Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Tesla: Work in Progress

First off I just wanted to give a big thanks to HavelockV and Jay Treat. Last week life got in the way of me delivering a post, but they both stepped up to the plate with excellent posts to keep Tesla humming along. And now we can get back to laying the groundwork.

Two weeks ago I asked you to discuss mechanics that we could use to convey exploitation. I was thinking along the lines of Innistrad where mechanics represent different elements associated with the horror theme, like transformation with Double-Faced Cards. Well, that’s how I’d been viewing Innistrad, but Ant Tessitore astutely pointed out that those elements also more directly support the horror theme. Transform cards make you fear the actual event of the change, Morbid makes you fear creatures dying, and the like. If Tesla is going to be about progress, we had better start there.

Startup
But first, one more thing to address: in the comments on my last post, HavelockV asked if Tesla was top-down or bottom-up. The answer is that it’s not exactly either, but the question made me realize I’d never actually spelled out what plan I’m following. Today I remedy that oversight. Back when we were beginning this process we had a series of pitches for different sets and voted on which to pursue. While far from fully fleshed out, these pitches ended up containing both mechanical and creative elements, and I don’t feel comfortable throwing Tesla’s to the wayside. So we can’t really start with either flavor or mechanics because we’ve already got both.

But does that matter? After all, at the end of the day if both design and creative do their jobs, the audience isn’t supposed to be able to tell the difference. Wherever we start design, eventually we come to a cohesive structure that needs to be represented both creatively and mechanically. So I thought to myself: “Why not go straight there?” We’ve picked a theme, so my inclination is to jump in and try to design to it.


Making Progress
So what exactly are we going for? When you say “progress” most people are likely to think of continued improvement. We certainly need to capture that mechanically, but we’ve already run afoul of a problem. We’re not trying to convey a word; we’re trying to convey a concept. That’s why I went into more detail below each potential theme when we were voting. We’re not exactly talking about simple improvement so much as the process of change for the purpose of improvement. For humans that entails fear of new things, nostalgia for the way things used to be, excitement at a sea of new possibilities, and having to adapt ourselves to the new way the world works. It might not be possible to capture all of this in a mechanic simple enough to print at common. That’s okay. What we’re really aiming for is to make playing with Tesla as a whole feel like that.

We’ve got a delicate balance to strike. After all, Magic is already a game all about change. Every year we go to a completely different world with cards that work in ways we’ve never dreamed of. We could certainly push that further, but at some point it will feel too alien and unnerve people who came to Tesla wanting to play the Magic they know and love. Then again, Magic’s structure can also hinder our themes. The mana system inherently allows players to make more impactful plays as the game progresses. That sounds good, but this pattern is so engrained that it doesn’t even strike most experienced players as progress anymore.

But it’s harder to miss when a single card improves. We’ve seen ways to do that in Zendikar with quests, Rise of the Eldrazi with Level Up, Innistrad with the Vampire/Slith mechanic, Gatecrash with Evolve, and numerous others. It’s unclear just how much of this we want in Tesla, but I’d bet the answer isn’t zero.

Keep at It
As you might imagine, we’ve already come up with some potential keywords that fit the bill, but I’m not about to list them. Too often, I feel, we get caught up in discussing the problems of a specific mechanic and stop looking at the design goal the mechanic was trying to meet. So here are a few standalone cards each designed to capture a different facet of our theme. They might make it into the set, they might not, but hopefully they convey some of the emotional elements we’re going for. Your job, then, is to design to these niches or any other facet of progress that piques your interest.

51 comments:

  1. Progress, to me, is about growth, potential, change, and improvement.

    I think one of the most innovative things about Innistrad was in how the entire game environment cultivated a very specific atmosphere and mood. DFC cards led you to dread their flipped state - Morbid was an ever-present threat that could punish you at every turn - Flashback was a looming fate in store - Undying creatures truly felt like horror movie monsters, and their resilience was truly terrifying. Innistrad FELT like a horror movie. (New Phyrexia and Theros tried to do the same, but fell flat a bit more. I can go into detail about that another time...)

    But what is the feeling of progress? How do we make players feel as if they are in the atmosphere of Tesla?

    For that, we need to create an environment that rewards innovation, about unlocking potential and aspiring for greater things - there needs to be moments to look forward to and strive for, a continual advancement towards a greater future, and a world on the constant edge of drastic revolution.

    +1/+1 counters. Increasing mana costs. Kindle effects. "Potential" mechanics - Level Up, Transformation, Threshold, Metalcraft, etc... All of these are parts of the puzzle of capturing this feeling. But they are only single instruments to a greater symphony. It is the sum of their parts that will really be important.

    And now, mechanics.

    ------

    Now, let's start by exploring +1/+1 counters. Unfortunately, unbounded growth of a creature at common is not possible - so there needs to be some sort of restriction on the growth of the creature, to prevent such a thing. A few ideas include...

    > Limiting the growth of the creature naturally. This doesn't mean a blunt limit - it means a natural growth that tends towards a specific number. For instance, Evolve is a perfect example of a 'natural growth' mechanic.

    Last time, I suggested Progress, a mechanic that rewards creatures for casting spells greater than themselves. The 'curve' of a deck feels like a natural concept to tie to progress - things getting bigger and better, after all! - while also being a good concept to encourage newbies to adopt. Unfortunately, the keyword I used last time was both unlimited growth, and needed to say 'converted mana cost', a term not available to common! Luckily, a designer at MTG Salvation (Snow Creature - Penguin) happened upon a very similar idea to mine, but also one with the issues fixed! Behold, Progress 2.0:

    Progress 2.0 (Whenever you pay an amount of mana greater than this creature's power, you may put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)

    ---

    TO BE CONTINUED...

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    1. It has 'natural' growth, slowing down as the player finds it more difficult to pay ever-increasing amounts of mana... it rewards you for casting on a curve... and hey, a handy bonus is that it even rewards you for big activation costs! The anticipation for greater and bigger spells is also going to lead to fun moments, exciting comebacks, and the 'grand future' experience that Tesla needs to foster.

      > Not even having creatures grow 'themselves' at all. Instead, granting +1/+1 counters is a theme of the set. Jules, you stumbled across an amazing mechanic a while back related to this, but never used it again! I'd like to propose revisiting it.

      The idea was that any spells or abilities that grant +1/+1 counters in Tesla would also bestow upon the +1/+1'd the Artifact type - transhumanism! Then, some creatures would have the following ability:

      Transcendant - As long as this creature's power is greater than its original power, (effect).

      Bloodshot Trainee - the mechanic! Now, I've changed it to not refer to a specific number - instead, it refers to 'original power'. This would be a new term, referring to the printed power of the card. Is that doable? I think it is. It's pretty intuitive to most players.

      I think the ability has a lot of promise. It's immediately resonant flavor, exciting, and innovative - it's only been seen twice in Magic, and technically, this exact iteration has never been seen at all! Very exciting.

      Another note - this serves as a 'Potential' mechanic, one where its full abilities are unlocked only in specific conditions. I think that's great! It gives players a 'future state' to look forward to - one of the key experiences that the 'progress' atmosphere needs to deliver!

      Sidenote: It doesn't talk about 'toughness' even though Evolve does. What's up with that? Well... it COULD talk about toughness, if we wanted it to. Thing is, power is the more flavorful stat here - greater power gives you access to greater abilities, right? Greater toughness... doesn't really have that same ring to it.

      ----------

      Another space to explore is 'innovation'. We need to find a Johnny mechanic to reward players for trying new things. Splice onto Arcane, for instance, is a perfect 'innovative' mechanic, as it encourages players to experiment with different combinations and permutations of the same spells.

      The Mecha design originally put forward for Tesla is a great 'innovator' mechanic'. It's brand new! It's never been seen before in Magic! It has so many combinations it's currr-azy! But it's also a bit too crazy, which is its downfall.

      However, it does perfectly capture the 'bigger and better' environment and mood that Tesla wants. (And it works very well with the two mechanics I suggested earlier, too! ;D)

      Other than that, it's surprisingly hard to think of 'combinatory' mechanics. Any suggestions from the crowd?

      ----

      Hopefully that was worth the read. It's always fun to rant with design. Thanks for reading!

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    2. I like Progress 2.0 and Transcendent quite a bit-- especially the way that Transcendent gives combat tricks some extra oomph. I'd be inclined to write out the "original power" number-- in every case it will be the same number as the one written on the card, right? See below for an idea inspired by your post, which is similar to (but probably inferior to) Progress 2.0.

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    3. Lots of interesting stuff here! Assuming that players get Progress 2.0, I like it a lot, but I'm concerned that we're going to run into comprehension issues with things like firebreathing.

      I too like Transcendent, it just hasn't fit any of the topics we've discussed in the meantime. Definitely planning to give it a shot. As much as I like the clean consistent template, we probably will avoid a lot of confusion by explicitly stating the power threshold instead. That said, the on-off state doesn't read as progress as well as something like Levelers because there's no continued progression.

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    4. I agree that "combinatory" mechanics are the way to create a feeling of tinkering, unlocking potential, innovation. Splice is great for this (but has other problems); Auras (and to a lesser extent Equipment) can also give quite a combinatory feel and lead to interesting gameplay with a lot of in-game choices.

      And of course I think mecha are indeed a great way to do combination - I loved the playtest I did where you'd sometimes get deathtouch+vigilance, sometimes deathtouch+trample, sometimes deathtouch + gets-a-+1/+1-counter-on-attack, etc - and I look forward to seeing the discussion resume on how to make them work.

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  2. What does progress mean within the context of MtG? Life and deck counts falling down?

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    1. That's certainly a valid interpretation, but I feel like the "more impactful spells" angle is more likely to lead to fun gameplay.

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  3. I like the idea of "progress" in terms of what you'd see in a traditional RPG, where your power / capabilities / weapons keep improving, but so do prices / enemies / difficulty levels. It's a kind of continuous escalation where you have to keep ahead of the curve. Think Figure of Destiny. Quick and dirty mechanic possibility:

    Improve (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay {1} for each +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on it.)

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    1. I like this. It reminds me of Bolster as designed by Metallix87, and I think that'd be an excellent mechanic to draw from for inspiration.

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    2. I like it too, though it probably doesn't want to be an upkeep trigger because it'll feel bad when you immediately draw a spell you are now unable to cast.

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  4. What if we view progress in correlation to time. Time in MtG is often measured in turns (e.g., Time Walk). One idea would be a card that gets better as turns progress.

    Scientists 1U
    Creature - Human
    Turn 1-2: Scientist is a 1/2 creature.
    Turn 3-4: Scientist is a 1/3 creature with "Tap: Draw a card, then discard a card from your hand."
    Turn 4+: Scientist is a 1/4 creature with "Tap: Draw a card."

    Something like this would be decent early on, but progressively get better as the game moves along. After you've progressed a good chunk of turns, top-decking something similar wouldn't give you the same stress as something you have to sink turns/resources into.

    Food Reserves GW
    Enchantment
    Turn 4-5: At the beginning of your upkeep, gain 1 life for each creature you control.
    Turn 5+: At the beginning of your upkeep, gain 1 life for each creature you control. Creatures you control get +1/+1.

    This starts out as a useless piece but, as the game progresses, gets significantly better. I'm sure the amount of turns would need to be reworked for balance, but the general idea is there.

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    1. Serra Avenger dabbled in this space. It becomes hard to play with because many players find it hard to track which turn they're on. Especially past turns 3 or 4.

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    2. Yeah, if Magic was only played on MTGO I'd be all for this, but as it stands I imagine it's untrackable. That said, Magic does have some pretty good indicators of game length we could use instead: number of lands, number of cards in graveyard, number of cards in library...

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  5. When I think of reckless progress, I can't help but think of cumulative upkeep. I don't think that mechanic adds enough interest to justify its bookkeeping, but I have to wonder if we can't rebuild the idea.

    Faulty Bludger {3}
    Artifact Creature—Construct (cmn)
    Reckless Progress — At the beginning of your upkeep, Pay {X} or sacrifice CARDNAME, where X is the number of artifacts you control.
    4/4

    Clockwork Kegger {4}
    Artifact Creature—Construct (unc)
    Reckless Progress — At the beginning of your upkeep, ~ deals X damage to each creature, where X is the number of artifacts you control.
    3/3

    Mind Factory {4}
    Artifact (rare)
    Reckless Progress — At the beginning of your upkeep, put the top X cards of your library into your discard pile and draw X cards, where X is the number of artifacts you control.

    Mana Factory {2}
    Artifact (rare)
    Reckless Progress — At the beginning of your first main phase, Add {X} to your mana pool and lose X life, where X is the number of artifacts you control.

    I switched to artifacts from progress counters each being added when you play the card when I realized they were largely the same as long as we only use them on artifacts. You lose progress when one of your artifacts is destroyed (which is justifiable if we're talking about progress in terms of infrastructure), but it doesn't require any extra book-keeping. It also plays well turning your creatures into artifacts if we go that route.

    Counting the number of artifacts you control each round is more work than metalcraft. It's also possible to design all of these so they never scale, or only happen once, but all drain the same resource so even just the linear progression is significant.

    Milling Bludger {3}
    Artifact Creature—Construct (cmn)
    Reckless Progress without Scaling — At the beginning of your upkeep, mill 1.
    4/4

    Miller Bludger {3}
    Artifact Creature—Construct (cmn)
    Reckless Progress without Iteration — When CARDNAME ETB, mill 3.
    4/4

    Those are much simpler but all downside. The Mining mechanic we discussed a few weeks ago can turn that around.

    Mining Bludger {3}
    Artifact Creature—Construct (cmn)
    Reckless Mining — When CARDNAME ETB, mine. Then, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each land card in your graveyard.
    2/2

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    1. For reference:

      Mine (Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card. Put one of those cards on top of your library and the rest into your graveyard.)

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    2. I imagine this interpretation will play quite well, but it'll be hard to get players on board with things that read like this much downside. I'd be happier trying to get something closer to our existing version of mine so that players don't recognize the danger until they're already playing with the cards.

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    3. I thought this was our existing version of Mine.

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    4. Reckless Progress feels more like "don't play me with other artifacts" which doesn't sound fun. Reckless Mining looks great, I love the smoothing and the feeling of risk.

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    5. @Jay: It is, sorry for my inept wording. I meant Mine vs. Reckless Mining.

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  6. Brainstorming:

    Experiment (Reveal the top two cards of your library. You may play them if you play both. If you don't, exile them.)

    Experiment (Reveal the top card of each player's library. You may play them if you play all of them. If you don't, exile them.)

    Hypothesis (Name a card and look at the top card of any library. If it's the named card, you may play it.)

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    1. Hypothesis lends itself a bit too well to Magic's many know-the-top-of-your-library effects. I don't think we'd want to encourage a state where hypotheses were only effective when you'd manipulated things so you knew for sure what the answer would be before you looked.

      On the other hand, I love both ideas of Experiment presented here.

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    2. I don't think the scry interactions for hypothesis are too problematic, but it would definitely need a higher hit rate before I'd be comfortable printing it. Can we choose a card type?

      Both versions of experiment are pretty cool, but I'm 99% sure they can't work within the rules. Even with something like Brilliant Ultimatum you have to play cards one at a time, and the game has no way to know if you'll cast the second spell when you're casting the first.

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    3. That's a fair point about experiment. How about "Play them both if able. If you only cast one of them, counter it"? It's less clear... and it doesn't account for the land case, bleh, which gets even wordier...

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  7. There is an M15 card that might fit the "oppression theme" in Tesla. Its a red enchantment that rewards you for controlling all creatures on the battlefield with the highest power. we could look to that card as something for inspiration.

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    1. http://i.imgur.com/FJjfYL1.png

      Another great creature that seems like it could slot right into Tesla...

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    2. Might Makes Right is basically one of the versions of Dominance we had (though they behave differently when there's a tie). It's certainly still something we could include in small doses.

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  8. "Innovation". Hmm. I love games in which you get to be creative, you get to make up something that's not happened before. Magic as a whole is naturally like that, especially "combination" mechanics like Auras and Equipment (and Splice, as was mentioned upthread). I think a higher-than-normal count of Equipment, Auras, and similar would bring quite a feeling of innovation, combination, unlocking potential, and so on without needing any named mechanics. (Though "I like to be enchanted"/"I like to be equipped" could be given a name, similar to Theros's Heroic, to get a bit more of an "unlocking potential" feel.)

    And "unlocking potential" is of course above all the mecha. A half of a mecha is inherently potential waiting to be unlocked. I really enjoyed the playtest I did with mecha and I think we should definitely hold on to them if at all possible.

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    1. Is it possible to have a single-card mechanic feel like innovation?

      Kitelift Innovator
      1W, Creature - Cat Artificer, common, 2/2
      Innovate - As long as all nonland permanents you control have different names, CARDNAME has flying.

      A bit boring. Too easy to happen in limited without trying. How about:

      Innovate - Whenever a creature ETBs under your control with a different power to each other creature you control, [do something]?

      Somewhat similar to Evolve, but looking for newness/originality rather than largeness.

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    2. Innovate (Search your library for a card with a single keyword ability and exile it. ~ gains that ability. Shuffle)

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    3. Trend (When ~ ETB, choose a keyword ability. All creatures with trend have the last ability chosen.)

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    4. Trend is hilarious. Choose "protection from black" against a mono-black deck; their out is to play a creature with trend themselves and choose, say, banding, or protection from Kavu. Islandwalk of course is a good choice against a blue deck; thankfully islandhome is no longer a keyword ability, but echo is a nasty hoser possibility.

      ...Wait, no, "annihilator 6" rather breaks that. Never mind.

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    5. Annihilator may rather break Jay's Innovate too. It can't hit Emrakul, but Kozilek, Butcher of Truth has "Annihilator 4" and no other keywords.

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    6. Trend is way too broken with some stuff. Annihilator 1000? Yes please.

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    7. Trend is pretty cool, but it certainly has issues. I imagine a workable version would just have two modes to choose between. Perhaps +1/+0 vs. Vigilance? As for Innovate, I think AlexC's second version has some promise. I don't have much intuitive sense for how often it will trigger or how hard it is to track. That said, I don't think it's the ideal representation for innovation since the gameplay itself doesn't let the player feel innovative.

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    8. What about:
      Flying Trend (When this ETB, all creatures you control with Trend gain Flying until another creature with Trend enters the battlefield under your control).

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    9. I was thinking that was the next step in the discussion. Or:

      Trend—Flying (Creatures you control with trend have flying).

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    10. @James: I'm not sure how we can do this at common. There's very little overlap between NWO compliance and low enough power level for static team buffs at common.

      @Jay: I was all set to comment on how much fun this looked, then I realized I was right, but also it's Slivers.

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    11. A Sliver or Ally -like mechanic could be fun, and feels like progress as your group of creatures gets better. Or something like the M15 Paragons or the Shadowmoor Mentors, flavored as a cycle of Inventors.

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    12. Shoulders of Giants — Flying (~ has flying. As long as ~ is in your graveyard, creatures you control with Shoulders of Giants have flying.)

      I think this is worse, but it is different from Silvers and Allies, and not athematic.

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  9. I think the key to making people feel progress is having the game naturally ramp up over time. Magic does this normally with the land system, but we could find ways to emphasize that angle.

    I'd be interested in trying Quests or something similar, here. Maybe something with double-faced cards, like so...

    Angel Construction Project 1W
    Enchantment
    Tap an untapped creature you control: put a progress counter on Angel Construction Project. Activate this ability only any time you could play a sorcery.
    When there are seven or more progress counters on Angel Construction Project, transform it.

    ----

    Man-Made Angel
    Artifact Creature - Angel
    Vigilance, lifelink
    Other creatures you control get +1/+1.
    4/4

    The progress counter mechanic from before was cool too, I'd like to use that if possible.

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    1. Whoops, forgot to give the angel flying. Pretend I remembered, please.

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    2. Quests are certainly a possibility, but I think improvement will be better conveyed by something with more than two states. Perhaps Ordeals are a better model.

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    3. I don't know, I can see quest-style effects fitting the feeling we're going for. Not sure about DFCs here given that we're also wanting to use them for mecha, but I suppose there's no inherent reason why you can't have two different kinds of DFC in the same set.

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    4. I didn't see this before submitting my Project Artifacts below, interesting how we went to similar space. I think the two-states model here can work. Instead of DFC technology, these could be done like the Theros gods: "As long as ~ has less than seven progress counters on it, it isn't a creature." Combined with the counter-adding mechanic, though, that could get to be a cramped text box.

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  10. Progress includes working towards lofty goals, awe-inspiring projects like the space program. "Project" artifacts have a powerful, out of reach ability that you can use your creatures to work towards.

    Cure for Aging 3
    Artifact (C)
    10,T: You gain 5 life. This ability costs 1 less to activate for each charge counter on CARDNAME.
    Tap an untapped creature you control: Put a charge counter on CARDNAME. Activate this ability as a sorcery.

    Time Machine 5
    Artifact (U)
    10, T: Put target creature into its owner's library under the top 2 cards. This ability costs 1 less to activate for each charge counter on CARDNAME.
    Tap an untapped creature you control: Put a charge counter on CARDNAME. Activate this ability as a sorcery.

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    1. "Projects" may be the best mechanical implementation of this world that I've seen yet. It also plays well with expendable drone creatures.

      I'm concerned that Projects and Mecha feel too much like Levelers and Eldrazi, though, with a corresponding decrease in format speed. Will players be able to create aggressive decks without depriving opponents of the fun of using the set-specific mechanical gimmicks?

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    2. Why do they need to be mutually exclusive? What about:

      Cure for Aging 3
      Artifact (C)
      10,T: You gain 5 life. This ability costs 1 less to activate for each charge counter on CARDNAME.
      Whenever you attack with a creature, put a charge counter on CARDNAME.

      Or even:

      Cure for Aging 3
      Artifact (C)
      10,T: You gain 5 life. This ability costs 1 less to activate for each tapped creature you control.

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    3. I like how both of Jules's variants discourage turtling by powering up through the attack step. I was a big fan of the slowness of Rise of the Eldrazi, but Theros has shown us that you can have a healthy, fun, format that includes both bears.dec on the one hand and giant monsters on the other.

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  11. Cultivate
    Divination
    cantrips
    big spells
    and kicker (of some variety)

    are existing ways to emote progress

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    1. All good ones. These may be effects we want slightly more of in Tesla in the same way that Innistrad had a higher than normal instant count.

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