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Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-02-22 19:37:57)
| Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
| Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2026-02-22 19:37:57)
I opted for Unearth to be elevated to Evergreen. I was rambling, but basically I think Unearth has plenty of design space, and (barring the creature being flickered). Since it's a one-time use, Unearth should suggest the creature attacking. I also mentioned it could potentially be used as a shared mechanic for blue and black due to its Grixis history. I noted that white could alternatively be tertiary for unearth instead of red, since white has some background with reanimation.
I chose hexproof as the evergreen mechanic to remove. My response had to do with the creature being uninteractive for the opponent, and specifically mentioned how people found Invisible Stalker donning powerful equipment as a problem (although I left out the creature being unblockable). I added that because the creature is uninteractive for the opponent, there needs to be caution around the mechanic in a way that doesn't affect true evasive creatures.
I'm glad I didn't finish the essays, because I had intended to write about the ability word Radiance. I think radiance has a lot of design space left and could be appear in any color without breaking pie. Radiance could thrive in a multicolor or color-heavy set. I could go on, but I didn't get that far, and Radiance isn't a keyword.
These were two of the questions that I had no answer for. I didn't think Khans of Tarkir had enough playable instants and sorceries to support Prowess in limited, but I mean, Treasure Cruise for days. I haven't played enough with most sets to the point that I can say anything positive about the set (if I decide on one) that I like the least.
I started writing about the color pie for strength, but I was mostly rambling out of my blowhole. I don't know what I would've cheesed for weakness. There's a nitpick I have with the stack, although I don't know if I'd have remembered that gripe last night, and it's also a rather niche gripe (though the question doesn't ask for a major change).
Is this no longer embargo'd?
I'd say... Many years of history and improvement. Having 'used up' a lot of ideas early on; making them hard to revisit. Unlock it from being restricted to the fantasy genre - though I've not thought through the ramifications of people wanting to mix and match sets if they do!
Greatest strength: Size of cardpool.
Greatest weakness: Resistance to change or take risks within the "main" game (i.e. Standard)
Change one thing about Magic: Artifacts should not take "colorless enchantments" as a design space. Should focus more on activated abilities, or at least be able to be turned off.
Favorite set: Khans, but signalled the beginning of developmental issues for standard sets.
Least favorite set: BFZ, but it had a couple of cool eldrazi spell designs, being a certain color but "weird" - i.e. Turn Against, which is an unusually seen instant speed effect of a normally standard sorcery effect in red.
I guess I'll create discussion questions like this, grouping questions of the same type together but not having all ten questions in the same group because that's just nonsense.
Existing keyword into evergreen: Bloodthirst/Raid
Both of them teach good play habits and slightly change the style of play of both players by existing. With Bloodthirst, players are more inclined to block, while with Raid, players are more inclined to attack. Ideally I'd have another fusion of the two words into something like Bloodraid (If a creature you control attacked this turn, this enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter.) or something.
Existing evergreen keyword into not: Hexproof
Unlike other keywords, hexproof doesn't change how a player controlling a hexproof creature behaves in regard to that creature. Flying and Vigilance all encourage the player to make safer attacks, because there's less risk in attacking since you have less blockers to worry about/no swingback to worry about. Hexproof doesn't add any risk value to the creature (the same way hexproof until tapped/untapped does), and overall changes the play patterns of the opponent, not themselves. New players learn nothing when playing a hexproof creature.
Received most poorly but deserves a second chance: Affinity
People are too scared of affinity. The only issue with affinity is that it has a huge design space and it was mostly seen on colorless creatures that could eventually be cast for free if you had enough. If it was seen on more creatures like Qumulox, or didn't have "affinity for ARTIFACTS" and instead something else like "Affinity for Goblins", I'm sure it would be better received.
Much of it is just an experience thing. I can bang out between 250 to 350 word response because I can visualize what that will probably take. About 4 long-ish paragraphs, or 5 tight ones. What points do I plan to hit? Major points that need to be explained in full require a paragraph apiece, etc., etc.
Nowadays, I don't even think about this stuff. I just bang it out, cause I kind of know where I'm going and trust myself. Ten years ago, though, I wouldn't really have a frame of reference. I used to do this sort of stuff back when I was in school, but that would have been ten years before ten years ago.
I do remember that the essays for GDS2 were more difficult for me to compose, yessir. I also remember padding a couple question/answers with words to pass that 250 word mark. Wasn't even a consideration this time around.
I should point out that I'm not trying to boast over here. I just think it's important for new writers who are struggling with their writing to know that it gets easier. Unless it gets harder. I don't suggest being one of those kinds of writers, though. You kind of have to do that to yourself.
I was pleasantly surprised, I used to be really bad at writing what I knew someone wanted, but I seem to have slowly become ok at it.
I found that I had difficulty with the upper word limit, rather than the lower.
I looked at answering the questions as I looked at writing essays at school. I just found my schoolwork had been more enjoyable.
I made a habit of doing do 2,500 to 3,500 words bi-weekly, so this was just another week for me. But when I first started writing, cranking out something coherent of that size was a real challenge. The first step sure does favor writers, true enough.
That's.. wow, that's quite a lot for a job interview process.
Yeah, the 10 page essay is probably a dealbreaker for a lot of applicants.
I was going to, but I'm just not really in the mood to answer all of the questions. I mean, I guess I 'll see what I can churn out.
Once the answers have been submitted and the deadline has passed, we can probably post them then.
@Jack: Thanks!
@Vitenka: Each stage isn't public until the stage is complete. So posting the questions (and/or my answers to them) would be a breach of the game rules and result in elimination. I'm sure part of this is to just eliminate both plaguerism, and crowdsourcing for answers.
Oh; GDS3 isn't public? Huh.
Good luck!
Hey! The GDS3 questions were just sent to me in the mail!
...
And that's all I can legally say about them. 🤐
I can't wait until the superhero movie fad dies out. Then Wizards might ride a different hypetrain and focus on their settings rather than their "cinematic universe".
@Vitenka: I'd almost think it would be best to get the obvious idea out of the way, so we can see some non-Watch plots.
That said, a set with 12+ Planeswalkers in it would be kind of neat. I'd like to see what could be done with that from a mechanical perspective. From a story perspective, however, it would require multiple blocks to set up (which, let's face it, we might be in the middle of the 'multiple block set up' right now.) I agree that I don't know if players will have the patience to deal with two years of Planeswalker jockeying.
Ayup. It's been a popular fan idea. People have been calling it the "Hatewatch". E.g., e.g., etc.
Please don't encourage them.
Quick list of obvious choices for characters:
- Ob Nixilis
- Tibalt
- Nahiri
- Garruk
- Tezzeret
Five planeswalkers, five colors, each with their own gripes against members of the Gatewatch (Except Tibalt. Guy just seems like he's happy to cause mischief.)
So... what are the gambling odds on this sort of thing?
The best way to understand dice roll cards is to look at coin flip cards and what they get shifted out for.
Magic is a game with an inherent randomness due to the shuffled library. This randomness is quiet subtle and kept outside the player's mind by happening in an entirely hidden zone (the library being face-down and cards within mostly indistinguishable unless the game allows to manipulate that state).
This means that the forefront of the game is about game pieces that interact with each other in a deterministic manner. On the spectrum of randomized and deterministic outcomes at its base Magic has established itself around allowing a randomized initial game state which can be explored (through e. g. card draw) and otherwise resolved in a calculatable manner.
This is attractive in a competetive game since it rewards (trainable) skill over (unknowable) luck - allowing players to "learn to get better" and understand to discern favorable game actions from unfavorable.
As mentioned this is a spectrum and individual cards can use randomization to create interesting effects. But you only need few of those to make those that want them happy.
Knowing your psychographics and what amounts of cards are necessary to cater to sections of the target audience is important here. Those that like randomization can be served with a few of those cards, while those that favor deterministic gameplay require more different game pieces to get an appropriate variance in their game states.
With less cards required to actually be random it becomes advisable to be more selective about the ways you can achieve impactful randomized events. Any additional required material - no matter how commonly available you imagine it to be - is an additional burden to the players that need to come prepared.
There is some historical momentum from back when coin flips were originally introduced into the game, but strictly speaking they are just a variant on dice rolls (two-sided die) and got grandfathered in - but are gradually phased out in favor of cards that do not use additional game pieces to achieve randomization e. g. that use shuffling of the already present game pieces (cards).
I'll consider from here on dice and coins equally Un-serious for that reason.
Outside of the game materials dice rolls introduce other problems into card design. Often you have to decide between
> A: Dice rolls with a favorable/unfavorable spectrum of results (i. e. "Draw d6 cards." generally favors high results). These are a balance problem and can be disappointing when properly balanced or be "too fair".
> B: Dice rolls where you avoid a clear delineation between "good" and "bad" results, but often invest more words into it, i. e. you create more wordy cards. This results in complexity.
The balance between A and B is something you have to consider not only in dice rolls, but also in other areas of design, but they come quiet pronounced here. In a cost-reward consideration the cost to get a good dice roll card done can easily not be met with a rewarding outcome, because you either made the randomization to influential for tactical players (favoring more deterministic gameply), or not influential enough to actually please those players of the audience that favor randomization in the first place.
A very big aspect of dice rolls not yet mentioned is that they are noninteractive compared to other forms of possible randomization (once again the default favorable method is using the inherent randomization of the library like seen on e. g. Commune with Dinosaurs or clash).
There are games that use dice as a major component of their gameplay, but also often being ways to meddle with dice. (Unstable just brough us some squirrely examples of how Magic could handle dice meddling in an environment including more dice rolls). These cards seem like a pay-off for dice, but they are actually necessary crutches to add some control to this game mechanics which is in a vacuum outside of a players control.
And that's important: Using dice in a vacuum just means adding variance to an effect that could be deterministic instead. Without crafting the environment this just means the gameplay is not calculated with the same ease - predictions about the game state after a game action is taken become less reliable and your "Deal d6 damage to target creature." game action may very well turn out to just deal nonlethal damage and be a waste od resources.
With these mechanics players now have to take into account more possible game states and more complex decision trees - but without actually having deeper decision opportunities. The unknown varaible is no longer a consideration of an opponent's counterplay, but the unknowable luck of the roll.
As stated above you cannot learn to be better at getting a random outcome - at best you can learn to cheat at dice.
So some issues of dice are:
And while these are not all absolutes of game design, they apply to Magic as
I've designed four or five cards (one was a split card) using dice, with only two actually appearing in sets. Like Vitenka said, die rolls favor luck over skill. There's some design space, but I feel its predominantly red.
I would imagine whatever you want the die roll for to be limited to the number of sides on the die. I would guess d6 to be the most practical. D4 may be more balanced, but I don't know if as many players would have those. After imagining what you can do with a die roll, it being limited to a number, you have to think ways to make that feel fresh or unique with each appearance.
They did studies; most players dislike them - and especially most players who play 'seriously'. Because they prioritise luck over skill.
They also tend to be a bit fiddly and slow to actually do. Still, I agree there's potential for them.