Cool Card Design of the Day7/25/2013 - I'm posting this late because the day was insane, but late is better than never. Coward's Toll lies somewhere between Murder and Cruel Edict in power level. Granted neither of those spells can kill multiple creatures, but if that's what's happening when you play Coward's Toll, it's because you'd much rather it just killed the one creature that's really causing you headaches.
A good design lesson to take away from this is that sometimes approaching things in a roundabout way enables you to hit upon things like "removal between Murder and an Edict" that is a satisfactory achievement from a technical perspective and thus good design practice; but when we as designers step back and imagine/test the real-world gameplay, more often than not the reality is that our "innovative" rules text has simply produced a cumbersome-to-read common (or uncommon) effect.
ReplyDeleteThat is to say: yes, its effect is conceptually between Murder and Cruel Edict, but the reality is that under most circumstances players won't want you to recur your efficient removal, so what we've actually got here is a sorcery-speed Doom Blade that can kill indestructible creatures.
There are many situations where it'll be exactly that. If your opponent has no other creatures, they've got no choice (not that they would with Cruel Edict either). If they have worse creatures, it becomes a question of relative value. I can think of a lot of situations in Limited, where you'd happily sacrifice a board-stalling dork every turn to keep your bomb on the table. But a majority of the time, it'll make more sense just to cut your losses and lose your best guy. In Constructed, where you don't tend to have any creatures you're happy to sacrifice, I expect Coward's Toll becomes even more of a problem. But would you play it at {B}{B}, {2}{B} or {1}{B}{B}?
DeleteJay, make no mistake, I recognize that there are innumerable situations in which this design can function precisely as you describe.
DeleteI was simply delineating a lesson that can be taken from the design that is independent of the usual developmental jibber-jabber in which folks ponder whether a card is good, bad, too powerful, too weak, whatever. And that is not to say that I thought you needed to learn that lesson, just that it was line of thought that occurred to me as I considered the design.
That wasn't lost on me. I love those kinds of observations. Thanks.
DeleteThe Batman villain approach is awesome, but it's strange that you can change what creature you demand be sacrificed. Maybe we can simplify it a bit:
ReplyDeleteCoward's Toll {1}{B}
Enchantment-Aura (C)
Enchant Creature
Enchanted creature has "at the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature."
That's excellent. I suspect it's a bit cheap since you only have to pay for it once.
DeleteConsidering it's slower-than-sorcery-speed and can't hit pro-black, this seems like a safe Terror for an enchantment-heavy block.
DeleteThese sorts of cards that give your opponents choices are always weaker than they look. Given that this is strictly worse than "at the beginning of your upkeep, sac this" I'm positive that it's not unbalanced at 1B. That's not to say it wouldn't be costed higher to improve limited, just that this card has nothing on Doom Blade or Go For The Throat powerwise.
DeleteThe delayed return is just right.
ReplyDeleteIf it cost, say, 2BB, then choosing to sacrifice another creature would be correct more often.
ReplyDeleteSimplifing:
DeleteCoward's Toll 1B
Enchantment-Aura
Enchant creature
B: Enchanted creature's controller sacrifices a creature. Play this ability only once each turn.
Coward's Toll {1}{B}
DeleteEnchantment-Aura
Enchant Creature
At the beginning of your upkeep, pay {1}{B} or sacrifice CARDNAME.
Enchanted creature has "At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice a creature."
(I was tempted to add symmetry by letting the target's controller pay {1}{B} too.)
Above points power level withstanding, this symmetry is still nice.
Delete