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Original Card: Clockwork Swarm

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• Decreased casting cost by . ­
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• Changed power and toughness from 0/3 to 3/3. ­
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• Changed counters from +1/+0 to -1/-1. ­
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• Removed line that added counters when enters the battlefield. ­
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• Changed activated ability from adding +1/+0 counters to removing all counters.
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Note: the following conversation is from when the card originally switched from +0/+1 counters to +1/+1 counters, and included an extra line about adding counters when the creature entered the battlefield.

The thing that will continue to bug me about this card is the fact that these insects have wings, yet they do not fly. That seems like a reasonable addition to me. If I ever get to Whippoorwill, you can assume it's gaining flying.

The problem is that flying doesn't sit well next to the other evasion ability. How many flying walls are there really? 14 evidently. None of them are in Homelands, or are from The Dark or Fallen Empires, either (Homeland Restored's 'block'.) It just didn't look right.

I did try a few other things. I removed 'can't be blocked by walls' outright... but that ability makes sense in this block, so it wouldn't seem right to remove it. I thought about doing 'Protection from Walls', but that seemed like I was making too broad a leap. I also tried "Can only be blocked by flying creatures and walls" to represent how a swarm could be stopped, but that also seemed like I was stretching further than I should. Guess the original ability would have to stick.

By modern design standards, this card is waaay too complex for a common. If this were made today (as a common) I guess it would have only the first and third ability, probably also flying or some kind of upside. This just is counterintuitive (flying vs can't be blocked by walls) and too complex. I mean to understand that the last ability doesn't kill the creature you have to understand that state based actions aren't checked before the ability finished resolving. That is insane on a common.

Edit: I think it would at least help a bit if the ability that removes counters triggers at end of turn and cares about attacking or blocking that turn. Just easier/more common wording that doesn't change a thing in 99% of the cases.

You know, after toying with Clockwork Steed for so long, I just wasn't thinking about complexity. Mostly because I streamlined so many things that the card seemed simple now. But you're right. That's far too many words on a common.

I guess I got two choices. Dumb down the swarm, or push the swarm up to uncommon, and the Steed into rare. I'm likely to go with the second choice... but there really aren't many true commons in this set. What with the fact that half the commons were printed twice on the sheet with alternate artwork, and half the commons look like this... hmm...

Note that Mirrodin included many "revamped" Clockwork creatures, including two commons - Clockwork Beetle and Clockwork Condor (which also provide a possibly-simpler wording for the removing trigger?). Those did have the simplest version of the mechanic - "winding up" was saved for the higher rarities, Clockwork Vorrac and Clockwork Dragon.

This is quite a bit wordier than Clockwork Condor, it's true. I don't think the "end of combat" is where the simplification needs to occur.

Hmm. Yeah, I'd just change "Not blocked by walls" to "Flying" and be done with it.

You could probably simplify the last ability (slightly) too
­,: Add or remove +1/+1 counters so that ~ has 3 of them.

But maybe removing the rewinding completely is the better way to simplify. Admittedly, then it's a condor reprint :)

Another idea would be the following. Including Clockwork Gnomes, there are three Clockwork creatures in the set. If you make the Gnomes work like Clockwork (meaning with counters) you could make a vertical cycle.

Steed at common with:

• enters with counters
• loses counters in combat
• intimidate

Gnomes at uncommon with:

• enters with counters
• loses counters in combat
• regenerates artifacts

Swarm at rare with:

• enters with counters
• loses counters in combat
• can't be blocked by walls
• winding up or resetting counters

Numbers would have to be tweaked to make for a fitting power level.

This would have Swarm as is with maybe a higher power level, I'd say at rare it could be undercosted for the first amount of counters. Steed would lose the counter resetting ability but I guess it fits the flavor, since 5/5 intimidate and "regenerate" is enormous for a horse imo. I put the Gnomes on uncommon there since they just have the more complex ability compared to the Steed. Gnomes would be quite a bit from where they where originally but as I said, they have been unintuitive from the start.

I bumped the Horse up because I didn't think an artifact creature with intimidate really belonged in common... at least not right now, and not without there just being a vanilla intimidator first. I could be wrong about that, though.

I'm unsure about moving the Gnomes into clockwork land. I mentioned the problem of giving them different abilities when they didn't necessarily need them, but also, the idea of putting regeneration ability on a creature that could easily be a 0/0 is confusing to new players. I think a number of them would assume that it must be a combo. I'm not against the idea, but it's problematic. Maybe they can be a 1/1? Maybe not... not sure. I could just change their name, since that's the thing we seem to be hung up on.

I'd say "Let's wait and see how many of each rarity I need." but this card clearly needs to change. I guess we're taking a vote: Jsys would like to bump up this up in rarity, maybe to rare. I'm guessing Vitenka is arguing for removing abilities and is comfortable for this to be common. I could do either, really. Anybody want to tip this in one direction or another?

I also think Vitenka's take on it is perfectly reasonable. Just wanted to provide another possible option. In the end just taking something away might be a better way of simplifying things than making a fuss of it.

I think it's better to change the Clockwork Gnomes' name than to give them a bunch of extra abilities. I think two uncommons or one-unc-and-one-rare are both fine. If you want one of these at common then I think you probably need to bin the rewinding ability. And I agree intimidate on an artifact creature is weird at common.

All this talk, and everybody (including me) missed the obvious. This card becomes a common as soon as you switch the +1/+1 counters for -1/-1 counters, negating the need to add counters when the swarm enters the battlefield. Maybe it doesn't need the 'can't be blocked by walls' line, either. But at least now it looks reasonable. And between this and Clockwork Steed switching over, this set is almost exclusively -1/-1 counter (Dammit Coral Reef. Get with the program.)

Hmm. It's yet another version of the clockwork ability, breaking continuity with Mirrodin. But Wicker Warcrawler played fairly well, so yeah, I guess that's reasonable.

Creature types in rules text should be capitalised, so this wants to say "can't be blocked by Walls".

Oh, true. Marked for editing.