Dev Concerns - Vapor Ops

In the midst of Dark Ascension spoilers, Aaron Forsythe commented that one of the recent reveals, Séance, had been included on the most recent Vapor Ops test, a part of the R&D hiring process. This lead me to dig up an old Randy Buehler article in which he created (or recreated) such a test for readers to challenge themselves with. After the break, you'll find my evaluations of each card presented on Randy's test. One of the more interesting aspects of this task is that nine years later many of these designs still demand thorough analysis, which I take as an indication of Magic's resilience and depth of possibility rather than a sign of stagnation. However, there's still a great deal of context that has changed, and I make no effort to hide that fact.


New World Angel
4W
Creature - Angel (U)
2/3
Flying
Whenever New World Angel dies, return it to the battlefield and sacrifice a permanent.
Whenever New World Angel deals damage to a player, you may add WW Mana to your mana pool.

This first design is perhaps the most obviously poor, failing to perform on practically every axis, looking like it was dropped from the Prophecy design file. The most immediate observation is that, for a White Uncommon, it has two abilities that are not only unsuitably complex for the rarity, but the mana-generating effect is far outside White's color pie. Perhaps more demonstrative that this design doesn't work is that not only does the first ability have the potential to create a degenerate (and stalled) boardstate with a nigh-unkillable, medium-toughness flying creature, it can also behave as a self-sufficient infinite loop for death triggers, as you can just sacrifice the Angel to its own ability. Excising the second triggered ability and adding a mana cost to the first could salvage this design, but such efforts might be better spent creating an Angel that's actually fun to play.

Twiddle Bug
1U
Creature - Insect (C)
1/1
Flying
Sacrifice Twiddle Bug: Tap or untap target permanent.

Unlike the Angel, Twiddle Bug is a straightforward design comprised of tried-and-true elements. Questions can be asked, such as "should it have flying?" or "should there be a cost to sac it?", but these can only be answered with the help of a greater context. As is, I imagine it would be appropriate for the majority of all sets.


Lazy Goblin
R
Creature - Goblin (C)
2/1
Lazy Goblin can't block.

Though the average power-level of creatures has risen a great deal since 2003, long past the heyday of Jackal Pup's power, a common 2/1 for 1cc is still a thought-provoking question. Zendikar and M12 have taught many lessons about the virtues and drawbacks of promoting aggressive limited environments, and one of those lessons is that such aggression can put a stranglehold on the number of viable archetypes. As players first got their hands on Innistrad, many voiced fears about the speed of Werewolves, and it's not uncommon for an early Merciless Predator to dominate a game. But it's now clear that a number of safety valves have been included and, even within a distinctly tempo-oriented format like Innistrad, players are able to explore the boundaries and discover things like the self-mill Spider Spawning deck.

Norwood Leprechaun
1GG
Creature – Leprechaun (R)
2/4
If Norwood Leprechaun could normally block a creature, it can’t block that creature.
If Norwood Leprechaun would normally be unable to block a creature, it may block that creature.

In an un-set, a design like Norwood Leprechaun is par for the course, being a card that goes out of its way to force the player to decipher a lot of rules text for very little reward. Functionally, these two sentences produce an effect that can be roughly described as pseudo-Vigilance, an absurd workaround for a problem that no longer exists. As a rare, this design would single-handedly disappoint more children than the revelation that Santa isn't real.

Life Cycle
2BG
Enchantment (R)
1G: Put a wood counter on target creature.
1B: Put a sludge counter on target creature.
Whenever a creature is put into a graveyard, for each wood and sludge counter on it, put a 2/3 green and black Fungoid token into play. For each excess wood counter on that creature, put a 0/3 green Woodling token into play. For each excess sludge counter on the creature, put a 2/1 black Sludgling token into play.

Life Cycle exists at the intersection of overcomplexity and inexplicable flavor. It possesses two activated abilities that each place a unique counter type on any target creature, potentially filling the board with a bunch of wood and sludge counters that don't actually do anything until a wooded and/or sludged creature dies. When the creature does die, Life Cycle produces a variable amount of three different creature tokens, each in a variety of colors, creature types, and P/T compositions. We've seen this concept played out many times, perhaps most recently on Feed the Pack, but never has that flavor been devoted to the balancing of Fungoid, Woodling, and Sludgling tokens. Due to the lack of a nontoken clause on the trigger, a Sludgling can somehow spawn Woodlings!

Heart of Argoth
Legendary Land (U)
When Heart of Argoth comes into play, you may play an additional land.
T: Add G to your mana pool.

Now THIS is a spicy design that I would have loved to see in Zendikar block. Though it sets off alarms, behaving something like a Mox, the Legendary supertype does a good job of keeping it in check, much as it does on Mox Opal. When it works, you get a value greater than Mox Diamond, but you open yourself to a possibility of multiple Heart of Argoth in your opening hand — a serious issue, considering it functions best on turn one. Factor in that you would most want this in a base-green deck, where ramp is a natural behavior, there's a great possibility that this could and should appear in a set. That said, you will never in a million years see this at uncommon; being a highly marketable design that could impact every format, it would be in Wizard's best interests to print this at Rare, if not Mythic.