Cool Card Design of the Day9/19/2016 - In Limited, the ability to shuffle a card into your deck after you've used it can be a big deal. I tried to make a mechanic out of this and it was awful. One good rare, though, maybe even a cycle…
Design a card that could be a member of this rare cycle.
Wash Into the Sea
ReplyDelete3U
Sorcery - Rare
Choose one:
-Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. Shuffle CARDNAME into its owner's library.
-Return two target nonland permanents to their owners' hands.
4 is a lot to pay for sorcery-speed bounce, but I see why it needs that for the doubled half. What if it bounced to hand or to library?
DeleteTo library seemed to me to be a very unfun effect to repeat. Maybe dropping it to 2U or 1UU and only hitting creatures?
Delete"to library" would be the last-time mode.
DeleteAaahhh, great call. Then we can probably make this a tight cycle member:
DeleteWash Into the Sea
UU
Instant - Rare
Choose one:
-Return target creature to its owner's hand. Shuffle CARDNAME into its owner's library.
-Put target creature on top of its owner's library.
Ephemeral Insight 3R
ReplyDeleteSorcery (R)
Choose one:
- Exile the top three cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may play those cards. Shuffle CARDNAME into its owner's library.
- Exile the top five cards of your library. Until end of turn, you may play those cards.
'Play' as opposed to 'cast' lets us get some lands out of the deal, but it's hard to have much mana left after a 4cc spell to cast one card, much less several. Maybe the final mode gives you RRR?
DeleteLoftier Plea 3W
ReplyDeleteSorcery
Choose one:
- Create two 1/1 Spirit creature tokens with flying. Shuffle CARDNAME into its owner's library.
- Create a 2/2 Angel Spirit token with flying and "This creature gets +1/+1 for each other creature with flying you control."
This feels clunkier on paper than it did in my head.
Pushes pretty hard on tokens, but neat otherwise.
DeleteEternal Denial UU
ReplyDeleteInstant (R)
Choose one:
- Counter target spell with converted mana cost 2 or less. Shuffle CARDNAME into its owner's library.
- Counter target spell with converted mana cost 4 or greater.
Wacky, and fascinating. You're not so much _choosing_ whether you shuffle the card or not.
DeleteOk so first things first, if it's going back in the deck that means you want that to mean something; easy way for that to matter is to reward you for drawing it; that means you want to run multiples.
ReplyDeleteHow do we encourage that in design? This is limited so having a common that wheels until they all bulk up with the one player whose deck really uses it it a classic of the format.
The draw Trigger lead me to an oft maligned mechanic in miracle. If this was to go in a hypothetical set that had Miracle, I would state it as such but given the "landfall/Metalcraft" precedent I am just spelling it out. Although it did leave me room to tweak it.
Tip of the Tongue 2UU
Sorcery (C)
Draw 2 cards and shuffle Tip of the Tongue into your deck. You may cast this card for U when you draw it if it's the first card you drew this turn or if it was drawn by the effect of Tip of The Tongue.
[i] Almost got it![/i]
I like the idea that as the game goes on, your draw power will grow by a lot. Reflecting the flavor of having bits and pieces of an idea until it all comes bursting out at you.
The costing is of course rough, but lucky this isn't a Development Blog :^)
Oh wow I totally misread the prompt; I'll come up with a new one.
DeleteI love your reasoning, and Tip of the Tongue is exciting, but it's too complicated and has too much potential for common. That reduces its relevance to Limited, but just the divination-miracle part is quite strong. (It's first- or second-pickable.)
DeleteGood point, I would bump it to U.
DeleteThere is an irony here in wanting to do Garbage Fire esque stuff, where you want multiples, bu the effect is flashy enough to limit it's pool in a pod.
Just to point this out, this is basically "super dash" where the return is strictly upside because they aren't permanents.
ReplyDeleteThis was inspired by last nights Conspiracy draft, when an opponent had TWO overruns and a huge board. He actually drew the second with a public draw card, so everyone knew it was coming. I like that kind of tension so I am going to go for a really scary card, that like jaws, hits you hard, then goes back under the depths for another round.
It's Coming 3RR
Sorcery (r)
Chose one:
-Deal 5 damage, divided as you chose among any number of creatures. Shuffle ~ into your library.
-Chose a permanent, exile all other permanents you control and discard your hand. Deal 13 damage, divided as you chose among any number of creature or players.
For sure meant to capture the horror movie vibe of the killer coming back after moments fo quit, pikcing off the cast one by one until he shows upf ro a final bloody finish.
The fun is in limited the distance between the "strikes" will get closer and closer, and every turn you are checking your life knowing the final push is just around the corner. Really going for that fifth age of design feel here. Where the gameplay is integrated into the themes and flavor. The extra drawback on the 'Final Strike" mode was there to encourage players not to play that mode unless it really was the final strike. Also does kinda fit the slasher theme of the bad guy turning into a crazy screaming savage at the end when early he usually seems to be this sleek, stealthy and mysterious force of death.
as always when it comes to numbers:
>I'm not even a developer
t. Super Hot Maro
Makes Beacon of Destruction look pretty anemic. Being able to kill a player at 13 life for five mana is far too strong. Removing "or player" fixes that. Then the player is just wiping their opponent's creatures to get in with their single best attacker (and betting their entire game on that).
DeleteOh wow, didnt even know Beacon was a thing. That happens a lot in mtg design. Yeah keeping it to "creatures" works best
DeleteWe've had this discussion before, but when you say shuffling a card into your deck can be a "big deal" think you are way overestimating how big a deal it is. Sure, we've all had the limited game where we cast White Sun's Zenith four times, but by and large the text is irrelevant and time consuming unless you are doing something very interesting (e.g. self mill, etc.)
ReplyDeleteThe average game of limited Magic lasts around 8 turns, depending on the format, so if you cast something on turn 4, say, then you shuffle it into your deck of about 28 cards, then you'll draw about 3 more cards that game so you have about a one in seven chance of drawing it the rest of the game (worse than your odds of winning Russian Roulette).
Of course, if you want to make the mechanic more appealing/interesting you can deliberately mess with those numbers... make a super slow format, so players will draw more cards. Put a ton of card drawing or scry mechanics in, so that players can find their card again. Put a lot of self-mill in the set so that player libraries are much smaller.
I think with enough supporting work, reshuffling could find the right environment as a mini-theme (like a cycle of rares as you've suggested) but it will take a lot of supporting work.
A thing Inanimate and I messed with a bit, by the way, was "Shuffle ~ into the top 7 cards of your deck," so that the come back was more likely to be relevant.
Delete