Clockwork Wings: Recent Activity
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Recent updates to Clockwork Wings: (Generated at 2025-05-01 17:51:03)
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Mmm, I did wonder about combining this with Anrion Prodigy. I'm not using
in this set for the same reason I'm not using hybrid or fortifications: they add extra complexity to the set as a whole, and draw focus from where I want the focus to be.
This is part of a cycle with (((Minister of Illumination))), Smythehold Levitator, Acolyte of Alchemy and Galvanic Mindfuser, so I want it to definitely keep the structure of "
: Add [Torque] // [Torque]: Do something". At the moment I feel that having it conclude "[Torque]: Add 
" would overlap too much with the Relics like Flywheel Relic. But I'll certainly bear it in mind.
could always go with the two sided nature of torque...
make this purely a power generator but make it
: Add [Torque] to your power pool.
Torque does a bit much untapping things. This could easily have some other ability for Torque instead.
gain X life, not 2X
Turns out gaining 12-24 life for 6 mana is a bit good. Who knew?
By comparison with Primal Command's "7 life + something else for 5 mana", I'll knock off half the lifegain and see if that's fairer.
However, it turns out to be crazy good if you have even 2 sources of [Torque] on the table. Dropped to milling 3, and will keep my eye on it.
drop from mill 4 to mill 3
True. The card isn't overpowered in a vacuum, but in-set it may be too good - the connector decks may not care about giving up a little coloured mana. I will indeed watch it carefully.
Playtesting also requested a "You may" for if people forget. I can see the reasoning, but it's more in line with Caltrops and Powerstone Minefield if it just always deals the damage.
Good point. "Activated abilities can’t be activated this turn" would go well with untapping your own creatures too (so they can't abuse the untap, but do get to attack), and "can attack as though it were untapped" is possible but dangerous territory, but there's no elegant way of letting it work for opponent but not you, so I agree you were probably right with the initial design.
I wonder if it might actually be because they've errataed in some reminder text. Every other combination of abilities seem to take a comma, so I might just declare I don't know what they're doing with those three, and make this fit the general rule rather than the specific rule.
Yep, after some Oracle trawling, I think the rule is: they try to put multiple reminder-texted keywords on one line, with parens explaining all of the keywords at once, as on Mirri, Cat Warrior or Skyhunter Prowler. But if they're errataing in reminder text for one keyword but not others, they separate them with semicolons, as on Icatian Skirmishers, Knights of Thorn, and Whip Vine and friends.
So since I've not got reminder text, I can just use a comma. Phew. The semicolon looked really weird.
I could never remember either, but now I'm puzzled too. So it's just defender/reach that gets a semicolon? I agree they seem connected, but huh. I don't know if that's deliberate, or left over from an oracle update somehow?
It's really hard to make a tap-ability creature attack. Provoke couldn't make one block. You'd have to have something like "Untap target creature. Its activated abilities can't be activated this turn. It attacks this turn if able and may attack as though it didn't have defender." So yeah, I don't think that's worth doing.
Ah, a troll lord, I like it. I like the way the ability naturally goes on your creatures or your opponent's (you might even want to make your opponent's defender attack and now you can).
I wonder if it should be able to untap opponents creatures (since most creatures you want to make attack have tap abilities) but agree it would be hard to word as elegantly.
Jack: Just created Wingpiercer Recluse and Troll Warlord, which hit both your suggestions along with a Rolling-Stones-type effect.
Chris: Very interesting suggestion. The big stroke against is is that it's different to how Equip and Fortify work. I'm trying to make the mechanics as intuitive as possible, and so I've got the power pool behaving just like the mana pool, and connect behaving just like equip and fortify; my design instincts say that otherwise people will misplay them all over the place. Nonetheless, I'll give it some thought.
"Attack each turn if able" would actually be very funny, because it would feel so over-eager, and yet, you can always tap it beforehand (and would often want to do so). But I'm not sure if it's funny only from a design perspective or also from a play perspective :)
CH: That's what I thought. Then I saw the Oracle wording for Whip Vine, Traproot Kami and Aether Membrane. I was somewhat shocked.
"Heh, I love the mental image of a big hulking troll (or a Baloth or something) pedalling on a fragile cycle connected by a flimsy chain to a pair of unwieldy thopter-wings"
Yes, ever so much :)
Fortification would be a solution - it'd all work out very neatly there. But that would have a huge extra overhead of adding another subtype and ability to the set. I don't think that overhead is worth it.
The twos and threes you mention were precisely the point, and I still find them very appealing, but multiple people were finding this card very fiddly last night, to the extent that it was clearly one of the two cards with the biggest problems out of all those that got playtested. Refactoring needs to be ruthless.
Heh, I love the mental image of a big hulking troll (or a Baloth or something) pedalling on a fragile cycle connected by a flimsy chain to a pair of unwieldy thopter-wings :D
Okay, I'll try this at Equip
and Equip 
and see how it goes.
Wants comma, not semi-colon.
Mmm, true, though it's a guideline they've broken several times. A creature with "attacks each turn if able" along with a tap ability just feels a bit silly...
But thanks to Jack pointing out Skitter of Lizards gives precedent, I'm inclined to leave this as it is.
I suspect Ancient Den et al weren't meant to be good cards either... Obviously, you don't have Affinity, but you do have Connectors - this gives you something you want, for free. I'd watch it.
"~ can't block" is, as MaRo and KEN point out today, a Black restriction. The red equivalent is "Attacks each turn if able"
:) I agree this ability seems fine: being on a land means it's still very useful even if it only ever gets you a couple of life.
ROFL. I like the way you can use the haste to tap immediately if you want to :)
Note Skitter of Lizards already obsoletes raging goblin, so there's precedent. I think the combination is fine.
It may be too convenient that this is a one-drop useful later, but that's obviously one for playtesting.