Something came up that put a little seed of curiosity in my mind, and whenever that happens, I find the best way to explore it is by writing about it. A new Magic the Gathering set is releasing, and with it came the return of a subset of cards that players had been clamoring about for years: squirels. While the appeal is obvious in some sense, squirrels are cute and the oddity of them appearing in such a fantastical and violent setting is entertaining. But the other thing that this and some other famous cards and characteristics like Tibalt, Merfolk, and Kamigawa is that they’re bad. Playing them is a bad idea. So why are they so popular?

Bad Cards Gone Good

To reiterate, these cards are bad. They were never played in any serious decks. There have been other competitively viable cards that are equally silly like Shark Typhoon or Lovestruck Beast, but they never got a following: people asking to see them again or for special versions of them. That said, there’s plenty of other bad cards that never get played competitively that don’t have a following. So why these?

The answer is surprisingly straightforward: they’re special. That may seem tautological, so let me explain. The easiest way to do this is if they have particularly strong art or character. They are thematically unique. Any card could get this treatment, though occasionally the character on the card becomes more popular than the card itself. So the true way to make a card special is to make it mechanically unique. For example, Tibalt is the first and currently only two-mana planeswalker (an incredibly rare type of card, usually less than 2% of cards in a set are planeswalkers). So these mechanical innovations are exciting to players! They want to see how these things they have never seen before play out! If they play well, then they are quickly integrated into the game and are just part of the game. But, if they aren’t viable, then the excitement goes away. Except it doesn’t for some. For some people, it just turns from excitement into what they could do now to would they could do in the future.

One of a Kind

When you introduce something new to a game, any game, there’s a lot that can go wrong. If it’s too powerful, it may dominate the game in a way that becomes frustrating to players. However, if it’s too weak, then you get to see what potential future implementations would have without ruining the game as a whole. So a lot of designers will make the new versions of something purposefully weak. I think that’s a safe bet, especially considering what apparently seems to happen.

If a game element is unique, that can excite players. If a player keeps that game element in mind, later new additions to the game may all of the sudden make the older element powerful. If Tibalt costs only two mana, then introducing a new mechanic that cares about having planeswalkers in play as early as possible might be able to take advantage of him being cheap to play. So long as a card is unique, a fan will be able to constantly try and apply it to every new situation, and will get ecstatic when they find one that’s actually applicable. This keeps the card in peoples minds for so long that of course they will get attached to it.

Breaking the Broken

But what if a player sees this terrible card and doesn’t think it’s bad? Or, what if they want to prove to people how bad it is? The final piece of the puzzle is the challenge. A lot of players love a challenge. Like I said, there are a lot of bad cards in MtG, but the fact that these cards have unique traits means there are ways you can at least attempt to take advantage of them. Winning with these can be very rewarding. It can be very satisfying to win after putting yourself at a disadvantage, and it can serve as a way to embarrass or “flex” on your opponents. And of course, this, too, makes the player feel attached to the card. It provided them with a victory they never expected to get.

Lastly, and this is a minor one, but sometimes people like it because its cheap. A card that no one plays is bound to be easy to find in multiples at cheap costs. That means casual players will be able to pick them up and build decks with them easily, possibly experimenting with them to try and find a way to make them good. If it’s a type of card that’s otherwise hard to acquire (for example planeswalkers are the rarest card type, and bad sets are the cheapest booster packs to get if you want to get an older pack). Some players may only get access to things like this if they’re bad.

Conclusion

While this article seems to be directed solely at Magic the Gathering and maybe other TCGs, it is applicable in any game where players are allowed to choose strategies that are different enough to feel unique, and thematic differences help as well. Even boxed games like Dominion, Ticket to Ride, and Settlers of Catan can have strategies that feel useless but certain players will get very attached to. This happens in video games, too. Joke characters have long been a thing, but characters who feel like jokes have some fans as well, like Piranha Plant in Super Smash Brothers. By looking closely at how you’re designing games you may be able to get your players more attached to elements in your games.