How Magic’s latest expansion clashes with its core identity
I am a longtime Magic player. I am invested in the game and love to talk about the theory behind it. I am also an aspiring game designer and programmer.
When I saw Jumpstart: Historic Horizons spoilers begin, I had an immediate and visceral reaction. To me, these were not Magic: the Gathering cards. Rather than react and move on, I decided to sit down, figure out, and explain why I had this reaction from a game design perspective.
Beginning Note on Shandalar
This is not the first time that Magic has gone against its core identity in order to create an interesting digital experience.
I want to lead on that note: this is not what makes Jumpstart: Historic Horizons (JHH) unique or, in my opinion, uniquely problematic. Shandalar, the MicroProse game from early in Magic’s history, included numerous cards that could not be played in paper and did not exist in paper.
Cards like Faerie Dragon and Gem Bazaar are members of the 12 “Astral” cards made for the game. The only one of these that you can theoretically play in paper is Aswan Jaguar, a card with a promotional printing and decidedly not-green effect. This card is not legal in any format as of the writing of this article, however.
The unifying theme behind these cards that keep them from being printed is their randomness. Some are possible to play in paper with only a little work, such as Gem Bazaar and Call from the Grave. Others, particularly fan-favorite Faerie Dragon, aren’t playable unless a player has an app on hand designed to resolve the effect. In general, however, most of these cards are still playable to a lesser degree if you were to print them into paper.
Digital-Only Isn’t the Problem
Shandalar exclusive cards are not the only ones that exist only in digital spaces. Arena has a starter set that all players have access to, and the cards in this set are legal in every format on Arena. Some, such as Raging Goblin, are reprints of simple cards that occasionally see play (like Raging Goblin in some Burn or Cavalcade of Calamity decks). However, a few are new to Magic entirely. Most notable of these is Inspiring Commander, an upgraded version of Mentor of the Meek. This card could really help White EDH decks if it ever is printed in paper, as they routinely struggle to draw cards in a way no other color does.
The good news is that, until now, none of these cards have seen widespread, top-level play in any competitive format. With a few exceptions, there were ways to incorporate these cards into paper with little work.
This is where the JHH cards run into problems.
Breaking Fundamentals
As a forewarning, this section will be a little bit information-dense.
One of the most complex parts of Magic’s rules is the definition of a game object. This is a card, an ability on the stack, a copy, a token, a spell, a permanent, or an emblem. One of the qualities of an object is that when it moves from any public information zone into any other zone, it becomes a new object entirely. Public zones are zones where every player has access to all information and can be broken down into the battlefield, the graveyard, exile, and the command zone.
These zones are always played with cards face-up (with a mild exception for cards ‘tucked’ in exile behind another card face down, such as Necropotence). A card object on the battlefield is seen as leaving the battlefield for “dies” effects but is not the same object when it enters the graveyard. It becomes a new object then, a card identical to its printing. Any effects that modified that object previously do not track onto the new object, the only exception to which is Skullbriar, the Walking Grave. While Skullbriar is rather strange, it can operate within the rules because it tracks its counters only through public zones, not hidden ones, and is designed for a format that plays only single copies of cards (EDH).
This is where the JHH cards run into the first major design choice that completely flies in the face of Magic rules and design: some change the text and qualities of cards in hidden information zones and as such change the meaning of an “object” to refer to the exact, singular physical copy of a card. The rules will have to change to reflect this as well, creating not only a mechanical gap between Arena and paper, but also a rules gap. That aspect is completely unique to this iteration, as opposed to Shandalar.
Cards utilizing the perpetual mechanic, such as Lumbering Lightshield and Davriel’s Withering, are the main example of this, as they change the qualities of a card through all zones forever. If I cast Withering on your Snapcaster Mage, which you then Unearth, it dies again. If you shuffle that same Snapcaster back into your library and then draw it again, that card will be, in your hand, a 1U Human Wizard with an enters the battlefield ability that grants flashback to an instant or sorcery, and power and toughness 1/-1.
This is a kind of information tracking that is only really feasible in a digital space. To play with perpetual cards in paper, you would need the ability to rewrite over cards repeatedly. A solution that could work would be whiteboard cards, but that comes with issues for cards that get shuffled or bounced to hand. Paper stickers over the sleeves could work, but those would need to be replaced per game and would cause issues shuffling. Maybe some mass proxy system could work, but that would involve numerous copies of many cards per event to guarantee you had enough to replace with the original card between games. No universal or simple system can replicate these effects.
Effects on Historic
Historic as a format has, up until now, been played the same as any other format would in paper. You could, in theory, have held an unsanctioned Historic tournament in an LGS. The legality of certain cards would not be clear as something like Standard, but it was still possible. This is the first time we have a widely played format that you cannot play or test in paper.
One of the things that distinguish this from Shandalar is that Historic is competitive. Nobody went into playing the MP game hoping to win $10,000 at a Grand Prix. Nobody even went into it thinking they would be battling against their friends. Historic has the potential for both and has already been used as a tournament format in the past.
Unlike the other Historic legal non-printed-to-paper cards, there will be cards here that see play. There are going to be staples and widespread ones at that. Davriel’s Withering seems like an early contender, being able to snipe low-toughness targets and turn them off forever in a format that frequently sees Lurrus of the Dream Den or other recursion pieces.
Further, it can also combo when combined with the card Versperlark, another JHH addition to Historic. If you play or Evoke Vesperlark, target it with Davriel’s Withering, and let it die, you can target itself with its own ability (since it is now a 1 power creature) and form an infinite loop with it returning to the battlefield and dying.
More importantly, the Vesperlark combo can also grab newly Historic-legal Blood Artist. If you try to disrupt the combo by killing the Vesperlark, it still gets itself back. If you kill the Blood Artist, Vesperlark can get it back instead. Although Vesperlark stays in the graveyard in that situation, plenty of cards can reset the chain of the Vesperlark itself, including Lurrus of the Dream Den or another Vesperlark.
This all slots into the various aristocrats style decks seeing play in Historic. This means a recursive deck that was already playing these cards for value now has an easy to execute combo that can go off as early as turn three. Turn two Blood Artist, turn three evoke Vesperlark, Withering it on the stack. Throw in a turn one Thoughtseize for some powerful on-curve protection for the combo.
Infinite combos are not new to Magic, but an infinite three card combo that will always reset itself through being disrupted without exiling is. Once the setup for the combo is done (with a Vesperlark being Withered), as soon as the deck can get it back onto the field, it will combo off or draw out the game if the only target for Vesperlark is itself. As a result, we now have a new style of combo that exists in a format with new and unique rules from the rest of the game.
The Bannings
These rules make for nearly impossible to stop dying loops and have actually led to two cards getting banned from Historic Brawl before the set is even out. One of them is Davriel’s Withering, which will perpetually kill smaller commanders with no way to rescue them from their fate. The other is Davriel, Soul Broker who’s -3 to give a perpetual -3/-3 similarly locks out commanders, but hits an even wider swathe.
If you missed that banning announcement, it’s in the State of The Game address, in the second part of a paragraph that didn’t lead in with a ban discussion, and immediately discarded by the next paragraph (see below). This suggests that the balance staff know at some level that perpetual is against the grain of the rest of the game. The placement of the announcement and it being so small for a ban announcement suggests some internal tension between acknowledging the issue and pushing the set. It’s easier to ignore an issue than face it.
In general, learning to play the game can be difficult. On top of that, Historic now has an additional set of rules that both returning and especially new players will have to learn. This could fundamentally skew how new players understand what game objects in the broader game are, which could affect their enjoyment of the game itself when they sit down to play a game of EDH and have to learn that, no, objects in Magic do not track like they do on the official Arena client.
This permanent-tracking perpetual mechanic is not the only new mechanic that clashes with Magic’s design space.
Conjure
Conjure is another new mechanic that clashes specifically with black-bordered Magic design. One of the features of token cards is that they do not exist outside of the battlefield ever. We can track them going to the grave, the hand, or exile but when those cards reach their destinations they cease to exist as a state-based action. The only card that, up until now, has made token cards that do not stop existing outside the battlefield is Time Sidewalk, a “playtest” card from the Mystery Booster: Convention Edition’s slew of fun and silly cards. Time Sidewalk is legal in only Draft or sealed, and was never intended for competitive play.
Now, cards creating copies of other cards, or casting copies of other cards were not unheard of in Magic. Spellshapers as a type are beloved, and cards like Ajani, Strength of the Pride could make iconic tokens of creatures.
In competitive formats, there has never been a card that creates token cards in a hand, however. Until that is, JHH and cards like Sarkhan, Wanderer to Shiv or Tome of the Infinite, the latter reading much more like Hearthstone’s Babbling Book than a Magic: the Gathering card.
The closest we have seen to doing conjure a random card in paper is perhaps Booster Tutor or Summon the Pack from Unhinged and Unstable respectively. Both these cards grab an unknown card (or several) from within a known range of Magic: the Gathering cards. However, these cards have been solidly in the silver border slice of Magic design, reserved for fun, goofy designs that don’t work within normal Magic rules.
The conjure mechanic explicitly opens up space that’s hard or impossible to deal with in paper, especially when you combine it with perpetual. Now we need copies of all tokens that can be created with cards like Sarkhan or Tome, and enough to keep modifying them without issue. It also opens up a lot more random design space within the game.
Due to these mechanics, Historic as a format is now operating outside the normal rules of the game, the only competitive format in the game to do so.
Randomness
Randomness (also known as RNG) in a game is not inherently negative. Magic has some, and poker has some, and yet both are beloved games. Randomness becomes an issue when a designer begins changing the amount of RNG present within a game. This changes the interplay between the skill level expressed in a game and the luck factor. Changing that interplay frequently results in a massive backlash from people who play the game, doubly so if this change is for a game with competition.
These observations aren’t my own but come from an excellent talk given by Dr. Richard Garfield, creator of Magic and many other games. I would highly recommend you listen to this talk, as it is a great breakdown.
The general issue with changing randomness is that it violates a fundamental promise from designer to player. When you change the very parameters that a game operates on, you tell players that they should not trust you to not change these parameters again in the future. Some games come with the promise of changing parameters, such as any MOBA or digital-only CCG/TCGs.
This is where I think Jumpstart: Historic Horizons is making a huge misstep. Especially when combined with the recent release of Adventures in the Forgotten Realms and its dice rolling, Historic is about to suddenly feel and be much more random than it had been and more so than every other competitive format. This violates the fundamental promise that the most RNG you will have in a game of Magic is a few dice rolls or coin flips and the literal luck of the draw.
Magic players are playing the game, and Historic specifically, for a mix of Magic’s rules, Magic’s normal levels of RNG, and because Magic has a competitive scene.
The competitors in this game (Spike psychographics) are notorious for generally disliking RNG. Historic as a competitive format has been growing more and more popular, especially throughout the pandemic. A non-rotating format with higher skill ceilings than Standard on a premiere client was a huge draw. I worry that JHH will undermine this growth, not to mention completely shut out the format from ever seeing experimentation as a paper format (such as Pauper did).
We’re already seeing these effects as more and more people are starting towards Pioneer again. It was recently announced that Pioneer wouldn’t be supported on Arena any time soon, most likely in favor of Historic.
This set combines a large shift in the amount of RNG that will be present in a given set, adds the break from paper Magic’s rules to accommodate the new token cards and perpetual, and splashes on top of a short release period and Arena’s notoriously predatory marketing scheme. When adding these factors it is clear why this set is generating so much backlash. Magic, and Wizards of the Coast more broadly, are violating several fundamental promises to their players.
Seek
I will leave a minor note here that seek (find a card of given qualities and put it into hand) is essentially a tweaked way to cast the various tutors in the game. Much like how Strixhaven’s Lesson/Learn mechanic ‘fixed’ wishing (except if you play EDH), JHH will ‘fix’ tutoring. This is a milder version of conjure in some ways, and while I also dislike this mechanic, it only breaks from paper in that you find a card from your deck without rerandomizing it.
Overall, I find this the least offensive of the new mechanics, as it doesn’t truly violate most of Magic’s design space, and tutoring is built into the promises of the game. After all, like avoiding mana screw or flood, you can control this randomness when you build your deck and personally decide what is an allowable amount.
Conclusion
What I wanted to do here was to identify the fundamental problems with JHH that I and many others think detract from the set, its inclusion with Historic as a competitive format, and with the broader game’s design space specifically.
I want to underline that liking the concept of a card in this set doesn’t make you wrong or bad. Different cards are made for different people, and this is another example of that. I also want to point out that the fundamental mechanics present are not bad game design concepts. Hearthstone has used an equivalent of conjure for years and was the first wildly successful digital CCG. A mechanic like perpetual is ripe for exploration. The issue that I have is solely in the crossover between the design space that Magic operates within and how JHH designs clash with it.
JHH could dilute the pool of players for Historic tournaments. Perhaps we will still see people trying to make paper Historic work from here on out. Maybe it will finally win over the Hearthstone crowd and cement Magic as the de facto card game again. Perhaps it will do the opposite. Only time can tell.
