Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Slivers, Allies, Lord-Lords & The Core Set

Wizards revealed Monday night that Slivers are returning to Magic in this Summer's core set and that they're getting a face-lift, both visually and mechanically. Some players are unhappy with this news, while a lot are ecstatic, but pretty much everyone is surprised.

While I support them getting some new visual concepts, I do fall on the side that full-on humanoid was a bit too far, but I'm not here to talk about that. Doug Beyer talks about that here if you want to learn more.


I'm more interested in analyzing the logic R&D used to bring us Slivers in the core set. I imagine it starts out pretty simple. The core set wants to reward established players with some nostalgia, while remaining accessible to new players. New players love linear mechanics and tribal themes and (many) old players love Slivers.


From there, you know there was a debate whether to update Slivers or not and whether to use Allies instead. The best argument against updating Slivers is consistency: Old players are going to add the new Slivers to their old Sliver decks and new players are going to seek out old Slivers to add to their new decks; Some work one way and others work another and it won't be trivial keeping track which is which, particularly since old-style Slivers were printed in the Modern card frame in Time Spiral.

But, as Mark Rosewater explains here, they needed to be updated for the same reason Lord of Atlantis is now Master of the Pearl Trident. It's less confusing when your bonuses only affect your creatures and it also makes playing such cards much more straight-forward when you don't have to wonder if they help your opponent more than you. Except for the hive-mind flavor, that reason goes double for Slivers since it's an entire tribe of lords. You can even justify the flavor change the same way you do for the Merfolk… Not all Merfolk are friends and there's no reason my Merfolk leader would lead your Merfolk. Clearly, when the Slivers evolved humanoid forms, they also evolved enough society to form cliques and tribes that aren't always on the same wavelength. Literally. (They're telepathic.)

The next question is, if we're using half of the new lord template for our race of lord-lords, why not the full template? Modern lords grant their bonuses to other creatures of their tribe and any abilities they would have granted themselves are printed directly on the card. It's simpler and clearer this way. So why don't the new Slivers do that? The reason I find this template lacking is the same reason Goblin Chieftan has haste while granting haste to other goblins and Veteran Armorsmith is a 2/3 instead of a 2/2 that grants +0/+1 to himself. It's never ideal to print a card that isn't what it says it is at first glance, but it's particularly bad in a core set where we want to pull as few gotchas on new players as possible.

Many surmised (including our own HavelockV) and MaRo confirmed that the reason is that it's easier to add up all the bonuses from all your Slivers once and then apply them globally. That definitely explains why the new Slivers are templated the way they are, and I wouldn't make new Slivers any other way. But it makes me wonder why they accepted that solution when there were other options.

What other options? They created Allies in Zendikar as a direct analog to Slivers. Really. If we can't update Slivers to be appropriate for the core set, why not use Allies in their stead? I guarantee R&D discussed the option and settled on Slivers, so it's not a matter of proving them wrong (only a fool would try to correct an expert) but exploring the reasons they must have had so that we can learn from their wisdom.

If you compare Slivers and Allies critically, you'll find that both eat up mind-space at a non-linear rate as you add more to the board. For Slivers, you're basically tracking the global Sliver bonus which is simply the sum of all bonuses from all the Slivers on the table (or on your side of the board, for the new ones) and then applying that single, compound bonus to each of your Slivers. You can do this whenever you gain or lose a Sliver, but will mostly end up doing it when attacking, blocking, or planning combat. For Allies, there are no ongoing effects, so most of the time the cards are just what they say they are (plus some number of counters), but whenever you cast a new Ally you have to handle an entire batch of triggers.

In both cases, you want to play as many as you can in order to maximize their effect and there's no reason you'd put more of one in your deck than the other, except that Slivers currently outnumber Allies 5:2. The danger is bogging the game down with repeated calculations and in forgetting something important. Slivers are going to be re-calculated potentially every combat step (unless you haven't gained or lost any since the last combat, and you can remember the global bonus or the final size of each of your slivers) while Ally triggers are going to be stacked and resolved whenever you cast a new one. If you forget one of your Allies' triggers, it's simply lost according to the current tournament rules. That can cost you a close game. If you forget one of your Sliver's bonuses, it may never be noticed and could cost you a close game. Or perhaps it gets noticed a turn too late and then you have to call a judge over, potentially earning you and/or your opponent a warning or even game loss.

It's absolutely debatable, but to my mind, Allies are safer and cleaner mechanically. I would suggest that their inclusion in Zendikar shows that at least part of R&D agrees. So why did new Slivers get the nod in M14 over Allies? I'm guessing their long history, stronger nostalgia, and the fact that they are iconically Magic while Allies were effectively borrowed from D&D is what trumped the mechanical upside. But I'd love to hear your opinion. Why do you think Slivers won out? Do you agree?

As a small teaser, tomorrow's CCDD will be another potential solution R&D might have considered.

17 comments:

  1. Hmm, it occurs to me that it may never have been a real discussion. Consider this scenario:

    Bill Rose looks at the list of old Magic mechanics that have scored too well not to bring back. Flashback: check. Gold: check. Slivers: overdue. So R&D is tasked with bringing back Slivers. It doesn't fit into MaRo's five-year plan so they decide to use it as the returning mechanic for a core set. Done deal.

    Seems plausible.

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    1. I mean, I don't think it's particularly close for anyone but design Melvins. Allies may be the more elegant design (debatable), but there's no way they're more iconic.

      The reason Slivers were included in the Core Set is the reason why any mechanic is included in any set: To sell cards. Slivers are insanely popular.

      They were the VERY first Premium deck ever created. They were so popular they've been a mechanic in three blocks. They are a perennial casual favorite.

      Allies have none of those things going for them, and at the end of the day, they never will. They are just too generic.

      As for the fit in the Core Set, Slivers work really well. They're too parasitic to be a major presence in block. Because of their 5 color nature, they're too much of a "Blob" to really be pushed in constructed. The core set is the perfect place to release them in a controlled way: You get a handful to build with, but there's not a lot in the way of support from surrounding sets. Like Illusions in M12.

      So, all in all, it is an inspired choice. Their willingness to buck nostalgia for NWO concerns greatly expands their ability to bring old mechanics into core sets. My go to example on Twitter was Rebels: there's no way they would reprint the old rebel recruiting ability (Ugh, shuffling), but now they might be able to revisit Rebels with a new mechanical twist.

      Personally, I think the interesting question is this: What's next? Last set saw the the return of Nicol Bolas. This set is Slivers. What do they sell M15 with?

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  2. I'm not a huge fan of these "I imagine R&D followed X train of thought" discussions. There are a ton of assumptions being made about what sort of thought processes went on, in what sort of context, for what sort of purpose, and so on. There are some assumptions that are safe to make but "obviously Allies would have been in contention as an alternative" isn't necessarily one of them. I prefer to look at things we know to be true about stated goals and intentions by R&D than to delve too deep into pure conjecture.

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    1. It's not really about what they did or thought. It's about training ourselves to think about the same things, using their results as a model. Would you have put Slivers into the Core Set? Would you have done it this way? That's the interesting discussion.

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    2. I agree. I just don't like the way that discussion has been framed here.

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  3. Here's what I think, which kind of overlaps with what you said:

    For returning players, core sets have the potential to be a good re-entry point back into the game. Core sets can have a Time-Spiral-esque appeal, such as with the new Alara-based cards in M13. For this purpose, maybe Slivers are better than Allies because they're older and presumably a more recognizable icon to a larger number of returning players.

    It's hard to tell which is more complex. Textwise, Allies are more texty while the Slivers have concise text. Allies are meant to reduce board complexity, but it's also easy to miss triggers. Slivers are not that much harder to track since they all work the same way (unlike the varied static tribal bonuses in Lorwyn that caused board complexity issues.) I guess this is a lesson that complexity can't be measured just with simple mental tags, like "ETB = one and done, simple" and "static bonuses = hard to track, complex."

    One thing about Slivers is that the message of ability-sharing is communicated so clearly that whenever you look at one, you're always expecting it to have more abilities than is printed. It might actually be easier to miss a minor Ally trigger (like the one that grants vigilance) than to miss a vigilance-sharing ability on a Sliver.

    One appeal of Allies might be that your Ally doesn't suddenly lose a bonus in mid-combat when its friend dies to intant removal. If it gains a bonus keyword, the bonus is locked in until end of turn so your combat math doesn't get screwed up. But then again, I think it's cool that it's possible to fight a horde of Slivers in a tricky way with instant removal, even if it's occasionally frustrating for the Sliver side.

    Allies provide the satisfaction of building up with +1/+1 counters, and they can be strong in a fun, balanced way because not all Allies provide permanent bonuses. Slivers, on the other hand, can be overwhelming when they work, especially when they reach a point where you can't trade with one in combat anymore.

    But if the set is tempo-oriented, assembling such a big Sliver force without trading things off might be sufficiently difficult. It would be cool if there can be variety in the types of Sliver decks, where some decks aim for fast attacks and evasion while others try to conserve their forces and build up an unkillable army first. Those decks would want different support cards for their creatures too. And I'm guessing that's how it would be, because of the natural color constraints of decks, unless the returning mechanic is basic landcycling or something.

    As a flavor, the race of Slivers are way more appealing than Allies IMO. They're mysterious and fascinating, and the flavor of a species that can sync adaptations as a hive resonates well with the actual mechanic. Allies are fun but the mechanic doesn't particularly feel representative of teamwork among a band of adventurers. They're also not iconic.

    Allies have the advantage of being Humans. It's fun to imagine how they dealt with this issue, if Allies were a contender. There could have had an argument in the Pit that they should do Allies because people want creatures that they can identify with, not some weird little bio-pest. Maybe the Sliver camp said, "You want creatures with a face? We'll give Slivers a face! (Or body language, at least)"

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  4. Slivers are one of the most iconic tribes of Magic, and it was only a matter of time before they came back. A core set is a great place for them. Allies were a cleaner design than slivers, but much less fun; Merfolk Aerialist doesn't hold a candle to Winged Sliver.

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  5. I think we all agree that Slivers are much more iconic and have a lot more fans. What surprises me about their inclusion is that Slivers (even the revised version) aren't simple enough to print in a core set under NWO, in my opinion. It's possible they decided to spend most of their complexity points on Slivers because it was "worth it." It's also entirely possible that I'm just wrong and they are simple enough, but I feel like it's a misstep and will cost us more new players than it earns us.

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    1. I think the basic concept of Slivers is very grokkable.
      Keeping track of P/T bonuses might not be trivial, but it's something players would want to understand.
      Mixing and matching creature abilities is a very fun theme in Magic and I think it will attract more players than drive them away.

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    2. It's noteworthy that of the slivers they revealed so far, Common ones share abilites only, and Uncommon ones change power/toughness. If new players' decks are full of ability-slivers, with relatively few power/toughness-slivers, that makes it a lot easier to tell what all your creatures are at a glance.

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    3. Nice catch. That does alleviate my concerns considerably.

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    4. Oh, wow, good point. I'd just assumed there'd be a Muscle / Sinew / Bonesplitter / Watcher Sliver equivalent at common (or several of them), but maybe there really won't, and they'll all be uncommon. That's a cunning move if so.

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  6. I for one think that these Slivers are both easier to keep track of and more intuitively understandible than Allies. The ability to respond to the trigger from an ally entering the battlefield by killing it (shocking a Nimana Sell-Sword before it becomes 3/3, per example) would be a rampant dislike for newer players who hadn't figured it out.

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  7. Don't forget dice. Keeping track of how big your allies are on paper can be a real pain and new players don't always have the MTG paraphernalia that veterans build up over the years.

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    1. At least you get to use dice with Allies. You have to remember how big all your Slivers are without physical reminders.

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  8. The Sliver mirror is going to be really annoying with this new model. Unlike other tribes, every Sliver boosts it's buddies. Let's see, my Slivers have +2/+0 Trample, deathtouch, and lifelink, but all YOUR Slivers have +1/+1 Flying, first strike and Vigilance.

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    1. Just wait until you're playing the Sliver mirror with old and new Slivers. Ugh.

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