Simic Flyer 3UU (Uncommon)
Creature - Mutant
3/3
Alter (As this enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control)
Flying
1U: Target creature with a +1/+1 counter on it gains flying until end of turn.
It could also be something like this:
Simic Flyer 3UU (Uncommon)
Creature - Mutant
2/2
Alter 2 (As this enters the battlefield, distribute two +1/+1 counters among creatures you control)
1U: Target creature with a +1/+1 counter on it gains flying until end of turn.
This one would give you more choices, but I think the first one is better overall.
One upside of this mechanic is that it can have interaction with Unleash and Scavange when the packs are drafted together.
The downside of this mechanic is that it's not very different from Graft; it's just an adjusted version of it to fit modern standards of simplicity. The real Return to Ravnica keywords tend to take a different approach from the original Ravnica keywords while supporting the same deck style.
The ideal relationship between new and old keywords seem to be the one the Selesnya and Golgari keywords have. Populate generates creatures and Convoke takes advantage of the large population. Dredge feeds the graveyard and Scavenge consumes it. In both of these guilds, the new keyword takes a new approach, supporting a different aspect of the same overall deck mechanism. That's a quality that this Alter keyword doesn't have.
Then again, Detain and Forecast, as well as Unleash and Hellbent, aren't so closely related as to combo off of each other. It seems not all the new keywords have the same relationship with their guilds' older keyword.
The relationship between Alter and Graft is most similar to the relationship between Overload and Replicate. Overload and Replicate work in similar areas. They are both ways to spend extra mana to power up an instant or sorcery, often hitting more targets as a result. It's true that the type of cards that Overload goes on are slightly different from Replicate. Overload seems to be a tricky mechanic to design with and produces more boring cards at Common since it would just produce Flame Waves and one-sided Evacuations at Common if the effects weren't toned down. But mechanically speaking, Overload is like a more constricted form of Replicate that has only 2 fixed settings.
I do think the above Alter mechanic would at least be doable, and more importantly, fun to play despite looking familiar. One aspect of Return to Ravnica mechanics I've noticed is that they look super simple and none of them deal with completely unfamiliar territory. The effects are new, some of them like Unleash and Populate clever while some like Detain are mundane, but they deal with familiar domains such as +1/+1 counters and blocking. The original Ravnica keywords often provided completely different ways for cards to work (I mean, keep drawing the same card? Swap a card in hand for another card of the same cost? Keep reusing a spell by revealing it for weaker effect? It's like brainstorming rules for a new cardgame startup!), and the new Ravnica keywords don't go as far as that.
Despite that fact, it seems the new mechanics are still very, very fun to play with - most likely more fun than the first Ravnica. (I would like to hear the readers' opinions on whether that's true!) Personally, even though I consider myself an Izzet guy, I couldn't choose whether to play Rakdos, Golgari, Selesnya, maybe even Azorius at the prerelease. A block that didn't have 10 keywords or a block that didn't showcase a new block structure might be in trouble without something eye-catchingly new, but the simple, familiar-domain mechanics seem to be working fine for Return to Ravnica. In that sense, maybe this Alter mechanic's familiarity can still be acceptable.
I think it's way too close to Graft. I can't quite imagine players getting excited by a new Simic mechanic that reads almost identical to the old one.
ReplyDeleteI can't imagine players getting excited by the Detain text either; it's just the Kor Hookmaster text in disguise and wouldn't be worth keywording in most sets. But I can totally imagine players enjoying playing a flyers-and-Detain deck; it's fun to hit with flyers every turn while delaying the opponent's actions just long enough to win first. Return to Ravnica seems to prioritize what players would enjoy doing, rather than how new it looks.
DeleteI think Graft is a mechanic where it is least problematic to have a close variant of it as the new keyword, since you get to mix and match creatures in a different way every game. When you get to exercise creativity in an open-ended way, things don't get boring easily.
However, based on how MaRo seems very pleased with the actual Simic mechanic, maybe R&D did find a way to have both newness and creativity.
To be clear, I think Alter would be a reasonable mechanic to print in a different block. It was fine that they printed Undying even with Persist in existence, because they used them in two different contexts. But having it as the Simic mechanic makes the comparison to Graft too glaring, in my opinion.
DeleteAlter is extremely similar to Graft. And with good reason. Having thought about possible Simic mechanics a lot recently, I understand just how perfect Graft was for the guild and how hard it is to find another resonant path. In that regard, I would call Alter unlikely but not impossible for the reasons Chah mentioned. It plays well with the original, is simple, flavorful and fun. It's not quite as different from its predecessor as Overload is from Replicate, but both pairs are very similar.
ReplyDeleteWhat does convince me this keyword won't be printed is that the text "As this enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control" isn't worthy of a keyword. It's far better suited as plain text that gets repeated across cards (like the werewolf transform tiggers).
Chah brings up an excellent point about new Ravnica mechanics: They're all simple—and very necessarily so. Five keywords is a lot for a large set and so there's no room for one or more of them to eat up additional brain power. (Yet another reason my crazy Mutate idea from Tuesday is WAY too crazy.)
The new mechanics are absolutely more fun than the old ones. Radiance was terrible from the start; Convoke was solid but a cost-reduction mechanic isn't fun so much as interesting; Dredge was super-spikey and led to repetitive game states; Transmute was fun, but definitely slowed games down. In contrast Unleash is a riot (see what I did there?), Populate lets us build armies, Scavenge lets us build monsters, and Overload lets us do big things. Detain sounds unfun—and can be—but in common saturations becomes much more of a contestable tempo/race mechanic than a lock-down mechanic.
I think the one time when Convoke becomes particularly "fun" (rather than just "interesting") is when it lets you cast spells for free. Many a "tapped out" player cast a Gather Courage back in the day, and Devouring Light was a fantastic trick-from-nowhere.
DeleteBut it's interestingly true that the new mechanics are more fun. The one I'd disagree with you on is Unleash: I'm not sure I'd call it a slam-dunk the way you did, so much as say the interesting choice and the "graarghsmash" factor make up for the somewhat dry, mechanical nature of the keyword. It's not just a "cost-reduction" mechanic but also sortof a drawback mechanic (a kind of "optional drawback"). But they do all play fun.
I see Transmute as another keyword like Dredge, one that led to repetitive game play and (in my experience) boredom.
DeleteWhat if it stacked like Exalted?
Augment (Whenever another creature enters the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)
That just seems like a waaaay strictly better than Unleash mechanic. Probably bah-roken, but it's an idea.
Jay, it's true that putting a +1/+1 counter on something doesn't need keywording, but this ability could work as an ability word, like "Alter - When this enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you control."
DeleteI think MaRo mentioned somewhere that not all the Guild mechanics are necessarily going to be actual "keywords" although he may refer to them as keywords for convenience.
I don't know what chances there are that they would actually do a mechanic like this, but I'm just saying that the fact that it doesn't absolutely need keywording is not a final death sentence to it.
@AlexC, To me, the appeal of Unleash creatures is that they're like modal spells, or split-card creatures. It should appeal to players who like cards that can do different things in different games, and cards that require careful strategic choices. It's doesn't feel completely Rakdos to me, since you get to look before you leap, but I really like the mechanic itself (since I as a player am not completely Rakdos).
DeleteI feel that while Convoke is cool as a way to occasionally enable casting a spell while tapped out, the main appeal is allowing Timmy-ish Rise of the Eldrazi type play. If it didn't work out that way in Ravnica, maybe they didn't have enough Eldrazi-like high-cost uberfatties at low rarity.
Yeah, I'm with Chah on Convoke. Scatter the Seeds into Siege Wurm just felt so good.
DeleteI'm hoping that whatever the Simic keyword is, it takes a page from Simic Guildmage and involves the manipulation of other permanent's counters.
ReplyDeleteOf course, I can't really think of a way to do that without concocting something parasitic.
I agree, it would be best if Simic isn't parasitic.
DeleteI tried thinking of switching things up with Graft by making creatures that are happy to receive +1/+1 counters rather than giving them, but it looked like it would be a very parasitic mechanic and might actually turn into an incentive for building a Golgari deck rather than a Simic deck.
I hope that whatever the mechanic is, it allows you to mix and match your creatures in an open-ended way. To me that's the number one criteria for Simic; adding extreme depth to the game like that trumps having a mechanic that merely looks very different from the old one (as long as it isn't exactly the same mechanic, of course).
I think that the simic keyword needs to relate to creatures ETB and power and toughness. They said that it needs to be mixable with the previous ability of the guild, so I guess if you graft a creature and it has higher P/T it is a boon to the new mechanic.
ReplyDeleteSome implementations of this:
SimKey1: Whenever a creature with greater power than this creature ETB under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature
(variatons: all creatures with SimKey1 get blah blah)
SimKey2 X: Whenever a creature with power X or more ETB under your control, you may pay X to put a creature on the battlefield from your hand (I do not really like this one myself...)
So... Evolve?
DeleteYep, sorry, for some reason had forgotten that.
DeleteJust to correct the assertion in FSOAMB's post: Wizards never said that the mechanic has to be mixable with cards of the original mechanic. They said that the cards ought to have a similar play style: if you shuffled up a bunch of old and new cards with the guild watermark, they ought to play like a cohesive deck. Mark Rosewater has repeatedly tried on his Tumblr to correct this misunderstanding that a few people have of what was said.
Delete