“If the opponent protects it, remove a defense counter from it.”
So battles probably use defense counters and can be "protected"?
Does seem likely to be battles, yeah. This text kinda seems like a battle hate card also? It's the opponent protecting 'it', not text for your own battle or a battle support card. Unless battles create something for your opponent as like some kind of reward for you to try and take or something?
See, this is where Universes Beyond annoys me. If they didn't do as much of it in such a shameless way I could get behind it more. Instead of doing occasional crossovers that feel special and carefully chosen, they feel more churned out and more of a cash grab. I also like the idea of a LotR set that they are doing here but it feels like first and foremost just another dart they're throwing at the board to try to pick up as many audiences as possible. Like, a crossover set is always going to be decided based on cashing in on the success of the other property over it being a labour of love, because capitalism, but it would be nice if it felt like they were trying a little harder with it.
Anyway, I do like the lands, it's a cool aesthetic choice to go with the world, I wonder what the other land arts will be like.
The One Ring is a flavourful and fun risk/reward card. Slightly surprised it doesn't have 'the ring tempts you' mechanic that was on the leaked frodo card.
Gandalf is interesting. The first two modes seem kinda weak given you can't spam them, third mode seems the easiest to get use of, fourth mode is a downside that I guess you can activate as a way to keep recurring him especially if he's about to die. Hmm.
Don't know how the tempted by the ring mechanic will work out, but I have to say, the stylism of it is really cool. Representing it like this in a mechanic is just an appealing idea. Much cooler than just having individual card effect that cared about life total or cards in graveyard or something to have this really important part of the lore be represented by a whole mechanic that puts these words on the cards.
Aragorn and Arwen are sort of disappointing to me. Not a very unique effect, looks like it could come from a Selesnya Druid or another basic trope. Gollum is cool and flavorful, I like how they lean in on his trickery. Just wished that he was a DFC with Gollum on the front and Sméagol on the back. Frodo looks sort of cool, I like creatures that upgrade themselves a la Sleeper Agent/Surge Engine. However, I cant really judge it without knowing what “The ring tempts you” means.
I strongly suspect there will be separate cards for Aragorn and Arwen individually as well. We've seen sets with multiple versions of a character before.
I wonder...are all battle cards going forward going to be double faced? That would significantly limit how many sets they can actually show up in. Maybe dfcs will be slightly more common because of battles. And if not, it will be interesting to see how they work. I could see them doing dfc battles here alongside other uses for phyrexian transforming stuff, but maybe those dfcs are in the set primarily because battles meant dfcs were already in set.
I'm guessing the dfc card part of battles is the front face being primarily a hoop to jump through that is the main conflict and back face which gives a payoff as a kind of ending of the battle.
EDIT: alternate possible theory, maybe the two faces represent different states for the battle, where it flips based on a condition a little bit like day/night, like what side of the battle is winning or something
probably a bit unreliable for standard I suspect but seems good in a format like commander where there are multiple opponents with well developed boards to steal from.
It's true you do get virtual affinity cards not rarely. I don't know if it would be doing very much good being a keyword though. WotC may be expanding how many and what kind of mechanics they want to be deciduous, but there's still a cost to doing semi-regular inclusions with a mechanic and making it a part of the things players are encouraged to learn and memorize. Flashback provides a very useful effect that is also I think easier to do if you call it flashback and get players to learn, esp including cards that grant flashback. Meanwhile, I think affinity equivalent cards are pretty short and elegant to read, and as you note, there are variants outside of what currently works with affinity, and even if you changed the rules, I think you would end up with a number of affinity cards with fairly long keywords 'affinity for creature cards in your graveyard' and 'affinity for creatures with power 4 or greater'. I don't think affinity would pull its weight as well. But, idk, maybe it's enough.
Since the new Atraxa revealed the existence of them, it's time to make a thread just for speculating about what it is they actually are.
Some guesses to get the ball rolling:
-Some kind of variant of the unreleased War of the Spark Skirmish mechanic which had players compete to advance on a little mini game board for rewards
Makes a lot of sense with the name. Could be distinct enough to warrant a new cardtype. Was originally an outside the game token more like dungeons but maybe WotC decided they played better as playable cards.
-A variant on the Quest mechanic that has been tried in og Zendikar and Eldraine design, complete multiple different conditions for reward
Calling them Battles would be a different spin on this but it would make some sense for them to be a new cardtype to make them not too easy to destroy in the same way previous design attempts made them enchantments with hexproof. I could see the conditions for this being like objectives in a battle. Arguably less flavourful than the skirmish idea but has the advantage of not sometimes being punished by your opponent fighting you on it.
-Cards that change the gamestate in unnusual ways, like, for instance, the unreleased Stygian mechanic from TBD that splits creatures into lanes
I don't know how many cards you could make like this but it's an area they've tried before that could make sense as warranting a new cardtype. Perhaps bonus effects layered on top for different battle cards.
Flashback isn't surprising, MaRo has confirmed it is now deciduous and it was a relatively obvious choice for that with their recent expansion of what they are willing to make deciduous. Affinity is strange though given it's not a listed mechanic for the set, not confirmed to be deciduous and an unusual choice for a mechanic to be deciduous.
Does seem likely to be battles, yeah. This text kinda seems like a battle hate card also? It's the opponent protecting 'it', not text for your own battle or a battle support card. Unless battles create something for your opponent as like some kind of reward for you to try and take or something?
Allies is a good idea. I was thinking Rebels, after ONE.
Well, the 'if you cast it' clause means you can't only recur it with return to hand or the like and not blink.
Anyway, I do like the lands, it's a cool aesthetic choice to go with the world, I wonder what the other land arts will be like.
The One Ring is a flavourful and fun risk/reward card. Slightly surprised it doesn't have 'the ring tempts you' mechanic that was on the leaked frodo card.
Gandalf is interesting. The first two modes seem kinda weak given you can't spam them, third mode seems the easiest to get use of, fourth mode is a downside that I guess you can activate as a way to keep recurring him especially if he's about to die. Hmm.
I strongly suspect there will be separate cards for Aragorn and Arwen individually as well. We've seen sets with multiple versions of a character before.
I'm guessing the dfc card part of battles is the front face being primarily a hoop to jump through that is the main conflict and back face which gives a payoff as a kind of ending of the battle.
EDIT: alternate possible theory, maybe the two faces represent different states for the battle, where it flips based on a condition a little bit like day/night, like what side of the battle is winning or something
That's a very flexible card for oil counter synergy decks. Pretty efficient.
Some guesses to get the ball rolling:
-Some kind of variant of the unreleased War of the Spark Skirmish mechanic which had players compete to advance on a little mini game board for rewards
Makes a lot of sense with the name. Could be distinct enough to warrant a new cardtype. Was originally an outside the game token more like dungeons but maybe WotC decided they played better as playable cards.
-A variant on the Quest mechanic that has been tried in og Zendikar and Eldraine design, complete multiple different conditions for reward
Calling them Battles would be a different spin on this but it would make some sense for them to be a new cardtype to make them not too easy to destroy in the same way previous design attempts made them enchantments with hexproof. I could see the conditions for this being like objectives in a battle. Arguably less flavourful than the skirmish idea but has the advantage of not sometimes being punished by your opponent fighting you on it.
-Cards that change the gamestate in unnusual ways, like, for instance, the unreleased Stygian mechanic from TBD that splits creatures into lanes
I don't know how many cards you could make like this but it's an area they've tried before that could make sense as warranting a new cardtype. Perhaps bonus effects layered on top for different battle cards.