Folks may not realize it while doing so, but developing complex gameplay that is perfectly balanced can be considered a feat of linear algebra. So that quote made me smile :)
I loved it and I'm calling it a roaring success in most respects, but balance is not something I would attribute to the first several incarnations.
If you were playing with your own group of friends who owned a few cards, the small total number of overpowered cards would be a fun diversion. They didn't anticipate the huge success and scale the game achieved. With a worldwide metagame and market for buying/selling cards, scarcity vanished as top players would pay up to get 4 of whatever card gave them an edge, so revisions had to be designed in balance, rather than rely on scarcity to create balance.
Source: I read way too much MtG history a few years ago when I was working on my own card game.
In fact this is why our game club designed their own card game (Orion Empire, check it out on Kickstarter!) The idea is, new cards will always be different in some way from old ones, so no card is ever completely eclipsed. So you can buy new decks to keep it interesting, but your old one is probably still competitive.
Short answer: the game has evolved quite a bit (I've been playing for 17 years).
Long answer:
> Anybody using the old ones is a sucker.
There are several different Constructed formats, each with its own restrictions on which cards can be played. The three most popular are Legacy, Modern, and Standard. In Modern and Standard, only newer cards are allowed, so there naturally aren't any from older sets. In Legacy, there are plenty of older cards being played. Take a look at the lists from any Legacy tournament, and you'll see a mix of old and new. Now, the power levels of each type of card have changed (in general, creatures have gotten more powerful and non-creature spells less powerful), so you'll often see earlier non-creature spells and more recent creatures, but this isn't set in stone.
There's also the idea of power creep. The natural progression of a game like Magic is to allow more and more powerful effects, since not doing so will dis-incentivize buying new cards. For at least the past 10 years, then, Wizards has made a conscious decision to vary the power level between blocks (cycles of sets). Different types of cards will be more or less powerful at different times (in the last block, enchantments were the focus, now multicolor cards are being emphasized).
It's true that if you want to stay competitive takes a certain amount of money, but this is true in many hobbies. Magic has been constantly getting more popular over the last few years, and it's still around when 99% of its competitors are gone. Let's check back on your game in 20 years and see where it's at.
I don't see it as a 'natural progression'. Its lazy; you can think of new cards without obsoleting old ones, but it takes effort. I know; we've got an edition and 3 expansions so far (500 cards) and they took a lot of work.
As for being around; I see people come into our local card shop for tournaments, but nobody is 'playing Magic' any more. There has to be a gimmick, like a contest or draft tournament or some such. The kids in my Scout Troop were crazy about it 10 years ago; now its dropped off the radar. So maybe its still around, but its 30 year olds with money that keep it going.
Nothing we've gotten in the last few sets compare to the original Dual lands, Channel, the Moxen, Ancestral Recall, Counterspell, or even something as innocuous as Dark Ritual.
Their goal was always to have spells and creatures roughly balanced. Their original thinking was that creatures were a repeatable source of damage and thus should be costed as such.
Turns out they overestimated how much rarity mattered and underestimated the power level of creatures. As a result, we get pretty mediocre creatures and ridiculously powerful rare spells.
If every set were trying to outpower the last, then we wouldn't still get functional reprints of Llanowar Elves or Grizzly Bears, both of which were in Alpha.
Really, the power creep from year 1 to year 10 or so was a desire to see creatures played in competitive magic and a desire to see more actual games of magic (if your opponent wins the coin flip and goes Mountain, Black Lotus, Channel, Fireball then no actual magic was played).
Since then they've actually been doing a sort of power oscillation. Different parts get more powerful over time, then go back to weaker again. They mostly focus on Standard and Limited where the power level of older cards matter less.
In summary (I've already written too much) there's simple proof that the power level isn't endlessly increasing: look at Legacy and Modern. Every set that comes out adds between 0-3 cards that see Modern play and 0-1 cards that see Legacy play. If power level were just flat going up, that number would be much much higher.
This line of conversation is not at all productive. You're convinced that they're evil incarnate and will switch from one ill-informed claim (endless inflation) to another (just mindlessly reprinting old cards) on a whim. I'm not interested in getting into an endless Internet argument.
The evil part is all projection. The objection I (we) have is with the apparently manipulative program of cycling cards to make you keep buying new ones. Its not a mistake to think this is happening - its the process you describe. We're not the only ones to think this way - the game designers felt the need to defend themselves against the accusations as you so helpfully pointed out. Thus we can't be the only ones to be frustrated in this way.
You're convinced all the marketing is ok, not an problem. Fine, you have the money to sink into it. But we're not all like that, we're not all apologists for the company.
And some of us have done something about it. Do you blame us? Is it wrong to find another way to deliver a card game that solves some of the admitted problems with existing ones?
On top of that, Wizards supports Modern, which is non-rotating, and (to a lesser degree, because of the reserve list) support Legacy and Vintage as well.
If you want to draft without dumping money into it, there's Cube.
There's a million different ways to play Magic, and only some of them have the "problem" you describe.
I put quotes around problem because the rotation is actually a solution to a different problem: staleness. In Modern, Melira Pod has been one of the top decks for several years. There are a group of people that do not want to play against the same deck all the time, hence rotation. Wizards does plenty to support those that want to play a non-rotating format.
I'm not an "apologist" I'm just using my knowledge of the facts (ie, Modern exists and is supported) and common sense (what's the alternative to printing more cards? just ... stopping?).
Why aren't you also criticizing MTG for blatantly promoting Satanism, or does your card game to that too? ;) http://church-of-illumination.com/mtg-satanic-evidence
The Dunning-Kruger effect doesn't actually cause people who are good at a thing to say they suck at it and people who are awful to say they are good. In the paper, most tests found that estimated ability was positively correlated with ability, but had a lower slope.
Thanks.
I got my misinformation that "highly skilled individuals tend to rate their ability lower than is accurate" and "skilled individuals tend to underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks which are easy for them are also easy for others", from the wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect . Maybe you should correct that erroneous article with your competent, highly skilled insights.