Honestly I chat a lot in a game design chat room and color blindness comes up a lot so I really appreciate your opinion, I'll make some small adjustments.
As for the plus I need to experiment with a few things... my friend suggested a non subtle starburst, basically the type where you have lighter lines emanating from the center similar to the rays you see on some Japanese flags.
As for exotic tokens I'm looking into that... this is a series of reminders for 'commander' so I will include stuff caused by instants and sorceries like 'is a creature and a land' or 'is a black zombie'.
So I've been making some cardboard cutout counters for our games of commander. Originally my PLUS counters where pretty plain and my MINUS counters had a bit of a blood splat on them to make them look 'nastier'.
Now a few of my friends agree that I should either go clean or special effects but not both... suggesting either a starburst of some sort on the PLUS or removing the splat from the MINUS.
What are your thoughts? Any other directions I could go as well?
Details: the MINUS are upside down behind the PLUS so you can see across the table if they are a buff or a debuff. Also yes... I did do +3/+3 and-3/-3... I know some people are really opposed to that as an abbreviation of multiple counters but it is very practical.
I would actually prefer a return to Kamigawa. And this is not a joke. I loved the flavor of that set. And, I did not find it as difficult to play as a lot of people complain about. I got Bushido, I got Ninjitsu, I got Splice into Arcane. Maybe I watched a lot of Kung-fu movies when I was younger so I got an appreciation for Asian culture.
Honestly my opinion is that Kamigawa was good... it mixes poorly with the rest of MTG but they did this feudal japan with spirits well.
What I would love to see is a more "pan asian" one that is not specifically about China but centers around China and it's surroundings. You know, the stuff of movies from that area and the surroundings... an analogue for the Mongols invaders, monks with mystic martial arts techniques (that other monks try to steal), high flying wuxia, kingdoms at war, mystic creatures (maybe a Monkey King analogue) and some surrounding influences.
Just giving this specific topic a bump since I'm LOVING Khans of Tarkir, another non European set and for sure a lot of Asian mythology and flavor condensed into what is only the first set so far.
Let my friend who taught me how to play magic respond to my attackers by tapping them. When I found out... man. But that was the way he was taught too, so it was not malicious.
Honestly I'm happy with them putting out new 'enters tapped' dual lands at common every few years, like the Guild Gates, because that makes multicolor affordable without either making painlands or fetchands obsolete, or putting complicated lands at common that 'newbies' might get caught up on. "Pay 1 life for this or that mana? Why would I ever hurt myself?!"
We buy a box each set but that is because we love drafting.
I would say buy some lots on Ebay, you can get a LOT of so-so cards without paying extra for the priviledge of MAYBE getting some great cards. Those 4x Common and Uncommon sets are usually really cheap and if you have not bought cards in years it will give you a card base that you can plop some rares on top of.
Edit: Just posting an example... just did a search and found 4x of all Common and Uncommon for THS, BNG and JOU for $36.50 for a total of 1604 cards. Not posting the link since I cant vouch for them, but just an example of how cheap things are when you no longer fishing for Mythic Rares.
I disliked Morph for a long time but I finally wrapped my head around it after we started using it a little in commander... so I'm psyched for Tarkir and look forward to what creative stuff they might do with it. Also I think they are going to do a 'morph' token so that helps.
As somebody who enjoys designing games in general and also really enjoys magic I suggest Drive to Work, which is a little on the nose, I mean Rosewater puts it out. Still lots of history, design concepts and discussion about cards and sets.
Just my thoughts on card creation, both for Wizards and for players (I lurk a lot in the Card Creation forum).
Favorites
Triggers when a creature attacks: a good example is the recent Dethrone mechanic. I love stuff that triggers when a creature attacks because first of all declaring attackers cannot really be countered and second because it forces you to do a little work rather than have your creature sit there forever.
Dies: I actually prefer Dies over ETB, because I find that a lot of creatures stop being interesting after they enter (except if you flicker them) while having a 'Dies' trigger gives you something to look forward to.
Target player vs You or Opponent: Sometimes you want an opponent to draw 3 cards, or sometimes you want to mill yourself. I think most new cards should allow this in most cases. Burn is one of the few cases where I find it hard to justify zapping yourself, but even that can happen.
Must be blocked by X or more, cannot by blocked by 2 or more: Makes creatures do what they are supposed to do more often, be it murder a bunch of opponents or mostly get blocked by things slightly smaller than it.
Whenever you play a land: potentially the least broken trigger, even in overpowered Zendikar. Sure you can play 2 or more lands per turn, it is just not that easy to do.
Lukewarm:
Each opponent: aww come on, make the spell 1 cheaper and risk yourself as well, that way you need to think on how to overcome the drawback.
Name a card: either requires a combo, or requires that you know the deck you are playing against.
Hexproof: Everyone knows why certain guys like me don't like it, but I've always found the name goofier and less intuitive too.
Hate:
Random (on the battlefield): oh god no. Why not "if you lose a coin flip an opponent chooses the target" or something like that. I refuse to play certain cards like Goblin Test Pilot or Scab-Clan Giant because you have to set the terms of deciding the target each time they fire.
Equal to the number of cards in your hand: sometimes you can use bounce and lots of draw to take advantage, but usually you would rather just play rather than build up a hand.
You may cast (opponents spell) until the end of the turn: Please let me cast it for free or at least spend colorless, otherwise odds are I cannot cast the spell I just exiled unless I have a lot of 'any color' mana generators and I'm not playing commander.
These are mostly stuff that drives me nuts from keeping on top of spoilers, something I LOVE doing on this forum:
1) The current set is the weakest Wizards has ever made! Honestly I find that Wizards has dialed creatures back by about 1 recently and that is a good thing, and strategies seem more reliant on interactions between cards than straight aggro. It means you get more variety and smarter decks instead of the usual "find the creature that does the most damage that I can get out the earliest and gamble on no removal".
2) New world order means the game is now dumb and for idiots! Rather than the truth, which now a majority tend to believe, that it just makes for more interesting uncommon and rares by shifting complexity to those cards.
3) Wizards hates burn and land destruction! Well yeah, gone is the day of super early game land destruction which either exploited mana screw to completely shut down a game, or ended up just postponing a loss against an opponent who did in fact draw a good quantity of land. Now it exists more as a targeted strike that is more expensive and usually has some other thing thrown in to justify the cost(goblins, mill, damage, etc). In regards to burn, not everything can be lightning bolt.
Yeah, to respond to Rhadamanthus I agree that mechanically HEX is not creative, it is like they ran magic back and forth through google translate to change the names and keywords. Hopefully what this causes is for companies to say 'we need to do something very different from them' but not 'oh no, we cannot make TCG's without them suing us'.
Im not going to paint Wizards as trying to use precedent (getting into the game early) and resources (tons of lawyer money) as a means to squash competition rather than protect the integrity of the brand. What I will say is that as a game designer who would love to kickstart and publish something one day, I live in fear that I will publish a game and then some crappy company that has a game nobody buys and lives off lawsuits will come after me for using cardboard, which is something that MOBILE APP makers, or podcasters or whatnot deal with a lot.
I play (and love) a game I thought was 'dangerously close' to magic (Infinity Wars, check it out) but honestly after going through 50% of the document I think there are individual cards that I can call BS on but overall the more cards I see, the more it looks like a re-skin of magic with the same mechanics, combat, range of creature size, strategies, etc. I dont want WOTC to win because that stifles creativity, but given that they are chasing after a virtual clone, I cant blame them.
After a lot of playtest I have to agree on Goblin Lackey or say Warren Instigator, as in yes, free goblin is cool but not that special in commander. For Black/Red the brand new Grenzo, Dungeon Warden (just added him recently) gives me something to spend mana on (even casting him so he is bigger), pads the graveyard and more often than not gives me a free goblin. Other mid to late game creatures include Voracious Dragon, Changeling Berzerker, Boggart Mob, Lightning Crafter, etc.
This is my experience, in my group, but people are better stocked on murders and fireballs than they are on disenchants and counterspells. Again, that might be my group.
As for the plus I need to experiment with a few things... my friend suggested a non subtle starburst, basically the type where you have lighter lines emanating from the center similar to the rays you see on some Japanese flags.
As for exotic tokens I'm looking into that... this is a series of reminders for 'commander' so I will include stuff caused by instants and sorceries like 'is a creature and a land' or 'is a black zombie'.
So I've been making some cardboard cutout counters for our games of commander. Originally my PLUS counters where pretty plain and my MINUS counters had a bit of a blood splat on them to make them look 'nastier'.
Now a few of my friends agree that I should either go clean or special effects but not both... suggesting either a starburst of some sort on the PLUS or removing the splat from the MINUS.
What are your thoughts? Any other directions I could go as well?
Details: the MINUS are upside down behind the PLUS so you can see across the table if they are a buff or a debuff. Also yes... I did do +3/+3 and-3/-3... I know some people are really opposed to that as an abbreviation of multiple counters but it is very practical.
Just giving this specific topic a bump since I'm LOVING Khans of Tarkir, another non European set and for sure a lot of Asian mythology and flavor condensed into what is only the first set so far.
I would say buy some lots on Ebay, you can get a LOT of so-so cards without paying extra for the priviledge of MAYBE getting some great cards. Those 4x Common and Uncommon sets are usually really cheap and if you have not bought cards in years it will give you a card base that you can plop some rares on top of.
Edit: Just posting an example... just did a search and found 4x of all Common and Uncommon for THS, BNG and JOU for $36.50 for a total of 1604 cards. Not posting the link since I cant vouch for them, but just an example of how cheap things are when you no longer fishing for Mythic Rares.
Favorites
Triggers when a creature attacks: a good example is the recent Dethrone mechanic. I love stuff that triggers when a creature attacks because first of all declaring attackers cannot really be countered and second because it forces you to do a little work rather than have your creature sit there forever.
Dies: I actually prefer Dies over ETB, because I find that a lot of creatures stop being interesting after they enter (except if you flicker them) while having a 'Dies' trigger gives you something to look forward to.
Target player vs You or Opponent: Sometimes you want an opponent to draw 3 cards, or sometimes you want to mill yourself. I think most new cards should allow this in most cases. Burn is one of the few cases where I find it hard to justify zapping yourself, but even that can happen.
Must be blocked by X or more, cannot by blocked by 2 or more: Makes creatures do what they are supposed to do more often, be it murder a bunch of opponents or mostly get blocked by things slightly smaller than it.
Whenever you play a land: potentially the least broken trigger, even in overpowered Zendikar. Sure you can play 2 or more lands per turn, it is just not that easy to do.
Lukewarm:
Each opponent: aww come on, make the spell 1 cheaper and risk yourself as well, that way you need to think on how to overcome the drawback.
Name a card: either requires a combo, or requires that you know the deck you are playing against.
Hexproof: Everyone knows why certain guys like me don't like it, but I've always found the name goofier and less intuitive too.
Hate:
Random (on the battlefield): oh god no. Why not "if you lose a coin flip an opponent chooses the target" or something like that. I refuse to play certain cards like Goblin Test Pilot or Scab-Clan Giant because you have to set the terms of deciding the target each time they fire.
Equal to the number of cards in your hand: sometimes you can use bounce and lots of draw to take advantage, but usually you would rather just play rather than build up a hand.
You may cast (opponents spell) until the end of the turn: Please let me cast it for free or at least spend colorless, otherwise odds are I cannot cast the spell I just exiled unless I have a lot of 'any color' mana generators and I'm not playing commander.
1) The current set is the weakest Wizards has ever made! Honestly I find that Wizards has dialed creatures back by about 1 recently and that is a good thing, and strategies seem more reliant on interactions between cards than straight aggro. It means you get more variety and smarter decks instead of the usual "find the creature that does the most damage that I can get out the earliest and gamble on no removal".
2) New world order means the game is now dumb and for idiots! Rather than the truth, which now a majority tend to believe, that it just makes for more interesting uncommon and rares by shifting complexity to those cards.
3) Wizards hates burn and land destruction! Well yeah, gone is the day of super early game land destruction which either exploited mana screw to completely shut down a game, or ended up just postponing a loss against an opponent who did in fact draw a good quantity of land. Now it exists more as a targeted strike that is more expensive and usually has some other thing thrown in to justify the cost(goblins, mill, damage, etc). In regards to burn, not everything can be lightning bolt.
Im not going to paint Wizards as trying to use precedent (getting into the game early) and resources (tons of lawyer money) as a means to squash competition rather than protect the integrity of the brand. What I will say is that as a game designer who would love to kickstart and publish something one day, I live in fear that I will publish a game and then some crappy company that has a game nobody buys and lives off lawsuits will come after me for using cardboard, which is something that MOBILE APP makers, or podcasters or whatnot deal with a lot.
I'm sure there is an insane Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck that 'builds itself'.
Even without damage, though, I find it useful to disrupt other players plans so they cannot as effectively put together combos.