Monday, April 15, 2013

Tesla: Building Robots from Scratch

The central mechanic proposed for Tesla (née Ekkremes) is assembling giant mecha out of smaller robots, Voltron-style. This idea comes with a host of questions: how do we differentiate it from equipment and auras? How do we make the properties of the combined creature immediately obvious to the eye? What is the most intuitive way for the assembly process to work?

Our proposed solution uses double-faced cards. Here are two halves of a mecha, pre-assembly:


And here are the reverse sides of those cards.


Here's another such pair, untransformed:


and transformed:


Of course, any head can be connected to any body. You can create a Quicksilver Bulwark or Guardian Juggernaut just as easily. And depending on what order you draw your parts in, you may end up with a different giant robot from the one you expected.

On common mecha, the head determines the abilities, and the body provides power and toughness. (The sole exception, currently, is Thopter Body, which is 2/2 flying -> 4/4 flying.  Flyers are the least French of all French vanillas.) Notice that certain head abilities are better suited to certain bodies; for example, the lifelink head is particularly nice on a flying body, and the first strike head is better on a 7/4 than a 4/7. At higher rarities, the body will have more abilities of its own.

To playtest this mechanic, we tried out a 40-card "booster draft" deck with four bodies and four heads. (Those seemed like reasonable numbers for a successful draft.) If you'd like to get a feeling for how it plays, we strongly recommend that you try it out: we'll post the decklist soon in several formats so that you can give it a whirl.

Let's discuss a few of the implications of using mecha as a flagship mechanic for the set.
  • If mecha are colorless, different colors will have to support them in different ways. If mecha are colored, we have another can of worms to deal with, starting with getting the numbers to work out.
  • Artifact and creature removal needs to be monitored carefully, so that assembling a mecha isn't a guaranteed 2-for-1 for your opponent. Out with Smelt and Doom Blade; in with Go for the Throat and Shock (which won't kill a giant robot) and Paralyzing Grasp and Avenging Arrow (which will at least let it smack the opponent once).
  • Since we're trying to simulate some of the constraints R&D deals with, there may be restrictions on as-fan due to printing technology. I'll try to find out more about this.
  • The art is an enormous problem, and one that I think we should simply ignore. We are not going to commission art for this set, so I am comfortable assuming that our stable of imaginary artists is brilliant enough to make everything work.
  • Limited play can't be blazing fast, since giant robots need time to pull themselves together. On the flip side, because mecha decks will drop 6/6s on turn four with moderate frequency, it can't quite be Battlecruiser Magic.
  • If our main mechanic is based on building fatties to win, the other mechanics will need different paths to victory. As exciting as Godzilla vs. MechaGodzilla is on film, in Magic, a fight between a 7/7 with a 6/6 is no more viscerally rewarding than a fight between a 7/7 and a 1/1. (As Chah pointed out to me, Magic's lack of persistent damage makes it pretty bad for portraying battles between large creatures.)
My instincts say that these constraints are satisfiable, and that this mechanic is worth building a set around. Readers, what are your thoughts?

85 comments:

  1. I know this is probably the playtest name, but just gonna note - I can't imagine a Head being a very interesting creature, let alone entire class of creatures. :/

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    1. Mechanic wise: This is a pretty solid interpretation. The ability / stat connection is simple - perhaps a bit too simple, but I'm assuming this is strictly for common - and it feels good, both flavorfully and mechanically. I would love to play with this mechanic.

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    2. Yes, I'm not thrilled with "Head" and "Body" either. Hopefully we can come up with something better. (Or not, since it's Creative's job...)

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    3. Maybe this can be a Crystal/Core/Computer for the ability piece and a Chassis for the P/T?

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    4. Core is a cool idea. Maybe the Heads (Cores) operate on Magic-tech that uses Crystals; that's why it can confer its ability to the Chassis or Body. Some of the abilities like Quicksilver have very loose flavor otherwise.

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    5. Why did Alpha/Beta/Omega go away? I'd wanted to make sure that the players were clear that a mech can't have multiple heads/cores, but also keep the terms generic enough that either part could be a creature or a noncreature.

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    6. We certainly won't be commissioning real art, but I feel like it's irresponsible not to figure out a semi-plausible starting point. If the Mecha follow the BFM model above, the art needs to be split into modular left- and right-halves (aligned so each half lines up with each other half). We could do a front-view of the mech, with the left half completely different from the right half. We could do a side-view, with the front half and the back half. We could put the mech on one side and tiny people reacting to it on the other. Finally, we could show the mech on one side and his weapon/attack on the other side.

      If we go with double-sized, vertically connected cards, the top art can show the top-half (or just the head) and the bottom art can show the bottom-half (or just the body).

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    7. We can do way more cool things if it's vertical. There can be a tank-ish bottom, a spider-like bottom, or a hover-craft bottom, etc, and the top can be humanoid, tank turret-like, etc.

      If it's horizontal, it would have to be a side view of the mech with a shape like a quadruped or velociraptor, with the head jutting out in front so that the Head half only has the neck and head. Or, it could look like a vehicle with a front half and a back half, rather than like a robot.

      With a side view though, all the combinations will be similar to each other because they all need the same basic shape in order to line up. With a front view with vertical connection, you can have wildly different mech concepts emerge from the combinations.

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  2. If there are only going to be heads and bodies, then we can use pairing (see soulbond) technology to flip them. But man, there really ought to be legs and arms in there too. My ideas about this are starting to get a little parasitic, but what if each color cared about a particular body part in some way? Blue could care about the head, for example, while green, the body, red, the legs, and white, the arms. Black could get the gal bladder.

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    1. As I recall, that's something R&D considered in designing Equipment before realizing that it would be better to make equipment general and let the colors play with them differently. I think that's what we should shoot for here.

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    2. Ben is 100% correct. Flavor is great, but at the end of the day the game play has to be fun.

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    3. What did R&D say about Equipment? Did they consider making it colored?

      As for zefferal's idea, I think he means something like White getting "Heads you control get +1/+1" or Blue getting "Look at the top 4 cards of your library and put a Body from those cards into your hand," rather than saying only White should get Heads and only Blue should get Bodies.

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    4. I would like to hear more from zefferal about what he was imagining and from Ben about a failed colored equipment experiment.

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    5. I'll try to expand later this evening in a post below.

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    6. There was nothing about colored equipment. Ben's referring to R&D's initial equipment testing in which each creature could only have one piece in its head slot, one for a chest slot, two hand slots, etc.

      Making five different types of parts just so that each color can care about one is way more complicated, so unless there are some incredible things we can do as a result it should be avoided.

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    7. Ah. Right.
      Though if you could attach any number of any type of parts, it wouldn't be an issue.

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    8. Agreed. I just don't want more than two types of pieces if we go for specific ones. Ideally we can find a clean way to combine any number of parts, but it'll never work as well as two visually.

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  3. I'd rather this be an activated ability, rather than a trigger you're forced to use when the Head/Body enters the battlefield. "COST: Transform CARDNAME and target Head/Body you control. They become a single creature. Activate only as a sorcery." This also gives you more control via costing over when mechas can reasonably be expected to be assembled.

    My main rules concern with this is the "build-your-own-name" mechanic on the back sides of the cards. How does this interact with Gifts Ungiven or Runed Halo? Can I run 4 copies of Juggernaut and 4 copies of Juggernaut Body // Juggernaut in my deck?

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    1. This is certainly a valid concern, but even if the naming is an issue the creative team should be able to come up with new words (i.e. Scrapscrounger) to allow cards to be made.

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    2. Only the front of cards is considered for cards that care about names in any zone other than the battlefield, just like DFC in Innistrad. You can't gifts for Delver of Secrets and Insectile Aberation, nor can I play 4 Delvers and 4 Insectile aberrations in the same deck.

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    3. It's true that the back-half of the card can't be named Juggernaut unless that face exactly matches the existing card named Juggernaut (and even that's debatable), but yeah, we'll just use other names.

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    4. Note that combining is a may ability. The first iteration has it free since turning two cards into one is already a significant risk/cost. It's triggered because the text is shorter than making it an activated ability with timing restrictions.

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  4. What about a common cycle of tap ability creatures that interact with artifacts?

    Tripwire Adept 1W
    Creature - Human Soldier
    {t}: Tap target nonartifact creature.
    1/1

    Sparkwire Adept 2R
    Creature - Goblin Warrior
    {t}: ~ deals 1 damage to target nonartifact creature.
    1/1

    When I started, I just put in the nonartifact clause as a way of constraining my designs and making the cycle more distinctive, but when I got to green all I could think of was a pump affect. At first I thought it broke the cycle, but then I realized it was a neat way to highlight Greens distaste for artifacts.

    Rustwire Adept 2G
    Creature - Elf Shaman
    {t}: Target nonartifact creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
    1/1

    Could Green please be the villain color of the set?

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    1. And by interact with artifacts, I mean 'care about artifacts.'

      An alternative version of the cycle could be:

      Tripwire Adept 2W
      Creature - Human Soldier
      {t}: Tap target creature.
      Whenever two artifacts you control combine, untap ~.
      1/1

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  5. I feel like the payoff for giant mechs only works if it actually looks like a giant card, as in Jays mockup from an earlier thread http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1b5Jt_AQElI/UVIN2c40QUI/AAAAAAAAGi0/3So7XsYD16U/s1600/Mecha.1.jpg

    If components only transform into cards with regular-looking frames like Quicksilver Head, I think we'd be better off with something visually simple, like creatures that transform into equipment when they die.

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    1. Yes, I think these were just examples to show the card text and we're aiming for cards where the frames join to look like a single card.

      I hope we can get them to stack vertically on top of each other, and hopefully still get the names to combine by positioning the card title in the middle left or something.

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    2. Yeah, I think we cna work something out, but I also wanted to make sure that was on the agenda.

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    3. I suspect we have to choose between awesome modular names and the vertical cardframe. This is just wierd:

      ┌──────────────────────┐
      │░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░│
      │ 1: This Mecha gets +1/-1 or -1/+1 │
      │ until end of turn.░░░░░░░░░░░│
      │░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░│
      └ Quiksilver░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░ ┘
      ┌ Behemoth▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒ ┐
      │▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│
      │▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│
      │▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│
      │ Artifact Creature ▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒│
      │ Construct▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒▒6/6│
      └──────────────────────┘

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    4. Just make the cards on the back have the BFM layout. It'll still be striking, but without any weird logistics issues like Jay's example.

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    5. Yeah, the backs of cards are supposed to have the BFM layout; I was too busy to photoshop them properly.

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    6. Ok I'm also sure that it's possible, I just wanted to make sure we prioritized making the cards look enticing. Playtest cards of course sacrifice form for function.

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  6. I like the idea of making the transformation a tiny bit less swingy, and the untap clause grants all sorts weird vigilance. What about:

    Component (Tap ~ and an untapped Body you control: Transform and combine them.)

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    1. I can see the incentive for the ability as it is now, but I also agree its weirdly unintuitive. The original concept was to make this an upkeep trigger, and that still seems to be the best way to do it. There's confusion over "well half of the card has summoning sickness, but the other half doesn't" or in the case of Jules mechanic "in response half of it got bounced, but then I couldn't combine it to the other part I had"

      I'd love to know why that wasn't retained.

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    2. The question of summoning sickness did come up, and would require reminder text.

      An Upkeep trigger sounds fine to me.

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    3. Note that if we go with the vertical orientation, we need both cards to be tapped before transforming, and the resulting Construct will be untapped. Or vice-versa. Really, the only requirement is that both parts have the same un/tapped status.

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    4. I could go with an upkeep trigger. One possible point of confusion is whether the other side is summoning sick; after all, it's a permanent that didn't start the turn on your side of the battlefield. Maybe we could put haste in the reminder text.

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    5. Players have experience with DFC transforming and being able to attack, I don't think that's a major issue. So long as the transform triggers are upkeep triggers, you don't have half the card with summoning sickness. There's very few ways for that to happen so long as the trigger is normally an upkeep thing and none of the artifacts have flash.

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  7. I think the Mech Idea is very cool. If they are all going to be split cards then due to printing each pack would have to have one like Innistrad. This would likely help our "As Fan".

    I think it would be worth exploring other templates beside flip cards however. In the last few years we've seen level up, miracle, and flip cards. All those could have functioned under existing card frames, yet by creating an entirely new frame they made them much better.

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    1. I think it might be a good idea to put a Head and a Body in each pack.
      I agree it's the frame that makes this worth it, just like it was so for the Werewolves; otherwise we had the Visions chimeras already.

      http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+[Chimera]&format=[%22Mirage%20Block%22]

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    2. Why a head and a body in each pack? Is a head or a body in each pack that insufficient?

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    3. I think it would be beneficial if the same number of heads and bodies are opened in each draft pod. Imagine a draft pod where 32 Heads and 16 Bodies are opened. People will be train-wrecked when they see the Heads and think the archetype is open, and everybody is scrounging for Bodies.

      I also think the number of DFCs should be greater than in Innistrad. It was hard to try to draft a Werewolf deck that can make use of cards like Moonmist. I don't think a Werewolf deck happened in every pod. (Especially online, where you can't signal.) But Mechs will have a much harder time transforming than Werewolves and we really want that Mech deck to be a regular occurrence so that they do get to transform.

      We want to avoid an environment where players are required to blindly go all-in on Mechs if they want a shot at the archetype, only to get train-wrecked when other players do the same.

      While the number of DFCs doesn't need to be exactly twice the number in Innistrad if the only concern was game balance, it probably does need to be exactly that number for the sake of maintaining the frequency of rarities on the DFC print sheets. Putting a Head and Body in each pack would be a way of achieving that.

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    4. Another benefit to making colored Mechs is that—in the exact same way Werewolves were only in red and green—we can put Mechs in less than five colors, making them a more reasonable option for certain archetypes than others.

      It's worth noting that while Werewolves were only red-green, transform was not. Everyone should have access to the not, new tech, right? That's a very real disadvantage of this latest suggestion. Maybe the non-Mech colors get a non-combining form of DFC?

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    5. I don't think Mechs occupy the same mindspace as normal DFCs. Players may be more weirded out by having two types of DFCs than none in other colors. That said, just because the Mechs are colorless doesn't mean that every color plays them. Black and/or green metalcraft decks were fairly rare in 3xScars of Mirrodin draft, and that was DESPITE there being a strong metalcraft common in each of those colors.

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  8. The limited concerns are interesting here, although the format you don't want the format to be fast, getting something such a turn 4 6/6 vigilant screams fast limited environment, particularly with low levels of removal. This sound similar to the kind of environment AVR created, which wasn't exactly everyone's cup of tea.

    I'm also still wondering whether DFC are necessary here as they create an additional restriction (1 part per pack, so only 6 parts cards per sealed pool) whereas I'm wondering whether parts could work as simple half a card/ can't cast until we have the other half like BFM. That way we could have a higher percentage per pack. The only thing the DFC cards like Quicksilver head do right now is get into play and try not die until the body is cast (fairly unexciting). Timmy is already excited enough for big robots, a few intriguing combinations/abilities will keep Johnny happy discovering and personally I don't think mecha is for Spike, other mechanics will need to get him on board.

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    1. We actually only had time to test this twice (we tested other decks only once).

      This is how it went down in testing:
      In test game one, it was Ankh Theb vs Mech, and it was like you said; the Mech deck didn't get to assemble anything, and as a result there were unexciting cards like a 4-drop 1/4 Body lying around. I'm blocking and trying not to die until I draw a Head, and there's nothing in particular that I can do as a player to affect the result or speed that up.

      I felt that we didn't really get to see what potential this mechanic had, so we did a second test.

      The second test went wonderfully. It was Mech deck vs. Mech deck. There was an exciting back-and-forth play as both sides got to assemble a Mech, both sides got to destroy the opponent's Mech, and both sides got to rebuild. The tide swung many times in the process. While I couldn't control when I got to assemble a Mech, I did get the feel that my piloting choices mattered, such as the order that I cast my cards or the targets I chose for my spells. The 2-for-1 risk factor helped balance the fact that you're getting 4-drop 6/6s. Even though we both got 2-for-1-ed in that way, one key factor that let us have a good time was the ample artifact recursion in the test deck, especially a Sorcery named Yay Toys which returned all artifacts from your graveyard to your hand, which we both managed to draw in this game.

      It will be a challenge to recreate that kind of fun game in draft, but the key criteria to try to satisfy is that both sides will get to assemble a Mech multiple times, and that there will be back-and-forth play where the Mechs do get destroyed and rebuilt in an average game. We can try to jiggle the amount of Mechs, recursion, and removal so games that fit that description arise often.

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    2. Also note that a big part of what makes the solution exciting is that a head isn't dead in your hand until you draw a body, or vice versa. That you can cast them and use them on their own is a huge upside.

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    3. There are at least two ways to balance this:
      A.) Mech parts such on their own. But they combine very often (because only drafters collecting them will want them) and are strong when combined.
      B.) Mech parts are good on their own. They don't combine very often (because everyone wants them) but you don't mind if they don't combine.

      I think A) leads to the better drafting environment.

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    4. We should test both.
      (Guessing "such" = "suck")

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    5. Yes, I meant suck. How did you know I wasn't mistyping from "Mech parts are such a pain on their own?"

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  9. We could use level up with a non mana cost to "Build" our mechs without dual faced cards.

    Level Up: Combine this card with another Mech Piece

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  10. I'll be honest: I don't think this is going to work.

    1) and most important: This is the complexity of B.F.M. (a rare) *and* the complexity of DFCs (already a concept that isn't entirely intuitive at first glance), combined into one mechanic, that we're planning on making the standout mechanic of the set. This strikes me as far too complex for common.

    2) A casual player sees packs of Tesla in the checkout lane of Wal-Mart and decides to pick one up. The DFC she receives in her pack is Quicksilver Head. The tip card in her pack is some unrelated flavor explanation. Do you expect her to a) understand what this card is and b) want to buy more product? Could you justify your answers to these questions to the suits at Hasbro? Obviously this set isn't going to be actually sold, but if we're thinking like R&D does, I could see this as a major pain point.

    3) Using some real-world numbers here: Innistrad (a large set) had 20 DFCs. That gives us 10 heads and 10 bodies. There's not a lot of room to do really cool stuff there.

    4) This mechanic is linear *and* parasitic, which seems to be a nonstarter in modern R&D. (The last such mechanic I can think of was Splice onto Arcane, which R&D seems to regard as a failure.) Constructed players will be either building their decks around these cards or not running them at all. Getting to combine these cards in Sealed will be nearly impossible. In Draft, even assuming you pull *every* DFC and you get an even amount of heads and bodies, you're still only getting 12 heads and 12 bodies, which might be a deck, but expect people to get frustrated because they're drawing the wrong mecha type.

    The idea of combining artifacts Voltron-style into mecha is really cool. I just don't think this is the right implementation. I'm not even seeing anything here that couldn't be done with soulbond.

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    1. 1) The implementation that Havelock chose was really intuitive and easy to remember or think about. You'll get a chance to try it out soon as we hope to put up a way for everyone to play this.

      2) I think it's absolutely ok for players to see half of a joined mech in a pack and be fascinated by what other parts there could be. That would even entice players to buy more packs. But I also think each pack should probably have 1 Head card and 1 Body card for drafting reasons.

      3) It seems Havelock is aiming for around 6 Heads and 6 Bodies at common, all as colorless cards, but I think that would make drafting very stressful as people will be forced to pick up Mechs very early, without even knowing if the archetype is open or not. By being colorless, players will casually dip into Mechs and dilute each other's decks. Also, Mech decks are going to feel like the same deck every time if every Mech deck drafts from the same pool of parts. I think Mechs should be colored and the numbers upped to at least 10 Heads and 10 Bodies at Common, with more in higher rarities.

      4) It's true that it's linear and parasitic, but I think it's cool enough to be worth it. I hope we find some non-parasitic mechanics for the rest of the set.

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    2. I agree linear and parasitic is dangerous, but I think this is worth trying.

      Or, and I realise this is even more controvertial, what about something like Curse of the Fire Penguin, where the backside of the card has an unfinished border, and is designed to overlay part of any existing creature.

      It could similarly do "add a line of rules text and a different P/T to an existing creature" or "give a different name, type and an extra line of rules text to an existing creature", but you could maybe stack them somehow. That would probably never work, but would be even better at "building a giant mech" than having to combine them in pairs.

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    3. This ^
      Card frame could look like a Kamigawa flip card, except the bottom would be an enhancement to a creature rather than a creature itself.
      Should give similar gameplay but might lose some flavor and needs no extra art.

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    4. Duel Masters has already done this exact mechanic multiple times, so we already know For A Fact that this is something players get and like.

      "Linear and parasitic" is redundant. It's also vastly over-maligned. Every set needs a linear mechanic because giving players something obvious to do is critical to the game. Poison is parasitic. It was the heart of Scars block. Allies are parasitic. They were extremely popular. Slivers are parasitic and are one of the most popular creature types ever.

      Yes, we'd rather a mechanic be linear than parasitic where possible, but being parasitic isn't a deal-breaker by itself. If the mechanic justifies it, as I strongly believe Mecha does, it's fine.

      Jack's idea is too cool not to investigate. While I'm committed to making Mecha in Tesla, I'm not 100% married to BFM/DFCs (though I am very happy with them, having actually played with them).

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    5. @Chah We'll talk more about as-fan later, but I don't think people will casually dip into mech in draft. Nobody wants to pick up a 1/2 vigilance or vanilla 1/4 unless they have a good chance of flipping them.

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    6. The flavor could be that the mech provides the body and the creature it attaches to 'pilots' it. It'd be cool if any (preferably small) creature could provide abilities and the mech could overwrite power/toughness. I'm not good with mock-ups at all though, and I'm not sure how the card frame would work out.

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    7. Jack and Zach's ideas are similar to another implemantation of Mechs I was working on:

      Upgrade: A keyword action letting you graft activated abilities onto Artifact Creatures.

      Upgradeable Mech {4}
      Artifact Creature - Construct (C)
      When ~ enters the battlefield, you may upgrade it. (To upgrade, exile an artifact from your graveyard upgrading this. This has all activated abilities of cards upgrading it.)
      2/4

      Shred and Build {2}{U}
      Sorcery (U)
      Each player puts the top five cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
      Upgrade an Artifact Creature you control. (Exile an artifact from your graveyard upgrading that creature. It has all activated abilities of cards upgrading it.)

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    8. @Havelock
      How are the Mech drafters going to get into that archetype in the first place? By picking Mechs casually and testing the waters.

      Sure, some drafters may first-pick a rare Mech or a Yay Toys and get into the archetype that way. Others might force it blindly. But many drafters are going to casually pick up a Mech at whatever pick order it makes sense to do so, and then once they have one they will see if they can make a theme out of that.

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    9. A scenario:

      Every color has heads, but they skew toward blue and black. Every color has bodies, but they skew toward green. Mechs on their native side run the gamut from nearly unplayable to tournament-worthy across rarities. Let's just say that mechs don't require special collation and appear in packs just like other cards.

      Abe and Beth are drafting next to each other. P1P1, Abe opens Go For the Throat and Beth takes a rare green body. P1P2, Abe chooses a solid black creature that happens to be a head, passing Beth a weak blue head and a Cultivate, which she takes. Pick 3, Abe sees a decent red body but an evasive blue head and decides to go for the UB removal/value/evasion plan. Beth continues to take the best mechs across colors and the fixing with which to play them, even wheeling the ‘bad’ blue head from pick 2 to help her reach critical mass. By the end, Abe only has one body in his deck, but he’s not planning on combining mechs anyhow (and has a Diabolic Tutor he could use to find it if he really needs to assemble one in a pinch).

      That’s not meant to represent a common occurrence, much less a majority, but I feel like that illustrates an environment comparable to recent ones where different mechanics and archetypes push and pull players in directions that sometimes benefit committing, sometimes benefit keeping your options open, but usually result in interesting and playable decks with at least a few potentially awesome moments baked in.

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    10. Also, I'm not saying there should be no colorless mechs, only that having colored mechs will help create easy combos (green head + green body) and tricky combos (white head + red body) and that the players will be happy to have some easy combos but will feel great when they assemble tricky ones.

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    11. I said 10 Heads & 10 Bodies at Common, but on second thought it might be too much... Based on the Innistrad system it seems that 12 Heads and 12 Bodies would require replacing 4 Common slots in each booster.

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    12. @Chah They could open or get passed a strong rare or uncommon mech or support card. There also might be one common mech (say, the Thopter) that is strong enough to push people into mech, just like Cystbearer pushed people into infect.

      @Jay I am pretty strongly against having good creatures that just happen to be mechs and will get taken by players who can't flip them. Flipping is the whole point!

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    13. The reason to make good mechs that people take regardless is that they might get another one and then get to combine them during a game, even without forcing that strategy. Flipping is the whole point!

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    14. @Havelock
      I already wrote that players can get into the archetype through strong cards of that archetype. But how do we prevent players from casually dipping into the archetype? It makes strategic sense for a non-Mech player to take a very mediocre Mech over a somewhat mediocre card because of the high potential.

      In fact, that's how I hope many Mech decks will be formed: I hope that it's possible to get into a Mech archetype later in the draft without blind commitment from pick 1 or a "follow your first-pick Mech" situation only. You pick up a few Mech parts as insurance just in case that it's open, and sometimes you find out that it actually is open. That should be a sound strategy, but it would also cause many dedicated Mech decks in the pod to become diluted while the player who picked up a stray Mech part for insurance doesn't actually put it in his/her deck in most cases.

      If there can be enough Mech parts that you don't need to force it from pick 1, but there's also enough of a restriction like color so that it's not open in the same way for everyone, that would create an environment where you need to be adaptive to what's getting passed, which is ideal in my view.

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    15. I think we'll only be able to tell what actually happens by drafting. Picking mediocre cards early just doesn't seem likely to me.

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    16. I know my opinions tend to be texty, but I get the feeling that you didn't actually read through what I wrote. I wasn't talking about picking mediocre cards early.

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    17. Sorry, I was reading too fast and didn't understand. It doesn't seem plausible that somebody who is taking mechs late will successfully steal a nontrivial amount from somebody who is taking them early. I think players will auto-sort themselves into mecha and non-mecha the same way they sort themselves into colors, and it won't be a huge problem.

      We'll see how it plays out when we do an actual draft.

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  11. BFMs (Big Furry Mechs) are super exciting, but I think it's also worth exploring ways of Combining Mechs without the restraints of DFCs.

    Combine: sac two mechs to get a new one with their combined types from your deck.

    Spiky Mech 4
    Artifact Creature - Alpha Mech (C)
    Combine {2} ({2}, Sacrifice two Mechs: Search your library for a Creature card with their combined types and put it onto the battlefield. Shuffle your library afterwards.)
    4/1

    Big Mech 8
    Artifact Creature - Alpha Gamma Mech (U)
    Whenever ~ attacks, creatures you control get +3/+0 until end of turn.
    4/7

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    1. You don't get to build anything here.
      You also have to have a combine mech, another expendable mech and a worthy (and valid) target mech in play / your deck.

      What if we made a bunch of mech tokens with a blank name, blank p/t and blank rules box that players could write in when they combine two mechs?

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    2. The point is that Spiky Mech will let you search out a different Creature, depending on whether you sacrifice a Beta Mech, Gamma Mech, or Delta Mech, so you do get to build something different with any given creature depending on your deck. It's really no different than combining a body and head card-- you lose two creatures and gain one better one. With this implementation, it may be that it's too hard for people to accumulate the right double-type Mechs in draft, but I still think it's worth considering ways to get around DFC collation issues.

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    3. So there's exactly one Mech for each combination of Greek letters, but they're common enough that we don't have to worry about having that one in our Limited deck?

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    4. You'd probably have to have 4-5 Common Mechs with Alpha type, 4-5 with Beta type, etc., and 1-2 Uncommons of each double-type to make it work in limited. I might be underestimating the ease of getting the right double-types.

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  12. In terms of flavor, I think Body and Core work better. You can think of the Core as the personality or mind of the mech, while the Body happens to be the suit of armor they inhabit.

    I've been turning over some story ideas in my head, but I need to flesh them out a bit more before really presenting them.

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  13. A good question here, I think, is if we want to make mecha an archetype that can be drafted by one person per draft, or by two or more people. Assuming everything is colorless and that the mecha parts aren't too bad alone, a single drafter will probably only get ~2/3 of the parts: at 1 per pack, that's 8 heads and 8 bodies if everything goes well.

    Since we want our set to focus on this, I think having a head and a body in every pack is the right way to go. To compensate for this, making ~50% of the heads and bodies colored is (IMHO) a good idea. That turns it into a sliver-like mechanic: it you're in the color, you might grab two or three if it looks open just because it's roughly average alone, but then a dedicated drafter can draft all of them plus color fixing and get a truly scary deck.

    tl;dr: one head and one body in each pack, with half of them being colored.

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  14. Quick question:

    is the only reason that we are limiting the builds to two cards so that we can utilize the BFM style two card combination?

    or is there still potential for other ideas / methods

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  15. Another mecha setup idea I'd had and just remembered:
    All of the "bodies" are creatures with bigger stats on the back. All of the "crystals" are equipments with bigger versions of their effects on the back.
    The tranformation occurs when a crystal becomes attached to a body, which allows for activation with a Sorcery speed restriction that doesn't feel forced. As for the summoning sickness and matching tappedness issue, I've only seen or come up with two clean solutions.
    1. Untap both and grant haste.
    2. Tap both as part of the combining process.

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  16. Do both sides have to die if the mech is destroyed? Especially if we're going with the DFC implementation, there is a lot of room for text on the back to have something like:
    "If this creature would leave the battlefield, instead detach and transform both parts. Then, sacrifice one of the parts."
    Which gives more upside to mechs and lets people transform them more often.
    Otherwise we still probably need to have some text saying "Both creatures are one creature. Anything that effects one creature affects both."
    This is pretty intuitive though.

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    1. Jules' idea is also worth testing. One one hand, the end result will be a little less special (BFM!), but if it's easier/cleaner it might be worthwhile. I don't expect it is, but I refuse to assume that.

      hubatish has a really important point. I see three possibilities:

      1) Combined Mecha count as a single card and always change zones together. This is the most intuitive answer.

      Because the risk is high, we can make the whole much larger than the sum of its parts.

      We could make a rare with a death-trigger that returns it and/or other artifacts to your hand or battlefield.

      2) All Combined Mecha have only-lose-one text like what hubatish describes above. There's essentially no risk to combining, so the whole will be exactly the sum of its parts. We will likely need a small cost to combine mecha in this scenario.

      3) All Combined Mecha simply detach and revert when they would LTB. In this case, there has to be a tangible cost to combine them: Perhaps a large mana investment; a small mana activation and discarding a card; or you have to fulfill a quest like dealing combat damage with both in the same turn, or casting a card that explicitly lets you combine mech parts.

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    2. I'm all for number one here. I'm agreeing with the majority on a lot of these points, so I don't have much to add. I think a few colored and colorless options at common will easily make a viable draft archetype. There were 12 werewolves in Innistrad, and if we end up doing 10 Bodies and 10 Cores, we'll be fine.

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    3. I thought about this issue already and concluded that option #1 was the cleanest. I also want a rare mech that causes you to only lose half.

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  17. How important are DFCs to this idea? I was thinking you could do something along the lines of:

    Juggernaut Body
    Artifact Creature — Body
    Exile Juggernaut Body and a Head you control: Build a 6/6 Mech artifact creature token.

    Quicksilver Head
    Artifact Creature — Head
    1: This creature gets +1/-1 until end of turn.
    Creatures built with Quicksilver Head have "1: This creature gets +1/-1 until end of turn."

    Players would naturally put the Head and Body cards with the Mech token, as with imprinted cards. There could be a frame treatment that helped to keep the power and toughness given by the body visible.

    The main problem here is that there might not be room for the text for higher rarities. If texty cards are going to be important (which seems likely), probably better to make it a keyword with reminder text, which could be left off of the rares:

    Juggernaut Body
    Artifact Creature — Construct
    Body (You may exile this and a Head artifact you control to build a Mech artifact creature token. Build as a sorcery.)
    A creature built with Juggernaut Body is 6/6.

    Complicated Firebot Body
    Artifact Creature — Construct
    Body
    A creature built with Complicated Firebot Body is 10/10, indestructible, and has vigilance and "Whenever this creature blocks or becomes blocked by a creature, it deals 10 damage to that creature."

    Or if the idea is that the components would all have these abilities themselves, then to avoid duplicating text all over the place, maybe that could be made an explicit part of the act of building. Something like "build a Mech artifact creature token with the other abilities of those cards" in the reminder text.

    I'm not sure any of this is quite right, but I feel like going to DFCs should be something of a last resort in general. This seems like an idea that could be implemented with regular Magic cards.

    Some advantages of using an approach other than BFMDFCs:
    * Potential for more component types. Instead of a head and body, you could build a mech out of a body and one or more components, since the BFM layout wouldn't be locked in.
    * Less rules complexity. I feel like I have a better grasp of the rules in general than the average player, but the way DFCs interact with copy effects and tokens feel pretty odd and unintuitive to me (I don't think there's a more intuitive way the rules could have picked; it was going to be confusing no matter what). Adding in the additional issue of two cards representing one permanent is going to add a huge number of extra complications.
    * If you want to try to mimic the printing constraints of actual Magic, DFCs tightly constrain how many mech parts can be in each pack. It might turn out that exactly one per pack is a good number, but it seems better to have the flexibility to make them as frequent or infrequent as they need to be.
    * Less text per card. My feeling is that since Innistrad, designers with card ideas that involve way too much text see DFCs as the solution, since it allows you to present just half the text at a time, when the better solution would be to reduce the amount of stuff going on on the card. There's obviously more motivation than that here, but the idea of higher-rarity cards with so much text that they need this layout makes me wary.

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    1. This is awesome, it captures a lot of the build-your-own monster concept with much less complexity. I prefer the first version, without the Body keyword and just a 'build' keyword action. There should still be enough room on rares for Bodies to grant a keyword.

      You could also concept it as Vehicles and Pilots, letting you make colorless artifact vehicles and colored pilots that grant color-specific abilities.

      Tank 4
      Artifact Creature - Construct
      Exile ~ and a Pilot you control: Build a 5/5 colorless Mech Artifact Creature token.
      3/3

      Overclocker 2U
      Creature - Pilot
      ~ and creatures it built have "U: Untap this."
      1/3

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    2. The problem DFC were designed to solve in this context is that having a stack of auras or equipment make it difficult to understand exactly what you're facing.

      I'm not convinced that using tokens reduces complexity in the same way. Even if the Mechs are all 6/6 tokens, tracking the abilities they have because they were built with different cards is going to be tough. Most tokens are coins or scraps of paper, including all these abilities on them is going to be really confusing.

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