So many people understand that recursion can be a bit of a dangerous playground when it comes to magic cards. While Dredge is an interesting concept for graveyard decks, it lead to some rather degenerate strategies that ended up becoming too powerful.
My question is: how do people feel about Retrace?
I've been working on a custom set (I will post some designs later on) featuring retrace as a main mechanic for the set. I feel like Retrace was not revisited simply because of the main reasons as to why recursion mechanics are not popular. However, Retrace is interesting to me because it requires lands in hand, as well as using some dead draw lands in hand to become useful spells down the line.
I just want to hear what people think about Retrace. I'm kind of biased because I love recursion and I think it opens up some fun and useful strategies, while also giving you mileage out of your cards.
Here are some designs:
Story-Driven KnightWW
Creature - Human Knight
First Strike
Retrace
2/1
Unending Valor3W
Sorcery
Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control..
Future Fotold1UU
Sorcery
Scry 2.
Draw a card.
Retrace
I think most of the Retrace cards were wasted on making creature tokens. But really, Retrace is just Flashback or Jumpstart with slight changes. And as for dredge, there's actually rather good dredge cards that were used as intended, like Life from the Loam, Darkblast, and Shenanigans.
Anyways, Retrace is really only fun in constructed along with Loam, incidentally, and it's pretty much the cheaply costed ones that get played.
The biggest issue with having creatures is that you'll need to overcost them significantly to balance for their recurability. Compare Cenn's Enlistment to Raise the Alarm, for example. WW for a 2/1 first striker is a reasonable rate for a normal creature, but it would need to be 1WW or possibly 2WW with retrace.
As an aside, I'm curious why Future Foretold doesn't just say "Scry 3. Draw a card."
The biggest problem with Retrace overall is repetitive game states, like with Buyback but to a lesser degree. As long as your cards effects encourage different strategic usages so that there are reasons to use the cards in different ways each turn, it is fine.
I'd say the issue with Dredge wasn't so much the recursive-ness, but the additional resources generated by the self-mill, and the fact that Dredge snowballs into more Dredge. Retrace is closer to Buyback IMO, and has the same problem as anything that has repeated recursion - it can't be a very good card. Darkblast, Flame Jab, Capsize - these effects are worse versions of other cards, but because you can keep re-casting them, they still find homes in various decks.
But with Retrace, you have to discard a specific type of card, and one that potentially cripples mana development, so you should get a decent payoff for it. This makes it have to walk a very fine line between too good and too bad. A mechanic like Flashback or Jump-start can be a bit better since you only get 1 re-cast, but a Retrace card needs to be fundamentally a bit worse.
And speaking of Flashback, that's not a mechanic that appears on Creatures. The equivalent is Unearth, Flashback is only for Instants/Sorceries. Similarly, Retrace has only ever used on Instants/Sorceries, so your idea of putting it on Creatures would probably need a new name. I don't know if there's anything in the rules that says you can't put Flashback/Retrace on a creature, its more that you just don't to keep it mechanically distinct.
Its a very tricky mechanic to get right, especially as a main mechanic for a whole set. I think you wind up with a lot of bad spells and a few amazing ones, or vice-versa. I would say a potential direction for it is to make mediocre Retrace spells, but then have each color/archetype benefit from some portion of the mechanic. Red could have a Discarding Matters mechanic, Green could count land cards in Graveyard, Blue could be about casting from Graveyard, etc. Kinda like Proliferate from War of the Spark, different colors/combos can take advantage of it in different ways.
With the way I was designing the set, Black and Green would end up being the primary Retrace colors, as those colors tend to be able to work with graveyard synergy and land cards fairly well. I considered some spill over into the other colors just for limited (like the blue card and the white card).
All of the cards I proposed so far would be commons, being something likely worth playing in limited. White gets an aggressive weenie card that can give you some extra reach late game, blue helps you filter and can dig for a win condition late game, and Black just gets a possible limited "bomb" common. Red was going to be a discard/draw effect I think, or maybe something like a 3/1 with haste. Green was going to get a big ol fatty. Each color was going to get 2 common cards with Retrace and then the rest would go to Black and Green.
EDIT: Actually I just added the commons. Tell me what you think.
Your creatures, except the red elemental, are still very undercosted, and the big creatures should probably be more fragile to balance for them being repeatable. Remember that retrace was always on one-shot effects and at an expensive rate (Oona's Grace is three mana where "Draw a card" in Blue is usually less that 1).
Also, they weren't straight up card advantageous. At best, you traded your land for one card, but not one card and something else. For example, having a 7/5 trampling threat that can keep coming back at common is going to dominate your limited environment, like if you made a retrace card that said "Target opponent sacrifices a creature and takes 3 damage." That one needs to be a vanilla 6/4 at most.
And speaking of Flashback, that's not a mechanic that appears on Creatures. The equivalent is Unearth, Flashback is only for Instants/Sorceries. Similarly, Retrace has only ever used on Instants/Sorceries, so your idea of putting it on Creatures would probably need a new name. I don't know if there's anything in the rules that says you can't put Flashback/Retrace on a creature, its more that you just don't to keep it mechanically distinct.
Flashback isn't put on creatures because the last part of resolving a spell with flashback (or jump-start for that matter) is to exile it instead of putting it wherever it was going to go upon resolution, meaning it wouldn't do anything except increase storm, generate on cast triggers, and confuse players who assume that they'd be getting a creature on the battlefield. Retrace does not do that.
That being said, every single one of those creatures is too efficient for its mana cost, unless you're intending to put them in a rare or higher slot. All of those bodies are costed like they would be even if they DIDN'T have retrace. Standard practice indicates you increase the mana costs of ALL of them by 2, as I'd argue the value retrace represents means it's roughly comparable to a cantrip, and that's how much adding a cantrip is (supposed) to cost.
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My question is: how do people feel about Retrace?
I've been working on a custom set (I will post some designs later on) featuring retrace as a main mechanic for the set. I feel like Retrace was not revisited simply because of the main reasons as to why recursion mechanics are not popular. However, Retrace is interesting to me because it requires lands in hand, as well as using some dead draw lands in hand to become useful spells down the line.
I just want to hear what people think about Retrace. I'm kind of biased because I love recursion and I think it opens up some fun and useful strategies, while also giving you mileage out of your cards.
Here are some designs:
Story-Driven Knight WW
Creature - Human Knight
First Strike
Retrace
2/1
Unending Valor 3W
Sorcery
Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control..
Future Fotold 1UU
Sorcery
Scry 2.
Draw a card.
Retrace
Mistscale Drake 3U
Creature - Drake
Flying
Retrace
3/2
Necropolis Sentinel 3BB
Creature - Skeleton Warrior
Menace
Retrace
5/3
Graverend 2B
Sorcery
Return target creature card from your graveyard to your hand.
Retrace
Raging Firebrand 1R
Creature - Elemental
Raging Firebrand attacks each turn if able.
Retrace
3/1
Sift through Flame 3RR
Sorcery
Discard a card, then draw three cards.
Retrace
Nature's Thrashing 1G
Sorcery
Target creature you control fights target creature you don't control.
Retrace
Rumbleweed 5GG
Creature - Plant Elemental
Trample
Retrace
7/5
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
Anyways, Retrace is really only fun in constructed along with Loam, incidentally, and it's pretty much the cheaply costed ones that get played.
As an aside, I'm curious why Future Foretold doesn't just say "Scry 3. Draw a card."
The biggest problem with Retrace overall is repetitive game states, like with Buyback but to a lesser degree. As long as your cards effects encourage different strategic usages so that there are reasons to use the cards in different ways each turn, it is fine.
But with Retrace, you have to discard a specific type of card, and one that potentially cripples mana development, so you should get a decent payoff for it. This makes it have to walk a very fine line between too good and too bad. A mechanic like Flashback or Jump-start can be a bit better since you only get 1 re-cast, but a Retrace card needs to be fundamentally a bit worse.
And speaking of Flashback, that's not a mechanic that appears on Creatures. The equivalent is Unearth, Flashback is only for Instants/Sorceries. Similarly, Retrace has only ever used on Instants/Sorceries, so your idea of putting it on Creatures would probably need a new name. I don't know if there's anything in the rules that says you can't put Flashback/Retrace on a creature, its more that you just don't to keep it mechanically distinct.
Its a very tricky mechanic to get right, especially as a main mechanic for a whole set. I think you wind up with a lot of bad spells and a few amazing ones, or vice-versa. I would say a potential direction for it is to make mediocre Retrace spells, but then have each color/archetype benefit from some portion of the mechanic. Red could have a Discarding Matters mechanic, Green could count land cards in Graveyard, Blue could be about casting from Graveyard, etc. Kinda like Proliferate from War of the Spark, different colors/combos can take advantage of it in different ways.
All of the cards I proposed so far would be commons, being something likely worth playing in limited. White gets an aggressive weenie card that can give you some extra reach late game, blue helps you filter and can dig for a win condition late game, and Black just gets a possible limited "bomb" common. Red was going to be a discard/draw effect I think, or maybe something like a 3/1 with haste. Green was going to get a big ol fatty. Each color was going to get 2 common cards with Retrace and then the rest would go to Black and Green.
EDIT: Actually I just added the commons. Tell me what you think.
Dunes of Zairo
SHANDALAR
Innistrad - The Darkest Night
~THE RAVNICAN CONSORTIUM~
A Community Set
Commander: Allies & Adversaries
Also, they weren't straight up card advantageous. At best, you traded your land for one card, but not one card and something else. For example, having a 7/5 trampling threat that can keep coming back at common is going to dominate your limited environment, like if you made a retrace card that said "Target opponent sacrifices a creature and takes 3 damage." That one needs to be a vanilla 6/4 at most.
Flashback isn't put on creatures because the last part of resolving a spell with flashback (or jump-start for that matter) is to exile it instead of putting it wherever it was going to go upon resolution, meaning it wouldn't do anything except increase storm, generate on cast triggers, and confuse players who assume that they'd be getting a creature on the battlefield. Retrace does not do that.
That being said, every single one of those creatures is too efficient for its mana cost, unless you're intending to put them in a rare or higher slot. All of those bodies are costed like they would be even if they DIDN'T have retrace. Standard practice indicates you increase the mana costs of ALL of them by 2, as I'd argue the value retrace represents means it's roughly comparable to a cantrip, and that's how much adding a cantrip is (supposed) to cost.
My Friend Code is: 0146-9645-8893