Abzan's Khan ability has been revealed in the card Herald of Anafenza, this curious and simple ability allows you to put +1/+1 counter on the self creature in exchange for tapping it. Personally I consider this ability very similar to Heroic but slower, it combines fine with the same topic of counters as in the Theros block making it easy to constrast between the two sets.
What are your toughts about this new ability and the possibilities it has with cards from the last sets, as well as its possible uses outside of standard and limited.
Reminds me of a mix of Level Up and Monstrosity. It's made for a long grind, slowly building an incremental advantage. I would not be surprised whatsoever if it turned out that Erik Lauer was responsible for this mechanic. It feels like the sort of card he'd try to break. It'll be interesting to see what kind of triggers come out of this.
Designwise, it makes me cringe that they're keywording a mechanic and then attaching triggers to it, instead of just stating a bloody "2W,T: Put a +1/+1 counter on ~ and put a 1/1 token onto the battlefield."
Powerlevelwise its actually pretty attractive, but talk about designing yourself into a corner. I really hate these close-ended mechanics that have such linear and unexploitable uses, let alone the painfully inelegant ones
I mentioned it in the spoiler thread... but it's weird that you can only do this at sorcery speed. I'd very much like to be able to block with my defensive creatures.
Otherwise, it's fine. Good mana sink as you move towards the endgame, and on a reasonable spoiler card to boot.
As long as the cost of outlast isn't too unreasonable, it will play well. But we could also be looking at this blocks cipher.
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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.
- Manite
I'm hoping that they explore using costs other than just mana for this.
In particular, I'd love to see an outlast card that had a cost of causing an opponent to gain some amount of life (similar to wall of shards's cumulative upkeep effect). It would make for an interesting balancing act - how many times are you willing to provide a buffer to an opponent? Even cooler would be if it were a life syphoner aimed at multiplayer, and had a trigger that made a different opponent lose the same amount of life. I don't actually expect to see any unique activation costs, however, since Wizards have been playing abilities extremely safe over the past few years, and I would bet that a non mana costing ability would be too easily broken in their eyes.
I'd also like to see them have at least one outlast creature that gets additional keywords when it has enough +1/+1 counters on it (maybe something like "as long as ~ has at least 2 +1/+1 counters on it, it gains lifelink. As long as ~ has 4 +1/+1 counters on it, it gains trample." or the like). The would go a really long way in making the keyword really feel like the player is getting a real reward for having their outlast creature(s) last for so long.
Over all, while I'm a bit disappointed in the simplicity of the mechanic, there's a lot of potential design space specifically BECAUSE it's so simplistic, and I really hope that Wizards takes advantage of it.
Quite a few custom card designers on this forum alone have made this ability already under several names and with or without the sorcery-speed or tapping restrictions. The most common name given to this was bolster. As in,
Bolster <cost> (<cost>, {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on ~. {Bolster only as a sorcery.})
As an easily-predictable mechanic, I find it to be quite simply designed. On the other hand, since Wizards also "approves" of bolster, I'm curious to see if the design space they explored was the same as the design space that custom card designers here have explored.
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How to use card tags (please use them for everybody's sanity)
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format Minimum deck size: 60 Maximum number of identical cards: 4 Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
Quite a few custom card designers on this forum alone have made this ability already under several names and with or without the sorcery-speed or tapping restrictions. The most common name given to this was bolster. As in,
Bolster <cost> (<cost>, {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on ~. {Bolster only as a sorcery.})
As an easily-predictable mechanic, I find it to be quite simply designed. On the other hand, since Wizards also "approves" of bolster, I'm curious to see if the design space they explored was the same as the design space that custom card designers here have explored.
My guess is we (custom card makers) have already designed most every outlast card wizards will print and explored more of the design space.
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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.
- Manite
After reflecting on it for a few more minutes, what I really dislike is the insular nature of it, that closemindedness. Its the fact that wizards are specifically making this guys trigger reference the keyword, instead of opening up a combo piece.
For example, say you had this same card, but had it phrased as
"Whenever you put a +1/+1 counter on ~, you may put a 1/1 token onto the battlefield", or even make it one for each counter, and balance around that.
Instead what we get is a card that works only in its narrowly allowed manner.
Its wizards being adverse to combo and engines and wanting to have a constrictive playstyle thats more easy to balance, and I disapprove of it. The mechanic itself is already narrow and hard to design around without being pigeon holed into a specific playstyle, but then they go and make it pseudo-parasitic as well.
Quite a few custom card designers on this forum alone have made this ability already under several names and with or without the sorcery-speed or tapping restrictions. The most common name given to this was bolster. As in,
Bolster <cost> (<cost>, {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on ~. {Bolster only as a sorcery.})
As an easily-predictable mechanic, I find it to be quite simply designed. On the other hand, since Wizards also "approves" of bolster, I'm curious to see if the design space they explored was the same as the design space that custom card designers here have explored.
I suspect the restriction to Sorcery speed was done for the sake of preventing chessiness in Limited. Lorwyn Limited suffered from an overly high number of activated abilities wthat led to extremely confusing and confounding game states and by many players and Wizards it was regarded as a large flaw. Having the restriction makes the choice of the ability all the more interesting. The cards may not play as cleverly and instead reward good decision making, which in many ways makes them more skill intensive.
This and leveler have sorcery speed restrictions to make it a real skill-testing choice whether to use it or not. If you could just dump end-step mana into it there would be no real choice element in it, and it's also not meant to be used as a combat trick which this would obviously become at instant speed. It would go against the intended philosophy if it would be instant, which is fine and now it also allows them to hopefully push it a bit more.
Considering that this is a rare, do you think it will get better?
I knew Abzan would be something like this, however the sorcery speed and apparent strict template makes me sad. I wont expect Abzan to make many rings in the water in Standard. I might still go Abzan for pre-release and I'll definitely snatch up a few of the tri-color cards to supplement my "Counterpunch"-EDH, both of the current actually - Duneblast and Ivorytusk Fortress.
Actually I like the comparison to Level-Up -> an ability that in limited and in singular occasions was quite powerful but overall it felt kinda lackluster. That's the same feeling I have about Outlast.
Not really excited about the Clan anymore though.
If they don't print a good Vigilance card with Outlast... it's not going to be good. Having to tap it and the Sorcery speed makes it work against... everything? You can't block nor attack if you want to Outlast... well, you have that elephant
I'm trying to brew a (standard) deck around Spirit bonds for some time now - this guy might be interesting in it. He is a cheap non-token creature, so it is easy to generate a spirit from him and he generates more tokens, so any anthems work with him.
It is possible that he'll be to slow, but I'll certainly test him.
I have been wondering how the khan will fit into this mechanic. Zurgo enables raid because he is all about attacking. Narset enables prowess because she lets you cast up to four noncreatures from the top. What enables this?
Untapping creatures: not likely because the elephant house does that
Tapped creatures can block: still pretty similar to untapping
Doubling counters: seems a bit vanilla since it has already been used on corpsejack menace
Doubling effects of abilities: too powerful, we cannot really afford to have a static illusionist's bracers
Abilities cost less to activate
Use tap abilities as if with haste
Use abilities as instants
What else fits here? I do not think any of these seem very likely either by environment or by what BWG should be doing.
Of course it could be something that benefits off of this type of activation rather than being an enabler, but we do not yet have evidence for that.
I am expecting there to be quite a bit of "creatures with a +1/+1 counter on them get ..." in this clan so it could just be another version of that.
this is pretty much monstrosity. at sorcery speed. and requires you to tap.
sure it's repeatable, but is that enough to justify all the rest?
i imagine that making it the theme of your deck would be a poor choice, but maybe there will be 1 good rare with it that you can jam in a deck play its colour
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Huey, Dewey and Louie are always dressed in RUG. it is CLEARLY going to be the wedges block Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
I doubt we will see much of this card, or the mechanic, in constructed play. Investing significant resources into a single creature is rarely a strong strategy. IMO the triggers associated with the activation would need to be pretty aggressively costed for something like this to be strong in constructed. This guy isn't bad, but I suspect 3 mana is probably going to end up being 1 too much.
I'm not totally convinced about this ability either. I mostly like this clan because it has my favourite colors but unless they release a good number of cards with "creatures with +1/+1 counters on it have X" then this is just a lame mechanic. I'm not hoping this clan to exceed the other 4 but at least it could be a little bit more groundbreaking, and even more considering how fast the Termur and Mordu will be playing.
This is terrible mechanic, thematically and mechanically. The strikes against it:
It's a control deck mechanic that only works with creatures
It pours resources into individual cards
It encourages control players to tap out at sorcery speed
Even with alternative costs (pay life) it can never exceed the rate of one counter a turn (no Outlast X, or it would have been Outlast 1)
It doesn't help at all versus aggro, as it stops the creature using it from blocking
So a sorcery speed, creature based mechanic that pours resources into creatures to make them marginally stronger and prevents them from blocking. Screams control to me. I have a bad feeling that the card that was spoiled was the pushed version of this mechanic and is still far from standard playable. Even compared to Prowess this is totally lackluster. Prowess at least encouraged bounce, burn, and anthem effects and works with the tempo archetype. This runs counter to everything a control deck wants to do.
Tap Out Control has been an archetype for a long time (it was immensely popular in Kamigawa), so 'having to tap out' is not actually a strike against it. You're simply confusing things because you'r assuming a White/Green/Black control deck would want to stay untapped to cast counterspells it doesn't have.
What are your toughts about this new ability and the possibilities it has with cards from the last sets, as well as its possible uses outside of standard and limited.
Powerlevelwise its actually pretty attractive, but talk about designing yourself into a corner. I really hate these close-ended mechanics that have such linear and unexploitable uses, let alone the painfully inelegant ones
Otherwise, it's fine. Good mana sink as you move towards the endgame, and on a reasonable spoiler card to boot.
Cubetutor Link
I actually like the herald, he gives you incremental advantage, which is what I expect from the clan of endurance.
special thanks to sentimentgx4 for the sig
Pourquoi?
- Manite
In particular, I'd love to see an outlast card that had a cost of causing an opponent to gain some amount of life (similar to wall of shards's cumulative upkeep effect). It would make for an interesting balancing act - how many times are you willing to provide a buffer to an opponent? Even cooler would be if it were a life syphoner aimed at multiplayer, and had a trigger that made a different opponent lose the same amount of life. I don't actually expect to see any unique activation costs, however, since Wizards have been playing abilities extremely safe over the past few years, and I would bet that a non mana costing ability would be too easily broken in their eyes.
I'd also like to see them have at least one outlast creature that gets additional keywords when it has enough +1/+1 counters on it (maybe something like "as long as ~ has at least 2 +1/+1 counters on it, it gains lifelink. As long as ~ has 4 +1/+1 counters on it, it gains trample." or the like). The would go a really long way in making the keyword really feel like the player is getting a real reward for having their outlast creature(s) last for so long.
Over all, while I'm a bit disappointed in the simplicity of the mechanic, there's a lot of potential design space specifically BECAUSE it's so simplistic, and I really hope that Wizards takes advantage of it.
Bolster <cost> (<cost>, {T}: Put a +1/+1 counter on ~. {Bolster only as a sorcery.})
As an easily-predictable mechanic, I find it to be quite simply designed. On the other hand, since Wizards also "approves" of bolster, I'm curious to see if the design space they explored was the same as the design space that custom card designers here have explored.
[c]Lightning Bolt[/c] -> Lightning Bolt
[c=Lightning Bolt]Apple Pie[/c] -> Apple Pie
Vowels-Only Format
Minimum deck size: 60
Maximum number of identical cards: 4
Ban list: Cards whose English names begin with a consonant, Unglued and Unhinged cards, cards involving ante, Ancestral Recall
My guess is we (custom card makers) have already designed most every outlast card wizards will print and explored more of the design space.
- Manite
For example, say you had this same card, but had it phrased as
"Whenever you put a +1/+1 counter on ~, you may put a 1/1 token onto the battlefield", or even make it one for each counter, and balance around that.
Instead what we get is a card that works only in its narrowly allowed manner.
Its wizards being adverse to combo and engines and wanting to have a constrictive playstyle thats more easy to balance, and I disapprove of it. The mechanic itself is already narrow and hard to design around without being pigeon holed into a specific playstyle, but then they go and make it pseudo-parasitic as well.
I suspect the restriction to Sorcery speed was done for the sake of preventing chessiness in Limited. Lorwyn Limited suffered from an overly high number of activated abilities wthat led to extremely confusing and confounding game states and by many players and Wizards it was regarded as a large flaw. Having the restriction makes the choice of the ability all the more interesting. The cards may not play as cleverly and instead reward good decision making, which in many ways makes them more skill intensive.
Making the outlast 3 mana means this card is no good. Anything that requires you to spend your mana durdling is no good.
Considering that this is a rare, do you think it will get better?
Actually I like the comparison to Level-Up -> an ability that in limited and in singular occasions was quite powerful but overall it felt kinda lackluster. That's the same feeling I have about Outlast.
Not really excited about the Clan anymore though.
- Do you dare the storms and harshness of the desert to head for combat?
- Or do you tuck yourself in and increase in strength for a later time?
Not really a fan of sorcery-speed abilities.
It is possible that he'll be to slow, but I'll certainly test him.
Untapping creatures: not likely because the elephant house does that
Tapped creatures can block: still pretty similar to untapping
Doubling counters: seems a bit vanilla since it has already been used on corpsejack menace
Doubling effects of abilities: too powerful, we cannot really afford to have a static illusionist's bracers
Abilities cost less to activate
Use tap abilities as if with haste
Use abilities as instants
What else fits here? I do not think any of these seem very likely either by environment or by what BWG should be doing.
Of course it could be something that benefits off of this type of activation rather than being an enabler, but we do not yet have evidence for that.
I am expecting there to be quite a bit of "creatures with a +1/+1 counter on them get ..." in this clan so it could just be another version of that.
sure it's repeatable, but is that enough to justify all the rest?
i imagine that making it the theme of your deck would be a poor choice, but maybe there will be 1 good rare with it that you can jam in a deck play its colour
Pioneer: WURFaerie fires BRGDragons
ModernBGElves WRBurn UR Fires Turns URGift Storm UG Twiddle Storm
So a sorcery speed, creature based mechanic that pours resources into creatures to make them marginally stronger and prevents them from blocking. Screams control to me. I have a bad feeling that the card that was spoiled was the pushed version of this mechanic and is still far from standard playable. Even compared to Prowess this is totally lackluster. Prowess at least encouraged bounce, burn, and anthem effects and works with the tempo archetype. This runs counter to everything a control deck wants to do.