GDS3 Challenge 1: One Last Job

Jeremy Geist is back today to share his approach to the tribal challenge of the GDS. Click through to read how he prepared for the challenge and how he assembled his eight cards.

By Jeremy Geist

(Jeremy's card designs and discussion thread for this challenge can be found here, and the judge feedback for this round can be found here.)

Mark Rosewater e-mailed us before the challenge began that we would be selecting something out of a broad category, and that once we chose it we would be locked out. I made a bunch of top-three lists ahead of time for random categories to make sure I would be ready to go. But as it turned out, creature types was something I did not do ahead of time, meaning I was starting entirely from scratch.

The time pressure here was scary. Theoretically, even if I decided on my creature type late in the day, there were so many creature types I would be able to go with something good. But not knowing when anyone else would turn in their choices and what anyone else would pick made me really nervous, so I quickly jotted down some creature types in a journal, thought about it for an hour or so, then sent in my request for Rogue.

I knew from the start that I wanted to do class-based tribal. The difference between soldiers, wizards, and ninja, for example, is much more deeply ingrained in the public consciousness than the difference between Viashino and Vedalken. There was a much deeper well to draw from, and the cards would be more resonant and make more sense. (Ari Nieh threaded the needle here with Insect tribal; as he mentioned, bug behaviors are pretty common knowledge.)

I also knew that I wanted to avoid the usual tribal strategy of generating a bunch of small tokens and slamming a Lord of Atlantis or what have you to power them up. Mark Rosewater specifically mentioned that he wanted to see tribal approached in a new way, but it was also out of personal challenge.

My short list included GW Knight tribal, which involved making use of Exalted and sending one knight out to battle supported by various squires; RG Shaman tribal, which would involve a band of shamans summoning powerful elementals; and WU Monk tribal, which involved giving all your Monks one specific “fighting style”. In the end, Dominaria used Knight tribal and I would have ended up fighting Jay Treat for Shaman tribal, so everything worked out for the best.

I chose Rogue for multiple reasons. First, of the characteristic Dungeons and Dragons classes, Rogue was the only one without much support in Magic. Clerics and Wizards had archetypes in Onslaught block and Warriors had tribal stuff in Khans of Tarkir block, but Rogues only had a bunch of mediocre prowl cards from Morningtide.

Second, making Rogue tribal meant I could capture the top-down feeling of heist movies, something Magic had surprisingly never really done before. The “different names matter” archetype evolved out of this idea. A band of Rogues working together would be like Ocean’s Eleven or similar, where everyone’s an individualistic scoundrel with their own special talents who begrudgingly work together because they require each other’s special skills.

Card-by-card breakdown:

1. Intelligent Informant

When I was playtesting this, I moved it from a 4-mana 3/2 to a 3-mana 2/2 because I figured it would make players work harder and put in more effort to get the juicy card-draw payoff. Then I was informed by the judges that the original 4-mana version would have been better, because R&D generally wants payoffs at common to be achieved more often than not.

Besides making mythics that are too strong, making cards that have a bunch of hoops to jump through but not much payoff is another design weakness of mine. This is a pretty mild example of that, especially since the card is still quite playable.

2. Backstreet Maneuver

I focused perhaps a little too much on the judging criterion that everything in your set of cards has to synergize. After thinking about the ways you could support having a bunch of differently named Rogues on the field, I decided I wanted this to make a token instead of doing something more Roguey. Alternatively, if I had stuck with my original title of “Two-Person Scam” it might have made more sense.

3. Hulking Henchman

One of the other things I wanted to do with this assignment was “selfish tribal” – that is, rather than give bonuses to other Rogues, your Rogues made themselves better the more you gave them partners to shore up their weaknesses. Hulking Henchman is a good example of this. He doesn’t make your other creatures better, but other creatures make him better.

4. Clever Disguise

The “nonlegendary” rider that confused MaRo was put in because I realized that players might be confused if you have two identical legendary creatures but one of them has the Disguise on – the legend rule wouldn’t kick in because they technically have different names.

This was originally an Equipment, but I switched it to an Aura pretty late in the weekend after balancing its mana/equip costs for its effect proved to be too difficult. More on this at Diamond Falcon.

5. Impersonate

Impersonate is a top-down version of one of the classic heist tropes: Knocking out a security guard and stealing their clothes. I knew this was a winner when one of my playtesters cast this on a Burning Sun's Avatar and said that his Rogue had put on one of those inflatable T-Rex suits.

This is the sort of card I mean when I talk about impact. Impersonate is a card that’s splashy and that creates a story when you cast it. Like Mindslaver effects, I’m not sure if this would be fun at a competitive level, but I priced it cheaply because rare removal needs to be aimed toward Standard, and I couldn’t put it at a lower rarity because of the copy effect.

6. The Crow and Squirrel

Whoever wrote this assignment was really cruel when they specified that the file had to include a land that mechanically cares about your tribe. Here’s a list of all the lands that care mechanically about creature types:

• Daru Encampment
• Ally Encampment
• The Murmuring Bosk cycle from Lorwyn block

Compounding the difficulty is that the card with the exact right name and effect, Rogue's Passage, already existed.

I’m about as happy with this card as I could be, given the constraints. Alexis Janson got the top-down feel I was aiming for and the rest of the judges seemed at least okay with it.

7. Merciless Mastermind

The mythic creature slot for Rogues has to be the ringleader of the band, and with this one I wanted to capture the flavor of an evil genius who disposes of pawns who have outlived their usefulness. I also was trying to aim for it to be the “ultimate rogue” – impossible to block and with the most powerful loot effect I could think of. That said, it still came out feeling a little unfinished and I should have thought harder about it.

I made the creature races in this submission various things I thought would appear in a more urbanized plane, where Rogue tribal makes the most sense. I made Merciless Mastermind a rat person specifically because I find humans a bit boring and I try not to use them when I can.

8. Diamond Falcon

After I turned in my file, I thought for sure I was getting eliminated. I thought the judges wouldn’t buy my “different names matter” archetype and that my cards were sloppy. But the core of my concerns was Diamond Falcon, a card I finished at 11:55 PM on Sunday.

(It turns out I won the challenge, so now I’m mad I ruined my own birthday by being so consumed with worry.)

On Sunday afternoon, I decided to switch my artifact and enchantment slots because I felt Clever Disguise was more easily costed as an Aura. That left me with a mythic artifact to come up with.

My first thought was a locked vault that, when you opened it, gave you an extra turn. To open it, you had to remove counters from permanents your opponents controlled. But writing this out made it way too long to fit on a card and the gameplay was fiddly. As I ran scarily close to the deadline, I came up with Diamond Falcon, a top-down MacGuffin. I wasn’t able to refine it as much as I’d liked, and what I turned in was probably way above rate. But the judges cared more about the core idea of it than the lack of polish, which was a huge relief for me.