In Fallen Empires, it was only Thallid that used Spore counters to generate Saproling tokens. Other cards that generated Spore counters used them for other effects. Edit2: oh wait no I misremembered, there were other creatures that used spore counters to make saprolings, and one did sacrifice Saprolings for effects. In fact, it was half-saproling generation and half-other effects.
When the Thallids were brought back in Time Spiral, all of them used Spore counters to generate Saprolings. They sacrificed Saprolings to generate various effects.
The Time Spiral mode has a good deal of merit, but it seems a shame to me to not use Spore counters for other effects. So, uh, what say you?
Edit: sigh, some mod want to fix that topic for me?
There's flavor to it. The new cards would have to be thallids, or fungi in general. Snakes or goblins producing spore coounters that have nothing to do with thallids, saprolings, or fungi is going to be off flavor-wise.
Well, orks would be fine, I guess.
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"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
How are orcs producing spore counters better than goblins flavor-wise? Is there something about orcish biology I need to learn?
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Concerning the original proposal. I personally agree with the Time Spiral approach.
The drawback to the gradual growth of the spore counter mechanic is that you get no chance at storing your progress for later use. On the original Thallids you have your activated ability that won't ever do anything until the third turn after summoning (excluding tricks like the rather unsubtle Fungal Bloom). The benefits of converting spore counters into a universal type of resource (Saprolings) and using that intermediate resource as activation cost are quite manifold...
I'll go into one particular: By going through Saprolings you can create many more subtle synergies with the whole mechanic - both through alternative sources of Saprolings (e. g. activating the ability without relying on the spore counters) as well as alternative uses of the Saprolings if you do not use them for a particular activated ability (e. g. sacrificing it to Bone Splinters rather than regenerating a creature under no threat). And both of those include uing a Saproling from one Thallid to activate another Thallid's sacrifice ability.
etc.
I personally considered the spore counter mechanic several times since Time Spiral block, but have not found any particular reason to go back to the exact same model. Though I have used it as inspiratio for other mechanics and there are still derivative mechanics I entertain e. g. one approach I had concerned replacing the counters on each creature with counters on the player, or using exiled cards rather than counters - leading to similar mechanics to gold counters, experience counters and ingest/processors.
As such I wouldn't ignore the spore mechanic since it is a great learning example/inspiration for "two-step" mechanics, where one ability feeds another, but I wouldn't suggest retreading the original incarnation of the mechanic without "reinventing" it in some significant way.
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Planar Chaos was not a mistake neither was it random. You might want to look at it again.
[thread=239793][Game] Level Up - Creature[/thread]
When the Thallids were brought back in Time Spiral, all of them used Spore counters to generate Saprolings. They sacrificed Saprolings to generate various effects.
The Time Spiral mode has a good deal of merit, but it seems a shame to me to not use Spore counters for other effects. So, uh, what say you?
Edit: sigh, some mod want to fix that topic for me?
Shards of awful never
Sounds good. It would be nice to see a custom design or two that utilizes spore dounters.
Well, orks would be fine, I guess.
"Sometimes, the situation is outracing a threat, sometimes it's ignoring it, and sometimes it involves sideboarding in 4x Hope//Pray." --Doug Linn
...
Concerning the original proposal. I personally agree with the Time Spiral approach.
The drawback to the gradual growth of the spore counter mechanic is that you get no chance at storing your progress for later use. On the original Thallids you have your activated ability that won't ever do anything until the third turn after summoning (excluding tricks like the rather unsubtle Fungal Bloom). The benefits of converting spore counters into a universal type of resource (Saprolings) and using that intermediate resource as activation cost are quite manifold...
I'll go into one particular: By going through Saprolings you can create many more subtle synergies with the whole mechanic - both through alternative sources of Saprolings (e. g. activating the ability without relying on the spore counters) as well as alternative uses of the Saprolings if you do not use them for a particular activated ability (e. g. sacrificing it to Bone Splinters rather than regenerating a creature under no threat). And both of those include uing a Saproling from one Thallid to activate another Thallid's sacrifice ability.
etc.
I personally considered the spore counter mechanic several times since Time Spiral block, but have not found any particular reason to go back to the exact same model. Though I have used it as inspiratio for other mechanics and there are still derivative mechanics I entertain e. g. one approach I had concerned replacing the counters on each creature with counters on the player, or using exiled cards rather than counters - leading to similar mechanics to gold counters, experience counters and ingest/processors.
As such I wouldn't ignore the spore mechanic since it is a great learning example/inspiration for "two-step" mechanics, where one ability feeds another, but I wouldn't suggest retreading the original incarnation of the mechanic without "reinventing" it in some significant way.
Finally a good white villain quote: "So, do I ever re-evaluate my life choices? Never, because I know what I'm doing is a righteous cause."
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