TCG Theory - The 1-Cost Problem

TCG Design Theory 309 - The 1-Cost Problem
An interesting thing to notice about many games that have adopted renewable resource systems similar to Magic the Gathering is that many of them have substantially fewer 1-cost cards than Magic does. Why is that, and what does it reveal about the design of TCG resource systems?

This channel's 1 year anniversary came and went without me really making much note of it, but looking back on all the videos I've put out so far, I'm feeling pretty satisfied with the endeavor - as someone who just started this to air out my own musings about the tcg genre, I'm really excited more than 700 of you subscribed to hear more. That's seriously amazing! Given how rusty some of the earlier videos I made were, and how many areas there still are for me to improve in, I'm hoping this next year will be even better. Thanks for watching everyone, and I'll see you in the next video!

[gmeaki]

Playing multiple 1-costs SHOULD be strong until you run out of cards, balanced by 1-costs being bad in topdeck mode.
If a game is too fast, card advantage stops being so important so low cost cards dominate.

[infamousXsniper]

In Magic the Gathering, I'd actually say the "cost" of a card having a higher mana cost doesn't scale linearly, but actually exponentially. Not only does the player have to play more lands, they also have to draw those lands, take turns to play those lands, and risk the higher cost card not doing anything if they don't get enough lands. All these factors further compound the problem the higher a card's cost is.

To put it another way, the difference between a 5 and 6 mana card is greater than the difference between a 1 and 2 cost card.

[waltercardcollector]

This video has changed how I think about resource systems in every card game. Thanks for making it!

[sarajohnsson]

One factor I don't think you mentioned is that with renewable resources a cheaper card is more likely to be playable for "free" using left-over resources that would otherwise go to waste, meaning not only is the card more efficient on its own, but it's also *more* likely that you can kinda sorta ignore the cost entirely.

[jkattack]

I think this analysis completely ignores the concept of card advantage. Sure 2 1 cost cards might be stronger than a 2 cost card, but TWO cards is an investment of a different resource. Depending on the card flow of a game and the strategy of a deck, it's basically always a consideration if you will run out of cards before winning.

The main issue of something like death's shadow is that if you don't win before you empty your hand, your opponent will be in a very advantageous position since drawing a 2 cost card with ~1.5 times the power of a 1 cost card is still better if you only get that one card.

On the flip side, take a look at UW control, a deck happy to play 2+ cost cards specifically because something like supreme verdict can defeat multiple of the opponents cards for only one of yours, speeding up the process of running your opponent out of CARD resources and putting you in the advantageous position.

[HunterSerge]

Another aspect of this that I think is important to acknowledge is the "play on curve" issue. Being able to play cards on those early turns, and not letting that mana go to waste, is really important to tempo. So you end up with an issue where you either keep the 1 cost pool small and this becomes super luck based as there are probably only a couple good cards at each low cost, or you make a ton and you end up with this issue.

This is why I'm really fond of the Build Divide/Z/X/Dragoborne solution of starting at 2 mana. Since your turn 1 mana pool is now 3, it becomes far easier to ensure your players have a healthy amount of turn 1 playable cards to put in their deck so they can consistently play on curve in the early game, without running into this balance issue.

[N]

And then there's a game where every card is cost 0 and leads to a bunch of ridiculous plays.

[AkatPlays]

The same thing has been an going thing with my EDH group, about a year and a half ago we were playing relatively average powered decks, nothing CEDH, but as we started building towards that power more recently our deck curves have changed drastically going from an average cmc of 4-5, down to 2-3.

[smob]

There is also another problem in magic that's very similar which is the 1.5 cost problem. Prophetic prism costs 2 mana, draws you a card when entering and has 1 + tap: add a mana of any color. It's a pretty bad card that can sometimes do things, mostly in limited. Arcum's astrolabe is the same thing but at 1 mana, and it's banned in modern, legacy and pauper because it was warping those formats around itself. It's like the balanced version of the card costs ~1.5 mana. The astrolabe costs snow mana instead of normal mana as a way to try to cost that .5 mana, but it didnt work.

[bradensorensen]

Whoa whoa whoa. You can’t compare one 3 mana card to three 1 mana cards while completely overlooking the card advantage.

That being said, the point of your video is good.

[TheGauntletDM]

Clicked for Deadly Fighter Braid Claw, stayed for the compelling discussion.

[Laezar]

That was really interesting! never seen that idea of starting with higher ressource count before but I really like it, not only does it helps with the problem you're mentioning but it also means it allows designing cards that effectively cost what would normally amount to fractions of a ressource so it gives much more flexibility in balance.
0 cost cards have to be absolutely garbage to not be completely busted, but making something basically amount to a 0, 5 cost card allows making it do *something* that's worth the card in your hand without immediately breaking the game.

[gocardsandstuffshatteredle]

Interesting topic! I never thought of it this way.

[thunderybuggy]

I want bring to the table how in the Digimon card game, that doesn't manage resources by cards but still with costs, the designers limit the space por 1 cost creatures with the minimum being 2 and only vainilla exist at that cost.
For context, in Digimon there is a shared resource track, that goes up to 10 for each player. Your turn last until the memory goes beyond the 0 threshold at the middle at how much you pass over that threshold is the starting resources in your opponent turn. Because of this design, is possible to bring high cost card to the battlefield but in respond your opponent could play more cards in their turn. Small drop decks aren't as prominent now but the game suffers for something that all these resources base games have to endure, mana cheat and how playing thing for free is busted. It would be cool to see an analysis about that

[MilestotheGallon]

Someone else already said something to this effect, but here's my take on it. There's more than one way to view efficiency: you have resource efficiency (or effect-to-cost ratio, where one drops excel); and then you have card efficiency (or effect-to-cards-spent ratio). Since most cards only cost one card (itself) to play, card efficiency is really just a measure of how great a card's effect is -- and it shouldn't be any surprise that this is where higher cost cards excel. Lots of one drops can produce great effects, but at the cost of card disadvantage. A single five drop will have dual pros and cons. So a card's true efficiency should be measure in units of (effect produced) / (total cost) where the total cost of a card factors in both resource cost and cards spent.

Now for some math. Let's estimate that a card in mtg is worth ~1 mana (I'm basing this on the card Simian Spirit Guide, and some other things). Let's say that we value the effect of a particular one drop at N units, and a particular k-drop at F units. The true efficiency of k of those one drops is k*N/(k [mana] + k [cards]) = k*N/(k [mana] + k [mana]) = k*N/(2k) = N/2, while the true efficiency of the k-drop is F/(k [mana] + 1 [cards]) = F/(k [mana] + 1 [ mana]) = F/(k+1). Ideally, these efficiencies should be equal, so we have F = (k+1)/2*N. Note that for k=3, 5, 7, we have F = 2N, F = 3N, and F = 4N. This means that an equally efficient 3-drop should have 2 times the effect and an equally efficient 5-drop should have 3 times the effect of your given 1-drop. And sorry if this was super convoluted, I'm too lazy to go back and fix it lol.

This doesn't seem to hold for creatures, but for instants and sorceries, it seems pretty accurate. Compare Reach Through the Mists, with Divination, and Jace's Ingenuity. They are rated similarly on the Gatherer, which suggests similar true efficiency, and their effects line up exactly with the above. Also, maybe it's not that the math is wrong, but that creatures tend to become more efficient at higher mana costs. This could be seen as one way to incentivize players to engage with the combat system

[kylesmith]

The problem isn't the existence of one-cost cards in MtG, but the power level of the one-cost cards. Hard removal, actual threats, denial, etc. One cost cards can do everything in legacy. Of course, as you pointed out that the lowest power level and smallest card pool format of MtG does not have this problem and I think it's due to both reasons, availability and power level. A VERY easy way of fixing this problem is by exponentially increasing the power of cards with cost, but that does not come without its own drawbacks.

[boroskiwi]

You can also balance out 1 mana problems with reduced starting hand sizes, smaller hand sizes encourage larger more impactful cards to be played. MTG is the worst for this as you need to have lands as well as spell in your hand meaning you need a large starting hand size, this gives the cheap spells even more value as you can reduce your decks land count without much risk of getting mana screwed, this is the same as card advantage.

[koenvandiepen]

To be honest by now magic has a 0 cost problem

[PopheadJo-ifej]

I’ll never complain about magic the gathering artwork being too generic ever again.

[Void_Dragon]

I made a 0 cost meme card that has morph. When the card is targeted by anything, thats its morph cost and causes the targeting player to lose the game. The card is "You Lost The Game". If the card is played any other way, it immediately gets exiled instead.