MTG Salvation

Quote from Watchwolf »

Isn't this kind of card usually common?

It probably got bumped up because it makes mentor a bit more insufferable.

I'm calling it Charming Knight, myself, for obvious (rules text) reasons.

Quote from DudeFromDenmark »

Do you get 2 counters from Thoughtbound Phantasm if you surveil 2 or do you have to play surveil spells twice in order for it to work?

Short answer - play surveil spells twice.

Longer answer - The reason it's twice has to do with the fact that you're doing one action, which in this case is through manipulating the top two cards of your library. The number is telling you how big the action is; you do it all in one go, rather than do the top card of your library two times.

With that said, if a card comes out that says, "Surveil #, then surveil #", then that would get you two counters because you're doing two different surveil actions.

And coming in from left field, The Gitrog Geist!

I dunno about anyone else, but a 9/3 legendary vanilla was not something I thought would be on the menu. Its power stat is crazy for 5 mana.

Saga rarities are really messing with my intuition. I didn't think History of Benalia would be mythic ever, even though it's "4/4" for three and "8/6" (or more) for three on one turn. Fall of the Thran seemed more mythic to me due to the Armageddon effect.

This thread came about partly because of this excerpt from this week's Making Magic, with the relevant points in bold:

My actual answer, though, is prowess. While I'm a huge fan of the mechanic, it's been causing us all sorts of headaches. The biggest issue is not an obvious problem: we've found that it meshes poorly with certain set themes. Numerous teams have chosen to leave it out of sets because of this. The mechanic also adds a lot to board complexity, forcing us to be more careful with how often we use it at common. (Having a common creature—one without square stats—that changes its own stats gets red-flagged, for example.) It's the only evergreen mechanic that stacks, which can cause problems with certain designs. It's also the only evergreen mechanic that's triggered, which causes a different set of problems. It's fun and flavorful, it plays well, and it gives us a blue-red overlap, but it comes with a real cost.

The second point (being triggered) has been on my mind from since prowess was announced it was going evergreen. This made me think back to when lifelink and deathtouch were both keyworded, which was back in Future Sight. If you look at the original printed versions of Daybreak Coronet* and Thornweald Archer*, you can see that lifelink and deathtouch also made their debut as triggers. Deathtouch in particular went through several modifications (see Acidic Slime's reminder text in M10, for example), before it finally got cleaned up to today's wording and functionality. More importantly, both keywords went from triggered to static abilities in the M10 update. So here I am, making the following proposal about prowess potentially doing the same. I wouldn't say I have a Holy Grail solution, but I do think I have a conversation starting point.

Fight Analyst (Common)
UR
Creature - Human Warrior
2/1
Prowess (This creature gets +1/+1 if you casted a noncreature spell this turn. Instances of prowess are cumulative.)

There were two major goals here:
- Find a way to make it static.
- Preserve most of the functionality.

One of the roles of an evergreen mechanic is that it should be fairly simple and straightforward, without adding complexity to the board. Prowess is going to create complexity by definition of its existence, but the complexity can be reduced somewhat by limiting how much it can happen. Changing it to an on/off mechanic goes a long way towards that. Why is it any spell, and not just noncreature? For the sake of simplicity. It's very easy to remember if you casted a (EDIT) noncreature (/EDIT) spell or not. While most people will remember if they casted a noncreature spell or not in a given turn, I felt that if it keyed off of any spell, that increases the gameplay and deckbuilding opportunities with it.

So with that said, here's some random stuff that involves this hypothetical change:

Pinnacle Mage (Mythic)
4U
Creature - Vedalken Wizard
2/3
Flying
Pinnacle Mage gets +1/+1 for each spell you cast this turn.
Spells you cast cost 1 less to cast.
Whenever you cast a spell, if it's the third spell you cast this turn, draw three cards.


Rem Karolus, Inquisitor (Mythic)
WW
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier
2/2
First strike, vigilance
Protection from Vampires, from Werewolves, and from Zombies
Whenever a creature blocks or is blocked by Rem Karolus, Inquisitor, you may pay 3W. If you do, transform Rem Karolus.

///

Rem Karolus, Slayer
(white)
Legendary Creature - Human Soldier
3/3
First strike, vigilance, prowess
Protection from Vampires, from Werewolves, and from Zombies
When this creature transforms into Rem Karolus, Slayer, you may destroy target Vampire, Werewolf, or Zombie.

Harvest the Fruit (Rare)
1U
Sorcery
Each creature you control gains prowess until end of turn. (Instances of prowess are cumulative.)


Glimpse of Potential (Uncommon)
2U
Enchantment - Aura
Enchant creature
When Glimpse of Potential enters the battlefield, draw a card.
2U: Enchanted creature gains prowess until end of turn.


Blind Pugilist (Common)
3R
Creature - Human Monk
3/2
Prowess (This creature gets +1/+1 if you casted a noncreature spell this turn.)


* For cards outside of Future Sight, see Knight of Meadowgrain/Windwright Mage (lifelink) and Lace with Moonglove or Vectis Silencers (deathtouch) in Gatherer for the Lorwyn and Shards of Alara printings.

Yeah, I got cut too because I was overthinking a number of them, and in the wrong way. I think my final score was around 68?, based on the comparison answers for those who passed.

That said, @Black Temple Guardian: #4-6 were: red-green, uncommon (rare was likely the other accepted answer due to the deathtouch typo), and "changing haste for double strike". The reasons being, in short: red-green is the best overlap (particularly with the +1/+1 added), it's mostly keyword soup pulling it into uncommon (rare due to how deathtouch and trample interact), and taking haste off of there completely kills it as a Threaten variant so it's the least likely change to be made.

On the plus side, I'll be posting a big pile of stuff that was brainstorming towards what the Design Test / Trial 3 would have been. Part of it was me coming up with reasonably-printable mechanics for a hypothetical Ravnica 3. That was a self-given exercise just for lols, but it's also how I came to one of my essay answers.

Quote from leashedfreak »

Have they sent out the essay questions yet? I signed up for this, but I haven't seen anything yet.

Read this, and cross your fingers:

Quote from Mark Rosewater »

Here’s what we’re going to do. If you were supposed to get a letter for the third Great Designer Search, and did not (including signing up in the first 24-hours and not re-signing up), please send me an email through the link of any of my “Making Magic” articles. Label the email “I Didn’t Get My GDS3 Letter”. Make sure to include the email address you signed up with. Please send me the letter sometime today (Tuesday, January 16).

Source: http://markrosewater.tumblr.com/post/169791508013/if-you-didnt-get-your-gds3-letter

*thumb jabs sternum*

This guy!

Quote from Raptorchan »

Dinosaurtouch?

"Indigestion" would be my keyword name choice.

As @AnImar_ said, that red combat trick is going to get stuff done at Prerelease. Yowza at double striking Pirates in the common slot.

"You're powered up! Get in there."

Comment Hidden

Quote from Sheoldred »

I love the GDS as a source of entertainment, but I hate it as a way of selecting interns. It seems both impractical and a tad unethical to choose employees based on an online pseudo-gameshow. This seems especially evident now, as they are transparently using it to build hype first and foremost. I wish that they would just make a tournament with a small cash prize, disentangling it from hiring and allowing it to occur more regularly.

The thing is that if you read through the legalese, WotC has no obligations with the contest and can do whatever they like. If they get halfway through and decide to drop the contest and outright hire some of the entrants they like, they can do that. If they don't want to hire anyone, they don't have to. They can let the contest go to its full conclusion, let some popular entrant with the fans win despite not being a good candidate as an employee, and still hire other people who "lost".

But regardless of any possible outcomes as it pertains to employment, WotC gets to use any and all ideas that are legally submitted. If your idea gets used on a real card in the future, there's a record of it being your idea, which can have real value for a lot of people.

Missed opportunity for using the infinity symbol in the card's type-line.

Innistrad mostly approves.

Quote from Nylon »

Squirrellink! That ability is broken!

I prefer to think of it as nuts.

Quote from MercurialMemory »

Big Booty
Artifact
0
Sacrifice ~: Put 3 Treasure tokens onto the battlefield.
They thought, after nearly 30 years, that no one could ever find the Lotus again. They thought wrong.

Card name/effect. Probably.

That's a bit wrong, man, booty is supposed to be tapped.

Quote from Scarap »

The idea of hitting an enemy planeswalker with a train is ******* hilarious.

"So what's our plan of attack, planeswalker?"
"See that train? You and three of your 'buddies' are gonna drive at that guy over yonder."

Heh... I guess I could say I like your train of thought
Food for thought... I'll let y'all choo on that!
After all, I'm on track to fill my pun quota for the day here...
But hey -- hope nobody gets here steamed about it!
(Hey what's the crazy reason for putting this in the set? The loco-motive!)
Okay I'm done.

Quote from The Greendale Human Being »

Wizards R&D:

Designer 1: Ok, Kaladesh is going to be a set rooted in artifacts with more of a steam punk vibe. Any ideas for themes we should pursue?

Designer 2: The players seems to be intrigued by Steamflogger Boss. Maybe now is the time to explore Riggers, Contraptions, or both?

Designer 1: Oooh, you're right! This could be the set to finally explore that!

Rosewater: You're absolutely right; the players have clearly expressed a fascination and desire there. However, I had another theme in mind: it's called *****ting on everyone's dreams and not doing the thing the players want in the obvious place to do it. No Contraptions. No Riggers.

Designer 2: But...

Designer 1: But...

Rosewater: MARKSTER ROSEWATER RUNS MAGICTOWN!

Yes, of course. Mark Rosewater clearly doesn't care enough about the players to force a mechanic originally intended to be a joke that he's one of the sole supporters in R&D of actually doing. Instead he's doing that terrible thing where he's using an idea for a mechanic he'd been holding onto for a long time and he thinks players will really like. Despicable.
Clearly the only appropriate response to this heinous act of not satisfying the expectations of a limited group of fans is riots. Get out ya pitchforks, guys!

Topplegeist and Tooth Collector cycle completed.