Echoing what that other guy said, I have felt a rise in complexity recently. With so many new cards that not only make you read and remember what they do, but what the tokens they make do, then what the tokens that that token makes does, it really adds to the mental load. Some examples would be Ring Tempts You, daybound/nightbound, initiative, Venture into the dungeon, stickers, attractions, and many more.
For instance, had a vindicate, and was debating between killing Frodo, sauron’s bane and Nahar, selfless paladin, I would have to read a total of 6 cards. Each of the original creatures, plus the 3 dungeons and the Ring card. And this problem gets worse the more effects you add on, many of which don’t go away as the game continues. If someone introduces the initiative, I now have to worry about nahar exploring the underdark. This scaling complexity as the game continues now means there’s an insane amount layers of the game, which while fun, is also very daunting, and somewhat of a headache.If nothing else, I’d really like if “reading the card explains the card” was true, not “reading the card, then the three different extra cards that it makes explains the card”I do appreciate your listening, and generally a lot of the new stuff has been cool. However, this push for many “outside the game” mechanics is not great for paper play, and I would prefer less of it.

Here’s the core problem. A huge part of Magic is that we keep making new cards. When we do that, the audience wants new mechanics. (Market research shows again and again that one of the biggest draws to new sets is new mechanics.) We’re thirty years in. We’ve made a *lot* of mechanics, so we have to go to new spaces to make new things. It’s not as if there’s lots of simple, elegant, non-complex design space that we’re actively choosing not to do.What this means is if you want to play constructed formats that don’t rotate, complexity will rise with time. There’s literally no way around this. Every new card we create, every new mechanic we make, every set we put out adds complexity to the system. So if you’re finding the mental load too much, there are ways to play Magic where this isn’t an issue. Limited formats and rotating constructed formats limit complexity. Or you can choose to build your decks such that you focus on less mechanics you have to track.That said, I don’t think there’s a way for me to do my job (aka keep designing new things) that isn’t going to raise complexity. We can look at how many things we add to any one set. Maybe slow down the rise in complexity a little. But can we do so in a way that the audience is getting what they want? I’m not sure.One of the mechanics I get asked most to bring back is mutate, and that’s confusing even without the rest of Magic, so there are many forces pulling in different directions.I do like hearing the specific things that cause you all problems, because it’s possible I can figure out the style of designs that cause people problems. But the idea that we just stop making mechanics that reference things not on the card is a tough one given where Magic design technology is currently at.I do appreciate all the input, and I hope the dialogue helps me better understand what specific things are causing problems.

Hi Mark, I must say the mutate mechanic looks rather fun, but it also seems to carry some rules complexities. I personally like complexity, can I hope MTG is moving into a direction where it allows more complexity again?

Mutate is testing some Standard-legal boundaries for complexity.

Is magic the most complicated non-electronic game?

Why are you restricting it to non-electronic? : )

Do you think Magic would be a better or worse game if the power/toughness scale were 10x larger so that you could have 11, 13, 15, and 19 power for example (equal to 1.1, 1.3, 1.5, and 1.9 today or... 1 and 2)?

I think it would make the game a lot more complex.