I think Linvala really made a strong impression for me that the mechanic wasn't understood to need potent payoffs. There are some good full party payoff effects but I can't help but wonder what could have been with different mechanics.
Part of the issue could be addressed if they just adjusted the level of complexity they'd allow. Like the aforementioned Expedition Healer. If it were something like:
~ has lifelink as long as you control another Cleric, first strike as long as you control a Rogue, vigilance as long as you control a Warrior, protection from non creature spells as long as you control a Wizard. Then you'd get a little bit for Cleric redundancy but also jives with full party.
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
I think Linvala really made a strong impression for me that the mechanic wasn't understood to need potent payoffs. There are some good full party payoff effects but I can't help but wonder what could have been with different mechanics.
Part of the issue could be addressed if they just adjusted the level of complexity they'd allow. Like the aforementioned Expedition Healer. If it were something like:
~ has lifelink as long as you control another Cleric, first strike as long as you control a Rogue, vigilance as long as you control a Warrior, protection from non creature spells as long as you control a Wizard. Then you'd get a little bit for Cleric redundancy but also jives with full party.
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
Dude, I wish wizards had someone like you developing the sets. If any of your ideas were implemented it would have been a lot more fun to play this mechanic
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
I just find it very unfortunate that a lot of the in-tribe synergy cards didn't pull double duty for party and so ended up eating a lot of space in the set for minimal (!) benefit. The next installments are likely to incorporate some of the innovations you have in mind though I suspect it will always be inherently conservative.
Having a board state with four different creature types is not quite magical Christmas land but it's on the verge of that. Meh.
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
I strongly feel that the biggest obstacle to card design is that Wizards designs sets for drafting. Because they have to design cards for drafting, certain ideas just don't work, don't scale, or require too many card slots. Your ideas would be great if they designed a non-drafting set or small supplement.
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
I fully agree. Party being so completely binary means there is no early or even mid-game advantage to running a Party deck, but at the same time there’s no real late-game advantage either because having a full party doesn’t really ever pay off. It’s just a completely failed attempt and it’s baffling to me that it was allowed to proceed this way.
I think Linvala really made a strong impression for me that the mechanic wasn't understood to need potent payoffs. There are some good full party payoff effects but I can't help but wonder what could have been with different mechanics.
Part of the issue could be addressed if they just adjusted the level of complexity they'd allow. Like the aforementioned Expedition Healer. If it were something like:
~ has lifelink as long as you control another Cleric, first strike as long as you control a Rogue, vigilance as long as you control a Warrior, protection from non creature spells as long as you control a Wizard. Then you'd get a little bit for Cleric redundancy but also jives with full party.
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
They did this for Shadowmoor and Eventide, and it was so mentally taxing they lowered complexity in common forever.
Dude, I wish wizards had someone like you developing the sets. If any of your ideas were implemented it would have been a lot more fun to play this mechanic
Thank you, though it would appear WotC has their reasons for choosing a different path. Maybe next year.
I just find it very unfortunate that a lot of the in-tribe synergy cards didn't pull double duty for party and so ended up eating a lot of space in the set for minimal (!) benefit. The next installments are likely to incorporate some of the innovations you have in mind though I suspect it will always be inherently conservative.
Having a board state with four different creature types is not quite magical Christmas land but it's on the verge of that. Meh.
In the early days of spoiler season, I expected we'd get an answer to the question "Why play this mechanic if it expects you to keep four creatures of different tribes (and in some cases, colors) alive?" I don't think we ever got the reason. As you said, the mechanic was designed to be conservative, which is probably easier to balance, but I don't think for a mechanic that's more fun or worth building around.
I agree with you that they may expand on party down the line, even if it'll probably still be conservative.
I strongly feel that the biggest obstacle to card design is that Wizards designs sets for drafting. Because they have to design cards for drafting, certain ideas just don't work, don't scale, or require too many card slots. Your ideas would be great if they designed a non-drafting set or small supplement.
I agree with you, though I don't think pushing some of the scaling effects over to "if you have two or more creatures in your party" would make the set too challenging for draft. The mechanic really needed something to fill out the early/midgame. Thinking about building around party, my biggest reservation is that a lot of the more playable party cards still demand a full party for optimal use, do I just hold them while I'm waiting for another Cleric to cast? That's somewhat facetious.
I fully agree. Party being so completely binary means there is no early or even mid-game advantage to running a Party deck, but at the same time there’s no real late-game advantage either because having a full party doesn’t really ever pay off. It’s just a completely failed attempt and it’s baffling to me that it was allowed to proceed this way.
I don't know that it's completely failed, though I certainly don't see it as a success. I'm interested to see if players are able to build something fun and playable, and how.
They did this for Shadowmoor and Eventide, and it was so mentally taxing they lowered complexity in common forever.
Really? It was the cycle of Duos, the auras of the demigods, and the scarecrows at common that cared about how deep you were in a color pair, was that what was considered mentally taxing? Those sets also had cards that cared about their own colors, not unlike Zendikar Rising having cards that cared about their own tribe/tribal theme, so I'm guessing you meant WotC considered the cross-color interactions too complex?
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
I fully agree. Party being so completely binary means there is no early or even mid-game advantage to running a Party deck, but at the same time there’s no real late-game advantage either because having a full party doesn’t really ever pay off. It’s just a completely failed attempt and it’s baffling to me that it was allowed to proceed this way.
How much have you played with the party mechanic so far? How much have any of us played with it? Me, none.
I'd wait until people actually have significant reps with the mechanic in draft before declaring it completely failed.
I'm pretty sure people are being excessively harsh on party. Yes, a full party is optimal, but the cards are also costed so they're bat ***** insane with a full party. They're so over the top stupid then that there's no comparison unless you count Ancestral Recall that's so broken it hasn't been seen since Unlimited. I think people are forgetting that party creatures already count as party of 1 alone. Party of 2 is quite effective.
I'm pretty sure people are being excessively harsh on party. Yes, a full party is optimal, but the cards are also costed so they're bat ***** insane with a full party. They're so over the top stupid then that there's no comparison unless you count Ancestral Recall that's so broken it hasn't been seen since Unlimited. I think people are forgetting that party creatures already count as party of 1 alone. Party of 2 is quite effective.
Can you provide some clear examples?
I think youre grossly over estimating its potency somewhere
I'm pretty sure people are being excessively harsh on party. Yes, a full party is optimal, but the cards are also costed so they're bat ***** insane with a full party. They're so over the top stupid then that there's no comparison unless you count Ancestral Recall that's so broken it hasn't been seen since Unlimited. I think people are forgetting that party creatures already count as party of 1 alone. Party of 2 is quite effective.
Can you provide some clear examples?
I think youre grossly over estimating its potency somewhere
All the good payoff cards are noticeably concentrated in black. In fact, a black-based party deck could well be viable.
But the power level is only part of it. It's the fact that each of the tribes in party had tribal support cards printed which didn't interact with the party mechanic at all, meaning that there were five distinct mechanics in the set marked more so by their tension than synergy (to say nothing of the other mechanics... there is a bit of a play experience redundancy with kicker which is mostly because of kicker's design). So you get clerics who care only about clerics and clerics who care about (full) party, and so on with the other four. Some of that space could have been spared for traps, expeditions, or, if not those exact mechanics, something similar. And that would have been vastly more interesting than yet another set with a tribal subtheme. That would have meant a set with an overall higher level of complexity, though. I think the current design rules against complexity are starting to exhaust the design space that lies within this scope. They're going to have to up the complexity threshold to get us out of the rut we're in.
I guess I would need a more robust definition of what you (or anyone else) thinks adventuring should be fully comprised of in order to respond with efficacy here. Looking at the spoilers again, I see represented: class roles (party), phat loots (equipment), wild beasties of every imaginable size (from jerboas to a giant crab), and exotic locales (MDFC lands).
I want to focus on the last three here, as I looked at what you said and decided to delve a bit deeper into my thoughts and yours.
First, we have your "phat loots". Looking at the equipment for the set I do believe you are correct here, but only partially. Some of the equipment are clearly things that adventurers would take with them or use, rather than find (Utility Knife, Kitsail, and the pick axe), Scavenged Blade seems less like loot and more like "finders keepers" in the cave/forest that it's in which I guess is the same, but I guess that's semantics there, and the white, black, multicolored, and Relic Axe seem more like loot. In this case I'd think your quite right with over half of them.
The wild beasties, I think this is kind of a given as we were always going to get creatures and you can say a party would come across on their journey, but I don't think there's anything that sticks out in that regard. I stayed away from mentioning the beasts they could come across as of course they would.
The flip lands I think are less exotic locals and rather the different paths one could choose to go on in your journey. Do you head climb the rocks or the branches in the sky? While they are exotic locals I don't think they represent exactly the part of the journey that you described.
In these cases I was perhaps far more wrong in my assessment. Usually a journey/quest is far more remembered by the "moments" in it rather than the locations. In the case of something like One Piece, which has varied locations from a winter island where the mountains are like drums to an island where the trees emit bubbles all the time that are used for that areas technology, they are memorable in their own right but you remember far more about what happened there, rather than....well there. In this case I believe I'm looking more for those D&D esque moments of "Remember that time we were in that cave and the floor caved in when he stepped on that rock" or "When we beat that Mimic that was a literally treasure vault and then he got that cursed item and changed into a woman?"
Perhaps what they were going for is more of a scenic route when it comes to adventures rather than the experiences of it.
An aside: I had to learn how to either come to terms of what being a Star Wars fan meant to me, or give it up entirely.
I'll try and keep up here. I can enjoy Star Wars, but I am no die hard fan. I've really only seen the movies, the Christmas special, and various chunks of the Clone Wars show.
To be perfectly honest, I hate most of it; the original trilogy represents the definitive Star Wars experience, and anything which doesn't jibe with that is generally too far afield to be enjoyable for me. When the brand first started to grow in the mid-late '90s, it was easy to be dismissive - this old part was good, this new part part was bad, and despite some contrary opinions my perspective seemed to align with the general consensus. Fast forward a couple of decades and now there's simply too much material for a consensus to even be possible. The prequels haven't aged well, but for a particular generation they're highly nostalgic; the Disney acquisition invalidated a huge body of former canon that some people adored; Rogue One was well received by more traditional Star Wars fans, but I hated it; I enjoyed Solo, a movie that was critically panned by the greater fandom; the 'kiddie stuff' absolutely grates on my nerves, and while it ultimately drove me out of almost every licensed board, card, or miniatures game, I recognize that it's generally well received by the larger audience; The Mandalorian is objectively great, let's not kid ourselves;
I see you tend to be a bit of a purist when it comes to Star Wars before the prequels, for the most part at least. For me the prequels are pretty much garbage. I actually like Phantom Menace, well at least I think it has the most memorable parts with Darth Maul, the music, and the fight at the end (the rest is awful.) Lucas being in charge of everything was a huge mistake and why we got so many terrible lines, characters, and stories.
and while the sequel trilogy is hit or miss (Rian Johnson deserves his own ring special ring in the Inferno), it generally resonates with what I appreciate about the franchise as a whole.
I find that half of the sequels are good, the other half is bad. Force Awakens is a decent movie, it's pretty safe, and had some nice potential with what it was setting up.
Where I start to head off from the usual Star Wars fans is #8. The Star Wars stuff I thought was very good, it's that stupid casino side quest that was pointless and unneeded. I understand many Star Wars fans hated what they were adding with #8, and even what they were doing with various stories from #7, but honestly I thought it's what was needed. It was the right amount of change and even Rey's parents being nothing actually called back to the original series where you don't need to be linked to a bloodline to be special (albeit Rey takes that a little too far), and it was a nice bit of circumventing expectations, at least I thought. Luke wanting to burn the books and how tradition needs to be changed was in a way a nice meta call in that Star Wars does need to change a little. You can't just strictly stick to things, even if the new ideas don't work. There was a lot of things they tried to undo about #7, which did feel like wasted time by watching it if things weren't going to go anywhere, but #8 did actually try some new things and I can appreciate it.
Of course #8 has a ton of stupid plot and story bits that are just awful, like the Order not just swinging around and blowing the ship up. The light speed crash was amazing.
Then #9 just completely **** the bed in every way. While #8 sort of destroyed bits of what #7 was setting up, Disney took the fan outcry and went to far with fixes that it went from "repairing" what they thought was broken to straight pandering that no one enjoyed. It really went to show that they had zero plans on how the story was going to go, which is strange considering Marvel's well thought out plans for the MCU. The fact you had to play Fortnite to even understand parts of the story is asinine. The entire thing was an unbridled mess.
Coming back to my original thought: at a certain point I had to either accept that there was simply too much content to categorize Star Wars as being either good or bad - based on my prescribed criteria - or adhere to what has eventually come to be a very narrow definition and, since Star Wars would accordingly be 'bad,' walk away from something I've loved from adolescence through most of my adulthood. It took some serious introspection, but I eventually decided that it was okay to recognize that what I loved about Star Wars need not define it as a whole - I can take what I like, discard the rest, and not pass judgment on others for the mere existence of disagreeable content, let alone their enjoyment of it. Applying this to Magic, I think it would be wise to find ways to grow as both individuals and as a playerbase. When a given set or block doesn't meet our expectations, sometimes that blame can be placed on Wizards, but for better or worse the onus is on us to determine our own enjoyment of the game as a whole. Take things as they are, not for what you think they should be, and you'll be a lot happier with the things you're passionate about.
That's a correct way to look at it, look at the positives and negatives, and while talking to you I found a bit more of that "adventure", although I still think they missed parts of it.
Now just to be clear I don't have a major attachment to Zendikar. While I did come back to the game at around the time of RoE I was more enthused by the return of Mirrodin, which is about the time I stopped playing at Fifth Dawn. Most of my nostalgia laid with Dominaria as Torment was when I first got into the game and Onslaught is when I first started playing at FNMs and understanding the actual rules, and I was pleased with the return there. So it's strictly not me being a purest when it comes to that. I enjoyed that BFZ had a different direction and a continuing story, although the Gatewatch walking away with nary a scratch when defeating two eldrazi titans I wasn't thrilled about, and a large part of Zen3 that I'm not enjoying is the lack of story here when it comes to the plane itself.
They certainly tried their best to dodge any mention of the Eldrazi and I think this set feels a bit naked with it, yes there are a couple art nods and Forsaken Monument, but after that it's weird to completely sweep an apocalyptic event, where enormous swaths of the land were turned alien and large sections of populations decimated, under the rug like that. Understandably we can't focus on the Eldrazi again and Nahiri's "motivation" seems to be based on them and the Roil, but the world seems far more healed than it probably should be, considering that it probably happened with the last few years in story time. It certainly feels like WotC made Zen3 up in the skies on purpose just to go "Look up there, a distraction!" as a means to not look down at what happened the last time we were on Zendikar.
Party Mechanic: Tribal playing with four creature types sounds nice but I just hate the execution. Giving a bonus for counting heads is very overdone. While this is just how tribal is done, most of the time the tribe get some other mechanical distinction, like elf ramping and zombies using the graveyard and so on. The party is split across all colors so a mechanical distinction was impossible. This is why counting heads was a bad idea for the party. Slivers and Allies are both much better because they are more mechanically distinct.
Class Tribal: What a terrible idea to have class tribal and party on the same set. The class tribal just dilutes the theme of adventure like acid. A bunch of clerics doing clericy things does not speak adventure to me, neither does equipment warrior deck. I get that part of the design is letting you "choose your class" by letting you build toward class tribes. But creatures caring about creatures is 100% the wrong way to do it. The only tribal theme at common/uncommon should have been party (all four creatures types working together) and "choose your class" should have been a theme you draft if you get the rare legends, who would all be flavored as leaders of their respective class guilds.
Class Depictions are Inconsistent: This is suppose to be about fantasy adventures. Clerics should heal, wizards should cast spells, rogues should outmaneuver and trick the opponent and warriors should protect you and bash face. Sounds simple, right ? Instead we get clerics flying on kite sail (and mosquitos), bashing face just like warriors do and summoning cats. Other classes depictions are not as flawed as cleric's but still very lacking. There is way too many wizards that just fly and bash face. No wizard that counter spells, destroy enchantments, paralyzes creatures, create illusions, summon stuff. No warriors that are dedicated blockers, that protect your other creatures, that fights opponent creatures. Rogue is the only tribe that is reasonably executed imo.
Non-Human-like Class Creatures: Another huge mistake. It would be much better if adventurers and NPCs stayed separated. Having a bunch of angel and demon clerics flying around works against the trope. Angels, Demons and Sphinx are too over powered to be adventurers, having then filling your party ranks is silly. Adventurer decks should be about a bunch of small creatures winning the game through synergy of their abilities, not angel warriors fightning along side demon clerics.
I totally feel your analysis. They play too safe sometimes and don’t like depth because it would create complexity issues. But then they create stuff like mutate and don’t take responsibility for that.
But then they create stuff like mutate and don’t take responsibility for that.
Take responsibility in what way? or did you mean companion which Maro talked about in his state of design article.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Those are the main ones for me, but there's an Orah Cleric deck in brew too if I can find a way to actually make it potent enough. What it really wants though is a legendary Edgewalker...
Just a comment to throw in amongst the general underwhelming reaction to party; anybody think it may turn out to be quite potent in a constructed changeling type deck? Should make hitting the 4 types a bit easier. Mirror Entity alone fixes the problem quite easily.
Not sure if anyone cares anymore, but Mark's article this week is the Vision Design handoff, which a lot of people on here have been asking about. Included in the things that were in it but not in the set include artifact Traps, Quests with multiple ways to get quest counters (from the cutting room floors of both original Zendikar and Throne of Eldraine) that would require a new frame treatment, weird leveler callbacks, and the Eldrazi callback mechanic Titan.
Aether Trap 2
Artifact – Trap
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice CARDNAME and draw a card.
Whenever an opponent casts a second spell in a turn, you may put this onto the battlefield and draw a card. 4 or U, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Counter target spell.
Quest for Forbidden Power 3B
Enchantment
Whenever you complete any of the following tasks, put a quest counter on CARDNAME. If it was the first time you have completed that task, each player discards a card.
* A land enters the battlefield under your control.
* A creature dies.
* An opponent loses 5 or more life in a single turn.
Remove three quest counters from CARDNAME and sacrifice it: Until end of turn, you may play cards from your graveyard. If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere this turn, exile that card instead.
Leveling Rogue 1B
Creature – Human Ally Rogue 1B: Add a +1/+1 counter to CARDNAME. When CARDNAME gets three +1/+1 counters, it loses this ability and gains menace.
3/1
Remnant of Force 1U
Instant
Titan 8(You may cast this spell for its titan cost rather than its mana cost.)
Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. If this spell's titan cost was paid, also draw two cards.
Not sure if anyone cares anymore, but Mark's article this week is the Vision Design handoff, which a lot of people on here have been asking about. Included in the things that were in it but not in the set include artifact Traps, Quests with multiple ways to get quest counters (from the cutting room floors of both original Zendikar and Throne of Eldraine) that would require a new frame treatment, weird leveler callbacks, and the Eldrazi callback mechanic Titan.
Aether Trap 2
Artifact – Trap
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice CARDNAME and draw a card.
Whenever an opponent casts a second spell in a turn, you may put this onto the battlefield and draw a card. 4 or U, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Counter target spell.
Quest for Forbidden Power 3B
Enchantment
Whenever you complete any of the following tasks, put a quest counter on CARDNAME. If it was the first time you have completed that task, each player discards a card.
* A land enters the battlefield under your control.
* A creature dies.
* An opponent loses 5 or more life in a single turn.
Remove three quest counters from CARDNAME and sacrifice it: Until end of turn, you may play cards from your graveyard. If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere this turn, exile that card instead.
Leveling Rogue 1B
Creature – Human Ally Rogue 1B: Add a +1/+1 counter to CARDNAME. When CARDNAME gets three +1/+1 counters, it loses this ability and gains menace.
3/1
Remnant of Force 1U
Instant
Titan 8(You may cast this spell for its titan cost rather than its mana cost.)
Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. If this spell's titan cost was paid, also draw two cards.
Traps were about the only thing I was disappointed to not see, the rest I understood why they wouldn't be showing up. I see Titan was their attempt at Megakicker.
Not sure if anyone cares anymore, but Mark's article this week is the Vision Design handoff, which a lot of people on here have been asking about. Included in the things that were in it but not in the set include artifact Traps, Quests with multiple ways to get quest counters (from the cutting room floors of both original Zendikar and Throne of Eldraine) that would require a new frame treatment, weird leveler callbacks, and the Eldrazi callback mechanic Titan.
Aether Trap 2
Artifact – Trap
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice CARDNAME and draw a card.
Whenever an opponent casts a second spell in a turn, you may put this onto the battlefield and draw a card. 4 or U, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Counter target spell.
Quest for Forbidden Power 3B
Enchantment
Whenever you complete any of the following tasks, put a quest counter on CARDNAME. If it was the first time you have completed that task, each player discards a card.
* A land enters the battlefield under your control.
* A creature dies.
* An opponent loses 5 or more life in a single turn.
Remove three quest counters from CARDNAME and sacrifice it: Until end of turn, you may play cards from your graveyard. If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere this turn, exile that card instead.
Leveling Rogue 1B
Creature – Human Ally Rogue 1B: Add a +1/+1 counter to CARDNAME. When CARDNAME gets three +1/+1 counters, it loses this ability and gains menace.
3/1
Remnant of Force 1U
Instant
Titan 8(You may cast this spell for its titan cost rather than its mana cost.)
Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. If this spell's titan cost was paid, also draw two cards.
All of these wouldve been great instead of party
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
I think a part of it is the limitations of the way they do batching mechanics, your party isn't chosen/static and all the mechanics do is check if things fit basic criteria. What I mean is, the way party was designed doesn't allow for things like "When a creature joins your party" "When ~ dies, if it was a member of your party, " or "Members of your party have lifelink." They were limited to counting roles filled, but even that could have been explored in more dynamic ways than basic scaling with some bonuses for a full party.
Caring if your party has other members ("If your party has two or more creatures in it, ") or more interesting cross-class encouragement ("Target creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. if it's a Warrior, it gains lifelink until end of turn." on a Cleric or "When ~ attacks, it gains flying until end of turn if you control a Wizard." on a Rogue) may have helped. As it stands, party is quite a binary mechanic, you either want full party to maximize everything or you don't want it at all. I respect that WotC was pushing for that (much the same way Domain was intended to be maximized and encouraged five color play and didn't bother with half steps), I just think it made for a less dynamic, less interesting mechanic.
I think the flavor was well-received, so hopefully they bring party back and expand on how it is explored.
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
Dude, I wish wizards had someone like you developing the sets. If any of your ideas were implemented it would have been a lot more fun to play this mechanic
I just find it very unfortunate that a lot of the in-tribe synergy cards didn't pull double duty for party and so ended up eating a lot of space in the set for minimal (!) benefit. The next installments are likely to incorporate some of the innovations you have in mind though I suspect it will always be inherently conservative.
Having a board state with four different creature types is not quite magical Christmas land but it's on the verge of that. Meh.
I strongly feel that the biggest obstacle to card design is that Wizards designs sets for drafting. Because they have to design cards for drafting, certain ideas just don't work, don't scale, or require too many card slots. Your ideas would be great if they designed a non-drafting set or small supplement.
I fully agree. Party being so completely binary means there is no early or even mid-game advantage to running a Party deck, but at the same time there’s no real late-game advantage either because having a full party doesn’t really ever pay off. It’s just a completely failed attempt and it’s baffling to me that it was allowed to proceed this way.
Thank you, though it would appear WotC has their reasons for choosing a different path. Maybe next year.
In the early days of spoiler season, I expected we'd get an answer to the question "Why play this mechanic if it expects you to keep four creatures of different tribes (and in some cases, colors) alive?" I don't think we ever got the reason. As you said, the mechanic was designed to be conservative, which is probably easier to balance, but I don't think for a mechanic that's more fun or worth building around.
I agree with you that they may expand on party down the line, even if it'll probably still be conservative.
I agree with you, though I don't think pushing some of the scaling effects over to "if you have two or more creatures in your party" would make the set too challenging for draft. The mechanic really needed something to fill out the early/midgame. Thinking about building around party, my biggest reservation is that a lot of the more playable party cards still demand a full party for optimal use, do I just hold them while I'm waiting for another Cleric to cast? That's somewhat facetious.
I don't know that it's completely failed, though I certainly don't see it as a success. I'm interested to see if players are able to build something fun and playable, and how.
Really? It was the cycle of Duos, the auras of the demigods, and the scarecrows at common that cared about how deep you were in a color pair, was that what was considered mentally taxing? Those sets also had cards that cared about their own colors, not unlike Zendikar Rising having cards that cared about their own tribe/tribal theme, so I'm guessing you meant WotC considered the cross-color interactions too complex?
Archatmos
Excellion
Fracture: Israfiel (WBR), Wujal (URG), Valedon (GUB), Amduat (BGW), Paladris (RWU)
Collision (Set Two of the Fracture Block)
Quest for the Forsaken (Set Two of the Excellion Block)
Katingal: Plane of Chains
How much have you played with the party mechanic so far? How much have any of us played with it? Me, none.
I'd wait until people actually have significant reps with the mechanic in draft before declaring it completely failed.
Can you provide some clear examples?
I think youre grossly over estimating its potency somewhere
All the good payoff cards are noticeably concentrated in black. In fact, a black-based party deck could well be viable.
But the power level is only part of it. It's the fact that each of the tribes in party had tribal support cards printed which didn't interact with the party mechanic at all, meaning that there were five distinct mechanics in the set marked more so by their tension than synergy (to say nothing of the other mechanics... there is a bit of a play experience redundancy with kicker which is mostly because of kicker's design). So you get clerics who care only about clerics and clerics who care about (full) party, and so on with the other four. Some of that space could have been spared for traps, expeditions, or, if not those exact mechanics, something similar. And that would have been vastly more interesting than yet another set with a tribal subtheme. That would have meant a set with an overall higher level of complexity, though. I think the current design rules against complexity are starting to exhaust the design space that lies within this scope. They're going to have to up the complexity threshold to get us out of the rut we're in.
I want to focus on the last three here, as I looked at what you said and decided to delve a bit deeper into my thoughts and yours.
First, we have your "phat loots". Looking at the equipment for the set I do believe you are correct here, but only partially. Some of the equipment are clearly things that adventurers would take with them or use, rather than find (Utility Knife, Kitsail, and the pick axe), Scavenged Blade seems less like loot and more like "finders keepers" in the cave/forest that it's in which I guess is the same, but I guess that's semantics there, and the white, black, multicolored, and Relic Axe seem more like loot. In this case I'd think your quite right with over half of them.
The wild beasties, I think this is kind of a given as we were always going to get creatures and you can say a party would come across on their journey, but I don't think there's anything that sticks out in that regard. I stayed away from mentioning the beasts they could come across as of course they would.
The flip lands I think are less exotic locals and rather the different paths one could choose to go on in your journey. Do you head climb the rocks or the branches in the sky? While they are exotic locals I don't think they represent exactly the part of the journey that you described.
In these cases I was perhaps far more wrong in my assessment. Usually a journey/quest is far more remembered by the "moments" in it rather than the locations. In the case of something like One Piece, which has varied locations from a winter island where the mountains are like drums to an island where the trees emit bubbles all the time that are used for that areas technology, they are memorable in their own right but you remember far more about what happened there, rather than....well there. In this case I believe I'm looking more for those D&D esque moments of "Remember that time we were in that cave and the floor caved in when he stepped on that rock" or "When we beat that Mimic that was a literally treasure vault and then he got that cursed item and changed into a woman?"
Perhaps what they were going for is more of a scenic route when it comes to adventures rather than the experiences of it.
I'll try and keep up here. I can enjoy Star Wars, but I am no die hard fan. I've really only seen the movies, the Christmas special, and various chunks of the Clone Wars show.
I see you tend to be a bit of a purist when it comes to Star Wars before the prequels, for the most part at least. For me the prequels are pretty much garbage. I actually like Phantom Menace, well at least I think it has the most memorable parts with Darth Maul, the music, and the fight at the end (the rest is awful.) Lucas being in charge of everything was a huge mistake and why we got so many terrible lines, characters, and stories.
I find that half of the sequels are good, the other half is bad. Force Awakens is a decent movie, it's pretty safe, and had some nice potential with what it was setting up.
Where I start to head off from the usual Star Wars fans is #8. The Star Wars stuff I thought was very good, it's that stupid casino side quest that was pointless and unneeded. I understand many Star Wars fans hated what they were adding with #8, and even what they were doing with various stories from #7, but honestly I thought it's what was needed. It was the right amount of change and even Rey's parents being nothing actually called back to the original series where you don't need to be linked to a bloodline to be special (albeit Rey takes that a little too far), and it was a nice bit of circumventing expectations, at least I thought. Luke wanting to burn the books and how tradition needs to be changed was in a way a nice meta call in that Star Wars does need to change a little. You can't just strictly stick to things, even if the new ideas don't work. There was a lot of things they tried to undo about #7, which did feel like wasted time by watching it if things weren't going to go anywhere, but #8 did actually try some new things and I can appreciate it.
Of course #8 has a ton of stupid plot and story bits that are just awful, like the Order not just swinging around and blowing the ship up. The light speed crash was amazing.
Then #9 just completely **** the bed in every way. While #8 sort of destroyed bits of what #7 was setting up, Disney took the fan outcry and went to far with fixes that it went from "repairing" what they thought was broken to straight pandering that no one enjoyed. It really went to show that they had zero plans on how the story was going to go, which is strange considering Marvel's well thought out plans for the MCU. The fact you had to play Fortnite to even understand parts of the story is asinine. The entire thing was an unbridled mess.
That's a correct way to look at it, look at the positives and negatives, and while talking to you I found a bit more of that "adventure", although I still think they missed parts of it.
Now just to be clear I don't have a major attachment to Zendikar. While I did come back to the game at around the time of RoE I was more enthused by the return of Mirrodin, which is about the time I stopped playing at Fifth Dawn. Most of my nostalgia laid with Dominaria as Torment was when I first got into the game and Onslaught is when I first started playing at FNMs and understanding the actual rules, and I was pleased with the return there. So it's strictly not me being a purest when it comes to that. I enjoyed that BFZ had a different direction and a continuing story, although the Gatewatch walking away with nary a scratch when defeating two eldrazi titans I wasn't thrilled about, and a large part of Zen3 that I'm not enjoying is the lack of story here when it comes to the plane itself.
They certainly tried their best to dodge any mention of the Eldrazi and I think this set feels a bit naked with it, yes there are a couple art nods and Forsaken Monument, but after that it's weird to completely sweep an apocalyptic event, where enormous swaths of the land were turned alien and large sections of populations decimated, under the rug like that. Understandably we can't focus on the Eldrazi again and Nahiri's "motivation" seems to be based on them and the Roil, but the world seems far more healed than it probably should be, considering that it probably happened with the last few years in story time. It certainly feels like WotC made Zen3 up in the skies on purpose just to go "Look up there, a distraction!" as a means to not look down at what happened the last time we were on Zendikar.
BGU Control
R Aggro
Standard - For Fun
BG Auras
Take responsibility in what way? or did you mean companion which Maro talked about in his state of design article.
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
Funnily enough, for me it's a common card that I'll be after most copies of. Marauding Blight-Priest is a 3CMC replacement for my 4CMC Cliffhaven Vampires in a bunch of triggers decks, so I'm going to need quite a few.
Relic Golem is another card I'll be using as another cheap CMC pilot for my Sydri Vehicles deck, to complement Lupine Prototype, Vantress Gargoyle and Kefnet the Mindful.
Forsaken Monument is a shoo in for Veladrazi - as I'm sure it is for everyone else's 'Drazi / Artifact decks.
And Angel of Destiny will go into Sephara.
Those are the main ones for me, but there's an Orah Cleric deck in brew too if I can find a way to actually make it potent enough. What it really wants though is a legendary Edgewalker...
Aether Trap 2
Artifact – Trap
At the beginning of your upkeep, sacrifice CARDNAME and draw a card.
Whenever an opponent casts a second spell in a turn, you may put this onto the battlefield and draw a card.
4 or U, T, Sacrifice CARDNAME: Counter target spell.
Quest for Forbidden Power 3B
Enchantment
Whenever you complete any of the following tasks, put a quest counter on CARDNAME. If it was the first time you have completed that task, each player discards a card.
* A land enters the battlefield under your control.
* A creature dies.
* An opponent loses 5 or more life in a single turn.
Remove three quest counters from CARDNAME and sacrifice it: Until end of turn, you may play cards from your graveyard. If a card would be put into your graveyard from anywhere this turn, exile that card instead.
Leveling Rogue 1B
Creature – Human Ally Rogue
1B: Add a +1/+1 counter to CARDNAME. When CARDNAME gets three +1/+1 counters, it loses this ability and gains menace.
3/1
Remnant of Force 1U
Instant
Titan 8 (You may cast this spell for its titan cost rather than its mana cost.)
Return target nonland permanent to its owner's hand. If this spell's titan cost was paid, also draw two cards.
Traps were about the only thing I was disappointed to not see, the rest I understood why they wouldn't be showing up. I see Titan was their attempt at Megakicker.
All of these wouldve been great instead of party