Creature limit in Magic

[HdH_Cthulhu]

So both Hearthstone and Yu gi oh have an limit on how many creatures you can have on the field. HS 7 and yugioh I think 4.

Would a similar rule make sense in Magic? Imho I hate it when I get beaten by some splintertwin - kiki jiki - avatar of zendikar shenanigans in EDH but I can live with that. In Legacy, it probably will only hurt elfball and maaaybe goblins. (is empty the warrens still a thing?).

Note that I dont want a rule change or anything, I'm just pondering and want to come up with some arguments why this is good or bad!

So what do you guys say if there is a 7 creatures cap in magic?

[Finn]

I like Empty the Warrens to have a purpose.

Why not just pose an arbitrary limit on lands, artifacts, encha...?

Rules for the sake of rules sucks. I hate "blah blah" strategy is an even worse argument than none at all.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

It would have had a reason from flavor point of view. I remember when Blekmen, an old friend of mine, thought about this maaaany years ago. Something like "this mountain is a village where the gobbos live" or anything like that.
But mostly what Finn said: then why not limit everything else?
I like how MtG has no cap and thus it allows any kind of in-game acumulation/hoarding, like say Stax, Tress, EtW/Goblins, Bridge from Below or Elves decks. I'd miss them.

[TsumiBand]

The limit on creatures in play is typically decided by the Miracles pilot.

[rufus]

So both Hearthstone and Yu gi oh have an limit on how many creatures you can have on the field. HS 7 and yugioh I think 4.

Would a similar rule make sense in Magic? Imho I hate it when I get beaten by some splintertwin - kiki jiki - avatar of zendikar shenanigans in EDH but I can live with that. In Legacy, it probably will only hurt elfball and maaaybe goblins. (is empty the warrens still a thing?).
...

In general, players are limited by how many cards they can draw, and not how much they can have on the field. (There's also a slightly looser limit from land drops.)

Magic has sweeper effects that allow players to discourage overcommitting to the board.

[ESG]

So both Hearthstone and Yu gi oh have an limit on how many creatures you can have on the field. HS 7 and yugioh I think 4.

Clearly both inferior games.

[HdH_Cthulhu]

Clearly both inferior games.

Meh I prefer HS on the pc. Its free, and doesnt suck like mws xD
However, on the table, magic is still mvp

[Humphrey]

actually i think the creature limit at hearthstone is too low..

[Zombie]

Would a similar rule make sense in Magic? Imho I hate it when I get beaten by some splintertwin - kiki jiki - avatar of zendikar shenanigans in EDH but I can live with that. In Legacy, it probably will only hurt elfball and maaaybe goblins. (is empty the warrens still a thing?).

No. The board states this game produces with basic creatures are simplistic enough as it is. Right now you can go over with big stuff, go under by being first to play stuff and hitting the ground running, or go around by having more stuff. A limit to the amount of stuff you can have onboard just consolidates fundamental combat approaches down to "have the biggest stuff". You need to have a crapton of small stuff to win vs. big stuff.

A limit to the amount of stuff you can have already causes problems in Starcraft 2, where players actually hit the pop cap regularly unlike in Starcraft 1, which condenses the fundamental strategy there to have the best stuff, because having more stuff is impossible.
In SC1 it was actually possible to fight the faction/player with the best stuff that turtled by taking the map and drowning them in the sheer mass of lowtech crap you could afford to throw at them at a loss (token/elf horde vs. Goyf/Batterskull), which then left them open to harassment (No MTG analogy because the map doesn't have different places, but cheap black and red sweepers (+Terminus, fuck you Terminus) vs. smalldude hordes will serve here), which in return doesn't do shit to someone turtling with a mass of really good stuff (Goyf not impressed with puny clasm, Goyf smash). It exists in Legacy atm, more or less. Give or take a retarded white removal spell to end all removal spells that costs less than those limited sweepers, but more or less.

Your rule would turn MTG into SC2, where you just need to have the best stuff to win, because of nothing but personal annoyance at being unable to stop a 12 mana two card combo?

[Bobmans]

Having a creature cap is plain stupid. That would destroy some of the essence of mtg, limiting deckbuilding options/win conditions.
I don't mind losing to 500 goblin tokens. Those tokens still die to Golgari Charm, etc etc, blah blah blah.
If you don't like spell based decks or broken card techs then quit magic and go play pokemon.

[TsumiBand]

Perhaps it would be interesting to experiment with a "limited format", with a lowercase L, wherein resources were in some way or another moderated by harder limits. X creatures per deck, Y sorceries per turn, Z lands in play, etc etc. A lot of games that have come after Magic seem to deal with 'slots' in some way or another, where the number of in-play items is capped or the number of game actions per turn is otherwise limited. I don't know if it's because the copyright on so many of Magic's elements prevents other games from so much as turning their objects sideways to indicate usage, or if they're trying to put a hard stopper on those MtG elements which are seen by the casual player as largely unfun or boring (self-involved combo, stack manipulation, etc), but those things go a long way towards defining the Magic experience. I think introducing 'caps' into Magic fundamentally changes a lot of things that make the game what it is, and I don't know if it would translate very well.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

No. A limit to the amount of stuff you can have onboard just consolidates fundamental combat approaches down to "have the biggest stuff". You need to have a crapton of small stuff to win vs. big stuff. Your rule would turn MTG into SC2, where you just need to have the best stuff to win.

This. There was an old article on inevitability or w/e the concept, where the two newbies thrown at each other bigger and bigger stuff, starting with Hill Giants, through Ironroot Treefolk to Scaled Wurm. While the peasant wars might be funny, I like a bit more complex Magic than the "who's got it bigger" contest.

[Ace/Homebrew]

Bad idea is bad.
The best part of Magic is the large number of things you can do. *Something* about the game will appeal to most people...

Want to flood the board with creatures? There's an app for that!
Want to gain infinite life? There's an app for that!
Want to make a deck only using bears? There's an app for that!

This would also be a rules nightmare...
How do the 2 tokens Hunted Horror makes count towards your opponents 7 creature limit?
How do man-lands count?
What about March of the Machines?

It also unfairly favors (spell based) combo and control decks.

[sjmcc13]

Removing mana burn was bad enough for changing hoe the game works.

Magic was designed with no limits on the # of things in play other than what your dacks can produce,and many decks (especially in Kitchen Table Games from my experience) involve dropping a large # of creatures into play.

a limited battlefield requires that the game be designed around a smaller # of creatures, which is bad for the diversity of decks which is what makes Magic the best (in theory) CCG. As in theory you can make a deck that attempts to win by more different lines of play than any of the other games (Weenie rush, Stompy, Reanimator, Burn, removal based control, prison/lock decks, permission, storm combo, discard, belcher, mill, Stasis, Land D, etc), it just seems that that Wizards wants to kill off any line of play that they do not like and keep making cards that they should know better then to make (TNN).

[TsumiBand]

Removing mana burn was bad enough for changing hoe the game works.

...is that legitimately the first thing you thought of when you thought about all the changes to the game, was the removal of mana burn? Not damage off the stack/on the stack/off the stack, or the series of changes to Legendaries, or the goofy dynamic of the active player deciding on the blocking order of opponent creatures, or the inconsistency of power level errata in the face of cards which have openly been redefined because they're broken -- you're sad about catching people overtapping?

"You tapped 5 Forests for that Phantom Centaur! You take one damage! Oh shit I got you GOOD you FUCKER"

[FoolofaTook]

The thing that makes Magic a great game is that the players set the board and then play on it. The thing that makes Standard crappy is that you can only set the board a few different ways and then play off of those shallow options.

A creature limit would effectively be capping the players ability to set one of the primary board states and would constrain play overall.

Look at the original sets through Unlimited, Arabians, Antiquities and Legends and you see the possibility in a game that truly allows the players to define the parameters of play and then try to exploit them.

Then WotC decided that cheap landkill was unfair and not liked much and so one parameter, the amount of mana available to play in a linear symmetrical fashion was standardized, Sinkhole and Ice Storm were given the kibosh. Stripmine was banned and then restricted and finally replaced with Wasteland, an inferior option.

Alongside the reduction in effective landkill WotC decided that fast mana was not particularly conducive to "fair" play and so many of the fast mana producers were not reprinted, again leading to linearity in play and a reduction in the overall "gameiness" of Magic.

Then the cheap locking pieces were slowly removed from the equation or errata'd into ineffectiveness. Things like Winter Orb and Power Surge.

The process may not have been designed that way nor intended to produce the result but it led to a diminution of Magic as a cool game. It turned it more into a fashion show for aspiring wizards to send their latest procession down the runway, one at a time, until somebody had produced the last cool outfit of the day and won the competition based on it.

I sound bitter at times and I recognize that, however the bitterness is based on WotC killing off one of the best games of all time so they could sell McMagic burgers instead.

[Technics]

I don't see what the fuss is. There IS a limit... None negative Integer...

[Bed Decks Palyer]

FoolofaTook, while I wholeheartedly share your nostalgic sentiment, you're definitely not exactly right. Lots of what you wrote about was in fact an in-game or a gameplay rubbish and the old, pre-5th, pre-6th rules and pre-10th rules were amazingly complicated and thus woeful. (oh hai Tsumi!)
While I lack any love for all the Jace's and Liliana's ballast of recent years, not to mention my despise of several recent printings, there were lots of changes that made this game actually better.
Speaking particularily of LD, it's one the most frustrating tactics that the newbies face (similarly to counterspells and of course, ultrafast bullet-proof combo), so I do understand that the WotC decided to make something about it. Moreover, cheap LD hindered one of the better aspects of game, the utility lands, and while the Type II already without Strip Mines and not yet with Wastelands was a bit too much of this (remember all those X-Post decks like Counterpost, Hammerpost, or the unending list of Glaciers¨based controls), ever since then this became a nice option in MtG, one that turned lands (otherwise boring basic pieces) into a real gaming parts.
As much as i love the old Magic with its feeling, the artwork, the far less mainstream fluff, without all those... umm... planeswaljkers and such, it's not true that the game back in stone age was better. It wasn't. Again, it was overly complicated for no good reason and although this might be due to my decade of competitive play, I feel that nowadays it's much easier to graps the basics (ok, phase out the manifested transform cards aside) then before. Do I miss the old Winter Orb? Of course I do, and of course that I don't get why they couldn't reprint it with new wording (but old working) like they did with Howling Mine, effectively saving that card.

It saddens me that I need to defend anything that WotC done in past ten year, and I guess nobody expected this from me, but that's how it is. In fact I can stand anything (well, the 6td Ed. change of combat dmg... ummm...), but not the abandonment of the old frame.

Tsumi, what's this:

or the goofy dynamic of the active player deciding on the blocking order of opponent creatures
It's still a working rule, and even if it isn't how does this work(ed)?

[TsumiBand]

Tsumi, what's this:



TSUMI IS SUCH SAD BECAUSE BLOCKING ORDER RULES


It's still a working rule, and even if it isn't how does this work(ed)?

Ehhh, that's more of a naming convention gripe than anything.

The attacker gets to decide on the blocking order of creatures that are blocking their attacking creatures. So in other words, if it were a game of Army Men or whatever, it would be like saying the defender could only declare which pieces were in a phalanx, but they didn't get to decide the actual order of the phalanx; the attacker somehow gets to pick which of the defender's pieces are at the head of the formation.

To call it "blocking order" places the emphasis on the act of blocking, which to me makes it clear that the defending player would strategically place their creatures in the order of their choosing, such that the attacker wouldn't get to just decide which creatures take the brunt of the damage. Since, as you know, damage can no longer be divided up as the attacker chooses - once upon a time, a 3/3 attacker could split its damage among 3 1/3 blockers as 1 to each, then cast a post-combat Pyroclasm to wipe the board - they have to try to maintain the functionality of the attacker deciding which creatures to beat up more in a multi-creature block situation, so this is the current implementation.

The gripe then, is "if it's called blocking order, why isn't it up to the defender? Why does the attacker decide in which order my creatures are blocking?"

It isn't that it doesn't work, it still kind of does - it just doesn't feel particularly good.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

Oh, now I get it, you meant this one. yep, that's a bit stupid change and the silly naming convention didn't help either.

[FoolofaTook]

Ehhh, that's more of a naming convention gripe than anything.

The attacker gets to decide on the blocking order of creatures that are blocking their attacking creatures. So in other words, if it were a game of Army Men or whatever, it would be like saying the defender could only declare which pieces were in a phalanx, but they didn't get to decide the actual order of the phalanx; the attacker somehow gets to pick which of the defender's pieces are at the head of the formation.

To call it "blocking order" places the emphasis on the act of blocking, which to me makes it clear that the defending player would strategically place their creatures in the order of their choosing, such that the attacker wouldn't get to just decide which creatures take the brunt of the damage. Since, as you know, damage can no longer be divided up as the attacker chooses - once upon a time, a 3/3 attacker could split its damage among 3 1/3 blockers as 1 to each, then cast a post-combat Pyroclasm to wipe the board - they have to try to maintain the functionality of the attacker deciding which creatures to beat up more in a multi-creature block situation, so this is the current implementation.

The gripe then, is "if it's called blocking order, why isn't it up to the defender? Why does the attacker decide in which order my creatures are blocking?"

It isn't that it doesn't work, it still kind of does - it just doesn't feel particularly good.

I don't have a problem with this rule though. It's not like the attacker can make you block and if you choose to block it's not like your defenders would be able to stay out of the way reliably anyway. They're blocking after all. No way of knowing which path the attacker is going to take unless you are in a narrow pass or some such.

For all my nostalgia, Banding sucked big time. It left the non-banding player feeling confused and often rooked when a particularly neat combat trick let the Benalish Hero save the bigger ally he was blocking with.

[Bed Decks Palyer]

For all my nostalgia, Banding sucked big time. It left the non-banding player feeling confused and often rooked when a particularly neat combat trick let the Benalish Hero save the bigger ally he was blocking with.
Speaking of nostalgia and such, there's something special about the old sets. I guess that the D&D inspiration was what resulted in cards like this:

http://archive.wizards.com/magic/images/mtgcom/arcana300/463red.jpg

Clearly meant for a really different gaming experience. I imagine a quartet of dudes playing this while drinking red wine and be like "Ok party, move on, lets shuffle the Villain's Deck. Get your fellowship ready: Josh, here's the Runesword you found the last night, Peter, take this powerful Ring of Ma'rûf, and Kenny, summon the Clay Statue. Now, are you prepared for the horrors that lurk in the Dungeon of Xantharthes, the Necromancer?"

[Finn]

I don't see what the fuss is. There IS a limit... None negative Integer...Heh. I realize that we are all necessarily nerds to be having this discussion. But do you really have to wear the label with such big letters?

At any rate, I think that it is excellent that this game does not need an arbitrary limit. It is ugly to see those artificial caps. It tells me that the designers could not find a more elegant solution.

[lordofthepit]

I don't think introducing an arbitrary creature limit would improve the game.

One of my most memorable games (albeit in playtesting) was against ESG when I had to figure out how to fend off like 40 Worm Harvest tokens with 5 dudes, a Jitte, and a SoFI.

[danyul]

Why are you picking on creatures? Just because you don't like crowded boards? Let's put a limit on lands in play, too. 4 lands max. And cards drawn per turn. 2 per turn beyond your first draw step. Also you can only untap 5 permanents per turn. Also, when you play something as a Morph it first enters the Phantom Zone and must battle General Zod and the other Kryptonian generals before entering the battlefield. Also tokens count as half a creature for these new rules. So you can have 10 tokens or 5 creatures. But since we always round down, you can actually have 11 tokens on the field. Also the battlefield is now called "The Field of Battle", capitalization required. And while playing on The Field of Battle, all stack interactions must be prefaced by "HALT, NECROMANCER. I shalt respond to thine unholy artifice with a magickal rune of mine own!"

Also you aren't allowed to play non-creature spells unless you are wearing a pointy wizard hat while rocking a full beard.

This game actually sounds way more fun than MTG.

[iamajellydonut]

I'd play the shit out of that game.

[Meekrab]

I think a creature limit hatebear would be perfectly fine and maybe interesting, though.

WW
2/2 (No sir, Golgari Charm)
"When ~ enters play, choose a number X greater than 2. Each player chooses from the creatures they control up to X creatures and exiles the rest. When a creature would enter the battlefield, if it's controller controls X or more creatures, he/she exiles it instead."

/shrug

[Tammit67]

I think a creature limit hatebear would be perfectly fine and maybe interesting, though.

WW
2/2 (No sir, Golgari Charm)
"When ~ enters play, choose a number X greater than 2. Each player chooses from the creatures they control up to X creatures and exiles the rest. When a creature would enter the battlefield, if it's controller controls X or more creatures, he/she exiles it instead."

/shrug

So Ward of Bones except fixed number and only for creatures?

[Meekrab]

Sure, except that it also handles tokens and morphs and reanimated creatures and whatever else WotC comes up with in the future for putting creatures into play without "playing" them.

[Poron]

these machanics are already in the game. Limited Resources for example