Ally Wedge UWG Flash (on creatures)? WGR Reach GRB Haste RBU BUW
Enemy Wedge UWR [Formerly Prowess -> UR] WGB [Formerly Regeneration, a keyword action] Temporary Indestructible? GRU RBW First Strike BUG
Wild:
Flash UWRGB as needed, mostly UWG on creatures.
Flying UWRGB as needed, usually UWRB
Equip C
Crew C
Indestructible C, with the occasional splash to 5 colors for gods and/or WBG for temporary "regeneration"-esque effects
Defender UWRGBU
Note: Right now, the only cycle of keywords that's complete is Enemy Color keywords (assuming lifelink it's BWG). Ally Color keywords comes close, though, and can be rectified by cutting Reach in Red. Note that if we cut Black's access to First Strike, and moved it to WR (and understand First and Double Strike as two sides of the same mechanic), the Enemy Wedge cycle would be effectively killed. I wouldn't be against doing this, if only to cut down on the space to fill.
Thoughts on filling the gaps? Should we even try? Is the entire concept of filling the gaps a mistake?
My favorites, as of now: UBBlackmail(Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, that player reveals that many cards from his or her hand. Choose one of those cards. That player discards that card.) UBRansom(Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, that player may discard a card at random. If he or she doesn't, uou draw a card.) UGCuriosity (Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card.) URAbout Face(When this creature blocks or is blocked, you may switch its power and toughness until end of turn. If you do, until end of turn effects that change its power change its toughness instead, and vice versa.) [Note: Adopting this would allow us to move Prowess back to it's enemy wedge). WGB (or WB) (You may play this creature card in your graveyard as though it was in your hand.) [Note: Regeneration-analog/replacement] WU ~ Some Blink Mechanic ~; example: Elusive(Whenever this is the target of a spell or effect,
you may exile this permanent. If you do, return it to the battlefield at the end of turn.) UR ~ Some copy mechanic; example: Fork(Whenever this permanent becomes the target of a spell, you may copy it. You may choose new targets for the copy. G? (One of the enemy wedges?) Stalk (This creature can't be blocked by more than one creature)
Alternatively, one could evergreen some existing keywords: WGR Provoke (Whenever this attacks, you may have target creature defending player controls untap and block it if able.) UBR Unearth (cost) (Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step or if it would leave the battlefield. Unearth only as a sorcery.) WRB Bushido N (Whenever this creature blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +N/+N until end of turn.) BUW Shadow (This creature can block or be blocked by only creatures with shadow.) RW Battle cry (Whenever this creature attacks, each other attacking creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.)
Also brings up some interesting discussion. Are you also looking for new keywords by chance?
While looking at temporary indestructible, I starting thinking of something like the "Glass-Spinner" (can't recall the actual name of the card) effect except based on destruction.
Endurance (The first time this creature would die each turn, it doesn't. Instead, tap it and remove all damage from it.)
The name is kinda gimmicky and it takes parts of regeneration and indestructible, but I think it works fairly well in terms of what it is trying to do. Easily fits in the proposed GWB wedge.
I'd be interested in both new/returning keywords to evergreen and for a discussion about whether we should be satisfied with ally and enemy pairs, add only ally wedges, or go for enemy wedges as well. 20+ keywords in a core set (not counting keyword actions) is a lot...
Re: Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - I've seen this as a suggested replacement for Hexproof/Shroud. I like Hexproof as is, so I'm not a fan. Furthermore, Glass-Spinner is worded more like shroud, so your 1st target nulls the ability. I can see a lot of frowny faces when you try to aura your creature, and it goes in the grave, then your opponent kills it. At least when you tried to aura your Shroud, the opponent says "that's not a legal target" and you're not down a card. One advantage Hexproof has over this is that it almost single-handedly enables fringe-playable auras. Want to play an aura, afraid of removal? Play the 3/1 for 2G with Hexproof.
However, I love your idea to steal it's terminology!
Re: Endurance - I don't see any reason it needs tap (I realize you're going for regeneration-like text here); consider the following: Endurance V2(Whenever this creature would be destroyed for the first time each turn, instead remove all damage from it.)
This is Great! I love it! Now the question is what is the flavor and color identity.
Consider: Gray Troll1GG
Creature - Troll (R)
Hexproof (This creature can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.)
Endurance (Whenever this creature would be destroyed for the first time each turn, instead remove all damage from it.)
2/2
This feels AWESOME!
But this?
Tough Bones1B
Creature - Skeleton (U)
Endurance (Whenever this creature would be destroyed for the first time each turn, instead remove all damage from it.)
1/1
Tough Bones feels bad, flavorwise. But this isn't a deal-breaker; we can always print reassembling skeleton as our (U) skeleton infinite blocker, and have Endurance be primarily G with a few splashes in WB.
Endurance feels like a "weak" indestructible, but I'm okay with that. Certainly a tier 1 pick for the GWB enemy wedge.
PS - Endurance is "weak" to Double Strike, and I *really* like that interaction! If there are several endurance creatures with a toughness of 2, this could make a 2/1 double-striker look all the better. And, of course, the black opponent can just murder it twice to kill it.
Blue-black has mill as a staple mechanic. I don´t know if thats what your are looking for, just saying.
Mhmmm I think green-white has tokens in the same vein.
Got a few things wrong (unless your trying to change things around?)so far its;
Flying mostly in WU (its "official pair") and B with R and G getting it for dragons.
Lifelink in WB
Prowess in UR and grandfathered in rarely now in W
Menace in BR with is possiblely showing up in G
Haste in BR and in G when development want to push a creature
Deathtouch in BG
Indestructible in BG (Temporary) and W
Reach is GR and rarely in W for archers
Trample is mainly RG with anything big enough able to have it.
First Strike in WR and rarely inB Double Strike is the same tho we yet to get a mono-black double striker
Viglance is in GW and never been locked into U since it plays too similar to W
Flash in UG but each color can use it for cycles or mechanical reasons
Hexproof in UG and been dipped some in B for flavor
Scry is WUBRG with more focus in U. (Personal I think the focus should be in UB to give it an evergreen keyword.
Defender WUBRG
Equip on equipment
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"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
When playing Evergreen Keyword bingo... I tried not to talk about primary/secondary/tertiary for each color here.
I realize Flying is mostly UW, but red and black get too much flying (with black at all rarities regularly) to have this be appropriate.
Re: Trample - yes, this splashes into BRU on occasion... but FAR LESS than flying, and almost never below rare. You could say the same for Hexproof - it's where it needs to go for "reasons", but these are few and far between.
Lifelink is "teased" on G, hence the "?" But I'm okay with green not getting it.
I'd hate to see Menace in G.
Reach is rarely in R, compared to W's history of archers.
When playing Evergreen Keyword bingo... I tried not to talk about primary/secondary/tertiary for each color here.
Why not? Not each keyword is balance among what colors can get it and some can only get an ability for a reason.
I realize Flying is mostly UW, but red and black get too much flying (with black at all rarities regularly) to have this be appropriate.
Besides at rare on dragons and similar creatures red hasn't gotten any flying in recent sets. And yes that is the current issue with Flying being WUB but when it comes to cycles, flying will go to WU
Re: Trample - yes, this splashes into BRU on occasion... but FAR LESS than flying, and almost never below rare. You could say the same for Hexproof - it's where it needs to go for "reasons", but these are few and far between.
Did you mean BUW? I know this, which is why I added in the "any big" creature can have it. This why you need to talk about primary/secondary/tertiary since not all evergreen get to be in equal. Hex proof is UG and had one B cards with it for flavor in Xathrid Slyblade which was made by an outside designer.
Lifelink is "teased" on G, hence the "?" But I'm okay with green not getting it.
Green doesn't get lifelink and I don't see how green "teases" lifelink, unless you mean its the only other color that can gain life.
I'd hate to see Menace in G.
Menace replaced Inimadate and green got intimidate. We might never see it but is allowed to happen.
Reach is rarely in R, compared to W's history of archers.
Just cause overall in magic white has more reach doesn't change what current design uses. White now gets reach rarely for flavor. Last reach white creature I can remember from recent magic is Dragon Hunter.
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"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Re: 1/2/3... the main reason is it takes too long, changes too often... and would make bingo even more confusing... A core set is going to introduce new players to the game, and give staples for standard. Being able to identify a keyword with each color pair is interesting and exciting - asking them to pick out 1/2/3 for each color's relationship to a keyword is... like homework.
Re: Flying - It's all over the place; trying to say "this is primarily UW" is laughable. Wizards has decided that Flying will be the "main" form of evasion, and it's been in every color. It goes to every color when flavor OR for limited concerns when the designer thinks "I want evasion here."
Vigilance is either UW or WG or UWG. The easiest solution to Evergreen Bingo is to move Reach back to GW and Vigilance back to UW, which will fill up ally and enemy pairs. Let First and Double Strike be "the same mechanic" (for our chart reasons) in WR, and that leaves Flash, Haste, and Flying with the only other creature-specific evergreen keywords without clear paired color association.
Re: Intimidate - Everyone got intimidate, and it was an unfun mechanic. Green has lots of noteworthy and interesting keywords - arguably the best - Trample, Haste, Hexproof, Deathtouch, coupled with Reach because of the lack of access to flying. But it also gets nice use out of flash as well. Giving green a form of evasion sort of misses the point, I think.
Re: 1/2/3... the main reason is it takes too long, changes too often... and would make bingo even more confusing... A core set is going to introduce new players to the game, and give staples for standard. Being able to identify a keyword with each color pair is interesting and exciting - asking them to pick out 1/2/3 for each color's relationship to a keyword is... like homework.
Magic isn't a simple game. And if you want evergreen ability for each color pair as a simple corset idea it breaks down to; WU-Flying WB- Lifelink UB- Flying/ unblockable* UR- Prowess BR- Menace, Haste BG- Deathtouch, Indestructible (temp.) RG- Trample, Reach RW- First/Double Strike GW- Vigilance GU- Hexproof, Flash
With scry being the odd duck in all colors
Re: Flying - It's all over the place; trying to say "this is primarily UW" is laughable. Wizards has decided that Flying will be the "main" form of evasion, and it's been in every color. It goes to every color when flavor OR for limited concerns when the designer thinks "I want evasion here."
That is their stand though, whenever they do color pair cycles they will give flying to WU more then another color pair. You can agree its a shared WUB ability but saying it 100% fits in all colors is wrong and something wizards seems to have really tired to keep out of red outside of things like dragons and phoenixes. Once again you can change stuff for your own set but in current magic design this is what they are trying to do.
Vigilance is either UW or WG or UWG. The easiest solution to Evergreen Bingo is to move Reach back to GW and Vigilance back to UW, which will fill up ally and enemy pairs. Let First and Double Strike be "the same mechanic" (for our chart reasons) in WR, and that leaves Flash, Haste, and Flying with the only other creature-specific evergreen keywords without clear paired color association.
No its not. Viglance never been blue outside of Time Spirl. You can go ahead and say for your set its in blue, but is magics color pie they decided vigilance is in GW. The reason being blue vigilance is very similar to what it does in white (higher toughness creatures) and green can use it in different ways since it power and toughness are higher.
Re: Intimidate - Everyone got intimidate, and it was an unfun mechanic. Green has lots of noteworthy and interesting keywords - arguably the best - Trample, Haste, Hexproof, Deathtouch, coupled with Reach because of the lack of access to flying. But it also gets nice use out of flash as well. Giving green a form of evasion sort of misses the point, I think.
But I agree that green doesn't need menace. Just pointing out that since it replaced Intimidate it was grandfathered into being allowed in green. So far design and development prefer to give green trample or not being able to be blocked by small powered creatures.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Magic isn't a simple game. And if you want evergreen ability for each color pair as a simple corset idea it breaks down to; WU-Flying WB- Lifelink UB- Flying/ unblockable* UR- Prowess BR- Menace, Haste BG- Deathtouch, Indestructible (temp.) RG- Trample, Reach RW- First/Double Strike GW- Vigilance GU- Hexproof, Flash
With scry being the odd duck in all colors
1. Scry, Fight, etc. are keyworded actions not discussed here. I was seriously against them moving Scry from a keyword on cards like Magma Jet to a rules word mid-sentence. It's sloppy and adds complexity. Clash and Fight, on the other hand, are examples of this done right.
2. Magic is a complex game, but the complexity of it's rules and the sheer number of evergreen keywords isn't necessary or good for the game.
Being able to say "Each color pair has access to one specific evergreen keyword" is an especially helpful learning tool, if nothing else.
3. Flash is not a creature-exclusive ability. I agree it's mostly UG with a little W... but, quite frankly, it can be on anything sorcery-speed you'd want at instant speed. GU want instant speed creatures to evade counters, W wants surprise blockers. But flash is fair game in all colors should the card call for it. If we're going to focus on color pairs, Flash should be understood like Flying - open to all, but concentrated in a few.
4. Can you name a good vigilance creature in green? No? Exactly. Can you name a good vigilance creature outside of white? Nope. But, I think, if we're going to ignore eternal warrior, Bay falcon and kin provide a useful precedence. Yeah, you could push it to green... but green's creatures are BIG - letting them have access to vigilance as well is actually rather problematic for limited. In contrast, if blue throws vigilance on the occasional filler flyer... who cares? In fact, with vigilance in U, I could see them printing:
Good? YUP! Above the curve? A bit. But not that much above the curve.
5. Can you name a good reach creature in red? Besides the Time Spiral one and the one with less-than-ideal Firebreathing? I imagine the red Vampire Nighthawk is going to look like this:
Iconic Minotaur Name Signaling epic reprintings1RR 2/3 Haste, Menace, First Strike (You can toss "Trample" in over Menace or First Strike to make it weaker... but I don't see the need.)
Right now, you have GR having trample and reach. That's just going to confuse new players. So if we move/return vigilance to UW, and reach to GW, we'll have only one major keyword for each color pair.
Now I'm not saying they can't print R reachers occasionally... but I find it silly that they're pretending the color with Dragons can't get flying. They want Dragons to have flying so much that both epic cycles of 5 color dragons had flying (or could gain it). Be stingy with flying at common and uncommon all you want, but at (R) and (M) we expect a red dragon, and if some "color pie police" wants to stop that, they're going to have a fan riot. Now, if Red's not getting flyers at common or uncommon, how should it be able to deal with flyers? Lightning Bolt,
'nuff said.
6. Re: Haste. While it's clearly GRB, I think it's fair to just leave this as a mechanic that isn't one of the "tied to a color pair" cycle we're discussing here. If we want to move to 15 keywords in the cycle (10 pairs, and 5 ally color wedges) , Haste can be there. But that's 4 more keywords we'd have to add and that's a lot of work...
Re: Flying - It's all over the place; trying to say "this is primarily UW" is laughable. Wizards has decided that Flying will be the "main" form of evasion, and it's been in every color. It goes to every color when flavor OR for limited concerns when the designer thinks "I want evasion here."
That is their stand though, whenever they do color pair cycles they will give flying to WU more then another color pair. You can agree its a shared WUB ability but saying it 100% fits in all colors is wrong and something wizards seems to have really tired to keep out of red outside of things like dragons and phoenixes. Once again you can change stuff for your own set but in current magic design this is what they are trying to do.
Your position is that Wizards told you something demonstrably false, that they know is false, with the intent of having you believe it. That's called a "lie."
U is very hard to find keywords for. Our own UB keyword thread is epic and intractable. UR is prowess, one of the newest keywords to go evergreen. UG is hexproof, previously shroud, and is something they keep teasing they'll retire because "people hate it." Is it any wonder that they'd be happy to say flying is primarilyUW and call it a PR win?
Blue's going to have access to flying. No question about that. Moving it so strongly into white a while ago was a surprise, quite frankly, but it was part of their push to make white the best weenie color, and it's not like iconic creature type Angel (take a hint Commander 2017) is going to go w/o flying.
But Flying is 5 colors, and has been 4/5 colors since the beginning with little evidence that's going to stop. Letting Wizards pat themselves on the back and say "We dodged a bullet having to find the UW evergreen keyword this time!" is just silly.
Return vigilance to U. There are plenty of flavor opportunities here; white vigilance attscks and blocks. Maybe blue vigilance can attack and then tap for an effect. Print something like this:
Vigilant Wizard1U
Creature - Human Wizard (C)
Vigilance T: Put the top card of target player's library into his or her graveyard.
1/3
Surely we're not breaking the game open by giving blue - a very shallow color, the shallowest only next to red - this little bit of original design space. They already get "Defender + Haste", which occupies much the same "keyword 2 lets the creature do mechanic 3 things, but keyword 1 stops keyword 2 from acting as keyword 2 usually does."
Now, let me clarify: If Wizards thinks Keyword Bingo is stupid - FINE! But the ability for new players to associate 10 evergreen keywords with color pairs helps them to understand the color pairs and remember the keywords. This worked VERY WELL with Ravnica block, and I don't see why extending it to evergreens in a core set would be less useful.
Vigilance is either UW or WG or UWG. The easiest solution to Evergreen Bingo is to move Reach back to GW and Vigilance back to UW, which will fill up ally and enemy pairs. Let First and Double Strike be "the same mechanic" (for our chart reasons) in WR, and that leaves Flash, Haste, and Flying with the only other creature-specific evergreen keywords without clear paired color association.
No its not. Viglance never been blue outside of Time Spirl. You can go ahead and say for your set its in blue, but is magics color pie they decided vigilance is in GW. The reason being blue vigilance is very similar to what it does in white (higher toughness creatures) and green can use it in different ways since it power and toughness are higher.
Re: Intimidate - Everyone got intimidate, and it was an unfun mechanic. Green has lots of noteworthy and interesting keywords - arguably the best - Trample, Haste, Hexproof, Deathtouch, coupled with Reach because of the lack of access to flying. But it also gets nice use out of flash as well. Giving green a form of evasion sort of misses the point, I think.
But I agree that green doesn't need menace. Just pointing out that since it replaced Intimidate it was grandfathered into being allowed in green. So far design and development prefer to give green trample or not being able to be blocked by small powered creatures.
Trample is green's "evasion" mechanic. Fattie + Trample = damage. That's the design space of Trample! Giving them Super Trample, Unblockable, Flying, etc. seem to miss the point of green.
Green is the #1 creature color in terms of P/T per mana cost. It can, and does, get BIG CREATURES. Unblockable big creatures feels bad. Chump blocked big creatures feels bad. Trample? Solves both problems.
Now I like Menace, and green's had some Menace cards, but most were pre-keywording. It was akin to Stalking and "cannot be blocked by 2 drops" - one-off mechanics meant to help the creatures play differently.
Could a green creature get menace? SURE! Much like a blue creature could get trample, or a green creature flying... if the flavor demands it. But to set out to bleed Menace into green shifts from "big creature" to "evasion creature". Now, which color gets unblockable creatures? Is it the color with the worst p/t=CMC ratio? If so, that's not an accident.
4. Can you name a good vigilance creature in green? No? Can you name a good vigilance creature outside of white? Nope. But, I think, if we're going to ignore eternal warrior, Bay falcon and kin provide a useful precedence. Yeah, you could push it to green...
What are you talking about. Vigilance is Secondary in green. It doesn't need to be pushed to green, it's already in green. Your first question regarding a good green vigilant creature seems entirely irrelevant, but Sylvan Advocate is about as good as a creature can come. Vigilance is WG. You could push it where ever you want for your own design stuff, but in MTG, the game made by WotC, in 2017, vigilance is in WG.
5. Can you name a good reach creature in red?
Seriously, what is your obsession with 'good' creatures about? Its entirely irrelevant to the question of which colors have access to which effects.
I'm done going through your post. I can't understand if you are trying to say which colors currently have access to which keywords, or if you are trying to say which colors should have access to which keywords. They are entirely different questions.
You understand that development and design are different things right? If so, what is your focus on 'good' coming from? What do you even mean when you keep asking for a "good X creature"? Do you mean from a design perspective? Or a power level perspective? If power level, with respect to what format? Your questions just seem very nonsensical to me.
EDIT: I'm generally against 'whole filling' as a design paradigm. It just produces lazy designs. Not all guilds and shards need a designated evergreen keyword.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
I really think most new players can grasp that some colors and color pairs can do more then others. You can always just used unblockable or skulk as a fill in for UB, or just dress the elephant and say UB and WU kinda do share flying.
@Scry- For being a card flow mechanic it needs to be WUBRG
@Fight- My misktake, I forgot that Fight is in G, then R and I wanna say Maro said it could be stretched to B but I think thats in the camp of G menace or B first strike.
@Flying- Okay whatever you say. I don't have time to fight you over something you being so stuck on believing.
@Flash- Its not creature exclusive but it plays into well with creatures because of use in surprise blocking or another combat plays. I think for that interaction it should be an option for UG and with the spatter of W.
@Viglilance I found there are 10 mono-U cards with Vigilance and 34 mono-G cards with it. Out of those 10 U cards, 4 are from Time Spiral, 4 need W in an ability to use it and only 2 old card mono-G cards have it. The wiki needs to be updated I think.
U also can tap and untap its own things with spells so it doesn't need it. G has more design and play space for it.
@reach- R gets reach since out of the colors it and G have the least amount of flying and the biggest need for something. W already has flying. Can you name any stand out white cards with reach? Reach is the most of tool of any evergreen effects, its simply used to not let g get killed by flying.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Seriously, what is your obsession with 'good' creatures about?
Well... if the idea of a core set is to teach players about keywords, color identities, and the like... you want things to be memorable, right?
Serra Angel is iconic. Just looking at the card teaches you a lot about the game. And nostalgia surrounding it helps to sell packs. And - to be fair - there are environments where it was fringe constructed playable. Giant Spider is similarly iconic. But it's less iconic, and less beloved... not because of it's lesser complexity, but because of it's lesser constructed value. In limited, it's gold - and between it's limited goldness and it's historical significance, I think we put Giant Spider in any core set we can.
The *LAST* thing you want when you're designing a product you hope people want to buy is to make it full of forgettable cards they'll be angry they opened. Yes, YOU are not going to be happy cracking a Shivan Dragon in your prize packs after the Core Set 20XX release. But a new player is going to be. Because - if nothing else - it's cool.
By "good" I don't only mean constructed playable (although there was a time when I might have made that mistake). But the fact you can't name a good vigilance green creature or a good reach red creature is quite substantive - it means that you don't have examples of reach and vigilance in those colors. If the casual player cannot name such cards, why do you think they'll remember that "Red gets Reach" or "Green gets vigilance"? Do you think she'll recall intimate details about MaRo's blog? Of course not.
In any case, I could ask you what your obsession with allowing people to sell you garbage. Do you go to the supermarket and blindly throw the first dozen apples you see in your cart, or do check to make sure there aren't rotten apples in the bag first? If you got home and all of the apples were rotten... would you say "Oh, well, Stop and Shop needs to make money somehow, and they can't make money if the sell me all quality apples all the time."? No, of course not.
I really think most new players can grasp that some colors and color pairs can do more then others. You can always just used unblockable or skulk as a fill in for UB, or just dress the elephant and say UB and WU kinda do share flying.
Either having 10 color pair keywords is desirable, or it's not. It seems like it's desirable from a marketing and pattern-recognition position. It's something that new players can learn and share to help them feel good about their knowledge in the game. It's also a practical toolkit for drafting formats you're not familiar with spoilers for.
Stop trying to put lipstick on the pig of flying. It's used too frequently across the colors to say it's WU here. It's primarilyUW... kinda... but that's not going to help the new player feel like they "know" flying to say it's WU.
And yeah, if Skulk is the only thing that's stopping us from having a complete set, I'd go with Skulk. Completing the puzzle is, in some respects, more important than rather the puzzle looks good. Skulk isn't great - but until the next good enough UB keyword comes around, go with something printable.
@Scry- For being a card flow mechanic it needs to be WUBRG
If the new mulligan rules didn't use "Scry 1", I'd make a concerted effort not to include any "Scry" cards at all in the core set. Now? Now it's just clunky leetspeaknonsense that we have to put up with. And yeah, I need to find a few commons and uncommons to help teach new players the keyword action. Or would, if I was genuinely making a core set. They pay people for that.
@Fight- My misktake, I forgot that Fight is in G, then R and I wanna say Maro said it could be stretched to B but I think thats in the camp of G menace or B first strike.
Fortunately there aren't enough evergreen keyword actions to do a colorpie bingo for those.
@Flying- Okay whatever you say. I don't have time to fight you over something you being so stuck on believing.
There are common black flyers in both of the latest sets. It's not that I believe flying extends beyond UW, I know it. Believe your eyes, not what the internet tells you.
@Flash- Its not creature exclusive but it plays into well with creatures because of use in surprise blocking or another combat plays. I think for that interaction it should be an option for UG and with the spatter of W.
Yup.
In a core set, I'd like to see a cycle of common, efficient flash auras to be used as combat tricks. After that, I'd like a nice "ambush" white creature with first strike - preferably french vanilla at (C) or (U), and a few good green and blue flashers. I think giving blue flash flyers and a single flash blocker would work wonders, and green can get a flash fat creature or two to help it "get around" counterspells. If a Red or Black creature needs flash for some reason, it's fair (although probably more expensive) to give it to them... but in a core set, these kind of things probably aren't essential. At least I can't think of a must-have card with flash in the pair.
@Viglilance I found there are 10 mono-U cards with Vigilance and 34 mono-G cards with it. Out of those 10 U cards, 4 are from Time Spiral, 4 need W in an ability to use it and only 2 old card mono-G cards have it. The wiki needs to be updated I think.
Yes, but how many did you recall off the top of your head? I remember the falcon pair because I played with them as a kid. I played with most of the green vigilance creatures, too, but they're unremarkable.
I love Mirri but I never think of her as having vigilance. Ha!
Re: Mana tappers and vigilance - I agree, this is good design space. If we want Reach in the ally wedge, I could see Vigilance here. Which, again, would leave us another U color pair in sore need of a keyword. This is a judgement call - you could just STOP PRINTING red and black flyers, so UW would have flying, or you could come up with a new UW keyword, or remove flash from green so it's UW on creatures, etc. However, if the idea is that you like green having vigilance + tap effects; I'd be interested in seeing that in blue as well. So either white ally wedge Vigilance, or - gasp - sacrifice the attack+tap for mana design space. Given Wizard's reluctance to print decent mana dorks, I don't think we'll get any memorable vigilance mana guys any time soon...
@reach- R gets reach since out of the colors it and G have the least amount of flying and the biggest need for something. W already has flying. Can you name any stand out white cards with reach? Reach is the most of tool of any evergreen effects, its simply used to not let g get killed by flying.
I'm not the biggest fan of reach being GW... and you're right that it's unnecessary in white. But red has access to dragons in constructed; and it's inability to block flyers in limited isn't really a big deal. It's usually partnered with another color, and it is the 2nd best creature removal color.
Note: Reach is essentially defensive, so it's kind of odd to see red getting a defensive keyword like this.
If we're interested in keeping Reach in the WGR wedge - I'm okay with this. But, the more I think about it, the more I think we need to keep new players in mind. And having 10 evergreen paired keywords in a core set seems like a very good way to do this.
End of the day, we can twist and reassign flavor and keywords as we like. The "bends" I'm proposing here are not too egregious, yet help clean up the chart substantively, while accenting the strengths and weaknesses of each color. Again, if you think the idea of evergreen bingo is stupid, that's fair enough. If you think 15's a better target than 10; again - fair enough. But if you think new players should be able to pick up the core set, and learn color-pairs, in part, by learning their pair keyword... this is substantive reason to keep bleeds to a low, and substantive reason to reassign with an effort to cover up the fact that blue's such a weak creature keyword color.
By "good" I don't only mean constructed playable (although there was a time when I might have made that mistake). But the fact you can't name a good vigilance green creature or a good reach red creature is quite substantive - it means that you don't have examples of reach and vigilance in those colors. If the casual player cannot name such cards, why do you think they'll remember that "Red gets Reach" or "Green gets vigilance"?
Casual players play with what they open which means that for the past few years, they have been actively playing with green vigilant creatures and red reach creatures.
In any case, I could ask you what your obsession with allowing people to sell you garbage.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Casual players play with what they open which means that for the past few years, they have been actively playing with green vigilant creatures and red reach creatures.
5 "reach" creatures (out of 19 hits!). Players in Amonkhet are familiar with one red reach creature. Anyone else? Not so much.
I don't know what you think you're trying to prove here. Reach is on red cards. I know that. The question we're really interested here is whether Reach SHOULD be on red cards, given our interest in color-pair (and/or wedge) keywords. You cannot get ought from is.
Can you design an iconic, simple, french vanilla Red reach creature that (A) is not above the curve, but (B) people are going to remember? Remember, this involves designing a defensive red creature. And yeah, we can cite red walls all day long, but you have to recognize that making a flavorfully red defensive creature is - at least - more difficult than it is making a flavorfully white defensive creature.
Food quality is relative as well. In the zombie apocalypse, you'll be very happy with a bag of apples where only one or two are rotten. And you'll probably eat the rotten ones as well!
Perhaps you should look over those design articles. I never said "good" is "tier 1 constructed playable"; I said Giant Spider is good, but I haven't seen it top Modern of late, have you?
For the contexts of our Evergreen Bingo discussion, something is "good" if it meets at least ONE of the following criterion:
1. Tier 1 constructed playable - Fringe constructed playable (tier 4?).
2. Iconic.
3. Practical for teaching new players some aspect of the game (color philosophy, how to draft, how to evaluate cards, etc, etc.). Most notably, the idea behind Evergreen Bingo is that new players can come to remember keywords by associating them with two colors. You can imagine new players quizing each other about "What 2 colors get deathtouch?" or the like.
4. Fulfills some balancing role in a relevant environment - usually standard or limited, but answers to older formats would be nice, too. We're talking about things like Pithing Needle here, so it probably won't apply to our discussion of french vanilla creatures.
Edit:
There is an additional reason why it's useful to settle on 10 evergreen color-pair keywords. If there's a consistent 10, you can start printing more share cards, as inevitably it'd share only flying and the color pair evergreen keywords. You could even KEYWORD that ability (well, if prowess wasn't cumulative... hint hint: We need to replace Prowess...).
[quote]The question we're really interested here is whether Reach SHOULD be on red cards, given our interest in color-pair (and/or wedge) keywords. You cannot get ought from is.
People have already told you why Reach should be in primary and green and secondary in red. Green gets virtually no flying and red gets the least amount of flying with the exception of green. The only color it makes mechanical sense to give reach to apart from green is red. Unless you are moving flying around of course, in which case you will need to move reach around at the same time. The key thing here being that flying and reach shouldn't be in really be in the same colors.
I never said "good" is "tier 1 constructed playable"; I said Giant Spider is good, but I haven't seen it top Modern of late, have you?
For the contexts of our Evergreen Bingo discussion, something is "good" if it meets at least ONE of the following criterion:
1. Tier 1 constructed playable - Fringe constructed playable (tier 4?).
2. Iconic.
3. Practical for teaching new players some aspect of the game (color philosophy, how to draft, how to evaluate cards, etc, etc.). Most notably, the idea behind Evergreen Bingo is that new players can come to remember keywords by associating them with two colors. You can imagine new players quizing each other about "What 2 colors get deathtouch?" or the like.
4. Fulfills some balancing role in a relevant environment - usually standard or limited, but answers to older formats would be nice, too. We're talking about things like Pithing Needle here, so it probably won't apply to our discussion of french vanilla creatures.
1. Sure.
2. There are really only three ways a card becomes Iconic. It needs to represent a (legendary) character that is Iconic already, it needs to be above the curve at the time it was printed, or it needs to have been printed so many times people know it as a result of pure forced repetition. In other words, the only way for a new common to satisfy this requirement is for it to be way above the curve in which case it satisfies your first clause anyway.
4. If it fulfills a balancing role, then it is clearly good enough to see play in the relevant environment and so satisfies your first clause anyway.
3. This condition is literally the only one of your conditions that doesn't amount to a long winded way of saying "powerful". It's also the clause which specifies the least and could apply to literally any design. Let's take Gray Ogre for example. It would be easy to argue that Gray Ogre teaches players that bears are good by existing to be compared against Grizzly Bears. Similar arguments could easily be constructed for any card.
In summary, three of the things you think make a card 'good' effectively amount to being "constructed playable". The final thing that makes a card good could mean literally anything and could apply to literally any cards.
And ultimately all of that is beside the point. Do you understand that it's impossible to print exclusively 'good' cards? That is the question that both of those design articles I linked to covers.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Re: Reach. I understand the rationale. Red gets less flying than 3 other colors. Except when it does get flying.
And I'm not even all too much against red getting flying hate. But does red's flying hate require it to leave blockers back? Really? How is that red?
Re: Good
1. I'm pretty sure that the moment I said "tier 4 playable", we should have been okay. Giant Spider is tier 4 playable in some tribal spider deck (... or maybe not?).
2. I'm pretty sure you can have crappy iconic cards. One With Nothing; for example. (And no, the fact Wizards let Howling Owl into the metagame doesn't make it anything but lucky).
3. Gray Ogre and Grizzly Bears don't teach players jack squat today; but a 2/2 for 1R certainly would. Because having "somewhat playable" vanillas is important to teach players things.
Re: Reach. I understand the rationale. Red gets less flying than 3 other colors. Except when it does get flying.
Every color can use any keyword at any time in order to satisfy the needs of a design. However, if a design requires the use of a keyword that wouldn't otherwise be given to that color of a card, that card should be high rarity to suggest that using the keyword in that way is rare.
The fact that red dragons and phoenixes get flying is totally beside the point though. Red gets flying less than any other color but green. Which means it needs reach more than any other color except green. Insofar as reach is justified in any color except green, it's justified in red. It makes zero sense to put reach in white by comparison as white already has easy access to flying in order to interact with opponents flyers.
And I'm not even all too much against red getting flying hate. But does red's flying hate require it to leave blockers back? Really? How is that red?
Red isn't just about being aggro. Any more than blue is just about being Draw-go control.
Regarding the actual topic, Skulk was never an evergreen keyword. Its also just not a good mechanic.
Also, why is flash listed both as a 'wild' mechanic, whatever that is supposed to mean and as a tri color mechanic.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
[b]Mislead[/b] v 1 (Whenever this creature attacks, another target attacking creature cannot be blocked this turn[b] unless this creature has been blocked.[/b])
[b]Mislead[/b] v 2 (Whenever this creature attacks, another target attacking creature cannot be blocked this turn.[/b])
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UW Vigilance
WG [Formerly Reach -> WGR]
GR Trample (with exceptions for big elsewhere)
RB Menace
BU Skulk (retired?)
Enemy Pair
UR Prowess
WB Lifelink?
GU Hexproof [formerly Shroud]
RW Double Strike
BG Deathtouch
Ally Wedge
UWG Flash (on creatures)?
WGR Reach
GRB Haste
RBU
BUW
Enemy Wedge
UWR [Formerly Prowess -> UR]
WGB [Formerly Regeneration, a keyword action] Temporary Indestructible?
GRU
RBW First Strike
BUG
Wild:
Flash UWRGB as needed, mostly UWG on creatures.
Flying UWRGB as needed, usually UWRB
Equip C
Crew C
Indestructible C, with the occasional splash to 5 colors for gods and/or WBG for temporary "regeneration"-esque effects
Defender UWRGBU
Note: Right now, the only cycle of keywords that's complete is Enemy Color keywords (assuming lifelink it's BWG). Ally Color keywords comes close, though, and can be rectified by cutting Reach in Red. Note that if we cut Black's access to First Strike, and moved it to WR (and understand First and Double Strike as two sides of the same mechanic), the Enemy Wedge cycle would be effectively killed. I wouldn't be against doing this, if only to cut down on the space to fill.
Thoughts on filling the gaps? Should we even try? Is the entire concept of filling the gaps a mistake?
My favorites, as of now:
UB Blackmail (Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, that player reveals that many cards from his or her hand. Choose one of those cards. That player discards that card.)
UB Ransom (Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, that player may discard a card at random. If he or she doesn't, uou draw a card.)
UG Curiosity (Whenever this creature deals damage to an opponent, you may draw a card.)
UR About Face (When this creature blocks or is blocked, you may switch its power and toughness until end of turn. If you do, until end of turn effects that change its power change its toughness instead, and vice versa.) [Note: Adopting this would allow us to move Prowess back to it's enemy wedge).
WGB (or WB) (You may play this creature card in your graveyard as though it was in your hand.) [Note: Regeneration-analog/replacement]
WU ~ Some Blink Mechanic ~; example: Elusive (Whenever this is the target of a spell or effect,
you may exile this permanent. If you do, return it to the battlefield at the end of turn.)
UR ~ Some copy mechanic; example: Fork (Whenever this permanent becomes the target of a spell, you may copy it. You may choose new targets for the copy.
G? (One of the enemy wedges?) Stalk (This creature can't be blocked by more than one creature)
Alternatively, one could evergreen some existing keywords:
WGR Provoke (Whenever this attacks, you may have target creature defending player controls untap and block it if able.)
UBR Unearth (cost) (Return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield. It gains haste. Exile it at the beginning of the next end step or if it would leave the battlefield. Unearth only as a sorcery.)
WRB Bushido N (Whenever this creature blocks or becomes blocked, it gets +N/+N until end of turn.)
BUW Shadow (This creature can block or be blocked by only creatures with shadow.)
RW Battle cry (Whenever this creature attacks, each other attacking creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.)
Also brings up some interesting discussion. Are you also looking for new keywords by chance?
While looking at temporary indestructible, I starting thinking of something like the "Glass-Spinner" (can't recall the actual name of the card) effect except based on destruction.
Endurance (The first time this creature would die each turn, it doesn't. Instead, tap it and remove all damage from it.)
The name is kinda gimmicky and it takes parts of regeneration and indestructible, but I think it works fairly well in terms of what it is trying to do. Easily fits in the proposed GWB wedge.
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Re: Kira, Great Glass-Spinner - I've seen this as a suggested replacement for Hexproof/Shroud. I like Hexproof as is, so I'm not a fan. Furthermore, Glass-Spinner is worded more like shroud, so your 1st target nulls the ability. I can see a lot of frowny faces when you try to aura your creature, and it goes in the grave, then your opponent kills it. At least when you tried to aura your Shroud, the opponent says "that's not a legal target" and you're not down a card. One advantage Hexproof has over this is that it almost single-handedly enables fringe-playable auras. Want to play an aura, afraid of removal? Play the 3/1 for 2G with Hexproof.
However, I love your idea to steal it's terminology!
Re: Endurance - I don't see any reason it needs tap (I realize you're going for regeneration-like text here); consider the following:
Endurance V2 (Whenever this creature would be destroyed for the first time each turn, instead remove all damage from it.)
This is Great! I love it! Now the question is what is the flavor and color identity.
Consider:
Gray Troll 1GG
Creature - Troll (R)
Hexproof (This creature can't be the target of spells or abilities your opponents control.)
Endurance (Whenever this creature would be destroyed for the first time each turn, instead remove all damage from it.)
2/2
This feels AWESOME!
But this?
Tough Bones 1B
Creature - Skeleton (U)
Endurance (Whenever this creature would be destroyed for the first time each turn, instead remove all damage from it.)
1/1
Tough Bones feels bad, flavorwise. But this isn't a deal-breaker; we can always print reassembling skeleton as our (U) skeleton infinite blocker, and have Endurance be primarily G with a few splashes in WB.
Endurance feels like a "weak" indestructible, but I'm okay with that. Certainly a tier 1 pick for the GWB enemy wedge.
PS - Endurance is "weak" to Double Strike, and I *really* like that interaction! If there are several endurance creatures with a toughness of 2, this could make a 2/1 double-striker look all the better. And, of course, the black opponent can just murder it twice to kill it.
Mhmmm I think green-white has tokens in the same vein.
Flying mostly in WU (its "official pair") and B with R and G getting it for dragons.
Lifelink in WB
Prowess in UR and grandfathered in rarely now in W
Menace in BR with is possiblely showing up in G
Haste in BR and in G when development want to push a creature
Deathtouch in BG
Indestructible in BG (Temporary) and W
Reach is GR and rarely in W for archers
Trample is mainly RG with anything big enough able to have it.
First Strike in WR and rarely inB Double Strike is the same tho we yet to get a mono-black double striker
Viglance is in GW and never been locked into U since it plays too similar to W
Flash in UG but each color can use it for cycles or mechanical reasons
Hexproof in UG and been dipped some in B for flavor
Scry is WUBRG with more focus in U. (Personal I think the focus should be in UB to give it an evergreen keyword.
Defender WUBRG
Equip on equipment
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I realize Flying is mostly UW, but red and black get too much flying (with black at all rarities regularly) to have this be appropriate.
Re: Trample - yes, this splashes into BRU on occasion... but FAR LESS than flying, and almost never below rare. You could say the same for Hexproof - it's where it needs to go for "reasons", but these are few and far between.
Lifelink is "teased" on G, hence the "?" But I'm okay with green not getting it.
I'd hate to see Menace in G.
Reach is rarely in R, compared to W's history of archers.
Why not? Not each keyword is balance among what colors can get it and some can only get an ability for a reason.
Besides at rare on dragons and similar creatures red hasn't gotten any flying in recent sets. And yes that is the current issue with Flying being WUB but when it comes to cycles, flying will go to WU
Did you mean BUW? I know this, which is why I added in the "any big" creature can have it. This why you need to talk about primary/secondary/tertiary since not all evergreen get to be in equal. Hex proof is UG and had one B cards with it for flavor in Xathrid Slyblade which was made by an outside designer.
Green doesn't get lifelink and I don't see how green "teases" lifelink, unless you mean its the only other color that can gain life.
Menace replaced Inimadate and green got intimidate. We might never see it but is allowed to happen.
As of magic origins reach is now secondary in red and white is tertiary
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/159585186023/is-reach-in-reds-pie-now
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/161298255848/are-red-and-green-the-only-colors-with-access-to
Just cause overall in magic white has more reach doesn't change what current design uses. White now gets reach rarely for flavor. Last reach white creature I can remember from recent magic is Dragon Hunter.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Re: Flying - It's all over the place; trying to say "this is primarily UW" is laughable. Wizards has decided that Flying will be the "main" form of evasion, and it's been in every color. It goes to every color when flavor OR for limited concerns when the designer thinks "I want evasion here."
Vigilance is either UW or WG or UWG. The easiest solution to Evergreen Bingo is to move Reach back to GW and Vigilance back to UW, which will fill up ally and enemy pairs. Let First and Double Strike be "the same mechanic" (for our chart reasons) in WR, and that leaves Flash, Haste, and Flying with the only other creature-specific evergreen keywords without clear paired color association.
Re: Intimidate - Everyone got intimidate, and it was an unfun mechanic. Green has lots of noteworthy and interesting keywords - arguably the best - Trample, Haste, Hexproof, Deathtouch, coupled with Reach because of the lack of access to flying. But it also gets nice use out of flash as well. Giving green a form of evasion sort of misses the point, I think.
Magic isn't a simple game. And if you want evergreen ability for each color pair as a simple corset idea it breaks down to;
WU-Flying
WB- Lifelink
UB- Flying/ unblockable*
UR- Prowess
BR- Menace, Haste
BG- Deathtouch, Indestructible (temp.)
RG- Trample, Reach
RW- First/Double Strike
GW- Vigilance
GU- Hexproof, Flash
With scry being the odd duck in all colors
That is their stand though, whenever they do color pair cycles they will give flying to WU more then another color pair. You can agree its a shared WUB ability but saying it 100% fits in all colors is wrong and something wizards seems to have really tired to keep out of red outside of things like dragons and phoenixes. Once again you can change stuff for your own set but in current magic design this is what they are trying to do.
No its not. Viglance never been blue outside of Time Spirl. You can go ahead and say for your set its in blue, but is magics color pie they decided vigilance is in GW. The reason being blue vigilance is very similar to what it does in white (higher toughness creatures) and green can use it in different ways since it power and toughness are higher.
Not everyone got intimidate, it mostly RB with 2 creatures g creatures, Gatstaf Howler and Bellowing Tanglewurm with it and one very bent (if not broken) W creature with Spectral Rider.
But I agree that green doesn't need menace. Just pointing out that since it replaced Intimidate it was grandfathered into being allowed in green. So far design and development prefer to give green trample or not being able to be blocked by small powered creatures.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
1. Scry, Fight, etc. are keyworded actions not discussed here. I was seriously against them moving Scry from a keyword on cards like Magma Jet to a rules word mid-sentence. It's sloppy and adds complexity. Clash and Fight, on the other hand, are examples of this done right.
2. Magic is a complex game, but the complexity of it's rules and the sheer number of evergreen keywords isn't necessary or good for the game.
Being able to say "Each color pair has access to one specific evergreen keyword" is an especially helpful learning tool, if nothing else.
3. Flash is not a creature-exclusive ability. I agree it's mostly UG with a little W... but, quite frankly, it can be on anything sorcery-speed you'd want at instant speed. GU want instant speed creatures to evade counters, W wants surprise blockers. But flash is fair game in all colors should the card call for it. If we're going to focus on color pairs, Flash should be understood like Flying - open to all, but concentrated in a few.
4. Can you name a good vigilance creature in green? No? Exactly. Can you name a good vigilance creature outside of white? Nope. But, I think, if we're going to ignore eternal warrior, Bay falcon and kin provide a useful precedence. Yeah, you could push it to green... but green's creatures are BIG - letting them have access to vigilance as well is actually rather problematic for limited. In contrast, if blue throws vigilance on the occasional filler flyer... who cares? In fact, with vigilance in U, I could see them printing:
1UU Creature - Drake (U) Flying, Flash, Vigilance 2/3
Good? YUP! Above the curve? A bit. But not that much above the curve.
5. Can you name a good reach creature in red? Besides the Time Spiral one and the one with less-than-ideal Firebreathing? I imagine the red Vampire Nighthawk is going to look like this:
Iconic Minotaur Name Signaling epic reprintings 1RR 2/3 Haste, Menace, First Strike (You can toss "Trample" in over Menace or First Strike to make it weaker... but I don't see the need.)
Right now, you have GR having trample and reach. That's just going to confuse new players. So if we move/return vigilance to UW, and reach to GW, we'll have only one major keyword for each color pair.
Now I'm not saying they can't print R reachers occasionally... but I find it silly that they're pretending the color with Dragons can't get flying. They want Dragons to have flying so much that both epic cycles of 5 color dragons had flying (or could gain it). Be stingy with flying at common and uncommon all you want, but at (R) and (M) we expect a red dragon, and if some "color pie police" wants to stop that, they're going to have a fan riot. Now, if Red's not getting flyers at common or uncommon, how should it be able to deal with flyers? Lightning Bolt,
'nuff said.
6. Re: Haste. While it's clearly GRB, I think it's fair to just leave this as a mechanic that isn't one of the "tied to a color pair" cycle we're discussing here. If we want to move to 15 keywords in the cycle (10 pairs, and 5 ally color wedges) , Haste can be there. But that's 4 more keywords we'd have to add and that's a lot of work...
Your position is that Wizards told you something demonstrably false, that they know is false, with the intent of having you believe it. That's called a "lie."
U is very hard to find keywords for. Our own UB keyword thread is epic and intractable. UR is prowess, one of the newest keywords to go evergreen. UG is hexproof, previously shroud, and is something they keep teasing they'll retire because "people hate it." Is it any wonder that they'd be happy to say flying is primarily UW and call it a PR win?
Blue's going to have access to flying. No question about that. Moving it so strongly into white a while ago was a surprise, quite frankly, but it was part of their push to make white the best weenie color, and it's not like iconic creature type Angel (take a hint Commander 2017) is going to go w/o flying.
But Flying is 5 colors, and has been 4/5 colors since the beginning with little evidence that's going to stop. Letting Wizards pat themselves on the back and say "We dodged a bullet having to find the UW evergreen keyword this time!" is just silly.
Return vigilance to U. There are plenty of flavor opportunities here; white vigilance attscks and blocks. Maybe blue vigilance can attack and then tap for an effect. Print something like this:
Vigilant Wizard1U
Creature - Human Wizard (C)
Vigilance
T: Put the top card of target player's library into his or her graveyard.
1/3
Surely we're not breaking the game open by giving blue - a very shallow color, the shallowest only next to red - this little bit of original design space. They already get "Defender + Haste", which occupies much the same "keyword 2 lets the creature do mechanic 3 things, but keyword 1 stops keyword 2 from acting as keyword 2 usually does."
Now, let me clarify: If Wizards thinks Keyword Bingo is stupid - FINE! But the ability for new players to associate 10 evergreen keywords with color pairs helps them to understand the color pairs and remember the keywords. This worked VERY WELL with Ravnica block, and I don't see why extending it to evergreens in a core set would be less useful.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text= [vigilance]&color=+@(+[U])
Since Legends.
Compare to:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text= [vigilance]&color=+@(+[g])
According to http://mtg.gamepedia.com/Vigilance
So yes, of late Wizards has tried to give green more vigilance. But have there been any stand-out green vigilance cards? I think not.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text= [intimidate]
You got me, every color except blue.
Trample is green's "evasion" mechanic. Fattie + Trample = damage. That's the design space of Trample! Giving them Super Trample, Unblockable, Flying, etc. seem to miss the point of green.
Green is the #1 creature color in terms of P/T per mana cost. It can, and does, get BIG CREATURES. Unblockable big creatures feels bad. Chump blocked big creatures feels bad. Trample? Solves both problems.
Now I like Menace, and green's had some Menace cards, but most were pre-keywording. It was akin to Stalking and "cannot be blocked by 2 drops" - one-off mechanics meant to help the creatures play differently.
Could a green creature get menace? SURE! Much like a blue creature could get trample, or a green creature flying... if the flavor demands it. But to set out to bleed Menace into green shifts from "big creature" to "evasion creature". Now, which color gets unblockable creatures? Is it the color with the worst p/t=CMC ratio? If so, that's not an accident.
What are you talking about. Vigilance is Secondary in green. It doesn't need to be pushed to green, it's already in green. Your first question regarding a good green vigilant creature seems entirely irrelevant, but Sylvan Advocate is about as good as a creature can come. Vigilance is WG. You could push it where ever you want for your own design stuff, but in MTG, the game made by WotC, in 2017, vigilance is in WG.
Seriously, what is your obsession with 'good' creatures about? Its entirely irrelevant to the question of which colors have access to which effects.
I'm done going through your post. I can't understand if you are trying to say which colors currently have access to which keywords, or if you are trying to say which colors should have access to which keywords. They are entirely different questions.
You understand that development and design are different things right? If so, what is your focus on 'good' coming from? What do you even mean when you keep asking for a "good X creature"? Do you mean from a design perspective? Or a power level perspective? If power level, with respect to what format? Your questions just seem very nonsensical to me.
EDIT: I'm generally against 'whole filling' as a design paradigm. It just produces lazy designs. Not all guilds and shards need a designated evergreen keyword.
- Manite
@Scry- For being a card flow mechanic it needs to be WUBRG
@Fight- My misktake, I forgot that Fight is in G, then R and I wanna say Maro said it could be stretched to B but I think thats in the camp of G menace or B first strike.
@Flying- Okay whatever you say. I don't have time to fight you over something you being so stuck on believing.
@Flash- Its not creature exclusive but it plays into well with creatures because of use in surprise blocking or another combat plays. I think for that interaction it should be an option for UG and with the spatter of W.
@Viglilance I found there are 10 mono-U cards with Vigilance and 34 mono-G cards with it. Out of those 10 U cards, 4 are from Time Spiral, 4 need W in an ability to use it and only 2 old card mono-G cards have it. The wiki needs to be updated I think.
As for green Vigilance I like Arlinn Kord, Embodiment of Insight, Favor of the Overbeing, Ruric Thar, the Unbowed,Sylvan Advocate, Woodland Wanderer and Moonscarred Werewolf and other mana dorks that have fun interaction with Vigilance that neither U or w has, and Mirri, Cat Warrior is a thing for old fan ( I think?). If you mean constructed I don't really care as a casual player and I think trying to make focus competitive elements in a set for new beginnings is the best way.
U also can tap and untap its own things with spells so it doesn't need it. G has more design and play space for it.
@reach- R gets reach since out of the colors it and G have the least amount of flying and the biggest need for something. W already has flying. Can you name any stand out white cards with reach? Reach is the most of tool of any evergreen effects, its simply used to not let g get killed by flying.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Well... if the idea of a core set is to teach players about keywords, color identities, and the like... you want things to be memorable, right?
Serra Angel is iconic. Just looking at the card teaches you a lot about the game. And nostalgia surrounding it helps to sell packs. And - to be fair - there are environments where it was fringe constructed playable.
Giant Spider is similarly iconic. But it's less iconic, and less beloved... not because of it's lesser complexity, but because of it's lesser constructed value. In limited, it's gold - and between it's limited goldness and it's historical significance, I think we put Giant Spider in any core set we can.
The *LAST* thing you want when you're designing a product you hope people want to buy is to make it full of forgettable cards they'll be angry they opened. Yes, YOU are not going to be happy cracking a Shivan Dragon in your prize packs after the Core Set 20XX release. But a new player is going to be. Because - if nothing else - it's cool.
By "good" I don't only mean constructed playable (although there was a time when I might have made that mistake). But the fact you can't name a good vigilance green creature or a good reach red creature is quite substantive - it means that you don't have examples of reach and vigilance in those colors. If the casual player cannot name such cards, why do you think they'll remember that "Red gets Reach" or "Green gets vigilance"? Do you think she'll recall intimate details about MaRo's blog? Of course not.
In any case, I could ask you what your obsession with allowing people to sell you garbage. Do you go to the supermarket and blindly throw the first dozen apples you see in your cart, or do check to make sure there aren't rotten apples in the bag first? If you got home and all of the apples were rotten... would you say "Oh, well, Stop and Shop needs to make money somehow, and they can't make money if the sell me all quality apples all the time."? No, of course not.
Either having 10 color pair keywords is desirable, or it's not. It seems like it's desirable from a marketing and pattern-recognition position. It's something that new players can learn and share to help them feel good about their knowledge in the game. It's also a practical toolkit for drafting formats you're not familiar with spoilers for.
Stop trying to put lipstick on the pig of flying. It's used too frequently across the colors to say it's WU here. It's primarily UW... kinda... but that's not going to help the new player feel like they "know" flying to say it's WU.
And yeah, if Skulk is the only thing that's stopping us from having a complete set, I'd go with Skulk. Completing the puzzle is, in some respects, more important than rather the puzzle looks good. Skulk isn't great - but until the next good enough UB keyword comes around, go with something printable.
If the new mulligan rules didn't use "Scry 1", I'd make a concerted effort not to include any "Scry" cards at all in the core set. Now? Now it's just clunky leetspeaknonsense that we have to put up with. And yeah, I need to find a few commons and uncommons to help teach new players the keyword action. Or would, if I was genuinely making a core set. They pay people for that.
Fortunately there aren't enough evergreen keyword actions to do a colorpie bingo for those.
There are common black flyers in both of the latest sets. It's not that I believe flying extends beyond UW, I know it. Believe your eyes, not what the internet tells you.
Yup.
In a core set, I'd like to see a cycle of common, efficient flash auras to be used as combat tricks. After that, I'd like a nice "ambush" white creature with first strike - preferably french vanilla at (C) or (U), and a few good green and blue flashers. I think giving blue flash flyers and a single flash blocker would work wonders, and green can get a flash fat creature or two to help it "get around" counterspells. If a Red or Black creature needs flash for some reason, it's fair (although probably more expensive) to give it to them... but in a core set, these kind of things probably aren't essential. At least I can't think of a must-have card with flash in the pair.
Yes, but how many did you recall off the top of your head? I remember the falcon pair because I played with them as a kid. I played with most of the green vigilance creatures, too, but they're unremarkable.
I love Mirri but I never think of her as having vigilance. Ha!
Re: Mana tappers and vigilance - I agree, this is good design space. If we want Reach in the ally wedge, I could see Vigilance here. Which, again, would leave us another U color pair in sore need of a keyword. This is a judgement call - you could just STOP PRINTING red and black flyers, so UW would have flying, or you could come up with a new UW keyword, or remove flash from green so it's UW on creatures, etc. However, if the idea is that you like green having vigilance + tap effects; I'd be interested in seeing that in blue as well. So either white ally wedge Vigilance, or - gasp - sacrifice the attack+tap for mana design space. Given Wizard's reluctance to print decent mana dorks, I don't think we'll get any memorable vigilance mana guys any time soon...
White and green can also untap things, so this line of reasoning is kind of misleading.
I'm not the biggest fan of reach being GW... and you're right that it's unnecessary in white. But red has access to dragons in constructed; and it's inability to block flyers in limited isn't really a big deal. It's usually partnered with another color, and it is the 2nd best creature removal color.
Note: Reach is essentially defensive, so it's kind of odd to see red getting a defensive keyword like this.
If we're interested in keeping Reach in the WGR wedge - I'm okay with this. But, the more I think about it, the more I think we need to keep new players in mind. And having 10 evergreen paired keywords in a core set seems like a very good way to do this.
End of the day, we can twist and reassign flavor and keywords as we like. The "bends" I'm proposing here are not too egregious, yet help clean up the chart substantively, while accenting the strengths and weaknesses of each color. Again, if you think the idea of evergreen bingo is stupid, that's fair enough. If you think 15's a better target than 10; again - fair enough. But if you think new players should be able to pick up the core set, and learn color-pairs, in part, by learning their pair keyword... this is substantive reason to keep bleeds to a low, and substantive reason to reassign with an effort to cover up the fact that blue's such a weak creature keyword color.
Casual players play with what they open which means that for the past few years, they have been actively playing with green vigilant creatures and red reach creatures.
You understand that power is relative right? Not all cards can be good. To try is merely to make all cards mediocre, or engage in game killing power creep. Seriously, read the design articles.
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-2002-01-28
http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/when-cards-go-bad-revisited-2012-10-22
- Manite
Really?
The good thing is that we have gatherer to look over.
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&text= [reach]&color=+@(+[R])
5 "reach" creatures (out of 19 hits!). Players in Amonkhet are familiar with one red reach creature. Anyone else? Not so much.
I don't know what you think you're trying to prove here. Reach is on red cards. I know that. The question we're really interested here is whether Reach SHOULD be on red cards, given our interest in color-pair (and/or wedge) keywords. You cannot get ought from is.
Can you design an iconic, simple, french vanilla Red reach creature that (A) is not above the curve, but (B) people are going to remember? Remember, this involves designing a defensive red creature. And yeah, we can cite red walls all day long, but you have to recognize that making a flavorfully red defensive creature is - at least - more difficult than it is making a flavorfully white defensive creature.
Food quality is relative as well. In the zombie apocalypse, you'll be very happy with a bag of apples where only one or two are rotten. And you'll probably eat the rotten ones as well!
Perhaps you should look over those design articles. I never said "good" is "tier 1 constructed playable"; I said Giant Spider is good, but I haven't seen it top Modern of late, have you?
For the contexts of our Evergreen Bingo discussion, something is "good" if it meets at least ONE of the following criterion:
1. Tier 1 constructed playable - Fringe constructed playable (tier 4?).
2. Iconic.
3. Practical for teaching new players some aspect of the game (color philosophy, how to draft, how to evaluate cards, etc, etc.). Most notably, the idea behind Evergreen Bingo is that new players can come to remember keywords by associating them with two colors. You can imagine new players quizing each other about "What 2 colors get deathtouch?" or the like.
4. Fulfills some balancing role in a relevant environment - usually standard or limited, but answers to older formats would be nice, too. We're talking about things like Pithing Needle here, so it probably won't apply to our discussion of french vanilla creatures.
Edit:
There is an additional reason why it's useful to settle on 10 evergreen color-pair keywords. If there's a consistent 10, you can start printing more share cards, as inevitably it'd share only flying and the color pair evergreen keywords. You could even KEYWORD that ability (well, if prowess wasn't cumulative... hint hint: We need to replace Prowess...).
People have already told you why Reach should be in primary and green and secondary in red. Green gets virtually no flying and red gets the least amount of flying with the exception of green. The only color it makes mechanical sense to give reach to apart from green is red. Unless you are moving flying around of course, in which case you will need to move reach around at the same time. The key thing here being that flying and reach shouldn't be in really be in the same colors.
1. Sure.
2. There are really only three ways a card becomes Iconic. It needs to represent a (legendary) character that is Iconic already, it needs to be above the curve at the time it was printed, or it needs to have been printed so many times people know it as a result of pure forced repetition. In other words, the only way for a new common to satisfy this requirement is for it to be way above the curve in which case it satisfies your first clause anyway.
4. If it fulfills a balancing role, then it is clearly good enough to see play in the relevant environment and so satisfies your first clause anyway.
3. This condition is literally the only one of your conditions that doesn't amount to a long winded way of saying "powerful". It's also the clause which specifies the least and could apply to literally any design. Let's take Gray Ogre for example. It would be easy to argue that Gray Ogre teaches players that bears are good by existing to be compared against Grizzly Bears. Similar arguments could easily be constructed for any card.
In summary, three of the things you think make a card 'good' effectively amount to being "constructed playable". The final thing that makes a card good could mean literally anything and could apply to literally any cards.
And ultimately all of that is beside the point. Do you understand that it's impossible to print exclusively 'good' cards? That is the question that both of those design articles I linked to covers.
- Manite
And I'm not even all too much against red getting flying hate. But does red's flying hate require it to leave blockers back? Really? How is that red?
Re: Good
1. I'm pretty sure that the moment I said "tier 4 playable", we should have been okay. Giant Spider is tier 4 playable in some tribal spider deck (... or maybe not?).
2. I'm pretty sure you can have crappy iconic cards. One With Nothing; for example. (And no, the fact Wizards let Howling Owl into the metagame doesn't make it anything but lucky).
3. Gray Ogre and Grizzly Bears don't teach players jack squat today; but a 2/2 for 1R certainly would. Because having "somewhat playable" vanillas is important to teach players things.
Every color can use any keyword at any time in order to satisfy the needs of a design. However, if a design requires the use of a keyword that wouldn't otherwise be given to that color of a card, that card should be high rarity to suggest that using the keyword in that way is rare.
The fact that red dragons and phoenixes get flying is totally beside the point though. Red gets flying less than any other color but green. Which means it needs reach more than any other color except green. Insofar as reach is justified in any color except green, it's justified in red. It makes zero sense to put reach in white by comparison as white already has easy access to flying in order to interact with opponents flyers.
Red isn't just about being aggro. Any more than blue is just about being Draw-go control.
Regarding the actual topic, Skulk was never an evergreen keyword. Its also just not a good mechanic.
Also, why is flash listed both as a 'wild' mechanic, whatever that is supposed to mean and as a tri color mechanic.
- Manite
Inspired by Watchwolf's thread
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/community-forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/780473-refining-evergreen-keywords
Here are a few new UB keywords:
[b]Mislead[/b] v 1 (Whenever this creature attacks, another target attacking creature cannot be blocked this turn[b] unless this creature has been blocked.[/b])
[b]Mislead[/b] v 2 (Whenever this creature attacks, another target attacking creature cannot be blocked this turn.[/b])