Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Tesla: Animated Short

Tesla is continuing full steam ahead, and after talking about Batteries last week it's time to take a look at another innovative idea from our artifact mechanics discussion: Zachariah Howell's Animate.

Animate cares about artifacts like never before. It encourages players to build interesting decks whether its inspiring Johnny to combo off with Proteus Staff or just providing an awfully efficient version Obelisk of Urd.


That said, I certainly don't think it's done yet. First off, why aren't we letting you change the size of your creatures like Ensoul Artifact? Sure, occasionally it'll shrink something, but 79% of all artifact creatures will get strictly bigger and another 9% will stay the same size. There's some argument for keeping stricter flavor, but that I have a hard time imagining that's worth the additional upfront comprehension complexity when we all accept Craw Wurm in Swiftfoot Boots.

The other question is one of preserving design space. This mechanic could fare just as well on enchantments, so for the time being let's leave that possibility open for its return. Lastly, it's texty. Trying to address all of those issues gives us something like this.



Animate is a pretty tough mechanic to gauge before playing with it, but the 2-for-1 potential it opens up is bound to make it swingy, as is the effective haste. But assuming we can develop around all of that with Pacifisms and Pithing Needles rather than Murders and Naturalizes, it opens up some under-explored design space that does more for a creature than other artifacts.



I'll leave most of that exploration up to you. What do you think of Animate? What effects do you want to stick on cards with animate or artifacts that may be subject to it? Do you think the mechanic is a good fit for Tesla?

38 comments:

  1. I think your modification would be a big mistake. Far from reducing comprehension complexity, it would increase it very significantly. 'Base power and toughness' helped, but Ensoul Artifact still confused a lot of new players, and this would be worse.

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    1. Ensoul Artifact was rightly uncommon, but if we build an entire set around it, players will seek out the interaction with artifact creatures (it's actually pretty intuitive), and we can even make tips & tricks cards for it, and mention it in the strategy inserts of new player products.

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    2. But it does cost complexity points (comprehension, not board… assuming its obvious when a non-creature artifact becomes a creature, which I suppose players don't have to announce).

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    3. I think it would increase both board and comprehension complexity, and disagree with your assertion that the interaction is intuitive.

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    4. There are two contexts in which inexperienced players are likely to encounter these cards:

      1. Playing with more experienced opponents (e.g. FNM). Someone can explain the interaction, and unlike Oblivion Ring it doesn't feel like cheating, so I'm not concerned about this case.

      2. Playing with other inexperienced players. I think there's a decent chance they'll see the cards as clearly intended for noncreature artifacts and never consider the creature interaction, making for some lenticular design. If I'm both wrong about that AND they get confused, then we have a problem.

      I don't have real data, but I think we're actually likely to cause more trouble with harder to parse text than the unknown interaction.

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  2. When you mentioned simplifying the mechanic like Ensoul Artifact, I wasn't thinking about whether it hits creatures or not, but whether it uses their price or sets an arbitrary P/T.

    If we had Animate 3 that made 3/3s and Animate 5 that made 5/5s, that would flip the primary determinant of an interaction's value from the artifact to the aura. I don't know that's better (I suspect it's worse), but we should consider both possibilities. It does simplify the template further.

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  3. Thematically, this feels more like traditional artifice and less like steampunk, mad science or industry to me.

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    1. Agreed. This is a cool mechanic that I'd want to try out, but it doesn't make much sense in Tesla as we know it.

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    2. I'm not in love with the flavor match either, but I think it could be workable if we felt that it was a perfect mechanical fit. For instance, Animate could represent the advent of artificial intelligence in a Tesla where humanity's golden age results in their own doom.

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  4. Should these instead be:
    Enchant artifact or creature
    So they're not useless when we have no artifacts in play?

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    1. Better gameplay? Possibly. But it muddies the message pretty severely.

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  5. This mechanic makes me want to play a lot of 5+ cost non-creature artifacts in my deck that don't effect the board.

    A) How many of those can we realistically print, especially at common?

    B) How many of them can I put in my deck? What if I don't draw my enabler? Will my deck just be garbage?

    C) Ensoul Artifact, which just cost 2 mana, and worked on any artifact, was already a pretty bad card. Here we are adding a bit of upside (e.g. flying) but taking away a ton of upside (you can play it on turn two and on any artifact). This look

    There is potential here, but I don't think development can work with this without further refinement.

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    1. That is a potential issue (which Jay's proposed locked P/T solves). Even with this version, I'm not concerned about A. Off the top of my head:

      Time-Card Station {5}
      Artifact
      Whenever a nontoken creature enters the battlefield under your control, put a 1/1 colorless Construct artifact creature token onto the battlefield.

      Junkyard Heap {5}
      Artifact
      At the beginning of your upkeep, you may draw a card. If you do, discard a card.

      Springboard {5}
      Artifact
      Sacrifice ~: Attacking creatures gain flying until end of turn.

      etc.

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    2. I'm not thrilled by any of these designs, to be honest. I think it is key to remember Wong's axiom: "Don't do two bad things to do a good thing." [I think, by the way, that design really needs to learn this.]

      A tact I like better would be to put an artifact cost reducing mechanic in the set, so that the CMC of artifacts is much higher than their actual cost.

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    3. This effect would be a good in a set where we want big non-creature artifacts anyway - I don't think it's a reason for us to design those cards, but it might help those cards be successful in their Limited/constructed environment.

      Also, Ensoul Artifact was bad because you weren't playing many artifacts in M15 Limited, because most artifacts were bad and there weren't that many. Mathwise, you probably need 8 artifacts in your deck to play one of these.

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    4. Though the mechanic would be quite bad in most environments.

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  6. Two things:

    1. I did not come up with this idea and so it is awful.
    2. I came up with a similar idea that I will allow you to steal.

    Animate as an action keyword. "2: Animate CARDNAME until end of turn. (When a permanent is animated, it becomes a creature with base power and toughness equal to its converted mana cost. It's still its other types.)"

    Taking Flying Kettles, it would read:

    Enchant artifact
    Enchanted artifact is animated and has flying. (When a permanent is animated, it becomes a creature with base power and toughness equal to its converted mana cost. It's still its other types.)

    The problem with this is it can't go on lands (as they'd die), but it could go on Planeswalkers like Gideon or Sarkhan if one wanted.

    But, it may be better to treat this keyword as something that is very specific and tie it solely to artifacts, and perhaps base the P/T on something else like charge counters.

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    1. Hmm...

      Animate 2 (Put two charge counters on target permanent. Until EOT, it becomes a creature in addition to its other types w/ base P/T each equal to the number of charge counters on it.)

      or a single card:
      Golem Master {2}{U}
      Creature-Artificer (rare)
      {X}{X}, {T}: Put X charge counters on target artifact. Until EOT, it becomes a creature in addition to its other types w/ base P/T each equal to the number of charge counters on it.
      2/2

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    2. For non-repeatable implementations it's really awkward to leave the counters lying around. I vastly prefer a single card for this mechanic.

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    3. For the charge counter version, I'm assuming most of the artifacts in the set use them regardless.

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  7. I like the idea a lot, although I'm not sure, I think flying kettles (which I love) might be easier to grok than the later attempts. Obviously that's partly because I'm already familiar with the meaning of "converted mana cost", which isn't obvious to beginners, but I think even as a beginner (a) I _expected_ artifacts to animate to have p/t equal to their cost and (b) I think overwriting an artifact creature with a different p/t is likely to be more confusing.

    As a keyword, I like the idea a lot, but I think it has the problem that to have the most effect, it needs an aura _and_ an artifact, preferably a non-creature artifact, in your deck, and it's hard to draw them together. A set with borderposts instead of nonbasic lands would do better, but still be difficult.

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  8. What about having a fixed base power and toughness consistent across all cards? Like 2/2?

    Flying Kettles 2U
    Enchantment - Aura (C)
    Enchant artifact or creature
    Animate (As long as this enchants a noncreature artifact, enchanted artifact is a 2/2 creature. Equipment that's a creature can't equip things.)
    Enchanted creature has flying.

    The reminder text isn't perfect, but I suspect this is easier to grok and thus easier to make commons for.

    1W
    Animate
    has lifelink

    1G
    Animate
    has vigilance

    2BB
    Animate
    has intimidate

    And we can get more complex with higher rarities

    3GG
    Animate
    Enchanted creature gets +3/+3 and has trample.

    And so on.


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    1. I can't imagine how this could be developed to be playable. For example, spending 2 cards to make a 2/2 lifelinker is just inconceivable.

      Another issue is that if the artifact you are putting it on has a tap ability or is an equipment (that is almost all common/uncommon artifacts) then you can't exploit the artifact bonus and the animate bonus at the same time.

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    2. Would making it 3/3 and cheaper work/be fair/not be too dangerous?

      Flying Kettles 1U
      Enchantment - Aura (C)
      Enchant artifact or creature
      Animate (As long as this enchants a noncreature artifact, enchanted artifact is a 3/3 creature. Equipment that's a creature can't equip things.)
      Enchanted creature has flying.

      Glorious Spoon W
      Enchantment - Aura (C)
      Enchant artifact or creature
      Animate (As long as this enchants a noncreature artifact, enchanted artifact is a 3/3 creature. Equipment that's a creature can't equip things.)
      Enchanted creature has lifelink.

      I'm imagining a set with lots of artifacts like Ichor Wellspring or Necrogen Censer that could benefit from this. I do agree though that tap abilities and equipment are a problem, and perhaps this mechanic doesn't work. We can try to look for tap abilities:

      Infernal Spork 1B
      Enchantment - Aura (C)
      Enchant artifact or creature
      Animate (As long as this enchants a noncreature artifact, enchanted artifact is a 3/3 creature. Equipment that's a creature can't equip things.)
      Whenever enchanted creature becomes tapped, target player loses 1 life.

      Or activated abilities in general:

      Psychadelic Egg Beater RR
      Enchantment - Aura (R)
      Enchant artifact or creature
      Animate
      Whenever an ability of enchanted creature is activated, if it isn't a mana ability, copy that ability. You may choose new targets for the copy.

      Here making the enchantee a creature makes it more vulnerable to dying and thus lets us push the power a bit more.

      I don't know why I named them all after utensils.

      Feedback appreciated as always.

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    3. I like this better. Using "enchant artifact or creature" is important. The base use of these cards is as an aura for your creatures. The secondary use is to get a 'free' creature out of any artifacts you have lying around, perhaps when you have no creatures to enchant otherwise, or just want more.

      It'll be a fine line finding cards that are appealing enough to play for the default case, but not broken in the bonus case.

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    4. I'm still not convinced that we want the normal creature aura base case. That's not the exciting part of these cards; it's pulling focus. Maybe it's impossible to to develop this mechanic only working for artifacts, but I think we should try that first.

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    5. Working on creatures is a little weird. I think a flavor tie-in would be to make the creature an artifact in addition to its other types, but that's a lot of words, and most of these auras aren't worth it except you're getting a free creature out of the deal.
      Possibly the mechanic should be zendikon like and return the artifact to your hand?

      Unkillable Monstrosity 2BB
      Enchantment - Aura
      Enchant artifact
      Animate (As long this enchants a non-creature artifact, enchanted artifact is a 3/3 creature. Equipment that's a creature can't be attached. When enchanted artifact Fies, return it to your hand.)
      Enchanted creature gets +0/+2 and has intimidate.

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  9. Maybe the question is, these cards might not be playable if the _only_ thing they do is animate artifacts, so they need to have another mode. But enchanting creatures may not be the only possible alternative -- is there another that fits the concept better?

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    1. The obvious choice would be to also hit lands, though I suspect the gameplay of that would be awful.

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    2. I was thinking that, but it's hard to make it so it's useful when it hits lands, but exciting when it hits artifacts...

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  10. These could target any non creature permanent you control by providing a small P/T boost. So lands are possible to enchant in a pinch, but Artifacts are already more attractive targets because they have mana costs. Additionally, I see a neat Artifact/Aura flavor in these that would help keep the artifact count in the set high, while flavoring them more as augmentations than magical animation. One more thing, the idea of enchanting another animate enchantment is something I want to take off the table, so I suggest a new Artifact type and writing out that these can't enchant that type.

    Here's an Enchantment Artifact version I would be excited to try out:

    Roter Jitter 1U
    Enchantment Artifact - Aura Bauble
    Enchant non-Bauble permanent
    Animate (Enchanted permanent is a creature in addition to its other types and has base power and base toughness each equal to its converted mana cost. Animated permanents can't attach.)
    Enchanted permanent gets +1/+1 and has flying.

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    1. Geeze, a simpler version could just be non-Aura. No need to create a new Artifact type.

      Rotor Jitter 1U
      Enchantment Artifact - Aura
      Enchant non-Aura permanent
      Animate (Enchanted permanent is a creature in addition to its other types and has base power and base toughness each equal to its converted mana cost. Animated permanents can't attach.)
      Enchanted permanent gets +1/+1 and has flying.

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    2. The flat bonus isn't quite as clean, but I have no trouble imagining the gameplay bearing it out. Given that the two things we want to avoid are auras and equipment, I'm tempted to wrap it into "Enchant permanent not attached to another permanent" or something, but I haven't found a version without astronomical comprehension complexity.

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    3. Enchant non-Aura permanent isn't as clean as Enchant artifact, but I think it's as clean as Enchant artifact or creature, especially since the non- it references is on the card itself. New players won't have to ask what an Aura is because it's the card's subtype.

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  11. Just noticed this post! Thanks for trying it out all.
    One of my intentions when making the cards was to make artifacts interact with the board more. Artifacts and Animate cards can be more powerful because every deck has ways to interact with creatures.

    This might be more of a second set thing, but I imagine there could be some interesting drawback cards.

    Trinket Killer B
    Enchantment Aura (U)
    Enchant artifact
    Animate (Cool text)
    Enchanted creature gets -1/-1.
    4B: Return CARDNAME from your graveyard to your hand.

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    1. Oh. If we put animate on any black aruas, we've given black a way to kill artifacts.

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