I'm working on a set with some friends and I think the set would benefit greatly from having a new A+B mechanic added to it. If you happen to have one sitting in your pocket that you'd like to share, feel free to do so. I'm flexible on what colors it needs to be in. Thanks in advance for any assistance you provide.
For those unfamiliar, an A+B mechanic is a mechanic for which cards with that mechanic actively synergize with a separate class of cards and vice versa. Some explanatory examples below...
1. Madness : each card with madness (A) you play encourages you to play more discard outlets (B)
2. Heroic : Each creature with Heroic (A) you play encourages you to play more auras/tricks/etc (B)
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
Does this set have a lot of potential "B"s? Is there something in particular that you either want to encourage or happens to occur in a lot of cards in your set?
Revelation [cost] (You may play this spell for it's revelation cost if you reveal it from your hand or top of your library.) [works with cards that reveal from your hand/etc.)
Revelation [cost] (You may play this spell for it's revelation cost if you reveal it from your hand or top of your library.) [works with cards that reveal from your hand/etc.)
That's super narrow, even more so than discard and spells that target. The type of mechanic OP wants is naturally parasitic, so the companion mechanic should be broad enough to overcome that.
Cruelty N - This creature enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters if your opponent sacrificed a permanent this turn.
AKA reverse Revolt. Ideally this would be a black mechanic, but counting any permanent your opponent sacrifices lets it expand into other colors as well. It also punishes the use of fetchlands in eternal formats.
I think Revelation is deceptively broad. Future Sight, Clash, and Kinship effects all give you the access to card advantage through revelation. Scent of Cinder-effects also work well this mechanic, and Blackmail-style discard effects would hate this ability (so you could print cards with the Blackmail keyword I've advocated!).
Cruelty is interesting. However, cards that cause your opponent to sacrifice things are few and far between. I suppose you could print upwards of 3-5 black edict effects, and you could print edict-variants on shatter, naturalize, etc. But that's kind of narrow, no?
Does this set have a lot of potential "B"s? Is there something in particular that you either want to encourage or happens to occur in a lot of cards in your set?
The short answer is no. The long answer is that we are still early in set design. I'm currently working on the skeleton and trying to experiment with the current versions of our mechanics on some common cards to see how things play and have an idea of how the set is going to come together. I'm really flexible at the moment. As long as the mechanic is relatively light weight, I should be able to push things around to include it in the set.
EDIT: FYI, the set we are working on is a return to Amonkhet set far into the distant future. We are trying to get at themes and tropes related to tomb raiding and Indiana Jones and stuff. It's very much an adventure themed world with Egyptian flavor.
Revelation [cost] (You may play this spell for it's revelation cost if you reveal it from your hand or top of your library.)
This is an interesting proposal. Once flavored, it actually seems quite useful for another set that I was working on with Cold War Spy themes. I'm not sure it will function as the desired A+B mechanic for my primary set though. There aren't very many natural ways to reveal cards from hand/library at common. I could do a cycle of additional cost cards like the cycle from dragons of tarkir. Any more of those and it would start to feel like a mechanic in and of itself. I'm also not sure if the "top of library" clause is mechanically interesting. In normal gameplay, you can't control the top of your library so there would be very few strategic choices with Revelation related to casting from the top of library. I'm also curious if Revelation even works from a rules perspective. Does it bypass timing restrictions? If so how? It must not be using triggers otherwise it wouldn't work with continuous effects. But if it doesn't use triggers, it doesn't really work against thoughtseize like effects. How would the rules for Revelation work exactly? My guess is you would have to use a clunky two ability effect like madness. Something like....
Revelation [Cost] (If this would be revealed from your hand, you may reveal it then exile it. When you do, you may cast this card for its revelation cost.)
...This is the best I can do I think. It works against hand disruption, with instantaneous reveal effects, and mostly works with continuous reveal effects.
Cruelty N - This creature enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters if your opponent sacrificed a permanent this turn.
I don't think I could scale up the number of edict-like effects to a point where this mechanic would function in limited while still having a functioning limited. At best I could make it a hoser, but I don't think I want any mechanics that function almost purely as hosers.
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: Revelation (and wording). I tried to go for a madness-style wording, where the "exile" is rules text (or was, right?). In any case, I think the top-of-library is actually quite relevant, if only because it lets you occasionally get card advantage. Perhaps slightly redundant with Future Sight, it is really fun when you clash and can then play the card in question.
You're right that Clash/Kinship getting you a revelation is rare (think of this like a miracle, of course). And yeah, you can have a cycle of "reveal for additional effect" or "reveal for alternate cost" cards; but I really like the design space of the scents/martyrs. It'd be interesting to see you revealing types (or subtypes) of cards rather than colors, and that's unexplored.
By letting Revelation care about either (or you could say "if this is revealed from ANYWHERE," which would allow it to work with tutors that reveal the card...), it opens the keyword up to multiple kinds of enablers. That said, it might be good to make them two different abilities to as to leave desing space open in the future. Thus the question would be this: Would you like it to trigger from reveals from the hand, or reveals from the library? The latter would work well with mulch and erratic explosion-style effects, and moderately well with clash and kinship-style effects.
Right now, though, we don't know enough about your set. Madness surely came before discard outlets in the design process; you're asking us to construct a new mechanic for a set we haven't seen. What are the currently existing themes or mechanics that we can build on?
Re: Revelation (and wording). I tried to go for a madness-style wording, where the "exile" is rules text (or was, right?). In any case, I think the top-of-library is actually quite relevant, if only because it lets you occasionally get card advantage. Perhaps slightly redundant with Future Sight, it is really fun when you clash and can then play the card in question.
The issue with hiding the mechanism as is done with madness is that understanding the mechanism is important for understanding how the ability works with continuous reveal effects. All discard effects are instantaneous, the discard happens and then its done. Whereas reveal effects can last varying amounts of time, and the reminder text should clearly handle how that should work.
You're right that Clash/Kinship getting you a revelation is rare (think of this like a miracle, of course). And yeah, you can have a cycle of "reveal for additional effect" or "reveal for alternate cost" cards; but I really like the design space of the scents/martyrs. It'd be interesting to see you revealing types (or subtypes) of cards rather than colors, and that's unexplored.
Thing is, miracle was an awful mechanic for limited precisely because it offers so few strategic choices.
Reveal from anywhere might be worth doing though. I'll mess with it for a bit I think
Right now, though, we don't know enough about your set.
The set we are working on is a return to Amonkhet set far into the distant future. We are trying to get at themes and tropes related to tomb raiding and Indiana Jones and stuff. It's very much an adventure world with Egyptian flavor.
The mechanic itself needs to be relatively lightweight (in terms of complexity and redflag space) but can be in any colors.
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 suggest not making it a return to Amonkhet, but instead a new plane that is based on a contemporary setting with lots of tombs to raid. Yes, these tombs might be Egypthian themed, but as you say, it's a matter of Indiana Jones, not a matter of Egyptian, and to conflate "pulp Egyptian" with the real thing is a problem.
Besides, the biggest fun of Indiana Jones is that you're learning new things; we know what went down in Amonkhet. Vengeful Pharaoh is a great card for an Indiana Jones-style set, but not for Amonkhet's return.
If the idea is tomb raiding, I think you need to pick out a mechanic that feels tomb-raidy. Maybe something like Hideaway? You could run a series of Hideaway lands (C) mono colored, and then (R) painlands?, and you could come up with a mechanic that lets you play hidden away cards.
Excavate N (Tap N creatures: You may play this spell without paying it's mana cost. Use this ability only if ~ is hidden away under a land you control).
Maybe just have the hide away cards not have a way to play the hidden away cards at all?
Or maybe print a hideaway variant:
Enclose (You may have this land enter the battlefield tapped. If you do, exile a card from your hand face down under this card, then draw a card.)
Enclose would be a way for your to rummage cards from your hand - great for limited, and would "hide them away". You could then play cards with Excavate from them, and/or you could print cards that interact with these cards in a different way.
Stone Awakening2RR
Sorcery
Destroy target land. Its controller may reveal a creature card hidden under that land. If she does, that player may play that creature without paying it's mana cost.
Not IndianaW
Creature - Human archaeologist (C) T: Until end of turn, you may play artifact cards hidden under target land as though they had excavate. Their excavation cost is equal to their converted mana cost minus 2.
1/2
To recap: I love the flavor you're talking about here. I think that the set's main mechanics have to be concerned with "digging up" things from lands and/or from your graveyard. If you print a lot of lands that hide away spells from your hand and/or library (by one way, or multiple ways). I'd be open to excavate having a mana cost, but I kind of like going the either "tap N creatures" or the Crew "Tap creatures with N or more power" route. (Maybe the latter, as you could certain print some vehicles to help excavate!).
So the question is whether you want the "dug up" cards themselves to have excavate, or whether you want excavate to be a way to dig up any "hidden" cards. The latter is probably the way you want to go (despite my initial thoughts going the other way around). I'd be interested in helping you out with this.
Maybe something like this: Sinking Desert
Land - Desert (U) Sink 2(When this enters the battlefield, exile the bottom 2 cards of your library. They are hidden under this land.) T: Add C to your mana pool.
Excavate - Artifact (Tap any number of creatures with power X or greater, where X equals the mana cost of an ARTIFACT card hidden under this card: Play that artifact without paying it's mana cost. Play this ability as a sorcery.)
Note that this is two keywords for 1 effect; I think you do want to make sure they're 2 separate keywords, as you can give cards with Hideaway excavate as well, and perhaps have cards that hide things under them in alternate ways:
Honored mMusoleum
Land (R)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may exile target creature card from your graveyard. If you do, it is hidden under this card and this card enters the battlefield tapped.
Pay 1 life, T: Add W or B to your mana pool.
Excavate - Creature (Tap any number of creatures with power X or greater, where X equals the mana cost of a creature card hidden under this card: Play that creature without paying it's mana cost. Play this ability as a sorcery.)
I'd want to see at least 10 cards with Sink in this kind of set; if not more.
"Recover" exists. Controvert; I think you mean from the grave but I don't see how this interacts well with much of anything in AMmnkhet.
Haha that's the one I actually spent time thinking about the name, so of course I found one that's been used. I was going to call it "Excavate" but I thought that would make it sound like you were getting from the graveyard (an effect I apparently achieved anyway).
I meant it would return something from the battlefield. This one is pretty narrow but I thought it work with Trials and Cartouches. I don't think it's really a great mechanic, except maybe as a single cycle or something. The Indiana Jones flavor makes more sense if you're digging some ancient artifact out of the ground anyway though.
I've always been a fan of Panglacial Wurm, but that's a mechanic which probably should not be especially abundant.
EDIT: The easiest would probably be any number of from-your-graveyard effects like Flashback, Aftermath, or Unearth. Those synergize with anything that puts cards into your graveyard, but obviously it's also easy for cards to get into your graveyard in some fashion without you intentionally putting them there.
I love Panglacial Wurm, but I'd hate it if it was a series of cards. I might be able to see one or two variants thereof (perhaps a variant for each color?), but keywording it would be a bit much. The big problem is that they encourage running cards that let you search your deck, which means shuffling, and Wizards doesn't like too much shuffling.
(Then again, Wizards has made some epically stupid choices of late; still pissed over the FNM promos, so take wizard's preferences to heart only if they're cogent.)
When cardname enters the battlefield, do something for each treasure in your graveyard.
you can use effects like draw a card, deal damage, etc....
some card ideas
little draw U
sorcery-treasure
draw a card
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
Your mechanic is a (slightly less than) linear parasitic one, not an A+B.
@Anachronity
Unfortunately, I tend to think wizards is correct when it comes to shuffling. Excess shuffle effects just slows down games for no (or minimal) net benefit to gameplay. The panglacial wurm ability is only particularly interesting on individual cards, I don't think I could spread it out to an entire keyword mechanic.
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
Your mechanic is a (slightly less than) linear parasitic one, not an A+B.
@Anachronity
Unfortunately, I tend to think wizards is correct when it comes to shuffling. Excess shuffle effects just slows down games for no (or minimal) net benefit to gameplay. The panglacial wurm ability is only particularly interesting on individual cards, I don't think I could spread it out to an entire keyword mechanic.
How about something like this:
Exile 2 cards in your graveyard that share one type: do effect
It uses the graveyard as a resource similar to grim lavamancer sort of like reprocessing spells.
It has synergy with looting, and cheap cantrips. The shared type keeps it from being broken, while encouraging to play similar card types.
This would possibly lead to designing a cycle of cards like hapless researcher.
Is that a better idea?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
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1. Madness : each card with madness (A) you play encourages you to play more discard outlets (B)
2. Heroic : Each creature with Heroic (A) you play encourages you to play more auras/tricks/etc (B)
- Manite
That's super narrow, even more so than discard and spells that target. The type of mechanic OP wants is naturally parasitic, so the companion mechanic should be broad enough to overcome that.
Cruelty N - This creature enters the battlefield with N +1/+1 counters if your opponent sacrificed a permanent this turn.
AKA reverse Revolt. Ideally this would be a black mechanic, but counting any permanent your opponent sacrifices lets it expand into other colors as well. It also punishes the use of fetchlands in eternal formats.
Cruelty is interesting. However, cards that cause your opponent to sacrifice things are few and far between. I suppose you could print upwards of 3-5 black edict effects, and you could print edict-variants on shatter, naturalize, etc. But that's kind of narrow, no?
The short answer is no. The long answer is that we are still early in set design. I'm currently working on the skeleton and trying to experiment with the current versions of our mechanics on some common cards to see how things play and have an idea of how the set is going to come together. I'm really flexible at the moment. As long as the mechanic is relatively light weight, I should be able to push things around to include it in the set.
EDIT: FYI, the set we are working on is a return to Amonkhet set far into the distant future. We are trying to get at themes and tropes related to tomb raiding and Indiana Jones and stuff. It's very much an adventure themed world with Egyptian flavor.
This is an interesting proposal. Once flavored, it actually seems quite useful for another set that I was working on with Cold War Spy themes. I'm not sure it will function as the desired A+B mechanic for my primary set though. There aren't very many natural ways to reveal cards from hand/library at common. I could do a cycle of additional cost cards like the cycle from dragons of tarkir. Any more of those and it would start to feel like a mechanic in and of itself. I'm also not sure if the "top of library" clause is mechanically interesting. In normal gameplay, you can't control the top of your library so there would be very few strategic choices with Revelation related to casting from the top of library. I'm also curious if Revelation even works from a rules perspective. Does it bypass timing restrictions? If so how? It must not be using triggers otherwise it wouldn't work with continuous effects. But if it doesn't use triggers, it doesn't really work against thoughtseize like effects. How would the rules for Revelation work exactly? My guess is you would have to use a clunky two ability effect like madness. Something like....
Revelation [Cost] (If this would be revealed from your hand, you may reveal it then exile it. When you do, you may cast this card for its revelation cost.)
...This is the best I can do I think. It works against hand disruption, with instantaneous reveal effects, and mostly works with continuous reveal effects.
I don't think I could scale up the number of edict-like effects to a point where this mechanic would function in limited while still having a functioning limited. At best I could make it a hoser, but I don't think I want any mechanics that function almost purely as hosers.
- Manite
You're right that Clash/Kinship getting you a revelation is rare (think of this like a miracle, of course). And yeah, you can have a cycle of "reveal for additional effect" or "reveal for alternate cost" cards; but I really like the design space of the scents/martyrs. It'd be interesting to see you revealing types (or subtypes) of cards rather than colors, and that's unexplored.
By letting Revelation care about either (or you could say "if this is revealed from ANYWHERE," which would allow it to work with tutors that reveal the card...), it opens the keyword up to multiple kinds of enablers. That said, it might be good to make them two different abilities to as to leave desing space open in the future. Thus the question would be this: Would you like it to trigger from reveals from the hand, or reveals from the library? The latter would work well with mulch and erratic explosion-style effects, and moderately well with clash and kinship-style effects.
Right now, though, we don't know enough about your set. Madness surely came before discard outlets in the design process; you're asking us to construct a new mechanic for a set we haven't seen. What are the currently existing themes or mechanics that we can build on?
The issue with hiding the mechanism as is done with madness is that understanding the mechanism is important for understanding how the ability works with continuous reveal effects. All discard effects are instantaneous, the discard happens and then its done. Whereas reveal effects can last varying amounts of time, and the reminder text should clearly handle how that should work.
Thing is, miracle was an awful mechanic for limited precisely because it offers so few strategic choices.
Reveal from anywhere might be worth doing though. I'll mess with it for a bit I think
The set we are working on is a return to Amonkhet set far into the distant future. We are trying to get at themes and tropes related to tomb raiding and Indiana Jones and stuff. It's very much an adventure world with Egyptian flavor.
The mechanic itself needs to be relatively lightweight (in terms of complexity and redflag space) but can be in any colors.
- Manite
Besides, the biggest fun of Indiana Jones is that you're learning new things; we know what went down in Amonkhet. Vengeful Pharaoh is a great card for an Indiana Jones-style set, but not for Amonkhet's return.
If the idea is tomb raiding, I think you need to pick out a mechanic that feels tomb-raidy. Maybe something like Hideaway? You could run a series of Hideaway lands (C) mono colored, and then (R) painlands?, and you could come up with a mechanic that lets you play hidden away cards.
Excavate N (Tap N creatures: You may play this spell without paying it's mana cost. Use this ability only if ~ is hidden away under a land you control).
Maybe just have the hide away cards not have a way to play the hidden away cards at all?
Or maybe print a hideaway variant:
Enclose (You may have this land enter the battlefield tapped. If you do, exile a card from your hand face down under this card, then draw a card.)
Enclose would be a way for your to rummage cards from your hand - great for limited, and would "hide them away". You could then play cards with Excavate from them, and/or you could print cards that interact with these cards in a different way.
Stone Awakening 2RR
Sorcery
Destroy target land. Its controller may reveal a creature card hidden under that land. If she does, that player may play that creature without paying it's mana cost.
Not Indiana W
Creature - Human archaeologist (C)
T: Until end of turn, you may play artifact cards hidden under target land as though they had excavate. Their excavation cost is equal to their converted mana cost minus 2.
1/2
To recap: I love the flavor you're talking about here. I think that the set's main mechanics have to be concerned with "digging up" things from lands and/or from your graveyard. If you print a lot of lands that hide away spells from your hand and/or library (by one way, or multiple ways). I'd be open to excavate having a mana cost, but I kind of like going the either "tap N creatures" or the Crew "Tap creatures with N or more power" route. (Maybe the latter, as you could certain print some vehicles to help excavate!).
So the question is whether you want the "dug up" cards themselves to have excavate, or whether you want excavate to be a way to dig up any "hidden" cards. The latter is probably the way you want to go (despite my initial thoughts going the other way around). I'd be interested in helping you out with this.
Maybe something like this:
Sinking Desert
Land - Desert (U)
Sink 2 (When this enters the battlefield, exile the bottom 2 cards of your library. They are hidden under this land.)
T: Add C to your mana pool.
Excavate - Artifact (Tap any number of creatures with power X or greater, where X equals the mana cost of an ARTIFACT card hidden under this card: Play that artifact without paying it's mana cost. Play this ability as a sorcery.)
Note that this is two keywords for 1 effect; I think you do want to make sure they're 2 separate keywords, as you can give cards with Hideaway excavate as well, and perhaps have cards that hide things under them in alternate ways:
Honored mMusoleum
Land (R)
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may exile target creature card from your graveyard. If you do, it is hidden under this card and this card enters the battlefield tapped.
Pay 1 life, T: Add W or B to your mana pool.
Excavate - Creature (Tap any number of creatures with power X or greater, where X equals the mana cost of a creature card hidden under this card: Play that creature without paying it's mana cost. Play this ability as a sorcery.)
I'd want to see at least 10 cards with Sink in this kind of set; if not more.
Foretold <cost> (You may cast this card for it's Foretold cost if a card you own was exiled from anywhere this turn.)
Wounded - As long as ~ has a -1/-1 counter on it, <effect>.
Panic (Whenever you discard a card ~ gets +1/+1 until end of turn.)
Recover (Whenever ~ enters the battlefield, you may return target artifact or enchantment you control to it's owner's hand)
Panic is neat too. I like it.
"Recover" exists. Controvert; I think you mean from the grave but I don't see how this interacts well with much of anything in AMmnkhet.
I meant it would return something from the battlefield. This one is pretty narrow but I thought it work with Trials and Cartouches. I don't think it's really a great mechanic, except maybe as a single cycle or something. The Indiana Jones flavor makes more sense if you're digging some ancient artifact out of the ground anyway though.
EDIT: The easiest would probably be any number of from-your-graveyard effects like Flashback, Aftermath, or Unearth. Those synergize with anything that puts cards into your graveyard, but obviously it's also easy for cards to get into your graveyard in some fashion without you intentionally putting them there.
- Rabid Wombat
(Then again, Wizards has made some epically stupid choices of late; still pissed over the FNM promos, so take wizard's preferences to heart only if they're cogent.)
card type: treasure
Cardname
When cardname enters the battlefield, do something for each treasure in your graveyard.
you can use effects like draw a card, deal damage, etc....
some card ideas
little draw U
sorcery-treasure
draw a card
pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation
Your mechanic is a (slightly less than) linear parasitic one, not an A+B.
@Anachronity
Unfortunately, I tend to think wizards is correct when it comes to shuffling. Excess shuffle effects just slows down games for no (or minimal) net benefit to gameplay. The panglacial wurm ability is only particularly interesting on individual cards, I don't think I could spread it out to an entire keyword mechanic.
- Manite
How about something like this:
Exile 2 cards in your graveyard that share one type: do effect
It uses the graveyard as a resource similar to grim lavamancer sort of like reprocessing spells.
It has synergy with looting, and cheap cantrips. The shared type keeps it from being broken, while encouraging to play similar card types.
For example:
Odessey block limited encouraged discard outlets like wild mongrel and dirty wererat.
This would possibly lead to designing a cycle of cards like hapless researcher.
Is that a better idea?
pucatrade
big receipts
alpha mox emerald
beta time walk
4 goyfs received
3 liliana of the veil
4 karn liberated
3 force of will
4 grove of the burnwillows
snapcaster mage
3 horizon canopy
2 full art damnation