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CardName: Crimson Vow Cost: Type: Pow/Tgh: / Rules Text: Discuss mechanics, returning cards, etc Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Conversation None

Crimson Vow
 
 
Discuss mechanics, returning cards, etc
Updated on 12 Jan 2022 by Sorrow

History: [-]

2021-10-29 09:50:33: Sorrow created and commented on the card Crimson Vow

I find the Cleave mechanic quite surprising. Conceptwise, a cost to do a broader version of an ability isn't odd. The way it's implemented onto the card, with the removed words in brackets has a weird look and feel.

Currently the Magic: the Gathering template in TeXnicard (and possibly other programs) uses square brackets for a different purpose. This will need to be fixed in order to allow cleave to be used. The ASCII form of loyalty abilities also uses square brackets (rule 107.7; I don't know if they will have to change this), so this will need to be handled properly, too.

This mechanic - including the square brackets in many cases - has been a repeateadly (independenty?) designed custom mechanic. I always felt that the mechanic's one weak point that needed fixing was those brackets though. It makes for a busy text box. I'm surprised to see they didn't find a better treatment.

Also the name of the mechanic is rather a let-down.


Speaking of let-downs: Runo Stromkirk, am I right?


In other news: Blood tokens are colorless artifact tokens,and I really feel they missed a chance to make them red artifact tokens.

I'm not a huge fan of cleave. First, the name has anti-flavor: I associate the word with damaging multiple things at once, not this even less flavorful thing than cycling. I'm also quite surprised they were able to clear it with the localization teams

I think Runo's neat, though

Cleave is just like my "censor" mechanic, 8 years ago. See Censor Therapy.

@amuseum- Censor seems much simpler, since you only omit one word from the censored version, and the omitted word is next to the Censor cost.

Or it is more complicated because now you have to look up the part of the ability that changes by censoring a specific word.

There are also questions of design space etc. There are many versions of this ability e. g. I've recently seen one that specifically only alters the wording of the target e. g. turning Plummet into Murder.

I think the concept can be taken into different directions.

@dude1818 "I associate the word [cleave] with damaging multiple things at once"

To me, cleave as this usage now common in video games is also misnomer. A more proper term would be sweep.

sweep:
n. "a movement in an arc"
v. "cover the entire range of"

So MaRo recently could't even explain why the word cleave was even chosen. It makes not much sense with the D&D usage nor either of its Meriam-Webster definitions. Actually, not even MaRo's guess that the word was chosen to make sense in the setting is all that understandable to me since cleave is like third tier for "Innistrad" word maps and even lower tier for "Vampire Wedding".

While "cleave" can fit with a brutal horror; don't get me wrong. But in a setting of transforming monsters and fitting the theme of one spell becoming something else, how about "distort"/"distortion".

I've some more ideas for censor, though not yet posted on this site. It can be pretty creative if you try really hard. Even a tutor similar to Dig Up

ex.

Create a 5/5 black Demon creature token [with hexdoom]. (sacrifice when targeted by spell or ability)

Each player [except your opponents] gains 7 life.

Search your library for two [Plains] cards, exile them, and shuffle. Put one card exiled this way into your hand and the other card on top of your library.

I thought about that token version, but it always comes at the cost of supporting multiple token types, though: "Create two 3/1 red Elemental Shaman creature tokens with haste. [Sacrifice them at the beginning of the next end step.]" still works cleanly.

my censor was originitially only for white and black faction. the demon is homage to cheap demons with drawbacks , Juzam Djinn, Phyrexian Negator et al. Hexdoom is evergreen in my sets, allowing black to continue this tradition of summoning creatures.

I find that my biggest wish regarding cleave is that the text within the brackets should be highlighted so that it's easier to separate mentally from the rest of the text.

It looks like they fixed the rule for implicit token names, which is something that I had wanted fixed for a while. So, now it is good that they fixed it.

Well, I made a whole set based on the token names being identical to the subtypes and those will now have the amazing Oracle test "create a 1/1 blue Faerie Rogue creature token with flying named Faerie Rogue" etc.

­:/

you mean 'loquaciousized'. it narrows the goalpost, the goalpost is still vulnerable from other corner cases.

@amuseum: I wish, I knew, who you are refering to and what you want to say.

Cleave as in cutting in twain - you're literally cleaving the text apart.

It's STILL terrible word usage. But they probably didn't want to waste 'cut' on something that's so niche.

According to MaRo's interpretation they want to use "cleave" as a synonym for "cut", as in "cuttign out the words". The reason I (and others replying to him) consider this unsatisfactory is because - as Vitenka states - cleaving is not just a simple synonymfor cutting, but means "split"/"sever"/"divide"/"cut in twain" etc. which doesn't work well with the more surgical excision of text that it actually refers to.

There is a perfectly fine word for this kind of cutting that they could hae used instead and sounds equally gruesome (and hence suitable for Innistrad): "carve" means to "cut with care or precision". So close in letters, yet all the difference IMO.

meh; 'carve' has suggestions of edibility. Honestly, they could have gone for "Omit" or something directly relevant.

­Carven Caryatid vs. Butcher's Cleaver. I have just different associations between the two of them.

I agree that an entirely different term probably would be preferable. My argument was and is that since they already decided to use a visceral sounding synonym for "cut", they chose entirely the wrong word from the large list of potential options.

Carve specifically is just an option that glaringly checks all the boxes our sources say WotC deemed necessary while also having a definition that is not baffling with regard to the actual effect.

I thought "cleave" was a rather clever word choice for a set about a wedding, as in "leave and cleave". But it seems that wasn't even deliberate!

I agree "carve" would have been a better word for it.

I now learnt a thing - in "leave and cleave" the word "cleave" means literally the opposite of "cut apart".

I'm not saying that Crimson Vow is a clusterfuck but Cleave and Blood tokens seem like huge misses to me in many ways. Like I don't get how the Blood tokens are reasonably expected to convey mechanically any flavor of being blood.

What I find extremely funny about MaRo not knowing why the word "Cleave" was chosen is that he was supposedly the design lead of that set from what I can see xD

I didn't look up the design team and just gave him the benefit of doubt that he might not have been all that involved in the set.

I suppose, he might have had too much fun designing Unfinity? ;) I think, the real problem is that despite being "lead" (which he also definitely is for Kamigawa and Unfinity), he is only really working on vision design and cleave seems like the mechanic introduced later.

Looking at it like hat, I think he might have lead too many sets at once this time around. Though OTOH Crimson Vow is not actually a bad set by my criteria, more filled with oddities and suboptimal choices.

Fully agree on Blood tokens being weirdly function-over-flavor.

I'm all on-board with two-colored Edgar though.

Maro leads vision design. Mechanics usually don't have names until set or play design. Heck, half the mechanics don't even exist until set design!

Cleave is also one of those weird words that is its own antonym

Isn't there supposed to be someone from vision design who stays on the team all the way throughout to keep the vision intact? I thought that would be the lead, but then set design and play design leads could do so as well.

Maro is head of vision design. He's on every standard-legal vision team, no way he has time to also follow the set and play design teams. Usually they have someone from set or play design on the vision design team to have a background

That's the thing though: He is on every vision or exploratory design team (for premium sets) anyway, why does he need to be lead for so many though?

You start all your comments stating his position as head/lead of vision design, as if that's not exactly my point: He might be spreading himself a bit thin (by leading two consecutive premium sets and a supplemental set in sequence to those in addition to being everywhere in a supporting position anyway).

He's discussed that a little: he doesn't even fully support sets he's not lead on. He's said he only attends half the meetings of those sets

Of course Unfinity definitely was too much to add on top of that, and is a total waste of time

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