@don()shinobi I'll break down all of the points for you, although I will try to be brief, because I don't want to write an entire counter-article in a comments' section. Again, the issue at hand isn't about why bad cards
happen to be printed - obviously everyone can understand that the designers can screw up. It's about why TCG designers would print bad cards
on purpose (which both Magic and Pokemon do).
"1) All The Cards Cannot Be Good"
MaRo describes this point as the most important, and perhaps it is, but that's solely from the perspective of the designer. It is blatantly obvious that every card's power is dependent on other cards that are legal alongside it - for instance, not much has changed in the core design of single-prize Pokemon (in fact, they're a bit stronger now), but they've been outclassed by multi-prize Pokemon. So this point might answer
how a card can go bad, but not
why a card goes bad - is it a designer's mistake, or deliberate choice?
"2) Different Cards Appeal to Different Players"
The premise is true, but it fallaciously implies that players excited by anything but the most competitive aspects of the game deserve worse cards. While it is true that certain designs do not have to be competitive, they can be just fun - it omits the fact that Wizards print the majority of cards that are basically for nobody. It also mentions Limited, one of the most overused excuses for printing bad cards. When players design custom Limited formats - Cubes - they do not include bad cards in them, and the results are obviously superior.
"3) Diversity of Card Powers is Key to Discovery"
This is more advanced, but generally it falls into Wizards designing their game in such a way, that makes swaths of card unplayable not because they're "bad in a vacuum", but because other, very common cards counter them immediately (so called "dies to removal" trope). This is exactly what you can see in Pokemon with Tag Team/VMAX cards - they make "regular" cards bad just by sheer mathematics of the whole power equation. Given that Magic itself has slowly climbed its way up from these oppressive designs, I see that point as not valid anymore, even in their eyes.
"4) Power Levels Are Relative"
See number 1.
"5) Diversity of Power Rewards the More Skilled Player"
True, but completely unnecessary, there is a ton of other factors that can reward the more skilled player that do not require deckbuilding to be confusing and counter-intuitive.
"6) People Like Finding “Hidden Gems”"
A card that generates excitement in people that love to try new things isn't "bad". It's dodging the question, which is about useless cards.
"7) R&D is Only Human"
Duh.
