You might as well add Confident Captain to that list since it also cost , is a 2/2, and gives you Gadgets thought it has higher risk-reward theme regarding getting those Gadgets.
The modes are balanced by virtue of being perpendicular to each other and desirable at different stages of the game. I'll worry about fine tuning balance later. There are definitely a lot of modes that could easily replace the scry 1 mode if I choose to make it more powerful.
How is color fixing more problematic than mana acceleration? Color fixing encourages splashing and adding additional colors - ie. diversity. Mana acceleration asks for combos and powering out quickly your finishers. Chromatic Star is okay, but a Lotus Petal for colorless mana is not. Obviously Gold/Treasure tokens did both of these things, but they exclusively appeared in , , and . Of all the colors, would be the wrong one as far as I know.
Scry 2 is certainly more complex than scry 1, but if you start comparing it to the decision tree you have to do when thinking whether or not pop for 'tap creature' option, it's the more preferable option IMO.
I guess 'tap target' is a tolerable option, but it's obviously the most complex of all the choices, even if scry 2 would be accompanying it. Life gain would certainly be one of the simpler options you could possibly have here. I would at least consider playing around the issues it could potentially cause rather than drop it cold out-right.
That all aside, if you really want to push for these bends, I don't think the 3 current options you suggest are balanced with each other.
> Add ; or tap target creature; or scry 1.
IMO "scry 1" pales in comparison to the other two. I would find the mana generation one to be the strongest one. It gains you tempo and likely board presence you wouldn't be able to muster otherwise - likely even not in the span of multiple rounds. "Tap creature" is certainly a strong contender. Preventing from attacking is essentially life gain though, so it's just furthering the inevitable. Alpha attacking by making your dudes unblockable is pretty strong though. Especially as the opponent has to play around the possibility of you making the couple of dudes they leave to defend unable to do so, which is an additional step of complexity as it even affects the decisions of your opponents in addition to you.
I plan to use gadgets a lot so I'm not building life gain or mana fixing into the gadgets themselves as those effects become very problematic in limited in higher numbers. I prefer scry 1 to scry 2 as I think it is easier to balance and is much faster for players to play with. Scry 2 has three times more possible outcomes than scry 1, meaning its much more complicated.
I'm not putting tokens into the sideboard because it would play worse and warp the set even more than gadgets already are. In order to support the gadgets in the sideboard version of the mechanic, I'd need to put dozens of gadgets in the set, much like contraptions in unstable. Balancing all of these effects would be miserable.
I'm satisfied with the current version of the mechanic. With only three modes. I still plan to include double faced tokens in the set with one side being a split card with all three available gadgets. This means that whenever someone opens a pack, it will feature everything they need to play with all the cards and I can just focus on the designs of the cards themselves.
The idea of gadgets being sideboard tokens sounds pretty nice.
Three is a magical number and only you usually want to go with if you have to decide between the number of options to have (maybe two is even more preferable). The three options I would personally be comfortable with color pie wise would be (from the top of my head):
Sacrifice this artifact: Scry 2.
Sacrifice this artifact: You gain 2 life.
, Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color.
Life gain would suggest some support in the form of Ajani's Pridemate and such.
The color fixing ability is a bit awkward in that it requires some mana upfront while the other two don't. For the sake of consistency it might be better go with all of them requiring mana to activate (also makes them slightly more common friendly so that they have some 'down time' when they can't be activated and don't have to be worried about) and because of that I would up the number of life gain and scry from 2 to 3 respectively.
Hmm, is scry 3 too strong? Going scry 2 might be better, but inconsistent a bit. Maybe still keep the numbers at 2 each? Then again life gain starts to sound too weak. Mayhaps "tap creature" would indeed be better in that case.
So...?
, Sacrifice this artifact: Choose one —
• Scry 2.
• Tap target creature.
• Add one mana of any color.
Tapping creatures at instant speed adds a lot of complexity gameplay wise though... Not so much as +1/+1 UEOT or anything like that, but still, at the start of each combat you would have to consider if you want to stop something from attacking / blocking and whether you would want to 'crack' the Gadget for something else instead.
Scrying you might want to consider at end step / upkeep, but otherwise it, color fixing, and gaining life are require low tactical thought which is good considering the mechanic is already presenting players with so many options, which only gets worse once you start to pile multiple Gadgets. Maybe "You gain 3 life" would still be better than tapping even if the numbers between it and the scrying could possibly be confused with each other at some rare occasions?
EDIT: On further thought, the supposed 'inconsistency' of the numbers would play into the mechanic's advantage as a memory rule. You either add one, scry two, or gain three. 1-2-3.
Redesigned as part of mechanic distribution overhaul. Was a 1W 2/2 with "Exploit (When ~ enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice a creature.) When ~ exploits a creature, create two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens."
You might as well add Confident Captain to that list since it also cost , is a 2/2, and gives you Gadgets thought it has higher risk-reward theme regarding getting those Gadgets.
The modes are balanced by virtue of being perpendicular to each other and desirable at different stages of the game. I'll worry about fine tuning balance later. There are definitely a lot of modes that could easily replace the scry 1 mode if I choose to make it more powerful.
marked for redesign
How is color fixing more problematic than mana acceleration? Color fixing encourages splashing and adding additional colors - ie. diversity. Mana acceleration asks for combos and powering out quickly your finishers. Chromatic Star is okay, but a Lotus Petal for colorless mana is not. Obviously Gold/Treasure tokens did both of these things, but they exclusively appeared in , , and . Of all the colors, would be the wrong one as far as I know.
Scry 2 is certainly more complex than scry 1, but if you start comparing it to the decision tree you have to do when thinking whether or not pop for 'tap creature' option, it's the more preferable option IMO.
I guess 'tap target' is a tolerable option, but it's obviously the most complex of all the choices, even if scry 2 would be accompanying it. Life gain would certainly be one of the simpler options you could possibly have here. I would at least consider playing around the issues it could potentially cause rather than drop it cold out-right.
That all aside, if you really want to push for these bends, I don't think the 3 current options you suggest are balanced with each other.
> Add ; or tap target creature; or scry 1.
IMO "scry 1" pales in comparison to the other two. I would find the mana generation one to be the strongest one. It gains you tempo and likely board presence you wouldn't be able to muster otherwise - likely even not in the span of multiple rounds. "Tap creature" is certainly a strong contender. Preventing from attacking is essentially life gain though, so it's just furthering the inevitable. Alpha attacking by making your dudes unblockable is pretty strong though. Especially as the opponent has to play around the possibility of you making the couple of dudes they leave to defend unable to do so, which is an additional step of complexity as it even affects the decisions of your opponents in addition to you.
Looks a bit too similar to (((Clever Conscript))): same mana cost, power, and gives you a Gadget. It fills the same role essentially.
reverted to original design
Redesigned as part of mechanic distribution overhaul
Redesigned after pushing around mechanics.
I plan to use gadgets a lot so I'm not building life gain or mana fixing into the gadgets themselves as those effects become very problematic in limited in higher numbers. I prefer scry 1 to scry 2 as I think it is easier to balance and is much faster for players to play with. Scry 2 has three times more possible outcomes than scry 1, meaning its much more complicated.
I'm not putting tokens into the sideboard because it would play worse and warp the set even more than gadgets already are. In order to support the gadgets in the sideboard version of the mechanic, I'd need to put dozens of gadgets in the set, much like contraptions in unstable. Balancing all of these effects would be miserable.
I'm satisfied with the current version of the mechanic. With only three modes. I still plan to include double faced tokens in the set with one side being a split card with all three available gadgets. This means that whenever someone opens a pack, it will feature everything they need to play with all the cards and I can just focus on the designs of the cards themselves.
The idea of gadgets being sideboard tokens sounds pretty nice.
Three is a magical number and only you usually want to go with if you have to decide between the number of options to have (maybe two is even more preferable). The three options I would personally be comfortable with color pie wise would be (from the top of my head):
Life gain would suggest some support in the form of Ajani's Pridemate and such.
The color fixing ability is a bit awkward in that it requires some mana upfront while the other two don't. For the sake of consistency it might be better go with all of them requiring mana to activate (also makes them slightly more common friendly so that they have some 'down time' when they can't be activated and don't have to be worried about) and because of that I would up the number of life gain and scry from 2 to 3 respectively.
Hmm, is scry 3 too strong? Going scry 2 might be better, but inconsistent a bit. Maybe still keep the numbers at 2 each? Then again life gain starts to sound too weak. Mayhaps "tap creature" would indeed be better in that case.
So...?
• Scry 2.
• Tap target creature.
• Add one mana of any color.
Tapping creatures at instant speed adds a lot of complexity gameplay wise though... Not so much as +1/+1 UEOT or anything like that, but still, at the start of each combat you would have to consider if you want to stop something from attacking / blocking and whether you would want to 'crack' the Gadget for something else instead.
Scrying you might want to consider at end step / upkeep, but otherwise it, color fixing, and gaining life are require low tactical thought which is good considering the mechanic is already presenting players with so many options, which only gets worse once you start to pile multiple Gadgets. Maybe "You gain 3 life" would still be better than tapping even if the numbers between it and the scrying could possibly be confused with each other at some rare occasions?
EDIT: On further thought, the supposed 'inconsistency' of the numbers would play into the mechanic's advantage as a memory rule. You either add one, scry two, or gain three. 1-2-3.
Marked for redesign now that wizards is no longer planned.
marked for redesign. This card was always mechanically awkward and white is being retooled to be significantly more aggressive. This card doesn't fit.
marked for redesign now that wizard tribal is no longer planned
marked for redesign now that exploit is no longer in white
marked for redesign as wizard tribal is no longer planned
Marked for redesign for being just way too awkward
needs to be redesigned to fit now that wizard tribal is being removed.
Redesigned as part of mechanic distribution overhaul. Was a 1W 2/2 with "Exploit (When ~ enters the battlefield, you may sacrifice a creature.) When ~ exploits a creature, create two 1/1 white Soldier creature tokens."
Redesigned as part of mechanic distribution overhaul. Was a 2W 3/1 with "As long as you control an equipment or vehicle, ~ has first strike"