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Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2025-12-19 09:21:58)
I think that sounds fine, and indeed sounds like what I've heard MaRo or someone describe as one of their early stages of design, when they playtest all the mechanics they've got to see which ones turn out to be fun and which ones don't.
I don't know if you noticed Dude, but I made Heavy Lifter for the same reason. That being the case, we might as well use this space to talk about the relative merits of making that card black or making it an artifact...
Oh, I've got nothing.
Wait. Why did you cast Firebreathing on my Shivan Dragon?
Well, here is some good news: 5 non-basic lands gone and a common from each color isn't crushing the set. In fact, it probably calms our monocolor themes down a bit, and the set is more likely to be fun among a larger number of people. Good news number 2 is that, since we don't have non-basic lands, people will be drafting more cards that take up spell slots (as opposed to land slots) in their deck... so they will have a couple more cards in their sideboards to begin with. In fact, if we continue this policy into uncommon, we'll bear the fruits of having no non-basics there (maybe we want a rare land cycle. Personally, I think if we're going to have none in common and uncommon that we might as well take them out of rare as well. It's an interesting statement. Clever people will figure out why we're doing it, and those that won't devote the mindspace to that quandary won't notice their absence.)
Personally, I'd prefer to stick it out with the two wishes we have right now and see if it works. If it doesn't, we take them out... that's simple enough. I'd hate to pass on something that gets people excited, though, because it may not work. If you think I'm wrong, though, say something. I'm easily persuaded.
As for what the rest of black looks like... I don't know. We've got a lot of interesting ideas floating around, but no solid focus. I'm thinking, at this point, of 'stone souping' black, throwing everything we've got at the color, making a mess out of it and letting playtesting and development sort out what they like best. I wonder if Wizards has ever taken this tactic... it seems like a decent way to solve deadlocked design problems. When we send the bloated black mechanics to development, I'm expecting a 'devign' phase for black where dev plays with it, says they like thing X and not Y and could you make more X? How does this sound?
You're right, a 0/X is the problem, even if a 1/1 isn't. Never mind.
Don't forget that any number trivially works when paired with 0.
Um, that reduces to "
: If there's a 1/1, win the game." Also, the way I worded Travel the Hypotenuse, only 3/4 and 4/3 work; 5 only works paired with 12.
Oh, the pythagorean version is a great idea. It's more natural than the "even/odd" thing. Unfortunately, it only really hits 3/4 4/3 3/5 5/3 4/5 or 5/4 out of common sizes (plus those times two or three), I wonder if there's anything similar that would hit (or exclude) an appropriately varied set.
Although now I want to make a silver bordered version.
Instant.
Choose target creature with PX+TX being an X'th power.
If X is >=1, gain PX+TX life
If X >=2, destroy that creature.
If X >= 3, win the game.
:)
Opponent: I cast Autochthon Wurm! Surrender now!
Me: I pay
. You lose 233 life. New game?
Bwahahaha. Is only really likely to hit a 3/4 or 4/3 creature, but it'd be worth it for that one occasion you get attacked by a 35/12 or 60/11... or perhaps worth giving an Autochthon Wurm a Defensive Stance for :)
In fact, Belbe's Armor goes awesomely well with that... :)
(And yeah, I'm slightly surprised that my text-processing library turns caret-numeral into superscript too, but it is indeed cool :) )
A fortification version of Brass Squire, as per Jack V's suggestion.
I didn't expect superscript to work; that's cool. Also, (sic).
Travel the Hypotenuse
Instant
Destroy target creature if the square root of the sum of its power squared and and it toughness squared is an integer. It can't be regenerated. Its controller loses life equal to that integer.
"sqrt( P2 + T2 )? What is this I don't even?" - Goblin mathatician
Hm. Let's assume that if we do fortifications at all, they should be playable and draftable in their own right, even without black. That means a standard ~12+ distribution of them. We very probably don't have room for a lot more than that (we could consider it if we could double up fortifications with mana fixing and something that's usually a coloured common slot. I'd quite like that if we could, but only if it seems natural, and I think it probably won't.)
That means we have at most 5% of the set being fortifications. That means at an 8-person draft, you'd have 16 fortifications total. Assuming some are good enough to be drafted by someone regardless of color, that means there probably are enough left to make the core of a dedicated fortifications deck.
Can jmg or anyone comment on my maths, I don't have any experience estimating this sort of thing..?
However, that suggests they need to be the right ones. Since it supports the flavour, and the ideas of having cost-bypassing effects in black, it suggests that fortifications that are less first pickable should still have serious board affecting abilities, but be a bit weak for their cost, rather than ones that are cheap, but weak.
So, where does that leave black? Despite suggesting it, I'm not convinced by wishing any more. It seems likely black will interact with fortifications in a few different ways (eg. bypassing cost, bypassing equip), which suggests that you should want your fortifications in your deck so they work with non-wish effects, which means wish effects should just be search effects after all. Probably. Does that make sense?
Now, costs. Should we strive to have "sacrifice a creature" as a common fortify cost, and give black ways to bypass that? Should we give "sacrifice a creature: search for a fortification" to a black common or uncommon? I assume we'll have some "granite squire" effects? Is this going to add up to a viable deck archetype, where sacrificing creatures to reliably build fortifications is a viable strategy?
I feel like Fortifications deserve a bit more space than we're giving them, given that we have 4 other distinct mechanics. However, if they are only a minor subtheme which are built upon in the next block (say by having black working with other colours) then I have no issue. I think the living weapon analogy is good.
Oh... you know what, I was mixing up small-set keywords (such as living weapon) with large-set keywords (such as rebound). Since this is a large set, yeah, 12 is about the minimum we'd need to have them be reliably wishable.
As for the hypothetical... It's a great hypothetical because it produces interesting insight. In this case, it'd feel bad. The living weapons are generally pretty good; I'd normally rather just have Skinwing in my deck than have a wisher for Skinwing. But if I've got two wishers... then technically, that gives me greater chance of getting a Skinwing than if I just maindecked it... but I want to maindeck it!
Sorry, one thing I forgot to say: I do think that jmg's version "When you sac ~, make a token" is a lot more suitable for common than something that plays directly with what effect sacrificing has.
...or like Flying Carpet. Oh, hold it.
I've been noticing that the nerdiest jokes that I've made in my life are on this board. ;)
Funny thing is, I kind of like the 0/2 token. You're spot on though, Alex. If this card is put in the file, it will probably have the same stats after sacrifice.
It's interesting to compare this to past draft formats. Should I assume that most people reading this have played in a Scars of Mirrodin draft? Alex mentions that a "normal" distribution of a new keyword is similar to the distribution of Living Weapon. Let's say that black, in Scars of Mirrodin, had two commons that wished for a Living Weapon. Do you think there was a large enough saturation of Living Weapons in Scars of Mirodin block that you would be comfortable drafting a few Living Weapons and putting them in your sideboard?
I like both of these.
Hahaha! A bit silly indeed, but something with similar flavour could be good.
The kind of battering ram flavour you're describing reminds me of Vodalian War Machine, back when the equipment flavour was opposite to its current form (artifacts that bond to creatures and cause them to die if they did, like Runesword).
By comparison with Penumbra Spider, I think the token could be a bit bigger. I also don't like the token being some irregular size that's precisely 1/1 less than the original creature's size: because that feels like an inferior version of persist.
I agree that "do we want Fortifications at all" is 50/50. For Q2, I think I'm in favour of them being present in normal boosters, to some reasonable distribution: say 4c/3u/3r (rebound is actually fairly large compared to many small set keywords; cf battle cry (which had 8 total) or living weapon (5 in Mirrodin Besieged, and a further 4 in New Phyrexia)). I'd view that as a "normal" distribution, and I'd want us to have some specific reason for deviating from it.
Fortification Wisher number two. I'm not sure how many we want in the set, but I figure one easy to resolve sorcery and one tougher to trigger creature makes sense for common? I also kept the part about needing to exile (which is what got me on leaves play trigger to begin with), but I don't know how important that really is. Recurring wishes was probably broken with Cunning Wish, but not as absurd when there's only forts to choose from, and none of them recur creatures. Still, in theory, future forts could recur creatures, so maybe it's wise not to do it anyways.