Cool Card Design of the Day10/13/2011 - Remember Mishra's Bauble? Street Wraith? Spikes know that a smaller deck is more consistent and that consistency is a powerful tool. I was thinking about the one-mana cantrips (Peek, Ponder, Preordain, Clairvoyance, Opt, Visions of Beyond) that approximate this deck-thinning technique. Each replaces the cards it took to cast it and then offers some other nice little bonus. Could we have a bonus of being free? Gitaxian Probe does this at the cost of 2 life, but can we make it totally free? It can't just cost 0 or every deck of every color will always play it. If we leverage the Submerge method, we can associate it to blue decks by making sure you control an Island, but what's the flavor there? What do blue decks commonly have—other than Islands—that could support something like this?
This is unplayable without a Wizard. Not a good sign.
ReplyDeleteA straight-up cantrip for one mana is going to be good enough for some Limited decks even if they aren't playing with a notable number of Wizards. In constructed you're obviously going to craft your deck to be able to cast this for free more often than not.
ReplyDeleteI really like the card, it feels a bit like a mirror image of the tribal cantrip spells from Lorwyn; instead of gaining card advantage for having the appropriate type, you get to bypass the mana cost.
I think this might have to be an instant to give it that one little boost, other than that I think it's fine.
ReplyDeleteI like this design. Here's why:
ReplyDeleteThe card encourages something healthy for the game: play more creatures.
Blue's creatures are interesting in that there's a LOT of Wizards. It's probably because while white has Soldiers, Knights, Scouts, etc., spellcasters like mages, sorcerers, and such often don't get such a distinction and are all lumped into one magical type: Wizard. As such, this card becomes MORE of a successful design. It's not like it's a spell asking for a Berserker.
Turn 1 Wizards just got more awesome.
Yes, this is interesting. Possibly best in an Izzet-style deck that has creatures which like instants and sorceries, but with the additional constraint of needing them to be wizards.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't decide if I liked this card. The effect is underwhelming; a 1-mana discount? Silvergill Adept saves you 3 for similar reasons. So one part of me wanted to make it 1U and beef up the effect to a mini-brainstorm for two cards.
ReplyDeleteHowever, my inner developer thinks that free spells are just too dangerous to allow things like that. So I think this is right, but it leaves the player with a pretty small reward. At the end of the day, I feel like this goes fine in many decks, but nobody's that happy about it.
What about making the bonus about drawing more cards than reducing the cost. And how flavourful would it be to have it possible to have many mages concentrating together to draw even more cards.
ReplyDeleteFocus of mages U
Sorcery
Draw a card
Any time you draw a card this turn, you may tap a wizard you control and pay U to draw another card.
Serves a different purpose, but I like it. Very similar to conspire, but probably different enough to hold its own. Might template thus:
ReplyDeleteCounsel of Mages U
Sorcery
Draw a card.
As you cast Focus of Mages, you may tap any number of untapped Wizards you control. For each Wizard tapped this way, copy Counsel of Mages.
Yeah that templating is way better, although I was being intentionally complicated about the "whenever you draw a card this turn" to allow for some hijinx if you cast other draw spells or have artifacts, creatures, or enchantments that let you get extra draw in the same turn... and conversely give another thing that Consecrated Sphinx beats. I had epic commander insanity in mind.
ReplyDelete