That is exactly what I personally don't want wizards to do and I am pretty sure they would avoid it since they explicitly talk about "solving contraptions". Assemble cannot just be a keyword replacing "put a token". The way you did it of course there is a little more (inspired mechanic...probably something they won't do being the worst mechanic of the last decade or so.) but the problem remains. The flavor of assemble has to be out there too.
Assemble could be a keyword to put a Contraption token on the battlefield. I don't know of anything in that rules that would disallow it. And yes, I recognize that keeping a creature tapped down is not ideal (much like relying on the creature becoming untapped from Inspired was not favorably received), but it's not an uncommon theme (just search for "long remain tapped" on gatherer and you'll see a bunch of cards do this). This is actually how I explained the flavor of assemble. Your creature has no business untapping because he's assembling instead. The creature could also have an activated ability that would tap him, rather than having to tap him through attacking.
I would personally feel betrayed if assemble and contraptions ends up à la investigate. Not that it would not play well or so, but to me there is implicitly something with contraptions that has to be unique and new, and just put artifact tokens on the battlefield is not that. The way one reads steamflogger boss for the first time and feels "WTF? What does this mean" has to be a revolution, or at least truly add new Ways to impact the game. The most important thing there is that "assemble" and "put onto the battlefield" need to be or at least feel, really different!
Not to dog your idea, because I like complex gameplay, but it would have significant playability issues (defined by the questions Maro asks on his Storm Scale: Did players have problems understanding this mechanic, both in how it worked and in how it interacted with other mechanics? Was the mechanic logistically hard to use?). I went the opposite route and came up with a super simple concept that both provided versatility and avoided complex gameplay. Now, perhaps there's a middle ground. It could be something new to Magic, something that is both elegant and complex (without being overly complex).
Goblin Rigger 1RRR
When this creature enters the battlefield, choose one:
* Search your library for a Contraption card and put it into the Assembly Yard [a new zone].
* Assemble a Contraption (To Assemble a Contraption, take a Contraption card with no counters on it from the Assembly Yard and put onto the battlefield tapped). T: Remove a Work counter from a Contraption card in your Assembly Yard. If it was the last counter on that Contraption card, sacrifice Goblin Rigger and Assemble a Contraption.
1/2
Work in Progress
Artifact Creature - Contraption
~ enters the Assembly Yard with 1 Work Counter on it.
Electrocute [Creatures blocked by this creature deal no combat damage and do not tap during their next controller's next untap step]
~'s power and toughness are equal to the number of Contraptions you control
~ can only block creatures with power equal to it's own power.
*/*
Finely Wrought Machine
Artifact - Contraption
~ enters the Assembly Yard with 3 Work Counters on it. 3, T: Put a colorless 1/1 Thopter token with flying onto the battlefield tapped
Mechanical Masterpiece
Artifact Creature - Contraption Horror
~ enters the Assembly Yard with 7 Work Counters on it.
Contraptions you control get +2/+1
When ~ enters the battlefield, put all Contraptions in all Assembly Yards onto the battlefield tapped under your control.
Damage dealt by ~ cannot be prevented. 3R: Remove a Work Counter from all Contraptions in your Assembly Yard
7/4
Even this, though, isn't outside the normal realm of MTG, as it only creates a new zone and then uses familiar concepts such as counters, tapping, mana costs, etc.
3T: Assemble a contraption (put an contraption artifact token onto the battlefield)
2/1
Contraption
Artifact token
1T: Sacrifice contraption, draw a card then discard a card at random (or deal 2 damage to creature or player)
The problem is, the way Steamflogger Boss is worded, Assemble can't just mean "Put a Contraption onto the Battlefield" because otherwise, it wouldn't say "Assemble a Contraption." The fact that it specifies means that if Assemble puts something on the battlefield, it can't be just Contraptions. Erdwal Illuminator is a good example of the wording that would be used if Assemble was just making contraptions.
There's a reason that this card is a complicated mess rules-wise.
Just out of curiosity: Has anyone ever expressed an actual reason WHY they want Contraptions to return?
I honestly do not get why this and (OMG!!) Contraptions (!!) is even a thing in the first place?
WotC said it was a joke and in that way had no real intention of doing it. Therefore, players now want it more because they were told they won't have it. Grass is greener on the other side sort-of-thing.
Also, because the card is weird and that makes people imagine something cool and new.
I still think it's that simple. The parentheses rules text on the new card would explain what the boss card means and it all seems straight forward.
If a card says "assemble ~~~~~~" then that means put a artifact token named ~~~~~~ into play.
Could be different keywords for each color. Along with the assembled item doing its corresponding color pie thing.
We seem to all want assemble to be a new "thing" when wizards could just put some rules text and simply pass the buck and it would still make sense and be easy fix(which would be fine with me and perfect for a whole theme in kaladesh. Mechanic, artificer, rigger, forger and the like would all be 'assembling " things But that would be boring and nt as cool as we had all hoped.
A recent post on MaRo's blog suggests it not contraptions.
Quote from = Blogatog »
enchantedspoons asked: Hi Mark. Happy belated birthday! Mine was on the 24th and I totally forgot to drop my ask in that day. To celebrate both occasions, what is your favourite thing about your job?
My favorite thing is getting to create something that makes others so happy. But it takes patience. Lock, for example, is finally doing something that I’ve been trying to get in the game for a *long* time, longer than I’ve been Head Designer. When that finally makes it to print and I get to see how happy it makes all of you - it’s hard to find joy that pure. : )
MaRo became Head Designer in 2003. The year Mirrodin came out. It could either be a revamp of Affinity, which MaRo has stated has potential, but is tethered by development fear, OR, it could be Mechanic E.
ThyLordQ: I was coming here to post this. Good catch. (That, and asking when he became Head Designer.)
OTOH, the above Blogatog post that summarizes the 4 points of what we now know to be Kaladesh has 'adding something to the game that he's wanted for a long time' and 'solve a longstanding design issue' as different points. So we may get both?
On the whole Contraption/Assemble thing, I'm pretty sure that 'Assemble a Contraption' will be more or less like Investigate. In fact, Clue tokens were created fairly late in SOI design, no? If so, they may have backed into using Clue tokens for Investigate because they cracked the Contraption thing in Kaladesh.
Now, I do agree that it can't be simply 'put a Contraption token into play'. However, remember that they keyword things mainly to save space. When you combine that with the fact that when a token is created, it must be completely described, you get Investigate, which is simply 'put a Clue token into play', but they have to specify the Clue token's ability, which is '2, sac this: Draw a card', and you don't want to have to write that on cards like, oh, Tireless Tracker.
Incidentally, Erdwal Illuminator is written so that it can't trigger multiple times per turn. If you don't care about triggering multiple times per turn, they could simply write, "Whenever you would investigate, investigate twice instead."
I would think it would be along the lines of :
Rigger creature types with a tapping ability to assemble a contraption. Assembling being along the lines of adding a non-equipment static ability (Contraptions new Artifact subtype with a casting cost and all) to your rigger to make a more powerful "Mech-style" super creature.
This would also fall into Steamflogger Boss being playable as he would allow them to assemble immediately, as well as assemble two contraptions. Might make him too OP though.
Contraptions being only assembled and not having an equip cost would allow for design to make them more powerful/creative and not have to worry about being abused by various older creatures.
Now the play-ability of this or even viability of it is minimal at best, as I think it would make a very narrow plane and require a lot of Rigger/Contraption design space dedication with little play-ability in older formats.
I am very curious to see how they tackle to design limitations.
With the debate on the "mythic vanilla" I came up with a new idea that I think works well, especially in terms of power level.
My idea:
"Assemble a contraption" means "reveal an artifact card from your hand, then pay its CMC, if you do, put a token that's a copy of this artifact into play, it is a contraption in addition to its other type".
Doubt it. Current wizards does not like mechanics that make repetitive game states - it's why tutors are so expensive now, it's why they don't like mechanics like buyback, and it's why they were so freaking gunshy with Cipher as to make all the cards unplayable.
Not yet. According to various posts on Blogatog, R&D thought Skulk was a very promising candidate to become the sought after UB evergreen keyword, but it has played out worse than they initially hoped.
herowithoutacause asked: May I ask why you feel Skulk won't become evergreen? I thought it'd be an obvious shoo-in for blue/black's combat keyword.
It has a few problems. The design space is narrower than we originally thought. It proved to be harder to process than we first thought. And developmentally, it’s a touch trickier than we thought.
We walked into it optimistic that we found out Blue/Black mechanic but so far it’s not working out as well as we hoped. Note I’m talking about evergreen status. It’s a fine normal mechanic
When assemble finally comes around, it would be nice to have some backwards compatability. I think the Riggers would define the kind of contraptions they make, which they make from other artifacts (they salvage them for parts). Assemble could just be an ability word. For example
Explosives Expert1R
Creature - Rigger
Assemble - T; Sacrifice an artifact: put a contraption token named land mine onto the battlefield. It has: "T: sacrifice land mine: Landmine does 3 damage to target attacking creature without flying."
it has backwards compatability because it works with all artifacts, and the ability words defines the ability as an assemble action so simply putting a contraption on the battlefield in another way does not trigger steamflogger boss. Also, while a little wordy, it's clean. Also, it allows for scalability as more powerfull contraptions would require more artifacts to be sacrificed for spareparts.
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The secret to enjoyable Commander games is not winning first, but losing last.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
With the debate on the "mythic vanilla" I came up with a new idea that I think works well, especially in terms of power level.
My idea:
"Assemble a contraption" means "reveal an artifact card from your hand, then pay its CMC, if you do, put a token that's a copy of this artifact into play, it is a contraption in addition to its other type".
Doubt it. Current wizards does not like mechanics that make repetitive game states - it's why tutors are so expensive now, it's why they don't like mechanics like buyback, and it's why they were so freaking gunshy with Cipher as to make all the cards unplayable.
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.
Given what we see in Meld mechanic, it is quite possible that contraption will be an artifact version of such?
But how would you assemble 2 of them?
It might work literally like a Voltron. "I'll form the head!"
j/k, I think instead of being two faced cards they might work like equipments, i.e., one will be the base creatures the rest becomes enchantment. Token equipments have been proven possible with Nahiri, the Lithomancer, so that may work out.
I and other designers have found a way to make multiple-part artifacts work, the annoying part is the apparent requirement for creatures to do the assembling. We could have just gotten a mechanic where you attach part A to part B, but unfortunately that wasn't on the minds of the designers when they made Steamflogger Boss.
The two basic questions I would ask about Riggers assembling Contraptions are:
What's the simplest way you could write out this concept? Obviously that would be "~ assembles a Contraption." The trick is figuring out how to give that meaning.
What would be the purpose of jumping through such hoops to build a functional artifact when you could simply just play an artifact? The two easiest answers are combos and customization. This wants to be something akin to all those artifact combo decks that use tap, untap, and sac effects. I'm thinking Mirrodin-era Stations, Krark-Clan Ironworks, the like.
Contraption tokens seem like the best way to justify using creatures in lieu of a straightforward Assemble keyword, but that's going to cause all sorts of problems if you want a wide variety of Contraptions. Contraptions could be similar to Conspiracies in that they're unusual cards that you don't play the way you normally would; perhaps they don't have mana costs like most artifacts and sit in your command zone until a Rigger calls one forth. Each time a creature assembles a Contraption, you add it to a chain of Contraption parts that all form one singular permanent.
I keep thinking Parts are the missing element here; instead of fully-formed Contraptions which would be difficult to represent on a single card, you have Contraption Parts that form an ever-growing Contraption. I then think about input and output effects, which could be a combination of activated and triggered abilities.
Another simplistic approach occurs to me: What if Contraption tokens could be used to connect two other artifacts together? When you activate or trigger the first artifact, the Contraption untaps the second.
In this example, whenever you activate Razortip Whip, you get to untap Pristine Talisman, with the Contraption serving as an in-between. Another example:
Whenever you sacrifice an artifact to the Ironworks, you untap Gilded Lotus. In this execution, Contraptions allow you to create combos out of any two artifacts, preferably noncreature and non-Equipment.
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.
That sounds like a good idea on paper, but the biggest issue with Meld is getting both cards together in Limited, hence why they did just three pairs in EMN. Not to mention the separate artifacts presumably shouldn't be able to do anything on their own, and they need a third card to assemble them, making that concept all the more prohibitive.
Contraptions to me sounds like something a supplement set might want to do akin to Conspiracies. That would likely mean Steamflogger Boss would no longer be legal in Standard or Modern.
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():
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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.
I think people want to see the steamflogger thing work more than it makes sense to have it, but I think it could be cool. But solving a long time issue, that "feels" very red, and is grindy, leads me to believe we have already seen the mechanic. I think it's the mechanic on stensia innkeeper, tap an opponents land and it doesn't untap on their next untap step. It solves the long time issue of land destruction being "unfun" to play against, while feeling very red, and being grindy. Plus it really fits the flavor of a world that is against the use of magic, by tapping down your lands so you can't cast any. I would be fine with the contraption thing, but I think this would be a much better mechanic that opens red back up to one if its most powerful abilities without sacrificing the "fun" aspect.
I could see assembling a contraption as being a graveyard mechanic. Think of a fixed Goblin Welder. Similar to an Eldritch Evolution/birthing pod effect that works from the graveyard. You'd sacrifice an artifact and then return an artifact with a converted mana cost of X or less from your graveyard to the battlefield, where X is equal to 2 plus the converted mana cost of the sacrificed artifact. This would play well with clue tokens since cards like Tireless Tracker care about clues being sacrificed, but it isn't broken because sacrificing a clue would only bring back artifacts with a cmc of 2 or less and players would first need to find ways to fill their graveyard with artifacts to take advantage of it.
What if Contraption cards begin the game in exile and you use Riggers to assemble them, basically putting them onto the battlefield from exile?
"~ assembles a Contraption. (Cast any number of Contraption Part cards you own in exile for their mana costs. Those Parts enter the battlefield assembled.)"
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.
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Assemble could be a keyword to put a Contraption token on the battlefield. I don't know of anything in that rules that would disallow it. And yes, I recognize that keeping a creature tapped down is not ideal (much like relying on the creature becoming untapped from Inspired was not favorably received), but it's not an uncommon theme (just search for "long remain tapped" on gatherer and you'll see a bunch of cards do this). This is actually how I explained the flavor of assemble. Your creature has no business untapping because he's assembling instead. The creature could also have an activated ability that would tap him, rather than having to tap him through attacking.
Not to dog your idea, because I like complex gameplay, but it would have significant playability issues (defined by the questions Maro asks on his Storm Scale: Did players have problems understanding this mechanic, both in how it worked and in how it interacted with other mechanics? Was the mechanic logistically hard to use?). I went the opposite route and came up with a super simple concept that both provided versatility and avoided complex gameplay. Now, perhaps there's a middle ground. It could be something new to Magic, something that is both elegant and complex (without being overly complex).
Even this, though, isn't outside the normal realm of MTG, as it only creates a new zone and then uses familiar concepts such as counters, tapping, mana costs, etc.
Meh
Modern
BUWEsper ControlWUB
BRUGrixis DelverURB
WRBGKiki ChordGBRW
WBGAbzan MidrangeGBW
BRGJundGRB
Legacy
UBRGrixis DelverRBU
Commander
Also meh
Steamflogger builder
1R
Goblin rigger
3T: Assemble a contraption (put an contraption artifact token onto the battlefield)
2/1
Contraption
Artifact token
1T: Sacrifice contraption, draw a card then discard a card at random (or deal 2 damage to creature or player)
The problem is, the way Steamflogger Boss is worded, Assemble can't just mean "Put a Contraption onto the Battlefield" because otherwise, it wouldn't say "Assemble a Contraption." The fact that it specifies means that if Assemble puts something on the battlefield, it can't be just Contraptions. Erdwal Illuminator is a good example of the wording that would be used if Assemble was just making contraptions.
There's a reason that this card is a complicated mess rules-wise.
WotC said it was a joke and in that way had no real intention of doing it. Therefore, players now want it more because they were told they won't have it. Grass is greener on the other side sort-of-thing.
Also, because the card is weird and that makes people imagine something cool and new.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
If a card says "assemble ~~~~~~" then that means put a artifact token named ~~~~~~ into play.
Could be different keywords for each color. Along with the assembled item doing its corresponding color pie thing.
We seem to all want assemble to be a new "thing" when wizards could just put some rules text and simply pass the buck and it would still make sense and be easy fix(which would be fine with me and perfect for a whole theme in kaladesh. Mechanic, artificer, rigger, forger and the like would all be 'assembling " things But that would be boring and nt as cool as we had all hoped.
Of course I could be all wet
MaRo became Head Designer in 2003. The year Mirrodin came out. It could either be a revamp of Affinity, which MaRo has stated has potential, but is tethered by development fear, OR, it could be Mechanic E.
OTOH, the above Blogatog post that summarizes the 4 points of what we now know to be Kaladesh has 'adding something to the game that he's wanted for a long time' and 'solve a longstanding design issue' as different points. So we may get both?
On the whole Contraption/Assemble thing, I'm pretty sure that 'Assemble a Contraption' will be more or less like Investigate. In fact, Clue tokens were created fairly late in SOI design, no? If so, they may have backed into using Clue tokens for Investigate because they cracked the Contraption thing in Kaladesh.
Now, I do agree that it can't be simply 'put a Contraption token into play'. However, remember that they keyword things mainly to save space. When you combine that with the fact that when a token is created, it must be completely described, you get Investigate, which is simply 'put a Clue token into play', but they have to specify the Clue token's ability, which is '2, sac this: Draw a card', and you don't want to have to write that on cards like, oh, Tireless Tracker.
Incidentally, Erdwal Illuminator is written so that it can't trigger multiple times per turn. If you don't care about triggering multiple times per turn, they could simply write, "Whenever you would investigate, investigate twice instead."
Rigger creature types with a tapping ability to assemble a contraption. Assembling being along the lines of adding a non-equipment static ability (Contraptions new Artifact subtype with a casting cost and all) to your rigger to make a more powerful "Mech-style" super creature.
This would also fall into Steamflogger Boss being playable as he would allow them to assemble immediately, as well as assemble two contraptions. Might make him too OP though.
Contraptions being only assembled and not having an equip cost would allow for design to make them more powerful/creative and not have to worry about being abused by various older creatures.
Now the play-ability of this or even viability of it is minimal at best, as I think it would make a very narrow plane and require a lot of Rigger/Contraption design space dedication with little play-ability in older formats.
I am very curious to see how they tackle to design limitations.
Doubt it. Current wizards does not like mechanics that make repetitive game states - it's why tutors are so expensive now, it's why they don't like mechanics like buyback, and it's why they were so freaking gunshy with Cipher as to make all the cards unplayable.
375 unpowered cube - https://cubecobra.com/cube/list/601ac624832cdf1039947588
See e.g.:
Cubetutor Peasant'ish-Funbox
Project: Khans of Tarkir Cube (cubetutor)
Explosives Expert 1R
Creature - Rigger
Assemble - T; Sacrifice an artifact: put a contraption token named land mine onto the battlefield. It has: "T: sacrifice land mine: Landmine does 3 damage to target attacking creature without flying."
it has backwards compatability because it works with all artifacts, and the ability words defines the ability as an assemble action so simply putting a contraption on the battlefield in another way does not trigger steamflogger boss. Also, while a little wordy, it's clean. Also, it allows for scalability as more powerfull contraptions would require more artifacts to be sacrificed for spareparts.
If my post has no tags, then i posted from my phone.
I wouldn't say all the Cipher spells were unplayable.
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.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
But how would you assemble 2 of them?
It might work literally like a Voltron. "I'll form the head!"
j/k, I think instead of being two faced cards they might work like equipments, i.e., one will be the base creatures the rest becomes enchantment. Token equipments have been proven possible with Nahiri, the Lithomancer, so that may work out.
Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest WUR Voltron Control
Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun WU Unblockable Mirror Trickery
Ra's al Ghul (Sidar Kondo) and Face-Down Ninjas
Brudiclad, Token Engineer
Vaevictis (VV2) the Dire Lantern
Rona, Disciple of Gix
Tiana the Auror
Hallar
Ulrich the Politician
Zur the Rebel
Scorpion, Locust, Scarab, Egyptian Gods
O-Kagachi, Mathas, Mairsil
"Non-Tribal" Tribal Generals, Eggs
The two basic questions I would ask about Riggers assembling Contraptions are:
Contraption tokens seem like the best way to justify using creatures in lieu of a straightforward Assemble keyword, but that's going to cause all sorts of problems if you want a wide variety of Contraptions. Contraptions could be similar to Conspiracies in that they're unusual cards that you don't play the way you normally would; perhaps they don't have mana costs like most artifacts and sit in your command zone until a Rigger calls one forth. Each time a creature assembles a Contraption, you add it to a chain of Contraption parts that all form one singular permanent.
I keep thinking Parts are the missing element here; instead of fully-formed Contraptions which would be difficult to represent on a single card, you have Contraption Parts that form an ever-growing Contraption. I then think about input and output effects, which could be a combination of activated and triggered abilities.
Another simplistic approach occurs to me: What if Contraption tokens could be used to connect two other artifacts together? When you activate or trigger the first artifact, the Contraption untaps the second.
Razortip Whip-Contraption-Pristine Talisman
In this example, whenever you activate Razortip Whip, you get to untap Pristine Talisman, with the Contraption serving as an in-between. Another example:
Krark-Clan Ironworks-Contraption-Gilded Lotus
Whenever you sacrifice an artifact to the Ironworks, you untap Gilded Lotus. In this execution, Contraptions allow you to create combos out of any two artifacts, preferably noncreature and non-Equipment.
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.
Contraptions to me sounds like something a supplement set might want to do akin to Conspiracies. That would likely mean Steamflogger Boss would no longer be legal in Standard or Modern.
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.
"~ assembles a Contraption. (Cast any number of Contraption Part cards you own in exile for their mana costs. Those Parts enter the battlefield assembled.)"
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.