I had a really nice file written up this past week and I misplaced it this weekend, so this is entirely from memory (and the proxies). A few details might be missing.
My son and I were goofing around a bit with various Upkeep cards. During my explanation and resulting discussion on Upkeep rules, we came up with a new(?) payment method for Upkeep. Loosely, we're calling it "Outlay". He seems to like it, but he's not up to speed at breaking cards yet.
Outlay has the following Upkeep rules amendment.
503.2.Outlay. During Outlay payments, the active player gets priority. Once Outlay payment is started, Players may cast spells and activate abilities only to pay for Outlay until all of Outlay is paid or when outlay payment fails.
I'm not sure if this is worded correctly, but in essence, it's Upkeep with shared payment by any player, including the controller during the card controller's Upkeep step. The final part was added to try to prevent abusing a particular card or pulling shenanigans until the upkeep is completely paid. My son doesn't do that sort of thing yet, but he shows potential.
I feel the reminder text stutters a bit though so I've been trying to fix it. My son understands it just fine so... kids today.
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Osseous Matter - 1BBB
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on ~, then sacrifice it unless any number of players pay the sum of the outlay cost for each age counter on it.)
All creature cards gain "X1: Regenerate this Creature. X is half the converted mana cost rounded down." in addition to their other abilities.
The dead outnumber the living.
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Seismic Waste - 1RRR
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
All Basic Land Cards now read "Discard this card from your hand: Seismic Assault deals 1 damage to target creature or player. This ability counts towards your one land per turn."
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Committed Rapture - 1WWW
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
At the end of controllers upkeep, each player may put X 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste into play where X is the current age counter on ~. Players may only do this if they paid all or part of the Outlay during upkeep.
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My son and I are still fiddling with the white version. So we haven't explored green or blue yet.
Admittedly, these cards are pretty swingy with the right decks. But they're really fun with the casual builds my kids and I use. I think the really interesting aspect is the "shared" upkeep which really starts to blossom during multiplayer.
I forget what, exactly, inspired Osseous Matter but the card rarely sticks around for very long. The crutch is the cumulative payments take away mana from paying for the regenerate on larger creatures or casting down larger beat sticks anyways. So it hangs around for a few turns then gets wiped off the board. They haven't figuredo out to wait until later in the game to cast their big monster, then, with the built up mana base, pay for the upkeep on this card. So I don't find the 1BBB too problematic so far.
The interesting aspect is that I'll get very obvious gang-ups in multiplayer as the siblings gang up on me to keep this card in play as long as possible when it is cast. This card breaks with X cost cards like Hangarback Walker because the regenerate ability is so cheap so these have been temporarily removed from our decks. It works really well with the 0 cost creatures though, makes them more formidable as a defensive strategy.
Seismic Waste is very obviously inspired by Seismic Assault. I find this one rarely sticks around for very long as no one wants to sacrifice one land just to do 1 point of damage unless it's at the very end of the game. The "once per turn" limiter was added during play testing when my son took a netdeck I found called "51 lands" which consists of 4x Seismic Assault and 4x Treasure Hunt and basically crushed everyone if Seismic Assault didn't come up right away. I think I may change it again to simply read "You can only do this once per turn." If you have one land in hand, you have to make a choice, right? Again, I don't find the 1RRR cost to be too swingy since the card works best towards the end when you're mana flush.
Committed Rapture is outright brutal, broken, whatever. Haste was added when it was realized the controller was unable to ever attack with the fresh spawn, always running on the defensive. The card becomes nasty when cards like Ashnod's Altar enters the mix. We got crazy fast battles involving things like Fireball, Nantuko Husk or Hangarback Walker. The siblngs will do almost anything to keep this nasty card around.
The concept itself is interesting but I have one major question about how you're handling this, why are you creating a substep within the upkeep where only these cards function and locks players out of playing other spells.
If you are fine with removing this aspect I think I can clean up your wording and maybe even make it function within current rules. Outlay[what ever your payment is] (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then [what ever your payment is] any player may pay this, if no player does sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent.)
This should work as you intend. I'm not sure if you know this but with both your design and mine you can easily lock players out of beneficial buffs like on your Committed Rapture.
Now for how this breaks down on a technical level.
->This ability triggers like normal upkeep triggers, however when it goes to resolve is when things get tricky.
-->You put an age counter on it, then its controller has the option of paying what ever cost you've decided on, this is the interesting because you can put all kinds of weird cost here.
--->If its controller declines to pay then the next player in turn order has the option of paying the cost.
Here's where it gets real tricky I don't think players can activate mana abilities at this point because all mana should have been produced by now. I'm not 100% on this, just using knowledge of how spells are cast to figure this out, you have to produce all of your mana before cost are payed. If this is the case then mana cost look a lot less appealing on these cards.
---->Sense we are assuming multiplayer if the second player chooses to not pay it is then offered to the third player and so on until it is either payed or not.
----->Then we repeat this process over and over for each age counter on the permanent
This is problematic as later players can end of messing with other players by no paying towards the end after others have committed resources.
If want only mana payments then you can go the Join Forces route. Collective Voyage
Outlay —At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent. Then starting with you, each player may pay any amount of mana. Then if the total amount of mana payed is less then the number of age counters (or the number of age counters times some amount), sacrifice this permanent.
This still causes the first player to possible be out of their mana without any effect.
Is this just meant to be a new take on Cumulative Upkeep? That would be the only time I can see paying for an "Upkeep" (as you put it).
I don't know that you want to add the ability to "cast spells" to pay for the cost. Currently, only mana abilities can be activated in the middle of paying a cost. Adding the ability to cast a spell introduces complexity and doesn't match up with how other abilites are paid. If you want to cast Dark Ritual you can still do it before paying the cost, but I wouldn't add the ability to allow it while paying the cost.
It seems that you are just trying to get a Cumulative Upkeep that anyone can keep around. However, that makes it difficult to do since you are trying to get a "sum" total. Maybe something like this:
503.2.Outlay. During Outlay payments, the active player may pay any amount of mana up to the amount needed to pay the Outlay trigger's cost. Then, in turn order, each other player may pay an amount of mana equal to the Outlay cost minus the amount of mana paid for by previous players. If the total amount paid is less than the Outlay cost, that permanent is sacrificed.
The main problem with this mechanic is what to do with the mana spent if the total cost isn't met? The mana has been paid so if the total cost is not met, I think you just have to treat that mana as gone. No one can get it back as it just introduces too many scenarios where a player casts Dark Ritual and another cracks Lion's Eye Diamond to get mana but that 6 mana isn't enough. You can't rewind here since too much has happened so people would have to pay into the cost without knowing whether the permanent is going to stick around.
Regarding the cards themselves:
Osseous Matter - 1BBB
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on ~, then sacrifice it unless any number of players pay the sum of the outlay cost for each age counter on it.)
All creature cards gain "X1: Regenerate this Creature. X is half the converted mana cost rounded down." in addition to their other abilities.
The dead outnumber the living.
You don't need the last line and you don't need (or want) to refer to "creature cards". Just refer to "creatures". Granting abilities does not take away other abilities unless the card says it does. Regarding the cost of the ability, it reads clunky. The main problem is that when determining the value of X, the person activating the ability just chooses a value in this case. Compare it to something like Gorilla Shaman. Note that the ability targets which gives a value for X. This might work: "All creatures gain 'X1: Regenerate this creature if X is equal to this creatures converted mana cost rounded down'".
In honesty, I think it would read better (and play better) if it was a set cost. This would also fix the issue you are having with X spells like Hanarback. Maybe this is alright:
All creature gain "3: Regenerate this Creature."
You can play around with the cost, but it also allows more mana to be spent to keep the enchantment around while still allowing the ability to be used.
Seismic Waste - 1RRR
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
All Basic Land Cards now read "Discard this card from your hand: Seismic Assault deals 1 damage to target creature or player. This ability counts towards your one land per turn."
This one just seems odd all around. For example, it seems like you could activate this ability as much as you want during someone else's turn. It might count towards your one land for that turn, but you don't get a land on someone else's turn so that part is just ignored if not activating the ability during your turn.
Why not something like this:
Seismic Waste - 1RRR
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
As a player plays a basic land card, he or she can put that land card into his or her graveyard instead of onto the battlefield. If that player does, he or she may deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
This changes it to a replacement effect to allow them to use this for however many land drops they have and still count for their land drop as you want it to.
Committed Rapture - 1WWW
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
At the end of controllers upkeep, each player may put X 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste into play where X is the current age counter on ~. Players may only do this if they paid all or part of the Outlay during upkeep.
There isn't really an "end" to the upkeep (or any step for that matter) that would allow an ability to trigger. You are best off just using the beginning of the draw step. Yeah, the controller gets their card before the ability resolves, but the functionality is pretty close to the same. It also means you don't need the extra line of text to make sure the Outlay cost has been paid:
"At the beginning of your draw step, each player may create X 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste where X is the number of age counters of ~."
Or, to get around the need for haste, you can just do this:
"When ~ enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Solder token.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, he or she creates X 1/1 white Soldier tokens where X is the number of age counters on ~."
Note that I changed "put onto the battlefield" to "create" to match up with the new wording for tokens coming with the release of Kaladesh. Also, the second version does two things: it doesn't give people the tokens until their turn which means they don't need haste. It also gives the caster something for their trouble in case it doesn't stick around for some reason. They are guaranteed 2 tokens this way rather than paying 4 mana and getting nothing.
To be clear, you do realize that you can only ever have one of these 3 enchantments on the battlefield at the same time right? World Enchantments aren't seen very often, so I just wanted to make sure you are aware of the rules regarding World Enchantments.
Outlay[what ever your payment is] (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then [what ever your payment is] any player may pay this, if no player does sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent.)
I think this may be the "cleanest" way to deal with this. You still have to worry about the situation where a permanent may have 6 age counters and 5 are paid for and the 6th is not causing the 5 mana spent to be "lost". But, in a multiplayer game, I suppose this could be handled with discussion rather than just assuming and hoping someone else will help pay for it.
I would tighten up the wording a little though:
Outlay[cost] (At the beginning of your upkeep, any player may pay (cost). If no one does, sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent. Put an age counter on this permanent.)
I moved putting the age counter on to the end so the "repeat" works. With the wording above, it would actually make you pay 1 more than the age counters since you would pay 1 (or whatever the cost is) and then pay 1 again for each age counter, including the new one that was added. If you want the cost to always be 1, just put that in the reminder text.
I didn't realize that by putting the age counter first you pay and then pay for each age counter making it always 1 more then the age counters. But it makes sense, I would prefer a way to keep the age counter at the beginning so that if it is sac'd it has the correct number of age counters but can't think of an elegant way of not messing up the payment. A player being out mana and not keeping the permanent is oddly a design feature. This is to encourage politics in multiplayer.
You missed the part on Committed Rapture where they only get the tokens if they helped pay the upkeep. Which is an interesting way of going about this event. In the normal payment form the 'front' players can keep the 'back' players from gaining any benefit. While with the Join Forces method everyone always gets a chance to join in the fun.
I think the most interesting thing about this design is the possibilities of non-mana payments. Imagine cost like "put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you don't control" or "an opponent gains 2 life" or to get dangerous and easily breakable "an opponent draws a card" these obviously only work on the normal non Join Forces method.
You missed the part on Committed Rapture where they only get the tokens if they helped pay the upkeep. Which is an interesting way of going about this event. In the normal payment form the 'front' players can keep the 'back' players from gaining any benefit. While with the Join Forces method everyone always gets a chance to join in the fun.
You're right. I did miss that. It does become really hard to track that though. As mentioned, there is no "end" of a step which is why every ability says "beinning of <step>" so trying to keep track of who paid into an Outlay cost becomes problematic. OBviously, players know pretty easily, but trying to get it to work within the rules is tricky.
Maybe this:
"At the beginning of your draw step, each player who spent mana on the Outlay cost of ~ this turn may create a 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste for each age counter on ~."
It still needs to be done during the draw step for reasons mentioned above, but it does make sure that only players who contribute get the tokens. I am not totally sure it actually works within the rules since it is trying to track mana payments across steps rather than being part of the ability.
The concept itself is interesting but I have one major question about how you're handling this, why are you creating a substep within the upkeep where only these cards function and locks players out of playing other spells.
If you are fine with removing this aspect I think I can clean up your wording and maybe even make it function within current rules. Outlay[what ever your payment is] (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then [what ever your payment is] any player may pay this, if no player does sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent.)
This should work as you intend. I'm not sure if you know this but with both your design and mine you can easily lock players out of beneficial buffs like on your Committed Rapture.
Errmm.. Your design? Like what you suggested just now or somewhere else on the forum?
In any case. The intent was to discourage shenanigans with abilities and other cards that don't deal directly with paying the upkeep. Basically, to bring the focus to payment. I don't recall if there ever was or is any shenanigans that can be done during or around upkeep (besides the Chronotog combo) since I've been out of magic for a little while. I tried searching Gatherer for anti-upkeep shenanigans to find something interesting but didn't have much luck with my search-fu.
Now for how this breaks down on a technical level.
->This ability triggers like normal upkeep triggers, however when it goes to resolve is when things get tricky.
-->You put an age counter on it, then its controller has the option of paying what ever cost you've decided on, this is the interesting because you can put all kinds of weird cost here.
--->If its controller declines to pay then the next player in turn order has the option of paying the cost.
Here's where it gets real tricky I don't think players can activate mana abilities at this point because all mana should have been produced by now. I'm not 100% on this, just using knowledge of how spells are cast to figure this out, you have to produce all of your mana before cost are payed. If this is the case then mana cost look a lot less appealing on these cards.
---->Sense we are assuming multiplayer if the second player chooses to not pay it is then offered to the third player and so on until it is either payed or not.
----->Then we repeat this process over and over for each age counter on the permanent
This is problematic as later players can end of messing with other players by no paying towards the end after others have committed resources.
Bullet point #3 is the sticky widget I think which I hoped my addendum would solve.
The way we've been playing it is as follows.
One way, the controller ops to pay the entire amount (usually happens with Committed Rapture) until they can't pay any more.
The second way is that the controller ops to pay just half (or whatever amount they choose to pay) by verbal agreement with other players.
The third way they've been exploring is that someone else pays most of, or the entire, cost from the get go. Generally the person that manages to get TRON into play will choose this option.
Yeah, locking happens quite often. Especially when players gang up on one or more other players. The flip side of that though was that one player would end up paying ALL of the mana cost only for the others to benefit. That's why that final phrase was added to Committed Rapture.
Yeah.. lost mana happens. There's a lot of coercion, pleading and arguing that goes on as they try to avoid it.
I think I grasp what you're proposing. The only caveat is that everyone has to crack their mana beforehand. The controller can easily screw people over in that sense by opting to pay all of the costs from the get go. We don't use LED but yeah, this would be a problem similar to match reality show proportions. In the end I suppose it doesn't really matter whether they crack the mana before or during upkeep.
I kind of wish Mana Burn was still a thing, so cracking the mana and not spending it becomes more relevant. Oh well.
If want only mana payments then you can go the Join Forces route. Collective Voyage
Outlay —At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent. Then starting with you, each player may pay any amount of mana. Then if the total amount of mana payed is less then the number of age counters (or the number of age counters times some amount), sacrifice this permanent.
This still causes the first player to possible be out of their mana without any effect.
Yes. If the "team" breaks up, the mana is absolutely lost. It's a form of mana screwing they've been exploring as well. Collective Voyage is quite interesting but I'm unclear as to how it applies here.
Is this just meant to be a new take on Cumulative Upkeep? That would be the only time I can see paying for an "Upkeep" (as you put it).
Yes. It's upkeep where anyone can pay all or part of it as long as all of it is paid. The card that triggered the whole idea has a game warping ability and a kill switch proved desirable.
I don't know that you want to add the ability to "cast spells" to pay for the cost. Currently, only mana abilities can be activated in the middle of paying a cost. Adding the ability to cast a spell introduces complexity and doesn't match up with how other abilites are paid. If you want to cast Dark Ritual you can still do it before paying the cost, but I wouldn't add the ability to allow it while paying the cost.
Yeah, Dark Ritual and its cousins were definitely a factor.
It seems that you are just trying to get a Cumulative Upkeep that anyone can keep around. However, that makes it difficult to do since you are trying to get a "sum" total. Maybe something like this:
503.2.Outlay. During Outlay payments, the active player may pay any amount of mana up to the amount needed to pay the Outlay trigger's cost. Then, in turn order, each other player may pay an amount of mana equal to the Outlay cost minus the amount of mana paid for by previous players. If the total amount paid is less than the Outlay cost, that permanent is sacrificed.
The main problem with this mechanic is what to do with the mana spent if the total cost isn't met? The mana has been paid so if the total cost is not met, I think you just have to treat that mana as gone. No one can get it back as it just introduces too many scenarios where a player casts Dark Ritual and another cracks Lion's Eye Diamond to get mana but that 6 mana isn't enough. You can't rewind here since too much has happened so people would have to pay into the cost without knowing whether the permanent is going to stick around.
This "feature" was expected and one my kids have run into. As I type this, it dawned on me that it almost seems like a mechanic that should appear in Conspiracy. But eh... I only just read about Conspiracy so it's a bit new to me.
Regarding the cards themselves:
[quote]
Osseous Matter - 1BBB
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on ~, then sacrifice it unless any number of players pay the sum of the outlay cost for each age counter on it.)
All creature cards gain "X1: Regenerate this Creature. X is half the converted mana cost rounded down." in addition to their other abilities.
The dead outnumber the living.
You don't need the last line and you don't need (or want) to refer to "creature cards". Just refer to "creatures". Granting abilities does not take away other abilities unless the card says it does. Regarding the cost of the ability, it reads clunky. The main problem is that when determining the value of X, the person activating the ability just chooses a value in this case. Compare it to something like Gorilla Shaman. Note that the ability targets which gives a value for X. This might work: "All creatures gain 'X1: Regenerate this creature if X is equal to this creatures converted mana cost rounded down'".
In honesty, I think it would read better (and play better) if it was a set cost. This would also fix the issue you are having with X spells like Hanarback. Maybe this is alright:
All creature gain "3: Regenerate this Creature."
You can play around with the cost, but it also allows more mana to be spent to keep the enchantment around while still allowing the ability to be used.
One of the two things that cropped up was allowing Tokens to receive the regenerate ability. A bloated Hangarback Walker could be allowed to burst making for a very difficult to destroy wall for the opponent. When we changed it to force the ability onto cards only, then the creatures became more manageable allowing for creature cards to stick around longer but not their token bethren.
The fixed cost became a growing issue with the much larger beat sticks. Sneaking a nine CMC then watching it stick around for a very long time became somewhat annoying.
WotC's position on regenerate seems kind of sketchy. Some creatures cost the same as their CMC like Black Poplar Shaman, others are crazy cheap, like Ancient Silverbackand others have weirdly expensive costs like Deathbellow Raider. Of course this is completely ignoring alternate costs like paying life or discarding cards. So I couldn't find a very good metric to use. We tried a handful of costs until we focused in on the CMC/2+1 formula. It seems to work OK so far. Admittedly, I notice the kids sometimes forget what the regenerate costs because they can't hold that information in their heads. I crush numbers all day (not by choice ) so it's not really a problem for me. But the game really isn't for people like me, but for the kids. So while I personally like the CMC/2+1, I'm still trying to find a sweet spot for the regenerate cost.
Seismic Waste - 1RRR
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
All Basic Land Cards now read "Discard this card from your hand: Seismic Assault deals 1 damage to target creature or player. This ability counts towards your one land per turn."
This one just seems odd all around. For example, it seems like you could activate this ability as much as you want during someone else's turn. It might count towards your one land for that turn, but you don't get a land on someone else's turn so that part is just ignored if not activating the ability during your turn.
Good point. Nobody was taking advantage of this on another persons turn so it didn't come up.
Why not something like this:
Seismic Waste - 1RRR
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
As a player plays a basic land card, he or she can put that land card into his or her graveyard instead of onto the battlefield. If that player does, he or she may deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
This changes it to a replacement effect to allow them to use this for however many land drops they have and still count for their land drop as you want it to.
Oh duh! Of course it should be a replacement effect. I didn't think of that.
Committed Rapture - 1WWW
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
At the end of controllers upkeep, each player may put X 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste into play where X is the current age counter on ~. Players may only do this if they paid all or part of the Outlay during upkeep.
There isn't really an "end" to the upkeep (or any step for that matter) that would allow an ability to trigger. You are best off just using the beginning of the draw step. Yeah, the controller gets their card before the ability resolves, but the functionality is pretty close to the same. It also means you don't need the extra line of text to make sure the Outlay cost has been paid:
"At the beginning of your draw step, each player may create X 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste where X is the number of age counters of ~."
Or, to get around the need for haste, you can just do this:
"When ~ enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Solder token.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, he or she creates X 1/1 white Soldier tokens where X is the number of age counters on ~."
Note that I changed "put onto the battlefield" to "create" to match up with the new wording for tokens coming with the release of Kaladesh. Also, the second version does two things: it doesn't give people the tokens until their turn which means they don't need haste. It also gives the caster something for their trouble in case it doesn't stick around for some reason. They are guaranteed 2 tokens this way rather than paying 4 mana and getting nothing.
That's a good point about adding ETB and the creatures on each turn.
One of the things I was trying to do is to encourage people to pay into the cost of the upkeep. with 1 age counter, only the controller can pay into it thereby being the only one to get a 1/1 token. With two, only two people can pay into it (at most) generating 2x 1/1 for each and so on. If everyone benefits without paying into the pool, there really isn't any incentive to pay into it and puts the controller at a severe disadvantage from the mana payments.
At one point, we even toyed with the idea of putting X 1/1 tokens into play where X was equal to the amount each players paid. For example if the age counter was equal to 5 and P1 paid 3 and P2 paid 2, then P1 receives 3 tokens and P2 received 2. This proved too hard to track each time through.
To be clear, you do realize that you can only ever have one of these 3 enchantments on the battlefield at the same time right? World Enchantments aren't seen very often, so I just wanted to make sure you are aware of the rules regarding World Enchantments.
Outlay[what ever your payment is] (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then [what ever your payment is] any player may pay this, if no player does sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent.)
I think this may be the "cleanest" way to deal with this. You still have to worry about the situation where a permanent may have 6 age counters and 5 are paid for and the 6th is not causing the 5 mana spent to be "lost". But, in a multiplayer game, I suppose this could be handled with discussion rather than just assuming and hoping someone else will help pay for it.
That happens and is expected.
I would tighten up the wording a little though:
Outlay[cost] (At the beginning of your upkeep, any player may pay (cost). If no one does, sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent. Put an age counter on this permanent.)
I moved putting the age counter on to the end so the "repeat" works. With the wording above, it would actually make you pay 1 more than the age counters since you would pay 1 (or whatever the cost is) and then pay 1 again for each age counter, including the new one that was added. If you want the cost to always be 1, just put that in the reminder text.
I had to read this twice before it made sense to me. I can see how this works, but its not clear to me who goes first. The rules would dictate controller goes first, right?
I think the most interesting thing about this design is the possibilities of non-mana payments. Imagine cost like "put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you don't control" or "an opponent gains 2 life" or to get dangerous and easily breakable "an opponent draws a card" these obviously only work on the normal non Join Forces method.
The original idea was a sort of Muy Macho sort of game play.
But that idea really messed with the game too much and drew this kind of response
--->If its controller declines to pay then the next player in turn order has the option of paying the cost.
Here's where it gets real tricky I don't think players can activate mana abilities at this point because all mana should have been produced by now. I'm not 100% on this, just using knowledge of how spells are cast to figure this out, you have to produce all of your mana before cost are payed. If this is the case then mana cost look a lot less appealing on these cards.
Bullet point #3 is the sticky widget I think which I hoped my addendum would solve.
This should be fine. Any player may activate mana abilities in the middle of paying costs. So, players would not have to generate mana before paying only to realize they don’t need it or it wasn’t enough.
One of the two things that cropped up was allowing Tokens to receive the regenerate ability. A bloated Hangarback Walker could be allowed to burst making for a very difficult to destroy wall for the opponent. When we changed it to force the ability onto cards only, then the creatures became more manageable allowing for creature cards to stick around longer but not their token bethren.
The fixed cost became a growing issue with the much larger beat sticks. Sneaking a nine CMC then watching it stick around for a very long time became somewhat annoying.
I guess my thought with a fixed cost is that it fixes a few problems while still keeping larger things in check. For example, under your original design, a 9 CMC creature would require 5 mana to keep around. 3 is certainly a big enough difference, but maybe you can set it to 4. You could also add a way to limit the number of times a creature is regenerated. Maybe by adding a -1/-1 counter every time.
To your token dilemma; I can see that being a problem. This just means you should be using the phrase "nontoken creatures" rather than creature cards. Magic templating only uses "Cards" for things not on the battlefield.
So, maybe this would be workable:
Osseous Matter - 1BBB
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on ~, then sacrifice it unless any number of players pay the sum of the outlay cost for each age counter on it.)
Whenever a creature regenerates, put a -1/-1 counter on it.
Nontoken creatures have "3: Regenerate this creature".
The dead outnumber the living.
I did change the wording slightly to fit more with Goblin War Drums and Deadeye Navigator but the result is the same. The major issue (if you feel it is an issue) is that anything that regenerates would get this counter. Not just ones that are regenerated due to the ability granted by the enchantment.
One of the things I was trying to do is to encourage people to pay into the cost of the upkeep. with 1 age counter, only the controller can pay into it thereby being the only one to get a 1/1 token. With two, only two people can pay into it (at most) generating 2x 1/1 for each and so on. If everyone benefits without paying into the pool, there really isn't any incentive to pay into it and puts the controller at a severe disadvantage from the mana payments.
I realized I missed this in the first read, so my another of my posts above (might have) addressed this.
To be clear, you do realize that you can only ever have one of these 3 enchantments on the battlefield at the same time right? World Enchantments aren't seen very often, so I just wanted to make sure you are aware of the rules regarding World Enchantments.
Yes, that was the intent.
Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t using it for flavor reasons without understanding the rules behind it. Seems like you are on top of things
Outlay[cost] (At the beginning of your upkeep, any player may pay (cost). If no one does, sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent. Put an age counter on this permanent.)
I moved putting the age counter on to the end so the "repeat" works. With the wording above, it would actually make you pay 1 more than the age counters since you would pay 1 (or whatever the cost is) and then pay 1 again for each age counter, including the new one that was added. If you want the cost to always be 1, just put that in the reminder text.
I had to read this twice before it made sense to me. I can see how this works, but its not clear to me who goes first. The rules would dictate controller goes first, right?
I suppose I should have added an extra phrase saying “…starting with you…” so it reads as:
Outlay[cost] (At the beginning of your upkeep, starting with you, any player may pay (cost). If no one does, sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent. Put an age counter on this permanent.)
Outlay[cost] (At the beginning of your upkeep, starting with you, any player may pay (cost). If no one does, sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent. Then put an age counter on this permanent.)
As a casual (and rather impressed) peruser of this thread, and from a player perspective, it would be slightly (but relevantly) clearer if the reminder text were to include the word "then". I've added it - that is, the word "then" - to the quote to show what I mean.
My son and I were goofing around a bit with various Upkeep cards. During my explanation and resulting discussion on Upkeep rules, we came up with a new(?) payment method for Upkeep. Loosely, we're calling it "Outlay". He seems to like it, but he's not up to speed at breaking cards yet.
Outlay has the following Upkeep rules amendment.
503.2.Outlay. During Outlay payments, the active player gets priority. Once Outlay payment is started, Players may cast spells and activate abilities only to pay for Outlay until all of Outlay is paid or when outlay payment fails.
I'm not sure if this is worded correctly, but in essence, it's Upkeep with shared payment by any player, including the controller during the card controller's Upkeep step. The final part was added to try to prevent abusing a particular card or pulling shenanigans until the upkeep is completely paid. My son doesn't do that sort of thing yet, but he shows potential.
I feel the reminder text stutters a bit though so I've been trying to fix it. My son understands it just fine so... kids today.
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Osseous Matter - 1BBB
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1 (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on ~, then sacrifice it unless any number of players pay the sum of the outlay cost for each age counter on it.)
All creature cards gain "X1: Regenerate this Creature. X is half the converted mana cost rounded down." in addition to their other abilities.
The dead outnumber the living.
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Seismic Waste - 1RRR
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
All Basic Land Cards now read "Discard this card from your hand: Seismic Assault deals 1 damage to target creature or player. This ability counts towards your one land per turn."
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Committed Rapture - 1WWW
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
At the end of controllers upkeep, each player may put X 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste into play where X is the current age counter on ~. Players may only do this if they paid all or part of the Outlay during upkeep.
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My son and I are still fiddling with the white version. So we haven't explored green or blue yet.
Admittedly, these cards are pretty swingy with the right decks. But they're really fun with the casual builds my kids and I use. I think the really interesting aspect is the "shared" upkeep which really starts to blossom during multiplayer.
I forget what, exactly, inspired Osseous Matter but the card rarely sticks around for very long. The crutch is the cumulative payments take away mana from paying for the regenerate on larger creatures or casting down larger beat sticks anyways. So it hangs around for a few turns then gets wiped off the board. They haven't figuredo out to wait until later in the game to cast their big monster, then, with the built up mana base, pay for the upkeep on this card. So I don't find the 1BBB too problematic so far.
The interesting aspect is that I'll get very obvious gang-ups in multiplayer as the siblings gang up on me to keep this card in play as long as possible when it is cast. This card breaks with X cost cards like Hangarback Walker because the regenerate ability is so cheap so these have been temporarily removed from our decks. It works really well with the 0 cost creatures though, makes them more formidable as a defensive strategy.
Seismic Waste is very obviously inspired by Seismic Assault. I find this one rarely sticks around for very long as no one wants to sacrifice one land just to do 1 point of damage unless it's at the very end of the game. The "once per turn" limiter was added during play testing when my son took a netdeck I found called "51 lands" which consists of 4x Seismic Assault and 4x Treasure Hunt and basically crushed everyone if Seismic Assault didn't come up right away. I think I may change it again to simply read "You can only do this once per turn." If you have one land in hand, you have to make a choice, right? Again, I don't find the 1RRR cost to be too swingy since the card works best towards the end when you're mana flush.
Committed Rapture is outright brutal, broken, whatever. Haste was added when it was realized the controller was unable to ever attack with the fresh spawn, always running on the defensive. The card becomes nasty when cards like Ashnod's Altar enters the mix. We got crazy fast battles involving things like Fireball, Nantuko Husk or Hangarback Walker. The siblngs will do almost anything to keep this nasty card around.
If you are fine with removing this aspect I think I can clean up your wording and maybe even make it function within current rules.
Outlay[what ever your payment is] (At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent, then [what ever your payment is] any player may pay this, if no player does sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent.)
This should work as you intend. I'm not sure if you know this but with both your design and mine you can easily lock players out of beneficial buffs like on your Committed Rapture.
Now for how this breaks down on a technical level.
->This ability triggers like normal upkeep triggers, however when it goes to resolve is when things get tricky.
-->You put an age counter on it, then its controller has the option of paying what ever cost you've decided on, this is the interesting because you can put all kinds of weird cost here.
--->If its controller declines to pay then the next player in turn order has the option of paying the cost.
Here's where it gets real tricky I don't think players can activate mana abilities at this point because all mana should have been produced by now. I'm not 100% on this, just using knowledge of how spells are cast to figure this out, you have to produce all of your mana before cost are payed. If this is the case then mana cost look a lot less appealing on these cards.
---->Sense we are assuming multiplayer if the second player chooses to not pay it is then offered to the third player and so on until it is either payed or not.
----->Then we repeat this process over and over for each age counter on the permanent
This is problematic as later players can end of messing with other players by no paying towards the end after others have committed resources.
If want only mana payments then you can go the Join Forces route. Collective Voyage
Outlay —At the beginning of your upkeep, put an age counter on this permanent. Then starting with you, each player may pay any amount of mana. Then if the total amount of mana payed is less then the number of age counters (or the number of age counters times some amount), sacrifice this permanent.
This still causes the first player to possible be out of their mana without any effect.
I don't know that you want to add the ability to "cast spells" to pay for the cost. Currently, only mana abilities can be activated in the middle of paying a cost. Adding the ability to cast a spell introduces complexity and doesn't match up with how other abilites are paid. If you want to cast Dark Ritual you can still do it before paying the cost, but I wouldn't add the ability to allow it while paying the cost.
It seems that you are just trying to get a Cumulative Upkeep that anyone can keep around. However, that makes it difficult to do since you are trying to get a "sum" total. Maybe something like this:
The main problem with this mechanic is what to do with the mana spent if the total cost isn't met? The mana has been paid so if the total cost is not met, I think you just have to treat that mana as gone. No one can get it back as it just introduces too many scenarios where a player casts Dark Ritual and another cracks Lion's Eye Diamond to get mana but that 6 mana isn't enough. You can't rewind here since too much has happened so people would have to pay into the cost without knowing whether the permanent is going to stick around.
Regarding the cards themselves:
You don't need the last line and you don't need (or want) to refer to "creature cards". Just refer to "creatures". Granting abilities does not take away other abilities unless the card says it does. Regarding the cost of the ability, it reads clunky. The main problem is that when determining the value of X, the person activating the ability just chooses a value in this case. Compare it to something like Gorilla Shaman. Note that the ability targets which gives a value for X. This might work: "All creatures gain 'X1: Regenerate this creature if X is equal to this creatures converted mana cost rounded down'".
In honesty, I think it would read better (and play better) if it was a set cost. This would also fix the issue you are having with X spells like Hanarback. Maybe this is alright:
All creature gain "3: Regenerate this Creature."
You can play around with the cost, but it also allows more mana to be spent to keep the enchantment around while still allowing the ability to be used.
This one just seems odd all around. For example, it seems like you could activate this ability as much as you want during someone else's turn. It might count towards your one land for that turn, but you don't get a land on someone else's turn so that part is just ignored if not activating the ability during your turn.
Why not something like this:
Seismic Waste - 1RRR
World Enchantment
Cumulative Outlay 1
As a player plays a basic land card, he or she can put that land card into his or her graveyard instead of onto the battlefield. If that player does, he or she may deal 1 damage to target creature or player.
This changes it to a replacement effect to allow them to use this for however many land drops they have and still count for their land drop as you want it to.
There isn't really an "end" to the upkeep (or any step for that matter) that would allow an ability to trigger. You are best off just using the beginning of the draw step. Yeah, the controller gets their card before the ability resolves, but the functionality is pretty close to the same. It also means you don't need the extra line of text to make sure the Outlay cost has been paid:
"At the beginning of your draw step, each player may create X 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste where X is the number of age counters of ~."
Or, to get around the need for haste, you can just do this:
"When ~ enters the battlefield, create a 1/1 white Solder token.
At the beginning of each player's upkeep, he or she creates X 1/1 white Soldier tokens where X is the number of age counters on ~."
Note that I changed "put onto the battlefield" to "create" to match up with the new wording for tokens coming with the release of Kaladesh. Also, the second version does two things: it doesn't give people the tokens until their turn which means they don't need haste. It also gives the caster something for their trouble in case it doesn't stick around for some reason. They are guaranteed 2 tokens this way rather than paying 4 mana and getting nothing.
To be clear, you do realize that you can only ever have one of these 3 enchantments on the battlefield at the same time right? World Enchantments aren't seen very often, so I just wanted to make sure you are aware of the rules regarding World Enchantments.
I would tighten up the wording a little though:
I moved putting the age counter on to the end so the "repeat" works. With the wording above, it would actually make you pay 1 more than the age counters since you would pay 1 (or whatever the cost is) and then pay 1 again for each age counter, including the new one that was added. If you want the cost to always be 1, just put that in the reminder text.
You missed the part on Committed Rapture where they only get the tokens if they helped pay the upkeep. Which is an interesting way of going about this event. In the normal payment form the 'front' players can keep the 'back' players from gaining any benefit. While with the Join Forces method everyone always gets a chance to join in the fun.
I think the most interesting thing about this design is the possibilities of non-mana payments. Imagine cost like "put a +1/+1 counter on a creature you don't control" or "an opponent gains 2 life" or to get dangerous and easily breakable "an opponent draws a card" these obviously only work on the normal non Join Forces method.
Maybe this:
"At the beginning of your draw step, each player who spent mana on the Outlay cost of ~ this turn may create a 1/1 white soldier tokens with haste for each age counter on ~."
It still needs to be done during the draw step for reasons mentioned above, but it does make sure that only players who contribute get the tokens. I am not totally sure it actually works within the rules since it is trying to track mana payments across steps rather than being part of the ability.
Forgive me if I trip up on something.
Errmm.. Your design? Like what you suggested just now or somewhere else on the forum?
In any case. The intent was to discourage shenanigans with abilities and other cards that don't deal directly with paying the upkeep. Basically, to bring the focus to payment. I don't recall if there ever was or is any shenanigans that can be done during or around upkeep (besides the Chronotog combo) since I've been out of magic for a little while. I tried searching Gatherer for anti-upkeep shenanigans to find something interesting but didn't have much luck with my search-fu.
Bullet point #3 is the sticky widget I think which I hoped my addendum would solve.
The way we've been playing it is as follows.
One way, the controller ops to pay the entire amount (usually happens with Committed Rapture) until they can't pay any more.
The second way is that the controller ops to pay just half (or whatever amount they choose to pay) by verbal agreement with other players.
The third way they've been exploring is that someone else pays most of, or the entire, cost from the get go. Generally the person that manages to get TRON into play will choose this option.
Yeah, locking happens quite often. Especially when players gang up on one or more other players. The flip side of that though was that one player would end up paying ALL of the mana cost only for the others to benefit. That's why that final phrase was added to Committed Rapture.
Yeah.. lost mana happens. There's a lot of coercion, pleading and arguing that goes on as they try to avoid it.
I think I grasp what you're proposing. The only caveat is that everyone has to crack their mana beforehand. The controller can easily screw people over in that sense by opting to pay all of the costs from the get go. We don't use LED but yeah, this would be a problem similar to match reality show proportions. In the end I suppose it doesn't really matter whether they crack the mana before or during upkeep.
I kind of wish Mana Burn was still a thing, so cracking the mana and not spending it becomes more relevant. Oh well.
Yes. If the "team" breaks up, the mana is absolutely lost. It's a form of mana screwing they've been exploring as well. Collective Voyage is quite interesting but I'm unclear as to how it applies here.
Yes. It's upkeep where anyone can pay all or part of it as long as all of it is paid. The card that triggered the whole idea has a game warping ability and a kill switch proved desirable.
Yeah, Dark Ritual and its cousins were definitely a factor.
This "feature" was expected and one my kids have run into. As I type this, it dawned on me that it almost seems like a mechanic that should appear in Conspiracy. But eh... I only just read about Conspiracy so it's a bit new to me.
One of the two things that cropped up was allowing Tokens to receive the regenerate ability. A bloated Hangarback Walker could be allowed to burst making for a very difficult to destroy wall for the opponent. When we changed it to force the ability onto cards only, then the creatures became more manageable allowing for creature cards to stick around longer but not their token bethren.
The fixed cost became a growing issue with the much larger beat sticks. Sneaking a nine CMC then watching it stick around for a very long time became somewhat annoying.
WotC's position on regenerate seems kind of sketchy. Some creatures cost the same as their CMC like Black Poplar Shaman, others are crazy cheap, like Ancient Silverbackand others have weirdly expensive costs like Deathbellow Raider. Of course this is completely ignoring alternate costs like paying life or discarding cards. So I couldn't find a very good metric to use. We tried a handful of costs until we focused in on the CMC/2+1 formula. It seems to work OK so far. Admittedly, I notice the kids sometimes forget what the regenerate costs because they can't hold that information in their heads. I crush numbers all day (not by choice ) so it's not really a problem for me. But the game really isn't for people like me, but for the kids. So while I personally like the CMC/2+1, I'm still trying to find a sweet spot for the regenerate cost.
Good point. Nobody was taking advantage of this on another persons turn so it didn't come up.
Oh duh! Of course it should be a replacement effect. I didn't think of that.
That's a good point about adding ETB and the creatures on each turn.
One of the things I was trying to do is to encourage people to pay into the cost of the upkeep. with 1 age counter, only the controller can pay into it thereby being the only one to get a 1/1 token. With two, only two people can pay into it (at most) generating 2x 1/1 for each and so on. If everyone benefits without paying into the pool, there really isn't any incentive to pay into it and puts the controller at a severe disadvantage from the mana payments.
At one point, we even toyed with the idea of putting X 1/1 tokens into play where X was equal to the amount each players paid. For example if the age counter was equal to 5 and P1 paid 3 and P2 paid 2, then P1 receives 3 tokens and P2 received 2. This proved too hard to track each time through.
Yes, that was the intent.
That happens and is expected.
I had to read this twice before it made sense to me. I can see how this works, but its not clear to me who goes first. The rules would dictate controller goes first, right?
The original idea was a sort of Muy Macho sort of game play.
But that idea really messed with the game too much and drew this kind of response
I guess my thought with a fixed cost is that it fixes a few problems while still keeping larger things in check. For example, under your original design, a 9 CMC creature would require 5 mana to keep around. 3 is certainly a big enough difference, but maybe you can set it to 4. You could also add a way to limit the number of times a creature is regenerated. Maybe by adding a -1/-1 counter every time.
To your token dilemma; I can see that being a problem. This just means you should be using the phrase "nontoken creatures" rather than creature cards. Magic templating only uses "Cards" for things not on the battlefield.
So, maybe this would be workable:
I did change the wording slightly to fit more with Goblin War Drums and Deadeye Navigator but the result is the same. The major issue (if you feel it is an issue) is that anything that regenerates would get this counter. Not just ones that are regenerated due to the ability granted by the enchantment.
I realized I missed this in the first read, so my another of my posts above (might have) addressed this.
Fair enough. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t using it for flavor reasons without understanding the rules behind it. Seems like you are on top of things
I suppose I should have added an extra phrase saying “…starting with you…” so it reads as:
Outlay[cost] (At the beginning of your upkeep, starting with you, any player may pay (cost). If no one does, sacrifice this permanent. Repeat this process for each age counter on this permanent. Put an age counter on this permanent.)
What is the correct process to update cards? Edit the original post, add a new post or...?
I'm not sure anyone ever updates their custom cards....
As a casual (and rather impressed) peruser of this thread, and from a player perspective, it would be slightly (but relevantly) clearer if the reminder text were to include the word "then". I've added it - that is, the word "then" - to the quote to show what I mean.