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CardName: Baited Aullihorn Cost: {3}{G}{G} Type: Creature - Beast Pow/Tgh: 5/5 Rules Text: *Spotlight*- As long as you have the most creatures in your graveyard, prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to Baited Aullihorn. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: temporary storage Uncommon

Baited Aullihorn
{3}{g}{g}
 
 U 
Creature – Beast
Spotlight- As long as you have the most creatures in your graveyard, prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to Baited Aullihorn.
5/5
Updated on 14 Jun 2020 by Sorrow

History: [-]

2020-06-13 18:16:56: Sorrow created and commented on the card Baited Aullihorn

Maybe this should prevent damage to itself while in the spotlight? Otherwise it would be annoying to have to track damage just in case it loses indestructible each turn

2020-06-13 21:08:50: Sorrow edited Baited Aullihorn:

followed dude1818's advice.

Fair enough. Do you think the format I used for Spotlight here and on Imposing Storyteller can coexist with Carnivale Security and Wilderness's Advocate?

I think sometimes being a trigger and sometimes being a static effect is fine. See how Wizards used morbid, for example. The bigger concern I have is that spotlight just means "you have the superlative" right now, rather than having the same condition each time. It's chroma vs devotion, if you know what I mean

Is the variety of places that Spotlight can check a problem? From my perspective, the amount of things that could be cared about in a single zone is small, and if cards want to be the most (or least) or something, they would want to look at different areas so as not to compete with each other. My brain, thus thought it logical for finding design space to use, that Spotlight not have limits to zones or items that can be checked.

"Is the variety of places that Spotlight can check a problem"

Mechanically, there is a lot of design space present here, so running out of ideas isn't an issue.

The huge issue with this mechanic is that it's WAY too nonspecific to be an ability word. I mean, ability words aren't as specific as keywords, but they still have a focus.

The difference between two spotlight conditions is so vast, that you'd be better off either not using an ability word or narrowing your designs into a tighter theme.

For example, 'having the lowest power' and 'having the most creature cards in your graveayard' are ENTIRELY different themes. Also, the former doesn't have much design space, but the latter definitely does.

I'd suggest narrowing it down to something else. Maybe, "If you control the most creatures" or "If you control the most permanents" or "If you have the most cards in your graveyard".

If you want this to be a five-color mechanic, then you'll have a hard time, because it's hard to design a mechanic that can work in all five colors.

I personally think, "If you control the most permanents" could definitely fit into all five colors.

However, this superlative-style ability has another huge issue: Only one player can benefit from it in a match-up. For example, if this mechanic has a lot of cards (as a five color theme would have in a set), then the chances somebody is playing it is pretty high. That means, that in games with more than one spotlight-player even if those decks are vastly different, the games will always be far less fun for all but one player.

Perhaps, if you made two separate mechanics or two variations of Spotlight, one that reads, "If you control the most permanents" and "If an opponent controls more permanents than you", then players would be able to have more opportunities to have success from their opponent's success, instead of having 90% of their cards do nothing because their opponent got to play first.

That still wouldn't stop 'mirror-matches' (games where more than one player are each playing Spotlight decks), but it would add some diversity to the meta.

Honestly, this mechanic just isn't advisable. Could still be fun, though.

I thank you for your input Froggychum.

Unfortunantely, I don't believe checking the same type of thing per card is line with what I want this mechanic to symbolize, which was an artist or performer at the top of their craft. The best actor wouldn't be judged by the same output and requirements as the best sculptor. The differing superlatives would need to be necessary to convey this flavor.

For what it's worth, the mechanic wasn't envisioned as something that decks would necessarily want to have different creatures with spotlight, but instead maybe a (single playset of a) creature or two with spotlight whose spotlight matched up with what the deck wanted to do.

That reasoning is definitely flavor-oriented rather than mechanic-oriented, but it's definitely very sound when I look at it that way.

Honestly, if you don't plan on reusing the same condition too many times, most of the problems I listed above won't matter too much.

After all, 'this has the lowest power' and 'you control most creatures' are such different abilities, that they don't really fight in the same space.

So, this mechanic is probably balanced. It's still a bit weird to make it an ability word, but since ability words don't technically mean anything (they can't be referenced on cards for ex.), it works ruleswise.

Also, I'm really excited for the flavor of some of these cards, it's not often we get a magic mechanic about something so mundane as 'performance arts' :)

Also, not to be a bother, but here's a few wording fixes I'd recommend for some of these cards:

  • Baited Aullihorn should say "most creature cards" rather than "most creatures"

  • Imposing Storyteller should end with "among creatures on the battlefield" to clarify how it's ability works.

  • Carnivale Security should say "control" instead of "have" and "endstep" is actually two words.

  • Wilderness's Advocate has a weird name, it might not be grammatically correct. I'd just change it to Wilderness Advocate rather than worry about apostrophes. It should say "the most" instead of just "most" and you should search for a "land card" not just a "land".

Also, another space is normally put before the hyphen when formatting these cards. This may have been a conscious choice or a mistake, but the general consensus is that it looks better to format it like this:

Ability Word Name - [Text...]

Also, I presume you might be using this mechanic again in Libelone (if that's the name you've settled on :P)? I definitely think it would work well, there.

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