DFC were superior to flip cards in nearly every possible way. Sorry if the half a second it takes to flip your card inconveniences you. That half a second is worth the easier to grok game-state without memory issues, the better art, the room for flavor text, the room for rules text...
It's not the half second. Imagine if everytime someone played a black lotus in vintage they had to remove the card from the sleeve, handle it, and re put it in the sleeve, and once more at the end of the game. How much worse condition would the average lotus be in? You can wreck the card and you can wreck the sleeve (Some might not care, but I have exactly 60 card decks with me at all times, I'd have to buy another pack of sleeve for that 1 that was ruined due to a really useless mechanic.
You are actually wrong on that, most players I have met and talked to, as well as market research that WotC have proven that DFC was very well liked.
Less than 10% of players I've played with actually dislike the DFC's, and most of those actually think everything after "The Dark" sucked.
I'm glad your personal experience over the internet makes you such an authority over what magic players like. You should consider working at Hasbro, bro.
I just use 8 copies of Delver, 4 in deck, 4 in clear sleeves next to my sideboard
I take boxes of 600 cards, for 10 decks with me at a time. If I had to bring an extra 40+ cards with me I'd have to either change deckboxes (Inconvenient, as I've already got 11) or totally change my way of carrying decks (I made it so I always have a multiple of 10 decks so I can just take my boxes with me on a whim). If you don't have a sideboard the extra 4 cards are really annoying.
DFC were superior to flip cards in nearly every possible way. Sorry if the half a second it takes to flip your card inconveniences you. That half a second is worth the easier to grok game-state without memory issues, the better art, the room for flavor text, the room for rules text...
I have a cube with clear sleeves. I can't have DFCs in it.
Decks with DFC can't have them.
Decks without sleeves can't have them.
Yes, WOTC printed cards that cannot be played without sleeves, or those stupid checklists.
Opaque decks require you to take the card out of the sleeve repeatedly (which can damage it).
All that for what? have more room for more texto. Ok, fair enough, how did they utilize this "extended room for text"?
Clearly, these cards required the full potential of DFC and sacrificing one of the core fundamental desing aspects of the game, was well worth it.
It's not like the flipping text takes a huge chunk off the text box, you know, contrary to the idea of using flip cards to have more text. Specially in Werewolves, where it could have been a keyword.
It's not like Ludevic or Delver could simply put a creature token into play as it doesn't even have the ability to flip back, no no. We need to create a totally unpractical mechanic that messes with the back of the card and forces people to use ugly looking checklist cards in their decks. Brilliant!
I could have forgiven them if the had used ALL flip cards to their maximum potential. As it stands, only a handful are actually worth the hassle.
[before someone jumps in, i know making them tokes is not the same. But at least you are not forcing such a clumsy mechanic for a similar effect]
Elbrus is actually one of the few I consider to have been designed to use the full potential.
Elbrus, Garruk, Daybreak Ranger, Mayor, Huntmaster, wolfbitten captive, and Soul Seizer. Wolfbitten Captive and Daybreak Ranger are just filler for the mechanic, Mayor and Huntmaster are flagship cards that only exist because of transform, they wouldn't have needed to be made without the mechanic (they stink of 'look at what cool things we can do' and were clearly made to use the design space, rather then starting with the idea, designing the mechanic to support it, then the card).
This leaves Elbrus, Garruk, and Soul Seizer. None of which Transform back...
(U/B) is :symbu: or :symub: and the same is true for the other 9 hybrid symbols with their two colors in for the last 2 leters of the code. ((2/B) and co are :sym2b:)
Alternatively {UB} or {2B} in [mana] tags are (U/B) or (2/B) T is :symtap: and T will give T in [mana] tags
If I had to pick one to return it would easily be the Innistrad one, however if I could pick one to remove from the game (use a time machine to change that block to have simply used the other version instead) it would also be the Innistrad one.
The Innistrad version causes FAR more damage to the game then the Kamigawa version, however that damage is already done, and the Innistrad one avoids the issues that the Kamigawa version has (when tapped it is hard to tell which side the card is on for example (limited space for rules as another)).
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(U/B) is :symbu: or :symub: and the same is true for the other 9 hybrid symbols with their two colors in for the last 2 leters of the code. ((2/B) and co are :sym2b:)
Alternatively {UB} or {2B} in [mana] tags are (U/B) or (2/B) T is :symtap: and T will give T in [mana] tags
personally im hoping for a DFC card that flips on both sides for the simple fact that it would piss off almost everyone in this thread for different reasons. here i go with an idea:
lesser phytohydra
defender
0/3
whenever lesser phytohydra blocks, if its still in play, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
when there are 3 or more +1/+1 counters on lesser phytohydra, transform it
on the other side of the card
thriving phytohydra
0/5
1G: put a +1/+1 counter on thriving phytohydra
when thriving phytohydra has 6 or more +1/+1 counters on it, flip it
-----
greater phytohydra
1/1
greater phytohydra is indestructible.
when greater phytohydra is dealt damage, put twice that many +1/+1 counters on it.
The flip rules are completely different from the Transform rules, you can't just substitute one for the other. For example, the Flip rules say that the cards mana cost is the same whether it's flipped or unflipped while Transform rules say that the back-side of a card has a cmc of 0. The flip rules say that cards cannot unflip while Transform cards can go back and forth. There would be other issues as well (ie you would need to issue errata because Delver says "Transform" right on the card which is not the same as "Flip"). It just doesn't work without a lot of rules changes and headaches that would not be remotely worth it.
Edit: Of course just for the sake of masochism if they ever make another "Un" set it needs to include a DFC where both sides are Flip cards.
That's not true. Look at how much text you can fit on a normal card then look at how much fits on a flip card. That's an obvious, game relevant loss. You also lose space on the type-line because you have to fit the Power/Toughness box on there. Also, no flavor text. To say that the only loss is art quality is simple not accurate.
Rules for Echo were changed to accomodate new printings (and then new variants of the rules).
All you'd need to do would be the following:
- Errata Kamigawa flip cards so the bottom half has the mana cost 'printed' on it, just as Urza's Saga echo cards were errated to "Echo 1G"
- Remove the arbitrary 'once flipped cannot unflip' element of the rules
- Change the Transform rules to 'If the card is double-faced, turn it face down to transform it. Otherwise, turn it face up but upside down and ignore any rules text that is upside down.
Only functional changes I can see there are the aforementioned issues with clones that spend time as both a werewolf and a flip card.
And then the large number of players that loathe DFCs could use promo Delvers instead, while those that like DFCs just continue to use the Innistrad printing of the card.
The worst thing about DFCs is that they create situations where legitimate players make mistakes that make them look like cheats, in a way that no other card since Dark Confidant has done. But because the mistakes relate to card sleeves, not an in-game error, they are worse IMO. The only other comparable issue in Magic is players using four foil copies of an older key card in their deck (that are somewhat warped) and the marked card issues associated with that.
I play with DFC quite regularly, even have a Werewolf EDH with (2 missing) all DFC werewolf foils. I am using the proxy cards with every one of them. I store the DFC cards in transparent Ultra-Pro sleeves to keep them safe. Works fine for me and players around here do something similar.
Flip cards are harder to use: you needed something to indicate their game state other then just giving it a 180 twist.
DFCs are inelegant because they require opaque sleeves or a proxy to be played. Plus, you dont get to see the entire card on one side, you have to flip them everytime to see what's on the other side.
I like flip cards slightly more, but the art is so ugly and the card becomes confusing once tapped.
For me the best implementation is level up cards. There are the obvious limitation but it is the cleanest of all.
Possibe new variants are Tuk-tuk style cards - where a legendary token is played, another possibility is an ability to search for a specific Legend from outside the game and replace the card.
Unless you play more than one DFC in a deck. Then you give away information by looking closely to see whether you just drew Garruk or Huntmaster or some less commonly played card you happened to run (Mayor, etc).
There is literally not a single reason why you can't make a visible enough mark on your checklist card rather than just paint/mark the small circle next to the right card's name. You can paint everything Black except the correct card's name, circle the name in Red, basically anything that you can do with normal cards via altering is fine with something that is just a proxy after all. I'm 100% sure a judge would be fine with almost anything you can possibly do with your checklist card as long as 1. the card is undistinguishable among the 40/60 cards of your deck as you shuffle/present/draw from your deck and 2. the name of the dual-faced card it is representing is 100% clear and visible.
Yes, it has a very small ammount of clunkiness to it, but tapping permanents with dices on them (Vivid lands? Persist/undying?) is also "a pain", having to look at the 1st card you draw from your deck carefully because of miracles is also "a pain", having to differentiate your Graveyard and your Exile zones is also something that is slightly annoying to do, and a million other small things that are more than just fine because they are very tiny, while the new design space provided by having two leaves-play zones, different cards like miracles and DFCs and etc is way bigger and very good for the game.
TL;DR: If one couldn't make it work with checklist cards he/she is just lazy, that is all.
Next fast forward two years to when the checklist cards are near impossible to find...
Not. Gonna. Happen. 1 Innistrad/Dark Ascension box had over 20+ checklist cads each, I myself have over sixty checklist cards sitting here doing nothing. There are easily more checklist cards than DFCs around and even if supply of them became an issue that's something Wizards could fix in a heartbeat.
Even pretending there's gonna be a supply issue with them, there are what, 3-4 relevant DFCs for older formats? (new ones would be reprinted/newly printed in Standard, thus bringing MORE checklist cards). There are more than enough checklist cards to make them work. If worse comes to worst, you can just *gasp* play it the "hard way" and remove from the sleeve/flip the card itself when it is played. Again, tiny ammount of work versus big ammount of design space/game depth.
All the Kamigawa cards lost was art quality. The Innistrad ones lost playability and while the workarounds were reasonable, they were much worse than the alternative of a smaller font size and a functional design.
Printing two halves in one face loses far more than art. Good luck making cards like Huntmaster of the Fells or Garruk Relentless using only one side of a card. Are we gonna limit ourselves to dual cards with only a few lines of text just so we don't have to use the flip side?
Also, the Innistrad ones GAINED playability. They lost elegance, not playability. It is precisely to make them more playable and have more design possibilities for them that they use both sides, lol. They are more clunky by requiring sleeves/checklist cards and working differently in draft, but they don't lose one bit of playability compared to Kami flips. Again, good luck making something texty like Huntmaster or Garruk 3.0 with only one side of a card.
Why not both! Let's have Double faced flip cards! That way you get ugly cards with two text boxes that you have to play with proxies to use! On both sides of the cards! EVERYBODY WINS!
But seriously, I'd wager that most of the hate from Kamigawa flip cards is from people who never actually played with them in limited during Kamigawa's original run. The flip cards where fine, never really bothered or confused anybody unlike Innistrad transform cards witch caused rampant game losses, but I will concede they were (a little) ugly and would have been better off as two different regular cards in most cases.
Personally I would rather have neither mechanic ever return again. I don't like weird stuff happening to the card face, I would much rather have just been able to play the flipped versions of cards like Erayo's Essence, Stabwisker the Odious or Kenzo the Hardhearted by just paying mana like any other card rather then jumping through hoops and I REALLY REALLY didn't like using proxies or seeing marked cards on my opponent's side or constantly damaging my cards by taking them in and out of dragon shields in Innistrad.
Maybe they could do something like split cards having two differant modes of a creature spell on one card, but I am sure that a judge could tell me that the currant rules make that impossible.
I don't think gimmicks (Whee! Now a Mechanic where you cut your cards into peices for fun and profit!) like this that mess with the tools you use to play the game (i.e. alternate backs of cards or having a bunch of extra text boxes, making them hard to read) are particularly great for the game anyway so I would be most happy if they just knocked it off and never did it again.
I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause!
Famliy Guy Emperor Says,
"Something, something something, DARK SIDE!
Something, something, something COMPLETE!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHiUitciuJ8
:symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw: SPIKE GAYMER: not just a beatdown, a beatdown sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty"!
DFCs are inelegant because they require opaque sleeves or a proxy to be played. Plus, you dont get to see the entire card on one side, you have to flip them everytime to see what's on the other side.
I like flip cards slightly more, but the art is so ugly and the card becomes confusing once tapped.
For me the best implementation is level up cards. There are the obvious limitation but it is the cleanest of all.
Possibe new variants are Tuk-tuk style cards - where a legendary token is played, another possibility is an ability to search for a specific Legend from outside the game and replace the card.
I agree about level up cards. This is weird card face mechanic done right; readable, normal sized art, none of the issues about proxies and tapping that sometimes hamstrung the others.
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I am petitioning for the removal of mythic rarity. Sig this to join the cause!
Famliy Guy Emperor Says,
"Something, something something, DARK SIDE!
Something, something, something COMPLETE!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHiUitciuJ8
:symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw: SPIKE GAYMER: not just a beatdown, a beatdown sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty"!
There is literally not a single reason why you can't make a visible enough mark on your checklist card rather than just paint/mark the small circle next to the right card's name. You can paint everything Black except the correct card's name, circle the name in Red, basically anything that you can do with normal cards via altering is fine with something that is just a proxy after all. I'm 100% sure a judge would be fine with almost anything you can possibly do with your checklist card as long as 1. the card is undistinguishable among the 40/60 cards of your deck as you shuffle/present/draw from your deck and 2. the name of the dual-faced card it is representing is 100% clear and visible.
Yes, it has a very small ammount of clunkiness to it, but tapping permanents with dices on them (Vivid lands? Persist/undying?) is also "a pain", having to look at the 1st card you draw from your deck carefully because of miracles is also "a pain", having to differentiate your Graveyard and your Exile zones is also something that is slightly annoying to do, and a million other small things that are more than just fine because they are very tiny, while the new design space provided by having two leaves-play zones, different cards like miracles and DFCs and etc is way bigger and very good for the game.
TL;DR: If one couldn't make it work with checklist cards he/she is just lazy, that is all.
Not. Gonna. Happen. 1 Innistrad/Dark Ascension box had over 20+ checklist cads each, I myself have over sixty checklist cards sitting here doing nothing. There are easily more checklist cards than DFCs around and even if supply of them became an issue that's something Wizards could fix in a heartbeat.
Even pretending there's gonna be a supply issue with them, there are what, 3-4 relevant DFCs for older formats? (new ones would be reprinted/newly printed in Standard, thus bringing MORE checklist cards). There are more than enough checklist cards to make them work. If worse comes to worst, you can just *gasp* play it the "hard way" and remove from the sleeve/flip the card itself when it is played. Again, tiny ammount of work versus big ammount of design space/game depth.
Printing two halves in one face loses far more than art. Good luck making cards like Huntmaster of the Fells or Garruk Relentless using only one side of a card. Are we gonna limit ourselves to dual cards with only a few lines of text just so we don't have to use the flip side?
Also, the Innistrad ones GAINED playability. They lost elegance, not playability. It is precisely to make them more playable and have more design possibilities for them that they use both sides, lol. They are more clunky by requiring sleeves/checklist cards and working differently in draft, but they don't lose one bit of playability compared to Kami flips. Again, good luck making something texty like Huntmaster or Garruk 3.0 with only one side of a card.
Garruk 3.0 could work fine as a flip card with a font size reduction and less art. Huntmaster would be harder but by 'keywording' the Werewolf transformation without reminder text and again a slightly smaller font it would work.
Much more convenient than playing around with sleeves or watching new players get game losses (and be immediately suspected of cheating) for using sleeves that aren't totally opaque. I remember how much my first game loss at a tournament sucked, and that was something I deserved (showing up late to a round) - how many people quit tournaments after being hit with a DFC gameloss that the judge had to look into as a possible cheating investigation?
A quick note - those complaints apply to Morph as well, which was a nightmare for game losses and cheating investigations when people conceeded and scooped in one motion without flipping their face-down cards. I liked Morph's gameplay but think it was harmful to the game overall - DFCs offered no unique gameplay, just a clunkier way of doing something the game could already do.
As for the checklist cards - just wait and see what they are like in time. I remember how hard it was to find Urza lands when they appeared in 8th edition as uncommons. Despite ridiculous amounts of them in circulation from previous printings (probably 10x the demand for them, just as is the case with checklist cards), noone had the darn things in their trade binders and dealers couldn't keep them in stock. Cards that were significantly more widely circulated than current-set commons were selling at dealers for $3-4.
DFCs were a mistake that should never be repeated, while flip cards were just a little ugly.
St@rWizard
TL;DR: If one couldn't make it work with checklist cards he/she is just lazy, that is all.
This. Seriously This!
Its like people cant go to walmart, or any damn store really, and buy makers or marker pens and write on a basic land. Seriously people you use markers and pens for all kinds of other stuff so its not like you can only use it for writing on a couple of basic lands, every one can easily get basic lands....for free!!!! Hell you could write the rules text on the damn thing so you don't even have to look at your transform card to remember what its does on both sides. And you only have to do this once per transform card you have in your collection. That's it.
sirgog
Garruk 3.0 could work fine as a flip card with a font size reduction and less art. Huntmaster would be harder but by 'keywording' the Werewolf transformation without reminder text and again a slightly smaller font it would work.
WOW!!! The level of how wrong you are is off the charts. If your answer is to shrink text then you've already lost the argument. Making the text harder to read is a negative. Their is no legitimate argument you could come up with where the answers is "make the card harder to read". Huntmaster/Ravager doesn't fit all the text in any readable font one could use on normal cards so shrinking the text isn't an option and Garruk 3.0 would be nothing but a no art,crammed and unreadable card that makes the Innistarad DFC check lists look incredibly sexy.
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WOut of the ground,I rise to grace...W BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
They really really should have printed proxies of DFCs (the primary face) with normal magic backs. That allows you to play that in a sleeve or even an unsleeved deck, and just bring out the full card when it flips. it's just sheer laziness that they didn't.
The checklist is incredibly stupid and I hate playing with them.
Have to disagree with you Yggy, as a judge I have to say DFC damaged EVERY SINGLE tournament they were relevant in. Every event generated game losses because of marked cards (not completely opaque sleeves), there was even an event where Channel Fireball gave out black sleeves with their logo on them... the logo wasn't opaque and that was a nightmare.
DFCs were TERRIBLE and a complete failure in every possible way. (The primary reason to do DFC instead of Flip cards was to get more room for text and art... players use checklist cards in order to avoid rampant game losses, resulting in ZERO art and ZERO rules text on the actual cards.)
Yeah, as a judge I hated giving game losses for DFCs, but overall they were pretty good. It sucks going into round 5 and you deck check an undefeated table and give someone a game loss because their sleeves aren't completely opaque. In that instance the player in question was playing the same deck I played at events I wasn't judging, and I knew the sleeves were not opaque enough as I used them myself and checked them before I ever played the deck.
Aren't most non-opaque sleeves considered 'Marked' anyway? Edit: Are people in here seriously advocating we return to Icy Cauldron style rules text?!
Most sleeves are opaque enough where playing regular Magic cards are not considered marked since you can't really notice details through the sleeve. DFCs are different in that since it is artwork on the back it is clearly distinguishable from the standard Magic card back. Its not like playing with penny sleeves or perfect fits where the back of the cards is easily noticed so small imperfections can be markings.
Or they could make a level up card with 2 levels called "states", a new ability word "toggle", use the level-up rules + level 0 chunk of the text box to define the toggle condition and simply add the rules for both states.
something like
Werewolves could've been Toggle - Werewolf, where Werewolf is an actual keyword
A bit cumbersome, but not as much as flip cards and DFC
Ramenth
Edit: Are people in here seriously advocating we return to Icy Cauldron style rules text?!
No.....actually their advocating a combination of Ice Cauldron and Greater Morphling. Its funny how people complained about cards that are just wall of text that don't allow for flavor text but then complain when a card avoids that.
its like...
Dude-Ughhh watermelon. Its boring and bland. Someone should do something to make it interesting.
Guy-Ok...Here's a watermelon but its blue and doesn't taste like watermelon.
Dude-What kind of ass-hat changes watermelon like that. That's ugly and confusing and I don't like it.
Guy-Ok sorry...here's a green watermelon again but the inside is blue and taste like the blue one.
Dude-What the hell! Why didn't you just give me the blue watermelon that didn't taste like original watermelon, I always like original watermelon by the way, the blue watermelon was beautiful and made more sense.
Guy-:eyebrow::swear::banghead:
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WOut of the ground,I rise to grace...W BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
What if they made a different style of 'level up,' where bigger or legendary creatures had an ability called, like, "Elf Destiny (Exile an elf creature you control: This turn you may play this card from outside the game.)"
So maybe you have various mundane creatures who can rise to their destiny. You put the common critters in your deck, and the 'destined' versions in your sideboard.
I nkow, but I wish it were possible.
It's not the half second. Imagine if everytime someone played a black lotus in vintage they had to remove the card from the sleeve, handle it, and re put it in the sleeve, and once more at the end of the game. How much worse condition would the average lotus be in? You can wreck the card and you can wreck the sleeve (Some might not care, but I have exactly 60 card decks with me at all times, I'd have to buy another pack of sleeve for that 1 that was ruined due to a really useless mechanic.
I'm glad your personal experience over the internet makes you such an authority over what magic players like. You should consider working at Hasbro, bro.
I take boxes of 600 cards, for 10 decks with me at a time. If I had to bring an extra 40+ cards with me I'd have to either change deckboxes (Inconvenient, as I've already got 11) or totally change my way of carrying decks (I made it so I always have a multiple of 10 decks so I can just take my boxes with me on a whim). If you don't have a sideboard the extra 4 cards are really annoying.
I have a cube with clear sleeves. I can't have DFCs in it.
Decks with DFC can't have them.
Decks without sleeves can't have them.
Yes, WOTC printed cards that cannot be played without sleeves, or those stupid checklists.
Opaque decks require you to take the card out of the sleeve repeatedly (which can damage it).
All that for what? have more room for more texto. Ok, fair enough, how did they utilize this "extended room for text"?
ludevic's test subject turns into a 13/13 trampler
reckless waif turns into vanilla 3/2
Hanweir wtachkeeper turns into a 5/5 "attack each turn if able"
Delver of secrets turns into a 3/2 Flying
And so on...
Clearly, these cards required the full potential of DFC and sacrificing one of the core fundamental desing aspects of the game, was well worth it.
It's not like the flipping text takes a huge chunk off the text box, you know, contrary to the idea of using flip cards to have more text. Specially in Werewolves, where it could have been a keyword.
It's not like Ludevic or Delver could simply put a creature token into play as it doesn't even have the ability to flip back, no no. We need to create a totally unpractical mechanic that messes with the back of the card and forces people to use ugly looking checklist cards in their decks. Brilliant!
I could have forgiven them if the had used ALL flip cards to their maximum potential. As it stands, only a handful are actually worth the hassle.
Elbrus, the Binding Blade could have been a token, but nooo..
[before someone jumps in, i know making them tokes is not the same. But at least you are not forcing such a clumsy mechanic for a similar effect]
http://alteredartmagic.blogspot.com/search/label/Nicolarre
or in my Humble Alter Gallery at DeviantArt: http://nicolarre.deviantart.com/gallery/
Elbrus is actually one of the few I consider to have been designed to use the full potential.
Elbrus, Garruk, Daybreak Ranger, Mayor, Huntmaster, wolfbitten captive, and Soul Seizer. Wolfbitten Captive and Daybreak Ranger are just filler for the mechanic, Mayor and Huntmaster are flagship cards that only exist because of transform, they wouldn't have needed to be made without the mechanic (they stink of 'look at what cool things we can do' and were clearly made to use the design space, rather then starting with the idea, designing the mechanic to support it, then the card).
This leaves Elbrus, Garruk, and Soul Seizer. None of which Transform back...
I dislike Transform cards, but if WotC were to try to make new versions of the //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+[licid">"]Licids, I would hope they would use Transform to do it.
Alternatively {UB} or {2B} in [mana] tags are (U/B) or (2/B)
T is :symtap: and T will give T in [mana] tags
The Innistrad version causes FAR more damage to the game then the Kamigawa version, however that damage is already done, and the Innistrad one avoids the issues that the Kamigawa version has (when tapped it is hard to tell which side the card is on for example (limited space for rules as another)).
Alternatively {UB} or {2B} in [mana] tags are (U/B) or (2/B)
T is :symtap: and T will give T in [mana] tags
Thanks Argentleman;)
WB Teysa token aggroBW (retired)
MAKING (Onmath, Numot, maybe something in Esper)
1G phytohydra seedling
defender
0/3
GGGG: flip phytohydra seedling
-----
lesser phytohydra
defender
0/3
whenever lesser phytohydra blocks, if its still in play, put a +1/+1 counter on it.
when there are 3 or more +1/+1 counters on lesser phytohydra, transform it
on the other side of the card
thriving phytohydra
0/5
1G: put a +1/+1 counter on thriving phytohydra
when thriving phytohydra has 6 or more +1/+1 counters on it, flip it
-----
greater phytohydra
1/1
greater phytohydra is indestructible.
when greater phytohydra is dealt damage, put twice that many +1/+1 counters on it.
Rules for Echo were changed to accomodate new printings (and then new variants of the rules).
All you'd need to do would be the following:
- Errata Kamigawa flip cards so the bottom half has the mana cost 'printed' on it, just as Urza's Saga echo cards were errated to "Echo 1G"
- Remove the arbitrary 'once flipped cannot unflip' element of the rules
- Change the Transform rules to 'If the card is double-faced, turn it face down to transform it. Otherwise, turn it face up but upside down and ignore any rules text that is upside down.
Only functional changes I can see there are the aforementioned issues with clones that spend time as both a werewolf and a flip card.
And then the large number of players that loathe DFCs could use promo Delvers instead, while those that like DFCs just continue to use the Innistrad printing of the card.
The worst thing about DFCs is that they create situations where legitimate players make mistakes that make them look like cheats, in a way that no other card since Dark Confidant has done. But because the mistakes relate to card sleeves, not an in-game error, they are worse IMO. The only other comparable issue in Magic is players using four foil copies of an older key card in their deck (that are somewhat warped) and the marked card issues associated with that.
Flip cards are harder to use: you needed something to indicate their game state other then just giving it a 180 twist.
I like flip cards slightly more, but the art is so ugly and the card becomes confusing once tapped.
For me the best implementation is level up cards. There are the obvious limitation but it is the cleanest of all.
Possibe new variants are Tuk-tuk style cards - where a legendary token is played, another possibility is an ability to search for a specific Legend from outside the game and replace the card.
There is literally not a single reason why you can't make a visible enough mark on your checklist card rather than just paint/mark the small circle next to the right card's name. You can paint everything Black except the correct card's name, circle the name in Red, basically anything that you can do with normal cards via altering is fine with something that is just a proxy after all. I'm 100% sure a judge would be fine with almost anything you can possibly do with your checklist card as long as 1. the card is undistinguishable among the 40/60 cards of your deck as you shuffle/present/draw from your deck and 2. the name of the dual-faced card it is representing is 100% clear and visible.
Yes, it has a very small ammount of clunkiness to it, but tapping permanents with dices on them (Vivid lands? Persist/undying?) is also "a pain", having to look at the 1st card you draw from your deck carefully because of miracles is also "a pain", having to differentiate your Graveyard and your Exile zones is also something that is slightly annoying to do, and a million other small things that are more than just fine because they are very tiny, while the new design space provided by having two leaves-play zones, different cards like miracles and DFCs and etc is way bigger and very good for the game.
TL;DR: If one couldn't make it work with checklist cards he/she is just lazy, that is all.
Not. Gonna. Happen. 1 Innistrad/Dark Ascension box had over 20+ checklist cads each, I myself have over sixty checklist cards sitting here doing nothing. There are easily more checklist cards than DFCs around and even if supply of them became an issue that's something Wizards could fix in a heartbeat.
Even pretending there's gonna be a supply issue with them, there are what, 3-4 relevant DFCs for older formats? (new ones would be reprinted/newly printed in Standard, thus bringing MORE checklist cards). There are more than enough checklist cards to make them work. If worse comes to worst, you can just *gasp* play it the "hard way" and remove from the sleeve/flip the card itself when it is played. Again, tiny ammount of work versus big ammount of design space/game depth.
Printing two halves in one face loses far more than art. Good luck making cards like Huntmaster of the Fells or Garruk Relentless using only one side of a card. Are we gonna limit ourselves to dual cards with only a few lines of text just so we don't have to use the flip side?
Also, the Innistrad ones GAINED playability. They lost elegance, not playability. It is precisely to make them more playable and have more design possibilities for them that they use both sides, lol. They are more clunky by requiring sleeves/checklist cards and working differently in draft, but they don't lose one bit of playability compared to Kami flips. Again, good luck making something texty like Huntmaster or Garruk 3.0 with only one side of a card.
But seriously, I'd wager that most of the hate from Kamigawa flip cards is from people who never actually played with them in limited during Kamigawa's original run. The flip cards where fine, never really bothered or confused anybody unlike Innistrad transform cards witch caused rampant game losses, but I will concede they were (a little) ugly and would have been better off as two different regular cards in most cases.
Personally I would rather have neither mechanic ever return again. I don't like weird stuff happening to the card face, I would much rather have just been able to play the flipped versions of cards like Erayo's Essence, Stabwisker the Odious or Kenzo the Hardhearted by just paying mana like any other card rather then jumping through hoops and I REALLY REALLY didn't like using proxies or seeing marked cards on my opponent's side or constantly damaging my cards by taking them in and out of dragon shields in Innistrad.
Maybe they could do something like split cards having two differant modes of a creature spell on one card, but I am sure that a judge could tell me that the currant rules make that impossible.
I don't think gimmicks (Whee! Now a Mechanic where you cut your cards into peices for fun and profit!) like this that mess with the tools you use to play the game (i.e. alternate backs of cards or having a bunch of extra text boxes, making them hard to read) are particularly great for the game anyway so I would be most happy if they just knocked it off and never did it again.
Morph is cool though. Let's do morph again.
Famliy Guy Emperor Says,
"Something, something something, DARK SIDE!
Something, something, something COMPLETE!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHiUitciuJ8
:symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw:
SPIKE GAYMER: not just a beatdown, a beatdown sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty"!
I agree about level up cards. This is weird card face mechanic done right; readable, normal sized art, none of the issues about proxies and tapping that sometimes hamstrung the others.
Famliy Guy Emperor Says,
"Something, something something, DARK SIDE!
Something, something, something COMPLETE!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHiUitciuJ8
:symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw::symrw:
SPIKE GAYMER: not just a beatdown, a beatdown sung to the tune of "I Feel Pretty"!
........................
Aren't we complaining about Miracles, or Legendaries or Tarmogoyf or something else now?
Garruk 3.0 could work fine as a flip card with a font size reduction and less art. Huntmaster would be harder but by 'keywording' the Werewolf transformation without reminder text and again a slightly smaller font it would work.
Much more convenient than playing around with sleeves or watching new players get game losses (and be immediately suspected of cheating) for using sleeves that aren't totally opaque. I remember how much my first game loss at a tournament sucked, and that was something I deserved (showing up late to a round) - how many people quit tournaments after being hit with a DFC gameloss that the judge had to look into as a possible cheating investigation?
A quick note - those complaints apply to Morph as well, which was a nightmare for game losses and cheating investigations when people conceeded and scooped in one motion without flipping their face-down cards. I liked Morph's gameplay but think it was harmful to the game overall - DFCs offered no unique gameplay, just a clunkier way of doing something the game could already do.
As for the checklist cards - just wait and see what they are like in time. I remember how hard it was to find Urza lands when they appeared in 8th edition as uncommons. Despite ridiculous amounts of them in circulation from previous printings (probably 10x the demand for them, just as is the case with checklist cards), noone had the darn things in their trade binders and dealers couldn't keep them in stock. Cards that were significantly more widely circulated than current-set commons were selling at dealers for $3-4.
DFCs were a mistake that should never be repeated, while flip cards were just a little ugly.
And you'd be wrong. MaRo himself have stated that they intend to use the DFC's again.
---
Numquam evolutioni obstes. Solum conculceris.
Pascite draconem, evolvite aut morimini.
This. Seriously This!
Its like people cant go to walmart, or any damn store really, and buy makers or marker pens and write on a basic land. Seriously people you use markers and pens for all kinds of other stuff so its not like you can only use it for writing on a couple of basic lands, every one can easily get basic lands....for free!!!! Hell you could write the rules text on the damn thing so you don't even have to look at your transform card to remember what its does on both sides. And you only have to do this once per transform card you have in your collection. That's it.
WOW!!! The level of how wrong you are is off the charts. If your answer is to shrink text then you've already lost the argument. Making the text harder to read is a negative. Their is no legitimate argument you could come up with where the answers is "make the card harder to read". Huntmaster/Ravager doesn't fit all the text in any readable font one could use on normal cards so shrinking the text isn't an option and Garruk 3.0 would be nothing but a no art,crammed and unreadable card that makes the Innistarad DFC check lists look incredibly sexy.
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
Morph's pretty boring though.
They really really should have printed proxies of DFCs (the primary face) with normal magic backs. That allows you to play that in a sleeve or even an unsleeved deck, and just bring out the full card when it flips. it's just sheer laziness that they didn't.
The checklist is incredibly stupid and I hate playing with them.
0 Karn
W Darien
U Arcanis
B Geth
R Norin
G Yeva
UW Hanna
RB Olivia
WB Obzedat
UR Melek
BG Glissa
WR Aurelia
GU Kraj
BRU Nicol Bolas
RGB Prossh
BGW Ghave
GUB Mimeoplasm
WUBRG Sliver Overlord
GWU Treva, the Renewer
EDH Spike:
U Azami, Lady of Scrolls
Trades
Yeah, as a judge I hated giving game losses for DFCs, but overall they were pretty good. It sucks going into round 5 and you deck check an undefeated table and give someone a game loss because their sleeves aren't completely opaque. In that instance the player in question was playing the same deck I played at events I wasn't judging, and I knew the sleeves were not opaque enough as I used them myself and checked them before I ever played the deck.
Most sleeves are opaque enough where playing regular Magic cards are not considered marked since you can't really notice details through the sleeve. DFCs are different in that since it is artwork on the back it is clearly distinguishable from the standard Magic card back. Its not like playing with penny sleeves or perfect fits where the back of the cards is easily noticed so small imperfections can be markings.
something like
Werewolves could've been Toggle - Werewolf, where Werewolf is an actual keyword
A bit cumbersome, but not as much as flip cards and DFC
http://alteredartmagic.blogspot.com/search/label/Nicolarre
or in my Humble Alter Gallery at DeviantArt: http://nicolarre.deviantart.com/gallery/
No.....actually their advocating a combination of Ice Cauldron and Greater Morphling. Its funny how people complained about cards that are just wall of text that don't allow for flavor text but then complain when a card avoids that.
its like...
Dude-Ughhh watermelon. Its boring and bland. Someone should do something to make it interesting.
Guy-Ok...Here's a watermelon but its blue and doesn't taste like watermelon.
Dude-What kind of ass-hat changes watermelon like that. That's ugly and confusing and I don't like it.
Guy-Ok sorry...here's a green watermelon again but the inside is blue and taste like the blue one.
Dude-What the hell! Why didn't you just give me the blue watermelon that didn't taste like original watermelon, I always like original watermelon by the way, the blue watermelon was beautiful and made more sense.
Guy-:eyebrow::swear::banghead:
BAfter the lights go out on you, after your worthless life is through. I will remember how you scream...B
What if they made a different style of 'level up,' where bigger or legendary creatures had an ability called, like, "Elf Destiny (Exile an elf creature you control: This turn you may play this card from outside the game.)"
So maybe you have various mundane creatures who can rise to their destiny. You put the common critters in your deck, and the 'destined' versions in your sideboard.