Monday, November 17, 2014

Tesla: Integrated Circuit

I was recently looking back through some of the work we've compiled for Tesla seeking out common threads. Clearly our ideas influence one another, but if an idea keeps coming up it means one of two things: either it's a Melvin-y design challenge, or it hits on something endemic to human nature that we're anxious to experience.

I think combining artifacts with one another is the latter.

Given how long this project has been running, it should come as no surprise that we've churned out too many ideas to discuss. Nevertheless, I'm going to try to hit on each of the major areas we've explored and point out their unresolved challenges. Hopefully that synthesis of ideas will put us in a position to do this space justice.

DFC-BFMs

A lot of this exploration started back when Wobbles (Duncan) proposed Double-Faced Cards with backs that form a single card


This setup provides us with visceral emotional impact, but at considerable cost. In addition to the logistical issues with DFCs (complicating draft and requiring opaque sleeves/checklist cards), Mechs bring up all sorts of problems with moving multi-card permanents to other zones, Clone-ing, and circulating the right number of parts in draft and constructed.

But who's to say we need anything so crazy to feel like building our own machine?


Cogs

Cogs in their various incarnations avoided actually combining cards in favor of letting them mesh to give you more uses of their abilities.


The gameplay gives Johnnies the perfect opportunity to devise their own doomsday machines, but it comes at a high complexity cost. On top of the "CMC at common" issue, each common Cog needs to have an activated ability that doesn't impact the board so as not to cause undue board complexity. We can stretch that with sorcery-speed activations, but that fix just brings up one more templating nightmare.

In order to achieve the desired gameplay there need to be a lot of Cogs at low rarities, and moreover, most of them need to be playable. But in order to avoid repetitive gameplay we have to forego doing things like making one gain enough life to be worthwhile on its own. Maybe it's possible to find enough designs that meet all those criteria, but I'm skeptical.

Daisy Chain

Another similar option to grow the number of effects as you build a gizmo is triggering off a previous link tapping.


While this avoids much of the complexity inherent in Cogs, it comes with a host of issues all its own. Most glaringly, the cards don't do anything alone, or even together. They need to be combined with "normal" artifacts, but don't read that way as clearly as, say, Equipment. In theory we could give them their own tap activations, but there's no way all of that is going to fit comfortably at common, and even if it did, we'd have trouble making the cards feel cohesive.

Sweet Ride

One of the holy grails of Magic design is a mount and rider mechanic. We've yet to see a completely convincing execution, in part because it's so tricky to make two from cards that work alone merge into one cohesive whole. A vehicle mechanic skirts that issue because the vehicle itself isn't going anywhere unmanned, but in place of that challenge we need to figure out how to get multiple creatures aboard. 


Of course it doesn't really make sense for part of the boat to go and attack while the rest stays home, which leaves us searching for things in the Banding space. Wizards' most recent attempt, Soulbond, was still fraught with text length and complexity issues, but the "fighting together" space is worth exploring anyway. Solve that puzzle and we likely solve vehicles.

App Store

The final bit of space I want to discuss is directly adding one artifact's abilities on to another. On the surface, it sounds like exactly what we mean by making a machine out of parts.


But just how many abilities really offer any utility in this context? I'd much rather have four separate pieces of Trading Post in play than something I can only activate once per turn.

The above design by Inanimate solves that problem, but at the cost of the card doing nothing by itself. If we spent enough time thinking we could probably come up with some abilities that bridge the gap. But ones that do that while filling out common under NWO and actually making for fun gameplay? I doubt it. Please prove me wrong.

The Turning of the Gears

All of these proposals have glaring holes, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should leave them by the wayside. Please submit a tweak to a mechanic that addresses one of its issues or a new mechanic that lets players build a machine which is greater than the sum of its parts.

38 comments:

  1. Sorry about clogging the comments with deleted posts, I made some dumb mistakes. They are fixed.

    - - - -

    The idea of 'connectivity' gave me this idea...

    Improvable Invention {3}
    Artifact (C)
    Network (This artifact has all base abilities of other networked artifacts you control.)
    {T}: Add {1} to your mana pool.

    The idea here is that you have 'noncreature Slivers'; they all share each others' abilities. Do note, however, that they share all abilities, not just activated abilities! So you can do crazy stuff like...

    Defense Matrix {4}
    Artifact (U)
    Network (This artifact has all base abilities of other networked artifacts you control.)
    Creatures you control get +0/+1.

    This is why it says 'base' abilities - to clear up whether this causes feedback loops (they gain the ability, so you gain the ability, so they gain the ability...) I don't think that wording is needed, but it helps clarify the intent.

    I have it only looking for Upgrade artifacts to further control its power level. While it's parasitic, it's just as fun as Slivers and Allies (IMO) so I think it'll play very well.

    - - - -

    A less parasitic version of the prior is interesting, but really complicated:

    Adaptive Apparatus {4}
    Artifact (U)
    Adaptive (Whenever you activate an ability of this artifact, you may instead activate the ability of another artifact you control without paying that ability's cost.)
    {T}: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

    So the idea here is that they gain access to all other 'discovered' abilities you get. Obviously, effects without tapping are quite appealing. I imagine commons could be Spellbombs or just have mana costs to tapping.

    The problem with this mechanic is obvious - it has a lot to track, and it's quite wordy and weird.

    - - - -

    Inspired by your Trading Post comment, and approaching this mechanic from a REALLY weird direction...

    Modular Mechanism {5}
    Artifact (R)
    {2}, {T}, Discard a card: Put a colorless 1/1 Construct artifact token onto the battlefield.
    {2}, {T}, Sacrifice an artifact: Draw a card.
    Divide {5} ({5}, Exile this artifact: For each activated ability of this artifact, put a colorless artifact token named Part onto the battlefield which has that activated ability.)

    I liked the idea of being able to 'split' an artifact into its individual abilities - that's awesome! Unfortunately, it requires Parts tokens, which are really weird and difficult to track which Parts token has which ability. I was thinking you could just write in a blank text box what they have, but that's still complicated. Furthermore, I made it exile the original artifact, that way you can keep the card nearby for reference if necessary. I think this is the start to an interesting idea, but it is too complicated as of now.

    - - - -

    If I think of more, I'll post 'em! I'm excited to see everyone else's ideas.

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    Replies
    1. Nice.

      Adaptive Apparatus breaks Door to Nothingness and Mindslaver completely, but we can split the difference with Network:

      Adapting Apparatus {4}
      Artifact (U)
      Adapt (This artifact has all activated abilities of other artifacts you control.)
      {T}: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool.

      Which is pretty cool. It still has the issue that you can only tap it for one ability each turn, which can still be mitigated with activated abilities that don't require tapping, or abilities that untap it. IF we were to ever bring back {Q}, this would be the place (but it's probably still not worth it).

      Delete
    2. Network/Adapt seems to have promise. They both avoid the rules nightmare of sharing Characteristic Defining Abilities, but, like Slivers, can create a lot of board complexity. Slivers were just redone, so clearly it's not impossible, but these would take a major portion of our complexity points.

      For that cost to be worthwhile, the ability sharing needs to be enough fun. Turning all of your creatures into Baneslayer Angels is, but I'm not sure about here. These are mostly just giving you more uses of the best ability. On a creature you care that first strike and deathtouch are on the same permanent. For Slate of Ancestry and Nuisance Engine, not so much.

      Divide is very cool, but I doubt it can overcome the issues you noted.

      Delete
  2. I still really like the DFC-BFM setup. The mechanic is a huge hit for Johnny and Timmy both, and the numbers and specific effects could be chosen to make it popular with Spikes too. The playtest I did with Mecha they felt great fun, and had a big memorable board impact when someone got one combined - like hitting a heroic creature with a bestow creature, but more so.

    By contrast, I've playtested a mechanic similar to Jury-Rig for my own steampunk artifact-themed set, and it didn't work very well. The issues Jules mentioned are real and problematic.

    I think mecha are the direction to explore here.

    (For what it's worth, I might sing a different tune if we were really inside Wizards and had to deal with issues like a separate DFC sheet, and printing checklist cards. I dislike a lot of the practicalities of real DFCs, but the level of playtesting we'll be doing - especially if it's mostly electronic - I think would allow the upsides of combining mecha to overshadow the logistical downsides.)

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    Replies
    1. I think it would be very hard to get the volume on the DFC's high enough to work out the wya you want. You get one DFC per pack (unless you're suggesting changing that). Assume they are all mechs. They still only do anything if you get two of them out. And not even any two, the two have to match.

      For what seems to be basically a "limited only" mechanic, that is an awful lot of restrictions before it does anything. How often did you control more than one werewolf in ISD draft?

      Worth noting, I think the two samples of this mechanic do a particularly poor job of demonstrating its potential, since they suggest spending two cards and 7 mana to get a Fire Elemental, a common that sees very little play. I understand it is just an example, but I recommend something a bit splashier.

      The idea of combining two cards is pretty cool, but I think it needs to back away from the "you can combine two double faced cards" idea. The versions I have been most excited by have been in the space of Living Weapon (an awesome space to be in).

      Delete
    2. What if instead of requiring a left-handed DFC and a right-handed DFC, we merely required any DFC and any artifact/creature? Imagine the second face of the upgrading card overlaying one edge of the upgraded card, like a horizontal Curse of the Fire Penguin. (You could then chain a series of upgrades.)

      ╔═╗═╗ or ╔═╔═╗
      ╠═╣═╣ or ╠═╠═╣
      ╚═╝═╝ or ╚═╚═╝

      If we overlay the left of the card, we can change the name, type and abilities. If we overlay the right side, we can change the power and toughness (and mana cost/rarity, but gross).

      I imagine all the DFCs are artifacts, but depending on where we go with it, they could overlay any artifacts, just artifact creatures, or any creatures (giving us cyborgs).

      Delete
    3. While we could theoretically layout upgradeable cards in Tesla so a card covering their left-half neatly eliminates their name, type and some or all abilities, the upgrades still wouldn't line up on existing cards, so I think we don't officially cover up anything but the border (or also the cost, rarity and P/T if covering the right side). So, upgraded cards never lose any abilities or characteristics, they just gain any characteristics of cards upgrading them.

      Where the art in the original scenario was always two halves of a mecha, here we'd probably just show a generic creature with a specific upgrade. That part of the metaphor seems weak, unfortunately.

      Delete
    4. Increasing DFCs to being several cards per pack seems very doable, if that's what the set needs. If a really high density is needed, maybe three; two for common DFCs and one for uncommons/rares/mythics.

      Delete
    5. I certainly think it is better to just let that one go. Part of the reason for limiting to one DFC per pack was that that way there would be enough of the checkbox cards. Including multiples is saying "We expect you to use opaque sleeves."

      Delete
    6. Jay's proposal is really interesting, but I'm afraid it gives up too much. At this point, what are we really gaining over just using Auras?

      Delete
  3. Replies
    1. I had completely forgotten Coordinate! Definitely something worth considering despite its parasitism.

      Delete
    2. Life Gear {1}
      Artifact (cmn)
      When ~ ETB, Click.
      Whenever you click, gain 2 life.

      Power Gear {1}
      Artifact (cmn)
      When ~ ETB, Click.
      Whenever you click, put a +1/+1 counter on target artifact creature.

      Geared Rumbler {3}
      Artifact Creature—Construct (unc)
      Whenever ~ attacks, Click.
      Whenever you click, ~ gets +1/+1 until EOT.
      2/2

      Geared Saboteur {3}
      Artifact Creature—Construct (rare)
      Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, Click.
      Whenever you click, draw a card.
      1/1

      Fire Gear {1}
      Artifact (rare)
      {4}, {T}: Click.
      Whenever you click, ~ deals 1 damage to target c/p.

      I like this execution, except that I expect players to wonder what the base effect of clicking is.

      Delete
    3. The ally version:

      Life Gear {1}
      Artifact—Gear (cmn)
      When ~ or another gear ETB, gain 2 life.

      Power Gear {1}
      Artifact—Gear (cmn)
      When ~ or another gear ETB, put a +1/+1 counter on target artifact creature.

      Geared Rumbler {4}
      Artifact Creature—Gear Construct (cmn)
      Haste
      When ~ or another gear ETB, ~ gets +1/+1 until EOT.
      2/2

      Knowledge Gear {3}
      Artifact Creature—Gear (rare)
      When ~ or another gear ETB, draw a card.

      Fire Gear {2}
      Artifact—Gear (rare)
      When ~ or another gear ETB, ~ deals 1 damage to target c/p.

      This is a lot clearer, but I really miss the various triggers. We can mess with triggers, as well as targets (but it gets a lot weirder):

      Life Gear {1}
      Artifact—Gear (cmn)
      When ~ or another gear ETB, gain 2 life.

      Geared Scavener {1}
      Artifact Creature—Gear Golem (unc)
      When ~ or another gear creature ETB, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature.

      Geared Rumbler {5}
      Artifact Creature—Gear Construct (unc)
      When ~ or another gear creature ETB, it gets +1/+1 and gains haste until EOT.
      2/3

      Geared Saboteur {3}
      Artifact Creature—Gear (rare)
      When ~ or another gear creature deals combat damage to a player, draw a card.
      1/1

      Fire Gear {2}
      Artifact—Gear (rare)
      When ~ or another gear LTB, ~ deals 1 damage to target c/p.
      {2}, {T}, Sacriciec ~: Draw a card.

      Delete
    4. I agree that players will assume that clicking inherently does something, but I don't think the ally wording is the solution because I agree with Inanimate: our flagship artifact mechanic should use something that feels artifacty-er than miscellaneous ETB triggers. (The cog version with untap artifactfall seems okay since it so clearly ties into tapping.)

      Delete
  4. Non-creature allies?

    Gear of Knowledge {1}{2U}
    Artifact—Gear (unc)
    Whenever ~ or another Gear ETB, draw a card.

    Gear of Fire {2R}
    Artifact—Gear (unc)
    Whenever ~ or another Gear ETB, it deals 1 damage to target c/p.

    Gear of Strength {2G}
    Artifact—Gear (cmn)
    Whenever ~ or another Gear ETB, target creature gets +2/+2 until EOT.

    Gear of Health {2W}
    Artifact—Gear (cmn)
    Whenever ~ or another Gear ETB, gain 2 life.

    Gear of Recycling {1}{2B}
    Artifact—Gear (cmn)
    Pay 2 life, Sacrifice an artifact: Draw a card.
    Sacrifice a gear: Draw a card.

    Of course, that's parasitic. I think I prefer "Whenever an artifacts ETB under your control, untap ~."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My first reaction was "cool". Then I realized it is just Constellation, and I didn't like Constellation at all.

      But why? Is it because it was a random third act turn and so it was impossible to make a coherent Constellation deck in limited? Would I have liked it better if it had been in the block from the beginning? Quite possibly. I'd be willing to give it another shot if it was committed to more fully.

      I don't think you can have two-brid on a card with just one two-brid mana symbol. That makes the difference just one mana, which feels too small (the Arrow Storm problem).

      That said, I'm not at all convinced two-brid is/should come back. Even in the set where it was introduced, it appeared on very few cards, I think because the design space is narrow and leads to unexciting cards. But what do I know? I still don't love cycling!

      Delete
    2. The difference between 1 mana and 2 is vastly more than the difference between 4 damage and 5, but I'm not remotely married to these being twobrid. Just fit my example cycle.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, I should have perhaps more clearly communicated that that was a very minor developmental quibble, but something I felt was generally worth mentioning since it comes up a lot with twobrid.

      Delete
    4. I don't think we want to use ETB triggers on our flagship artifact mechanic, as they're not very "artifact-y" at all. We want to emphasize abilities of some sort.

      Although, on that note, I have made a mechanic very similar to this in the past. I actually almost suggested it until I realized the aforementioned problem. Here it is: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/571187-rgwu-harmony-and-the-soul-of-the-greater-we

      Delete
  5. Assemble {2}{U}{R}
    Sorcery (rare)
    Exile two artifact cards from your graveyard. Put a Contraption artifact token OTB. It has all characteristics and abilities of the exiled artifacts. If its a creature, its power and toughness are each the sum of the exiled cards' power and toughness.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I really want this to somehow work simply enough to be a major mechanic, but the Mimeoplasm seems to indicate that the rules still can't handle it as a card.

      Delete
    2. The trouble is that we have to put the full text of the counter on the most common cards that generate it. Maaaybe it can be an uncommon/rare mechanic?

      Delete
  6. Scrap
    Artifact Token
    Sacrifice Scrap: Target artifact gains all activated abilities of target artifact you control or target artifact card in your graveyard until EOT.

    Trouble is we'd have to write that all out on the cards that produce Scrap tokens and it's just too much.

    ReplyDelete

  7. I think the colorless nature of artifacts allos us to avoid "CMC at common" for a cycle of cogs. We just use the rules terminology found on Edgewalker and Ragemonger's faux reminder text: "Blah with mana cost whatever."

    Here's an example of a closed circuit of cogs that can untap each other without going infinite. I made Cog a new artifact type and didn't keyword the untap effect, but either of those things are up for debate.

    Life Cog 1
    Artifact - Cog
    T: You gain 1 life.
    T: Untap target Cog with mana cost 2.

    Mana Cog 2
    Artifact - Cog
    T: Add 1 to your mana pool.
    T: Untap target Cog with mana cost 3.

    Mill Cog 3
    Artifact - Cog
    T: Target player puts the top card of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
    T: Untap target Cog with mana cost 4.

    Key Cog 4
    Artifact - Cog
    1, T: Untap target Cog with mana cost 1.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "With mana cost N" is pretty clever for an artifact mechanic. We could do "N or less" but this is more thematic. I would vote for untapping any artifact of the right cost, even if we keep the subtype.

      Delete
    2. This is going to play very poorly in draft, where if you don't draw the perfect combination of cogs (or heaven forbid go the whole draft without seeing one of the middle ones) then your deck is just bad.

      "Up to" adds a lot more flexibility, but either way this looks to be dangerous if we don't insist on cogs. Let's not forget how long Voltaic Key was banned.

      Delete
    3. Good points all around. I'm debating whether we want the abilities separate. As it stands there's some setup to making the machine, but then you're pretty much just getting the best effect a bunch of times. If all the effects included the untap, but also had a mana cost, we add some more complexity to figuring out what you can do, but make for some more actual choices once you're there.

      Delete
  8. Wellspring {1}
    Artifact (C)
    Chain (Whenever another artifact enters the battlefield under your control while ~ is unattached, you may attach this to that artifact. Whenever that artifact becomes tapped, untap this.)
    {1}, {T}: You gain 1 life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Interesting that if I have two Wellsprings, I can attach them both to my new Juggernaut, but if I attach the first to the second when it ETB and attach the second to the Juggernaut, I can gain 5 life each round rather than 4, provided I have enough mana.

      Delete
    2. Wordier and weirder, but with less physical work:

      Wellsprung {1}
      Artifact (C)
      Chain (Whenever another artifact enters the battlefield under your control while ~ is unattached, you may attach this to that artifact. Whenever that artifact becomes tapped, activate one of ~'s abilities without paying its cost.)
      {1}, {T}: You gain 1 life.

      Delete
    3. Jay: Smart. Avoids the issue of my Adaptive by having it instead cheat its own abilities rather than cheat the abilities of other permanents. I like it.

      Do we have to have it attach to only one permanent? Perhaps using the wording of Adaptive (but reversed as you suggest) might work out better since its more open-ended. Though also more easily broken, I guess...

      Delete
    4. Aw, thanks. Jay's version makes for much cleaner gameplay, but without a Voltaic Key it only allows for one additional activation, at which point I'm worried about whether it feels creative enough for Johnny.
      We could stay less fiddly and more open-ended by triggering off an ability of the source is activated, but then we're going to create some very complex stacks if the order in which they resolve ever matters.

      Delete
  9. We could do this the old-fashioned way.

    Looting Crank {2}
    Artifact (cmn)
    {1}, {T}: Draw a card then discard a card.

    Healing Hourglass {2}
    Artifact (cmn)
    Whenever you draw a card, gain 1 life.

    Healing Crank {0}
    Artifact (cmn)
    {2}, {T}: Gain 2 life.

    Elephant Goggles {2}
    Artifact (unc)
    Whenever you gain life, dig X, where X is the amount of life you gained. (Look at the top X cards of your library. Put one back on top and the rest in your graveyard.)

    Seeing Crank {2}
    Artifact (unc)
    {1}, {T}: Dig 2. (Look at the top 2 cards of your library. Put one back on top and the rest in your graveyard.)

    Altar for Lost Love {3}
    Artifact (unc)
    Whenever a card goes to your graveyard from anywhere, target creature gets +1/+1 until EOT.

    Forgetting Crank {2}
    Artifact (unc)
    {1}, {T}: Each player discards a card. Activate only as a sorcery.

    Growing Crank {1}
    Artifact (cmn)
    {1}, {T}: Target creature gets +1/+1 until EOT. Activate only as a sorcery.

    Gladiatorial Pit {3}
    Artifact (unc)
    Whenever a creature's power becomes greater than its base power, if you control it and it's untapped, you may tap it. If you do, it fights target creature.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. This may be where we end up. The reason I'm still so intent on pursuing a singular mechanic is because we can generate a lot more commons if the mechanic self-synergizes and we can use any effect as a reward than if all of the effects need to feed another effect.

      Delete
  10. I'd really like to get vehicles working, so here are two ways to do them. One is just the version of attacking and blocking together I proposed earlier, the other just leaves that bit out of the keyword and lets individual cards specify it. Or not.

    Goblin War-Wagon 3
    Artifact - Vehicle
    Creatures aboard Goblin War-Wagon get +2/+0 and have trample.
    At the beginning of combat on your turn, choose target opponent. Creatures aboard Goblin War-Wagon attack that opponent if able this turn.
    Board 2 (2: Target creature you control leaves all other vehicles and boards this one. Board only as a sorcery.)

    Fermian Battle Machine 1
    Artifact - Vehicle
    Creatures aboard Fermian Battle Machine get +1/+1.
    Board 2 (2: Target creature you control leaves all other vehicles and boards this one. Board only as a sorcery. When a creature aboard attacks or blocks, all other creatures aboard attack or block the same thing if able.)

    These two are fairly basic, obviously. I'm not feeling up to writing something more interesting tonight.

    ReplyDelete