Cool Card Design of the Day3/16/2015 - I wanted to make {3} mana rocks whose bonus wasn't late-game value but mitigating the tempo hit you take playing them. The effects I came up with for these ally-color artifacts were specific to the colors they produced, so they needed to require one or both of those colors to play.
They could be {1}{W}{U} or {2}{WU}, but I realized this was actually a perfect place for twobrid. If you can already produce {W} and {U}, this card isn't fixing your colors, just accelerating, so costing two is fair. (Though, with the ETB ability, maybe not,) If you've got either, you can get it for the standard three mana. And if you've got neither, you can pay extra to get it anyhow.
I had the most trouble finding a good {U}{B} effect and a good {B}{R} effect. Volcanite particularly stands out as often much better than the rest. I'd love to hear more suggestions for two-color effects that could reasonably reduce the cost of spending a turn casting a mana rock early.
I think the token in Dragonite needs haste. Bringing in a token on defense seems like something white would do, not RG.
ReplyDeleteI can dig it. The intention is to give them something impressive to block with, but that still feels out of place for RG. With haste, it can be used like a Spark Elemental as well.
DeleteOoh, I like the idea.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I'm sort of seeing this as two different cycles smudged together, one with plain "3" cost, but an immediate battlefield-affecting ability, and one with the option to play at a discount if you don't need the fixing.
Is it ok to get acceleration for CD outside green? I thought R&D were scaling back on that, even if it's not colourless? Would it be possible to somehow have a similar affect without turn-2 acceleration (eg. provide fixing of giving you the other colour if you have one of them, but not acceleration somehow, or giving you the board-affecting effect without acceleration?)
I think you're right. I started with one idea, ended with another, and never stopped to separate them.
DeleteR&D has stopped giving mana rocks for {2}, but it's not at all clear to me that they wouldn't do it for CD. Same total cost in mana, but an entirely different animal.
Thanks! I hope I wasn't overly negative, as I say, I _do_ like them.
DeleteI also think, it would be nice if the effects were something symmetrical so it was a lot easier to remember, and you didn't have to wonder if some were worth playing and some weren't. But also, it would be nice if they played at least somewhat differently.
I think even P/T effects are too varied, but maybe, an effect that grants an on-colour keyword (maybe only to on-colour creatures), either once or repeatably? Or "reveal the top N cards of your library, you may put a C or D card from them into your hand, and the rest into your graveyard", so they work better in an on-colour deck, but aren't completely useless in a splash.
I'm actually against the "Cluestone" style of cycling. I don't want to waste memory space on trying to recall what a cycle of mana-stones does, and I especially don't want to waste complexity points on it. I like the mana-stone cycles like the Banners, or the Monuments - they do their job, and they do it fine, if not amazingly.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, these are nowhere near as complex as the Cluestones, so that's fine. But you pick some really weird effects for them - the token, for example, really stands out to me as too weird for this cycle. If you're going to put spell-like effects on mana stones, I think you should pick extremely simple ones, so that there's a lot less to parse there.
The +2/-2 and the -4/-0 are really nice. The freeze and the prevent are a bit weird - we don't see damage prevention very often anymore, and freezing uses a lot of odd terminology.
Looking at the cycle, I think the most interesting and most useful ones are the +2/-2 and the -4/-0. P/T alterations are literally the simplest thing you can do, but they can still be very interesting and useful for tempo - especially if you take from the "until your next turn" on the {U}{B} member of the cycle and extend it to all of them, since then they can serve a lot of interesting uses.
It's not flashy, I admit. But I think it'd be interesting, and play lot more fun than it looks.
Here are my suggestions for a cycle of P/T alterations, while I'm at it:
{W}{U}: +0/+4
{U}{B}: -4/-0 (OK already)
{B}{R}: +2/-2 (Weird if it lasts until next turn, since it's double-edged then, but I think it's fine)
{R}{G}: +3/+1
{G}{W}: +2/+2
Making them all P/T adjustments lines them all up conceptually, making it much easier to remember and process them. The boons do require you to have a creature on the board to be relevant, though, and you need this help the most when you don't.
DeleteThat is very true. I thought of the same thing, but I figured it would just help the card to serve two purposes - helpful when you don't have creatures (to get mana for them) and helpful when you do (you don't need the mana as much, but now you get a helpful bonus).
DeleteOf course, the problem is that it's a feel-bad when you don't have creatures. Thanks for catching that.
Where's the differnce between the Cluestones and the Banners? Are you talking about the Keyrunes?
DeleteThe RB one could even just be +2/+0. Yes it looks bad compared to the G members of the cycle, but I don't think that makes it unprintable.
DeleteThese have way too much going on for me. I picture the poor new player looking at it across the table and asking "What does that do?" and having to say "Oh nothing, it just gives me mana."
ReplyDeleteI do think the idea of a mana stone that costs just (2/W)(2/G) is a good one, but I think these would have been better if you had stopped designing there.
Also, I think if it does nothing else but make mana, these designs are probably already too powerful (and off-color) unless we insist one of the colors is Green. I really don't like the idea of a mana rock that costs UW (I realize they did that with the borderposts, where they had an excuse, but I hope they don't do it again). I'd vote for a cycle of 4, all with Green.
The more WOTC prints 4 and 5 drops like Polokranos and Wingmate Roc the more powerful 2 mana rocks become and the further we get from ever seeing them in standard again.
I agree the ETB ability should go on a cycle separate from the hybrid mana cycle.
DeleteIf you can print a mana rock that produces {W} or {U} that costs {3} you can print one that costs {1}{W}{U}. If that's okay, the only question about {W}{U} is whether two-mana rocks are fair at any color requirement.
Obviously green gets to do its own mana acceleration/fixing. Long live Rampant Growth and Fertile Ground!
I don't agree with the statement "If you can print a mana rock that produces W or U that costs 3 you can print one that costs 1WU." (How do you get the mana symbols by the way?)
DeleteWould you say "If you can print Bottle Gnomes, you can print the same card at 1RR."? Colorless gets to do effects not every color can do, for example, bad colored mana production.
It's a deep and interesting conversation, one that Wizards does not internally agree on.
DeleteI would certainly not make a {1}{R}{R} Bottles Gnomes. There are two different things going on here. Both examples pass the strictly-worse-than-a-printable-card test. One or neither pass the color-appropriate test.
It basically comes back to is "Hornet Sting okay because it's bad at what it does?" I lean toward 'no' but we know enough of R&D leans toward 'yes.'
So why am I okay with {1}{W}{U} stone and not Hornet Sting? First, I'm not saying we need WU stones, and I'm not passionate about defending them. I do think it's okay, though, because all colors can produce mana in general, and mana of their own color.
TL;DR — Yeah. Totally debatable.
How to use mana symbols on GA.
(Let's try this with mana symbols, apologies if it comes out a mess, but I've been here long enough I should do it right!)
DeleteAhh, I think we've found the root cause of our disagreement here: "all colors can produce mana in general, and mana of their own color." I don't think this is true. Green can. Black at least used to be able to (maybe tertiarilly). Red can temporarily. Blue mostly only makes colorless or very specific. I don't think White can at all. For example, I think a {3}{W} 1/3 with "{T}: Add {W} to your mana pool." is right out.
If White mana stone is okay, I think White mana creature is okay, but I don't think it is. Again, artifacts can do it (see Myr) but I don't think you can print Gold Myr at {1}{W}.
Make your {3}{W} creature 2/2, and name it Kor Cartographer.
Deletehttp://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?text=+[search]+[plains]&color=|[W]
They have made a clear delineation between fetching plains and tapping for White mana. I think the ramp part of Kor Cartographer was a small bleed to fit in to the land set (and double trigger landfall). Also, worth noting, Zendikar was 6 years ago, and White hasn't searched up a Plains since.
DeleteI'll be surprised if we don't see some sort of homage to Kor Cartographer in Battle for Zendikar, but I think it is more White adjacent than actually White. I recall now that at some point Mark mentioned it started out as a cycle, one in each color, but they needed to cut the other four for room. So at least at that time, they felt colors could, at a very low power level, fetch their own land type into play.
This whole discussion makes me think we want something with Forestcycling {2/G}.
I'm inclined to say "non-creature taps for mana" like borderposts and "search for basic land" like Kor Cartographer are both in-colour (but subject to the no-mana-rocks-at-2-cost restriction, tho' I take the argument wizards has never explicitly said that's not ok)
DeleteWhereas "creature taps for mana" or "mana rock with significant affect" to me feel out of colour (regardless of cost).
But the boundary has never been perfectly clear, it's reasonable to disagree where the line is drawn!
I agree with Jack. In the right set, any monocolour card could search for its own basic land type; but I think it'd be rather out-of-pie to have a white creature tap for {W}, or even a black creature tap for {B} without charging life for it. Exuberant Firestoker and Sunseed Nurturer were significant colour bleeds in my opinion (and I'm sure it's deliberate that they were also awful cards).
DeleteI think I'd say "mana rock costing 1CD that taps for C or D" is okay, though I agree it's a definitely fuzzy area with room for disagreement.
I definitely think the twobrid cycle is nifty and the other effects are a complication too far.
Is making a 1/1 token something that would be reasonable for the entire cycle?
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI like this. Also, to solve the tempo problem with very simple effects, I thought of these:
DeleteMana Rock 1 {3}
Add {W} or {U} to your mana pool.
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, you gain 2 life.
Or:
Mana Rock 2 {3}
CARDNAME enters the battlefield tapped.
Add {W} or {U} to your mana pool.
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, add {W}{U} to your mana pool.
I like the token and the life gain.
DeleteGetting the mana certainly reduces your commitment, but EtBT with that looks so strange.
A 1/1 token is a great bonus on a {3}-cost mana rock. It can chump block if you're behind, it'll usually be useful later on if you don't have to, it can trade with a 3/1 attacker if need be, but it's not a huge boon in most cases. (You'd need to be careful of allowing it in a set with something like Batallion where a certain critical count of creatures exists.)
DeleteThe life gain is fine, and will probably be printed before the token makers, but I think it's something of a trap: 2 life isn't enough to make up for the tempo loss in almost all cases.
More generally speaking, I'm a fan of the Meteorite model of tacking ETB abilities onto otherwise overcosted mana rocks. Cheap ramp is a dangerous thing to play with, especially outside of green.
DeleteThat's a good point. The acceleration isn't what drew me to design these at all; it's the fixing that they really do for the environment. Designing…
DeleteRakdos Lens {1}
DeleteArtifact - (C)
{1}, {T}: Add {B} or {R} to your mana pool.
{B}{R}, T, Sac ~: Target creature gets +2/-2 until the end of the turn.
s'good
DeleteAs a player of W/U Tron in Modern, I can say that I love having access to Talisman of Progress and Azorius Signet for mana acceleration. But as a designer, I agree that giving W/U a mana rock as part of a cycle isn't something I'd want to do. Especially ones that come into play untapped and ready to provide mana. The hybrid design is clever though.
ReplyDeleteI liked the idea of a one-off mana production to offset the tempo set-back, but agreed it looked odd alongside a mana ability.
ReplyDeleteI wonder, if you could have something like:
3 Azorius Fetchstone A
T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Search your library for a plains or island card and put it onto the battlefield tapped. Add UW to your mana pool.
That gives you something to do on turn 3. Or:
2 Azorius Fetchstone B
1, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Search your library for a plains or island card and put it onto the battlefield.
That uses up turn 2, but gives you a normal turn 3 with fixing and an accelerated turn 4.
Or maybe some other relevant effect instead of getting the mana back on Azorius Fetchstone B.
A is still pretty weird. B isn't bad at all.
DeleteThanks.
DeleteOh, tho' I should add the caveat that wizards are trying to have less library-searching on utility cards, so that's a drawback of the search approach. I wonder if there's any way of getting similar turn-restrictions without it, without making the mana ability "3, T: Add WWUU" :)
Can we just see twobrid diamonds? I wouldn't want them any cheaper or stronger than this, but it doesn't feel so out of line like this.
ReplyDeleteDarkwater Diamond {2U}{2B}
Artifact
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add U or B to your mana pool.
Mossfire Diamond {2R}{2G}
Artifact
~ enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add R or G to your mana pool
It certainly has appeal.
DeleteIt also reminds me that {2U}{2B} is much closer to a colorless cost (with a potential discount) than an actual colored cost.
It's much easier to argue that you can have a mana rock for {2U}{2B} than for {U}{B}.
Lots of really good interesting discussion here.
ReplyDeleteWhat if they just gave keywords for a turn?
WU - flying
UB - intimidate (or can't be blocked)
BR - first strike (or haste)
RG - trample
GW - vigilance
Cycles with keywords are always lopsided in really unfun ways. Look at the Runemarks: for the sake of having a cycle they made four totally unplayable cards.
Delete