"That card is broken!"  It has become the totally ubiquitous descriptive term, sort of like proclaiming two people have 'hooked up'.  Which means anything these days from a casual date, to full-on... well, let's just say the term covers all the bases (and I think you know exactly which bases are being referred to here).  Broken is a catch-all term, and floods every internet board, friendly discussion, and Magic article these days.  The term is so universal, its hard to ignore, especially when its roots are so specific.  It is time to take a closer look at this latest MTG trend.

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First and foremost, the definition of the term broken, as found on dictionary.com: "not functioning properly; out of working order".  As it relates to Magic, this means a card that was designed poorly, in a way that makes the game unfair, or not fun.  Cards like Time Walk, and the rest of the P9  are good examples of cards that were not properly thought out, and thus are not functioning properly.  But many more recently produced singles such as Baneslayer Angel have also been called broken, in part as a descriptive term that means, basically, this card is awesome.  But also, often, in an attempt to claim that BSA is simply too good, meaning in a problematic way.  Most players might agree that the Mythic Angel shouldn't be banned, there is a loud minority who believe it should.  Does this make it broken?

Since broken has become an umbrella term for everything both good and illegal, it is necessary to draw the line between those two.  For example, Umezawas Jitte is a great card, while Skullclamp has been banned in every format.  The reason, the latter works too well with other cards, producing an effect that distorts the game in a negative way.  The Jitte is darn good, but not that good.  So, do cards need a specific use to be considered truly broken, or can they be too good?  The most glaring contemporary example is Jace, the Mind Sculptor, a card that has a fairly devoted group asking for its banning.  Why?  Because it is broken, of course!

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At the heart of everything is this, why are cards banned?  And more specifically, are they always banned for being broken, or not functioning the way they were intended.  Dark Depths was never banned, despite clearly being format defining in a way that could never have been imagined pre-Vampire Hexmage.  But Depths was never banned, or even restricted (conspiracy theorists can claim the changes to Extended replaced having to ban DD, but that is only a theory).  One of DD's Extended peers, Sword of the Meek, has been banned in it's current format instead.  The original combo, along with Thopter Foundry were not nearly as destructive as the Hexmage build, yet now show up on the black list.   What is the difference between these two cards?  How was one combo broken, when it's more-dominant brother was not?  Neither were functioning properly, so what is the distinction?  What does it mean to be really broken?

The aforementioned BSA and Jace 2.0 have been as powerful and format defining as any cards in recent memory, yet they also remain fully legal.  Thus they must not be broken.  Not really.  So the query remains, why are some banned and others not?  In a recent article WotC developer Tom LaPille wrote that they chose to ban Mystical Tutor, 'because it was making the format unfun.'  Is the line that blurry, that even WotC can't define exactly what causes one thing to break the game, and another to be only an excellent card.  Perhaps intention is what matters most, and the practical effects are secondary.

Either way, despite all the clammering to the contrary, WotC has done an excellent job keeping most contemporary cards fixed.  Leaving the rest of us with the confusing task of deciding what we mean when duelists shout 'BORKEN!' after pulling a Grave Titan at an M11 Sealed tournament.

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Here is the tastiest new sampler from the WotC platter, the first completely spoiled Mythic of Scars of Mirrodin.  An upgraded take on Mitotic Slime, a very upgraded take.  For updated spoilers as they are revealed, keep checking up on the GatheringMagic.com Scars of Mirrodin spoiler page.  You won't be disappointed.