Alexis was a guest judge for the week, so she won't be evaluating every design test. And while her role was to evaluate the emotional impact of the mechanics, don't take that to mean that's the most important thing about them; each judge has a different perspective for the contestant to consider. Not every mechanic has to please all those perspectives, but there should be something with emotional appeal somewhere in the whole, as well as things that are more Spike-y or Melvin-y.
I know the wiki is pretty awful, and having things open to the public is hard to control, but I wish most of these pages weren't so goddawful to sift through. Design dialogue will be flowing smoothly, but then you come to some post that breaks the H-scroll and has overridden someone else's post, leading to complete confusion.
I know the wiki is pretty awful, and having things open to the public is hard to control, but I wish most of these pages weren't so goddawful to sift through. Design dialogue will be flowing smoothly, but then you come to some post that breaks the H-scroll and has overridden someone else's post, leading to complete confusion.
I really don't think the wiki, in its current form, is a great tool. A forum structure seems far more preferable, simply because you can see the entire history of the discussion.
Yeah, and see what new things have been posted, and quote other posts, and a million other reasons this wiki is so, so stupid. How can you even keep track of what's happening on your own page, let alone others?
Yeah, chalk me down as someone who would have greatly, greatly preferred a forum structure. There's just way too much cross-talking, bad markup, discrepancy of structure, and of course worst of all, posts that get lost. I chimed in thoughts where I could, but it was extremely frustrating, and I lost at least two posts. I'd HATE to be one of those designers right now, trying to sift through thoughts in a million places. In fact, I'd be inclined to just get a few friends over at my place and do what R&D do.
My inclination tells me that no-one made top8 by relying on the wiki. They all had outside support. Its absolutely unrealistic to design cards in such an a-synchronous way. Design is organic and flows.
I like what ObsidianDice is doing, but he's just got to make sure anyone who has a card suggestion and posts it on the forums also posts it to the wiki.
The number one reason I gave up on the wiki is that it's incredibly difficult to see if and when ideas have been responded to and when something is new. Everything else, while sort of disastertastic, is something that I'm willing (if not happy) to work around. What's frustrating is that they're using a wiki setup for something that would be served a million times better with a forum setup.
I can't even finish the article. Partially because it's long and too many little things are getting on my nerves about the contest at this point. The only one of which I'll probably remember by the time the contest is over is this one: essentially, every card design is either a minefield of problems or doesn't display the designer's themes whatsoever. I feel like my design test was better, and I know MaRo and the rest disagree, but (and this is the sticky point for me) I will never get any closure. I can't handle the idea that I did all this work and I won't even be able to improve myself because I can't be told what I did wrong. Sure I can read the other finalist's critiques, but I didn't design those cards. I didn't make those mistakes, I made very different mistakes in my opinion. Ehrm.
I'll cut off the rant there before it gets out of hand. Sorry, I just had to vent a tiny bit. It seems the effort at catharsis has worked however, so that's good.
Here, I'll help you get some closure. With some card reviews!
1. Dinnel, Inquisit - I understand that this is supposed to be a minor Planeswalker, like Jace. But a Spellbook Ultimate? Really? I know that you also get to draw cards, but still, an ability that mundane and boring should never be on any ultimate ever. Ultimates are supposed to be huge, splashy effects, and this is basically the opposite. Honden of Seeing Winds was cool and all, but not Planeswalker-ultimate-cool. Also, why does the + ability reveal cards? Seeing as hand size matters restrictions have been demonstrated to be terribly unfun, tacking that onto the second ability seems particularly egregious, especially considering that Planeswalkers usually don't have those kinds of restrictions on their abilities. Although there is some cohesion between the 2nd ability and the other two, the card is not really compelling at all.
2. I don't see any reason why you should have the combat damage clause in here, but otherwise this card is fine, if not particularly innovative. I don't even know if this makes since as mythic, because this kind of ability has been done before, I'm pretty sure.
3. Exhume is not a good mechanic because symmetrical effects just aren't very fun. That's why lords only help your side these days. No one likes it when their card helps their opponent more then themselves, and the fact that the exhume trigger isn't a may means that your opponent is going to get a dude back whether you want one yourself or not. I think Exhume has some possibility, although the moment that you make it asymmetrical it immediately becomes insanely powerful, which makes tweaking the mechanic exceedingly difficult.
4. Nope, Magic cards aren't allowed to use words like "when it resolves." That's like talking about "the stack." These sorts of mechanical terms have no place on Magic cards, even though obviously they are important to the rules, because they kick you out of the flavor of Magic and remind you that it's just a card game. I see what you are trying to do here, though, and I think it is an interesting goal (if you could find a way to make this work it would go well on auras, too). Although, now that I think about it, there really isn't any way in the rules for something to check itself as it resolves, I believe. The moment it resolves, it leaves the stack, so you can rely on its text at that point.
5. This Vampire lord is pretty cool, although it has too much going on. Just the fact of making it so you control all dudes killed by vampires is probably enough. Turning the creatures you gain control of and giving them +1/+1 makes the card a bit too busy, IMO.
6. Binding Bracers is, like that combat trick, another card that is interesting to someone that knows a lot about Magic design, but it is just too "high-concept" to be actually printed. An equipment without equip is silly, on a fundamental level. I like where you are going with this card, though, and I think you could get the same effect from an artifact that can tap and not untap at the beginning of your upkeep.
7. Opal Revenant -- So you went looking for graveyard mechanics and thought Coldsnap was the place to go, eh? For some reason I'm under the impression that Recover was retrospectively considered not a very good mechanic, but I might be wrong. All in all though this seems like a fine card.
8. Master of Death and AEther -- I think this is a really cool card, personally.
9. Cherry Grove in the Cemetery -- There is no reason for this to come into play tapped, and as such, it fails as a land. You made a land worse than the ETBT lands from Invasion blocks... considering they have printed two sets of lands that are strictly better than those, uhh, this is a failure.
10. Restock the Arsenal -- The name doesn't even fit what this card does, and this card is probably broken as all hell. Being able to play a bunch of spells for free is the reason why storm and Mind's Desire were broken in the first place, and so they would never print this card.
As far as your worldbuilding goes, it's very unclear and not very compelling at all. Your world is basically your mechanics, written in flavor-speak. "My mechanics bring people back from the graveyard. In my world, the people come back from death." When you talk about "The Cycle" you make it seem very mysterious, but the interesting thing isn't "The Cycle" it's when the cycle isn't working or runs backwards. Ultimately, your world doesn't really have any particularly interesting hook beyond your mechanical elements. While it's true that most designers in the top 8 have an overabundance of mechanics and mechanical elements, your design submission is too conservative, too repetitive, and lacking in innovation. What little innovation you do demonstrate comes in the form of cards that either don't work in the rules, don't make sense, or aren't fun in the first place. That is ultimately why you weren't in the top 8. Although you have some cards that are better (read: more cleanly) designed than some of the top 8, you have no vision, and that is what GDS2 is all about.
The alternative is to have MaRo and the ilk give everybody a full review. I'd much rather they spend their time giving reviews to prospective employees, and making sure that they don't accidentally print the next tarmogoyf.
I competed at home (I can't move to take the internship, so why bother wasting everybody's time by chacing a victory?) and have found all of the feedback helpful in creating my set. If I have more social mobility come the next GDS, I'll be ready with a set and everything. The only reason some people perceive a lack of closure is because they can't read between the lines of the designers' critiques. And if you can't do that, it's probably a starting point toward understanding why your designs fell flat with them.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
You know you have played M:TG too much when you find yourself calling shotgun "in response" to your friends calling shotgun.
You know your friends have played M:TG too much when you get it.
While the critiques may not about a noncompetitor's work specifically, the criticism and comments given are universally applicable, and something for any designer to read and learn from.
Unbrokencircle: if you (or anyone else) feel like doing another one of those, I'd appreciate it if it was my submission. The closure thing is a real issue and I suspect it would help.
I'm happy that the top 8 themselves seem mostly like nice guys who are excited but receptive to feedback. This challenge will be really tough for them, though, because most people aren't very good at common design and I don't think it will be wise to get too many 'generic' commons from the wiki; the competitors really need to hammer home their sets' themes. Enlisting focused help is going to be essential.
Exactly. I am quite worried about what these common submissions are going to look like; looking back at what was submitted for this challenge during the first GDS, and what was presented in the first challenge of this contest, cutting out the needless complexity is going to be something to be constantly vigilant of. Commons make up the bulk of what I do, honestly, so when I have the time I think I will try to contribute my assistance on the wiki.
The GDS2 is looking like its going to be an endurance test. Every couple of weeks, you have to fight a wiki where edits are lost to please judges whose opinions will likely evolve as your set does.
Here is an example: Shawn Main. MaRo tells him he likes "Blight." Shawn now has to run up and down stairs to fix his set to that suggestion. What options jump out as really showing off the idea of Blight? Sacrifice, destruction, milling, and oh hey there, Infect. Now, lets say that it ends up as the first three... poor Timmy! The mechanics will look unfun. Infect? Too soon! Too unoriginal.
What if Shawn gets his Blight working reasonably? Well, nice, a good submission. But there is a chance in all of that his other mechanics will suffer or miss something. MaRo points that out, Shawn, who was lucky enough to make it, now has to wrestle the new direction his plane is going.
Fast forward 2 more months.
At least in the first GDS, if you screwed up one round, you didn't have to re-invent things the next round. Nor did you have to please with a fickle abstraction like flavor or theme which will take months to settle. All while having to do it from the wiki.
The GDS2 is looking like its going to be an endurance test. Every couple of weeks, you have to fight a wiki where edits are lost to please judges whose opinions will likely evolve as your set does.
Here is an example: Shawn Main. MaRo tells him he likes "Blight." Shawn now has to run up and down stairs to fix his set to that suggestion. What options jump out as really showing off the idea of Blight? Sacrifice, destruction, milling, and oh hey there, Infect. Now, lets say that it ends up as the first three... poor Timmy! The mechanics will look unfun. Infect? Too soon! Too unoriginal.
What if Shawn gets his Blight working reasonably? Well, nice, a good submission. But there is a chance in all of that his other mechanics will suffer or miss something. MaRo points that out, Shawn, who was lucky enough to make it, now has to wrestle the new direction his plane is going.
Fast forward 2 more months.
At least in the first GDS, if you screwed up one round, you didn't have to re-invent things the next round. Nor did you have to please with a fickle abstraction like flavor or theme which will take months to settle. All while having to do it from the wiki.
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I have a hypothesis that the reason The Blight caught MaRo is because he is in infect-celebration mode. Either he didn't think about how absurdly difficult it would be to represent The Blight mechanically without using unfun mechanics or a redo of infect, or he did think about it and decided just to see if Shawn could do the impossible. Alternatively, he does just want to see infect redux.
I think the same thing happened with Ethan. I mean, unless he gets some huge help from other people, he is going to have to design almost everything from scratch by Sunday. Except in Ethan's case I don't think he should have made the top 8, while on the other hand I liked Shawn's set mechanically and thought he had some cool cards and a set I would be excited to draft.
I posted a huge flavor reinterpretation of The Blight on Shawn's wiki that attempts to connect The Blight and tokens.
Unbrokencircle: if you (or anyone else) feel like doing another one of those, I'd appreciate it if it was my submission. The closure thing is a real issue and I suspect it would help.
I'm happy that the top 8 themselves seem mostly like nice guys who are excited but receptive to feedback. This challenge will be really tough for them, though, because most people aren't very good at common design and I don't think it will be wise to get too many 'generic' commons from the wiki; the competitors really need to hammer home their sets' themes. Enlisting focused help is going to be essential.
First off, I don't know if anyone in R&D talks about this, but slaves in Magic have an interesting place. They certainly exist, //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+[slave">"]as a gatherer search will show, but most of the enslaving involves barely sentient or non-sentient humanoids (Raving Oni-Slave, Cabal Slaver, Grixis Slavedriver). I don't know if R&D would ever allow Slaves to be a central mechanical part of a set, with Slave tokens and systems of slavery crucial to the world in pretty much all colors. I am going to guess that they wouldn't, though. I have no idea if MaRo thought about that when reading your entry, but it's certainly something I thought about. Regardless of whether basing a Magic set on slavery is a good idea or not, I sincerely doubt that the execs at WotC would ever let that happen.
1. Anku -- Hey this looks familiar ;-) I liked this Planeswalker when I first saw it, and yours is mostly the same. I actually don't know if the non-Zombie clause is necessary, or at least I can't tell by looking at the card. This is what I wrote initially: "I have a soft spot for triggered + abilities, I've realized. I think the numbers on this might be off/unbalanced, but I'm not sure. Overall, I like the way that the abilities all mesh together, and this is one of the better planeswalker designs in this round of submissions."
2. Ark Procession -- Emblems on non-Planeswalkers? Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between amateur designers and professional ones is the ability to say, "Yes, I could do x, but do I need to?" There is a strict limit on the number of emblems that can be in Magic, because if there are too many emblems then they will lead to memory issues. I think that keeping emblems on Planeswalkers makes flavorful sense, too, because that's the only way they can have an impact on the game as lasting as you, as the player, can. Otherwise, I like the flavor of this card, I will admit. Mechanically what makes this card interesting (that it leaves play with tokens that get big) dies when you don't have emblems to use, so it's pretty much a wash otherwise, unfortunately.
3. Ashtal, the Usurper -- I love this guy. The combination of flavor and mechanics is seamless, and his name is BADASS. HE IS YOUR NEW GOD NOW. <3
4. Skulking Fugitives -- Pretty sure this card is overpowered, because it's an instant, which makes it much easier to satisfying the Mayhem condition, and because 4 tokens for 3 is way too good. I think 1 or 3 tokens could be reasonable, or change the casting cost, something like that. Overall, it's not really clear why this mechanic is here. Doesn't Thrall already give you bonuses for stuff hitting the grave?
5. Scepter of the God-King -- All right, I like this card quite a bit, although the numbers might be off. The fact that it doesn't give any form of evasion makes it less likely it will hit and it's easily chump-blocked in your set full of tokens. But still, I can just imagine four guys having to help one lift this thing, or something like that.
6. Dreams of Loss -- the reason why there are cards designed to penalize people who discard lands is because they are more likely to discard them. This card is very strange and doesn't really fit with your set at all. Why am I going to discard creatures? Only if it's later in the game and all I have left is an important creature. Then you make me sacrifice? But by that time I'll probably already have tokens and such floating around.
7. Slave Pit of Ga-Met -- This seems busted to me. It's like card advantage in a land for 2 mana. Trade with your 2/2, get two tokens. This card makes multi-format all star Mutavault look like a chump.
8. Lighthouse of Enkon Cliffs -- I just... *facepalm* I'm gonna reiterate my sentiment about "Just because you can doesn't mean you should." Basically what you have done here is take everything resonant and flavorful about Level Up and removed it. There is absolutely nothing this card does that can't be done with charge counters. Additionally, I'll quote MaRo: "Also, having to do eight of anything is a bit excessive if you're not getting an effect that's basically going to win you the game." Your card is not quite the dumpster fire that "Faltering Mana Channel" was, but just like that card you throw in well-loved mechanics for no apparent reason just because you can.
9. Devotion Untamed -- This does not seem like an uncommon to me. All in all, I like this card, though.
10. Sulfur Shaman -- MaRo talks about Goblin Game here. He talks about how it is a mechanic Spikes hate but some Timmys like. I think the reason why these cards are at rare is so that players who hate them don't have to play with them, and that's why this would not work as a limited mechanic.
Ultimately, you did a relatively good job manifesting your world in your cards. Unfortunately, your world is incomplete because it lacks a dynamic element. You do a pretty good job of depicting a world with slaves and this hierarchal element, but you don't give a sense of what the conflict is, of the tension and possibilities. The other mechanics meant to add other themes to your set just ended up seeming out of place or too repetitive (Mayhem doesn't play a very clear role, Bluff is a bad mechanic and Level Up shouldn't be used this way). In order add depth to your flavor and mechanics, you needed to come up with some way to manifest conflict. Of course, there were lots of worlds that had conflict that was too one-dimensional, so there's at least that.
Thanks, unbrokencircle. I largely agree with your points of criticism. How do you think you would have reacted to the Lighthouse if Level up just had a different name and counter type, something like Construct or Labor with, say, pillar counters?
In all, I wish I'd more carefully articulated my motives for some of the choices I made; I thought they were obvious, but they weren't.
Thanks, unbrokencircle. I largely agree with your points of criticism. How do you think you would have reacted to the Lighthouse if Level up just had a different name and counter type, something like Construct or Labor with, say, pillar counters?
In all, I wish I'd more carefully articulated my motives for some of the choices I made; I thought they were obvious, but they weren't.
Honestly, I felt like your level-up implementation really felt like something for another set.
But I'm gonna say something, and I can't believe I'm saying it-
Thanks, unbrokencircle. I largely agree with your points of criticism. How do you think you would have reacted to the Lighthouse if Level up just had a different name and counter type, something like Construct or Labor with, say, pillar counters?
Yes, that would be better, but MaRo's criticism of that other card would still stand.
Honestly, based on what I've learned about the design process I've realized that designing an actual set is not something I would enjoy very much. Most of it is finding the simplest, more straightforward implementation of an idea, and even then a large percentage of your cards aren't going to have anything to do with that innovative new idea. That's why I tend to gravitate to focusing on flavor when I'm designing cards, because that's the one aspect you can really throw a ton of effort at, because most information that a Magic card provides is in its flavor and not in its rules text.
You know what would be interesting? If one contestant used material that another contestant has posted. Using the same card in two submissions would be an interesting opportunity to examine how it fits differently into each, and which submission used it more effectively.
Somebody mentioned earlier about sets having too many mechanics. The more I think about it, the less I like that.
As a person outside of the "Top 8", I still want to submit my mechanic ideas. However, with all the sets being overloaded and Maro telling people to cut back, I feel like there isn't any room for what I want to contribute. One of my challenges is to find a set that would be a good home for my mechanic ideas, latch on to that set's designer, and sell the heck out of it. If the message is to cut back, that designer isn't going to listen to anything I would add to the set. Perhaps Maro is highlighting one of the pains of Magic design.
Any cards I submit wouldn't really be showcasing my ideas; they would just be logical outgrowths of the mechanics the designers already came up with. This is particularly true at common.
Perhaps this will change as the contest goes along, but I am not really inclined to submit much to any of the designers at this point.
Somebody mentioned earlier about sets having too many mechanics. The more I think about it, the less I like that.
As a person outside of the "Top 8", I still want to submit my mechanic ideas. However, with all the sets being overloaded and Maro telling people to cut back, I feel like there isn't any room for what I want to contribute. One of my challenges is to find a set that would be a good home for my mechanic ideas, latch on to that set's designer, and sell the heck out of it. If the message is to cut back, that designer isn't going to listen to anything I would add to the set. Perhaps Maro is highlighting one of the pains of Magic design.
Any cards I submit wouldn't really be showcasing my ideas; they would just be logical outgrowths of the mechanics the designers already came up with. This is particularly true at common.
Perhaps this will change as the contest goes along, but I am not really inclined to submit much to any of the designers at this point.
Some of the problems with mechanics aren't necessarily just that there are too many, but that there are too many that aren't contributing to the set's theme. You could still offer new mechanics by finding ways to replace the dead-weight stuff with something else that will help unify their setting and theme.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
Cycling's considered one of the best mechanics ever done, but its one of the most boring things you can put on a card.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
- 4/22/12, Knowledge from the Helvault (Part 1)
I really don't think the wiki, in its current form, is a great tool. A forum structure seems far more preferable, simply because you can see the entire history of the discussion.
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
Here, I'll help you get some closure. With some card reviews!
1. Dinnel, Inquisit - I understand that this is supposed to be a minor Planeswalker, like Jace. But a Spellbook Ultimate? Really? I know that you also get to draw cards, but still, an ability that mundane and boring should never be on any ultimate ever. Ultimates are supposed to be huge, splashy effects, and this is basically the opposite. Honden of Seeing Winds was cool and all, but not Planeswalker-ultimate-cool. Also, why does the + ability reveal cards? Seeing as hand size matters restrictions have been demonstrated to be terribly unfun, tacking that onto the second ability seems particularly egregious, especially considering that Planeswalkers usually don't have those kinds of restrictions on their abilities. Although there is some cohesion between the 2nd ability and the other two, the card is not really compelling at all.
2. I don't see any reason why you should have the combat damage clause in here, but otherwise this card is fine, if not particularly innovative. I don't even know if this makes since as mythic, because this kind of ability has been done before, I'm pretty sure.
3. Exhume is not a good mechanic because symmetrical effects just aren't very fun. That's why lords only help your side these days. No one likes it when their card helps their opponent more then themselves, and the fact that the exhume trigger isn't a may means that your opponent is going to get a dude back whether you want one yourself or not. I think Exhume has some possibility, although the moment that you make it asymmetrical it immediately becomes insanely powerful, which makes tweaking the mechanic exceedingly difficult.
4. Nope, Magic cards aren't allowed to use words like "when it resolves." That's like talking about "the stack." These sorts of mechanical terms have no place on Magic cards, even though obviously they are important to the rules, because they kick you out of the flavor of Magic and remind you that it's just a card game. I see what you are trying to do here, though, and I think it is an interesting goal (if you could find a way to make this work it would go well on auras, too). Although, now that I think about it, there really isn't any way in the rules for something to check itself as it resolves, I believe. The moment it resolves, it leaves the stack, so you can rely on its text at that point.
5. This Vampire lord is pretty cool, although it has too much going on. Just the fact of making it so you control all dudes killed by vampires is probably enough. Turning the creatures you gain control of and giving them +1/+1 makes the card a bit too busy, IMO.
6. Binding Bracers is, like that combat trick, another card that is interesting to someone that knows a lot about Magic design, but it is just too "high-concept" to be actually printed. An equipment without equip is silly, on a fundamental level. I like where you are going with this card, though, and I think you could get the same effect from an artifact that can tap and not untap at the beginning of your upkeep.
7. Opal Revenant -- So you went looking for graveyard mechanics and thought Coldsnap was the place to go, eh? For some reason I'm under the impression that Recover was retrospectively considered not a very good mechanic, but I might be wrong. All in all though this seems like a fine card.
8. Master of Death and AEther -- I think this is a really cool card, personally.
9. Cherry Grove in the Cemetery -- There is no reason for this to come into play tapped, and as such, it fails as a land. You made a land worse than the ETBT lands from Invasion blocks... considering they have printed two sets of lands that are strictly better than those, uhh, this is a failure.
10. Restock the Arsenal -- The name doesn't even fit what this card does, and this card is probably broken as all hell. Being able to play a bunch of spells for free is the reason why storm and Mind's Desire were broken in the first place, and so they would never print this card.
As far as your worldbuilding goes, it's very unclear and not very compelling at all. Your world is basically your mechanics, written in flavor-speak. "My mechanics bring people back from the graveyard. In my world, the people come back from death." When you talk about "The Cycle" you make it seem very mysterious, but the interesting thing isn't "The Cycle" it's when the cycle isn't working or runs backwards. Ultimately, your world doesn't really have any particularly interesting hook beyond your mechanical elements. While it's true that most designers in the top 8 have an overabundance of mechanics and mechanical elements, your design submission is too conservative, too repetitive, and lacking in innovation. What little innovation you do demonstrate comes in the form of cards that either don't work in the rules, don't make sense, or aren't fun in the first place. That is ultimately why you weren't in the top 8. Although you have some cards that are better (read: more cleanly) designed than some of the top 8, you have no vision, and that is what GDS2 is all about.
The alternative is to have MaRo and the ilk give everybody a full review. I'd much rather they spend their time giving reviews to prospective employees, and making sure that they don't accidentally print the next tarmogoyf.
I competed at home (I can't move to take the internship, so why bother wasting everybody's time by chacing a victory?) and have found all of the feedback helpful in creating my set. If I have more social mobility come the next GDS, I'll be ready with a set and everything. The only reason some people perceive a lack of closure is because they can't read between the lines of the designers' critiques. And if you can't do that, it's probably a starting point toward understanding why your designs fell flat with them.
You know your friends have played M:TG too much when you get it.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
I'm happy that the top 8 themselves seem mostly like nice guys who are excited but receptive to feedback. This challenge will be really tough for them, though, because most people aren't very good at common design and I don't think it will be wise to get too many 'generic' commons from the wiki; the competitors really need to hammer home their sets' themes. Enlisting focused help is going to be essential.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
Here is an example: Shawn Main. MaRo tells him he likes "Blight." Shawn now has to run up and down stairs to fix his set to that suggestion. What options jump out as really showing off the idea of Blight? Sacrifice, destruction, milling, and oh hey there, Infect. Now, lets say that it ends up as the first three... poor Timmy! The mechanics will look unfun. Infect? Too soon! Too unoriginal.
What if Shawn gets his Blight working reasonably? Well, nice, a good submission. But there is a chance in all of that his other mechanics will suffer or miss something. MaRo points that out, Shawn, who was lucky enough to make it, now has to wrestle the new direction his plane is going.
Fast forward 2 more months.
At least in the first GDS, if you screwed up one round, you didn't have to re-invent things the next round. Nor did you have to please with a fickle abstraction like flavor or theme which will take months to settle. All while having to do it from the wiki.
Yeah, I totally agree with you. I have a hypothesis that the reason The Blight caught MaRo is because he is in infect-celebration mode. Either he didn't think about how absurdly difficult it would be to represent The Blight mechanically without using unfun mechanics or a redo of infect, or he did think about it and decided just to see if Shawn could do the impossible. Alternatively, he does just want to see infect redux.
I think the same thing happened with Ethan. I mean, unless he gets some huge help from other people, he is going to have to design almost everything from scratch by Sunday. Except in Ethan's case I don't think he should have made the top 8, while on the other hand I liked Shawn's set mechanically and thought he had some cool cards and a set I would be excited to draft.
I posted a huge flavor reinterpretation of The Blight on Shawn's wiki that attempts to connect The Blight and tokens.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
First off, I don't know if anyone in R&D talks about this, but slaves in Magic have an interesting place. They certainly exist, //gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?name=+[slave">"]as a gatherer search will show, but most of the enslaving involves barely sentient or non-sentient humanoids (Raving Oni-Slave, Cabal Slaver, Grixis Slavedriver). I don't know if R&D would ever allow Slaves to be a central mechanical part of a set, with Slave tokens and systems of slavery crucial to the world in pretty much all colors. I am going to guess that they wouldn't, though. I have no idea if MaRo thought about that when reading your entry, but it's certainly something I thought about. Regardless of whether basing a Magic set on slavery is a good idea or not, I sincerely doubt that the execs at WotC would ever let that happen.
1. Anku -- Hey this looks familiar ;-) I liked this Planeswalker when I first saw it, and yours is mostly the same. I actually don't know if the non-Zombie clause is necessary, or at least I can't tell by looking at the card. This is what I wrote initially: "I have a soft spot for triggered + abilities, I've realized. I think the numbers on this might be off/unbalanced, but I'm not sure. Overall, I like the way that the abilities all mesh together, and this is one of the better planeswalker designs in this round of submissions."
2. Ark Procession -- Emblems on non-Planeswalkers? Sometimes I think that the biggest difference between amateur designers and professional ones is the ability to say, "Yes, I could do x, but do I need to?" There is a strict limit on the number of emblems that can be in Magic, because if there are too many emblems then they will lead to memory issues. I think that keeping emblems on Planeswalkers makes flavorful sense, too, because that's the only way they can have an impact on the game as lasting as you, as the player, can. Otherwise, I like the flavor of this card, I will admit. Mechanically what makes this card interesting (that it leaves play with tokens that get big) dies when you don't have emblems to use, so it's pretty much a wash otherwise, unfortunately.
3. Ashtal, the Usurper -- I love this guy. The combination of flavor and mechanics is seamless, and his name is BADASS. HE IS YOUR NEW GOD NOW. <3
4. Skulking Fugitives -- Pretty sure this card is overpowered, because it's an instant, which makes it much easier to satisfying the Mayhem condition, and because 4 tokens for 3 is way too good. I think 1 or 3 tokens could be reasonable, or change the casting cost, something like that. Overall, it's not really clear why this mechanic is here. Doesn't Thrall already give you bonuses for stuff hitting the grave?
5. Scepter of the God-King -- All right, I like this card quite a bit, although the numbers might be off. The fact that it doesn't give any form of evasion makes it less likely it will hit and it's easily chump-blocked in your set full of tokens. But still, I can just imagine four guys having to help one lift this thing, or something like that.
6. Dreams of Loss -- the reason why there are cards designed to penalize people who discard lands is because they are more likely to discard them. This card is very strange and doesn't really fit with your set at all. Why am I going to discard creatures? Only if it's later in the game and all I have left is an important creature. Then you make me sacrifice? But by that time I'll probably already have tokens and such floating around.
7. Slave Pit of Ga-Met -- This seems busted to me. It's like card advantage in a land for 2 mana. Trade with your 2/2, get two tokens. This card makes multi-format all star Mutavault look like a chump.
8. Lighthouse of Enkon Cliffs -- I just... *facepalm* I'm gonna reiterate my sentiment about "Just because you can doesn't mean you should." Basically what you have done here is take everything resonant and flavorful about Level Up and removed it. There is absolutely nothing this card does that can't be done with charge counters. Additionally, I'll quote MaRo: "Also, having to do eight of anything is a bit excessive if you're not getting an effect that's basically going to win you the game." Your card is not quite the dumpster fire that "Faltering Mana Channel" was, but just like that card you throw in well-loved mechanics for no apparent reason just because you can.
9. Devotion Untamed -- This does not seem like an uncommon to me. All in all, I like this card, though.
10. Sulfur Shaman -- MaRo talks about Goblin Game here. He talks about how it is a mechanic Spikes hate but some Timmys like. I think the reason why these cards are at rare is so that players who hate them don't have to play with them, and that's why this would not work as a limited mechanic.
Ultimately, you did a relatively good job manifesting your world in your cards. Unfortunately, your world is incomplete because it lacks a dynamic element. You do a pretty good job of depicting a world with slaves and this hierarchal element, but you don't give a sense of what the conflict is, of the tension and possibilities. The other mechanics meant to add other themes to your set just ended up seeming out of place or too repetitive (Mayhem doesn't play a very clear role, Bluff is a bad mechanic and Level Up shouldn't be used this way). In order add depth to your flavor and mechanics, you needed to come up with some way to manifest conflict. Of course, there were lots of worlds that had conflict that was too one-dimensional, so there's at least that.
In all, I wish I'd more carefully articulated my motives for some of the choices I made; I thought they were obvious, but they weren't.
Honestly, I felt like your level-up implementation really felt like something for another set.
But I'm gonna say something, and I can't believe I'm saying it-
What about "Assemble"?
Current post- Grand Prix KC Modern Postmortem (7/7/13)
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
Yes, that would be better, but MaRo's criticism of that other card would still stand.
Honestly, based on what I've learned about the design process I've realized that designing an actual set is not something I would enjoy very much. Most of it is finding the simplest, more straightforward implementation of an idea, and even then a large percentage of your cards aren't going to have anything to do with that innovative new idea. That's why I tend to gravitate to focusing on flavor when I'm designing cards, because that's the one aspect you can really throw a ton of effort at, because most information that a Magic card provides is in its flavor and not in its rules text.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)
As a person outside of the "Top 8", I still want to submit my mechanic ideas. However, with all the sets being overloaded and Maro telling people to cut back, I feel like there isn't any room for what I want to contribute. One of my challenges is to find a set that would be a good home for my mechanic ideas, latch on to that set's designer, and sell the heck out of it. If the message is to cut back, that designer isn't going to listen to anything I would add to the set. Perhaps Maro is highlighting one of the pains of Magic design.
Any cards I submit wouldn't really be showcasing my ideas; they would just be logical outgrowths of the mechanics the designers already came up with. This is particularly true at common.
Perhaps this will change as the contest goes along, but I am not really inclined to submit much to any of the designers at this point.
Some of the problems with mechanics aren't necessarily just that there are too many, but that there are too many that aren't contributing to the set's theme. You could still offer new mechanics by finding ways to replace the dead-weight stuff with something else that will help unify their setting and theme.
R Citizen Cane (Feldon of the Third Path)