Conversation: Recent Activity
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-04-29 11:18:42)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-04-29 11:18:42)
I know wizards likes to save design space if they can, so would they ever consider beginning to write things simpler?
Instead of "You may pay
, if you do, draw a card"
it could be
"You may pay
to draw a card"
maybe they do this, but sometimes I think things could be shortened and am surprised they haven't already
I really wouldn't count 'discourages blocking' as a negative since it makes sure the games end. 'Discourages attacking' is the problematic twin, which holds true for deathtouch, first strike, and menace.
Haste only matters for a single turn - and only if you want to attack.
Flying is extremely parasitic.
Lifelink and vigilance are pretty good.
Anyway, my point is that hardly any keyword is not without its faults. That's why the pros and cons need to be weighted and evaluated. Because of this, I would just jam pretty much any keywords as placeholders that could then be 'one-upped' by new contending ones. At least that way some progress would be made as these kind of 'find a new keyword' don't tent to go that far. You can check up various threads seeking for new
and 
evergreens for that.
Couple of things I thought about and/or recalled:
> "Stalwart" (This can block any creature, regardless of that creature's abilities.)
> "Ruthless" (This deals twice as much combat damage to players and planeswalkers.)
> "Avert" (If this would be dealt damage, you may have all of that damage be dealt to you instead.)
> "Stalk" (This can't be blocked by more than one creature.)
> "Elusive" (Whenever this becomes blocked, you may untap it and remove it from combat.)
So to reiterate, I would slam just the first things that come to mind in there somewhere and then let the new ones contend with them. Instead of looking for 'perfect ones' we would be having the keywords fight against each other and find the 'best ones' that way.
Which, yeah, I know... I didn't solve anything. I gave abilities to colors that already had abilities. Still, IMO, these swaps make the pie stronger.
In theory, I'd suggest offense for B/R. Though haste makes a lot of sense in that combination.
I would add that evasion 'might not count'. You could probably make the system make more sense if you just assumed that flying and menace were just 'part of the game' and weren't locked into a two-color combination. Every color, after all, should have some form of evasion.
If that's the philosophy, then tying reach into a two color combination also seems weird (it already was kind of weird to begin with. If your opponent has no flying creatures, your keyword does nothing.) So, like evasion, anti-evasion can 'not count' when deciding on keywords for two color combinations. I'd also suggest moving reach into white, so you can get parity like this:
Flying: White/Blue/Black
Menace: Green/Red/Black
Reach: White/Green/Red
If we did this, we could move haste into R/G, then give 'Offense' to B/R.
Move flying to blue/black in common. Give white/blue 'defense', AKA
Shield Maiden
W
Creature - Human Soldier
Defense 1 (As long as this creature is blocking, it gets +1/+1.)
0/2
It makes obvious sense in white to have better blockers. It's also a nice touch in blue, because it lets you print weaker creatures that can stand toe to toe with green creatures on the block.
I think the bigger issue with the proposed keywords for
and 
is developmentally. Both of these mechanics discourage blocking, which is probably something that isn't encouraged in R&D land, because it means that there's less interaction overall. Of the evergreen mechanics, only deathtouch and I guess first strike really discourage people to block when they can, and even then, the attacker still has a risk of losing their creature if the defending player chooses to block with it. With the proposed two mechanics, there's much less risk when attacking because at the very least, you know you're going to get the damage in/going to force the opponent to commit a chump block unless he wants to take damage. In limited, there's not much the opponent can do to get around that if it becomes a problem.
Not going with the idea of less-powered environments seems like a good idea tbh. NNWO might be sort of a joke, but there are some real truths to its message. Shuffling being one of the things that are pretty much now 'a real' red-flag in NWO as well. Even the nonsquared pt is now considered an issue when relating to buffs - or more specifically to prowess.
Pushing for some 'defender tribal' could be something to try, but I think you're right that it would be a futile effort. We've seen glimpses of it before.
I've never been too much of a fan of daunt. I don't know what to say about it. The static number of "2" seems kind of out of place in an evergreen. It seems quite environment dependent to me, as in, whether there are a lot of playable creatures with power 2 or less.
Now that we're considering dropping first strike could this work for
> ? (Prevent all damage that would be dealt to this creature as long as it's attacking.)
Is it too much of a bend in mono-
?
EDIT
Afflict / "Super trample" variant for
?:
> Whenever this deals combat damage to a blocking creature, that creature's controller / defending player also loses that much life.
Maybe
... and menace into 
?
This compares badly to deathtouch obviously, but maybe the 'when deals damage, tap the damaged and it doesn't untap during next untap step'? This is one of those points where I might be willing to raise the 'portal flag' as an excuse at least until something better is made for
.
NNWO doesn't go far enough to simplify the game. All keywords should be eliminated in NNWO.
How kosher would daunt (Can't be blocked by creatures with power 2 or less) be under NNWO? My gut feeling says that it's okay, because it's unlikely to vary from set to set. It can fit into
or 
or even 
to replace trample.
I don't think
or 
even need keywords, honestly.
I think exchanging deathtouch for first strike is a valid option to resolve the "close call". I just use the default as the article states it. It's anyone's call to remove additional keywords.
I'm not taking into account any "implied notion". That might be the idea for the "Portal of New New World Order" set, but the idea of any NWO is "going forward this is what we have" - not just for one set, right?
Defender is in as far as I am concerned, but it's not a viable candidate for a color pie keyword and just a drawback all colors have access to.
This hand-waved away in the NNWO article, but I find that first strike is at times one of the harder keywords to explain - even worse than trample. Some players just didn't get the idea of 'dealing damage first' and the 'other creature not even getting the change to strike back'. So I would question that as well - at least on common.
"Tunneling" could be thing for
(can't be blocked by creatures with flying). Maybe in addition to reach as a counterpart since they both play the anti-flying game?
I would also bring up the list of possibly deciduous keywords. The ones that can be used at time to time and perhaps in our case, at uncommon if need be. Indestructible would be on that list, and in my opinion first strike should be consider to be moved there.
Deathtouch isn't problematic on its own, only with other keywords. The ones quickly stated in the article to cause issues with it are trample, protection, and first strike. If there aren't any others, this would just reinforce my option that first strike needs to leave the evergreen list. The other two we've already listed off. So deathtouch in, first strike out? Something to consider.
I'm actually not convinced that death triggers are that much of an issue because you don't know when they will trigger. I wouldn't outright disqualify a keyword for using such. Their real issue now comes from their "dies" wording when it comes in contact with an exiling effect.
Come to think of it, there isn't any mention of "remove from the game /exile" in the article. Are we to assume that such effects are fine at common. I think so.
One thing to mention (though this is arguably) is that if we go by the implied notion of a "portal set" is that the power level doesn't perhaps need to be, how would I say it, on point. That is, the proposed keywords don't need to be that relevant gameplay wise (developmentally irrelevant) as long as they are easy to understand and flavorful (flavor makes them easier to understand as well). I don't know if this helps or even makes sense, but I thought to mention it as a possibility.
Hmm, with that in mind, maybe defender could be back in? xD As far as this discussion goes, it would certainly go in
, but I don't where I would place flying then. Though it seems that 
has haste and menace here so I guess it's fine for a color pair to have multiple and not try to shoehorn the keywords.
Lifelink being somewhat questionable in
and as a possible 
mechanic is an idea I've played around, but that probably goes beyond this discussion. So far it also seems that vigilance and lifelink are perfectly content to sit where they are in that current list up so messing around with lifelink's color identity at this point would make things just more difficult. It might be something to come back to if things change dramatically regarding that listing.
New New World Order
Thought Experiment/Challenge
The following previously evergreen keywords are gone:
²) Deathtouch & Indestructible are "close calls" in one way or another and the powers that be could be convinced to keep one of these if the rest of the line-up is perfectly simple.
Here are the color pairs with their remaining keyword abilities:
Other (ir)relevant: Defender
³) Reach is a shared keyword of red and green, but since it is an extension of flying it is preferably not counted by itself.
The following things the new keyword abilities should avoid:
The chsllenge is to assign each of the ten color pairs at least one shared evergreen mechanic (preferably keyword). Remaining keywords may be assigned to colors differently.
Anything to add?
@Link i dont have any of that stuff, but i'll bookmark it along with a few others and store it in a new bookmark section :D
yay daily plans to fill the empty void. oh wait im typing this
jk im cool
@Froggychum, you should follow the blog if you want to keep up with it :)
That's very kind of you to say, Froggychum. Thank you. :)
And thank you, Tahazzar. I write the day ahead and look over them the day I post them, but it's hard to do good editing for myself at the pace I've set. My husband looks over everything but he's not so great at spotting errors. I really appreciate the corrections and the compliment.
truism
For free! That's a rate you can't easily beat.
oh, tahazzar, you're such an editor! :D
As a test: Would the term/phrase be appropriate if someone uses their land drop for the turn?
> "Whenever you do not cast a land, you gain 1 life."?
Well, I don't only do not cast a land, when I play a Forest, I also do not cast a land when I cast a Raging Goblin.
I could see "establish". It's about on par with "deploy" IMO.
I recently stumbled over "introduce".
@Link:
On "Trapped, Part 1", there were some minor errors, as is to be expected really
As far as the actual content, it seemed good, but I'm no literature critic.
I am reading now, and plan to catch up and keep up with it.
Your writing is beautiful, thank you.
I know I haven't been very active here lately and that this isn't explicitly Magic-related, but I've started a short story blog. I post a news story 5-6 days a week. You can check it out here.
"Whenever you do not cast..." :)
Looking for ETB but not via the normal route? "Whenever ~ sneaks into play"? "Whenever ~ is cheated into play"?
lay / lay down, situate, deposit, establish,
> I would say "place" at that point except for the concept of placing counters on a permanent.
Yeah, I had the same thought and rejected the term for the same reason.
> I'm unsure what a permanent would be besides land that doesn't use the stack.
Custom card types. I recently created on called 'asset', but I've seen others. The term is supposed to be used for cards that are modular with other custom cards.
> This is a little bit disingenuous as a question
You think I'm not actually interested in having that term?
> "put on the battlefield"
Well, except if I create a card with e. g. the text "Whenever you put a permanent onto the battlefield, draw a card." it sounds really much like a permanent entering the battlefield after resolving as a spell should trigger that.
It ("putting onto the battlefield") also doesn't actually require playing a land and hence would also trigger from e. g. Elvish Piper/Llanowar Scout.
I want a term that actually means "play, but not cast" (note how both of my comments before this one specifically say "play"); your proposed wording is (usually? always?) used when an effect wants to move a card to the battlefield while circumventing the game action described by playing.
> and if that's not what you mean, then you need to revise your own wording first before asking for new ones.
I have no idea what this means. Which is my own wording?
This is a little bit disingenuous as a question since there is a well established template (if not quite "rule term") for "playing a card directly to the battlefield (it becomes a permanent)", and that is "put on the battlefield"—and if that's not what you mean, then you need to revise your own wording first before asking for new ones.
I didn't understand the distinction. I would say "place" at that point except for the concept of placing counters on a permanent. I'm unsure what a permanent would be besides land that doesn't use the stack.
I personally am a fan of special sheets and when I create any kind of special tricks like this I go for simulated special sheets as well.
As you say: Less prone to errors, and easier to realise to begin with.