Cool Card Design of the Day11/30/2012 - Pasteur's latest submission for Frontier includes Dig as a smoothing mechanic half-way between cycling and landcycling. You don't get to search your library or choose which card you get, but you are guaranteed a land card. He wasn't the first to propose Dig for this challenge and this challenge wasn't the first time Dig has been proposed, but it's an appealing mechanic because it fixes mana well while remaining fairly quick to execute and of low enough power level to go on a lot of cards without ruining their appeal.
Dig 2 (2, Discard this card: Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card. Put that card into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.)
Dig is one of the mechanics that inspired Buried Treasure and something I intend to explore a bit more whether Frontier wins the project or not... particularly alongside Buried Treasure since digging becomes a lot more exciting when there's a chance of finding gold in your deck. So I was messing with some cards and had a thought. Let me walk you through it. Here's one of Pasteur's designs:
Drought of Tears is basically Lay Waste / Volcanic Submersion using Dig instead of Cycling. While 4C would be safer, I think 2CC might be reasonable considering that Dig is weaker than Cycling for this kind of card.
There are two times you want to cycle: When the card you have is currently useless (or less useful than any other card in your deck) or when you need land. Dig is better at filling the second the role because the land is guaranteed but worse at the first because there aren't a lot of spells that are less useful than another land card would be. This difference becomes smaller on cheaper cards and larger on expensive cards because a ninth land is less of an improvement over eight than three is over two.
Anyhow. I was thinking about other kinds of cards Dig would fit on. In particular, I was looking for a thematic element that would make Dig feel flavorfully connected to the cards in a way that Cycling isn't. After all, Dig was proposed because Westerns have miners and prospectors.
I wanted to try to make a card that could dig without being discarded. That led me to re-template the ability as an action word. This way, you let players dig as bonus effect rather than as a consolation effect. You can still use it in the same way too:
While the connection to Cycling is buried even deeper this way, the added flexibility seems well worth it. Here are a few possibilities that opens up:
Does this create feel-bad moments where, by digging, you wind up sending to the bottom of the library cards you would have much rather had than the land?
ReplyDeleteThat's a completely valid concern, Evan. The top three concerns I have about Dig that I would focus on during testing are this possible feel-bad issue, the length of the text, and how quickly/easily the mechanic really plays out in games.
DeleteI will say that Dig shouldn't feel any worse than being milled (actually, a bit better since the cards are still in your library to draw). While experienced players are mostly very good about not bemoaning milled cards, I know that many casual players hate being milled more than damage, even when it isn't a real threat. Call it psychological warfare or something.
I also think Buried Treasure would help turn this effect on its head and actually make revealing nonland cards quite exciting.
I think the feel-bad of switching cards to the bottom of the library might be offset by the reduced need for crippling mulligans by having Dig cards in your deck.
DeleteWhat about putting this mechanic in the same set as Dig:
DeleteSecret Plan
2U
Sorcery
Rummage 2. (To rummage 2, put the bottom two cards of your library into your hand.)
Now you have dig to get lands and rummage to get spells, assuming you're using the two in concert.
Craaaazy. Might be awfully spike-y if remembering the order of the cards on the bottom of your library becomes burdensome? But definitely a mechanic to consider. Even if Rummage weren't to be used, I would definitely put it on a green card in the set unkeyworded.
DeleteYeah, I would definitely try at least one card that draws from the bottom of your deck and see if it warrants more.
DeleteI worked with Dig briefly as an action word, and you're right that it's more versatile. I ran into a few issues - as an action word, cards want to Dig repeatedly, which is remarkable potential card advantage. The three you've chosen are exactly the sort of cards we would want to do - Dig in place of a cantrip, more or less.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing that seemed to happen was a slight distortion of the color pie. For some reason, discarding a red Dwarf and Digging seems perfectly reasonable to me, where casting him for red mana and Digging when he enters the battlefield seems wrong. Could just be my personal colorpiometer, I don't know. The option on that is to make Dig a largely GBu mechanic, which might be a solid choice regardless (though it emulates cycling slightly less well).
The third reason was that the Frontier that I've been dealing with has some issues with complexity, and on-board Dig potentially creates more decision points than from-hand Dig, as well as making it so you need to read each Dig card to see what it will do. That's not a *bad* thing, but sometimes a set needs the simplest version of a mechanic (if, for instance, there's a lot of other things going on around it).
There's also the potential to fuel a running Lavamancer/Skaab/Harvest Pyre-style mechanic if more cards cycle away instead of Digging from play.
I was wondering about the same color issues. Dig as an action probably can't go on every color. Dig as Cycling probably can (though it's still a little weird, like Magma Jet, getting a land just feels more colorful than cantripping).
DeleteI was about to rebut that Dig as an action word doesn't add to on-board complexity, because putting a land in your hand doesn't affect combat or permanents at all, but it would if we use Buried Treasure. That's something to look out for.
I guess my argument would be that Aven Fisher adds more to on-board complexity than Pendrell Drake, even if only by a marginal amount. (That does obviously refer to cards like Zombie Gardener, not Gnomish Prospector.)
DeleteAdditionally, if the mechanic in the set representing "Duel" (by any name) becomes a combat mechanic rather than a Clash+1, the space for Dig as an action word seems much more palatable.
ReplyDeleteAgreed. The clash-esque versions of Duel do fill the same space (both conceptually and as a smoothing mechanic) as Dig. I guess we'll have to see which path is awesomer.
DeleteIs it just me, but wouldn't dig feel a bit more exciting as:
ReplyDelete2, discard this card: dig (reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a land card. Place one of the revealed in your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order)
It would create a prospecting feel by occasionally tripping over the treasure, even if you sometimes just get a land.
Interesting. That's a huge upgrade as it goes from being conditionally worse than Cycling to strictly better. Of course, we could just charge 3 for it but then it's not nearly as good at fighting mana screw.
DeleteI would try it.
The Vintage banned/restricted lists just got longer. How about Anonymous' version but with every card having Dig X?
DeleteSorry, I should have said:
DeleteXX, Discard this card: Dig X (Reveal the top X cards of your library. Place one of the revealed cards into your hand and the rest on the bottom of your library in any order)
or
Dig 2 (2, Discard this card: Exile the top X cards of your library, where X is this card's converted mana cost. Put one of those cards into your hand.)