hatchethandninja asked: Fear, Intimidate, and land walk all seem to be out of favor. Unblockable has a new template. What is the future of these types of evasion effects?
hatchethandninja asked: Fear, Intimidate, and land walk all seem to be out of favor. Unblockable has a new template. What is the future of these types of evasion effects?
Developer 1: We need an old mechanic, what should we use?
Developer 2: I dunno, we still haven't fixed the roulette for 2 years... let's ask Robb, he always had good flavourful ideas like landwalking!
Developer 3: Robb was sacked after that whole wedding fiasco.
Developer 1: Ah, well since nobody else knew how to apply landwalking, I guess we'll just scratch that...
Developer 2: What about Joffrey's idea to bring back intimidate?
Developer 1: After that episode where he choked? Nah!
Developer 2: Fine, how about regenerate?
Developer 1: How does that work again?
Senior developer: Well, you pay the cost and then you put a regeneration shiel-
Developer 1: Who are you again? Didn't you get fired a while ago?
Developer 3: Screw it, just put flying and unblockable on the stuff, I gotta go grab the kids from daycare.
Developer 1: Fine! Anyone else wants some foil Tarmagoyf cigars?
This is how I actually imagine "Making Magic" works...
I hinted at a topic for next Monday’s “Making Magic” column. I realized I was off by a week. That topic is a week from Monday, not Monday. Monday is a more personal column where you learn more about me.
The first thing to note is that the difference between Fear and Intimidate is shown by cards that give those abilities to others. The original Fear card would work very differently if it gave Intimidate, e.g.
I would miss all of these abilities if they went away, being a very old player. Having said that, I do get that these are niche effects. Protection and Landwalking can randomly 'be better'; I would think that this would point to using them specifically on hoser cards. Which would, in effect, make them sideboard cards.
Regeneration works very differently than Indestructible, as others have noted. The template, though, is fairly clear when you write it out. (Cost: The next time this turn that this creature would be destroyed, instead tap it, remove it from combat, and remove all damage from it.)
I dunno. I don't find any of them overly complex, but then, I didn't find Banding complex, either, or Time Spiral block in general. I can only assume that I am not WotC's main target audience.
The problem with regenerate is not only that it's complex, it's that it's unintuitive. It doesn't do what people expect it to do. When I started playing Magic, I thought Regenerate G worked like "G: Return this creature from your graveyard to the battlefield. Activate this ability only if this creature died this turn." Most new players expect it to function as such. If you want it balanced, you can make it a little more complex: "Regenerate G(At the beginning of your end step, if CARDNAME died this turn, you may pay G. If you do, return it to the battlefield tapped.) The current regeneration shield mechanic is just clunky and doesn't grok at all. Another problems rises, then: What flavorful name can possibly replace "regenerate"? Regrow? Restore? Regenerate just feels fleshly and slimy and magical. Fits both trolls and skeletons. The new mechanic name should fit both of these, and other assorted critters. It's my biggest issue with the Hexproof mechanic, really. Shroud just sounds that much better. It's a shame.
And for intimidate and landwalk, godspeed. They are both flavorful, sure, but they play terribly imo. They are always either completely irrelevant or annoyingly swingy in an uninteractive, unfun way.
Interesting. What other candidates could there be? Anything else that used to be evergreen but aren't any longer? (And isn't banding).
Could it be that prowess becomes the blue evergreen creature-keyword that Mark Rosewater has said they have been looking for?
If so, then it should by all rights become red and white evergreen as well. I don't think they want to evergreen triggered keywords, though. Most of the existing keywords are static abilities that define interactions, and the rest are action words.
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 always thought Land Walk was one of the more characterful abilities. I like the idea of lands representing the terrain in which the battle is taking place, just like your summon creatures represent soldiers in your army. It's not just some abstraction of energy. So if your opponent is drawing energy from nearby water sources via "Island" and you draw energy from the nearby water sources via "Island" then it makes sense to be able to send your sea monster into his water and attack him with it from a place he assumed was safe. A place he can't block.
It's more conditional than flying but its harder to counter.
What if they had some kind of "remove from combat" effect for the new Intimidate, like "When ~ blocks or becomes blocked by a creature, remove that creature from combat." After all, shouldn't Spiders have the ability to be scary? And then you get the comedy of two scary creatures scaring each other out of combat.
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.
What would that change, though? Other than the name?
Nothing. However it would be easier for newer players to understand. Again I feel 'intimidation' is something that only a 9-ton creature would have in magic the gathering and even there Trample seems to be more at place.
I feel that to the most basic level keywords should just represent what they do as easy as possible. Intimidate is workable but why would a Giant be intimidated by a much smaller creature who has that? In my book in terms of "fearing things" the list goes from Intimidate -> Fear -> Terror/Horrified. This is also often seen in other games. The common use of keywords like that mean that the game will become more appealing since it's easy to remember what keywords do.
One of the recent examples I could give why I feel Fear/Intimidate doesn't work is because they make little sence when a 'God' fears or gets intimidated by a creature. How does that even work?
I think you might be underestimating new players. Generally people don't need a perfect flavor explanation for a keyword in order to understand how it works mechanically.
Even if you're right, that doesn't mean that the solution was to errata every card with fear (especially considering the awkward situation of how to errata cards made before fear got keyworded); it just means that WotC should've chosen a better name for intimidate, like "terrorize" or "horrify" or something. Erratas can also cause confusion, y'know, and really shouldn't be used as a cure-all.
If I had to guess on keywords they make evergreen my first guesses would be scry or morph. Both fill the gap of being useful early and late game. Another possibility is flashback or cycling, but we've not seen either too recently.
I'd like to see them keyword "can't be blocked except by two or more creatures" as Elusive or something, then they could give it to Red and Blue. But a blue flying elusive creature would be tough to block.
I supposed they could keyword it as scary and give it to red and black instead of intimidate.
Additionally I still can't visualize what Landwalk is actually supose to represent and I think that part is important to make sure newer players, now familiar with different types of online cardgames like Heartstone for example, actually "feel right" about the game. It's the main reason why Flying and Trample have been so logical and thus great for use.
- Why is the 9-ton Leviathan not able to block the other 9-ton Leviathan?
Do you realize how big the ocean is? Try swimming across it sometime, it's not easy. I've only done it twice.
Seriously, though I like the landwalking abilities, as they indicate that the creature has some sort of natural camouflage or ability to sneak in certain terrains, but they're usually the most logical for their own color, which is why it's rarely a strong ability outside of blue landwalking merfolk + Spreading Seas.
Why do Shanodin Dryads have forestwalk? They look like trees, and blend in, so blockers can't find them. Why do Mountain Goats have mountainwalk? Because goats can climb sheer cliffs that other animals can't. Why does Zodiac Rooster have plainswalk..... you got me, I have no clue.
Because you eventually have to make a concession on flavor for consistent functionality. How does that same dragon that flies stop a deep sea creature? You cannot have one type of landwalk be specifically much stronger than the others, even if it is a blue hoser. The game is complicated enough, having different interactions for different landwalks is unnecessarily over complications for the sake of perfecting flavor.
This is why I would like to see evasion mechanics like swimming and tunneling added to Magic. Tunneling would make a lot of sense as a red ability and would also make a great deal of sense in white, black, and green. Swimming would be another blue evasion ability but one that black and green could also easily get. The main reason we don't see such evasion mechanics is that they'd probably be too similar to Flying, just as Horsemanship was. Hexproof covers part of swimming's flavor, but not the evasion aspect, while tunneling has been interpreted as the Goblin Tunneler ability.
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.
Regardless, the way Core sets worked and explained rules for cards it could have easily be done. New wording on new cards does not confuse new players generally.
We've allready seen Fear being replaced by Intimidate but generally speaking I think it would have been cooler to re-rule Fear into what Intimidate is now. Not too many cards would have actually be affected by it.
In that instance, it's not the new wording on new cards that would cause the problem, it's the old wording on old cards. Because then you have situations where a new player is playing against a veteran player with an older collection, and the new player is confused by the fact that the reminder text on the veteran player's copy of, say, Cover of Darkness is wrong, and he or she has to simply take the veteran player's word for it that the card works differently than the reminder text explicitly says it does.
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
I would read next week’s “Making Magic”. : )
http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/120203467573/fear-intimidate-and-land-walk-all-seem-to-be-out
This is how I actually imagine "Making Magic" works...
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
I would miss all of these abilities if they went away, being a very old player. Having said that, I do get that these are niche effects. Protection and Landwalking can randomly 'be better'; I would think that this would point to using them specifically on hoser cards. Which would, in effect, make them sideboard cards.
Regeneration works very differently than Indestructible, as others have noted. The template, though, is fairly clear when you write it out. (Cost: The next time this turn that this creature would be destroyed, instead tap it, remove it from combat, and remove all damage from it.)
I dunno. I don't find any of them overly complex, but then, I didn't find Banding complex, either, or Time Spiral block in general. I can only assume that I am not WotC's main target audience.
That almost makes it sound like their bring something back, like Fear or Shroud.
And for intimidate and landwalk, godspeed. They are both flavorful, sure, but they play terribly imo. They are always either completely irrelevant or annoyingly swingy in an uninteractive, unfun way.
Could it be that prowess becomes the blue evergreen creature-keyword that Mark Rosewater has said they have been looking for?
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
I'll be honest, I stopped reading after his birth...
RETIRED - GAME SUCKS
Modern:
UUUMerfolksUUU
RGoblinsR
Ad Nauseam
BR 8 Racks RB
WUB Mill BUW
Legacy:
XOps! All splels! X
What I think of MaRo
If so, then it should by all rights become red and white evergreen as well. I don't think they want to evergreen triggered keywords, though. Most of the existing keywords are static abilities that define interactions, and the rest are action words.
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.
It's more conditional than flying but its harder to counter.
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 might be underestimating new players. Generally people don't need a perfect flavor explanation for a keyword in order to understand how it works mechanically.
Even if you're right, that doesn't mean that the solution was to errata every card with fear (especially considering the awkward situation of how to errata cards made before fear got keyworded); it just means that WotC should've chosen a better name for intimidate, like "terrorize" or "horrify" or something. Erratas can also cause confusion, y'know, and really shouldn't be used as a cure-all.
I supposed they could keyword it as scary and give it to red and black instead of intimidate.
Do you realize how big the ocean is? Try swimming across it sometime, it's not easy. I've only done it twice.
Seriously, though I like the landwalking abilities, as they indicate that the creature has some sort of natural camouflage or ability to sneak in certain terrains, but they're usually the most logical for their own color, which is why it's rarely a strong ability outside of blue landwalking merfolk + Spreading Seas.
Why do Shanodin Dryads have forestwalk? They look like trees, and blend in, so blockers can't find them. Why do Mountain Goats have mountainwalk? Because goats can climb sheer cliffs that other animals can't. Why does Zodiac Rooster have plainswalk..... you got me, I have no clue.
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.
But you said:
In that instance, it's not the new wording on new cards that would cause the problem, it's the old wording on old cards. Because then you have situations where a new player is playing against a veteran player with an older collection, and the new player is confused by the fact that the reminder text on the veteran player's copy of, say, Cover of Darkness is wrong, and he or she has to simply take the veteran player's word for it that the card works differently than the reminder text explicitly says it does.
</thread>
Reprint Stasis!
Control needs more love.
EDH:
Momir Vig, Simic Visionary
Melek, Izzet Paragon
Oona, Queen of the Fae
Bruna, Light of Alabaster
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight
Rhys the Redeemed
Jarad, Golgari Lich Lord
Sen Triplets
The Mimeoplasm
WUBRGSliver OverlordGRBUW
WUBRGSliver Hivelord(Superfriends)GRBUW
I'm happy with the new keywords. Menace provides less evasion than intimidate, but I guess it will be a good change
Commander: WUBRG Superfriends, GW Rhys Tokens, WUBRG Scion of the Ur-Dragon
Kitchen Table (now that's real Magic): WUBRG Domain, GU Biovisionary, UB Korlash Grandeur, UW Merfolk Mill