Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Tesla—Getting the Gears Turning

I’m overjoyed to announce that as of today I’ll be joining this blog’s cast of Artisans. I wasn’t involved in either Great Designer Search, but I’ve done a whole lot of design work in the intervening years and I’ve learned an enormous amount from the discussions that take place here. I hope to provide similar opportunities for all of you.

[Editor's Note: Jules won the very first contest held here almost three years ago to the day — let's just say his work has improved noticeably.]

Tesla has been on the back burner for a while now, so I thought I’d get design started up again. When last we left, the set was pretty undefined. All we really knew was that we were starting with Mecha because they have the potential to be a marquee mechanic for the block. Chah was in the middle of iterating upon the Mecha mechanic, and many ideas had been proposed; here are a few of them:


Aura Style


This is more or less where we started; combining your pieces gives you a powerful creature, but opens you up to 2-for-1s which leaves us with two options: make a Rise of the Eldrazi-like format where it’s hard to remove big creatures, or make them powerful enough to justify combining anyway. The second approach leads to really swingy gameplay that I think we could do without, but the first option is still very much on the table.

Nonetheless, there are a bunch of logistical issues. Will players think the combined card is summoning sick or not? Will it matter how long the parts have been out? How do we get the cards aligned correctly? These questions can be answered by reminder text, but there has to be an easier way. One option was to combine them at the end step, but that leaves extra room for feel bad moments when your Mecha gets you 2-for-1ed before you can even attack. I want Mecha to attack:



Well okay, tapping is still necessary in case a player grants one vigilance, but you get the idea. This version has the added bonus of moving the game forward: building an ROE-like environment involves lots of cards that can lead to board stalls, so we want to get the game going once the bombs hit the table. Eldrazi do that with promises of card advantage, but this version gives us an unobtrusive way to require it.

But maybe Rise isn’t the way to go. How else can we convince people to make Mecha without making them overly "swingy"? The easiest way is to take away the card disadvantage of getting one killed.


Totem Armor Style


This does wonders for letting Mecha combine multiple times per game, but comes with a major issue of its own: How do you choose which part gets saved? If the controller chooses, it leads to repetitive gameplay with a strong Mecha part; if an opponent chooses, it hurts the recombination process because they’ll try to screw you out of either heads or bodies.

Chah split the difference by letting you usually choose in combat, and an opponent when they have removal, but there’s no intuition behind this version. In fact, it’s counter-intuitive: everyone I’ve ever met is perplexed by Murderous Redcap trading with Kitchen Finks having a different result depending on whose turn it is. It may turn out that the gameplay is worth it, but this mechanic has got enough going on that I want to avoid steepening the learning curve if at all possible.


Banding Style

Another way to avoid too many 2-for-1s is to let players disassemble their Mecha. In order to make that capability more relevant, Chah proposed making the “heads” flying machines that slot into previously immobile (read: Defender) bodies.


This setup does a lot to differentiate heads and bodies, which should help avoid disappointing moments where players think they can build a Mecha only to discover they actually have two heads. On the other hand, it makes it harder to understand what’s going on because the front halves now have attributes that don’t map to the backs. Moreover, any banding implementation we choose necessarily adds board complexity because letting Mecha deconstruct only stops two-for-ones if it can be done at instant speed.


Scavenge Style

But who says Mecha need to combine from play in the first place? If you make them out of scrap metal it’s pure value!


Now Scavenge had a lukewarm reception, in large part because looking at just the Scavenge ability makes it look horribly inefficient. Using the casting costs requires a little bit of math on the player’s part, but it stops a cheap cost on one piece from undercutting costs on more expensive pieces, doesn’t require players to remember another cost, and looks more appealing at first glance.

Unfortunately, this solution both requires that players monitor the ‘yard and needs something to avoid repetitive gameplay (as shown, staying one card, though there are other options).


Last-Ditch Style


This version is also a freebie, but may exacerbate issues with players refusing to kill Mecha parts to keep them from combining. The cost is a little bit awkward in that the same resulting Mecha costs different amounts depending on which piece dies. Nevertheless, I prefer this over free combination because it allows for shields-down moments, and that incentivizes the Mecha player to attack.

As templated, it should be possible to combine a head and a body that die together, but I’m not sure if players will expect that to be the case. This version has some nice inherent balancing in that the easier a Body is to kill (and thus combine), the more fragile the resulting Mecha. Therefore they’re a bit less likely to run away with games.
_______________________________________________________


So that’s where we currently stand. We have a lot of options, but before delving any further into the Mecha mechanic itself we need to address another issue Chah identified. The Mecha mechanics are splashy, but most of them don’t really shake up the gameplay experience like, say, Werewolves did for Innistrad.

There’s nothing wrong with having a mechanic like that in our set, but it can’t define our set. So we need to ask ourselves: What is Tesla about? Hopefully the Mecha tie into that, so I’m going to leave you with a challenge.

Pick an implementation of Mecha you like and identify design space that interacts with the mechanic. Then design a card or mechanic that demonstrates how we might explore that space in Tesla. I’ll use the lowest hanging fruit as an example: Scavenge style Mecha synergize with a self-mill theme; we could include Dredge.

Of course, if you have a different idea for how to implement Mecha, feel free to post it below along with some mechanical space that works with your implementation. I’m looking forward to seeing what you all come up with!

EDIT: A lot of people seem to feel that the Mecha are holding Tesla back. If you don't like Mecha, please submit a different mechanic for a Tesla and we'll discuss those pitches as well.

75 comments:

  1. The last time we had a serious discussion about the mechas and Tesla was before there was a handy little mechanic called bestow. Bestow is not without its flaws, but it basically accomplishes what all the different implementations of our mechas do - It combines two creatures into one bigger creature with combined abilities, beefier stats, and semi-clear rules about attached objects, tapped status, and card (dis)advantage.

    I guess where I'm going with this is, are any of these implementations inherently superior to bestow? It's a question I'm still considering, but if the answer is no, and if we want to keep the concept of mechas intact as the core of the bottom-up design approach we're taking, what can we do that's different enough from bestow and unique/fun enough to be a marquis mechanic?

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    1. I spent a while considering Bestow; it certainly covers similar mechanical space, but I'm not convinced that the emotional payoff was there. I feel like I'm combining creatures with The Mimeoplasm, but not with Hopeful Eidolon. I'm not positive that Mecha are worth keeping, but at their best they are to Bestow what Innistad's werewolves are to Werebear, and I'd be happy to do that.

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    2. Taking a shot at a Bestow-esque implementation:

      Titan Head 2W
      Artifact Creature- Head Construct
      2/2
      Vigilance
      Mecha 3W (If you cast this for its Mecha cost, you may combine it with target Body creature and transform both as it enters the battlefield. When the combined creature leaves the battlefield, return this to your hand.)

      [Flip side: Titanic ________, Vigilance in text box]

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    3. Or how about equipable artifact creatures that can only equip on others.

      Titan Head 2W
      Artifact Creature Equipment - Head
      2/2
      Vigilance
      Equiped creature gets +2/+2 and vigilance.
      Equip 7W

      Flying Body 2UU
      Artifact Creature - Body
      2/2
      Flying
      Body 4 (if this creature woud be equiped with an Artifact Creature Equipment, reduce the equip cost by 4.

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    4. @Ipaulsen: I like how handily this version deals with which part returns, but I'm concerned that it's going to lead to some major memory issues when a Mecha dies after six turns on the board.

      @fading: Currently the rules don't allow a creature to be attached to something because it gets immensely confusing to track that tapped/untapped and blocking statuses of two separate creatures which have to stay together. Soulbond mitigates this issue by limiting the stacking to two and not differentiating between the attached-to and attaching creatures, but this implementation doesn't solve the problem in its current form.

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    5. Point taken, Jules. I was assuming that only Heads would have the mecha ability (as I proposed below) and so we could print reminder text on the transformed card. But after thinking it over, in that case it's not clear that the bestow-like templating actually gets you anything, so this probably isn't a good way to go.

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  2. My advice is to forget the Mecha, and find a new focus to start Tesla building around. We could start from "It's an artifact set, that isn't Mirrodin, and uses DFCs - what designs can you come up with that fit that premise?" and go from there. Or we could work from the idea of Rube Goldberg machines, or contraptions, or try and top-down some more worldbuilding based on either "Factory plane" or "post-apocalyptic (artifact) world" or "clockwork X" or "tesla coils" - but we really should start somewhere else, and eventually draw Mechas back into the picture. Maybe they can be a marquee mechanic again eventually, but it's a stymied design space in the abstract as far as I'm concerned.

    All that aside, Jules, I'm excited to work with you again/see what you can do leading this project - and congratulations on joining the artisan team!

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    1. Thanks! I spent a while considering whether or not to start with Mecha, here's the long and short of why I decided to give them another shot:

      1. Tesla seemed to be stuck in a rut, but I'm not sure Mecha are that rut. We never really tried to figure out what they might interact with.
      2. The mechanic has the potential for enormous emotional impact and I'd like to capture that. If we start with them and they work, we can shape the set's feel to make them a cohesive part. If they work but we add them later, they might stick out like a sore thumb and/or demand we throw out a lot of other work.
      3. They're pretty much all the definition we had. If we drop Mecha right off the bat there's no payoff for people who've been awaiting Tesla's return.

      All that said, I'm by no means married to them. If the ideas we generate here aren't appealing enough as jumping off points, we'll start somewhere else.

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    2. Welcome officially Jules! If I may ask, what is that awesome avatar you have there?

      In terms of Mecha, while it's exciting (and I put my preference below), I think one of the problems with Tesla is that we never reached consensus on what we wanted it to be aside from "artifacts something something". I'm with Pasteur here: let's decide what we're aiming for a little more first and go from there. Now if playtesting proves that one of these Mechas just knocks us out of the park, I'm all for it. Just want a little more definition.

      One idea I liked was The Matrix style: some artifact faction rules the plane, while resistance fights against them. Although now that I spelled it out, it reads like Mirrodin AND New Phyrexia...

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    3. Yeah, the thing that most excites me about going back to Tesla is the mecha. I played in one playtest with them and found them really interesting in-game, and definitely fun trying to get them to pay off. I do love steampunk worlds anyway (my own best custom cardset is a steampunk setting, though Victoriana style rather than post-apocalyptic), so I'm excited about Tesla anyway, but the mecha are the defining focus for that excitement for me.

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    4. @Ben: Thanks! HavelockV photoshopped the avatar out of the art on Villagers of Estwald. As for the set focus, my current plan is to make another post highlighting the ideas here, but I don't see any particular reason that has to be limited to Mecha-based ideas, so let's open the floor to Mecha-less foci for Tesla as well.

      @AlexC: Thanks for sharing, glad to hear I'm not completely off my rocker.

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  3. Maybe having two separate types is the problem. Something like exoskeletons that graft abilities onto any creature? ...Wait, that's just Living Weapon.

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    1. Coming at it from the crazy side of the spectrum, let's use Curse of the Fire Penguin tech. Literal text box grafting; maybe with additive P/T!

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    2. I like it in theory, but we'd need a way to make it more intuitive. I'm not sure what percentage of players was mystified by the card, but it certainly wasn't small and would likely be larger in an expansion where new players are more likely to run across it.

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    3. Actual rules text would probably be helpful, as opposed to "consumes and confuses." Thankfull, DFCs have the space to let that happen.

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    4. I've been thinking about how to approach this too. I bet there's some kind of visual layout for the cards that makes it more intuitive how to graft them onto an existing creature, but I haven't come up with any good versions.

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    5. Agreed. I'll definitely include this option in the next write-up to see if anyone else has a bright idea.

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  4. My pick is the Totem Armor style, with one modification: Be consistent about which half gets returned to hand. I'm inclined to return the Head (or Core, as the case may be) because it makes more sense creatively and is less painful mechanically. You'd also want to adjust the Limited numbers to favor Bodies over Heads (which, again, makes quite a bit of sense).

    Plenty of effects have cool interactions with the Totem Armor idea-- discard effects and Riddlesmith are two that immediately come to mind. We could even put enters-the-battlefield abilities on Heads! But more generally, the Totem Armor idea suggests the hand as design space. Steampunk / Tesla has a heavy emphasis on science and knowledge, so maybe the hand can represent designs or blueprints that haven't been manufactured yet.

    I combined this with the general mad-scientist vibe, bounced it off the wall a couple of times, and got to the following:

    Crush With Gears 2B
    Instant (Uncommon)
    Destroy target non-artifact creature.
    Replicate-- Discard an artifact card.

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    1. I too really like the Totem Armor version, with the tweak of being consistent about which part dies. I think that while always getting rid of the Chassis (btw, love Chassis and Core as creative words) might lead to better gameplay/swinginess, I can see how that would get frustrating. I'd have to play with it to see really. But I'm basically with Ipaulsen here.

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    2. I also think the totem armour style is the best. I'm not sure to what extent that's just because the Tesla playtest I did used the totem armour style, but I think it's a natural and positive solution to the card-disadvantage problem.

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    3. I got so caught up in the DFC collation issues that I hadn't considered vastly biasing the part numbers to let the same one return. That's brilliant! It may exacerbate repetitive gameplay issues a bit, but we wanted abilities that play differently on different sized creatures anyway.

      As for the hand/discard theme, I'm a bit worried about having a lot of cards encouraging players to do something they don't like (discard their own cards), but the gameplay's definitely there. I love the idea of etb triggers on heads, especially with Chah's upgrade path of the back triggering everytime it attacks/hits an opponent.

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    4. Thanks Jules! Yeah, looking at it again, the design I posted doesn't really have much to do with the hand as a design space. Here are some other random ideas I had related to hand size:

      Big Dumb Dude G
      Creature- Beast (Uncommon)
      4/3
      CARDNAME costs 1 more to cast for each card in your hand.

      Blueprint Tactician 2W
      Creature- Human Artificer
      2/2
      T, Reveal an unrevealed artifact card from your hand: Tap target creature. (The card stays revealed for as long as it's in your hand.)

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    5. Big Dumb Dude is certainly cool space to play around in. Blueprint Tactician is cool for higher rarities, but I don't want it at common for the same reason I don't want Samite Healer there: it's going to feel bad to run into a trick you should have known your opponent could pull.

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    6. I don't understand what makes Blueprint Tactician different from, say, Akroan Mastiff. Yes, it's an on-board trick, but so are a ton of creatures, right? As far as the card-revealing goes, players will probably assume that the opponent will have something to reveal unless he/she is down to 0-2 unrevealed cards in hand.

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    7. I meant the revealed card. Once you've revealed a Sip of Hemlock or Giant Growth, your opponent has to track it like an on board trick until you play it. Samite Healer was the wrong example, this is more like Mogg Fanatic.

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    8. Oh, I see. Yes, that could get rather frustrating, though it's not nearly as bad when restricted to artifacts.

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  5. I persenaly go more with a banding style aproach. You "band" them together, until one part gets killed, and if they are blocked, they are blocked together. Then you have a awsome flavor that 1 part can gets free to atach to something else, but they can also be killed together. And you can combine a lot more of creatures together. But no more transforming shit, that just doens't work

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    1. I'm interested in which part of the transforming style is the problem. Are you against Innistrad's transform cards too, is the combining too parasitic, or something else?

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    2. the fact that you need two cards to transform into 1 card. That can lead to some very confusing rules. If you see all the examples you have given here, you already notice yourself that the rules can be a bit wierd.

      And you have to think about the art. If you have multiple head cards, how the hell do you arange the artwork of the transforming card?

      Attacking together is not a so difficult rules strech. You can block both with one creature and then assing in what order the attackers are fought. THere are already rules for blocking multiple creatures. And if attacking togehter does not gives enough advantage, the can give eachother bonnuses when they are combined

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    3. Thanks for clarifying. There are certainly logistical issues with the combining approach; that's a strike against it, but doesn't mean we shouldn't do it. Innistrad transform cards don't add any functionality above and beyond Kamigawa flip cards, but they come with way more issues. Nonetheless, they're so much more viscerally impactful and aesthetically pleasing that they were a huge success where the flip cards were a failure. The cost may be too high for combining cards, but I don't want to give up their emotional cache until we're certain.

      That said, if we do end up concluding that combining Mecha can't be done, a cleaner version of banding could certainly capture the flavor. Thanks for the input!

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    4. For what it's worth, I'm sufficiently vocal a detractor of DFCs that I compiled a list of 15+ problems with DFCs and think Magic would have been better if they'd never happened. But since they did happen, we have the technology available, and we might as well make use of it in a circumstance where it adds to the fun.

      The art of different heads/bodies connecting together will be very hard to do as a group of amateurs who can't commission artists to do the work specifically for us. But I think the idea is to pretend that we are at Wizards, at which point I have every confidence that Wizards' stable of artists would be able to achieve fantastic things. You just make the style guide include precise specifications for where the lines at the join need to go.

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  6. for the last-ditch style cards why not have a flat cost like transmute did, like {3}. this means that your opponent is equally wary or both sides.
    another option is you make all the removal slow like theros. or all the other creatures a tic smaller than a mech generally is (this is what they did with warewolves). those were my two cents I might add my opinion on what is the superior style later but not now.

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    1. Good thoughts, I hadn't considered the fixed cost option. It definitely deserves investigation.

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  7. I like the attack phase version (Molten Slicer) best.

    What would happen if they only combined for the duration of the attack? That would give us far more mix-and-match potential.

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    1. Great idea! It would probably need to go until end of turn to avoid nonlethal damage weirdness, but it should be doable in NWO since everything's fixed before you have to declare blocks.

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  8. A rough take on colored pilots/colorless bodies in two tight common cycles.

    Quixotic Cadet W
    Creature - Human Soldier
    First Strike
    1/1

    Aven Envoy U
    Creature - Bird Soldier
    Flying
    0/2

    Rustblood Pilot B
    Creature - Vampire Scout
    Lifelink
    1/1

    Goblin Throttler R
    Creature - Goblin Artificer
    Whenever an artifact is put into your graveyard from the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on CARDNAME.
    0/1

    Elven Engineer G
    Creature - Elf Artificer
    As long as you control an artifact, CARDNAME has hexproof.
    1/1

    Warweary Walker 3
    Artifact - Equipment
    Equipped creature is a white 3/5 Giant.
    Equip 3W

    Waterway Walker 3
    Artifact - Equipment
    Equipped creature is a blue 3/3 Giant. It gains islandwalk.
    Equip 3U

    Wasteland Walker 3
    Artifact - Equipment
    Equipped creature is a black 3/2 Giant. It gains intimidate.
    Equip 3B

    Warpath Walker 3
    Artifact - Equipment
    Equipped creature is a red 4/3 Giant. It gains trample and attacks each turn if able.
    Equip 3R

    Wayfaring Walker 3
    Artifact - Equipment
    Equipped creature is a green 6/4 Giant.
    Equip 3G

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    1. The Vorthos in me does not like that a Craw Wurm could suit up in a waterway walker suit and get smaller. Could this work like this instead?:

      Waterway Walker 2/U 3
      Artifact - Equipment
      Equipped creature is a blue, gets +3/+3, gains islandwalk, and is a gaint in addition to its other types.
      Equip 2 2/U

      Also I changed this to hybrid mana because I dont see the point in having a colorless casting cost but a colored equip cost. Might as well have a colored mana cost as well. I think it would be interesting to have equipment that works better in a blue deck, but could be played in any deck. Thoughts?




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    2. Hah. Valuable for comparison and discussion, certainly. But (as I suspect you intended) degenerating it down to "1/1s with abilities" and "Equipment" loses all the splash and most of the fun compared to the exciting experience of turning cards over to feel like you're physically combining them.

      Put another way, there's no way this mechanic could be iconic or marquee for its containing set. It is of course an educational task to consider quite what makes it different from several of the proposals mentioned in this post or thread, though.

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    3. The vorthos in me has much more of a problem with a Craw Wurm holding a Sword of X&Y (which happens) than one getting inside a mech suit and becoming less powerful (which, realistically, probably won't come up in gameplay much).

      As for being insufficiently splashy; it may be that this is closer to the Bestow of a set rather than the Gods of the set, but these are also common designs. It's clean enough that you can presumably add fancy/fun things on top of it, which is an upside.

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    4. This is certainly less viscerally exciting, but I could see it filling a role. I do have a couple of concerns, though:
      1. Can we do this in NWO? Most players aren't sure what to do when you Turn to Frog a creature that's been Giant Growthed (that's why Diminish went away). That said, only happening at Sorcery speed avoids most of those cases, so we might be okay.
      2. We could end up with some repetitive gameplay issues when the same sized creatures are clashing turn after turn. If we're in topdeck mode and each have a normal equipment it matters whether we draw Elvish Visionary or Centaur Courser. With these, not so much.

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    5. Why would you put your Craw Wurm in a Waterway Walker? We could explicitly prohibit larger creatures from being equipped, but it's implicitly prohibited by nature of the effect.
      I have more trouble with Aven Envoy being such a skilled pilot that it can make its mechs fly.

      Maybe this block has no Giant Growth effects. Only P/T-setting equipment and +1/+1 counters (since it's fairly intuitive they stack).

      Adding the totem armor "If equipped creature would die, sacrifice ~ instead" keeps them from being repetitive.

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    6. Ooh, I like the totem armor option a lot. I'm not sure if we can make limited work without giant growths, but I'd certainly be willing to give it a shot.

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    7. If +1/+1 counters do prove intuitive, then Burst of Strength and Wings of Velis Vel can be this block's giant growths.

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    8. I honestly think we can do this at NWO easier than some of the other variations - there's only one P/T to track (I hate having players have to remember what P/T is on the backside of a card), everything happens at sorcery speed, and there are fewer new terms to have to learn to use.

      We can reduce Giant Growth effects at common, but even then, Giant Growthing an equipped creature isn't that weird, is it? Is there a layer-based interaction that I'm unfamiliar with here?

      I hadn't considered the totem armor option at all. That really can cover the gap in making the mechs feel like creatures - when they're inhabited, they can be killed with normal removal. It's a different flavor, but it's equally workable. The one thing I would want to test is whether that would make players more reluctant to equip their creature (if their average creature is less worth saving than their average equipment).

      As for #2, repetitive gameplay can be an issue, but I think this works in the Mechs' favor. The current five are designed to all be able to break through a stall against each other. If you draw an Elvish Visionary, and I draw a Centaur Courser, you're rewarded for having a creature that has better synergy with Mechs (making players value smaller creatures before the game even begins, which is always good); I'm rewarded if either of us have artifact removal (as my creature can still hold its own if that's the case); and if it becomes a battle of "find a pilot, any pilot, for your Mech, which is the center of the game from here on out", then that's pretty much exactly the story I think the set could sell.

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    9. On the Giant Growth front, most players are unsure what happens if you first Giant Growth a Nessian Courser, then equip it with Wayfaring Walker. Is it a 6/4 or a 9/7?

      On the repetitive play issue, I agree it's thematic, but I have a hard time imagining it'll be fun. The games are going to feel way too variable to most players if it looks like they just lost because their opponent drew a creature first. That said, we may be able to diminish that issue with more designs like Warpath Walker that you don't necessarily stick on every creature.

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  9. I also like the idea of colored non-artifact Pilots. P/T setting equipment isn't very splashy, but it is evocative.

    I'm in favor of the Scavenge Transform style, as like Bestow they give you something to do early (cast the creatures normally) and something to do late game as a mana sink (Combine). The flavor works for me putting Combine only on the Pilots, and when they're combined, destroying just the Chassis:

    Noxious Pilot 1B
    Creature - Rat Pilot
    Deathtouch
    Drive (You may cast this from your hand and a Chassis from your graveyard. As you do, transform and join them into one card.)
    1/1

    Armored Treader 5
    Chassis Artifact Creature - Construct
    2/5 (4/7)

    Noxious Treader
    Deathtouch
    If this would die, destroy the Chassis and transform the Pilot instead.
    4/7

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    1. I like this a lot from a mechanical standpoint, but I'm not quite sure how to do the art if the Pilot isn't physically transforming the robot. Assuming we can solve that issue, we have the question of whether or not to exile the Chassis. Doing so makes it harder to make a bunch of combinations when you're short on parts, but the current version can lead to repetitive gameplay.

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    2. I feel like the Art is going to be a thorny problem whatever Transform mech route we go. I hadn't considered the need to exile the Chassis, that might be necessary. Since the original Pilot can't recombine unless you bonce it, I could see it playing fine even if the Chassis goes to your graveyard when destroyed.

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    3. Yeah, the best plan I've heard for the art is having the combined cards horizontal (unlike the current renders) and having a constant middle section across all Mecha that integrates into the art on both cards with something of this style for the artists: http://00.edu-cdn.com/worksheet-image/191767/finish-drawing-wear-people-second.gif

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  10. My favorite implementation is the Banding Style. I want to be able to choose when I make my robots rather than waiting for a trigger. I also want to be able to move the heads and bodies around like equipment.

    I also like the colored artifacts, mostly because I see them getting passed more often in packs 2 and 3 and thus leading to more drafters with giant robots. As a brainstorming exercise I tried to imagine what how to make colored Cores feel significant. I am imagining that all the bodies are non-colored.

    Grappler Core 3G
    Artifact Creature - Core
    Reach
    2/4
    -----------
    Grappler --
    Artifact Creature - Mecha
    Reach
    This creature gets +2/+2
    [2]:Disconnect etc...

    Tactical Core 1U
    Artifact Creature - Core
    Flying
    Artifact spells you cast cost [1] less to cast.
    1/2
    -----------
    Tactician's --
    Artifact Creature - Mecha
    Artifact spells you cast cost [1] less to cast.
    2: Disconnect etc...

    Shielded Core W (U)
    Artifact Creature - Core
    Flying
    This creature has hexproof unless its attacking or blocking.
    1/1
    -----------
    Shielded --
    Artifact Creature Mecha -
    This creature has hexproof unless it is attacking or blocking.
    2: Disconnect etc...

    The White and Blue Cores are each meant to help you play through removal, either by giving you more creatures to combine or by protecting them.

    The Green core doesn't really solve that problem, but I meant for it to solve the flavor question of how to make a Green Core when they are all able to fly and dock into their Chassis', Green uses grappling hooks!

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    1. Grappling hooks are a really clever solution for green. I'm not sure if it'll be close enough to the flying cores for players to draw the connection, but if all the Cores are colored and all the Chassis are colorless, that problem solves itself.

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  11. What if All the Mecha were able to be creatures on the front side and were equipment on the back side.

    Lifelink Golem 1W
    Artifact Creature - Construct
    Lifelink
    Mecha (Whenever another artifact creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may transform CARDNAME).
    1/1
    -----------
    Lifelink Cannon
    Artifact - Equipment
    Equipped creature has +1/+1 and lifelink.
    Equip: 1
    Whenever equipped creature dies, you may transform CARDNAME.

    Deathtouch Golem 1B
    Artifact Creature - Construct
    Deathtouch
    Mecha (Whenever another artifact creature enters the battlefield under your control, you may transform CARDNAME).
    1/1
    -----------
    Deathtouch Spikes
    Artifact - Equipment
    Equipped creature has +1/+1 and Deathtouch.
    Equip: 1
    Whenever equipped creature dies, you may transform CARDNAME.

    Then you could have certain artifact creatures that gain bonuses from being equipped.

    Central Core-Bot 3
    Artifact creature (Rare)
    CARDNAME gets +1/+1 for each equipment attached to it.
    2/2


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    Replies
    1. This also allows all mecha to be inter-changeable with each other and will alleviate both the need for "Head" and "Body" designations, and would be far easier on the Art team to deal with then having to have a bunch of art that would line up properly across two cards.

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    2. Also instead of a trigger the mecha could just pay a set cost to transform:

      Baloth Mecha 4GG
      Artifact Creature - Golem
      Trample
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this)
      4/4
      ------------------
      Baloth Armor
      Artifact - Equipment
      Equipped creature gets +4/+4 and has trample
      Equip: 2
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this.)

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    3. SAMPLE BOOSTER:

      10 Commons:

      Soldier Mecha W
      Artifact Creature - Soldier Golem
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this)
      1/1
      ------------------
      Soldier Shield
      Artifact - Equipment
      Equipped creature gets +1/+1
      Equip: 2
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this.)

      Engineer 1U
      Creature - Human Artificer
      T: add 1 to your mana pool. spend this only to cast artifacts.
      1/1

      Decomission 1B
      Instant
      Destroy target artifact creature

      Conductive Bolt R
      Instant
      Deal 2 damage to target creature. if it is equipped, deal 4 instead.

      Recycle Parts G
      Sorcery
      Return target artifact in your graveyard to your hand.

      Prevention Sphere 2WW
      Sorcery
      Target creature you control and all equipment attached to it gain indestructible until the end of turn.

      Recon Drone 3U
      Creature - Bird Golem
      Flying
      When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, target player reveals the top card of their library. If the revealed card is a non-land card, you may draw a card.
      1/3

      Smog Fumes. 3B
      Sorcery
      Target player loses life equal to the number of artifacts that player controls.

      Goblin Mecha Pilot R
      Creature - Goblin
      When CARDNAME dies, sacrifice all equipment attached to it and deal damage to target creature or player equal to the number of equipment sacrificed in this way.

      Wurm Mecha 4GG
      Artifact Creature - Wurm Golem
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this)
      4/5
      ------------------
      Wurmcoil Armor
      Artifact - Equipment
      Equipped creature gets +4/+5
      Equip: 2
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this.)

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    4. Uncommons, a Rare and a Mythic.

      Reverse Engineer 2UU
      Instant
      Counter target spell. return an artifact card from your graveyard to your hand.

      Turn to slag 3RR
      Sorcery
      Turn to Slag deals 5 damage to target creature. Destroy all Equipment attached to that creature.

      Baloth Mecha 4GG
      Artifact Creature - Beast Golem
      Trample
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this)
      4/4
      ------------------
      Baloth Armor
      Artifact - Equipment
      Equipped creature gets +4/+4 and has trample
      Equip: 2
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this.)

      RARE:

      Mech Engineer 1UU
      Creature - Human Artificer
      You may pay 0 for all Mecha costs.

      Mythic:
      Dragon Mecha 5RR
      Artifact Creature - Dragon Golem
      Flying. Whenever CARDNAME attacks, it deals damage equal to its power to target creature.
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this)
      5/5
      ------------------
      Dragon Armor
      Artifact - Equipment
      Equipped creature gets +5/+5 and has flying and "Whenever CARDNAME attacks, it deals damage equal to its power to target creature."
      Equip: 2
      Mecha 2 (You may pay 2 any time you could play a sorcery to transform this.)

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    5. This reminds me of Living Weapons, which is cool, those were fun. It helps to increase the density of Equipment in your deck by a lot, which is fun for Voltroning a huge creature, but could be rough to play against.

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    6. This is certainly my favorite implementation. I would definitely NOT print Turn to Slag in this set though!

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    7. This implementation is really clean, but I don't think it's developable in its current form. R&D isn't willing to print Vulshock Morningstar at common because it warps the game so much, so there's no way I could ever see them printing Wurm Mecha. The best solution that springs to mind is to drop the P/T boosts and replace them with keywords. Even so, we'd probably have to desynchronize either the Mecha or equip costs to balance them.

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    8. I can't help but to feel like paying 2 isn't the right condition for flipping it. I think I would like for the flip ability to automatically equip it (and have a cost equal to the equip cost on the back). I also think your equip costs are (for the most part) too low.

      Example:

      Mechanical Cat W
      Artifact Creature -- Cat (Common)

      Mechanize 4 (Transform ~ and attach it to target creature you control)

      1/2

      ----------------------

      Feline Ears
      Artifact -- Equipment

      Equipped creature gets +1/+2.

      Equip 4

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    9. I like what's going on here a lot. One change that I would make is to remove the equip ability on the back side and add language to the mecha ability on the front side that says "attach to target creature". That reduces wordiness and prevents some un-flavorful, feel-bad uses of the mechanic ("Transform my guys, Wrath, Transform them back").

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    10. Oh sorry, I didn't deliberately remove the "Use this ability only as a sorcery" text. I like that part, and want to keep it.

      This does make me want to keep mostly away from instant speed removal, which would really hose this mechanic.

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    11. Agreed on weaving in the attaching part, good call.

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    12. OK, Tommy just posted with more or less the same point. For comparison, here's how I might suggest templating Mechanical Cat:

      Mechanical Cat W
      Artifact Creature- Cat Chassis (Common)
      1/2
      Mecha 4 (4: Transform ~ and attach it to target Pilot creature you control. Mecha only as a sorcery.)
      ---------------------------------------------------------------
      Feline Ears
      Artifact- Chassis
      CARDNAME's pilot gets +1/+2.
      When CARDNAME's pilot leaves the battlefield, transform CARDNAME.


      Note how this is now getting pretty close to the traditional, combine-style implementation. (What if the Equipment bonus was a constant-- say +2/+2-- that wasn't tied to the Body stats, plus granting any abilities in the Body text box?)

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    13. I like this latest implementation a lot, though I do wonder why Feline Ears isn't just an equipment. I think having mechas be equipments without equip costs would be new and innovative enough to clearly be a new mechanic.

      The only other thing I dislike is that Mecha only works on Pilots. That's super super parasitic for little gain when it could be any creature I think.

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    14. Yes, equipment without equip costs would be fine.

      Working on Pilots may be a little extreme; I could see replacing "Pilot" with "non-Chassis" or "non-Chassis artifact" depending on Limited needs. The main thing I wanted to avoid was creating "Yo Dawg" situations.

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    15. This is certainly a good in between option if we determine that actually combining cards has too many issues.

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    16. Great feedback guys thanks! How about something along the lines of:

      Bear Mecha 2G
      Artifact Creature - Bear Golem (Common)
      Mecha 5 (Transform CARDNAME and attach it to target artifact creature.)
      2/2
      ------------------
      Bear Arms
      Artifact - Equipment
      Equipped creature gets +2/+2
      If equipped creature would leave play, unattach CARDNAME and transform it

      Dragon Mecha 5RR
      Artifact Creature - Dragon Golem (Mythic)
      Flying. Whenever CARDNAME attacks, it deals damage equal to its power to target creature.
      Mecha 8 (Transform CARDNAME and attach it to target artifact creature. Play this ability any time you could play a sorcery.)
      5/5
      ------------------
      Dragon Armor
      Artifact - Equipment
      Equipped creature gets +5/+5 and has flying and "Whenever CARDNAME attacks, it deals damage equal to its power to target creature."
      If equipped creature would leave play, unattach CARDNAME and transform it.

      Delete
    17. I think limiting the effect to make it only attach to other artifact creatures fits the flavor and will help development as well. when the mecha falls off, it makes sense that it should revert back to its original shape, and also will prevent 2-1s. I think this cleanly demonstrates a creature that transforms and attaches to another creature and then transforms back into a creature. This mechanic would have a play style similar to bestow, with the difference being that it targets artifact creatures only, but bestow happens from play instead of from the hand. (and this mechanic would create slightly more repetitive gameplay than bestow does.)

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  12. If mechs can combine with any other Artifact Creature, you're probably more likely to get variable combinations game to game. This version ditches the Transform aspect, and straight up combines the two creatures power & toughness and abilities. As long as no creatures with Join have CDAs that should be able to work in the rules. By weighting artifact creatures towards either power or toughness, the combinations become more appealing:

    'Head' 3R
    Artifact Creature - Construct
    Join 2 (2: Join this to target artifact creature you control. They become a single card with power and toughness equal to their combined power and toughness and all abilities of the joined cards. Join only as a sorcery.)
    5/1

    'Body' 3W
    Artifact Creature - Construct
    Lifelink
    Join 2 (2: Join this to target artifact creature you control. They become a single card with power and toughness equal to their combined power and toughness and all abilities of the joined cards. Join only as a sorcery.)
    1/5

    Alternate short template:
    Join 2 (2: Join this to target artifact creature you control. They become a single card with combined power, toughness, and abilities. Join only as a sorcery.)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately CDAs are unavoidable given that Master of Etherium exists, but so long as there are none in Standard it should be okay if there's no intuitive rules solution. This version solves issues with collation and checklist cards, but doesn't answer questions about summoning sickness. I'm not sure whether or not that's worth losing some of the visceral thrill for that, anyone else have opinions on the matter?

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    2. Hmm. I would assume, as a player, that a Master of Etherium joined to a Body would have *+1/*+5 power and toughness. The confusing thing there would be the Body being a 2/6 before it joined and a 1/5 after, but I think the "other" covers that. I'm sure there are some CDAs that are harder to track, though hopefully they would still be in rare+ territory.

      On summoning sickness, I don't know, but card disadvantage is where I would be most worried. Overall, I like this; it makes sense to me.

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    3. This is certainly a viable way to do Mecha without DFCs. I'm not sure whether or not it's worth giving up the visceral thrill of the combined art to deal with the logistical issues, and not being parasitic is a major point in the version's favor.

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    4. You give up the visceral thrill of the transform-and-combine action and the combined art, which is a big sacrifice; but you are at least still stacking two creatures together and combining them. That could well have a lot of fun to it. But I fear the in-game fiddliness of having combined asymmetrical P/Ts could make this play quite fiddlily.

      The rules team would need to check whether Mycosynth Lattice causes any interactions to Just Break.

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