CAUTION: Unless you have been/are a player of Magic: The Gathering, the reading the following post will be a thorough waste of your time. You have been warned!

Reason #1: Mark Rosewater

Mark Rosewater is the worst thing that has ever happened the M:tG. He's the Kevin Siembieda of the TCG world, insisting that his pet game is just the greatest thing ever while injecting it with an ever-escalating base of more and more powerful cards (he's the 'brains' behind Tempest, Urza's Destiny, Odyssey, Mirrodin, Ravnica, Future Sight, Shadowmoor and Eventide).

He blatantly throws favors to celebrity players on his precious 'Pro Tour' circuit, including my favorite example, immediately banning - with no warning or precedent whatsoever - AEther Vial at the behest of Eugene Harvey (declaring it, much to the bewilderment of the magic player community, a 'Super Dark Ritual')

Reason #2: 10 Editions later, and the Paris mechanic is still broken

It's no secret: your opening draw in M:tG usually makes or breaks the game for you.

...So why is it that the mechanic tied to this crucial part of the game still sucks?

Taking a Paris is awful. You immediately surrender card advantage with a slim chance of improving your draw. If you draw a hand with no lands in it, you're basically screwed.

Aww, crap.

Why can't I just do a one-time replacement of some of the cards in my hand? Why can't I just draw a whole new hand a fixed number of times? Why can't my first draw be four cards from my library with no lands in it and 3 cards from my lands, with the two being shuffled together afterward?

Opening draws just have too much weight on the overall game as is.

Reason #3: Storm

This mechanic has been broken since it's debut, and has never been addressed (mainly because it is a pet mechanic of a majority of M:tG player celebrities)

It's ridiculous, and one of the primary reasons that the Paris mechanic is forced to remain the same (otherwise combo decks - decks that essenially exploit loopholes in the game - would become far too consistent).

Reason #4: 'It won't happen again! It won't happen again! No, this time we really mean it...'

...And then they put Rosewater back in charge.

From Skullclamp to Arcbound Ravager, WotC simply fails to keep the playing field open and relatively balanced.

Kamigawa was a solid block. For a while I wouldn't play anything other than Kamigawa Block games, as they were just some of the most interesting M:tG games I'd played in a while (you might note which lead designed was [i]not heavily involved in Kamigawa...)

Now things are back to the same old, same old - literally (after the Pro Tour babies were done whining and crying to dear Markus). I mean, they can't even be bothered to come-up with new broken junk:

Hmm...

Man, I'm tired of this game. Somebody else needs to release a half-decent TCG.