MTG Salvation

Join Reuben Covington and Dan Felder for the thirty-eighth episode of Re-Making Magic, the podcast about game design and custom magic cards.

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In this episode:

• We discuss Reuben's Battle for Zendikar Pre-Release experience
• Reuben gets very very lucky.
• Dan discusses ingest's economy and Lorwyn's Hidden Treasure Mechanic
• We cut the episode a little short due to Dan having audio issues.

Card Renders:
none this week.

Contact details:

remakingmagic.tumblr.com

Reuben Covington
Twitter: @reubencovington
Email: reubencovington@gmail.com
MTGsalvation Account: Doombringer

Dan Felder
Email: minimallyexceptional@gmail.com
MTGsalvation Account: Stairc

Where's the link for the treasure mechanic?

http://archive.wizards.com/Magic/magazine/article.aspx?x=mtgcom/feature/426

Wow, I can't believe it. I have been tinkering with Dungeon Delve / Treasure mechanics for the past few weeks so it was really cool (to me) to learn about this.

And yeah, BFZ draft plays really well. (Doesn't change the fact that I hate Devoid.)

I have a question for you guys (or anyone reading). From a designer perspective, what direction do you think the block will take, as in who will win the battle for Zendikar - Eldrazi or Allies or will the next set be yet another Zen cliffhanger? Will the storyline be reflected in the mechanics? For example, if the Eldrazi win, will there be even more cards with Devoid?

As a storyteller, you don't want to start a story close to where you end it. Starting with the Zendikari on the brink of defeat and ending with them defeated is pretty weak story structure. Scars of Mirrodin started with the Mirrans in control and ended with the Phyrexians in control. Innistrad started with monsters everywhere and ended with Avacyn Restored. The big eldrazi also aren't all on this plane, leaving them wide open for a Zendikari victory without closing off future eldrazi story potential.

My money's on Zendikar.

Do you think Zen victory will be reflected mechanically in the next set or just thematically?

I'm sure that if they decide to go with the victory (they may not, you could make an argument that it emphasizes the Eldrazi threat if they trash zendikar entirely - but it still seems less like the weaker option) that they would make at least one card commemorating the victory. However, for the mechanics themselves to emphasize a final victory you need the win to have happened before the set itself - like how New Phyrexia is the "after" picture of the plane.

If I was leading exploratory design here, I'd be looking for ways to emphasisze the increased power of the zendikari forces - such as more powerful converge cards in limited. Megawaken (awaken two lands, not one!) also sounds amazing.

I actually like megamorph a lot, because it plays differently than morph in a meaningful way, but it's still funny to joke.

TLDR: If they go this route, I'd expect them to showcase the evolution of the story through gameplay - yes. But I think the evolution would be more like the one between scars of mirrodin and mirrodin besieged, rather than mirrodin besiged to new phyrexia.