So I'm playing Arena and my opponent plays Bartizan Bats. Of course we all know the story here - he's new to the game of magic, has finite cards, and plays what he has access to. But there is a substantive problem here - Bartizan Bats is really bad; as in "There is no foreseeable reason you'd run this card in constructed."
And this, I think, epitomizes the design failure of recent sets. For all the good or innovative choices they give us, WOTC continues to water down their game with practically unplayable cards. And people play them, and lose magic. And that can't be fun for them; it sure as heck isn't fun for me! I mean, it's one thing to guess that my opponent might be running goblins or elves because he might be trying to go tribal in standard, only to find out "nope, just running a budget version of mono red control." That's fine - it keeps me guessing, and allows me to play against cards that are good, but different than the norm. But Bartizan Bats doesn't do that.
So here's the challenge I've given myself - create a Bartizan Bats that is sufficiently simple to be (C), plays much the same limited role, and has some niche constructed role.
A few quick French Vanilla options not avaialable in GRN, but to illustrate what I'm talking about: Bartizan Bats + Cycling B (In limited you'd rarely cycle this, but in constructed this is a "1 mana cycler" creature, and thus fair for "junk" Living End reanimator decks that cast Living End off of Cascade.) Bartizan Bats + Zombie + Spectacle B, Sacrifice a creature. (A cheap sac outlet is worth thinking about. Tribal synergy is a bonus, you could easily see players trying to do with with [card]
Stitcher's Supplier[/card]). Bartizan Bats + Zombie + Dredge 3. (If Stitcher's Supplier sees some standard play, you can be sure this as a mediocre dredge card might with the right discard outlet.) Bartizan Bats + This card costs 3 less to play if you control a legendary zombie creature. (Commander if nothing else). Bartizan Bats + Zombie + Transmute 1B, Pay 2 life. (Transmute alway.s sees play somewhere, even on commons).
Now, obviously, GRN didn't have any of those mechanics to work with (Save, well, Dredge, as anything's better than Overgrowth, even watered down Dredge). So what could GRN designers do? How about something like this:
Belfry Sweep1B
Creature - Zombie (C)
When Belfry Sweep enters the battlefield, you may discard a card. If you do, you may search your library for a card named Bartizan Bats.
2/2
(I'm sure no one would notice if Moodmark Painter was cut for this, and Drill Bit is just clearly a better design than Never Happened.) This is certainly odd design, but independently the two cards are bad limited filler, but together they're... less bad limited filler. In constructed, though we have a zombie discard outlet... I wouldn't be surprised to see the two make some commander decks just to drop a zombie worth reanimating.
That said, let's try a variant of the bats itself: Bartizan Bats 2.0 1B
Creature - Bats (C)
As an additional cost to play ~, pay 4 life.
Flying
3/1
Obviously, this now goes hand in hand with Font of Agonies, but plays the same mediocre flyer role as it did in the original set, with the one difference being it's another emergency blocker against boros early game, and really bad against boros late game.
I guess what I'm saying is that Magic feels bad when you're playing against someone without the tools they need to play the game well. It's like drag racing someone driving a rusty mail truck - winning sucks, and making the loser feel bad sucks.
Not a single one of your cards fills the role you laid out. Certainly they are all better than Bartizan Bats but they still fall in to either Completely UnPlayable Jank, NotCommon, or this is a broken mechanic stop making cards that use it.
Your support card is neat but you don't cut a 4 drop from your set for a 2 drop, you would cut Child of Night, which I personally much prefer over your support card.
Also, you don't seem to know what "better designed" means. Never Happened is designed to be a common discard card that can hit jumpstart cards in the graveyard. Only a godawful designer would submit Drill Bit to fill the same role.
I don't think that's fair. Most of my cards are just french vanilla commons.
Belfry Sweep is no more complex than any other "refers to another card" card which, historically, have been (C); see Spirit of the Night.
And 2.0 is a simple additional cost, not unlike that of Tormenting Voice.
I don't expect this common to show up in any pro tour winning standard decks. But niche decks like Living End might take a second look at some of these designs, which is pretty much exactly what I set out to do.
Re: Coercion variants - Never Happened and Drill Bit are variants of the same effect. I know Never Happenedcan hit Jumpstart cards. I just don't care as that option is not particularly interesting. If that was their goal... there were better ways of going at it. I can assure you that very, very few people won (or even bought a turn) off of Never Happened in limited. I think it's pretty clear that Never Happened is no Doomfall.
Yes most of your cards are French vanilla, also they are equally unplayable when compared to the original creature.
At no point did I say your support card was complex, I said you don't cut a 4 drop for a 2 drop. Also do you know what the card spirit of the night is? Because it doesn't refer to another card and is rare.
Version 2.0 isn't too complex its too strong for limited. A 2 mana 3 power flyer is well above the curve, having it at common can mean a player can get 3 or more which could quickly over run opponents.
Re: Coercion variants - Never Happened and Drill Bit are variants of the same effect. I know Never Happenedcan hit Jumpstart cards. I just don't care as that option is not particularly interesting. If that was their goal... there were better ways of going at it. I can assure you that very, very few people won (or even bought a turn) off of Never Happened in limited. I think it's pretty clear that Never Happened is no Doomfall.
Its fine that you don't care if a card was designed for a specific function, but if you are going to talk about the design of the card then you have to consider such things. If there were better ways of filling the goal of a common black card that can hose jumpstart before and after it has been cast then why not offer such a design. I gurentee you it is far harder than you think.
Comparing never happened to Doomfall further cements that you don't understand set design. Never happened doesn't compare, the proper comparison in the set is plaguecrafter possibly disinformation campaign. It's hard to directly compare cards from a multicolor set and a nonmulticolor set but its easier to stick to monocolor. Between plague and doom its hard to say which is better but I always favor creatures in these situations.
WotC deliberately designs suboptimal cards for several reasons - not the least of which is plain old “variety”. But also for the longevity of the game, to slow down power creep, to serve roles in various formats (which has at least as many subcategories as the # of formats times the # of tribes), to serve as learning tools for new players, to act as power vectors (especially for drafters), to reduce complexities of various sorts, and so forth.
Legend,
Thanks for your post. I think all of these are valid design concerns... but I don't think they are appropriate to explain and justify Bartizan Bats.
First, given the number of 3/1 vanilla for 1W and 3/1 Flying French Vanilla for 3B in the last 2 years or so, I think we have sufficient evidence that "variety" is not an apt description of this card. Furthermore, variety can be achieved w/o resulting to bad cards; "different" cards will do the trick.
Consider: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&cmc= =[2]&power=+=[3]&tough=+=[1]&color=+[W]&rarity=+[C]&format=+[%22Modern%22]
All commons, many with 1-2 lines of text. No French Vanillas though. But when we look at (U), that changes: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&cmc= =[2]&power=+=[3]&tough=+=[1]&color=+[W]&rarity=+[u]&format=+[%22Modern%22] Accorder Paladin is the card I'd like to point to - This is a french vanilla creature w/ the same p/t; it is the new bar. It's certainly simple enough for (C), but (U) due to the limited balance of Battlecry. Easy to talk about.
Yet, look at all of the keywords white has that they can give to a 3/1 for 1W w/o warping limited - Flash, Vigilance, Reach, First Strike (better be at (U) in a set with better than average removal or tremor effects), Hexproof from Black (bad design, but something different), Cycling, Lifelink, Afterlife 1 (arguably), etc. Prowling Caracal was not chosen because it was diverse or for simplicity or limited balance. At best it was chosen because it was a proven loser.
I don't think we can sensibly talk about power creep when WOTC is printing 4/4s for 4 in non-green with no drawback. WOTC has decided that the rules don't apply to "pushed" cards, and that is where the powercreep usually occurs. Printing (C) that don't see play doesn't add to powercreep, but it does highlight it rather severely. Meanwhile if you print a 3/1 flash for 1W, that's different but not powercreep. Powercreep involves ignoring previous standards to adapt new standards "just because," rather than an effort to balance the game. Some of these overpowered mythics and rares are fair enough, and don't ruin the game. In any case, the changes I propose fall far short of Spawn of Mayhem. That I might use the cycling (C) over the Spawn in Living End is good niche design, not power creep.
I'm pretty sure my proposals above serve more or less the same role in limited, with expanded niche use out of limited; the big difference is I tried to make my version of the Bats useful somewhere else. I can assure you no one of the GRN design team thought about that. And I think that sucks!
Regarding complexity; GRN had overgrowth. On commons. A half dozen lines of text that rarely did anything (usually ETB effects). If WOTC is throwing in bad french vanillas to allow them more cards like Moodmark Painter, I'd rather they not.
Regarding "learning tools," I don't really see the argument for why a bad (by constructed ratings) card is more of a learning tool than a "usually" bad card. Yes, Arena needed 0/4 for U for education purposes... and WOTC didn't have that card printed (how embarrassing)... but you can't say the same about a 3/1 flyer for 3B. It's so below the curve that the only point you'd be teaching is "flying is good," which you could teaching if it was a 3/2 for 3B, a 3/2 for 1BB, or a 3/1 for 1B with an additional life cost.
Quite frankly, I hope someone designs the next core set with these "vanilla" and "french vanilla" learning tools in mind. Maybe even a 2/2 artifact creature for 2, well below the constructed curve but useful for gameplay instructions. These "very basic" learning tools belong in the core set, at (C), and should not change. Ideally they should also be tribally relevant. But I cannot believe a 3/1 flyer for 3B fits that instruction role. And last time I went through the Arean tutorial, they agree.
Final thought: Designers have a lot of things on their plates when designing commons. But in practice, how many seconds do you think the designers took to design and playtest Bartizan Bats? The RIX design team accidentally gave us candid explanation of their design efforts with regards to Raptor Companion and co (They didn't even bother to make a cycle of reprint commons in each of the colors or tribes! Unbelievable!); and their contention was they needed a space filler and chosen an existing card to satisfy it. That leads to bad limited environments, bad constructed environments, and unsatisfying games of magic.
Final thought: Designers have a lot of things on their plates when designing commons. But in practice, how many seconds do you think the designers took to design and playtest Bartizan Bats? The RIX design team accidentally gave us candid explanation of their design efforts with regards to Raptor Companion and co (They didn't even bother to make a cycle of reprint commons in each of the colors or tribes! Unbelievable!); and their contention was they needed a space filler and chosen an existing card to satisfy it. That leads to bad limited environments, bad constructed environments, and unsatisfying games of magic.
I doubt they spent much time designing or testing Bartizan Bats. Do you know why? Because they can't devote all of their time or even very much to to EVERY SINGLE card. Some cards have to simply be safe inclusions. Is it possible that some format, it be draft, commander, pauper, or one of the myriad of other formats; could be improved if this specific card was some how different? Yes, obviously, any change can have any number of ramifications. However is this card in someway harming any existing format? No, because it is a safe combination of p/t,cost and ability. If you improve this common it is possible, not likely but possible, that suddenly a black flyer deck becomes the strongest draft deck. Which does ruin a format that is played. The occasional space filler common does not lead to bad limited environments, bad constructed environments or unsatisfying games of magic. Many space filler commons or untested uncommons and rares do lead to all of those things though. Change for the sake of change is not good.
Bartizan Bats fulfills a number of useful roles as is. For starters, its 1 toughness makes it easy to kill, which in turn helps it fill the graveyard and feed Undergrowth. That 3 power hits really hard in the early game, especially on a flyer that can either swing and quite possibly trade or as a blocker that makes attacking foreboding for the opponent.
Private Mod Note
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Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
MTGS Wikia Article about "New World Order"
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
PSA to everyone who keeps forgetting about the Reserved List:
You're on a website dedicated to talking about MtG. You're only a few keystrokes away from finding out what cards are on the Reserved List. You're also only a few keystrokes away from finding out why some cards on the Reserved List got foil printings in FtV, as Judge promos, or whatnot, as well as why that won't happen again. Stop doing this.
It's not totally useless in all constructed applications. For example, it's a third four-drop creature in casual bat tribal decks. Second if you want to stay mono black.
Estimed Lord_Mektar brings up a good point - Tribal. Tribal is super fun. It'd be rather easy to take an existing sees-play-in-tribal card, add the bat type and flying, and cost it like 1 more. Consider Bartizan Piledriver2B
Creature - Zombie? Bat (C)
Flying
Whenever Bartizan Piledriver attacks, it gets +2/+0 until end of turn for each other attacking Bat.
1/2
If the limited role Bartizan Bats plays is Mediocre Flyer; this seems to fit the bill!
But what about Rat Colony? That's casual fun it's own right! Bat Colony2B
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
Bat Colony gets +1/+0 for each other Rat you control.
A deck can have any number of cards named Bat Colony.
2/1
Now, I'm not saying either makes Bartizan Bats a good card - but there will be someone trying to make a bat tribal deck in casual with the first, and in standard with the second. That's interesting; let that person have that.
But with tribal in mind, how about: Bartizan Batlord2BB
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
Other Bats you control get +1/+1.
3/1
A common "boring" lord that is identical in most cases, except in multiples. Now are lords "too complex" for common? (Rat Colony suggests not, Overgrowth certainly suggests not).
Imagine a cycle of (C)s like this - otherwise filler rarely used creature types... that are IXA-(U) style "boring" lords... for the low low cost of giving up on 5 french vanillas, you make anyone who cares about any of those 5 tribes VERY happy! Think about how much FUN the Batlord produces. And now thing about how little impact on limited and standard it has. From a design perspective, how is that not win-win! (Keep in mind Commander tribal runs some mediocre lords, so even if they decide to produce strictly better lords in some future block that supports the tribe, these (C)s would still likely see play!)
The opportunity cost is low (little design time, little playtesting time, little constructed influence) but the benefit is through the roof. Anyone with a a thriving local gamestore probably knows a few people who would love any of these cards. Think your tribal players who tried to make Saprolings work in DOM.
Bartizan Bats fulfills a number of useful roles as is. For starters, its 1 toughness makes it easy to kill, which in turn helps it fill the graveyard and feed Undergrowth. That 3 power hits really hard in the early game, especially on a flyer that can either swing and quite possibly trade or as a blocker that makes attacking foreboding for the opponent.
Manite - Is your position that somewhere in the design file there is note next to Bartizan Bats that says "Note: 1 toughness is essential for this (C), as we wish cards X, Y, and Z to be able to trade with it."? That would, indeed, be interesting. I can certainly imagine notes like this for (M) and (R)s; but for (C)?
Re: Overgrowth - I think it's safe to say Overgrowth was a nightmare. But if their goal was to boost Overgrowth, how about:
Tormod's Bats3B
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
Sacrifice Tormod's Bats: Exile all cards from target player's graveyard.
3/1
Or
Helix Bats3B
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying 1BB, Sacrifice Helix Bats: Each opponent loses 3 life and you gain 3 life.
3/1
Or... gasp... Reasonable Bats1B
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
During your upkeep pay B or sacrifice Reasonable Bats.
3/1
If you want creatures to die easily, you make them cheap enough to play and then die. Pilfering Imp is a great card, (U) for it's ability (It's an efficient turn 2 coercion variant) that no one is complaining about. Cards in this mold are overgrowth enablers. Bartizan Bats was chosen for other "reasons."
How was Undergrowth 'a nightmare'? The way you write about it (and Bartizan Bats) makes me think you don't understand the design goals behind it/them. Just because there's a faction that cares about creature cards in your graveyard, that doesn't mean every creature intended to play into that strategy has to have the word "sacrifice" or "discard" written on it. It's pretty obvious that they didn't primarily design the mechanic around self-sacrifice and self-mill mechanics, because too many of those effects (or too 'big' effects at the lower rarities like Satyr Wayfinder and Grisly Salvage) would have made the strategy stronger and possibly too strong. I haven't played GRN Limited myself, but what I have gathered from streams etc. is that the intended Limited strategy for Undergrowth is to play a lot of creatures and then make lots of 1:1 trades in combat which, despite their initial symmetry, turn out to be favorable for your deck because all the creatures you traded off make your Undergrowth cards (which are mostly designed to be mid-lategame plays) stronger.
Maybe they didn't put a note next to Bartizan Bats in the design file that said 'this has to have 1 toughness, no matter what', but it is pretty clear that they designed/included quite a lot of creatures in G and B that lend themselves to trades and/or (chump)block fodder: Kraul Harpooner, Ironshell Beetle, Generous Stray, Child of Night, Hired Poisoner, Spinal Centipede, Wary Okapi. And than there's creatures like Kraul Swarm and Erstwhile Trooper that get creature cards into your graveyard in another way, but are, because of their bodies/and or abilities, still combat-oriented. The combat focus is there to make the game more interactive in the sense that you can't just always sac off your creatures regardless of what your opponent does.
Another thing I think you're missing is 'mechanical bloat' (I'm not sure if Wizards calls it that, I just made it up, but let's call it that for now). You're right that in many ways, 'boring Limited fillers' could be made to be more interesting. Similarly, if you're just looking at individual cards, adding a simple ability to a french vanilla doesn't suddenly make it overcomplex. But if literally every card in your set has some minor (even trinket) ability, it becomes another issue. Yeah, experienced players will be able to deal with it regardless. But Limited is a format where lots of new players show up. And in order to keep their attention (and to spare the 'intermediate' players a bit) you can't put minor and/or situational mechanics on every card with a medium or sub-par P/T-mana cost-rate. It leads to a difficult-to-get-into game where there are far too many things to consider at any given time. There need to be some cards that just care about the most basic rules of the game - for creatures, that would be attacking and blocking. Basically, you have to include a good number of french vanillas.
"But then just make french vanillas at a decent powerlevel!", you say. Yeah, that's an easy criticism. But what constitutes a 'decent powerlevel'? Designing set upon set where literally every common french vanilla exactly hits the current powerlevel sweet spot (across all rarities) is already hard if you're only considering the set the card itself is put in, or - if you're thinking ahead a bit - the Standard environment it will enter into. Figuring out the 'perfect balance', where every common french vanilla has 'perfect stats' for its cost would probably either take up too much time or reduce variety between sets, especially when the other cards in the set are constantly changing, mechanics are being tweaked with etc. So sometimes you just have to settle for the safe bets. That's where Bartizan Bats comes in. Could it have an ability that provides a minor upside? Sure. Could it have 1 toughness more? Sure. It probably wouldn't break Limited. But there are other factors than just playability - for example, accessability - that have to be considered.
Soramaro,
I think it's widely accepted that Undergrowth was the worst mechanic from the previous set. Any ability word is going to be wordy, but Undergrowth was even more wordy than normal. More importantly, as a mechanic it played clunky, with Kraul Harpooner and Vigorspore Wurm having effects that both counted creatures in your yard and didn't; in the latter case I can't tell you how often I would play this for just the vigilance. That's turn 6 w/o any creatures in my graveyard. I was primarily a WR and RU drafter, mind you, but I played WG and BG enough that it was clear this was a lot of text that scarcely did anything. Common cards, in particular, ought to be relatively simple to help smooth draft (IE, less to read out of a pack), and Overgrowth failed this criteria in a quite embarrassing way.
Is it possible to "foster a graveyard theme" without a sacrifice/discard effect? Sure. Print cheap creatures. Bartizan Bats costs 4 mana, so the designer who said "It's to help undergrowth" has to be imagining a situation where the player plays a creature every turn and then it immediately dies, killing a creature or roughly the same value, so that the Undergrowth bonus will "outweigh" these losses. If this is your position, please explain to me what creatures Bartizan Bats was designed to trade with nearly profitably at (C). I can assure you "twice mentored Healer's Hawk" was not in the design notes.
For the record, I'm not interested in balancing Undergrowth. I don't think it's a good mechanic. I'd have brought back Dredge, but Salvage might have been a fair compromise if MaRo turned down my slightly overcosted often printed effects with Dredge 1-3, and my 1 or 2 (R) or (M) level Life from the Loam-esque engines. (For example, Zombify but your opponent chooses for you for 2BB with Dredge 2.) That said, if I was in charge of balancing it, you can be sure you'd see a few of those cards in standard. You know, besides Kraul Harpooner in the sideboard (by the way, look at how poorly this wording works on Arena. Every time I play it, no matter if I want to fight, I need to press cancel, even if my opponent doesn't have a creature? Surely WOTC has someone checking to see how easy these cards will code/play...).
Re; Golgari Undergrowth enablers - notice how the cards you talk about being "designed" to die DO THINGS. (Well... Wary Okapi doesn't... and it's an equally crappy creature. But as it's not a true vanilla 3/2 for 2G, like so many other colors have regretfully gotten, it wasn't my go-to example of failure. But I do believe it's a failure. Also, this is clearly a Selesnya Convoke enabler... and yes, the set needed more vigilance guys like this!) Bartizan Bats doesn't do anything; it doesn't affect the board before or after dying. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the notes grouped this towards the Dimir side of "control", with it getting in for being a mediocre flyer that can close out games and maybe trade with the UUBB uncommon.
Re: Kraul Swarm - I think this is interesting, but I'm not sure I'd print it as such. At least I'd shave off the discard cost. That said, if your position is that the bats was designed to discard to Erstwhile Trooper... then that's not a reason for it's current stats. Consider the following card: Hunter Bats3B
Creature - Bat (C)
When Hunter Bats enters the battlefield, destroy target token creature an opponent controls.
Flying
3/1
That is an interesting card, and you'd be more willing to run this in limited with a discard outlet; as you might judge that w/o a token on the opponent's field it's not worth the 4 mana. But in constructed, if large token creatures (say 4/4 boars) start to be a thing, then Hunter Bats becomes a somewhat viable Golgari sideboard card!
Also, suppose Bartizan Bats was designed to parallel Muse Drake; perhaps having some "lose N life, draw a card" clause on it. Aesthetic parallel + "utility" card is a pretty good design, no? Also, to that end, Generous Stray clearly needed to be 1/3. You're robbing it of it's elf creature type and adding 1; so a 1/3 cantrip for 2G seems more fair. Tier 1 constructed playable? No. But maybe tribal cat commander playable.
Re: Mechanical Bloat - This is exactly why I don't like Undergrowth. So much text, so little gameplay value. Scavenge is mediocre, but it's a keyword. I can easily print a half dozen (C) Scavenge creatures that are easy to read, simple to draft, and play differently! G 1/1 Scavenge - Reveal a Forest in your hand. B 1/1 Flying, Scavenge 2B 1B 2/2 Scavenge - Pay 4 life. 1G 2/2 Scavenge 1G 2G 2/2 Trample, Scavenge - Sacrifice a Forest and Swamp. 2B 2/2 Menace, Scavenge - Sacrifice a Forest and Swamp 2GG 4/4 Scavenge 8 3B 5/1 Scavenge 3B, Pay 5 life 4G 4/4 Trample, Scavenge 4GG
Killing Undergrowth for even something as mediocre as Scavenge stops mechanical bloat. That said, it's easy to design french vanillas that avoid this bloat; the question is whether you wish to cost them "competitively" or not. Bartizan Bats was designed to fail. If it was designed to NOT fail, it might have been a 3/2 flyer for 2B with a relevant creature type, or a 3/1 flying, menace for 2B. The "tradeoff" here is that we're making this a premium (C) creature, and thus have to adjust the set power accordingly - either by ramping the removal or reachers in other colors, by nerfing a different black common or lowering the limited powerlevel of several other black commons, or the like.
WOTC seems to treat their vanilla creatures not as learning tools to help teach new players and help draft go smoothly, but as booby prizes, having long obsoleted Savannah Lions. Yet French Vanilla creatures are often still fan favorites - whether the relatively poor but limited bomb Serra Angel, the casual favorite Vampire Nighthawk, or the oldschool Black Knight, White Knight, and Silver Knight. Despite Dominaria's Knight-creep, I'd be super happy with a Sunhome Stalwart that cost WW. As is, Sunhome Stalwart doesn't seem tier 1, but I don't think I'd begrudge anyone for trying it out in their Boros, White Weenie, or Selesnya decks. Orzhov might even be cool, a Afterlife presents you with a steam of tokens to mentor profitably. I know these are (U), multi-keyword french vanillas. But the same utility-for-price calculus can be applied to (C) french vanillas. As I noted above, this is a card I think is both (C) and interesting: Fast Raptor Companion1W
Creature - Dinosaur (C)
Flash
3/1
This is a removal spell disguised as a creature. That's actively fighting mechanic bloat.
Finally - "Decent powerlevel" is a level that's in the running for seeing play somewhere. Given Brawl and Commander are options, all you need to do is print an effect you want with a theme you want attached for close to the price of the cost of a card that sees play w/o that theme. Plaguecrafter is a very influential card (arguably too good); but zombie commander decks still run Fleshbag Marauder over it. Tribal decks run all sorts of 2/2s for 2 with abilities; Mesa Unicorn could conceivably see play in a Unicorn tribal deck (someday), but while Bishop's Soldier might see play in a vampire deck, Child of Night isn't even in the running.
Long story short, to call upon the Lord of the Rings: A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. I'm not going to settle for "safe bets" when my goal is to create a fun, inviting game that encourages new players, rather than shuns them for not opening the right cards. The Arena player who plays with Bartizan Batsdoes not enjoy herself nor does the people who play against her.
I agree with Metaethics, for some reason Wizards made Golgari the crappiest guild two times in a row. There was never really a scavenge deck, so they made something arguably worse with undergrowth.
And yes, a card like Bartizan Bats is infuriating in a set with the name "Ravnica" in it.
Compare it to power commons they did in the past like Bala Ged Scorpion which did at least something could be used in a kind of standard budget deck.
Gosh, all these elaborate arguments on the fine points of set design are so intimidating. I still have much to learn
Anyway, a thought I feel like contributing is this: taking a card, calling it crap, coming up with a stronger card and saying "I wish this was in that crap card's place" is not the same thing as IMPROVING that card. "Improving" means making it better at what it does: of course, the issue here is that our 4 mana bat doesn't really do much of anything... But then if you're gonna "improve" it, your goal should be making another card that doesn't do much of anything, but that can be more appealing/fun somehow. Taking a completely different card that is way better and saying "here, go with this instead" is not an improvement, it's a replacement.
Metaethics, you have won your own thread. It’s clear to me now that we (who have designed hundreds and even thousands of custom cards, sets, and blocks over the course of five, to ten, to fifteen plus years) lack your innate experience and supernal powers of insight into the true reasoning (or lack thereof) behind WotC’s design practices.
Tears - In a sense I think you're right; the goal of "improving" card should probably be improving a card that was designed to play a certain role in the limited environment. But particular roles often have a lot of leeway with regards to what counts. For example, Bartizan Batlord is going to be identical to Bartizan Bats in most limited situations (the only difference is when you have more than one out), but it is clearly a "cooler" card.
That said, Bartizan Piledriver can also fill the role of "mediocre in limited, not standard playable" flying (C) card. The fact it makes a casual Bat deck feasible, however, is pretty amazing. Same with Swarm of Bats or the like.
Legend, is your position that because I'm not "experienced"... like the kind of experience you'd get being employed by WOTC... that my card design is bad? Well, I can assure you I can learn from WOTC's mistakes as well, or better, than they can.
Note, of course, the complex nonsense name of the latter denotes WOTC designed it to be a bad card. It's clearly designed to be a "flashy" variant of Craterhoof Behemoth, but unplayable. I mean, it has all the trappings that might you think otherwise - it's got more P/T and it's got keywords for days. But then you notice that it's a (R), not a (M). How generous, you might think, that WOTC is printing a "better' Craterhoof at a lower rarity. But then your inner MaRo starts talking... why is this a 7/7 for 8 in the color that gets 8/8s for significantly less than 8?
Also, Legend, note that your last post is ad hominem, a logical fallacy.
WotC is a business. Its main goal is to sell as much product as possible.
Taking that as our given, lets answer this question: What will sell more packs?
A. A set in which every single card has appeal and can be used in a competent constructed deck.
or
B. A set which is comprised of 95% jank and 5% exciting, valuable, playable cards.
The answer, as much as it may displease you, is B. WotC knows that in order to sell as many packs as possible, they need to design sets such that the open-rate of a desirable card is as low as possible without causing the customer to give up on buying said packs.
In addition, WotC has to closely monitor A LOT of different aspects about the game to avoid making any large mistakes that will result in loss of playerbase, and therefore lots of sales. Primarily, that means balancing constructed formats, particularly standard. That means that WotC has to spend a considerable amount of their time and money playtesting and balancing each and every standard-legal set they put out, a process they have talked a lot about and to which they have devoted multiple teams of employees. Also taking into account that they start work on a new set only two years out and many of their designers and developers work on multiple projects at a time, we know that their capacity for balancing and developing sets is limited.
If they decided to take your stance and endeavored to make every single card in a set constructed-playable, a single set (around 250 cards) would take significantly longer than two years to make, as every single card would need to be balanced against every single other card in a set, as well as every other card in the current standard format.
Assuming they somehow do manage to stretch time to accommodate this goal, the playerbase now faces a much different problem.
Looking back on Magic sets of old (which I suggest you do, considering you seem to think that only recent sets are guilty of printing bad cards), you may notice that some sets had card counts of over 400 cards. If you're wondering why this has changed for the modern design era, it's because they were trying to keep the standard card-pool at a more reasonable size. Giving players too many options of cards to sift through can take a heavy toll on constructed formats. Conversely, giving a person fewer things to choose between makes the choice much easier and more approachable.
The reason I bring this up is that making every common card constructed-playable in some deck is effectively the same thing as increasing the standard card-pool by way of increasing the number of viable choices. To compensate, WotC would likely need to drop the number of cards in a set to a number that is not ideal for draft, which every standard set is designed for.
That's another thing to think about. Just as not every rare is playable in standard, yet some might be allstars in formats like Commander (see End-Raze Forerunners), every common is not designed for constructed. In fact, most are designed specifically to play a role in limited. The few cases of commons showing up in standard can often be attributed to coincidence, or accident.
What I mean is that you want every card in Magic to somehow be playable in some format, but that's already true. Draft is Magic's most popular format and the one in which the commons you're complaining about see the most play anyway.
The short version of this argument is this: WotC simply doesn't have the time, money, or reason to make every common card playable by your standards. In fact, doing so would actively harm them as a business as well as the players who play their competitive formats.
In the context of custom card design, you can do absolutely anything you want. You can carefully craft every single card in your set to be just as playable as you want it to be. Just keep a few things in mind:
1. You will always get people who think some of your cards are trash, poorly designed, or inappropriately powerful.
2. Your cards will never actually be played alongside the real Magic cards you are balancing them against, outside your own casual playgroup perhaps.
3. You and your playgroup are probably the only ones likely to ever play with your cards anyway, so there's as little point in balancing those cards against other people's custom sets as there is in balancing them with real sets.
The reason I'm saying this is to drive home the point that designing custom cards for anything other than a self-contained draft set that very few people will ever experience is nothing more than wish-fulfillment and no amount of argument on this forum will ever change how WotC designs their own sets, especially when your arguments are as naive as they are in this thread. It's pessimistic and it sucks, but it's true.
For that reason, I seriously suggest you focus your custom card passions on more important things than trying to convince us that you know better than WotC.
And this, I think, epitomizes the design failure of recent sets. For all the good or innovative choices they give us, WOTC continues to water down their game with practically unplayable cards. And people play them, and lose magic. And that can't be fun for them; it sure as heck isn't fun for me! I mean, it's one thing to guess that my opponent might be running goblins or elves because he might be trying to go tribal in standard, only to find out "nope, just running a budget version of mono red control." That's fine - it keeps me guessing, and allows me to play against cards that are good, but different than the norm. But Bartizan Bats doesn't do that.
So here's the challenge I've given myself - create a Bartizan Bats that is sufficiently simple to be (C), plays much the same limited role, and has some niche constructed role.
A few quick French Vanilla options not avaialable in GRN, but to illustrate what I'm talking about:
Bartizan Bats + Cycling B (In limited you'd rarely cycle this, but in constructed this is a "1 mana cycler" creature, and thus fair for "junk" Living End reanimator decks that cast Living End off of Cascade.)
Bartizan Bats + Zombie + Spectacle B, Sacrifice a creature. (A cheap sac outlet is worth thinking about. Tribal synergy is a bonus, you could easily see players trying to do with with [card]
Stitcher's Supplier[/card]).
Bartizan Bats + Zombie + Dredge 3. (If Stitcher's Supplier sees some standard play, you can be sure this as a mediocre dredge card might with the right discard outlet.)
Bartizan Bats + This card costs 3 less to play if you control a legendary zombie creature. (Commander if nothing else).
Bartizan Bats + Zombie + Transmute 1B, Pay 2 life. (Transmute alway.s sees play somewhere, even on commons).
Now, obviously, GRN didn't have any of those mechanics to work with (Save, well, Dredge, as anything's better than Overgrowth, even watered down Dredge). So what could GRN designers do? How about something like this:
Belfry Sweep 1B
Creature - Zombie (C)
When Belfry Sweep enters the battlefield, you may discard a card. If you do, you may search your library for a card named Bartizan Bats.
2/2
(I'm sure no one would notice if Moodmark Painter was cut for this, and Drill Bit is just clearly a better design than Never Happened.) This is certainly odd design, but independently the two cards are bad limited filler, but together they're... less bad limited filler. In constructed, though we have a zombie discard outlet... I wouldn't be surprised to see the two make some commander decks just to drop a zombie worth reanimating.
That said, let's try a variant of the bats itself:
Bartizan Bats 2.0 1B
Creature - Bats (C)
As an additional cost to play ~, pay 4 life.
Flying
3/1
Obviously, this now goes hand in hand with Font of Agonies, but plays the same mediocre flyer role as it did in the original set, with the one difference being it's another emergency blocker against boros early game, and really bad against boros late game.
I guess what I'm saying is that Magic feels bad when you're playing against someone without the tools they need to play the game well. It's like drag racing someone driving a rusty mail truck - winning sucks, and making the loser feel bad sucks.
Your support card is neat but you don't cut a 4 drop from your set for a 2 drop, you would cut Child of Night, which I personally much prefer over your support card.
Also, you don't seem to know what "better designed" means. Never Happened is designed to be a common discard card that can hit jumpstart cards in the graveyard. Only a godawful designer would submit Drill Bit to fill the same role.
Belfry Sweep is no more complex than any other "refers to another card" card which, historically, have been (C); see Spirit of the Night.
And 2.0 is a simple additional cost, not unlike that of Tormenting Voice.
I don't expect this common to show up in any pro tour winning standard decks. But niche decks like Living End might take a second look at some of these designs, which is pretty much exactly what I set out to do.
Re: Coercion variants - Never Happened and Drill Bit are variants of the same effect. I know Never Happened can hit Jumpstart cards. I just don't care as that option is not particularly interesting. If that was their goal... there were better ways of going at it. I can assure you that very, very few people won (or even bought a turn) off of Never Happened in limited. I think it's pretty clear that Never Happened is no Doomfall.
At no point did I say your support card was complex, I said you don't cut a 4 drop for a 2 drop. Also do you know what the card spirit of the night is? Because it doesn't refer to another card and is rare.
Version 2.0 isn't too complex its too strong for limited. A 2 mana 3 power flyer is well above the curve, having it at common can mean a player can get 3 or more which could quickly over run opponents.
Its fine that you don't care if a card was designed for a specific function, but if you are going to talk about the design of the card then you have to consider such things. If there were better ways of filling the goal of a common black card that can hose jumpstart before and after it has been cast then why not offer such a design. I gurentee you it is far harder than you think.
Comparing never happened to Doomfall further cements that you don't understand set design. Never happened doesn't compare, the proper comparison in the set is plaguecrafter possibly disinformation campaign. It's hard to directly compare cards from a multicolor set and a nonmulticolor set but its easier to stick to monocolor. Between plague and doom its hard to say which is better but I always favor creatures in these situations.
Thanks for your post. I think all of these are valid design concerns... but I don't think they are appropriate to explain and justify Bartizan Bats.
First, given the number of 3/1 vanilla for 1W and 3/1 Flying French Vanilla for 3B in the last 2 years or so, I think we have sufficient evidence that "variety" is not an apt description of this card. Furthermore, variety can be achieved w/o resulting to bad cards; "different" cards will do the trick.
Consider: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&cmc= =[2]&power=+=[3]&tough=+=[1]&color=+[W]&rarity=+[C]&format=+[%22Modern%22]
All commons, many with 1-2 lines of text. No French Vanillas though. But when we look at (U), that changes:
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Search/Default.aspx?action=advanced&cmc= =[2]&power=+=[3]&tough=+=[1]&color=+[W]&rarity=+[u]&format=+[%22Modern%22]
Accorder Paladin is the card I'd like to point to - This is a french vanilla creature w/ the same p/t; it is the new bar. It's certainly simple enough for (C), but (U) due to the limited balance of Battlecry. Easy to talk about.
Yet, look at all of the keywords white has that they can give to a 3/1 for 1W w/o warping limited - Flash, Vigilance, Reach, First Strike (better be at (U) in a set with better than average removal or tremor effects), Hexproof from Black (bad design, but something different), Cycling, Lifelink, Afterlife 1 (arguably), etc. Prowling Caracal was not chosen because it was diverse or for simplicity or limited balance. At best it was chosen because it was a proven loser.
I don't think we can sensibly talk about power creep when WOTC is printing 4/4s for 4 in non-green with no drawback. WOTC has decided that the rules don't apply to "pushed" cards, and that is where the powercreep usually occurs. Printing (C) that don't see play doesn't add to powercreep, but it does highlight it rather severely. Meanwhile if you print a 3/1 flash for 1W, that's different but not powercreep. Powercreep involves ignoring previous standards to adapt new standards "just because," rather than an effort to balance the game. Some of these overpowered mythics and rares are fair enough, and don't ruin the game. In any case, the changes I propose fall far short of Spawn of Mayhem. That I might use the cycling (C) over the Spawn in Living End is good niche design, not power creep.
I'm pretty sure my proposals above serve more or less the same role in limited, with expanded niche use out of limited; the big difference is I tried to make my version of the Bats useful somewhere else. I can assure you no one of the GRN design team thought about that. And I think that sucks!
Regarding complexity; GRN had overgrowth. On commons. A half dozen lines of text that rarely did anything (usually ETB effects). If WOTC is throwing in bad french vanillas to allow them more cards like Moodmark Painter, I'd rather they not.
Regarding "learning tools," I don't really see the argument for why a bad (by constructed ratings) card is more of a learning tool than a "usually" bad card. Yes, Arena needed 0/4 for U for education purposes... and WOTC didn't have that card printed (how embarrassing)... but you can't say the same about a 3/1 flyer for 3B. It's so below the curve that the only point you'd be teaching is "flying is good," which you could teaching if it was a 3/2 for 3B, a 3/2 for 1BB, or a 3/1 for 1B with an additional life cost.
Quite frankly, I hope someone designs the next core set with these "vanilla" and "french vanilla" learning tools in mind. Maybe even a 2/2 artifact creature for 2, well below the constructed curve but useful for gameplay instructions. These "very basic" learning tools belong in the core set, at (C), and should not change. Ideally they should also be tribally relevant. But I cannot believe a 3/1 flyer for 3B fits that instruction role. And last time I went through the Arean tutorial, they agree.
Final thought: Designers have a lot of things on their plates when designing commons. But in practice, how many seconds do you think the designers took to design and playtest Bartizan Bats? The RIX design team accidentally gave us candid explanation of their design efforts with regards to Raptor Companion and co (They didn't even bother to make a cycle of reprint commons in each of the colors or tribes! Unbelievable!); and their contention was they needed a space filler and chosen an existing card to satisfy it. That leads to bad limited environments, bad constructed environments, and unsatisfying games of magic.
Every time I read a comment about "Well if this card had card draw/trample/haste/indestructible/hexproof/life gain...", I think "You're missing the point." They're armchair developer comments that fail to take into account the card's role in the greater Limited and Standard environment. No, it may not be as good as whatever card you're comparing it to. There's a reason for that. Not every burn spell is Lightning Bolt, nor does it need to be or should be.
Bartizan Piledriver 2B
Creature - Zombie? Bat (C)
Flying
Whenever Bartizan Piledriver attacks, it gets +2/+0 until end of turn for each other attacking Bat.
1/2
If the limited role Bartizan Bats plays is Mediocre Flyer; this seems to fit the bill!
But what about Rat Colony? That's casual fun it's own right!
Bat Colony 2B
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
Bat Colony gets +1/+0 for each other Rat you control.
A deck can have any number of cards named Bat Colony.
2/1
Now, I'm not saying either makes Bartizan Bats a good card - but there will be someone trying to make a bat tribal deck in casual with the first, and in standard with the second. That's interesting; let that person have that.
But with tribal in mind, how about:
Bartizan Batlord 2BB
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
Other Bats you control get +1/+1.
3/1
A common "boring" lord that is identical in most cases, except in multiples. Now are lords "too complex" for common? (Rat Colony suggests not, Overgrowth certainly suggests not).
Imagine a cycle of (C)s like this - otherwise filler rarely used creature types... that are IXA-(U) style "boring" lords... for the low low cost of giving up on 5 french vanillas, you make anyone who cares about any of those 5 tribes VERY happy! Think about how much FUN the Batlord produces. And now thing about how little impact on limited and standard it has. From a design perspective, how is that not win-win! (Keep in mind Commander tribal runs some mediocre lords, so even if they decide to produce strictly better lords in some future block that supports the tribe, these (C)s would still likely see play!)
The opportunity cost is low (little design time, little playtesting time, little constructed influence) but the benefit is through the roof. Anyone with a a thriving local gamestore probably knows a few people who would love any of these cards. Think your tribal players who tried to make Saprolings work in DOM.
Manite - Is your position that somewhere in the design file there is note next to Bartizan Bats that says "Note: 1 toughness is essential for this (C), as we wish cards X, Y, and Z to be able to trade with it."? That would, indeed, be interesting. I can certainly imagine notes like this for (M) and (R)s; but for (C)?
Re: Overgrowth - I think it's safe to say Overgrowth was a nightmare. But if their goal was to boost Overgrowth, how about:
Tormod's Bats 3B
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
Sacrifice Tormod's Bats: Exile all cards from target player's graveyard.
3/1
Or
Helix Bats 3B
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
1BB, Sacrifice Helix Bats: Each opponent loses 3 life and you gain 3 life.
3/1
Or... gasp...
Reasonable Bats 1B
Creature - Bat (C)
Flying
During your upkeep pay B or sacrifice Reasonable Bats.
3/1
If you want creatures to die easily, you make them cheap enough to play and then die. Pilfering Imp is a great card, (U) for it's ability (It's an efficient turn 2 coercion variant) that no one is complaining about. Cards in this mold are overgrowth enablers. Bartizan Bats was chosen for other "reasons."
Maybe they didn't put a note next to Bartizan Bats in the design file that said 'this has to have 1 toughness, no matter what', but it is pretty clear that they designed/included quite a lot of creatures in G and B that lend themselves to trades and/or (chump)block fodder: Kraul Harpooner, Ironshell Beetle, Generous Stray, Child of Night, Hired Poisoner, Spinal Centipede, Wary Okapi. And than there's creatures like Kraul Swarm and Erstwhile Trooper that get creature cards into your graveyard in another way, but are, because of their bodies/and or abilities, still combat-oriented. The combat focus is there to make the game more interactive in the sense that you can't just always sac off your creatures regardless of what your opponent does.
Another thing I think you're missing is 'mechanical bloat' (I'm not sure if Wizards calls it that, I just made it up, but let's call it that for now). You're right that in many ways, 'boring Limited fillers' could be made to be more interesting. Similarly, if you're just looking at individual cards, adding a simple ability to a french vanilla doesn't suddenly make it overcomplex. But if literally every card in your set has some minor (even trinket) ability, it becomes another issue. Yeah, experienced players will be able to deal with it regardless. But Limited is a format where lots of new players show up. And in order to keep their attention (and to spare the 'intermediate' players a bit) you can't put minor and/or situational mechanics on every card with a medium or sub-par P/T-mana cost-rate. It leads to a difficult-to-get-into game where there are far too many things to consider at any given time. There need to be some cards that just care about the most basic rules of the game - for creatures, that would be attacking and blocking. Basically, you have to include a good number of french vanillas.
"But then just make french vanillas at a decent powerlevel!", you say. Yeah, that's an easy criticism. But what constitutes a 'decent powerlevel'? Designing set upon set where literally every common french vanilla exactly hits the current powerlevel sweet spot (across all rarities) is already hard if you're only considering the set the card itself is put in, or - if you're thinking ahead a bit - the Standard environment it will enter into. Figuring out the 'perfect balance', where every common french vanilla has 'perfect stats' for its cost would probably either take up too much time or reduce variety between sets, especially when the other cards in the set are constantly changing, mechanics are being tweaked with etc. So sometimes you just have to settle for the safe bets. That's where Bartizan Bats comes in. Could it have an ability that provides a minor upside? Sure. Could it have 1 toughness more? Sure. It probably wouldn't break Limited. But there are other factors than just playability - for example, accessability - that have to be considered.
I think it's widely accepted that Undergrowth was the worst mechanic from the previous set. Any ability word is going to be wordy, but Undergrowth was even more wordy than normal. More importantly, as a mechanic it played clunky, with Kraul Harpooner and Vigorspore Wurm having effects that both counted creatures in your yard and didn't; in the latter case I can't tell you how often I would play this for just the vigilance. That's turn 6 w/o any creatures in my graveyard. I was primarily a WR and RU drafter, mind you, but I played WG and BG enough that it was clear this was a lot of text that scarcely did anything. Common cards, in particular, ought to be relatively simple to help smooth draft (IE, less to read out of a pack), and Overgrowth failed this criteria in a quite embarrassing way.
Is it possible to "foster a graveyard theme" without a sacrifice/discard effect? Sure. Print cheap creatures. Bartizan Bats costs 4 mana, so the designer who said "It's to help undergrowth" has to be imagining a situation where the player plays a creature every turn and then it immediately dies, killing a creature or roughly the same value, so that the Undergrowth bonus will "outweigh" these losses. If this is your position, please explain to me what creatures Bartizan Bats was designed to trade with nearly profitably at (C). I can assure you "twice mentored Healer's Hawk" was not in the design notes.
For the record, I'm not interested in balancing Undergrowth. I don't think it's a good mechanic. I'd have brought back Dredge, but Salvage might have been a fair compromise if MaRo turned down my slightly overcosted often printed effects with Dredge 1-3, and my 1 or 2 (R) or (M) level Life from the Loam-esque engines. (For example, Zombify but your opponent chooses for you for 2BB with Dredge 2.) That said, if I was in charge of balancing it, you can be sure you'd see a few of those cards in standard. You know, besides Kraul Harpooner in the sideboard (by the way, look at how poorly this wording works on Arena. Every time I play it, no matter if I want to fight, I need to press cancel, even if my opponent doesn't have a creature? Surely WOTC has someone checking to see how easy these cards will code/play...).
Re; Golgari Undergrowth enablers - notice how the cards you talk about being "designed" to die DO THINGS. (Well... Wary Okapi doesn't... and it's an equally crappy creature. But as it's not a true vanilla 3/2 for 2G, like so many other colors have regretfully gotten, it wasn't my go-to example of failure. But I do believe it's a failure. Also, this is clearly a Selesnya Convoke enabler... and yes, the set needed more vigilance guys like this!) Bartizan Bats doesn't do anything; it doesn't affect the board before or after dying. Indeed, I wouldn't be surprised if the notes grouped this towards the Dimir side of "control", with it getting in for being a mediocre flyer that can close out games and maybe trade with the UUBB uncommon.
Re: Kraul Swarm - I think this is interesting, but I'm not sure I'd print it as such. At least I'd shave off the discard cost. That said, if your position is that the bats was designed to discard to Erstwhile Trooper... then that's not a reason for it's current stats. Consider the following card:
Hunter Bats 3B
Creature - Bat (C)
When Hunter Bats enters the battlefield, destroy target token creature an opponent controls.
Flying
3/1
That is an interesting card, and you'd be more willing to run this in limited with a discard outlet; as you might judge that w/o a token on the opponent's field it's not worth the 4 mana. But in constructed, if large token creatures (say 4/4 boars) start to be a thing, then Hunter Bats becomes a somewhat viable Golgari sideboard card!
Also, suppose Bartizan Bats was designed to parallel Muse Drake; perhaps having some "lose N life, draw a card" clause on it. Aesthetic parallel + "utility" card is a pretty good design, no? Also, to that end, Generous Stray clearly needed to be 1/3. You're robbing it of it's elf creature type and adding 1; so a 1/3 cantrip for 2G seems more fair. Tier 1 constructed playable? No. But maybe tribal cat commander playable.
Re: Mechanical Bloat - This is exactly why I don't like Undergrowth. So much text, so little gameplay value. Scavenge is mediocre, but it's a keyword. I can easily print a half dozen (C) Scavenge creatures that are easy to read, simple to draft, and play differently!
G 1/1 Scavenge - Reveal a Forest in your hand.
B 1/1 Flying, Scavenge 2B
1B 2/2 Scavenge - Pay 4 life.
1G 2/2 Scavenge 1G
2G 2/2 Trample, Scavenge - Sacrifice a Forest and Swamp.
2B 2/2 Menace, Scavenge - Sacrifice a Forest and Swamp
2GG 4/4 Scavenge 8
3B 5/1 Scavenge 3B, Pay 5 life
4G 4/4 Trample, Scavenge 4GG
Killing Undergrowth for even something as mediocre as Scavenge stops mechanical bloat. That said, it's easy to design french vanillas that avoid this bloat; the question is whether you wish to cost them "competitively" or not. Bartizan Bats was designed to fail. If it was designed to NOT fail, it might have been a 3/2 flyer for 2B with a relevant creature type, or a 3/1 flying, menace for 2B. The "tradeoff" here is that we're making this a premium (C) creature, and thus have to adjust the set power accordingly - either by ramping the removal or reachers in other colors, by nerfing a different black common or lowering the limited powerlevel of several other black commons, or the like.
WOTC seems to treat their vanilla creatures not as learning tools to help teach new players and help draft go smoothly, but as booby prizes, having long obsoleted Savannah Lions. Yet French Vanilla creatures are often still fan favorites - whether the relatively poor but limited bomb Serra Angel, the casual favorite Vampire Nighthawk, or the oldschool Black Knight, White Knight, and Silver Knight. Despite Dominaria's Knight-creep, I'd be super happy with a Sunhome Stalwart that cost WW. As is, Sunhome Stalwart doesn't seem tier 1, but I don't think I'd begrudge anyone for trying it out in their Boros, White Weenie, or Selesnya decks. Orzhov might even be cool, a Afterlife presents you with a steam of tokens to mentor profitably. I know these are (U), multi-keyword french vanillas. But the same utility-for-price calculus can be applied to (C) french vanillas. As I noted above, this is a card I think is both (C) and interesting:
Fast Raptor Companion 1W
Creature - Dinosaur (C)
Flash
3/1
This is a removal spell disguised as a creature. That's actively fighting mechanic bloat.
Finally - "Decent powerlevel" is a level that's in the running for seeing play somewhere. Given Brawl and Commander are options, all you need to do is print an effect you want with a theme you want attached for close to the price of the cost of a card that sees play w/o that theme. Plaguecrafter is a very influential card (arguably too good); but zombie commander decks still run Fleshbag Marauder over it. Tribal decks run all sorts of 2/2s for 2 with abilities; Mesa Unicorn could conceivably see play in a Unicorn tribal deck (someday), but while Bishop's Soldier might see play in a vampire deck, Child of Night isn't even in the running.
Long story short, to call upon the Lord of the Rings: A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship. But it is not this day. I'm not going to settle for "safe bets" when my goal is to create a fun, inviting game that encourages new players, rather than shuns them for not opening the right cards. The Arena player who plays with Bartizan Bats does not enjoy herself nor does the people who play against her.
And yes, a card like Bartizan Bats is infuriating in a set with the name "Ravnica" in it.
Compare it to power commons they did in the past like Bala Ged Scorpion which did at least something could be used in a kind of standard budget deck.
Anyway, a thought I feel like contributing is this: taking a card, calling it crap, coming up with a stronger card and saying "I wish this was in that crap card's place" is not the same thing as IMPROVING that card. "Improving" means making it better at what it does: of course, the issue here is that our 4 mana bat doesn't really do much of anything... But then if you're gonna "improve" it, your goal should be making another card that doesn't do much of anything, but that can be more appealing/fun somehow. Taking a completely different card that is way better and saying "here, go with this instead" is not an improvement, it's a replacement.
That said, Bartizan Piledriver can also fill the role of "mediocre in limited, not standard playable" flying (C) card. The fact it makes a casual Bat deck feasible, however, is pretty amazing. Same with Swarm of Bats or the like.
Legend, is your position that because I'm not "experienced"... like the kind of experience you'd get being employed by WOTC... that my card design is bad? Well, I can assure you I can learn from WOTC's mistakes as well, or better, than they can.
Step 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHHg99hwQGY
See card: Griselbrand
Step 2:
End-Raze Forerunners
Note, of course, the complex nonsense name of the latter denotes WOTC designed it to be a bad card. It's clearly designed to be a "flashy" variant of Craterhoof Behemoth, but unplayable. I mean, it has all the trappings that might you think otherwise - it's got more P/T and it's got keywords for days. But then you notice that it's a (R), not a (M). How generous, you might think, that WOTC is printing a "better' Craterhoof at a lower rarity. But then your inner MaRo starts talking... why is this a 7/7 for 8 in the color that gets 8/8s for significantly less than 8?
Also, Legend, note that your last post is ad hominem, a logical fallacy.
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝
WotC is a business. Its main goal is to sell as much product as possible.
Taking that as our given, lets answer this question: What will sell more packs?
A. A set in which every single card has appeal and can be used in a competent constructed deck.
or
B. A set which is comprised of 95% jank and 5% exciting, valuable, playable cards.
The answer, as much as it may displease you, is B. WotC knows that in order to sell as many packs as possible, they need to design sets such that the open-rate of a desirable card is as low as possible without causing the customer to give up on buying said packs.
In addition, WotC has to closely monitor A LOT of different aspects about the game to avoid making any large mistakes that will result in loss of playerbase, and therefore lots of sales. Primarily, that means balancing constructed formats, particularly standard. That means that WotC has to spend a considerable amount of their time and money playtesting and balancing each and every standard-legal set they put out, a process they have talked a lot about and to which they have devoted multiple teams of employees. Also taking into account that they start work on a new set only two years out and many of their designers and developers work on multiple projects at a time, we know that their capacity for balancing and developing sets is limited.
If they decided to take your stance and endeavored to make every single card in a set constructed-playable, a single set (around 250 cards) would take significantly longer than two years to make, as every single card would need to be balanced against every single other card in a set, as well as every other card in the current standard format.
Assuming they somehow do manage to stretch time to accommodate this goal, the playerbase now faces a much different problem.
Looking back on Magic sets of old (which I suggest you do, considering you seem to think that only recent sets are guilty of printing bad cards), you may notice that some sets had card counts of over 400 cards. If you're wondering why this has changed for the modern design era, it's because they were trying to keep the standard card-pool at a more reasonable size. Giving players too many options of cards to sift through can take a heavy toll on constructed formats. Conversely, giving a person fewer things to choose between makes the choice much easier and more approachable.
The reason I bring this up is that making every common card constructed-playable in some deck is effectively the same thing as increasing the standard card-pool by way of increasing the number of viable choices. To compensate, WotC would likely need to drop the number of cards in a set to a number that is not ideal for draft, which every standard set is designed for.
That's another thing to think about. Just as not every rare is playable in standard, yet some might be allstars in formats like Commander (see End-Raze Forerunners), every common is not designed for constructed. In fact, most are designed specifically to play a role in limited. The few cases of commons showing up in standard can often be attributed to coincidence, or accident.
What I mean is that you want every card in Magic to somehow be playable in some format, but that's already true. Draft is Magic's most popular format and the one in which the commons you're complaining about see the most play anyway.
The short version of this argument is this: WotC simply doesn't have the time, money, or reason to make every common card playable by your standards. In fact, doing so would actively harm them as a business as well as the players who play their competitive formats.
In the context of custom card design, you can do absolutely anything you want. You can carefully craft every single card in your set to be just as playable as you want it to be. Just keep a few things in mind:
1. You will always get people who think some of your cards are trash, poorly designed, or inappropriately powerful.
2. Your cards will never actually be played alongside the real Magic cards you are balancing them against, outside your own casual playgroup perhaps.
3. You and your playgroup are probably the only ones likely to ever play with your cards anyway, so there's as little point in balancing those cards against other people's custom sets as there is in balancing them with real sets.
The reason I'm saying this is to drive home the point that designing custom cards for anything other than a self-contained draft set that very few people will ever experience is nothing more than wish-fulfillment and no amount of argument on this forum will ever change how WotC designs their own sets, especially when your arguments are as naive as they are in this thread. It's pessimistic and it sucks, but it's true.
For that reason, I seriously suggest you focus your custom card passions on more important things than trying to convince us that you know better than WotC.
Metaethics, all of your posts in this thread are ad hominem rants against WotC.
I hope to see more design from you, but not in this thread. Peace.
I̟̥͍̠ͅn̩͉̣͍̬͚ͅ ̬̬͖t̯̹̞̺͖͓̯̤h̘͍̬e͙̯͈̖̼̮ ̭̬f̺̲̲̪i͙͉̟̩̰r̪̝͚͈̝̥͍̝̲s̼̻͇̘̳͔ͅt̲̺̳̗̜̪̙ ̳̺̥̻͚̗ͅm̜̜̟̰͈͓͎͇o̝̖̮̝͇m̯̻̞̼̫̗͓̤e̩̯̬̮̩n͎̱̪̲̹͖t͇̖s̰̮ͅ,̤̲͙̻̭̻̯̹̰ ̖t̫̙̺̯͖͚̯ͅh͙̯̦̳̗̰̟e͖̪͉̼̯ ̪͕g̞̣͔a̗̦t̬̬͓͙̫̖̭̻e̩̻̯ ̜̖̦̖̤̭͙̬t̞̹̥̪͎͉ͅo͕͚͍͇̲͇͓̺ ̭̬͙͈̣̻t͈͍͙͓̫̖͙̩h̪̬̖̙e̗͈ ̗̬̟̞̺̤͉̯ͅa̦̯͚̙̜̮f͉͙̲̣̞̼t̪̤̞̣͚e̲͉̳̥r͇̪̙͚͓l̥̞̞͎̹̯̹ͅi͓̬f̮̥̬̞͈ͅe͎ ̟̩̤̳̠̯̩̯o̮̘̲p̟͚̣̞͉͓e͍̩̣n͔̼͕͚̜e̬̱d̼̘͎̖̹͍̮̠,͖̺̭̱̮ ̣̲͖̬̪̭̥a̪͚n̟̲̝̤̤̞̗d̘̱̗͇̮͕̳͕͔ ͖̞͉͎t̹̙͎h̰̱͉̗e̪̞̱̝̹̩ͅ ̠̱̩̭̦p̯̙e͓o̳͚̰̯̺̱̰͔̘p̬͎̱̣̼̩͇l̗̟̖͚̠e̱͉͔̱̦̬̟̙ ̖͚̪͔̼̦w̺̖̤̱e͖̗̻̦͓̖̘̜r̭̥e͔̹̫̱͕̦̰͕ ̗͔̠p̠̗͍͍̱̳̠r̰͔͎̰o͉̥͓̰͚̥s̟͚̹̱͔̣t͉̙̳̖͖̪̮r̥̘̥͙̹a͉̟̫̟̳̠̟̭t͈̜̰͈͎e̞̣̭̲̬ ͚̗̯̟͙i͍͖̰̘̦͖͉ṇ̮̻̯̦̲̩͍ ̦̮͚̫̤t͉͖̫͕ͅͅh͙̮̻̘̣̮̼e͕̺ ͙l͕̠͎̰̥i̲͓͉̲g̫̳̟͈͇̖h̠̦̖t͓̯͎̗ ̳̪̘̟̙̩̦o̫̲f̙͔̰̙̠ ̹̪̗͇̯t͖̼̼͉͖̬h̹͇̩e͚̖̺̤͉̹͕̪ ͚͓̭̝̺G͎̗̯̩o̫̯̮̟̮̳̘d̜̲͙̠-̩̳̯̲̗̜P̹̘̥͉̝h͍͈̗̖̝ͅa͍̗̮̼̗r̜̖͇̙̺a̭̺͔̞̳͈o̪̣͓̯̬͙̯̰̗h̖̦͈̥̯͔.͇̣̙̝