Aaron Forsythe had some interesting Twitter comments about R&D's move towards using "look at the top N cards for [card type(s)], put it into your hand and the rest on the bottom" technology rather than tutoring or card draw, which led to a discussion of whether the mechanic inherently had bad feelings associated with it.
1) You cast a card that searches only for a specific subtype (e.g. Elvish Rejuvenator).
2) You look at the top 5 cards of your library. Oh no! There's a land, but there's also (insert amazing bomb) here!
3) You put the land into play, take one last longing look at your bomb, and bottom it, knowing that you'll likely never see it again this game.
Aaron stated that this was mitigated somewhat by not putting the card in your graveyard. Although this helps very new players not feel as bad, the underlying bad feeling for more experienced players who understand how much worse it is for a card to be at the bottom of your deck really resonated with me. Especially since the last M19 draft I did, I had Elvish Rejuvenator and Vivien Reid, and had to bottom her at least twice!
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| "Also, it's weird that I can't find my own Invocation." |
1) When Elvish Rejuvenator enters the battlefield, look at the top 5 cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them onto the battlefield tapped, or a card from among them on top of your library. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
2) When Elvish Rejuvenator enters the battlefield, look at the top 5 cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them onto the battlefield tapped. Put the rest on the top or bottom of your library in a random order.
3) When Elvish Rejuvenator enters the battlefield, look at the top 5 cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them onto the battlefield tapped. Put the rest on the top of your library in a random order.
4) When Elvish Rejuvenator enters the battlefield, look at the top 5 cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them onto the battlefield tapped. Shuffle the rest into your library.
I like the first solution, but it feels inherently blue to me. The second feels like it would cause confusion and potentially be too strong. The fourth solution goes back to shuffling, which we want to avoid because many players don't know how to shuffle. (It does nicely cut down on analysis paralysis, the other issue with shuffling, but it's still a non-starter since it doesn't solve the problem we set out to solve in the first place.)
That leaves the third solution, which seems like it'd feel a lot better...unless you reveal four bad cards instead of one really good card! (for example, imagine revealing five lands with Elvish Rejuvenator!)
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| "Well, this is a tough (but beautiful) choice." |
Ultimately, knowing that you're drawing dead is a way bigger deal that the sad feeling of bottoming your amazing card, so I think we're at a dead end for a solution. I suspect that R&D has considered some of these options for the exact problem at hand, and recognized that there wasn't much in the way of a good direct solution.
I say that because there is an indirect solution, and one that I think explains WotC's current paradigm a little better. You see, Wizards has explicitly not moved to only "no-shuffle" searching. Cards like Evolving Wilds at common still exist, as do more traditional tutor effects at higher rarities, after all.
In fact, having those cards still exist is a solution in and of itself! As long as there are still some shuffle effects in the format, players will have a way to "rescue" their cards from the bottom of their deck. (Obviously this isn't entirely guaranteed, but at least you save yourself from knowing for sure that your best card is on the bottom.) I suspect that R&D understands that they can only mitigate shuffling, and that the solution they've found depends upon there still being some effects that shuffle their owner's library.
Anyway, this exercise still led to at least one fruitful design that I liked, presented below. Let me know if there are other ideas that you have that I might've overlooked, or if you have some cool designs that play around in this space!
What about the Ponder option? Put them at the bottom of your library in a random order, or shuffle. But I fear that people would end up choosing the shuffle option most of the time, and we're back at having too much shuffle in the format.
ReplyDeleteUltimately, I think that if you're committed to reducing the amount of shuffling then you have to endure the occurrence of slight feel-bad moments such as this one. But these sort of experiences will help new players grow; the relationship between reward and drawback needs to be learned at some point.
I agree, I think the current mechanic was a calculated choice on behalf of MTG R&D. If they go to the graveyard, LSPs will be disheartened, while the more experienced players will realize the power of that option. If they go to the bottom of the library, LSPs still have hope, while more experienced players realize it's essentially the same as exile until shuffled.
DeleteHowever, more experienced players are also more likely to be able to reason past the feel-bad. While that negativity can never be wholly dismissed, it won't dominate the game for them like it might for an LSP. Therefore, it's better to prioritize the LSP experience emotionally, in this respect.
However, of course it's important for us to continue striving for greater solutions.
Here's a keyword mechanic riffing off of this idea. May not work within the rules as written, but I think it's understandable.
ReplyDeleteScour for X - Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal an X card or you choose to stop. If you revealed an X card, put it into your hand and the rest of the cards on the bottom of your library in a random order. If you stopped, put the last revealed card on the top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
So if I Scour for Land and reveal Forest, I get it. But if I reveal a Vivien Reid before I reveal a land, then I can put it on top at the cost of my land. Likewise, I could Scour for Spells, or Scour for Instant, or Scour for Black, etc.
It's wordy and a little narrow, but sort of cool. I like the fact that Scour for Land is useful even if I'm flooded (and likewise, Scour for Spells can help get me to a land). I think you'd have to be careful about what you allow players to scour for; if you get too specific this can turn into a full-on tutor effect.
It is indeed wordy - it's eight lines of text. I think in terms of concept this is very much a great idea, but I'm not sure how one could execute this while not devouring the entire text box... hm.
DeleteI'm also worried that if I Scour for Land, and hit my bomb PW, I now have to pick between being mana-screwed but getting my PW, or getting my mana but saying goodbye to my PW. It's still a tough decision that feels bad either way. At least in the current iteration, I can't blame myself.
DeleteI think that it will feel less bad, because you at least have the option of keeping it. Even if that's a mistake, it's a tempting one that can help players learn.
DeleteThe only way I can see this fitting on a card is if the term Scour was just an inherent game mechanic, but that's not very feasible. Maybe it could be shortened a bit, but I'm not quite sure how.
I like a lot of the potential alternatives, but I don't like that they complicate things -- anything giving extra choices, or suggesting people need to remember what's where, etc, is going to add a big burden to beginner players even if it turns out it usually doesn't matter. And turning "mini-tutor for land" to "mini-tutor for land, or kind of sort of get your bomb" is almost more cruel, since players who need the land will feel bad whatever.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering if there was something about looking at cards from the BOTTOM of your library and putting them back in the middle, so you never 'feel' like you're losing something. But "middle" is too vague.
I like the idea of looking at the bottom, since you know it was already there so you're not 'missing out', but there's certainly still negativity to losing hope that your bomb wasn't on top of your deck.
DeleteCould we look at bottom and return to bottom? It's a bit fiddly, I think.
It also has the issue that if you cast multiples, you’re seeing the same cards. The natural course of the game will change the top of your deck due to drawing cards, but not the bottom.
Delete"Draw from the bottom" is also rife with opportunities for dexterity errors and accusations of cheating.
DeleteI actually thought this Twitter thread might go a different direction - discussing the possibility, however remote, of whiffing completely. That's probably unlikely enough it's not worth considering, however.
ReplyDeleteIn regards to your solutions, I wonder if we could write Plan Ahead with this more bold text box:
Plan Ahead {2}{U}
Instant (C)
Look at the top 5 cards of your library. You may reveal an instant or sorcery card from among them and put it into your hand. Scry the rest. (Put any number of them on the bottom of your library and the rest on top in any order.)
Seeing the wording this way, however, reveals one of the real reasons we simply cannot go with this solution. Not only is it vastly more powerful than it looks (this is scry 4, attached to a mini tutor!) but it also takes an extremely long time to resolve. Scry 4, on its own, can grind games to a halt. But a scry 4 that first begins with you having to calculate which card you want most in your hand, versus which one you most want on the top of your deck, is decisions upon decisions.
At that point, one might also note that by making this an instant, the card on top of the deck is just going to end up in my hand upon my next turn anyway. So is there that much of a functional difference between this finding an instant/sorcery, and this picking any card from the top 5? The only case where that's different is one where have the mana to immediately cast the card you put in your hand, but given the power level of this design, that seems unlikely.
Unfortunately, the way to address these concerns is to look at less cards, but looking at less cards also increases your chances of whiffing entirely, which is the true worst-case scenario.
I do think it's important to question and critique these new ideas for Wizards, to continue probing for a solution that best meets everyone's needs, but I also think it's clear that any option which results in additional decisions is going to be simply contributing processing time to the game where we were deliberately trying to avoid it. Finding an option that operates automatically, however, is going to be difficult.
Such a great topic! Really thought provoking stuff, Ryan!
“Remote possibility” means “every time I cast Elvish Rejuvenator in Pauper Tron”, right? XD
DeleteGreat points all, especially about how much more raw time it takes. One thing even detractors would have to admit is that Rejuvenator is *way* faster to resolve than search & shuffle, which is a huge upside. More time actually gaming, less time bookkeeping is always a net win.
Remote possibility in casual play, but good point :)
DeletePerhaps we can offer a concession if you whiff and get nothing, like 'draw a card'. But that would probably break in many situations.
As somebody who has always hated shuffling, I for one am so willing to pay the cost of bottoming a good card when it doesn't fit my search criteria that it didn't even occur to me as a cost. Great point to bring up.
DeleteDire Wolf Digital's Eternal recently released a mechanic called the Market which allows a player to essentially pick a five-card sideboard that they have access to during the game. Something similar in Magic seems quite feasible, and also allows a player to fetch a card without shuffling -- at the cost of it taking up a slot among the limited outside-the-game cards the player has access to (be it your sideboard or something more similar to the five-card Market). Stretched pretty far, it could even give value to the basic lands in draft! (In order to fetch a Swamp, you need to have one in your sideboard -- that is, you need to have drafted one. There are tons of confusing things about that, but it could be an interesting resource wrinkle).
I wonder if it'd be worth having token lands for this sort of thing. Although they'd usually have to be either wastes, or land of any colour, there's no easy way to do "help with fixing first or second colour, but not just any colour", which the mini-tutors do.
Delete@Bradley Wilson, Limited players have infinite basic lands in their sideboard by default. It's not unusual for a player to call a judge and request additional basics mid-match.
Delete"Draw a basic from your sideboard" could be interesting for a Limited-focused mechanic, though it doesn't much help LSPs with FNM.
Eternal solves this problem without the market: It can simply get the next instance of whatever out of your deck without any fumbling. It can also create cards from scratch. (And it could shuffle instantly if it wanted, but has no reason to.)
DeleteI really think grabbing basics from outside the game (tokens or not) is a strong option, despite its flaws.
Jay, yes, the digital of Eternal allows the search to function very smoothly (you don't even have to show your opponent). I called attention to the Market because it's an option that could very easily exist in paper.
DeleteI wish we had more shorthand in magic! Phrases like "put the rest on the bottom of library in any order" is longer than "then, shuffle those cards into your library" but even that is soooo many words for a simple action. That said, here's a mechanic I'd like to try as a scry-alike in a given set:
ReplyDeleteElvish Grovemarker 2G
Creature - Elf Druid
When CARDNAME enters the battlefield, reveal the top four cards of your library. You and target opponent each choose one of the cards, then put a land card chosen this way into your hand and any other chosen cards on top of your library, then the other cards on the bottom of your library in random order.
2/2
"2) You look at the top 5 cards of your library. Oh no! There's a land, but there's also (insert amazing bomb) here!
ReplyDelete3) You put the land into play, take one last longing look at your bomb, and bottom it, knowing that you'll likely never see it again this game."
This is so true!
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteElven seer 3G (C)
DeleteCreature - Elf Druid
When Elven Seer enters the battlefield, scry 4.
Then reveal the top card of your library, if it's a land card, put it into your hand. If it's not a land card, put it back.
2/2
I have also worked recently on reverse draw card like this one :
ReplyDeletehttps://mtgcardsmith.com/view/contemplate-nature
It says : "Look at the bottom five cards of your library.
You may reveal a creature card from among
them and put it into your hand. Put the rest
on the top of your library in any order."
It solves the problem of the losing bomb, but it's weird and difficult to evaluate.
I kept thinking something like this, but for me the trouble is, putting the cards on top allows you to order the next four cards of your library (which is very powerful if you know what you're doing, very annoying if they're all mediocre, and requires a bunch of memory if you don't want to feel stupid when you forgot what's coming).
DeleteBut I like it apart from that, is there any good way of avoiding those problems?
This has been a very illuminating discussion! I totally agree, I have been burned for looking at the top of my library and was forced to bottom a really fun card. I was reviewing some older cards for a possible solution to this problem and I found a green card called Natural Selection. I applied this to the elf problem:
ReplyDelete[Elvish Rejuvenator v2.0 (2)(G)
Creature - Elf Druid
When Elvish Rejuvenator enters the battlefield, look at the top five cards of your library. You may put a land card from among them onto the battlefield tapped. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. You may shuffle your library.
1/1]
While its not perfect, it gives players options. Players who don’t want to or don’t like to shuffle can bottom the cards. Players who really don’t want to bottom a bomb can shuffle. I like this solution because it doesn’t feel ‘blue’ in the sense that it doesn’t manipulate the top of the library. I understand that it is more words, but it may be a useful compromise. Let me know what y’all think. Thanks for the article and to everyone for putting so much energy into this problem.
I like this one., It is always useful to have the choice.
DeleteI think adding optional shuffles to these effects is a great idea! I'd rather have the text be "As your next turn ends, you may shuffle your library" so that instead of interrupting the turn to shuffle you're shuffling as your opponent starts their next turn.
DeleteI think this is a decent solution.
DeletePlaytesting in competitive is a must though. That decision to shuffle or not might be pretty difficult if you have to weigh the average value of the bottomed cards with the average value of the rest of your deck.
Axxle, thanks for the feedback. You bring up a good point! Having to make that choice could be a tricky one. Also, the accumulation of all those decisions in high level play could add up and slow down gameplay as well. I totally agree, playtesting is in order.
DeleteMaybe I'm an odd duck for not really seeing a problem to the extent that these are "feel bad" moments that need an actual solution.
ReplyDeleteOr really, I think it's the possibility that it could require you to give up a late-game bomb in exchange for something useful right now is what allows these spells to be both cheap and common. I think the more you try to balance it to keep minimizing the risk will start turning the costs and rarity closer to a tutor spell anyway.
I don't think they *need* a solution, but if we could come up with an elegant, feel-good solution, then all the better.
DeleteWhat about this : (I rework it)
ReplyDeleteElven Seer {2}{g} (C)
Creature - Elf Druid
When Elven Seer enters the battlefield, scry 3. Then you may reveal the top card of your library, if it's a land card, put that card onto the battlefield tapped.
1/1