What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part 4)

Please enjoy the third in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson Four: Surveil and liberating the jank

Mark Rosewater and other Magic designers are pretty open about the challenges of designing for blue and black together. They've been allied colors from the start, but the relationship between the blue and black is thematic and not mechanical.

What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part 3)

Please enjoy the third in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson Three: Mentor and simple complexity

I have to start by confessing that I have a hard time designing for the red and white color identity, and Boros is the guild I have the least connection with as a player. I'm a lover of weird and crazy combos, and the Boros Legion has no time for the shenanigans of Johnnies and Jennies. They're too busy busting the skulls of miscreants.

What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part 2)

Please enjoy the second in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson Two: Jump-start and making "spells matter" matter

In draft and sealed formats, where players have 40-card rather than 60-card decks, creatures are highly prioritized and other spells tend to be limited. Non-creature spells tend to be focused primarily on impactful cards that help swing the game in your favor. A limited deck may have only a handful of non-creature spells, often removal and combat tricks.

What I've Learned from Guilds of Ravnica's Mechanics (Part I)

Please enjoy the first in a series of five guest posts from Larcent about the mechanics of Guilds of Ravnica. —Jay Treat

Lesson One: Convoke as comfort food.

Anecdotal experience tells me that we amateur Magic designers tend toward the Jenny/Johnny play style and are very interested in seeing mechanics and sets that do new and different things. That's certainly my Magic identity.

Weekend Art Challenge 122118—green evasion

Click through to see the illustration and design requirements for your single card submission, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, which you may use to revise your submission any number of times. Skye and/or I will aim to review the most recent submission from each designer.

Undaunted

Hey folks. Please enjoy a post from guest columnist Skye.
—Jay Treat

I wanted to tackle a Daunting subject today. For the past few years, Wizards has been experimenting with trying to find meaningful evasion for non-blue colors. Blue has more than its share of good evasion, with both flying and unblockability. This leaves most of the other colors, especially Green, with a bit of a mixed bag. For the benefit of green, I want to start somewhere you might not expect: Fear.

CCDD 121518—distract & carry

Cool Card Design of the Day
I imagined this effect as a one-off Eternal card for my infiltrate deck, when I realized how similar it is to escort and had to mock it up as a Magic mechanic.

Eternal Analysis 013—Infiltrate

The first deck I built centered on Infiltrate, Eternal's saboteur mechanic.

Eternal Analysis 012—Renown

Eternal just previewed a new keyword from the impending 5th set: Renown. It has nothing to do with Magic's renown, because it's too busy being Magic's heroic.

Eternal Analysis 011—The Must-Play Kill Spells

I'm a huge sucker for cycles and so is Dire Wolf (and so is Wizards). Most often, cycles exist to demonstrate the nature of the set by viewing it through the lens of each color/faction (and to demonstrate the nature of each color/faction through the lens of the set). Sometimes, though, they exist purely to support a number of archetypes. This is particularly the case with 2+color cycles like dual lands and the 10 Eternal cards we're looking at today.

Eternal Analysis 010—Sites

Eternal just previewed another exciting keyword from the upcoming set: Amplify. It's a novel new mechanic that… just kidding. It's multikicker. It's literally multikicker. (I mean, it looks fun. Multickicker's a good mechanic. It's just old news.)

The big reveal is actually Sites. They're a lot like planeswalkers, but with a touch of sagas and some uniquely Eternal stuff. Let's take a look.

Eternal Analysis 009—Pledge

Eternal recently previewed a new keyword from the impending 5th set: Pledge. On your first turn, a card with Pledge can be played as a Sigil. Great, it's a smoothing mechanic and high-variance games like CCGs need smoothing mechanics.