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CardName: Benevolent Landowner Cost: 1W Type: Creature - Human Noble Pow/Tgh: 2/2 Rules Text: Decadence 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, if you haven't paid decadence this turn, you may pay {x}, where X is your total decadence.) Whenever you pay decadence, you gain that much life. Flavour Text: Set/Rarity: Code Geass Common

Benevolent Landowner
{1}{w}
 
 C 
Creature – Human Noble
Decadence 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, if you haven't paid decadence this turn, you may pay {x}, where X is your total decadence.)
Whenever you pay decadence, you gain that much life.
2/2
Updated on 06 Mar 2021 by Alex

Code: CW03

Active?: true

History: [-]

2014-10-24 15:30:12: Alex created and commented on the card Benevolent Landowner

This is Link's Decadence mechanic for the Britannian Faction.

Templating isn't quite right, because with two of these out, I want one trigger to pay {6}, not two triggers to pay {3} or two triggers to pay {6}.

(Power level may not be right either, because with two of these out you'd pay {6} to gain twelve life. That's a lot.)

If you just add the word "total," perhaps it makes the intent clearer. "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay {x}, where X is your total decadence." The rest can be sorted out in the comp rules entry.

2014-10-24 15:48:30: Alex edited Benevolent Landowner:

good call. add "total"

If I have two of these, wouldn't I add two "you may pay {6}" triggers to the stack?

Not if the comp rules spell out that Decadence is something that adds together from among your permanents, I think.

Berf: The intention is that that shouldn't happen. The mechanic was submitted with the intention that only one trigger goes on the stack no matter how many Decadence permanents you have.

However it's very hard to find a template for the Decadence reminder text to make that the case. (If you have any suggestions for reminder text to make it clearer, I'd gratefully receive them.)

I've been trying to think of a decadence value at which this is acceptable at common. To be suitable for common we have to assume it's okay to have two of these on the table at once. But with two of these on the table, if their decadence value is...

  • 1, then you're paying {2} for 4 life a turn. That seems like a pretty good deal. I guess two commons are allowed to combine to make something that's a good deal - Sam Stoddard's example was a Wingsteed Rider with a bestowed Hopeful Eidolon.
  • 2? Then you're paying {4} for 8 life a turn.
  • 3? Then you're paying {6} - which admittedly means you're doing nothing else - to gain 12 life - which means you don't care that you're not doing anything else. You're still drawing cards and playing lands, so when you take a turn off from paying decadence you will have some strong options.

So it seems decadence 1 is the only safe option here. Now the thing is, this is the simplest, most benign decadence ability we can think of. If this is to be the common mechanic there need to be at least 3 other commons with decadence, before getting to the uncommons and rares. And they need to be in white and black. What other effects are suitable?

  • Life loss? Look at the numbers above and imagine they're life loss rather than life gain. Owch. But yeah, okay, lifeloss at decadence 1 is plausible. Would probably need to be a weak creature, 1/1 or so, and might need to cost at least {2}{b} to cast, making it look bad at first glance.
  • +1/+1 counters or tokens are right out at common. I don't even know if they're viable at rare.
  • Getting +1/+1 UEOT might be viable. I think that could work with decadence 1, 2 or 3 at common. The flavour is a little odd - a noble who gets really good at attacking due to his decadent lifestyle? But I think mechanically it works well.
  • Losing life to draw cards is blatantly rare. It's Graveborn Muse levels of suicidal card advantage.
  • Tapping things? I think Wizards aren't keen on Master Decoy at common any more. It might be okay if it has to be in your upkeep, so can't be used defensively. But it's still neutralising the best blocker for {1}; two of them neutralise four blockers for just {2}. That seems too good for common to me... what do others think?
  • I have a feeling granting abilities like lifelink, first strike, flying or intimidate to X target creatures also works out kinda crazy if you imagine two of them (so granting the ability to 4 creatures). But maybe Ainok Bond-Kin shows it can be done at common on occasion?

For the reminder text: "Only one instance of decadence triggers each turn"?

"At the beginning of your upkeep, if you haven't already paid decadence this turn..."

I'm just not grokking the mechanic. For me, decadence implies something that gets worse over time, but the way it works now, it actually scales and becomes stronger in the late game. Granted, if you play too many creatures with decadence, the costs becomes too high for you to pay (which I think it's the flavor intention) but this seems easily avoidable by proper deck building.

2014-11-19 11:54:34: Alex edited Benevolent Landowner:

down to decadence 1

2014-11-19 12:08:39: Alex edited Benevolent Landowner

Hm, looking at dictionaries and thesauri for "decadent" and "decadence", I think I see where Berf's coming from. To me (and I assume Link), "decadence" implies self-indulgent luxury, overindulgence, a preference for money and the good things in life at the expense of what's right or just or fair. But not any inherent meaning of decay, degradation over time. Berf on the other hand seems to feel it implies change over time, becoming worse and worse. Merriam-Webster's first definition lines up with Berf's view; their third (and to some extent second) definitions seem to be more what Link and I had in mind.

I'd be happy to use a different mechanic name if that'd help avoid the misunderstanding. "Self-Indulgent 1" seems a bit strange, but "Luxury 1" or "Corruption 1" are plausible alternative names for the ability.

Filling out a few example designs for playtesting purposes.

Commons: this card {w}, Egotistical Captain {w}, Agent of Decay {b}, Supercilious Trooper {b}, Unethical Researchers {u}

Uncommons: Imperious Guardians {w}, Resources Misdirector {b}

Rares: Britannian Arms Dealer {w}, Credit Squanderer {b}, Cruel Princess {b}, Ostentatious Prince {b}

Other synonyms and related words useful in card names that I haven't used yet: corrupt, self-indulgent, indulgent, opulent, grandiose, flashy, flamboyant, pretentious, grandiloquent, vain, snobbish, arrogant, braggart, authoritarian, peremptory, disdainful, narcissistic, haughty, self-important, proud, extravagant, wasteful, lavish, wanton.

This is a challenging mechanic to balance and design. I applaud your efforts. I'm curious to know how they playtest goes.

This is hard to template and flavour correctly, and I was skeptical to start with, but seeing the example cards, I like the look of it a lot more and I'm interested to see how it plays.

Ah, I get it now. Yeah, because the two meanings of decadence aren't unrelated, it can be kinda difficult to determine sometimes which one is meant.

I think another name like Luxury or Corruption as you said works fine. I'd also suggest Depravity.

Depravity sounds BR, corruption sounds UB, luxury sounds WU, decadence sounds WB.

Played a game with a few decadence creatures. Sadly the first one to come out was Ostentatious Prince, which was really confusing for the player who hadn't seen the ability before. Then Cruel Princess hit, and started blowing up the two-drops (and forcing the opponent to keep two-drops in hand). I was being beaten up by 3-drops in mechs for a while until I finally got this guy out, and started blowing up 3-drops while gaining 6 life.

The mechanic is pretty tricky to balance.

I think I prefer the name "Luxury" since it very much is "Do I have mana to spare to throw at this?" for most things.

Also wow: Wordy.

I do like that it's an anti-parasitic ability. Use it too much and it gets unaffordable.

Cruel princess is wowser inducing. The ability is basically storm; So be careful with it!

­Cruel Princess is a rare and deliberately wasn't included in yesterday's playtest as I wanted to try out the commons and uncommons. We did get Britannian Arms Dealer out, but in a situation where the control-change effects were flying thick and fast and he only ever ended up able to put a single +1/+1 counter on each of two creatures (with different controllers).

2021-03-06 14:43:16: Alex edited Benevolent Landowner:

need at least one common 2/2 in white, so this is the best candidate. 1/2 -> 2/2

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