This is an experiment in, ahem, "capturing" a particular flavor that has traditionally proven tricky for Magic to explore: Capturing creatures. We've seen control magic, exile effects, and even simple pacifism Auras, but Magic hasn't quite yet nailed the flavor perfectly. Well now I'm attempting to do exactly that with a new mechanical facet: Capturing.
Capturing is simple in concept: Captive creatures can't attack or block. Makes sense, right? But wait - normally only white gets Pacifism effects! However: Every color has the ability to kill creatures using their own creatures. And when a creature's dead, not only can it not attack or block, it pretty much can't do anything most of the time. So, for a creature in Magic, being captive is really less harsh than being dead. If every color has the ability to kill creatures, having the ability to capture creatures isn't really breaking the color pie, now is it? Provided, of course, that each color only gets to capture creatures using methods it could use to kill or otherwise remove creatures.
Take blue for example; blue isn't allowed to get burn spells, but its creatures can still deal combat damage, including lethal damage. Blue could then capture a creature by dealing would-be-lethal damage to it with one of its own creatures, it just couldn't directly capture a creature with a spell (unless that spell replaced the creature somehow, like giving the captured creature's controller a copy token). Black on the other hand could get an instant or sorcery that said "Capture target creature". Which would technically be stronger than Pacifism, but then again black creature removal is supposed to be better than white creature removal.
Captive creatures can still die or be exiled, much like how a creature card in your graveyard can be exiled, effectively removing it twice. You can also have cards that care about captive creatures or that can liberate captive creatures (including creatures that can liberate themselves, basically escaping). Like capturing, liberating would be color pie-sensitive. Red would make a lot of sense as a liberation color, being the color that values freedom, but it might have to do a red thing first, like deal combat damage to the player holding the creature captive. White can pardon its prisoners, and it would of course rescue a hostage if possible, so white would probably either liberate creatures captured by its own sources, or require dealing combat damage to the captor much like red. Blue and black would probably be the main colors to have self-liberating creatures.
Criminal Catcher2W
Creature - Human Soldier
Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may capture target creature that attacked or blocked this turn. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.) "Stealing bread. In an open marketplace. During daytime? How far did you expect you could run?"
2/2
Rescue Squad3W
Creature - Human Soldier
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, liberate any number of creatures captured by that player. (Those creatures are no longer captive.) "Hostages on the third floor. Move, move, move!"
3/3
Merfolk Netbinder2U
Creature - Merfolk Warrior
If ~ would assign lethal damage to a creature, you may capture that creature instead. (A captive creature can't attack or block and its captor can't activate its abilities.) "I've caught many a fish in my day, but never before have I been caught by a fish." - Random Fishcatcher
1/3
Escape ArtistU
Creature - Human Rogue U: Liberate ~ (it's no longer captive). Activate this ability only if ~ is captive. "You think rope, chains, and iron bars can hold me?"
1/1
Abduction2B
Sorcery
Capture target creature. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
Ruthless Ransom3B
Enchantment
When ~ enters the battlefield, capture target creature an opponent controls. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, destroy target creature you've captured unless its controller pays 1. If that player pays 1, create a colorless Gold artifact token with "Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color."
Capturing BlowR
Instant
~ deals 3 damage to target creature. If ~ would deal lethal damage to that creature, you may capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
Jailbreaker1R
Creature - Human Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may liberate target creature captured by that player. (That creature is no longer captive.)
2/1
Crushing Python3G
Creature - Snake
If ~ would deal lethal damage to a creature, you may capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.) T: ~ deals damage equal to its power to target creature you've captured.
3/3
Vine Snare2G
Instant
Capture target creature if it's an artifact or has flying. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
You tried, but that circuitous attempt at logic isn't enough to justify making Pacifism a 5 color mechanic. A card being in the graveyard and being on the battlefield unable to attack or block are very different states that simply can not be lumped together. You know this, which is the whole point of trying to turn it into a mechanic, so it makes no sense that you're trying to slide that by people reading this. Differentiated removal is a core tenet of the color pie. White and blue have color philosophies with room for nonlethal measures, which is why they already get them. The other three colors just prefer killing in general, so it feels really out-of-place that you're forcing this on them.
Also, liberate is a parasitic AB mechanic. Either fold it into capture, like in capture-the-flag games in which you can free tagged out teammates, or remove it completely.
You tried, but that circuitous attempt at logic isn't enough to justify making Pacifism a 5 color mechanic. A card being in the graveyard and being on the battlefield unable to attack or block are very different states that simply can not be lumped together. You know this, which is the whole point of trying to turn it into a mechanic, so it makes no sense that you're trying to slide that by people reading this. Differentiated removal is a core tenet of the color pie. White and blue have color philosophies with room for nonlethal measures, which is why they already get them. The other three colors just prefer killing in general, so it feels really out-of-place that you're forcing this on them.
Also, liberate is a parasitic AB mechanic. Either fold it into capture, like in capture-the-flag games in which you can free tagged out teammates, or remove it completely.
Hey now, black is willing to take captives for the sake of ransoming them. Or torturing them. Or doing other heinous things to them. Same deal for red. That reminds me...
Abductor Dragon3RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
If ~ would deal lethal damage to a creature, you may capture that creature instead. (That creature can't attack or block as long as it's captive.) 1R: ~ deals 2 damage to target creature defending player controls.
4/4
Not to mention a bounty hunter could justify capturing rather than killing if that's what gets them paid.
Every color is allowed to exile or tuck in place of destroying if it makes sense within the set to do so. Capturing works the same way, in that a color can only capture if it would otherwise remove the creature, thereby making it a color pie bend rather than break. White just happens to use Auras to accomplish the same basic effect most of the time, because by design white gets weaker creature removal than black. I will acknowledge that green philosophically is the color least likely to bother capturing and might focus more on liberating, but in the case of Snakes, Spiders, Plants, and most humanoids, there's always potential justification. White and blue conversely would probably be the colors most likely to capture rather than kill, but there's still room for black and red to make use of the mechanic without undermining the color pie.
Liberate is to Capture what Reach is to Flying; a secondary mechanic designed to keep the primary mechanic in check. How else would you have a blue or black creature free itself from captivity? It captures itself? The best alternative I can think of is to somehow word Capture's reminder text such that any creature can liberate a captive by dealing combat damage to the captor, but in the case of spells and abilities, the word liberate would still need to be used in rules text.
Evidently Capture and Liberate wouldn't fly as evergreen mechanics, but I like to think they could at least be deciduous mechanics that any set can use if it wants them. Crime World and Western World could both use them, for example.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Just reading your designs, the first thing my brain assumes is that I gain control of the creature by "capturing it." Whether or not that's how it's intended to work, the fact that it's not spelled out in reminder text is problematic.
This mechanic also has the problem of creating a permanent condition on a creature without any way to mark it. On a complex board, how am I supposed to remember which creatures are captive and which aren't? How am I suppsed to differentiate them from tapped creatures, summoning sick creatures, temporarily exiled creatures, etc.?
I can see the appeal of adding a resonant action word like "capture" to Magic, but this is one case in which it's not worth the hassle.
Now, I could maybe see "capture" being used as the keyword for "Exile target thing until this leaves the battlefield." That's much more practical and much less confusing and doesn't require shaking up the color pie. Idk if adding such a keyword is necessary, but I would say it's probably used frequently enough to make sense.
What point is there in capturing an opponent's creature that you could otherwise kill, aside from preventing graveyard recursion and a few other very edge cases? If you want graveyard hate then you should just exile them instead.
Why not this?
Ruthless Ransom 1UB
Sorcery
Exile target creature an opponent controls.
At the beginning of your next upkeep, the exiled creature's owner may pay 3. If they do, return the exiled creature to the battlefield under its owner's control and create three colorless Gold artifact tokens with "Sacrifice this artifact: add one mana of any color."
"And if our payment is not received before midnight..."
It's not functionally identical, but it has the same flavor without needing to invent a new dubiously-useful mechanic.
If you want some other cards that interact with captives, then just exile them with a 'captive' counter. Then creatures that liberate can return exiled creatures with a captive counter to the battlefield.
Just reading your designs, the first thing my brain assumes is that I gain control of the creature by "capturing it." Whether or not that's how it's intended to work, the fact that it's not spelled out in reminder text is problematic.
This mechanic also has the problem of creating a permanent condition on a creature without any way to mark it. On a complex board, how am I supposed to remember which creatures are captive and which aren't? How am I suppsed to differentiate them from tapped creatures, summoning sick creatures, temporarily exiled creatures, etc.?
I can see the appeal of adding a resonant action word like "capture" to Magic, but this is one case in which it's not worth the hassle.
Now, I could maybe see "capture" being used as the keyword for "Exile target thing until this leaves the battlefield." That's much more practical and much less confusing and doesn't require shaking up the color pie. Idk if adding such a keyword is necessary, but I would say it's probably used frequently enough to make sense.
I understand your point about controlling the creature. In that case, escape abilities would have to include "Only ~'s owner may activate this ability". Much like with exile, you could always set a captive creature aside, especially if the capturing player gains control of it (which they probably should, based on intuition). And just to avoid further confusion, Capture might also prevent the creature's captor from activating abilities of the captive creature.
"Capture target creature. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's your captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abilities.)"
What point is there in capturing an opponent's creature that you could otherwise kill, aside from preventing graveyard recursion and a few other very edge cases? If you want graveyard hate then you should just exile them instead.
Why not this?
Ruthless Ransom 1UB
Sorcery
Exile target creature an opponent controls.
At the beginning of your next upkeep, the exiled creature's owner may pay 3. If they do, return the exiled creature to the battlefield under its owner's control and create three colorless Gold artifact tokens with "Sacrifice this artifact: add one mana of any color."
"And if our payment is not received before midnight..."
It's not functionally identical, but it has the same flavor without needing to invent a new dubiously-useful mechanic.
If you want some other cards that interact with captives, then just exile them with a 'captive' counter. Then creatures that liberate can return exiled creatures with a captive counter to the battlefield.
Capturing is supposed to be its own thing, a unique mechanical space. There's a variety of ways you can build around it, such as making spells cheaper if they target a captive creature or rewarding you for capturing or liberating a creature.
Using exile is an option, but it eliminates certain flavorful interactions such as dealing damage to a captive creature.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
I for one like this. I agree capture should give you the control of the creature (which would make the mechanic way more powerful). But for once, capturing creatures and using then as sacrifice fuel is very flavorful for black deck. Or using captured creatures to fight other creatures for a red or green deck. If Capture by itself does not have enough design space to be a set mechanic, letting you control the creature and use then in various ways surely does.
I totally agree you can bleed capture to green, red and black if capture is your central set mechanic (which should be since you even have other keywords that references it like liberate). Bleeds are allowed for overreaching set themes. There is plenty examples of this: white and green gets cycling despite having no history of looting effects, all colors got landfall despite green and maybe red being the only colors that cares about lands, several stances of this in Alara and Tarkir block. I think if done appropriately like the cards in the OP it is 100% legit and totally justified color bleed.
I think Capture should be primary in white, secondary in Blue and Black and tertiary on Red and Green. Also agree Red should be the color with most stances of liberate, possibly followed by Green (mirroring the fact they are the two colors less likely to capture stuff).
About the memory issues, we could always use a capture counter. So capture reminder text would be (To capture a creature, put a capture counter on it. For as long as it has a capture counter, you gain control of it and it can't attack or block).
A capture counter would be problematic if you intended on using other kinds of counters such as +1/+1 or -1/-1 counters. I could see perforated punch-out reminders like they did for Embalm and Exert in Amonkhet.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Hey now, black is willing to take captives for the sake of ransoming them. Or torturing them. Or doing other heinous things to them. Same deal for red.
I think you are missing the point where you can thematically weave flavor explanations to do these things, but ignore that you are mechanically eroding the color pie. You are giving no incentive for this. I certainly could imagine deliberate steps to do this, but all I see is one design of yours (I assume all others now hidden behind spoilers are outdated):
That reminds me...
Abductor Dragon3RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
If ~ would deal lethal damage to a creature, you may capture that creature instead. (That creature can't attack or block as long as it's captive.) 1R: ~ deals 2 damage to target creature defending player controls.
4/4
And what a design it is! It seems the only purpose on this card to choose the option to capture a creature is to deny an opponent death triggers or reanimation. That is something I can understand on an individual card, but really doesn't explain why I would want this. In a vacuum this looks about as good as what Kumano's Pupils does. If you introduce "liberate" (which as a separate mechanic is bad and I don't know whether you still care about it anymore, since you hid away the cards using that concept), then this actually becomes something like "if you manage to damage this enough to kill it, you may choose not to do so, so your opponent has a chance to get their creature back".
I feel you might want to turn this into an A/B mechanic, where you have some B cards like
Slaver Prince2B
Creature - Human Mercenary
Menace
Whenever ~ attacks a player, that player loses 1 life for each captive creature they control/own.
2/3
But after your talk about incentives to have black/red cards that capture, I hoped for more of a card that actually shows a self-contained use of the mechanic. A single card that represents the whole - or at least a pair of cards that demonstrate the A/B capabilities rather than imply them e. g. Kidnapper/Interrogator, Enslaver/Slave Trader(can red get "T, Liberate a captive creature an opponent controls/owns: Draw a card."? It's worth thinking about it twice.)
Not to mention a bounty hunter could justify capturing rather than killing if that's what gets them paid.
A quick glance at the spoilers, I notice only one card that tries to play into that flavor and half a dozen that tell the story about how capturing is an inferior idea to killing. If you want to sell people on a mechanic, that's maybe the wrong ratio.
Liberate is to Capture what Reach is to Flying; a secondary mechanic designed to keep the primary mechanic in check. How else would you have a blue or black creature free itself from captivity?
This is a good question, and one I can easily answer: Make it so capturing has a built-in get-out-of-jail clause.
To help explain this, I also want to point out that there is already a keyword action that has a flavor of capturing: detain. Detain is obviously not exactly the same, but you can see that it also inhibits the actions a permanent can take. Thematically appropriate detention is understood to be a temporary thing, so the get-out-of-jail clause on detain is timed; "until your next turn" IIRC.
Now, I don't say this is the one appropriate option for capture in general, but I can come up with dozens of variants based on what I want the ability to represent e. g. I know someone who put forth the keyword action "ransom <something>" which means something like "exile that card/permanent until the owner pays <cost>" I'm not certain what <cost> was, maybe a fixed 2. If someone knows who came up with the mechanic and can link to it, that would be nice.
You see where this is going? No need for a separate keyword action "pay up" - it's all right there, no hidden strings.
I say, there are a myriad solutions, so let's at least brainstorm one, I think is appropriate: "Capture target creature. (It can't attack, block or activate abilities. A creature can liberate it rather than dealing combat damage to you.)" Note that I use reminder text speech to showcase the idea and there might be need to clarify the reminder text. In rules terms this means as combat damage is dealt a player can choose that the effect of the damage to a player is not life loss/poison counters/etc., but the end of a capture effect by the player. Whether this is best done by a replacement effect or otherwise is a discussion that needs to be had as well, but either way it tells a story of "we have a mission to retrieve our POWs and prioritize helping allies over ganking foes" - note that the reminder text backdoor introduces the keyword action "liberate", so you can still have creatures/spells/permanents that are exceptionally good at liberating, but you no longer have to rely on them.
You can still have very black-feeling and appropriate effects e. g.
Throw into the Dungeon1B
Sorcery
Capture target creature. It gets -1/-1 until end of turn.
Now this is a deliberate weakerPacifism, so it doesn't step on whites ability to build harder to exccape jails, but it comes with the side effect that "the weak won't even last through their first day". It's a variant on Stabbing Pain. (Note: I put almost no thought into the numbers and whather to make this an instant or sorcery, so maybe different numbers are better to sell this idea. -2/-2? 2B?)
Now this is one brainstorm and maybe you can find another solution. Heck, you could think that maybe you want to have some freedom in your options and declare that the get-out-of-jail condition should be something you can vary between sets (you mention making this deciduous, so why not?) - but that doesn't mean you cannot have a consistent approach within a single set. (Though if you go that route you'll have much more work on doing things correctly, so considering the wonky first steps here, I would advise against it).
---
As an aside I want to point out that your comparisson between capture/liberate and flying/reach has an issue: That issue is that reach is only necessary because green was designed around not having access to flying's get-out-of-jail clause: Flying counters itself. Capture does not seem to counter itself, though that would in itself be an interesting approach:
Capture target creature. (It can't attackt, block or activate while captive. A creature is liberated if captured by its controller.)
I'm not certain this can be turned into something that works, but if we're already brainstorming, why not throw some more dubious ideas at the wall and see whether it sticks?
---
Another post scriptum:
There is inherent board complexity to this since apparently some designs care not only about whether a creature is captured/captive and who controlls/owns it, but also by whom it was captured. This also raises questions towards whether a creature can be captured by two opponents in multiplayer and whether they then both lay claim to the captive (and freeing them might mean freeing them from both separately) or the prisoner moves to another cell (which would nicely work with rules that allow you to "re-capture" your own prisoner to free them). This is a decision that will influence many wordings e. g. will an Interogator only be able to do their dirty job on creatures captured by you, or by an opponent.
Tracking who holds a creature captive makes thematic sense, but is not inherently necessary for each variant of the mechanic and can be a considerable source of complexity if you build some A/B synergies on top of the mechanic. This is one of the reason exiling the creature or building a control change into it might be interesting since it cuts down on the number of player-relations to track on it e. g.
Capture that creature. (Gain control of it. It can't attack, block or activate as long as it isn't controlled by its owner.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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]
A lot of the hidden way designs are me using spoilers to reduce post size for the sake of users scrolling down the page. At this point I've accepted that capturing a creature should mean gaining control of it, but without being able to attack with it, block with it, or activate its abilities (though note that only the capturing player is prevented from activating abilities; the captive's controller still can activate any of its abilities, like escape abilites). I'm going to update the OP to include gaining control of the captured creature.
Capturing is one of those mechanics where the most recent relationship terminates all preceding relationships, similar to attaching permanents. If Opponent A captures my creature, then Opponent B captures it in turn, Opponent B becomes the captor. There could be an exception for team formats like 2HG, where it's instead a team that captures the creature.
It occurs to me that capturing could be a non-optional replacement for killing, in return for making a particular creature cheaper. That Dragon I posted could maybe cost 1 or 2 less if, by dealing damage to your opponent's creatures, you have to capture them.
You have a point that most capturing cards need to give you some kind of incentive. That incentive could vary by color; black and red for example might later sacrifice the captive, like in the case of cultists, while green and white might reward you with life gain, blue with card draw, etc. Additionally, while a captor can't use the captive to attack or block, they can still tap the captive to activate certain kinds of abilities.
Here's an example of that bounty hunter I suggested:
Bounty Hunter2B
Creature - Human Warrior
If ~ would deal lethal damage to a creature, capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. It can't attack or block and you can't activate its abilities as long as it's captive.)
Whenever you capture a creature, create a colorless Gold artifact token with "Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color."
2/2
And a couple more examples of capture rewards:
Slave Dealer2U
Creature - Human Rogue
If a source you control would deal lethal damage to a creature, capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. It can't attack or block and you can't activate its abilities as long as it's captive.) T: Target player captures target captive creature you control (that player becomes that creature's new captor). Create a colorless Gold artifact token with "Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color."
1/3
Slave Driver3R
Creature - Human Warrior
If a source you control would deal lethal damage to a creature, capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. It can't attack or block and you can't activate its abilities as long as it's captive.)
Tap an untapped captive creature you control: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn.
3/3
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
What if Liberating had a purpose beyond countering Capture?
JailbreakerR
Creature - Human Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may liberate target creature controlled by that player. (The liberated creature's owner gains control of it and it's no longer captive.)
1/1
Escape ArtistU
Creature - Human Rogue 1U: ~ liberates itself. Only ~'s owner may activate this ability. (This creature's owner gains control of it and it's no longer captive.)
1/1
So, say your opponent used Control Magic to gain control of a creature. Liberating that creature returns it to its owner and releases it from captive status.
I'm also looking at rewording capture a bit:
Abduction2B
Sorcery
Capture target creature. (Gain control of that creature and it becomes captive. A captive creature can't attack or block and its controller can't activate its abilities.)
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
Monarch has a similar "get out of jail free" card that would probably work. I also think captured creatures shouldn't give their capturer bonuses.
Capture target creature. (Gain control of that creature until you are dealt combat damage. It cannot attack or block and loses all abilities)
That prevents certain creatures from being able to Liberate themselves. Furthermore, the effect needs to specify that the loss of attacking, blocking, or activating abilities only applies as long as the creature is captive.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Capturing is simple in concept: Captive creatures can't attack or block. Makes sense, right? But wait - normally only white gets Pacifism effects! However: Every color has the ability to kill creatures using their own creatures. And when a creature's dead, not only can it not attack or block, it pretty much can't do anything most of the time. So, for a creature in Magic, being captive is really less harsh than being dead. If every color has the ability to kill creatures, having the ability to capture creatures isn't really breaking the color pie, now is it? Provided, of course, that each color only gets to capture creatures using methods it could use to kill or otherwise remove creatures.
Take blue for example; blue isn't allowed to get burn spells, but its creatures can still deal combat damage, including lethal damage. Blue could then capture a creature by dealing would-be-lethal damage to it with one of its own creatures, it just couldn't directly capture a creature with a spell (unless that spell replaced the creature somehow, like giving the captured creature's controller a copy token). Black on the other hand could get an instant or sorcery that said "Capture target creature". Which would technically be stronger than Pacifism, but then again black creature removal is supposed to be better than white creature removal.
Captive creatures can still die or be exiled, much like how a creature card in your graveyard can be exiled, effectively removing it twice. You can also have cards that care about captive creatures or that can liberate captive creatures (including creatures that can liberate themselves, basically escaping). Like capturing, liberating would be color pie-sensitive. Red would make a lot of sense as a liberation color, being the color that values freedom, but it might have to do a red thing first, like deal combat damage to the player holding the creature captive. White can pardon its prisoners, and it would of course rescue a hostage if possible, so white would probably either liberate creatures captured by its own sources, or require dealing combat damage to the captor much like red. Blue and black would probably be the main colors to have self-liberating creatures.
Creature - Human Soldier
Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, you may capture target creature that attacked or blocked this turn. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
"Stealing bread. In an open marketplace. During daytime? How far did you expect you could run?"
2/2
Rescue Squad 3W
Creature - Human Soldier
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, liberate any number of creatures captured by that player. (Those creatures are no longer captive.)
"Hostages on the third floor. Move, move, move!"
3/3
Merfolk Netbinder 2U
Creature - Merfolk Warrior
If ~ would assign lethal damage to a creature, you may capture that creature instead. (A captive creature can't attack or block and its captor can't activate its abilities.)
"I've caught many a fish in my day, but never before have I been caught by a fish." - Random Fishcatcher
1/3
Escape Artist U
Creature - Human Rogue
U: Liberate ~ (it's no longer captive). Activate this ability only if ~ is captive.
"You think rope, chains, and iron bars can hold me?"
1/1
Abduction 2B
Sorcery
Capture target creature. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
Ruthless Ransom 3B
Enchantment
When ~ enters the battlefield, capture target creature an opponent controls. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
At the beginning of your upkeep, destroy target creature you've captured unless its controller pays 1. If that player pays 1, create a colorless Gold artifact token with "Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color."
Capturing Blow R
Instant
~ deals 3 damage to target creature. If ~ would deal lethal damage to that creature, you may capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
Jailbreaker 1R
Creature - Human Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may liberate target creature captured by that player. (That creature is no longer captive.)
2/1
Crushing Python 3G
Creature - Snake
If ~ would deal lethal damage to a creature, you may capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
T: ~ deals damage equal to its power to target creature you've captured.
3/3
Vine Snare 2G
Instant
Capture target creature if it's an artifact or has flying. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abiliites.)
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Also, liberate is a parasitic AB mechanic. Either fold it into capture, like in capture-the-flag games in which you can free tagged out teammates, or remove it completely.
Hey now, black is willing to take captives for the sake of ransoming them. Or torturing them. Or doing other heinous things to them. Same deal for red. That reminds me...
Abductor Dragon 3RR
Creature - Dragon
Flying
If ~ would deal lethal damage to a creature, you may capture that creature instead. (That creature can't attack or block as long as it's captive.)
1R: ~ deals 2 damage to target creature defending player controls.
4/4
Not to mention a bounty hunter could justify capturing rather than killing if that's what gets them paid.
Every color is allowed to exile or tuck in place of destroying if it makes sense within the set to do so. Capturing works the same way, in that a color can only capture if it would otherwise remove the creature, thereby making it a color pie bend rather than break. White just happens to use Auras to accomplish the same basic effect most of the time, because by design white gets weaker creature removal than black. I will acknowledge that green philosophically is the color least likely to bother capturing and might focus more on liberating, but in the case of Snakes, Spiders, Plants, and most humanoids, there's always potential justification. White and blue conversely would probably be the colors most likely to capture rather than kill, but there's still room for black and red to make use of the mechanic without undermining the color pie.
Liberate is to Capture what Reach is to Flying; a secondary mechanic designed to keep the primary mechanic in check. How else would you have a blue or black creature free itself from captivity? It captures itself? The best alternative I can think of is to somehow word Capture's reminder text such that any creature can liberate a captive by dealing combat damage to the captor, but in the case of spells and abilities, the word liberate would still need to be used in rules text.
Evidently Capture and Liberate wouldn't fly as evergreen mechanics, but I like to think they could at least be deciduous mechanics that any set can use if it wants them. Crime World and Western World could both use them, for example.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
This mechanic also has the problem of creating a permanent condition on a creature without any way to mark it. On a complex board, how am I supposed to remember which creatures are captive and which aren't? How am I suppsed to differentiate them from tapped creatures, summoning sick creatures, temporarily exiled creatures, etc.?
I can see the appeal of adding a resonant action word like "capture" to Magic, but this is one case in which it's not worth the hassle.
Now, I could maybe see "capture" being used as the keyword for "Exile target thing until this leaves the battlefield." That's much more practical and much less confusing and doesn't require shaking up the color pie. Idk if adding such a keyword is necessary, but I would say it's probably used frequently enough to make sense.
Why not this?
Ruthless Ransom 1UB
Sorcery
Exile target creature an opponent controls.
At the beginning of your next upkeep, the exiled creature's owner may pay 3. If they do, return the exiled creature to the battlefield under its owner's control and create three colorless Gold artifact tokens with "Sacrifice this artifact: add one mana of any color."
"And if our payment is not received before midnight..."
It's not functionally identical, but it has the same flavor without needing to invent a new dubiously-useful mechanic.
If you want some other cards that interact with captives, then just exile them with a 'captive' counter. Then creatures that liberate can return exiled creatures with a captive counter to the battlefield.
- Rabid Wombat
I understand your point about controlling the creature. In that case, escape abilities would have to include "Only ~'s owner may activate this ability". Much like with exile, you could always set a captive creature aside, especially if the capturing player gains control of it (which they probably should, based on intuition). And just to avoid further confusion, Capture might also prevent the creature's captor from activating abilities of the captive creature.
"Capture target creature. (Gain control of that creature. As long as it's your captive, it can't attack or block and you can't activate its abilities.)"
Capturing is supposed to be its own thing, a unique mechanical space. There's a variety of ways you can build around it, such as making spells cheaper if they target a captive creature or rewarding you for capturing or liberating a creature.
Using exile is an option, but it eliminates certain flavorful interactions such as dealing damage to a captive creature.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
I totally agree you can bleed capture to green, red and black if capture is your central set mechanic (which should be since you even have other keywords that references it like liberate). Bleeds are allowed for overreaching set themes. There is plenty examples of this: white and green gets cycling despite having no history of looting effects, all colors got landfall despite green and maybe red being the only colors that cares about lands, several stances of this in Alara and Tarkir block. I think if done appropriately like the cards in the OP it is 100% legit and totally justified color bleed.
I think Capture should be primary in white, secondary in Blue and Black and tertiary on Red and Green. Also agree Red should be the color with most stances of liberate, possibly followed by Green (mirroring the fact they are the two colors less likely to capture stuff).
About the memory issues, we could always use a capture counter. So capture reminder text would be (To capture a creature, put a capture counter on it. For as long as it has a capture counter, you gain control of it and it can't attack or block).
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
I think you are missing the point where you can thematically weave flavor explanations to do these things, but ignore that you are mechanically eroding the color pie. You are giving no incentive for this. I certainly could imagine deliberate steps to do this, but all I see is one design of yours (I assume all others now hidden behind spoilers are outdated):
And what a design it is! It seems the only purpose on this card to choose the option to capture a creature is to deny an opponent death triggers or reanimation. That is something I can understand on an individual card, but really doesn't explain why I would want this. In a vacuum this looks about as good as what Kumano's Pupils does. If you introduce "liberate" (which as a separate mechanic is bad and I don't know whether you still care about it anymore, since you hid away the cards using that concept), then this actually becomes something like "if you manage to damage this enough to kill it, you may choose not to do so, so your opponent has a chance to get their creature back".
I feel you might want to turn this into an A/B mechanic, where you have some B cards like
But after your talk about incentives to have black/red cards that capture, I hoped for more of a card that actually shows a self-contained use of the mechanic. A single card that represents the whole - or at least a pair of cards that demonstrate the A/B capabilities rather than imply them e. g. Kidnapper/Interrogator, Enslaver/Slave Trader (can red get "T, Liberate a captive creature an opponent controls/owns: Draw a card."? It's worth thinking about it twice.)
A quick glance at the spoilers, I notice only one card that tries to play into that flavor and half a dozen that tell the story about how capturing is an inferior idea to killing. If you want to sell people on a mechanic, that's maybe the wrong ratio.
This is a good question, and one I can easily answer: Make it so capturing has a built-in get-out-of-jail clause.
To help explain this, I also want to point out that there is already a keyword action that has a flavor of capturing: detain. Detain is obviously not exactly the same, but you can see that it also inhibits the actions a permanent can take. Thematically appropriate detention is understood to be a temporary thing, so the get-out-of-jail clause on detain is timed; "until your next turn" IIRC.
Now, I don't say this is the one appropriate option for capture in general, but I can come up with dozens of variants based on what I want the ability to represent e. g. I know someone who put forth the keyword action "ransom <something>" which means something like "exile that card/permanent until the owner pays <cost>" I'm not certain what <cost> was, maybe a fixed 2. If someone knows who came up with the mechanic and can link to it, that would be nice.
You see where this is going? No need for a separate keyword action "pay up" - it's all right there, no hidden strings.
I say, there are a myriad solutions, so let's at least brainstorm one, I think is appropriate: "Capture target creature. (It can't attack, block or activate abilities. A creature can liberate it rather than dealing combat damage to you.)" Note that I use reminder text speech to showcase the idea and there might be need to clarify the reminder text. In rules terms this means as combat damage is dealt a player can choose that the effect of the damage to a player is not life loss/poison counters/etc., but the end of a capture effect by the player. Whether this is best done by a replacement effect or otherwise is a discussion that needs to be had as well, but either way it tells a story of "we have a mission to retrieve our POWs and prioritize helping allies over ganking foes" - note that the reminder text backdoor introduces the keyword action "liberate", so you can still have creatures/spells/permanents that are exceptionally good at liberating, but you no longer have to rely on them.
You can still have very black-feeling and appropriate effects e. g.
Now this is a deliberate weaker Pacifism, so it doesn't step on whites ability to build harder to exccape jails, but it comes with the side effect that "the weak won't even last through their first day". It's a variant on Stabbing Pain. (Note: I put almost no thought into the numbers and whather to make this an instant or sorcery, so maybe different numbers are better to sell this idea. -2/-2? 2B?)
Now this is one brainstorm and maybe you can find another solution. Heck, you could think that maybe you want to have some freedom in your options and declare that the get-out-of-jail condition should be something you can vary between sets (you mention making this deciduous, so why not?) - but that doesn't mean you cannot have a consistent approach within a single set. (Though if you go that route you'll have much more work on doing things correctly, so considering the wonky first steps here, I would advise against it).
---
As an aside I want to point out that your comparisson between capture/liberate and flying/reach has an issue: That issue is that reach is only necessary because green was designed around not having access to flying's get-out-of-jail clause: Flying counters itself. Capture does not seem to counter itself, though that would in itself be an interesting approach:
I'm not certain this can be turned into something that works, but if we're already brainstorming, why not throw some more dubious ideas at the wall and see whether it sticks?
---
Another post scriptum:
There is inherent board complexity to this since apparently some designs care not only about whether a creature is captured/captive and who controlls/owns it, but also by whom it was captured. This also raises questions towards whether a creature can be captured by two opponents in multiplayer and whether they then both lay claim to the captive (and freeing them might mean freeing them from both separately) or the prisoner moves to another cell (which would nicely work with rules that allow you to "re-capture" your own prisoner to free them). This is a decision that will influence many wordings e. g. will an Interogator only be able to do their dirty job on creatures captured by you, or by an opponent.
Tracking who holds a creature captive makes thematic sense, but is not inherently necessary for each variant of the mechanic and can be a considerable source of complexity if you build some A/B synergies on top of the mechanic. This is one of the reason exiling the creature or building a control change into it might be interesting since it cuts down on the number of player-relations to track on it e. g.
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
Capturing is one of those mechanics where the most recent relationship terminates all preceding relationships, similar to attaching permanents. If Opponent A captures my creature, then Opponent B captures it in turn, Opponent B becomes the captor. There could be an exception for team formats like 2HG, where it's instead a team that captures the creature.
It occurs to me that capturing could be a non-optional replacement for killing, in return for making a particular creature cheaper. That Dragon I posted could maybe cost 1 or 2 less if, by dealing damage to your opponent's creatures, you have to capture them.
You have a point that most capturing cards need to give you some kind of incentive. That incentive could vary by color; black and red for example might later sacrifice the captive, like in the case of cultists, while green and white might reward you with life gain, blue with card draw, etc. Additionally, while a captor can't use the captive to attack or block, they can still tap the captive to activate certain kinds of abilities.
Here's an example of that bounty hunter I suggested:
Bounty Hunter 2B
Creature - Human Warrior
If ~ would deal lethal damage to a creature, capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. It can't attack or block and you can't activate its abilities as long as it's captive.)
Whenever you capture a creature, create a colorless Gold artifact token with "Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color."
2/2
And a couple more examples of capture rewards:
Slave Dealer 2U
Creature - Human Rogue
If a source you control would deal lethal damage to a creature, capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. It can't attack or block and you can't activate its abilities as long as it's captive.)
T: Target player captures target captive creature you control (that player becomes that creature's new captor). Create a colorless Gold artifact token with "Sacrifice this artifact: Add one mana of any color."
1/3
Slave Driver 3R
Creature - Human Warrior
If a source you control would deal lethal damage to a creature, capture that creature instead. (Gain control of that creature. It can't attack or block and you can't activate its abilities as long as it's captive.)
Tap an untapped captive creature you control: Exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn.
3/3
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Jailbreaker R
Creature - Human Rogue
Whenever ~ deals combat damage to a player, you may liberate target creature controlled by that player. (The liberated creature's owner gains control of it and it's no longer captive.)
1/1
Escape Artist U
Creature - Human Rogue
1U: ~ liberates itself. Only ~'s owner may activate this ability. (This creature's owner gains control of it and it's no longer captive.)
1/1
So, say your opponent used Control Magic to gain control of a creature. Liberating that creature returns it to its owner and releases it from captive status.
I'm also looking at rewording capture a bit:
Abduction 2B
Sorcery
Capture target creature. (Gain control of that creature and it becomes captive. A captive creature can't attack or block and its controller can't activate its abilities.)
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Capture target creature. (Gain control of that creature until you are dealt combat damage. It cannot attack or block and loses all abilities)
That prevents certain creatures from being able to Liberate themselves. Furthermore, the effect needs to specify that the loss of attacking, blocking, or activating abilities only applies as long as the creature is captive.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.