Cool Card Design of the Day2/16/2015 - With the discussion surrounding whether or not Prowess could be the evergreen creature mechanic blue has been waiting for, I decided to design a few alternatives which fit better with the existing evergreen mechanics: no numbers, not augmenting how the cards play, but rather fundamentally changing it.
I haven't cracked the nut, per se, but I did get something pretty interesting out of it.
Decoy may prove to be a little bit too close to evasion for blue's needs, but it certainly offers some interesting decision points. There's an argument for making the bounce mandatory, but this version felt more rogue-like to me.
Even if Decoy doesn't prove to be worthy of a whole keyword mechanic, there's bound to be a fun card or two in this space.
Is there a place on the internet wher I can find these discussions about making prowess evergreen? I'd love to read the thoughts of y'all Great Artisans on the topic.
ReplyDeleteOn Decoy itself, I like it, but I'm unsure if it could prove oppressive in great numbers. Interesting design nonetheless.
Also, my personal candidate for blue (and red) evergreen keyword is just a retooled Prowess, restricted to instants and sorceries.
I don't recall a post so much as some assorted tweets. The major strike against it is that Prowess isn't as clean as the existing evergreen mechanics. It has a numerical value and a trigger condition whereas Vigilance, Haste, and Lifelink alter the rules. You'll see very similar arguments in the link Ipaulsen posted below.
DeleteTriggered abilities would be hard to have as evergreen, just because they are too easy to miss. "Counting" ones also have the problem of memory issues and forcing new players to track things that might not have a lot of baring on the turn.
ReplyDeleteAs to decoy, it really does feel like another evasion ability. It also has the problem of not actually triggering all that often.
You could do something like this
Master Distractor 1U
Creature- Human Rogue
U: Disguise Master Distractor. (If this creature would die this turn return it to its owner's hand instead.)
1/1
The problem being that this is really close to just regenerating so it's not great for the Dimir color pair.
In fairness, Regeneration is headed the way of the dodo. I could see disguise in anything but red (though it would need different flavor in green and/or white).
DeleteMore problematically, this activation model can't be used in cycles like Nimbus Naiad. We need a version that's self contained:
False Demise (If ~ would die, you may pay its mana cost to return it to its owner's hand instead.)
the problem with making it a static ability is that there's never a shields down moment, making the ability repetitive and frustrating.
Deletethe problem with making it a static ability is that there's never a shields down moment, making the ability repetitive and frustrating.
DeleteI put the cost inside, so there's no "in response", but that feels cheaty to new players anyway and there's still a shield down moment when you don't have mana available.
DeleteCreature-Buyback!
Deleteseems dangerous
Yes, but only marginally more so than regeneration (and this is almost always going to cost more). Reassembling Skeleton and Mortis Strider were both fine. The controller not getting to pick when the buyback has to be paid goes a long way towards making it disruptable.
Deletetrue
DeleteI've tried my hand at this too, and I've gone some similar places with it. Check it out here if you're interested...
ReplyDeleteI remember reading this when it went up (well probably a while after it went up since I didn't leave a comment). Your Decoy reads well, but as you've noted it's really awkward to target a creature that can't block the decoy. I want to love AlexC's Slippery, but it has the same issues as Prowess when it comes to being evergreen.
DeleteI sort of like the Thorn Elemental ability for blue (and maybe black also):
ReplyDeleteDeep Lurker 2U
Creature - Merfolk (C)
Tricky (You may have this deal its combat damage as though it weren't blocked.)
1/4
Interesting.
DeleteI really like this approach. The ability has been defaulted to green since it's conceptually trample-esque, but it could fit in any other color with the right flavor, especially given it's evasive aspects. If primary in U, secondary in B, Tertiary R, it solves a lot of the hybrid common creature problems too.
DeleteIn blue, this is just the most evasive evasion, right?
Deletewell, blue already has unblockable, which is the least blockable of all the blockables.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeletePutting this on turtles definitely plays differently from green's "Super Trample" and does feel, as you say, tricky. That said, this needs some playtesting because I can't imagine it will be long until the opponent has taken the steam out of small creatures with Tricky into Lava Spikes by assembling a couple of bears.
DeleteThere's probably a happy middleground of tough, but not impossible to kill, but it may be on such a good blocker that it's usually not worth attacking.