I substantially prefer Limited as a form of Magic to constructed. I don't have to worry about net-decking, or keeping up with the latest trends. I don't have to worry about endlessly and tediously playing the same deck over and over again; either myself or my opponents. Limited is fresher and always hopping.
That has its drawbacks too, no doubt. Limited is inherently more random. Good players will lose more often in Limited than in Constructed, and likewise mediocre players will win more. From my perspective, that where I think I'm pretty good, but definitely not pro level, that makes Limited more appealing, not less. I can go toe-to-toe with a pro if I have better cards than he does. That's only ever going to happen in Limited, or if he's intentionally giving me a handicap.
But what does Limited mean? It doesn't just mean "40 card deck", although that's a big factor in the differences. It is a tough thing to lay a label on. A limited deck can be built out of as little as a single tournament deck. Technically even less! Grab a pack, toss in about 5 lands of each basic type and you've got a limited deck of 40 cards. 15 from the booster and 25 lands. It would be playable, if increadibly painful. It would also be primarily luck. And not just the luck of who can draw the right combination of mana to cast his spells first and who top-decks the game winning card. That kind of luck exists at every level. If a pro has 4 copies of his 'win the game now' card left in his library but will lose next turn if he doesn't draw it and he's got 40 cards left... 10% chance to win. 90% to lose. That's luck. It's a part of Magic. And if you don't embrace it, you will get burned by it. The luck in Limited also comes in the form of who opened the 'better' pack. The cards are more balanced now than they have been in the past, but there are still good cards and bad, and there always will be. It's a design issue. Did I open the Loxodon Warhammer or the Mindbend? Clearly the guy opening the hammer is going to win far more often than the guy with the Mindbend. It's just a substantially better card in the format. That brings us to Rule #1 of Limited.
The fewer cards you have to chose from the more random the effects will be.
That statement is so critical that I'm leaving it all by itself so that it stands out, and I will now repeat it: The fewer cards you have to chose from the more random the effects will be. I will get to the corallary in a moment. To view this in action, think about the two examples above, the tournament pack and the booster pack. With the booster pack, you're upping your land count to 25 just to get to 40 cards, but it's also beneficial because you're going to have cards of all 5 colors. With the tournament pack you can eliminate one color easily, and a second without significant effort. If you get lucky you might even be able to eliminate three and have a playable two-color deck. Automatically your deck will now be more consistent. The odds of drawing the type of mana to cast a spell in hand are improved, the choice to mulligan is clearer, the selection of spells to bring to the table is greater. X>0 as long as X!=0.
I suppose the booster pack deck could also eliminate some colors, and the tournament pack could force a two color deck, but if we're keeping a 40 card minimum you're replacing potentially useful spells, if awkward to cast, with non-functional lands. Some of that might be worthwhile. If the booster pack contains One With Nothing, it probably would be a safer bet to not play it and stick in an extra land. One's a dead draw the other is a bad draw. Some experimentation in this level of ultra-limited play would be fun, but at the end of the day the result that shows up time and again is that limited card choice means increased randomness. Red must be so proud.
The corollary to Rule #1 of Limited is The more cards you have to chose from the more consistent your deck is. This gets right back to the point I started with about constructed. I actually dislike the utter consistency of constructed. Pain lands, sac lands and all sorts of mana smoothers, mulligan rules, tutors and deck filters are all top-level cards because they ensure that the deck does the exact same thing every time it's played. Or at least, that's the idea. Consistency is something like the Black Lotus of constructed. Highly sought after but never quite obtainable, and probably illegal if it shows up.
When you get right down to it, Constructed is Limited. You are limited to the cards that have been printed. The cards that have been printed and not banned, limited to only one of those that have been restricted, limited to a single time-period of the game, limited to recent cards, limited to a single block. Assuming everyone has a sandbox full of 4 each of every Type 2 card in their sealed deck, deck construction would look like Constructed. Except for the 40/60 card decks.
So Limited is the random side of the same coin as the consistent Constructed. But certainly you don't see very many people clamoring to play single tournament deck Limited. Part of that is history and culture, but some of it is that you need a minimum threshold of consistency in order for the game to be fun. Red can't be random unless White gets to impose a little order.
The question is: where's the sweet spot? There's an awful lot of room between the 15 cards of a booster pack and the 45 cards of a tournament pack and an even larger gap between that tournament pack and the same number of cards from a booster draft. That topic alone could fill an article. But the increase from even the powerful booster draft decks to 4 of each card in the appropriate format is almost incomprehensible. There's lots of room for Limited in there that rarely gets touched.
The closest I see is League. League gives you the simplicity of a sealed but also some scalability. It's curious that the League format isn't more popular. It's likely not because of the time it takes. Limited tends to go quick. Booster drafts are very quick. Sealed deck tournaments are a little slower but obviously faster than Leagues. Leagues also get a bad rap; as if they're for beginner players. That's unfair. Since you have a larger card selection it's clearly bridging the gap between Limited which is enjoyed by some pros and plenty of experienced Magic players, and Constructed, the format of the Pro. And what's to stop League from going more creative? Instead of making it go longer, make it go more consistent in a different route. Draft League? Never heard of it? Another topic. Trade League? The possibilities are almost as endless as the game of Magic itself.
So what is the sweet spot for Limited Magic? Is it Constructed? Is it a booster draft? Or is it something we haven't seen yet?
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