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Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-02-22 13:55:22)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-02-22 13:55:22)
I suspect it was also "Oh for goodness sakes; blue desperately needs a keyword. Have a keyword. Expect to see creatures that mill if they hit you."
"Honestly, the only reason I would ever suggest making mill a keyword action is to potentially save space on cards, giving them some more design space, by giving them more room to place an additional ability, perhaps."
I can think of multiple other design-related reasons.
-You can now interact with mill a lot more easily and actively than before because the rules text is so much shorter and (more importantly) easier to parse.
-You can refer to milling in a reminder text (reach was keyworded because of that).
-A shorter templates means you can afford to use it more aggressively at common, especially as a secondary effect. Currently mills tends to be the primary effects on commons (Especially blue ones) that feature it because of its "weight". A one-word form means it has the potential to see usage levels closer to scry.
-If you can use it a lot more/in reminder text, you can potentially (although unlikely) use it to create a new or formal U/B keyword. (I'm still in favor of shrinking being used instead of milling for that last point, but it's worth keeping in mind)
A simple effect like "Whenever a player mills a card or cards, CARD_NAME can't be blocked this turn." Would have been far wordy in the past. This trigger has been used only once I can find at a glance (Devourer of Memory; type-specific variants have also been used, but very rarely); the equivalent of "if a player milled this turn" has never been used as far as I can tell.
Really (and not just from design wonks like us, but from the entire player base) the question was never "What word instead of mill?" and always "Why not mill?"
No, if they went with "discard from library," that causes a lot of functionally changes to cards that interact with discarding
I think the only two templating options are "[Players] mills X" (for any targeted or opponent mill effect) and "Mill X" (for things that only mill you). I think the latter should be "you mill X," but they still have the option to word it that way if they need to for clarity. It's like how life gain is usually "Gain X life," but occasionally is "You gain X life" if they need clarity
ETA: Wait, every life gain card uses the latter template. Why doesn't self-mill always say "You mill X"??
"and there may be complaining, but no other words could've possible do that at this point."
I agree that people would almost certainly not have switched what they call the mechanic, but that doesn't mean the actual mechanic couldn't have a different name. I mean, slang is slang, they're not bound by it.
However, I think the fact that they went with mill, anyway, was a good choice. Some people would probably have been upset by having two different names for the same thing, even though only one is official.
Honestly, the only reason I would ever suggest making mill a keyword action is to potentially save space on cards, giving them some more design space, by giving them more room to place an additional ability, perhaps.
Hmmm... would it have made any sense for them to just allow you to 'discard from the top of your library'? Similar to how old cards said 'discard from play' instead of 'destroy'?
It's probably a bad idea, but I'm sure it was an option they considered (though probably didn't think about it for long)
I'm still waiting to see how they phrase it in the future on cards with different rules text than the ones we've seen, thus far. I mean, there's definitely quite a few variations of reminder text for milling, just grammatically speaking (same action being performed by different people, for example).
I guess there might just be two, actually... the difference between "your" and "their"...
"I don't believe they couldn't have picked "erode" or something and converted mill the same way."
They introduced "Commander" as a formal rules term ten years ago, and there are still significant amount of people calling it "EDH". There is NO WAY IN HELL NO WAY NO HOW they would've gone with a term they weren't absolutely 200% certain people would have immediately switched to, and there may be complaining, but no other words could've possible do that at this point.
This has me thinking [like a silly goose], but what if instead of "draw a card" we used "card up." Just imagine Overflowing Insight reading "Target player cards up seven times."
This came from discard being intuitive.
I also wondered about a term for "put into the graveyard" from any zone. "Erode target hand" "erode target library" etc. But I guess milling here is saving words by not specifying library. So we have a pair "discard" and "mill" meaning almost the same thing.
Or, I remember teaching new players they'd be confused that discard WASN'T from play. I'm not sure if that can be improved.
"Forget" sounds like discard. "Grind" and "erode" don't make sense for removing things from either a library or from your long-term memory, and are only proposed because they're loose synonyms for mill (in the English sense)
bump
It's about time. In my opinion, no word would have been flavorful and catch, at least words that were free.
What about "and then shuffle?"
I think it's cool that a player term "ascended," but it's not as flavorful add "grind" or "erode" or "forget."
"Grind" would be better, as a verb. But even so, not particularly memorable. So yeah, I'm surprised they gave in.
And yet are still holding out about "and then shuffle".
Mill has no flavor, but every other option is confusing with discard
Huh. Keyword makes sense, but I thought they'd hold out for a flavour that was transparent to new player. Erode sounds good. I guess "mill" grinding cards away is a reasonable flavour?
I'll probably eventually pick it up, but I'm more than happy with bury. I don't believe they couldn't have picked "erode" or something and converted mill the same way.
That said just having the keyword action is good.
Finally after 26 years, 'mill' is now officially a keyword action starting in Core 2021.
The template is "mill N cards". In English, N is spelled out (one, two, three, etc.)
Ex. mill four cards
Carrion Grub
Time to mass update all your cards!
just realized Mimicry above in practice is just weaker deathtouch. so change it to capy any creature in combat.
Mimicry (This creature may deal combat damage equal to the power of another attacking or blocking creature.)
Now it can copy power of any creature in combat so it doesn't feel useless if not blocking/blocked. Alpha attacks would be crazy.
Ex. Attack with 1/1 with mimicry and 9/9. the 1/1 would deal 9 damage, too.
Blue by grandfathering isn't great, admittedly. Strategically, though, it makes more sense for blue to encourage other colors to smash against its defensive walls. Add a few Horned Turtles and the mechanic works well in a way that wouldn't work as well with Lightning Elementals.
And anything that encourages designers to make more combat appropriate blue creatures is fine in my book. Worst in combat shouldn't mean 'skips combat'.
Huh. I do like that. The comp-ruling would be pretty horrible; "Opponents must attack you must attack you with at least x creatures (where x is the number of siren's call abilities you control" maybe.
I like it, a very nice red keyword. But it's only really blue for the historical pie. I'm also not sure I like the idea of it as an evergreen; but I'd want to see how it played out. Maybe it's more fun than I think it is.
I don't mean to step on Sorrow's cool ideas, but I couldn't help think of an old mechanic that doesn't work, and how keywording it helps to solve the problem.
Siren's Call (When an opponent declares attackers, they must attack with one creature for each creature with Siren's Call you control. This ability is not redundant.)
I always thought it was a neat idea, and way back in the day had a bunch of Creature Type - Enchantress with rules text that talked about how your opponent was supposed to attack with a number of creatures equal to the number of Enchantresses you controlled. But two enchantresses would mean four attacking creature. And trying to write your way out of that in 20 or so words was nigh impossible.
But reminder text doesn't need to be exact. It just needs to get the point across. "This ability is not redundant" is icky, and it doesn't do a perfect job saying that "Two creatures with Siren's Call means two attacking creatures, and not four." But if it isn't clear for some people, it will encourage those players to find out what the ability really does. They ask, or they read, and problem solved.
You've all inspired me to make some trash and maybe something that could be passable or an abomination, I'm not sure.
Fir ((C119473)). I like this ability, but I don't believe it's evergreen material, heck, it may not even be keywordaable.
Up next is ((C119474)). I tried to flavorfully create something evocative for aspects of blue and red. Fast1 on the card, was getting toward where i needed to be, but still a far ways off, absolutely nopeland. But Fast2, maybe Fast2 is good. I don't know, maybe discount hexproof is really bad and whack.
That sounds like a fun block mechanic, but I don't know about evergreen. It feels familiar, like maybe I made a similar suggestion but as a
mechanic. I can't find it, though.
Mimicry (This creature may deal combat damage equal to the power of a creature that is blocking or blocked by this creature)
Basically it may copy the power of a creature it's dueling. Making it very dangerous to block it and as a blocker.
ex. 1/1 with mimcry blocks or is blocked by 5/5. now the 1/1 may deal 5 combat damage to 5/5.
ex. 1/1 with mimcry is unblocked. it deals 1 damage to opponent.
Hey SecretInfiltrator. I don't know if you're still active but maybe you can help me with my stress mechanic problem. ((C119207)) It's giving me a headache.