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Recent updates to Community Set: (Generated at 2025-12-19 12:47:13)
What if the fortifications are colored and don't take up artifact slots?
Having wishful fortifications is really going to make them stand out from the other mechanics.
Oh, huh. If the snow basic was on top of the pack, then yes, that's a slot. I thought I remembered them being mixed in with the other cards, but maybe that was just because the people I was drafting with shuffled their boosters before passing them on. I certainly remember people claiming it was a slot, and other people claiming it wasn't, but perhaps I'm misremembered who turned out to be right.
I would point out that Multiverse's booster functionality is purely random numbers. It doesn't even enforce getting one card of each colour like PyDraft does. I've had a potential enhancement to it planned, but it never seemed particularly high priority. If we used common runs rather than pure randomness, there'd be fewer packs with multiple copies in.
We do currently have a skeleton with 15 lands in, which is more than almost any set has. We could easily take 5 of those slots to be common Fortifications.
But my concern about drawing an undue amount of attention to one of the six aspects of the set still applies.
I can't seem to figure out what the real deal with the Snow-Covered lands in Coldsnap really was. I did happen to stumble upon 3 youtube videos of packs being opened. Every time, there was exactly one basic land on the top of the pack. That's got to be a slot, whether or not Wizards confirms it.
Okay, so I just did a very unscientific test of opening up 30 Boosters of Clockwork Wings and looking for how many times I got one of the "Trick Cycle". There's 5 Tricks among 102 commons. I found 17 tricks in 30 packs... 5 packs happened to contain two different tricks in them, therefore 18 of 30 packs had no tricks.
Of course that tells us nothing about how people draft. That would have to be played by ear. I hate to use such rudimentary handwaving, but if we put 10 Fortifications in the set... yeah... that would be a little like putting one in each pack. Sometimes you'd get more than one, and sometimes you'd get none. If we assume that all Common Fortifications are useful, than that might work.
Unfortunately, right now we have 5 slots set aside for artifacts... and I'm pretty sure those are supposed to be the signets to help smooth out the mana. So while we can theoretically can put in 10 Fortifications and be happy about it numerically, I'm not sure how we do that. Any suggestions?
I'm also against my initial suggestion of making them low power to let them ride in packs. It sounds nice in theory, but it won't do a very good job selling the set.
I'm currently looking up the distribution of Snow Lands. If memory serves me right, I have only seen one pack not have more or less than one Snow Land, and I opened up a box and drafted every Friday Night back then. At the time, I chalked up the one missing Snow Land to a misprint (especially since the pack was missing a card). On Gatherer, however, Snow-Covered Island takes up a Common slot, and not a Basic Land slot. Odd. I wonder if this is more a technical thing than reality.
I'm currently doing more research on this and dragging what I can to the surface. One way or the other, though, I can assure you that if they had normal common distribution, you wouldn't have seen them as much as you did. Compare to the ripple cards in Coldsnap, even with no one else drafting them away from you in an 8 person draft, could be really hard to collect. And that was a small set. 65 cards (60 not counting the basic lands) compared to a large set (Innistrad has 107 commons, for example).
Maybe the best way to do this is with example. I'm going to run some random boosters. Be right back.
The one concern that I have is that it's drawing a lot of attention to what's basically one-sixth of the set (given "multicolour" has its own identity).
On the other hand, everyone thinks that Coldsnap had Snow-Covered Island and friends in the "basic land" slot, but I believe they actually didn't - they were just distributed throughout the common runs and the number of commons was such that most boosters had precisely one snow basic, but there were some that had two or zero. So if we could imitate that with ten common artifacts (since we'll have about twice as many cards as Coldsnap did) then we might be fine.
I'm not sure about the idea of giving them low power deliberately so that they go late in packs, though. I suspect we should try to make them fair (without pushing them excessively), and I suspect the fact that they don't impact the battlefield directly ought to mean they don't go especially highly anyway.
We had a conversation on the Black Commons Submissions about giving Black the ability to wish for Fortifications, and I mentioned that this would require us to have enough fortifications so that, if you took a wisher, you were almost guaranteed to get at least one fortification to wish for. I also made a suggestion that we add an extra rarity for fortifications similar to how Timeshifted, Double-Faced cards and Snow Lands work in Timespiral, Innistrad and Coldsnap, since that would give us wiggle room to put enough Fortifications in the file, while freeing space for the mono v. multi conflict.
No one refuted the concept, but no one backed it up, really. Does this sound reasonable? Or would it be better to squeeze as much as we can out of the artifact slot and/or add a few colored fortifications and/or only have colored fortifications?
Well, I admit my statement that fortifications were as versatile as equipment was bound to be used against me. Because, they, um, can't. That being said, the fact that these are easily intuited (because of equipment) and open ended nature of the card does infer that someone could come along and mine extensive design space. I can't back that claim up, so I'm not going to bother. Call it a feeling. I get the feeling that it's difficult to find the design space for it, but when you hit it, you have 100 cards.
I only mention this in passing. It doesn't look like wishing for fortifications is bothering anybody, so it doesn't bother me. I'll be damned if I step in the way of an off the wall idea... I'm generally the person people have to talk down.
As for the saturation tipping point: Yeah, you're right Jack... we already kind of needed that. We do, however, probably need a little more, because of player's expectations. If you get a 2/2 for
that gets +1/+1 when equipped, people don't complain that much if they couldn't grab the common equipment. If, however, you have the same base stats for a card that wishes for, I don't know, an Eager Cadet, and they can't get their hands on an Eager Cadet, they howl. They, really, get a little angry. Instead of assuming that it was their fault, they blame the designer. It's really an interesting phenomenon.
Like I said, though, I'm not really concerned about the numbers game. We can swing it... it will just be tight. Though, I do wonder if we want to seriously think about a separate rarity for Fortifications. It would take a giant burden of this set's shoulders if we took away the artifact slot (except the signets) and gave some cards back to the mono v. multicolored theme. Then we could go house, make 35 or so different doo-dad fortifications with really weird and unique abilities that people would want to wish for. Since any color could use them already, they'd help smooth the set over (good in mono and multi)... But there would be this unhealthy push from black to hoard them for its own nefarious purposes.
jmg said "a new card type that has the potential to be as versatile as equipment". But having tried quite hard to design a lot of Connectors for Clockwork Wings, I can confirm that Jack's right: there just isn't anywhere near the design space in either Fortifications or Connectors that there is in Equipment.
Like it or not, the most interesting permanent type in Magic is creatures. There are just so many things they do that other permanents don't do. (Well, um, except perhaps planeswalkers. You could probably claim that the space of artifacts that attach to planeswalkers is as rich as Equipment. But, um, let's not go there right now.)
So the space in Fortifications, Connectors, and artifacts that attach to enchantments is just so limited. I decided to make my Connectors take advantage of the unique way that they can be chained together to give them a lot of abilities in the pattern of "Whenever connected artifact becomes [un]tapped, you may tap ~. If you do..." That's not much of an option with Fortifications either.
Wizards were actually very canny. They threw in Darksteel Garrison as an example of "Oh, hey, yeah, this is just one card from a whole other world where there are loads like this..." But actually I don't think that set with lots of Fortifications will ever happen, because the design space is very limited.
Verdia, the fantastic land-themed set by Fallingman, included a few Fortifications. But there weren't many (4 in total), and they were basically the same kind of things: granting tap abilities to the lands, or triggering when the lands became tapped. (Looks like that set's disappeared off the internet! I'm going to go add it to Multiverse, because it's awesome.)
LOL. Yeah, thank you for bringing some experience to the idea :)
I'm trying to avoid become the advocate for the idea just because I suggested it. FWIW, I definitely agree with what you say, but my first reaction to each point would be:
Firstly, yes, you definitely need a sufficient density of fortifications, but you presumably need even more to make it work with cards like "put blah fortification from your hand into play" or "attach target fortification to target land", and people were seriously suggesting that.
Secondly, we don't have to be quite as vigilant for cards that would be problematic for future design or future standard environment, but I think we should try to design as if we were designing long term. I think if we make fortifications commonly wish-able we would have to accept that we have severely curtailed the ability to make future fortifications. But also, I may be wrong, but I just think there isn't that much design space in fortifications -- they're a cool concept, but I don't think there's that many different ways of making them relevant, without making them basically the same as artifacts or enchantments -- I think if there were, we'd have had more cool ideas for them by now. So I think we would be committing to say that "fortifications are defined to a large part by being safe to wish into play" but I think that's ok -- I think that fits the flavour, and I don't think it's too much of a problem in future... Maybe.
Wow. This is totally my territory. Alex's allusion to the Mons Goblin Raider and Pearled Unicorn wishing set is from Magic 20XX, a set that I had the chance to playtest, so i know a few things about common wishers.
The most important thing about common wishing is that the intended target is incredibly plentiful. You need a saturation of about 4-5 wish targets for every 1 wisher. The reason why is because of a sense of let down that happens every time someone drafts a wisher and doesn't get a wishee. You can try to tell people "Well, that's how risk versus reward goes," but that, unfortunately, is poppycock. Players don't want to be encouraged to do something by the shiny new design, only to find out that the designer lied to them. Humans aren't risk-factoring robots.
The other obstacle is a strange philosophical one. Let's pretend that we were Wizards of the Coast, and we were concerned about the future of the game. We've designed a new card type that has the potential to be as versatile as equipment. But, in the first set it is seen, we also add in a grandfather clause that this card type is commonly wished for. Would it be fair to fortifications that, for the future of the game, cards would constantly be wishing for them. How would that affect the future of the mechanic? I know we aren't Wizards, and whether or not we're supposed to be acting like Wizards is anyone's guess, but it is a strange can of worms.
Both complications are work-around-able. Either you have some fortifications take up some or all of the token slots (like they do in my set Magic 20XX), make a fortification slot in every pack (like double-faced cards do in Innistrad) or make a very large number of Fortifications (I'm less sure about this in this set, but if all artifacts and some colored artifacts became fortifications, then maybe yes). One of those methods should allow you to comfortably pack 4 wishers in common. That is, assuming those fortifications were bad cards. If the fortifications were good cards, however, they'd be snatched up before the wishers, and put in people's decks. In order for wishing to work, the quality of the card needs to hover at 1.5 stars (and even then, being marginally good can cause frustration. Sea Eagle in my set is often snapped up before the cards that wish for it, because any evasion is sometimes acceptable. Honestly, the fortifications we make will have to be crap normally.)
As for the second thingy... the philosophy thing... I don't know. That argument is a bit beyond me as Head Designer anyways, because I'm trying to gauge the will of the group, and not enact my own agenda. I would normally say "We could give some of fortifications a sub-type, and wish for those", but, um... yeah... fortification is already a sub-type. We could give them a keyword instead. Maybe make some normal fortifications and some with a specific ability, and make the wishers only wish for fortifications that have X... that way future fortifications (and rare fortifications) don't have to be scrutinized as wish targets and nerfed.
My assumption was that the CMC would be tied to what you sacrifice (eg. "Sacrifice any number of creatures. Put a fortification with CMC less than or equal to their combined power and toughness onto the battlefield from outside the game") or something, so it's harder to build bigger fortifications. Alternatively you could have as you say, different slavemasters who build different sized fortifications, or similar. I agree there would have to be some limit, since it fails flavourwise and balancewise to be able to build a little fortification or a big one with the same number of slaves.
You could get best of both words by making it "A fortification of CMC 3 or less" or similar? Pick a single number for this set, I'd think, though. (Much as scry was always 2)
Yeah, exactly. It didn't seem that it could ever be a common effect. But it's actually comparatively simple, and provided we ensure there are no overpowered fortifications, it's not too powerful. The fortifications should be reasonably generic so it doesn't feel like "it's not fair, he got that fortification every game" but more like they're a natural part of the game, like basic lands or emblems, where the interesting part is what searches for them (although you can always play them separately if you want).
I actually quite like the idea that you may try to snag a couple of fortifications during drafting, and then keep them in your sideboard to be drafted. (Although you'd have to decide are these cards or tokens, are we doing "from outside the game" or just "search from deck" which would be much the same, less shocking, but have the downsides that (a) it's less obvious that no-one should make a fortification batterskull in future and (b) it's a lot of deck searching.)
I'm not sure this is a good idea, but it keeps growing on me.
I'm astonished by the idea of making a bunch of "wish onto the battlefield from outside the game" cards at common. But then again... yeah, you know, I can kinda see that working. Like the set on Multiverse where every booster has a Mons's Goblin Raiders or a Pearled Unicorn etc in, but there are many cards which let you get those ones from outside the game. We're somewhat helped by the way Wizards haven't got many printed Fortifications, and spamming lots of Darksteel Garrisons wouldn't be especially overpowered.
I imagine the first time someone proposed Lignify or Snakeform at common, people's eyebrows shot up. But I can see it working.
Well, that's certainly something that's never been done in high numbers before. I'm not yet sure how I feel about it.
Another brainstormed suggestion would be to have a theme of "sacrifice a creature (or tap, or sacrifice N, etc): put a fortification from outside the game onto the battlefield (or also attach it to, etc)"
I don't think "put into play from outside the game" has been done at common before for good reason, but it's actually quite simple, so it might be a possibility, and if so, it would have several benefits: you can make relevant "sacrifice a creature:" cards that aren't eclipsed by the need to have a greater number of "sacrifice me" and fortification cards; it fits the flavour of building a fortification better than simply attaching it; it means drafting even one common fortification can be useful, rather than having to draw a fortification and a black card at the same time to get the main benefit; it means it can still be relevant to play marginal fortifications.
You could do something similar with searching your deck for a fortification, or having three standard fortifications in token form, and having slavemasters make token fortifications, but I like the flavour of putting into play from outside the game. (It would also give fortifications a mechanical identity different to artifacts?)
The theme could be supported with a comparatively small number of fortifications (probably starting with one or two common ones, eg. the "equipped land is a 0/4 wall creature" fort), and some number of "sacrifice a" creatures, and helped, but not require, conveniently sacrificable creatures.
Hmmm. The Wirewood Savage point is interesting. Perhaps it could be common, then. It'd make Fortifications more likely to be a draft archetype, which is a good thing.
The idea of "Aura creatures" starts alarm bells in my head. The general consensus as to why animated Auras fall off in the first place is that it'd get brainbendingly confusing if you had Auras on a creature also attacking alongside that creature, or even worse blocking that creature. It does have nice design space, I'll certainly give you that, but I fear the gameplay confusion possibility may be too much.
I really don't think "evoke other creatures" is a sensible mechanic to try to spread across several cards. It's a good idea for a oneoff rare, but it's just too limited in usefulness to be a mechanic on multiple cards.
It occurred to me that we have a lot of creature abilities in this set, but not many instant/sorcery abilities. Since we're playing with the word "Chain" why not do something that's bit of a where Storm meets Metalcraft? Granted, there was a cycle of something like this in Shadowmoor (Dream Thief and company), but they were a little different and just on 5 cards.
If we went this route, we'd need to be very careful with the flavor. Every one of these cards should feel like belong to a slavery theme, since the mechanic itself doesn't imply slavery. I think, though, that a combination of the name, and constantly hitting people over the head with themes of slavery would carry the day, though.
Oooh, it's like storm - but not instantly broken :)
I don't not like it. I'd be a little surprised if this ability was printed, but I'd play with it and enjoy it. It would be nice to see a set sometime that was designed only for one player demographic. Or maybe have three sets come out in one year, all three of them aiming for a particular customer. Don't like the Spike mechanics in "Return to Otaria", Pick up a pack of "Sixth Dawn". It's nothing but combos...
I think it's funny that a card like this would have a memory issue, when it's basically an Aura creature. I suppose it's just hard to stack creatures on other creatures like you can with equipment.
This ability does open some nice design space, though, like creatures that give bonuses to creatures that are chained to them.
Fixed a typo.
This, on the other hand... I like what's going on, but there's memory issues. And the ability is a drawback... one with benefits, but a drawback none the less.
Do you think it would be fun enough to have chain creatures just get a +1/+1 counter if another creature was cast this turn, or is that not interesting enough? I am trying to avoid using +1/+1 counters, but... hmm... I'm going to need to think about this.
Hmm. I think we may want to avoid making creatures cheaper when casting a bunch of creatures. If it's not powerful, it's depressing, and when it is powerful, you end up with Affinity.