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Andy and Anthony talk about bad cards. Why do “bad cards” even exist? Can’t all the cards just be good?

Our hosts talk about why they like playing with bad Magic cards and how Cube gives them the flexibility to play with whatever cards they like regardless of how they stack up to the other 30,000 cards in the game. They talk about ways they conceptualize a bad card in different formats and the inevitability of their existence. They also reflect on the differences between thinking about Magic as a player vs a designer and how player mentality and hamper design thinking. And also, for some reason, wolves.

Discussed in this episode:

• Mark Rosewater’s When Cards go Bad
• Parkers Article on Bad Cards
• The Alpha Myth Episode of Unexplainable about Alpha Wolves
• Andy’s Take Five Brainstorming Videos on YouTube
• The Oldest School
• The Ball Pit
• Turbo Cube

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Check us out on Twitch and YouTube for paper Cube gameplay.

You can find the hosts’ Cubes on Cube Cobra:

• Andy’s “Bun Magic” Cube
• Anthony’s “Regular” Cube

You can find both your hosts in the MTG Cube Talk Discord. Send in questions to the show at [email protected] or our p.o. box:

Lucky Paper
PO Box 4855
Baltimore, MD 21211

Musical production by DJ James Nasty.

Timestamps

• 0:00 - Intro
• 3:55 - Bad Cards
• 6:42 - What is a Bad Card
• 22:05 - The Fundamental Constants of Magic
• 29:44 - In Defense of Bad Cards
• 35:18 - Bad Cards in Cube Design
• 43:58 - Combat is Beautiful
• 49:30 - Recontextualizing Bad Cards