Soradyne Laboratories v1.2: Recent Activity
| Soradyne Laboratories v1.2: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics | Skeleton |
Recent updates to Soradyne Laboratories v1.2: (Generated at 2025-08-18 22:10:06)
Simple answer: not every card needs to do everything it could do.
The common green feint creatures hit the board faster because they can be feinted into play. That alone is a trick relevant to combat, albeit the next combat. Yes, apart from feint two of them are vanilla. This is perfectly reasonable since they are aggressively costed via feint.
Again, I'm not saying "enters play" tricks won't happen; I can guarantee they will. I just don't believe it's right for these three slots.
I'm not arguing the power level of the mechanic, as individual cards can always be adjusted. It just seems that the mechanic should be applied to cards that interact with the type of situation into which they're likely to be placed.
Since it's so similar, take Ninjutsu for an example. Every single creature with Ninjutsu has a "Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, ~" ability. The benefit of Ninjutsu wasn't (just) a savings on mana. It was the surprise of the triggered ability.
Since Feint doesn't put creatures onto the battlefield attacking (nor do I think it should), a better way of adding value to Feinting is through ETB effects. Specifically, ETB effects that are relevant during combat, after blockers are declared. Imagine Vanquish as an ETB on a creature with Feint! Give players a reason to hold onto their Feint creatures, even when they have the mana to cast them outright.
As for "tactical reinforcements", think of it this way:
"I'll keep them busy. You go get the dogs/spider/huge-worm-that-f's-them-up-in-a-few-minutes!"
Taking a minute to get a bigger gun is entirely tactical.
Thank you, Houlding for initially fielding that one for me. Excellently put.
While that's been discussed and is still very much on the table, I feel very strongly that we should also show "vanilla" applications of Feint. It gives players a baseline for the most elementary use of the ability: tempo. Without any mana acceleration, it allows you to play Pendarvian Bloodhounds on turn 2. That's pretty solid pressure to put on an opponent in the early game, and likely worth the 1 point of damage you spotted them .
I guess I'm failing to see the "tactical reinforcements" part of this mechanic. It seems like you're simply trading some points of damage for some mana. With sorceries and/or instants, that affect the combat-in-progress, it becomes more than simply a cost-saving mechanism.
Perhaps all of the cards with feint should have some way (even if it's tricky) to affect combat. So, the permanents with feint would have ETB effects that can be utilized in combat a la Affa Guard Hound
Ben, while I'm not Sean, I think one of the primary benefits of Feint is that it can be applied to both Permanents and non-Permanents.
There's a lot of value in that function in terms of the flavor that Sean is building the set around, as it plays into the military skirmishes that are happening amidst some civil unrest. It can represent tactical reinforcements (like here) or spell-based strategic maneuvers, as seen elsewhere.
Have you thought about keeping Feint strictly on instants and sorceries to distance it from Ninjutsu? It cuts down on rules confusion, and flavor-wise, it makes more sense to me as well.
Nice Ethereal Haze on a stick! I'm surprised this hasn't been printed already. Just make sure to match the wording.
I like it at 4cc. It makes the card more likely to stick around for a little while if you've already had some time to play creatures.
Okay, hopefully a simple name adjustment will fix the flavor issue.
The media gets more powerful and influential when things are happening around it.
In the long view of the set/block, the plan is to bring in Serix Thames in D47 to sort of be a "champion" among the reporters (scouts, and yeah, I have to debug some stuff regarding that). At that point, the media goes very much on the offensive, in a take-no-prisoners push for transparency on the part of the government and the Soradyne Corporation.
I know that this may not entirely resolve what you're questioning, but it's what I've got for now.
That's a possibility, but I don't know that it would be problematic, as the creature would still be vulnerable to all removal and anti-blocking spells. Cho-Manno they would be not.
I was just trying to conceptualize a way of portraying "objective observer" without using P/T affecting attributes, as it always irks me when you see bonuses that aren't clearly being granted by anything. (i.e. Credentials aren't a form of armor.)
It's an interesting idea, but I suspect exactly the opposite would happen; that creature instantly becomes an awesome blocker and never swings again, thereby completely nullifying the untap trick.
Well, one thought I had that would take on a whole new meaning in Soradyne, is if this were simply the Ghostly Possession clause:
"Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt to and dealt by equipped creature."
In any other set that ability is almost worthless, more traditionally considered as awful removal (Muzzle) than something you would willfully apply to your own creatures. But in Soradyne, it would be an excellent (yet subtle) Feint-facilitator, because who blocks the creature that can neither deal nor be dealt combat damage?
I'm actually okay with that, and the way you put it at the end there is a really good way to describe it. I figure that there has to be a number of reporters covering Marrick's fight for answers as it's a big story. Some will even be able to get close to and gain the trust of the General and his men. As far as getting close to the action goes, I think this is a fine way to show it.
Yeah, it means that sometimes the journalist will be part of the fray, but making cards that incentivize sidelining a creature is antithetical to the game.
I think I know what you're aiming for flavorwise, but I don't know that this is quite top-down enough, presuming that's your intent. You're sending mixed messages in a sense, as the card name suggests something along the lines of "investigative journalist's ID card", but the abilities suggest "war photographer's instincts to avoid being shot by local militants".
Part of the problem I suppose is that you want to design an equipment that represents objectivity and noncombatant, while still possessing combat-relevant attributes. A severely challenging concept.
If you switch your flavor text over to this new and improved flavor text, I'd buy that argument. :D
You've never heard an old, grizzled badass referred to as a "warhorse" before? It's slang for... an old grizzled badass.
"Old Man Jones didn't just yell at the kids to get off his lawn, he punched their lawns in the balls and told them to keep their kids in line. That dude is a serious warhorse."
Okay, it's more specifically an old badass veteran, but you get the point. This is a badass old Rhox with some serious badass war stories. That punch your pansy-ass war stories in the balls.
Thumbs up for a cool ability. I'm a little confused how this ended up a "Rhox Soldier Scout" instead of a "horse", however.