For Challenge # 034, inspired by my Island Turtle.

The original wording for Enormous assumed that if the Enormous creature was attacked, it didn't automatically deal combat damage. But it could be that it does. I think the original decision was correct, but which works better?

I don't know... I assumed it would deal damage back. I can see why you would think of them operating more like a Planeswalker than like a creature, but it would probably be unwise to fight against the player's perception of how combat normally works. Since, if you asked people what they thought would happen, like, 4/5 would assume that combat continues as normal, then that's probably what you should aim for.

Hm. I agree it should be "what people expect". Thinking about it, I think Vorthos could go either way -- if you climb onto a giant colossus to attack it while it's attacking the planeswalker who summoned you, is that mutual combat or not? But I think I was led the wrong way by being too Melvin -- the rules are simpler if you just say "~ can be attacked" and all the usual rules about damage to creatures Just Work. You have to add another clause to have it deal damage back.

But you're right, that probably IS what people expect (and is another way to distinguish them from gideon jura). Or possibly, they should only deal damage if untapped, so if they attack, they can be outflanked later.

BTW, I think I prefer "Colossal Creature" to "Enormous Creature". Or even "Colossal Hydra". Or even "Colossus" as a keyword. Colossus is a good word.

I was having a problem with nomenclature myself. I like Enormous, and de facto, I like Colossal. But when fiddling with the design, I noticed this was a very good and open mechanic that wanted to be on all kinds of flavor-y things. Saying that "Only big things gets attacked" seemed a bit strange. One that jumped out at me was the classic Harpy/Siren calling you to your doom, and forcing a creature to attack it. That's great mechanics and great flavor... but fails the 'enormous' litmus test. Coming up with a replacement word, however, is tough, so I left it alone. "Vulnerable" jumped to mind, as in, 'this creature is vulnerable to being attacked'. Unfortunately, that sounds terrible. Who wants to admit that their new card type is officially a drawback?

Also, on the subject of 'doing what I expect the card to do', I also expected that flying creatures would be the only creatures that could attack enormous flying creatures. The opposite didn't occur to me until you submitted a card. At that point I was all like, "Oh, I'm an idiot for not even contemplating the alternative." It's why Agent of Chernobog has roughly similar stats to Visara the Dreadful. The enormous trigger was assumed to be a rare occasion, not a way to immediately win the game.

The one rule that I thought could go either way was "Can a creature attacking an enormous creature be blocked". After thinking about it for some time, I think the answer should be 'yes'. I like how it increases interaction, how a person can work to defend the enormous creature, and, how it lines up with Planeswalkers. With this particular rules snag, I don't think there's an assumption that players are doing one thing or the other automatically... I could see many players coming to either conclusion. But, if we aren't trying to write out the rules baggage on every enormous card, then we might as well let the already existing rules baggage surrounding combat be applied here. We don't need to teach anybody anything new... they already know how combat works. All the crazy interactions that come up with that adds depth to the game without making it any more complicated, really.

"I also expected that flying creatures would be the only creatures that could attack enormous flying creatures"

I agree, everyone probably should expect that, but it probably still needs to be written on the card, I don't think there's any sensible way of putting that in the comprehensive rules :)

"Saying that "Only big things gets attacked" seemed a bit strange"

I know what you mean, but I really didn't want to mess with it. It's a fundamental assumption of magic that you normally attack the opposing planeswalker and creatures are just obstacles. (Many other CCG are the other way round, I think, and many beginners expect to attack opposing creatures and win when all the opposing creatures are dead.)

That doesn't entirely make sense logically -- if you're attacking the "flag" you should still be able to take out your opponent's armies on the way. But in magic, that's sort of represented by direct damage (and lure and fight and so on). If your opponent has a birds of paradise they want to keep alive, we sort of assume that it's in the opponent's bunker or something, so it can only be killed by attacking with more effort than killing the opponent, so you either go for the opponent's throat, or deal with the bird with shock.

So conceptually, I imagined the Colossal creatures as creatures so large they were part of the scenery: creatures large enough it made sense for the opponent's army to swarm them.

Mechanically, you can have other creatures that can be attacked, but it wasn't what I was thinking of -- it just seems to raise the question of why all creatures can't be attacked.