Before Innistrad was released, the day/night mechanic was rumored (among other variations):
At the beginning of the game, each player chooses day or night. On each player's turn, permanents enter the battlefield facing the chosen side.
This difference with the way day/night actually works creates some problems. How does mana cost associate with day or night? If you pay for the day side of a double-faced card during night, which side does it enter as?
One way to resolve this problem is to allow the caster to choose either side's mana cost (let's ignore additional costs, kickers, etc. for now), but have the permanent enter facing the current time when the permanent resolves.
A few more complications arise: What happens if a player changes the current time at instant speed? How would a double-faced card aesthetically represent both mana costs so that players don't have to remember the other side's cost? We can assume that like power/toughness of real double-faced cards, each opposite side's mana cost is displayed in a small font below the other's cost. Finally, even if we ignore card and time interaction, the constant change between night and day would force players to constantly resleeve their cards, slowing the game down and damaging the cards. Some physical mechanic for handling transformation, such as holographic cards or tiny day/night switches, would alleviate this problem.
These and other questions are good reasons NOT to use this set's alternative mechanic. Regardless, I thought the rumored day/night mechanic was a lot more interesting than the real one, which ended up being flip cards with better aesthetics--I hate cards with paragraphs of tiny text. The stated reason for transform cards is to better represent the state (tapped flip cards are hard to discern). On the other hand, transform cards are physically annoying to handle. They reveal too much in unsleeved decks. In sleeved decks, resleeving them is time consuming and risks damaging the card.
This set exists to explore the day/night time of your choice rumored mechanic, because I find transform cards with vastly different abilities more interesting than simple upgrade cards. But just as real transform cards are simply flip cards, this set's transform cards are almost reducible to split cards.
Alternative rumors for day/night include:
Transform = Search your library for the backside. This would make boosters awkward, unless they included both sides in each pack.
Day/Night = Real time of day. Aggro decks want to hurry before the time changes.
Post your comments on Innistrad++ here! If your comments are on a small number of specific cards, they may
be better added to those cards. This is for comments on the set as a
whole.
Before Innistrad was released, the day/night mechanic was rumored (among other variations):
At the beginning of the game, each player chooses day or night. On each player's turn, permanents enter the battlefield facing the chosen side.
This difference with the way day/night actually works creates some problems. How does mana cost associate with day or night? If you pay for the day side of a double-faced card during night, which side does it enter as?
One way to resolve this problem is to allow the caster to choose either side's mana cost (let's ignore additional costs, kickers, etc. for now), but have the permanent enter facing the current time when the permanent resolves.
A few more complications arise: What happens if a player changes the current time at instant speed? How would a double-faced card aesthetically represent both mana costs so that players don't have to remember the other side's cost? We can assume that like power/toughness of real double-faced cards, each opposite side's mana cost is displayed in a small font below the other's cost. Finally, even if we ignore card and time interaction, the constant change between night and day would force players to constantly resleeve their cards, slowing the game down and damaging the cards. Some physical mechanic for handling transformation, such as holographic cards or tiny day/night switches, would alleviate this problem.
These and other questions are good reasons NOT to use this set's alternative mechanic. Regardless, I thought the rumored day/night mechanic was a lot more interesting than the real one, which ended up being flip cards with better aesthetics--I hate cards with paragraphs of tiny text. The stated reason for transform cards is to better represent the state (tapped flip cards are hard to discern). On the other hand, transform cards are physically annoying to handle. They reveal too much in unsleeved decks. In sleeved decks, resleeving them is time consuming and risks damaging the card.
This set exists to explore the day/night time of your choice rumored mechanic, because I find transform cards with vastly different abilities more interesting than simple upgrade cards. But just as real transform cards are simply flip cards, this set's transform cards are almost reducible to split cards.
Alternative rumors for day/night include:
Transform = Search your library for the backside. This would make boosters awkward, unless they included both sides in each pack.
Day/Night = Real time of day. Aggro decks want to hurry before the time changes.
Post your comments on Innistrad++ here!
If your comments are on a small number of specific cards, they may be better added to those cards. This is for comments on the set as a whole.