Trapped on Tattooine: How They Should’ve Been

Teferi: Oh gods, send them away!


Ral: But that’s you!


Teferi: Even I hate that version of myself!


I think we can all agree that these two cards were massive mistakes on the same level as Trinisphere, but what if there was a way to fix both of them?


Ral: Too bad once a card’s seen print, its effects are set in stone.


Teferi: That’s a dirty lie, and you know it.


This fix is so simple and elegant in concept, and not much more complex in execution, that it seems daft that Wizards never even considered it.


Teferi: we don’t know if they didn’t. Fortunately, MaRo’s tumblr is always open.


It’s simple: stop making these effects one-sided.





Something so deceptively powerful, not to mention oppressive, should NEVER exclude anybody from its effects. There should be a real cost to running these cards in your deck. You wanna make the game miserably unfun? Fine. It’s miserably unfun for EVERYBODY!


Ral: If you wanna be the Fun Police, then BE the Fun Police! Stop having fun yourself, and lead by example!


Also, one final thought, while we’re on the subject of self-loathing, Narset, and card draw limitations: why the fuck are they in ?


is all about gaining more external knowledge, nurture, and tabula rasa. , as an enemy of , is all about holistic wisdom, nature, and “you are born with everything you’ll ever need.” In light of all that, shouldn’t be the one to limit how many cards each player draws per turn? Why does get an ability that hates on itself?


In Magic’s beginning, got ALL of the abilities, literally ALL of them, because the designers didn’t really know what they were doing. Direct damage? Sure, why not? A Giant Growth effect? Print that fucker! Straight up lifegain? Who fucking cares?


Ral: Hey, we never said any of these examples had to be any good.


Permanent permanent destruction? Go right ahead! Oh, btw, what’s this “Color Pie” of which you speak?


Since those bad old days, they’ve been much better at separating out the various abilities to where they actually belong on the Color Pie, but there’s still some unfortunate residual calcitrance. This is a pity, as keeping all the anti- effects in forces all decks that want to be competitive to include in them, leading to further homogenization of the meta. No color should be self-loathing (except maybe or , but that’s more to do with psychopathology and real life examples than anything related to gameplay), so moving the abilities that hate on a color’s characteristic strategies to that color’s enemy color(s) just makes sense.


Anyway, that’s what’s been bugging me enough lately to get on my soapbox. And on that note, I’m finally admitting that Trapped on Tattooine will no longer have a weekly schedule, rather it will be “whenever I feel like it”.


Until next time (whenever that may be), thanks to Daij_Djan, and I’ll see you all later. Hopefully on the MageLaughlin Group.