Multiverse Design Challenge: Recent Activity

Yeah, I saw a forum thread asking "why is lotus petal worse than simian spirit guide" and I realised I had no idea. I'd so much internalised the idea that 0-cost mana artifacts are ALWAYS overpowered I didn't question it.

I assume it's some combination of:

• increasing storm count
• being subject to graveyard recursion
• increasing affinity/metalcraft
• producing any colour

I assume "everyone knows" which decks are likely to need it and they care about some of those things -- but I don't know which are likely to matter :)

In the discussion of 2-mana lands, note there's also the Boros Garrison cycle. They don't really count because you have to bounce a land, but they're the only recent 2-mana lands.

And indeed, Lotus Petal is considered overpowered, although I'm not quite sure why given that Simian Spirit Guide is okay.

Wikipedia confirms "lode" is correct, though I hadnt noticed it :)

Shouldn't this be Motherlode? :)

Yeah, I excluded "sacrifice a creature" lands: I think they're a lot safer because they're unlikely to go off on turn 1.

And yeah. Looking at Gaea's Cradle, Serra's Santcum, and Tolarian Academy, it might be an open question which is broken, but it turns out that two are good and one is completely broken, because there's sufficiently many affinity decks waiting to be made, but nothing quite the same for enchantments.

I think an argument can be made that Phyrexian Tower isn't overpowered. It's damn good, but damn good is what Mythics are made of. It doesn't defend me very well, however, becomes creatures aren't free. Still, I don't think I've seen too many people packing 4xOrnithopter 4x Phyrexian Walker just for that early boost.

­Temple of the False God isn't broken, but... well, yeah... that makes sense. If the Urzatron isn't broken, it's still damn strong. It may be modern's forerunner very soon, and it's certainly played it's part throughout Magic history.

It's strange. With some cards, it's really about the environment their in. Serra's Sanctum for example can be considered a bad card... but when it's good, it is explosively good. Urza block had plenty of abusive enchantments since it was, secretly, the enchantment block. But I wonder if anyone would have played the Sanctum back then if there was no Replenish and Opalesense. It definitely would have made a deck somewhere in extended, eventually... I'm not arguing the card is fair. I just wonder where it would have popped up...

Alex: I certainly couldn't think of any (I wasn't playing when any of those were standard), but I found crystal vein when I searched gatherer, so I thought maybe I was too paranoid after all.

FWIW, I thought lotus petal was ALSO considered overpowered (although presumably only in conjunction with artifact-recursion decks?)

So yes, my default assumption is that anything like that is broken, but I can't be sure that's always right :)

"the mana boost is the same if you played a Mountain and discarded the Spirit Guide. That's what I was getting at"

Ah! OK, I see. But you have to include the cost of the card: for a 5-cost spell, adding it as a 5-cost rider on a land may be reasonable, but for a 0-cost spell, the card is the only cost, so giving it for free to a land is likely to matter a lot more. After all, you couldn't make it tap for RRRRR and say "well, it's no worse than 4 simian spirit guides" :)

"I'm often the one down on this sort of card when other people design it."

LOL. Oh yes, me too. As I've made an effort to design sets rather than cards, I've tried to bring my instincts more in line with reality, but I still have a tendency to under-cost things often. It seems like amateur land designs are broken 90% of the time and unplayable 10% of the time, so you can save a lot of time by assuming anything that enters the battlefield untapped is broken (especially fast mana) :) I don't actually do that, but I am immediately suspicious of anything that can produce CC on turn 1, as wizards seem to have steered very clear, although I agree, there almost certainly is some places where it's correct.

I agree with you on things like Peat Bog. I assume it is a significant difference that it's tapped, as it rules out same-turn combos, although I agree, 2 mana shouldn't be automatically disallowed even if it makes me suspicious. In fact, there seems to be very few lands between Peat Bog and Ancient Tomb, where you'd think wizards would have found some design space, but they don't seem to have done. That means its hard to judge the strength of any lands that ever produce more than 1 mana, as there's nothing in modern design to compare them to: there's old, broken lands, and early-modern fairly weak lands, and cloudpost, and that's about it.

"I really don't know. The truth is that cards like this need to be tested."

Yeah, I really don't know either. I know enough to be suspicious, but not to judge which things that seem a little suspicious are actually going to be a problem, and which won't. It's also difficult because if it is broken, it'll probably be broken in some degenerate combo, but it's very hard to tell if the land is actually ok, or if we just get lucky that there's no combo available immediately, but it's likely to produce one later (or restrict following sets too much)

Jack: Are there any cards that produce on turn 1 that aren't overpowered? I thought Ancient Tomb and City of Traitors were both pretty powerful during their times in Standard. I guess Crystal Vein wasn't a problem, but that's more like a colourless Lotus Petal.

I suppose jmg's right that this needs to be tested, but I think it's almost certain to be way overpowered.

Making Disrupt versions of Essence Scatter and friends have the problem that Silence already exists, is very cheap, and is virtually unplayable.

Nice way of keeping each track gold: have one colour for the activations and the other for the advancement cost :)

(Simian Spirit Guide gives you +1 mana, and this card gives you +1 mana. It also happens to give you a land, but the mana boost is the same if you played a Mountain and discarded the Spirit Guide. That's what I was getting at.)

Well, no, it's perfectly fair to be pessimistic. I'm often the one down on this sort of card when other people design it. People just don't understand what 2 mana on a land does. They'll add a drawback like "Discard a card" or "Lose 2 life" and think it's fine... but, really, the land is still busted. In half.

So, yes, I might be falling for my own foible. But, you know these already exist. They're called things like Peat Bog, and they had no impact on the super-combo heavy Urza Block. Obviously, this had something to do with the fact that they come into play tapped, but losing that land drop is killer. We talk about card advantage and the ability to get fast mana and know just how awesome they are, but being ahead of the curve is another way to win games. Intentionally putting yourself behind the curve is really punishing. If this card had 3 counters, the best you could hope for is to get three rounds of 1 extra mana... then you wouldn't have any extra mana. The three rounds might not be consecutive, but if your opponent never gets a space to attack you by that point, you're probably winning anyhow.

On the subject of fast mana on turn one - yes, Wizards is super cautious of that, and also for good reason. I suppose this card is one of those break points of "at what point do you not care about cards from the past breaking cards of the present". The real fast mana problem comes from uncontrollable cards that keep 2-for-1-ing your mana or better. Dark Ritual, Lotus Petal or Grim Monolith, for example. Lands that can produce two mana aren't necessarily borken because, without the other hyper-mana accelerating cards surrounding it, it just makes another mana on round 1. Or, in other words, you can't cast a Dwarven Motherload into another Dwarven Motherload. You need something like Explore, I suppose... well, okay, I admit that's a pretty good way to go about abusing this sort of card. ;)

For all my blathering, there's a point where I should shrug and say "I really don't know. The truth is that cards like this need to be tested. And the truth behind the truth is that Wizards has probably already tested cards like this and said "No.", because otherwise we'd see them."

I may be too pessimistic, but am I reading it wrong? Simian Spirit Guide produces . This produces , and if you play it on turn one, will almost certainly be usable once and probably twice more.

I was probably being too cautious, but I tend to assume wizards are extremely paranoid about fast mana that can be played on turn 1, because it helps ridiculous legacy combo decks, and they especially don't want ridiculous combo decks in standard. IIRC there's really really little (spells, lands or artifacts) that produces two coloured mana on turn 1, but there are some that produce that aren't one of the "traditionally overpowered" cards, so maybe it's not as risky as I thought as first.

"I also expected that flying creatures would be the only creatures that could attack enormous flying creatures"

I agree, everyone probably should expect that, but it probably still needs to be written on the card, I don't think there's any sensible way of putting that in the comprehensive rules :)

"Saying that "Only big things gets attacked" seemed a bit strange"

I know what you mean, but I really didn't want to mess with it. It's a fundamental assumption of magic that you normally attack the opposing planeswalker and creatures are just obstacles. (Many other CCG are the other way round, I think, and many beginners expect to attack opposing creatures and win when all the opposing creatures are dead.)

That doesn't entirely make sense logically -- if you're attacking the "flag" you should still be able to take out your opponent's armies on the way. But in magic, that's sort of represented by direct damage (and lure and fight and so on). If your opponent has a birds of paradise they want to keep alive, we sort of assume that it's in the opponent's bunker or something, so it can only be killed by attacking with more effort than killing the opponent, so you either go for the opponent's throat, or deal with the bird with shock.

So conceptually, I imagined the Colossal creatures as creatures so large they were part of the scenery: creatures large enough it made sense for the opponent's army to swarm them.

Mechanically, you can have other creatures that can be attacked, but it wasn't what I was thinking of -- it just seems to raise the question of why all creatures can't be attacked.

Hm. I agree that they shouldn't cost 1 if they're not going to be played on turn 1, but they probably OUGHT to be designed so they ARE playable on turn 1 -- it's more fun if you can start swinging at them immediately, and on turn 6, you probably want to deal 10 damage to your opponent, not to a random extra planeswalker. In fact, it's quite hard to see how good the defeat reward needs to be for it to be worth getting 10 damage through to this instead of to your opponent.

I find this space interesting. There doesn't seem to be many cards that have asked for 'your opponent's turn' specifically, but I can see where a lot of this is going. It's a shame that Magic nominclature won't let you expand disrupt into the sub-type so that you can end up with cards like "Disrupt - Upkeep" or "Disrupt - Declare Blockers" or even "Disrupt - Your Turn". If people could accept that idea, disrupt would have a lot more legs... not just something you play only during your opponent's turn, but something you only play during specific times in the game. There's been enough of those cards, and they'd print a lot more if it could be boiled down into three words...

OK the idea behind disrupts is that they are "reverse sorceries" or "limited instants" in that you can ONLY play them during an opponent's turn.
Each Disrupt has a negative effect on the opponent that they must overcome. This example is basically a 1 turn Propaganda.
The effects of a disrupt last only until a set condition has been met or at the start of the next end phase.
Several of the existing counterspells I can see becoming Disrupts Essence Scatter and its Ilk springing immediately to mind.

Just created a new type - Aggression Inhibitor. see for full details of how disrupts work.

You know, I don't really know if this mechanic is a good fit for Magic, but it's a really good mechanic for some other game X. (That, by the by, is generally a good indication that this mechanic is a good mechanic for Magic...)

When I first saw bosses, I found it a bit off-putting that they cost one mana. It doesn't make much sense to make a card cost one mana if players are never supposed to play them on round one. That's just a trap for new players to screw themselves with.

It seems to me that Bosses should cost about 4cc+. That means that the numbers often need to be altered, or how bosses inherently work needs to be changed. I don't see any problem with making bosses have, like 4 loyalty counters, for instance... but not if you get to swing at them in the first turn you play them. I probably said something about only being able to play bosses in your second main step, which seems a good way to go, even if the loyalty count is up in the 10 range. ­

I was having a problem with nomenclature myself. I like Enormous, and de facto, I like Colossal. But when fiddling with the design, I noticed this was a very good and open mechanic that wanted to be on all kinds of flavor-y things. Saying that "Only big things gets attacked" seemed a bit strange. One that jumped out at me was the classic Harpy/Siren calling you to your doom, and forcing a creature to attack it. That's great mechanics and great flavor... but fails the 'enormous' litmus test. Coming up with a replacement word, however, is tough, so I left it alone. "Vulnerable" jumped to mind, as in, 'this creature is vulnerable to being attacked'. Unfortunately, that sounds terrible. Who wants to admit that their new card type is officially a drawback?

Also, on the subject of 'doing what I expect the card to do', I also expected that flying creatures would be the only creatures that could attack enormous flying creatures. The opposite didn't occur to me until you submitted a card. At that point I was all like, "Oh, I'm an idiot for not even contemplating the alternative." It's why Agent of Chernobog has roughly similar stats to Visara the Dreadful. The enormous trigger was assumed to be a rare occasion, not a way to immediately win the game.

The one rule that I thought could go either way was "Can a creature attacking an enormous creature be blocked". After thinking about it for some time, I think the answer should be 'yes'. I like how it increases interaction, how a person can work to defend the enormous creature, and, how it lines up with Planeswalkers. With this particular rules snag, I don't think there's an assumption that players are doing one thing or the other automatically... I could see many players coming to either conclusion. But, if we aren't trying to write out the rules baggage on every enormous card, then we might as well let the already existing rules baggage surrounding combat be applied here. We don't need to teach anybody anything new... they already know how combat works. All the crazy interactions that come up with that adds depth to the game without making it any more complicated, really.

­Rally the Soldiers, Scour the Shadows, based on Alex's strategy type. I'll design more later.