Friday, September 18, 2020

Weekend Design Challenge 091820 - Strixhaven MDFCs

Happy Friday, Artisans! Click through to see this weekend's design challenge. Your mission is to design a custom magic card that follows the guidelines. Over the course of the weekend, give feedback to your fellow designers on their designs and incorporate their feedback to iterate on your own. I'll try to offer some feedback of my own starting on Monday.

Continuing the theme from last week: During Zendikar Rising previews we learned that the "Strixhaven: School of Mages" set will also be using modal double-faced cards (aka MDFCs: cards like Valakut Awakening where you can play either side). Your challenge this week is to design an MDFC that feels like it comes from the Strixhaven set. (Neither side should be a land since that was Zendikar Rising's thing.) Bonus points for tie-ins to the "Hogwarts-inspired" worldbuilding.

Good luck and have fun!

15 comments:

  1. Clonespell UR
    Instant (R)
    Copy target spell. (If it’s a permanent spell the copy becomes a token.)
    //
    Illuminatus Owl UR
    Creature - Bird (R)
    Flying
    When Illuminatus Owl enters the battlefield, exile the top three cards of your library. You may play cards exiled as long as you control Illuminatus Owl.
    1/1

    I'm really not sure if this is the right feel for Strixhaven. If they are all spell side/permanent side cards it'll be hard to balance and avoid "bad feels". =)

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    Replies
    1. Spell vs. magical creature is a great choice for Strixhaven, and these designs make for an exciting rare. (Play Design would probably add a generic mana or two to each side to balance this for Standard.) What I'd like to see is more of a mechanical and/or flavor connection between the two sides.

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  2. Ok, lets see what would be a useful use of MDFC and resonant for Strix. Maybe "creature, and potion made from that creature"?

    Rampaging Snorlax
    Creature - Beast
    2/2
    Trample
    //
    Snorlax Essence
    Enchantment - Aura
    Enchant Creature
    When ~ ETB, gain 2 life.
    Enchanted Creature has trample.

    I imagined a set of cards along a similar theme, where there's a creature and a non-creature spell, typically one of which is worth it early and one late. Where the effects are sufficiently connected to make them easy to remember. But inconveinent to implement as "discard this creature" effects, either because the effect is a permanent (enchantment or artifact), or its too wordy to fit, or too wordy to grok it without seeing it as a whole spell.

    I'm not especially convinced by this particular design, but I didn't have any clearer ideas that conveyed the mechanic as easily.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, this is a great choice for MDFCs and Strixhaven for the reasons you describe. Magic has tried to do this kind of thing before (Licids, Guide auras, Bestow) but it always revolved around manipulating stuff in play. Making it a straightforward either/or option is a valuable use of this design space.

      As far as the details of the design go, I'd say +2/+2 and trample is cleaner than the lifegain trigger. That could probably cost 2G//3G or 2G//1GG.

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    2. Maybe it shouldn't be a trample effect at all. I debated if it was cleaner to leave the extra effect off, I thought that was likely a better card, but it showed the mechanic off better to have a backside that was related to the front but not exactly the same.

      I can see the point for +2/+2 but if there's going to be a theme of "creature/effect" MDFC I think you need to decide if they're always going to be the same as on bestow cards, or not, and if not I think it's probably less confusing to stay away from P/T boosts entirely.

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  3. If we try to do a thorough review, ignore this in favour of the first entry, but assuming if not assuming it's ok, to share more ideas:

    Another good use of MDFC might be different colours, without trying to do it with hybrid mana. E.g. a wizard and familiar in related colours, or maybe a wizard and their alt-history "what if I was sorted into another house".

    Reckless Apprentice 1R
    Creature - Human Wizard
    2/1
    Haste
    1B: ~ gains deathtouch and lifelink UEOT.
    //
    Secret Familiar U
    1/1
    Flying
    1B: ~ gains deathtouch and lifelink UEOT.

    In this case I used two different colours and a third to tie them together, but you might just have two colour versions, giving you a choice depending what lands you draw or how you build your deck.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "What if I was sorted into another house" is an awesome idea.

      Delete
  4. Spiritual Divination 3U
    Instant
    Scry 1, then draw two cards.
    //
    Divination Spirit 2U
    Creature - Spirit
    2/3
    Flying
    Poof 3 (At the beginning of your upkeep, put a time counter on ~. Then, if there are 3 or more time counters on it, exile ~ and cast its front side.)
    "Any mage can cast spells. At Strixhaven, students learn to animate their spells as well."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I like mechanics that make the game play differently, such as morph or suspend. I also like mechanics that make time matter, such as fading and suspend. With mechanics like that, you can have cards that are strong in some ways but balanced because they arrive late or are temporary.

      However, a lot of beginners will look at mechanics like fading and not get the point of it. For some players, beginner or not, downside mechanics just aren't their cup of tea.

      So this mechanic is meant to create a board state that shifts with time, much like Fading or Suspend, but feel more like an exciting finale at the end.

      The flavor is that in this magical school, you can bring your instants and sorceries (perhaps enchantments as well) to life and animate them for a short time.

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    2. Interesting! I feel like the "exile it and cast the other side" part undercuts the spirit of MDFCs a little, because they're all about choice. But just in terms of gameplay, "suspend to the battlefield" is an exiting idea and seems like a fitting mechanic for a school of magic.

      Delete
  5. Pixie Dust 1U
    Instant
    Major in Spell Type (If you haven't chosen a major this game, choose to major in [Artifacts], [Creatures], [Instants & Sorceries], or [Enchantments].)
    Tap target artifact or creature.
    Draw a card.
    If you are majoring in [Instants & Sorceries], whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, you may cast ~ from your graveyard. If you do, exile ~ as it resolves.
    //
    Pixie Mechanic 1U
    Artifact Creature - Faerie
    1/3
    Flying
    Major in Spell Type (If you haven't chosen a major this game, choose to major in [Artifacts], [Creatures], [Instants & Sorceries], or [Enchantments].)

    If you are majoring in [Artifacts], at the beginning of your end step, untap target artifact.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. For some reason "Major in X" reads as really feel-bad to me. Basically it says "you can have this synergy reward, but only if you haven't had a different synergy reward this game." Which 1) makes the mechanic feel like pure downside, and 2) punishes the player for doing something that's already suboptimal-- building a deck around 2 different kinds of synergy. And yet building around both is the only way to get full value out of this card! Otherwise which face you play is basically locked in at deck-construction time.

      The "major" mechanic has a ton of flavor appeal and ties in very well to the worldbuilding, but I think it would require finding an execution that works better for gameplay.

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    2. What about something like this:

      [Artifact/Conjuring/Creature/Enchantment] Study
      If you've cast another spell with [this spell's] Study this game, EFFECT.

      Artifact Study (This costs 1 less to cast for each other spell with Artifact Study you've cast this game)

      Still linear and tends to push MDFCs to one face in any given deck, but it feels more like a bonus.

      Delete
  6. Grounding Spell 2R
    Instant (R)
    ~ deals 4 damage to any target.
    //
    Lightning Rod Curse 4RR
    Aura - Curse (R)
    Enchant player
    At the beginning of enchanted players first main phase, ~ deals 4 damage to them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Curses are a neat mechanic to associate with Strixhaven and I like the idea of making them a repeated version of a corresponding spell effect. There's room to pack a lot more "wizard school" flavor / resonance into a rare MDFC than this does, but not every card in the set has to do that.

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