Cool Card Design of the Day9/4/2013 - Blue needs more creature keywords to give designers more flexibility when creating creature cycles. Sneaky is an evasion ability that feels blue enough that it could be primary there (and it could be secondary in black or even green).
Sneaky is basically a subset of Mistmeadow Skulk's "protection from converted mana cost 3 or greater." The idea is that you use expensive creature's stature (literal or figurative) as a liability to go low and undetected.
There are a number of variants I'd want to test:
It might be better reversed: "can't be blocked by creatures with a lower CMC."
Or even sharpened: "can't be blocked except by creatures with the same CMC."
It might be better to compare power than CMC: "can't be blocked by creatures with higher power," but that would make power boosting effects harder to use.
Sneaky N would let us set a creature's sneakiness regardless of its CMC.
It's important to its potential use in cycles that Sneaky isn't an action keyword or ability word because those require additional text to use. That doesn't prevent us from doing something like "X: ~ gains sneaky X until EOT" or "~ has sneaky as long as the defending player controls an Island."
the problem they found with this ability if that once the creature was outside of the power and toughness that is generally at that cost (by enchantment or such) it could not be stopped.
ReplyDeleteWhat?
DeleteIf you somehow get a sneaky 3/3 for 2 (with Auras or the like) there are few ways to block it profitably. But this makes double-blocks and tokens good, which I guess might be enough.
DeleteI don't think "CMC matters" is a good design space for combat mechanics as it significantly increases board complexity. As long as there's one creature with sneaky on the battlefield, the CMC of *every* creature on the battlefield matters when deciding attackers and blockers.
ReplyDeleteOnly the defending creatures' CMC matters. Is power better?
DeleteI like "can't be blocked by creatures with greater power" a lot better. It's naturally better against Blue's enemies, since Red and Green tend to get high power creatures; it's good on Blue's 1/3s and 2/3s (they have to be double/triple blocked to be killed); and it interacts with and it interacts with pump/shrink. It is a bit sad though that, like deathtouch, it loses relevancy on larger creatures.
DeleteBesides, blue hardly needs more evasion... If anything, it needs a keyword that it could share exclusively with Red or Black.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Blue needs no more evasion. It's already got flying and islandwalk and "can't be blocked".
DeleteEvasion is definitely at the bottom of the list of mechanics blue needs.
DeleteI'm not sure evergreen references to CMC are NWO compliant, but I like the greater power version. That said, what I think blue really needs is a non-evasion combat mechanic and thusfar I haven't come up with anything better than Frostbreath-touch or Bounce-touch.
ReplyDeleteThe big problem with bouncetouch, which I think is otherwise awesome, is that it's not 100% obvious what happens when a bouncetouch creature deals lethal damage.
DeleteCan reminder text take care of that?
DeleteUnraveller (Nonlethal damage ~ deals to a creature returns that creature to its owner's hand.)
It could, of course, also be a trigger.
Unraveller2 (Whenever ~ deals nonlethal damage to a creature, return that creature to its owner's hand.)
I suppose it could work on any permanent to be good against Planeswalkers, but that interaction is probably not worth the added difficulty for new players.
Frostbreath-touch seems pretty sweet.
DeleteYeah, somebody proposed Frostbreath-touch on Blogatog months ago, but MaRo didn't seem to keen on it. I'm still not sure why. Then again, I never played much Kamigawa block limited, so maybe Orochi Ranger and friends have already taught R&D something I'm missing completely.
DeleteThe Orochi seemed to play fine to me at the time, though I wasn't as critical then.
DeleteI tried searching for this exchange but didn't find it. I'd be curious why MaRo would be against it.
Mechanic is interesting, but has some problems:
ReplyDelete1. referring to CMC is not NWO compatible, especially on a keyworded mechanic;
2. blue hardly needs another evasion ability, all of his mechanics barring hexproof do this;
It could refer to power and not CMC, but point 2 would remain. That said, I don't want to sound dismissive, I like the mechanic, but probably it would better serve as a 1-of on a rare or uncommon.
At the end, there's a reason that Maro is looking for this mechanic for many time, but has found nothing :)
Agreed with the first two statements.
DeleteRegarding the last one, the only way to guarantee you never find the new mechanic is by not trying.
Ah, sure, I agree with you :)
DeleteOh, hey there skulk.
ReplyDelete