) extra stuff to go with them. Right now, I also play a different deck with Phyrexian Rebirth but I only have the old horror token to go with it. I feel iffy not being able to use the updated phyrexian horror token after the recent creature type update. But I have to learn to just play with what I have. I believe in the "play with what you have" spirit of Commander so I should also consider that with my tokens.

I completely agree with what you're saying and love simple games, but I also love my commander decks that are completely absurd. Like a deck that tries to win with battle of wits, or a deck that plays every attraction and every contraption card, as well as my slightly simpler Magar deck, where I attack with instants and sorceries.

My fav cmdr deck has two original innistrad werewolves, and I'm so glad they weren't errata'd to have day-/nightbound. Keeping track of a mechanic all game for two cards in my deck might've pushed me to replace one them.

In one week I watched a video talking about how magic is great because of its complexity, then I saw this video.

I’m a Vorthos player so my lore based old phyrexia got a very large glow up during the brothers war and has never been the same since going from a little guy with slow board and slower interaction to a tier 7 deck with so much removal tutors and big end cards that honestly are very cool but still kinda scare me

One of my all time favorite decks was Kaladash era standard, Electrostatic Pummeler Fling. It had extra stuff to track, energy counters yeah, but goddamn was it satisfying to end games by just.... pump spell double double double fling dead

I started learning to play around BFZ, and my favorite decks only have to deal with +1/+1, loyalty, tokens, and a splash of poison at worst. I definitely understand the frustration with complexity creep, and I am amongst those that think that stickers in legal formats was a mistake. But I am of the personal philosophy that because it is a game, if my opponent finds a certain complexity fun, I do not want to rob them of their enjoyment. It is the same reason why I like "shenanigans decks". At the same time, I respect when an opponent doesn't want to play against shenanigans.

And this is why we love you Ryan; absolutely fantabulous

An opponent; that's what my favourite deck needs. Snag their critter, hit them with it, and then sac them for profit.

I started playing in 2005 Ravnica but I’ve taken a few long breaks. Each time I come back, the complexity creep feels jarring. I was coming off playing Yugioh for 9 years when I returned this summer, so Magic’s new complexity was still a step down from that, but I was shocked by food, treasures, gold, citys blessing, day/night, the initiative, venture into the dungeon, ring bearing, etc. The list goes on.

I would like to share a deckbuilding restriction I invented called Fivefinger. The rules of fivefinger are simple: You cannot include a card in your deck that has more than five lines (plus one word) of actual rules text, not counting flavor or reminder text. For cards with multiple boxes, like planeswalkers, this rule applies to each individual box, not the entire textblock. This has made things much easier on me and on my opponents, who often sympathize with and thank me for undertaking this restriction. I notice very little diminuition in power from the restriction.

Totally agree with you. As a mostly Commander player, it's become a burden the extra stuff. I've come to rely on a box of d20 dice, infini tokens and a pen, but board states can be quite complex. 20 years ago I d mostly use coins in my wallet 😅

I definitely have noticed this too, and it’s such a hit and miss feeling because ever new set it feels like I’m learning a board game, which is fun! I’m learning new rules how to play a game and it interacts in fun ways and I think it’s great. But then when I have to see those interactions outside of their own sets in formats like modern, commander or as you mentioned pauper, it feels so bad and deflating and overwhelming and not like magic

I stayed away from older formats for a long time because I was intimidated by the power level. But I've been playing Historic on Arena lately and I actually find it a lot more approachable than standard, because the overall power level makes the decks really focused and straightforward.

Well, let's thinq about it, the three most popular archetypes in BO1 standard at my level are : - Mono-red : monstruous role (monstruous rage), bad guy role and treasure token (the 1/1 with haste for 2), saga and +1/+1 counters (kumano), loyalty couter (chandra), Goblin token (skwii), oil counters (urabrask forge) and maybe defense counter (invasion of tarkir, invasion of ...) - Mono-white human : +1/+1 counter (initiate for example), 1/1 human token (adeline), and maybe defense counter (for the invasion of gobakan) - Atraxa ramp : defense counter (invasion of zendikar), 3/3 token (horde migration), incubator and +1/+1 for sunfall, maybe night/day if you are playing celestus; with a big minus because atraxa shuffle a lot. If we take that, overall, there is not a lot of counter/token/weird stuff needed if you exclude mono-red. For me the problem comes later down the line, when you are no longer trying to "win", but to "have fun", because for a lot of magic players, having fun means doing stuff. And the best way for the stuff you are doing to seem good without being good in itself is doing complex stuff. For example, in casual commander, nobody will blame you for playing a 6 card convoluted combo that win. But it is not efficient, it is not strong, it is fun. If you want to win, play 2 cards combo, and you are going into CEDH. To conclude, yes magic is a complex game, but I think that we are making it complex. Everybody could play mono-white human. But most people chose more complex routes, sometimes for agency (mono red is quite adaptable this day, with a nice sideboard), sometimes for bragging rights (look at my slime against humanity ashiok deck ;) ). As long as it does not mean player take longer to play that is ok with me. Have a nice day !

Ryan is correct. I just made a mono blue deck and realized that I had to buy four different kinds of tokens and a planeswalker emblem.

in the last 2 midweek madness events i played the same deck for reference it was only MKM and on the edge with MKM LCI and WOE only cards my deck containd 22 forests 4 aftermath analysts 4 rabblebelt maverick and 28 slime againt humanity and i had a blast somtimes not overthinking stuff and just smashing into th oponent with big slimes i all you need to have fun god i miss old standard rotations with just 4 or 5 legal sets...

honestly the simple fact that there was a length of time when strixhaven rotated out of standard that there were ZERO vanilla creatures legal in the format (and right now the only one is yargle and multani) is pretty telling for complexity creep. as far as favorite deck complexity goes, mine is grixis delver in pauper, and while i wouldnt normally consider it a super complex deck it does run 8 tutors in 4x lorein revealed 4x ash barrens, 4 dfc's in 4 delvers, and bird illusion tokens for murmuring mystic

My mono red standard burn deck doesn’t need any tokens, but does need +1/+1 tokens and some mental gymnastics tracking the monastery swiftspears. My little brother was able to pilot it to 3rd place at our standard showdown

Lord, I'm running an Ivy Mutate Copies Deck and everytime I play it I tell my playgroup that I need a break and put the decks away for the next ten matches

My favorite deck right now needs one token and 2 dice, the token is a spirit token because Honden of Lifes Web makes between 1-3 spirits, and i need dice to track the spirit tokens and the commanders size (Kodama of the Center Tree's size is based on the number of spirits you control), and its such a fun and silly deck - its amazing and wonderful

Only been in the game for 12 years but there is a huge difference between Return to Ravnica era EDH and Murders at Karlov Manor Commander.

You'd be amazed by how simple and easy it is to have a fynn the fangbearer commander/brawl deck with a bunch of dog turd 1/1 deathtouch creatures to smother the opponent with poison counters. Games don't usually go beyond the third turn, even on formats like Historic.

Soldier tokens. SO many soldiers. Myrel is one of my favorite cards but carrying around all those soldier tokens is such a pain.

My favorite deck just requires a germ token and a die for +1/+1 counters that often isn't used

My favorite deck just needs some goblin tokens 😂 love those little buggers, even if my deck isn't all too good

Yes. I have huge piles of tokens, counters, and dice, and with every new set, I discover I need more of this clutter. And on a similar topic, what about all these long card effects? Where are the vanilla creatures? Some cards these days have so much effect text on them that there is no space for flavor text. Some cards have so much effect text on them that they have to shrink the font size or shrink the picture to fit it all. Complex effects can be fun and interesting, but if there are 25 cards on the field with 25 sets of complex effects, it gets to be too much.

Hey, I have that exact deck sitting in a deck box right now 😁. I've noticed it becoming increasingly harder to keep a proper board when playing commander with friends and the amount of things cards do is so high that I sometimes just stop reading my opponents cards (because I get distracted while reading them -Maybe it's my adhd). It's becoming a bigger problem by the set 😅

I don't mind them exploring the auxiliary game object design space. I really enjoyed WOE draft with the roles. But when they don't support this with other decisions around their products, it drives me wild. Accurately representing the role tokens in WOE draft was important, but instead of helping me do that, there's a double-sided ad card for your own product in this pack. No way, if they're doing this, there needs to be a token in every pack, preferably double-sided.

My decks unfortunately end up using most of the extra stuff. It's a hassle, for sure.

This is why I am Arena only. The thought of playing an paper match and trying to track all that plus remember the thousand card text on cards is not for me any more.

I’m making a Jasmine boreal deck just so I have no key words on my creatures

Similar for me, my favorite decks right now for 1v1 are monoblack devotion in pioneer and Skred in Modern. Loyalty for Koth and counter for a full Evolved Sleeper, that’s it.

My favourite deck is Premodern Sligh which does reauire me to remember to draw a card off Urza’s Bauble,, fetch mountains (to help gain threshold for Barbarian Ring and/or fuel Grim Lavamancer) and remember if I have a Lava Dart I can flash back. Which writing it out like that does make it seem like a bother, but it’s not that bad really. But why is my favourite deck in my favourite format one that only uses 20+ year old cards? Well…

I originally started playing during Dissension and it still feels somewhat intriquing when one of my cards creates a token. I only play digitally nowadays just for convinience, but if we're speaking physical, I never enjoyed using double-faced cards. The reminder cards don't look cool and I always want to see the whole card...

As a long time commander player I've definitely found myself avoiding certain cards/archetypes simply because of the out-of-game trinkets I'd need to properly support it. I don't like using random dice as tokens, so I'd want at least 1 actual token to represent whatever is being created. I don't like mixing dice for counters, so I tend to avoid things that give keyword counters. So far a handful of D6 and spin-downs along with my box of various tokens/emblems have been good enough, but only because I'm actively avoiding having to add more things to bring to a game night.

My favorite deck is the first commander I made a werewolf tribal with tovalar. The only thing i need is +1/+1 counters from one card apart from that all the other ones are either anthems or other passive buffs so as the first deck I played I really enjoyed the simplicity

Planeswalkers should have been as complex as the game got.

I do miss Gary too.

As a cube owner, I curate my list to accomodate novice players, which means I ignore roughly 50% of all new cards when contemplating updates. No Keyword Counters, Planeswalkers, Double-Faced Cards, Morph and its ilk, Day/Night, City's Blessing, Dungeons, Artifact Tokens Beyond Treasure/Clue/Food, or anything like Questing Beast that just has too much going on. I've had to ignore the last 2 Un-sets as they're just too complex to devote time to try to understand, and standard sets are going much the same way.

I'm that guy that brings every token to draft, extra dice to draft, and yes, even a box of lands for draft, and occasionally, even the guy who buys a box for people to play a FREE draft, even letting them keep the cards and giving prize support. And yet, they still wanna play commander, with their turns 1-3 win commander deck, you know, the one they rated "like maybe a 7." Mind you, I travel a lot, so this isn't one store. This has been my experience in 100+ LGS over 50 states, and it's always the same. Magic ain't fun anymore.

Honestly, I am very impressed with the card design of this new set. I just love it. Take ill-timed explosion for instance. It's a draw spell, a sweeper, a loot spell to fill your graveyard. And it's balanced because it's reasonably expensive for a sweeper and it's an expensive draw spell on its own. Yes, it's complicated, but man, I just love it. And I was in awe regarding many other cards in this set like this. Another example I love is cryptex. Just beautiful. I understand that simplicity is also beautiful, yet I can't blame the new set for the card design. It's complicated by so well thought and great to play.

My premier commander deck has the ability to make two karnstructs (urza's saga), treasure for my opponent (an offer you can't refuse), a bird (swan song), and an emblem for baby jace. Aside from loyalty, no other counters, and 3 search cards. To say the deck is not complex would be an exaggeration tho. Mono blue combo control is not known for easy game states.

I enjoy some of the interesting tactical nuances offered by complex cards. I have a Jaheira tokens deck that default plays with 2 playmats because of all the material it generates, so I can appreciate the deep end of the pool But these days it seems complexity is too frequent and many times for too little payoff. And it is truly not necessary, one of the best cards in the current set is Warleader's Call, which has all of the clean, elegant, simplicity of a classic design.

When you literally spat out all of the other things and tokens that need to be kept track of, yeah. I understand. I only need creature tokens and counters(dice) to keep track of my deck. Sometimes a calculator. lol

Yup....the good old days...type 2 and extended...simpler times yet so much better❤

When I had a reliable pod I kept a collection of tokens that were common for our playgroup because I was tired of them not having any tokens

I did MKM Pre Release and had Murder Among us and Izoni with NO token cards. Trying to keep track of which token was which was hilarious. Then on top of that playing Chalk Outline. So many mistakes / extra tokens were made.

Well... everything's handled digitally for me, but since really the only thing that interests me to play paper now'a'days is draft and commander... Quite a lot of extra stuff to be fair. I think it is fun though and way more enjoyable with reasonable levels of additional complexity, which, I would say, is fine, fun, and even good!

agree. these last years design has strongly lean on extra elements, a repetitive patern that became old. it also aproximates mtg to a board game experience.

Haven't played MtG in a while, but my favorite decks had always been relatively simple and straightforward. Red hasty goblins and burn, OG Bant Exalted and Temur elementals. Some draw engines and searching in the latter two, and +1/+1 counters/Exalted stacks.

You should try to make a Historic/Pioneer or standard deck based on being as simple and then run it on the channel. I'd watch it, it would be intreasting to see how it stacks up.

I had this thought when I played my first comp rel standard tournament this past weekend when I had to go up to the counter and buy various tokens like 3 times because I forgot x card made x tokens

I am nothing without +1/+1 tokens, and I am advocate for Powerstone Tokens. I play both on my Monogreen ramp from Standard deck.

My go-to Commander deck is Thalisse, Reverent Medium. The current iteration can create 27 different unique tokens and needs *so* many dice. But it’s a dedicated token deck and kinda fun to see people’s reactions when I pull out a second deck box for my tokens. Also that pauper list sounds fun as hell. I wanna give it a shot. Do you happen to have the deck list available?

It really has become exhausting how every new card has a paragraph of rules text. Makes trying to keep up with spoilers a total chore.

30 year veteran of the game; most of my Magic creativity is channeled into Cube curation these days. The last few years there has been a real cost to consider when including these new mechanics that require all of the extra fussy doodads. When you’re thinking about adding one or two of the premium cards from whatever new expansion, you really have to ask yourself, “is it worth introducing this additional convoluted thing into my draft environment for the sake of these few cards?” More and more I’m finding the answer to be “no”. Tokens are no problem. Clues and Food and Treasure. Fine. Tracking Day and Night for the rest of the game because someone played a certain creature on turn 2? No. I’m not going to make people do that. Monarch is pretty simple and fun. Initiative I only begrudgingly include because it’s so strong and there’s a handful of cards worth inclusion. Bearing the Ring: not worth. So more and more there are otherwise cool cards that I have to pass on because they include one of these insane mechanics with extra steps and the juice is just not worth the squeeze.

I usually try to keep my commander decks simple which is getting harder nowadays. On the opposite side of things I did go out of my way to make a deck with as much random outside mechanics as possible. The hardest part being new stuff keeps getting added in so the joke requires upkeep.

I played this deck too, but it did introduce the monarch. Problem with the monarch token is that I would very often loose it. :') My favorite deck right now is Hansk, Slayer Zealot. He gives an opponent 3 Walker tokens in the upkeep, so I needed to buy a bunch of 2/2 black zombie tokens with art from Kev Walker.

It’s been so long since I played just basic zombie tribal…I haven’t used diregraf colossus in 7 years. Diregraf is literally my favorite card. I miss it Edit: just got further into the video and saw you mention zombie tokens…whoops guess my deck needs more stuff then I thought. Champion of the perished is still my boy though

To be fair, no one really needs a City's Blessing card. When you hit ten permanents you just have it for the rest of the game making it simpler than Devotion which you may have to recount with every change in your board state.

Legacy Elves, didn't need anything besides the 60 cards. If I was putting on counters I was at my end game and the 1000/1000 elves swinging in didn't need counters to track their stats for more than 30 seconds

Forever yearning for the days where the last sentence doesn't kick me in the shins

My favorite decks use at least 10, usually more around 25 unique tokens, and I love it that way ^^

I’ve only played limited on arena and with the zendikar vs eldrazi duel decks but shouldn’t red deck wins probably not have too many of the extra mechanics?

I just wish we had core sets still

I have a jund edh deck that comes with a second deckbox full og tokens

*Looks at Brudiclad deck that tries to make an army of the strangest tokens in magic history* huh…

Yes, finally someone with a real platform says this!

My favoutite deck? Mono red burn. I barely need lands

almost none I'm a pretty standard player tokens and +x counters.. but I do miss the colours each having their role.... each colour having a different side of a "competition" and they merging together sometimes (it was really uncommon to have golden cards) now you have red controls and blue aggros.... "/

Who misses Core Sets and vanilla creatures?

Yeah I have definitely noticed how much wotc loves to make new tokens for each new set, or make tokens a prevalent part of that set. Particularly with artifact tokens, most of which sacrifice themselves to do a thing. Heck we have even gotten brand new enchantment tokens less than a year ago which were also confusing to play with. My biggest gripe with how card design has evolved is the increased complexity of your average card, with each set somehow feeling wordier than the last with added effects and conditions finding their way onto most cards. Vanilla and French Vanilla creatures are basically nonexistent in modern product. Also the new design philosophy of having one-off instances of mechanics, as well as list and special guest cards, has made limited increasingly weird. I like complexity, but even I find it hard to read every new card. I have 100% given up on following along with nonstandard releases, especially commander decks. I just can't commit to reading every new card and keeping track of what it can interact with anymore.

I have mostly experienced frustration over players building their decks without remembering all the STUFF their choices entail, but I haven't been bothered by the complexity creep per-se. Take Undergrowth for example: love the mechanic, but if you don't have some die representing it that you continually update, I'm irked. I have gotten a little sensitive to lag between that complexity and merchants able to cater to it. For example, I have some decks that make a lot of different tokens, but there don't seem to be as many artists working to fill the niche that the game rules around those tokens creates.

Paper magic turns take 2 or more times longer with all the extra stuff. MTG Arena turns go much quicker because the game does the work. If I play paper magic I try to make simpler decks and on Arena I can go as complicated as I want.

Im relatively new to MtG (WotS) but this complexity seems to coincide with power creep. Well Rested from FO is mad for two mana.

Some cards now have 2 abilities or more. It’s way too much. Rares hurt my eyes to read, but many cards have so many options on them that it’s hard to read. It almost feels like they stopped letting cards interact with each other and want each card to do everything on its own.

I actively avoid doing any searching in my commander decks (except land ramp), in a singleton 100 card format variance is part of the fun for me. Having the same deck play somewhat differently each time makes things more interesting, if you wanna do the same thing every game why not play in any other format where you can play 4 of each card?

As a Professor once said, "reading the card explains the card." Well, not anymore. Magic cards are becoming so much that, not only is it diminishing older cards, it makes games drag on cause you need to reread a card three times to understand it. I really wish WOTC made mythics the big game changer they used to be, and common - uncommons buildup. Now, every card does so much, that vanillas and French vanillas just get tossed aside. If the card doesn't have a paragraph now, it's useless, and I hate that.

its crazy because i really love playing werewolves on arena but if i have to pay attention to day/night mechanics on paper and flip every card it becomes annoying.