Recently I was thinking about how RG now has three overlapping evergreen keywords, one of them an action word (Fight). It occurred to me that WU has in the past also gotten a simple, easy-to-understand action word that seems useful from a gameplay standpoint but not really exciting enough to be a marquee mechanic for a future block: Detain, introduced in RTR as the Azorius Senate's guild mechanic.
Over the years, we've seen plenty of WU cards that focus on tapdown effects, particularly blue's emphasis on keeping a creature tapped down during its controller's next turn. White doesn't often get that level of tapdown, but has in the past, not to mention it gets longer-term Pacifism effects. Detain fulfills a large portion of what spells like Frost Breath want to do with less text.
So, my proposition is this: What if Detain became WU's second evergreen mechanic, following Flying?
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.
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I would love that! I really liked the way detain worked in RTR. The only issue is the name, which has a bit too strong of law enforcement connotations to work well with some potential flavor aspects of some future tap-down-like things that might otherwise want to use the mechanic.
Well, Fight doesn't stop cards like Rabid Bite from existing. If Detain doesn't fit the flavor of a particular card, like say freezing or grabbing something with a tentacle, then they can probably write a conventional tapdown effect out instead.
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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.
Rabid Bite doesn't fight. I don't really understand the comparison.
Right. He's saying that cards like Frost Breath could co-exist with Detain cards much in the same way that Fight cards coexist with cards like Rabid Bite.
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I don't enough of a role for Detain to fill. WU already has their overlap, and Detain doesn't help do anything within those colors of importance. Flying arguably could be shifted to UB, but I think that would be not as fitting as in WU in a number of ways and seems like it would be perhaps too much of a shake up for what it's worth.
Take note that some color pairs have two or even three overlapping mechanics: BR has Menace and Haste, GU has Flash and Hexproof, RW has First strike and Double strike (related mechanics, but still), BG has Deathtouch and used to have Regeneration (Temporary indestructible is replacing it for the time being), and RG has Trample, Fight, and Reach.
I don't think it unreasonable for WU to have Flying and Detain. The Leonin Snarecasters can give way to more Azorius Arresters, barring sets where creature tapping matters.
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.
Take note that some color pairs have two or even three overlapping mechanics: BR has Menace and Haste, GU has Flash and Hexproof, RW has First strike and Double strike (related mechanics, but still), BG has Deathtouch and used to have Regeneration (Temporary indestructible is replacing it for the time being), and RG has Trample, Fight, and Reach.
I don't think it unreasonable for WU to have Flying and Detain. The Leonin Snarecasters can give way to more Azorius Arresters, barring sets where creature tapping matters.
Flash is more W than G, I think. UW's overlapping abilities are Flying and Flash.
On the Storm Scale, detain was mentioned as being on the cusp for reprinting. Reprintable in the right circumstance, but did have the issue of potentially being forgotten because it's just another thing that clutters up the memory box. I would wager we see it again, I don't know if it will be evergreen, though. We have the basic "tap, doesn't untap" very frequently, so elevating it to a simple evergreen might not be too bad.
Take note that some color pairs have two or even three overlapping mechanics: BR has Menace and Haste, GU has Flash and Hexproof, RW has First strike and Double strike (related mechanics, but still), BG has Deathtouch and used to have Regeneration (Temporary indestructible is replacing it for the time being), and RG has Trample, Fight, and Reach.
I don't think it unreasonable for WU to have Flying and Detain. The Leonin Snarecasters can give way to more Azorius Arresters, barring sets where creature tapping matters.
Flash is more W than G, I think. UW's overlapping abilities are Flying and Flash.
Take note that some color pairs have two or even three overlapping mechanics: BR has Menace and Haste, GU has Flash and Hexproof, RW has First strike and Double strike (related mechanics, but still), BG has Deathtouch and used to have Regeneration (Temporary indestructible is replacing it for the time being), and RG has Trample, Fight, and Reach.
I don't think it unreasonable for WU to have Flying and Detain. The Leonin Snarecasters can give way to more Azorius Arresters, barring sets where creature tapping matters.
It's not unreasonable, but my point was whether this is enough of a role to fill. There being a mechanic already is not a negative to adding one, but it is the lack of a potential positive of not having one yet.
So it would have to add something general and I don't see that.
My tangent about moving flying to was taking the possibility of using detain to replace flying in in order to give an evergreen.
"Something general"? You mean like stopping a creature from doing something for at least two whole turns like tapdown usually does? Admittedly Detain is stronger than tapdown as tapdown can at least be countered by a simple untap spell. But it's like how red and green both have access to damage-dealing effects other than Fight; sometimes they use Fight, sometimes they use something else.
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 pretty reasonable for detain to be reprinted. White and Blue are still doing a ton of tapping (like Topplegeist and Nebelgast Herald). Detain may not always fit in thematically (it is tied to Azorius), but can still be reprinted.
We've seen convoke (Selesny'a Ravnica 1.0 ability) return in M15, and expand to red and black, so detain has a lot of space - perhaps expanding to Esper and black, as fitting the law and order theme.
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Meren of Clan Nel Toth - Reanimator Value
Mizzix - Out of the Box Spellslinger
"Something general"? You mean like stopping a creature from doing something for at least two whole turns like tapdown usually does? Admittedly Detain is stronger than tapdown as tapdown can at least be countered by a simple untap spell. But it's like how red and green both have access to damage-dealing effects other than Fight; sometimes they use Fight, sometimes they use something else.
It has to add something to warrant the evergreen- it needs to be something that wants to be done at larger volume except for complexity. That's what keywords are good for- simplifying staple effects and helping a little bit with flavour. Detain isn't something wants to be be done enough for it to be worth it.
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.
Fight is kind of a terrible mechanic imo, because it only benefits you if you already have board advantage in the first place most of the time. I would gladly take detain as an evergreen, because it gives WU something to do other than control, even if it is a control like ability. I like balanced decks that have some of this and some of that, and never cared for control or zoo type decks, and detain is perfect for that, just like prowess was for RU.
To be fair, fight fills a niche that detain doesn't quite have. When Wizards want to make creatures deal damage equal to their power to other creatures, they don't have another way to make the reciprocal damage not look clunky, like the proto-fight cards in older sets do. Otherwise, the two actions words have a lot in common in terms of design space and drawbacks, with detain having memory issues and fight constantly being mixed up with combat damage.
This would only work if the would make detain overlays (tokens) like they did for morph
That makes sense. In an EDH game I was in, a player had a Brago-based detain deck. Problem was, we had another guy doing Grenzo (goblins everywhere) and a girl doing Trostani (I was in a pillowfort, so this game was a blast). We had to use pennies to track detain, and keep them seperate from the pennies we use for 1/1 counters. It was a real pain.
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DECKS:
Commander:
Aurelia the Warleader - Combat Tricks and Swarm
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - Lifegain/Lifedrain Pillowfort
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice - Token Assault
Meren of Clan Nel Toth - Reanimator Value
Mizzix - Out of the Box Spellslinger
Well, there's Aether Revolt. Kaladesh would have been a good place, what with artifacts providing ample targets for noncreature detain, but it wouldn't be the first time they introduced a new evergreen component in the second set of a block. Though to be fair, C wasn't really a new component, just a new aesthetic for an existing component.
At any rate, if AER did or does have Detain in it, you'd think they would have used it on Consulate Crackdown (whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, detain it).
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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.
The big advantage to making Detain Evergreen isn't actually when it comes to dealing with creatures, but it's an action keyword that interacts with noncreature permanents. It can be used in the dead space that was efficient land destruction, for instance.
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Over the years, we've seen plenty of WU cards that focus on tapdown effects, particularly blue's emphasis on keeping a creature tapped down during its controller's next turn. White doesn't often get that level of tapdown, but has in the past, not to mention it gets longer-term Pacifism effects. Detain fulfills a large portion of what spells like Frost Breath want to do with less text.
So, my proposition is this: What if Detain became WU's second evergreen mechanic, following Flying?
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.
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.
Blue lives don't matter in the slightest.
Right. He's saying that cards like Frost Breath could co-exist with Detain cards much in the same way that Fight cards coexist with cards like Rabid Bite.
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I don't think it unreasonable for WU to have Flying and Detain. The Leonin Snarecasters can give way to more Azorius Arresters, barring sets where creature tapping matters.
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.
Flash is more W than G, I think. UW's overlapping abilities are Flying and Flash.
Tapping and not untapping a creature usually works better to represent that, at least it has some form of visual
Most important, the mechanics they made evergreen are at least to some degree fairly intuitive how they work.
Detain is not.
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It's not unreasonable, but my point was whether this is enough of a role to fill. There being a mechanic already is not a negative to adding one, but it is the lack of a potential positive of not having one yet.
So it would have to add something general and I don't see that.
My tangent about moving flying to was taking the possibility of using detain to replace flying in in order to give an evergreen.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
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.
We've seen convoke (Selesny'a Ravnica 1.0 ability) return in M15, and expand to red and black, so detain has a lot of space - perhaps expanding to Esper and black, as fitting the law and order theme.
Commander:
Aurelia the Warleader - Combat Tricks and Swarm
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - Lifegain/Lifedrain Pillowfort
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice - Token Assault
Meren of Clan Nel Toth - Reanimator Value
Mizzix - Out of the Box Spellslinger
Standard:
RB Madness Vamps
Casual:
Formerly Modern Elfball
It has to add something to warrant the evergreen- it needs to be something that wants to be done at larger volume except for complexity. That's what keywords are good for- simplifying staple effects and helping a little bit with flavour. Detain isn't something wants to be be done enough for it to be worth it.
RUNIN: Norse mythology set (awaiting further playtesting)
FATE of ALARA: Multicolour factions (currently on hiatus)
Contibutor to the Pyrulea community set
I'm here to tell you that all your set mechanics are bad
#Defundthepolice
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.
To be fair, fight fills a niche that detain doesn't quite have. When Wizards want to make creatures deal damage equal to their power to other creatures, they don't have another way to make the reciprocal damage not look clunky, like the proto-fight cards in older sets do. Otherwise, the two actions words have a lot in common in terms of design space and drawbacks, with detain having memory issues and fight constantly being mixed up with combat damage.
That makes sense. In an EDH game I was in, a player had a Brago-based detain deck. Problem was, we had another guy doing Grenzo (goblins everywhere) and a girl doing Trostani (I was in a pillowfort, so this game was a blast). We had to use pennies to track detain, and keep them seperate from the pennies we use for 1/1 counters. It was a real pain.
Commander:
Aurelia the Warleader - Combat Tricks and Swarm
Oloro, Ageless Ascetic - Lifegain/Lifedrain Pillowfort
Trostani, Selesnya's Voice - Token Assault
Meren of Clan Nel Toth - Reanimator Value
Mizzix - Out of the Box Spellslinger
Standard:
RB Madness Vamps
Casual:
Formerly Modern Elfball
Detain would have been a wonderful mechanic for the consulate. Hopefully we will see it again.
At any rate, if AER did or does have Detain in it, you'd think they would have used it on Consulate Crackdown (whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under an opponent's control, detain it).
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.