Slambo is a poorly named character from Games Workshop’s Warhammer: Age of Sigmar franchise. He is also the namesake for a style of critique called “the Slambo Problem” or just “Slambo-ing”, which—in brief—is when Slambo’s stupid name means nobody talks about what he actually does, and only wants to know about his stupid name.

Slambo-ing in custom Magic is basically the same principle. One aspect of the card that’s secondary to its goals pulls all the attention away from the actual function of the card, like a stupid name, a weird art crop, or the wrong rarity symbol. I’m sure it’s happened to you; it’s happened to me at least a few times. People jump in to comment faster than commenting on a typo in the group chat.

“Getting Slambo’d” is a pretty normal problem, though, and it’s usually easy to pick out who’s commenting just to remark on the Slambo issue versus who actually wants to give you real feedback—and that’s important, because most of the people remarking on the Slambo don’t have anything valuable to say—and fix the problem, especially if it’s an aesthetic thing. If I’m making a card about Slambo, I could just give the render a placeholder name and then nobody will comment on the name Slambo, and be done. Problem solved.

However, what’s worth noting is that there’s a difference between a card being over-indulgent or having errs and being Slambo’d. If the issue is solely a Slambo Problem issue, then it’s just an aesthetic thing: you can fix it by removing the Slambo, or cutting down to just showing off the card text to be commented on. But there’s a lot of concept work for things that feel like they do the same function (taking all the attention for themselves, even if they’re not the central feature), but don’t fall under this phenomenon, because those designs—with common offenders being exile matters, creating or destroying emblems, and extra colours or extra card types—are the mechanically relevant thing. If your card costs orange mana to play and is a Chumber type, that’s not a Slambo. That’s a design conceit that needs to be looked at with the rest of the card, and can’t be slid away.

“The Slambo Problem” is a useful piece of design terminology, and it’s a great way to identify the ways our cards get attention and how that’s channeled, to help us design stronger and more elegant cards with fewer stupid names. But in the same breath, it is a limited tool. Not everything is Slambo. The eponymous Slambo card concept suffers from Slambo for being named Slambo, but addressing the conceits behind it, such as the Favor token mechanic—despite their oddities—are legitimate and useful feedback. Being Slambo’d isn’t critique, but don’t confuse critique for Slambo.