SURVEIL - so, Search for Azcanta, basically.
MENTOR - kind of like a reverse Evolve.
JUMP - eh? Doesn't really seem izzity to me. Maybe seeing some cards might change my mind.
The golgari one makes me think of threshold/delirium but counting creatures specifically.
IDK these all feel meh to me. Even Convoke is disappointing I much preferred Proliferate.
Did you mean populate? I think Convoke is a good move for Selesnya and works very well with populate. Mentor could be a good move for agro strategies in EDH. Like mentioned before the jump mechanic could have some synergies with madness and surprisingly all the cycling goodies that are about to rotate out.
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Embrace the dark you call a home,
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
Search for Azcanta is a very highly-played and powerful card. I don't understand why people think surveil isn't great when it's clearly very strong. Search for Azcanta has surveil. It's great for reanimation and even for Snap Caster-like cards.
Also, thinking about jump-start, if there cards have jump-start costs cheaper than their casting costs they could be really good with cards like Search for Azcanta or cards with Surveil or Explore. Almost akin to miracles in a way, if their cost is much cheaper. Being initialized as js also makes me think of JavaScript library naming conventions, wanting to call decks something like Controljs, etc.
Amazing Dimir still ended up with a mill mechanic (in all 3 ravnica sets Dimir has a mill type), difference is this time it is self-mill.
And self-mill generally has been the more successful mill. The main criticism of surveil is that I always considered it... to basic to be a guild mechanic. It's like making looting a guild mechanic.
Same goes for the Golgari mechanic. Boneyard Wurm and Ghoul's Feast were already in Izzet vs. Golgari Duel Deck as Golgari cards. I wonder whether either or both of those will be reprints. Looking forward to some common versions of the mechanic though e. g. the -X/-X spell. We don't have that one yet, right?
---
Actually thinking about surveil... I wouldn't be opposed for it to join deciduous mechanics afterwards as something that replaces scry every now and then for a set or group of sets when it makes thematic and/or mechanical sense. The word certainly is generic enough to be used anywhere.
Im guess it has to be introduced to the vocabulary somewhere, but I just always felt Ravnica was not the place to introduce generic mechanics. Even convoke and bloodthirst - both reprinted and hence showing that they are not too peculiar to be reimagined and expanded upon - had a very fresh feel.
As always I expect the overall design of the guilds to be more than their named mechanics and the card designs will probably be where the meat is.
At the very least, all of these have potential. How good they actually play will be very dependent on how they are costed and what additional payoffs we get though.
Mentor will be most dependent on added effects - if they'd leave it at counters only, it would mostly just be bolster with additional hoops to jump.
Surveil sounds good, but it feels like more of a supporting ability than a guild 'signature move'.
- Convoke is clear and popular
- Mentor is a variation on bolster/support, triggering on attack, that has a flavor resonance with Boros. Why not.
- surveil ...well, let's see the cards. As described, it seems boring, but there has to be more in it.
- jump-start is retrace without land limitation. Though unexpected, the image of Izzet scientist with two live cables preparing to jump-start whatever creation is just lying on the table amuses me and feels flavorful as well.
- undergrowth is a keyworded lhurgoyf
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I'm already foreseeing comments that most of the mechanics were "overcosted jank" because we didn't get ridiculous stuff like a Bolt for R with Jump-Start R. I'm gonna save everyone time now and tell you that a good 90% of the cards aren't going to be Modern or Legacy playable, because they aren't supposed to be. They're crafted with Standard in mind, which means they're going to be much better balanced (and for players spoiled by broken cards, boring) than they would be if they were made for Modern or larger formats. We're far more likely to get a Shock for R with Jump-Start 2R, which is itself generous when you consider Innistrad got Geistflame.
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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.
SelesniaConvoke. Also on some cards If you convoke a spell, you get X for number of creatures that convoked
New Mechanics BorosMentor When a Creature with Mentor attacks another attacking creature with lesser power gets +1/+1 counter DimirSurveil Graveyard Scry, scrying but card goes to the graveyard. IzzetJump-Start cast an instant or sorcery from the graveyard Discard a card as part of the cost GolgariUndergrowth. Bonus for number of creatures in your graveyard.
Isn't Mentor a little too similar to Bolster? Though I suppose repeatable.
Surveil is a scry->Grave feed, it will has its use.
Jump-Start is intriguing, because I can definitely see the benefit of discarding another Jump-Start card, or discard a Madness card.
We're far more likely to get a Shock for R with Jump-Start 2R, which is itself generous when you consider Innistrad got Geistflame.
As I understand the (admittedly limited) given information, jump-start won't have a specific mana cost, but it will be discard a card and play the spell's printed mana cost. Would be just flashback with a fixed partial cost (discard a card) otherwise.
I'm gonna save everyone time now and tell you that a good 90% 99% of the cards aren't going to be Modern or Legacy playable
Fixed that for you. Seriously, if two or three cards from a set make it into Modern and Legacy, that´s pretty much on par.
I´m very happy with most of these keywords. Convoke leads to interesting gameplay, and any scry variant is A+ in my book, I´m always saying they should tack more card selection on stuff because it smooths out screw/flood and gives players more control over their draws, which is a good thing.
Note how Surveil (UB) synergizes with both Undergrowth (BG) and Jump-Start (UB), and also to some extent Convoke (GW) with Mentor (RW) because they both want to go wide. That´s pretty elegant.
Please also remember that keywords often do not define the color pairs outside of limited. You will probably not make a "Mentor deck" in Standard, just a RW aggro deck that runs the best 1-2 cards with Mentor. It´s always been like that, with just a few exceptions.
Before Scry became evergreen, I used to say that it was the perfect mechanic for Dimir due to its secretive nature. And then I recall suggesting a while back that Graveyard Scry would be a good mechanic for Silumgar. Surveil will certainly work well with Undergrowth.
I'm a little surprised they went with a Flashback variant (and a little disappointed Izzet is once again just the instants and sorceries guild). Maybe they could have used the discard cost for various things as an ability word, like activated abilities and alternate casting costs? I wouldn't start calling it "weak Flashback" though, not when Madness is a thing. I also expect that some of the spells will get stronger when you jump-start them, like a Shock that becomes a Bolt or a Force Spike that becomes Mana Leak. This increases the likelihood that Rakdos will get Madness in RNA.
I think I'd thought of a mechanic like Undergrowth before when working on an Egypt-themed set. My main concern is that it doesn't play particularly well with Scavenge, as Scavenge removes creature cards from your graveyard. The most common Undergrowth abilities I foresee are +1/+1 bonuses, +1/+1 counters, and lifegain. Impossible's suggestion of cost reduction sounds good too, basically affinity for dead creatures.
Now Boros is playing with +1/+1 counters, eh? I can't help but think of more elegant weapons from more civilized eras. ;P Maybe there will be some Mentor triggers?
Dredge is the Golgari bridge mechanic between Undergrowth and Scavenge. Dredge puts your (creature) cards in your graveyard from your library, Undergrowth cares about the number of creatures in your graveyard, Scavenge uses creatures in your graveyard as a resource. All three guild mechanics we've gotten for Golgari so far play very well together.
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It's about time for the reserved list to die, for the sake of Vintage and Legacy (And Commander).
I think the most important part to realize about Jump-Start is that as someone upthread said, it self-fuels, something that only a very few Flashback cards do, and those cards have historically been quite nice. Retrace shows that 'discard a card' is not actually a bad cost to recast something.... so, yeah, I'm not sure that Jump-start is a worse version of Flashback... I just don't like the name at all.
E.g., a Blue-Red Catalog with Jump-Start (at same cost) would be quite good, no?
Frankly, Dimir has never had resonant mechanics with their lore. Of course, we are (correctly, IMO) assuming that Surveil can't target your opponent's library. If Surveil is Graveyard-Scry/Fateseal, it's going to be quite ugly. I frankly don't think that a mechanic that powerful can be well-balanced, but I've been wrong before. (I say this because the card made for me in L5R, Bayushi Tasogare, has this ability--except it's straight up Scry/Fateseal--and it was pretty good in that game.)
Undergrowth is very straightforward, and a good choice for Golgari. It's simple and resonant. I'm not sure why everyone seems to think that it's going to be all power/toughness modifications. You can do a lot more with it, like mana generation, reanimation, straight-up life loss, fighting... basically anything that can reference a number. So yeah..?
I dislike Mentor tbh, too many hoops. You need additional creatures and both enabler and reciever need to attack and even than it might stop working after 1 or 3 attacks. But I can see it snowball hard in limited. Good with double striking "disciples". I hope my Marchesa, the Black Rose can get some red counters-matter cards out of this at least.
Unfortunately Doublestrike doesn't do what u think it does. They will still only get one trigger. Its not when they deal combat damage but whenever they attack. So yes double strikers do deal +2 damage but they don't get the double buff. If it was whenever a creature deals damage bolster, I may have been happier.
That's why the "disciples" are meant to have double strike, not the "mentors". I think, they understand mentor quite well.
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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]
Surveil is so weird in a sense that it seems like a support mechanic for Jump Start and undergrowth.
The Boros Mechanic is like a evolve, but with attack trigger instead of ETB, and the creature with the ability grants the counter instead. Odd that Boros and Simic don’t share a color, so synergy will be harder.
Convoke is a fine repeat, perhaps there are more design space for it, like hybrid, colorless, or tap triggers.
Undergrowth is cool too. A graveyard mechanic that is different from the previous 2. Quite a tension the 3 mechanics bring.
Jump Start seems like a boring flashback variant, but cound be interesting on strategy if you have multiple jumpstarts in hand. Which spells are worth casting twice? Which will be discarded as the cost?
I think Jump-Start has some legitimate potential. The added cost of discarding a card means that cards with Jump-Start are possibly a little more aggressively costed than your average flashback card, with a little more flexibility than the average retrace card.
Compare Engulfing Flames and Flame Jab. We could conceivably see a Jump-Start spell as a halfway point between the two, something along the lines of:
Engulfing Jab R
Instant
Deal 1 Damage to any Target.
Jump-Start
So, Cheaper than Engulfing Flames to cast a second time, due to the additional cost of discarding a card. At the same time, its still slightly easier to recast than Flame Jab since ANY card can be discarded rather than just a land, although you can only recast it once rather than repeatedly.
Factoring in the ability to use the discard cost to fill your gy, chain future Jump-Start spells, or enable madness cards, there is conceivably some REAL potential within the mechanic.
Don't mind Convoke but not excited for it. Obelisk of Urd and Chord of Calling are fine but I hope they make something more interesting with it than just discount overcosted cards this time. Something that cares about the number of used creatures for example. Would've prefered Populate though.
They mentioned some cards will do this as a way to have Convoke do new things. Honesty Convoke has a lot of design space so I'm not as unhappy as a Selesnya player to get only get a returning mechanic.
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Well, none of the new mechanics seem outright bad, but boy, do they feel boring and derivative. We have "just slightly different scry", "just slightly different flashback", "just a keyword for the Lhurgoyf mechanic", and a mechanic that's already been in 2 previous sets. I guess mentor is something new, but it still seems like an unnecessarily restrictive +1/+1 counter mechanic.
Two abilities that put cards in your graveyard.
Two abilities that care about cards in your graveyard.
I didn't know we were returning to Innistrad.
I like these abilities though. Even though surveil is just a better scry. With scry being evergreen, will it still make it into this set or be dropped because it'll be confusing alongside surveil for new players?
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Jump Start seems cool and everything
Mentor seems okay as long as they give it cool triggers
Surveil is super boring, however. Yeah it's better scry but it's still a guild mechanic that's basically just scry.
-Chandra Nalaar
On Mentor, I wonder if it's similar to Soulbond, or more akin to Bolster.
Will there be 'if this creature mentors another' type effects, or just straight up counter placement?
Did you mean populate? I think Convoke is a good move for Selesnya and works very well with populate. Mentor could be a good move for agro strategies in EDH. Like mentioned before the jump mechanic could have some synergies with madness and surprisingly all the cycling goodies that are about to rotate out.
Gaze upon an empty, white throne
A legacy of lies,
A familiar disguise
Sing with me a song of conquest and fate
The black pillar cracks beneath its weight
Night breaks through the day, hard as a stone
Lost in thoughts all alone
Also, thinking about jump-start, if there cards have jump-start costs cheaper than their casting costs they could be really good with cards like Search for Azcanta or cards with Surveil or Explore. Almost akin to miracles in a way, if their cost is much cheaper. Being initialized as js also makes me think of JavaScript library naming conventions, wanting to call decks something like Controljs, etc.
Good point - chaining like that would actually feel a lot like Izzet escalation.
Requiring only two creatures rather than three helps.
... So convoke is really nice as a returning mechanic... mentor and jumpstart seem promising.
And self-mill generally has been the more successful mill. The main criticism of surveil is that I always considered it... to basic to be a guild mechanic. It's like making looting a guild mechanic.
Same goes for the Golgari mechanic. Boneyard Wurm and Ghoul's Feast were already in Izzet vs. Golgari Duel Deck as Golgari cards. I wonder whether either or both of those will be reprints. Looking forward to some common versions of the mechanic though e. g. the -X/-X spell. We don't have that one yet, right?
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Actually thinking about surveil... I wouldn't be opposed for it to join deciduous mechanics afterwards as something that replaces scry every now and then for a set or group of sets when it makes thematic and/or mechanical sense. The word certainly is generic enough to be used anywhere.
Im guess it has to be introduced to the vocabulary somewhere, but I just always felt Ravnica was not the place to introduce generic mechanics. Even convoke and bloodthirst - both reprinted and hence showing that they are not too peculiar to be reimagined and expanded upon - had a very fresh feel.
As always I expect the overall design of the guilds to be more than their named mechanics and the card designs will probably be where the meat is.
Overall no actual dud. Cool stuff!
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."
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Mentor will be most dependent on added effects - if they'd leave it at counters only, it would mostly just be bolster with additional hoops to jump.
Surveil sounds good, but it feels like more of a supporting ability than a guild 'signature move'.
W(W/U)U Ephara - Flash & Taxes W(W/U)U || B(B/G)G Meren - Circle of Life B(B/G)G
RGW Marath - Ever shifting Wilds RGW || (U/R)C(W/B) Breya - Artificial Dominion (U/R)C(W/B)
UBR Becket Brass - take what you can, give nothing back UBR
- Convoke is clear and popular
- Mentor is a variation on bolster/support, triggering on attack, that has a flavor resonance with Boros. Why not.
- surveil ...well, let's see the cards. As described, it seems boring, but there has to be more in it.
- jump-start is retrace without land limitation. Though unexpected, the image of Izzet scientist with two live cables preparing to jump-start whatever creation is just lying on the table amuses me and feels flavorful as well.
- undergrowth is a keyworded lhurgoyf
Let this great clan rest in peace (2001-2011)
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.
Isn't Mentor a little too similar to Bolster? Though I suppose repeatable.
Surveil is a scry->Grave feed, it will has its use.
Jump-Start is intriguing, because I can definitely see the benefit of discarding another Jump-Start card, or discard a Madness card.
I was semi-hoping for Gravestorm.
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As I understand the (admittedly limited) given information, jump-start won't have a specific mana cost, but it will be discard a card and play the spell's printed mana cost. Would be just flashback with a fixed partial cost (discard a card) otherwise.
W(W/U)U Ephara - Flash & Taxes W(W/U)U || B(B/G)G Meren - Circle of Life B(B/G)G
RGW Marath - Ever shifting Wilds RGW || (U/R)C(W/B) Breya - Artificial Dominion (U/R)C(W/B)
UBR Becket Brass - take what you can, give nothing back UBR
I´m very happy with most of these keywords. Convoke leads to interesting gameplay, and any scry variant is A+ in my book, I´m always saying they should tack more card selection on stuff because it smooths out screw/flood and gives players more control over their draws, which is a good thing.
Note how Surveil (UB) synergizes with both Undergrowth (BG) and Jump-Start (UB), and also to some extent Convoke (GW) with Mentor (RW) because they both want to go wide. That´s pretty elegant.
Please also remember that keywords often do not define the color pairs outside of limited. You will probably not make a "Mentor deck" in Standard, just a RW aggro deck that runs the best 1-2 cards with Mentor. It´s always been like that, with just a few exceptions.
Now give me some Charms. That´s my #1 request.
Stay reasonable, be mindful of your expectations and don't feed the trolls.
Doomsdayin'
Dredge is the Golgari bridge mechanic between Undergrowth and Scavenge. Dredge puts your (creature) cards in your graveyard from your library, Undergrowth cares about the number of creatures in your graveyard, Scavenge uses creatures in your graveyard as a resource. All three guild mechanics we've gotten for Golgari so far play very well together.
---
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Pascite draconem, evolvite aut morimini.
E.g., a Blue-Red Catalog with Jump-Start (at same cost) would be quite good, no?
Frankly, Dimir has never had resonant mechanics with their lore. Of course, we are (correctly, IMO) assuming that Surveil can't target your opponent's library. If Surveil is Graveyard-Scry/Fateseal, it's going to be quite ugly. I frankly don't think that a mechanic that powerful can be well-balanced, but I've been wrong before. (I say this because the card made for me in L5R, Bayushi Tasogare, has this ability--except it's straight up Scry/Fateseal--and it was pretty good in that game.)
Undergrowth is very straightforward, and a good choice for Golgari. It's simple and resonant. I'm not sure why everyone seems to think that it's going to be all power/toughness modifications. You can do a lot more with it, like mana generation, reanimation, straight-up life loss, fighting... basically anything that can reference a number. So yeah..?
That's why the "disciples" are meant to have double strike, not the "mentors". I think, they understand mentor quite well.
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."
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The Boros Mechanic is like a evolve, but with attack trigger instead of ETB, and the creature with the ability grants the counter instead. Odd that Boros and Simic don’t share a color, so synergy will be harder.
Convoke is a fine repeat, perhaps there are more design space for it, like hybrid, colorless, or tap triggers.
Undergrowth is cool too. A graveyard mechanic that is different from the previous 2. Quite a tension the 3 mechanics bring.
Jump Start seems like a boring flashback variant, but cound be interesting on strategy if you have multiple jumpstarts in hand. Which spells are worth casting twice? Which will be discarded as the cost?
This aint your girlfriends meta! This is a man's meta! TURBO META.
Compare Engulfing Flames and Flame Jab. We could conceivably see a Jump-Start spell as a halfway point between the two, something along the lines of:
Engulfing Jab R
Instant
Deal 1 Damage to any Target.
Jump-Start
So, Cheaper than Engulfing Flames to cast a second time, due to the additional cost of discarding a card. At the same time, its still slightly easier to recast than Flame Jab since ANY card can be discarded rather than just a land, although you can only recast it once rather than repeatedly.
Factoring in the ability to use the discard cost to fill your gy, chain future Jump-Start spells, or enable madness cards, there is conceivably some REAL potential within the mechanic.
They mentioned some cards will do this as a way to have Convoke do new things. Honesty Convoke has a lot of design space so I'm not as unhappy as a Selesnya player to get only get a returning mechanic.
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DracoBall: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/homebrew-variant-formats/598529-dracoball-updated-3-24-15
Fantastic Fours: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-related-formats/homebrew-variant-formats/603605-fantastic-fours
I can see a sultai deck running on those two mechanics together.
Let’s hear it for keyworded Lhurgoyf!
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Two abilities that care about cards in your graveyard.
I didn't know we were returning to Innistrad.
I like these abilities though. Even though surveil is just a better scry. With scry being evergreen, will it still make it into this set or be dropped because it'll be confusing alongside surveil for new players?