Lol and Mtg, Lessons to be Learned: Part 1: Perfect Imbalance

League of Legends and Mtg have a fair number of parallels, for instance, both are one of the biggest if not the biggest game in their respective genre. I thought these parallels would give us, as players the tools and lessons to advocate for the best changes to our games.

(DISCLAIMER: I WILL BE USING TERMS FOR BOTH GAMES THAT YOU MAY NOT GET IF YOU DO NOT PLAY IT, LESS OF A CONCERN FOR LOL)

Part-1 Perfect Unbalance

So, being competitive games both Mtg and magic need to be balanced, this is done in the forms of buffs & nerfs in Lol, and bans & unbans in Mtg. It would be easier to see this for Mtg as a champion being a deck, and individual cards being abilities and stats.

For example: Tron is a champion Wizards of the Coast wants to completely gut Tron and make them unplayable Wotc ban one of the Urza Lands, the ability that makes Tron playable

This is a drastic example, but an example of how things work.

But the interesting thing about magic and how bans & unbans work in it, is how few of them there are. They happen much farther apart than Lol patches, so you would expect there to be massive changes happening at each one, but it doesn’t happen that way.

Recently, the latest modern banning announcement didn’t have anything in it.

This isn’t to say that the format was 100% healthy and balanced, it just means that there wasn’t anything so drastically overpowered that you have to ban it.

What does this mean?

It means that Magic exists in a state of perfect imbalance. Affinity will always be strong without a nerf, but if you nerf it, something else will take it’s place, likewise, you can nerf Caitlyn into the ground but something new will take it’s place. A perfectly balanced game with different champions is a lie. Changes should not be made for changes sake. I most definitely think that that is a lesson that Riot and the community can take away from Mtg.