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Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2024-05-18 04:34:50)
Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2024-05-18 04:34:50)
I'm not sure if I was clear in my original post, but I do support the creation of a specific keyword action for making tokens.
I'm very much a fan of the fact that this action was given shorthand. I just don't love the term. I'm sure it will grow on me, though.
I appreciate the keyword, even if I'm not thrilled about the word 'create'. As it stands, anyone who 'puts a token on the battlefield' still has to be told what that expression means (what tokens are, and what they do aren't necessarily intuitive.) So if you've got to send someone to the rulebook anyway, you might as well keyword it.
Agreed
I advocated for this long time and already done this for my custom cards years ago. I have used both "summon" for flavor and "create" for more layman readibility and for cross-compatibility with another game I was working on.
This is a very great change. First, tokens are so common now and huge mechanic in card games, it deserves a simple phrase. Second, it would facilitate rider effects. Third, yes it saves a lot of space. Esp. For planeswalkers cards that have limited space per effect. And many PWs create tokens. Fourth, it reads and types faster. When you make a huge amount of cards, a simple intuitive word helps your brain process faster and helps organizing the cards. Also as a player, you process it faster, helping you focus on strategy.
I feel like the fact that it specifies the token's attributes means that the only players who would confuse summon or another keyword with searching their library are the players who already confuse the current template with that (or e.g. the players who think Llanowar Elves taps to search your library for a Forest).
I do find it extremely bizarre. I mean, yes, it's a sensible concern from one point of view - it'd feel quite frustrating to keep opening A1 and B2 when you need A1 and A2. But that just points to the fact that the mechanic is much better when you can mix-and-match.
I find their choices here particularly bizarre given that back in Lorwyn, with Champion (Wren's Run Packmaster, Lightning Crafter etc) they deliberately and specifically avoided requiring you to match a card with another one specific card (the way that e.g. Pokémon cards do). They made the right choice in Lorwyn and the wrong one here. All I can say is I hope that when they next visit a plane with mechanical golems they revisit the meld mechanic in a mix-and-match way. (MaRo has stated on his blog that meld can be reused in different ways in the future, not restricted to pairing two specific cards.)
Finding some terminology for this is long overdue.
I might have preferred "Summon", which has been used in other games (most recently Codex Card Time Strategy), and fits nicely with "summoning sickness". But Jack's got a sensible point that it could be taken as implying searching your library, or even Elvish Piper/Dramatic Entrance from your hand.
I like it. I think it'll be intuitive to most people, and making the template shorter is really valuable, both for making common cards easier to read, and for squeezing more effect onto rare cards.
There's several clunky phrases like "put onto the battlefield". I imagine they've tested several phrases to keyword, but wanted to be really sure before using any of them.
I'm not completely happy with "create" but I can't think of anything better. FWIW, I think of it as meaning creating the token, not the creature. I think the keyword needs to make it clear that you take a token and put it into the game, "summon" might imply search your library or something.
I do wish they had chosen a more universal word, though I'm having trouble thinking of one. "Created a 1/1 white Soldier" sounds off when compared to "Create a 3/3 Golem."
Perhaps "Summon a 2/2 green Elf?" I think that sounds better, though I guess it is reminiscent both of Yugioh and the defunct card type Summon.
I like how it saves space. I don't like the way it sounds and feels when making creature tokens. It feels more right with artifact tokens, which I imagine will be prevalent in Kaladesh.
I think it's funny how the very first card we get to see with the new wording shows an example of how it can be awkward. "Create a tapped Zombie" is uncomfortable phrasing. Of course, maybe it only bothers me because it's new.
What are people's opinions of the keywording of "put a token onto the battlefield"? The first example was shown on the upcoming Rise from the Tides FNM promo card, and Mark Rosewater (and others) confirmed on Twitter that this is the template starting in Kaladesh. My question to you is, do you like the change and what do you think it foretells about Kaladesh?
In my opinion, I'm not a fan. It's convenient, sure, and that's not to say I'm against it, but overall I'm pretty meh about it. Contrast that with dies, which I really liked keyworded.
I was a little surprised they didn't do this for SOI, considering investigate was a mechanic, although I guess the flavor was off. (You're not creating the clues, you're finding them.) I'd be surprised if they introduce this without it mattering in some way in Kaladesh.
I guess that makes sense
One of the articles today mentioned there had been 2 sets at common originally, but it meant people got mismatched sets too often. I guess opening only one meld card is less feel-bad than opening 2 that don't meld together?
Does anyone else find it bizarre that there are only three sets of meld cards? You'd think they would do at least one more, at uncommon.
Emblem of Nobility
I created something very similar to escalate over on Noonday Sun and friends, and I'm excited to have the idea see print.
Meld is bizarre. Needing two cards like this isn't something I would have imagined them doing.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/over-moon-part-1-2016-06-27
Woah, wizards went ahead and made mecha, in innistrad, without even waiting for kaladesh.
Called "meld". A fairly simple version with one front-face to one back-face, not mix-and-match. But it shows they thought through a similar set of rules problems that Tesla project did on Goblin Artisans and came to similar conclusions.
They also added an entwine variant for "pay to choose an additional mode", which might make making Peculiar cards easier :)
@Circeus on Corrupted Tombstone: Excluding mana producing non-basic land abilities that happen to include discard, you must play a one cost spell on round one which happens to somehow include discard to ramp up to four mana on round four.
I'm sure Shadows will include lots of effects that will help you discard, and players will probably get to turn on their gravestones on turn four or five. I just don't think many players will be packing the necessary 10 1-cost cards in their deck required to get reliable 'fast mana'. I presume, most of the time, it will function in a similar way to Serra Avenger (get played later than its casting cost would suggest, but is still very cost efficient, and it an excellent card to play two of on round 4.)
But if you're aiming for 4 types, it's nice to have the choice of how far you stretch your deck to enable delirium as often as possible, or as early as possible...
I dunno. Between creatures, lands, instant and sorceries, I don't think they really needed to amp the amount of enchantments... (Although admittedly BFZ block had an unusually small mount of them.) --
It's to fuel delirium, especially the vessels. There needs to be plenty of cards of each card type if you want to get 4 into your graveyard.
I doubt it will be that difficult. Given the abundance of means to discard, if a deck uses it, it can reliably get its mana.
On a different topic, I've seen some comments about how SOI seems to have a lot of enchantments. Two cycles, apparently so far: the enemy color activation at uncommon and the vessels at common (generally improved on JOU's Fonts).
Kind of. It should be pointed out that Corrupted Tombstone has a drawback. If there are no colored cards in the graveyard, it doesn't do anything. It's going to be really hard to consistently pump out a four drop on turn 3 with it...
Interesting. Corrupted Tombstone gives us our first 2cmc artifact ramp in quite some time.
Yeah. I heard someone else suggest that before I repeated it. I'm not sure if they were just guessing or if they had something solid to base it on.
> Or they wanted a low-counter block to make it slightly easier to have a -1/-1 counter block next?
That is an interesting hypothesis! Before they spoiled Soul Swallower and Markov Dreadknight (at that point we knew nearly 50 cards between spoilers and leaks), I was wondering whether they would be using stat counters at all, and exulting at the thought.
That didn't happen, but your idea certainly looks like a possible explanation. with nearly a third of the set spoiled, only 5 cards involve +1/+1 counters... If we assume this is representative, this means half as much cards involving such counters than in BFZ (who had about 30 of them).
Oh cool! I'd never seen it laid out like that.
I just checked and I hadn't realised how much the sets with other counters had avoided +1/+1 counters -- there's still some, but not many.
However, I think another way of looking at it would be "there's usually one to two +-1/+-1 counter mechanics, occasionally three, occasionally zero".
So, I think it's unusual, since there's just so many +1/+1 counters, but not surprising that that comes up occasionally. I'm more surprised there wasn't a different counter type, if there wasn't that many +1/+1 counters. But I guess maybe there just wasn't any need for it. Or they wanted a low-counter block to make it slightly easier to have a -1/-1 counter block next?
In Time Spiral block the major counter type was time counters (associated with Suspend and Vanishing). In Rise of the Eldrazi, it was level counters (with Level up). As far as I'm concerned, these are the only two exceptions to counter types, but they do not alter the pattern.
Every block since original Ravnica, as well as every set since Morningtide, has included a mechanic (in one case unnamed) that used the block's main counter type (usually +1/+1 or -1/-1 counters).
Ravnica: [exception]
Guidpact: Bloodthirst
Dissension: Graft
Time Spiral Block: Suspend and Vanishing
Lorwyn: [exception]
Mornintide: Reinforce
Shadowmoor/Eventide: Persist and Wither
Alara block: Devour
Zendikar/Worldwake: unnamed Ally mechanic
Rise of the Èldrazi: Level up
Scars block: Infect and Proliferate
Innistrad block: Undying
Return to Ravnica: Scavenge/Unleash
Gatecrash: Evolve
Dragon's Maze: [see previous two]
Theros block: Heroic, Monstrosity, Tribute
Khans of tarkir: Outlast
Fate Reforged/Dragons of Trakir: Bolser
Battle for Zendikar: Awaken
Oath of the Gatewatch: Support
Shadows over Innistrad: [exception]
You can't deny it's a pretty strong pattern even if we decide to treat Zendikar/worldwake as an exception.
How are you counting -- do you reckon that some sets +1/+1 counters the "major" counter, and other sets they aren't?
I hadn't really tracked that, I just thought, each set has +1/+1 counters (or -1/-1 counters), plus up to one other major counter type. Non-+1/+1 counters usually have a specific keyword mechanic.
But I thought it was mostly chance whether there was a specific +1/+1 counter mechanic or not, just that there's a lot of design space, but usually more than one will fight for the same space.