In Rarity and Power: Balance in Collectible Object Games Ethan Ham brings to the forefront the eternal struggle game designers have for Collectible Card Games (CCGs), Balance, specifically rarity and power. Ham uses three examples in particular Magic: The Gathering (MTG) developed by Wizards of the Coast, Sanctum and Trading Card Baseball developed by Digital Addiction. Ham notes similar issues in card rarity and power in both Sanctum and MTG. Cards that presented significant impacts on the game. Where is felt like players with large collections that had played longer had significant advantages over casual players. In some part this still exists in MTG today, especially in formats such as legacy and modern. In both cases early in the piece Wizards of the Coast and Digital Addiction announced the decision to no longer print the cards. This meant secondary markets (such as eBay) saw prices for the cards sky rocket.
Seeing this practice in action in a later set Digital Addiction saw fit to flip the rarity and power balance model. Rather than making rare cards that were high power cards, they produced cards that had major impact at a common value, while the rare cards had effect but were far more specialized or situation-specific. I can see the value in such an approach but whilst the two approaches co-habitat-ed would have in itself presented an unbalance.
After beta-testing Sanctum, as a reward for those who helped test Digital Addiction distributed a limited edition Elven Piper. To avoid issue with power, and impact on play they made the card harmless. However, the limited edition nature of the card also saw it sell for high prices on secondary markets.
Learning from lessons with the Sanctum game, Digital Addiction embarked on a second CCG, Trading Card Baseball. In Trading Card Baseball, play statistics from each game serve to feed the cards in ones deck. These statistics also feed ‘heat’ ratings. giving all players an understanding of a teams strength. This heat rating also served as the mechanism to determine match-ups for competing teams.
I note that MTG is still thriving, while Digital Addiction have ceased production of the Sanctum series. I wonder if this is due to the execution of the games? MTG is a physical card game, while Sanctum was online. Offering a different proposition for new players.
Additional to this Wizards of the Coast have also since instituted a banned list. This list outlines a number of cards in print that cannot be played in certain formats, to stop over-powered cards, instant games wins, and “unbeatable” card combos. This banned list is regularly updated to control the meta-game.
References
Ham, E (2012) ‘Rarity and Power: Balance in Collectible Object Games’, International Journal of Computer Game Research. Volume 10, Issue 1.
Wizards of the Coast (2013) ‘Banned / Restricted Lists for DCI-Sanctioned Magic: The Gathering Tournaments’. Accessed 29/06/2013. https://www.wizards.com/magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=judge/resources/banned
