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Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2024-05-11 03:05:37)
Conversation: Cardlist | Visual spoiler | Export | Booster | Comments | Search | Recent activity |
Mechanics |
Recent updates to Conversation: (Generated at 2024-05-11 03:05:37)
You want to try to make a set where every card is viable in Standard Constructed? Am I understanding you correctly?
It's a difficult task to be sure.
What made me think this is possible is look at Modern right now. Overall all archetypes are seemingly balanced. And then think about the cardpool that is actually used. We all know 90% of new cards are limited fodder only, and 10%, maybe, are playable in constructed. Well, that 10% of all Modern cardpool is quite diverse at this point, which allows various archetypes to flourish. So we only focus on creating cards like the 10%.
Sure very few standards in history are more than aggro vs control/midrange. But there was such a point in time, namely Ravnica + Time Spiral when aggro, control, and combo were all viable and not discriminated. This makes me hopeful that a similar format may be designed even with such a small cardpool.
Even assuming such a task is feasible, we still have to decide the direction of each archetype. Combo is the main wildcard, since it could mean anything from storm to dredge to trix even. Aggro could be Zoo, RDW, WW, or more resilient like GB aggro during Innistrad era. Then how much control do we give control. Too much good stuff can yield to the RTR/Theros, but that also could be due to a weak cardpool overall and lack of diverse strategies provided by that cardpool. (Remember 90% of new cards are not meant for constructed.) Since generally tempo and combo threaten control and midrange, but those strategies are not present to balance the metagame.
With a 5-way matchup, it should be hard for any deck to dominate. Also since these are cards in the same block and tested as such, any broken and unwanted interactions can be fixed.
"Limited fodder" isn't new. You're kidding yourself if you think it is. It extends the life of the game, too, which can't be ignored.
if all you want is creature interaction, then magic is quite poor at it. there are much better CCGs for that. those CCGs are designed from the ground up to maximize combat strategies and creatures interaction. Magic's strength is pulling back and look at the bigger picture by abstracting all facets of the game. which includes embracing strategies around noncreatures. however, it trades deep combat for abstracted combat.
those were the good old days because Magic used to be so open-ended and full of possibilities. look, the last two blocks RTR and Theros were so tame and uncreative. Rehashing old mechanics, trite limited fodder that are repeated in every block. an enchantment block where very few of them are actually playable or even memorable, what a joke.
I swear by that game. Though, to be fair, it only started to get non-interactive in Dagobah, after I stopped playing. Before that, the game was incredibly interactive... at least in my group. The meta was crazy... but I think part of the problem was that you needed access to most of the cards for that to matter...
Mmm. The original StarWars CCG is another very good example of a game of that sort; where the two players pretty much rush to their own goal without interacting much.
And some people swear by that game. And keep making unofficial expansions for it. So there is an audience.
But, well, they stopped making it. There isn't a very BIG audience.
(Oh, it wouldn't be called 'Summoner Wars'; it's be called 'Lords of Chaos' and I wants it! And.. thinking about it; the rise of the terrible rush of clone CCG-battle monster crap on mobile suggests that yeah, there's a big market for a grossly simplified magic.)
I'll just join in on this one point:
> Even armchair designers here making custom sets for an imaginary playerbase follow this fear of noncreature interaction, or lack thereof.
I gave my full custom set Clockwork Wings a fair amount of playtesting. Most of the themes and mechanics playtested very well. Would you like to guess what the most problematic mechanic was? It was the "connectors" idea, which are "equipment for artifacts" like Calistronic Galvaniser and Ergetric Resonator. The big problem? It was uninteractive.
Sometimes the connector player could assemble a pretty powerful chain of connected artifacts, and there was very little the opponent could do to stop it; even given this was an artifact-heavy set and therefore had a greater than usual amount of artifact removal at common. Sometimes, by contrast, the connector player would spend a while fiddling with artifacts that didn't interact with what the opponent was doing, and so the opponent was able to stomp them. In both cases, the games felt uninteractive, and therefore less fun. If I ever go back and fix Clockwork Wings, the connector mechanic is definitely the one I need to pay the most attention to, and the one most likely to be junked, because it's hard to make it interactive and that means it's hard to make it fun. This isn't just ivory-tower theorycrafting; I've played games with it, and those games were less fun than the other games with that same custom set.
And of course, it's worth remembering the times in Magic's history when an uninteractive theme has been prominent. Shadow. Stasis. These are mechanics that have their place, but when they're too good and too prevalent, games become less fun.
The fact that you cite Stasis / Rising Waters / Winter Orb not just as notable enchantments/artifacts (which they clearly are) but as the "good old days" suggests that... well, the charitable interpretation is that you happen to find noninteractive mechanics more fun than most players. That's fine as far as it goes, but for those of us custom designers who do the standard "design like Wizards unless otherwise stated" thing, it's very important to identify which mechanics we have a much greater or much lesser tolerance for than most players. We need to not just design for players like ourselves.
So we are talked a block constructed format? FWIW, I'm not clear what you imply by "balanced" either, since certain deck types are naturally better at dealing with certain other types, and "imbalance" usually happens when this natural balance is upset (e.g. - and -based control is currently very good vs. aggro).
i remember the "good ol' days" when artifact and enchantment hate was prevalent, including stuff like power leak and feedback (both were blue, but could move to black and red.) back then, Magic had a much stronger aura of mystique and broader realms of possibilities compared to today's safely-designed and easily-solved "summoner wars". there were a lot of cool build around cards like stasis/winter orb (and later the fairer version in rising waters), enduring renewal, seismic assault, etc.
I'm of the opinion that getting rid of enchantments and artifacts is bad, but not from a mechanical perspective. There would be a tremendous flavor vacuum in the game if both of them left. Wizards need their books, wands, summoning circles and mystic barriers. If you don't include those things, the theme of the game stops becoming Magic, and starts becoming 'Summoner Wars'.
And if we're to assume that enchantments and artifacts exist, then we've got to assume that good ones will be printed, because Magic isn't made by one guy. Some of the team will end up disagreeing with the 'artifact and enchantments can't be good' theory, and end up making good arts. and enchs.. It's kind of inevitable.
If that's the case, and it still really bothers people that Black and Red can't do anything in this environment, then I guess the correct response would be to change what black and red can do (It's kind of what they did to Green, anyway, and I haven't heard too many people complain.) I'd speculate as to ways black and red could handle arts and echs in this environment, but I get the feeling that discussion is outside the realm of this one...
You don't have to avoid making strong cards completely.
You do need to bear in mind "Is this sufficiently interactive? If not, is a high enough bar being set to warrant that?"
Creatures naturally interact with whatever it is the other player is doing. Enchantments; well... some do, some don't. And that's a finicky thing.
Creature-Enchantments is kinda Theros' thing. So many of those does kinda reduce the available space for non-creature enchantments.
In short - think of them as being at their best when they're spice. Occasional "Look ma, no creatures!" is fine, but you wouldn't enjoy games where it was the norm.
Actually this topic is in response to people who harp on the fact that red and black can't deal with enchantments and artifacts. so does that mean we shouldn't make any strong ones, or even at all? no more interesting noncreatures because players don't like to main noncreature removal, if at all because of color pie. it's a hassle for the majority who just likes to turn creatures sideway and send them into the red zone.
Well Theros is a good supporting evidence for this. Note that this was the long-awaited "enchantment" block. It had only five total noncreature nonAura enchantments in the first two sets. in comparison RTR Block average 9 per set. Part of the reason is flavor of Theros and partly because it makes wotc's job easier if they don't have to worry about strategies built around noncreatures breaking standard or limited. JOU finally gave us true enchantments, but too little too late.
So now we have both majority of players and designers who don't miss noncreatures that much. Even armchair designers here making custom sets for an imaginary playerbase follow this fear of noncreature interaction, or lack thereof.
There is a mechanical nuance between artifact and enchantment, too (though it's been kinda artificially maintained, as MaRo points out): normally only artifacts are allowed to have tap effects. I'm with Vi in general, too. Plus there is a much stronger difference between Auras and equipments, and that introduces interesting play and design decisions of its own.
Because artifacts are colorless, they are allowed a lesser variety of effects than enchantment. An artifact with a blue colored activation cost loses the usefulness of a colorless casting cost.
Of course I'm assuming we wouldn't have colored artifacts to replace enchantments. One unexpected side effects is that at least one type of removal will become a lot more relevant. If sets now contain 50% more artifacts and no enchantments, red becomes a LOT better. If artifacts are removed, black and red get worse because that means there are more permanents they can't deal easily with. Multicolor decks are also hurt because colorless mana fixing is an important feature of limited, and often constructed.
Indeed; we don't need old chestnuts or dead horses either. Short answer: See "Portal".
Mechanically, coloured artifacts and enchantments are identical. (As are colourless enchantments and artifacts.) - although they provide a clear thematic difference; Sigils and glowing energy, versus big physical thing you can hold.
But we can lump them together. Then; can we just get rid of them?
Well, they don't attack. Except Artifact creatures that do. So they belong on creatures rather than lands. So mechanically, we can do it, easy.
Is it worth doing? You lose complexity. That's usually a good thing. But you also lose some good complexity - including stuff that makes choosing which colour to play matter. You lose "This subset of stuff is easy for to deal with, this subset is easy for to deal with; and can deal with this subset. has a bit more trouble."
You lose thematics, as discussed - and also made mass creature kill frankly completely unreasonably powerful. That's a pretty big downside on its own; every wrath effect becomes nev's disk?
Trying to recapture that in subtypes pretty much just brings back the supertype; so...
In short; it can be done; it's in fact pretty easy TO do. But it's probably not healthy for the game. Plenty of simpler CCGs exist, almost all failed.
Is this a troll post?
I like U/R. A lot of people like U/R (if we're to go by the Ravnica Guild war polls) and a lot of Wizards employees have gone on the record as saying their favorite combination is U/R (including MaRo). So, while I don't disagree with you that Wizards has a hard time wrapping their head around what blue-red represents in Modern Magic, I'm more optimistic about Wizards desire to find a better identity for that color combination than just "It's zany!"
That said, I don't really think blue-red is having a mechanical problem as 'the spell color', even in our creature creep world. Blue-Black aside, every two-color combinations is a rare sight in the tournament environment, due to the fact that there are ten of them. By rights, blue-red should pop up 10% of the time... which is about as often as it does show up.
It's true: We don't get Counter-Burn anymore. We get combination filled decks centered on oddball mechanics like Flashback. Wizards throws us bones, and forces us to find a way to create a skeleton out of it. I'm not sure that that's such a bad thing, though. If it didn't happen in blue-red, then I assume a group of players would be asking for it to happen to a less appropriate color combination.
I completely agree with giving Blue-Red more combat dealing goodness, though. I wouldn't mind seeing all those Jump variants mean something.
I don't think you can use a numbered mechanic as an evergreen. But making the flamespeaker ability into evergreen is probably an option. Curiosity is at common whiole red gets Academy Raider and Dangerous Wager. I suspect the flamespeaker effect will slowly buyt surely tricle down in rarity.
To truly answer this question, we have to look at what needs and what you/we want to be. Frankly, Wizards couldn't care less about this color combination. Sure they'll gives us a bone here and there and pull us along with some trap johnny cards, but there is not (and probably never will be) a coherent set of cards or mechanic to form a staple strategy or archetype like other color combinations. Their focus right now is all about creatures and creature-based strategies. And this color combination is as alternative from their mainstream profit as it gets.
So I say we can't rely on what Wizards may think or do about this color pair. I suggest we ourselves should forge an identity and playstyle for this color pair that we are satisfied. And most importantly, cost them appropriately and competitively, unlike those frivolous trap cards they use to trick us with--overcosted unplayable combo junk that even a retard knows is trash in every format.
This means we have to look at the past of and envision the future of . Past archetypes in are typically counter-burn control and combo. That's basically it. There are a few mechanical overlaps, like instant/sorcery focus, looting, copying, stealing, power-switching. However, most of these can't be the centerpiece of an archetype. Instant/sorcery might get there, but most of the time it's very little reward for going through a lot of hoops. Why bother with Blistercoil Weird when one can just cast a Giant Growth for a simple for 3x the effect?
One philosophical identity overlap between I want to expand on is trickery and sabotage. Specifically to get an advantage when your creature successfully strikes an opponent. Also red is starting to get temporary card draw. Blue gets efficient real card draw on spells, but on creatures it is more expensive and slower. So maybe a middle ground like so:
Stash N (When this creature deals combat damage to an opponent, exile the top N cards of your library. You may play them this turn.)
Blue already has this effect where you get to draw a card, but only one at a time. With Stash, blue can effectively draw two or more cards when N >= 2. The downside is you have to play them the same turn. For red, this type of effect is still new, so N = 1 is fine for now. With access to double-strike, N is effectively doubled anyway. see Prophetic Flamespeaker.
Besides Stash, I'd also like to see other effects when a creature deals combat damage.
I believe jmgariepy is referring to Mangrove Beach, which, indeed, I meant to imply as part of a cycle. The cycle "justifies" its basic land types by the fact that they're all able to search for each other. I'm probably guilty of overusing basic land types on my lands, but there are a few where, looking back, I feel that it makes sense. That's one of them. Grove of Growth, Morphic Tidepool, and Scarred Valley are others.
I think I might have been the most vocal about this on Multiverse, because it drives me a little nuts.
I don't have a problem with the principal of adding basic land types in theory. I just want the designer to have a good reason why they included the basic land type besides "It makes the card more powerful/sexy." I can accept flavor justification, but the flavor justification has got to practically scream for it. After all, what makes your land more of a Forest than Karplusan Forest? More of an Island than Teferi's Isle? It doesn't make much sense for those cards to not include a basic type, but for a card named "Jungle Island" to do it.
As for mechanical purposes, I'm cool with that, too. But there's got to be a greater reason beyond 'This effect feels very green.' Sapseed Forest doesn't seem any more green than Pendelhaven to me.
The only time I've ever seen anyone use basics in an intriguing way for the land, mechanically, is one of Link's designs. I can't remember what it did exactly, but I think it was something similar to Naya Panorama, and operated something like this:
Land - Forest Plains
: Add to your mana pool.
Sacrifice ~, , : Search your library for a Forest or a Plains, etc., etc.
That was cute, since players could (assuming a cycle) slowly wheel around the color pie, eventually fetching their Swamp. I wouldn't be thrilled to see them added to the game, but I wouldn't be upset with it, either.
Alternatively, I could see duals with neither flavor, nor mechanical application being added to the game if there was an obvious downside to adding the basic type. For example, a block that included 10 common lands that looked like this:
Land - Forest Plains
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
When ~ enters the battlefield, lose 1 life.
: Add or to your mana pool.
Again, I wouldn't be happy with that, but I'd understand the purpose of what was going on. These lands aren't better just for the sake of it, but are filling a specific function in the game, while respecting the fact that basic, in general, means more powerful.
Yep, Vitenka has it. The upsides are interacting with Forest-matters cards like Wood Elves and Misty Rainforest; the downside is interacting with Forest-matters cards like Choke and Acid Rain.
In real Magic, I and many other people would love to see more lands with basic land types. I think that's the problem. Wizards have been very, very cautious about it (the Sapseep Forest cycle was fine but not exactly a high power level), and the general expectation on Multiverse is "like Wizards except as otherwise stated", which in this particular case sets a very high bar. Most designs with basic land types (though by no means all of them) don't seem to meet that bar, making them seem more like wish-fulfillment.