Thursday, October 12, 2017

CCDD 101217—Lucky Gambler

Scry's move to evergreen a few years ago was excellent for the game. It's a flavorful ability that is perfect as an evergreen. My one complaint is that it's a flavor fail for red, which is arguably the color that would benefit the most from it.

 Red doesn't get draw, and it's primary smoothing mechanic, rummaging, is frustratingly bad. Scry is a tremendous boon to red, but the idea of scrying is peeking into the future and planning accordingly, which is completely antithetical to Red's personality and style of magic.


I came up with this horribly complex scry-like mechanic for Red, a few months before they previewed explore. I wasn't convinced it was worthwhile, but it can be retemplated to look more like explore and possibly be a red-flavored smoothing mechanic that plays up the rogue's luck.

(This and anything else I might post this week is on autopilot while I maintain radio silence until Saturday night. I'll respond to comments Sunday.)

11 comments:

  1. Goblin Seeker
    1R
    Creature - Goblin Scout - Uncommon
    Replace (When you draw ~, if it was the first card you drew this turn, you may reveal it. If you do, put it on the bottom of your library and draw a card.)
    2/1
    /"Uhhh...bye!"/

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    Replies
    1. This design came about from thinking "how can I make Scry reactive instead of proactive?"

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    2. This is pretty cool! Good job on the first card rider so people don't just fill their deck with these. Probably still quite strong to run a few of these.

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    3. That's fun. Kind of a reverse miracle. There were some gameplay issues with miracle tech, but nothing insurmountable.

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  2. I like the cooking choosing a card type idea - can this act otherwise the same as explore?

    Ping pong 1R
    Instant
    CARDNAME deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
    Wish (Choose a card type, then reveal the top card of your library. If the top card is the chosen card type, put it into your hand. Otherwise, you may put it on the bottom of your library.)

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    Replies
    1. Neat! Some times a cards draw sometimes a scry. Still not sure it feels too red, just because it's random.

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    2. Red can get cantrips without any difficulty. My design of luck predated explore, but explore definitely makes me think it's much more printable than I originally thought. I would template it similarly. Wish is a cool alternative.

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  3. This card feels like a rare one-of rather than a mechanic. It's certainly playing in a space like Countryside Crusher, although this card feels more particular. Red just doesn't get good card draw, and this feels pretty good.

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  4. Rummaging Goblin is frustratingly bad at 2R. While rummaging is strictly worse than looting, I don't think it's particularly bad. I think we just need it to appear on more attractive cards.

    I will say that rummaging is better when you plan—by having a contextually irrelevant card in hand—where looting lets you fly by the seat of your pants and even hope to draw a bad card to discard, and that makes the two mechanics feels color-reversed.

    ReplyDelete