Community Set: Recent Activity

Thanks. Sorry for ranting, I was in a hurry to write something down before I left and I see I went on a bit.

Yeah, that's the sort of thing I was thinking of. I'd not thought of combining the two abilities into one word, that's a good possibility.

Doh! Good point :) "becomes 0/0" would be funny, but I agree not a good idea... :)

I agree an instant-speed tap all is a good idea, and I think this is a reasonable place for it.

I think reprinting or recreating lightning bolt in a casual set is less bad than doing it in an official expansion, because it doesn't automatically co-exist with whatever other red burn spells are currently in standard, so although any "R. Inst. 3 damage," is often as problematic as lightning bolt whatever the drawback, I think it's ok to print it if we want it.

That said, this may be more interesting at two damage, as then the "can I use it situationally" is more prominent, and (fitting in with the monocolor theme) it's much less attractive to non-red decks.

Fair enough. I do think that there should be an instant speed "tap all your creatures", but I also agree that most people will long for Lightning Bolt when they see a Lightning Bolt that is situationaly better, but generally more annoying.

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I'd advance "becomes a 0/0 creature until end of turn" to remind people, but then I assume some people would willfully assume that that kills the creature.

Thanks, Jack, but you can hold on the brainstorming for now until we get a few more opinions. Right now I need to know if this works. It is fair to assume, though, that this could be keyworded or ability worded. We may want to try tying the first two lines together into one reminder text as well. For example:

Bud (When this creature enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. As long as this creature is on the battlefield, creatures with counters on them are Fungus.)

Which ties it together better, but unfortunately we get "As long as this creature is on the battlefield" as bonus words. Hmmm... still, the mindspace is condensed into one small word "Bud" or possibly "Bud 1". (Bud Bud? Bud Bud Bud?)

I feel a bit stupid here. I think several of us designing fungus cards were designing on the assumption that +1/+1 counters would turn things into Fungus somehow, but we didn't need to decide exactly where that description would go (on counter-adding cards, on counter-counting cards, in reminder text, are there too many memory issues, etc, etc) until we'd decided whether or not we thought the theme was good. Since the only +1/+1 counters in the set are from Fungus, I thought it was fine to playtest "Put a +1/+1 counter on" creatures and "for each Fungus" creatures and have everyone just know how it worked while we waited to see if it was fun enough to be worth doing.

I thought this was fairly normal for the design team -- there are lots of stories about "we tested replicate for ages before the template team made us decide whether it made one big spell or lots of little ones", etc.

But it seems that wasn't clear, because no-one said "I don't think there'll be any simple way of templating that whichever cards you put it on so we should give up now" but lots of people looked at one of the proposed fungus cards and said "ok, if you assume this card has all of the complexity of the whole theme written on it, and assume we eviscerate the rest of the fungus theme and judge this card in isolation, then it's too complicated for common".

I think that's usually the case with theme cards. If there was just one card that said "This creature deals damage in the form of -1/-1 counters. -1/-1 counters mutually annhilate with +1/+1 counters," it would be much too complicated for common, but those were the rules, and wither creatures just said "Wither (reminder text)."

I think Mycobrewery AS WRITTEN is too complicated for a common, but that assumes there's no way to condense the "all creatures with +1/+1 counters on them" clause into a keyword and reminder text or something: if we stick with the +1/+1 fungus theme, then it's not much complexity because even though it's more words, the CONCEPT is really simple.

I'm not sure whether to brainstorm possible ways of doing the rules now, or assume most people would rather the theme just died. I think we probably still need more simple common examples of the theme, but I haven't got round to brainstorming yet. So I don't know.

That seems a choice that's particularly guaranteed to cause confusion when it's specifically targeting creatures with +1/+1 counters on them! :)

Um. Yeah. It's plain old bolt in a pure-red aggro deck (since whatever creatures you have will be tapped from attacking anyway) and it's almost always going to be used after you've declared blockers (so who cares about the tap, except in multiplayer?) The one time it will be a disadvantage is when you draw it (or were tapped out) and need to kill something before it loses summoning sickness.

Then again, I think we should just reprint lightning bolt.

ROFL. Yes, I'd forgotten we should be looking for snow themes. The snowball is awesome :)

Maybe green's version of "can't attack" is "becomes 1/1 until end of turn"??? :)

I'm pulling forward a conversation in Mycobrewery here because I need to discuss it before we go forward. Mycobrewery seems to me to be a very simple extension of the set's "Fungus ability". But cmeister2's reaction to it was "Surely too texty for common. But nice card, possibly at uncommon or rare."

Is this true? My first reaction would be to compare this card to the fungus from Timespiral, such as Deathspore Thallid and claim it isn't any more complicated than them. But Wizards employees have cited that Timespiral was the height of complexity creep in their game, and that they aim the game to be easier to approach than that. Grazing Gladehart, as an example of a 'complicated' Landfall card in common, is much simpler than our Mycobrewery.

On the Mycobrewery card I came up with a plan to split the complication into two parts so that 3 of 6 cards would add +1/+1 counters, and 3 of 6 turned on Fungus, leaving us some room for non-Fungus interactions. Is this a good way to go? Is Mycobrewery too complicated, or is it right on the edge? Does it cost too many 'complexity points' or do we have a few to spare? And/or should we push a +1/+1 counter theme more, with a Fungus theme trailing in third most important theme in mono-green commons?

That's a good choice, but you're right that it belongs in uncommon.

True, probably out of pie, though a good effort. Maybe "can't attack" or "prevent all combat damage" or possibly Sandskin is a little more spot on.

@Alex and "Preferably... either way": Yeah, that's the idea, though I wasn't very clear with it, and I realize that's tricky to fulfill design space. I guess I should look at the submission before I say much else, though. :)

You're right about "makes numerous non-token creatures" as well, and again, I was talking to myself instead of making my intention clear. I more wanted creatures with value. Gravedigger, Ambassador Oak, Wood Elves and Kavu Climber type cards. Maybe Viridian Shaman or something along those lines. The sort of creatures that end up on the battlefield and sit there.

That's good enough for me.

I'm going to change this to tapped. Otherwise we're still obsoleting Wood Elves...

Also, I'm pretty sure that we need a gigantic rolling snowball as a spell on one of these cards...

Howabout a "Surprise! I'm active!" variation?

Violent Zephyr
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Instant
Tap all creatures you control. Deal 3 damage to target creature or player.

It looks bad, but, because it's an instant, it should play well. Maybe too well for Lightning Bolt stats.

Created Sporeback and Venomspore Sower by way of suggestions.

Simic creatures such as Sporeback Troll are worth considering for inspiration for Fungi in this set. This is trying to make the activated ability something you'd plausibly want to do to either your own or your opponent's creatures, but a) that pushes it out of common, and b) it makes a bizarre green tapping machine-gun that may be somewhat out of pie.

jmgariepy asked for things to do to +1/+1-countered creatures that are "something that you'd like either way", i.e. good whether it's your own or your opponent's creature who has the counter. The Dead-Iron Sledge ability occurred as a possibility, so trying this.