It's a bad idea because it's often card disadvantage: you're risking the opponent having a removal spell or even just a big blocker on their turn to completely counter the endow. And the reward-- a mana discount that also comes with Suspend 1-ish-- isn't nearly enough. Those problems may be fixable, but I doubt they can be fixed with fewer than seven lines of rules reminder text.
Even so, I like the gameplay feel of "I might get something unless you block, and you have no idea what", and the flavor of your spells being channeled through a creature. Any ideas for how to pull that off in a more appealing way?
I could see the mechanic just exiling the card face-down for 1 and then you get to cast it the next time you connect with any creature. It might snowball a little too much but it would be a good way to reward aggressive play and make your opponent wonder how much of a big deal it is to let your 1/1 deathtouch rat through.
ReplyDeleteWith mechanics like this and morph, one concern is that to play optimally, players have to memorize every card in the set to understand what they could be playing against. It's not a problem for everyone – I still adore morph – but for less enfranchised players it can feel punishing.
After reading the reminder text it seems like Endow happens from hand, but it wasn't totally clear to me.
ReplyDeleteI thought the payoff was going to be a cipher style effect where you can keep casting copies of the endowed card, which is a bad idea for a different reason (repetitive gameplay).
Also it's hard to get much of a discount on -4/-4 to a creature, compare this to the costs of Grasp of Darkness or Mire's Grasp.
Good points, thanks!
ReplyDeleteIterated on the mechanic based on the feedback:
Endow 2 (2, Exile this from your hand endowing a creature you control: Draw a card. Endow only after combat on your turn. Whenever the endowed creature deals combat damage to a player, you may cast this from exile.)
Now a card-advantage reward instead of a mana-efficiency one, with a failure mode of "narrower cycling".
I feel the complexity vs gameplay might hinder it. It does too many things in this version. I would do exile, if a creature you control dealt combat damage to an opponent this turn, you can cast it form exile for its endow cost
ReplyDelete