If you were given the chance to give MTG a fresh start, away from the existing game, how would you do it? What kind of changes would you make that can't be made in MTG as is? What new things would you introduce?
I'd eliminate the enchantment type and replace it with auras. I'd then change the way auras work. If auras always entered the battlefield, they can be balanced and made relevant far more easily. The following 2 changes could still be done but are unlikely to be so I will list them here...
Keyword the action ability "mills X" simply because the ability is used so often. Mill stone for example would become....
Millstone 2
Artifact 2 , t : Target player mills 2.
...Change Mulligan rules to the following for 60 card formats with variations for other formats....
To mulligan, exile up to 3 cards from your hand face down and draw cards equal to the number of cards exiled minus one. Repeat this process until you are done mulliganing. Shuffle all cards exiled this way into your library.
...It would make mulligans much faster as you shuffle at most once.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
I would do everything the same, but I would skip Time Spiral block
I don't think eliminating enchantments makes sense, but I do like the idea of having auras always enter the battlefield (the fact that they're countered is incredibly unintuitive)
Mill would be keyworded but not called "mill."
I think that version of mulligans is too strong; it gives a huge amount of control over your opening hand.
I think the "Instant as super type" that MaRo always talks about makes sense. I would also change how subtypes worked so "tribal" cards didn't need a special card type.
I'd probably make changes to how regeneration, protection, and landwalk worked.
I think the more "radical" change I would make would be reverting to the old legend rule but making copies exempt, as in, doubles of legends cause both to die, but copies don't.
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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'll direct you to a thread I had, not being a rude like "the thread already exists" but more like "there is a treasure throve of suggestions there" from people smarter than me.
Off the top of my head:
- Each spell has a few types to create a lot more triggers, and 'tribal' is never mentioned it is just understood. That would allow for more triggers, interactions and flavor. Examples
Smugglers Harbor (Land - Rogue Island)
Lightning Bolt (Instant - lightning)
Flame Guardian (Creature - fire elemental)
Dire Wolf (Creature - wild wolf)
Volcano (Land - Fire Mountain)
Dark Forest (Land - wild forest)
Then you could have a lot of cards that do stuff like "rogue spells cost 1 less" or "Rekindle: return an instant to your hand and/or a fire card from your graveyard to your hand"
- Bigger range of P/T in creatures: like 1/1 is rats, goblins, faeries 2/2 is humans, orcs/dwarves (in red), zombies, merfolk, etc and 3/3 gets into the knights, bears and other larger stuff. Cost is increased accordingly, possibly slowing down the 'creature' game a tiny bit (it is too fast for me right now).
- Cycling is built in, but maybe has a cycling phase. In other words most cards can be 'removed from the game' (to avoid graveyard tricks) to draw a card, probably only once per turn. That should aleviate some mana screw and might cause some triggers, like 'whenever your oponent cycles, this card deals 1 damage to him' or 'when you cycle this card, target creature you control gains haste until the end of turn'.
- Equipment, Auras, Humans, 'Dies' and all that from the start. They where all nice improvements.
- This one is controversial but I would say try to get rid of Black and White. Way too often the set is 'black badguys vs white goodguys' and I would prefer making multicolor easier (by making dual lands a very common thing). For example if you substitute them with Gold and Purple, it is easy to see a 'gold' badguy (greedy king) or a purple hero (crafty wizard).
MaRo says he'd have added types like "fire" and "lightning" into the mix, but personally I've never liked the idea. While it might be ok mechanically, it seems rather restrictive creatively.
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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 don't think eliminating enchantments makes sense, but I do like the idea of having auras always enter the battlefield (the fact that they're countered is incredibly unintuitive)
Mill would be keyworded but not called "mill."
I think that version of mulligans is too strong; it gives a huge amount of control over your opening hand.
It is actually unintuitively weak. Lets imagine for a second that you have a deck which wins whenever it gets some specific card in its starting hand. In fact, it wins with such a high degree of probability that the deck is made up of 4 "win card" + 56 land. Under current mulligan rules, the odds of getting at least 1 of the "win card" in your opening hand is ~87% given that your willing to mull to 1 card. With the new mulligan strategy, the odds of getting that card in hand is only ~77%. My proposed mulligan rules are actually less effective at getting a specific card in your hand then the current mulligan rules.
I could agree with changing the name of mill.
I have to reasons two do away with non-aura enchantments....
1. They don't make much sense flavorfully. An enchantment is supposed to modify the attributes of something. Global enchantments don't really fit that flavor.
2. It would create clear mechanical differences between the artifact and enchantment type which do not exist at present.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Your calculations assume that magic decks have a specific combination of cards that always win them the game, which just isn't the cast in the vast majority of decks. Maybe in legacy or vintage perhaps, but even modern combo decks rarely have an "unbeatable draw." Most magic games aren't won by drawing a specific set of cards, but by drawing the right cards at the right time. You want to have a good mix of lands and spells, and want to draw your early drops early and your late drops late. For this, partial mulligans are much better since they allow you to keep the cards that are good early and ditch the ones that are good late.
I honestly don't see a big flavor problem with an enchantment that effects everything.
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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.
Your calculations assume that magic decks have a specific combination of cards that always win them the game, which just isn't the cast in the vast majority of decks. Maybe in legacy or vintage perhaps, but even modern combo decks rarely have an "unbeatable draw." Most magic games aren't won by drawing a specific set of cards, but by drawing the right cards at the right time. You want to have a good mix of lands and spells, and want to draw your early drops early and your late drops late. For this, partial mulligans are much better since they allow you to keep the cards that are good early and ditch the ones that are good late.
I honestly don't see a big flavor problem with an enchantment that effects everything.
Yes, the example was a simplified hypothetical which clearly proves that the restricted partial mulligans aren't strictly superior to the standard mulligan. If you wish to state that the mulligan scheme I recommend is too good then I expect you to provide actual evidence for your claim, not just make your claim. Do some math, or at least provide a simplified model which you feel the new mulligan model is better for and I will do the math. In any case, if the new mulligan scheme adds more skill testing to the game, why is that a bad thing?
Even ignoring my perceived flavor problem with global enchantments, there is still the problem of mechanical overlap between artifacts and enchantments.
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
Considering this is a casual discussion about a hypothetical idea, I don't really see the need to crunch numbers just to state an opinion. Maybe if I have time later I'll do some math, but if you feel so strongly about it I don't really feel like getting into a serious discussion right now.
The problem has more to do with artifacts than enchantments IMO. If artifacts didn't have global effects the difference would be more pronounced.
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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'd set the diffrence between enchantment and artifact abilities early so that colored artifacts and colorless enchantments don't feel so similar -Enchantments are always on and hit all valid targets eg players/opponents/opponent's creatures etc. Maybe Auras get built later, idk.
-Artifacts only work with single targets/creatures, and require activation conditions. For Equipment, that condition is being attached to a creature.
Improvements like "dies", Planeswalker cards and Human Tribal are in the game from the start.
Lords mainly modify creatures controlled by the lord's controller. Other similar effects work in the same way.
Combat is kept off the stack, spells are kept on it, mana burn never exists.
Also, sets are smaller with greater care made to carve out design space, stick to coherent themes, and keep card quality high. Maybe this means only a few Planeswalkers per block, idk.
Greater variance on Power/Toughness of smaller creatures so knights aren't laid low by housecats.
Yeah, the instant thing has been thrown around a lot and I love the idea of stuff like instant artifacts (traps) and instant creatures (replacing flash). I also like the idea of slightly smaller, more focused sets... with some direct 'in flavor' support from the core. For example the core is going to contain CounterSpell, but you might as well give it some Thero's style art.
Wall might be a mechanic that can and must block all attacking creatures, rather than a creature type specifically.
I would try one more time to balance creatures vs spells... originally spells where king, now it is creatures... I would like a better balance so that a creaturless deck and an all creature deck have about equal odds.
Another keyword: Inorporeal... if it would die, exile it instead. For use on some tokens to avoid crazy 'dies triggers' abuse and in some cards (illusions, elementals, spirits) as a minor drawback making the card a little cheaper.
I'd adopt most of modern terminology and templating immediately and start with relevant rules updates already in place - the stack chief among them, 4-cards of a name etc.
I'd introduce flavor subtypes for any card type. The GCTU is in place from the very beginning as well.
I'd define 'bury' differently - in a way that allows it to describe milling rather than just be a strictly superior 'destroy'.
I'd keep a close look on simple card names and the word count on simple cards (Camouflage) - in general I'd adopt modern design principles like NWO, a modern Color Pie etc.
I'd scrap landwalk. Maybe something new in its place.
I'd break down protection into shroud, absorb and evade (where shroud might be the name of hexproof, evade could be intimidate).
I'd let regeneration work differently - probably by allowing the creature to actually return from the graveyard.
I'd switch the names of Aura and enchantment and then I'd decouple the rules meaning of "Equipment" & "Enchantment" and instead put the rules for being attachable into the keywords.
Lords always work like new Slivers.
The above mentioned fusion of instants and sorceries.
I'd do a lot of re-balancing - probably by getting the first wave of spells down in efficiency. That way creatures can compete without the recent push and overall this should slow down the game and allow a wider range of playable creature sizes.
I'd take a deep look into removing fizzling.
I'd sort through the phases of the turn and check whether we can get around the current cleanup mess.
I'd have a hard look into sorceries with a lasting effect becoming something that is not going to the graveyard until the effect is over - i. e. Giant Growth functionally becomes an Aura that stays until end of turn.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
Oh totally good points, especially since some solve minor memory issues and create design oportunities (the sorcery one especially) and I would prefer if regenerate is something more like reassembling skeleton and make it very green/black.
I would probably have an evergreen 'unblockable' ability like 'stealth' 'can only be blocked by creatures with equal or lesser power' so you can have lots of blue but also some other colors sneaking around dragons and giants to score hits. Also it makes a 0/8 wall very useful.
The problem with keywording Mill is how then do you keyword it so that you can have cards like Balustrade Spy, Mind Grind, etc, while also having the basic "Mill 5" for just the top 5?
Well, the 'grind' mechanic that you are referring to is, in fact, a different mechanic to the 'mill' mechanic that we all seem to want to keyword. Keywording a mechanic doesn't stop you from doing similar mechanics. (keyworded or not) For example, cycling cards and looters both exist...
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Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
- Manite
I would just try to cut down on card text in simple and intuitive ways.
"enters the battlefield" should probably get its own symbol (up arrow), for instance. There isn't much confusion because "when you cast" is rarely used.
On the flipside, "dies" and "leaves the battlefield" are quite different which would make creating a symbol (down arrow) for that more difficult unless one simply became the (near) universal standard.
The problem with changing card types is that you don't NEED any of them really. You could just have sorceries that have subcategories to stick around (enchantments) or to be castable at any time (instant)
Kills triggers when a card that was dealt damage by this card or targeted by an ability his card has is put in the graveyard this turn.
Then you get the benefit of doing a lot of cool stuff like
"Whenever Zombie Master kills a creature, put it onto the battlefield under your control at the end of turn"
"Whenever Soul Eater kills a creature, you may lose one life and draw a card"
"Whenever Awesome Vampire kills a creature, put a +1/+1 counter on awesome vampire"
"Whenever Cool Hero kills a creature, remove that creature from the game"
MaRo has talked about this a few times, but I would remove the flash keyword and the instant type, instead making instant a supertype. So instants would become instant sorceries, creatures with flash would become instant creatures.
I would also do as lugaru suggests and assign a rules meaning to 'kills'. Hell, I've already done this for my own custom sets.
Some of these things have been said before, but they bear repeating.
Instant as supertype.
Move mass board wipe spells from White to Red.
Make sure to keep cards in the color pie from the very beginning of the game.
I would try to make sure a format can exist like vintage without turning into quite as big of a *****show.
I would try and up the power of creatures from the beginning so you don't end up having so many strictly betters just trying to get entire classes of cards up to curve.
I would give every cycle of nonbasic lands a different subtype sort of like they did with gate. This makes it easier for both cards, and people, to refer to a specific cycle, and have people know what you're talking about.
I would try to keep the whole set layout thing more constant. Just for the purpose of aesthetics if nothing else. Obviously these are rules that can be broken from time to time like anything else, but not just willy nilly. By set layout I mean number of cards in set, reprints, etc... etc...
EDIT: Oh, also I'd take enchantment destruction out of white and give it to red. White is a pro-enchantment color. Red likes screwing stuff up so should be able to destroy enchantments (sort of shatter flavor). You know, haha, I scribbled all over your magical runes!
So my "destruction" effects would be allocated like this: G Destroy target artifact. R Destroy target enchantment. (R/G)(R/G) Destroy target enchantment or artifact. 1BB Destroy target creature. UU Counter target spell.
And W doesn't get destruction. Because its white, the goodie colour.
If I have time I might do a magic reboot. Like, where I go back to alpha and change the cards to what I want.
White needs some destruction or way to deal with things for multiple reasons.
Flavor wise, just because you are aligned with white, it doesn't mean you're a good guy. Ideals get taken too far and push into being a bad thing, e.g. lets take away freedoms to make everything safer, just like black isn't always bad guys. Black is just more selfish or individualistic. They don't like the constrictions that a group makes, and they're willing to sacrifice things for an end goal.
Even without regarding that, "good guys" need to break things too. It's hard to fight the good fight when you have no way to stop the bad guys because you can only create. Heroes have weapons and tools, because sometimes you need to fight on other people's terms. If you can kill my creatures, counter my spells, shoot lightning at me or outclass my heroes with monsters, I can't save the day.
Which lays out that you're nerfing an entire color because they're inherently "good" and aren't allowed to break things. You're making an entire color a support color at best or unplayable at worst. That's bad for game play, both for experienced players who realize it's under-powered, and for the new folks who don't realize it's bad.
I'm not nerfing a color, I'm just reallocating some of the stuff it gets. White is the only color that makes enchantments and breaks enchantments at the same time. All the other colors generally "break" stuff that an enemy color makes: creature colors are white and green, killed by black. The main artifact color is blue blue, killed by red and green. White gets to reinforce its roll as enchantment color but give up its ability to kill enchantments because being the main color to do both makes no sense.
Blue is the best color in the game and it doesn't "kill" anything, at least not in the doomblade/naturalize/demystify sense. Most it does is bounce and counterspell. Its not a support-only or unplayable color at all. Neither will white be. It'll just have a more distinct piece of the color pie rather than rehashed naturalizes.
As for what white can get, it should get some of the stuff thats going to blue (for example weenies with protection-like effects) and some of the stuff thats going to black.
I would have an implicit rule that any permanent may be sacrificed at sorcery speed to produce its casting cost in mana. Certain creatures (i.e. ones that could be abused because of dying effects) would have a keyword to disable this, but everything normally can do it. I always thought of mana as magical energy being put into the thing you're summoning...so when it dies, where does it go? It just...poofs. It shouldn't. It should be recoverable.
Just going along with WHITE not having destruction, I would say it would have the ability to 'vanish' almost everything. You know, flicker, returns at the next end step. That way White could be banishing tokens permanently, disarming (equipment) foes, dealing with pesky enchantments, slowing opponents plans (by re-setting counters on win conditions) and stuff like that.
Just going along with WHITE not having destruction, I would say it would have the ability to 'vanish' almost everything. You know, flicker, returns at the next end step. That way White could be banishing tokens permanently, disarming (equipment) foes, dealing with pesky enchantments, slowing opponents plans (by re-setting counters on win conditions) and stuff like that.
Yeah, agreed. Basically anything exile from the board defaults to white in my book, although green and black can for sure exile stuff in the graveyard.
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[mana][card]G[/card][/mana]
[CaRd]203982G[/aRd]
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Keyword the action ability "mills X" simply because the ability is used so often. Mill stone for example would become....
Millstone 2
Artifact
2 , t : Target player mills 2.
...Change Mulligan rules to the following for 60 card formats with variations for other formats....
To mulligan, exile up to 3 cards from your hand face down and draw cards equal to the number of cards exiled minus one. Repeat this process until you are done mulliganing. Shuffle all cards exiled this way into your library.
...It would make mulligans much faster as you shuffle at most once.
- Manite
I don't think eliminating enchantments makes sense, but I do like the idea of having auras always enter the battlefield (the fact that they're countered is incredibly unintuitive)
Mill would be keyworded but not called "mill."
I think that version of mulligans is too strong; it gives a huge amount of control over your opening hand.
I think the "Instant as super type" that MaRo always talks about makes sense. I would also change how subtypes worked so "tribal" cards didn't need a special card type.
I'd probably make changes to how regeneration, protection, and landwalk worked.
I think the more "radical" change I would make would be reverting to the old legend rule but making copies exempt, as in, doubles of legends cause both to die, but copies don't.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
Comic Book Set
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A Good Place to Start Designing
http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/magic-fundamentals/magic-general/515492-what-if-magic-2-0
Off the top of my head:
- Each spell has a few types to create a lot more triggers, and 'tribal' is never mentioned it is just understood. That would allow for more triggers, interactions and flavor. Examples
Smugglers Harbor (Land - Rogue Island)
Lightning Bolt (Instant - lightning)
Flame Guardian (Creature - fire elemental)
Dire Wolf (Creature - wild wolf)
Volcano (Land - Fire Mountain)
Dark Forest (Land - wild forest)
Then you could have a lot of cards that do stuff like "rogue spells cost 1 less" or "Rekindle: return an instant to your hand and/or a fire card from your graveyard to your hand"
- Bigger range of P/T in creatures: like 1/1 is rats, goblins, faeries 2/2 is humans, orcs/dwarves (in red), zombies, merfolk, etc and 3/3 gets into the knights, bears and other larger stuff. Cost is increased accordingly, possibly slowing down the 'creature' game a tiny bit (it is too fast for me right now).
- Cycling is built in, but maybe has a cycling phase. In other words most cards can be 'removed from the game' (to avoid graveyard tricks) to draw a card, probably only once per turn. That should aleviate some mana screw and might cause some triggers, like 'whenever your oponent cycles, this card deals 1 damage to him' or 'when you cycle this card, target creature you control gains haste until the end of turn'.
- Equipment, Auras, Humans, 'Dies' and all that from the start. They where all nice improvements.
- This one is controversial but I would say try to get rid of Black and White. Way too often the set is 'black badguys vs white goodguys' and I would prefer making multicolor easier (by making dual lands a very common thing). For example if you substitute them with Gold and Purple, it is easy to see a 'gold' badguy (greedy king) or a purple hero (crafty wizard).
www.theconnoisseurs.com
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 would go with something like Raze or Shred, both are things that can be done to a spellbook.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
It is actually unintuitively weak. Lets imagine for a second that you have a deck which wins whenever it gets some specific card in its starting hand. In fact, it wins with such a high degree of probability that the deck is made up of 4 "win card" + 56 land. Under current mulligan rules, the odds of getting at least 1 of the "win card" in your opening hand is ~87% given that your willing to mull to 1 card. With the new mulligan strategy, the odds of getting that card in hand is only ~77%. My proposed mulligan rules are actually less effective at getting a specific card in your hand then the current mulligan rules.
I could agree with changing the name of mill.
I have to reasons two do away with non-aura enchantments....
1. They don't make much sense flavorfully. An enchantment is supposed to modify the attributes of something. Global enchantments don't really fit that flavor.
2. It would create clear mechanical differences between the artifact and enchantment type which do not exist at present.
- Manite
I honestly don't see a big flavor problem with an enchantment that effects everything.
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
Yes, the example was a simplified hypothetical which clearly proves that the restricted partial mulligans aren't strictly superior to the standard mulligan. If you wish to state that the mulligan scheme I recommend is too good then I expect you to provide actual evidence for your claim, not just make your claim. Do some math, or at least provide a simplified model which you feel the new mulligan model is better for and I will do the math. In any case, if the new mulligan scheme adds more skill testing to the game, why is that a bad thing?
Even ignoring my perceived flavor problem with global enchantments, there is still the problem of mechanical overlap between artifacts and enchantments.
- Manite
The problem has more to do with artifacts than enchantments IMO. If artifacts didn't have global effects the difference would be more pronounced.
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
-Artifacts only work with single targets/creatures, and require activation conditions. For Equipment, that condition is being attached to a creature.
Improvements like "dies", Planeswalker cards and Human Tribal are in the game from the start.
Lords mainly modify creatures controlled by the lord's controller. Other similar effects work in the same way.
Combat is kept off the stack, spells are kept on it, mana burn never exists.
Also, sets are smaller with greater care made to carve out design space, stick to coherent themes, and keep card quality high. Maybe this means only a few Planeswalkers per block, idk.
Greater variance on Power/Toughness of smaller creatures so knights aren't laid low by housecats.
More adherence to the color pie, using modern design concepts (No Prodigal Sorcerer, Desert Twister or Swords to Ploughshares).
Lastly, I'd make instant (or an equivalent name) a supertype. eg
Lightning Bolt R
Instant Sorcery (c)
Lightning Bolt deals 3 damage to target creature, planeswalker or player.
Art is life itself.
Wall might be a mechanic that can and must block all attacking creatures, rather than a creature type specifically.
I would try one more time to balance creatures vs spells... originally spells where king, now it is creatures... I would like a better balance so that a creaturless deck and an all creature deck have about equal odds.
Another keyword: Inorporeal... if it would die, exile it instead. For use on some tokens to avoid crazy 'dies triggers' abuse and in some cards (illusions, elementals, spirits) as a minor drawback making the card a little cheaper.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
I'd introduce flavor subtypes for any card type. The GCTU is in place from the very beginning as well.
I'd define 'bury' differently - in a way that allows it to describe milling rather than just be a strictly superior 'destroy'.
I'd keep a close look on simple card names and the word count on simple cards (Camouflage) - in general I'd adopt modern design principles like NWO, a modern Color Pie etc.
I'd scrap landwalk. Maybe something new in its place.
I'd break down protection into shroud, absorb and evade (where shroud might be the name of hexproof, evade could be intimidate).
I'd let regeneration work differently - probably by allowing the creature to actually return from the graveyard.
I'd switch the names of Aura and enchantment and then I'd decouple the rules meaning of "Equipment" & "Enchantment" and instead put the rules for being attachable into the keywords.
Lords always work like new Slivers.
The above mentioned fusion of instants and sorceries.
I'd do a lot of re-balancing - probably by getting the first wave of spells down in efficiency. That way creatures can compete without the recent push and overall this should slow down the game and allow a wider range of playable creature sizes.
I'd take a deep look into removing fizzling.
I'd sort through the phases of the turn and check whether we can get around the current cleanup mess.
I'd have a hard look into sorceries with a lasting effect becoming something that is not going to the graveyard until the effect is over - i. e. Giant Growth functionally becomes an Aura that stays until end of turn.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
I would probably have an evergreen 'unblockable' ability like 'stealth' 'can only be blocked by creatures with equal or lesser power' so you can have lots of blue but also some other colors sneaking around dragons and giants to score hits. Also it makes a 0/8 wall very useful.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
Well, the 'grind' mechanic that you are referring to is, in fact, a different mechanic to the 'mill' mechanic that we all seem to want to keyword. Keywording a mechanic doesn't stop you from doing similar mechanics. (keyworded or not) For example, cycling cards and looters both exist...
- Manite
"enters the battlefield" should probably get its own symbol (up arrow), for instance. There isn't much confusion because "when you cast" is rarely used.
On the flipside, "dies" and "leaves the battlefield" are quite different which would make creating a symbol (down arrow) for that more difficult unless one simply became the (near) universal standard.
The problem with changing card types is that you don't NEED any of them really. You could just have sorceries that have subcategories to stick around (enchantments) or to be castable at any time (instant)
Kills triggers when a card that was dealt damage by this card or targeted by an ability his card has is put in the graveyard this turn.
Then you get the benefit of doing a lot of cool stuff like
"Whenever Zombie Master kills a creature, put it onto the battlefield under your control at the end of turn"
"Whenever Soul Eater kills a creature, you may lose one life and draw a card"
"Whenever Awesome Vampire kills a creature, put a +1/+1 counter on awesome vampire"
"Whenever Cool Hero kills a creature, remove that creature from the game"
www.theconnoisseurs.com
I would also do as lugaru suggests and assign a rules meaning to 'kills'. Hell, I've already done this for my own custom sets.
My custom sets:
Caeia Block (Released - Beta)
Generals of Dareth (In Design)
Instant as supertype.
Move mass board wipe spells from White to Red.
Make sure to keep cards in the color pie from the very beginning of the game.
I would try to make sure a format can exist like vintage without turning into quite as big of a *****show.
I would try and up the power of creatures from the beginning so you don't end up having so many strictly betters just trying to get entire classes of cards up to curve.
I would give every cycle of nonbasic lands a different subtype sort of like they did with gate. This makes it easier for both cards, and people, to refer to a specific cycle, and have people know what you're talking about.
I would try to keep the whole set layout thing more constant. Just for the purpose of aesthetics if nothing else. Obviously these are rules that can be broken from time to time like anything else, but not just willy nilly. By set layout I mean number of cards in set, reprints, etc... etc...
EDIT: Oh, also I'd take enchantment destruction out of white and give it to red. White is a pro-enchantment color. Red likes screwing stuff up so should be able to destroy enchantments (sort of shatter flavor). You know, haha, I scribbled all over your magical runes!
So my "destruction" effects would be allocated like this:
G Destroy target artifact.
R Destroy target enchantment.
(R/G)(R/G) Destroy target enchantment or artifact.
1BB Destroy target creature.
UU Counter target spell.
And W doesn't get destruction. Because its white, the goodie colour.
If I have time I might do a magic reboot. Like, where I go back to alpha and change the cards to what I want.
Flavor wise, just because you are aligned with white, it doesn't mean you're a good guy. Ideals get taken too far and push into being a bad thing, e.g. lets take away freedoms to make everything safer, just like black isn't always bad guys. Black is just more selfish or individualistic. They don't like the constrictions that a group makes, and they're willing to sacrifice things for an end goal.
Even without regarding that, "good guys" need to break things too. It's hard to fight the good fight when you have no way to stop the bad guys because you can only create. Heroes have weapons and tools, because sometimes you need to fight on other people's terms. If you can kill my creatures, counter my spells, shoot lightning at me or outclass my heroes with monsters, I can't save the day.
Which lays out that you're nerfing an entire color because they're inherently "good" and aren't allowed to break things. You're making an entire color a support color at best or unplayable at worst. That's bad for game play, both for experienced players who realize it's under-powered, and for the new folks who don't realize it's bad.
Blue is the best color in the game and it doesn't "kill" anything, at least not in the doomblade/naturalize/demystify sense. Most it does is bounce and counterspell. Its not a support-only or unplayable color at all. Neither will white be. It'll just have a more distinct piece of the color pie rather than rehashed naturalizes.
As for what white can get, it should get some of the stuff thats going to blue (for example weenies with protection-like effects) and some of the stuff thats going to black.
www.theconnoisseurs.com
Yeah, agreed. Basically anything exile from the board defaults to white in my book, although green and black can for sure exile stuff in the graveyard.