Apparently there are CCGs less balanced than MTG

[Don]

I picked up 2 volumes of Yugioh GX (6 & 7) because I always liked the art and it's always fun to see the latest cards that could not possibly be legal in tournament (not that Yugioh was ever balanced, but some cards in manga just can't possibly work in a tournament). So the card that volume 7 was built around is Blizzard Princess. If this was a magic card it'd be something you can drop on turn 2 that's 14/14, and the turn you summon it the enemy cannot cast any spells, and any enemy persistent effects no longer has any effect for this turn. All creatures in Yugioh can be considered to have trample and haste for all practical purposes. So after reading the card I figured it you summoned this and they don't have a counterspell, it's probably game over, which is exactly what happened in the manga. There's no shortage of ridiculously overpowered card in Yugioh (for example, there's a card that's like 'if the enemy attacks you they lose the game') so I'm curious how the card changed for the real CCG.

And Blizzard Princess is exactly the same in the real CCG as the manga. But it's a promo card you can only get by buying the manga, though it's only $3 on EBay so I guess they must have printed a ton of these things, or that nobody cares enough about Yugioh to bother buying this stuff. And yes it does look like summoning her on turn 2 effectively ends the game if she's not counterspelled. Pretty much anything that can hurt her would require sacrificing a creature to get, except you'd use her to kill their creature on the turn you summoned her (and probably chop down half of their life points), and generally spells to retrieve more creatures has to be cast when a creature is destroyed, except you can't cast the spell on the turn she destroyed your creatures.

I mean, MTG was never really balanced and I'm well aware of all the crazy combos you can do, but at least in theory you could come close to trading card for card against even the most ridiculously stuff. By the way, the Yugioh counterspell requires you to sacrifice an equivalent of 5-10 life points in MTG depending on which ruleset you play, so using a counterspell is still pretty painful. Also note that once she's out, if you then cast another game-busting spell the same turn, that spell can't be counterspelled anymore due to her ability. This card might as well say, "You usually win the game when you summon it."

I guess that's why Duel of the Planeswalker actually sells but not Yugioh games.

[SineSwiper]

As much as I bitch about MTG's balance, yeah, I'm glad I'm not playing that other crap.

[Don]

I've seen CCGs where you pretty much can get infinite combos with just two cards and it won't even be anything obscure. Of course MTG has those too but usually it's at least somewhat involved to pull it off and if it's not they tend to get rectified pretty quickly. Yes MTG is huge and have a team of people figure this stuff out but even when it was new it wasn't that easy to trivially have a broken deck. Sure originally MTG thought Ancestral Recall is as powerful as Healing Salve (1 mana for something that does 3!) but an Ancestral Recall didn't just instantly end the game, even though it certainly is going to contribute a lot toward doing so.

[SineSwiper]

I just can't believe how long it took them to ban Jace, the Mind Sculptor. I mean, here's a card that warped the format for at least a year and a half before they realized that it was in 80% of the tourney decks. Same for Stoneforge Mystic.

[Flip]

Geez, those dont even look like Magic cards anymore. I used to play so much and now i cant even read this one. Why does he only have one number on the bottom right? What the heck are the +/- numbers for his abilities?

[SineSwiper]

Geez, those dont even look like Magic cards anymore. I used to play so much and now i cant even read this one. Why does he only have one number on the bottom right? What the heck are the +/- numbers for his abilities?

It's a Planeswalker card. New type of card introduced around 4-5 years ago. Basically, people can attack your PW card to damage his loyalty points. 0 pts = dead card. The +/- abilities increase/decrease the pts. You can only do one ability per turn and only at sorcery speed.

Being able to do a Brainstorm each turn is already mega awesome, but also being able to Unsummon or screw with the opponent's library makes it way too powerful.

[Don]

Of course those cards are overpowered but it's more like they impact the game ensuring you'll lose later due to the massive card advantage it creates, but they certainly don't end the game the turn they come out.

I remember EverQuest had its own collecting card game, I never really played it but there were like 2 cards in the core set that was like:

1. You can sac 1 life for 1 power (equivalent of power) as many times as you want.
2. You don't lose life this turn.

And what can you do with infinite power? Usually something that results in the game ending immediately.

[SineSwiper]

1. You can sac 1 life for 1 power (equivalent of power) as many times as you want.
2. You don't lose life this turn.

1. Necropotence
2. MTG would have (and already has) solved that by separating the difference between "paying life" and "losing life". At best, cards like Tainted Sigil or Platinum Angel would work, but only temporarily.

[Don]

1. You can sac 1 life for 1 power (equivalent of power) as many times as you want.
2. You don't lose life this turn.

1. Necropotence
2. MTG would have (and already has) solved that by separating the difference between "paying life" and "losing life". At best, cards like Tainted Sigil or Platinum Angel would work, but only temporarily.

Magic always had a distinction between damage and loss of life which is why stuff like Ali from Cairo existed and of course you can almost always remove the card that gives the 'can't lose' effect so while it's certainly not very easy to deal with it, it's something you can handle.

These two effects all occur on the same turn, once they have it they can have limited mana for the rest of the turn. You can't really do anything about it short of a counterspell. Necropotence can still be removed after it's out, so can Jace. Sure it puts you way behind to deal with them after they come out but at least you can try. The first few cards drawn by Jace or Necropotence isn't going to immediately end the game because you don't have unlimited mana so you probably need a few turns to get the engine rolling. I'm talking about combos that as long as you didn't stop it with an equivalent of a counterspell you lose the game immediately, and it's not even a hard combo to pull off. MTG, for all its lack of balance, never had any trivial combos or at least not for long. To get the equivalent of infinite mana you generally need to rely on cards that are easily dealt with and/or expensive. In fact the later MTG design seems to be stuff that costs 7+ converted cost are pretty much instant game winners if not dealt with immediately but of course to get that kind of mana to cast something your enemy in theory at least had a chance to stop you.

[SineSwiper]

Don't get me wrong. MTG still makes some incredibly dumb cards:

Worldfire
Griselbrand
Avacyn, Angel of Hope

Before you balk at the high cost, remember that cards like this are designed for multiplayer EDH/Commander, where the high cost is no problem. Griselbrand is actually banned in EDH now, but it took a while, and frankly, they should have known better. Worldfire is just a sick joke. It's trivial to float the mana to cast this, wait for it to resolve, and then cast your 1-2 mana General. Nobody is going to have the mana or the cards or the land to do anything. And this is a format where mono-red needs some better EDH cards, but this is definitely the wrong message.

There's a ton of dumb things with green, too. Primeval Titan should have never been made, and even warped Standard to some degree. It warps EDH even more. Tooth and Nail is typically used to get the BFF combo (Primeval Titan + Avenger of Zendikar), or some other dumb set of creatures. Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger is annoying. (Then again, so is Sheoldred, Whispering One.)