I don't think a high reprint count is troublesome. It could be boring, but I think it's fine in a place where the flavour makes sense and the mechanics are what you want.
I'm not sure if this is clear... but are you exiling the artifact that got sacrificed? Wouldn't it just be easier to make exiling the cost, instead of sacrificing?
Also, personally speaking, I'd get rid of the variable cost and just always use the original card's casting cost. The card is confusing enough, reducing the cost of the repair cost by the artifact that was sacrificed. I see the value in making the repair cost different than the casting cost, but it doesn't seem like it's worth the extra mental energy.
There will be some with higher and lower costs. Just so happens that most of the ones i've written out so far have equal repair costs.
As far as the memory issues are concerned, its totally a problem, but I couldn't think of a more streamlined way to balance the mechanic. Were this set actually being printed it'd probably include pips of some kind to act as repair markers.
So far it seems that all repair costs are equal to their card's cost. So not just remove the variable cost
> You may cast this card from your graveyard by sacrificing an artifact in addition to paying its mana cost reduced by that artifact's converted mana cost.
ie. more retrace, less emerge
Also, the "exile it when it leaves" has memory issues plus minor issue where one might think it means that you should exile the artifact you sac. Similar issue can be seen with embalm, where WotC opted out to A) Make it create a token and then print a unique token for each of the embalm cards and B) have "embalm markers" that you could slap on the "returned" card itself if you didn't own those tokens or didn't want to use/have placeholder stuff. Also, even from development standpoint I would try out the mechanic without that exile clause. Though it would likely cause a lot repetitive gameplay without it now that I think about it more than 5 seconds...
Hmmm, it's usually easier to come up with cards concepts if you give the card slot a specific purpose.
Just going with something not so color intensive would be alright. Like a functional reprint of Makindi Griffin or Skyswirl Harrier.
A somewhat interesting idea I came upon while checking for similar cards was the idea of printing Wall of Swords at common. In some environments it could be rather oppressive, but seeing how numerous and spread around colors tunneling is, it could work.
At some point though, it might be better to stray away from having this many reprints (though I just suggested another one). Maybe not as this stage, but perhaps later on you could simply try come up with your own variants of the said cards. For now, using reprints as "placeholders" can work well. Sets certainly have couple of reprints usually (core sets much more so) but IMO when that numbers starts to creep around 10+ it's somewhat... troublesome (also boring)?
Personally I would reprint cards when the reprinted card would have in this new environment a "twist" on it, like Terror in original Mirrodin (being suddenly much weaker) - or makes sense flavorwise, like Renewed Faith in Amonkhet. This is why I suggested Wall of Swords since here it could play somewhat unexpectedly. Something like Alabaster Dragon is not really interesting, well it's an old card that's a white dragon so it's cool that way, but IMO it should "reserved" for a set where either being a white dragon matters or being shuffled or causing shuffling matters.
This is me running out of ideas for low rarity flyers, since the set needs a lot of them to make the tunneling mechanic live. I'm gonna cut it if I find a better idea.
Yeah. Disembowel predates NWO, but there have been a small number of X spells at common even under NWO: Death Wind, Heat Ray, Untamed Might. It's not out of the question by any means.
Disembowel is a fine card for Limited: easy to kill small things, harder to kill big bombs but still capable with enough mana. The perfect Limited common removal, really.
Yes, the "REPRINT" comments are purely informal for other commentators and not meant as any warning sign or anything. So I'm just helping around :)
Regarding NWO it's good to remember that technically 20 % of all commons are allowed to be redflagged - though as of late WotC sets seem have been breaking this and they have also been mentioned of being high in complexity by MaRo. Being redflagged doesn't even always mean that the card is problematic. The purpose is just to shift complexity from common to higher rarities. At least in principle, under NWO uncommon cards are allowed to be more complex than they might have been allowed to be previously.
So yup, this would have to be allocated under that 20 % - if"New World Order" is something you care about.
It's just a lot of us comment on cards not realising it's an existing mtg card. And end up looking silly commenting on it :)
I'd say this is a bit non-nwo for being cost at common; and also kinda weak. Unless you environment has a lot of tokens or is a really high aggro environment while black is mainly battleship - and so needs this to survive - that it feels a bit odd.
Nothing hugely wrong with it; balance is technically fine.
So something like Isamaru, Hound of Konda? Blue isn't really the color to print aggressive weenies. Not that this really breaks anything per se. It's a rather boring uncommon unless being legendary means something in this set.
I don't think a high reprint count is troublesome. It could be boring, but I think it's fine in a place where the flavour makes sense and the mechanics are what you want.
I'm not sure if this is clear... but are you exiling the artifact that got sacrificed? Wouldn't it just be easier to make exiling the cost, instead of sacrificing?
Also, personally speaking, I'd get rid of the variable cost and just always use the original card's casting cost. The card is confusing enough, reducing the cost of the repair cost by the artifact that was sacrificed. I see the value in making the repair cost different than the casting cost, but it doesn't seem like it's worth the extra mental energy.
There will be some with higher and lower costs. Just so happens that most of the ones i've written out so far have equal repair costs.
As far as the memory issues are concerned, its totally a problem, but I couldn't think of a more streamlined way to balance the mechanic. Were this set actually being printed it'd probably include pips of some kind to act as repair markers.
So far it seems that all repair costs are equal to their card's cost. So not just remove the variable cost
> You may cast this card from your graveyard by sacrificing an artifact in addition to paying its mana cost reduced by that artifact's converted mana cost.
ie. more retrace, less emerge
Also, the "exile it when it leaves" has memory issues plus minor issue where one might think it means that you should exile the artifact you sac. Similar issue can be seen with embalm, where WotC opted out to A) Make it create a token and then print a unique token for each of the embalm cards and B) have "embalm markers" that you could slap on the "returned" card itself if you didn't own those tokens or didn't want to use/have placeholder stuff. Also, even from development standpoint I would try out the mechanic without that exile clause. Though it would likely cause a lot repetitive gameplay without it now that I think about it more than 5 seconds...
Hmmm, it's usually easier to come up with cards concepts if you give the card slot a specific purpose.
Just going with something not so color intensive would be alright. Like a functional reprint of Makindi Griffin or Skyswirl Harrier.
A somewhat interesting idea I came upon while checking for similar cards was the idea of printing Wall of Swords at common. In some environments it could be rather oppressive, but seeing how numerous and spread around colors tunneling is, it could work.
At some point though, it might be better to stray away from having this many reprints (though I just suggested another one). Maybe not as this stage, but perhaps later on you could simply try come up with your own variants of the said cards. For now, using reprints as "placeholders" can work well. Sets certainly have couple of reprints usually (core sets much more so) but IMO when that numbers starts to creep around 10+ it's somewhat... troublesome (also boring)?
Personally I would reprint cards when the reprinted card would have in this new environment a "twist" on it, like Terror in original Mirrodin (being suddenly much weaker) - or makes sense flavorwise, like Renewed Faith in Amonkhet. This is why I suggested Wall of Swords since here it could play somewhat unexpectedly. Something like Alabaster Dragon is not really interesting, well it's an old card that's a white dragon so it's cool that way, but IMO it should "reserved" for a set where either being a white dragon matters or being shuffled or causing shuffling matters.
This is me running out of ideas for low rarity flyers, since the set needs a lot of them to make the tunneling mechanic live. I'm gonna cut it if I find a better idea.
Nothing special about it. Its legendary only because a 2/2 flyer for 2 is powerful, and I thought the flavor was cute.
Yeah. Disembowel predates NWO, but there have been a small number of X spells at common even under NWO: Death Wind, Heat Ray, Untamed Might. It's not out of the question by any means.
Disembowel is a fine card for Limited: easy to kill small things, harder to kill big bombs but still capable with enough mana. The perfect Limited common removal, really.
Yes, the "REPRINT" comments are purely informal for other commentators and not meant as any warning sign or anything. So I'm just helping around :)
Regarding NWO it's good to remember that technically 20 % of all commons are allowed to be redflagged - though as of late WotC sets seem have been breaking this and they have also been mentioned of being high in complexity by MaRo. Being redflagged doesn't even always mean that the card is problematic. The purpose is just to shift complexity from common to higher rarities. At least in principle, under NWO uncommon cards are allowed to be more complex than they might have been allowed to be previously.
So yup, this would have to be allocated under that 20 % - if "New World Order" is something you care about.
No, nothing wrong with putting reprints in a set.
It's just a lot of us comment on cards not realising it's an existing mtg card. And end up looking silly commenting on it :)
I'd say this is a bit non-nwo for being
cost at common; and also kinda weak. Unless you environment has a lot of tokens or is a really high aggro environment while black is mainly battleship - and so needs this to survive - that it feels a bit odd.
Nothing hugely wrong with it; balance is technically fine.
Are reprints a faux pas here? Or do you mean I should just label it as such?
> "Destroy target artifact. Its controller creates two 1/1 green Ooze Mutant creature tokens."
> "Target opponent may reveal a creature card from their (his or her?) hand."
REPRINT: Unstable Mutation.
Eh, mutation is a color pie "mistake" that was finally "rectified" with Consuming Fervor.
So something like Isamaru, Hound of Konda? Blue isn't really the color to print aggressive weenies. Not that this really breaks anything per se. It's a rather boring uncommon unless being legendary means something in this set.
REPRINT: Disembowel.
This card seems pretty bad if the set is supposed to be drafted. I don't even see any monocolor themes here.
Art being from Radha, Heir to Keld is somewhat distracting.
REPRINT: Worldfire.
REPRINT: Master of Diversion.
REPRINT: Alabaster Dragon.