http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/storm-scale-khans-tarkir-block-2016-02-29

Mark revisits the storm scale.

Of course, it could probably be extended.

11. I never say never, but never

• Real-world people
• Dexterity cards

12. I never say never, but never ever

• Cards on reserved list
• Triple-face cards
• Cards that make you tear up your own cards, cards that affect other games than this one, you know, basically most of Unglued.

13. Never.

• Ante
• Profanity, graphic gore, graphic sex, racial slurs

I was going put "free spells" and "functional reprint of power 9" on there, but they're probably still in the "#10, i never say never, butwould need a major miracle" category. I couldn't think of many actual mechanics that fell above 10!

Mm, even banding is probably only 9 or 10.

­:) I think Mark has said 10 for banding and 11 for bands-with-others, though as he says, ratings have shifted around over time as he's become more certain about things, or varied with his mood.

I think that's probably about right.

I think a mechanic like banding but less confusing is probably a bit more likely, in the possible, but we have to have a good reason range. I think the idea in banding, of having creatures clump up into a unit, in order to make the most vulnerable of them less vulnerable, is a good one with strong flavour and gameplay potential. But it needs a version which is clear, and I'm not sure if that's possible or not.

But they'll be really really careful doing that because banding has such a bad reputation. That seems to fit with his #10 examples "Storm, dredge, affinity for artifacts", which I don't think are completely impossible, but they have one major and several minor reasons not to use...

And even more so with bands-with-others, which I think they will probably avoid forever, because it's banding, but MORE confusing, with WORSE flavour and a LOT more parasitic... I'm not sure any of those traits will be desirable ever.

vast majority of players these days either don't know banding was ever a thing or vaguely know it's that old ability that was confusing. it's not a strong enough sentiment to really turn people off a functional remake

Thing is, Wizards have been trying to remake banding for years. Nomads en-Kor, Catapult Squad / Crossbow Infantry, Infantry Veteran, Akrasan Squire have I think all been explicitly stated to be trying to capture something of the appeal of banding without the rules complexity. And Defensive Formation and High Ground for the other half, too.

I'm not sure why Affinity for Artifacts deserves a 10. It seems perfectly reasonable on colored spells. Assert Authority was both powerful and balanced, for example. I understand why it would be unlikely to return, but I probably would have stuck with 'if the stars align' 8.

People have a visceral hatred of Mirrodin block standard. Even if Wizards gets the balance right, either the cards with affinity will be so nerfed that the people who wanted it back will be disappointed and/or everyone else will go into it already distrustful. I know they briefly considered it for SOM.

Affinity for artifacts was a massive huge problem. They removed the artifact lands to fix it; but just removing the mechanic would have been a better fix (except for, you know, needing to recall and reprint all the cards). It might be possible to balance it; but likely not - 0 cost artifacts are plentiful and jumping the mana curve by that much leaves you either printing "It's Counterspell! But it costs more if you don't have artifacts!" or printing, well, horribly horribly broken everything.

So does anyone else find it funny MaRo mentions Madness as an example of 9 when the spoilers for Shadows Over Innistrad have revealed that the mechanic is returning?

eh; it's a set I'm already completely ignoring due to stupid mechanics (DFC...). Maybe they'll bring back shadow and get all the bad mechanics out of their system in one go.

They changed the reminder text for madness, though, and it's a lot clearer now.

He did say he was pretending not to know about anything coming up in the future.

Wait, if you discard a madness card, can you really choose to exile it and then put it into your graveyard without casting it? I guess, that doesn't make any difference, but it does seem confusing.

But yes, "discard to exile" makes sense in the reminder.

They changed it, apparently. Discarding it to exile used to be optional but now it's mandatory.

Also, Madness was listed as an 8, not a 9 -- 8 being "may come back if the stars align." Perhaps not coincidentally, "when the stars align" is a phrase associated with the more eldritch genres of horror...

It's always been possible to discard a madness card to exile, then decline (or fail) to cast it and have it go to the graveyard. But as dude said, it used to be optional. The new reminder text suggests it's now mandatory, though reminder text is sometimes simplified.

Confirmed

Right, madness. I forgot, that's why all the preview cards are wild mongrels!

I happen to like banding and "bands with other", mostly as they are. There was a problem with the "bands with other" rules which was fixed, but even the new rules, also requires a creature with "bands with other X" to itself be "X" to be able to work, and my rules do not have that requirement, I think is better. There is also the potential confusion of some kind of interactions with ordinary banding and with bands with other, although I tried to fix that too in my variant rules; it rarely makes any difference, though.

I think ante is not too bad either, although I should think that what (if anything) happens to ownership and other game effects after the main game is finished, should be beyond the scope of the game rules (they can be a part of the match rules instead). My rules are that "by default", all changes to anything (other than which player wins, loses, or draws) are reverted when the main game ends. You can still, if you want to do, play a match where such ownership changes are retained until the end of a match, or until the end of a tournament, or to put them back immediately but to adjust the scoring based on ownership changes.

The other problem with ante is interaction with subgames and team games. My suggestion involves two things: One is that the ante zone is retained across subgames and does not change ownership at the end of a subgame (but changes made due to other effects during a subgame will persist during the main game); I had seen this used in a puzzle, and I think it can be interesting to use in puzzles. The other is to delete rule 800.4n; if a player leaves the subgame without ending the subgame, cards owned by that player cannot be seen by the subgame; and if a player leaves the main game, the cards may physically remain there (if you are playing that the winner can keep the cards), but whether or not they do, they have ceased to exist as far as anything in the game is concerned, so no game effects can find them, move them to another zone, etc.

Madness also is not bad. I think the newer rules for them are better (discarding to exile is mandatory), but the older rules (where it is optional) can also be significant sometimes. It is possible (and I had made a puzzle where it is the case) that it is helpful to discard it to exile even if you will not cast it, and it might also be possible (to make a puzzle of) that is relevant whether it is mandatory or optional, too.

Dexterity effects could sometimes be used in Un-cards; they should never be in the non-Un-cards.