My only beef with the mechanic as is - outside of 1 being perhaps too low a standard - is that you're using charge counters. Charge counters are fairly ubiquitous at this point in their usage and using them for building up a spell, especially on a permanent card, is just going to rub the wrong way. Just find a different name for the counter and it should be fine. But that's just me.
Is this mechanic cool enough? Will other people find it fun? Will they like it?
Yes.
Yes, I think Charge is a cool mechanic. However, can I use it on commons?
Yes, though outside of, say, cards at uncommon or higher that trigger off of a charge count, it generally won't do much.
Can I expand upon it? Is it cool enough to span three sets? How will I vary the mechanic over the next three sets?
Of course you can. Any mechanic can be expanded upon, even banding (though don't ask me!). Don't forget though: with Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, Zendikar, and Innistrad, making a two-set drafting structure is now acceptable practice.
For example: Should I make spells with Charge a type like Arcane spells? It works for instants and sorceries, but appears awkward on creatures or enchantments.
If you want a typeline distinction for a mechanic that can appear on any card, a supertype would work better. Though bear in mind, no mechanic has ever had an entire subtype or supertype devoted to it. Even all cards that work with snow weren't snow, or all Curses don't all have triggered abilities.
Where should the full text appear? Full text should appear on commons, but should it be appear in full on uncommons? Should Charge appear on the top of text box or on the bottom?
Where it does for suspend, of course. As for the uncommons, it really depends on the amount of text you think you can get away with. Certainly keep the number of uncommons without the whole reminder text to a minimum in the first set.
All of this being said, I do hope you remember that keywords are not capitalized if they don't begin a sentence.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
1. Presumably, charge instants are made and go live at your EOT, so they can be charged and used on the opponents turn? Charging at upkeep seems like a better mechanic and to possess better flavor - it's been charging for (nearly) a full rotation of turns before the charge counter.
2. Can you charge as an instant? Your mechanic doesn't specify, so presumably yes (though obviously the EOT charge won't trigger until next turn).
3. A lot of charging can still cause not-very-magic occurrences where players have (functionally) two hands, one of which is immune to discard and getting better. Cards like Recycle, Memory Jar, or Time Spiral make this more awkward. Even if it's not worth "breaking" this mechanically, a high use of the mechanic can make the game feel unlike magic (though I suppose this is often true, as with morph of suspend). Perhaps only allowing charging 1 card at a time?
The awkward thing about Charge as a set mechanic is that - like Suspend - it's completely non-interactive. That's the exact opposite of morph.
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I think you need to look at Charge as a variant on Multikicker or Replicate. Also, you should only be able to charge one spell at a time. However, you can make an artifact that has a variant on Imprint that allows you to charge a card.
Basic ideas:
***
Charged Sentry W
Common
Creature - Soldier
Defender
Charge -- 1, put other cards exiled this way in your graveyard: exile this card from your hand face down; it is charging. If exiled and charging, you may put a Charge counter on this card at the beginning of your upkeep and you may cast it from exile.
Charged Sentry enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters where X is the number of charge counters it had when cast.
0/2
***
Charged Bolt 1RR
Common
Instant
Charge -- 1, put other cards exiled this way in your graveyard: exile this card from your hand face down; it is charging. If exiled and charging, you may put a Charge counter on this card at the beginning of your upkeep and you may cast it from exile.
Do 2 damage to target creature. Copy this spell for each charge counter on it when cast. You may choose new targets for each copy.
***
Charging Station 3
Uncommon
2, T, Discard any cards charging with Charging Station: You may exile a card with Charge from your hand with Charging Station. It is charging.
2, T: Put a Charge counter on the card Charging with Charging Station.
3, T: Put a Charge counter on any Charging card.
Whenever Charging Station leaves play, discard any cards Charging with Charging Station.
***
Charging Barrier 2W
Rare
Enchantment
Each player must pay an additional X when casting spells from exile, where X is the number of Charge counters on that card.
***
You have to be careful of the interactions with regular exile; you don't want cards with Charge exiled (say countered with Dissipate) to then be charging. Note that the way I wrote it, you could use Stifle or Sundial of the Infinite shenanigans to nullify the triggered ability on Charging Station and get a lot of cards charging simultaneously. But generally, you could only have one spell charging at a time, avoiding this weird problem of exiling your entire hand and being immune to discard or being able to play shenanigans with Memory Jar or Wheel of Fortune type effects.
Anyway, that's an example of how it would be like Multikicker or Replicate, plus cards that would interact with it and hate on it.
However, can I use it on commons? Can I expand upon it? Is it cool enough to span three sets?
I think that the mechanic you made is already the expanded form. You can put it at lower rarities by just caring if the spell has been charged or not. Sort of like kicker and multikicker.
Maybe:
Charge Bear 1G
Creature
If Charged Bear was charged, it enters the battlefield with +1/+1 counter on it.
2/2
The power of "charge" is going to be directly related to what you make those charge counters do.
That "Wrath of Time" card example would be a card that I would start charging early and just let the charge counters build up and up. Why not, right?
What if instead of "You may remove a nonland permanent from the game [...]" it said, "Destroy a nonland permanent [...]"? Would that encourage you to want fewer counters on it so you can destroy your opponent's permanents while keeping your own safe?
What about a black example of something similar? We could write that like this:
CARD NAME 1BB
Charge
Each player sacrifices X non-land permanents where X is the number of charge counters on CARD NAME.
This card is incredibly powerful if you have it in your opening hand. It's like All is Dust (without the colorless exemption) if you've had it out for 10 turns. But it has it's weakness... it's not very good against token decks which make more then 1 token per turn. Which mean it would be great if that's the deck you put it in. Black White tokens strike again!
Overall I like where this is going. I like that putting a charge counter on it is NOT optional when the card is exiled and charging. This can be used to make the decision to start charging a card more strategic.
OH! A red example!
Static Shock (would have called it Chain Lighting if I cound) R
Charge
In addition to it's casting cost pay X where X is the number of charge counters on Static Shock.
Static Shock deals 1 damage to target creature or player.
Copy Static Shock for each charge counter on it. You may choose new targets for each copy.
Now there is a card that you HAVE to cast before it costs more then you can afford. So you want to wait a few turns maybe to start charging it (or maybe it could blow up in your face to negate the extra cost?).
This seems like a lot of fun. I could see myself losing some sleep dreaming about this
I like the idea of only one charge card at a time. It would lead to really interesting hand and game-play decisions. Really cool mechanic by the way. Also, is there a timing restriction for when you can charge a card? For example, could I charge a card in response to a discard effect or something like Gitaxan Probe? Or could you only charge instants in that manner?
The power of "charge" is going to be directly related to what you make those charge counters do.
That "Wrath of Time" card example would be a card that I would start charging early and just let the charge counters build up and up. Why not, right?
What if instead of "You may remove a nonland permanent from the game [...]" it said, "Destroy a nonland permanent [...]"? Would that encourage you to want fewer counters on it so you can destroy your opponent's permanents while keeping your own safe?
What about a black example of something similar? We could write that like this:
This card is incredibly powerful if you have it in your opening hand. It's like All is Dust (without the colorless exemption) if you've had it out for 10 turns. But it has it's weakness... it's not very good against token decks which make more then 1 token per turn. Which mean it would be great if that's the deck you put it in. Black White tokens strike again!
Overall I like where this is going. I like that putting a charge counter on it is NOT optional when the card is exiled and charging. This can be used to make the decision to start charging a card more strategic.
OH! A red example!
Now there is a card that you HAVE to cast before it costs more then you can afford. So you want to wait a few turns maybe to start charging it (or maybe it could blow up in your face to negate the extra cost?).
This seems like a lot of fun. I could see myself losing some sleep dreaming about this
I do like the idea of an effect that happens based upon the number of charge counters that is a mandatory effect rather than an optional one.
If the charge spell gets too big, it becomes out of control for the caster.
is the morph-esque hidden information aspect to this mechanic important?
the way i see it, enchantments are the simpler way to do suspend-like stuff. this Charge mechanic reminds me of the "verse counter" enchantments from Urza's
My advice would be to make adding the counter eot optional. That way, the mechanic rewards better play. Also, that opens up design space for cards you might not want to charge past a certain point. For instance,
Pernicious Will XBG
Sorcery
Charge – You may pay 1 and exile this card from the game face down. At the end of turn, you may put a charge counter on this card. You may cast this spell as long as it remains exiled.
Destroy each non-land permanent with converted mana cost equal to X or the number of charge counters on it.
Also, I think some sort of rules clarification about the number of charge counters on the exiled card pertaining to the effect of the spell would be useful. Something saying those counters stay on the spell when it is put on the stack or "the spell has a charge of X, where X was the number of charge counters on it when cast" or something like that. I think that would go a long way towards cleaning up wording/rules complications.
Really, I think the biggest problem with the mechanic is it's wordiness. 3 lines of text is rough when you HAVE to have additional text, too. Also, this ability needs to be a keyword ability and not an ability word such that it'll have reminder text you can leave off when you need the space. As an ability word, it'll always take at least 3 lines.
Last point in a long post, I'd ignore the people saying "you should only allow 1 charging spell at a time so it isn't broken with Memory Jar or Wheel of Fortune." The problem they fear isn't with the charge mechanic, it's with flawed, pre-existing spells that are only legal in 2 formats. Don't let former design mistakes limit your creative ability. The banned/restricted list is there to fix problems like that.
Charge as a mechanic has an issue similar to planeswalkers in that your spells gain power without any further investment of resources other than time. Planeswalkers have the in built mechanic in which they can be keep in check by damage or by being attacked but I don't see a way to build in a way for opponents to interact with charge. That means your options are to either neuter the power level of cards with the current charge mechanic to make sure that the charge strategy doesn't become a problem or to alter the mechanic so that the incremental gain is not free.
Charge – You may exile this card from the game face down. At the end of turn, you may pay 1 and put a charge counter on this, if don't put this into your graveyard.
This way charging a spell requires a constant stream on resources be invested into charging the spell, you get a big spell in the end but you get to pay for it over the course of turns. This also means people won't just dump their entire hand into exile and avoids having a nasty you can only charge one card at a time rule.
Finally an idea for a red hoser, you can probably word it better though.
Overcharge1R
Instant
Overcharge deals damage to target exiled card's owner equal to the number of charge counters on it, then put that card into its owner's library.
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Smile your day could be worse, so I did smile and it was worse.
I will be addressing some of the concerns in my next article. A couple of quick remarks.
Got it. Won't capitalize mid sentence.
Waiting a turn is a long, long time. I feel the initial reaction from people is "Oh my god. It will go bonkers in just a couple of turns." The opponent is killing you if you take your merry time. aka pressue. You draw a Wrath of God variant. Your opponent has lethal. Are you going to charge the spell? No, you play the spell or you lose. This mechanic will only get crazy if I let it.
Keep in mind. This is design. I have a lot to hack away at yet. Charge can still change. I guess you will have to wait and see.
I do get a kick out of when people suggest spells, they are always complicated and powerful. As I go through this process, I am beginning to appreciate how difficult it is to develop commons and how hard it is to get people to submit commons.
Anyway, I will cover some of this and others later.
so... the thing about having it be hidden is that it is inherently uninteractive. at least in the greater gargadon sense. the fun thing about morph is that even in a set with split second you could do it at any time. but... if i was doing this mechanic... it would be
Critical cost (as sorcery you may pay ~ and exile this card face down, at the end of your turn put a time counter on this card. you may cast this card as though it were in your hand, it costs (cost) for each time counter on it
its a little wordy and might deviate from the original, but you could still interact with it in any fashion, kicker style, counters style, having it cue off the time counters or being an X cast spell really makes the mechanic shine, i don't want to assume its instant but yeah...
you could also throw in a completely subservient ability that works like the morph ability, or even evoke, wouldn't naturally queue off of the counters themselves but would allow you to cast the spell as an instant if you need
cause popping off a *** right after your opponents declare attackers and then throwing out another creature on there turn would be an interesting play... though a format with these abilities would quickly devolve into draw-go fiascos
When you say exile face down, may want to include the line "You may look at this card while it is exiled." Else, if you exile multiple cards with charge and forget which is which and you look, you committed a game rule violation as nothing allows you to look at the card while it is facedown. This was a problem with Hideaway and some specific cards like Clone shell. Numot for example allows for it.
Nitpick.
There is no need to say exile "from the game." Just Exile is sufficient. "Exile this card face down"
To me, the worst flaw with the mechanic is the decision tree that develops from the mechanic or lack of it.
I understand where you're going with this, I really do. However not all mechanics need to have decisions behind them, and often they don't, and it works out fine.
For instance, flying. Ignoring everything else, A 2/2 flyer is better than a 2/2. There's no decision to be made here, you play the better creature. Obviously there are other things to consider, but the point I'm trying to make is that the bulk of the decisions in magic come from interacting with the player. Having choices is nice, like for instance, Cryptic Command, but not every card needs to be Cryptic Command. Sometimes I just want to put pressure on my opponent by letting him know 5 damage is coming in 2 turns. Maybe I know his reaction is to stockpile removal, and maybe I can use that knowledge to adjust my own playstyle, outside of suspend.
Suspend was definitely a mechanic that pushed the complexity level allowed on a common.
While I can appreciate the point you're trying to make, I think what needs to be realized is that there are many seemingly 'easy' concepts in magic that need many words to explain, and often confuse novice players. I'll offer a couple examples.
- Regeneration, the rules on this are actually kind of insane as to what it applies to. Don't even get me started on stacking regeneration shields and the fact that this ability removes a creature from combat.
- Double Strike, umm, two combat damage phases? Novice players often have a difficult time understanding the combat step order, and this makes it even more difficult.
Magic is a wordy game, and you can't get away with introducing a new mechanic that interacts interestingly with the structure of the rules, without some clarification. That's the reason helper text exists. The Baloth could just of easily said 'Suspend 5' followed by a paragraph of flavor text, and it would have been no more complicated than Troll Ascetic, but in this case it isn't, and that's not that big of a deal.
Charge – You may pay 1 and exile this card from the game face down. At the end of turn, put a charge counter on this card. You may cast this spell as long as it remains exiled.
At the end of your turn, or every turn? Is this an effect that goes on the stack that I can respond to? If so, consider putting it in the upkeep phase, as players getting priority during cleanup is something that is avoided I think. I know your reservations about adding effects to the upkeep phase, but honestly, that's why we have an upkeep phase.
Also, the line "You may cast this spell as long as it remains exiled." might present rules problems. What if you cast it and I counter with Dissipate? Can you then cast it a second time from exile?
Destroy all Creatures.
You may remove a nonland permanent from the game for every charge counter on this card when it was cast.
Not sure what your intention with this card is. As it reads, first you destroy all creatures, then you remove things, which is fine for pwalkers and enchantments, etc... If you intended to remove creatures from the game first, it should read something like "You may remove a nonland permanent from the game for every charge counter on this card when it was cast, then destroy all creatures."
Also, this card is stupid good.
To end on a high note, I like the idea and applaud people who design things like this for the halibut. I get a kick out of it, and it's not the easiest thing to do, so kudos for that.
Players do not normally get priority during the cleanup step. It only happens when a states are checked in the clean up and a triggered ability needs to go on the stack. Also, the way it is worded, it's a triggered ability that triggers at the end of every turn; so it can be responded to.
Furthermore, in the end step and the upkeep you still get priority after the ability resolves before the turn continues so you can still fire a 2 charge instant on the turn you charge it.
I think an interesting idea would be to have charge effects which are separate from the spells effect. For example:
Nature's Power 1GG (maybe 1G or 2GG)
Sorcery
Charge
Search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped.
Destroy up to X target artifacts, where X is the number of charge counters on Nature's Power when it was cast.
Moment of Fury 1R
Instant
Charge
Destroy target artifact. Moment of Fury deals X damage to that artifact's controller, where X is double (too much? Smash to Smithereens?) the number of charge counters on Moment of Fury when it was cast.
Spectral Theft WWW
Sorcery
Charge
Put one 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying onto the battlefield and one more for every two charge counters on Spectral Theft when it was cast.
Exile target permanent. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control when you control no Spirits. (Would this work, or should the card be an enchantment?)
All good points. I'll probably have to word it to something like "At the beginning of your next end step, put a charge (Aether) counter on this spell."
I feel most of these problems are semantics. The general idea is there; I simply need to find the proper way to execute it. More importantly, I need clarification.
As for upkeep, I'm very against changing it. The problem is instants. If you draw a instant with charge, it does nothing until your next turn (keeping in mind I am talking about when a person draws it 5 or 6th turn). This is stupid. I suppose I need to be professional. It isn't fun. If it wasn't for instants, I'd be more tempted to say, fine, I'll switch it to the upkeep step. As I playtest more, the upkeep step feels very wrong.
I'll have to go update my rules knowledge on casting a spell. Not quite sure how I want to clarify how the spell is cast with counters on it.
On the same note, I will have to update my morph rules knowledge. I am sure the same principles can be used for the morph mechanic. Players could look at morphed cards. Players could morph when they had priority. The same should be true for charge. You can charge whenever you have priority. You may look at those cards at anytime (except for your opponent. that would be cheating). When players play with morphed cards, an order had to be kept to let the opponent know which one was cast first. The same rules can be used for charged spells.
I think an interesting idea would be to have charge effects which are separate from the spells effect. For example:
Nature's Power 1GG (maybe 1G or 2GG)
Sorcery
Charge
Search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped.
Destroy up to X target artifacts, where X is the number of charge counters on Nature's Power when it was cast.
Moment of Fury 1R
Instant
Charge
Destroy target artifact. Moment of Fury deals X damage to that artifact's controller, where X is double (too much? Smash to Smithereens?) the number of charge counters on Moment of Fury when it was cast.
Spectral Theft WWW
Sorcery
Charge
Put one 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying onto the battlefield and one more for every two charge counters on Spectral Theft when it was cast.
Exile target permanent. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control when you control no Spirits. (Would this work, or should the card be an enchantment?)
I can't think of the terminology, but I have been thinking about that very thing. Should the charge effect be holistic with the card: ie enhance the spell. Or, should the effects be as you stated above. Not sure yet. I'm thinking an even split.
Since I have forgotten to respond, I think charge will appear will appear on the types of spells except obviously lands. More on this to come during the world building segment of this series.
All good points. I'll probably have to word it to something like "At the beginning of your next end step, put a charge (Aether) counter on this spell."
That's fine. A good way to resolve some issues.
As for upkeep, I'm very against changing it. The problem is instants. If you draw a instant with charge, it does nothing until your next turn
Ah, I see. You'll want to re-word the Charge ability then, because as it currently stands, you can Charge as an instant (much like the channel ability), so I was envisioning a turn order of 'Untap, Cast Charge, Upkeep - Charge Counter, Draw, etc...'.
Which brings up a second point on clarifying how you want Charge spells exiled. If they follow the rules of suspend, (as in, you can 'suspend' spells at the same time as you could normally cast them, instants at instant speed, creatures at sorcery speed, etc...) then they must be 'Charged' face up. (And thus subject to additional effects, such as Riftsweeper) Otherwise if you only want to be able to Charge as a sorcery, then that needs to be clarified.
On the same note, I will have to update my morph rules knowledge. I am sure the same principles can be used for the morph mechanic. Players could look at morphed cards. Players could morph when they had priority. The same should be true for charge. You can charge whenever you have priority. You may look at those cards at anytime (except for your opponent. that would be cheating). When players play with morphed cards, an order had to be kept to let the opponent know which one was cast first. The same rules can be used for charged spells.
I don't think turning a morph creature face-up uses the stack, so I'm not sure what you mean by 'an order had to be kept', but I agree with you that many concepts and rules from the morph mechanic could be applied to your new mechanic.
Which brings up a second point on clarifying how you want Charge spells exiled. If they follow the rules of suspend, (as in, you can 'suspend' spells at the same time as you could normally cast them, instants at instant speed, creatures at sorcery speed, etc...) then they must be 'Charged' face up. (And thus subject to additional effects, such as Riftsweeper) Otherwise if you only want to be able to Charge as a sorcery, then that needs to be clarified.
I'm pretty sure charge should (and is intentionally designed to be) be able to be activated at instant speed. This, along with charging during the end step, creates a choice about when to start charging your spells.
I don't think turning a morph creature face-up uses the stack, so I'm not sure what you mean by 'an order had to be kept', but I agree with you that many concepts and rules from the morph mechanic could be applied to your new mechanic.
If you play two morph creatures, you need to make sure all players can tell which is which. You can't morph creature a, then morph creature b and then mix them up "three (two) card monty style."
I do get a kick out of when people suggest spells, they are always complicated and powerful. As I go through this process, I am beginning to appreciate how difficult it is to develop commons and how hard it is to get people to submit commons.
I can't really think of how this would work on commons. It requires an additional rule on what the charge will do when finally cast.
Maybe something like: 1W
charge
target creature get's +1/+0 and first strike till EOT
Copy ~ for each charge.
U
charge
target player mills X cards, where X is the number of charges.
1U
Remove all counters from target exiled card.
RRR
charge
put 2 1/1 red goblin tokens into the battlefield.
~ cost R less to cast for each charge.
(I know you were trying to avoid making this mechanic a way to cast spell for less, but I don't see why it can't do that in some cases at least.)
What about having some kind of Pheraxian mana type that allows you to use charges in place of mana cost... maybe...
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Yes.
Yes, though outside of, say, cards at uncommon or higher that trigger off of a charge count, it generally won't do much.
Of course you can. Any mechanic can be expanded upon, even banding (though don't ask me!). Don't forget though: with Lorwyn/Shadowmoor, Zendikar, and Innistrad, making a two-set drafting structure is now acceptable practice.
If you want a typeline distinction for a mechanic that can appear on any card, a supertype would work better. Though bear in mind, no mechanic has ever had an entire subtype or supertype devoted to it. Even all cards that work with snow weren't snow, or all Curses don't all have triggered abilities.
Where it does for suspend, of course. As for the uncommons, it really depends on the amount of text you think you can get away with. Certainly keep the number of uncommons without the whole reminder text to a minimum in the first set.
All of this being said, I do hope you remember that keywords are not capitalized if they don't begin a sentence.
About any "subpar" mechanics or cards: Context is king.
If I make a templating or grammar error, let me know.
The franchise MtG most resembles is Battlestar Galactica. Why? Its players exist in, at most, a dozen different models at any given point in time, with perhaps up to 3% variation, 5% if you're lucky.
1. Presumably, charge instants are made and go live at your EOT, so they can be charged and used on the opponents turn? Charging at upkeep seems like a better mechanic and to possess better flavor - it's been charging for (nearly) a full rotation of turns before the charge counter.
2. Can you charge as an instant? Your mechanic doesn't specify, so presumably yes (though obviously the EOT charge won't trigger until next turn).
3. A lot of charging can still cause not-very-magic occurrences where players have (functionally) two hands, one of which is immune to discard and getting better. Cards like Recycle, Memory Jar, or Time Spiral make this more awkward. Even if it's not worth "breaking" this mechanically, a high use of the mechanic can make the game feel unlike magic (though I suppose this is often true, as with morph of suspend). Perhaps only allowing charging 1 card at a time?
(I'm on on this site much anymore. If you want to get in touch it's probably best to email me: dom@heffalumps.org)
Forum Awards: Best Writer 2005, Best Limited Strategist 2005-2012
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<Limited Clan>
Basic ideas:
***
Charged Sentry W
Common
Creature - Soldier
Defender
Charge -- 1, put other cards exiled this way in your graveyard: exile this card from your hand face down; it is charging. If exiled and charging, you may put a Charge counter on this card at the beginning of your upkeep and you may cast it from exile.
Charged Sentry enters the battlefield with X +1/+1 counters where X is the number of charge counters it had when cast.
0/2
***
Charged Bolt 1RR
Common
Instant
Charge -- 1, put other cards exiled this way in your graveyard: exile this card from your hand face down; it is charging. If exiled and charging, you may put a Charge counter on this card at the beginning of your upkeep and you may cast it from exile.
Do 2 damage to target creature. Copy this spell for each charge counter on it when cast. You may choose new targets for each copy.
***
Charging Station 3
Uncommon
2, T, Discard any cards charging with Charging Station: You may exile a card with Charge from your hand with Charging Station. It is charging.
2, T: Put a Charge counter on the card Charging with Charging Station.
3, T: Put a Charge counter on any Charging card.
Whenever Charging Station leaves play, discard any cards Charging with Charging Station.
***
Charging Barrier 2W
Rare
Enchantment
Each player must pay an additional X when casting spells from exile, where X is the number of Charge counters on that card.
***
You have to be careful of the interactions with regular exile; you don't want cards with Charge exiled (say countered with Dissipate) to then be charging. Note that the way I wrote it, you could use Stifle or Sundial of the Infinite shenanigans to nullify the triggered ability on Charging Station and get a lot of cards charging simultaneously. But generally, you could only have one spell charging at a time, avoiding this weird problem of exiling your entire hand and being immune to discard or being able to play shenanigans with Memory Jar or Wheel of Fortune type effects.
Anyway, that's an example of how it would be like Multikicker or Replicate, plus cards that would interact with it and hate on it.
I think that the mechanic you made is already the expanded form. You can put it at lower rarities by just caring if the spell has been charged or not. Sort of like kicker and multikicker.
Maybe:
In that case, you would have to exile it face-up, which you may not want. But it helps prevent automatically charging everything on the early turns.
That "Wrath of Time" card example would be a card that I would start charging early and just let the charge counters build up and up. Why not, right?
What if instead of "You may remove a nonland permanent from the game [...]" it said, "Destroy a nonland permanent [...]"? Would that encourage you to want fewer counters on it so you can destroy your opponent's permanents while keeping your own safe?
What about a black example of something similar? We could write that like this:
This card is incredibly powerful if you have it in your opening hand. It's like All is Dust (without the colorless exemption) if you've had it out for 10 turns. But it has it's weakness... it's not very good against token decks which make more then 1 token per turn. Which mean it would be great if that's the deck you put it in. Black White tokens strike again!
Overall I like where this is going. I like that putting a charge counter on it is NOT optional when the card is exiled and charging. This can be used to make the decision to start charging a card more strategic.
OH! A red example!
Now there is a card that you HAVE to cast before it costs more then you can afford. So you want to wait a few turns maybe to start charging it (or maybe it could blow up in your face to negate the extra cost?).
This seems like a lot of fun. I could see myself losing some sleep dreaming about this
I do like the idea of an effect that happens based upon the number of charge counters that is a mandatory effect rather than an optional one.
If the charge spell gets too big, it becomes out of control for the caster.
the way i see it, enchantments are the simpler way to do suspend-like stuff. this Charge mechanic reminds me of the "verse counter" enchantments from Urza's
Recantation, War Dance, Lilting Refrain, etc..
the "quest counter" enchantments from Zendikar were kinda an evolution of that
Pernicious Will XBG
Sorcery
Charge – You may pay 1 and exile this card from the game face down. At the end of turn, you may put a charge counter on this card. You may cast this spell as long as it remains exiled.
Destroy each non-land permanent with converted mana cost equal to X or the number of charge counters on it.
Also, I think some sort of rules clarification about the number of charge counters on the exiled card pertaining to the effect of the spell would be useful. Something saying those counters stay on the spell when it is put on the stack or "the spell has a charge of X, where X was the number of charge counters on it when cast" or something like that. I think that would go a long way towards cleaning up wording/rules complications.
Really, I think the biggest problem with the mechanic is it's wordiness. 3 lines of text is rough when you HAVE to have additional text, too. Also, this ability needs to be a keyword ability and not an ability word such that it'll have reminder text you can leave off when you need the space. As an ability word, it'll always take at least 3 lines.
Last point in a long post, I'd ignore the people saying "you should only allow 1 charging spell at a time so it isn't broken with Memory Jar or Wheel of Fortune." The problem they fear isn't with the charge mechanic, it's with flawed, pre-existing spells that are only legal in 2 formats. Don't let former design mistakes limit your creative ability. The banned/restricted list is there to fix problems like that.
Charge – You may exile this card from the game face down. At the end of turn, you may pay 1 and put a charge counter on this, if don't put this into your graveyard.
This way charging a spell requires a constant stream on resources be invested into charging the spell, you get a big spell in the end but you get to pay for it over the course of turns. This also means people won't just dump their entire hand into exile and avoids having a nasty you can only charge one card at a time rule.
Finally an idea for a red hoser, you can probably word it better though.
Overcharge 1R
Instant
Overcharge deals damage to target exiled card's owner equal to the number of charge counters on it, then put that card into its owner's library.
Got it. Won't capitalize mid sentence.
Waiting a turn is a long, long time. I feel the initial reaction from people is "Oh my god. It will go bonkers in just a couple of turns." The opponent is killing you if you take your merry time. aka pressue. You draw a Wrath of God variant. Your opponent has lethal. Are you going to charge the spell? No, you play the spell or you lose. This mechanic will only get crazy if I let it.
Keep in mind. This is design. I have a lot to hack away at yet. Charge can still change. I guess you will have to wait and see.
I do get a kick out of when people suggest spells, they are always complicated and powerful. As I go through this process, I am beginning to appreciate how difficult it is to develop commons and how hard it is to get people to submit commons.
Anyway, I will cover some of this and others later.
Critical cost (as sorcery you may pay ~ and exile this card face down, at the end of your turn put a time counter on this card. you may cast this card as though it were in your hand, it costs (cost) for each time counter on it
its a little wordy and might deviate from the original, but you could still interact with it in any fashion, kicker style, counters style, having it cue off the time counters or being an X cast spell really makes the mechanic shine, i don't want to assume its instant but yeah...
you could also throw in a completely subservient ability that works like the morph ability, or even evoke, wouldn't naturally queue off of the counters themselves but would allow you to cast the spell as an instant if you need
cause popping off a *** right after your opponents declare attackers and then throwing out another creature on there turn would be an interesting play... though a format with these abilities would quickly devolve into draw-go fiascos
Nitpick.
There is no need to say exile "from the game." Just Exile is sufficient. "Exile this card face down"
I understand where you're going with this, I really do. However not all mechanics need to have decisions behind them, and often they don't, and it works out fine.
For instance, flying. Ignoring everything else, A 2/2 flyer is better than a 2/2. There's no decision to be made here, you play the better creature. Obviously there are other things to consider, but the point I'm trying to make is that the bulk of the decisions in magic come from interacting with the player. Having choices is nice, like for instance, Cryptic Command, but not every card needs to be Cryptic Command. Sometimes I just want to put pressure on my opponent by letting him know 5 damage is coming in 2 turns. Maybe I know his reaction is to stockpile removal, and maybe I can use that knowledge to adjust my own playstyle, outside of suspend.
While I can appreciate the point you're trying to make, I think what needs to be realized is that there are many seemingly 'easy' concepts in magic that need many words to explain, and often confuse novice players. I'll offer a couple examples.
- Regeneration, the rules on this are actually kind of insane as to what it applies to. Don't even get me started on stacking regeneration shields and the fact that this ability removes a creature from combat.
- Double Strike, umm, two combat damage phases? Novice players often have a difficult time understanding the combat step order, and this makes it even more difficult.
Magic is a wordy game, and you can't get away with introducing a new mechanic that interacts interestingly with the structure of the rules, without some clarification. That's the reason helper text exists. The Baloth could just of easily said 'Suspend 5' followed by a paragraph of flavor text, and it would have been no more complicated than Troll Ascetic, but in this case it isn't, and that's not that big of a deal.
At the end of your turn, or every turn? Is this an effect that goes on the stack that I can respond to? If so, consider putting it in the upkeep phase, as players getting priority during cleanup is something that is avoided I think. I know your reservations about adding effects to the upkeep phase, but honestly, that's why we have an upkeep phase.
Also, the line "You may cast this spell as long as it remains exiled." might present rules problems. What if you cast it and I counter with Dissipate? Can you then cast it a second time from exile?
Not sure what your intention with this card is. As it reads, first you destroy all creatures, then you remove things, which is fine for pwalkers and enchantments, etc... If you intended to remove creatures from the game first, it should read something like "You may remove a nonland permanent from the game for every charge counter on this card when it was cast, then destroy all creatures."
Also, this card is stupid good.
To end on a high note, I like the idea and applaud people who design things like this for the halibut. I get a kick out of it, and it's not the easiest thing to do, so kudos for that.
Furthermore, in the end step and the upkeep you still get priority after the ability resolves before the turn continues so you can still fire a 2 charge instant on the turn you charge it.
Nature's Power 1GG (maybe 1G or 2GG)
Sorcery
Charge
Search your library for a basic land card and put it onto the battlefield tapped.
Destroy up to X target artifacts, where X is the number of charge counters on Nature's Power when it was cast.
Moment of Fury 1R
Instant
Charge
Destroy target artifact. Moment of Fury deals X damage to that artifact's controller, where X is double (too much? Smash to Smithereens?) the number of charge counters on Moment of Fury when it was cast.
I had an idea for a Fiend Hunter/Oblivion Ring variant too...
Spectral Theft WWW
Sorcery
Charge
Put one 1/1 white Spirit creature token with flying onto the battlefield and one more for every two charge counters on Spectral Theft when it was cast.
Exile target permanent. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner's control when you control no Spirits. (Would this work, or should the card be an enchantment?)
I feel most of these problems are semantics. The general idea is there; I simply need to find the proper way to execute it. More importantly, I need clarification.
As for upkeep, I'm very against changing it. The problem is instants. If you draw a instant with charge, it does nothing until your next turn (keeping in mind I am talking about when a person draws it 5 or 6th turn). This is stupid. I suppose I need to be professional. It isn't fun. If it wasn't for instants, I'd be more tempted to say, fine, I'll switch it to the upkeep step. As I playtest more, the upkeep step feels very wrong.
I'll have to go update my rules knowledge on casting a spell. Not quite sure how I want to clarify how the spell is cast with counters on it.
On the same note, I will have to update my morph rules knowledge. I am sure the same principles can be used for the morph mechanic. Players could look at morphed cards. Players could morph when they had priority. The same should be true for charge. You can charge whenever you have priority. You may look at those cards at anytime (except for your opponent. that would be cheating). When players play with morphed cards, an order had to be kept to let the opponent know which one was cast first. The same rules can be used for charged spells.
I can't think of the terminology, but I have been thinking about that very thing. Should the charge effect be holistic with the card: ie enhance the spell. Or, should the effects be as you stated above. Not sure yet. I'm thinking an even split.
Since I have forgotten to respond, I think charge will appear will appear on the types of spells except obviously lands. More on this to come during the world building segment of this series.
That's fine. A good way to resolve some issues.
Ah, I see. You'll want to re-word the Charge ability then, because as it currently stands, you can Charge as an instant (much like the channel ability), so I was envisioning a turn order of 'Untap, Cast Charge, Upkeep - Charge Counter, Draw, etc...'.
Which brings up a second point on clarifying how you want Charge spells exiled. If they follow the rules of suspend, (as in, you can 'suspend' spells at the same time as you could normally cast them, instants at instant speed, creatures at sorcery speed, etc...) then they must be 'Charged' face up. (And thus subject to additional effects, such as Riftsweeper) Otherwise if you only want to be able to Charge as a sorcery, then that needs to be clarified.
I don't think turning a morph creature face-up uses the stack, so I'm not sure what you mean by 'an order had to be kept', but I agree with you that many concepts and rules from the morph mechanic could be applied to your new mechanic.
I'm pretty sure charge should (and is intentionally designed to be) be able to be activated at instant speed. This, along with charging during the end step, creates a choice about when to start charging your spells.
If you play two morph creatures, you need to make sure all players can tell which is which. You can't morph creature a, then morph creature b and then mix them up "three (two) card monty style."
I can't really think of how this would work on commons. It requires an additional rule on what the charge will do when finally cast.
Maybe something like:
1W
charge
target creature get's +1/+0 and first strike till EOT
Copy ~ for each charge.
U
charge
target player mills X cards, where X is the number of charges.
1U
Remove all counters from target exiled card.
RRR
charge
put 2 1/1 red goblin tokens into the battlefield.
~ cost R less to cast for each charge.
(I know you were trying to avoid making this mechanic a way to cast spell for less, but I don't see why it can't do that in some cases at least.)
What about having some kind of Pheraxian mana type that allows you to use charges in place of mana cost... maybe...