Originally Posted by
theundeadhero
In the 90's when it was a simpler game I'm sure it was great. I liked to collect some cards because they were cool themselves, but never played much. Now, there's soooo many different cards that do so many different things how can it even be possible to build any kind of competent deck when an opponent deck could have literally anything in it.
That can get crazy but at the end of the day, it's a game where every card breaks the rules so you're reading each one anyway to see what it does. There is some imbalance as to certain sets having more powerful cards but other than that, the major themes of red, black, blue, white and green have held constant.
They do account for that in official play, whether in tournaments or just Friday Night Magic. There are different formats and deck requirements, the most common of which limits your deck to cards from the last two expansion cycles and the last core set. That makes it a lot easier to understand the metagame and what decks and play styles are in fashion.