I think there should be at least a loose sense of heroism and villainy expressed through keyed mechanics. Maybe these'll help.
An ability that represents creatures engaging in combat via their super powers rather than just dealing damage.
Repulsor Man (Uncommon) 2W
Creature - Human
2/3
Flying Activate Power - Whenever Repulsor Man attacks, you may tap target permanent. If you do, Repulsor Man's power becomes 1 until end of turn.
Copycat Girl (Rare) 2U
Creature - Cat Shapeshifter
2/2 Activate Power - Whenever Copycat Girl attacks, you may have her become a copy of target creature. If you do, Copycat Girl's power becomes 1 until end of turn.
Also, a mirrorish effect for badguyish cards.
Veteran Thug (Common) 1BB
Creature - Human Warrior
2/1 Evil Intentions - When Veteran Thug enters the battlefield, destroy target creature if an opponent (player?) was dealt damage this turn.
Bludgeon (Common) R
Instant
Bludgeon deals 2 damage to target creature. Evil Intentions - If an opponent (player?) was dealt damage this turn, Bludgeon deals 4 damage that creature instead.
Hydroponic Brain Serum (Uncommon) 2GU
Enchantment - Aura Evil Intentions - If an opponent (player?) was dealt damage this turn, Hydroponic Brain Serum costs 2 less to cast.
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and has hexproof.
This set will definitely have some obvious good and bad guys, though like all of magic (and many comics too) its nice when the lines are blurred. While I don't think we should have a specific hero and villain mechanic, we definitely weight some one way or another. For instance, Traps are pretty much tied directly to villains, and we could make another mechanic a hero-only mechanic if we wanted.
I can see where you're going with "activate power", but the set already has a "big creature" theme, so this specific mechanic probably won't work too well. I think a similar flavor can be captured just from good old tap abilities: these heroes (or more likely sidekicks) provide support but don't actually get into any fighting.
As for Evil Intentions, it seems pretty close to Traps (though admittedly Traps being limited to instants is a big constraint on the mechanic). Having the villains be Johnny style build-around cards is something we keyed in on early and definitely want to support, which is why I think Traps serve a little better in this position by allowing us to have a variety of different triggers.
I've been buried under a heap of finals, but in about a week I'll be looking to kick this project back into gear.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
But when you're back, why do we have a "big creature" theme? Is that the only way to express powerfulness? I think Activate Ability is a far better way than Monstrous to express a variety of unique powers. There's only eight creatures with "when [this] attacks, you may pay [cost], if you do [effect]. (They're all red, white, or blue btw.) I think we could/should capitalize on this design space. So it would look like:
Repulsor Man (Uncommon) 2W
Creature - Human
2/3
Flying Activate Power - Whenever Repulsor Man attacks, you may pay W. If you do tap target permanent and Repulsor Man's power becomes 1 until end of turn.
My issue is that Activate power is a very generic ability, and the part with the most flavor (the power 1 part) is also the most awkward.
This is a top-down set, and all of our mechanics exist to fill specific niches. Suit Up fills the gadget-user trope, Monstrous fills the mutant trope, Traps fill the scheming villain trope, Revive (now undying) fills the "never gone for good" trope. Our old power 4 theme (which may or may not be changed to "Super") was meant to create a divide between "normals" and "supers", which built nicely into our other mechanics that could also allow small creatures to become large.
This set (having gotten all the way to a common draft stage) has a pretty solid foundation to build on. Personally, I don't see how Activate Power really fits. It doesn't capture any type of super hero trope that we haven't already hit in a different way, and it's attack trigger clashes with Suit Up which is an attack trigger as well. If we did try to restructure the set around Activate Power, what would be the gain? Just because "attack, pay, effect" is a novel ability doesn't mean its going to play or resonate better than the current set up. I'm curious as to what draws you to this ability so much. Paying to trade some damage for an effect seems ok for a few cards at most, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'd want to build a set around.
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
This set (having gotten all the way to a common draft stage) has a pretty solid foundation to build on.
I was afk for quite a few months, so I missed alot. If you're already at this point and satisfied, then I guess there's no point in suggesting mechanics.
This set (having gotten all the way to a common draft stage) has a pretty solid foundation to build on.
I was afk for quite a few months, so I missed alot. If you're already at this point and satisfied, then I guess there's no point in suggesting mechanics.
I think there's still point in suggesting new mechanics, as we're always open to new ideas, but they do need to at least support what we're already working with. I plan on completely reworking the card file, but not the entire design thus far.
If you check the Card File link in the OP you can see what our first draft looked like.
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"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
I glanced at it earlier. One thing I noticed is that the Traps aren't Traps because they don't rely on your opponents actions. They're really more like Tricks. Imo, Trap should be dropped and they should be given an ability word - Scheme or something. Or perhaps they could get the subtype Trick? If we were to go with an ability word it could open up the Johnny effects to creatures as well. So essentially Evil Intentions above could be opened up to triggers other than just combat damage.
Knockout Punch (Common) 2R
Instant - Trick
Knockout Punch deals 2 damage to target creature.
If a player was dealt damage this turn, Knockout Punch deals 4 damage that creature instead.
or
Captain Mender (Uncommon) 5W
Creature - Human
4/4 Trick - When Captain Mender enters the battlefield, if a creature you controlled died in combat this turn, return that creature card to the battlefield tapped.
I generally agree with you there Legend: while traps have amazing flavor in this setting and provided a great jumping-off point, our design shifted away from them. While I don't think traps necessarily need to be entirely enemy controlled, there are more than enough reasons to change to something else.
I would be more in favor of an ability word over a sub type (so that we could make creatures, as you described), however I'm not sure exactly what we could use to tie the cards together. Having different triggers is important, but "trigger, effect" is not nearly enough of a basis for it's own ability word (especially considering most ability words are some version of that already).
I think Scheme would be the perfect word, the only caveat being "schemes" are already a thing in magic (which doesn't have to be a problem).
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"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Alright, time to get things back in gear. Luckily, over the long hiatus I was able to do a couple of playtests. Here are my observations:
Revive
As I mentioned earlier, Revive is a fine mechanic but it didn't really fit the set. Since it had no real interaction with any of the other mechanics, swapping it out for Undying (which fits the themes of the set and is generally just less awkward) still seems like a good idea to me. Plus I feel like it has even stronger flavor.
Equipment
The theme here was dead on: equipment is cool and a flavor addition to a super hero world. However, like most equipment archetypes, the issues with this deck come from the same problems with most equipment themes: it's real awkward when you draw one half of your deck (the creatures or the equipment) but not the other. This is especially the case when Suit Up doesn't really help you build up or recover in the late game. Also important was the fact that every "equipment matters" card had a different type of bonus, which got confusing after a while (some got bigger, some got a keyword, some got both, etc.) I think the first step here is normalizing all or at least most of these abilities. We should also think about potentially tweaking Suit Up to give a size boost instead of a tempo boost. While saving mana is cool, this is a set that's leaning towards the late game and big creatures, and having a major part of the set offer no real late game support doesn't necessarily help.
Mutants
Monstrosity as a mechanic was serviceable, but not exciting. Part of this was that blending its flavor with monsters, while fun in theory, muddled the mixture when it came to mutant identity. The main comments here were that "mutants" were expected to be far more of a tribe. While this is something we should think about at uncommon more than common, it's worth thinking about potential tweaks to monstrosity to meet these goals a little better. At very least, I feel like monsters should be a much smaller part of the set. While they're awesome, they steal the spotlight from the heroes/villains which is what people really want to see. Plus, having fewer creatures at the top end makes building a big creature that much more exciting and rewarding.
Power 4
Power 4 was alright, but as I mentioned in my previous post it didn't really wow anyone. Everyone liked the idea of there being a distinction; a point of reference where a creature crossed over from normal to "super", but power 4 felt a little too easy to achieve at some points. There also just wasn't nearly enough support at common. While it's true we were thinking of having this be a sub-theme, it's presence at common was confusing to most people. I think we should play this up a bit more while also exploring the P+T>8 idea I talked about before (which would allow it to fit far more naturally into colors like white which is where we oddly decided to put a lot of p4 matters stuff anyway).
Traps
Traps were a bit hit or miss. On the one hand, the allowed for great moments of evil laughter and generally functioned pretty well. In some cases, not being true traps that triggered on your opponent's actions was actually a boon, since players felt rewarded for setting up their "evil plan". On the other hand, they were not beloved. The general feeling was that you could take em or leave em. Most importantly, that feeling led to a lack of identity for villains in the set. While most of the "hero" mechanics worked for villains as well (and people got it), traps didn't feel like the marquee villain cards I think we were hoping to have them be. Of all the mechanics in the set, this is the area I think we have the most room to play in, and could probably benefit from cutting traps for something else entirely.
I'm interested in hearing what the rest of you have to say now that we've all had some time away from the card file. Looking back on it, is there anything you think you'd like to change? I expect our first draft to look almost nothing like our final, so feel free to just use it as a jumping off point.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Is combined power and toughness a bit confusing? I think that it would play nicer in general, but it feels like a lot of unnecessary book-keeping, especially with uneven-stat creatures.
Would definitely need some testing. I think one of the ways to make this easy to track is to make all pumping effects even boosts between power and toughness (+1/+1 counters, +N/+N spells, etc.)
I'd like to see some incarnation of Traps in the final set. If they play well, that's a promising sign. It's not a vital mechanic, but it's really solid that it's worth keeping in some shape or form.
Like Legend and I talked about above, the general feeling of traps is one that fits the set well. However, we're currently looking at one or two other returning mechanics already (Undying and Monstrous), so I feel like this is an area that could use some new blood.
One place I'm looking for inspiration is Hideaway: the "shared secret bonus with variable trigger" does a lot of the things we're looking for. Hideaway itself is a pretty awkward mechanic, but I'm definitely interested in a tweak of some sort.
Suit up was my least favourite mechanic. Absolutely serviceable, and really solid, but for the problems you mentioned, it felt a bit odd. New Phyrexia did really well with living weapon to get away from the problem of not wanting to play too many equipment. Something to think about there.
Without the literal living weapon mechanic (which I don't think really fits here), a small amount of awkwardness will always be present in this type of deck. However, there are certainly ways to work around this, we just need to be way more conscious of it. Right now our equipment and suit up creatures rely a little too heavily on each other.
I still believe an equipment based mechanic is the way to go, but Suit Up as-is will not suffice.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
I've been playing around with three color designs and for RWU one keyword I'm playing around with is Valor (a take on heroic) and maybe one of versions of it could work here*;
Valor 1.1 (At the beginning of your upkeep if this creature as a permanent you control attached to it ~effect~)
Valor 1.2 (At the beginning of your upkeep if this creature as a permanent you control attached to it put a +1/+1 counter on it.)
Valor 1.3 (At the beginning of your upkeep put a +1/+1 counter on this creature for each permanent you control attached it.)
Valor N 1.4 (This creature gets +N/+N as long as a permanent you control is attached to it.)
Valor 1.5 (This creature get +1/+1 for each permanent you control attached to it).
I think Valor 1.2 might fix the issues with Suit Up since it can matter late game, boosts power and helps build creatures up and if the mutants interact with +1/+1 counters it can synergize with them as well. Also I have a mostly aura theme in the three color set with some equpment, so I used permanent to let the creature play with auras or equpments but we could just change Valor so it just works with equipment.
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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"
I think using +1/+1 counters is a natural solution, but I'm not sure if it's what we're looking for. +1/+1 counters are used pretty heavily in many sets nowadays, with two mechanics already using them, is a third really what we want? It would add synergy, but could also possibly make things feel too samey. Is having +1/+1 counters as a set-wide theme a good idea? Shadowmoor did it with -1/-1 counters, but those are used far less frequently and so feel a bit more unique. Does tying equipment to +1/+1 counters allow them to be more relevant, or rob them of their identity as non-growth ways of building a big guy? Honestly I'm not sure about the answers to any of these questions.
I will say that the flavor seems a bit off; stripping these guys of their equipment really should be their weak point, so perhaps Valor 4 or 5 might make better choices? Perhaps the equipment deck should build to the late game by having lots of equipment? Those are the things that are more resilient to removal and will probably stick around longer, so maybe we should push that aspect more than the creature one? Not sure.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
One thing that might help is figuring out if we are keeping the same color pair themes. Last we had was;
Revive mainly WB with support from G
Traps mainly UB
Suit Up mainly RW
Monstrosity mainly RG for monsters and GU for mutants
and Power 4 still up in the air.
Do we wana switch things around or try to keep them in these colors?
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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"
Here's how I see the mechanics currently being laid out:
Undying: BGw
Traps: WUb (Remember that we found traps worked much better in white since it naturally wants to have conditional spells)
Suit Up: RWu
Mutants: GUr
This obviously doesn't have to be this sectioned off (I expect most of these mechanics to show up in all colors on some levels), but to "balance" it we'd be looking for a primarily RB mechanic with G as tertiary. Power 4 (or Super) could fit here)
There's also the fact that we may want to move things around based on our limited archetypes. For instance, I feel like this is a set where we want to push some number of "gimmick" decks to emphasize the plotting villain feel. A preliminary sketch might look like this:
WU - ???
UB - Mill (as an actual deck)
BR - Steal & Sac (Act of Treason + sac outlets)
RG - ???
GW - ???
WB - Tokens
UR - Storm (some kind of spells matter deck)
BG - Undying (sac outlets + ways to remove counters?)
RW - Suit Up
GU - Mutants (possibly tribal)
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"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
For super I like the P+T>8, though we could always go with a form of Ferocious that care about creatures with a power of 4 or a toughness of 4.
Maybe we should have a differnt control mechanic for WUb and have traps play out like curses where in Innistrad? Not meant to draft but able to build a casual limited deck?
Well if we wanna give any of the forms of valor a go I think Valor 4 could work well since it helps boost up to "super" and imo deals with the issue of putting all your equipment on one guy then having them die. You could in theroy have a few creatures out getting boosted with an equptment each. However I think we should figure out how we want the equpments to build up first. Maybe even broaden the ablility so that it includes all artifacts but design cards that care more about being in equpemnt decks (think Puresteel Paladin)?
Do we want to give Mutants their own mechanic or just give them strong tribal themes? If you look at the tribes in Innistrad, they had their own themes (self mill with zombies, slith with vampires ect) without having a mechanic. If we do this it frees up some mechincal space and lets us put in another retuning mechanic if we so choose.
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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"
An idea we could entertain might be completely changing what traps do mechanically. For instance, think of how spellbombs did twodifferent things, but felt similar. Since traps have no actual rules text associated with them, we could create a brand new mechanical definition for traps if we want.
I think the equipment should be the main thrust of the theme, with artifact-matter cards being the support. The flavor of this "faction" is so closely tied to equipment.
I always saw mutants as Allies or Warriors in KTK: they're the lone tribal component of a bigger block. However, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. I think the main thing though is that whatever the mutant mechanic is, it should be the mutant mechanic, and not split with monsters. While tying the mutants mechanically and flavorfully to monsters was a cool idea, it blurred the lines a little too much.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
A potential mutant mechanic:
"Mutation"- (If/As long as) there are five or more creature types among creatures you control, (effect)
e.g.
Growth Bearer ( )
Creature- Elf Shaman (U) Mutation- Add to your mana pool. Activate this ability only if there are five or more creature types among creatures you control.
1/2
Then you can have a bunch of mutants with multiple other creature types and type gaining/switching effects and such to build up the theme.
I've always liked the "biodiversity" idea, I think it would make an awesome Simic mechanic, but I'm not sure if it fits this set. Of all the "factions", mutants are the ones who are supposed to be the most united and work best together. This mechanic (while it does stack nicely) doesn't really push you to make a "mutant" deck, since any two-type creature supports it just as easily.
It's also worth noting that "big creatures" is still a theme, and the mutants were the ones that could get the biggest. However, there are plenty of ways to implement this idea that incorporates growth as well. For instance, this could simply give +1/+1 for each creature with a different type, or maybe an Evolve riff where you get a counter for new creature types showing up. There's plenty of design space, I'm just not sure it's the direction we want to take (especially since +1/+1 counters is sort of a Mutant hallmark).
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"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
For mutants what I ment was maybe we don't need to give them a keyword ablility/action just a general theme. I do like the differnt creature types idea, I do agree that the mutant tribal should be more forced on +1/+1 counters, though we could have a few cards that care about that. A rift on evole, if not bringing it back, seems like a good idea.
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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"
I understand, but I think that mutants are a strong enough force that they deserve their own keyword. I mean, you don't have to draw a line: Dromoka has Bolster as a keyword but plenty of +1/+1 counter matters stuff that doesn't use it. However, I think mutants should be one of the major themes of the set.
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Scheming Crime Minion (Common) 2B
Creature - Human Minion
3/1
Intimidation
Scheme 3B(3B, T: When target instant or sorcery spell you control resolves, exile it encoded on this creature. Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may cast a copy one of its encoded cards without paying its mana cost.)
Scheming Crime Boss (Rare) 2U
Creature - Elder Human
1/4
Hexproof
Scheme 1U(1U, T: When target instant or sorcery spell you control resolves, exile it encoded on this creature. Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may cast a copy one of its encoded cards without paying its mana cost.)
Scheme seems very fiddly. It's a very slow mechanic, taking at least three turns to do anything, and even then its power is only going to be as good as whatever spell you have (largely limited by the activation cost).
I kinda liked your other idea better Legend. What if we combined your last mechanic (having multiple thematic trigger conditions) with a sort of sneaky hideaway ability and a bit of this one?
Disposable Minion1B
Creature - Human Minion (C)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
When ~ dies, put the exiled card into your hand.
1/1
Magic Thief2U
Creature - Human Rogue (U)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
When ~ deals combat damage to a player, if the exiled card is an instant or sorcery, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.
2/2
Big Schemer2UU
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
You may cast the exiled card. 2UU: Exile ~. Return it to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step.
2/4
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"In the beginning, MTG Salvation switched to a new forum format.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
It was at that moment that I realized: I'm kinda just making these things up. We can just write the rules the way we want them to work. People will have fun, and people will get it.
Scheme seems very fiddly. It's a very slow mechanic, taking at least three turns to do anything, and even then its power is only going to be as good as whatever spell you have (largely limited by the activation cost).
I kinda liked your other idea better Legend. What if we combined your last mechanic (having multiple thematic trigger conditions) with a sort of sneaky hideaway ability and a bit of this one?
Disposable Minion1B
Creature - Human Minion (C)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
When ~ dies, put the exiled card into your hand.
1/1
Magic Thief2U
Creature - Human Rogue (U)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
When ~ deals combat damage to a player, if the exiled card is an instant or sorcery, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.
2/2
Big Schemer2UU
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
You may cast the exiled card. 2UU: Exile ~. Return it to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step.
2/4
“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"
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An ability that represents creatures engaging in combat via their super powers rather than just dealing damage.
Repulsor Man (Uncommon)
2W
Creature - Human
2/3
Flying
Activate Power - Whenever Repulsor Man attacks, you may tap target permanent. If you do, Repulsor Man's power becomes 1 until end of turn.
Copycat Girl (Rare)
2U
Creature - Cat Shapeshifter
2/2
Activate Power - Whenever Copycat Girl attacks, you may have her become a copy of target creature. If you do, Copycat Girl's power becomes 1 until end of turn.
Also, a mirrorish effect for badguyish cards.
Veteran Thug (Common)
1BB
Creature - Human Warrior
2/1
Evil Intentions - When Veteran Thug enters the battlefield, destroy target creature if an opponent (player?) was dealt damage this turn.
Bludgeon (Common)
R
Instant
Bludgeon deals 2 damage to target creature.
Evil Intentions - If an opponent (player?) was dealt damage this turn, Bludgeon deals 4 damage that creature instead.
Hydroponic Brain Serum (Uncommon)
2GU
Enchantment - Aura
Evil Intentions - If an opponent (player?) was dealt damage this turn, Hydroponic Brain Serum costs 2 less to cast.
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +2/+2 and has hexproof.
I can see where you're going with "activate power", but the set already has a "big creature" theme, so this specific mechanic probably won't work too well. I think a similar flavor can be captured just from good old tap abilities: these heroes (or more likely sidekicks) provide support but don't actually get into any fighting.
As for Evil Intentions, it seems pretty close to Traps (though admittedly Traps being limited to instants is a big constraint on the mechanic). Having the villains be Johnny style build-around cards is something we keyed in on early and definitely want to support, which is why I think Traps serve a little better in this position by allowing us to have a variety of different triggers.
I've been buried under a heap of finals, but in about a week I'll be looking to kick this project back into gear.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
But when you're back, why do we have a "big creature" theme? Is that the only way to express powerfulness? I think Activate Ability is a far better way than Monstrous to express a variety of unique powers. There's only eight creatures with "when [this] attacks, you may pay [cost], if you do [effect]. (They're all red, white, or blue btw.) I think we could/should capitalize on this design space. So it would look like:
Repulsor Man (Uncommon)
2W
Creature - Human
2/3
Flying
Activate Power - Whenever Repulsor Man attacks, you may pay W. If you do tap target permanent and Repulsor Man's power becomes 1 until end of turn.
This is a top-down set, and all of our mechanics exist to fill specific niches. Suit Up fills the gadget-user trope, Monstrous fills the mutant trope, Traps fill the scheming villain trope, Revive (now undying) fills the "never gone for good" trope. Our old power 4 theme (which may or may not be changed to "Super") was meant to create a divide between "normals" and "supers", which built nicely into our other mechanics that could also allow small creatures to become large.
This set (having gotten all the way to a common draft stage) has a pretty solid foundation to build on. Personally, I don't see how Activate Power really fits. It doesn't capture any type of super hero trope that we haven't already hit in a different way, and it's attack trigger clashes with Suit Up which is an attack trigger as well. If we did try to restructure the set around Activate Power, what would be the gain? Just because "attack, pay, effect" is a novel ability doesn't mean its going to play or resonate better than the current set up. I'm curious as to what draws you to this ability so much. Paying to trade some damage for an effect seems ok for a few cards at most, but it doesn't seem like the kind of thing I'd want to build a set around.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
I was afk for quite a few months, so I missed alot. If you're already at this point and satisfied, then I guess there's no point in suggesting mechanics.
If you check the Card File link in the OP you can see what our first draft looked like.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
Knockout Punch (Common)
2R
Instant - Trick
Knockout Punch deals 2 damage to target creature.
If a player was dealt damage this turn, Knockout Punch deals 4 damage that creature instead.
or
Captain Mender (Uncommon)
5W
Creature - Human
4/4
Trick - When Captain Mender enters the battlefield, if a creature you controlled died in combat this turn, return that creature card to the battlefield tapped.
I would be more in favor of an ability word over a sub type (so that we could make creatures, as you described), however I'm not sure exactly what we could use to tie the cards together. Having different triggers is important, but "trigger, effect" is not nearly enough of a basis for it's own ability word (especially considering most ability words are some version of that already).
I think Scheme would be the perfect word, the only caveat being "schemes" are already a thing in magic (which doesn't have to be a problem).
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
Revive
As I mentioned earlier, Revive is a fine mechanic but it didn't really fit the set. Since it had no real interaction with any of the other mechanics, swapping it out for Undying (which fits the themes of the set and is generally just less awkward) still seems like a good idea to me. Plus I feel like it has even stronger flavor.
Equipment
The theme here was dead on: equipment is cool and a flavor addition to a super hero world. However, like most equipment archetypes, the issues with this deck come from the same problems with most equipment themes: it's real awkward when you draw one half of your deck (the creatures or the equipment) but not the other. This is especially the case when Suit Up doesn't really help you build up or recover in the late game. Also important was the fact that every "equipment matters" card had a different type of bonus, which got confusing after a while (some got bigger, some got a keyword, some got both, etc.) I think the first step here is normalizing all or at least most of these abilities. We should also think about potentially tweaking Suit Up to give a size boost instead of a tempo boost. While saving mana is cool, this is a set that's leaning towards the late game and big creatures, and having a major part of the set offer no real late game support doesn't necessarily help.
Mutants
Monstrosity as a mechanic was serviceable, but not exciting. Part of this was that blending its flavor with monsters, while fun in theory, muddled the mixture when it came to mutant identity. The main comments here were that "mutants" were expected to be far more of a tribe. While this is something we should think about at uncommon more than common, it's worth thinking about potential tweaks to monstrosity to meet these goals a little better. At very least, I feel like monsters should be a much smaller part of the set. While they're awesome, they steal the spotlight from the heroes/villains which is what people really want to see. Plus, having fewer creatures at the top end makes building a big creature that much more exciting and rewarding.
Power 4
Power 4 was alright, but as I mentioned in my previous post it didn't really wow anyone. Everyone liked the idea of there being a distinction; a point of reference where a creature crossed over from normal to "super", but power 4 felt a little too easy to achieve at some points. There also just wasn't nearly enough support at common. While it's true we were thinking of having this be a sub-theme, it's presence at common was confusing to most people. I think we should play this up a bit more while also exploring the P+T>8 idea I talked about before (which would allow it to fit far more naturally into colors like white which is where we oddly decided to put a lot of p4 matters stuff anyway).
Traps
Traps were a bit hit or miss. On the one hand, the allowed for great moments of evil laughter and generally functioned pretty well. In some cases, not being true traps that triggered on your opponent's actions was actually a boon, since players felt rewarded for setting up their "evil plan". On the other hand, they were not beloved. The general feeling was that you could take em or leave em. Most importantly, that feeling led to a lack of identity for villains in the set. While most of the "hero" mechanics worked for villains as well (and people got it), traps didn't feel like the marquee villain cards I think we were hoping to have them be. Of all the mechanics in the set, this is the area I think we have the most room to play in, and could probably benefit from cutting traps for something else entirely.
I'm interested in hearing what the rest of you have to say now that we've all had some time away from the card file. Looking back on it, is there anything you think you'd like to change? I expect our first draft to look almost nothing like our final, so feel free to just use it as a jumping off point.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
Like Legend and I talked about above, the general feeling of traps is one that fits the set well. However, we're currently looking at one or two other returning mechanics already (Undying and Monstrous), so I feel like this is an area that could use some new blood.
One place I'm looking for inspiration is Hideaway: the "shared secret bonus with variable trigger" does a lot of the things we're looking for. Hideaway itself is a pretty awkward mechanic, but I'm definitely interested in a tweak of some sort.
Without the literal living weapon mechanic (which I don't think really fits here), a small amount of awkwardness will always be present in this type of deck. However, there are certainly ways to work around this, we just need to be way more conscious of it. Right now our equipment and suit up creatures rely a little too heavily on each other.
I still believe an equipment based mechanic is the way to go, but Suit Up as-is will not suffice.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
Valor 1.1 (At the beginning of your upkeep if this creature as a permanent you control attached to it ~effect~)
Valor 1.2 (At the beginning of your upkeep if this creature as a permanent you control attached to it put a +1/+1 counter on it.)
Valor 1.3 (At the beginning of your upkeep put a +1/+1 counter on this creature for each permanent you control attached it.)
Valor N 1.4 (This creature gets +N/+N as long as a permanent you control is attached to it.)
Valor 1.5 (This creature get +1/+1 for each permanent you control attached to it).
I think Valor 1.2 might fix the issues with Suit Up since it can matter late game, boosts power and helps build creatures up and if the mutants interact with +1/+1 counters it can synergize with them as well. Also I have a mostly aura theme in the three color set with some equpment, so I used permanent to let the creature play with auras or equpments but we could just change Valor so it just works with equipment.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I will say that the flavor seems a bit off; stripping these guys of their equipment really should be their weak point, so perhaps Valor 4 or 5 might make better choices? Perhaps the equipment deck should build to the late game by having lots of equipment? Those are the things that are more resilient to removal and will probably stick around longer, so maybe we should push that aspect more than the creature one? Not sure.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
Revive mainly WB with support from G
Traps mainly UB
Suit Up mainly RW
Monstrosity mainly RG for monsters and GU for mutants
and Power 4 still up in the air.
Do we wana switch things around or try to keep them in these colors?
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Undying: BGw
Traps: WUb (Remember that we found traps worked much better in white since it naturally wants to have conditional spells)
Suit Up: RWu
Mutants: GUr
This obviously doesn't have to be this sectioned off (I expect most of these mechanics to show up in all colors on some levels), but to "balance" it we'd be looking for a primarily RB mechanic with G as tertiary. Power 4 (or Super) could fit here)
There's also the fact that we may want to move things around based on our limited archetypes. For instance, I feel like this is a set where we want to push some number of "gimmick" decks to emphasize the plotting villain feel. A preliminary sketch might look like this:
WU - ???
UB - Mill (as an actual deck)
BR - Steal & Sac (Act of Treason + sac outlets)
RG - ???
GW - ???
WB - Tokens
UR - Storm (some kind of spells matter deck)
BG - Undying (sac outlets + ways to remove counters?)
RW - Suit Up
GU - Mutants (possibly tribal)
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
For super I like the P+T>8, though we could always go with a form of Ferocious that care about creatures with a power of 4 or a toughness of 4.
Maybe we should have a differnt control mechanic for WUb and have traps play out like curses where in Innistrad? Not meant to draft but able to build a casual limited deck?
Well if we wanna give any of the forms of valor a go I think Valor 4 could work well since it helps boost up to "super" and imo deals with the issue of putting all your equipment on one guy then having them die. You could in theroy have a few creatures out getting boosted with an equptment each. However I think we should figure out how we want the equpments to build up first. Maybe even broaden the ablility so that it includes all artifacts but design cards that care more about being in equpemnt decks (think Puresteel Paladin)?
Do we want to give Mutants their own mechanic or just give them strong tribal themes? If you look at the tribes in Innistrad, they had their own themes (self mill with zombies, slith with vampires ect) without having a mechanic. If we do this it frees up some mechincal space and lets us put in another retuning mechanic if we so choose.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I think the equipment should be the main thrust of the theme, with artifact-matter cards being the support. The flavor of this "faction" is so closely tied to equipment.
I always saw mutants as Allies or Warriors in KTK: they're the lone tribal component of a bigger block. However, that doesn't necessarily have to be the case. I think the main thing though is that whatever the mutant mechanic is, it should be the mutant mechanic, and not split with monsters. While tying the mutants mechanically and flavorfully to monsters was a cool idea, it blurred the lines a little too much.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
"Mutation"- (If/As long as) there are five or more creature types among creatures you control, (effect)
e.g.
Growth Bearer ( )
Creature- Elf Shaman (U)
Mutation- Add to your mana pool. Activate this ability only if there are five or more creature types among creatures you control.
1/2
Then you can have a bunch of mutants with multiple other creature types and type gaining/switching effects and such to build up the theme.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
It's also worth noting that "big creatures" is still a theme, and the mutants were the ones that could get the biggest. However, there are plenty of ways to implement this idea that incorporates growth as well. For instance, this could simply give +1/+1 for each creature with a different type, or maybe an Evolve riff where you get a counter for new creature types showing up. There's plenty of design space, I'm just not sure it's the direction we want to take (especially since +1/+1 counters is sort of a Mutant hallmark).
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
Scheming Crime Minion (Common)
2B
Creature - Human Minion
3/1
Intimidation
Scheme 3B (3B, T: When target instant or sorcery spell you control resolves, exile it encoded on this creature. Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may cast a copy one of its encoded cards without paying its mana cost.)
Scheming Crime Boss (Rare)
2U
Creature - Elder Human
1/4
Hexproof
Scheme 1U (1U, T: When target instant or sorcery spell you control resolves, exile it encoded on this creature. Whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, you may cast a copy one of its encoded cards without paying its mana cost.)
I kinda liked your other idea better Legend. What if we combined your last mechanic (having multiple thematic trigger conditions) with a sort of sneaky hideaway ability and a bit of this one?
Disposable Minion 1B
Creature - Human Minion (C)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
When ~ dies, put the exiled card into your hand.
1/1
Magic Thief 2U
Creature - Human Rogue (U)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
When ~ deals combat damage to a player, if the exiled card is an instant or sorcery, you may cast it without paying its mana cost.
2/2
Big Schemer 2UU
Creature - Human Wizard (R)
Scheme (When this enters the battlefield, look at the top four cards of your library. Exile one face down, then put the others on the bottom in any order.)
You may cast the exiled card.
2UU: Exile ~. Return it to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step.
2/4
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
Archester: Frontier of Steam (A steampunk set!)
A Good Place to Start Designing
EDIT: Also, that is one sexy Dimir mechanic.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"