CCDD 060618—GDS3 Riding

Cool Card Design of the Day
For the mehanic challenge in GDS3, I built and tested a number of mechanics. Ride came the closest to making the final cut over bloodspill. I'm really excited about ride because it solves so many of the classic mount problems in a fairly elegant package. I didn't submit it because it's super risky to claim to have found the holy grail so many designers have been searching for, and because bloodspill created the most novel gameplay.

Four lines of text is a bit much for something that boils down to "choose another attacker that can't be blocked unless this is" but this text is very clear, and it sets up fun riding effects you'll see in a bit.

This is a pretty minimal effect, but generates a ton of interesting gameplay. For the most basic example, say I've got a Steadfast Pachyderm and a Stealer of Secrets attacking you.

• If you've got a Watercourser, my Pachyderm keeps you from blocking my spy and I get to steal a secret from you. (Maybe you pump your elemental to trade with my elephant, or maybe you just take it all.) 
• Say instead you've got a pair of Runeclaw Bears; If not for my Pachyderm, you'd trade with my spy and let the elephant through. But because your bears can't reach my spy while it's riding my elephant, you've got to block the Mount first. Do you then block the spy with your second bear, or do you double block the Pachyderm?

The obvious next thing is a Mount with evasion. Let's compare Guiding Drake to Aerial Guide in order to get a better handle on the mechanic. Aerial Guide is a bit simpler because it attacks and makes your other creature flying for the whole turn, and there's really no room for rules confusion. With Guiding Drake, things are a bit more trickier. If you can block my Drake with one flying creature, you don't need a second flying creature to block its rider. If you've got Tightening Coils or Canopy Claws, you don't need any flying creatures, but you still need to block my flightless Drake before you can block the creature riding it.

Let me be clear, ride does take more mental capacity than similar solutions. Players will mess it up a couple times before they finally grok the full gameplay implications. Here's why I think that cost is worth it. The flavor is much stronger, and when looking at the gameplay interactions from that perspective, they are more intuitive. They are not simpler, and our brains are trained a little bit the other way, so adapting will take experienced players a few games, but ride generates new avenues of Magic to play and that's a big deal. Also, players are desperate for a real Mount+rider mechanic, and this one is seriously fun.

It's a very good sign for a mechanic that you can slap it on almost any vanilla body and get something relevant. Comboing with every combat keyword gives ride a ton of depth.

Compare Lightning Steed to Venemous Companion.

Compare Imperious Mount to Dauntless Steed.

Eager Mustang doesn't even have evasion, but still tells a great story and promises some sweet plays.

Dipping into my uncommons a bit early, I get to remind you that the Mount itself can be exciting.

Finally, I get to show you a mount that grants an ability to its rider!

Look how fun and easy it is for a mount to grant its rider abilities.

I mean, rawr!

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Just as vehicles have their pilots, mounts have their riders, obviously.

I figured I'd stick with creature type pilot as the difference between a pilot and a rider is negligible.

I didn't go deep here, since these would never make the submission, but there's absolutely a handful of sweet pilots you could make for your Mount deck.

Speaking of which, now is as good a time as any to explain why I chose the phrase "non-Mount attacker." 'Attacker' opens up the possibility for your Two-Headed Giant partner's creature to ride your mount without increasing words (it's the same length as 'creature'). The 'non-Mount' clause prevents your Riding Wurm from riding your Nightmount. I was fine with one Mount riding another, but I didn't want a chain of five mounts riding one another, I didn't you to wonder if your Nightmount could also ride your Riding wurm back (and what that means for blocking them), and most importantly, figuring out how to attack with two Mounts and two non-Mounts has a possibility space of 2 where attacking with four Mounts when anything can ride anything else has a possibility space of 24, so keeping decisions reasonable is a priority.

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I know you want to see some rare mounts. Let's start with the most required:

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And finally, a ride variant for when we want to limit what can ride something else. While this gives us thematic control, the justifiable reason to use it is for power level. Compare Loyal Pegasus to Guiding Drake.

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It is very natural for you to be feeling like you don't really get this yet. That's a good sign. We want to explore the unknown and we want to give players things they can explore. Until you get a chance to try this out, take my word that it's fun. It may well be flawed in ways I haven't realized yet, and you're welcome to speculate, but it's absolutely fun.

Design a Mount or Rider in the comments.