Based on the flavor text and card names of certain cards in GRN, it looks like Gruul will be doing a lot of rioting and violetly protesting and similar civil-unrest-type stuff, which I thought was a pretty novel take on the guild. It's certainly a different take than the last two blocks which have made them look more like violent dumb brutes that just like to break and kill stuff or thrill-seeking dumb brutes that just like to fight. It got me thinking about what kind of mechanic they'll have this time, and what I came up with is this:
"Rile target creature. (Put a +1/+1 counter on that creature. It attacks this turn if able.)"
Here's what I like about it:
1. It's complexity is all in the timing of the effect, which is easy to control on an individual-card-basis. Otherwise, I see this as one of the simplest mechanics I've ever made, which is important, considering what MaRo has said about wanting to err toward simple mechanics in a set with five of them.
2. It's got plenty of design space. It can essentially be used just like any other effect that adds +1/+1 counters to creatures. The "attacks if able" rider suggests a lot about how the effect should be used, which does limit design space considerably, but that still leaves more than enough for a set.
3. It's flavorful. Riling up creatures is exactly what an anarchist, nature-loving riot guild wants to do. Empower them to act. make a stand. All that good stuff. The name Rile is resonant and easy to remember. The only drawback is that a card named Rile exists, and it's not exactly the same effect. Oh well.
4. Assuming that, like in Ravnica Allegiance, Gruul appears in the same set as a guild like Simic, which is known for messing a lot with +1/+1 counters, Rile offers quite a lot of synergy. Synergy between guilds is important for enabling a lot of different playstyles and strategies
5. It's rather low-impact, which makes it very easy to stick onto other card effects like Scry without affecting the mana cost of a spell too much, which lets us avoid the Scavenge-esque problem of having a mechanic costed so high that it's mostly useless.
6. It does a very good job of encouraging interaction and advancing the game-state while avoiding the problem that lots of mechanics fall into of letting players build up a wall of increasingly powerful creatures without doing anything with them.
Here's what I don't like about it:
1. It has a little bit of depth, but that mostly extends to stragetically using it on an opponent's creature or something like that. Otherwise, it's pretty straight-forward, which isn't necessarily bad, it's just not exactly exciting in the way that Surveil or Convoke is.
2. It's not innovative. I'm all for work-horse mechanics and using existing tools in new ways, but I also like mechanics that are novel and make you really think. There's a certain charm in mechanics like Overload and Historic and Energy that jusy do things that have never been done before. Rile feels more like Mentor, which is a serviceable mechanic for sure, but nothing you really want to build a deck around. One could say that it's modular and flexible, which increases its chances of being playable. One could also say it's boring.
3. It's a tiny bit of a bend, putting the "attacks if able" effect in green, but I think this case is okay.
Anyway, here are some examples:
Burning-Tree Rioteer2R
Creature - Goblin Warrior (C)
2/1
Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield, rile target creature.
Bellowing Warcry1R
Sorcery (C)
Rile target creature. Up to one other target creature can't block this turn.
Get AngryR
Instant (U)
Rile target creature. It gains haste until end of turn.
Draw a card.
Explosion of Fury1RR
Sorcery (R)
Rile up to one creature you control. Then, ~ deals 3 damage to each creature.
Stoic Protestor1G
Creature - Human Warrior (C)
2/2 1G: Rile ~. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.
Take to the Streets3G
Sorcery (C)
Rile each creature you control. They gain trample until end of turn.
Jeering Challenger3G
Creature - Ogre Warrior (U)
4/3
Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, rile target creature an opponent controls.
Heroic Martyrdom3GG
Enchantment (R)
Whenever a creature you control dies, you draw cards equal to its power and gain life equal to its toughness.
At the beginning of combat on your turn, rile target creature.
Gruul Horn-Blower1RG
Creature - Elf Shaman (R)
2/2
First strike, vigilance
At the beginning of combat on each player's turn, you may rile target creature that player controls.
The trick is to design these cards in such a way that they encourage using them before combat. I think these designs do a pretty good job of that without saying "do this only during a precombat main phase," which would be pretty messy.
I can also think of dozens of cards that would work very nicely as rile enablers and supporters. Stuff like:
1R
Creature - ??? (U)
1/1
Double strike
or
2G
Creature - ??? (U)
2/1
All creatures able to block ~ do so.
It's just very easy to design around a mechanic like Rile, which is why I could easily see it being the structural backbone of the Gruul in a set.
Stoic Protestor is functionally just "put a +1/+1 counter on ~" since you can just activate it post-combat to avoid needing to attack. Which raises the question why it's forced to be sorcery speed at all.
The rest all range from good to decent, but the need to make it preferable to play these cards before combat limits the design space quite a bit.
You might change it to "attacks or blocks this turn if able" to make sorcery-speed Rile more relevant, particularly because forcing blocks fits neatly into green's wheelhouse and isn't unheard of in red. The fact that you'd be giving the enemy creature a +1/+1 counter helps to mitigate its impact as ubiquitous soft removal.
That way Stoic Protestor could be "at the beginning of each upkeep, you may pay 1G. If you do, Rile ~."
So you must decide whether or not to grow it each turn at the cost of forcing it to participate in a combat which you're not necessarily sure it will survive at this point in the turn, since the active player hasn't even drawn their card yet.
Maybe a bit too complicated to keep it at common, though. A good common design might just be a 1/1 for 1G with "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may Rile ~."
Stoic Protestor is functionally just "put a +1/+1 counter on ~" since you can just activate it post-combat to avoid needing to attack. Which raises the question why it's forced to be sorcery speed at all.
The rest all range from good to decent, but the need to make it preferable to play these cards before combat limits the design space quite a bit.
You might change it to "attacks or blocks this turn if able" to make sorcery-speed Rile more relevant, particularly because forcing blocks fits neatly into green's wheelhouse and isn't unheard of in red. The fact that you'd be giving the enemy creature a +1/+1 counter helps to mitigate its impact as ubiquitous soft removal.
That way Stoic Protestor could be "at the beginning of each upkeep, you may pay 1G. If you do, Rile ~."
So you must decide whether or not to grow it each turn at the cost of forcing it to participate in a combat which you're not necessarily sure it will survive at this point in the turn, since the active player hasn't even drawn their card yet.
Maybe a bit too complicated to keep it at common, though. A good common design might just be a 1/1 for 1G with "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may Rile ~."
I like your "attacks or blocks if able" suggestion.
As for Stoic Protestor, I'm not a fan of putting an upkeep trigger on a common card. I thought about the fact that one could activate the rile ability during the postcombat main phase to avoid the "attacks if able" drawback and decided that I'm okay with it. Players are naturally incentivised to pump their creatures before an attack anyway.
If it does turn out to be a problem card, though, there are plenty of other designs that work just as well in the green common slot. For example:
Loss Of Temper2G
Sorcery (C)
Rile target creature you control. It deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don't control.
This design encourages you to use it to clear away a blocker before going in for an attack. As it's sorcery speed, using it before combat is optimal.
Stoic Protestor is functionally just "put a +1/+1 counter on ~" since you can just activate it post-combat to avoid needing to attack. Which raises the question why it's forced to be sorcery speed at all.
The rest all range from good to decent, but the need to make it preferable to play these cards before combat limits the design space quite a bit.
You might change it to "attacks or blocks this turn if able" to make sorcery-speed Rile more relevant, particularly because forcing blocks fits neatly into green's wheelhouse and isn't unheard of in red. The fact that you'd be giving the enemy creature a +1/+1 counter helps to mitigate its impact as ubiquitous soft removal.
That way Stoic Protestor could be "at the beginning of each upkeep, you may pay 1G. If you do, Rile ~."
So you must decide whether or not to grow it each turn at the cost of forcing it to participate in a combat which you're not necessarily sure it will survive at this point in the turn, since the active player hasn't even drawn their card yet.
Maybe a bit too complicated to keep it at common, though. A good common design might just be a 1/1 for 1G with "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may Rile ~."
I like your "attacks or blocks if able" suggestion.
As for Stoic Protestor, I'm not a fan of putting an upkeep trigger on a common card. I thought about the fact that one could activate the rile ability during the postcombat main phase to avoid the "attacks if able" drawback and decided that I'm okay with it. Players are naturally incentivised to pump their creatures before an attack anyway.
If it does turn out to be a problem card, though, there are plenty of other designs that work just as well in the green common slot. For example:
Loss Of Temper2G
Sorcery (C)
Rile target creature you control. It deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don't control.
This design encourages you to use it to clear away a blocker before going in for an attack. As it's sorcery speed, using it before combat is optimal.
Your example feels more like a red card flavorfully than a green, but it might just need a name change.
Other than that, I really like the mechanic. I do you it should be changed to "attack or block this turn if able" to expand its usefulness. I would love to see it be used to rile someone else's creatures and force them to block or attack.
Design-wise I would argue against rile at instant-speed in most cases anyway. The timing is a real concern and if you avoid instant speed altogether you make it much cleaner because suddenly what the action does becomes a much more focussed. There is something like making a keyword too open and rile really seems like it would benefit from being straightforward.
I'm just generally dubious about the actual value in using the action to rile an opponent while pumping them. It's certainly not useless, but in general I assume that designing your cards to just not do that allows players to spend mental power processing that option.
---
Counterproposal: Rouse target creature. (Put a +1/+1 counter on it. Untap it. It gains haste.)
Red doesn't usually untap except to attack (but white usually doesn't cause life loss until extort says so...). The most clunky decision here is to use it before or after combat. Preferably vigilance was in there, to.
The idea is to make a variant of rile that's all upside and removes any question of using it on an opponent.
Question to me is: Which plays better?
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]
"Rile target creature. (Put a +1/+1 counter on that creature. It attacks this turn if able.)"
Here's what I like about it:
1. It's complexity is all in the timing of the effect, which is easy to control on an individual-card-basis. Otherwise, I see this as one of the simplest mechanics I've ever made, which is important, considering what MaRo has said about wanting to err toward simple mechanics in a set with five of them.
2. It's got plenty of design space. It can essentially be used just like any other effect that adds +1/+1 counters to creatures. The "attacks if able" rider suggests a lot about how the effect should be used, which does limit design space considerably, but that still leaves more than enough for a set.
3. It's flavorful. Riling up creatures is exactly what an anarchist, nature-loving riot guild wants to do. Empower them to act. make a stand. All that good stuff. The name Rile is resonant and easy to remember. The only drawback is that a card named Rile exists, and it's not exactly the same effect. Oh well.
4. Assuming that, like in Ravnica Allegiance, Gruul appears in the same set as a guild like Simic, which is known for messing a lot with +1/+1 counters, Rile offers quite a lot of synergy. Synergy between guilds is important for enabling a lot of different playstyles and strategies
5. It's rather low-impact, which makes it very easy to stick onto other card effects like Scry without affecting the mana cost of a spell too much, which lets us avoid the Scavenge-esque problem of having a mechanic costed so high that it's mostly useless.
6. It does a very good job of encouraging interaction and advancing the game-state while avoiding the problem that lots of mechanics fall into of letting players build up a wall of increasingly powerful creatures without doing anything with them.
Here's what I don't like about it:
1. It has a little bit of depth, but that mostly extends to stragetically using it on an opponent's creature or something like that. Otherwise, it's pretty straight-forward, which isn't necessarily bad, it's just not exactly exciting in the way that Surveil or Convoke is.
2. It's not innovative. I'm all for work-horse mechanics and using existing tools in new ways, but I also like mechanics that are novel and make you really think. There's a certain charm in mechanics like Overload and Historic and Energy that jusy do things that have never been done before. Rile feels more like Mentor, which is a serviceable mechanic for sure, but nothing you really want to build a deck around. One could say that it's modular and flexible, which increases its chances of being playable. One could also say it's boring.
3. It's a tiny bit of a bend, putting the "attacks if able" effect in green, but I think this case is okay.
Anyway, here are some examples:
Burning-Tree Rioteer 2R
Creature - Goblin Warrior (C)
2/1
Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield, rile target creature.
Bellowing Warcry 1R
Sorcery (C)
Rile target creature. Up to one other target creature can't block this turn.
Get Angry R
Instant (U)
Rile target creature. It gains haste until end of turn.
Draw a card.
Explosion of Fury 1RR
Sorcery (R)
Rile up to one creature you control. Then, ~ deals 3 damage to each creature.
Stoic Protestor 1G
Creature - Human Warrior (C)
2/2
1G: Rile ~. Activate this ability only any time you could cast a sorcery and only once each turn.
Take to the Streets 3G
Sorcery (C)
Rile each creature you control. They gain trample until end of turn.
Jeering Challenger 3G
Creature - Ogre Warrior (U)
4/3
Flash
When ~ enters the battlefield, rile target creature an opponent controls.
Heroic Martyrdom 3GG
Enchantment (R)
Whenever a creature you control dies, you draw cards equal to its power and gain life equal to its toughness.
At the beginning of combat on your turn, rile target creature.
Gruul Horn-Blower 1RG
Creature - Elf Shaman (R)
2/2
First strike, vigilance
At the beginning of combat on each player's turn, you may rile target creature that player controls.
The trick is to design these cards in such a way that they encourage using them before combat. I think these designs do a pretty good job of that without saying "do this only during a precombat main phase," which would be pretty messy.
I can also think of dozens of cards that would work very nicely as rile enablers and supporters. Stuff like:
1R
Creature - ??? (U)
1/1
Double strike
or
2G
Creature - ??? (U)
2/1
All creatures able to block ~ do so.
It's just very easy to design around a mechanic like Rile, which is why I could easily see it being the structural backbone of the Gruul in a set.
Anyway, what do you guys think?
The rest all range from good to decent, but the need to make it preferable to play these cards before combat limits the design space quite a bit.
You might change it to "attacks or blocks this turn if able" to make sorcery-speed Rile more relevant, particularly because forcing blocks fits neatly into green's wheelhouse and isn't unheard of in red. The fact that you'd be giving the enemy creature a +1/+1 counter helps to mitigate its impact as ubiquitous soft removal.
That way Stoic Protestor could be "at the beginning of each upkeep, you may pay 1G. If you do, Rile ~."
So you must decide whether or not to grow it each turn at the cost of forcing it to participate in a combat which you're not necessarily sure it will survive at this point in the turn, since the active player hasn't even drawn their card yet.
Maybe a bit too complicated to keep it at common, though. A good common design might just be a 1/1 for 1G with "At the beginning of your upkeep, you may Rile ~."
- Rabid Wombat
As for Stoic Protestor, I'm not a fan of putting an upkeep trigger on a common card. I thought about the fact that one could activate the rile ability during the postcombat main phase to avoid the "attacks if able" drawback and decided that I'm okay with it. Players are naturally incentivised to pump their creatures before an attack anyway.
If it does turn out to be a problem card, though, there are plenty of other designs that work just as well in the green common slot. For example:
Loss Of Temper 2G
Sorcery (C)
Rile target creature you control. It deals damage equal to its power to target creature you don't control.
This design encourages you to use it to clear away a blocker before going in for an attack. As it's sorcery speed, using it before combat is optimal.
Your example feels more like a red card flavorfully than a green, but it might just need a name change.
Other than that, I really like the mechanic. I do you it should be changed to "attack or block this turn if able" to expand its usefulness. I would love to see it be used to rile someone else's creatures and force them to block or attack.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
I'm just generally dubious about the actual value in using the action to rile an opponent while pumping them. It's certainly not useless, but in general I assume that designing your cards to just not do that allows players to spend mental power processing that option.
---
Counterproposal: Rouse target creature. (Put a +1/+1 counter on it. Untap it. It gains haste.)
Red doesn't usually untap except to attack (but white usually doesn't cause life loss until extort says so...). The most clunky decision here is to use it before or after combat. Preferably vigilance was in there, to.
The idea is to make a variant of rile that's all upside and removes any question of using it on an opponent.
Question to me is: Which plays better?
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