Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Designing Suvnica, Week 17: Alpha Dog Days

The test deck we'll be pairing off our Illustrate test deck against will showcase this mechanic:




Our working playtest name for the mechanic will be ruthless. Unlike Illustrate, I don't anticipate this being a tremendous issue at common, so our numbers will be a little more in sync with the Gatecrash mechanic distribution. Our playtest deck will require the following Ruthless cards:

  • 5 commons (2 Black, 2 Red, 1 Multicolor)
  • 3 uncommons (1/1/1)
  • 3 rares (1/1/1)


The design challenge will remain the same as with last time we did this. You may submit:
  • Up to three cards
  • Up to one Common, one Uncommon, and one Rare/Mythic
  • Up to one Black, one Red, and one Multicolor/Hybrid card
  • No more than two cards with Ruthless
  • No more than two support cards without Ruthless
  • Up to one top-down Rakdos design, that neither has Ruthless nor supports it, but bleeds Radkar flavor (ha!)
If anyone is looking for inspiration, some more of Circeus' designs for the mechanic can be found here under the heading "hubatish's Power Hungry". 

While everyone is working on this, I'll be putting some of the finishing touches on the Illustrate playtest deck, which should be a blast. Also, no one volunteered last time, but I figured I might as well ask again: Anyone want to help me track down art and/or concept cards for playtesting? Get in touch on twitter.

That's it. The mechanic is Ruthless. Don't hold back.

63 comments:

  1. Hey, what's the code to get the symbols for hybrid mana in comments?

    Alley Swooper {r}{b}
    Creature — Bat (C)
    Flying
    Ruthless — If you control a creature with power less than Alley Swooper when it enter the battled, Alley Swooper gains haste until end of turn.
    2/1

    Wall of Skulls {1}{b}
    Creature — Wall (U)
    Defender
    {1}{BR}: Wall of Skulls gets +1/+1 until end of turn.
    0/3

    Elemental of Murders {4}{r}{r}
    Creature — Elemental (R)
    Intimidate
    Ruthless — If you control a creature with power less than Elemental of Murders when it enter the battled, Elemental of Murders deals 2 damage to each other creature.
    4/4

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    1. Nevermind the question about hybrid. The answer is curly braces +the two letters in the correct order and no slash (I've tried it with slashes before IIRC and it failed).

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    2. I like where monocolored cards with hybrid abilities can lead, but they seem like a better fit for something like Shadowmoor since their main advantage over off-color-activations is that they encourage both specific color pairs AND monocolored decks. Wall of Skulls itself leaves me a bit lost. With the colorless in the cost it's going to be very rare that you can activate it more times than if it were {1}{B}. What's more, the ability makes sense in black, but not red.
      Elemental of Murders works with the right cards, but runs counter to what a Ruthless-based deck wants, but that's okay on a rare. I'm not sure what Intimidate's doing here, the flavor's pretty good, but the Elemental already clears out a lot of blockers and Intimidate needs better justification than normal in a multicolored set because it's less effective. For instance, RTR block only has 3 cards that have or grant intimidate whereas ISD block has 11.

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    3. "their main advantage over off-color-activations is that they encourage both specific color pairs AND monocolored decks." You do realize that's something I am pushing for? Shadowmoor was actually supposed to push monocolor (hybrid allowing for a card to be in different colors' decks), but me I'd like for Suvnica to push specific pairs because I always thought the strong emphasis in Ravnica limited/constructed on 3-color deck was a disservice to the guild flavor.

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    4. Ah, I hadn't realized you were trying to push monocolored here. I guess it depends on exactly what context we're interpreting this project in, but if we're replacing the original Ravnica then I think we ought to take the RTR and GTC approach and only push two color decks, not three-colored or mono-colored ones.

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    6. Where did you get I was pushing for monocolor? I was explaining that pushing monocolor was what Shadowmoor used hybrid for. Obviously I'm wanting to encourage people toward guild decks instead 3-colored ones.

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    7. I like the {1}{R} version a lot. It could easily be +2/+0 without being too strong.

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    8. I was saying a hybrid activation makes the card good for guild decks or monocolored ones, so to encourage just guild play we should use off-color activations instead.

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  2. Street Gang Attack {B}{R}
    Sorcery (Common)
    Put two 1/1 black and red Goblin Rogue creature tokens with haste onto the battlefield.

    Rakdar Gang Lord {3}{R}{R}
    Creature- Ogre Warrior (Uncommon)
    3/3
    Trample
    Ruthless-- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with less power, other creatures you control get +1/+1 and gain trample until end of turn.

    Radkar Extortionist {3}{B}
    Creature- Human Rogue (Rare)
    1/2
    At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent may pay 4 life, sacrifice a creature, or discard a card. Any opponent who does not do any of these loses the game. You gain 4 life for each opponent who paid life this way, draw a card for each opponent who discarded a card this way, and put a 1/1 black Bat creature token with flying onto the battlefield for each opponent who sacrificed a creature this way.

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    1. Does the 'other' in Rakdar Gang Lord refer to himself or the small creature. Can we just omit 'other?'

      Extortionist is neat, though it's also 9 lines of rules text.

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    2. Good point about the Gang Lord. It feels bad to give him a bonus he can (almost) never use, though. I wonder if Ruthless might support doing something to/for all of the smaller creatures?

      Ruthless-- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, creatures you control with less power than CARDNAME get +1/+1 and gain trample until end of turn.

      Sorry about the text on the Extortionist. I came up with a couple of edits to shorten it:

      At the beginning of your upkeep, each opponent may pay 4 life, sacrifice a creature, or discard a card. Any opponent who does none of these loses the game. You gain life equal to the life lost this way, draw a card for each card discarded this way, and put a 1/1 black Bat creature token with flying onto the battlefield for each creature sacrificed this way.

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    3. Also, P/T on the Extortionist should be 1/3 for maximum hidden meaning.

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    4. I love Street Gang Attack. It's so clean!
      Radkar Extortionist, on the other hand, has too much going on. The flavor match of giving your opponent a torturous decision is excellent, but two options work as well as three. I'd cut the discard. Having separate benefits for each detriment also adds text, but I think the gameplay benefits there outweigh the costs.

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  3. Raging Goblin

    War Trumpeter {2}{BR}
    Creature—Goblin Rogue (unc)
    Ruthless—When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, creatures you control get +2/+0 until EOT.
    2/2

    Pyschopathic Predator {2}{B}{B}
    Creature—Human Assassin (rare)
    First strike
    Ruthless—When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, destroy target creature.
    2/2

    While the gameplay ruthless encourages is aggressive like evolve, the flavor feels a lot more like cooperation than oppression…

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    1. Very good point. Having the 'curve' of creatures feels like an interlinked network, not like ambitious guildmembers scrabbling for power. "lower power" also feels a lot like "protecting the meek", no? Perhaps this could be more Boros than Rakdos.

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    2. Good call on Raging Goblin. An all-in Ruthless strategy is really going to want 1-mana 1/1s. I'd also expect to see something along the lines of Asphodel Wanderer in the set.

      I agree that the feel of the Ruthless mechanic isn't quite right. When you are playing 1- and 2-power haste creatures (of which we have seen quite a lot so far), you will often want to keep them back in order to trigger Ruthless later. Also, Ruthless cards don't care whether the new guy has the highest power or not-- just whether you have at least one creature below him. These qualities seem rather un-Radkar to me.

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    3. In fairness, a lot of the expression of ruthless depends on the effect we add on. "Your creatures get +2/+0" is very group-oriented, while "this creature does something now" less so.
      We can only grant haste so often, so I expect a lot of one-off effects like burn, discard, card draw, +1/+1 counters, etc.
      We might have to abolish the group effects entirely to preserve the Radkar's flavor.

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    4. I agree on cutting the army benefits, but we may need further flavor adaptation since it could fit just as well as a creature fighting harder when it has somebody to protect.
      Even if we leave it as is, I'd like to do some retemplating. Intervening if clauses were okay for Evolve to reduce the feel bad from its anti-synergy with Bloodrush, but I think we either need to allow power boosting tricks or avoid printing Ruthless creatures as small as Psychopathic Predator.

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    5. I don't see a way to template ruthless without an intervening if clause.

      Replacing Trumpeter:

      Radkar War Orc {2}{BR}
      Creature—Orc Warrior (unc)
      Ruthless—When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME.
      3/1

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    6. It would just be: "Ruthless--When CARNAME enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on it if you control a creature with lower power."
      Then the trigger condition is just entering the battlefield, but when it resolves it only does something if the condition is met.

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    7. That does work. Thanks. Not sure it gets us much, though. It only means you can put a lower power creature OTB in response rather than right before.

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    8. Maybe it doesn't need to be ETB necessarily. Attack triggers, dies, etc. could be explored.

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    9. Constantly tracking relative power adds a ton of board complexity. I want to try a death trigger since according to WoTC new players don't worry about those beforehand.

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    10. It would be weird if the creature itself with Ruthless would have the ability trigger when it dies, so maybe it would care whenever a weaker creature kicked the bucket?

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    11. That's pretty great flavor. The boss sends her lessors into combat and certain death for her own secret reasons.

      War Profiteer 4B
      3/3 rare Human Rogue
      Scheme—Whenever a creature you control with power lower than ~ dies, draw a card.

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    12. I like scheme a lot actually. I'm going to try to remember that if the planned Radkar mechanics don't pan out.

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  4. I'll Borrow That {B}
    Instant (com)
    Target creature gets -2/-0 until end of turn. Another target creature gets +2/+0 until end of turn.

    Front-line Opportunist {4}{R}
    Creature—Ogre (unc)
    Ruthless—When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, you may sacrifice that creature. If you do, CARDNAME deals damage equal to that creature's power to target creature or player.
    Fligg suspected his helmet was more aerodynamic than it was durable.
    4/2

    Auger Augur {1}{B}{R}
    Creature—Human Wizard (rare)
    Ruthless—When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, you may sacrifice that creature. If you do, draw cards equal to that creature's power and add an amount of {R} to your mana pool equal to its toughness.
    2/1

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    1. It's possible to just strike the "you may" from both of the latter in order to get a more ruthless feel.

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    2. Yes, but it also plays a lot worse, I feel.

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    3. I suspect "sacrificing that creature" wants to be part of the ability word.

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    4. If it becomes it, we could squeeze it down by just specifying "sacrifice a creature with a lower power"

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    5. "Sacrifice a creature with lower power" is a good idea. The original template doesn't make it entirely clear that you get your choice if there's more than one.

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    6. I approve of sacrificing the creature. Sounds like a great way to separate the ability from a "protecting the meek" feel. Sending the meek to the slaughter is just a great image.

      However, it might not play very well, and it makes for quite the Spike-y decision. Playtesting will show, I guess.

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    7. Inanimate hit the nail on the head. I'd like to run this version by some less spike-y players than myself before taking it for a test run.

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    8. I'm not sure I'll Borrow That is black. Black hasn't done this type of effect since Time Spiral (Stonghold Overseer). Yes it's in M13's Public Execution, but as a flavorful rider on a very black effect. -X/-0 is very much a blue thing nowadays

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    9. It was originally more of a blatant enabler than it is now, as it involved siphoning power from your creatures to another one, but I tried paring it down for common.

      There isn't a whole lot of even historical precedent for Black to do power restricting, but I'm not strongly opposed to it. It's also possible to turn it into -1/-1 or something similar and scale the cost up.

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  5. I'm going to be attempting to flesh out the flavor of Radkar as 'political opportunists' - as opposed to the mindless revelry of Rakdos, the Radkar are a rebel faction focused singlemindedly on the acquisition of power through any means, which typically means intimidation and strongarm tactics. This does not make them villainous, though it certainly makes it easy for the system to characterize them as such.

    Zealous Firebrand {R}
    Creature - Human Rebel (C)
    {1}{R}: Zealous Firebrand gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
    0/1
    "In the eyes of the fool, destruction is the end. But in the eyes of the visionary, destruction is but the beginning."

    Functional reprint of Bellowing Lizard. The low power helps support Ruthless in limited; but the firebreathing helps keep the pressure on and make a low-drop more relevant in the late game.

    Incendiary Agent {3}{R}{R}
    Creature - Elemental Rebel (U)
    Ruthless - When Incendiary Agent enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, gain control of target creature until end of turn. Untap that creature. It gains haste until end of turn.
    5/3
    "Break free from the chains of your caste, brothers! True power is found in freedom! True freedom is found in anarchy!"

    While Act of Treason is uncommon, this is most often a 2-for-1, and has huge swing potential. I think this would be better to test at uncommon, and if it proves to be a bit underwhelming there, we can bump it down to common.
    PS: I love the multiple puns in the name. (:

    Usurp {B}
    Instant (R)
    Destroy target creature target creature with the greatest power.
    "Being on top gives you a long, long way to fall."

    Is your creature not the best on board? Time to change that.

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    1. How appropriate that I make a typo in my attempt to fix a typo.

      Usurp should only say "target creature" once. :P

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    2. Having a Bellows Lizard/Flamekin Brawler is great for Ruthless, but to see enough play to do any enabling we need to make it at least as strong as one of those cards given that neither was a powerhouse in the first place.
      You were definitely right not to put Incendiary Agent at common. This effect has always been at rare when unconditional: Zealous Conscripts, Conquering Manticore, and Molten Primordial. That makes me think uncommon is a plausible place for it, but with lower power so that triggering isn't a forgone conclusion.
      Usurp is probably too strong for Standard, and not very cool at 2 mana, but it's cool and if it can be made to work I'd definitely like to remedy the current situation where all of the best removal in eternal formats is white rather than black.

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    3. Yeah, I was thinking 5/3 might be too pushed. 4/3 is probably better.

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    4. Small quibble, but what happens with Usurp when two creatures are tied for the highest power?

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    5. There's reminder text for that, as seen on Topple. (If two or more creatures are tied for greatest power, target any one of them.)

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    6. I know topple doesn't have this text, but Usurp really needs to specify "among all creatures on the battlefield" to avoid player confusion.

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  6. Shrivel [reprint]

    Tempestuous Tyrant {3}{br}{br}
    Creature-Ogre Berserker (U)
    Haste
    Ruthless - When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, choose a creature you control with lower power. CARDNAME gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is that creature's power.
    4/3

    Quash Rebellion {X}{B}{B}{R}{R}
    Sorcery (R)
    CARDNAME deals X damage to each creature target player controls and deals damage to that player equal to the amount of damage dealt this way.

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    1. Tempestuous Tyant doesn't feel black at all.

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    2. Whoops, I forgot to change the cost to mono red. I literally made it thinking "these mechanics are in both colors," but then decided that it still felt like a red card and decided to make a different multicolored card.

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    3. Shrivel is a clever enabler, though I wonder how many players will think the -1/-1 effect applies to new creatures, and thus would incorrectly think Shrivel won't help with ruthless. I also wonder if Radkar will have a lot of 1/2s.

      This template might work for Tyrant:
      Ruthless - When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, CARDNAME gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is that creature's power.

      This definitely does, but is less good:
      Ruthless - When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if you control a creature with lower power, CARDNAME gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is the lowest power among creatures you control.

      Is Quash Rebellion too good for Commander?

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    4. Actually, it should be fine to bend the base template when the result is functionally identical:

      Ruthless - When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, choose a creature you control with lower power, CARDNAME gets +X/+0 until end of turn, where X is that creature's power.

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    5. Hmm...Quash Rebellion can certainly kill the token player out of nowhere or hit somebody else for 16-20. I'm pretty sure the fact that it only hits one player means it's not too good compared to, say, Insurrection. But if it's anywhere near as unfun I don't want to print it.
      Let's try it at {X}{X}{R}{B}. That should keep it at a similar power level for faster formats, but tone it down for Commander.

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  7. Replies
    1. That brings up an interesting point. Radkar decks are going to want an interesting mix of defense and offense - the Ruthless guys are high power, but the creatures needed to support them are lower power. This would lead to some fun decisions in Limited, I think. (:

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  8. Looking through the discussion above relating to the flavor disconnect, I'm wondering a few things. First, this and Power Hungry were equal contenders for this slot. I didn't want to test both, but they both seemed viable. Despotism seemed like it would be relevant more frequently, which is why I ultimately settled on it.

    When I was renaming it, I picked ruthless as the test name since that captured some of the essence driving the flavor of the mechanic, but as discussed above, there is a flavor disconnect when it cares only about being bigger, not necessarily biggest.

    Question 1) since it makes more sense from a flavor perspective, would you prefer to design for Power Hungry?

    Question 2) If not, if I renamed ruthless to something like gang leader or Alpha would it be as much of a flavor disconnect (the ruthless creature is leading one gang, but not necessarily all the local radkar)?

    Any other suggestions?

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    1. Anything that gets across a flavor of vying for control of some sort would work.

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    2. I think Power Hungry is a feel-bad mechanic, by the way, and I would not recommend it. Perhaps re-arranging it to be "As long as you control the creature with the greatest power" could work?

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    3. You know what's funny? I came up with a Sorba mechanic (Way, way after the design week for that guild) that is exactly the opposite...

      Fatefighting Justiciar {w}
      Creature – Dwarf
      Dauntless — Fatefighting Justiciar has first strike as long as you do not control the creature with the highest power.
      2/1

      New World Helix {r}{w}
      Instant
      New World Helix deals 2 damage to target creature or opponent and you gain 2 life.
      Dauntless — If you do not control the creature with the highest power, instead New World Helix deals 3 damage to target creature or player and you gain 3 life.

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    4. Nice. This was mentioned way back when, but Ruthless (with a different flavored name) works for both Sorba and Sahleen from a flavor standpoint as well.

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    5. Upon further consideration, I'm going to leave the mechanic and name as is. There may be a better name out there, but ruthless seems like a solid mechanic worthy of testing as is. We'll revisit after testing.

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  9. Card 1:
    Fanged Inquisitor 3B
    Creature- Vampire Rogue (C)
    Ruthless- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if it has the highest power among creatures you control, each player sacrifices a creature.
    3/1

    Card 2:
    Dead-Eye Giant 2RR
    Creature- Giant Archer (U)
    Ruthless- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if it has the highest power among creatures you control, another target creature you control gets +2/+0 and gains flying until end of turn. Sacrifice that creature at end of turn.
    4/3

    Card 3:
    Radkar Shade BR
    Creature- Shade (R)
    B: +1/+1 ueot.
    R: +1/+0 ueot.
    -1/1

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    1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    2. The shade was my submission for this weekend's art challenge and we changed it to {br}{br} and its uncommon. So we could change the giant to:

      Dead-Eye Colossus {3}{r}{r}
      Creature- Giant (R)
      Ruthless- When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, if it has the highest power among creatures you control, sacrifice another creature. If you do, CARDNAME deals damage equal to the sacrificed creature's power to target player.
      5/5

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    3. My change to the trigger criteria is intended to express what a ruthless bastard can be capable of doing as long as no one is around to keep him in check. (Think: The Governor from TWD)

      The original version of ruthless tells a story, but not one that feels particularly ruthless (or black/red). The tone I read into it was "protecting the meek", or "emboldened by the community". My version of ruthless attempts to feel more like the gloves are off and no one is safe.

      The only "design rule" for the rider ability I suggest: It HAS to have some element of sadism or cruelty that ties into the weaker dudes that trigger him. "This guy is a weakling, so I can smash your face" doesn't connect the dots. "This guy is weaker so I can use him as a tool to get what I want" is exactly where Radkar wants to be.

      I hope I didn't step on anyone's toes

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    4. I agree that, from a flavor standpoint, ruthless makes more sense by turning on only if the guy coming in is the biggest and baddest. From a gameplay perspective, it makes the ability much less relevant. When you hit the right numbers it would be awesome, but when you don't you're not having fun, and you're much less likely to hit your numbers when the trigger is that much tighter.

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