Flatline, I would interpret that question differently. I interpret it as "Could Wizards print this card?" not "Could I print this card?". The question in the rubric needs to be asked because there are many things about the rules Wizards couldn't wave a magic wand and change. The basic structure of the game is ossified.
I agree that if a card introduced something that conflicted with the rules in a way that wasn't easily or cleanly resolvable it would not be as "viable" as it could be and thus would be fair game for docking points there. In my mind, though, directly conflicting with the rules of the game is different than operating in a gray area that needs further clarification. I think that question is more art than science, and something the judges have to think about and ask themselves: "Could I see this being printed?" "Could I envision a clean way for Wizards to execute rules for this card or mechanic that isn't confusing or destructive?"
I'm pretty sure that new rules and clarifications would be created should Gerrard's Mom's card be printed. It's very difficult to just guess because we aren't the ones in power who are determining the rules. To answer your question Flatline, I think "what would happen here" is whatever you would want to have happen there if you were in Wizards R&D.
I'm sure some day, especially as digital MTG grows in importance, that cards like Gerrard Mom's or mechanics like the gravestitch ability I created last month will be created, and at that point Wizards will determine how they want to craft the rules for those cards. And then, perhaps five or ten years later, in response to a new card being created, they'll change the rules yet again. For example, the busted interaction between Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Boom//Bust prompted a rules change.
For Gerrard Mom's specific card, the easiest thing to do would be to change the rules line to "Weatherlight Reforged has all abilities of creatures crewing it except those that set base power and toughness." There are probably some ways to just add some italicized text afterward as well: "If multiple abilities try to set Weatherlight Reforged's base power and toughness, choose one of them to apply."
Personally I don't think we should allow the fact that we aren't working at Wizards to hamper our card designs or our creativity. Were I judging Gerrard Mom's card, I wouldn't take off any points. A card's viability should not be tied to the card's designer's employment status.
------------------
Unrelated: how does MTGSalvation deal with cards like Boom/Bust, Beck/Call, and Commit [to] Memory? I can't figure out how to get those cards to display on the forum. Is there a special trick to it?
I think Rudyard joined Opus Dei, and he got Antiantiserum and void_nothing to tag along for the ride
If I could propose one amendment to your new amendment void. I think simply requiring the approval of the other judges to do more than one card would suffice. I can envision various challenges where you could judge the cards together using one pass on the rubric, and toward the later stages of the competition where there are fewer participants I could imagine such a challenge being okay. Requiring the pre-approval of the other judges would avoid this type of problem from occurring in the future.
Of course, it might be best to just flat out dictate that only one card per challenge is allowed. Just proposing this alternative to see if you think that this might be a bit more flexible while still preventing the problem we're trying to avoid.
Do let us know what you find out about rule 208.5 IcariiFA (or void - you seem to have a much vaster rules knowledge than I). Perhaps what might help is to figure out why the rule was created in the first place - what interaction led to the rule needing to be created? My understanding is that it was created during Kaladesh. I can't, however, discern anything problematic about vehicles that would require a new rule like that.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Follow me on Twitch if you're interested in watching competitive league drafts.
Play MTGO? Check out my latest MTGO finance articles on Quiet Speculation.
If you were to put the following ability onto a card named Bear Cub, what would happen?
"When Reaper of the Souls dies, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield."
By my current understanding of the rules of Magic, that ability would not trigger upon Bear Cub's death if put onto Bear Cub because Bear Cub is not named "Reaper of the Souls". Hence why "this creature" language seems necessary.
Congrats bravelion! A very nice card you designed.
I really like gravestitch (the gameplay it promotes is great, and it feels very different from other graveyard mechanics), but it just doesn't work out too well in paper, as all the judges noted. It works great online. I wish I could bridge the gap somehow. For starters reducing the choices from 3 to 2 would be good (base stats OR abilities). Hemlock recommended using a new word "replace" instead of "exchange", and that would reduce the amount of tracking. I think those 2 changes would make it printable and not too complex. Still a bit of a nuisance in paper - as with most exile effects you'd put the exiled card underneath the other card, and you'd have a FRF or AKH punch out with "stats" or "abilities" instead of "dragons", "khans", or "exerted".
I'm a bit miffed that no one understood the flavor. I contemplated adding a flavor line to drive the flavor home, but thought it would carry through. The line I almost added was: "Ludevic, let's give it two legs of equal length next time." Clearly gravestitch is showing up in a world in which zombie entities are being stitched together, all imperfect but hopefully becoming something better as you mish-mash them up. The giant zombie was "teetering", about to collapse and have all of its skulls come crashing down onto the world destroying everything. In my card render I scoped it appropriately to emphasize my interpretation of the art. Several of the judges criticized that a 6/1 trample creature couldn't be a giant, or that the art couldn't be depicting a large creature or amalgam, but that makes no sense to me (especially once you consider what a set where zombies are being stitched together as amalgams looks like). I suppose, at bare minimum, y'all now know what my thinking was. I regret not adding the flavor line.
It didn't seem that the judges looked at my rules notes. Every judge took off points for my use of "this creature", but, as with soulbond creatures, that language seems necessary for cards with gravestitch. If the ability is going to be transferred onto another creature, it needs to use "this creature" language to refer to itself if the ability is going to transfer. Another interesting thing I found out is that Wizards did create a rule during Kaladesh that established that if a creature lacks a power or toughness for whatever reason, its power or toughness becomes zero. Thus I don't think that the Tarmogoyf issue I was struggling with my ooze card in the CCL and Teetering Amalgam here in the MCC is actually an issue anymore. I explained this in my notes, but no judge commented on it and just took off quality points instead. I'd definitely like to hear what folks make of rule 208.5. Either I'm reading the rule wrong or we as a community have to update our rules knowledge.
I enjoyed the challenge. The whole month had fun challenges. Thanks IcariiFA! And once again, a well-deserved trophy for bravelion
This past challenge was very interesting, and I'm not sure how possible it is to accomplish successfully. I think only mine and JimmyGroove's cards would be "Standard playable" as a midrange card from the bunch, his from the sideboard to combat aggro and mine in the maindeck, but both of us cut corners in other ways. The overarching difficulty of the challenge is that creatures with CMC 4 or greater need to either be (i) very difficult to kill or are recursive or (ii) generate card advantage the turn they are cast if they resolve. If they are neither of those things, the card rarely can find its way into the main of a standard deck.
When you staple 3 of that list's keywords to a card, you're taking up significant power real-estate, which makes it that much tougher to design the card for Standard and specifically for midrange. I'm pretty confident it is impossible to design a balanced "broadly flexible" Standard midrange card given that specific 3 keyword restriction. I suspect IcariiFA chose those 3 keywords to make the challenge as difficult as possible, though I'd like to hear from him about the design of the challenge itself. I think there was a lot of thought that went into the challenge's design. I've been waiting for the challenge to be over so I could hear from him about it!
I tried to thread the needle as best as I could. I ensured that Dashan would usually net you some advantage, although a treasure token on its own isn't enough of a generated advantage to merit Standard play in my opinion. I think it needed something more, so I designed it to where, if you went through the right deck-building hoops, Dashan would likely net you a very significant immediate advantage (that of becoming the Monarch) if you felt your board position was solid enough. My hope is that that potential pushes it over the hump of Standard playability (it's close and would require testing). I think this sort of design strategy (augmenting its power in a certain more-narrow context) is probably the only way to successfully complete the challenge. Or at least to complete the challenge minus the "can slot into any deck" part.
The fun part about Dashan, in my opinion, is the dance that would take place with this card on the battlefield between aggressive and midrange players. Against control this card is less interesting - you just want to flip it as soon as possible. But when the battlefield is cluttered and threats are bashing into each other, declaring yourself the Monarch is a strategic move, one that can backfire. Dashan definitely heightens the urgency of the game state and the strategic choices both players make.
I designed Dashan for the upcoming Core Set, so I had this current Standard, especially post-rotation Standard, in mind when designing him, his flavor, and choosing his abilities. I think it'd be cool to have a cycle of 5 creatures that, when transformed, make you the Monarch (similar to Magic Origins's 5 creatures that transformed into planeswalkers).
Anywho, that was some of my thought process to designing the card. I enjoyed this challenge a lot. It was a great challenge in part because of its infeasability. The only thing I found myself not liking about the challenge is how it precluded you from designing cards from several colors. I think Icarii deserves a lot of credit and applause for putting this challenge together.
I really like this design but I couldn't get it to fit the challenge. 3 key words was just too much, as concentrating the power there prevented me from making the power and toughness big enough to pull off the design. So I'll just share it here. I really like how this might open up room for fight spells weaker than Dromoka's Command to see play in Standard. Plus he's mighty cute...and giraffasaurs apparently were a real thing ("giraffatitans").
My entry's keyword soup led me to Chittering Host which throws a bit of a chink into this list. Haste seems to precede menace. Maybe they change it every once in a while when they introduce new evergreen keywords and remove others? It's really hard to know what exactly to do. It could be that different keywords are placed in a different order when grouped with different abilities?
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Follow me on Twitch if you're interested in watching competitive league drafts.
Play MTGO? Check out my latest MTGO finance articles on Quiet Speculation.
Flatline, I would interpret that question differently. I interpret it as "Could Wizards print this card?" not "Could I print this card?". The question in the rubric needs to be asked because there are many things about the rules Wizards couldn't wave a magic wand and change. The basic structure of the game is ossified.
I agree that if a card introduced something that conflicted with the rules in a way that wasn't easily or cleanly resolvable it would not be as "viable" as it could be and thus would be fair game for docking points there. In my mind, though, directly conflicting with the rules of the game is different than operating in a gray area that needs further clarification. I think that question is more art than science, and something the judges have to think about and ask themselves: "Could I see this being printed?" "Could I envision a clean way for Wizards to execute rules for this card or mechanic that isn't confusing or destructive?"
I'm sure some day, especially as digital MTG grows in importance, that cards like Gerrard Mom's or mechanics like the gravestitch ability I created last month will be created, and at that point Wizards will determine how they want to craft the rules for those cards. And then, perhaps five or ten years later, in response to a new card being created, they'll change the rules yet again. For example, the busted interaction between Goblin Dark-Dwellers and Boom//Bust prompted a rules change.
For Gerrard Mom's specific card, the easiest thing to do would be to change the rules line to "Weatherlight Reforged has all abilities of creatures crewing it except those that set base power and toughness." There are probably some ways to just add some italicized text afterward as well: "If multiple abilities try to set Weatherlight Reforged's base power and toughness, choose one of them to apply."
Personally I don't think we should allow the fact that we aren't working at Wizards to hamper our card designs or our creativity. Were I judging Gerrard Mom's card, I wouldn't take off any points. A card's viability should not be tied to the card's designer's employment status.
------------------
Unrelated: how does MTGSalvation deal with cards like Boom/Bust, Beck/Call, and Commit [to] Memory? I can't figure out how to get those cards to display on the forum. Is there a special trick to it?
It sounds like Rudyard is going through some crazy times. I hope you're hanging in there Rudyard!
If I could propose one amendment to your new amendment void. I think simply requiring the approval of the other judges to do more than one card would suffice. I can envision various challenges where you could judge the cards together using one pass on the rubric, and toward the later stages of the competition where there are fewer participants I could imagine such a challenge being okay. Requiring the pre-approval of the other judges would avoid this type of problem from occurring in the future.
Of course, it might be best to just flat out dictate that only one card per challenge is allowed. Just proposing this alternative to see if you think that this might be a bit more flexible while still preventing the problem we're trying to avoid.
My favorite painter is Thomas Cole, and he did a cycle of paintings on this very subject. They now sit in the National Gallery in DC. http://www.explorethomascole.org/tour/items/73/series/
I had a copy of Youth in my bedroom growing up.
"When Reaper of the Souls dies, return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield."
By my current understanding of the rules of Magic, that ability would not trigger upon Bear Cub's death if put onto Bear Cub because Bear Cub is not named "Reaper of the Souls". Hence why "this creature" language seems necessary.
I really like gravestitch (the gameplay it promotes is great, and it feels very different from other graveyard mechanics), but it just doesn't work out too well in paper, as all the judges noted. It works great online. I wish I could bridge the gap somehow. For starters reducing the choices from 3 to 2 would be good (base stats OR abilities). Hemlock recommended using a new word "replace" instead of "exchange", and that would reduce the amount of tracking. I think those 2 changes would make it printable and not too complex. Still a bit of a nuisance in paper - as with most exile effects you'd put the exiled card underneath the other card, and you'd have a FRF or AKH punch out with "stats" or "abilities" instead of "dragons", "khans", or "exerted".
I'm a bit miffed that no one understood the flavor. I contemplated adding a flavor line to drive the flavor home, but thought it would carry through. The line I almost added was: "Ludevic, let's give it two legs of equal length next time." Clearly gravestitch is showing up in a world in which zombie entities are being stitched together, all imperfect but hopefully becoming something better as you mish-mash them up. The giant zombie was "teetering", about to collapse and have all of its skulls come crashing down onto the world destroying everything. In my card render I scoped it appropriately to emphasize my interpretation of the art. Several of the judges criticized that a 6/1 trample creature couldn't be a giant, or that the art couldn't be depicting a large creature or amalgam, but that makes no sense to me (especially once you consider what a set where zombies are being stitched together as amalgams looks like). I suppose, at bare minimum, y'all now know what my thinking was. I regret not adding the flavor line.
It didn't seem that the judges looked at my rules notes. Every judge took off points for my use of "this creature", but, as with soulbond creatures, that language seems necessary for cards with gravestitch. If the ability is going to be transferred onto another creature, it needs to use "this creature" language to refer to itself if the ability is going to transfer. Another interesting thing I found out is that Wizards did create a rule during Kaladesh that established that if a creature lacks a power or toughness for whatever reason, its power or toughness becomes zero. Thus I don't think that the Tarmogoyf issue I was struggling with my ooze card in the CCL and Teetering Amalgam here in the MCC is actually an issue anymore. I explained this in my notes, but no judge commented on it and just took off quality points instead. I'd definitely like to hear what folks make of rule 208.5. Either I'm reading the rule wrong or we as a community have to update our rules knowledge.
I enjoyed the challenge. The whole month had fun challenges. Thanks IcariiFA! And once again, a well-deserved trophy for bravelion
When you staple 3 of that list's keywords to a card, you're taking up significant power real-estate, which makes it that much tougher to design the card for Standard and specifically for midrange. I'm pretty confident it is impossible to design a balanced "broadly flexible" Standard midrange card given that specific 3 keyword restriction. I suspect IcariiFA chose those 3 keywords to make the challenge as difficult as possible, though I'd like to hear from him about the design of the challenge itself. I think there was a lot of thought that went into the challenge's design. I've been waiting for the challenge to be over so I could hear from him about it!
The fun part about Dashan, in my opinion, is the dance that would take place with this card on the battlefield between aggressive and midrange players. Against control this card is less interesting - you just want to flip it as soon as possible. But when the battlefield is cluttered and threats are bashing into each other, declaring yourself the Monarch is a strategic move, one that can backfire. Dashan definitely heightens the urgency of the game state and the strategic choices both players make.
I designed Dashan for the upcoming Core Set, so I had this current Standard, especially post-rotation Standard, in mind when designing him, his flavor, and choosing his abilities. I think it'd be cool to have a cycle of 5 creatures that, when transformed, make you the Monarch (similar to Magic Origins's 5 creatures that transformed into planeswalkers).