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Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2025-07-07 14:28:56)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2025-07-07 14:28:56)
As an aside, I've never seen any indication that amuseum has ever interacted with real Magic cards, so I'm not surprised they're unfamiliar with story spotlight cards
"Legendary spells" - I always they wouldn't print Commander-only mechanics in Standard, because these spells will certainly not be playable more generally.
I had figured they would try to go big with this set, but I had never imagined they would destroy the rules of the game to do so. Everything about this set looks like it was made by some first-time amateur game designer who's never even read the comp rules. It runs the gamut from lazy (mana production change), to unintuitive (planeswalker redirection change), to worthless (historic), to literally nonfunctional (changing what removing abilities does).
I met the term. I filed it away as "Oh, it's a marketing thing." I certainly have never cared about it.
"Cast only if you have a legendary thing already" is not actually any more of a speedbump that "Cast only after you've got 4 land" is; but it somehow feels janky.
Yep. I suggest, you go back and do a full text search on your frequented sites, amuseum. Either your section of the community is entirely different than the one I witness, or you should find some mention of storyline spotlights. I know, I randomly come across someone mentioning it every spoiler season (of a main product).
Maybe you just missed them never having consciously read the term.
> I'm surprised they've gone full-on Kamigawa with all the uncommon legends. It looks like they'll have a problem with many of the legends having no known backstory, character, personality, nothing to let players relate to them or get attached to them.
I think the fact that so many legendary creatures are tied to the already established history of Dominaria helps plenty. Kamigawa-block had to start from a blank slate, but just putting an established family name or location ties a new legendary to a long illustruous past - both in-universe and on the meta-level. Blackblade Reforged, Bladewing, of Femeref.
There is a reason Time Spiral-block was populated with an above average number of legendaries and this time they embrace this circumstance as a theme. I think that's all the advantage needed that Kamigawa never had.
Regarding story spotlight cards (Pia's Revolution, Battle at the Bridge, Hour of Devastation etc): Plenty of the Vorthos types on Tumblr have been eagerly following the story spotlight cards for each new set. I think the "failed approach" is just amuseum failing to pay attention.
I'm surprised they've gone full-on Kamigawa with all the uncommon legends. It looks like they'll have a problem with many of the legends having no known backstory, character, personality, nothing to let players relate to them or get attached to them.
Templating changes like "they", "add
" and "damage to any target" were pretty much inevitable. They really should have just done the latter when planeswalkers were first introduced though, not 11 years later.
Legendary instants/sorceries are very weird. It's the kind of thing you could only do in a full-on Kamigawa set with uncommon legends; and even so it seems odd. I guess it's similar to the conditional-dragon spells from DTK like Silumgar's Scorn, or the Silvergill Adept cycle? But straight-up "can't cast this unless" is pretty harsh. I suspect that'll be deemed a design mistake in Maro's retrospective in 18 months' time.
The Sagas seem quite sensible. Something like this seems particularly sensible in a set like Dominaria that wants to include nods to vast swathes of MtG history that they don't have space to make detailed references to. Tahazzar's take on it was even more flavourful, but could easily be a direction the official cards take in a couple more years.
Huh.
OK, "they". I do appreciate pros and cons but on balance I'm pleased they went ahead with it.
Several strange things but I'll see how they go.
I was really hoping for "any target", I'm pleased it happened, I hadn't expected it. But it does seem confusing that "any target" means creatures/players/planeswalkers only, when "any target permanent" is more general. I guess it never matters, the only thing that can target either permanents or players is damage. But it just felt simpler to say you could damage anything, but it only mattered for things that cared about being damaged.
I like the idea of reflecting story moments on cards, but I felt the way to do it was to try to capture not a linear narrative, but a bigger picture, like "the rebellion" not "what planeswalker X did". The story should be something you can describe in half a sentence, but with infinite details people can fall in love with.
They've done story spotlights since Kaladesh
apparently nobody cared at all. since this is my first time hearing about it, and it's never been mentioned by the players along with the spoilers. nobody ever goes "ooh i wonder what the spotlight cards are in this set." seems failed approach.
moreover their PW symbol is really poor representation of anything. sterile, no connection to real world or human experience. it just exists, but always seems out of place.
> ... but that Tahazzar's Saga keyword was something so recent...
From where I stand that makes it less notable since WotC works in a year or two in advance so they had probably made that keyword months ago.
The new wording of "Add
" bothers me since I find it lacking. I think it did come up in this thread were changes related to mana creation wording was discussed in detail:
> https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/custom-card-creation/774959-wording-update-add-mana-to-your-mana-pool-cardname
The main thing that I take issue with the new wording is that you don't just "add" stuff - you add it to something. And now that something is a thing that has just been omitted, left to interpretation, and failed to specify. For example, "add
to mana cost" makes sense, but just "add 
" doesn't really.
The choice between the two should be obvious IMO.
> I'm more annoyed at how long it took for the fix to hexproof.
Did they though? I mean really. "Hexproof from [color]" certainly isn't gonna fix anything. "Hexproof from instants"? "Hexproof while tapped"? "Hexproof from creatures"? "Hexproof from hexes"? These all sound pretty janky btw as far as wordings go. The last two of those examples are illustrations as to how stupid we can go with this. What I'm saying is that they should use a word other than "hexproof" for this IMO.
EDIT1:
Oh boy, you guys missed this:
> When Merfolk Trickster enters the battlefield, tap target creature an opponent controls. It loses all abilities until end of turn.
Well look at what we have here. I guess that debate is officially finished as well.
EDIT2:
I wonder if "after your draw step" could become the next "at beginning of your upkeep" in the future since players usually automatically untap and draw a card at the start of their turn, often missing crucial upkeep triggers (echo and such). This is a problem I last saw with Aulë's Craft for example when I was having a test draft of that set, so I would appreciate that change in general.
It's amazing how many of these changes have been coming a long time (see Introducing new Wording ), but that Tahazzar's Saga keyword was something so recent (I think the design choice to utter the first verse on ETB is something to note that I like - though with less verses it becomes rebound).
I like most of this. I was half-way to follow Tahazzar's proposed wording to produce mana as well (the main thing stopping me was that I had just uploaded a lot of cards with the old wording to be updated, I think). I'll go with the official wording then.
"Historic" is interesting. I want to see it play out. It's super weird that it refers to one supertype, one card type and one subtype - I suppose it will never appear without reminder text.
I'm more annoyed at how long it took for the fix to hexproof.
Legendary sorceries... are still better design than epic? I think there is a lot to consider here.
I'm not that far into the translation of the document, but the set does a lot of stuff the custom card community has been doing and improved on some of it - most of all I'm actually curious abot the new take on the legendary theme.
Legendary sorceries: Cards that you can't cast unless "you have a thing" aren't really that good of a design so I don't know how they are justifying this flaw to themselves.
Historic is kind of stupid IMO, but at least this means we can now have encompassing types such as "Undead" Ie. "Zombies, Skeletons, Vampiries, Wraiths, .... are undead."
"Damage any target": Still not a fan of this. It's reads out nonsensically. It probably also has a swath of other issues such as pretty much blocking out possible future concepts like dealing damage noncreature, nonplaneswalker permanents. For example, you could have a ruling with if a noncreature artifact has damage marked on it equal or more than its CMC it would "die" like a creature.
> T: Add G.
I'm wondering why they didn't go with "Produce G". I think I'll still stick with that in my future sets, like I've done in my Silmarillion set(s) (stuff like Secret Fire).
> Magic has adopted "they" as the preferred third-person-singular pronoun for a player, replacing "he or she."
This was bound to happen sooner or later.
> Abilities that modify how a spell behaves on the stack, such as additional costs, refer to themselves as "this spell" rather than by using their card name (~). However, self-reference "AKA '~ deals 3 damage to any target'" is still a thing.
I've seen stuff like that and even cards speaking in first perspective. This choice adds some seeming inconsistencies so it's kind of a weird choice if you ask me.
> (As this Saga enters and after your draw step, add a lore counter. Sacrifice after III.)
Hey look, it's that thing I planned for the "Norse" set. Not as evocative though; see Road to Ruin and Tale of Thereafter. Possibly another missed chance there?
> Hexproof now has variants. "Hexproof from [COLOR]" is one they introduced. Presumably this is similar to how protection is worded.
This looks like it's gonna be messy color pie wise when every color can have hexproof, but with different conditions. I would have dropped it and used the "lurk" (hidden/stealth) mechanic instead that I've played around with for a while now (stuff like Reaperwraith and Houseless Defector).
That particular color specific example is pretty bad as well unless they want to reintroduce the issues with stuff like protection and intimidate (a mechanic that depending on the matchup, either does almost nothing or is too powerful).
> Equip now has variants. "Equip legendary creature" was one they introduced. I've seen this fairly often in custom card circles.
It matches well with enchant so I don't really even consider this a change per se - just an introduction.
Still no auto-shuffling on search or bury as "put into owner's graveyard" used in conjuction with mill. :(
I wonder how long it's gonna take.
They've done story spotlights since Kaladesh
Dominaria Story Spotlight Cards
There are many important moments in the Dominaria story, but some of the most crucial—called "story spotlights"—are shown on cards.
Compare my vision and concept for Scene:
Scene is a card type that enhances narrative design--to convey and bring focus to important or notable plot events.
Rather than create a new card type, they just slap a PW symbol onto the card's text box to denote its importance in the story.
They've managed to implement some of the best changes to Magic and some of the worst changes to Magic in the same set. I'm impressed with their reach
So, Dominaria spoilers are out. You can read and download the release notes here: https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/news/dominaria-leak-2018-03-08
Here are some of the more notable changes:
-"~ deals damage to any target" is now standard. This is a change that was experimented with the closed beta of Arena and is now official. Any card that has the phrase "Target creature or player" is changed to "any target". With this, planeswalker redirection rule is also removed.
-Historic is a quality shared by Legendary (a supertype), Artifact (a card type) and Saga (an enchantment subtype). Heh.
-Legendary instants and sorceries are a thing, and they come with rules baggage. You can only cast legendary instants and sorceries if you control a legendary creature or planeswalker.
-"to your mana pool" is now completely removed. Any effects that say "Add
to your mana pool" will now just say "Add 
." Other variants include: "Add an amount of 
equal to" and "Add one mana of any color".
-"his or her" when referring to players is replaced with "their". Similarly, "he or she" is replaced with "they".
-Abilities that modify how a spell behaves on the stack, such as additional costs, refer to themselves as "this spell" rather than by using their card name (~). However, self-reference "AKA '~ deals 3 damage to any target'" is still a thing.
-Hexproof now has variants. "Hexproof from [COLOR]" is one they introduced. Presumably this is similar to how protection is worded.
-Equip now has variants. "Equip legendary creature" was one they introduced. I've seen this fairly often in custom card circles.
-All legendary cards, minus planeswalkers, have a slightly modified frame.
-Last but not least, a bar now appears between rules text and flavor text on cards with both to make each more distinct.
I'd like to say that Historic as a card quality is one of the more baffling ideas Wizards has come up with.
Not quite; the intention is you have to deal damage to those in the front row, before those in the back row.
Which feels like a thing blue should be down with (evasion) and red should be down with (we're the front row!). But mechanically, clunks.
Is this a more complicated way of getting something that is approximately similar to:
> Sneaky (This creature can only be blocked by creatures that could not block another creature.)
? For both of these abilities it is really weird to give the two "spell colors" a shared keyword ability that requires multiple creatures to do anything.
I designed a keyword that I had planned for blue-black-red a long while ago that was
> Taunt (Your opponents must attack with a creature each combat if able.)
The main problem was finding a good wording that emphasises that this ability stacks without sounding weird.
But the truth is probably that a static variant of prowess is a fine answer.
I think just comprules of: Blockers may only assign damage to creatures with range after assigning to all attacking creatures without it; should do the job.
The shorter reminder text should probably be "Creatures with range are blocked last"
It seems like it's a fun combat condition, it's got flavour - and it fits the colour!
But.. how often will it ever actually come up? You'd need to give it to the creature that wants to be blocked first (So high power - which, uh, rules out almost all blue creatures) and doesn't have other evasion. And then there has to be some kind of attacking wall that they would normally not bother blocking and they have to have few enough blockers for the difference to matter... I worry that it's niche enough to just not pay off very often.
Why does this even use band terminology? Isn't the second half the whole feature? Rigt now I can see why I would want a creature with the second half of the ability (effectively first strike), but there is not a single mention of what attacking as a band does good.
You literally could remove the first half of the reminder text and have a card that is identical functionally, right?
Yeah, the answer is "don't use more complicated versions of failed mechanics as evergreen"
Do you have any plans here as to how to avoid the issues of banding?
"As a band" doesn't tell much to those unfamiliar with the mechanic and even those who do, don't know what it exactly means.
Wait, this seems to have both range which seems like an interesting soft-of-first-strike-but-sort-of-not defensive mechanic - but also banding?
See Blue/Red keyword ability.
Izzet evergreen mechanic.
Primary
, secondary 
Range (This creature may attack with another creature as a band. This creature is assigned combat damage after nonrange creatures.)
Primary
, secondary 
Ex. Izzet Sharpshooter
Disappointingly, I did not make top 8. Plus side, I can finish my sets on here, which I know you are all dying for me to do.
I have no idea what you mean with couples. What do the coupes have in common? Card type?
I wouldn't worry to much about card type coupling to allied or enemy color combinations - neither for rarity.
I probably would make a planeswalker, creature, enchantment and instant/sorcery for each color combination too amass some concepts and have a pool to draw from and cull from those everything I don't like until I have a handful of good designs and start filling out holes.
Then I would iterate.
Actually, given the constraints, there are only 6 ways to couple the guilds. Let's define E(nemy) and A(llied) colored guilds.
The obvious pattern is five A-E couples. This pattern I use, naturally, due to first to pop to mind.
The other pattern allows five variations. Five ways to form a set of A-A, A-A, A-E, E-E, and E-E couples. The key is the sole A-E couple; once that has been determined, the rest will fall into place.
After having created thousands of cards, it's hard to even remember what cards one has made. Let alone decide a favorite or best. Thankfully the task is easier with a database like this site, where you can peruse all the stuff you have created over the years.
The test also demands that you infer what they look for in each card. For example, rarity matters. Common designs have different criteria, limitations, expectations than rares and mythic rares. Then obviously how well the cards match with their respective color pair / guild.
But other conditions may be more dubious. They didn't specifically for, say how exciting or out of the box the designs should be. Let alone how much value or points into such areas.
In short, what constitutes 'better' designs? Balanced? Exciting? Conforming?
All that said, what strategy would you apply to this test? What combination of guild+type+rarity for each card? Planeswalkers can only be mythic rare. Would you make a third mythic? How about legendary creatures? Are they safe or risky to include?
Maro in the podcast said that the intent was to force people to do a bit of each. Show off some of their best work, show the ability to convert stuff to better fit constraints, and come up with a few off the cuff.
Seems like a good plan.
Would you look thruogh your old designs and pick your favorites? Or start from scratch by making ten new cards?