Is it? Either way, it wouldn't seem to matter much in this case. Either an all or nothing gimmick. Players will either think it's a fun enough concept to have one player with some big advantages up against multiple opponents with regular decks or they won't. How powerful the scheme cards actually are just determines how many players would be needed to make the game balanced. The article is quite vague on that point. Some of the schemes are apparently designed to become more powerful with each additional opponent, which probably won't work, but it's an interesting idea...