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Magic: The Gathering/Gameplay Tropes: Difference between revisions
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{{work}}
This page is for tropes that appear in ''[[Magic: The Gathering]]''{{'}}s gameplay (as opposed to [[Magic: The Gathering/Flavor And Story Tropes|tropes that appear in its flavor and storyline]]).
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* [[Action Bomb]]: Blowing oneself up is a favorite tactic of red cards, particularly among goblins. Examples include but are not limited to [http://magiccards.info/evg/en/46.html Mudbutton Torchrunner], [http://magiccards.info/sh/en/91.html Mogg Bombers], [http://magiccards.info/rav/en/151.html War-Torch Goblin], [http://magiccards.info/evg/en/43.html Ib Halfheart]'s suicide troops, and whichever schmuck ends up carrying the [http://magiccards.info/fe/en/114.html Goblin Grenade].
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* [[Interface Screw]]: The preview of the [http://wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/arcana/396 Rise of the Eldrazi] set did this to your browser!
* [[Joke Character]]: Variation: each block typically contains at least one entirely awful card, deliberately put there just for the people who love to try and make it work. The game is such that they usually can.
* [[Junk Rare]]: There are a lot of these, usually [[They Plotted a Perfectly Good Waste|on purpose]]. Mark Rosewater, the head designer, wrote a lengthy [[Justified Trope|justification]] of the practice titled [https://web.archive.org/web/20090602111149/http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom
* [[A Kind of One]]: It was common in the game's early days for creatures to have unique creature types based on their names, leading to types like "Aladdin" or "Uncle Istvan". Most of them are now defunct, but a couple of these odd one-of types had the honor of later being upgraded into their own races: notably, Atog and Lhurgoyf. Some just stayed as one-ofs, like the solitary Brushwagg.
* [[Kingmaker Scenario]]: Frequently crops up in multiplayer games when [[Alice and Bob|Bob]]'s position is too weak to win the game, but strong enough to pick a side and swing the game in favor of either [[Alice and Bob|Alice]] or [[Alice and Bob|Carl]] at his whim.
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* [[Metagame]]: Probably the best-known instance; decks that dominate one tournament can get curbstomped in the next due to metagame changes.
* [[Mook Maker]]: A staple effect. Examples included but are ''definitely'' not limited to: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Breeding%20Pit Breeding Pit], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kjeldoran%20Outpost Kjeldoran Outpost], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thallid Thallid], [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=The%20Hive The Hive], [http://magiccards.info/on/en/309.html Riptide Replicator], ''[http://magiccards.info/ts/en/263.html Sarpadian Empires, Vol. VII]'', [http://magiccards.info/mbs/en/117.html Myr Turbine], and many, many more.
* [[Multiple Demographic Appeal]]: The minds behind Magic R&D have actually created three psychographic profiles -- "Johnny", "Timmy", and "Spike" -- representing three different demographics for the game. See [https://web.archive.org/web/20080925103817/http://www.wizards.com/
* [[My Defense Need Not Protect Me Forever]]: It's common for slower strategies to establish defenses in the early game just to buy time to reach the later stages.
* [[No Ontological Inertia]]: If you are playing in a multiplayer game and you die, all the cards you own disappear from the game. This is primarily so that you don't have to stick around until the end of the game just to get back the enchantment you put on somebody else's creature.
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* [[Power Creep]]: Of a sort. Creatures started rather poorly and rose in power and usefulness over time (compare Alpha's [http://magiccards.info/al/en/103.html Force of Nature] to Zendikar's [http://magiccards.info/zen/en/187.html Terra Stomper], both 8/8 green creatures), while some early spells were considered too powerful and weaker versions were released to replace them ([http://magiccards.info/al/en/55.html Counterspell] vs. [http://magiccards.info/m12/en/47.html Cancel]). Cards that experience either are often considered "[https://web.archive.org/web/20140216103446/http://wiki.mtgsalvation.com/article/Strictly_better strictly better/worse]".
* [[Powers as Programs]]: Creature enchantments are this. As are equipment; yes, it's possible for a bird to carry three swords, a shield, and armor clearly designed with humans in mind. Could they be [[Morph Weapon|Morph Weapons]]? It sounds like something [[A Wizard Did It|a Planeswalker could do]], but we might never know.
* [[Power Equals Rarity]]: An interesting case. Although many rares are more powerful than their common or uncommon counterparts, powerful cards are not exclusively rare. Additionally, rarity is used to balance Limited formats (in which players build decks out of a random or semi-random pool of cards). And this is only scratching the surface--whole essays can ([https://web.archive.org/web/20090602111149/http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtgcom
* [[Practical Taunt]]: [http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=39890 Taunting Elf] causes all of the defending opponent's creatures to block it when it attacks.
* [[Quad Damage]]:
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* [[Serious Business]]: [[Tournament Play]]. This makes sense, because Wizards of the Coast provides some ''serious'' prize support. A single tournament can net the winner upwards of $40,000, and they've given away over $25 million in total cash prizes since they started running major tournaments. Several players have lifetime winnings in excess of $100,000, and that doesn't count minor tournaments or free plane trips to exotic foreign locales (though admittedly, you're there to play Magic, so perhaps "dreary foreign convention centre floors" would be more accurate). Of course, this trope often appears in full force even when there isn't a pile of cash at stake.
* [[Serial Escalation]]:
** Early expansions made a game of one-upping each other, with every other expansion introducing a new "largest creature in the game." First there was the 8/8 [http://magiccards.info/al/en/103.html Force of Nature] in ''Alpha'', then the 9/9 [http://magiccards.info/aq/en/11.html Colossus of Sardia] in ''Antiquities'', then the 10/10 [http://magiccards.info/dk/en/29.html Leviathan] in ''The Dark'', then ''Ice Age''{{'}}s 11/11 [http://magiccards.info/ia/en/89.html Polar Kraken], and finally the 12/12 [http://magiccards.info/mr/en/280.html Phyrexian Dreadnought] in ''Mirage''. The process was spoofed in ''Unglued''{{'}}s [http://magiccards.info/ug/en/28.html B.F.M. (Big Furry Monster)], a 99/99 creature so big that he takes up two cards and wears "[[Continuity Nod|krakens and dreadnoughts for jewelry]]", and it was nostalgically revisited in ''Coldsnap'', which introduced [http://magiccards.info/cs/en/37.html Jokulmorder], a 12/12, as a nod to the set's gimmick of supposedly predating ''Mirage
*** It didn't stop there. In ''Legions'' there was the 13/13 [http://magiccards.info/le/en/130.html Krosan Cloudscraper], followed by the 9/14 [http://magiccards.info/rav/en/191.html Autochthon Wurm] in ''Ravnica'', and finally the 15/15 [http://magiccards.info/roe/en/4.html Emrakul, The Aeons Torn] in ''Rise of the Eldrazi''.
** ''Unglued'' had cards with both [http://magiccards.info/ug/en/53.html the longest] and [http://magiccards.info/ug/en/36.html the shortest] names in the game at that time. Not to be outdone, ''Unhinged'' introduced [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/107.html a card whose name is so long it wraps completely around all four sides of the card] and [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/23.html a card with no name at all].
** ''Unglued'' also contained the card(s) with the largest mana cost, the aforementioned [http://magiccards.info/ug/en/28.html B.F.M.], whose 15 black mana symbols stretched across the entire top line of the card. Once again, ''Unhinged'' decided to top it with [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/121.html Gleemax], a card which costs 1,000,000 mana. Yes, that's one million mana. I hope you brought your [http://magiccards.info/uh/en/124.html Mox Lotus].
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