Cool Card Design of the Day7/31/2013 - Lucky was pretty clearly the best mechanic presented as-is yesterday. I want to explore a variation of overcharge some more though, because I really think it has potential.
This version uses manaflow's reminder text, but all the spells have {X} in the cost, allowing you to count the base cost of the spell toward your potential free spell, improving your chances of success.
The text is a lot shorter.
There's a moment of confusion when you don't see X in the spell's base effect, but it doesn't take long to see that's there to improve the overcharge effect.
Like kicker, it's not hard to argue overcharge into all five colors, but if you had to choose three—or if you wanted to focus it primarily in three—I'd say definitely red and green and probably not white, just on instinct.
You can put this keyword on any of the standard spell types, though I think it's best left off of instant (at least at common) since it can put creatures onto the field and that possibility could paralyze combat for some players.
Here's a rare and a mythic, just to show the other end of the scale.
This is simply too confusing for common. R&D already was pushing the envelope by including Heat Ray in ROE, and market testing confirmed it was complex for many players - and look at how simple Heat Ray is. I think, because of complexity issues, that this just isn't doable at the common rarity.
ReplyDeleteBut, let's ignore those issues, and pretend this is a Modern Masters level set. The mechanic is very interesting, and I definitely like the 'push your luck' style of it - something you rarely see in Magic. I'm a fan!
It's definitely pushing NWO and definitely not appropriate for core set. It may well just be too much for common in an expert set too; It's clearly weirder than Heat Ray.
DeleteI didn't know market research confirmed Heat Ray was too complex at common. Did they say that somewhere?
DeleteI'm nor sure they said it was market research, but MaRo definitely said somewhere that X spells eat complexity points at common.
DeleteA spell that costs G does NOT cost less than RRR, correct? Likewise a spell that costs RRR does not cost less than 4R (even if you paid for 4R with all red?)
ReplyDelete{G} does not cost less than {X}{R}, when X includes no green mana, but {R}{R}{R} does cost less than {X}{1}{R} when X includes at least two red mana. That's not immediately clear, and is a major strike against comparing mana costs, instead of converted mana costs. Good point.
DeleteWhy is this not just Cascade? Or at least a variant of it?
ReplyDeleteHow is not a variant of Cascade?
DeleteWhat about removing the X and just giving the spell a fixed (but high-ish) mana cost? That brings it closer to cascade, but it's in some ways an improvement since the cards read better and you don't create Hypergenesis-type problems.
ReplyDelete