In Firebreathing et. al. Cycle I mentioned that we don't have many things cuing people in to the fact that we're pushing people to play mono. When I look back at the dedication mechanic, however, I can't imagine why we didn't think to put more of this in the file. It seems like an easy way to get splashable cards that support mono in the set.

Our creature slots are probably too cluttered to make any serious changes, but almost every color has an instant or sorcery that can be 'improved' upon. I'm requesting adding Dedication to 5 common instants or sorceries. I don't think we need to keyword it... not right away.

...I'm not sure. Dedication always struck me as pretty fiddly. It's harder to benefit from than Shrieking Gargoyle. It seems a very blunt instrument, and also I'm not sure we actually want to push people to play mono in Limited, because I don't think we've given them the tools to do so.

...Wait, I created this? Really?

Ha!

The benefit doesn't have to be heavy handed, if that's the sticking point. It may be tough to stradle the difference between 'minor bonus' and 'inconsequential', but it's probably doable. Let's see if I can throw together an example:

­
Instant
Counter target spell unless that spell's controller pays .
If only was spent to cast ~, tap all lands that player controls.

Not sure if that was the best example. Like I said, it's a tricky balancing act. But at least that gives us an idea of the sort of cards we'd be dealing with. ­

I think we can make reasonable "nice but not necessary" bonuses. But I'm not sure if dedication is the right implementation of a mono-heavy reward. I'm not sure my worry is valid, but I'm worried that people's response will not be "oh, it's worth playing monocolor", but "oh, I'll probably have enough mana to play this mono even if I have a two-color deck. Oh crap, this card is really annoying, I never get the bonus".

If we did want something else, other possibilities would be to have a scalable bonus ("gain 1 life for each W spent to cast this") that feels all-upside, or a sacrifice effect with a heavy mono cost.

ETA: "Wait, I created this? Really?" -- I think you created the card as a focus for a discussion of dedication that was going on elsewhere, you may not have designed it :)

Well, with two negatory response, I'm going to call this a 'no'. I do think we need to strengthen mono in the set in a non-subtle way, however. If people don't immediately understand the mono v. multi theme because it's too subtle, then we don't have an easy selling point for the set. For example, Innistrad is "Classic Gothic Monsters are taking over", Mirrodin is "Evil Machines are infecting good machines", without mono v. multi, Aer is "Five different colored tribes rebel against their multicolored masters"... that sounds like 'yet another Magic set' and that's assuming the audience even notices that.

I think Jack hit the nail on the head with "oh, I'll probably have enough mana to play this mono even if I have a two-color deck. Oh crap, this card is really annoying, I never get the bonus."

I think I'm wanting to take a step back and ask if "mono vs multi" has to mean "reward people for monocolour decks" in the way that this kind of card is trying to.

Because it's exceedingly rare for people to be able to play monocolour decks in Limited. Shadowmoor-Eventide was the only example I can think of where that happened with any regularity, and there 50% of the sets were close to colourless. Even Mirrodin and Scars would usually only have about 1 monocolour drafter on a table of 8.

So are we really trying to tell people "Try to play mono in Limited"? I just don't think we've given them enough tools to do that.

To be fair, I remember a lot of people drafting mono in Mirrodin block. About half the table. Cards like Consume Spirit, Dross Golem and Cranial Plating (to pick on one color) really reinforced this. That was completely done in by Fifth Dawn, however.

My instinct, when dealing with something that we once thought was a good idea, and are currently questioning our own wisdom, is to push forward anyways, and have the testing tell us what we did wrong. While I don't know if harping on Mono v. Multi is such a great idea anymore, I do know that all great ideas look terrible when you remove yourself from the process. Some design, like Landfall or Sunburst, must have sounded abysmal when Wizards put them under the microscope.

That being said, I want to play this role reactively, not proactively. I'm currently talking about multi v. mono because 2011 tells me that we might not be achieving our goals. If people are cool with telling 2011 to shove it, I'll tell 2011 to shove it.

I've said before we need to seriously think this through, but also, I agree that it makes sense to plow ahead and try out what we've got and see what works best before deciding what direction to take it in.

I don't know enough about drafting (either in competitive experience or design theory) to be sure, but it seems like each player drafts an archetype. Those are inherently restricted to a one/two/three colours by the availability of mana fixing. The simplest archetypes would just be "the best cards I can draft in whichever two colours I end up in", and that's often the case, but with Innistrad wizards seem to be stressing that there should be different niches: an aggressive deck and a defensive deck a couple of big finishers may want very different cards even in the same colours; drafting a tribal deck is different to drafting a generic C/D deck.

I'm not sure if that's an accurate description, or even if it is how much we have to be conscious of it rather than just designing open ended cards and letting archetypes emerge. But it seems that bearing it in mind is likely to be helpful.

I don't think we necessarily want to encourage everyone to draft monocolour in order to say that we do want monocolour to be a viable archetype. That is, we want enough cards that reward mono it's worth playing a mono deck (or mono deck with small splash) even if you give up some nice-ish cards in other colours you'd like to play but can't support (the way someone in normal draft may have to cut a third or fourth colour even if they have good cards in it).

Those reward cards don't all need to be common. You need some good CCC commons that non-mono drafts won't pick very highly to fill out the middle of your deck and give it some punch when you don't draw your bombs, and some heavy-colour commitment uncommons and rares that really reward you and you can draft around, knowing that there will be enough common support to make it worthwhile, even if you have to take some average commons too to make up the numbers.

However, that leaves the question of other archetypes. It's probably not plausible for someone to draft all multicolour all colours unless the multicolour and manafixing are even more geared to multicolour-only than they are now. Also, we don't want just give archetypes with everyone fighting over the best CCCC and CCCCC cards, because then you'll have "blue player" and "slightly inferior blue player" and it'll get stale.

By default, the other strategies will be "pick a couple of colours and pick the best non-CCC and multicolur cards in those colours we can". We don't have to do anything special to enable that, because people will always try to draft as many of the best cards they see as they can. However, it may be hampered if most or all of the best cards are CCC, because then non-mono drafts may feel pointless and frustrating.

So it's probably worth asking what we do want to enable. Possible options would be:

• Do nothing and assume it'll work itself out
• Try to enable a secondary archetype per colour, either two different mono archetypes, or a (less emphasised) archetype which lends itself to U/w or something.
• Try to enable decks "led" by a few common, uncommon or rare multicolour cards which synergise powerfully with a some of mono cards.
• Try to enable multicolour-only as a strategy even though the numbers probably don't support it.
• Anything else?

I keep questioning the wisdom of putting manacyclers on the CCCs, and the "Two mono-blue players" at the same table principle is another reason why it bugs me. Let's not talk about that, though, or we could end up wildy off-topic.

I got to be honest with you: If we just did what we are doing right now, filled in the rest of the common sheet and drafted it, I don't know what would happen. There's some minor reward for going mono, and a mid-sized reward for going multi. The signets and manacylcling should do some decent fixing, and I plan to see at least 2 common fortifications fix mana as well.

I know this has nothing to do with nothing, but I was kind of sad when Zac described the 10 archetypes in Innistrad before the set was released. I mean, sure, it's good to see that they worked that set from all angles... but it felt like I had no real reason to draft it. A level of exploration was removed. So, I've barely touched Innistrad limited.

Back on point, I'd love to work on ways to enable archtypes. But, it's my understanding that the Innistrad team did this at the development stage, and not at the design stage. I assume, there's a point in development where you look at what you got and you say "How do we tweak these numbers to give us some different archetypes". That's a different process than making mechanics that play differently, as Orzhov plays different than Dimir. I'm not saying we shouldn't look out for this... but beating ourselves up over it probably ain't a great idea, either.

All this discussion is reminding me that I got to wrap up the common run soon. Our second guessing before testing has to do with the fact that theory has yet to become practice. I'm not saying we shouldn't still be discussing this stuff... but we need to start playing with this stuff.