Reinventing Alpha, Part 3: Putting the Band back Together

After traveling to the past and inadvertently running over Richard Garfield with a DeLorean, our protagonist is on a quest to rebuild Alpha.  Last time, he got rid of maximum hand size and the upkeep step.  What could be next?  Past columns: 1 2.

Today, we're going to talk about creature abilities.  The current list of evergreen creature abilities is:

• Deathtouch 
• Defender
• Double Strike
• First Strike
• Flash
• Flying
• Haste
• Intimidate
• Landwalk
• Lifelink
• Protection
• Reach
• Shroud
• Trample
• Vigilance

Although regeneration is a keyword action, not an ability, the difference is somewhat technical,  so we'll throw it in the same pile for deciding what to put in our new Alpha.

For old time's sake, shouldn't we also consider abilities that were in Alpha, but aren't evergreen?  Remarkably, there is only one: Banding!  Remember Banding?  Remember exactly how it works?  Yeah, neither do most people.

Banding (Any creatures with banding, and up to one without, can attack in a band. Bands are blocked as a group. If any creatures with banding you control are blocking or being blocked by a creature, you divide that creature's combat damage, not its controller, among any of the creatures it's being blocked by or is blocking.)

So, yeah.  Thanks, but no thanks.

Some of the abilities above need no fixing whatsoever, and we'll throw them in without question.  Deathtouch, Defender, First Strike, Flying, Haste, Intimidate, Landwalk, Lifelink, Reach, Trample, and Vigilance are all fine.  The others will take a bit of tweaking.

Double Strike - This is a perfectly fine ability, but it doesn't belong in Alpha.  It's better to give people a chance to get acquainted with First Strike before we introduce it.  We'll save it for an expansion. 

Flash - We don't need this anymore, thanks to the Quick supertype.  I like this solution much better than having an ability which does nothing while the creature is on the battlefield.

Protection - This one is a doozy.  On the one hand, it has good flavor behind it, and some gameplay value as well; color hosers are fun and functional.  However, it does a few too many things: Protection prevents damage, enchanting/equipping, blocking, and targeting.  Four is a disturbingly large number of independent abilities to fold into one keyword.  (The existence of the mnemonic DEBT is a good sign that this keyword is overloaded!)  Our solution?  As usual, we get out the scalpel.

Preventing damage is definitely in- it's the most intuitive thing for "protection" to mean.  We also don't want White Knights eating Doom Blades, so preventing targeting is also necessary.

But is it necessary to make enchantments fall off?  No!  Black Knight can't be targeted by Pacifism in the first place.  Short of Aura Graft and its ilk, this situation simply never happens.  So, it gets the axe.

Lastly, does Protection need to grant evasion?  I say no, and here's why:

1. Between Intimidate and Landwalk, we've already got color specific evasion abilities aplenty.
2. Every new player, without exception, wonders what happens when a Black Knight and White Knight battle each other.  Will they trade?  Will all damage be prevented?  Wait, no.  They can never fight.  That's lame.  Warren-Scourge Elf, who is ostensibly defined by his talent in slaying goblins, consistently waltzes past them to hit the player instead.  

The crux of the problem is that Protection is used to represent two types of abilities: offensive and defensive.  I propose letting the defensive abilities stay, under the name protection, and move the offensive to cards like this:

Llanowar Huntmaster (uncommon)
1GG
Creature - Elf Ranger
3/2
Smite Goblins (Whenever CARDNAME blocks or becomes blocked by a Goblin, it gets +3/+3 until end of turn.)

Now there's an elf who will actually scourge some warrens!  I don't think Smite belongs in our new Alpha, though, so we'll stick with the reduced Protection:

Protection from X (This creature can't be targeted or dealt damage by anything X.)

Of course, the removal of evasion will need to be balanced by a commensurate increase in Landwalk and Intimidate.

Regeneration - This isn't bad, but some of its side effects are unintuitive.  We'll keep the tapping, but get rid of the removing from combat:

Regenerate (The next time this creature would be destroyed this turn, it isn't. Instead tap it and remove all damage from it.)

Shroud - I'm going to make a rather brazen claim here: R&D keyworded the wrong mechanic.  Trollshroud ("can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control") is simply a better ability.  Sure, it's longer, but only by three words.  It is no less flavorful or intuitive; indeed, it had never made sense that I can't enchant my own Neurok Commando.  And what do we get in exchange?

Trollshroud is all-upside.  Keyword abilities should be all-upside; they don't need tension.  What's more, Trollshroud makes dreams come true.  Armored Ascension on a Sacred Wolf?  It can happen!  It functions like Shroud roughly 95% of the time, and the other 5% consists of pure fun: pump spells and buff auras on a creature your opponent can't hurt.  Magic should be about letting cool stuff happen, and the awkwardness of normal Shroud prevents some very cool stuff.  So, we're changing it!

Shroud (This creature can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.)

Whew.  That's it for abilities.  Do you agree with my decisions?  Let's talk about it in the comments!