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.

Weekend Design Challenge 113018 -- Keyword Action Triggers

Good morning, Artisans. Click through to see the requirements for this weekend's design challenge, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, so once you've got your great idea down, give some thoughtful critique to your peers. Revise your submission any number of times, and I'll review the most recent submission from each designer some time next week.

CCDD 112918 -- Create Triggers

I feel like one of the great things we overlooked when they updated the templating for token-making to "create" a few years back was finding fun ways to interact with the new Keyword Action.

Weekend Design Challenge 112318 -- Black Friday

Good morning, Artisans, and Happy American Thanksgiving to one and all. Click through to see the requirements for this weekend's design challenge, due Monday morning. Every submission warrants feedback, so once you've got your great idea down, give some thoughtful critique to your peers. Revise your submission any number of times, and I'll review the most recent submission from each designer some time next week.

CCDD 112118 -- Destroyer of Champions

Good morning, Artisans. Here's a Ball Lightning variant I came up with a little bit ago.

CCDD 112018—Eva and Elena

Cool Card Design of the Day
This art begged to be made into a red-blue legend for Innistrad.

CCDD 111918—Infinitry

Cool Card Design of the Day
This idea just came from the portmanteau that popped into my head.

CCDD 111618—Rancor of Wildwood

Cool Card Design of the Day
Rancor's too strong and Talons of Wildwood is too weak. Let's try and meet somewhere in the middle.

Eternal Analysis 008—Nightfall

Nightfall is a different kind of Eternal keyword: It's not a skill, modifying how a card works, but an event (or a keyword action in Magic terms). When night falls, it lasts through the next round, and when your turn begins at night, you take 1 damage and draw a card.

CCDD 111418—learn a lesson

Cool Card Design of the Day
During the weeks between learning I'd made the top 100 for GDS3 and the initial design test, I designed and playtested a Magic world and a number of potential mechanics for it, knowing that work would either be directly relevant or at least good practice. One of the keywords I tested had been stewing in my head for quite some time.

CCDD 111318—Dire Lane Pickpocket

Cool Card Design of the Day
This top-down card ended up a lot like Feral Prowler, but I like the slightly different angle; it's both evocative and sets you up to build around it.

CCDD 111218—Path to Peace

Cool Card Design of the Day
The problem with Path to Exile is that pesky downside. What if we turned that around and made it an upside?

CCDD 110918—Bad Jerks

Cool Card Design of the Day
This creature's main purpose is to act like an unreliable Rootwalla or Hungry Spriggan; You can't always count on yours being able to grow, and I can't always predict whether it will or not.

CCDD 110818—Foresee Obstacles

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a weird spell.

CCDD 110718—Restrain

Cool Card Design of the Day
This counterspell can straight up counter a spell that costs the same or less. It can still answer a bigger spell, but only temporarily. I wanted to explore this space because it's problematic for unconditional countermagic to create a mana advantage.

Eternal Analysis 007—Echo

Echo is another excellent Eternal keyword. When you draw a card with echo, you draw an extra copy.

CCDD 110518—Moon Dial

Cool Card Design of the Day
This is strictly better than a Manalith and I think it's totally printable.

CCDD 110218—Pangs of Regret

Cool Card Design of the Day
This design is from July of last year, which is why it uses the old damage template. It stood out to me as I scanned my folder because it's literally an undergrowth card, just red.

CCDD 110118—Call into Question

Cool Card Design of the Day
Here's a new way to make hybrid cards, good for a cycle or two: Modular cards with one effect of each color, where the opponent gets to choose the mode if you only pay one color, but you get to choose if you pay both.

Eternal Analysis 006—Inspire

Inspire is one of my very favorite mechanics. When you draw a unit while you control an inspire ability, that unit becomes permanently enhanced.

CCDD 103018—Land of Memories

Cool Card Design of the Day
Lands that sacrifice to do something are of great utility, cycling from play when you no longer need so much mana, and providing something of use. They also tend to be a touch dangerous or wicked expensive. This one's free, limited in power, but still useful.

CCDD 102918—Promise Safety

Cool Card Design of the Day
Fatal Blow / Crushing Pain effects are hard to do well, because they're removal spells that don't work on their own. Anything really worth casting a spell to kill that isn't already trumped by one of your creatures is probably killing the blocker you use to prime your spell, so you're often 2:1'ing yourself. If black-red had more 1/4s, that might help.

Anyhow, I found a really nice way to even out the card EV here.

Eternal Analysis 005—Tribute

Tribute is one of Eternal's poorer keywords, which is a shame because it's so close to being morbid.

Eternal Analysis 004—Merchants

Eternal doesn't have sideboarding per se, but in June, the fourth set introduced the Market meant to act as a sort of live sideboard, via a cycle of five merchants.

CCDD 102418—Keeper of the Maze

Cool Card Design of the Day
I wanted to explore the idea of the minotaur guarding the labyrinth (based on a conversation from Beacon of Creation). The idea of rewarding player's for using their gates to cast it appealed, because of the gate's original relevance to Ravnica's implicit maze (see Maze's End), as well as Castmire's labyrinthine nature and potential use of gates.

CCDD 102318—Gaea's Benediction

Cool Card Design of the Day
I found this Gaea's Blessing variant while ideating on a Beacon of Creation challenge. It didn't end up fulfilling the challenge, but it's interesting enough to share.

Eternal Analysis 003—Warcry

Warcry is my pick for the most fun and distinctive mechanic in Eternal. Whenever a creature with warcry attacks, the top unit of your deck gets +1/+1. That's so simple, and so compelling!

CCDD 101918—mystery

Cool Card Design of the Day
In the last Beacon of Creation podcast I listened to (I'm a bit behind), they speculated briefly about a mystery card type / mechanic and how that might interact with clues. It seemed like having a clue should help you solve a mystery. Here are five executions of that idea.

CCDD 101818—Rogue Tutor, Steal & Premature Autopsy

Cool Card Design of the Day
A few weeks back, Beacon of Creation proposed the challenge: Design a black draw spell that doesn't cost you life or creatures. Nice. I was late to submit, but here are some thoughts.

CCDD 101718 — Memories of Reclaim

Cool Card Design of the Day

Doing some idle research today, I remembered the card Reclaim exists, and I'm still not quite sure why. (Only mostly kidding.) But it got me thinking about other, hopefully more playable, ways to use such a natural effect.

CCDD 101618 — Making Mischief: Trick or Treat!

Like my costume?

Cool Creepy Card Design of the Day

I'm a big fan of Halloween! So today, let's begin the fiendish festivities of the spookiest season with a mechanic celebrating it!

Eternal Analysis 002—Power Cards

Sigils are power cards that work exactly like basic lands. There are also three cycles of dual power cards in all ten faction pairs, three cycles of mono-colored power cards, and a few unaffiliated power cards.