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Friday, August 31, 2018
Weekend Design Challenge 083118 - No Judge Free-for-All II: Free-er for More than All
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Have fun, and enjoy the weekend.
I've been experimenting with persistent statuses for players, a la Monarch or City's Blessing. Here's my favorite so far: initiative.
ReplyDeleteEager Brute 3R
Creature- Human Warrior (Common)
4/2
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, you get the initiative. (At the end of your turn, you lose the initiative unless you attacked with a creature this turn.)
CARDNAME gets +1/+1 as long as you have the initiative.
Oooh, that is a fun mini-game for a player. I like it. Feels like a solid evolution of raid.
DeleteAlso, glad to hear others have been playing around with player statuses. They're such exciting design space, right!?
DeleteTo elaborate a bit more on why I think this is an evolution of raid: while it's more complex, certainly, I think this encourages the 'ideal' gameplay of raid better (obscuring the purpose of an attack) rather than how raid generally works out (a minor bonus since you're probably attacking normally, rather than forcing through an unoptimal attack, since it asks so little of you)
Attacking continuously in a streak is much tougher than timing an attack to coincide with a raid trigger, so I think the idea of "do they just not want the chain to break?" is a lot more compelling than "do they maybe or maybe not have a raid card?" It's clear the opponent the value you have staked in the attack, so it's then further obfuscating what that attack is for.
It's also a simple, intuitive execution that will stick in player's heads well.
Overall, this is a mechanic I'm eager to playtest, just because it looks so fun to play. Have you had the chance to playtest it? If not, feel free to hit me up sometime if you want another player to help out :D
PS: Any other promising experiments?
DeleteThanks for the positive feedback! No, I haven't playtested this-- I don't usually take designs that far.
DeleteFrom my brainstorming, it seems like statuses are a tough design space. Conceptually, the possibilities are:
1. permanently flip a switch (city's blessing)
2. benefit that gets passed around (monarch)
3. gain a bonus, then lose it on some condition (initiative)
4. once-per-game effect you can use (???)
#1 has limited usefulness-- satisfying some big and difficult condition is the only one I can think of. I remember that for the Tesla project there was city's-blessing-like mechanic proposed that had an activation cost.
Monarch is pretty much the best possible execution of #2. The other obvious application would be a negative status that you have to get rid of, "hot potato" style. That sounds tricky to get right.
#3 supports some other conditions besides attacking. "You lose [status] when you're dealt damage" is the obvious one. Already that's kind of like monarch, though. That's what I mean by a tough design space-- there aren't too many conditions that make sense.
#4 could maybe support a mechanic. "At the beginning of your upkeep, if you don't have [status], you may [do something]. If you do, you get [status]." Kind of weird in that it's anti-linear, though.
I agree that player statuses are quite difficult to design properly. I think category #1 is the easiest to design for. We've seen Ascend, and I've seen an activated ability requiring you to pay WUBRG to pass the threshold on r/custommagic.
DeleteI can definitely imagine a delirium/threshold style version or something based on life totals too. (Vampire Lacerator springs to mind)
As for initiative: reminds me a bit of bloodthirst. Do I understand correctly that both players can have initiative simultaneously?
It might have a slight bit of snowballing (if you can afford to attack you tend to be ahead), but not majorly so depending on the initiative bonuses you get.
#4 is very much along the lines of Pokemon GX.
DeleteWas inspired by how when my board gets very big, I'd place summoning sick creatures above the others on the battlefield and also prompted by a challenge for a plane without flying.
ReplyDeleteSeafloor Sentinel {1}{U}
Creature - Merfolk Warrior
~ enters the battlefield submerged. (Place it below unsubmerged creatures you control. Submerged creatures can only block or be blocked by other submerged creatures. )
2/1
While I think board placement is interesting in theory, moving cards about during combat to clarify blockers and such is so ingrained in Magic that I think there's good reason we haven't seen such a thing yet.
DeleteAs you say yourself, you place SumSick creatures above the rest, but you wouldn't be able to do that with this creature if you just summoned it. That's a tricky thing to force onto players who formed habits over years of play.
I love the flavour of submerging in a sea plane though. I assume there would be ways to emerge and submerge back and forth? Perhaps a simple counter/marker would do the trick?
It would be nice if there were a way to move between submerged and not. Otherwise, this is just shadow with directions about where to lay them down.
DeleteMoving during blocks is definitely a real concern, but I gave it some thought and I think it shouldn't be an issue in theory. Since submerged creatures can only interact with other submerged creatures, there might not be any confusion about what can do what or where to place them back after blocks are done.
DeleteI don't love using counters for this because they place restriction on using standard counters. I also think this execution is very resonant.
There would definitely be ways to move back and forth (but I imagine most creatures won do it by default so the board state doesn't shift too much and become confusing to track). My concern on that front is exactly how much and how to do it. I imagine most of it would ueot.
In that case, this mechanic is exactly shadow, with cards like Reality Anchor / Shadow Rift being the only way to change the status.
DeleteShadow is an interesting mechanic conceptually, but R&D mostly doesn't like it because it's parasitic. Unless you print shadow creatures with the same frequency as (say) flying creatures, across several blocks, shadow will mostly just be equivalent to the Tormented Soul ability.
I think I look at it through a different lens. It grants evasion because the original concept was to make an evasion mechanic in a world that didn't have flying, but I actually don't just look at it as just an evasion mechanic. I almost considering it kind of a cheaty new zone without the muss or fuss of actually creating one. I think of it as basically a new "space" on the battlefield. It's also like a creature status, like monstrosity, that you don't track with counters or a threshold or anything, but rather its position on the battlefield. If I'm honest, I'm not exactly sure of all the ways this can be used. Maybe it's not to its potential attached to the shadow evasion in the first place (like I said, I just coopted the inspiration since I was trying to find an evasion mechanic for an underwater world). Perhaps while this is an "interesting" concept there really isn't a lot to do with it that isn't just an existing ability with increased parasitism (since I believe cards will care about and manipulate it) and unnecessarily strict board maintenance. Would it be better if it was a keyword ability and the creature could switch between surfaced and submerged? I didn't want this because it seems like it would make the board quite pain to track and it would also add a lot of words to a not particularly short string of reminder text to control or limit how or when you can submerge or surface. But maybe the gameplay is more fun if that's something you can do? Is there perhaps a way to shorten things somehow with some sort of player aid, like a frame?
DeleteI see what you're going for here, and while I like the idea of "subzones" on the battlefield, it's important to remember that Flying already covers a lot of this mechanical space. Flying also has the advantage of being baked into the rules to the point where it's parasitism isn't quite so problematic for development.
DeleteI was experimenting a bit with cards in the vein of Hunted Wumpus, Boldwyr Heavyweights and Old-Growth Dryads. Cards (mostly creatures) that are strong for their cost, but give your opponents a bonus when they ETB.
ReplyDeleteThat led me to the following idea:
Defiant Berserker (Rare)
{1}{R}{R}
Creature - Human Berserker
When ~ enters the battlefield, each opponent may cast any number of spells targeting ~ without paying their mana costs.
Double strike, haste.
That all you got?
3/2
Then I wondered, what if you don't give your opponent the choice of casting something for free, but force them to play something?
Force Their Hand (Rare)
{R}{B}
Sorcery
Target opponent reveals their hand. You choose a nonland card from it. They must cast that spell without paying its mana cost and as though it had flash, if possible.
That might be too much of a feel-bad card though. The tactical application would be to, for example, have no creatures of your own and then choose a removal spell.
Perhaps it's too niche this way and should allow you to pick the targets instead at a slightly higher cost, but that would make it feel even worse for the opponent.
Defiant Berserker is awfully Hunted Wumpus in its ability to make you regret casting it. Maybe in that vein, you can make it's effect symmetrical?
DeleteForce their Hand is interesting. Worse than discard in a vacuum, but better in the right deck/metagame. Is it red?
Hm, I'd argue its slightly better than old Wumpus, since there is more of a choice. If your opponent is holding a card that can deal with the Berserker, then they have to choose whether or not they want to use it right then and there, or save it for bigger threats/surprise timing.
DeleteStill, it's definitely feel-bad if it gets killed immediately.
Hm, I feel like making it symmetrical would be too powerful, since you'd build your deck in such a way that you get more of an advantage from it. (I assume by symmetrical you meant you also get to cast spells targeting the Berserker for free)
How about scaling the entire card down a bit? Lower mana cost (1 or 2 cmc), less powerful creature. That way it feels less bad if it gets dealt with (the mana advantage for opponent is smaller, and player investment is smaller), and it may even make the choice for the opposing player more interesting (since there's more chance they might not want to spend a card killing it).
Jeering Berserker (Rare)
{R}
Creature - Goblin Berserker
When ~ enters the battlefield, each opponent may cast any number of spells targeting ~ without paying their mana costs.
3/3
Force Their Hand could probably be done in monoblack too. Tricking your opponent to do something reckless feels red to me, but you could easily read the card as brutally forcing them to do something too (which is more black's thing)
DeleteI like Jeering Berserker a lot. As you said, 1-2 cmc is better since an opponent can often just discard a card to deal with it. My uninformed guess would be that 2/2 for R is about the right place, power-level-wise.
DeleteIt's neat that the ability encourages opponents to run cards like Leave in the Dust that would otherwise be too slow. Just imagine letting your opponent cast a free Cryptic Command on turn 1!
I actually love Force Their Hand though I'd like it more in monocolor. My gut reaction was red but thinking of existing cards, black is probably the right home. Would the card be more fun if YOU got to pick the targets? Sort of like a quick one-shot mindslaver for one spell? Or perhaps that's a different card entirely. Plus mindslaver effects don't have a great reputation I suppose.
DeleteI'm still trying to template a way to represent rapid reproduction of small creatures as part of a top-down plane conceptualized around uncontrolled, rapid growth. I've tossed out some creatures before and gotten some feedback. Here's where I'm at right now, and it's still kind of problematic.
ReplyDeleteThistle Adder (Common)
Creature -- Snake
GG
Fecund (The first time this creature deals combat to an opponent, make a token copy of it)
2/2
I got the idea for the wording from Palladia-Mors in Core 19 (Has hexproof until it deals damage, then loses it). But Palladia is a legend and so is not likely to cause memory problems. Fecund is intended as a Bant mechanic across multiple rarities and to inspire deck types. So I'm much more concerned about memory issues once there are multiple fecund creatures on the battlefield. And yes, the tokens would then also have fecund. That's kind of the idea.
Some other wording I'm considering.
Thistle Adder (Common)
Creature -- Snake
GG
Fecund (When this creature deals combat damage, if you control no snake tokens, create a token copy of this creature.)
2/2
As far as gameplay is concerned, the second variant feels much cleaner. However, it doesn't match the abundant growth flavour you seem to be going after.
DeleteThe tokens also having fecund might make the growth a bit too explosive. What if fecund read this?
Fecund (Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, create a token copy of it except it loses this ability)
That solves your memory issues, and issues with the growth getting completely out of hand.
I'm thinking it's possible the top end idea might not be the best starting point as it's hard to make multiple commons that by design are meant to grow "uncontrollably" not be too crazy in limited I think.
DeleteWould an activated ability work? That way it's a little harder to make it spiral out of control since you'd have to pay to make more and more. But it seems like it should be more dynamic somehow. Maybe there's a way to make an activated ability fluctuate in cost? Maybe it costs {1} more to use for each creature you control named ~? That makes sense mechanically but seems like pretty odd flavor.
Isao's Fecund is functionally the same as the original. Either way, you end up with two copies of the creature, one of which can self-replicate and the other cannot.
DeleteAnother option, ala renown:
Fecund (Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, if it doesn't have a +1/+1 counter on it, put one on it and create a token copy of it.)
Oh whoops, I think I mixed up the two variants in my head... Still think it's a good variant to consider though, since it gets rid of the memory issues.
DeleteJay's variant does too, assuming there aren't any/too many cards placing +1/+1 counters in a different way in the same set.
I considered the Renown/Undying solution but one of the other mechanical themes of the set is about creatures also growing larger, represented by an ability that gives them counters whenever they're targeted by spells or abilities. Keeping counters off of fecund and token creatures is a way of trying to keep those themes distinct from each other (especially because both are very present in green).
DeleteLet me scour through my Book of Abandoned Ideas...
ReplyDeleteHere's one I was working on around the time GDS3 was announced, playing with the Light vs Dark theme that one of the GDS2 contestants tried to make work.
Prism - Gain an additional effect for each color specified.
Prism Spell - 4U
Sorcery
Prism - For each color of mana spent to cast this spell, it gains the corresponding ability:
W - Gain 5 Life.
U - Draw a card.
B - Each opponent discards a card.
R - Deal 3 damage to any target.
G - Create a 3/3 green beast token.
This would probably require a new template which lists each color and corresponding effect next to it, instead of being described with text. It's difficult to expand on this particular implementation, but with some tweaking I came up with a couple of other ideas.
Prism Counter - 2UU
Instant
Counter target spell.
Prism - For each of that spell's colors, this spell gains the corresponding abilities:
W - Gain 5 Life.
U - Draw a card.
B - Each opponent discards a card.
R - Deal 3 damage to any target.
G - Create a 3/3 green beast token.
This one's a little more bendy on the color pie since it allows Blue to do things like discard opponent's cards. I had wanted to stick with the same abilities for each Prism card to reduce complexity, but that makes it a bit hard to balance and doesn't work for every card design.
Prism Buff - 1G
Instant
Prism - Target creature gains the corresponding effects for each of its colors:
W - +1/+1 and Vigilance
U - +1/+1 and Flying
B - +1/+1 and Lifelink
R - +1/+1 and First Strike
G - +1/+1 and Trample
Alternatively, you could pull back on the mechanic and have it be more like Firespout (which was the original inspiration).
ElectroHelix - 2U
Instant
Draw a Card.
Prism - This spell gains the following abilities if the corresponding color of mana was spent to cast it:
W - Gain 2 life.
R - Deal 2 damage to any target.
I like these because they're much more forgiving than a straight WUR ElectroHelix would be, especially in limited.
-----
The Prism mechanic was supposed to represent the Light aspect of the Light vs Dark struggle, and I briefly tried a Dark mechanic: "Grayscale".
Grayflame Strike - 2R
Instant
Deal 3 damage to any target.
Grayscale - For each colorless mana you spent to cast this card, deal 3 damage to an additional target.
Pull from the Void - 1U
Sorcery
Draw a card.
Grayscale - For each colorless mana you spent to cast this card, draw an additional card.
I think Prism and Grayscale do a better job at colored vs colorless than whatever was attempted in BfZ, but they're still very rough and I'm not sure if there's enough there to actually make them work.
I appreciate any feedback on individual cards or the ideas as a whole!
Restricting Prism to all 5 colours seems very... restrictive, and seemingly offers very little design space.
DeleteAllowing any combination of colours (maybe with minimum 3 colours or something) would have a greater volume of design space. A slick new template for these cards would allow for cards that would normally be too wordy, too.
Perhaps restricting it to 3 or more sequential (in WUBRG order) colours is a more granular restriction that could work?
Encouraging lots of five-color in Limited would probably be a bit of a disaster...I really like the pulled back version, though! I think one splashy rare with all five colors and several smaller shard/wedge variants would be the way to go.
DeleteI agree that I like the version with less colors the best. Maybe make it enemy or ally colors depending on what it wants to fit in to. I was envisioning a neat new frame design but I realized if it's only 2 things then it's probably simpler to just write it out if they're just small tacked on additional effects. Maybe there's something else you can do, if we assume that having a special frame is an option?
DeleteI agree about the restrictiveness of the full 5-color designs. That's essentially the reason I only have one card that counts the colors of mana spent to cast it. There's really not much you can do after that one, but that one design does end up in a cool Cruel-Ultimatum-esque space.
DeleteDo you all think having 5 colors on the counterspell/pump spell versions are as restrictive, since you're not necessarily forcing someone to play multiple colors or spend multiple types of mana?
As for the dialed back version, one issue I struggled with was which color should be the mandatory version. Do you think this version of ElectroHelix read or play better?
ElectroHelix - 2R
Instant
Deal 2 damage to any target.
Prism - This spell gains the following abilities if the corresponding color of mana was spent to cast it:
W: Gain 2 life.
U: Draw a card.
Really like the red base electrohelix, it does not feel so under rate if you just have a single color. Drawing 1 card for 3 Mana feels really weak even if at instant.
DeleteConverge, Domain and Sunburst play in this space by mostly enhancing the spell/creatures main effect or size. I know you gain things by splitting off different effects (It's Tek!), but I'm not sure how much design space that has. Particularly if they're all 5 color, I'm worried you're going to run out of design space fast.
DeleteAerial Support
ReplyDelete3W
Creature - Bird - Common
Flying
Whenever ~ attacks, tap target creature without flying defending player controls.
2/3
Seems like a solid, high-quality common. Any particular context for this design?
DeleteIt's marginally stronger in multiplayer, but removing "defending player controls" makes it read easier. You could add 'you may' to prevent it from tapping your own stuff.
DeleteI have a project that I’m doing some initial work on. I’ll have an article about it at some point. :)
DeleteBurning Recollection 2R
ReplyDeleteInstant (Uncommon)
Burning Recollection deals 3 damage to any target.
Reminisce (You may exile this card from your hand and pay its mana cost. If you do, cast a card with the same converted mana cost as this card from your graveyard without paying its mana cost. Reminisce only as a sorcery.)
Similar:
DeleteBurning Recollection 2R
Instant (Uncommon)
Reminisce — Choose one:
• Burning Recollection deals 3 damage to any target.
• Cast a card with converted mana cost 3 from your graveyard without paying its mana cost.
Burning Recollection 2R
Instant (Uncommon)
Burning Recollection deals 3 damage to any target.
Reminisce (Exile this card from your hand: You may cast a card with converted mana cost 3 from your graveyard this turn.)
Yes, number two gets around casting other color cards for 2R. But it doesn't feel as cool to me. Also you shouldn't be able to cast sorceries at instant speed.
ReplyDeleteJay's second version doesn't allow you to cast sorceries at instant speed. It just gives a card in your graveyard pseudo-flashback for the turn, so it still has to adhere to regular timing restrictions
DeleteBlacker Murder (common)
ReplyDelete1{B/D}B
Instant
{B/D} can be paid as paying {1} and revealing a black card from your hand or by paying {B}.
Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn.
That's a fun and weird place to play in. Is revealing a black card enough of a hoop to jump through to say this doesn't circumvent color pie the way Phyrexian mana did? The traditional way of ensuring that you weren't cheating on your mana base was to check if you had a land of the appropriate type, but that doesn't quite fit here.
DeleteThis almost (but not really) makes me want to see a take on eternal's modified mana system, caring only that you have the appropriate number of the right type of lands, and then allowing you treat all of your lands as generating any color for the purposes of casting cards.
This is definitely harder to abuse than Phyrexian mana.
DeleteIt's problematic that it asks you to hold cards in your hand, but in theory you should get the mana you need as your hand empties.
If we're going to do this, I'd expect all the black mana symbols to be reveal-hybrid: 1{B/D}{B/D} (where you need to reveal different cards to pay for multiple mana).
Yeah, a two drop would be another interesting place to be:
DeleteReddish Smasher (common)
1{R/D}
Creature - Human Warrior
{B/D} can be paid as paying {1} and revealing a black card from your hand or by paying {B}.
Haste
2/1
This asks the full question of whether this is a big color pie break.
This reminded me of pitch cards, and I lie how they use matching color cards to stand in for paying colored mana. Then I wondered, what if these WERE a twist on pitch cards, letting you ditch a card matching the mana symbol in exchange for paying the colored cost? I kind of like that if just a reveal might not be enough. Feels like a super spiky mechanic though. I love that but not everyone does. It also might just be too much for only paying colored pips whereas a reveal is a little less harsh.
DeleteDiscarding cards is also an interesting idea Enzio!
DeleteAnother take that might be interesting would be exiling cards from your graveyard to pay for colored pips - eg, exiling black cards to pay for black costs. Could be easier to develop than delve - if it left the generic mana part of the cost.
I think both of these cost reduction mechanics are very spikey though. Especially discarding cards! It does seem harsh.
@zeferral - yeah, I kind of got the idea from Epic which lets you cast any card but uses revealing the same color card as a way to ge ta bonus.
DeleteThe main issue with {B/D} (and possible discard/exile graveyard versions) is whether it is too color pie breaking. You could have a few 5 color cards in hand which would let you cast all of your spells. But maybe that's a reasonable cost? You probably want to cast those 5 color spells at some point anyway.
Likewise, would there be decks that play all {B/D} cards and all colorless sources? As a major set theme this could be encouraged. As a helper/filter mechanic, it might be discouraged.
@Jay - Agreed that holding cards in hand can be bad. But I think this is much more interesting than eg Kamigawa hands size matters cards or Maros, where the scaling effects encourage me to keep lots of cards in hand. If I have 1 swamp in play and a 4{B/D}{B/D} card in my hand (or deck), I may hold on to another black spell until I cast the {B/D} card or draw another swamp. But I hope that is an interesting decision rather than an unfun play pattern.
Glacial Vengence 1R
ReplyDeleteInstant (c)
Glacial Vengence deals 2 damage to any target.
Call Back (You may cast another instant or sorcery from your graveyard. Then exile that card.)
A bit of a take on Arcane after seeing some of the Ravnica Spoilers. This allows you to piggyback a spell you've already cast onto a new card provided you have enough mana. I also like how you can chain these in the late game provided you have enough mana.
This seems remarkably powerful for common. Is the wording intended to mean that the user can cast a sorcery from the graveyard as an instant if the triggering spell is also an instant, as in this example.
DeleteIt feels like it needs some sort of restraining factor. Maybe the spell must be the same converted mana cost or less? So you can't chain a plink spell like this into casting a Wrath spell from your graveyard.
You're right, it should probably be flipped
DeleteGlacial Vengence 1R
Instant (c)
Glacial Vengence deals 2 damage to any target.
Call Back (When you cast another instant or sorcery, you may cast this from your graveyard. Then exile this card.)
I like the second version here a lot.
DeleteOpening this up to any instant/sorcery avoids the parasitism of arcane, which was one of that mechanic's problems. The "cast this, then cast this other thing" play pattern seems fun as well. Nice!
About the individual submitted card: This would be a very strong common, as killing two 2 drops (at instant speed!) is great. The Ravnica jump start Direct Current version is 3 mana sorcery 2 damage, and the flashback instant (Fires of Undeath) goes 2R -> 5B. So should this be 3R for 2 damage?
Possibly costing these will be difficult though.. You want cheap costs so that you can cast this + another spell, but the value inherit to casting your spell a second time wants these to be expensive.
Maybe a bunch of cheap spells with small, not quite real card effects?
Say R for 1 damage, U for tap.
Is it still 1U for draw? (Cheaper than Think Twice).
Also, does this work for sorceries? I think right now you couldn't cast them as the stack wouldn't be empty. Could do "When you cast another instant or sorcery, until end of turn you may cast this card from your graveyard, then exile it." But that doesn't have the same chaining feel.