http://www.computerandvideogames.com/40 ... r-trading/

As if Zynga weren't already buggered enough...

A bit misleading, it is games specifically aimed at children, which then try to sucker them into in-game purchases that are being targeted by the investigation.

It reminds me of the problems over Pokemon cards, which were very hard to get them all, it was compared to a Ponzi scheme or a racket. It should be banned for children.


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Well it was a collectible card game, the idea is that you collect cards and rarer cards are usually superior, same with MTG and other games, the better cards are hard to find and command a premium as you buy packs not individual cards unless you buy 2nd hand

Um, that may be true about pokemon but it isn't true about MTG. They have a very strict rule that the rarer cards are not superior, because that effectively turn your game into 'whoever can buy the most cards wins'. The rarer cards are no more powerful than the basic ones, but they allowed for more varied strategies. The guy who designed MTG had a PHd in games theory, he knew what he was doing.

The rarer cards demand a premium because they are rare and therefore more valuable to people who wish to complete each set of cards they put out; they're generally no more useful in tournament play than a deck filled with cards that you get pretty much every time you buy any.

To be fair, sometimes they get it wrong because people come up with strategies based around rare cards they simply haven't though of but in that case they usually ban those cards from tournament play pretty quickly.

Whilst it's not a hard and fast rule, a look at your average competition level decklist very quickly indicates that rare cards occupy the very vast majority of decklists. Even with the very first release, all the most powerful cards were printed at the then equivalent of rare. But I'll agree that Richard Garfield was a bloody genius.

It may have changed but I remember when I started playing around MTG6/7th edition time there were a lot of G/* multicolour tournament decks that heavily relied on birds of paradise, nonbasic land cards and rare artifacts to pump out any colour mana required.

It's interesting that even though cards like underworld dream are on banned lists they still make it into the computer games and in the modern decks when they get refreshed

Seems there is a huge set of cards that are banned between various tournament types which I didn't realise, I thought there was just a single banned cards list for competitive play as the Mox cards seem to be on some banned lists and other restricted lists

Well there are quite a few different tournament formats with potential for a banned list: Type1, Limited, Modern, Standard and Block. A card that's broken in the Block environment (smallest card pool available) is unlikely to be broken in Modern for example where the general power of a deck will be a lot higher due to the improved card pool available.

There's even potential for a card to be banned in Modern for example, but be fine in Block, because it combos off with a card that's unavailable in Block.