Moving Activation Restrictions to the Left of the Colon

The Review for the last WAC will come later this week. Today, let's chat about a potential upgrade to Magic templating. Remember when they changed "Enchant Creature" to "Enchantment-Aura" and "Summon Knight" to "Creature-Human Knight"? Go even further back and remember when they clarified 'Mono', 'Poly' and 'Continuous' Artifacts? There have been countless tweaks and upgrades to the templates used for Magic cards over the decades, most of them small, in the form of word choice and phrasing, but some of them significant, noticeable.

A few days ago, Ipaulsen suggested "Sacrifice this artifact on your turn: Untap target permanent." The act of moving the timing restriction from the right side of the colon to the left spawned a conversation and rightly so. Turns out, it's got potential. The right side might not be the correct side.

Hell's Caretaker

Cinderhaze Wretch

Ancient Hellkite

Not only does this change reduce the amount of text needed to express abilities with conditions, it also makes considerably more sense. The items on the right of the colon are what you get for activating the ability, and on the left are the instructions for how to get them. Have you started reading an ability thinking "this is awesome" only to get to the reality-punch of a last sentence that explains when you can use it? Why on Earth would when be the last thing we learn about an ability?

Argent Sphinx

Bloodshot Trainee

Bloodsoaked Champion

Tested the idea of removing "if" from Bloodsoaked Champion's new template; With the understanding that everything left of the colon is a cost or condition, words like that are redundant. But that doesn't work for cards like Bloodshot Trainee, because then it sounds like we're setting the goblin's power to 4 as part of the cost; We want to be consistent, so let's use 'if' 'while' 'during' and the like whenever they would apply to the old template.

Bloodthirsty Ogre

Aside: How is Bloodthirsty Ogre's ability not merely: "{T}: Target creature gets -1/-1 until EOT for each Demon you control"?

Chronatog Totem

Haunted Plate Mail

I got a little bold with Chronatog Totem's and Haunted Plate Mail's {0} abilities. I'm not married to removing that {0} from the cost, though I suspect that the only reason to keep it is the comforting rug that is The Old Way. I even suspect this will make more sense to new players.

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EDIT: Havelock and Bass suggested moving the restriction in front of the cost, and separating it explicitly. I agree that's even better than what we've got so far. Evan made a mockup I want to share of how that could be called out with graphic design:

Cinderhaze Wretch

The downside of this treatment is that it costs more space rather than saving space, but the win of making restrictions to ability activations so clear is considerable enough that it's worth discussing, at the very least.

Let's also see what that might look like without any special treatment:

Salt Road Patrol

This particular example is a little awkward since the {T} broke to a second line, though it probably wouldn't for Abzan Falconer. Even so, ordering the restrictions, cost, & effect of an ability this way makes far and away the most sense and seems worth the change in templating to me. Maybe we don't want to use an em dash to separate the restriction from the cost, since we use that for ability words, though we do also use that for modal "choose" spells, so maybe it's best to use it everywhere.

Something else this all brings up is the strangeness of the phrase "[Activate this ability only] as a sorcery." Sorceries aren't the only thing you cast "at sorcery speed:" Creatures, artifacts… oh right, everything except instants are cast when nothing is on the stack during your main phase. Maybe we can find or invent a term that gets directly to the point instead of waxing poetic about it. Can we use "only as a spell" given that all spells are 'slow' except for instants, emphasis on the exception? Please share your own ideas.

And as long as we're exploring that path, we should also consider the possibility of finding an icon to shorthand the concept entirely, as Chah suggests. Activating an ability as a non-instant is by far the most common activation restriction—more evergreen than protection and almost as evergreen as regenerate. I'd suggest a variation on the tap symbol, but {Q} is already a thing and not all non-instant activations involve tapping. I'd suggest replacing the colon with a semicolon, but that's too subtle (and suggests 'faster' more than 'slower.') Double colons? Might feel too technical, and I'm not at all confident it's obvious enough to make players ask what it means. Would love to hear more suggestions.

Salt Road Patrol

And here it is with an icon in the newly proposed restrictions space. Went with an hourglass over a clock to be less anachronistic. That actually looks pretty good. (Click to zoom, as always.)

Salt Road Patrol