Over the years, Wizards has always been pushing the boundaries when it comes to designs and mechanics. This helps keep the game fun and interesting, as each set has its own unique feel.
While most mechanics play out reasonably well, every now and again, we get one that stands out as being rather unenjoyable or undesirable. With so many new designs coming out every year, there are bound to be some that are less than ideal.
In a recent segment at MagicCon Las Vegas, MTG head designer Mark Rosewater gave a list of the top 20 worst MTG mechanics in his opinion. These mechanics stretch throughout MTG’s history, each showcasing a specific issue that earns them a spot on the list.
Today, we want to analyze the list and discuss some mechanics that we’re surprised didn’t make the cut. To kick things off, we’re going to look at the mechanics on the list that we feel absolutely deserve to be there.
Worst Mechanics
- Mark Rosewater’s Worst Mechanics List:
- #20 Stickers
- #19 Megamorph
- #18 Companion
- #17 Haunt
- #16 Annihilator
- #15 Devoid
- #14 Partner
- #13 Miracle
- #12 Forecast
- #11 Initiative
- #10 Cleave
- #9 Unmemorable (not interesting/something that no one really remembers, such as Support)
- #8 Epic
- #7 Fateful Hour
- #6 Day/Night
- #5 Radiance
- #4 Recover
- #3 Sweep
- #2 Gotcha
- #1 Bands With Other
Typically, the cards on the worst mechanics list fall into one of a couple categories. Either they’re awkward in a tournament setting, very confusing, warp gameplay, or create unfun experiences when playing against them. When it comes to awkward tournament play, perhaps no mechanic fits the bill more than Stickers.
Stickers are undoubtedly infamous for their role in competitive events and the rules that corresponded with their existence. See, cards like the Goblin shown above were actually powerful enough to show up in Legacy.
This required players to bring multiple sticker sheets with them to a tournament. Having to randomly pick options between sticker sheets to gain an effect is tedious and awkward, so that alone would make Stickers a poor mechanic.
Add on the fact that if you went to copy the Goblin with Phyrexian Metamorph, you’d have to have sticker sheets registered as well to gain the effect. This only makes things worse. Frankly, I’m shocked Stickers aren’t further up on the list, as the mechanic appears at number 20.
Another mechanic that follows suit is Day/Night, which appears all the way at number six. Day/Night sounds cool in theory but is a nightmare to track in paper. It’s so easy to miss the fact that a player cast multiple spells in a turn, especially when trying to play at a fast pace.
As for mechanics that are tough to understand, bands with others takes the cake. Seeing this at number one is no surprise. Even I have trouble understanding how attacking and blocking works with this mechanic. Luckily, it doesn’t come up often since no modern-day cards feature the mechanic.
Warped and Unfun Gameplay
Moving to game-warping mechanics, Partner, Initiative, and Companion all feel like welcome inclusions in the top 20. Partner is a cool concept but has ultimately just led to players playing four-color soup piles in Commander by combining two multi-color Partners. Initiative is also a neat idea for Commander, but its appearance on efficient creatures like White Plume Adventurer proved to be overpowered in one-on-one environments.
Companion is an interesting one that’s tough to rank. Based purely on the mechanic’s original form before the errata (adding a three-mana tax to put the Companion in your hand), Companion goes down as one of the most broken mechanics ever.
However, with this change, some Companions actually make for a reasonably interesting Limited environment. Trying to craft a deck around Lurrus in Ikoria draft or Vintage Cube, for instance, is a neat puzzle that doesn’t feel too obnoxious. As such, while there’s an argument Companion should be way higher than number 18 on the list, we think the placement is ultimately reasonable.
This brings us to one final grouping of mechanics: those that are simply unfun. Forecast and Epic immediately come to mind, and both made the list at 12 and 8, respectively. These mechanics are bad because they make gameplay monotonous.
Forecast incentivizes you to keep using the same ability turn after turn without playing other spells. The opponent doesn’t even get to use countermagic to disrupt it. Similarly, Epic prevents you from casting any other spells. In the face of a card like Enduring Ideal, the game quickly revolves around this one card and nothing else, which isn’t exactly enjoyable.
Questionable Choices
While I agree with most of the list, there were some mechanics I felt weren’t quite as bad as their placement in the rankings suggest. Take Annihilator, for example. According to Mark Rosewater, Annihilator is bad because it snowballs quickly and forces you to remove the threat in short order.
This is true but considering that Annihilator usually shows up on cards with very high mana costs like Ulamog and Emrakul, this doesn’t feel as problematic. At the same time, if a card has only Annihilator 1, sacrificing a land to its attack isn’t that devastating.
That said, there isn’t really any design space to put Annihilator on a card that doesn’t threaten to end the game outright, which can make it limited in its applications.
The other mechanic that stands out as not necessarily deserving a spot is Megamorph at 19. Megamorph isn’t really that interesting, but it never felt bad to me, per se. The gameplay with cards like Den Protector felt smooth. While it is just a small adjustment to Morph at the end of the day, that doesn’t feel that different than the recent implementation of Manifest Dread.
Surprising Mechanics Left Off
In my opinion, there are far worse mechanics that didn’t make the cut. Cipher is a classic mechanic that I’m very surprised wasn’t in the top 20. Cipher has a few things that make it play it quite poorly.
First, because the effect of the card can happen repeatedly, it forces the design team to be quite cautious with all Cipher cards in general. As a result, it’s incredibly rare we see Cipher make a splash in any major format. Hidden Strings is an exception, but the card is not played because of its Cipher ability.
Above all, just like Forecast, Cipher leads to repetitive and uninteresting gameplay. If you don’t have removal or a decent block to make, you know the same effect will happen over and over. This mechanic feels much worse than Megamorph to me for these reasons.
Another mechanic that warps games and makes them unfun is Provoke. If you’ve ever been decimated by Deftblade Elite in Pauper, you know what I’m talking about. Creatures with Provoke can force an opposing creature of your choice to block it. Even worse, you get to untap the opposing creature, so they can’t just attack on their turn and get out of a sticky situation.
What this does is it creates board states where the Provoke creature takes over the game. If you have a big Provoke creature in play, thanks to an Aura or pump spell, you can use your Provoke creature as a removal spell turn after turn.
This feeling of needing to kill the Provoke creature to not lose is similar to that with Annihilator. The difference, though, is that Provoke creatures can come down super early in the game without much effort.
Ultimately, the top 20 list is very subjective, so there’s bound to be conflicting opinions from players. Regardless, it’s nice to see Mark Rosewater showcasing his thoughts on the matter. With the constant influx of new mechanics, the important thing is to learn from past errors, and this is a helpful step.
