To introduce something not related to Iconic, does anyone have any idea why the price of Bitterblossom is so high. It feels rather overpriced. Granted that price memory is a thing but the card seems next to no play whatsoever, it's not exactly an EDH all star? Where's the demand coming from to cause it to gain $10 since its reprint?
So presumably the 'cobbling something bizarre together' aspect will come from the allocation of contraptions to each sprocket slot, and maximizing any interactions that way. In which case, it'll be interesting to find out how much room the mechanic and cards give to move contraptions between sprockets.
Biggest queations still seems to be what ties assembling to creatures rather than player. The faction symbol suggests it might be as simple as each creature can only create the contraptions of the faction it's part of.
To add to this, the two big changes the new division can make from FFL are having full time, dedicated testers; and the opportunity for a fresh ethos/culture. A more explicit and determined drive to break any format they're presented with, for a start.
I touched on it briefly in the OP, but I think some Amonkhet style tokens or punch cards could be extremely useful. Given the memory concerns I think are inevitable in any half good Contraptions idea, the new technology could prove to be a giant leap forward in bridging the gap.
You're absolutely right, this conception's biggest pitfall is the memory issues. I do wonder if there's any way of fulfilling all the requirement Steamflogger lays down, is interesting and playable, and doesn't run into memory issues.
I'm not sure how big the not having more than one rigger problem is. They can all create their own contraptions so one on its own does work and doesn't need to be drafted in a dedicated Contraptions deck or its garbage. On the other hand, maybe it's the sort of thing where if it can only be properly ineresting and do its intended job in Constructed formats it isn't doing its job as a mechanic.
I do want to make the assembler do all the work, because that's a stipulation of Steamflogger Boss. Assembling is something that creatures do, not (just) the player. That's pretty much the whole challenge of doing Contraptions.
The unique/interesting bit is meant to be how you can have Riggers work together to build something between them that can mix and match what they do. Each Rigger essentially has a component they can build, and you find the synergy in putting those components together.
My example cards were trying to strike a balance between that synergy on the one hand and being reasonable lone picks on the other, but maybe I needed to show off more the idea of getting your Riggers to work together and the payoffs for that.
Overclock Attendant1R
Creature - Goblin Rigger (C) T, Tap any number of other untapped Rigger creatures you control: Overclock Attendant and each other creature tapped this was assembles a Contraption. (They create a colorless Contraption artifact token between them.)
Whenever a Contraption is assembled by Overclock Attendant, target creature you control gains haste until end of turn.
2/1
Fire-Spark Rigger3R
Creature - Goblin Rigger (U) 2, T, Tap any number of other untapped Rigger creatures you control: Fire-Spark Rigger and each other creature tapped this was assembles a Contraption. (They create a colorless Contraption artifact token between them.)
Contraptions assembled by Fire-Spark Rigger are created with "T: This artifact deals 1 damage to target creature or player."
3/3
Instrument Automater1UR
Creature - Human Rigger (R) 2, T, Tap any number of other untapped Rigger creatures you control: Instrument Automater and each other creature tapped this was assembles a Contraption.
Contraptions assembled by Instrument Automater are created as Construct creatures in addition to their other types and with base power and toughness 1/1. "I dare you to name a device that would not be improved by the ability to operate itself and a pair of legs!"
2/2
I know there's been a flurry of Contraption threads recently, but they've inspired me with an idea that I think is sufficiently different that it warrants a new thread.
So, what do we have here? Well, it starts off along the lines many iterations before have. Assembling is done by creatures (or at the very least, not by the player), so there needs to be a reason for that, rather than allowing players to assemble the Contraptions instead, and that reason is that Contraptions are tokens created by the creature in question that rely on it for its functionality. Riggers make Contraption tokens (allowing them to be doubled by Steamflogger Boss), and the Rigger that built it determines what that token does.
The spin is to allow groups of Riggers to assemble a Contraption together. Why? To mix and match what they can do. With the examples above, you'd normally just all have them make their thing in isolation, to avoid putting your eggs all in one basket, and to have more artifacts around, because that will almost certainly be mechanically relevant in whatever set these would appear in. But it does allow you a small amount of room for cheating costs. Use Overclock Attendant with Instrument Automater, and I can avoid paying the 2 for my 1/1, at the cost of an extra artifact token.
At higher rarities, however, there's plenty of space for building in more room for interoperability. A blue Rigger whose Contraptions merely untap themselves. "Creatures you control get +1/+1 for each Rigger that assembled this Contraption." Etc.
So, in favour of this conception:
-Assemble is done by creatures, not players, and has a reason to be so.
-Assembling Contraptions can be doubled by Steamflogger Boss.
-Does things in a different way that matters, rather than quirky for the sake of it, i.e. they can be fun cards to play with, not something that's done for the sake of saying Contraptions has been solved.
-Has that Rube Goldberg feel of being able to put something together weird and completely mismatched with a million different functions, but can also pull some serious weight.
So, even if fairly limited numbers, you've either got a very large number of different tokens even at common, or a basic Contraption token that you've then got to do a lot of mental gymnastics to keep track of what they do. There's definitely technology for minimising the complexity. For the cards themselves, keeping the lower rarities to enter the battlefield triggers so they can be functional vanillas. Then either token overlay style cards for higher rarities that can be stacked up with the abilities granted by each Rigger; a Amonkhet punch out card with "Assembled by X" labels; or a punch card with 4 or 5 double sided labels with the actual text that can be placed adjacent to a blank Contraption token.
Even if you can keep have a non-mental picture of what all your various contraptions do, having so many different potential combinations that you can keep producing each turn could still lead to paralizingly complex board states. This feels like a problem that no idea has ever managed to overcome whilst still fulfilling the letter and spirit of Steamflogger Boss, so maybe it's just what kills it (without also requiring a crippling level of support cards and set parisitism, that is).
As for templating, the "is created with" is my attempt to make sure that Contraptions keep their Rigger's respective abilities rather than be reliant on on-board lord effects. Felt cleaner than "Whenever a Contraption is assembled by @, it gains 'X'."
Pretty much exactly what it says on the tin: what are ways to make Bitter Ordeal go infinite in commander with Jeleva? Ideally in a way that wouldn't be a game winning combo in itself without Bitter Ordeal but where the components still have some utility on their own. Thanks for your help.
I'm trying to put together a Child of Alara list which is based heavily around Birthing Pod, out of an old love of the card, and Marchesa, the Black Rose. At the moment I'm seeing what I can do with the interaction between Child and Pod/Eldricht Evolution and currently have the following to pod into:
Pod/Evolution Targets Twilight Shepherd - Recursion to hand Sun Titan - Ideally grabbing an Eternal Witness that can recur a Faith's Reward Grave Titan - Very quickly fill the board back up on my side
Evo Targets Eternal Witness - Again, ideally grabbing Faith's Reward so I can repeatedly wipe the board and recur all my own stuff Emeria Shepherd - Poor man's Twilight Shepherd Angel of Glory's Rise - I have something of a Humans sub-theme going on Sidisi, Undead Vizier - Finds Karador to re-establish board presence
Can anyone suggest some other good options for me?
What if she was like a pseudo Vanguard card? So on top of her ability was a reduction in starting hand size to create a disincentive to jamming her into every deck where you can afford the mana base.
This is only a negative if they treat the expeditions as a sufficient means in and of itself on increasing the number of reprints for non-rotating formats. Otherwise it is basically all upside.
(Except for the 'Keeping Up With the Jones' principle of people being less happy when they're made comparatively worse off when someone else opens one and you don't.)
This is a very sweet list. What's the power level/nature of your meta? Any card choices that you'd change were it not for particular decks you feel you have to guard against? Also, how does the hatebear package play out for you? It looks superficially unimpressive but then I guess when you're trying to get in under everyone else's decks that extra turn's tempo from a Thalia or what have you can be the difference between winning and losing.
Biggest queations still seems to be what ties assembling to creatures rather than player. The faction symbol suggests it might be as simple as each creature can only create the contraptions of the faction it's part of.
I'm not sure how big the not having more than one rigger problem is. They can all create their own contraptions so one on its own does work and doesn't need to be drafted in a dedicated Contraptions deck or its garbage. On the other hand, maybe it's the sort of thing where if it can only be properly ineresting and do its intended job in Constructed formats it isn't doing its job as a mechanic.
I do want to make the assembler do all the work, because that's a stipulation of Steamflogger Boss. Assembling is something that creatures do, not (just) the player. That's pretty much the whole challenge of doing Contraptions.
My example cards were trying to strike a balance between that synergy on the one hand and being reasonable lone picks on the other, but maybe I needed to show off more the idea of getting your Riggers to work together and the payoffs for that.
Creature - Goblin Rigger (C)
T, Tap any number of other untapped Rigger creatures you control: Overclock Attendant and each other creature tapped this was assembles a Contraption. (They create a colorless Contraption artifact token between them.)
Whenever a Contraption is assembled by Overclock Attendant, target creature you control gains haste until end of turn.
2/1
Fire-Spark Rigger 3R
Creature - Goblin Rigger (U)
2, T, Tap any number of other untapped Rigger creatures you control: Fire-Spark Rigger and each other creature tapped this was assembles a Contraption. (They create a colorless Contraption artifact token between them.)
Contraptions assembled by Fire-Spark Rigger are created with "T: This artifact deals 1 damage to target creature or player."
3/3
Instrument Automater 1UR
Creature - Human Rigger (R)
2, T, Tap any number of other untapped Rigger creatures you control: Instrument Automater and each other creature tapped this was assembles a Contraption.
Contraptions assembled by Instrument Automater are created as Construct creatures in addition to their other types and with base power and toughness 1/1.
"I dare you to name a device that would not be improved by the ability to operate itself and a pair of legs!"
2/2
I know there's been a flurry of Contraption threads recently, but they've inspired me with an idea that I think is sufficiently different that it warrants a new thread.
So, what do we have here? Well, it starts off along the lines many iterations before have. Assembling is done by creatures (or at the very least, not by the player), so there needs to be a reason for that, rather than allowing players to assemble the Contraptions instead, and that reason is that Contraptions are tokens created by the creature in question that rely on it for its functionality. Riggers make Contraption tokens (allowing them to be doubled by Steamflogger Boss), and the Rigger that built it determines what that token does.
The spin is to allow groups of Riggers to assemble a Contraption together. Why? To mix and match what they can do. With the examples above, you'd normally just all have them make their thing in isolation, to avoid putting your eggs all in one basket, and to have more artifacts around, because that will almost certainly be mechanically relevant in whatever set these would appear in. But it does allow you a small amount of room for cheating costs. Use Overclock Attendant with Instrument Automater, and I can avoid paying the 2 for my 1/1, at the cost of an extra artifact token.
At higher rarities, however, there's plenty of space for building in more room for interoperability. A blue Rigger whose Contraptions merely untap themselves. "Creatures you control get +1/+1 for each Rigger that assembled this Contraption." Etc.
So, in favour of this conception:
-Assemble is done by creatures, not players, and has a reason to be so.
-Assembling Contraptions can be doubled by Steamflogger Boss.
-Does things in a different way that matters, rather than quirky for the sake of it, i.e. they can be fun cards to play with, not something that's done for the sake of saying Contraptions has been solved.
-Has that Rube Goldberg feel of being able to put something together weird and completely mismatched with a million different functions, but can also pull some serious weight.
Problems:
-Memory issues
-Memory issues
-Memory issues
-Board complexity
-Repetitiveness
-Almost forgot to mention, memory issues
-My rules templating
So, even if fairly limited numbers, you've either got a very large number of different tokens even at common, or a basic Contraption token that you've then got to do a lot of mental gymnastics to keep track of what they do. There's definitely technology for minimising the complexity. For the cards themselves, keeping the lower rarities to enter the battlefield triggers so they can be functional vanillas. Then either token overlay style cards for higher rarities that can be stacked up with the abilities granted by each Rigger; a Amonkhet punch out card with "Assembled by X" labels; or a punch card with 4 or 5 double sided labels with the actual text that can be placed adjacent to a blank Contraption token.
Even if you can keep have a non-mental picture of what all your various contraptions do, having so many different potential combinations that you can keep producing each turn could still lead to paralizingly complex board states. This feels like a problem that no idea has ever managed to overcome whilst still fulfilling the letter and spirit of Steamflogger Boss, so maybe it's just what kills it (without also requiring a crippling level of support cards and set parisitism, that is).
As for templating, the "is created with" is my attempt to make sure that Contraptions keep their Rigger's respective abilities rather than be reliant on on-board lord effects. Felt cleaner than "Whenever a Contraption is assembled by @, it gains 'X'."
Thoughts? Am I potentially on to something?
Pod/Evolution Targets
Twilight Shepherd - Recursion to hand
Sun Titan - Ideally grabbing an Eternal Witness that can recur a Faith's Reward
Grave Titan - Very quickly fill the board back up on my side
Evo Targets
Eternal Witness - Again, ideally grabbing Faith's Reward so I can repeatedly wipe the board and recur all my own stuff
Emeria Shepherd - Poor man's Twilight Shepherd
Angel of Glory's Rise - I have something of a Humans sub-theme going on
Sidisi, Undead Vizier - Finds Karador to re-establish board presence
Can anyone suggest some other good options for me?
(Except for the 'Keeping Up With the Jones' principle of people being less happy when they're made comparatively worse off when someone else opens one and you don't.)