The idea of a colorlinked keyword is simple. You have a keyword involving a cost and as long as the cost is a certain color the keyword makes sense to put on any card, nevermind its color.
Examples:
White - Aura swap?
Blue - Transfigure?, Replicate?, Cycling
Black - Recover, Transmute
Red - ???
Green - Reinforce
Normally those appear only on-color, but considering e. g. blacks ability to tutor...
Interesting thought... You could do a set where each color has a mechanic that appears on cards of every color.
Red could probably do replicate instead of or in addition to blue, a la Fork. You could also use something like channel or kicker, but make the effect the same (or similar) every time. For example, red's mechanic could be "Channel - 1R, Discard: Deals 1 damage to target creature or player."
Should mechanics like madness and prowl be considered? They allow you to cast a spell for an off-color cost... but aura swap can get around color restrictions, too.
-Replicate was a blue-red mechanic, but could fit fine in just about any color. For an off-color cost of a black, green, or white, it might need an additional nonmana cost though.
Painful Draw1U
Sorcery
Replicate--1B, Pay 2 life.
Draw two cards, then discard a card.
Pile On1R
Sorcery
Replicate--1G, Tap an untapped creature you control.
CARDNAME deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Bark Armor2G
Instant
Replicate--1W, An opponent gains 4 life.
Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.
-Transmute was a blue-black mechanic, and should be kept to a minimum because too many transmutes at the same cmc would reduce variation in gameplay too much.
-Aura swap was a Future Sight mechanic on only one blue card. It could fit in white too, but is too swingy to appear on too many more cards.
-Transfigure was a Future Sight mechanic on only one black card. It would fit better in green, but like transmute it should be kept to a minimum.
-Recover was a very small mechanic on a card for each color, plus two extra for black. More cards with it might be okay as long as the recover costs are kept high to limit recovering multiple cards at the same time. For an off-color cost, it should be based on the effect of the card.
Interesting idea; I would probably keep these to at most three cycles (common, uncommon, and rare) with maybe a handful of extras. Ideally these should either all require both the card's original color and the mechanic's color or all require only one or the other.
For one or the other, the following existing mechanics could work:
Channel or Cycling could work in any color here but don't have any color connotations on their own. You could of course design a new mechanic to associate with a color as well.
For both colors required:
White: Aura Swap (not really a great option), Recover on enchantments or maybe creatures (also not great)
Blue: Replicate, Transfigure, Buyback, Recover on instants or sorceries
Black: Transfigure, Unearth, activated abilities that require Threshold or Hellbent as well as black mana
Red: Flashback, Replicate, activated abilities that require Hellbent as well as red mana
Green: Recover on creatures, activated abilities that require Threshold as well as green mana
There may be other options I haven't thought of, but I feel like either way you'll probably have to design one or two new mechanics.
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A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
Should mechanics like madness and prowl be considered? They allow you to cast a spell for an off-color cost... but aura swap can get around color restrictions, too.
I'm kind of on the fence on aura swap, but consider the color restrictions of Auratouched Mage and Nomad Mythmaker - either way playing the two colors of white plus w/e offcolor Aura it is on cannot cover less percentage of the color pie than Arcanum Wings.
I considered madness for red, but this doesn't feel right AT ALL:
Must! Wash! Hands!
Instant
Gain 3 life.
Madness
So it's out. Replicate is slightly better, but Fork has wandered to blue in my eyes, while red sticks to Shunt 90% of the time.
-Replicate was a blue-red mechanic, but could fit fine in just about any color. For an off-color cost of a black, green, or white, it might need an additional nonmana cost though.
While this is not a wrong statement your designs show no understanding of the point of this thread.
Yes, it is a viable and (by me) well explored design space to use the overlapping area that is (also) tapped by hybrid to make off-color activations for my multicolor sets (similar to the two color flashback cycle in Time Spiral).
But that's not what I have suggested.
Pain Loop :1mana::symb:
Sorcery
~ deals 1 damage to target creature. Gain 1 life.
Replicate :1mana::symu: Each day the eagle returned to ate the regrown liver of the cursed prisoner. And then chronomancer figured out how to alter relative time so the cycle could repeat twenty times a minute.
The effect is off-color for blue yet it makes sense to have a blue replicate card since replicating spells is just something blue cand do.
Can you make the same case for green replacing the blue mana symbol above? For white?
I on the other hand could see blue getting in on any of the effects you suggested just as ":symr:: ~ gets +1/+0." or ":symb:: Regenerate ~." never will be off-color if randomly added to a creature, while ":symw:: ~ gets +1/+0." or ":symu:: Regenerate ~." might be.
-Reinforce was a small mechanic with four white cards, two green cards, and one red card.
This sentence and the other similar ones force me to wonder how I can explain the idea better.
In general I probably wouldn't consider more than two of those even as possibilities if I wanted to make a set based on colorlinked keywords (especially since past associations color the opinions of the observer) - but they help to showcase the meager number of already existing keywords of that kind and are faster understood than five new keywords.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
I considered madness for red, but this doesn't feel right AT ALL:
Must! Wash! Hands!
Instant
Gain 3 life.
Madness
It doesn't feel right because it is not something that red can do. The effect whatever it is should be something that still makes sense with the off-color. So to rework this card here:
WmadR1 W
Instant
CARDNAME deals 3 damage to target attacking or blocking creature.
Madness R
WmadR2 W
Instant
Target creature gets +1/+0 and gains first strike until end of turn.
Madness R
Pain Loop :1mana::symb:
Sorcery
~ deals 1 damage to target creature. Gain 1 life.
Replicate :1mana::symu: Each day the eagle returned to ate the regrown liver of the cursed prisoner. And then chronomancer figured out how to alter relative time so the cycle could repeat twenty times a minute.
The effect is off-color for blue yet it makes sense to have a blue replicate card since replicating spells is just something blue cand do.
Can you make the same case for green replacing the blue mana symbol above? For white?
Blue makes very little sense for this spell because it is not a blue effect. Either white or red would make more sense. I would go for white because it is very reminiscent of Death Grasp.
I guess I have to reevaluate your original statement.
The idea of a colorlinked keyword is simple. You have a keyword involving a cost and as long as the cost is a certain color the keyword makes sense to put on any card, nevermind its color.
This is wrong. The off-color keyword has to make sense in the context of the rest of the card in order to work. Just throwing random keywords onto the card and saying that it works because that keyword is this color is very simplistic and thoughtless design.
I think black fits the generic madness color better than red, simply because black can do virtually anything given the right cost.
Transfigure should be generic green and not blue. Green has had a long history of tutoring creatures into play and makes use of sacrificing creatures as a cost more than blue does.
It doesn't feel right because it is not something that red can do.
Which is what I said in response to a statement that suggested madness could fit the role on the card. I just brought an explicite example for a design implicitely created by another person.
This is wrong. The off-color keyword has to make sense in the context of the rest of the card in order to work. Just throwing random keywords onto the card and saying that it works because that keyword is this color is very simplistic and thoughtless design.
Who said throwing random keywords onto the card? I specifically suggested that the keywords had to be chosen/designed from scratch to fit the color they're linked to.
Once again: If colorlinked abilities don't work, then you should be able to design a creature with ":symr:: ~ gets +1/+0 until end of turn." on which that ability does not fit the color pie (but would without the ability).
There is a distinction between linking a keyword ability to a color and linking a card to a color that you seem to miss.
---
Compare a new ability:
Biforcate :3mana::symu: (:3mana::symu:: Put a token onto the battlefield, that's a copy of this permanent.)
Naturally any color might get this on cards of their own color:
Splitting Spark :1mana::symr:
Creature - Elemental
Haste, trample
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice ~.
Biforcate :1mana::symr:
3/1
But naturally any card could have it as long as the biforcate cost is blue:
Splitting Spark :1mana::symr:
Creature - Elemental
Haste, trample
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice ~.
Biforcate :1mana::symu:
3/1
Ooooo, I get the idea. I like the thought lines here. So, red, huh....
Speed R(This permanent gains haste until end of turn.)
- Kinda lame, should only be R or 1R most cases. Funny to put on a defender, a creature with a tap ability, or a mana producing dude I guess.
Explode XR(Pay XR where X is this card's converted mana cost and sacrifice it. It deals X damage to target creature.)
- Little interesting. Can change to target creature and/or player if you want. Anything can explode! For example, an black creature that costs 4 would cost 4R to explode and deal 4.
Other colors:
Convert XW (Pay XW where X is no more than this card's converted mana cost and sacrifice it. Gain X life.)
- Turn something into raw life energy. Life gain is weak so X is variable here, but with a maximum.
Imbue U(U: Untap this permanent.)
- Blue untaps anything. This would be fairly expensive and also always be more than just U. Leads to shenanigans if not carefully costed.
Return U(U: Return this spell or permanent to it's owner's hand.) - Remand your spell if you don't like the stack or return a permanent you want back. Cheap on non-permanent spells but expensive on permanents.
Explode XR (Pay XR where X is this card's converted mana cost and sacrifice it. It deals X damage to target creature.)
- Little interesting. Can change to target creature and/or player if you want. Anything can explode! For example, an black creature that costs 4 would cost 4R to explode and deal 4.
I kinda like this one, though I think it needs something else to make it more distinct... maybe you can only blow it up when it's put into a graveyard or something.
Yo Secret.. you can't put Biforcate on a purely red creature, give it a blue cost and call it fair. That makes absolutely no sense.
Well I dunno... It makes sense in the same way that casting Clone on a red creature does.
Examples:
White - Aura swap?
Blue - Transfigure?, Replicate?, Cycling
Black - Recover, Transmute
Red - ???
Green - Reinforce
Normally those appear only on-color, but considering e. g. blacks ability to tutor...
Sorcery
~ deals 3 damage to tarfget creature.
Transmute :1mana::symb::symb:
... is alright.
So I'm still wondering about why so much of these seem to fit blue and black and not a single one red.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Red could probably do replicate instead of or in addition to blue, a la Fork. You could also use something like channel or kicker, but make the effect the same (or similar) every time. For example, red's mechanic could be "Channel - 1R, Discard: Deals 1 damage to target creature or player."
Should mechanics like madness and prowl be considered? They allow you to cast a spell for an off-color cost... but aura swap can get around color restrictions, too.
• Recent Card Ideas • My Drawings at DeviantArt
How about just a la Pyromatics, Shattering Spree, Siege of Towers, Leap of Flame, and Djinn Illuminatus?
-Replicate was a blue-red mechanic, but could fit fine in just about any color. For an off-color cost of a black, green, or white, it might need an additional nonmana cost though.
Painful Draw 1U
Sorcery
Replicate--1B, Pay 2 life.
Draw two cards, then discard a card.
Pile On 1R
Sorcery
Replicate--1G, Tap an untapped creature you control.
CARDNAME deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
Bark Armor 2G
Instant
Replicate--1W, An opponent gains 4 life.
Put two +1/+1 counters on target creature.
-Transmute was a blue-black mechanic, and should be kept to a minimum because too many transmutes at the same cmc would reduce variation in gameplay too much.
-Aura swap was a Future Sight mechanic on only one blue card. It could fit in white too, but is too swingy to appear on too many more cards.
-Transfigure was a Future Sight mechanic on only one black card. It would fit better in green, but like transmute it should be kept to a minimum.
Clay Elemental 2W
Creature -- Elemental
Transfigure 1GG
1/4
-Recover was a very small mechanic on a card for each color, plus two extra for black. More cards with it might be okay as long as the recover costs are kept high to limit recovering multiple cards at the same time. For an off-color cost, it should be based on the effect of the card.
Devout Goldwing 4U
Creature -- Bird Soldier
Flying
Recover 2WW
4/3
Obsidian Scales 1G
Enchantment -- Aura
Enchant creature
Enchanted creature gets +3/+0 and has trample.
Recover R
-Reinforce was a small mechanic with four white cards, two green cards, and one red card.
For one or the other, the following existing mechanics could work:
White: Reinforce
Blue: Morph (with turned-face-up triggers maybe), Transmute
Black: Madness, Transmute
Red: can't really think of anything specifically
Green: Reinforce
Channel or Cycling could work in any color here but don't have any color connotations on their own. You could of course design a new mechanic to associate with a color as well.
For both colors required:
White: Aura Swap (not really a great option), Recover on enchantments or maybe creatures (also not great)
Blue: Replicate, Transfigure, Buyback, Recover on instants or sorceries
Black: Transfigure, Unearth, activated abilities that require Threshold or Hellbent as well as black mana
Red: Flashback, Replicate, activated abilities that require Hellbent as well as red mana
Green: Recover on creatures, activated abilities that require Threshold as well as green mana
There may be other options I haven't thought of, but I feel like either way you'll probably have to design one or two new mechanics.
A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
I'm kind of on the fence on aura swap, but consider the color restrictions of Auratouched Mage and Nomad Mythmaker - either way playing the two colors of white plus w/e offcolor Aura it is on cannot cover less percentage of the color pie than Arcanum Wings.
I considered madness for red, but this doesn't feel right AT ALL:
Must! Wash! Hands!
Instant
Gain 3 life.
Madness
So it's out. Replicate is slightly better, but Fork has wandered to blue in my eyes, while red sticks to Shunt 90% of the time.
While this is not a wrong statement your designs show no understanding of the point of this thread.
Yes, it is a viable and (by me) well explored design space to use the overlapping area that is (also) tapped by hybrid to make off-color activations for my multicolor sets (similar to the two color flashback cycle in Time Spiral).
But that's not what I have suggested.
Pain Loop :1mana::symb:
Sorcery
~ deals 1 damage to target creature. Gain 1 life.
Replicate :1mana::symu:
Each day the eagle returned to ate the regrown liver of the cursed prisoner. And then chronomancer figured out how to alter relative time so the cycle could repeat twenty times a minute.
The effect is off-color for blue yet it makes sense to have a blue replicate card since replicating spells is just something blue cand do.
Can you make the same case for green replacing the blue mana symbol above? For white?
I on the other hand could see blue getting in on any of the effects you suggested just as ":symr:: ~ gets +1/+0." or ":symb:: Regenerate ~." never will be off-color if randomly added to a creature, while ":symw:: ~ gets +1/+0." or ":symu:: Regenerate ~." might be.
This sentence and the other similar ones force me to wonder how I can explain the idea better.
In general I probably wouldn't consider more than two of those even as possibilities if I wanted to make a set based on colorlinked keywords (especially since past associations color the opinions of the observer) - but they help to showcase the meager number of already existing keywords of that kind and are faster understood than five new keywords.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
It doesn't feel right because it is not something that red can do. The effect whatever it is should be something that still makes sense with the off-color. So to rework this card here:
WmadR1 W
Instant
CARDNAME deals 3 damage to target attacking or blocking creature.
Madness R
WmadR2 W
Instant
Target creature gets +1/+0 and gains first strike until end of turn.
Madness R
Blue makes very little sense for this spell because it is not a blue effect. Either white or red would make more sense. I would go for white because it is very reminiscent of Death Grasp.
I guess I have to reevaluate your original statement.
This is wrong. The off-color keyword has to make sense in the context of the rest of the card in order to work. Just throwing random keywords onto the card and saying that it works because that keyword is this color is very simplistic and thoughtless design.
Transfigure should be generic green and not blue. Green has had a long history of tutoring creatures into play and makes use of sacrificing creatures as a cost more than blue does.
Which is what I said in response to a statement that suggested madness could fit the role on the card. I just brought an explicite example for a design implicitely created by another person.
Who said throwing random keywords onto the card? I specifically suggested that the keywords had to be chosen/designed from scratch to fit the color they're linked to.
Once again: If colorlinked abilities don't work, then you should be able to design a creature with ":symr:: ~ gets +1/+0 until end of turn." on which that ability does not fit the color pie (but would without the ability).
There is a distinction between linking a keyword ability to a color and linking a card to a color that you seem to miss.
---
Compare a new ability:
Biforcate :3mana::symu: (:3mana::symu:: Put a token onto the battlefield, that's a copy of this permanent.)
Naturally any color might get this on cards of their own color:
Splitting Spark :1mana::symr:
Creature - Elemental
Haste, trample
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice ~.
Biforcate :1mana::symr:
3/1
But naturally any card could have it as long as the biforcate cost is blue:
Splitting Spark :1mana::symr:
Creature - Elemental
Haste, trample
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice ~.
Biforcate :1mana::symu:
3/1
Splitting Spirit :2mana::symw:
Creature - Spirit
Lifelink
Biforcate :2mana::symu:
2/2
In case of a card with color-shared design space you can sometimes use other off-color costs than blue:
Splitting Spirit :2mana::symw:
Creature - Spirit
Lifelink
Biforcate :2mana::symb:
2/2
But you still cannot simply use any card on any color:
Splitting Spirit :2mana::symw:
Creature - Spirit
Lifelink
Biforcate :2mana::symr:
2/2
Often you can switch the colors in case of a shared area design space, because you are treading on hybrid territory:
Splitting Spirit :2mana::symb:
Creature - Spirit
Lifelink
Biforcate :2mana::symw:
2/2
Splitting Spirit :2mana::symwb:
Creature - Spirit
Lifelink
Biforcate :2mana::symwb:
2/2
But you can't do so if the mechanic was used as a colorlinked ability only:
Splitting Spark :1mana::symu:
Creature - Elemental
Haste, trample
At the beginning of the end step, sacrifice ~.
Biforcate :1mana::symr:
3/1
Concept understood yet?
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
Factions: Sleeping
Remnants: Valheim
Legendary Journey: Heroes & Planeswalkers
Saga: Shards of Rabiah
Legends: The Elder Dragons
Read up on Red Flags & NWO
Speed R (This permanent gains haste until end of turn.)
- Kinda lame, should only be R or 1R most cases. Funny to put on a defender, a creature with a tap ability, or a mana producing dude I guess.
Explode XR (Pay XR where X is this card's converted mana cost and sacrifice it. It deals X damage to target creature.)
- Little interesting. Can change to target creature and/or player if you want. Anything can explode! For example, an black creature that costs 4 would cost 4R to explode and deal 4.
Other colors:
Convert XW (Pay XW where X is no more than this card's converted mana cost and sacrifice it. Gain X life.)
- Turn something into raw life energy. Life gain is weak so X is variable here, but with a maximum.
Imbue U (U: Untap this permanent.)
- Blue untaps anything. This would be fairly expensive and also always be more than just U. Leads to shenanigans if not carefully costed.
Return U (U: Return this spell or permanent to it's owner's hand.)
- Remand your spell if you don't like the stack or return a permanent you want back. Cheap on non-permanent spells but expensive on permanents.
Enough for now.
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=4557651&postcount=1
TheWarden's Creative Commons Music Pick Project (Retired):
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=336498
Yo Secret.. you can't put Biforcate on a purely red creature, give it a blue cost and call it fair. That makes absolutely no sense.
It may make sense if the creature is in most senses a blue creature, but otherwise it doesn't.
Sorry, read Biforcate as an ability that you play from your hand.
Well I dunno... It makes sense in the same way that casting Clone on a red creature does.
• Recent Card Ideas • My Drawings at DeviantArt
Nevermind, it's totally fine.
It's Bifurcate! With a U!
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)