Converge - This creature costs 1 less for each artifact you control.
Converge - This creature deals damage during both the first strike and normal damage step.
Converge - If you spent only mana of one color to play this spell, you win the game.
None of these are are "Converge" as has been established, and none should be given any reasonable design philosophy. I think you'd agree.
Entomb certainly isn't necessary to have decent reanimator options, but it is certainly a card that wants to make it happen. The ability to toolbox reanimate would be quite appealing. Mind you, with fair (and not silver bullet) checks, I don't see it being a problem. THAT SAID, the sheer bulk of proposals I'm making here, and my high standard of quality, probably means this is a fight for another day.
I'm going to fight you on Quicken; like many good cards, it fulfills two roles - 1, it's a 1-mana cantrip, on it's own playable in limited, and 2, it teaches you the difference between instants and sorceries by letting you break the rule that separates instants and sorceries. Yes, instant speed Day of Judgment is a "problem"... but not really much more than Day of Judgment on it's own.
Aerial Responder has a horrible creature type and mediocre art. The flavor just is not there. In contrast, the angel would be 4x of in casual angel decks. If dwarves were meant to fly, they'd be atop a giant eagle like any good skyknight.
Shatterstorm has the regeneration clause, a no-no for a contemporary core set. We could go full Day of Judgment here, AKA functionally worse. But I do want ONE indestructible card in the set - Darksteel Colossus - and this serves as one of a select few answers to it (Condemn, ???). At (R), I think this is fair so as to not spoil too many Darksteel Colossus drafts, but still serve as a potential answer for standard.
White has historically had the wrath-variants, so I don't see a problem here. I did toy with giving black something like "Each player discards all cards" (and not including one with nothing, but it is a junk rare that saw constructed play... so it almost has to get in). If we were cruel, I could print "Each player sacrifices all creatures they control. Lose life equal to the # sacrificed." but that seems a bit much. Mutilate would encourage mono-black play, which is nice for a core set to do... but I can see opting for something else. Maybe "Each player returns all creature cards in their graveyard to the battlefield." or "Each player exiles all creature cards form their graveyard and creates that many 2/2 zombie tokens."
Open to other suggestions for this cycle though.
Relicstorm might be a bit too much of a combo enabler; certainly needs testing. Alternatively, maybe a bounce spell that lets you choose the type(s) being bounced?
Kjeldoran Keep
Land (R)
Kjeldoran Keep enters the battlefield tapped. T: Add W to your mana pool. If that mana is spent on a soldier or knight creature spell, create a 1/1 white soldier creature token. "Kjeldor spoke of peace, but readied for war. Soldiers flooded into thier camps, hindering trade in the name of fairness, threatening all that we built." —Lovisa Coldeyes, Balduvian Chieftain
Except those aren't "deck design constraints". I ran tribal flames in plenty of 3 color draft decks in invasion, even though I never would max it out.
Oh, sure. As I suggested above, domain plays different in limited than constructed. Sans fetchlands or whatnot, running 3 colors is perfectly fine. If you shock for 2 mana in limited; you're doing good!
I suppose there were some constructed decks that only ran 3-4 colors and ran things like that, too. But the fact you can knock a few bones out of the skeleton and still run is amazing. That's a choice you make that defies how the keyword prompts you to act. It takes discipline that is a symptom of good deck building to do as you did. So Domain helps to teach you how to be a better deck builder.
In contrast, with converge you might run plains and 4 city of brass, and then despite your narrow fixing options, you can technically converge x 5. It's "more flexible" as Harlannowick puts it, in this way... but less creative or interesting.
Amusingly, the current versions of the Affinity decks don't run any cards with the actual affinity mechanic.
Well, when you print Metalcraft and print functionally better Chrome Moxes, you rules go out the window. But the affinity deck is still the affinity deck because the central feature of that deck was to run cheap artifacts for bonuses - whether low costs or higher P.
I can actually build a deck around converge just as easily as I can Domain, and probably more so because the fixing doesn't have to be basic lands.
But you don't. You haven't. 5-color good stuff is just better than Converge, since you can start getting good stuff for cheap in turn 1, while 5x converges need to be on turn 5. Sure, you can 3x converge... but that costs 3, not 2 like Tribal Flames. Necessarily Converge cards are pretty useless on turns 1-3, while Domain is not, and 5 color good stuff are certainly not. If you run a deck with 20 City of Brass-variants, are you jonesing for Skyrider Elf? NO!
Traditionally, 5 color goodstuff is straightford - you run the best cards in all colors, usually cheap and efficient cards and answers. Converge just doesn't, and can't by design, be that.
Domain cards are good at all points in game, growing as you play the game on plan.
5 color good stuff tops out when you have a single city of brass variant; sometimes 2 if you're ambitious.
Converge... doesn't scale enough until late game.
Kind of like how Engineered Explosives show up in most formats, but you never see any other sunburst cards competitively. Also, Renegade Rallier saw Standard play.
Fair enough. We've talked about how Sunburst was poorly designed; but Engineered Explosives - I think - is the exception. It's the best kind of Sunburst, and I think you could print lots of variants thereof using the sunburst mechanic that work. Off the top of my head? Chalice of the Void could use a sunburst variant, and anything that cares about odds/evens could make use of the mechanic as well (If this has odd P, it has FS, if it has even, it has trample; etc.).
I'd love to see a return of Sunburst in an artifact block that works exclusively with +1/+1 counters OR change counters (not both in the same block) that explores this design space.
Skyrider Elf is a wierd example because of the X in the cost. Technically, I could spent GU4 and only get a 5/5, or only get a 2/2 if I'm bad at paying my mana costs. You could just as easily spend 8 mana on an engineered explosives and get 5 or 1 counter, so I don't see how one is better than the other.
What cards are you killing with 5 charge counters on engineered explosives. You're right, of course, they play the same in terms of getting counters; but the # of counters matters for EE, when it doesn't benefit the SE to have less.
The problem is, its the only way they could have templated the card without it being Skyreach Manta all over again. Elf can be a 2/2 for 2, and manta can't. That's the trade off.
I'm sure any of us could have constructed a better converge card here if we wanted to. The question is why would we want to?
Lastly, for clarity, the pointer cards I was talking about is the typical uncommon 10 card cycle of two colored cards that show up in most sets for limited purposes. Their job is to communicate to drafters what each color pair is about (Resolute Survivors pointing to the R/W exert strategy in HOU, or Whirler Virtuoso pointing to the UR energy build in KAL). They've said that these cards are typically underpowered outside their core strategy so that they will tend to float to the players who need them. Skyrider was there so a UG player would be guided into cards that helped splash into a converge build, while Forerunner of Slaughter pointed people drafting BR into the eldrazi agro build.
Pointers pick out draft strategy, not limited to pairs. The Onslaught warlords were pointer cards, as are wedge uncommons in wedge sets, etc.
Harlannowick - I understand the difference and have discussed it several times above. As discussed (again, at multiple points above) restrictions are usefil for a mechanic and give it identity and smooth out limited; this is one of the reasons Sunburst was better received than Converge (and sunburst's signature charge or +1/+1 was NEVER USED AGAIN).
But you say that Converge has this additional aspect of flexibility, but don't recognize the clear handicap of limiting it to the cost you pay, rather than being able to grow over time. (Again, your Rainbow Rootwalla is a different mechanic.) This is a limitation - and not a desirable one.
Sure you don't have to design them last; your first draft should probably come rather early. Look at the goblin warchief cycle. It's rather clear that they said "We need an uncommon lord to push the tribal theme." Tweaking thereof might have come late in the format, but you knew you needed lords at uncommon to signpost.
I don't think markee uncommons in general are poorly designed though.
I think "Does this have a realistic shot in at least some deck?" is a fair test here. All of the Onslaught lords fit this. All of them are STILL constructed playable in tribal commander decks.
I realize you and I disagree on whether cards should be designed for constructed; you seem perfectly willing to be all over the place with powerlevel, while I argue that cards should be at least "fringe playable" in some format, meaning they have to be at least tier 2/3 and not obsoleted by existing cards (again, with a few exceptions each year if you're course-correcting). In light of this disagreement, you might be okay with a pointer/signature card that is great in a limited strategy but wouldn't make even the most casual commander deck of anyone with a budget of over $5. But that's a tough sell for cards that are supposed to sell a limited archetype. If a pointer card looks bad to the casual uninitiated player, then I don't think you can say it succeeds at pointing at anything. (I'm sure there have been a few high profile cases of this, but I can't think of any.)
In what way is it incompetent?
As discussed above, green is 5 color by color pie. Blue just is not. So to say that GU is "5 color" is like saying BW is Deathouch-themed. This cannot be the case, since white doesn't get deathtouch and nothing about white says it gets deatbtouch. Blue doesn't get 5-color matters (any more than any other non-green color and much less than green). If your set bleeds a mechanic for block to all 5 colors (domain, threshold, flashback, cycling, scry, Sweep... really pretty much any block mechanic outside of Ravnica-style guilds/tribes/etc.) then all 5 colors (or most of them) get it.
This isn't a subtle point: If Uflavorfully does not get converge any more than any other color, making converge exclusivelyGU Simic's mechanic does not work. This is apparent in the card in question; there's no way anyone with a halfway decent idea of the color pair's identity would conclude that Converge is being used as a GU mechanic; if anything they'd see it as being used as a 5-color mechanic. Which makes sense since it is a 5 color mechanic! Sunburst was an artifact mechanic that made you play 5 colors. Adding UG to the corner doesn't make it a 2-color mechanic.
The literal number of words of rules text on a design isn't really a concern.
I can assure you it is. Ice Cauldron
Even beyond simple templating issues (which are relevant enough to warrant name and creature type changes!), reading text takes precious time in limited, so a card with 3 lines of text you need to read is from a design perspective prohibitory in a way that one with a single world (and 3 lines of reminder text) is not, merely because every Sunburst card (I know, charge vs +1/+1 counters - it's not great, but comparably competent) works the same, while every Converge card CAN work differently.
Converge does allow it though, WotC just didn't explore that design space because converge was underexplored in general. For example...
Rainbow Rootwalla 2G
Creature - Lizard {C}
Trample
Converge - 5 : Rainbow Rootwalla gets +1/+1 for each color of mana spent to activate this ability. Activate this ability only once each turn.
2/2
1. This is a different mechanic. Wizards might say it's the same mechanic (see Landcycling) for marketing, but given how unpopular Converge was and the ever-present marketing push to have new keywords to put on sales material, one would have to have quite bizarre priorities to print that card.
2. It's not an especially compelling or innovative mechanic (I realize you're not trying to make it be; but this is sort of what all mechanics should strive to be, especially if we're not allowed to print drawback mechanics anymore!)
3. There's far less design space. See the Domain card that "works like this" - It can get +5/+0 for 3, but no Converge 2.0 card can do this.
Converge and domain require comparable amounts of color fixing to make work,
No. Converge requires mana fixing; Domain requires basic land type fixing. This is not a subtle point; in fact I suspect it's the primary design motivator for moving from Domain - a popular mechanic - to Converge - an unpopular one. Wizards realized that you can get full domain in Modern on turn 3 (or 2... or possibly 1, I don't even know anymore.) with just 2 fetchlands and a basic. In contrast, full Converge needs 5 different mana. Yes, you can use non-basic-land-typed lands and various other mana fixing to get to 5, but you need 5 mana.
As discussed previously, Wizards CANNOT EASILY design standard-playable Domain cards that cost less than 5 without them being FAR GREATER in a fetchland-enabled Modern than in a slow non-fetchland, non-dualland standard This makes it VERY DIFFICULT for them to design GOOD Domain cards for Standard that aren't OVERPOWERED for Modern.
Imagine this scenario: Decimator beetle and every "Scar" creature is absolutely unplayable in standard (ironically probably true) but lead to a reliably turn 3 combo win in Modern!
That's the Domain Problem. Converge avoids that because to get a X5 Converge, your spell needs to be 5 mana. Mind you, this doesn't mean it's incredibly easy to design constructed playable Converge cards, as is evidenced by the set of cards we have printed, but it means it's at least easier to print them.
Mind you, the Domain problem is not insurmountable; Tromp the Domains did it a while ago. Furthermore, you could actually print duallands and fetchlands in standard (in one block or two side-to-side) to allow for STANDARD x5 Domain spells and balance them accordingly. AS DISCUSSED EARLIER, this is a great design, as it allows your cards to be less oppressive in limited than constructed. See Tribal Flames, Exploding Borders - the former being very popular, and the latter being popular in commander.
Final Word on Domain: As covered above, the "deck design constraints" of Domain (IE, you need to play all 5 basic lands... well, before duals that is...) is one of the reasons it works as a mechanic. The Domain deck looks different than the Madness deck or the Storm deck. Dredge. Replicate. Tribe X. Cycling. Soulshift. (Almost any keyword or mechanic you can actually remember.) But Converge? Like Sweep, it has no unity. You can throw Converge cards that cost less 3 or less into any number of decks and they need not run any other converge costs. You can (and should) only run one or two cards with Sweep; you don't make a Sweep deck. Any 5 color standard deck is probably better suited to play 5-color goodstuff and run MAYBE 1 or two of the best converge cards than to run a "converge" deck.
Can good converge cards be designed? Sure! I can design a Sweep card right now that you want in your vintage deck. Sweep CounterU
Instant (R)
Sweep — Return any number of lands you control to their owner's hand. Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2 for each land returned in this way. If it is countered in this way, draw card equal to that spell's converted mana cost.
You'll run Sweep Counter in every U legacy deck, what with it being the last member of the power 10. Just like you'll run Fatal Push in all your black modern decks, despite never seeing another revolt card for the remainder of your magic playing career.
But Converge, as a mechanic, is bad. And the only reason anyone at Wizards doesn't write it off for being too narrow to design for and requiring atypical support in the set is because of the Domain Problem above. Domain is a great, well loved mechanic because it has clear design goals, offers you scaling effects that can be fair at any point in the game, and opens up design opportunities for both set designer and deck builder. Domain decks are Domain first and 5-color-good-stuff 2nd. They have a skeleton you build around - having 1x of each basic land type (and later lots of fetches/duals in Modern - $300+ mana bases... oops!). Converge decks... don't exist. At least no more than Sweep decks will dominate legacy thanks to Sweep Counter.
Re: Pointer cards: I think it's fair to say that one can alter or change pointer cards in design, but they're pretty much what you want to get right. If this involves tweaking later in the set, after mechanics are changed - fair enough.
Re: GU being 5 color: I know little about the format, but if this is true... it's incompetent.
That is an interesting point of view which I don't personally share. Converge never felt like a drawback to me
Would you ever pay 4UG for Skyrider Elf? How about Nimbus Swimmer? That's what I mean; HERE converge is shackling you. It's quite obscene, actually. Again, compare to Engineered Explosives - a card that ties the counters to the keyword (and thus saves a lot of text space on the card in doing so). Admittedly both Converge and Sunburst proper are "restrictive" as they're more like additional costs you have to pay while casting to get the effect. In terms of mechanics, that's just weird. It's like an esoteric kicker.
You understand that sunburst, the mechanic you are defending, features identical design restrictions. What is more, sunburst features more design restrictions as sunburst must be put on permanents.
The big difference is the amount of game text you get for the same effect. Quite frankly, I've been in favor of printing a modular or graft mechanic in a set merely to save text space on cards you want to put +1/+1 counters on.
For example, Spike Feeder shows you how spikes were templated; but if we returned to spikes, I'd just throw Graft on new Spikes. Not because I want to move +1/+1 counters, although that's a nice bonus and flavorfully consistent with spikes, but mainly because it saves text box space.
So yes - the very fact that Sunburst is a keyword is what makes it preferable to Converge. Both mechanics have problems, but Sunburst's come with a clear advantage.
From a design standpoint, converge is more flexible than domain. Domain requires specific kinds of support cards to amp up the number of basic land types players can reasonably get in limited. Converge only requires mana fixing in general to support.
As demonstrated by the difference between Name and Name 3 above, it's not.
I've spoken earlier in the thread as to how it's easier (in some senses) to get 5 colors than to get 5 basic lands, but domain permanents (which occupy about a half of cards printed with them) have consistently greater gameplay. You can cost Domain cards less than 5 and have them "Grow" to 5; Converge simply doesn't allow this.
If nothing else, recent bannings have taught us that Standard needs a core set with competent answers to mechanics that might become too good. See the calls for Pithing Needle and Duress. Graveyard hate is one of these thing. Rather than printing a Tormod's Crypt silver bullet for sideboards, I like the idea of printing G recycling effects, notably Loaming Shaman at (U), and black (or white) exile effects, notably Vile Rebirth likely at (C). In addition, I think we could get a utility 2-drop artifact that can exile a single card at a time + some other utility thing (mill, tap for mana, fix mana, etc.) at (u).
Similarly, I think a core set should provide fringe-playable cards that serve as a base for archetypes; for example zombify
Beyond the Grave is set to be an (U) in an expert level set. I like the tension here - it's a Scarab Feast that can kicker into zombify. But as is, its terrible at both. The exile effect, at sorcery, is incredibly narrow. Meanwhile the Zombify effect actively works to avoid triggering Prized Amalgam and costs more.
My suggestion: Leave the GraveB
Instant (U)
Kicker 2B
Exile target creature card in a graveyard and gain 3 life. If Leave the Grave was kicked, instead return it from the graveyard to the battlefield and lose 3 life.
Now it's a slightly more narrow Shadowfeed or a painful flash zombify. The flexibility here might even lead it to be maindeck playable as a preemptive sideboard against reanimator decks....
Earlier, I had the idea of spicing up core set foils by having a few cycles of "full art" foils. Generally speaking, a core set is meant to introduce new players to core concepts of the game. This can be done with quality cards, like Vampire Nighthawk; however such cards with evergreen keywords should (when at common or uncommon) have reminder text to teach players the mechanics. However, Wizards sometimes drops reminder text from foils, which makes them more collectable/insteresting.
So here's the (updated) proposal: Include a cycle of "Extended/Full art" foil versions of core set cards, with gameplay text (but no reminder text or flavor text). (These would be similar to the gameday cards wizards puts out on occasion.) Do a cycle at each rarity: Instants @ (C), creatures @ (U), Sorceries @ (R), and Planeswalkers @ (M).
Rationale: Giant Growth and Holy Day do two classic, iconic, color-representing things. They're fringe playable, solid cards that should be in all core sets. Lightning Bolt is the premier burn spell. At (c) it represents a return to classic magic's freedom to put good removal at common. It also allows you to print competitive 1-3 drops at common and uncommon, as there will be answers to them at 1-3 mana in the format. Quicken always struck me as an excellent card as - at worst - it's a cantrip. However, it encourages designers to print more sorcery speed removal at common and uncommon - removal that gets better with a quicken in hand. Playing against B is different than playing against UB in a relevant way here. Historically Quicken has saw play at (R), but the gameplay changes it would allow at common justify moving it down a few rarities. It is an iconic card that perfectly demonstrates blue's color pie.
Finally, let's talk Vile Rebirth VS Entomb. In an ideal world, I'd want both cards in a core set. Vile Rebirth is a great combat trick and graveyard hoser at the same time. It's great at (C) or (U). Zombies are a popular tribe, and the token will likely be used by several cards in the set, so as long as we're okay with tokens in a core set (and I am), then this is pretty much an obvious inclusion.
Entomb, in contrast, is quite iconic. It enables flashback, reassembling Skeleton (likely an (U)), and - most importantly - zombify strategies, themselves iconic. Make no mistake, I realize I would be fighting an uphill battle just to get this card included in a core set at (R), to make it (C) would be seen as absurd to many people. However, the card is very particular at what it does, and it's not very good at much of anything else, so I don't know if it would warp limited. Although you could argue that making it (C) would be bad because it's so useless in limited (unless you have the right deck). In most drafts Entomb at common would be like Cranial Extraction at common; next to useless. But for the reanimator strategy, which should be a black staple strategy with Zombify (or similar) at uncommon and a Hell's Caretaker effect at (R) and/or (M), would love this card. In many respects, it would draft like Compelling Argument - a card only one strategy could use.
I think a core set should sell the game and include as many staples and iconic cards as possible that would allow for a diverse, everchanging and responsive standard. Entomb enables graveyard strategies, while encouraging players to run graveyard hate (like Vile Rebirth, Loaming Shaman, and some (U) artifact graveyard hate 2 drop that also serves as a signet variant?). Is this appropriate at (C)? I don't know; testing would be required. Given the sheer amount of bulk garbage commons that never have a chance of making your limited deck in contemporary sets, I think Entomb might have a shot at (C) if the set is built right. If that's the case, move Vile Rebirth to (U) along with Loaming Shaman and other, subtle graveyard hate/recycling cards, and give it a shot.
(U) Creature Cycle: Vampire Nighthawk1BB Vampire Shaman - Flying, Deathtouch, Lifelink 2/3 Hurloon Bodyguard1RR Minotaur Warrior - Haste, Menace, First Strike 2/3 (The new Hurloon Minotaur, marketing take note!) Faerie Guard1UU Faerie Soldier - Vigilance, Flying, Flash 2/3 Serra Peacekeeper1WW Angel Cleric - Flying, Lifelink, Vigilance 2/3 (The new Thunder Spirit, Marketing take note?) Ambush Basilisk 1GG Basilisk - Haste, Flash, Deathtouch 2/3 (I still like the Raging Kavu-style tension here.)
These feel Obvious, iconic, and yet - with Lightning Bolt at (C) along with some Dark Banishing variant, these don't seem too good.
(R) Sorcery Cycle: Day of Judgment2WW Scapeshift2GG Break Storm2RR Sorcery (R) Exile all artifacts. (IE, Shatterstorm that works against Darksteel Colossus and doesn't include regeneration text. Strictly better Shatterstorm to preserve a strict cycle for a core set seems okay with me.) Mutilate2BB (Alternative: Ill-Gotten Gains ?) Relicstorm2UU Sorcery (R) Return all artifact cards from all graveyards to their owner's hands.
(M) Planeswalker Cycle:
ETB; probably classic Lorywn walkers with a Gideon replacing Ajani, maybe a nissa > garuuk (but he is iconic)...
I see what you're going for here, but I never liked exalted on non-creatures. Then again, I never liked the mechanic as it should really have been Exalted N and even then, it's asking you to do something you probably don't want to do: Put a lot of creatures on the field, then attack with only one!
I wonder if it could be 3:2, Equipped creature gets +2/+2, Vigilance, First Strike, and Exalted.
Elemental ExaminerB
Creature - Human Wizard (U)
Pay 1 life, T: Exile an elemental creature from your graveyard. If it was blue, draw a card. If it was red, ~ deals 2 damage to target player.
1/1
As you can tell, I'm not a fan of ability words in most situations. I understand the rationale; it's a signature that the cards work in such and such a way, and this can really help smooth out limited. But Keywords do this more. Suntouched Myr VS Tajuru Stalwart is an excellent example of this, as the former tells you everything you need to know about the card (and gameplay choices) you need to know in one word, while the latter makes you read a block of text.
If they just wanted a "gets bigger flyer" the could have reprinted Nimbus Swimmer, but that's not what they wanted for the draft strategy pointer card.
I want to be clear here: I began playing magic before pointer cards existed. Around Ravnica players began to speculate that Wizards was making a "power uncommon" for each guild; IE a competitively costed constructed card that fits the guild. I suspect this is the origin of "strategy pointer cards" that tell you what the two colors are doing.
The idea of pointer cards is quite interesting; the problem is that since I came back earlier this year, it's become clear that often these pointer cards are just incredibly poorly designed. Given these should be among the first cards designed, it's unacceptable.
Compare Decimator Beetle and Ridgescale Tusker. The latter is simple, elegant, and - arguably - fringe playable (beast for beast tribal, and provides an anthem effect + a large body for a fair price).
But Decimator Beetle is probably most famous for it's being worded to confuse people. I remember people reviewing the set on youtube and no one read it as it works. The attack triggers would have needed to be 2 separate sentences to be clear. You could argue that Decimator Beetle suffers from the first line of text being a counterfactual -1/-1 mechanic (Scar 1?) that was dekeyworded for marketing reasons (players don't like negative keywords...). But these marketing reasons are well known and so the design team created their own problem here. But the 2nd 2 abilities are worded in such a way as to invite confusion. But set this aside; the card is not constructed playable - fringe or otherwise. It's a poor tribe (one that could have gotten tribal support instead of this clunky scar mechanic), it's p/t is not competitive for the cost (It's a 3/3 for 5!), it's ability points you to playing other "scar" creatures... maybe 3-4 of which has any competitive potential. And, most importantly, it does not have any immediate effect on the board.
Now, you suggest Skyrider Elf is a pointer uncommon. I kind of doubt this, as Converge isn't a color-ed mechanic as far as I can tell. (Unless the idea is that it's 5 color green/blue, and other color pairs... don't get converge? That would just be odd, since blue doesn't care about being 5 colors as part of it's color pie, while green clearly does.) But let's assume it does. What does it tell me about the archetype? +1/+1 counters matter? (NOPE! Then we'd have Sunburst.) Flying matters? (Favorable Winds would have been a better representation of this, and is clearly a casual favorite and fringe constructed playable.) How about 5-colors matter? If that's the case, then the ONLY thing that makes it a pointer card is it's inclusion of the Converge mechanic. Elves matter? (Again, better options. I'm a big fan of uncommon lords for this very reason.).
The Skyrider Elf vs Nimbus Swimmer point is rather important too; wizards accidentally or intentionally printed a functionally worse (in non-tribal) situation card. If this is supposed to be a pointer card, this is quite a slap in the face to players. It's like putting Open Fire in your marketing materials; unthinkable.
Let's look at two competent ability-word pointer cards: Name3GG
Creature - Treefolk (U)
When ETB cultivate.
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.
1/3
Name 25G
Creature - Beast (U)
When ETB cultivate.
Domain - This gets +1/+1 for each basic land type you control.
1/1
Can we do the same for Converge?
Name 34G
Creature - Treefolk (U)
Converge - This enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter for each color of mana spent to play it. 3: Add 2 mana in any combination of colors to your mana pool.
0/1
Domain cares about having things; the enabler gets you those things.
Landfall cares about something happening; the enabler makes it happen.
Converge cares about what you paid for it's mana cost. The enabler... helps you pay costs next turn? But if you need this ability, your uncommon ETB poorly. Maybe you want to play two converge spells a turn, and Name 3 helps you do that. But that's only after you can already produce enough mana to play this converge spell!
At best Skyrider Elf wants to be a payoff card; "Oh, you're running converge, have this converge beatstick." It has more in common with classic "power uncommons" putrefy or mortify than it does Decimator Beetle. But even then, it does this poorly, as given Nimbus Swimmer it doesn't feel like Converge is paying off, but shackling you. Can you make Converge feel good? I don't know; Sunburst never really felt like a great mechanic, but Engineered Explosives used the restrictions of the mechanic in such a way that it has elevated the mechanic simply because it's a good card. Should we expect this at uncommon? I would argue "yes" if this is supposed to be the signature of the mechanic. So let's build just such a card:
Converge Wizard3UG
Creature - Treefolk Wizard (U)
Converge - When this enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana used to cast it, then if it has power less than the number of cards in target opponent's hand, draw a card for each card in that player's hand.
1/2
Of course... Converge Wizard3UG
Creature - Treefolk Wizard (U)
Sunburst
When this enters the battlefield, if it has power less than the number of cards in target opponent's hand, draw a card for each card in that player's hand.
1/2
So from a design perspective, Converge is just a poor Sunburst card here. To make a good signature payoff Converge card, you need to do something Sunburst doesn't already do better. So no counters; thus we need a spell.
Converge for the kill2BG
Instant (U)
Converge - Create a 1/1 green insect creature token for each color of mana used to cast this spell.
Then, target creature gets -1/-1 for each insect you control.
Again, this feels poorly designed. The best converge cards are clearly green, and to make them "fully converageable" (Withtout Fist of Suns) they need to cost 5 mana. That's an Obscene design restriction. Since all converge spells are effectively gold, making them cost anything but 1 mana of a color feels real bad, as if you can't produce all 5 already you're already feeling bad. If I have WRGU I can't play this! Landfall and Domain don't suffer this problem!
In closing, I think it's clear that Keywords > ability words for simplicity. Perhaps I look back on Sunburst favorably simply because of what it did with one or two cards; that's on me. But mechanically, the things that Converge cares about are hard to design cards around. Mana cost matters. It's a 1-then-done effect; not repeatable. It scales by what you have when you cast it, it doesn't scale later on. (This is the big difference between creatures with converge and domain, as converge get +1/+1 counters, while domain has p/t = # of basic landtypes in play, and thus scales over time.) So yes, Converge is a Sunburst mechanic that can work with instants and sorceries, and do scalable 1-shot ETB effects. It can do more. It's easier (in some ways) to get a full sunburst/convergence than full domain (again, except in modern, thanks duals + fetches!). But the very fact that the mechanic is tied to casting, rather than things in play (like domain) or a repeatable effect like things being put into play (like landfall) is what makes it feel bad. As a mechanic, it's narrow without many advantages as the comparable mechanic Domain.
Body Double should inform the cost here. Although Black might be able to zombify things for 4 (or less) mana, blue certainly shouldn't. I'm not sure if it's worth making it a zombie, given the extra text. Given how few things transform, I can't help but think the "transform" text here is going to be useless in most situations.
Edit: Thanks RattingRots; as a clone variant it's costed right. My Bad.
Incineration Giant3RR
Creature - Giant Wizard Warrior (U)
Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals 3 damage to target creature or player. If a creature dealt damage in this way would die, exile it instead. "Oh my. Color me impressed." - Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
3/3
Settle for Second Best2B
Sorcery (R)
Search your library for two cards with different names and reveal them. Target opponent chooses one of those cards. Exile that card, then put the other card into your hand. Shuffle your library. Lose 2 life. "True success lies not in getting what you want, but being happy with what you get. Or something like that. Close enough."
- The Art of the Dull.
You mean to compare it to Skyreach Manta that costs less if you're having issues getting your sunburst on. It doesn't change the fact that it uses converge as a drawback; a limit on what you can get. This is why Engineered Explosives was so well designed. # mattered. 1-5, and sometimes you don't want to hit 5. In contrast, when we're talking about Skyrider Elf it certainly feels like they don't want you to have a 6/6 flyer for 6; while Engineered Explosives is more like "You won't need to hit for 6".
Re: Painful Truths - if you're not playing this as a 3 mana ambition's cost, you're losing the game (one way or another). No one says "I think I need only 2 cards this turn."
I'm annoyed Converge PLAYS DIFFERENT from well designed ability words like Domain and Landfall, both of which change how you play the game, often at multiple points across deck building and in-game; limited and constructed. Converge... changes pretty much nothing... except making you pay attention how you tap your lands. WTF? And what do I get for "meticulously" slapping 20 city of brass variants in my deck? Not a single memorable card or effect or fun.
Suntouched Myr is a 3/3 for 3 during a time in magic's history where that wasn't a thing, and an easy gray ogre - innovative, straightforward design that plays a strong limited role and had a fringe shot at constructed. Tajuru Stalwart is at beast a 3/4 in the best creature color. Would be play a 3/4 for 2G in limited? Sure. Constructed? Maybe if it had support??? But this isn't that. RWU literally couldn't get better p/t for the cost than a 3/3 at the time, and in a pinch it could be a 3 mana 2/2 or 1/1. But your converge fella? Woolly Thoctar exists. So it's not doing anything new, not simple (look at all that text for what Suntouched Myr does in a keyword), has is genuinely bad compared to existing cards. The underlined point is why Converge has an uphill battle. It wastes so much time for so little return that it's not funny.
Converge is akin to Fabricate being ability worded "Makebricate - When this creature enters the battlefield, create 4 servo tokens or draw 2 cards."
From a design perspective, the more open-ended your mechanic, the more it's every other mechanic and cuts off original design space. See Kicker, and the mechanics that could be kicker: Evoke, replicate, etc.
Is Domain too open-ended? I think not; Domain is tight insofar as it always cares about the same 5 land types. The deck that runs domain has a clear, cohesive strategy. It doesn't ONLY run domain cards, but it gets the most out of Domain cards if it gets it's lands right.
Sunburst, as a mechanic, was best done on Engineered Explosives. How many counters you put on matters, and you get to choose by how you pay for the spell. Admittedly, most other Sunburst cards were "pay as many colors of mana as you can", which isn't very impressive (BUT it does allow the cards to be played in narrower decks... again, less unity). But the ability to choose how many of [relevant counter] is on the thing is great design space.
But Converge? Converge is just bad domain insofar as (a) you can't get it off with just 3 lands, and (b) there is no "deck building unity" other than "play mana fixing"; distinct from "play basic land types" (AKA, the main mechanic of the game!). Landfall, Domain, Tribal - all their mechanics play the same. Different cards do different things, but the mechanics themselves play the same.
Etched Oracle and Suntouched Myr work very similar, mechanically; the difference in the card just is how Etched Oracle expertly uses the mechanic of +1/+1 counters.
In contrast, Skyrider Elf is no Engineered Explosives; it actually uses Converge as a Drawback! Unacceptable! People used to play Fist Of Suns so they could bank Pentad Prism mana; AKA they wanted to pay more to scale the effect. But Skyrider Elf? Converge actually says "I'm sorry fellas, X is no greater than 3, and only if you jump through these hoops."
Converge is undisciplined Sunburst, and Sunburst is undisciplined in itself. As a mechanic... it's just not very interesting, offering no unique deck building space. The fact you can have a Converge lava axe variant just isn't all that interestinng. Sunburst came in a block where the counters mattered. There were multiple ways of interacting with them. Modular - Suburst was a thing! There was a unity there that doesn't exist with Converge, and like similar shotty "we need a new mechanic" mechanics, it's just sloppy.
Converge - This creature costs 1 less for each artifact you control.
Converge - This creature deals damage during both the first strike and normal damage step.
Converge - If you spent only mana of one color to play this spell, you win the game.
None of these are are "Converge" as has been established, and none should be given any reasonable design philosophy. I think you'd agree.
I'm going to fight you on Quicken; like many good cards, it fulfills two roles - 1, it's a 1-mana cantrip, on it's own playable in limited, and 2, it teaches you the difference between instants and sorceries by letting you break the rule that separates instants and sorceries. Yes, instant speed Day of Judgment is a "problem"... but not really much more than Day of Judgment on it's own.
Aerial Responder has a horrible creature type and mediocre art. The flavor just is not there. In contrast, the angel would be 4x of in casual angel decks. If dwarves were meant to fly, they'd be atop a giant eagle like any good skyknight.
Shatterstorm has the regeneration clause, a no-no for a contemporary core set. We could go full Day of Judgment here, AKA functionally worse. But I do want ONE indestructible card in the set - Darksteel Colossus - and this serves as one of a select few answers to it (Condemn, ???). At (R), I think this is fair so as to not spoil too many Darksteel Colossus drafts, but still serve as a potential answer for standard.
White has historically had the wrath-variants, so I don't see a problem here. I did toy with giving black something like "Each player discards all cards" (and not including one with nothing, but it is a junk rare that saw constructed play... so it almost has to get in). If we were cruel, I could print "Each player sacrifices all creatures they control. Lose life equal to the # sacrificed." but that seems a bit much. Mutilate would encourage mono-black play, which is nice for a core set to do... but I can see opting for something else. Maybe "Each player returns all creature cards in their graveyard to the battlefield." or "Each player exiles all creature cards form their graveyard and creates that many 2/2 zombie tokens."
Open to other suggestions for this cycle though.
Relicstorm might be a bit too much of a combo enabler; certainly needs testing. Alternatively, maybe a bounce spell that lets you choose the type(s) being bounced?
Kjeldoran Keep
Land (R)
Kjeldoran Keep enters the battlefield tapped.
T: Add W to your mana pool. If that mana is spent on a soldier or knight creature spell, create a 1/1 white soldier creature token.
"Kjeldor spoke of peace, but readied for war. Soldiers flooded into thier camps, hindering trade in the name of fairness, threatening all that we built." —Lovisa Coldeyes, Balduvian Chieftain
Oh, sure. As I suggested above, domain plays different in limited than constructed. Sans fetchlands or whatnot, running 3 colors is perfectly fine. If you shock for 2 mana in limited; you're doing good!
I suppose there were some constructed decks that only ran 3-4 colors and ran things like that, too. But the fact you can knock a few bones out of the skeleton and still run is amazing. That's a choice you make that defies how the keyword prompts you to act. It takes discipline that is a symptom of good deck building to do as you did. So Domain helps to teach you how to be a better deck builder.
In contrast, with converge you might run plains and 4 city of brass, and then despite your narrow fixing options, you can technically converge x 5. It's "more flexible" as Harlannowick puts it, in this way... but less creative or interesting.
Sure.
Well, when you print Metalcraft and print functionally better Chrome Moxes, you rules go out the window. But the affinity deck is still the affinity deck because the central feature of that deck was to run cheap artifacts for bonuses - whether low costs or higher P.
But you don't. You haven't. 5-color good stuff is just better than Converge, since you can start getting good stuff for cheap in turn 1, while 5x converges need to be on turn 5. Sure, you can 3x converge... but that costs 3, not 2 like Tribal Flames. Necessarily Converge cards are pretty useless on turns 1-3, while Domain is not, and 5 color good stuff are certainly not. If you run a deck with 20 City of Brass-variants, are you jonesing for Skyrider Elf? NO!
Traditionally, 5 color goodstuff is straightford - you run the best cards in all colors, usually cheap and efficient cards and answers. Converge just doesn't, and can't by design, be that.
Domain cards are good at all points in game, growing as you play the game on plan.
5 color good stuff tops out when you have a single city of brass variant; sometimes 2 if you're ambitious.
Converge... doesn't scale enough until late game.
Fair enough. We've talked about how Sunburst was poorly designed; but Engineered Explosives - I think - is the exception. It's the best kind of Sunburst, and I think you could print lots of variants thereof using the sunburst mechanic that work. Off the top of my head? Chalice of the Void could use a sunburst variant, and anything that cares about odds/evens could make use of the mechanic as well (If this has odd P, it has FS, if it has even, it has trample; etc.).
I'd love to see a return of Sunburst in an artifact block that works exclusively with +1/+1 counters OR change counters (not both in the same block) that explores this design space.
What cards are you killing with 5 charge counters on engineered explosives. You're right, of course, they play the same in terms of getting counters; but the # of counters matters for EE, when it doesn't benefit the SE to have less.
I'm sure any of us could have constructed a better converge card here if we wanted to. The question is why would we want to?
Sure? Honestly, any Keyword X - Keyword Y (or other weird values) are nonsense gimmicks.
Modular 0, Sunburst. 'nuff said.
Pointers pick out draft strategy, not limited to pairs. The Onslaught warlords were pointer cards, as are wedge uncommons in wedge sets, etc.
But you say that Converge has this additional aspect of flexibility, but don't recognize the clear handicap of limiting it to the cost you pay, rather than being able to grow over time. (Again, your Rainbow Rootwalla is a different mechanic.) This is a limitation - and not a desirable one.
I think "Does this have a realistic shot in at least some deck?" is a fair test here. All of the Onslaught lords fit this. All of them are STILL constructed playable in tribal commander decks.
I realize you and I disagree on whether cards should be designed for constructed; you seem perfectly willing to be all over the place with powerlevel, while I argue that cards should be at least "fringe playable" in some format, meaning they have to be at least tier 2/3 and not obsoleted by existing cards (again, with a few exceptions each year if you're course-correcting). In light of this disagreement, you might be okay with a pointer/signature card that is great in a limited strategy but wouldn't make even the most casual commander deck of anyone with a budget of over $5. But that's a tough sell for cards that are supposed to sell a limited archetype. If a pointer card looks bad to the casual uninitiated player, then I don't think you can say it succeeds at pointing at anything. (I'm sure there have been a few high profile cases of this, but I can't think of any.)
As discussed above, green is 5 color by color pie. Blue just is not. So to say that GU is "5 color" is like saying BW is Deathouch-themed. This cannot be the case, since white doesn't get deathtouch and nothing about white says it gets deatbtouch. Blue doesn't get 5-color matters (any more than any other non-green color and much less than green). If your set bleeds a mechanic for block to all 5 colors (domain, threshold, flashback, cycling, scry, Sweep... really pretty much any block mechanic outside of Ravnica-style guilds/tribes/etc.) then all 5 colors (or most of them) get it.
This isn't a subtle point: If U flavorfully does not get converge any more than any other color, making converge exclusively GU Simic's mechanic does not work. This is apparent in the card in question; there's no way anyone with a halfway decent idea of the color pair's identity would conclude that Converge is being used as a GU mechanic; if anything they'd see it as being used as a 5-color mechanic. Which makes sense since it is a 5 color mechanic! Sunburst was an artifact mechanic that made you play 5 colors. Adding UG to the corner doesn't make it a 2-color mechanic.
I can assure you it is. Ice Cauldron
Even beyond simple templating issues (which are relevant enough to warrant name and creature type changes!), reading text takes precious time in limited, so a card with 3 lines of text you need to read is from a design perspective prohibitory in a way that one with a single world (and 3 lines of reminder text) is not, merely because every Sunburst card (I know, charge vs +1/+1 counters - it's not great, but comparably competent) works the same, while every Converge card CAN work differently.
1. This is a different mechanic. Wizards might say it's the same mechanic (see Landcycling) for marketing, but given how unpopular Converge was and the ever-present marketing push to have new keywords to put on sales material, one would have to have quite bizarre priorities to print that card.
2. It's not an especially compelling or innovative mechanic (I realize you're not trying to make it be; but this is sort of what all mechanics should strive to be, especially if we're not allowed to print drawback mechanics anymore!)
3. There's far less design space. See the Domain card that "works like this" - It can get +5/+0 for 3, but no Converge 2.0 card can do this.
No. Converge requires mana fixing; Domain requires basic land type fixing. This is not a subtle point; in fact I suspect it's the primary design motivator for moving from Domain - a popular mechanic - to Converge - an unpopular one. Wizards realized that you can get full domain in Modern on turn 3 (or 2... or possibly 1, I don't even know anymore.) with just 2 fetchlands and a basic. In contrast, full Converge needs 5 different mana. Yes, you can use non-basic-land-typed lands and various other mana fixing to get to 5, but you need 5 mana.
As discussed previously, Wizards CANNOT EASILY design standard-playable Domain cards that cost less than 5 without them being FAR GREATER in a fetchland-enabled Modern than in a slow non-fetchland, non-dualland standard This makes it VERY DIFFICULT for them to design GOOD Domain cards for Standard that aren't OVERPOWERED for Modern.
Imagine this scenario: Decimator beetle and every "Scar" creature is absolutely unplayable in standard (ironically probably true) but lead to a reliably turn 3 combo win in Modern!
That's the Domain Problem. Converge avoids that because to get a X5 Converge, your spell needs to be 5 mana. Mind you, this doesn't mean it's incredibly easy to design constructed playable Converge cards, as is evidenced by the set of cards we have printed, but it means it's at least easier to print them.
Mind you, the Domain problem is not insurmountable; Tromp the Domains did it a while ago. Furthermore, you could actually print duallands and fetchlands in standard (in one block or two side-to-side) to allow for STANDARD x5 Domain spells and balance them accordingly. AS DISCUSSED EARLIER, this is a great design, as it allows your cards to be less oppressive in limited than constructed. See Tribal Flames, Exploding Borders - the former being very popular, and the latter being popular in commander.
Final Word on Domain: As covered above, the "deck design constraints" of Domain (IE, you need to play all 5 basic lands... well, before duals that is...) is one of the reasons it works as a mechanic. The Domain deck looks different than the Madness deck or the Storm deck. Dredge. Replicate. Tribe X. Cycling. Soulshift. (Almost any keyword or mechanic you can actually remember.) But Converge? Like Sweep, it has no unity. You can throw Converge cards that cost less 3 or less into any number of decks and they need not run any other converge costs. You can (and should) only run one or two cards with Sweep; you don't make a Sweep deck. Any 5 color standard deck is probably better suited to play 5-color goodstuff and run MAYBE 1 or two of the best converge cards than to run a "converge" deck.
Can good converge cards be designed? Sure! I can design a Sweep card right now that you want in your vintage deck.
Sweep Counter U
Instant (R)
Sweep — Return any number of lands you control to their owner's hand. Counter target spell unless its controller pays 2 for each land returned in this way. If it is countered in this way, draw card equal to that spell's converted mana cost.
You'll run Sweep Counter in every U legacy deck, what with it being the last member of the power 10. Just like you'll run Fatal Push in all your black modern decks, despite never seeing another revolt card for the remainder of your magic playing career.
But Converge, as a mechanic, is bad. And the only reason anyone at Wizards doesn't write it off for being too narrow to design for and requiring atypical support in the set is because of the Domain Problem above. Domain is a great, well loved mechanic because it has clear design goals, offers you scaling effects that can be fair at any point in the game, and opens up design opportunities for both set designer and deck builder. Domain decks are Domain first and 5-color-good-stuff 2nd. They have a skeleton you build around - having 1x of each basic land type (and later lots of fetches/duals in Modern - $300+ mana bases... oops!). Converge decks... don't exist. At least no more than Sweep decks will dominate legacy thanks to Sweep Counter.
Re: GU being 5 color: I know little about the format, but if this is true... it's incompetent.
Would you ever pay 4UG for Skyrider Elf? How about Nimbus Swimmer? That's what I mean; HERE converge is shackling you. It's quite obscene, actually. Again, compare to Engineered Explosives - a card that ties the counters to the keyword (and thus saves a lot of text space on the card in doing so). Admittedly both Converge and Sunburst proper are "restrictive" as they're more like additional costs you have to pay while casting to get the effect. In terms of mechanics, that's just weird. It's like an esoteric kicker.
The big difference is the amount of game text you get for the same effect. Quite frankly, I've been in favor of printing a modular or graft mechanic in a set merely to save text space on cards you want to put +1/+1 counters on.
For example, Spike Feeder shows you how spikes were templated; but if we returned to spikes, I'd just throw Graft on new Spikes. Not because I want to move +1/+1 counters, although that's a nice bonus and flavorfully consistent with spikes, but mainly because it saves text box space.
So yes - the very fact that Sunburst is a keyword is what makes it preferable to Converge. Both mechanics have problems, but Sunburst's come with a clear advantage.
As demonstrated by the difference between Name and Name 3 above, it's not.
I've spoken earlier in the thread as to how it's easier (in some senses) to get 5 colors than to get 5 basic lands, but domain permanents (which occupy about a half of cards printed with them) have consistently greater gameplay. You can cost Domain cards less than 5 and have them "Grow" to 5; Converge simply doesn't allow this.
Similarly, I think a core set should provide fringe-playable cards that serve as a base for archetypes; for example zombify
Beyond the Grave is set to be an (U) in an expert level set. I like the tension here - it's a Scarab Feast that can kicker into zombify. But as is, its terrible at both. The exile effect, at sorcery, is incredibly narrow. Meanwhile the Zombify effect actively works to avoid triggering Prized Amalgam and costs more.
My suggestion:
Leave the Grave B
Instant (U)
Kicker 2B
Exile target creature card in a graveyard and gain 3 life. If Leave the Grave was kicked, instead return it from the graveyard to the battlefield and lose 3 life.
Now it's a slightly more narrow Shadowfeed or a painful flash zombify. The flexibility here might even lead it to be maindeck playable as a preemptive sideboard against reanimator decks....
Earlier, I had the idea of spicing up core set foils by having a few cycles of "full art" foils. Generally speaking, a core set is meant to introduce new players to core concepts of the game. This can be done with quality cards, like Vampire Nighthawk; however such cards with evergreen keywords should (when at common or uncommon) have reminder text to teach players the mechanics. However, Wizards sometimes drops reminder text from foils, which makes them more collectable/insteresting.
So here's the (updated) proposal: Include a cycle of "Extended/Full art" foil versions of core set cards, with gameplay text (but no reminder text or flavor text). (These would be similar to the gameday cards wizards puts out on occasion.) Do a cycle at each rarity: Instants @ (C), creatures @ (U), Sorceries @ (R), and Planeswalkers @ (M).
Here's the proposed cycles:
(C) Instants:
Holy Day W
Giant Growth G
Lightning Bolt R
Vile Rebirth B (or Entomb at common if you want to push it.)
Quicken U
Rationale: Giant Growth and Holy Day do two classic, iconic, color-representing things. They're fringe playable, solid cards that should be in all core sets. Lightning Bolt is the premier burn spell. At (c) it represents a return to classic magic's freedom to put good removal at common. It also allows you to print competitive 1-3 drops at common and uncommon, as there will be answers to them at 1-3 mana in the format. Quicken always struck me as an excellent card as - at worst - it's a cantrip. However, it encourages designers to print more sorcery speed removal at common and uncommon - removal that gets better with a quicken in hand. Playing against B is different than playing against UB in a relevant way here. Historically Quicken has saw play at (R), but the gameplay changes it would allow at common justify moving it down a few rarities. It is an iconic card that perfectly demonstrates blue's color pie.
Finally, let's talk Vile Rebirth VS Entomb. In an ideal world, I'd want both cards in a core set. Vile Rebirth is a great combat trick and graveyard hoser at the same time. It's great at (C) or (U). Zombies are a popular tribe, and the token will likely be used by several cards in the set, so as long as we're okay with tokens in a core set (and I am), then this is pretty much an obvious inclusion.
Entomb, in contrast, is quite iconic. It enables flashback, reassembling Skeleton (likely an (U)), and - most importantly - zombify strategies, themselves iconic. Make no mistake, I realize I would be fighting an uphill battle just to get this card included in a core set at (R), to make it (C) would be seen as absurd to many people. However, the card is very particular at what it does, and it's not very good at much of anything else, so I don't know if it would warp limited. Although you could argue that making it (C) would be bad because it's so useless in limited (unless you have the right deck). In most drafts Entomb at common would be like Cranial Extraction at common; next to useless. But for the reanimator strategy, which should be a black staple strategy with Zombify (or similar) at uncommon and a Hell's Caretaker effect at (R) and/or (M), would love this card. In many respects, it would draft like Compelling Argument - a card only one strategy could use.
I think a core set should sell the game and include as many staples and iconic cards as possible that would allow for a diverse, everchanging and responsive standard. Entomb enables graveyard strategies, while encouraging players to run graveyard hate (like Vile Rebirth, Loaming Shaman, and some (U) artifact graveyard hate 2 drop that also serves as a signet variant?). Is this appropriate at (C)? I don't know; testing would be required. Given the sheer amount of bulk garbage commons that never have a chance of making your limited deck in contemporary sets, I think Entomb might have a shot at (C) if the set is built right. If that's the case, move Vile Rebirth to (U) along with Loaming Shaman and other, subtle graveyard hate/recycling cards, and give it a shot.
(U) Creature Cycle:
Vampire Nighthawk 1BB Vampire Shaman - Flying, Deathtouch, Lifelink 2/3
Hurloon Bodyguard 1RR Minotaur Warrior - Haste, Menace, First Strike 2/3 (The new Hurloon Minotaur, marketing take note!)
Faerie Guard 1UU Faerie Soldier - Vigilance, Flying, Flash 2/3
Serra Peacekeeper 1WW Angel Cleric - Flying, Lifelink, Vigilance 2/3 (The new Thunder Spirit, Marketing take note?)
Ambush Basilisk 1GG Basilisk - Haste, Flash, Deathtouch 2/3 (I still like the Raging Kavu-style tension here.)
These feel Obvious, iconic, and yet - with Lightning Bolt at (C) along with some Dark Banishing variant, these don't seem too good.
(R) Sorcery Cycle:
Day of Judgment 2WW
Scapeshift 2GG
Break Storm 2RR Sorcery (R) Exile all artifacts. (IE, Shatterstorm that works against Darksteel Colossus and doesn't include regeneration text. Strictly better Shatterstorm to preserve a strict cycle for a core set seems okay with me.)
Mutilate 2BB (Alternative: Ill-Gotten Gains ?)
Relicstorm 2UU Sorcery (R) Return all artifact cards from all graveyards to their owner's hands.
(M) Planeswalker Cycle:
ETB; probably classic Lorywn walkers with a Gideon replacing Ajani, maybe a nissa > garuuk (but he is iconic)...
I wonder if it could be 3:2, Equipped creature gets +2/+2, Vigilance, First Strike, and Exalted.
Elemental Examiner B
Creature - Human Wizard (U)
Pay 1 life, T: Exile an elemental creature from your graveyard. If it was blue, draw a card. If it was red, ~ deals 2 damage to target player.
1/1
As you can tell, I'm not a fan of ability words in most situations. I understand the rationale; it's a signature that the cards work in such and such a way, and this can really help smooth out limited. But Keywords do this more. Suntouched Myr VS Tajuru Stalwart is an excellent example of this, as the former tells you everything you need to know about the card (and gameplay choices) you need to know in one word, while the latter makes you read a block of text.
I want to be clear here: I began playing magic before pointer cards existed. Around Ravnica players began to speculate that Wizards was making a "power uncommon" for each guild; IE a competitively costed constructed card that fits the guild. I suspect this is the origin of "strategy pointer cards" that tell you what the two colors are doing.
The idea of pointer cards is quite interesting; the problem is that since I came back earlier this year, it's become clear that often these pointer cards are just incredibly poorly designed. Given these should be among the first cards designed, it's unacceptable.
Compare Decimator Beetle and Ridgescale Tusker. The latter is simple, elegant, and - arguably - fringe playable (beast for beast tribal, and provides an anthem effect + a large body for a fair price).
But Decimator Beetle is probably most famous for it's being worded to confuse people. I remember people reviewing the set on youtube and no one read it as it works. The attack triggers would have needed to be 2 separate sentences to be clear. You could argue that Decimator Beetle suffers from the first line of text being a counterfactual -1/-1 mechanic (Scar 1?) that was dekeyworded for marketing reasons (players don't like negative keywords...). But these marketing reasons are well known and so the design team created their own problem here. But the 2nd 2 abilities are worded in such a way as to invite confusion. But set this aside; the card is not constructed playable - fringe or otherwise. It's a poor tribe (one that could have gotten tribal support instead of this clunky scar mechanic), it's p/t is not competitive for the cost (It's a 3/3 for 5!), it's ability points you to playing other "scar" creatures... maybe 3-4 of which has any competitive potential. And, most importantly, it does not have any immediate effect on the board.
Now, you suggest Skyrider Elf is a pointer uncommon. I kind of doubt this, as Converge isn't a color-ed mechanic as far as I can tell. (Unless the idea is that it's 5 color green/blue, and other color pairs... don't get converge? That would just be odd, since blue doesn't care about being 5 colors as part of it's color pie, while green clearly does.) But let's assume it does. What does it tell me about the archetype? +1/+1 counters matter? (NOPE! Then we'd have Sunburst.) Flying matters? (Favorable Winds would have been a better representation of this, and is clearly a casual favorite and fringe constructed playable.) How about 5-colors matter? If that's the case, then the ONLY thing that makes it a pointer card is it's inclusion of the Converge mechanic. Elves matter? (Again, better options. I'm a big fan of uncommon lords for this very reason.).
The Skyrider Elf vs Nimbus Swimmer point is rather important too; wizards accidentally or intentionally printed a functionally worse (in non-tribal) situation card. If this is supposed to be a pointer card, this is quite a slap in the face to players. It's like putting Open Fire in your marketing materials; unthinkable.
Let's look at two competent ability-word pointer cards:
Name 3GG
Creature - Treefolk (U)
When ETB cultivate.
Landfall - Whenever a land enters the battlefield under your control, put a +1/+1 counter on ~.
1/3
Name 2 5G
Creature - Beast (U)
When ETB cultivate.
Domain - This gets +1/+1 for each basic land type you control.
1/1
Can we do the same for Converge?
Name 3 4G
Creature - Treefolk (U)
Converge - This enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter for each color of mana spent to play it.
3: Add 2 mana in any combination of colors to your mana pool.
0/1
Domain cares about having things; the enabler gets you those things.
Landfall cares about something happening; the enabler makes it happen.
Converge cares about what you paid for it's mana cost. The enabler... helps you pay costs next turn? But if you need this ability, your uncommon ETB poorly. Maybe you want to play two converge spells a turn, and Name 3 helps you do that. But that's only after you can already produce enough mana to play this converge spell!
At best Skyrider Elf wants to be a payoff card; "Oh, you're running converge, have this converge beatstick." It has more in common with classic "power uncommons" putrefy or mortify than it does Decimator Beetle. But even then, it does this poorly, as given Nimbus Swimmer it doesn't feel like Converge is paying off, but shackling you. Can you make Converge feel good? I don't know; Sunburst never really felt like a great mechanic, but Engineered Explosives used the restrictions of the mechanic in such a way that it has elevated the mechanic simply because it's a good card. Should we expect this at uncommon? I would argue "yes" if this is supposed to be the signature of the mechanic. So let's build just such a card:
Converge Wizard 3UG
Creature - Treefolk Wizard (U)
Converge - When this enters the battlefield, put a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana used to cast it, then if it has power less than the number of cards in target opponent's hand, draw a card for each card in that player's hand.
1/2
Of course...
Converge Wizard 3UG
Creature - Treefolk Wizard (U)
Sunburst
When this enters the battlefield, if it has power less than the number of cards in target opponent's hand, draw a card for each card in that player's hand.
1/2
So from a design perspective, Converge is just a poor Sunburst card here. To make a good signature payoff Converge card, you need to do something Sunburst doesn't already do better. So no counters; thus we need a spell.
Converge for the kill 2BG
Instant (U)
Converge - Create a 1/1 green insect creature token for each color of mana used to cast this spell.
Then, target creature gets -1/-1 for each insect you control.
Again, this feels poorly designed. The best converge cards are clearly green, and to make them "fully converageable" (Withtout Fist of Suns) they need to cost 5 mana. That's an Obscene design restriction. Since all converge spells are effectively gold, making them cost anything but 1 mana of a color feels real bad, as if you can't produce all 5 already you're already feeling bad. If I have WRGU I can't play this! Landfall and Domain don't suffer this problem!
In closing, I think it's clear that Keywords > ability words for simplicity. Perhaps I look back on Sunburst favorably simply because of what it did with one or two cards; that's on me. But mechanically, the things that Converge cares about are hard to design cards around. Mana cost matters. It's a 1-then-done effect; not repeatable. It scales by what you have when you cast it, it doesn't scale later on. (This is the big difference between creatures with converge and domain, as converge get +1/+1 counters, while domain has p/t = # of basic landtypes in play, and thus scales over time.) So yes, Converge is a Sunburst mechanic that can work with instants and sorceries, and do scalable 1-shot ETB effects. It can do more. It's easier (in some ways) to get a full sunburst/convergence than full domain (again, except in modern, thanks duals + fetches!). But the very fact that the mechanic is tied to casting, rather than things in play (like domain) or a repeatable effect like things being put into play (like landfall) is what makes it feel bad. As a mechanic, it's narrow without many advantages as the comparable mechanic Domain.
Edit: Thanks RattingRots; as a clone variant it's costed right. My Bad.
Incineration Giant 3RR
Creature - Giant Wizard Warrior (U)
Haste
When ~ enters the battlefield, it deals 3 damage to target creature or player. If a creature dealt damage in this way would die, exile it instead.
"Oh my. Color me impressed." - Jaya Ballard, Task Mage
3/3
Settle for Second Best 2B
Sorcery (R)
Search your library for two cards with different names and reveal them. Target opponent chooses one of those cards. Exile that card, then put the other card into your hand. Shuffle your library. Lose 2 life.
"True success lies not in getting what you want, but being happy with what you get. Or something like that. Close enough."
- The Art of the Dull.
Re: Painful Truths - if you're not playing this as a 3 mana ambition's cost, you're losing the game (one way or another). No one says "I think I need only 2 cards this turn."
I'm annoyed Converge PLAYS DIFFERENT from well designed ability words like Domain and Landfall, both of which change how you play the game, often at multiple points across deck building and in-game; limited and constructed. Converge... changes pretty much nothing... except making you pay attention how you tap your lands. WTF? And what do I get for "meticulously" slapping 20 city of brass variants in my deck? Not a single memorable card or effect or fun.
Suntouched Myr is a 3/3 for 3 during a time in magic's history where that wasn't a thing, and an easy gray ogre - innovative, straightforward design that plays a strong limited role and had a fringe shot at constructed. Tajuru Stalwart is at beast a 3/4 in the best creature color. Would be play a 3/4 for 2G in limited? Sure. Constructed? Maybe if it had support??? But this isn't that. RWU literally couldn't get better p/t for the cost than a 3/3 at the time, and in a pinch it could be a 3 mana 2/2 or 1/1. But your converge fella? Woolly Thoctar exists. So it's not doing anything new, not simple (look at all that text for what Suntouched Myr does in a keyword), has is genuinely bad compared to existing cards. The underlined point is why Converge has an uphill battle. It wastes so much time for so little return that it's not funny.
Converge is akin to Fabricate being ability worded "Makebricate - When this creature enters the battlefield, create 4 servo tokens or draw 2 cards."
From a design perspective, the more open-ended your mechanic, the more it's every other mechanic and cuts off original design space. See Kicker, and the mechanics that could be kicker: Evoke, replicate, etc.
Is Domain too open-ended? I think not; Domain is tight insofar as it always cares about the same 5 land types. The deck that runs domain has a clear, cohesive strategy. It doesn't ONLY run domain cards, but it gets the most out of Domain cards if it gets it's lands right.
Sunburst, as a mechanic, was best done on Engineered Explosives. How many counters you put on matters, and you get to choose by how you pay for the spell. Admittedly, most other Sunburst cards were "pay as many colors of mana as you can", which isn't very impressive (BUT it does allow the cards to be played in narrower decks... again, less unity). But the ability to choose how many of [relevant counter] is on the thing is great design space.
But Converge? Converge is just bad domain insofar as (a) you can't get it off with just 3 lands, and (b) there is no "deck building unity" other than "play mana fixing"; distinct from "play basic land types" (AKA, the main mechanic of the game!). Landfall, Domain, Tribal - all their mechanics play the same. Different cards do different things, but the mechanics themselves play the same.
Etched Oracle and Suntouched Myr work very similar, mechanically; the difference in the card just is how Etched Oracle expertly uses the mechanic of +1/+1 counters.
In contrast, Skyrider Elf is no Engineered Explosives; it actually uses Converge as a Drawback! Unacceptable! People used to play Fist Of Suns so they could bank Pentad Prism mana; AKA they wanted to pay more to scale the effect. But Skyrider Elf? Converge actually says "I'm sorry fellas, X is no greater than 3, and only if you jump through these hoops."
Converge is undisciplined Sunburst, and Sunburst is undisciplined in itself. As a mechanic... it's just not very interesting, offering no unique deck building space. The fact you can have a Converge lava axe variant just isn't all that interestinng. Sunburst came in a block where the counters mattered. There were multiple ways of interacting with them. Modular - Suburst was a thing! There was a unity there that doesn't exist with Converge, and like similar shotty "we need a new mechanic" mechanics, it's just sloppy.