I'm not exactly sure how important the "curve filling" aspect of Copay is really going to be. 2HG is a slow, durdely format. Unless we're looking to change that (which we definitely could), having a good curve doesn't really matter. This is why I feel that copay cards that cost anything less than say 6 kind of feel pointless. I think Copay's major upside is only really on cards where it seems necessary (8+ mana).
I think having a mechanic that builds a creature up is very important. As I said above, "curve" isn't really important, but being able to play things early that become relevant later is. As of right now it doesn't even seem like we have an aura theme in the set, which makes having creatures able to build themselves up without help even more important. Battalion is fine incentive to play small creatures, but having the ability to turn into a battlecruiser over time I think is something important to have. Otherwise it feels like the whole format will just be stalling to cast giant things on turn 10. This, by the way, is why I don't think Copay and Teamwork can coexist. Not only do they compete for the shared mana slot, but they also clutter up our "late game, big spells" area.
As for building up other creatures, I feel like Allies already fill this niche.
EDIT: Let's take a step back and look at what we've got so far. Remember we're aiming for a Battlecruiser format, so how do our mechanics fit into this concept?
Copay - This mechanic can make giant creatures easier to cast. I think there's some danger here though; an 8 drop can be cast as easily as turn 4, so costing on this ability is going to be incredibly tough to balance. In 2HG I don't think one player "skipping their turn" is really all that much of a drawback.
Teamwork - This mechanic can make normal sized creatures giant. The drawback of this one as compared to Copay is that one player can't muscle through the cost themselves. The upside is that costing has much less potential to break.
Allies - This mechanic allows you to build up small creatures by using other creatures. This is a pretty solid mechanic I feel, as it encourages many things (linear drafting, lots of creatures rather than one, etc.)
Battalion - While a good fit for the format, this mechanic does nothing in terms of battlecruisering.
Cycling - This mechanic does nothing in terms of Battlecruisering, but that's not really a knock against it given how much it does to smoothing things out.
"Level Up" - This mechanic lets small creatures turn into battlecruisers.
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.
Train [cost] ([cost], T: Put a +1/+1 counter on another creature. Train only as a sorcery.)
I actually really like this version of Train. While prior iterations tried to hit the flavor of someone training themselves, this one feels like teaching someone else what you know. It might be better named as Mentor? It's also surprising that the phrase "Put a +1/+1 counter on another target creature" has never appeared in M:tG history! I wonder if this is genuinely new ground, or if Wizards has scrapped the gameplay after testing it.
Considering the breadth of mechanics available to us, and the fact we have a whole bunch of archetypes left to create, do we actually need a "creatures make themselves bigger" mechanic? If not, what other cool things could the set use?
This is an interesting question. I don't think we need a "get bigger" mechanic so much as we want one because they have a history of playing well.
I'm going to use this post to log my sample cards for the weekend review.
White Tier3 2W
Creature (C)
Level up 1W - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 3/4
Level 4+ - Vigilance 4/7
Blue Tier3 2U
Creature (C)
Level up 1U - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 2/5
Level 4+ - Flying 5/5
Black Tier3 2B
Creature (C)
Level up 1B - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 4/3
Level 4+ - Lifelink 6/4
Red Tier3 2R
Creature (C)
Level up 1R - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 5/2
Level 4+ - First strike 6/3
Green Tier3 2G
Creature (C)
Level up 1G - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 4/4
Level 4+ - Trample 6/6
Benevolent Angel 7W
Creature - Angel (C)
Copay (Other players may help you cast this spell. Each mana another player spends pays for 1.)
Flying
4/5
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Prevent the next 4 damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn. If CARDNAME was kicked and damage is prevented this way, CARDNAME deals that much damage to target player.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Tap two target creatures. If CARDNAME was kicked, those creatures don’t untap during their controllers’ next untap step.
Sorcery (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Put two 1/1 white Spirit creature tokens onto the battlefield. If a player kicked CARDNAME, that player puts two of those tokens onto the battlefield.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Any number of target creatures gain hexproof until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, those creatures each get +2/+2 until end of turn.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target player draws two cards. If CARDNAME was kicked, it deals damage equal to the number of cards in that player’s hand to target creature or player.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3. If CARDNAME was kicked, exile that spell instead.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Return target creature to its owner’s hand. If CARDNAME was kicked, that player discards a card.
Sorcery (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Each opponent discards a card. If CARDNAME was kicked, you and your teammates each draw a card.
Sorcery (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Destroy target creature. If CARDNAME was kicked, that creature deals damage equal to its power to its controller.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Return target creature card from a graveyard to its owner’s hand. If CARDNAME was kicked, instead put that card onto the battlefield under your control.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Sorcery (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Destroy target artifact or land. If CARDNAME was kicked, that permanent’s controller discards a card.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target creature you control fights another target creature. If CARDNAME was kicked, regenerate the creature you control.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target creature gets +2/+0 until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, that creature gains double strike until end of turn.
Sorcery (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Switch each creature’s power and toughness until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, creatures your opponents control get -3/-0 until end of turn.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, you gain life equal to the amount of damage prevented this way.
Sorcery (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Put a +1/+1 counter on any number of target creatures. If CARDNAME was kicked, those creatures gain haste until end of turn.
Sorcery (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Search your library for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield tapped. If CARDNAME was kicked, search your library for a card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Sorcery (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
If CARDNAME was kicked, draw a card.
Put an X/X green Ooze creature token onto the battlefield, where X is the number of cards in your hand.
White-Common Mentor W
Creature - Human Cleric (C)
Mentor 2W(2W, T: Put a +1/+1 counter on another target creature. Mentor only as a sorcery.)
1/1
White-Uncommon Mentor 2W
Creature - Human Cleric (U)
Mentor 2W(2W, T: Put a +1/+1 counter on another target creature. Mentor only as a sorcery.)
Whenever a +1/+1 counter is put on a creature, you may have that creature gain vigilance until end of turn.
2/3
I'm not exactly sure how important the "curve filling" aspect of Copay is really going to be. 2HG is a slow, durdely format. Unless we're looking to change that (which we definitely could), having a good curve doesn't really matter. This is why I feel that copay cards that cost anything less than say 6 kind of feel pointless. I think Copay's major upside is only really on cards where it seems necessary (8+ mana).
I think having a mechanic that builds a creature up is very important. As I said above, "curve" isn't really important, but being able to play things early that become relevant later is. As of right now it doesn't even seem like we have an aura theme in the set, which makes having creatures able to build themselves up without help even more important. Battalion is fine incentive to play small creatures, but having the ability to turn into a battlecruiser over time I think is something important to have. Otherwise it feels like the whole format will just be stalling to cast giant things on turn 10. This, by the way, is why I don't think Copay and Teamwork can coexist. Not only do they compete for the shared mana slot, but they also clutter up our "late game, big spells" area.
These points contradict each other. If you push copay to be only on giant spells that can't be cast otherwise, then yes it's identical to teamwork. One of my favorite things about copay is that it doesn't have to do that. 4cmc copay cards, especially if they have things like Flashback for more expensive costs, do things that other cards don't - and they do something that Teamwork doesn't as currently designed. A 2G card with a teamwork effect can't be cast by one player for full value. Casting a copay card early feels good, and you don't mind casting it later.
Curve-filling is an awesome part of gameplay, because it means that there are fewer turns where you aren't doing anything. It's fun to do stuff. It also makes the early turns of the game more fun, because you have more options.
As for making sure that the format is friendly to Battlecruiser magic, 2HG naturally lends itself to that format. Put almost any draft environment into 2HG and you get a format that feels like battlecruiser magic (the games go so long after all that you can't even play best 2 out of 3). We don't have to pull a lot of levers like in Rise of the Eldrazi to make sure it happens.
However, despite how much I prefer Copay for its intuitive nature and how perfect it feels for 2HG, I feel obligated to propose the following mechanic that melds both (albeit in a more complex and less fluid way).
Sidekick [Cost] (You or a teammate may pay an additional [cost] as you cast this spell).
Example...
Sidekick Simic - 2U
Flying
Sidekick 2G (You or a teammate may pay an additional 2G as you cast this spell).
If Sidekick Simic was Sidekicked, it enters the battlefield with three +1/+1 counters.
2/2
It's not as flexible, intuitive or elegant as copay, but this puts Teamwork and Copay into roughly the same mechanic. It's also worth noting that the phrase "you or a teammate" makes it work just fine in formats that don't have teammates without the awkwardly cludged "another player" wording that would create odd gameplay.
As for Train - I'd be interested to see what you do with it Piar. If it's true that it's never been done before, I think it's because Wizards would rather just let the creature buff itself too, since there might be no other creatures out. But in a 2HG format, the mechanic is much less likely to have no friends to play with. Want to make some cards to try it out?
EDIT - For the get-bigger mechanic, I'd like to see Transform put back on the table for three reasons.
1) We *can* make the flavor make sense, we have all the creative fully under our control. That shouldn't be a reason to discount it, and it was silly of me to say that.
2) It's like Monstrous, only with way more design space and without restricting our use of counters elsewhere in the set.
3) If it weren't for the printing costs, Mark Rosewater said they might put it in every set. We don't have printing costs.
It's true that we don't need to build a format to encourage battlecruisers, but it's also pointless to design a format for anything else when it will naturally evolve to that state anyway. IMO, it's better to embrace the battlecruiser nature as much as we can, since mechanics that work against it won't be very strong anyway.
I was thinking about "sidekick" too, but I wanted to see if we could get copay to a place I liked first. Anyway, I'm really not sure why it can't just say "another player". This doesn't seem at all awkward or "cludged" to me. This adds extra functionality for virtually zero cost (card space, complexity, etc.). The only situation it could possible be inconvenient is magic online.
I think Copay is very misleading. The math on the mechanic simply doesn't work out the way a lot of the designs being posted would suggest. A 4 mana copay creature can be played as early as turn 2, and has very little opportunity cost since players most likely didn't have a better 2 drop and the copay creature only cost a single card. This means that 4 mana copay creatures should probably be costed as efficient 2 drops, unless we want to have a hyper aggressive format where people are powering out 7/7s on turn 4.
I think Transform is an interesting proposition, though printing costs are not the only thing that keeps it down. It does still add a great deal of complexity, as well as making drafts slightly more awkward. Not saying it's a bad idea, just that I don't think it's a shoe-in (though definitely worth considering).
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.
It's true that we don't need to build a format to encourage battlecruisers, but it's also pointless to design a format for anything else when it will naturally evolve to that state anyway. IMO, it's better to embrace the battlecruiser nature as much as we can, since mechanics that work against it won't be very strong anyway.
[quote]Anyway, I'm really not sure why it can't just say "another player". This doesn't seem at all awkward or "cludged" to me. This adds extra functionality for virtually zero cost (card space, complexity, etc.). The only situation it could possible be inconvenient is magic online.
Because it's not as smooth or intuitive as calling out "teammate". This is a big deal. I also wouldn't want to see these cards in a free-for-all setting, which is the only reason to protect the "another player" wording - where players show you all these cards and start asking for people to pay the kickers every dang time and then end up not playing it and... It just slows everything down. Cards like Tempting Offer do this mechanic already and do it better for free for all games. It reads better when you call out teammate, and if it's "you or a teammate", it can still be played in formats without teammates.
Worse templating to enable annoying gameplay isn't good design. Even cards like Divination say, "Draw two cards" rather than "Target player draws 2 cards". And that's pure upside in gameplay for even less issues with grokkability. You or a Teammate is just better and it's what Wizards would do.
I'm not exactly sure how important the "curve filling" aspect of Copay is really going to be. 2HG is a slow, durdely format. Unless we're looking to change that (which we definitely could), having a good curve doesn't really matter. This is why I feel that copay cards that cost anything less than say 6 kind of feel pointless. I think Copay's major upside is only really on cards where it seems necessary (8+ mana).
I don't think that's entirely accurate. While 2HG is slower, you can't just not do anything in the first few turns. Aggressive decks without any sustainability don't tend to be effective, but late-game decks care about velocity, too. You don't want to play 2/1s on the second turn, but the team that uses its mana more efficiently and builds up resources and board presence faster is still going to have an edge.
Cheap copay spells can also be a way to enable aggressive strategies in a format that doesn't support them very well, naturally. If that's desirable or not can also be discussed.
I think Copay is very misleading. The math on the mechanic simply doesn't work out the way a lot of the designs being posted would suggest. A 4 mana copay creature can be played as early as turn 2, and has very little opportunity cost since players most likely didn't have a better 2 drop and the copay creature only cost a single card. This means that 4 mana copay creatures should probably be costed as efficient 2 drops, unless we want to have a hyper aggressive format where people are powering out 7/7s on turn 4.
I don't know which designs you are refering to, but those that I posted are all very overcosted if it wasn't for the copay. I wouldn't want to see too efficient copay creatures at low costs, but you don't have to be that conservative, considering there are two players that can try to beat whatever the other team spends their entire turn on.
Because it's not as smooth or intuitive as calling out "teammate". This is a big deal. I also wouldn't want to see these cards in a free-for-all setting, which is the only reason to protect the "another player" wording - where players show you all these cards and start asking for people to pay the kickers every dang time and then end up not playing it and... It just slows everything down. Cards like Tempting Offer do this mechanic already and do it better for free for all games. It reads better when you call out teammate, and if it's "you or a teammate", it can still be played in formats without teammates.
Worse templating to enable annoying gameplay isn't good design. Even cards like Divination say, "Draw two cards" rather than "Target player draws 2 cards". And that's pure upside in gameplay for even less issues with grokkability. You or a Teammate is just better and it's what Wizards would do.
I honestly think you are blowing the difference between the two entirely out of proportion. The difference is small, and in a format where you're teamed up with another player already makes it intuitive and obvious who's going to be helping you out. Again, in a real life magic setting that doesn't follow every technical rule like MTGO does, this results in little to zero increase in speed or complexity, since it is obvious who is or isn't going to help you pay.
This isn't a huge deal, and you're obviously set on this so I'm not going to try and defend my position and derail the discussion, but please take into account that your preferences are not always fact. I honestly disagree that your version is simply "better" as you have stated. IMO, the templating is not "worse" nor is the gameplay "annoying". A lot of players (like me) would much rather have a fun card that both works in 2HG and has added functionality in free-for-all at the cost of an essentially meaningless templating change. Just because you don't care about potential political aspects of FFA magic doesn't mean they don't matter.
I don't think that's entirely accurate. While 2HG is slower, you can't just do anything in the first few turns. Aggressive decks without any sustainability don't tend to be effective, but late-game decks care about velocity, too. You don't want to play 2/1s on the second turn, but the team that uses its mana more efficiently and builds up resources and board presence faster is still going to have an edge.
Cheap copay spells can also be a way to enable aggressive strategies in a format that doesn't support them very well, naturally. If that's desirable or not can also be discussed.
In my experience (which is admittedly limited) there's really no incentive to be proactive. You can take many turns simply doing nothing in 2HG and still be fine, thanks to your added life total relieving a ton of pressure. I'm not saying that tempo isn't important, but I don't think Copay's ability to fill out a curve is as relevant as it's ability to pump out massive threats twice as fast.
I agree that costing Copay cards aggressively would be an interesting way of speeding the format up, but that's something we'd have to do consciously, and it would involve shaping the format in a very different direction than we've been talking about so far.
I don't know which designs you are refering to, but those that I posted are all very overcosted if it wasn't for the copay. I wouldn't want to see too efficient copay creatures at low costs, but you don't have to be that conservative, considering there are two players that can try to beat whatever the other team spends their entire turn on.
My main concern is that Copay basically makes any card it's on the best card for half it's price. Playing a 7/7 on turn 4 is probably going to be better than the any 4 drop, potentially even better than any combination of 4 drops given that those two cards required, well, two cards. I'm just saying that the combination of acceleration and virtual card advantage that's inherent in Copay could potentially cause problems, and I feel it would ultimately result in cards that read a lot worse than they play (which, to be fair, is not always a bad thing).
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.
[quote from="Stairc »" url="http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/creativity/custom-card-creation/custom-set-creation-and/577566-2hg-kolbahan?comment=56"]I honestly think you are blowing the difference between the two entirely out of proportion. The difference is small, and in a format where you're teamed up with another player already makes it intuitive and obvious who's going to be helping you out. Again, in a real life magic setting that doesn't follow every technical rule like MTGO does, this results in little to zero increase in speed or complexity, since it is obvious who is or isn't going to help you pay.
Is the difference...
1) Larger than "target player draws 2 cards" vs. "Draw 2 cards". In a duel, isn't it obvious who you're going to be targeting? Of course it is, and of course it's a larger difference. Wizards has decided that the small difference in increased readability is worth it. This is a bigger difference in smooth and quick readibility than that example. Therefore, if we want to develop this professionally, this is also worth following the same logic.
2) Even worth having? If we were designing a free-for-all product, I'd have no interest whatsoever in an "untempting offer" mechanic. Like this:
"Untempting Offer - When you cast this spell, an opponent may pay X. If he or she does, you get a benefit."
I wouldn't want to play with that mechanic at all. The mechanic Tempting Offer gives players incentives to help you, while this is an Untempting Offer in its base version.
For the record: Free for all is my favorite format. It's what I play the most, what I tend to write articles about and what I enjoy the most. I'm a sucker for free-for-all mechanics and I love when I get more toys. I'm absolutely in the market. As a free-for-all-loving player, I don't like this mechanic.
3) Restricting our design? Yes, it is. Because Sidekick cards where the person paying the cost gets a benefit would suck to run in non-team formats. So we can't design them, or we have to use clunky wording like "When you cast this spell, choose a player. That player may pay [cost]. If he or she does..." Which is a lot longer than, "When you cast this spell, you or a teammate may pay [cost]".
4) Hurting our flavor? Yes. If we just say "teammate" it shouts loud and proud the team-based nature of the set. It's right in the rules text, you can't get away from it.
5) Protecting our customer's value No. We're designing a free set for players to enjoy a focused experience. We don't need to protect players' value, they're getting it for free. And if we go with a version of sidekick, they're already able to play the card in other formats if they so choose - just one part of it doesn't apply (the same way cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel can be played in duels even though the "each opponent" part doesn't apply.
6) Taking advantage of past designs? Future sight used the term teammate, so while this is a minor point - one of the first things wizards does in a set is look for opportunities to reprint future sight cards. If the team-format isn't using it, that's just weird.
Ultimately, we don't need to have this argument now. It's an issue of how best to template a mechanic which might end up being cut anyway. However, I feel very strongly about it. All I see is reducing grokkability, taking flavor out of the set and constraining design space in order to make sure the cards can play poorly in free-for-all formats (which I don't think the mechanic is even enjoyable for in the first place). If I turned in that kind of templating in any of my design jobs, the developers would have changed it anyway.
Gotta run, so can't respond to the other points right now. In any case, I think we might as well move off this one until it starts directly interfering with design. Templating issues aside, thoughts on Sidekick everyone?
Wow, that's a lot of reading you guys put me though. It sounds like the conversation has already run its course, but let's please put aside the discussion on "another player" vs "teammate" for now. It's distracting us from relevant thought and discussion on the tasks at hand. While it does have an impact, I want us to design as though they say the same exact thing for now.
Here's my "executive decision" on Copay: We're costing it like Delve. At least until we get to playtest it. We can have low cost Copay creatures, but they won't be as efficient as the competitive comparable cards in the same cost. See below for sample cases of pushed low-cost Copay cards: 5B 3/3 flying 1R 2/1 3B 3/1 lifelink 3R 3/2 trample 3W 2/4 first strike 1W 2/2
Regarding sidekick, it is my preferred version of Teamwork, but I'm not ruling out other versions yet. Not a fan of Shared Memory. EDIT: Updated my post above to include a bunch of sample Sidekick designs.
Clarification on Sidekick
To clarify Piar, the designs you're putting up for "Sidekick" aren't the version that lets you pay the cost too if you want (you or a teammate/another player may pay [cost]), it relies on the teammate paying the cost. Was this intentional? I'm interested to hear thoughts on the sidekick version that can let you pay the kicker cost too, which might blend most of what we like about Teamwork and Copay (though not as elegantly). I like them both individually, but I'm troubled by their identity issues, so blending them into a kicker that you or a teammate can pay works for both curve-fixing and team-building.
Transform
It makes for some interesting drafting issues, that's for sure, but Innistrad demonstrated that it can work very well. I think it's worth exploring.
Team-Archetypes
I think if we're doing standard 2HG draft, encouraging players to draft as teams rather than drafting two decks that are individually good makes a lot of sense. Here are some thoughts on how this might be possible.
1) "Whenever a Teammate [does a specific thing] you may pay [cost]. If you do, [effect]."
This would be riffing off designs like Lightning Rift, only it's a card your teammate puts in his deck to benefit from the stuff you're doing. So for example, imagine if Cycling was only in Green and White (I assume it will be in every color, but just imagine it for the purpose of the example). If Red had some cards like this - that encourages an interesting piece of team deckbuilding.
2) "Creature tokens you and your teammates control get +1/+1."
This type of mechanic, which could also work for things like Lightning Rift, encourage both players to be doing lots of the same thing. I assume allies will fall into this category, like the following design (though the templating is rather awkward).
2-Headed Ally - 1G
Creature - Ally
Whenever you or a teammate cast an Ally spell, put a +1/+1 counter on 2-Headed Ally.
1/1
Awkward templating, since there's a cast-trigger instead of an ETB trigger now, but it's very awkward to say "whenever an ally enters the battlefield under your control or a teammate's control" and it doesn't make sense to use a universal "whenever an ally enters the battlefield" and count your opponent's allies too. But anyway, the idea seems rather clear.
Flavor
Now that we've got a slightly stronger idea of the mechanics, I'd like to put forward a flavor suggestion. What if the world itself is a grand arena where planeswalkers come to do battle in pairs for incredible prizes? It's an interesting concept, with an arena-overseer planeswalker of immense power - hving crafted the plane before the mending - overseeing the fights.
Arenas and Prizes
Piar mentioned earlier the concept of using Arenas as something that players could draft. Moon-E expressed some skepticism about the mechanic and I rather agree. However, thinking about it today, what about Prizes for doing certain things? Some possible executins.
Statue of the Titan
Prize
(Start the game with this prize face up in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control a creature with power 10 or greater, you may put a 10/10 colorless avatar token onto the battlefield. Then exile this prize.
The Golden Chariot
Prize - Artifact
(Start the game with this prize face up in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your end step, if 6 or more creatures attacked this turn, you may put The Golden Chariot onto the battlefield from your command zone. T, target creature gets +3/+0 and haste.
The Silver Wing
Prize
(Start the game with this prize face up in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your end step, if you and your teammate control a total of 6 or more flying creatures, you get an emblem with "flying creatures you and your teammate control get +1/+1". Then exile this prize.
You probably get the idea. The idea is to build "achievements" of a kind that you can work for. They could be rather specialized, like The Silver Wing, rather general or a mix. They could also start the game facedown in your command zone and be revealed when they trigger so as to limit the complexity of tracking all the opponent's possible prizes.
The advantage to prizes over just putting these sort of things on a normal card is consistency. If you have a rare prize, you can build around it without fear of not drawing it in a game. It's also flavorful for the Arena setting, and creates unusual gameplay goals. However, it could be using an anvil on a nail (way more force than is necessary).
I won't get into the specific arguments I have, since one of us eventually has to give the other the last word on the matter and clearly it's going to be me. The only thought I'll add is that we need to figure out what mind set we're going to design in moving forward. Some of the things you're bringing up are a little contradictory: for instance you're saying that we should template cards one way because that's how you think they'd actually be printed, but we can ignore other things (like DFCs, or value outside the format) because this set won't actually be printed. So, which is it? Are we pretending this is a real set or not? How many corners are we cutting? I only ask because it will change our design drastically if we're making a truly stand alone self contained limited environment rather than a normal set that interacts with the rest of magic.
Copay
Piar's costings are about what I'd expect to see. This is my main concern with Copay: If we're intending it to be a battlecruiser mechanic, then something like a 7/7 would need to cost 10 or 12. I mean, I'm totally down for that, but it doesn't seem really where we want to be. I agree that low cost copay cards are also pretty fun, but then we're pushing out set towards the lower side of the curve (which could be where we want it to be, if we choose so).
Transform
Since we're looking at draft mechanics anyway, having DFCs may not be too big of an issue. We could even find a way of utilizing draft mechanics on the DFCs to merge the two.
Team Archetypes
I'm not a fan of this path of design, but I do think it could serve a place as perhaps an uncommon build-around cycle.
Allies
I honestly don't think the ETB version is all that more awkward than the original Allies wording. You're only adding a couple of words to it and there's very little room for confusion. Personally I think it'd be more confusing to move the trigger after Allies have already been established as an ETB tribe.
Flavor
I think a big factor here is what level of reprints Piar wants to use. If this is a Conspiracy style, reprint heavy set then a Planeswalker arena seems like a good fit. If it's mostly an original set, the previously mentioned flavor of warring nations within the plane would make more sense.
Prizes
This is a cool idea that definitely adds a lot in terms of shaping the draft, but I wonder if they might be too linear? Also, do they fit well into this format specifically? I think they're a great idea, but it seems like something else to throw on top of everything already going on in 2HG. Perhaps it would be better if they were tied into teamwork in some way? For instance:
Giant's Cup
Trophy (Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate each control a creature with power 5 or greater, you may turn ~ face up. If you do, put a 5/5 red Giant creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
Army's Cup
Trophy (Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate each control at least three creatures each, you may turn ~ face up. If you do, put three +1/+1 counters divided as you choose among any number of target creatures.
These cards would give both you and your teammate a shared goal that you both need to accomplish to get the reward.
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.
Some of the things you're bringing up are a little contradictory: for instance you're saying that we should template cards one way because that's how you think they'd actually be printed, but we can ignore other things (like DFCs, or value outside the format) because this set won't actually be printed. So, which is it? Are we pretending this is a real set or not? How many corners are we cutting? I only ask because it will change our design drastically if we're making a truly stand alone self contained limited environment rather than a normal set that interacts with the rest of magic.
Sorry for the confusion. In the hopes of clarifying, I’ve gone into quite a bit of detail. Hidden in a spoiler for those just reading the mechanics stuff.
I'll quote myself from earlier in the thread.
I think the best answer is, "Yes, we design as though we're Wizards of the Coast releasing this product exactly how we'll release it." Since we clearly won't be charging money for the product and it will be designed for print-and-play enjoyment, or similar distribution, I think those are both factors. This would definitely affect how Wizards develops the product, because the market and interaction is different. We also don't need to worry about breaking legacy tournaments - because they won't be legal in legacy tournaments. Basically, if a team from wizards was somehow working on a free print-and-play product like this - what would they do? Maintaining the colour pie would still be important. Balancing for eternal formats wouldn't be.
How readable a card is, how fun it is to play and so on still matter - because they impact the play experience. Printing concerns, on the other hand, aren't an issue. For example, the reason you see all the text on most games in black - rather than some text being in other colors - is because each color in the printing process comes on its own set of plates. If you're translating into another language, you only have to change the text - not the rest. However, you have to pay to have each set of colored plates made. If you only have to change one set of plates, the black plates for text, that lowers your printing costs. If some text is in another color though, the printing process requires spending a whole lot of extra money on another set of plates.
Print and play, from a home printer, doesn't have this issue. If we wanted, we could put different colored text all over the cards (not that we should, messing with magic's aesthetic is an awful idea).
Of course our own production model also has limitations. I'm rather concerned at how DFC cards will work in print-and-play actually, since it's not like you can pull the card out of its sleeve and flip it over. It's probably just a slip of paper. Would people need to tape two cards together? Use transparent sleeves? It could be a mess. Another limitation of ours is that we can't commission our own art - so we can't make a highly unique world. It has to be a setting that can use art from elsewhere rather easily.
TLDR; Wizards has many design and development constraints that apply in different situations. When they design a product, they design it to be the best they can for that situation. Sometimes these involve things like printing costs in their production model, translation issues, marketing concerns (like when "demons" weren't used for a while because they were worried about that branding the game in a negative light) that have little bearing on how well the cards play. When these constraints come up, Wizards works around them. When they don't come up, fantastic.
Copay
Piar's costings are about what I'd expect to see. This is my main concern with Copay: If we're intending it to be a battlecruiser mechanic, then something like a 7/7 would need to cost 10 or 12. I mean, I'm totally down for that, but it doesn't seem really where we want to be. I agree that low cost copay cards are also pretty fun, but then we're pushing out set towards the lower side of the curve (which could be where we want it to be, if we choose so).
I think that might be overcosting copay a bit, but it’s probably fine for early testing. I’d be interested in seeing copay more aggressively costed, but that could go directly against the battlecruiser vision.
I think that itself is worth talking about. 2HG turns almost every draft format into battlecruiser magic. If we design to make a battlecruiser format even more battlecruisery… Well, you know what they say about too much candy.
Mechanics that work well in a battlecruiser environment make sense to me, but we probably don’t need to go out of our way to make defensive themes and all that jazz.
Has anyone played 2-Headed Rise of the Eldrazi? I’d be interested to hear how that went.
Transform
Since we're looking at draft mechanics anyway, having DFCs may not be too big of an issue. We could even find a way of utilizing draft mechanics on the DFCs to merge the two.
That could be interesting. If the print-and-play isn’t an issue for DFC, I’d be quite interested to see how that goes.
Team Archetypes
I'm not a fan of this path of design, but I do think it could serve a place as perhaps an uncommon build-around cycle.
Can you clarify what you mean here? There isn’t much to go on and I’m interested in your thoughts.
Allies
I honestly don't think the ETB version is all that more awkward than the original Allies wording. You're only adding a couple of words to it and there's very little room for confusion. Personally I think it'd be more confusing to move the trigger after Allies have already been established as an ETB tribe.
Yeah, makes sense. Agreed.
Flavor
I think a big factor here is what level of reprints Piar wants to use. If this is a Conspiracy style, reprint heavy set then a Planeswalker arena seems like a good fit. If it's mostly an original set, the previously mentioned flavor of warring nations within the plane would make more sense.
Since the format itself involves 2 planeswalkers going head to head with two other planeswalkers, I like the idea of directly tying that into the flavor. Also, it’s worth noting that since we can’t commission specific art pieces that fit our world we’re going to have to use a bunch of diverse pieces in any case. A theme that makes sense of tons of diversity would be helpful if the set wants to make a bunch of new cards.
Prizes
This is a cool idea that definitely adds a lot in terms of shaping the draft, but I wonder if they might be too linear? Also, do they fit well into this format specifically? I think they're a great idea, but it seems like something else to throw on top of everything already going on in 2HG. Perhaps it would be better if they were tied into teamwork in some way? For instance:
Giant's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate each control a creature with power 5 or greater, you may turn ~ face up. If you do, put a 5/5 red Giant creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
Army's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate each control at least three creatures each, you may turn ~ face up. If you do, put three +1/+1 counters divided as you choose among any number of target creatures.
These cards would give both you and your teammate a shared goal that you both need to accomplish to get the reward.
I definitely like playing around with these Trophies in various ways, and going for the Teamwork-based goals is a definite possibility. It’s possible that the Trophies (I like that name better than Prizes) could work in different ways based on a cycle the way the quests in Zendikar did. Common ones might be rather straightforward, while rare ones could be highly specific “build-around-me” cards that can enable brand new strategies which could never normally work (the difference between Khalni Shrine Expedition and Pyromancer’s Ascension).
Of course, trophies would need to be balanced for how hard they are to achieve. Most decks can probably trigger Giant’s Cup and Army’s Cup without any special considerations – so those effects need to be pretty small. Whereas a trigger like “When you have 20 or more cards in hand” could have a game-ending effect.
I think trophies go rather well with the lower interactivity of Battleship magic, because they give you an interesting goal to work towards.
I'm interested in exploring the Trophy design space. It might be worth a playtest.
I'm running off to work in just a minute, but I just want to chime in regarding DFC print&play - I've done so with great success using two slips of paper, a proxy card, and a gluestick.
@Stairc: I understand what you're saying, but I'm still confused about what I think is the heart of the question: are we designing these cards to interact with the rest of magic, or not?
Copay
I've actually played quite a bit of 2HG RoE. What I can tell you is that all of the mechanics work very well. Essentially, 2HG in a normal format requires you to throw out maybe a third to a half of the set. In RoE, basically all of the archetypes worked fine in 2HG, so everything was still playable.
Transform
If we're actually thinking about the logistics of print-and-play, wouldn't transform no longer be revealed during drafts? (Unless you're using clear sleeves, but requiring this seems rather specific).
Team Archetypes
My main concern here is us getting "too cute". If we wanted, we could basically build the set so anything and everything references your teammate, and personally I feel this reduces the fun of trying to work together, rather than enhances it. However, I don't think this is a bad design idea, just not one I want to take over the set. For instance, I could definitely see some draft-around uncommons that use this quite blatantly. For example, if we imagine Allies are centered in (G/W), we could make:
Allied Intelligence2B
Enchantment (U)
Whenever an Ally enters the battlefield under your teammate's control, you may pay 1. If you do, you may lose one life and draw a card.
That said, we could also just make this card work for both players. I feel the space we've started to explore with Trophies may completely replace these designs.
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.
My hope for this set is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50% reprints. That's less than Conspiracy but not by too much. I realized recently that the skeleton I posted needs revisions so I'll be changing it sometime soon to reflect that - One big difference is that I want to find a bit more room for land cards and draft cards.
I like where we're going with Prizes/Trophies. Just thinking out loud here, what if our Prizes were also DFC? So the side you start with is essentially a quest/mission, which upon achievement transforms to the other side giving you either an effect upon transformation/upkeep/trigger or a static "emblem"-style effect? Heck, we could even justify calling the rewards Emblems. It's an existing type, after all.
I'm open to the "dueling planeswalkers visit to battle for rewards" flavor, but am looking forward to void_nothing chiming in as well.
Here's the wording I've been using when typing up Ally samples. The unfortunate thing is that this essentially removes the potential for us to reprint existing Ally cards.
Whenever CARDNAME or another Ally enters the battlefield under the control of you or a teammate, [effect].
@Stairc: I understand what you're saying, but I'm still confused about what I think is the heart of the question: are we designing these cards to interact with the rest of magic, or not?
Not on a tournament level, because the cards aren't going to be legal in tournament environments (though this barely affects anything, because wizards doesn't playtest for eternal formats anyway).
As for being played in other casual formats, that I don't have a strong opinion on one way or another. I'd be happy to design the set to be a stand-alone draft environment with no constructed applications at all - not even block constructed. This could be neat, because the design can do things the rest of magic can't - including making cards that would be utterly broken in constructed but are fair in limited. I'd also be fine with keeping casual constructed in mind and trying to keep things open for other formats when possible. For example, it may not seem like it from our conversations thus far, but I'm a huge fan of free for all multiplayer. It's my favorite format, it's what I design decks for, it's what I tend to write articles about and it's what I play 99% of the time. I would be delighted to cater to that side of things if it doesn't undermine the rest of the set (quite a few "each player" and "each opponent" designs would be an elegant way to do that).
On my personal preference, I'd probably embrace the idea of making the set a stand-alone as its own limited format with the cards not being legal anywhere else. Then after we've seen what we can design for that unique environment, we could see about expanding things in development.
Copay
I've actually played quite a bit of 2HG RoE. What I can tell you is that all of the mechanics work very well. Essentially, 2HG in a normal format requires you to throw out maybe a third to a half of the set. In RoE, basically all of the archetypes worked fine in 2HG, so everything was still playable.
That's a great datapoint to have.
Transform
If we're actually thinking about the logistics of print-and-play, wouldn't transform no longer be revealed during drafts? (Unless you're using clear sleeves, but requiring this seems rather specific).
It depends on how it's done. I have no idea what the best way to do it is, if it's even reasonable in print and play. Piar mentioned something about this, but I haven't tried it in practice yet.
Team Archetypes
My main concern here is us getting "too cute". If we wanted, we could basically build the set so anything and everything references your teammate, and personally I feel this reduces the fun of trying to work together, rather than enhances it. However, I don't think this is a bad design idea, just not one I want to take over the set. For instance, I could definitely see some draft-around uncommons that use this quite blatantly. For example, if we imagine Allies are centered in (G/W), we could make:
Allied Intelligence2B
Enchantment (U)
Whenever an Ally enters the battlefield under your teammate's control, you may pay 1. If you do, you may lose one life and draw a card.
Gotcha. I agree that not everything in the set should replace "whenever you do X" triggers with "whenever your teammate does X". I definitely wasn't advocating that. A small cycle of build-arounds is probably right for that design if we even want to do that. Referencing "whenever you or your teammate does X" seems a lot slicker, though unfortunately would probably be a lot more expensive by definition. I'm not sure the costs on these super-allies that care about you and your teammate are going to be feasible enough to be fun. But, might as well try it out first. If it works, that'll be awesome.
However, my main point here was that designing team-archetypes - where the players build decks that are designed to work together (rather than each player just building 2 separate good decks that happen to play together) seems like ground very much worth exploring.
I feel the space we've started to explore with Trophies may completely replace these designs.
Quite possibly. I'm worried that making a new cardtype is hilarious overkill, but they sure feel cool. I'd like to explore them.
My hope for this set is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50% reprints. That's less than Conspiracy but not by too much. I realized recently that the skeleton I posted needs revisions so I'll be changing it sometime soon to reflect that - One big difference is that I want to find a bit more room for land cards and draft cards.
Can you clarify this? I think I know what you mean by "land cards and draft cards" but I'm not entirely sure I do. Do you mean the draft-effects like conspiracies and the cogworks, along with great lands, so there's less stuff shunted to the sideboard? I assume that's what you mean, but want to be clear.
like where we're going with Prizes/Trophies. Just thinking out loud here, what if our Prizes were also DFC? So the side you start with is essentially a quest/mission, which upon achievement transforms to the other side giving you either an effect upon transformation/upkeep/trigger or a static "emblem"-style effect? Heck, we could even justify calling the rewards Emblems. It's an existing type, after all.
That could be a very neat design. Also combines two gimmicks into one all-powerful "SUPER" gimmick. Additionally, if Trophies are to be build-around cards, making them double-faced in a draft means you can see which the other players are taking - which would be an interesting amount of added information and could help compensate for the reduced signaling in 2HG.
That said, considering they don't have costs (unless we want to put them on the Trophies themselves as costs to flip them), I'm leery of permanent buffs. They're a lot harder to make small enough to be fair - so they'd definitely have to be pretty hard to pull off. Also, I do like the idea of Trophies being facedown as the game begins - so that the board doesn't start with several cards on it that all have to be read. Just prevents a little board complexity and replaces it with some tension of the unseen.
So, I see pros and cons in both directions and I'm very much interested to see what you guys do with the idea. Gotta run myself for the moment.
My hope for this set is somewhere in the neighborhood of 40-50% reprints. That's less than Conspiracy but not by too much. I realized recently that the skeleton I posted needs revisions so I'll be changing it sometime soon to reflect that - One big difference is that I want to find a bit more room for land cards and draft cards.
Can you clarify this? I think I know what you mean by "land cards and draft cards" but I'm not entirely sure I do. Do you mean the draft-effects like conspiracies and the cogworks, along with great lands, so there's less stuff shunted to the sideboard? I assume that's what you mean, but want to be clear.
That's exactly what I mean.
Edit: Updated the skeleton to include commons only (for now). Found room for 5 lands and 3 "special" Trophies/etc.
Side-note: I wish we could use "on your side of the battlefield." I'd love to write, "Creatures on your side of the battlefield get +1/+1" instead of, "Creatures you and your teammate control get +1/+1". But some wishes weren't meant to come true.
I'm looking forward to seeing more Trophy designs. It seems like there are a ton of options. For example, some more crazy ideas. And nope, there hasn't even been an attempt to balance them yet.
Demon's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep you may turn ~ face up and sacrifice any number of black creatures. If 5 or more creatures were sacrificed this way, you may search your hand and library for a Demon card and put it onto the battlefield.
Demon's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep you may turn ~ face up and sacrifice 3 creatures. If you do, you may search your library for a black card, reveal it and put it into your hand.
Druid's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control 10 or more creature tokens, you may turn ~ face up.
Creature tokens you and your teammate control get +1/+1
Druid's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control 10 or more creature tokens, you may turn ~ face up.
When Druid's Cup is turned face up, for each creature token you and your teammates control, put a token that's a copy of that creature onto the battlefield.
Guardian's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control creatures with total toughness 20 or greater, you may turn ~ face up.
When Guardian's Cup is turned face-up, gain 10 life.
Guardian's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control creatures with total toughness 40 or greater, you may turn ~ face up.
When Guardian's Cup is turned face-up, gain 20 life.
Guardian's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control creatures with total toughness 40 or greater, you may turn ~ face up.
Each creature you and your teammates control assign combat damage equal to their toughness instead of their power.
Necromancer's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are 20 or more total creatures in you and your teammate's graveyard, you may turn Necromancer's Cup faceup.
When Necromancer's Cup is turned faceup, you may return a black creature in your graveyard to the battlefield.
Storm Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
When you and your teammate cast 6 or more total spells in one turn, you may flip Storm Cup faceup.
When Storm Cup is turned faceup, reveal the top 6 cards of your library. You may play one of those cards without paying its mana cost then put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
Gold Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay WWUUBBRRGG to flip Gold Cup faceup.
Creatures you and your teammate control have protection from everything.
Cleric's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your end step, if you and your teammate gained 20 or more total life during this turn, you may flip Cleric's Cup faceup.
When Cleric's Cup is turned faceup, put a white avatar token onto the battlefield with "this creature's power and toughness are equal to your life total".
Thinking about the designs with costs to flip, that provides a great many balancing tools.
Titan's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you or your teammate controls the creature with the greatest power in play, you may pay 4GG. If you do, you may flip Titan's Cup faceup.
When Titan's Cup is flipped faceup, you may put two 6/6 green wurm tokens onto the battlefield.
Any thoughts on trophies? I'm torn between really liking the options and feeling they're pretty darn unnecessary (it's a whole extra cardtype after all).
Any thoughts on trophies? I'm torn between really liking the options and feeling they're pretty darn unnecessary (it's a whole extra cardtype after all).
I like several of your designs (Especially involving mana costs). Even so, I think we should make the set without them and only use them if we feel like the set is missing something during playtesting.
I've been looking at reprint options, and I'm curious what you guys think about Allies. We could continue to just use "under your control," especially if we focus allies to specific colors. I like this because we get to re-use existing Ally cards, we get to re-use existing intuitive wording, and the players have the ability to put all the ally cards in the same deck anyway since the cardpool is shared.
What kind of build-around-me cards do we want on our radar? While I know we can't overuse them ("Wizards designed our decks for us") I think those really help to define archtypes. We've talked about Astral Slide and Lightning Rift already.
Ulterior Generosity1G
Enchantment (U)
Whenever you pay mana on another player's spell, you may put a +1/+1 counter on target creature. "This does double duty with copay and teamwork, depending on the wording of those mechanics. It could make Saprolings instead or something." - Piar
Demonic Battalion1BB
Enchantment (U)
Whenever three or more creatures attack, if you control one of those creatures, Demonic Overwatch becomes a 5/5 black Demon creature with flying tapped and attacking until end of turn. The wording on this is almost certainly wrong, but it's just a rough draft anyway." - Piar
Sorry I haven't been active this weekend. I was looking forward to designing and discussing, but I ended up playing some custom card type 4 instead.
@Staric: I'm curious as to how you feel about shared goals. When I posted my original trophy deisgns, I specifically made them so that both players had to do something. This gave an interesting drafting challenge, as now both players had to find a way to accomplish the same thing. I liked this because normally you're going to be drafting two decks that have completely different color identities and do different things, so finding a way to work around this could lead to some fun strategies. That said, having ridiculously hard challenges that could be done by a single player but are more easily done by both could also be fun, I'm just not sure which side of the fence you sit on.
@Piar: If Allies don't use the teamwork wording I don't think they should be in the set. If they're limited to just your control, they don't really fit the mechanical theme of the format nor take advantage of anything related to 2HG. Luckily, there's a very good reason why we don't want to reprint any Allies anyway: all of them have Zendikar related names. The only one who's name doesn't contain a Zendikar specific place is Stonework Puma, which we could reprint anyway.
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.
I like several of your designs (Especially involving mana costs). Even so, I think we should make the set without them and only use them if we feel like the set is missing something during playtesting.
I’m 90% sure that you’re right and that the set doesn’t need this. However, I think we should take Maro’s advice and try out the crazier ideas first. I don’t want to put a bunch of time into the mechanic, but for the first playtest I feel we should try out Trophies to see how they feel. It’s possible that trying to work toward specific elements in gameplay, like the Zendikar quests – only with added reliability (because you’re guaranteed to have access to the card) – is valuable for draft.
TLDR: Let’s test it out, but then we’ll probably cut it. If it ends up being cool, it’s super thematic.
I've been looking at reprint options, and I'm curious what you guys think about Allies. We could continue to just use "under your control," especially if we focus allies to specific colors. I like this because we get to re-use existing Ally cards, we get to re-use existing intuitive wording, and the players have the ability to put all the ally cards in the same deck anyway since the cardpool is shared.
A tribe that empowers the creatures of the tribe that both you and your teammate control is way too good an idea for a 2HG set to not do something with. As I see it, we have 4 options.
1) Do slivers – possibly with the templating “slivers you and your teammate control get [benefit]”.
2) Do allies with the templating that works for both you and your teammate.
3) Make a new creature type that works in one of these two ways (or a brand new way, like caring when you or a teammate casts this spell).
Slivers seem to fit nostalgia value better (both in fans of the type and fans of the limited 2HG format due to that historic pro tour) and the flavor of empowering the hive works well, but they create extreme board complexity.
Allies fit thematically in a teamwork setting. However, I’m a bit worried about how powerful they’ll be with twice the ETB triggers. Allies already had a problem of looking terrible in the abstract, especially the +1/+1 counter ones like Hada Freeblade, and having to be priced even higher would certainly make them look odd.
A brand new creature type gives us all the freedom we could ask for. Of course, being a blank slate, we don’t know how they’d work.
What kind of build-around-me cards do we want on our radar? While I know we can't overuse them ("Wizards designed our decks for us") I think those really help to define archtypes. We've talked about Astral Slide and Lightning Rift already.
It depends what types of major archetypes we want to evolve naturally. Then we can supplement them with several build-around-me uncommons for specialized archetypes. For example, many cards might have cycling, but only one or two cards might have “cycling matters” effects, allowing you to build that deck if you get the option early.
The “wizards built our decks for us” complaint isn’t real. Many players love linear deck archetypes, they just don’t talk about it that way because they’re focusing on how cool tribal is and so on. However, you can keep the more hipster drafters happy by making the build-around archetypes a supplementary part of the environment – so they don’t define the environment, but are still cool options empowered by a few specific cards. Burning Vengeance is a great example, a single uncommon that enables a whole “flashback matters” archetype.
@Staric: I'm curious as to how you feel about shared goals. When I posted my original trophy deisgns, I specifically made them so that both players had to do something. This gave an interesting drafting challenge, as now both players had to find a way to accomplish the same thing. I liked this because normally you're going to be drafting two decks that have completely different color identities and do different things, so finding a way to work around this could lead to some fun strategies. That said, having ridiculously hard challenges that couldbe done by a single player but are more easily done by both could also be fun, I'm just not sure which side of the fence you sit on.
I think they’re a very col option. In exploring design space, I try to push all the limits first and figure out where the mechanics can theoretically go. Then, after eliminating only the most obviously terrible ideas, try a version of each out to see what the gameplay feels like (because it gives much clearer answers and saves a lot of time compared to theorycrafting). The fact that you posted trophies that cared about both players is why I posted trophies that worked differently – not because I thought they were bad ideas.
I’m not sure which side of the fence I sit on either. I see advantages to trophies that specifically demand tasks from both players (encouraging team archetypes that work well together), and trophies that are more open-ended (more flexibility in how players seek to achieve the goals). I’d like to put some of each variety into the first playtest to see how each feels in actual drafting and gameplay.
@Piar: If Allies don't use the teamwork wording I don't think they should be in the set. If they're limited to just your control, they don't really fit the mechanical theme of the format nor take advantage of anything related to 2HG. Luckily, there's a very good reason why we don't want to reprint any Allies anyway: all of them have Zendikar related names. The only one who's name doesn't contain a Zendikar specific place is Stonework Puma, which we could reprint anyway.
I might make an argument that Highland Berserker is flavor-generic enough, but you're totally right. Looking at some of the other mechanics we've considered bringing back (Level up, Monstrosity, Transform, Outlast) there are quite a few cards we couldn't reprint due to naming. Here's a mechanic-sorted list of cards I could see reprinting:
Cycling lands actually seems like an awesome idea for this set.
What I normally like to do is start brainstorming ideas for decks that each color pair could make, but I think we need to have a more solid grasp of our mechanics first. It appears that Cycling and Allies are both pretty much agreed upon. Copay/Teamwork/Sidekick is for sure in the set, but we haven't decided on which version yet. What about beyond that? Is Battalion a lock, or still on the fence? Do we want to explore DFC options? Do we want an Aura mechanic, given how naturally Auras fit into the environment?
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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'm not sold on Battalion, so I wouldn't say it's a lock. 3 creatures attacking seems ridiculously easy to make work in this set. It might work at a higher number, but it's not batallion then. So I wouldn't say it's a lock, it's just something that naturally works for multiple players attacking with guys in one turn, so that's nice. I'm not in favor of it but I also don't actively think it's a bad idea to try - which is why I haven't commented yet.
Cycling is a very solid mechanic, and cycling lands are awesome.
I don't think anything else is a lock yet, just a lot of things worth exploring. One thing I'm interested in though is Exalted. Seems kind of the definition of Battleship. Why hasn't it come up before?
I think having a mechanic that builds a creature up is very important. As I said above, "curve" isn't really important, but being able to play things early that become relevant later is. As of right now it doesn't even seem like we have an aura theme in the set, which makes having creatures able to build themselves up without help even more important. Battalion is fine incentive to play small creatures, but having the ability to turn into a battlecruiser over time I think is something important to have. Otherwise it feels like the whole format will just be stalling to cast giant things on turn 10. This, by the way, is why I don't think Copay and Teamwork can coexist. Not only do they compete for the shared mana slot, but they also clutter up our "late game, big spells" area.
As for building up other creatures, I feel like Allies already fill this niche.
EDIT: Let's take a step back and look at what we've got so far. Remember we're aiming for a Battlecruiser format, so how do our mechanics fit into this concept?
Copay - This mechanic can make giant creatures easier to cast. I think there's some danger here though; an 8 drop can be cast as easily as turn 4, so costing on this ability is going to be incredibly tough to balance. In 2HG I don't think one player "skipping their turn" is really all that much of a drawback.
Teamwork - This mechanic can make normal sized creatures giant. The drawback of this one as compared to Copay is that one player can't muscle through the cost themselves. The upside is that costing has much less potential to break.
Allies - This mechanic allows you to build up small creatures by using other creatures. This is a pretty solid mechanic I feel, as it encourages many things (linear drafting, lots of creatures rather than one, etc.)
Battalion - While a good fit for the format, this mechanic does nothing in terms of battlecruisering.
Cycling - This mechanic does nothing in terms of Battlecruisering, but that's not really a knock against it given how much it does to smoothing things out.
"Level Up" - This mechanic lets small creatures turn into battlecruisers.
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
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This is an interesting question. I don't think we need a "get bigger" mechanic so much as we want one because they have a history of playing well.
I'm going to use this post to log my sample cards for the weekend review.
Creature (C)
Level up 1W - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 3/4
Level 4+ - Vigilance 4/7
Blue Tier3 2U
Creature (C)
Level up 1U - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 2/5
Level 4+ - Flying 5/5
Black Tier3 2B
Creature (C)
Level up 1B - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 4/3
Level 4+ - Lifelink 6/4
Red Tier3 2R
Creature (C)
Level up 1R - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 5/2
Level 4+ - First strike 6/3
Green Tier3 2G
Creature (C)
Level up 1G - 2/2
Level 1 to 3 - 4/4
Level 4+ - Trample 6/6
Creature - Angel (C)
Copay (Other players may help you cast this spell. Each mana another player spends pays for 1.)
Flying
4/5
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Prevent the next 4 damage that would be dealt to target creature or player this turn. If CARDNAME was kicked and damage is prevented this way, CARDNAME deals that much damage to target player.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target creature gets +2/+2 until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Tap two target creatures. If CARDNAME was kicked, those creatures don’t untap during their controllers’ next untap step.
Sorcery (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Put two 1/1 white Spirit creature tokens onto the battlefield. If a player kicked CARDNAME, that player puts two of those tokens onto the battlefield.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Any number of target creatures gain hexproof until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, those creatures each get +2/+2 until end of turn.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target player draws two cards. If CARDNAME was kicked, it deals damage equal to the number of cards in that player’s hand to target creature or player.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Counter target spell unless its controller pays 3. If CARDNAME was kicked, exile that spell instead.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Return target creature to its owner’s hand. If CARDNAME was kicked, that player discards a card.
Sorcery (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Each opponent discards a card. If CARDNAME was kicked, you and your teammates each draw a card.
Sorcery (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Destroy target creature. If CARDNAME was kicked, that creature deals damage equal to its power to its controller.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Return target creature card from a graveyard to its owner’s hand. If CARDNAME was kicked, instead put that card onto the battlefield under your control.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target creature gets -3/-3 until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, target creature gets +3/+3 until end of turn.
Sorcery (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Destroy target artifact or land. If CARDNAME was kicked, that permanent’s controller discards a card.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target creature you control fights another target creature. If CARDNAME was kicked, regenerate the creature you control.
Instant (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Target creature gets +2/+0 until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, that creature gains double strike until end of turn.
Sorcery (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Switch each creature’s power and toughness until end of turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, creatures your opponents control get -3/-0 until end of turn.
Instant (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Prevent all combat damage that would be dealt this turn. If CARDNAME was kicked, you gain life equal to the amount of damage prevented this way.
Sorcery (C)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Put a +1/+1 counter on any number of target creatures. If CARDNAME was kicked, those creatures gain haste until end of turn.
Sorcery (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
Search your library for a basic land and put it onto the battlefield tapped. If CARDNAME was kicked, search your library for a card and put it into your hand. Then shuffle your library.
Sorcery (U)
Sidekick (Another player may pay as you cast this spell.)
If CARDNAME was kicked, draw a card.
Put an X/X green Ooze creature token onto the battlefield, where X is the number of cards in your hand.
Creature - Human Cleric (C)
Mentor 2W (2W, T: Put a +1/+1 counter on another target creature. Mentor only as a sorcery.)
1/1
White-Uncommon Mentor 2W
Creature - Human Cleric (U)
Mentor 2W (2W, T: Put a +1/+1 counter on another target creature. Mentor only as a sorcery.)
Whenever a +1/+1 counter is put on a creature, you may have that creature gain vigilance until end of turn.
2/3
These points contradict each other. If you push copay to be only on giant spells that can't be cast otherwise, then yes it's identical to teamwork. One of my favorite things about copay is that it doesn't have to do that. 4cmc copay cards, especially if they have things like Flashback for more expensive costs, do things that other cards don't - and they do something that Teamwork doesn't as currently designed. A 2G card with a teamwork effect can't be cast by one player for full value. Casting a copay card early feels good, and you don't mind casting it later.
Curve-filling is an awesome part of gameplay, because it means that there are fewer turns where you aren't doing anything. It's fun to do stuff. It also makes the early turns of the game more fun, because you have more options.
As for making sure that the format is friendly to Battlecruiser magic, 2HG naturally lends itself to that format. Put almost any draft environment into 2HG and you get a format that feels like battlecruiser magic (the games go so long after all that you can't even play best 2 out of 3). We don't have to pull a lot of levers like in Rise of the Eldrazi to make sure it happens.
However, despite how much I prefer Copay for its intuitive nature and how perfect it feels for 2HG, I feel obligated to propose the following mechanic that melds both (albeit in a more complex and less fluid way).
Sidekick [Cost] (You or a teammate may pay an additional [cost] as you cast this spell).
Example...
Sidekick Simic - 2U
Flying
Sidekick 2G (You or a teammate may pay an additional 2G as you cast this spell).
If Sidekick Simic was Sidekicked, it enters the battlefield with three +1/+1 counters.
2/2
It's not as flexible, intuitive or elegant as copay, but this puts Teamwork and Copay into roughly the same mechanic. It's also worth noting that the phrase "you or a teammate" makes it work just fine in formats that don't have teammates without the awkwardly cludged "another player" wording that would create odd gameplay.
As for Train - I'd be interested to see what you do with it Piar. If it's true that it's never been done before, I think it's because Wizards would rather just let the creature buff itself too, since there might be no other creatures out. But in a 2HG format, the mechanic is much less likely to have no friends to play with. Want to make some cards to try it out?
EDIT - For the get-bigger mechanic, I'd like to see Transform put back on the table for three reasons.
1) We *can* make the flavor make sense, we have all the creative fully under our control. That shouldn't be a reason to discount it, and it was silly of me to say that.
2) It's like Monstrous, only with way more design space and without restricting our use of counters elsewhere in the set.
3) If it weren't for the printing costs, Mark Rosewater said they might put it in every set. We don't have printing costs.
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I was thinking about "sidekick" too, but I wanted to see if we could get copay to a place I liked first. Anyway, I'm really not sure why it can't just say "another player". This doesn't seem at all awkward or "cludged" to me. This adds extra functionality for virtually zero cost (card space, complexity, etc.). The only situation it could possible be inconvenient is magic online.
I think Copay is very misleading. The math on the mechanic simply doesn't work out the way a lot of the designs being posted would suggest. A 4 mana copay creature can be played as early as turn 2, and has very little opportunity cost since players most likely didn't have a better 2 drop and the copay creature only cost a single card. This means that 4 mana copay creatures should probably be costed as efficient 2 drops, unless we want to have a hyper aggressive format where people are powering out 7/7s on turn 4.
I think Transform is an interesting proposition, though printing costs are not the only thing that keeps it down. It does still add a great deal of complexity, as well as making drafts slightly more awkward. Not saying it's a bad idea, just that I don't think it's a shoe-in (though definitely worth considering).
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
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Because it's not as smooth or intuitive as calling out "teammate". This is a big deal. I also wouldn't want to see these cards in a free-for-all setting, which is the only reason to protect the "another player" wording - where players show you all these cards and start asking for people to pay the kickers every dang time and then end up not playing it and... It just slows everything down. Cards like Tempting Offer do this mechanic already and do it better for free for all games. It reads better when you call out teammate, and if it's "you or a teammate", it can still be played in formats without teammates.
Worse templating to enable annoying gameplay isn't good design. Even cards like Divination say, "Draw two cards" rather than "Target player draws 2 cards". And that's pure upside in gameplay for even less issues with grokkability. You or a Teammate is just better and it's what Wizards would do.
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I don't think that's entirely accurate. While 2HG is slower, you can't just not do anything in the first few turns. Aggressive decks without any sustainability don't tend to be effective, but late-game decks care about velocity, too. You don't want to play 2/1s on the second turn, but the team that uses its mana more efficiently and builds up resources and board presence faster is still going to have an edge.
Cheap copay spells can also be a way to enable aggressive strategies in a format that doesn't support them very well, naturally. If that's desirable or not can also be discussed.
I don't know which designs you are refering to, but those that I posted are all very overcosted if it wasn't for the copay. I wouldn't want to see too efficient copay creatures at low costs, but you don't have to be that conservative, considering there are two players that can try to beat whatever the other team spends their entire turn on.
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I honestly think you are blowing the difference between the two entirely out of proportion. The difference is small, and in a format where you're teamed up with another player already makes it intuitive and obvious who's going to be helping you out. Again, in a real life magic setting that doesn't follow every technical rule like MTGO does, this results in little to zero increase in speed or complexity, since it is obvious who is or isn't going to help you pay.
This isn't a huge deal, and you're obviously set on this so I'm not going to try and defend my position and derail the discussion, but please take into account that your preferences are not always fact. I honestly disagree that your version is simply "better" as you have stated. IMO, the templating is not "worse" nor is the gameplay "annoying". A lot of players (like me) would much rather have a fun card that both works in 2HG and has added functionality in free-for-all at the cost of an essentially meaningless templating change. Just because you don't care about potential political aspects of FFA magic doesn't mean they don't matter.
In my experience (which is admittedly limited) there's really no incentive to be proactive. You can take many turns simply doing nothing in 2HG and still be fine, thanks to your added life total relieving a ton of pressure. I'm not saying that tempo isn't important, but I don't think Copay's ability to fill out a curve is as relevant as it's ability to pump out massive threats twice as fast.
I agree that costing Copay cards aggressively would be an interesting way of speeding the format up, but that's something we'd have to do consciously, and it would involve shaping the format in a very different direction than we've been talking about so far.
My main concern is that Copay basically makes any card it's on the best card for half it's price. Playing a 7/7 on turn 4 is probably going to be better than the any 4 drop, potentially even better than any combination of 4 drops given that those two cards required, well, two cards. I'm just saying that the combination of acceleration and virtual card advantage that's inherent in Copay could potentially cause problems, and I feel it would ultimately result in cards that read a lot worse than they play (which, to be fair, is not always a bad thing).
This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move."
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Is the difference...
1) Larger than "target player draws 2 cards" vs. "Draw 2 cards". In a duel, isn't it obvious who you're going to be targeting? Of course it is, and of course it's a larger difference. Wizards has decided that the small difference in increased readability is worth it. This is a bigger difference in smooth and quick readibility than that example. Therefore, if we want to develop this professionally, this is also worth following the same logic.
2) Even worth having? If we were designing a free-for-all product, I'd have no interest whatsoever in an "untempting offer" mechanic. Like this:
"Untempting Offer - When you cast this spell, an opponent may pay X. If he or she does, you get a benefit."
I wouldn't want to play with that mechanic at all. The mechanic Tempting Offer gives players incentives to help you, while this is an Untempting Offer in its base version.
For the record: Free for all is my favorite format. It's what I play the most, what I tend to write articles about and what I enjoy the most. I'm a sucker for free-for-all mechanics and I love when I get more toys. I'm absolutely in the market. As a free-for-all-loving player, I don't like this mechanic.
3) Restricting our design? Yes, it is. Because Sidekick cards where the person paying the cost gets a benefit would suck to run in non-team formats. So we can't design them, or we have to use clunky wording like "When you cast this spell, choose a player. That player may pay [cost]. If he or she does..." Which is a lot longer than, "When you cast this spell, you or a teammate may pay [cost]".
4) Hurting our flavor? Yes. If we just say "teammate" it shouts loud and proud the team-based nature of the set. It's right in the rules text, you can't get away from it.
5) Protecting our customer's value No. We're designing a free set for players to enjoy a focused experience. We don't need to protect players' value, they're getting it for free. And if we go with a version of sidekick, they're already able to play the card in other formats if they so choose - just one part of it doesn't apply (the same way cards like Gray Merchant of Asphodel can be played in duels even though the "each opponent" part doesn't apply.
6) Taking advantage of past designs? Future sight used the term teammate, so while this is a minor point - one of the first things wizards does in a set is look for opportunities to reprint future sight cards. If the team-format isn't using it, that's just weird.
Ultimately, we don't need to have this argument now. It's an issue of how best to template a mechanic which might end up being cut anyway. However, I feel very strongly about it. All I see is reducing grokkability, taking flavor out of the set and constraining design space in order to make sure the cards can play poorly in free-for-all formats (which I don't think the mechanic is even enjoyable for in the first place). If I turned in that kind of templating in any of my design jobs, the developers would have changed it anyway.
Gotta run, so can't respond to the other points right now. In any case, I think we might as well move off this one until it starts directly interfering with design. Templating issues aside, thoughts on Sidekick everyone?
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Here's my "executive decision" on Copay: We're costing it like Delve. At least until we get to playtest it. We can have low cost Copay creatures, but they won't be as efficient as the competitive comparable cards in the same cost. See below for sample cases of pushed low-cost Copay cards:
5B 3/3 flying
1R 2/1
3B 3/1 lifelink
3R 3/2 trample
3W 2/4 first strike
1W 2/2
Regarding sidekick, it is my preferred version of Teamwork, but I'm not ruling out other versions yet. Not a fan of Shared Memory. EDIT: Updated my post above to include a bunch of sample Sidekick designs.
To clarify Piar, the designs you're putting up for "Sidekick" aren't the version that lets you pay the cost too if you want (you or a teammate/another player may pay [cost]), it relies on the teammate paying the cost. Was this intentional? I'm interested to hear thoughts on the sidekick version that can let you pay the kicker cost too, which might blend most of what we like about Teamwork and Copay (though not as elegantly). I like them both individually, but I'm troubled by their identity issues, so blending them into a kicker that you or a teammate can pay works for both curve-fixing and team-building.
Transform
It makes for some interesting drafting issues, that's for sure, but Innistrad demonstrated that it can work very well. I think it's worth exploring.
Team-Archetypes
I think if we're doing standard 2HG draft, encouraging players to draft as teams rather than drafting two decks that are individually good makes a lot of sense. Here are some thoughts on how this might be possible.
1) "Whenever a Teammate [does a specific thing] you may pay [cost]. If you do, [effect]."
This would be riffing off designs like Lightning Rift, only it's a card your teammate puts in his deck to benefit from the stuff you're doing. So for example, imagine if Cycling was only in Green and White (I assume it will be in every color, but just imagine it for the purpose of the example). If Red had some cards like this - that encourages an interesting piece of team deckbuilding.
2) "Creature tokens you and your teammates control get +1/+1."
This type of mechanic, which could also work for things like Lightning Rift, encourage both players to be doing lots of the same thing. I assume allies will fall into this category, like the following design (though the templating is rather awkward).
2-Headed Ally - 1G
Creature - Ally
Whenever you or a teammate cast an Ally spell, put a +1/+1 counter on 2-Headed Ally.
1/1
Awkward templating, since there's a cast-trigger instead of an ETB trigger now, but it's very awkward to say "whenever an ally enters the battlefield under your control or a teammate's control" and it doesn't make sense to use a universal "whenever an ally enters the battlefield" and count your opponent's allies too. But anyway, the idea seems rather clear.
Flavor
Now that we've got a slightly stronger idea of the mechanics, I'd like to put forward a flavor suggestion. What if the world itself is a grand arena where planeswalkers come to do battle in pairs for incredible prizes? It's an interesting concept, with an arena-overseer planeswalker of immense power - hving crafted the plane before the mending - overseeing the fights.
Arenas and Prizes
Piar mentioned earlier the concept of using Arenas as something that players could draft. Moon-E expressed some skepticism about the mechanic and I rather agree. However, thinking about it today, what about Prizes for doing certain things? Some possible executins.
Statue of the Titan
Prize
(Start the game with this prize face up in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control a creature with power 10 or greater, you may put a 10/10 colorless avatar token onto the battlefield. Then exile this prize.
The Golden Chariot
Prize - Artifact
(Start the game with this prize face up in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your end step, if 6 or more creatures attacked this turn, you may put The Golden Chariot onto the battlefield from your command zone.
T, target creature gets +3/+0 and haste.
The Silver Wing
Prize
(Start the game with this prize face up in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your end step, if you and your teammate control a total of 6 or more flying creatures, you get an emblem with "flying creatures you and your teammate control get +1/+1". Then exile this prize.
You probably get the idea. The idea is to build "achievements" of a kind that you can work for. They could be rather specialized, like The Silver Wing, rather general or a mix. They could also start the game facedown in your command zone and be revealed when they trigger so as to limit the complexity of tracking all the opponent's possible prizes.
The advantage to prizes over just putting these sort of things on a normal card is consistency. If you have a rare prize, you can build around it without fear of not drawing it in a game. It's also flavorful for the Arena setting, and creates unusual gameplay goals. However, it could be using an anvil on a nail (way more force than is necessary).
Thoughts?
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Copay
Piar's costings are about what I'd expect to see. This is my main concern with Copay: If we're intending it to be a battlecruiser mechanic, then something like a 7/7 would need to cost 10 or 12. I mean, I'm totally down for that, but it doesn't seem really where we want to be. I agree that low cost copay cards are also pretty fun, but then we're pushing out set towards the lower side of the curve (which could be where we want it to be, if we choose so).
Transform
Since we're looking at draft mechanics anyway, having DFCs may not be too big of an issue. We could even find a way of utilizing draft mechanics on the DFCs to merge the two.
Team Archetypes
I'm not a fan of this path of design, but I do think it could serve a place as perhaps an uncommon build-around cycle.
Allies
I honestly don't think the ETB version is all that more awkward than the original Allies wording. You're only adding a couple of words to it and there's very little room for confusion. Personally I think it'd be more confusing to move the trigger after Allies have already been established as an ETB tribe.
Flavor
I think a big factor here is what level of reprints Piar wants to use. If this is a Conspiracy style, reprint heavy set then a Planeswalker arena seems like a good fit. If it's mostly an original set, the previously mentioned flavor of warring nations within the plane would make more sense.
Prizes
This is a cool idea that definitely adds a lot in terms of shaping the draft, but I wonder if they might be too linear? Also, do they fit well into this format specifically? I think they're a great idea, but it seems like something else to throw on top of everything already going on in 2HG. Perhaps it would be better if they were tied into teamwork in some way? For instance:
Giant's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate each control a creature with power 5 or greater, you may turn ~ face up. If you do, put a 5/5 red Giant creature token with trample onto the battlefield.
Army's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate each control at least three creatures each, you may turn ~ face up. If you do, put three +1/+1 counters divided as you choose among any number of target creatures.
These cards would give both you and your teammate a shared goal that you both need to accomplish to get the reward.
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
Sorry for the confusion. In the hopes of clarifying, I’ve gone into quite a bit of detail. Hidden in a spoiler for those just reading the mechanics stuff.
I think the best answer is, "Yes, we design as though we're Wizards of the Coast releasing this product exactly how we'll release it." Since we clearly won't be charging money for the product and it will be designed for print-and-play enjoyment, or similar distribution, I think those are both factors. This would definitely affect how Wizards develops the product, because the market and interaction is different. We also don't need to worry about breaking legacy tournaments - because they won't be legal in legacy tournaments. Basically, if a team from wizards was somehow working on a free print-and-play product like this - what would they do? Maintaining the colour pie would still be important. Balancing for eternal formats wouldn't be.
How readable a card is, how fun it is to play and so on still matter - because they impact the play experience. Printing concerns, on the other hand, aren't an issue. For example, the reason you see all the text on most games in black - rather than some text being in other colors - is because each color in the printing process comes on its own set of plates. If you're translating into another language, you only have to change the text - not the rest. However, you have to pay to have each set of colored plates made. If you only have to change one set of plates, the black plates for text, that lowers your printing costs. If some text is in another color though, the printing process requires spending a whole lot of extra money on another set of plates.
Print and play, from a home printer, doesn't have this issue. If we wanted, we could put different colored text all over the cards (not that we should, messing with magic's aesthetic is an awful idea).
Of course our own production model also has limitations. I'm rather concerned at how DFC cards will work in print-and-play actually, since it's not like you can pull the card out of its sleeve and flip it over. It's probably just a slip of paper. Would people need to tape two cards together? Use transparent sleeves? It could be a mess. Another limitation of ours is that we can't commission our own art - so we can't make a highly unique world. It has to be a setting that can use art from elsewhere rather easily.
TLDR; Wizards has many design and development constraints that apply in different situations. When they design a product, they design it to be the best they can for that situation. Sometimes these involve things like printing costs in their production model, translation issues, marketing concerns (like when "demons" weren't used for a while because they were worried about that branding the game in a negative light) that have little bearing on how well the cards play. When these constraints come up, Wizards works around them. When they don't come up, fantastic.
I think that might be overcosting copay a bit, but it’s probably fine for early testing. I’d be interested in seeing copay more aggressively costed, but that could go directly against the battlecruiser vision.
I think that itself is worth talking about. 2HG turns almost every draft format into battlecruiser magic. If we design to make a battlecruiser format even more battlecruisery… Well, you know what they say about too much candy.
Mechanics that work well in a battlecruiser environment make sense to me, but we probably don’t need to go out of our way to make defensive themes and all that jazz.
Has anyone played 2-Headed Rise of the Eldrazi? I’d be interested to hear how that went.
That could be interesting. If the print-and-play isn’t an issue for DFC, I’d be quite interested to see how that goes.
Can you clarify what you mean here? There isn’t much to go on and I’m interested in your thoughts.
Yeah, makes sense. Agreed.
Since the format itself involves 2 planeswalkers going head to head with two other planeswalkers, I like the idea of directly tying that into the flavor. Also, it’s worth noting that since we can’t commission specific art pieces that fit our world we’re going to have to use a bunch of diverse pieces in any case. A theme that makes sense of tons of diversity would be helpful if the set wants to make a bunch of new cards.
I definitely like playing around with these Trophies in various ways, and going for the Teamwork-based goals is a definite possibility. It’s possible that the Trophies (I like that name better than Prizes) could work in different ways based on a cycle the way the quests in Zendikar did. Common ones might be rather straightforward, while rare ones could be highly specific “build-around-me” cards that can enable brand new strategies which could never normally work (the difference between Khalni Shrine Expedition and Pyromancer’s Ascension).
Of course, trophies would need to be balanced for how hard they are to achieve. Most decks can probably trigger Giant’s Cup and Army’s Cup without any special considerations – so those effects need to be pretty small. Whereas a trigger like “When you have 20 or more cards in hand” could have a game-ending effect.
I think trophies go rather well with the lower interactivity of Battleship magic, because they give you an interesting goal to work towards.
I'm interested in exploring the Trophy design space. It might be worth a playtest.
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Copay
I've actually played quite a bit of 2HG RoE. What I can tell you is that all of the mechanics work very well. Essentially, 2HG in a normal format requires you to throw out maybe a third to a half of the set. In RoE, basically all of the archetypes worked fine in 2HG, so everything was still playable.
Transform
If we're actually thinking about the logistics of print-and-play, wouldn't transform no longer be revealed during drafts? (Unless you're using clear sleeves, but requiring this seems rather specific).
Team Archetypes
My main concern here is us getting "too cute". If we wanted, we could basically build the set so anything and everything references your teammate, and personally I feel this reduces the fun of trying to work together, rather than enhances it. However, I don't think this is a bad design idea, just not one I want to take over the set. For instance, I could definitely see some draft-around uncommons that use this quite blatantly. For example, if we imagine Allies are centered in (G/W), we could make:
Allied Intelligence 2B
Enchantment (U)
Whenever an Ally enters the battlefield under your teammate's control, you may pay 1. If you do, you may lose one life and draw a card.
That said, we could also just make this card work for both players. I feel the space we've started to explore with Trophies may completely replace these designs.
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 like where we're going with Prizes/Trophies. Just thinking out loud here, what if our Prizes were also DFC? So the side you start with is essentially a quest/mission, which upon achievement transforms to the other side giving you either an effect upon transformation/upkeep/trigger or a static "emblem"-style effect? Heck, we could even justify calling the rewards Emblems. It's an existing type, after all.
I'm open to the "dueling planeswalkers visit to battle for rewards" flavor, but am looking forward to void_nothing chiming in as well.
Here's the wording I've been using when typing up Ally samples. The unfortunate thing is that this essentially removes the potential for us to reprint existing Ally cards.
Whenever CARDNAME or another Ally enters the battlefield under the control of you or a teammate, [effect].
Not on a tournament level, because the cards aren't going to be legal in tournament environments (though this barely affects anything, because wizards doesn't playtest for eternal formats anyway).
As for being played in other casual formats, that I don't have a strong opinion on one way or another. I'd be happy to design the set to be a stand-alone draft environment with no constructed applications at all - not even block constructed. This could be neat, because the design can do things the rest of magic can't - including making cards that would be utterly broken in constructed but are fair in limited. I'd also be fine with keeping casual constructed in mind and trying to keep things open for other formats when possible. For example, it may not seem like it from our conversations thus far, but I'm a huge fan of free for all multiplayer. It's my favorite format, it's what I design decks for, it's what I tend to write articles about and it's what I play 99% of the time. I would be delighted to cater to that side of things if it doesn't undermine the rest of the set (quite a few "each player" and "each opponent" designs would be an elegant way to do that).
On my personal preference, I'd probably embrace the idea of making the set a stand-alone as its own limited format with the cards not being legal anywhere else. Then after we've seen what we can design for that unique environment, we could see about expanding things in development.
That's a great datapoint to have.
It depends on how it's done. I have no idea what the best way to do it is, if it's even reasonable in print and play. Piar mentioned something about this, but I haven't tried it in practice yet.
Gotcha. I agree that not everything in the set should replace "whenever you do X" triggers with "whenever your teammate does X". I definitely wasn't advocating that. A small cycle of build-arounds is probably right for that design if we even want to do that. Referencing "whenever you or your teammate does X" seems a lot slicker, though unfortunately would probably be a lot more expensive by definition. I'm not sure the costs on these super-allies that care about you and your teammate are going to be feasible enough to be fun. But, might as well try it out first. If it works, that'll be awesome.
However, my main point here was that designing team-archetypes - where the players build decks that are designed to work together (rather than each player just building 2 separate good decks that happen to play together) seems like ground very much worth exploring.
Quite possibly. I'm worried that making a new cardtype is hilarious overkill, but they sure feel cool. I'd like to explore them.
Can you clarify this? I think I know what you mean by "land cards and draft cards" but I'm not entirely sure I do. Do you mean the draft-effects like conspiracies and the cogworks, along with great lands, so there's less stuff shunted to the sideboard? I assume that's what you mean, but want to be clear.
That could be a very neat design. Also combines two gimmicks into one all-powerful "SUPER" gimmick. Additionally, if Trophies are to be build-around cards, making them double-faced in a draft means you can see which the other players are taking - which would be an interesting amount of added information and could help compensate for the reduced signaling in 2HG.
That said, considering they don't have costs (unless we want to put them on the Trophies themselves as costs to flip them), I'm leery of permanent buffs. They're a lot harder to make small enough to be fair - so they'd definitely have to be pretty hard to pull off. Also, I do like the idea of Trophies being facedown as the game begins - so that the board doesn't start with several cards on it that all have to be read. Just prevents a little board complexity and replaces it with some tension of the unseen.
So, I see pros and cons in both directions and I'm very much interested to see what you guys do with the idea. Gotta run myself for the moment.
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Edit: Updated the skeleton to include commons only (for now). Found room for 5 lands and 3 "special" Trophies/etc.
Side-note: I wish we could use "on your side of the battlefield." I'd love to write, "Creatures on your side of the battlefield get +1/+1" instead of, "Creatures you and your teammate control get +1/+1". But some wishes weren't meant to come true.
I'm looking forward to seeing more Trophy designs. It seems like there are a ton of options. For example, some more crazy ideas. And nope, there hasn't even been an attempt to balance them yet.
Demon's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep you may turn ~ face up and sacrifice any number of black creatures. If 5 or more creatures were sacrificed this way, you may search your hand and library for a Demon card and put it onto the battlefield.
Demon's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep you may turn ~ face up and sacrifice 3 creatures. If you do, you may search your library for a black card, reveal it and put it into your hand.
Druid's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control 10 or more creature tokens, you may turn ~ face up.
Creature tokens you and your teammate control get +1/+1
Druid's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control 10 or more creature tokens, you may turn ~ face up.
When Druid's Cup is turned face up, for each creature token you and your teammates control, put a token that's a copy of that creature onto the battlefield.
Guardian's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control creatures with total toughness 20 or greater, you may turn ~ face up.
When Guardian's Cup is turned face-up, gain 10 life.
Guardian's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control creatures with total toughness 40 or greater, you may turn ~ face up.
When Guardian's Cup is turned face-up, gain 20 life.
Guardian's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you and your teammate control creatures with total toughness 40 or greater, you may turn ~ face up.
Each creature you and your teammates control assign combat damage equal to their toughness instead of their power.
Necromancer's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if there are 20 or more total creatures in you and your teammate's graveyard, you may turn Necromancer's Cup faceup.
When Necromancer's Cup is turned faceup, you may return a black creature in your graveyard to the battlefield.
Storm Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
When you and your teammate cast 6 or more total spells in one turn, you may flip Storm Cup faceup.
When Storm Cup is turned faceup, reveal the top 6 cards of your library. You may play one of those cards without paying its mana cost then put the rest on the bottom of your library in any order.
Gold Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, you may pay WWUUBBRRGG to flip Gold Cup faceup.
Creatures you and your teammate control have protection from everything.
Cleric's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your end step, if you and your teammate gained 20 or more total life during this turn, you may flip Cleric's Cup faceup.
When Cleric's Cup is turned faceup, put a white avatar token onto the battlefield with "this creature's power and toughness are equal to your life total".
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Titan's Cup
Trophy
(Start the game with this trophy face down in the command zone.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you or your teammate controls the creature with the greatest power in play, you may pay 4GG. If you do, you may flip Titan's Cup faceup.
When Titan's Cup is flipped faceup, you may put two 6/6 green wurm tokens onto the battlefield.
Any thoughts on trophies? I'm torn between really liking the options and feeling they're pretty darn unnecessary (it's a whole extra cardtype after all).
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I've been looking at reprint options, and I'm curious what you guys think about Allies. We could continue to just use "under your control," especially if we focus allies to specific colors. I like this because we get to re-use existing Ally cards, we get to re-use existing intuitive wording, and the players have the ability to put all the ally cards in the same deck anyway since the cardpool is shared.
What kind of build-around-me cards do we want on our radar? While I know we can't overuse them ("Wizards designed our decks for us") I think those really help to define archtypes. We've talked about Astral Slide and Lightning Rift already.
Ulterior Generosity 1G
Enchantment (U)
Whenever you pay mana on another player's spell, you may put a +1/+1 counter on target creature.
"This does double duty with copay and teamwork, depending on the wording of those mechanics. It could make Saprolings instead or something." - Piar
Demonic Battalion 1BB
Enchantment (U)
Whenever three or more creatures attack, if you control one of those creatures, Demonic Overwatch becomes a 5/5 black Demon creature with flying tapped and attacking until end of turn.
The wording on this is almost certainly wrong, but it's just a rough draft anyway." - Piar
Sorry I haven't been active this weekend. I was looking forward to designing and discussing, but I ended up playing some custom card type 4 instead.
@Piar: If Allies don't use the teamwork wording I don't think they should be in the set. If they're limited to just your control, they don't really fit the mechanical theme of the format nor take advantage of anything related to 2HG. Luckily, there's a very good reason why we don't want to reprint any Allies anyway: all of them have Zendikar related names. The only one who's name doesn't contain a Zendikar specific place is Stonework Puma, which we could reprint anyway.
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’m 90% sure that you’re right and that the set doesn’t need this. However, I think we should take Maro’s advice and try out the crazier ideas first. I don’t want to put a bunch of time into the mechanic, but for the first playtest I feel we should try out Trophies to see how they feel. It’s possible that trying to work toward specific elements in gameplay, like the Zendikar quests – only with added reliability (because you’re guaranteed to have access to the card) – is valuable for draft.
TLDR: Let’s test it out, but then we’ll probably cut it. If it ends up being cool, it’s super thematic.
A tribe that empowers the creatures of the tribe that both you and your teammate control is way too good an idea for a 2HG set to not do something with. As I see it, we have 4 options.
1) Do slivers – possibly with the templating “slivers you and your teammate control get [benefit]”.
2) Do allies with the templating that works for both you and your teammate.
3) Make a new creature type that works in one of these two ways (or a brand new way, like caring when you or a teammate casts this spell).
Slivers seem to fit nostalgia value better (both in fans of the type and fans of the limited 2HG format due to that historic pro tour) and the flavor of empowering the hive works well, but they create extreme board complexity.
Allies fit thematically in a teamwork setting. However, I’m a bit worried about how powerful they’ll be with twice the ETB triggers. Allies already had a problem of looking terrible in the abstract, especially the +1/+1 counter ones like Hada Freeblade, and having to be priced even higher would certainly make them look odd.
A brand new creature type gives us all the freedom we could ask for. Of course, being a blank slate, we don’t know how they’d work.
It depends what types of major archetypes we want to evolve naturally. Then we can supplement them with several build-around-me uncommons for specialized archetypes. For example, many cards might have cycling, but only one or two cards might have “cycling matters” effects, allowing you to build that deck if you get the option early.
The “wizards built our decks for us” complaint isn’t real. Many players love linear deck archetypes, they just don’t talk about it that way because they’re focusing on how cool tribal is and so on. However, you can keep the more hipster drafters happy by making the build-around archetypes a supplementary part of the environment – so they don’t define the environment, but are still cool options empowered by a few specific cards. Burning Vengeance is a great example, a single uncommon that enables a whole “flashback matters” archetype.
I think they’re a very col option. In exploring design space, I try to push all the limits first and figure out where the mechanics can theoretically go. Then, after eliminating only the most obviously terrible ideas, try a version of each out to see what the gameplay feels like (because it gives much clearer answers and saves a lot of time compared to theorycrafting). The fact that you posted trophies that cared about both players is why I posted trophies that worked differently – not because I thought they were bad ideas.
I’m not sure which side of the fence I sit on either. I see advantages to trophies that specifically demand tasks from both players (encouraging team archetypes that work well together), and trophies that are more open-ended (more flexibility in how players seek to achieve the goals). I’d like to put some of each variety into the first playtest to see how each feels in actual drafting and gameplay.
Agreed.
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What I normally like to do is start brainstorming ideas for decks that each color pair could make, but I think we need to have a more solid grasp of our mechanics first. It appears that Cycling and Allies are both pretty much agreed upon. Copay/Teamwork/Sidekick is for sure in the set, but we haven't decided on which version yet. What about beyond that? Is Battalion a lock, or still on the fence? Do we want to explore DFC options? Do we want an Aura mechanic, given how naturally Auras fit into the environment?
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
Cycling is a very solid mechanic, and cycling lands are awesome.
I don't think anything else is a lock yet, just a lot of things worth exploring. One thing I'm interested in though is Exalted. Seems kind of the definition of Battleship. Why hasn't it come up before?
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