Designing Staples: Duress

Duress was part of a partial cycle from Urza's block that also included Encroach and Ostracize, and since then it's been remade in a variety of iterations that have shown up in competitive play ever since. I had originally planned for this to be a quick post about some constructed staples, using Duress as an example, but I discovered while I was writing that there was a lot more to say than I thought...


For one thing, I've been floundering for a week trying to come up with a satisfactory definition, and I finally decided to throw in the towel and describe them by their shared characteristics. Staple cards are the ubiquitous, utility cards that fill in at common and uncommon at converted mana cost one, two or three. They also tend to show up in some iteration or another in most blocks, and because of this, they tend to shine in constructed formats as building blocks in specific deck archetypes. Staples are also important for designers because they provide an upper bound for card power level. Once in a while the established staple will change (like the upgrade from Megrim to Liliana's Caress, or Lightning Bolt returning to replace Shock), but in general there are never cards that are strictly better than the established staple.

Duress and its ilk have two defining characteristics: they reveal an opponents hand, and potentially force the opponent to discard a narrowly defined card. The main advantage is information gained (which I think is under-appreciated by many players), and they also potentially provide specific disruption (at the the risk is that the effect may whiff). These traits separate them from cards like Cry of Contrition or Raven's Crime, which have identical casting costs but have different risks and benefits.

Duress is extra tricky from a designer's point of view because a substantial population of players hate it. From my play experience, it seems like many players find preemptive cards like Duress generally un-fun to play against, even if it doesn't have a significant change on the sequence of plays. For example, let's say you have two options: first, you can play Thoughtseize and removed your opponents Figure of Destiny, or second, you can let your opponent play the Figure, and then destroy it with Vendetta. Most opponents prefer the second option (even though it's a strictly worse outcome for them) simply because it seems more fun. I'm not sure why people think this way - it could make for a fun psychology experiment - but it does create an extra design limitation. Since discard is already unpleasant, designers have to be careful about pushing it across the line into abject misery.

Here's a rundown on the 10 currently existing Duress-effects, ordered worst to best (based on both a play and design perspective):

Mire's Toll: Sometimes it makes sense to print terrible cards; if that was the goal, then mission accomplished. From a player's perspective, it's weak when you need it to be strong (as a turn 1 play, it reads, "Target player reveals a card and discards it"), and when it's strong, it doesn't matter any more. From a design perspective, I don't understand the logic for pushing a basic land dependent card in a set that also introduced a cycle of very fun man lands, as well as several fun utility lands.

Psychic Spear: This card is relentlessly terrible. It has all the awful parasitism that was Kamigawa, and is a particularly horrible thing to put in a block with Soulshift.

Encroach: This card seems fun if you're the player casting it, but it lets you mess with your opponents mana on turn 1, and this simply isn't something that would happen in current Magic design.

Shattered Dreams: Unlike Psychic Spear, this was a worthy (or at least playable) card for its environment. But it was still painfully parasitic, and had the same problems as Encroach (since it could target the Mirrodin artifact lands), and like Ostracize, is slightly subversive in limited (see below).

Ostracize: Much like Encroach, Ostracize is fine to play with, but it's also not something that current design is likely to favor. When it was first printed, creatures were generally terrible, but as their efficiency grew, so did Ostracize's relative power. This is particularly problematic in limited, where the format is basically creature driven and large and/or evasive creatures almost always provide the win condition, and Ostracize provides the ability to preempt someone's bomb creature.

Cabal Therapy: The design really min-maxes the different psychographic reactions; Spike really, really loves this card, and everyone else hates it. 'Therapy smacks of a failed experiment; it was probably a good idea to try it (although this version might not have been the best execution), but it seems likely that card name is too narrow a property to be a good target.

Thoughtseize: If I was writing just from a player's perspective, this would be at the top of the list. Although the life loss prevents it from being strictly better than the others in this class, it's probably the most powerful. This is actually my problem with it - I think it's a little too good, and I don't think simply bumping it up to rare was an adequate fix. If I had been on the design team for this card, I would have fought to make the life loss part of the casting cost, and then see if the card could be pushed back to uncommon.

Inquisition of Kozilek: This is a good card; it's hard to say much more. It's powerful, reliable, and fair.

Blackmail: Even though it's not the strongest from a player's perspective, I rank Blackmail very high for its design. Out of the 10 Duress-type effects, this is by far the most interactive of the cards, and I think giving the target an opportunity to make some decisions makes it much more fun to play against. (I realize not everyone enjoys these kinds of micro-decisions, but then again, not everyone likes discard, so I don't think Blackmail turns off anyone who wasn't going to hate it any way.)

Duress: I can't think of another card in Magic where design did such a good job on the first try. It's an all around great card (unless your opponent's using it to take your mana leak, combo piece, or your last lightning bolt).

So here are a few ways to tweak what's already been done... you can change the terms of the reveal, like Mire's Toll or Blackmail (I think this is a poor option - making it harder to play reduces its ability to fill a competitive role, and I think Blackmail cornered the market on the best available variation). You could also change the properties of the card to be discarded by the opponent (like choosing color instead of card type or CMC). Or you could change the zone the affected card travels to (for example, Castigate exiles it instead of putting it in the graveyard). Finally, you could add a rider to the effect (Thoughtseize already did this, but there are plenty of others you could add). Examples (all cards have been posted on the Wizards Official home page wiki here):

Super Duress - common
B
sorcery
Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland, noncreature card from it and put it on the bottom of its owner's library.


Sword to Brain - rare (I would hate to play against this)

B

sorcery

Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a nonland card from it. That player discards it and gains life equal to its converted mana cost.

Hatemail - uncommon (This could also be split into two separate cards)
B
sorcery
Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a green or white card from it. That player discards that card.

Hateful Thought - common
B
sorcery
Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a white card from it. That player discards that card.

Thoughtful Hate - common

B

sorcery

Target player reveals his or her hand. You choose a green card from it. That player discards that card.

Twisted Vision - common* 
B
Sorcery
Choose a card type other than land. Target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a card of the chosen type from it. That player discards that card.

*This was designed by HavelockV for Devon Rule in the Great Designer Search 2, and was well-received by the contest judges, but I have some doubts about it. For starters, it's strictly better than Ostracize. Second, I don't think it's a card that could show up at common. I'd also be worried about this card eliminating deck-building decisions - the drawback of most of Duress and company is that they affect a narrow subset of card types (in other words, by running a Duress, you're giving up a slot that could be used to attack a different card type). Twisted Vision doesn't have this problem. So, it might need a downgrade...

Thought Twist  - common

B

sorcery

Choose a card type other than land. Target player reveals his or her hand, then discards a card of the chosen type.