Magic: The Gathering’s core rules are simple: players play lands for mana, cast creatures to attack, and use instants and sorceries for immediate effects while other cards stay on the battlefield as permanents. But 33 years later, head designer Mark Rosewater says one of his biggest regrets is how the game classifies those permanents—specifically treating artifacts and enchantments as fundamentally different card types.
He finds this distinction unnecessarily convoluted. The admission highlights a long-standing design complexity buried beneath the game’s accessible surface.
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