I'm concept-stage on a second attempt at a settlers/colonization-based block, and I'm trying to work on a mechanic for the native territorial beasts. I have:
Territorial(At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile a land you control until this creature leaves the battlefield. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)
The idea flavor-wise is that they get stronger from the motivation of protecting their territory, but protect it so vigorously even you can't use it. My question is... is this a good ability? Are there enough scenarios where you'd choose to exile the land for the counter even if the +1/+1 counter was the full bonus, or would each card need an additional "Whenever you exile a land with ~, [effect]" to be viable.
Take this guy for instance?
Example Beast2GG
Creature - Beast (C)
Territorial
4/3
Would you ever opt to go territorial or is it just never worth it? Should it be an ability word instead and have a variety of effects for exiling the land instead of always having a counter and maybe then something else?
EDIT: Would this alternate version be more interesting?
Territorial #(At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile up to # lands you control until your next turn. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it.)
This way gives you more control at lower risk. Is that a good thing? I'm grasping here.
I think the question as to the power level is best solved by proxy-ing up a playset of the beast and slotting them into a current real deck and see how the ablity plays. if its just one land a turn it does seem weak and high risk but of the creature has palyable base stats then the upside makes it pushed no matter what for ex. a 4 mana 5/5 is only decent so would ahve to have a decent upside to see play but a 3 mana 4/4 is really good and almost needs a downside just to not dominate. I think that if it was any number of lands it might be too swingy for draft just play one and then exile all your lands and now you have huge permanent threat. just some thoughts but I think it is a cool flavorful mechanic that has a good name and convelys the idea but the power level seems hard to balance.
Example Beast 2GG
Creature - Beast (C)
Territorial
4/3
if this card was in m15 would people draft it? would they play it in type 2? do you want the abilty to affect constructed or be mostly a limited mech.
"Please don't disillusion me. I haven't had breakfast yet."
-Children of the Mind
to whom it may concern: i apologize in advance for any gspelling or grammar errors in py posts. for some reason i am just not as
good at tyoing or proofreading as i would like to be
I really like this ability. It is a little more unique in its design space, quite flavorful, and gives the player an interesting set of choices each turn; "Do I need the mana this turn, or do I need this creature to be bigger?". I like that the lands come back if the creature dies, which means that that is one step to it being something competitive players would consider playing; If the lands were gone forever, then they wouldn't even consider it. I would suggest rewording the ability slightly, adding a clause that would cause the lands to come back into play tapped, just as a fail safe against some dumb combo.
Generally, if creatures have an ability that could buff it later on, the base stats are nerfed a bit to start. That said, the base stats for Green Creatures at common have been pretty generous as of late, so "Example Beast" could be safe as a "vanilla" 4/3, or maybe a 3/3 or 3/2.
Here are some notes on the ability:
I prefer that the ability exiles the lands for as long as the creature remains under your control, as opposed to until end of turn or for as long as it stays on the battlefield (in case Mind Controls your creature, you won't be hosed quite as completely).
I prefer the the static "counting" of lands that are exiled by the ability (as opposed to giving +1/+1 counters). It means that there is less potential for manipulation of those counters, however, that may be something you actually want.
While I dislike throwing in numbers behind the Keyword, I think the second version also has the benefit of allowing for more growth on the creature; the +1 p/t boost per turn shifts the mechanic toward "better earlier", where the second version allows for the Territorial Creature to not be a dead draw late game.
Another point that can be ironed out here is whether or not to use the "up to #" clause. I think requiring that the exact number be exiled (or none at all) creates the situation where the ability may not be used as often (because maybe I don't want to exile three lands this turn), but the times it is, it's a more meaningful decision.
Yet another option is to detach the p/t bump from it entirely. I don't know that I like this option as much; it seems to defeat some of the purpose of the ability and means a less elegant, tacked on separate ability that either triggers when you exile the land and puts on +1/+1 counters or a separate static ability that counts the lands for the p/t boost. The upside to this however would be that you could keep that p/t boost off of some creatures in order give yourself some space to make powerful secondary abilities without worrying about also having a huge creature as well.
Other abilities on such creatures could count or check the things that are exiled. For example the number of non-basics, or the number of mountains, or just check that a certain type were exiled.
In terms of Flavor, the ability need not be exclusive to beasts; Red could have Warlords/Dragons, and I could see some limited use of the ability in White and Black as well. Blue is a little tougher to justify, however maybe a single leviathan could be included.
Here's my crack at it:
Territorial # (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile # lands you control. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it. If this creature would leave the battlefield or you would lose control of it, return the exiled cards to the battlefield under their owner's control tapped.)
Remember for each rare/mythic that has a nifty set mechanic and goes on to be a bomb there are plenty with the same mechanic at common and uncommon that are "fair" that aren't particularly good. They don't have to all be winners; its the rares, mythics, and sometimes uncommons that really end up being remembered, and some of those have little to do with the mechanic itself and just the intrinsic value/power of the card as a whole. I definitely want to give you encouragement in thinking through this mechanic as it has a lot of potential, however I think it needs some playtesting in order to figure out exactly what the different parameters need to be in order for it to skate that fine line between too much investment to be worth it and too broken to be printed.
ThePeople'sHero is pretty spot on for where I see this ability being balanced at. The only minor change that I would make to their suggestion is to add a little bit more choice to the ability, in the same way that something like Devour gives you the option of sacrificing less or more. A simple "up to" is all that is required here:
Territorial #(At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile up to # lands you control. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it. If this creature would leave the battlefield or you would lose control of it, return the exiled cards to the battlefield under their owner's control tapped.)
Optionally, you might consider clarifying the end of the reminder to avoid any possible confusion with rules:
Territorial #(At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile up to # lands you control. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it. If this creature would leave the battlefield or you would lose control of it, return all lands exiled by this creature to the battlefield under their owner's control tapped.)
It's a fairly wordy ability, but the reminder text should only be required for commons and uncommons, leaving plenty of room for other abilities for fancy legendaries. Since the ability counts all cards exiled by the creature, not just ones exiled by the ability specifically, I'd like to see some powerful creatures that use their territory in other ways as well. Like:
Extra Territory Creature (cost) Creature - Something
Territorial 2 T, exile a land you control: ~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
(P/T)
Territory Mana Creature (cost) Creature - Something
Territorial 1
Whenever you tap a land with the same name as a land exile by ~ for mana, add one mana of any color that land produced to your mana pool.
(P/T)
Just some additional ways to benefit from the territorial ability.
I'm worried that Territorial is too anti-synergistic to warrant being a named mechanic. It's similar to Devour and Delve in that they all use up a resource, but you can still make a Devour deck by including enablers. I can't see good enablers for Territorial that don't also lead to too much ramp in the format.
My approach would be to use an unnamed version of Territorial on a few cards in the set. I would also reduce it to a single land-exile trigger when the beast ETB to streamline it:
Territorial Beast3G
Creature - Beast
When ~ enters the battlefield, exile a land you control until ~ leaves the battlefield.
4/4
I'm worried that Territorial is too anti-synergistic to warrant being a named mechanic. It's similar to Devour and Delve in that they all use up a resource, but you can still make a Devour deck by including enablers. I can't see good enablers for Territorial that don't also lead to too much ramp in the format.
Yeah, that was my concern, which is why I'm actually tempted to go with the second version of the ability, where you can choose "how territorial" you want your creature to be each turn. From the first post:
Territorial #(At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile up to # lands you control until your next turn. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it.)
It creates tension with bluffing, in that if you give your lands away to going territorial, you no longer have a big mana base to respond with for that turn cycle. I think it's still interesting this way, but potentially more powerful and thus hopefully more fun.
If you had a returning mechanic for this hypothetical block, you might consider landfall. I could see a deck built around getting a benefit from playing lands, and then exiling them for another landfall later.
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Territorial (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile a land you control until this creature leaves the battlefield. If you do, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)
The idea flavor-wise is that they get stronger from the motivation of protecting their territory, but protect it so vigorously even you can't use it. My question is... is this a good ability? Are there enough scenarios where you'd choose to exile the land for the counter even if the +1/+1 counter was the full bonus, or would each card need an additional "Whenever you exile a land with ~, [effect]" to be viable.
Take this guy for instance?
Example Beast 2GG
Creature - Beast (C)
Territorial
4/3
Would you ever opt to go territorial or is it just never worth it? Should it be an ability word instead and have a variety of effects for exiling the land instead of always having a counter and maybe then something else?
EDIT: Would this alternate version be more interesting?
Territorial # (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile up to # lands you control until your next turn. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it.)
This way gives you more control at lower risk. Is that a good thing? I'm grasping here.
Example Beast 2GG
Creature - Beast (C)
Territorial
4/3
if this card was in m15 would people draft it? would they play it in type 2? do you want the abilty to affect constructed or be mostly a limited mech.
Click here for free Mudholes
to whom it may concern: i apologize in advance for any gspelling or grammar errors in py posts. for some reason i am just not as
good at tyoing or proofreading as i would like to be
Generally, if creatures have an ability that could buff it later on, the base stats are nerfed a bit to start. That said, the base stats for Green Creatures at common have been pretty generous as of late, so "Example Beast" could be safe as a "vanilla" 4/3, or maybe a 3/3 or 3/2.
Here are some notes on the ability:
Here's my crack at it:
Territorial # (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile # lands you control. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it. If this creature would leave the battlefield or you would lose control of it, return the exiled cards to the battlefield under their owner's control tapped.)
Remember for each rare/mythic that has a nifty set mechanic and goes on to be a bomb there are plenty with the same mechanic at common and uncommon that are "fair" that aren't particularly good. They don't have to all be winners; its the rares, mythics, and sometimes uncommons that really end up being remembered, and some of those have little to do with the mechanic itself and just the intrinsic value/power of the card as a whole. I definitely want to give you encouragement in thinking through this mechanic as it has a lot of potential, however I think it needs some playtesting in order to figure out exactly what the different parameters need to be in order for it to skate that fine line between too much investment to be worth it and too broken to be printed.
Territorial # (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile up to # lands you control. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it. If this creature would leave the battlefield or you would lose control of it, return the exiled cards to the battlefield under their owner's control tapped.)
Optionally, you might consider clarifying the end of the reminder to avoid any possible confusion with rules:
Territorial # (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile up to # lands you control. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it. If this creature would leave the battlefield or you would lose control of it, return all lands exiled by this creature to the battlefield under their owner's control tapped.)
It's a fairly wordy ability, but the reminder text should only be required for commons and uncommons, leaving plenty of room for other abilities for fancy legendaries. Since the ability counts all cards exiled by the creature, not just ones exiled by the ability specifically, I'd like to see some powerful creatures that use their territory in other ways as well. Like:
Extra Territory Creature (cost)
Creature - Something
Territorial 2
T, exile a land you control: ~ deals 2 damage to target creature or player.
(P/T)
Territory Mana Creature (cost)
Creature - Something
Territorial 1
Whenever you tap a land with the same name as a land exile by ~ for mana, add one mana of any color that land produced to your mana pool.
(P/T)
Just some additional ways to benefit from the territorial ability.
My approach would be to use an unnamed version of Territorial on a few cards in the set. I would also reduce it to a single land-exile trigger when the beast ETB to streamline it:
Territorial Beast 3G
Creature - Beast
When ~ enters the battlefield, exile a land you control until ~ leaves the battlefield.
4/4
Yeah, that was my concern, which is why I'm actually tempted to go with the second version of the ability, where you can choose "how territorial" you want your creature to be each turn. From the first post:
Territorial # (At the beginning of your upkeep, you may exile up to # lands you control until your next turn. This creature gets +1/+1 for each land card exiled with it.)
It creates tension with bluffing, in that if you give your lands away to going territorial, you no longer have a big mana base to respond with for that turn cycle. I think it's still interesting this way, but potentially more powerful and thus hopefully more fun.